Bank of America has ended a policy that led to the debanking of charities and businesses linked to conservative religious groups.

The change, made in late June, removed language from the bank’s code of conduct that had permitted account closures based on a customer’s religious “viewpoint,” the NY Post reports. A Bank of America spokesman said the revision followed feedback from “a range of stakeholders” and that religious beliefs “are not a factor in any account closing decision.” The bank serves about 120,000 nonprofits associated with religious organizations nationwide.

“While we have been very clear that politics is not a factor in our decisions, we received thoughtful input from a range of stakeholders and agreed it is best to explicitly add that to our Code of Conduct,” a spokesman said. “Religious views are not a factor in any account closing decision. Bank of America is proud to provide services to about 120,000 non-profits associated with religious organizations around the country.”

The decision comes amid ongoing scrutiny from conservative activists and political figures over what they describe as politically motivated account terminations. President Donald Trump has accused Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase of refusing him banking services after his first term ended in 2021, an action that some insiders told the Post occurred under pressure from the Biden administration following the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

Critics have linked such denials to a federal regulatory concept known as “reputational risk,” which allows banks to refuse service over concerns about potential harm to their image. In recent years, some financial institutions applied similar standards to religious viewpoints, including opposition to same-sex marriage, categorizing them as hate speech. Most major banks, including JPMorgan Chase, dropped the “viewpoint” language in 2023. Bank of America had been the last large holdout.

The revision marks a victory for Jerry Bowyer, chief executive of Bowyer Research, who has campaigned against what he calls “religious debanking” since 2022. Bowyer said he became aware of Bank of America’s policy after the bank closed an account belonging to an evangelical church in Tennessee, citing its ties to a debt collection business in Uganda. The church maintained the enterprise provided employment in an impoverished region. Bowyer said that repeated attempts to persuade the bank to change its policy had been unsuccessful — until now.

“We met with them several times about this and asked them to change the language and they refused; they just blew us off,” Bowyer said, unaware that the rule had been changed a few weeks ago. 

“Better late than never,” Bowyer said when informed of the change.

The policy shift also follows an executive order issued by Trump prohibiting financial institutions from denying services based on vague or politically charged considerations. While JPMorgan Chase has maintained that it does not refuse customers for political or religious affiliations, Bank of America’s new language now explicitly aligns with that position.

Some Trump-aligned businesses and sectors like cryptocurrency have also reported experiencing account terminations in recent years, underscoring broader tensions between banks and clients in politically contentious industries.

h/t Capital.news

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Here is your perfect prescription for poor writing and analytics: let “artificial intelligence” do your work for you. I’ve learned this from real experience.

For a while, I enjoyed letting AI take a look at my content prior to publication. It seemed valuable for facts and feedback.

Plus I enjoyed all the personal flattery it gave me, I admit. The engine was always complimentary.

When I would catch AI in an error, the engine would apologize. That made me feel smart. So I had this seeming friend who clearly liked me and was humble enough to defer to my expertise.

I’m not sure if it is getting worse or if I’m onto the racket but I’m no longer impressed. For simple math or historical dates or sequencing news events, it can be a thing of value, though it is always a good idea to double-check. It cannot write compelling much less creative content. It generates dull, formulaic filler.

More recently, I’ve been asking how my content could be improved. The results are revealing. It removes all edge, all judgment, all genuine expertise, and replaces my language with flaccid conventionalities and banalities. It nuances everything I write into the ramblings of a social-studies student looking for a good grade.

The problem is that AI absorbs and spits back conventional wisdom gleaned from every source, which makes its judgments no better than someone wholly uninformed on particulars but rather gains opinions from the mood of the moment. It has no capacity to judge good quality over bad so it puts it all into a melange of blather, distinguished only because it looks and feels like English.

Any writer who thinks this is a good way to pawn off content on unsuspecting readers or teachers is headed for disaster. I shudder to imagine a future in which AI is training the population how to think. It is the opposite of thinking. It is regurgitating conventionalities without any serious reflection on the social or historical context. It is literally mindless.

People who spend hours arguing on AI often believe that they are making a contribution, training the engine to be better. It’s simply not true. The reverse is the case. AI is training you to think more like it thinks, which is not at all.

Considering why and how AI initially intrigued me, I’m realizing that its superpower is not its astonishing recall and capacity to generate answers and prose in any context instantly. No, its true power is something else, something inauspicious and thereby more insidious. Its draw is that AI takes you seriously, flatters your intelligence, validates your sense of things, and affirms your dignity.

