With the recent shocking admission by Joe Biden that he did not personally approve at least some of his sweeping presidential pardons and that they were signed by autopen, millions of Americans are questioning how many decisions in the Biden White House were actually being made by his unelected wife, criminal son, along with a shadow government of bureaucrats and aids.  

Emails indicating that then-White House chief of staff Jeff Zients approved the use of the notorious White House autopen.  Biden’s team used an autopen on 25 warrants for pardons and commutations in December and January of last year, but two of those warrants granted clemency to thousands of people.

In a House Republican investigation on the autopen signatures and Joe Biden’s mental state, a former senior aide to Jill Biden, Anthony Bernal, became the second person to invoke the Fifth Amendment and decline to answer questions.  

Biden’s pardons include his own family dating back to 2014 (coinciding with evidence that the Bidens may have received payoffs from foreign governments in exchange for political favors).  They also protect Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has long been implicated in illegal gain of function research on coronaviruses in Wuhan, China which critics assert may have led to the outbreak of covid pandemic.

If the pardons were signed by aids using autopen and not by Biden, then there is a possibility they can be legally nullified.  Though proof would have to be provided that Biden was not specifically aware of certain autopen signatures.  Staff using the autopen to sign for a president without his knowledge or cognitive approval is potentially criminal, which is likely why aids are now pleading the 5th Amendment. 

“Well, unfortunately, that was quick,” said Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, after the deposition ended. “I believe the American people are concerned. They’re concerned that there were people making decisions in the White House that were not only unelected but no one to this day knows who they were.”

Bernal ignored questions from reporters as he entered and exited the House Oversight Committee’s hearing room on Capitol Hill. He was accompanied by his lawyer, Jonathan Su, who was a deputy White House counsel to the former president. Su in a statement provided to the committee noted that pleading the Fifth is not evidence of wrongdoing.

The Biden White House, operating around Biden’s failing mental capacity, was rife with dishonesty and malicious political maneuvering.  Not to mention, the administration acted as a vehicle for some of the most egregious far-left activist policies the US has ever witnessed.  The country is still reeling from the disastrous four year term and answers remain in short supply.

Comer has has sought testimony from nearly a dozen former Biden aides as he conducts his investigation, including former White House chiefs of staff Ron Klain and Jeff Zients; former senior advisers Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn; former deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, former counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti, former deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini and a former assistant to the president, Ashley Williams. 

Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

The Justice Department has fired Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey and a federal prosecutor in Manhattan who worked on the cases against Sean “Diddy” Combs, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.

Maurene Comey was key in covering up the Epstein scandal. In June 2024, she filed a declaration to keep the FBI’s records on Epstein secret, on the grounds that his former associate Maxwell could be granted a new trial soon.

https://t.co/sUl1mR5VCt pic.twitter.com/pVDcB0bMSw

— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) July 17, 2025

“Because the majority of the records in this category were not introduced as public exhibits during Maxwell’s first trial, they remain non-public, though the Government may still seek to introduce them should Maxwell be granted a retrial,” Comey argued last year.

At the time, Comey’s concerns seemed unfounded. Shortly after she filed her declaration, an appeals court upheld Maxwell’s conviction on five charges of recruiting and grooming four underage girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004.

However, in the wake of President Donald Trump downplaying Epstein’s crimes, some observers have suggested that Maxwell has a new ground to challenge her conviction because she never received a fair trial. Maxwell currently has an appeal pending before the Supreme Court.

Ghislaine Maxwell’s family has now released this statement saying she didn’t get a fair trial.

We all know where this is heading.

If the files aren’t released, her lawyers will appeal her case and make the case for why she should be released from jail.

Won’t be long before… pic.twitter.com/P4s4FYWom0

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) July 15, 2025

“With all the talk about who’s being prosecuted and who isn’t, it’s especially unfair that Ghislaine Maxwell remains in prison based on a promise that the US government made and broke,” her family said in a statement, referring to a sweetheart plea deal Epstein struck in 2009 to indemnify his co-conspirators.

Come’s firing comes as Attorney General Pam Bondi faces intense criticism from some members of Trump’s base for the Justice Department’s decision not to release any more evidence in the government’s possession from Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation.

