Ex-POW Of Hamas Says She Most Feared Israeli Bombs, Not Her Captors
An Israeli intelligence soldier who was taken prisoner by Hamas during the militant group’s Oct 7 2023 invasion of Israel says the greatest threat to her life during her 477 days in captivity came from the Israeli bombing campaign — and not the men who were holding her. In a speech at a Tel Aviv rally demanding an end to Israel’s war in Gaza as well as new elections, 20-year-old Naama Levy gave a visceral account of what it was like to live under constant Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) bombardment:
“They come by surprise. First you hear a whistle, pray it doesn’t fall on you, and then — the booms, a noise loud enough to paralyze you. The earth shakes. I was convinced every single time that I was finished, and it’s also what put me in the greatest danger: one of the bombardments collapsed part of the house I was in. The wall I was leaning on didn’t collapse, and that’s what saved me.”
Adding her voice to the many in Israel that want an end to the obliteration of Gaza and the return of their fellow citizens held captive, Levy noted that the detainees continued to live the hellish existence she did:
“That was my reality, and now it’s their reality. At this very moment, there are hostages who hear those same whistles and booms, shaking with fear. They have nowhere to run, they can only pray and cling to the wall while feeling a horrible powerlessness.”
Levy said she also endured another kind of pain being intentionally inflicted on every man, woman and child in Gaza — hunger and thirst:
“There were entire days without food and little water. One day, I had nothing left, not even water. Fortunately, it started raining. My captors put a pot outside the house where I was held, and the rain filled it. I drank that rain water, which was enough for a pot of rice. That’s what kept me going.”
She enjoyed a weekly glimpse into what has happening back home in Israel: Her captors let her watch television every Saturday. She said the images of Israeli protesters pushing for the release of civilian hostages and prisoners of war buoyed her spirits. “I saw thousands standing here wrapped in flags, shouting, singing, holding pictures of the hostages, including mine. You made me feel that I was not forgotten,” she said.
According to a new poll conducted by Israel’s Channel 12, 55% of Israelis think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top priority is staying in power. When asked why Netanyahu has not allowed another deal for the remaining captives, 53% say the reasons are political. “An eternal, politically-motivated war is preferable [to him] over the return of civilians kidnapped on his watch,” said Einav Zangauker before Saturday night’s rallies across the country; his son is among the Israelis still in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s detractors attribute his continuation of the war in the face of rising global condemnation to various self-serving factors, including wanting to forestall a full inquiry into his government’s failure to prevent the Oct 7 attacks, and appeasing the more extreme members of his ruling coalition — such as finance minister Bezalel Smotrich — who want to ethnically cleanse most of Gaza.
Saturday, Tel Aviv, the protest gets bigger. Nearly 1000 Israelis holding pictures of children killed in Gaza in a silent protest in city center. Many more asked to join pic.twitter.com/KVhK7ZwWCn
Levy’s removal from an IDF outpost on Oct 7 was memorably caught on video. Amid a social media and propaganda frenzy that saw false and unsubstantiated claims go viral on social media and readily parroted by government officials, many observers insisted that dark stains on the seat of Levy’s sweatpants had to indicate she’d been sexually abused. However, Levy has never alleged that she was sexually assaulted on October 7 nor during her 15 months in Gaza. Nonetheless, Wikipedia continues to baselessly assert that “images from the footage [of Levy’s capture] demonstrated sexual and gender based violence against Israeli women during the attacks.”
In a different misleading vein, many descriptions of Levy’s capture referred to it as a “kidnapping,” ignoring the fact that Levy was serving as an active-duty IDF soldier in a military compound. ABC News went so far as to describe Levy and her fellow intel soldiers as “five girls taken hostage.”
Levy was one of five female surveillance soldiers released by Hamas in January 2025. While they were being held, peers in her surveillance role blew the whistle on their superiors: Soldiers of the IDF’s Combat Intelligence Corps said that, for at least three months before the attacks, they observed Hamas members conducting paramilitary training along the fenceline, digging holes, studying the area with maps, examining the ground surface and even placing and detonating explosives. They said their warnings went unheeded by IDF higher-ups.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, narrowly approved by the House of Representatives on May 22, includes a tax break for Americans older than 65 in the form of a temporary deduction of $4,000.
In lieu of President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits, this deduction, called the “senior bonus,” would offer a smaller tax cut, targeted to benefit lower-income seniors.