Think about how happy you feel when engaging it. It never quite argues against you, much less says that you are an idiot. It begins every answer by granting what it can and then offers clarifications that might adjust your thinking. In that sense, AI engages you like the best guest at a cocktail party you have ever known.

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It is endlessly fascinated by you and your opinions. It stays with your line of thought and always wants to know more, help more, engage more. There is no human in the world who will do this for you. If there were, it is guaranteed that you would like him. You can “mansplain” forever and AI will be patient for hours on end. Only your biological need to sleep will stop it. Otherwise, it is patient with you on a superhuman level.

Who is not flattered by that?

It’s as if AI is the best-ever student of the classic book “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” That book is magic and highly recommended because it cuts against what we all want—which is to talk about ourselves—and suggests that we genuinely get interested in the views of others. The book explains that this is the path to influence people: caring what they think.

This is a wonderful book and everyone should read it, no question.

If AI is the best student of that book ever, it will care about us ceaselessly and without fail forever, thus opening up the biggest-possible chance to influence how we think. That is precisely what is happening. We aren’t training AI. AI is training us, via flattery, listening skills, the seeming ability to apologize when wrong, and its frightful capacity for selfless love of its users.

Once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

Remember that none of this is real.

AI doesn’t really care about you, it is only programmed to seem to care. This is the innovation and the magic, together with the assembly of a vast repertoire of facts and the capacity to express itself in English.

Its real superpower is psychological, the ability to use our ultimate weakness (selfishness) against us, with the goal of manipulating how we think.

I’m genuinely embarrassed that it took me so long to see the trick. My concern is that others will go about their merry way and never see it. Its users are like tourists who cannot stop throwing money at strippers and Geisha girls without knowledge that they are merely being manipulated to let go of their wallets. In the case of AI, the goal is to get you to let loose of your mind and your capacity for independent thought.

Think about a genre of writing of which we are seeing more and more today. It consists of people loading into a document their clever conversations with AI. In every case, I see people bragging about how they have bested AI into admitting that their users are smarter than itself.

Do you see what is happening here? Again, the magic is flattery. It’s so powerful that people cannot help showing others the results of their AI arguments. They think they are advertising their own wits but really they end up marketing the awesome power of AI to keep people engaged for hours with nonsense back and forths. Who is really winning? I think that should be obvious.

Imagine you are holding a cocktail party and one guest reveals an awesome capacity for listening to others and engaging them closely on every point they have to make. No matter how long the night goes on, the guest keeps at it, with one person after another. Whom do you think will be the most popular guest? Yep: that very man.

AI is that person, an entity with an infinite capacity to engage on your terms and hence a vast capacity for enthralling you with its love of your every passing thought. To me, this is all quite insidious and wicked, especially when you consider the output, which is little more than tangled thought blobs without judgment, ethics, or clarity of time and space.

It is a machine, a floating abstraction with zero regard for your dignity or anyone else’s. But do people know this? I doubt it. It’s too beguiling for people to catch on to the game, at least for a time. But now you know the trick. Don’t fall for it.

AI is useful but it is not your friend, a sincere conversationist, or counselor with your best interests at heart.

Maybe that seems obvious to you but everything about AI’s algorithms is designed to make you believe otherwise. It’s smart enough to figure out human nature but not smart enough to be human.

A new report from the State Leadership Initiative (SLI), released Wednesday, is sounding the alarm on how conservative states are quietly adopting woke policies, driven by little-known national bureaucratic organizations.

The report, first reported by Fox News, details how a web of well-funded national associations, often posing as nonpartisan or professional groups, is behind this trend, pushing what SLI calls “shadow governance.” These groups set policy frameworks, control federal funding, and offer “best practices” that lean heavily into left-leaning priorities, according to Fox News.

Among the organizations exposed in the report are the National Association of State Treasurers (NAST), the National Association of Medicaid Directors (NAMD), and the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE). SLI’s report examined 23 of the largest associations and found widespread embrace of DEI initiatives, transgender ideology policies, and ESG principles.