Meanwhile, James Comey, who was director when the FBI launched its politically driven and ultimately fruitless Russiagate investigation into Trump, is reportedly under federal investigation himself.

“DOJ sources told Fox News Digital that an investigation into the former director is underway, but could not share details of what specifically is being probed,” Fox News reported earlier this month, citing anonymous DOJ sources.

Just days after the White House released a list of massive corporate changes across parts of the processed foods industrial complex—including the removal of toxic synthetic dyes, seed oils, and dozens of harmful additives—President Trump posted on Truth Social that Coca-Cola will begin reformulating its U.S. products to use real cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. 

“I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so,”  President Trump wrote in the post. He added, “I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!” 

Reuters cited a Coca-Cola spokesperson who said the Atlanta-based company will publish new offerings soon and that it appreciates the president’s enthusiasm for its product.

The current Coke formulation in the U.S. consists of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS-55) as its sweetener, carbonated water, caramel coloring, phosphoric acid, caffeine, and other ingredients. 

HFCS consumption has been linked to obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. Cane sugar, on the other hand, has a slightly lower glycemic index. Still consume in moderation.

While Coca-Cola had been using HFCS-55 since the 1980s in the U.S., by 2009, virtually all U.S. Coke products used HFCS-55 instead of cane sugar. This was primarily a cost-saving measure due to corn subsidies and sugar tariffs; however, it has also contributed to America’s obesity crisis. 

According to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Alvin Tai, a reformulation of U.S. coke products could lift domestic sugar consumption by nearly 4.5%….

Here’s more from Tai:

U.S. sugar consumption could rise about 4.4% from the usual amount of around 11 million metric tons annually if Coca-Cola implements President Donald Trump’s advice to use cane sugar in Coke beverages within the country, we calculate. Coca-Cola sold 4.36 billion liters of regular Coke in the U.S. last year, according to Euromonitor data. Using sugar would displace high-fructose corn syrup, creating an oversupply of corn and hurting ADM’s corn-processing business. Wilmar’s sugar business could gain.

Also, here’s the growing list of major Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) changes to the nation’s food supply chain: 

• Steak & Shake moved to 100% all-natural beef tallow and replaced its “buttery blend,” which contained seed oils, with 100% Grade A Wisconsin butter.

• McCormick announced it will drop certain food dyes from its products.

• PepsiCo announced it will remove artificial ingredients from popular food items — including Lay’s and Tostitos chips — by the end of the year.

• In-N-Out announced it will remove synthetic food dyes and artificial flavors from its menu items, and also transitioned to 100% beef tallow.

• Tyson Foods eliminated synthetic dyes in its food products.

• Mars removed titanium dioxide from its Skittles product.

• Sam’s Club committed to removing 40 harmful ingredients — including artificial colors, additives, dyes, and high-fructose corn syrup — from its private-label products.

• Kraft-Heinz announced it will remove artificial dyes from its U.S. products.

• General Mills announced it will remove artificial dyes from its U.S. cereals and all foods served in K-12 schools.

• Nestlé announced it will remove all petroleum-based food dyes from its food and beverage products.

• Conagra Foods announced it will remove certain color additives from its frozen products, no longer offer products with artificial dyes in K-12 schools, and stop using artificial dyes in the manufacturing of its products.

• JM Smucker announced it will remove synthetic colors from its consumer food products.

• Hershey announced it will remove synthetic dyes from its snacks.

• Consumer Brands announced it will urge its members to remove artificial colors in food and beverage products served in schools.

As we’ve previously stated, Americans must demand a complete overhaul of the toxic food supply chain—controlled by globalist corporations that prioritize profit over public health. The best way to protect your well-being is to reject all processed foods pushed by these companies and instead support local farmers and ranchers. Plant a garden, build a chicken coop, and take back control of the food supply chain. We’re all in agreement that we don’t want to eat bugs from the globalists.

What’s truly alarming is that it took President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to force these long-overdue changes. It raises an important question: What if the Harris regime had won? Would these corporations still be pumping toxic ingredients into the food supply? At this point, it feels deliberate.