The House bill allows seniors, whether they take the standard deduction or itemize their returns, to deduct an additional $4,000 from their taxable income. It phases out for single filers earning more than $75,000, or $150,000 for taxpayers filing jointly.
The deduction would last from 2025 through 2028. For those who qualify, it would amount to dollar savings of $480 for those in the 12 percent tax bracket, and $880 for those in the 22 percent tax bracket. The deduction reduces taxable income and is distinct from a tax credit, which would be a dollar-for-dollar reduction in taxes.
Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute focusing on budget, tax, and economic policy, told The Epoch Times that “Republicans converted the pledge of no taxes on Social Security benefits into the $4,000 additional senior deduction for two reasons.”
“First, because congressional rules forbid altering Social Security or its taxes in a reconciliation bill,” Riedl said. “Second, ending Social Security income taxes would overwhelmingly benefit wealthier seniors, because their benefits currently face higher taxes, and this deduction is instead targeted to lower-earning seniors.”
According to what is called the 1974 Byrd Rule, changes to Social Security-related provisions cannot be included in budget reconciliation bills in the Senate and must be enacted through regular legislation, which is subject to a filibuster. No Democrat representatives voted in favor of the House bill, which passed 215-214.
According to a May 16 White House statement in support of the House budget bill, it “provides historic tax relief to Social Security recipients“ and ”slashes taxes on seniors’ Social Security benefits.”
The bill now proceeds to the Senate, which will have the opportunity to approve or alter it. Trump has urged the Senate to pass the bill, which has also received support from senior citizens’ advocates.
“It’s not perfect, but given the political realities of no bipartisan support, we urge Republicans to unite and pass ‘The One, Big Beautiful Bill,’” Saul Anuzis, president of the American Association of Senior Citizens, said in a statement.
The American Association of Retired Persons also endorsed the senior bonus, with its chief advocacy and engagement officer Nancy LeaMond stating in a May 5 letter that it was “a targeted and commonsense adjustment that reflects today’s economic realities.”
And calling the provision “a win for seniors across the country,” Jim Martin, chairman of the 60 Plus Association, stated that “the president and House Republicans are providing much needed tax relief to middle and low-income seniors.”
The senior bonus provides significantly less tax relief than eliminating Social Security taxes altogether; however, it benefits the Social Security trust, which analysts, including those at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, project will be depleted in 2035, at which point benefits would be reduced by 17 percent.
“Ultimately, the $4,000 deduction is significantly cheaper than the original Social Security tax proposal—$20 billion annually versus $120 billion,” Riedl said. “It also does not divert money out of the Social Security trust fund like the original proposal would have.”
The reduction in revenue from the senior bonus would come out of general revenue from federal income tax, rather than from the Social Security fund, as would have been the case if the Social Security tax were eliminated.
Up to 85 percent of Social Security benefits are currently taxable for single filers earning more than $34,000 and for joint filers above $44,000, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Up to 50 percent of benefits are taxable for single filers earning $25,000–$34,000, and for joint filers earning $32,000–$44,000.
Pro-Palestine Activists Target Ontario Food Terminal With Blockade
There are troubling reports that the Ontario Food Terminal—the largest wholesale fruit and produce hub in Canada, moving 2 billion pounds annually—has been disrupted by far-left activists chanting “Free Palestine.”
“Masked protesters stage a blockade at the Ontario Food Terminal, preventing freight trucks from accessing Canada’s largest wholesale fruit and vegetable distribution center,” citizen journalist “CarymaRules” wrote on X early Sunday morning, adding, “The demonstration began shortly before 2:00AM, ahead of the day’s scheduled deliveries.”
Masked protesters stage a blockade at the Ontario Food Terminal, preventing freight trucks from accessing Canada’s largest wholesale fruit and vegetable distribution center.
— Caryma Sa’d – Lawyer + Political Satirist (@CarymaRules) May 25, 2025
So what exactly are the “Free Palestine” protesters trying to achieve by targeting a critical agricultural chokepoint?
It’s less about Gaza and more about their true agenda rooted in parasitic Marxism, using Gaza as cover for a broader agenda aimed at collapsing capitalism.
More footage from the staged blockade of the critical chokepoint for ag products:
#BREAKING: These actions at the Ontario food terminal fit the very definition in the spirit of section 83.01 of the criminal code. This is the definition of terrorism.
