Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Russia became the first country to formally recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan earlier this month.

This development comes at a crucial time for the region: Trump wants to return US forces to Afghanistan’s Bagram Airbase; there are newfound concerns about the North-South Transport Corridor’s (NSTC) viability after the recent Iranian-Israeli War; and Turkiye is making a powerplay to expand its influence into Central Asia.

Here are three background briefings:

* 16 May: “Trump’s Desired Return To Bagram Airbase Could Reshape South Asian Geopolitics”

* 18 June: “Protracted Instability In Iran Could Adversely Affect India’s Strategic Interests”

* 2 July: “Why’d Erdogan Decide To Expand Turkiye’s Sphere Of Influence Eastwards?”

Correspondingly, the direct consequences of this latest development aim to: bolster the Taliban’s resilience to American pressure to once again host US forces; assist in the construction of Kabul’s portion of the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan (PAKAFUZ) railway and/or make a bid for control over it; and rely more upon PAKAFUZ as a complement or even alternative to the NSTC with the tangential benefit of naturally expanding economic influence in Central Asia so as to gently counterbalance Turkiye’s.

It’s here where the economic drivers of this diplomatic decision come into play as detailed below:

* 19 May 2024: “Analyzing The Strategic Importance Of Russia’s Reportedly Planned Afghan Oil Hub”

* 28 May 2024: “Russia Is Preparing To Strategically Partner With The Taliban”

* 27 November 2024: “Russia’s Grand Geo-Economic Plan A Step Closer In Afghanistan”

The gist is that the expansion of Russian economic influence in Afghanistan, the prerequisite of which is formal recognition of the Taliban as that country’s legitimate government, will enable Moscow to pioneer energy and real-sector connectivity with Pakistan’s promising emerging market via Central Asia.

For that to happen, however, Afghan-Pakistani tensions must first abate and Afghan-emanating terrorist threats to the region must be neutralized or at least contained. Here are some briefings about that:

* 16 June 2023: “Russia’s Afghan Point Man Hinted At The Possibility Of Military-Technical Ties With The Taliban”

* 1 September 2024: “The CIA Isn’t Responsible For The Upsurge Of Terrorism In Pakistan’s Balochistan Region”

* 12 February 2025: “Russia Has A Better Chance Of Mediating Afghan-Pakistani Tensions Than China Does”

All in all, the economic, security, diplomatic, and ultimately strategic opportunities unlocked by Russia’s formal recognition of the Taliban will turbocharge its influence in the broader region, which couldn’t have come at a better time given concerns about the NSTC’s viability and impending Turkish-US inroads. The timing of this development is coincidental, but it nevertheless comes at a crucial time for the broader region, thus strengthening Russia’s stakeholder role and increasing its ability to shape events.

In 2024, 60 countries saw their freedom decline in a historic election year.

Strikingly, 40% of countries and territories that held elections experienced targeted attacks on candidates amid heightened instability.

Yet bright spots were seen in Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Syria, driven by political reform.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows the state of freedom by country, based on data from Freedom House.

Global Freedom Continues to Deteriorate

For the 19th year in a row, the state of freedom declined globally.

In particular, freedom declined the most in 2024 for El Salvador, Haiti, and Kuwait. In absolute terms, the Gaza Strip and the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine have among the lowest scores of freedom amid ongoing, violent conflict.

Finland ranks highest globally, supported by a multiparty system that mitigates voter polarization.

Following behind are New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden—each with populations under six million. Notably, only two countries in the top 10 have medium-sized populations: the Netherlands (18 million) and Canada (39 million).

When it comes to the U.S., freedom continued to erode in 2024. In recent years, institutional trust has plunged to near record lows. Political polarization has deepened alongside growing income inequality, further weakening public confidence.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh recorded one of the biggest gains. In 2024, mass protests ousted Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year regime. Under interim leader and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, reforms aimed at curbing corruption and expanding welfare are now underway.

To learn more about this topic from a democratic perspective, check out this graphic on the state of democracy by country in 2024.

Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times,

A new report from the Census Bureau indicates older adults now outnumber children in 11 states and almost half of the counties in the United States.

The census data shows that the U.S. population continues to age, with the share of the 65-year-plus group steadily increasing from 12.4 percent in 2004 to 18 percent in 2024, while the share of the under-18 population has decreased from 25 percent to 21.5 percent during the same period.

