Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested five suspected child predators during an operation in Omaha, Nebraska, between Aug. 12 and 14, the agency said in an Aug. 20 statement.

The undercover operation was carried out by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Omaha unit together with state and local partners. Among the five arrested and charged, three had prior convictions for sexual crimes against children and were also listed on sex offender registries, the agency said.

If convicted on the new charges, these three individuals could face enhanced penalties, likely adding 10 more years to any sentence.

ICE said the HSI is “delivering on President Trump and Secretary Mullin’s mandate to protect America’s children.”

More than 5,000 child predators and human traffickers have been arrested since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, according to an Aug. 18 White House statement.

Trump has backed law enforcement agencies and empowered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to “hunt predators instead of political targets,” the White House said.

In its recent statement, ICE said that one of the arrested individuals, Bryan Dady, 48, a U.S. citizen, has been listed in Nebraska’s sex offender registry for a 2023 conviction for enticing a 9-year-old girl. The person was also arrested in January this year on new charges alleging the grooming and enticement of a 13-year-old.

Another individual, Jocsan Aparicio Santos, 39, a Mexican citizen with lawful permanent residency in the United States, is currently on a sex offender registry for a 2010 conviction linked to assaulting a 15-year-old girl.

A third individual, Logan Trigg, 29, an American citizen, is also on a sex offender registry for a conviction related to sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl.

The fourth person, Law Eh, 39, a naturalized American from Burma, also known as Myanmar, was charged with possessing files containing child sexual abuse material, while the fifth, Tillian Hutton, 25, another U.S. citizen, is facing charges of sex trafficking children.

All five suspects intended to engage in sexual acts with children, according to ICE.

“These cases are not hypothetical; they show a real demand for the sexual exploitation of children in our community,” HSI Kansas City Special Agent in Charge Rick Sabatini said in the statement.

“They show why law enforcement must continue to identify and disrupt offenders before they have the opportunity to harm a child.”

According to ICE, the HSI Omaha Metro Juvenile Sex Trafficking Task Force has obtained 21 federal convictions for sex trafficking children since 2021.

The Epoch Times reached out to the public attorneys representing the charged individuals but did not receive any response by publication time.

Child Trafficking, Exploitation

According to data from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, it received more than 113,500 reports of potential child sex trafficking last year, a 323 percent increase from 2024.

A child can be trafficked by family members, strangers, and gangs. In some cases, exploitation of children may not involve any trafficking. Instead, the children may be offered food, money, or shelter in exchange for sexual engagement.

Some of the risk factors of child trafficking include intergenerational sexual abuse, low self-esteem, substance abuse, gang activity, and developmental or physical disabilities, the center said.

Legislative actions have been taken to address the issue of child exploitation. On June 10, Trump signed the Secure America Act into law, which contained a provision to combat child exploitation.

The provision provided the Department of Homeland Security with $108.5 million to hire 200 new child exploitation investigators and analysts, according to a June 9 statement from the office of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who introduced the provision.

Before the legislation was in place, Homeland Security employed seven full-time specialists to identify child exploitation victims, the statement said.

“That’s two hundred new law enforcement officers to find and rescue kids trafficked by predators and a new initiative to coordinate local, state, and federal enforcement,” Hawley said in the statement. “This is the biggest surge against online child exploitation ever by the federal government. It’s time to rescue these kids.”

In an unrelated operation, the U.S. Marshals Service said on Aug. 10 that 48 missing children from Massachusetts were rescued during a multi-agency operation tied to the FIFA World Cup.

The agency said the rescued children were between 12 and 17 years old. Several of them were found outside state borders after investigators tracked leads across the country and to multiple states. The children have since been reunited with their families or referred to child welfare and victim services, the service said.

In another major operation conducted in April, Operation Iron Pursuit, the FBI targeted alleged child exploitation predators across the United States. The effort led to the rescue of more than 200 child victims and the arrests of more than 350 individuals, the FBI said in a May 15 statement.

An earlier effort, the two-week Operation Relentless Justice conducted in December, resulted in 205 child victims being located and 293 alleged offenders being arrested.

China has firmly rejected Washington’s call to join in implementing US sanctions to “squash” Iran’s economy, pushing back against Trump administration pressure to be part of the “toughest sanctions in history” which has marked a new phase of conflict focused on extended economic warfare, as a military solution is seen as increasingly unrealistic and unlikely.

“Regarding the Iran issue, sanctions and pressure do not help resolve the problem,” Reuters quoted a representative of the Chinese Embassy in Washington as saying. The White House’s new plan is to include heavy reliance on international pressure on external countries to impose extreme isolation on the Islamic Republic.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said the same to reporters Friday in a regular briefing. “China calls on all relevant parties to take responsible measures and resolve the problem through political and diplomatic means,” he said.