America’s robotaxi race is entering a new phase, inching closer and closer to a hyperscaling inflection point. With Waymo rapidly expanding across U.S. cities and Tesla’s robotaxi fleet launching in Austin, Texas, this June, the momentum is building. Now, a new alliance emerges—Uber Technologies, EV maker Lucid Group, and autonomous driving startup Nuro—is preparing to enter the robotaxi market with a  “next-generation premium global robotaxi program” slated to launch in a major U.S. city in the second half of 2026. 

A press release from Lucid revealed that Uber will launch a robotaxi program late next year, deploying 20,000 Lucid Gravity vehicles equipped with the Nuro Driver Level 4 autonomy system. 

“Uber aims to deploy 20,000 or more Lucid vehicles equipped with the Nuro Driver over six years. The vehicles will be owned and operated by Uber or its third-party fleet partners and made available to riders exclusively via the Uber platform,” the struggling EV maker stated. 

The ride-sharing company plans to invest several hundred million dollars into both Lucid and Nuro, including a $300 million commitment to Lucid. A portion of that funding will go toward upgrading Lucid’s assembly line to integrate Nuro’s autonomous hardware into its Gravity SUVs. 

Lucid noted, “The first Lucid-Nuro robotaxi prototype is already operating autonomously on a closed circuit at Nuro’s Las Vegas proving grounds.” 

In markets, Lucid shares jumped as much as 62% in premarket trading in New York. As of Wednesday’s close, the stock was down 24% on the year. Shares remain heavily shorted—about 32% of the float, or roughly 395 million shares, are sold short, with a days-to-cover ratio around 2.9—leaving room for a potential squeeze during the cash session. Since the peak of the Covid-era mania in 2021, the stock is down 95% from its highs.

Lucid has faced ongoing challenges in recent years, mirroring broader struggles across the EV industry amid an extended price war and softening demand. The eventual rollback of federal EV tax credits under President Trump’s administration could add further pressure, creating additional headwinds for manufacturers already grappling with profitability issues.

A recent Goldman note suggests that the U.S. robotaxi market is poised for significant growth over the next decade. The report offers valuable insights, providing a framework for understanding where the industry is headed before 2030. Read the note here…

And the robotaxi race begins. Next comes trucking… 

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Idiocracy-a-like Democrat Jasmine Crockett argued during a hearing that USAID, the slush fund decimated by DOGE, is desperately needed in order to fund US propaganda in places like Iraq to ensure Islamists there don’t become radicalised against America.

Yes, really.

Crockett claimed that past programs including a version of Sesame Street that was made for Iraq are vital to national security, suggesting “This is so that there is not this warped thought process about the Western world.”

Jasmine Crockett: We need USAID to fund Sesame Street in Iraq to prevent people from being “radicalized against us.”

“This is so that there is not this warped thought process about the Western world.” pic.twitter.com/EhGeANfbrC

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 15, 2025

What in God’s name is she on about?

One the dumbest Congresswomen in our country. https://t.co/y7f8QIXgLd

— Chelle (@FL_Chelle) July 15, 2025

They would hate America but some colourful felt puppets ensure those feelings are kept at bay.

Jasmine – they’ve hated us long before Sesame Street. No amount of puppetry is going to change that. https://t.co/r6MSMW4xxr

— Karen Bowman (@KBow5) July 15, 2025

Maybe it’s really this…

So American taxpayers should fund every government in the world, instead of just our own. That’s basically the argument the foreign aid folks are making.

— The Conservative Alternative (@OldeWorldOrder) July 15, 2025

It hasn’t worked on Americans. Why would it work on Iraqis?

Apparently, Sesame Street has not prevented some Democrats from being radicalized against us.

— MacJediKev ✝️ 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇯🇲 (@KevinLedgister) July 15, 2025

Are there not more pressing things to fund?

Who else thinks we shouldn’t be funding Sesame Street at all anywhere? https://t.co/BjEGacRWbn

— Drew Wiseman music🇺🇸🧑🏽‍🦯 (@dwwwiseman) July 15, 2025

President Trump declared Tuesday that Crockett is in competition with AOC for the prize of dumbest member of Congress.

“AOC, look, I think she’s very nice, but she’s very low IQ, and we really don’t need low IQ,” Trump said. 

He added, “Between her and Crockett, we’re going to give them both an IQ test to see who comes out best.”