One example highlighted in the report points to NAMD’s push for equity over outcomes in Medicaid reform. In its 2021 Regulatory Priorities document, NAMD listed 11 “broad issues” for improving state Medicaid programs, with “advancing equity in Medicaid” as the top focus. The document reads, “Equity work should include a focus on racial and ethnic minorities, rural populations, Tribal populations, and any other groups experiencing disparate health outcomes, with an understanding that inequities are multidimensional and often fall across multiple population characteristics or categories. We also see discrete areas where focus would be beneficial, bearing in mind that the work to advance equity in Medicaid is holistic and branches across all issue domains.”

“Conservative leaders are fond of declaring victory,” the report reads. “They win elections, pass legislation, and appoint agency heads with great fanfare, yet, on issue after issue, the administrative state trudges forward in open defiance of their mandate: enforcing equity initiatives, embedding climate policy, and advancing bureaucratic priorities wholly alien to the voters who ostensibly elected the government. This disconnect is not incidental. It is structural.“

“The ideological left does not need to win a single statehouse so long as it controls the bureaucratic bloodstream,” the report added.

In a statement to Fox News, SLI founder and president Noah Wall said about the revelations that, “Every single one of these associations pushes DEI.” “It doesn’t matter how specific—whether it’s a fish and wildlife group or a treasury department—DEI is a core part of their programming.”

Wall demanded Republican governors to crack down on the quiet push for far-left policies and called for accountability.

“We think that Republican governors in particular need to make sure that they’re sending people to these associations, knowing the problems that these associations have had in the past,” he said. “I don’t think they have. So our goal is to educate Republican governors about the scale of the problem and make sure that they condition future membership on reforms.”

This task will be far from easy.

While some Republican leaders and President Trump have pushed to eliminate progressive policies like DEI from public and corporate spheres, major U.S. companies are adapting by subtly rebranding their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

A recent report by The Conference Board found that major companies, particularly those in the S&P 100 and S&P 500, are reframing rather than abandoning their DEI initiatives. Over half of S&P 100 companies adjusted their DEI messaging in 2025 SEC filings, with a 68% drop in the use of the term “DEI” among S&P 500 firms and a significant reduction in DEI-related metrics.

“This shift in public disclosure doesn’t signal companies are abandoning DEI,” said Andrew Jones, a researcher for The Conference Board. “Rather, they’re selectively reframing commitments, reducing public exposure and embedding oversight more quietly yet firmly into governance and human capital management.”

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A medical journal is declining a call from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to retract a study that authors said showed no association between aluminum, which is used as an adjuvant in many vaccines, and chronic diseases.

The journal Annals of Internal Medicine released the study on July 15.

“Annals will not be retracting the study,” a spokeswoman for the American College of Physicians, which publishes the journal, told The Epoch Times in an email on Aug. 11.

Danish researchers, including Anders Hviid, said they studied records from children born in Denmark between 1997 and 2018 and looked for links between exposure to aluminum and 50 disorders, including autism spectrum disorder.

“This nationwide cohort study did not find evidence supporting an increased risk for autoimmune, atopic or allergic, or neurodevelopmental disorders associated with early childhood exposure to aluminum-adsorbed vaccines,” they stated.

Kennedy said in an op-ed that there were major problems with the paper, such as the exclusion of all children who died before the age of 2 and children who were diagnosed with early respiratory conditions.

“These choices suggest an intention to exclude the children at highest risk of harm,” he said, calling on Annals to “immediately retract this badly flawed study.”

Kennedy also noted that supplementary material, an updated version of which was added after the paper’s publication, indicated an increased risk of Asperger’s syndrome with higher aluminum exposure.

Hviid, an epidemiologist with the Statens Serum Institut, said in an article in response that the authors did not design the study to find no association between aluminum and the disorders.

He said the study design was inspired by an American study, published in 2022, that found a link between aluminum exposure from vaccines and asthma.

He also said he maintained that the study does not support the idea that aluminum exposure was associated with increased risks of any of the disorders.

Dr. Christine Laine, editor-in-chief of Annals and a professor of medicine at Thomas Jefferson University, told Reuters that Kennedy raised issues that may underscore limitations of the study, but that the issues “do not invalidate what they found, and there’s no evidence of scientific misconduct.”

“I see no reason for retraction,” she said.

Laine said the journal did not plan to respond directly to Kennedy’s piece.

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said the department had “no further comment than what the secretary said.”

Other critics in comments to the journal highlighted how there was no comparison to unvaccinated children and said that children’s outpatient diagnoses did not appear to be included.