Asked specifically about the latest comments of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Lin emphasized the need for all parties to take “responsible measures” in resolving the war. “China opposes illegal unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law and are not authorized by the UN Security Council,” Lin said.

Bessent had on Thursday told CNBC: “It is a one-two punch. We have ​the blockade (on Iran), and we are going to have the toughest sanctions in history.” He then vowed, “It is going to work in Iran and we are going to collapse this ⁠regime.”

He further invoked some (infamous) words of President George W. Bush issued to allies in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. “You are either with us, or against us,” Bessent said in the interview. “This is going to be the greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world.”

Such back-and-white rhetoric is very unlikely to sway the Chinese, given also that of course they know what happened next after that original proclamation by Bush – American forces got stuck in no less than two quagmires in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq, in what came to be viewed cynically as ‘forever wars’. 

What’s more as the blowback in Baghdad was pretty immediate, as a key unintended consequence of the US regime change war was the ascendancy of pro-Iran Shia politicians ruling Iraq. Beijing is all too aware of the US score card in the region, even as Washington decision-makers continue ignoring the glaring lessons of recent history.

Bessent seemed perplexed at the reaction in oil prices on Thursday, while he also said that discussions with Beijing would be best done in private:

“I think oil markets are misinterpreting what this economic pressure ​means,” Bessent said on Thursday. Oil ​prices climbed to more ⁠than three-week highs on Thursday.

“We have asymmetric information, and I’m not sure why oil has popped up on this,“ Bessent said. “If we are doing the maximum economic ​pressure, then that means that likely there will not be a large-scale kinetic ​restart.”

When asked ⁠if the U.S. could target China for doing business with Iran, Bessent said many conversations were best to have in private.

“We are confident that everyone wants the Strait (of Hormuz) reopened, and for energy prices to come back down,” ⁠he continued. “Keep ​in mind that the Chinese get 50% (of their) energy from ​inside the Gulf. So it would do them a big service to get with the program.“

Still, Bessent has been busy doubling-down on Trump’s message shift this week (opting for an economic siege warfare ‘solution’ as after military strategy hasn’t gone so well)…

Any remaining tie to Tehran will hasten a nation’s economic oblivion, whether that tie be purposefully constructed or willfully ignored. pic.twitter.com/T3vticluAg

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) August 20, 2026

Tehran has been consistently saying that is is ready for a long war, whether that come in the form of more US-Israeli bombs, or else an economic siege. Even Reuters has acknowledged the obvious in its own coverage, saying “Iran has weathered punishing economic sanctions for nearly 50 years, since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.“

“Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi called Trump’s comments an attempt to divert American public opinion from domestic financial problems, including record debt and rising interest rates,” the report added.

There’s an additional important factor. At this point there’s no way that the two key UN Security Council permanent members Russia and China will sign off on any big new anti-Iran sanctions regimen brought before the United Nations.

Closer to home, the White House risks more China blowback, especially with President Xi Jinping slated to visit the US next month. Bloomberg poses the following in Friday analysis:

“Is the White House willing to prioritize this new economic warfare campaign above its China relationship? And if it chooses to, there are serious ramifications,” said Chris Kennedy, an economic statecraft analyst at Bloomberg Economics. Kennedy said the new threats are also an “admission that the US is running out of options.”

Any decision to hit China would risk worsening tensions just weeks before Trump hosts Xi for the Chinese leader’s first visit to Washington in a decade. It also raises the threat of Chinese countermeasures that could inflict pain on the US economy ahead of November midterm elections that will hinge on pocketbook issues.

Beijing has already demonstrated a willingness to push back against Trump, most notably by announcing export restrictions on rare earths that forced the White House into a climbdown from their tariff fight.

Meanwhile, more pushback against this week’s Axios report saying that large quantities of oil are moving through the Strait of Hormuz via a US Navy established ‘stealth’ corridor:

Why aren’t the Iranians attacking more ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz to inflict more pain on the US? Why are they so copacetic about it? According to this level-headed (run it through Google translate) analysis by Iran’s official news agency, the US is lying about the… pic.twitter.com/K6A8tgLojB

— Borzou Daragahi 🖊🗒 (@borzou) August 20, 2026

On Friday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that Iran will “under no circumstances bow to bullying.” But he also struck somewhat of a conciliatory tone, perhaps signaling Iran is still open to dialogue so long as Washington is willing to compromise.