In 2024, the population aged 65 and older increased by 3.1 percent, to 61.2 million, from 2023, while those under the age of 18 decreased by 0.2 percent, to 73.1 million, during the same time frame.

“Children still outnumber older adults in the United States, despite a decline in births this decade,” Lauren Bowers, chief of the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Branch, said in the report.

“However, the gap is narrowing as baby boomers continue to age into their retirement years. In fact, the number of states and counties where older adults outnumber children is on the rise, especially in sparsely populated areas.”

According to the report, from 2020 to 2024, the older population grew by 13 percent, significantly outpacing the 1.4 percent growth of working-age adults (18 to 64), while the number of children declined by 1.7 percent.

In 2020, the Census Bureau named just three states—Maine, Vermont, and Florida—where older adults outnumbered children. In 2024, the list was expanded to include eight more states with a majority of adults aged 65 and older: Delaware, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and West Virginia.

In addition, the number of U.S. metro areas with a majority of older adults increased from 58 to 112 from 2020 to 2024.

“This represents nearly 30 percent of the nation’s 387 metro areas,” the report states.

In 2024, three metropolitan areas with at least 1 million people—Cleveland, Ohio; Providence–Warwick, Rhode Island–Massachusetts; and Hartford, Connecticut—recorded more older adults than younger people for the first time ever.

On the county level, 31.3 percent of America’s 3,144 counties had more older adults than children in 2020. In 2024, that level rose to 45 percent.

Trend Expected to Continue

Glen Hedrick, financial advisor at Old North State Wealth Management in Wilmington, North Carolina, believes the aging population trend will continue into the 2030s.

“This will be a pivotal time for entitlement reform and healthcare infrastructure reform,” Hedrick told The Epoch Times.

“For Social Security, the trend is in the direction of more beneficiaries and fewer contributors.”

He mentioned disparities in states such as Maine and Florida, which he noted may feel even more of a strain.

“As an advisor, I would recommend, based on these findings, to not depend solely on entitlements,” he said.

“Build a diversified income stream, maybe even delaying Social Security as people live longer to maximize benefits.”

The U.S. Census Bureau

The Census Bureau also reported that the U.S. median age reached a new record high of 39.1 years in 2024, up from 38.5 in 2020. Regionally, the Northeast had the highest median age at 40.6, with Maine having the oldest median population in the nation at 44.8.

The Midwest was a close second with a 39.3 median age, while the West and South held the lowest median ages at 38.4 and 38.8, respectively.

Birth Rates Declining Since 1990

According to a recent Statista report, the U.S. birth rate has been declining steadily since 1990. In 2023, there were 10.7 births per 1,000 of the population, compared with 16.7 births per 1,000 in 1990.

The research also shows that the fertility rate among women of childbearing age dropped to 1.62 in 2023, the lowest rate ever recorded.

“The reasons behind the declining birth and fertility rates in the U.S. are complex but include personal factors such as changing priorities among women and the high cost of living, including student loan debt, housing costs, and the cost of child care,” the report states.

Aaron Cirksena, founder and CEO of MDRN Capital based in Annapolis, Maryland, told The Epoch Times that the rising age population is a concern for the entire nation.

“The country as a whole is getting older, while the younger population is decreasing. That’s going to put an extra strain not only on Social Security, but Medicare, and filling jobs for the future,” he said.

Cirksena noted that as this imbalance grows, there will be a lot less people in the workforce paying taxes.

“There’s only so many ways you can get tax revenues out of retirees on a fixed income, so this shrinking base of taxpayers means there are less people supporting the older population,” he said.

In the long term, he noted, the United States could experience slower economic growth.

“There could be a problem filling vacant jobs and then there’s the question of what will happen when the next generation begins to retire,” he said.

In 2024, the Internal Revenue Service allowed a tax credit of $2,000 per child under age 17 for individuals earning less than $200,000 or $400,000 per couple.  This year, the amount is expected to increase to $2,500 per child.

“Still, changing the country’s demographics is not something you can easily turn around in just a couple of years,” Cirksena noted.

He believes the full retirement age will be extended from the current 67 in the near future.

“People are living longer and in order to keep the system going, they’ll probably have to work longer as well,” Cirksena said.

The term “middle class” is widely used in American discourse, but few people can clearly define it or know if they truly belong to it, , according to Pew Research and Yahoo Finance.

According to the Pew Research Center, just over half of U.S. households—51% as of 2023—qualify as middle income, a noticeable drop from 61% in 1971. This decline suggests that nearly half of Americans no longer fit within what’s traditionally considered the middle class.