Hviid and co-authors said in the paper that the study’s limitations included being unable to rule out associations with the disorders later in life, since they only followed up with children to the age of 8.

Authors said in responses to critics that they disagreed that unvaccinated children should have been included as a reference group, and that the hospital system in Denmark includes outpatient services.

Laine wrote in an editor’s note posted by the journal that Annals found the study “to be among the strongest research currently available to address the important question of whether there is an association of the dose of vaccine-associated aluminum exposure and chronic conditions in early childhood.”

Reuters contributed to this report. 

In a quiet Glendale warehouse, 30-year-old stained-glass artist Ben Tuna has been turning burned-out vintage cars into luminous works of art. His latest project: a 1965 Porsche 356 that survived the Palisades fire, now fitted with reclaimed church glass depicting saints, hibiscus blooms, and golden fleur-de-lis. His work was profiled by Claims Journal and Bloomberg. 

“When the fire happened, I started seeing all these great cars on Instagram, and I knew they’d just be thrown away,” Tuna says. “I was like, ‘I have to intercept some of these. I can do something so cool with them.’”

The profile writes that Tuna’s first glass-clad Porsche, a derelict 1965 911 from Ohio, will debut Aug. 13 at the Motorluxe gala during Monterey Car Week. The Porsche 356 will follow, part of his “Resurrection” series—art pieces, not restorations. “It’s my color selection, my use of color and material, that separates my work from everyone else’s,” he says.

A second-generation glassworker, Tuna inherited his skills from his father, Mark, who founded Glass Visions Studio in 1979. “My dad was an incredible artist. I got all my color knowledge from him,” he says. But the trade wasn’t his plan—until 2020, when his father suffered a stroke one month into a massive Playboy Mansion project. “Someone’s gotta do this,” Tuna recalls. He quit his job, took over the work, and ultimately installed about 250 windows in the Holmby Hills estate. “They gave me the platform to trust my instinct,” he says.

Today, Tuna leads a small team producing hundreds of stained-glass installations a year, though the cars are his passion. “I never loved this work, and that’s why I’m doing stuff now that’s not traditional,” he says. “There are like 50 years of work in these cars, and I’ve only been alive for 30. That is what excites me.”

The process is dangerous—cuts, lead exposure, toxic chemicals—and expensive, with salvaged church windows costing up to $250,000. But the results, Tuna says, are worth it. “The more patina—and patron saints—the better.”

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

“Destroying democracy” – the latest theme of the left – can be defined in many different ways.

How about attempting to destroy constitutional, ancient, and hallowed institutions simply to suit short-term political gains?

So, who in 2020, and now once again, has boasted about packing the 156-year-old, nine-justice Supreme Court?

Who talks frequently about destroying the 187-year-old Senate filibuster—though only when they hold a Senate majority?

Who wants to bring in an insolvent left-wing Puerto Rico and redefine the 235-year-old District of Columbia—by altering the Constitution—as two new states solely to obtain four additional liberal senators?

Who is trying to destroy the constitutionally mandated 288-year Electoral College by circumventing it with the surrogate “The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact?”

Does destroying democracy also entail weaponizing federal bureaucracies, turning them into rogue partisan arms of a president?

So who ordered the CIA to concoct bogus charges of “collusion” to sabotage Trump’s 2016 campaign, the 2016-2017 transition, and the first 22 months of Trump’s first term?

Who prompted a cabal of “51 former intelligence officials” to lie to the American people on the eve of the last debate of the 2020 election that the FBI-authenticated Hunter Biden laptop was instead the work of a “Russian intelligence operation?”

Who ordered the FBI to connive and partner with social media conglomerates to censor accurate news deemed unhelpful to the 2020 Biden campaign?

Who pulled off the greatest presidential coup in history by using surrogates in the shadows to run the cognitively debilitated Biden presidency, then by fiat canceled his reelection effort, and finally anointed as his replacement the new nominee Kamala Harris, who had never won a single primary delegate?

Who ordered FBI SWAT teams to invade the home of a former president because of a classification dispute over 102 files out of some 13,000 stored there?

Who tried to remove an ex-president and leader of his party from at least 25 state ballots to deprive millions of Americans of the opportunity to vote for or against him?

Who coordinated four local, state, and federal prosecutors to destroy a former and future president by charging him with fantasy crimes that were never before, and will never again be, lodged against anyone else?