“It would be better to end the war today, now that we are strong and have dignity, with the whole world acknowledging our victory,” the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency quoted him as saying.

At least 15 have been killed and 121 injured after a Friday afternoon apparent Russian drone strike on a busy shopping call in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, regional officials say. Casualty numbers could grow amid ongoing search and rescue efforts at the scene. Some of the injured are in serious condition.

President Zelensky quickly issued a statement on the attack which was carried out on his own hometown, calling it “cynical and despicable” and underscoring that it was “an ordinary shopping center”.

Zelensky described that the strikes came in two waves, with the second drone hitting “half an hour after the first hit and the ensuing fire, there was a second strike on the emergency services. He urged for the “the world” to respond “accordingly – with real pressure on the aggressor.”

“Attacks like these are nothing less than terrorist acts,” Zelensky wrote further, and pledged a strong response to the aggression.

According to The Associated Press, the same city has suffered immensely from prior attack waves stretching throughout the war:

Local administration head Oleksandr Vilkul put the death toll at 14, adding that 121 people were injured, including 22 children. He said the rescue operation was ongoing as “the rubble is being cleared.”

Kryvyi Rih has been hit multiple times during the more than 4-year-old war, with one of the deadliest occurring in April 2025, when 20 people, including nine children, were killed.

Multiple videos have emerged from the scene, showing what appear to be a Geran-4 (jet-powered) drone attack…

Kryvyi Rih right now ‼️

This is the largest shopping mall in the city, Russia keeps attacking it on busy Friday afternoon.

At least 2 people reported killed, at least 12 injured. Continues strikes prevent resquers from helping the victims! pic.twitter.com/s4VJwtrktF

— Kate from Kharkiv (@BohuslavskaKate) August 21, 2026

The Ukrainians have all the while pressured Western backers to give more anti-air missiles, especially Patriot batteries, which have been in short supply worldwide, also amid the Iran war in the Middle East.

Ukraine’s own deadly long-range attacks deep inside Russian territory have continued, meanwhile.

“A Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and wounded four others when a car was struck Friday in Russia’s Belgorod region near the village of Razumnoye, local officials said, adding that two of the injured were in serious condition,” AP also notes.

The death toll in Kryvyi Rih has climbed since initial reports began circulating:

🇷🇺⚡️🇺🇦 ⚠️ Russian Geran-4 jet-powered drones struck the Sun Gallery Mall in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, killing at least 5 civilians and injuring more than 90 others. pic.twitter.com/ayIWIt5meT

— #Inside_News (@insider_der) August 21, 2026

“Earlier, Zelenskyy said a separate Ukrainian drone attack hit an oil refinery in Perm, more than 1,600 kilometers (about 995 miles) from his country’s border. Also struck was the Marinovka military airfield in Russia’s Volgograd region, he said,” the report adds.

Washington is lately calling for renewed efforts to get the warring sides to the negotiating table to finally end the war. The Kremlin on Friday said it is open to ‘new ideas’ – though any final settlement must be in line with Putin’s demands as well as “realities on the ground”.

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

FBI agents foiled an alleged ISIS-inspired bomb plot on the New York State Capitol on Aug. 19 that they say was concocted by a local woman who had pledged allegiance to the terrorist group earlier this year.

Jessica Bowie, 35, was captured by surveillance while doing reconnaissance on the New York Capitol in an undated photo. U.S. Department of Justice

Jessica Bowie, 35, of Albany, New York, was formally charged on Aug. 20 with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

The FBI discovered and stopped the alleged plot, which included a plan to kill state senators and destroy the building, the statement said.

“As alleged, Bowie plotted to deploy an explosive device at the New York State Capitol, intending to kill public officials and to destroy ‘as much of the building as possible’ before fleeing to ISIS‑controlled territory in Syria,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said in a statement.

The New York State Capitol, built between 1867 and 1899, houses the governor’s office, the state Legislature, and the famous Million Dollar Staircase.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on X that she was grateful the FBI and the New York State Police made the arrest. The state strengthened security at the Capitol and across the government after a rise in violence and threats against public officials this year, she said.

“While there is no immediate threat at this time, we will continue working closely with our law enforcement partners to protect New Yorkers and keep our communities safe,” Hochul said in her post.

FBI Special Agent Joshua Parker, assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Albany, detailed the investigation into Bowie’s alleged plans in the court complaint.

Bowie converted to Islam about five years ago and adopted the Islamic name “Aisha Saif,” Parker said.

She also used social media to spread anti-American messages using a dozen profiles, he said.