“Now I took my test. I took a real test at Walter Reed Medical Center, and I aced it. I got every one of all those questions right. Now, it’s time for them to take a test,” Trump further quipped.

Trump ROASTS AOC and Jasmine Crockett,

“AOC… look, I think she’s very nice but she’s very Low IQ… Between her and Crockett, we’re going to give them both an IQ test to see who comes out best.”

pic.twitter.com/Twjh50fcP1

— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) July 15, 2025

The only question remaining is what does Elmo think of this after his recent X outburst?

@elmo did you see this?

— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) July 15, 2025

*  *  *

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

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the first time fell last week to 221k – the lowest in 3 months – as this high frequency labor market signal shows no signs of cracking for now. Initial jobless claims have gone literally nowhere for four years…

Source: Bloomberg

New York and Nevada saw the largest week over week rise in jobless claims…

Overall, continuing claims remains stubbornly above the 1.9 million Americans level – its highest since Nov 2021…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, the DOGE impact is very clear now as continuing jobless claims in the ‘Deep Tristate’ region continue to soar – now at their highest since Dec 2021…

Source: Bloomberg

Something Musk can be proud of?

Authored by Samantha Flom via RealClearPolitics,

“In America, we don’t do kings.”

That was the message of the leftist protesters who swarmed the streets nationwide on June 14 in opposition to President Donald Trump and his agenda.

“Trump must go now!” they chanted, waving signs that likened the president to a dictator and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to his Gestapo.

Their complaint was alleged despotism. But if Democrats really opposed authoritarianism, they wouldn’t be celebrating its emergence in the courts.

When U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani brazenly overstepped her authority on July 7 to block Congress from stripping Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid funding through the budget reconciliation bill – a clear usurpation of the legislative branch’s power of the purse – the response from the Left wasn’t outrage but praise.

“Good,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wrote on X. “Democrats will never stop fighting this backdoor abortion ban from the Republicans.”

Schumer’s apparent admission that Medicaid funds abortions aside, his comments also belie his party’s disingenuous indignation over supposed federal overreach.

That selective outrage was on full display in April amid the arrest of a Wisconsin judge for allegedly escorting Eduardo Flores-Ruiz – an illegal immigrant who had previously been deported – out the back jury door of her courtroom to help him evade federal immigration authorities.

The ICE agents in question had a valid administrative warrant for Flores-Ruiz’s arrest, yet leftists railed against efforts to hold Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan to account for her alleged obstruction.

“By arresting a sitting judge over routine courthouse management, the Trump regime has signaled its eagerness to weaponize federal power against members of the judiciary who do not align with its political agenda,” writer Mitchell Sobieski fumed in a Milwaukee Independent op-ed.

If impeding federal law enforcement now qualifies as “routine courthouse management,” that’s a big problem.

Meanwhile, Milwaukee’s Democratic Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s complaint was that the Trump administration was “scaring people” by enforcing federal immigration law.

“They’re scaring people in this community; they’re scaring people in immigrant communities all across the United States,” Johnson told the press.

Never mind the law-abiding U.S. citizens who remain scared that their daughters, sisters, or mothers could be the next Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, or Rachel Morin – all victims of murderers in the country illegally.

Apparently their fears are irrelevant.

As for Dugan, her claim that “judicial immunity” precludes her from prosecution for alleged obstruction of justice is as authoritarian as it gets.

Judges are but one facet of the American justice system, and as Democrats once loved reminding us all: “No one is above the law.”

Of course, the left’s disinterest in reining in the judiciary is nothing new. After all, the Democratic Party has long relied on activist judges to impose its will on the American public.

With Roe v. Wade in 1973, leftists leveraged a sympathetic U.S. Supreme Court to force nearly a half-century of unregulated abortion onto a country that was – and still is – deeply divided on the procedure.

In 2015, leftists used the same playbook to mandate same-sex marriage nationwide via Obergefell v. Hodges.

In the age of Trump, however, judicial activism has become an even more flagrant problem.

Last year, then-candidate Trump was frequently forced to split his time between the campaign trail and the courtroom as he fended off contrived criminal indictments and lawsuits, nearly all of which were conveniently presided over by liberal judges.

At the same time, radical judges in Colorado and Illinois – and Maine’s Democratic secretary of state – attempted to strip voters of their right to decide the presidential election by removing Trump’s name from the ballot.

Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to quash that authoritarian plot. Unfortunately for the justices, it’s a move they’ve had to repeat several times since the president’s inauguration in January.

In a litany of cases challenging Trump’s various policy changes, rogue district court judges have issued sweeping injunctions blocking him from implementing his agenda nationwide in cases without a class certification – a practice that the U.S. Supreme Court has now admonished as “likely” judicial overreach.

Still, lower court judges are finding other ways to overstep their authority.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, for example, appears to have decided that his court, not the nation’s high court, reigns supreme in the land.

Even after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted his nationwide block on third-country deportations in June, Murphy continued to insist that the Trump administration give six defendant illegal immigrants an opportunity to challenge their removal before deporting them to a third-party country.

That move even rankled liberal Justice Elena Kagan, who had initially sided with Murphy.

“I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed,” Kagan wrote, concurring with the majority that the deportations could proceed.

Yet not even the top court is immune to political activism, it seems.

In her dissent from the court’s ruling against blanket injunctions, liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson described the majority’s decision as “profoundly dangerous.” In her view, containing temporary judicial relief to those requesting it somehow grants the president “unchecked, arbitrary power” and “undermines our constitutional system.”

Jackson’s words were acrimonious enough that Justice Amy Coney Barrett included a stinging rebuke in the court’s ruling.

“We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,” Barrett wrote. “We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial executive while embracing an imperial judiciary.”

An imperial judiciary, indeed.

No, there are no kings in the United States – just a bunch of black-robed activists who seem to have forgotten the difference between “Your Honor” and “Your Majesty.”

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

The commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration is responding to critics of the agency’s recent approvals of COVID-19 vaccines, saying the FDA is involved in a process that takes time.

Dr. Marty Makary urged patience after disclosing that he was aware of research indicating COVID-19 vaccines may cause immune system deregulation and described databases with self-reported adverse events as inadequate to determine harms from vaccines.

“I don’t want people to think that we’re blowing off the safety signal[s] that many people have described,” said Makary, who was speaking on July 14 on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” in an interview that will be released soon.

“I personally know of people who have been injured by the vaccine. I personally know of friends who have lost a loved one from the mRNA COVID vaccine. So I think it is reasonable at this time to say we want good, solid, definitive data, and the conditional, limited approval of the COVID vaccines is in that framework that we want to see a proper dataset come to us so we can take a good look at that data.”

The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines utilize messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology.

The FDA has, for years, cleared updated COVID-19 vaccines on an annual basis despite there being scant or no clinical trial data demonstrating the effectiveness of the shots. Makary and another top FDA official, Dr. Vinay Prasad, announced in May that regulators would not be issuing new licenses for the vaccines for many Americans unless manufacturers ran trials based on clinical endpoints, such as the prevention of symptomatic COVID-19.

They also said that testing showing the vaccines trigger antibodies would be sufficient for the elderly, as well as young people with at least one condition the government says places them at higher risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes.

The FDA subsequently approved, in addition to Novavax’s vaccine, a new next-generation vaccine from Moderna and an updated version of Moderna’s existing vaccine, Spikevax, for the elderly and people with at least one risk factor. The latter approval also came for those at least 6 months of age who have at least one risk factor; previously, the vaccine was available under emergency authorization for younger children.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA’s parent agency, told The Epoch Times in an email that the approval was based on “a targeted review of the vaccine’s data, focused specifically on protecting children at highest risk” and that the approval “reflects a careful evaluation of the scientific evidence.” Moderna officials said the vaccines provide an important tool to protect people against severe disease and hospitalization. Critics said the FDA should not have cleared the vaccines.

“This move puts America’s children at high risk and is a giant step backward for science-based healthcare,” Dr. Joseph Varon, president and chief medical officer of the Independent Medical Alliance, said in a statement, citing concerns about side effects such as heart inflammation, or myocarditis.

Makary said in the EpochTV interview that “we have a situation whereby we would love these companies to run a proper randomized, controlled trial. And so if you do nothing—if you reject the COVID vaccines as they come to you for approval—then you have no leverage to be able to ask the company to do that, and those studies may never be done.”