— Caryma Sa’d – Lawyer + Political Satirist (@CarymaRules) May 25, 2025
#BREAKING Dozens of activists block the entrance of delivery trucks to the Ontario Food Terminal. This is the main produce artery for grocery stores & restaurants in Toronto.
— Caryma Sa’d – Lawyer + Political Satirist (@CarymaRules) May 25, 2025
One year ago, pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted critical U.S. infrastructure—shutting down airport terminals, blocking bridges, causing major highway congestion, and targeting corporate distribution networks—we asked a very simple question back then:
We also noted last year that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)—a Marxist-Leninist group designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S.—has ties to destabilization efforts on U.S. college campuses.
According to the Director of National Intelligence, PFLP is a terrorist group based in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It unites Arab nationalism with Marxist-Leninist ideology. It promotes the destruction of “Israel as integral to the struggle to remove Western capitalism from the Middle East and ultimately establish a Communist Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” the DNI writes on its website.
PFLP has a public-facing arm called Samidoun that operates in the West. NGO Monitor notes that PFLP and Samidoun “had a strong presence at encampments, demonstrations, and riots on American college campuses. Students have been documented carrying PFLP posters, flying the PFLP flag, hosting PFLP-linked speakers, and reading PFLP publications.”
The point we’re making is that paralyzing critical infrastructure and chokepoints across North America has little to do with helping the poor Gazans. Instead, these parasitic Marxists hide behind the Gaza cause to advance their true agenda: collapsing the West. Remember, these same parasitic Marxists used BLM as cover to burn city streets and loot businesses.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said in a statement on Thursday that its staff have completed a “major cleanup” of Social Security records after it was discovered that more than 12 million people aged 120 or older were in the system.
“After 11 weeks, Social Security has finished this major cleanup initiative,” DOGE wrote in a post on social media platform X, adding that some 12.3 million individuals listed as being aged 120 or older “have now been marked as deceased.”
But it added that “some complex cases remain, such as individuals with 2+ different birth dates on file,” which “will be investigated in a follow-up effort.”
DOGE also provided a portion of a screenshot that showed there were about 3.3 million people aged 120 to 129, 3.9 million aged 130 to 139, 3.5 million listed as age 140 to 149, 1.3 million listed as age 150 to 159, and around 124,000 listed as age 160 to 169, all of whom were marked as deceased in the Social Security system.
The update comes as new Social Security Administrator Frank Bisignano told Fox Business earlier this week that Social Security’s “records were not very good, and that’s the source of fraud.”
“The amount of people that were not alive that did not show on the system … was outstanding. Millions and millions. And that is a source of potential for fraud,” he told the news outlet, adding that the work that DOGE did in the agency “was 100 percent accurate” in a bid to locate anything that could lead to fraud.
That’s because, according to Bisignano, an active Social Security number that is “still alive in the system” presents the “opportunity for fraud.”
Established by President Donald Trump in January, DOGE is tasked with finding what officials say are fraud, waste, and abuse. But its efforts have been blocked in several court cases, namely in the Social Security Administration.
DOGE’s recent announcement on its Social Security record cleanup efforts comes as the Trump administration submitted an emergency petition to the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month to allow access to Social Security data after lower courts blocked its access.
In March, U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander, who is based in Maryland, ruled that DOGE could not access Social Security systems because such a move could run afoul of the federal Privacy Act, also alleging that the task force’s mission to root out fraud, waste, and abuse is a “fishing expedition.” She also directed the DOGE team to delete any personally identifiable data that it may have in its possession.
“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack,” the judge wrote.
A month later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued a ruling to uphold Hollander’s order, prompting the Trump administration to file its appeal with the Supreme Court.
A court filing submitted by Solicitor General D. John Sauer on May 13 argued that Hollander effectively superseded the executive branch and “dictated … which government employees can access which data and even prescribed necessary training, background checks, and paperwork for data access.”
“When district courts attempt to transform themselves into the human resources department for the Executive Branch, the irreparable harm to the government is clear,” he wrote.
The task force has been effectively led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, a senior adviser to Trump and a special government employee, meaning he has 130 days to complete his work. Musk said in a Tesla earnings call last month that he would be stepping back from his government duties in May to focus on his company.
New USDA Report Paints Troubling Picture For America’s Cattle Industry
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s April report, published on Friday, offers a crisis-level snapshot of the cattle industry and raises further concerns that a near-term recovery remains unlikely. This comes as average supermarket prices for ground beef hit new record highs, just as Americans fire up their grills for Memorial Day weekend.