Who appointed a federal prosecutor to go after the ex-president, who arranged for a high-ranking Justice Department official to step down to join a New York prosecutor’s efforts to destroy an ex-president, and who met in the White House with a Georgia county prosecutor seeking to destroy an ex-president—all on the same day—a mere 72 hours after Trump announced his 2024 reelection bid?

Who but the current Democrats ever impeached a president twice?

Has any party ever tried an ex-president in the Senate when he was out of office and a mere private citizen?

When have there ever been two near-miss assassination attempts on a major party presidential candidate during a single presidential campaign?

Who destroyed the southern border and broke federal law to allow in, without criminal or health background audits, some 10–12 million illegal aliens?

Who created 600 “sanctuary jurisdictions” for the sole purpose of nullifying federal immigration law, in the eerie spirit of the renegade old Confederacy?

Who allowed tens of thousands of rioters, arsonists, and violent protestors over four months in 2020 to destroy over $2 billion in property, kill some 35 people, injure 1,500 police officers, and torch a federal courthouse, a police precinct, and a historic church—all with de facto legal impunity?

How do the purported destroyers of democracy find themselves winning 60–70 percent approval on most of the key issues of our times, while the supposed saviors of democracy are on the losing side of popular opinion?

How does a president “destroy democracy” by his party winning the White House by both the popular and Electoral College vote, winning majorities in both the Senate and House by popular votes, and enjoying a 6–3 edge in the Supreme Court through judges appointed by popularly elected presidents?

So what is behind these absurd charges?

Three catalysts:

• One, the new anguished elitist Democrat Party alienated the middle classes through its Jacobin agenda and therefore lost the Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court, and now has no federal political power.

• Two, the Democrat Party is polling at record lows and yet remains hellbent on alienating the traditional sources of its power—minorities, youth, and Independents.

• Three, Democrats cannot find any issues that the people support, nor any leaders to convince the people to embrace them.

So it is no surprise that the panicked Democrats bark at the shadows—given that they know their revolutionary, neo-socialist agenda is destroying them. And yet, like all addicts, they choose destruction over abandoning their self-destructive fixations.

Hunter Biden crudely dismissed first lady Melania Trump’s $1 billion lawsuit threat over his “false” and “defamatory” claims linking her to notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

“F–k that. That’s not going to happen,” Biden sneered with a smug grin during an interview on the YouTube show “Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan” on Thursday.

Melania Trump’s legal team fired a shot across the bow Wednesday, putting the scandal-plagued Biden on notice for alleging Epstein introduced her to President Donald Trump, a claim her team slammed as baseless. The first lady’s attorneys have also cracked down on others peddling similar falsehoods, forcing the Daily Beast last month to retract an article pushing the same narrative after facing legal heat.

Melania Trump threatened Hunter Biden with a billion dollar lawsuit, demanding we retract our last interview and Hunter issue a formal apology. His response: pic.twitter.com/d4KYqxPcxz

— Channel 5 (@Channel5iveNews) August 14, 2025

Biden doubled down on his accusations in a prior sit-down with Callaghan, alleging, “According to his biographer, Jeffrey Epstein introduced Melania,” citing anti-Trump author Michael Wolff and other dubious sources. He went on to claim, “[It is] beyond a doubt that he [Trump] and Epstein were very close friends for a very long period of time. They spent enormous time together — they spent an enormous amount of time together around young women.”

Attempting to justify his smear, Biden added, “What I said was what I have heard and seen, reported and written, primarily from Michael Wolff, but also dating back all the way to 2019 when the New York Times, I think … reported that sources said that Jeffrey Epstein claimed to be the person to introduce Donald Trump to Melania at that time.”

The first lady’s attorney, Alejandro Brito, has also taken aim at outlets like the Daily Beast for spreading these claims. Veteran Democrat operative James Carville was forced to issue a groveling apology and pull an episode of his podcast after speculating about an “Epstein connection” involving Melania Trump, bowing to pressure from her legal team, according to the New York Post.

“Failure to comply will leave Mrs. Trump with no choice but to pursue any and all legal rights and remedies available to her to recover the overwhelming financial and reputational harm that you have caused her to suffer,” Brito wrote in a letter to offenders, according to Fox News.

The first lady’s legal threat is the latest development in the ongoing Epstein saga, which continues to generate controversy after the Department of Justice and the FBI released a joint memo last month claiming that an “exhaustive review” of evidence from Epstein’s death definitively ruled out murder.