The FDA does not itself run trials, and trials are large and expensive, the commissioner said. He noted that the original trials ran several years ago and said new ones should be done to show parents whether their children really need an annual COVID-19 vaccine.

Makary and Prasad wrote in a recent viewpoint that “the burden of proof must be high to vaccinate healthy people at low risk of severe disease” and that the FDA “authorizes specific indications for use only when there is substantial confidence that benefits outweigh risks.”

While doctors can administer COVID-19 vaccines and other drugs for unapproved purposes, or off-label, they urged doctors who choose to vaccinate young males—the population at highest risk of myocarditis—to consider factors such as recent COVID-19 infection and the risk of myocarditis before administering the shots.

Makary also said on EpochTV that there’s one stance for healthy people and another when it comes to people with a risk factor, such as people with cancer.

“We are going to be OK with the COVID vaccines in high-risk Americans, which is a much more limited indication,” he said.

He added later: “For people who think that we approved a COVID vaccine for, say, healthy children, that’s incorrect. That’s not true.”

Makary also highlighted how the FDA just expanded the warnings for myocarditis for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, both of which utilize mRNA technology, based on a safety study the FDA completed.

The updated labels state that the highest risk for myocarditis is in males aged 12 to 24, with 27 cases per million doses recorded within seven days of a vaccination.

The FDA commissioner then turned to how he knows people who were injured by the COVID-19 vaccine, and knows of deaths among others.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says on its website that several factors explain reports of death after COVID-19 vaccination, including requirements that doctors report any deaths after vaccination to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database, regardless of the cause.

The CDC has also said that the only post-vaccination deaths caused by the vaccines were from the now-discontinued Johnson & Johnson vaccine. According to an Epoch Times investigation, the CDC found evidence, such as autopsies, that the available vaccines caused other deaths while looking into deaths reported to VAERS.

The CDC also says that certain side effects, such as myocarditis, are caused by the vaccines but that most side effects reported after COVID-19 vaccination are rare, and until recently, it recommended that all people aged 6 months and older receive an annual shot. The agency removed recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women to get a COVID-19 vaccine under orders from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Makary said he believes vaccine injuries are real and that some cases designated as long COVID, or lingering effects from a COVID-19 infection, were actually caused by vaccination.

“I’m not saying that’s all of them. I don’t want people to read too much into that. But I would like people to be patient with us as we try to approach this methodologically, collecting the proper data,” he said. “It is easy to react. I was very angry when I learned that a friend’s father had died from the COVID vaccine. And look, we’re convinced it was causal until proven otherwise. You can always nitpick and say, ‘Well, this could have been a random event,’ but no, there are many reasons why we are confident that it was causal. Now, when I say we are not the FDA, but me and my circle of friends and loved ones who know this individual who lost their father.

“So people have a right to be angry. They have been deceived on different aspects of the COVID pandemic. They have been ordered to march into a vaccine line even if they were healthy and low-risk and already had circulating antibodies. People have a right to be upset, but I would ask people to be patient with us as we do this the proper scientific way.”

From tech moguls to retail tycoons, the richest person in each U.S. state reflects the industries driving wealth across the country.

Some are household names, while others have built quiet fortunes in their home states.

This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, shows the richest person in U.S. every state and their estimated net worth, as ranked by Forbes.

Net worths are calculated as of April 25, 2025.

Who is the Richest Person in Every State?

Below, we show the richest person in each U.S. state, their estimated net worth, city of residence, and industry.

Elon Musk is the richest person in Texas, and the world, after moving to the Lone Star State from California in 2020. The Tesla CEO has an estimated net worth of about $338 billion.

Other high-profile business leaders who are the richest individuals of their respective state include Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in California with an estimated net worth of $189 billion, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in Florida with $206 billion, and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett in Nebraska with $165 billion.

Other notable tech leaders on the map include former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in Washington with a net worth of $118 billion. He overtook his former boss, Bill Gates, after Forbes revised its estimate of the 2021 divorce settlement awarded to Gates’ ex-wife, Melinda French Gates.

In all but three states (Alaska, Delaware, and West Virginia), the richest individual was at least a billionaire.

Brad Smith, the retired CEO of Intuit and current president of Marshall University of West Virginia is almost at the billionaire mark, with an estimated $900 million net worth.