Jessica Bowie is seen on store surveillance buying items that authorities say were meant to build an explosive device. U.S. Department of Justice

Between May and July, prosecutors said several of her accounts praised Allah for the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York in 2001 and allegedly also said she wanted to poison infidels. She also allegedly relayed other messages supporting terrorism, according to the FBI.

On May 28, Bowie posted messages indicating she had pledged allegiance to the ISIS terrorist group and to people who engage in jihad, which can mean “violence” when used by the terrorist organization and its members, according to Parker.

Authorities allege Bowie planned the attack on the New York State Capitol from about July 16 to Aug. 17.

An FBI confidential source posing as an ISIS facilitator spoke with Bowie through a messaging app, according to the complaint. Bowie allegedly discussed her plans to attack the building in Albany over the next two weeks.

On July 16, an FBI source acting as an ISIS facilitator asked Bowie about her views, and she allegedly told him “jihad is an obligation until the day of judgment.”

That same day, Bowie allegedly asked for help on another social media platform to carry out the attack and later described the location as the state Capitol.

Parker said Bowie also mentioned she wanted to fly to Syria to join other ISIS-controlled territories.

Bowie then pledged her allegiance to the leader of ISIS on July 17 and surveilled the Capitol, walking around the building on five occasions between July 21 and Aug. 9, according to court documents.

Messages sent later suggested Bowie allegedly wanted to destroy as much of the building as possible and kill state senators while they were meeting. Investigators say she also wanted to destroy a lot of important documents.

The New York Capitol in Albany on June 20, 2023. Hans Pennink/AP Photo

Investigators recorded Bowie at a home improvement store where she allegedly purchased about $200 worth of items to create a bomb on Aug. 5.

FBI informants met again with Bowie in a car on Aug. 19 when they say she told them she was ready to carry out the attack.

“Bowie also told [a paid FBI informant] that she went from a little girl waving an American flag after 9/11 to now having stickers of the fallen towers,” Parker wrote in the complaint.

She left the meeting with a firearm, magazine, and ammunition, and a fake explosive device in her bag. She was arrested by the FBI as she exited the car, according to the complaint.

The complaint says Bowie told FBI agents after her arrest, “There’s no helping me, you guys know enough, there’s no helping me, I’m … going to prison for the rest of my life.”

Bowie remains in federal custody at the Schenectady County Jail and was not reachable for comment.

She faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and a lifetime term of supervised release if convicted.

Her lawyers at the Federal Public Defender’s Office in the Northern District of New York didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

After the market learned in late July that Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness hedge fund had blown up under too much Total Return Swap and option leverage (as we had warned a month earlier would happen), the next big question facing investors was: how long would Citadel keep the positions it bought from Leopold (at a huge market and transactional discount – recall Citadel only agreed to purchase the public book at a 10% discount off what was already a badly beaten down price), and would Ken Griffen prove to be as firm a believer in the AI theme as the prior, 24-some year old owner of stocks such as Bloom Energy, Sandisk, Micron, Taiwan Semi and Nebius.

We got the answer from Griffin himself earlier today when the Citadel CEO said in a letter to investors that Citadel has sold most, or more than 80%, of the portfolio it took on from buying the majority of Situational Awareness’s stock bets last month after the AI-focused hedge fund was nearly toppled by the recent tech sell-off.

“To date, we have successfully shed more than 80% of the aggregate risk from the original portfolio” Ken Griffin wrote in the letter that rushed to make it clear he has zero intentions of holding the extremely volatile memory and other chip stocks longer than was absolutely necessary. 

Ken Griffin to his investors in a letter, three weeks after buying Leopold Aschenbrenner’s portfolio:

“We have now successfully shed more than 80% of the aggregate risk from the original portfolio. We completed nearly 100 block trades totaling over $4 billion”

this is CNBC on… https://t.co/WyBAMvd9tG pic.twitter.com/dK7llJOdUP

— bodila (@51bodila) August 21, 2026

Griffin also said that he has “completed nearly 100 block trades totaling over $4b in market value ” adding that the trades included the “largest intraday block trades of the year.”

Why block trades? Because as Leopold’s liquidation demonstrated, the only reason why his stocks exploded as high as they did, is because they are abysmally illiquid and Situational Awareness – with the help of lots of leverage – ended up being the only size buyer of his own stocks! Of course, we all saw what happened when it then flipped to size seller, much to Ken Griffin’s delight.”

Which was only possible because the stocks in his portfolio were catastrophically illiquid

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 14, 2026

“Over our nearly thirty-six-year history, we have prided ourselves on being front-footed and proactive during periods of market dislocation,” Griffin wrote in the letter.