Pew defines middle-income households as those earning between two-thirds and double the national median income, which translates to a range of about $56,600 to $169,800, based on 2022 government data. Even among those within that range, many feel financially stretched.

A survey by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling revealed that more than half of U.S. adults say they are unable to make financial progress, while nearly half report that they are constantly just treading water.

Yahoo writes that for households trying to maintain their middle-class status or move up, one critical step is reducing consumer debt. High-interest obligations can quickly become unmanageable, and rising bankruptcy rates reflect that risk—there were over 494,000 personal bankruptcy filings in the U.S. in 2024, more than 60,000 higher than the year before.

Paying down debt can ease monthly financial burdens and provide more stability. Another key safeguard is having an emergency fund. Setting aside enough savings to cover at least six months of living expenses can protect a family from sudden income loss or job disruption, giving them time to adjust without sacrificing their standard of living.

Increasing income is also an important strategy. Picking up a side hustle or creating a passive income stream could help a household reach or exceed the upper threshold of the middle-income range. Earning more doesn’t just improve lifestyle—it also offers a financial buffer against downturns and rising costs.

At the same time, managing spending is essential, especially in a climate of economic uncertainty. Many Americans have turned to “doom spending,” making impulsive purchases as a response to stress, which only deepens financial insecurity.

Careful budgeting and expense tracking can help people identify where their money is going and highlight areas where they might cut back. Insurance costs are a common area of overspending. The average American pays over $2,400 annually for full-coverage auto insurance and more than $2,300 for homeowners insurance, and both are projected to rise further in 2025.

Comparing rates and switching providers can lead to significant savings—some drivers have reported reducing their monthly premiums by doing just that.

Ultimately, whether or not you fall within the middle-class income range, financial stability depends on more than earnings. Controlling debt, building savings, growing income, and being intentional with spending are all crucial steps to maintaining or improving your economic position in today’s shifting landscape.

Authored by J.B. Shurk via AmericanThinker.com,

The Connecticut Forum hosted Barack Obama a few weeks ago to discuss current events, and the former president took the opportunity to support government regulatory constraints for online speech.  “We want diversity of opinion.  We don’t want diversity of facts,” Obama opined in his nonchalant way of attacking the First Amendment while pretending to support it.  “There is a difference between these platforms letting all voices be heard,” he continued, “versus a business model that elevates the most hateful voices, or the most polarizing voices, or the most dangerous in the sense of inciting violence.”  Obama has always been a tyrant wearing a smiling celebrity’s mask.

Just who shall be empowered to determine the “facts” that will constrain public speech? 

Barack Obama and his fellow Marxist travelers expect to have that job.  Did you know that men can have babies and that women are at risk for prostate cancer?  That’s right!  Those are “facts”!  Did you know that Hamas terrorists who chop off Jewish babies’ heads practice a “religion of peace”?  That’s a “fact,” too, and anybody who disagrees is spreading “hate”!  Did you know that the Clinton-Obama-Steele Dossier confirmed President Trump’s “collusion” with Russia and that Vladimir Putin now rules from the White House?  That’s a “fact”!  Disgraced CIA director John Brennan and disgraced FBI director Jim Comey both said so!  Did you know that we’re all going to die from global cooling…er, global warming…er, I mean, extreme weather, unless we pay more in taxes and allow powerful corporations and governments to monitor our economic transactions?  That’s a scientific “fact,” man!  Anybody who disagrees is a “dangerous” idiot!

The truth is that if we really followed Obama’s proposed regulatory rule in constraining online speech, most of the nonsense that Democrats and their leftist cohorts around the world believe would be banned as fake science and fake news!  It takes a tremendous amount of “diversity of facts” to conclude that strange men should be allowed to share restrooms with little girls and compete in women’s sports.  Yet, according to Obama, the delusional should be entitled to determine what is “true,” and the sane should be punished for objecting!

Consider delusional leftists’ unhealthy obsession with the weather.  “Global warming” is a pseudo-scientific cult religion used to concentrate economic and political power into the hands of a small number of global elites.  Earth is worshiped as a goddess.  Hydrocarbons are forbidden fruits.  And humans who choose natural energy sources, such as oil and gas, over Paleolithic standards of living are condemned as sinners who must repent by handing over their material possessions to the State.  