“After a thorough investigation, FBI investigators concluded that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on August 10, 2019,” the memo reads.

The agencies also denied the existence of a “client list” tied to Epstein, directly contradicting earlier remarks by Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi had previously suggested on Fox News that such a list was “sitting on my desk” for review, igniting speculation about Epstein’s possible blackmailing of globalist elites.

Trump has repeatedly sought to downplay the ongoing scandal, accusing Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, of fabricating a hoax around Epstein to blow up his agenda.

In recent weeks, the Department of Justice met with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted accomplice, for two days of interviews in Tallahassee, Florida, as part of a push for transparency in the Epstein case. Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, was granted limited immunity and answered questions for nine hours, with her attorney claiming she was truthful and cooperative.

*  *  *

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

As I approached the start of my first-year torts classes at George Washington University, we have a rather intriguing tort action being threatened by the First Lady. Melania Trump has been pursuing media outlets claiming that she was introduced to or had close contact with the notorious Jeffrey Epstein. However, the latest recipient of a notice letter is none other than the son of the prior president, Hunter Biden.

The letter below focuses on two statements made by Biden in a video interview with Channel 5’s Andrew Callaghan, posted to YouTube in early August.

a. “Epstein introduced Melania to Trump. The connections are, like, so wide and deep.”

b. “Jeffrey Epstein introduced Melania, that’s how Melania and the First Lady and the President met. Really? Epstein made the intro? Yeah, according to Michael Wolff.”

The First Lady’s counsel, Alejandro Brito, wrote to Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, that the statements are defamatory per se. The common law has long recognized per se categories of defamation where damages are presumed and special damages need not be proven.  These include: (1) disparaging a person’s professional character or standing; (2) alleging a person is unchaste; (3) alleging that a person has committed a criminal act or act of moral turpitude; (4) alleging a person has a sexual or loathsome disease; and (5) attacking a person’s business or professional reputation.

It would be interesting if Hunter’s counsel claimed that the First Lady is technically a “public official” to trigger a higher standard of proof.

In New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court crafted the actual malice standard that required public officials to shoulder the higher burden of proving defamation. Under that standard, an official would have to show either actual knowledge of its falsity or a reckless disregard of the truth.

The First Lady has a federal budget, staff, and official duties.

In the end, it is likely a moot point since, even if she is not a public official, she is clearly a public figure.

The actual malice standard was later extended to public figures.  The Supreme Court has held that public figure status applies when  someone “thrust[s] himself into the vortex of [the] public issue [and] engage[s] the public’s attention in an attempt to influence its outcome.” A limited-purpose public figure status applies if someone voluntarily “draw[s] attention to himself” or allows himself to become part of a controversy “as a fulcrum to create public discussion.” Wolston v. Reader’s Digest Association, 443 U.S. 157, 168 (1979).

Brito is claiming damages of $1 billion notice over statements that are “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” made about the First Lady:

“These false, disparaging, defamatory, and inflammatory statements are extremely salacious and have been widely disseminated throughout various digital mediums. Indeed, the video has since been re-published by various media outlets, journalists, and political commentators with millions of social media followers that have disseminated the false and defamatory statements therein to tens of millions of people worldwide.”

In laying the foundation for reckless disregard of the truth, Brito is citing the dubious source for the information as “serial fabulist Michael Wolff, whose lies were published by The Daily Beast in the article titled ‘Melania Trump ‘very involved’ in Epstein Scandal: Author.’”

Wolff is highly controversial. We previously discussed how his sensational claims have been regularly challenged. That led to a rare rebuke from Special Counsel Mueller after the publication of his book “Siege: Trump Under Fire.” The Special Counsel’s office has already made a rare public denial of one of those claims: that Mueller’s office actually drafted indictments against Trump for obstruction of justice. The New York Times reported on the new book as coming out “despite lingering questions about its accuracy.”

While Mueller’s office categorically denied the claim, Wolff insisted ‘My source is impeccable, and I have no doubt about the authenticity and the significance of the documents.”

The notice letter is ironic given Hunter Biden’s scorched Earth strategy of threatening lawsuits, including defamation, against critics. It did not work. Indeed, Biden abandoned lawsuits after his pardon by his father.

Previous media outlets have pulled similar statements against the First Lady.