Said otherwise, after making several billions dollar in profit on Leopold’s momentum darling liquidation, Citadel is now almost fully out, and has largely closed the trade, leaving other momo chasers to re-engage with what Griffin clearly did not view as “value stocks.”

“A transaction of this magnitude could not have been completed without the extraordinary cooperation of the trading and prime brokerage teams at the banks serving both firms,” Griffin wrote in the Friday letter to clients. “I am grateful for the focused effort they brought to the rapid transfer of the portfolio.

Citadel’s Wellington fund finished up the month 5.94%, YTD up 12%, with half of the YTD upside thanks to Leopold’s distressed liquidation. Most of Citadel’s rivals lost money in July.

Citadel’s sudden, last minute swoop for the Situational Awareness stock portfolio marked one of the largest rescue deals in Wall Street history, and a dramatic episode in a rollercoaster period for equities as investors rushed into stocks linked to AI before being gripped by anxiety that the boom in the sector was overblown, as the FT put it. The weeks-long sell-off of tech stocks in July spurred widespread pain on Wall Street. Situational Awareness, the hedge fund run by 24-year-old OpenAI alumnus Leopold Aschenbrenner, emerged as its biggest casualty.

Aschenbrenner, who was fired by OpenAI, boasted extensive connections in Silicon Valley and was hailed by some as a prodigy and the “Nostradamus of AI”.

As he faced losses in July’s sell-off, Aschenbrenner first tried to raise additional funds through individual asset sales, but then pivoted to selling the majority of his stock holdings to Griffin’s firm in a deal that was pulled together in just 24 hours.

Citadel purchased the positions at a roughly 10 per cent discount, the FT has previously reported, betting that it could afford to hold the stocks until the market steadied. Shares of Situational Awareness’s biggest holdings, including chipmakers Sandisk and Micron, quickly recovered, giving Griffin a window to turn a rapid profit.

Griffin’s rescue was also a self-fulfilling prophecy. Griffin’s agreement to buy Aschenbrenner’s stock book stymied fears of more forced selling on Wall Street, which helped to boost share prices across the tech industry. Ironically, the very same boost that was sparked by confidence that the selling was now over, is what allowed Griffin to quietly unwind the same stocks he had acquired, for billions in profit.

Griffin rarely writes letters to investors. His message this week was a testament to the extraordinary nature of the rapid deal he cut with Situational Awareness last month.

“Over our nearly thirty-six-year history, we have prided ourselves on being front-footed and proactive during periods of market dislocation,” Griffin wrote. The firm’s flagship fund was up 6 per cent in July, while many of its rivals lost money or were relatively flat.

“Only Citadel could have delivered a solution of this scale on this timeline,” he added.

Authored by Emel Akan via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump appeared on Michael Cohen’s radio show and commended his former attorney for recanting his previous statements.

Their conversation marked a surprising thaw years after their relationship collapsed amid public feuds and legal battles. Part of the interview with Cohen’s show “When You Know, You Know” aired on 770 WABC Radio at 6 p.m. Thursday. The rest will be released on Aug. 23.

“They weaponized you. They weaponized a lot of people,” Trump told Cohen. “I respect the fact that you recanted everything you said, and that’s a big thing that you did.”

“You’re going to go down as a man of courage, great courage, because you did something that a lot of people wouldn’t have the guts to do,” Trump told Cohen.

“I guarantee your family greatly respects what you did.”

This was Cohen’s first public conversation with Trump in eight years.

Cohen shared a Substack article that served as a recollection of the public feud the two had, which included Cohen’s testifying against Trump in his New York City criminal trial in 2024. Cohen served as one of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s star witnesses, alleging the president was involved in a plan to pay off a former adult film actress, Stormy Daniels, during his 2016 campaign.

“Eight years of silence. Hundreds of thousands of headlines. Fifteen years of history fractured in an instant, and somehow, against almost every expectation, here we are,” Cohen wrote.

Ever since he announced that Trump would appear on his radio show, Cohen stated that his inbox became a “digital battlefield.”

“It has been flooded with hatred, anger, disbelief, and some of the most spectacularly vicious things imaginable,” Cohen wrote.

In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations, tax evasion, bank fraud, and lying to Congress. He completed his sentence and supervision requirements in November 2021.

Speaking to Politico on Aug. 19, Cohen answered a question about whether he would seek a presidential pardon.

“We’ll see,” he said in response. “Will I make that request down the road? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.”