The “green energy” scam is bastardized Christianity dressed in Marxism and packaged to ignorant yet self-important lost souls who crave meaning in their lives.  It is both fake science and a fake religion for those who are desperate to feel that they are smarter and more virtuous than everyone else.  It is a dogma for bullies that provides those who idolize rocks an opportunity to inflict great human suffering while pretending to do the opposite.  It is a lie told by elites, swallowed whole by brainwashed minions who know nothing of real science, and used to transfer income and savings from the poorest to the wealthiest.  It is a boogeyman story that those with power tell to those without power.  It is pure evil.  And it is the settled “scientific” consensus of the Democrat Party, European Union bureaucrats, and their corporate allies throughout the West.

It makes perfect sense why Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg (now twenty-two years old) became the global face for fighting “climate change.”  Economic and political elites always prey on the young when they need to push fanciful and costly public policies.  (After all, there’s a reason why politicians send eighteen-year-old boys to cross barbed-wire battlefields saturated with mines and dead bodies: thirty-year-old soldiers have seen enough to know that their governments use them as cannon fodder.)  What makes someone as young as Greta an ideal mascot for elites’ shadowy agenda is not her incomplete education or scientific illiteracy; it is her youthful inexperience in recognizing how persistently governments lie.

As far as I can tell, Greta believes that man-made “climate change” and capitalism, more generally, are killing the planet.  Meanwhile, she doesn’t seem very curious as to why colossal multinational investment firms — including BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street — have heavily invested in the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset,” the U.S.-E.U.’s “Green New Deal,” and so-called “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) standards of investing.  If the biggest players in capitalism and the wealthiest financial dynasties on the planet are all hyping the “climate change” apocalypse, a staunch critic of capitalism with a few functioning neural synapses might wonder why “save the planet” foot soldiers are working for the moneyed elite.  

Nine times out of ten, innocent useful idiots who do the bidding of Big Business and Big Government simply can’t fathom that powerful interests would advance outrageous lies as the “truth.”  Apocalyptic “global warming,” Greta surely tells herself, must be true because if it is not, then global leaders, “scientific” organizations, and countless “philanthropic” groups have conspired to pull the wool over the eyes of the world.  

The lies that powerful people and institutions spread are so brazen that sometimes painful experience is required to break the spell of popular consensus.  Whether that experience is the government’s official narrative regarding President Kennedy’s assassination, the government’s evidence for weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the Iraq War, the government’s assertion that Russia stole the 2016 presidential election from Hillary Clinton, the government’s directed censorship of scientific corroboration that COVID was engineered in a Wuhan laboratory, or the government’s repeated promises that COVID “vaccines” are “safe and effective,” a large number of people require a Eureka! moment before they finally realize that governments and corporations specialize in Big Lies. 

Until that time, the same people who push endless wars, mass migration, and higher taxes that pay off Big Bank losses wave their rainbow flags and suck fifteen-dollar drinks from paper straws.  And too many young, useful idiots play “follow the leader” and believe that “transgenderism” and “global warming” are real.

As is true of leftist political parties throughout the West, the Democrat Party in the United States is now just an assortment of foreigners who broke into the country and a menagerie of “woke,” America-hating communists obsessed with their genitals and skin color.  The tenets of its professed ideology are contradictory, stale, and stupid.  Democrat voters have become the programmable parrots for an elite aristocratic class.  They believe and do what they are told and repeat what they hear.  If they must support “transgenderism,” “global warming,” or Hamas terrorists to remain in good standing with Barack Obama’s “fact” checkers, they will.  To be a member of the modern Democrat Party is to hand your brain over to your master while putting on a cosplay uniform that allows naïve people to playact at being revolutionaries.

If Barack Obama and his Marxist legions are allowed to determine the “facts,” then the world will continue its descent toward a future where the delusional rule over the sane.  Lying politicians will continue to criminalize free speech.  Lying spies from the various large intestines of the Intelligence Community will continue to invent “narratives” that justify war.  Lying central bankers will continue to suck up wealth from the middle class while forcing everyone to use paper confetti as currency.  Lying “scientists” will continue to promote “climate change” or COVID fearmongering in return for government grant money.  Greta Thunberg might even win Nobel Prizes for both peace and chemistry. 

Only truth can beat back the foolish wickedness of this world.

A sizable proportion of young Americans lean heavily to the left, often with limited understanding of history, moral grounding, or the foundations of Western civilization. Whether it’s the result of leftist indoctrination on college campuses or the intellectual decay sparked by endless hours on social media, the effect is apparent: radicalism is here to stay.