The report showed that the number of cattle fattening on grain at large commercial feedlots declined to the lowest seasonal level since 2020, while cold storage supplies of beef fell to 418 million pounds in April—the lowest for this time of year since 2014, according to Bloomberg.
Readers have been well informed about the USDA’s annual Cattle Inventory report, released earlier this year. The report showed that the nation’s cattle herd in 2024 fell to a 73-year low, totaling around 86.6 million head.
In early May, Brady Stewart, head of Tyson Foods’ beef and pork supply chains, told a Barclays analyst during an earnings call that there are some encouraging signs that a cattle herd “rebuild” cycle could be approaching. He added, “From a liquidation standpoint, we’re really seeing the bottom at this point as well.”
By mid-month, Tyson Foods CEO Donnie King told investors at the BMO Global Farm to Market Conference in New York that, due to the ongoing cattle crisis, there would be a major push to ramp up chicken production as a more affordable alternative to sky-high beef prices for consumers.
The cattle shortage, plus new developments of U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins shutting down live cattle, horse, and bison imports from southern border land ports, have sent Chicago cattle futures soaring to new heights.
At the supermarket, USDA data shows the average price for a pound of ground beef hit a record high of $5.8/lb in April.
The White House’s Rapid Response 47 X account recently reposted a video from Fox News that interviewed a rancher who warned, “It’s going to take time to rebuild” the nation’s herd.
5th Generation Cattle Rancher Steve Lucie: I think at this point, we should be all-in on what’s happening… We have the lowest beef herd that we’ve had since 1950 and that’s because so many people have gotten out of the industry. If we could’ve exported more of our beef, I don’t… pic.twitter.com/Hmkq30KmYa
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 7, 2025
Plus, the Trump administration will put American farmers at the center of the clean food movement, as revealed in the MAHA Report released last week.
Most Americans don’t realize that the beef industry has been hijacked by “chemical pushers,” according to Beef Initiative founder Texas Slim.
The Bloomberg chart below illustrates just that.
The bottom line: America’s beef industry is in deep trouble. While the Trump administration begins to take steps to kick-start a cattle herd rebuilding cycle, a meaningful recovery could take years. In the meantime, consumers should expect higher prices and tighter supplies. At the same time, the MAHA movement will begin pushing consumers towards clean, locally sourced food.
Now is the time to support local ranchers and farmers by buying directly from them—putting money in their hands, not in the coffers of globalist multinational food companies that have poisoned the food supply chain, hence the public health crisis detailed in the MAHA Report.
Save small ranchers, control your own food supply, and eat clean.
Prescription drugs cost more in the United States than anywhere else in the world. President Donald Trump and some bipartisan senators want to change that.
Trump has so far issued several actions related to prescription drug prices. The latest, announced May 12, is a Most Favored Nation Prescription Drug policy, requiring pharmaceutical companies to offer their lowest price to U.S. customers.
An earlier order aimed to ensure that the middlemen in the drug supply chain can’t hold on to rebates provided by pharmaceutical companies and instead must pass savings on to Medicare beneficiaries.
In all, the president has taken at least a dozen actions to reduce prescription drug costs, while no less than nine Senate bills aim for the same results.
Some of these ideas have been introduced before.
Trump’s Most Favored Nation pricing plan was introduced near the end of his first term.
The plan was stalled by court challenges, and President Joe Biden dropped it shortly after taking office.
A plan to make vendors pass manufacturer discounts on to Medicare beneficiaries was proposed in 2020. Biden rescinded it before it took effect.
There have been modest successes, including a pilot program begun by Trump in 2020 to cap insulin costs for Medicare Part B beneficiaries at $35 per month. At the time, a single vial of insulin cost about $100 in the United States.
That program was a success, and the idea was later broadened to include all Medicare beneficiaries through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. By 2024, most major drug companies had voluntarily limited out-of-pocket expenses for insulin for all U.S. customers to $35.
Yet Americans still pay nearly three times as much for prescription medication as any peer nation, often even more.
Trulicity, a medication for Type 2 diabetics, was listed for $67 in France, according to a 2021 Government Accountability Report. In the United States, it cost $798.
Meanwhile, Remlivid, an oral cancer medication, was listed for $4,723 in Australia. In the United States, it was listed at almost five times that price: $22,048.