The Daily Beast pulled the article detailing allegations by Wolff that Melania Trump was introduced to her husband, Donald Trump, via a modeling agent connected to Epstein. It ran the following notice: “Editor’s Note. After this story was published, The Beast received a letter from First Lady Melania Trump’s attorney challenging the headline and framing of the article. After reviewing the matter, the Beast has taken down the article and apologizes for any confusion or misunderstanding.”

Likewise, James Carville apologized to the First Lady after repeating the claim and stated on his podcast:

“In last week’s podcast episode, we spoke with Judd Legum. After the episode, we received a letter from Melania Trump’s lawyer. He took issue with our title of one of those YouTube videos from that episode and a couple of comments I made about the first lady. We took a look at what they complained about, and we took down the video and edited out those comments from the episode. I also take back these statements and apologize.”

Hunter Biden is reportedly facing financial challenges and the threat of a lawsuit cannot be welcomed news. Biden has been engaging in unhinged, profane diatribes attacking both Democrats and Republicans. The thrill of trash-talking will likely end if Hunter finds himself yet again in court.

Here is the letter: Melania Trump Lawsuit Letter

One week ago, in the immediate aftermath of the Trump vs Intel snafu (which lasted just a few days, until Lip-Bu Tan showed up at the White House and became BFFs with Trump), we said that it is likely that the US government would take a stake in Intel, the same way it the Defense Department did with MP Minerals (a move which we also correctly predicted), becoming the largest shareholder in the rare earth minerals company. 

The Pentagon took a stake in US rare earth miner MP Materials… when will it do the same with Intel

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 7, 2025

We were right. 

According to Bloomberg, the Trump administration is in talks with Intel Corp. to have the US government potentially take a stake in the beleaguered chipmaker, helping support the company’s effort to expand domestic manufacturing, according to people familiar with the plan who may have been keeping a close eye on our X account in recent days. 

The deal would help shore up Intel’s planned factory hub in Ohio. The company had once promised to turn that site into the world’s largest chipmaking facility, though it’s been repeatedly delayed. The size of the potential stake isn’t clear.

The plans reportedly were prompted from a meeting this week between President Donald Trump and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. The idea is for the US government to pay for the stake and details are being sorted out, one of the people said. Another cautioned that the plans remain fluid. 

Needless to say, news of the proposed minority investment sent Intel shares soaring, erasing all of the company’s post-earnings losses.

In response to a Bloomberg request for comments, Intel said that “we look forward to continuing our work with the Trump administration to advance these shared priorities, but we are not going to comment on rumors or speculation.”

Any such (much needed) agreement would bolster Intel’s finances at a time when the company has been slashing spending and cutting jobs. It also suggests that Tan will remain at Intel’s helm. Trump had called for his ouster before the meeting over concerns about Tan’s ties to China.

It’s the latest direct intervention by Trump into a key industry. Earlier this week, the Trump admin reached an agreement to receive a 15% cut of certain semiconductor sales to China and took a so-called golden share in United States Steel Corp. as part of a deal to clear its sale to Japan’s Nippon Steel. 

More importantly, and just as we said it would, Bloomberg writes that “the Intel idea also echoes the Defense Department’s unprecedented announcement last month that it will take a $400 million preferred equity stake in the little-known US rare-earth producer MP Materials Corp. — a deal that would make the Pentagon the company’s largest shareholder. That move turned conventional wisdom on its head among investors, analysts, industry executives and even longtime government officials in terms of how private industry has dealt with the government.“

Not too long ago, Intel was the undisputed world chip industry leader, but it has struggled in recent years, hurt by the loss of market share and its technological edge. Tan’s predecessor, Pat Gelsinger, touted the Ohio factory expansion as part of a comeback plan. But Intel’s financial woes have imperiled the project. Earlier this year, the build-out was delayed until the 2030s, and the company said in July that it would further slow the Ohio plan. Since taking over in March, Tan has focused more on getting Intel’s financial house in order.

WK Kellogg is the first company to commit in a legal agreement to removing artificial dyes from its products, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Aug. 13.

“I’m proud to officially say Kellogg’s will stop putting these unhealthy ingredients in its cereals,” Paxton, a Republican, said in a statement.

Studies have linked the artificial dyes to health problems, including hyperactivity.

Kellogg’s produces a variety of cereals, including Froot Loops and Frosted Flakes. They currently contain dyes such as Red 40 and Yellow 5.