Trump, who was convicted in a jury trial on 34 counts of falsifying business records, denied the charges against him and pleaded not guilty. He has long said that the Manhattan district attorney’s case and cases that were brought against him in Georgia, Washington, and Florida were a “political witch hunt.”

The judge who oversaw the case, Juan Merchan, sentenced Trump to an unconditional discharge in January 2025, about two months after Trump won reelection.

In his first term, Trump often criticized Cohen in response to claims his former lawyer made about him, writing on X in 2018, “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!”

During the interview with Cohen, Trump also talked about the economy, Venezuela, and the Iran conflict.

He said that if he ran again, “I think I’d win by 25 points.”

“The economy has never been stronger,” the president said.

Regarding Iran, Trump said, “It’s not easy to make a deal” with the regime.

“Nobody knows who’s leading,” he said.

Trump also defended his military decisions, telling Cohen, “I would have done it again a hundred times.”

ActBlue co-founder Matt DeBergalis sat before the Committee on House Administration, the House Oversight Committee, and the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday and declined to answer a single substantive question during a closed-door deposition that reportedly lasted less than half an hour. DeBergalis invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and left. DeBergalis joins a growing list of ActBlue executives who have chosen silence over testimony as Republicans dig into whether the Democratic Party’s primary fundraising platform let foreign money slip into American campaigns.

ActBlue has raised roughly $20 billion for Democratic candidates and liberal causes since its founding.

House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil opened the Committee’s investigation into ActBlue in 2023. The original complaint centered on a simple but significant security gap: ActBlue did not require a credit card CVV number to process donations. This policy made it easy to run stolen or fabricated card numbers through the platform undetected. 

“ActBlue executives and staff are aware that both foreign and domestic fraudulent actors are exploiting the platform but do not take the threat seriously,” a committee report released in April 2025 concluded. ActBlue rejects that characterization, and has called the investigation politically motivated and denies breaking any law.

Whether the platform has genuinely tightened its standards since then is the question Steil says he still cannot answer. In an interview with Fox News ahead of Thursday’s deposition, he laid out the committee’s core uncertainty. “It’s unclear how serious ActBlue is now taking fraud,” Steil said. “We know that they weakened their fraud standards previously. Did they make the changes that are needed to root out foreign funds from coming into U.S. Elections?”

DeBergalis is not the first ActBlue official to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights. ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones previously pleaded the Fifth during a public hearing before the House Administration Committee In June.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan pressed her directly on a figure attributed to her own board chairman. “Your board chairman said ActBlue accepted up to $38 million in contributions in 2024 that had the signs of foreign origin,” Jordan said. “How much fraud is too much for all?”

Wallace-Jones declined to answer.

“What is so frustrating for me, and I think countless others – they have a right to not answer our questions,” Steil said. “But I think the American people also have a right to know exactly what’s taking place on this platform that has raised roughly $20 billion for Democratic candidates and liberal causes since its creation,” he said.

ActBlue board chairwoman Kimberly Peeler-Allen offered the closest thing to a public defense back in April, when she told The New York Times that “less than 1%” of contributions during the 2024 cycle showed signs of foreign origin, a cycle in which ActBlue raised $3.82 billion. That percentage, applied to a number that large, still lands somewhere in the tens of millions of dollars, which is roughly the figure Jordan cited to Wallace-Jones two months later. ActBlue’s own lawyer, Vincent Cohen, wrote to the committee chairs that same April, defending the platform’s technical safeguards and insisting the organization “built a robust platform with anti-fraud technology.”

The Justice Department is also investigating whether ActBlue adequately policed fraud on its donation portal. ActBlue maintains it has done nothing wrong and frames the entire multi-committee, multi-agency effort as a partisan exercise aimed at hobbling the left’s most important fundraising infrastructure ahead of the midterms.

That defense gets harder to sustain each time a key person from ActBlue, who has knowledge of the platform’s internal decisions, won’t answer questions by invoking their constitutional right against self-incrimination.

A mob of liberal women decked out in pink is taking to the streets in front of the Plymouth Superior Courthouse in Plymouth, Massachusetts for a rally in support of Lindsay Clancy during her ongoing murder trial.  The group, which is often accused of being “terminally online”, has been invading social media discussions for weeks to inject arguments in defense of Clancy, who confessed to the murder of her three helpless children. 

Now, these women (and a few beta husbands) are going offline and showing up en masse to explain why Lindsay Clancy should go free. 

Hundreds of Lindsay Clancy supporters, many wearing pink with the words “Believe,” “She Needed Help” and “Peace For Lindsay,” gathered Thursday outside the courthouse.  Several of the women said Clancy’s story resonated with them and that they wanted to raise awareness about how the mental health system treats women.