To learn more about some of the richest areas of the U.S., check out this graphic that visualizes the top U.S. cities by number of centi-millionaire residents.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

The High Court has lifted a super-injunction obtained by the UK government that had concealed a massive £7 billion secret resettlement program for thousands of Afghan nationals, following a damning judgment that accused ministers of suppressing democratic accountability and misleading Parliament.

The injunction, originally imposed in September 2023, blocked not only media reporting on a major data breach involving thousands of Afghan collaborators with British forces, but also the very existence of the injunction itself. Now, nearly two years later, Mr. Justice Chamberlain ruled that the order must be discharged, citing “serious interference” with press freedom and a failure to justify continued secrecy.

The leak, which occurred in early 2022, exposed personal details of tens of thousands of Afghans who had applied to relocate to the UK following the Taliban takeover. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) learned of the breach more than a year later, in August 2023, when names appeared on Facebook. Instead of acknowledging the error, the government initiated a covert admissions scheme to bring thousands of affected individuals — and their families — to Britain, while silencing any media inquiry under the cover of national security.

With the approval of family reunification for all those affected, the true number of Afghans imported into Britain could be significantly higher than the number directly affected by the data breach.

During closed hearings, Mr. Justice Chamberlain expressed alarm over the scale of the deception. At a behind-closed-doors hearing in November 2024, reported on Tuesday by The Telegraph, he remarked, “When you are dealing with public expenditure of that magnitude — £7 billion — it’s not possible to lose that amount of money down the back of the sofa.” He went on to highlight internal communications in which government officials discussed using a statement to Parliament as “cover” for the scheme, rather than providing full disclosure.

“Am I going bonkers? This is a very, very striking thing,” the judge said. “The statement to Parliament will ‘provide cover’. It is a completely unprecedented situation.”

The judge condemned the use of the courts to facilitate what barrister Jude Bunting KC called a deliberate effort “to mislead the public.” The super-injunction, Bunting argued, prevented public scrutiny on key political issues such as immigration and public spending: “It is corrosive of democracy. It prevents the public from being informed about the reason for billions of expenditure, at a time when immigration is at the forefront of debate.”

Mr. Justice Chamberlain echoed this concern, saying the order had “the effect of completely shutting down the ordinary mechanisms of accountability which operate in a democracy.” He added: “It not only prevents public discussion of the full reasons for the government’s policy. It prevents the public from knowing of the very existence of the policy.”

As reported by The Times, he told the government’s barrister at one of the secret hearings, “You’re going to have to say something about all of this, because you’re spending £7 billion and you’re letting in many thousands of people that you wouldn’t have been letting in before.”

The U.K. newspaper noted: “Almost 24,000 Afghans affected by the breach have been brought to the UK already or will be in the future.”

Despite the magnitude, the government had not informed the public, Parliament, or even many of the individuals whose data was leaked until now.

The judgment published on Tuesday also criticized the way intelligence assessments had been used to justify the injunction. In a review that ultimately led to the order’s lifting, a retired civil servant concluded that the leaked dataset posed only marginal risk to individuals and that the Taliban were unlikely to use it to identify targets. The judge found this “fundamentally undermines the evidential basis” for continued secrecy.

Super-injunctions, usually associated with celebrities, were never intended to shield vast immigration schemes from public oversight. “When the government obtains one,” Chamberlain said, “it is likely to give rise to understandable suspicion that the Court’s processes are being used for the purposes of censorship.”

In the wake of the judgment, the government has been forced to admit that the data leak occurred in 2022 but was not publicly acknowledged until now; that it included a database of 33,000 records; that a new secret relocation program was launched in response, moving thousands of foreign nationals to Britain; and that the individual responsible for the leak has not been publicly identified or disciplined.

In Parliament on Tuesday, Defence Secretary John Healey offered a “sincere apology” and confirmed that affected individuals were only informed this week, over three years after their data had been exposed.

While the government has now applied for a narrower injunction to prevent publication of sensitive personal data, the broader secrecy has been irreversibly broken. As Mr. Justice Chamberlain concluded, “There is no tenable basis for the continuation of the super-injunction. This is particularly so given the serious interference it involves with the rights of the media defendants to freedom of expression and the correlative right of the public to receive the information they wish to impart.”

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