Mark Penn, a pollster and adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton in the 1990s, and Andrew Stein, who served as New York City Council President from 1986 to 1993, penned a Wall Street Journal opinion piece calling Gen Z “the Useful Idiot Generation.”

Their concerns about youngsters stem from the Democratic mayoral nomination of Marxist Zohran Mamdani, who has proudly and explicitly stated he wants to seize “the means of production.” It seems some New Yorkers have forgotten the history of communism—an economic system that has never worked and, in fact, has led to the deaths of tens of millions.

Yet Mamdani’s promises of free bus rides and government-run grocery stores, among other initiatives, have been enough to attract some New Yorkers burdened with student loans and no savings.

Penn and Stein drilled into why a growing number of youngsters aren’t outgrowing leftist radicalism, which usually occurs after marriage and having a family…

• 53% of 18- to 24-year-olds have attended at least some college, where left-wing ideology dominates.

• Colleges often portray socialism as “free stuff” and teach students to blame capitalism for racism, inequality, and climate change.

• Gen Z lacks historical memory of Cold War-era socialist atrocities (e.g., Soviet Union, Maoist China).

• Adulthood is delayed: median age of first marriage is now 30, nearly five years later than in 1985.

• Nearly half of Gen Z adults are not in committed relationships and often live communally or work from home.

• They spend over four hours daily on their phones, mostly consuming content from TikTok and Facebook, which reinforce existing beliefs.

• Religion has declined: over one-third report no affiliation, and 60% didn’t grow up attending services—contributing to moral disconnection.

Penn and Stein noted:

Put all this together, and it’s little wonder that about half of 18- to 24-year-olds tell pollsters they support Hamas over Israel. By and large these young adults aren’t hard-core ideologues; they’re merely ignorant. About half of young Hamas supporters say they don’t want to wipe out Israel and prefer a two-state solution. Call them the Useful Idiot generation, mouthing slogans and causes they don’t understand and from which they would recoil if they did.

The two said the older generations are to blame here:

We created the environment that produced this unmoored generation. Socialism and antisemitism will continue to fester and grow if we don’t stand up and reform our universities, reinforce our basic values, and balance our social media.

Our take—one Penn and Stein didn’t mention—is that leftist radicalism didn’t begin with Gen Z. Gen X led the political correctness movement, while Millennials served as foot soldiers in the woke crusade. Blaming Gen Z alone for their views misses the broader picture. This has been a long socialist march through institutions—academia, corporations, and government—spreading progressive ideology at every level and shaping younger generations into radicals.

The good news? The Trump administration is now taking steps to roll back DEI and begin reversing the damage.

Authored by Scottie Barnes via The Epoch Times,

A conservative nonprofit filed a federal lawsuit July 8 on behalf of three Oregon high school girls alleging that the state’s education and athletic authorities violated federal anti-discrimination protections by allowing biological males to compete in girls’ track and field events.

The America First Policy Institute’s (AFPI) suit follows a formal complaint that it filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) Office for Civil Rights earlier this year, alleging systemic violations of Title IX.

In a separate action, AFPI has also asked the office to expand the scope of an ongoing Title IX review to include alleged First Amendment rights violations of student athletes. 

‘That’s Not Equality’

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, details the challenges that the plaintiffs encountered when being forced to race against or give up their spot to male athletes identifying as female—including during high-profile events such as the Oregon state track and field championships.

Madelyn Eischen, a recent high school graduate, claims she withdrew from a major meet in protest after learning she would be competing against a male athlete in girls’ high jump. 

“We work too hard for our achievements to be erased like this,” she said through counsel.

Another plaintiff, whose name is being withheld as she is a minor, has competed in track and field since the fifth grade. As a sophomore, she broke the state record for the fastest 400-meter time ever run by a sophomore girl.

The lawsuit alleges that she went on to lose three times to the same male runner, including at the state championships. 

The girl also says she was harassed by supporters of the male athlete for declining to celebrate his victory over her in the girls’ 400-meter event at the 2024 state championships.

At one point, the athlete claims she was called into the principal’s office for a mental health checkup. 

The lawsuit also alleges that fights broke out among students, “placing the girl at the center of a volatile and harmful environment.”