Clancy’s lawyer does not dispute that she killed the children, but says she should not be held criminally responsible because she was mentally ill and suffering from “postpartum psychosis.”  

Lindsay Clancy brutally strangled her 3 kids to death

Current scene outside the courthouse: pic.twitter.com/LC6do0LdzT

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) August 20, 2026

This defense claim is highly strategic.  Contrary to the arguments of leftists, in the past women have often received lighter sentences or escaped prison time by exploiting an insanity plea.  In studies on postpartum in murder cases, around half of women child killers got a “Not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity” verdict after claiming postpartum psychosis as the cause. 

Those are good odds.

The message among feminists is clear:  Women are perpetual victims, therefore they cannot be convicted as predators.  In the liberal mythos, women are pure and devoid of masculine evil, and thus, when they commit atrocities it is only because the system forced them to do so, or because the system broke them and drove them insane.  

HAPPENING NOW: A sea of Lindsay Clancy supporters dressed in pink gathered outside Plymouth Superior Court Thursday morning as the Duxbury mother’s murder trial nears a pivotal moment. pic.twitter.com/Vcitza3pQp

— Boston 25 News (@boston25) August 20, 2026

In other words, there can be no structure of justice for female criminals, because in the minds of feminists, there are no female criminals (except female conservatives). 

The postpartum argument is held up as if it is proof of innocence, but in reality, it suggests that the person is even more dangerous than a typical criminal.  If an otherwise unassuming woman has the ability to appear absolutely normal and insinuate herself into the lives of others, only to become a bloodthirsty murderer of children at the flip of a switch, then she can never be trusted to enter back into society ever again.  She can never be trusted to have children or go near children again.

The punishment should be more severe, not less.  This is why America used to have a large network of mental hospitals, to keep people like this locked away for good.  Instead, liberal ideology has created an environment in which criminals with the right identity are treated with more empathy than their victims.  

If this continues for much longer, it will mean the downfall of western civilization.

The Lindsay Clancy trial has also become another focal point for what many now call a “plague” on the internet:  Amateur Detective Wine-Moms (ADWMs).  

Conspiracy theories on social media, spread by these same women, assert that Lindsay Clancy is actually a “patsy” and that her husband is the killer.  Even though numerous pieces of evidence including surveillance footage and cell phone tracking shows Clancy’s husband at a local CVS pharmacy at the time of the murder, these women have read hundreds of true crime novels and think they are better investigators than the authorities involved.

Some commenters note that a similar mob of female detectives has been spreading endless conspiracy theories about Tyler Robinson and the murder of Charlie Kirk, even though it’s on record that Robinson confessed to his family, friends and boyfriend that he killed Kirk.  Facts and evidence do not matter to these people. 

The problem has become so pervasive that officials within the legal system are beginning to worry that finding jurors not tainted by online madness will be impossible.  They are calling this problem the “TikTok Jury” and it is growing into a cancer. 

It’s not just the high profile cases anymore, it could be any case that happens to catch the attention of this unhinged brood of hens stalking the internet for new distractions from their meaningless lives.    

HSBC’s Global Commodity Team warned Thursday that the zinc market is flashing warning signs of extreme tightness:

Global zinc mine supply remains tight: HSBC’s Global Commodity Team expects global mine supply to fall 2.1% y-o-y to 12.5mt in 2026, driven mainly by lower production in Latin America.

The zinc market is expected to be slightly tight in 2026e, driven by a modest recovery in demand in Europe and North America amid supply disruptions at smelters and mines.

Overall, concentrate supply remains tight, and there have been smelter disruptions as well. Zinc demand has held up.

Here’s where the physical tightness is emerging: Zinc for immediate delivery on the London Metal Exchange traded at a premium of as much as $132.37 a ton over three-month futures Thursday, the widest backwardation this year.

The spread signals intensifying competition for readily available metal in warehouses. Benchmark zinc rose 1.1% to $3,802 a ton earlier today, putting it on course for a fifth weekly gain and its highest close in four years.

Analysts from Chinese brokerage Jinrui Futures Co. wrote in a note, “There are still concerns about overseas supply disruptions in zinc,” adding, “So the driving forces for the relative strength of the LME price continue to exist, together with heightened volatility around macroeconomic sentiment.”

Beyond zinc, veteran commodities strategist Jeff Currie wrote in a series of X posts Thursday that the convergence of tight physical markets, currency debasement and policy intervention represents the hallmark of a structural commodity bull cycle.

Quantix Commodity Index

Currie told his followers to “Get long and buckle up: the next leg of the ride will see more vol with higher highs across more markets.”