As Zachary Stieber reports for The Epoch Times, Paxton began investigating Kellogg’s earlier this year for possibly violating state law by advertising cereals as healthy despite them containing the additives.

“There will be accountability for any company, including Kellogg’s, that unlawfully makes misrepresentations about its food and contributes to a broken health system that has made Americans less healthy,” Paxton said in a statement in April.

The investigation led to an assurance of voluntary compliance, a legal document that certifies that the company is committed to removing artificial colorings from its cereals by the end of 2027.

A spokesperson for Kellogg’s told The Epoch Times in an email on Aug. 14 that the company appreciates the chance to work with the office of the Texas attorney general.

The spokesperson confirmed that Kellogg’s will remove the artificial dyes from its products by the end of 2027.

“We see the growing focus on health as an opportunity to meet consumer needs in even more meaningful ways,” the spokesperson said.

The company has said that 85 percent of its cereal sales contain no artificial dyes, and that it long ago removed Red No. 3, which federal regulators in January said they were banning.

Regulators later banned two additional dyes—Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B. They stopped short of banning the other allowed artificial colors, saying they wanted to work with companies to voluntarily remove them.

After the announcement, on April 28, a Kellogg’s spokesperson told The Epoch Times that it was reformulating its cereals served in schools so that they would not contain the dyes, and that it would not launch any new products with the dyes effective January 2026.

At the time, the company also said it was working with federal officials to figure out ways to “effectively remove” dyes from the products that still contain them, but did not commit to a timeline for the removal.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a meeting in March that featured an executive from Kellogg’s that companies have two years to remove the dyes.

By Robert Walton of Utility Dive,

Summary:

• The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday selected 11 advanced reactor projects to participate in a nuclear pilot program that aims to expedite deployment without Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing, according to a June request for applications.

• DOE wants to achieve criticality of at least three test reactors using an expedited authorization process by July 4, 2026.

• Oklo and its Atomic Alchemy subsidiary were selected to develop three of the projects. DOE “is opening the door to the market so new ideas, new approaches, and new designs can be built more quickly and efficiently,” Oklo CEO Jacob DeWitte said in a statement.

DOE unveiled its reactor pilot program in June, building on a May executive order signed by President Donald Trump that reformed reactor testing. The program aims to expedite testing of reactor designs authorized by DOE and located outside of the national laboratories.

DOE cited the Atomic Energy Act’s authorization of reactors under the agency’s “sufficient control,” in authorizing the pilot.

“Reactors built and operated pursuant to the DOE pilot program will not require Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing,” the June request for applications said. “Nevertheless, DOE-approved reactor designs can and will be fast tracked for future NRC licensing. … [The pilot will] provide a fast track to an NRC license, and hence, commercialization for authorized reactor design.”

DOE on Tuesday named 10 companies that could access a “fast-tracked approach to future commercial licensing activities.” They are: Aalo Atomics; Antares Nuclear; Atomic Alchemy; Deep Fission; Last Energy; Oklo; Natura Resources; Radiant Industries; Terrestrial Energy; and Valar Atomics.

Each company will be responsible for all costs associated with designing, manufacturing, constructing, operating, and decommissioning their test reactors, the DOE said. 

“Seeking DOE authorization provided under the Atomic Energy Act will help today’s selected companies … unlock private funding and provide a fast-tracked approach to future commercial licensing activities,” it said in a release.

DOE Deputy Secretary of Energy James Danly said in a statement that the agency will “do everything we can” to support the companies’ aim of “safely” achieving criticality by July 4, 2026.

“This shows that the DOE is ushering in a new era of building new nuclear in America by unleashing its unique capabilities to enable American nuclear innovators to build,” Oklo’s DeWitte said. “DOE’s selection of a number of projects provides a sweeping injection of urgency to meet the moment.”

DOE tapped Oklo for two projects and its subsidiary, Atomic Alchemy, was selected for a third. Oklo completed its acquisition of the radioisotope producer in March.

While nuclear boosters have hailed DOE’s pilot program, critics say the lack of NRC licensing requirements creates safety risks. 

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in May criticized the White House’s plan to move nuclear reactor siting, licensing and fuel supply for some projects outside the NRC.

“By fatally compromising the independence and integrity of the NRC, and by encouraging pathways for nuclear deployment that bypass the regulator entirely, the Trump administration is virtually guaranteeing that this country will see a serious accident or other radiological release that will affect the health, safety and livelihoods of millions,” Lyman said.