“Title IX was passed to protect equal opportunity for females, not to take them away,” said Jessica Steinmann, executive general counsel at AFPI. “Girls in Oregon are being robbed of podium spots, scholarship chances, and the belief that their effort matters. That’s not equality—it’s discrimination.”

A Silent Statement

In a separate action, AFPI has asked the DOE to investigate whether the treatment of two female athletes during a May 31 track meet constitutes an additional violation of the rights guaranteed under Title IX and the First Amendment and to incorporate this incident into its ongoing investigation.

During the 2025 Oregon high school track and field state championships, high jumpers Alexa Anderson and Reese Eckard declined to stand on the podium alongside a male competitor. 

Instead, they stood in front of the podium, intending to make a silent statement about fairness in girls’ sports, wrote Steinmann and Leigh Ann O’Neill in a June 12 letter to DOE’s Office for Civil Rights. 

“Rather than respecting their constitutionally protected expression, an event official admonished the girls and instructed them to move off to the side and get out of the photos,” their letter says.

“This intervention was not prompted by any disruption, nor was there any violation of event rules. 

“The message was unmistakable: These young women were being punished for expressing dissent,” wrote Steinmann and O’Neill. 

Anderson said she was “confused” by the official’s actions and she didn’t understand “why we were being treated rudely since everything we did was peaceful.”

“Most of the other girls on the podium agreed with us and had planned to step down in protest,” she told The Epoch Times. But when the time came “and all eyes were on us, their plans changed.”

Turning the Tide

The Title IX lawsuit names the Oregon Department of Education, Gov. Tina Kotek (in her capacity as superintendent of public instruction), the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA), and three school districts as defendants.

The defendants have yet to respond to the lawsuit, however, OSAA defended its policies in 2024 when Executive Director Peter Weber explained to state lawmakers that OSAA’s policies follow federal and state laws, including those against discrimination. Weber wrote in a letter that Oregon law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and that the state legislature included gender identity as part of the definition of sexual orientation.

The Oregon case was filed just after the U.S. Supreme Court announced July 3 that it will hear two landmark challenges to state laws in West Virginia and Idaho that restrict male athletes from competing on teams that do not align with their biological sex. Those laws were previously struck down by the Fourth and Ninth Circuits, respectively, with rulings that extended the logic of Bostock v. Clayton County to Title IX. In that 2020 case, justices ruled that firing someone for being gay or identifying as transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

It also follows a historic settlement between the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights and the University of Pennsylvania in the case of swimmer Lia Thomas, who identifies as transgender and was stripped of all program records.

These actions are in the context of President Donald Trump’s executive order to prohibit transgender-identifying males from participating in girls’ and women’s sports or using female locker rooms.

Schools allowing males to participate in girls’ sports risk losing their federal funding under the order.

Earlier this year, Republican members of Congress tried and failed to pass a national ban on transgender participation in girls sports. 

Currently, 27 states have such a prohibition.

“At the heart of these cases is a simple question,” Steinmann said in a press release.

“Does Title IX mean what Congress intended—equal opportunity based on biological sex—or does it mean something else entirely? The court’s answer will shape the future of girls’ sports in America.”

X users were very skeptical Wednesday afternoon after Chelsea Clinton—currently a board member of the controversial Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)—announced that CGI members had been mobilized to flood-ravaged Kerr County, Texas.

“Members of the @ClintonGlobal community are on the ground in Texas, supporting families, communities and ongoing search and rescue efforts,” Clinton wrote in a post on X. The post was heavily ratioed.

Members of the @ClintonGlobal community are on the ground in Texas, supporting families, communities and ongoing search and rescue efforts.

Thread:

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) July 9, 2025

“Avoid anything promoted by the Clinton family,” one X user said, referring back to a 2016 BBC article titled “What really happened with the Clintons in Haiti?” 

Avoid anything promoted by the Clinton family.https://t.co/cZpamJXmC8

— No News is Good News (@KevinEAbner) July 9, 2025

The BBC article cited Haitian activist Dahoud Andre, who had some nasty words to say about the Clintons: “The Clinton family, they are crooks, they are thieves, they are liars.” 

CGI has had its fair share of controversies—from cash-for-access and State Department overlap to the Uranium One deal and Haiti earthquake funding. The nonprofit has been under scrutiny for years.

Natural disasters are prime opportunities for nonprofits to market themselves to new donors—in fact, it’s big business. And with recent USAID funding cuts, one has to wonder how many of these organizations are now struggling.