Read the report here.

Days after SK Hynix unveiled a staggering 40 trillion won, or $28.6 billion, “buyback bazooka” aimed at putting a floor under its shares following a sharp six-week selloff, Samsung Electronics joined the capital-return push.

The world’s largest memory-chip maker said Friday that it plans to return as much as 110 trillion won, or $80 billion, to investors this year. The twin announcements suggest the world’s top memory companies are trying to support higher valuations and reward shareholders after memory stocks surrendered some of their blistering first-half gains.

Bloomberg reports that Samsung intends to distribute roughly half of its free cash flow, including 30 trillion won in third-quarter dividends and about 15 trillion won in share repurchases for employee compensation.

Macquarie analyst Daniel Kim summarized Samsung’s capital-return announcement:

What’s new

• Samsung Electronics (SEC) updated its much-anticipated shareholder return program today after the market close. There was no change in the committed return of 50% of cumulative FCF from 2024-26.
• Its BoD is meeting in October to confirm the earlier distribution of promised FCF. So, the 3Q26 quarterly cash dividend payment should amount to Won30tr, including the regular quarterly cash dividend of Won2.45tr.
• In late January 2027, the company should determine the remaining capital return amount, which SEC estimates at Won60-80tr, and the method of distribution.
• SEC remains on our Marquee buy list.

Why it matters

• Still formulating capital return policy. Excluding the cash dividend of Won20.9tr already paid out and the executed share buyback/cancellation of Won8.4tr, the company estimates the remaining capital to be returned to shareholders at Won90-110tr, which includes the 3Q26 Won30tr payout. This is 20-35% lower than our forecast.
• Announced only the common-share repurchase of Won15tr for employee bonuses. Separately, SEC plans to repurchase 53.3mn common shares, or 0.9% of outstanding shares, which would cost Won15tr based on today’s closing price, from 24 Aug. to 21 Nov. The repurchased shares won’t be cancelled and will be paid to employees as bonuses, so they won’t count as part of the shareholder return. Samsung preferred shareholders might be disappointed.
• Ample free cash flow to support a more progressive capital return policy. Our projection shows that its net cash position should amount to Won718tr, or 40% of its market capitalization, by year-end 2027 and Won1,358tr by year-end 2028. We expect it to generate total FCF of Won1,434tr for 2026-28E, so its balance sheet should have ample cash unless the company returns far more cash to shareholders.
• More cash dividends than share buybacks. While SK Hynix’s capital return is more skewed toward share buybacks/cancellations, we expect Samsung’s capital return to consist more of cash dividends than share buybacks. This is partly because Samsung Life (032830KS, not rated) and Samsung F&M (000810KS, not rated) are forced to trim their stakes in SEC under local regulations in the event of significant share retirements by SEC.

What now

• Memory market outlook remains bright. Samsung’s significant cash position could hurt its ROE; accordingly, we see significant upside in its capital returns over the next two years. We believe that its capital return policy should improve steadily over time. The stock is trading at 2x ex-cash 2027E EPS. Outperform.

Shares fell as much as 2.6% in post-market trading after the announcement due to a lack of clarity on how much stock Samsung would repurchase and cancel. Some analysts had anticipated total returns of around 150 trillion won.

Kim Minji, a portfolio manager at Must Asset Management, explained that “some investors have recently expected up to 150 trillion won of shareholder returns, which explains the post-market share action.”

Kang DaeKwun, chief executive officer at Life Asset Management, held views similar to those of Must Asset Management’s Kim, saying the announcement underwhelmed expectations:

• After a local media report that the size of the shareholder return would be up to 150 trillion won, the announcement of up to 110 trillion won is triggering a selloff.
• The announcement met market expectations because Samsung kept its promise to return 50% of free cash flow to shareholders.
• While the market’s attention is on the size of the shareholder return, what is more important is the supply of shares.
• While US Big Tech companies are issuing new shares, South Korea is seeing a lower supply of shares thanks to large-scale shareholder return programs.

Announcements from SK Hynix and Samsung this week show that the management teams of the world’s top memory-chip companies are concerned that momentum in the space has completely evaporated.

“The smart money is moving on,” said Alec Young, chief investment strategist at MoneyFlows, a quant-research firm. “The fact that they have given up a lot of their recent bounce in just a couple days shows that there are a lot of weak hands.”

SanDisk and Western Digital have fallen more than 30% from their peaks, while Micron and Seagate are down roughly 20%, signaling that momentum investors are rotating into other trades, such as the materials and energy stocks we pointed out earlier in the week (read here).