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

A Coast Guard rescue swimmer, Scott Ruskan, is being hailed as a hero for helping to rescue more than 160 people at Camp Mystic during flash floods that ravaged central Texas over the weekend.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said Ruskan directly saved 165 people from the floodwaters that inundated Camp Mystic, a Christian girls’ camp near the Guadalupe River. He was the only triage coordinator at the scene.

“Scott Ruskan is an American hero. His selfless courage embodies the spirit and mission of the [U.S. Coast Guard],” Noem stated on social media platform X, noting that it was Ruskan’s first rescue mission as a Coast Guard rescue swimmer.

The rescue team was dispatched from the Coast Guard Air Station in Corpus Christi after receiving a report at 5:57 a.m. on July 4 about rising floodwaters near Kerrville, Texas, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

In an interview with Good Morning America, Ruskan recalled that nearly 200 people, mostly children, were later found in need of rescue as floodwaters surged through the area.

“I got on scene, boots on the ground at Camp Mystic. I kind of discovered I was the only person there as far as first responders go. So I had about 200, kids mostly, all scared, terrified, cold, having probably the worst day of their life,” he said.

“I just kind of needed to triage them, get them to a higher level of care and get them off the flood zone.”

U.S. Army National Guard helicopters used the camp’s archery and soccer fields as landing zones during the rescue. Ruskan said he “was kind of the main guy as far as grabbing people,” taking groups of 10 to 15 people, including some adults, at a time to the aircraft, which then airlifted them to the landing zones for safety.

The U.S. Coast Guard stated that Ruskan helped to evacuate a total of 230 victims at the scene. He also provided them with medical assistance during the rescue mission, according to a July 5 statement.

“The real heroes, I think, were the kids on the ground; those guys are heroic,” Ruskan said.

“They were dealing with some of the worst times of their lives, and they were staying strong, and that helped inspire me to get in there and help them.”

A sheriff’s deputy pauses while combing through the banks of the Guadalupe River near Camp Mystic after a flash flood swept through the area in Hunt, Texas, on July 5, 2025. Julio Cortez/AP Photo

Camp Mystic said that 27 campers and counselors lost their lives in the floods and that it had been in contact with local and state authorities in the search for missing campers and counselors.

“Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy. We are praying for them constantly,” the camp said in a statement posted to its website.

The flash floods that swept through central Texas have left more than 100 people dead and at least 161 missing. Gov. Greg Abbott said during a July 8 press briefing that those figures are likely to rise, due in part to the area’s popularity with campers.

Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said that hundreds of first responders are on the scene in flooded areas around the Guadalupe River, with local, federal, and state personnel working to recover bodies or locate missing people.

Less than 24 hours after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to slash the bloated federal bureaucracy and gut agencies, Politico reports that thousands of senior-ranking NASA employees are set to exit in a massive restructuring.

Politico cited internal documents showing that NASA plans to cut 2,694 staff members through a combination of early retirement offers, buyouts, and deferred resignations.

Key details from the report include:

• 875 GS-15 employees, the agency’s most senior civil servants, are among those leaving.

• 1,818 of the departing staff work in core mission roles; the remainder are in support functions, such as IT and finance.

• Departures are widespread, with Goddard Space Flight Center losing the most (607), followed by Johnson (366), Kennedy (311), and HQ (307).

“The departures follow a proposed White House budget for 2026 that would slash NASA’s funding by 25 percent and cut over 5,000 staff,” the report said, adding, “The cuts, if enacted by Congress, would force the agency to operate with the smallest budget and staff since the early 1960s.”

Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, told the left-leaning outlet, “You’re losing the managerial and core technical expertise of the agency.” He asked: “What’s the strategy and what do we hope to achieve here?”

The proposed large-scale reorganization and reduction comes a day after the Supreme Court announced President Trump can move ahead with plans to slash the federal workforce and dismantle federal agencies. 

NASA’s role in America’s space program has taken a back seat as private companies—most notably Elon Musk’s SpaceX—have taken over the agency’s launch capabilities. With private-sector innovation and cost-efficiency leading the way, rocket launches and the broader space industry have become a new frontier for capitalism.

“NASA remains committed to our mission as we work within a more prioritized budget,” said NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens. “We are working closely with the Administration to ensure that America continues to lead the way in space exploration, advancing progress on key goals, including the Moon and Mars.”

The large-scale reorganization is fantastic news for America’s commercial space industry, aiming to drive innovation and ensure U.S. leadership in the space race through the 2030s.