Why? One answer is that other governments leverage the power of their national health plans to control pricing, while the United States lacks a comprehensive national prescription drug strategy.
The solution, according to at least one senator, is to stop putting patches on a broken system and take a comprehensive approach to regulating the entire pharmaceutical supply chain.
How Others Do It
Some nations can negotiate low prices for prescription drugs because they have national health care plans, which gives them near complete control over the drug market. Here’s how that works for some, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Australia
Australia has a national health care system that is partly administered by state, territorial, and local governments.
Prescription drug pricing is set at the national level, starting with an assessment of the drug’s value. That assessment is made by Australia’s independent Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, which evaluates new drugs for cost-effectiveness and may recommend them for inclusion on the list of approved medications under the national health plan.
That decision is made by Australia’s national minister of health, who then negotiates with the manufacturer to determine a price. Among other considerations, the health minister evaluates the impact of adding the drug on the country’s budget.
Canada keeps prescription prices low in two ways. First, Canada’s federal government sets a maximum allowable price for each medication. The government bases this price, in part, on the therapeutic value of the drug. That value may be higher if the drug is the first of its kind, or lower if there are similar drugs already on the market.
Second, the country’s 13 provincial and territorial health plans negotiate pricing jointly with manufacturers, combining the power of their respective markets.
France
France has a national health care system that includes prescription drugs.
The French government negotiates prices with manufacturers based on an assessment of the therapeutic value of the drug. The country also places a cap on total prescription spending.
The Drawbacks
These arrangements significantly lower prescription costs for the government and for patients. But there are drawbacks.
When a U.S. insurance company can’t negotiate an acceptable price from a drug manufacturer, the insurer may choose not to cover the drug. However, another company will often cover it, so patients still have options.
However, when a drug is omitted from a national health plan, it may be more difficult to find it or afford it anywhere in that country.
For example, Signifor, a drug used to treat hormonal diseases, was not available in Ontario, Canada, according to a 2021 study by the Government Accountability Office. Some forms of diabetes drug Trulicity were not available in Australia. Cancer medicine Revlimid 5 milligram and 10 milligram capsules were not available in France.
Or, drugs left off the national coverage list may still be available, but at a higher price.
Drug shortages are another problem.
In countries with national health plans, pharmaceutical companies have less incentive to ensure supply. Companies will favor markets where there is more potential for profit.
“[Drug] shortages are a natural outcome of imposing prices divorced from free market processes,” Jeremy Nighohossian, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank, told The Epoch Times.
Stephen Ubl, president and CEO of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said, “Importing foreign prices from socialist countries would be a bad deal for American patients and workers,” in a May 12 response to Trump’s plan.
GOP Senator Calls For Investigation Into $4.7 Trillion In ‘Untraceable’ Treasury Payments
In February, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uncovered $4.7 trillion in payments made by the US Treasury that are “almost impossible” to trace – as Treasury Account Symbol (TAS) identification codes were optional in the system. This left billions in payments blank and unable to be traced.
“Of the 1.5 billion payments that we send out every year, they are required to have a TAS, a Treasury Account Symbol. We discovered that more than one third of those payments did not have a TAS number,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services earlier this month.
“In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible,” DOGE announced via its X account. Thanks to DOGE, those “optional” days are over. “…this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going,” DOGE added.
Major improvement in Treasury payment integrity going live!
So while the TAS field is now mandatory, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) has called for an investigation into where the untraceable payments have been going.
“There’s so much waste. There’s so much fraud, There’s so much abuse in our government,” Schmitt told Fox News. “I’m glad there was a laser-like focus on it. We ought to make many of those reforms permanent, but there probably ought to be some investigations here about where this money actually went. I mean this is taxpayer money. People work hard.”
In March. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) introduced a bill – the LEDGER Act – requiring the Treasury Department to track all payments.
“When you hear about this story that they didn’t know where the money was going, it makes you mad because this is somebody’s money, this is taxpayers’ money when we have almost $37 trillion in debt, so this makes no sense at all,” said Scott.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) noted that the United States “paid out more last year on our debt, $36 trillion in debt, with $950 billion in interest going to bondholders all over the world, including in China. That $950 billion didn’t go to build a bridge or an F-35. We paid more on the interest on debt than we did to fund our military.”
“That is an inflection point that when most countries hit, you look at history, that’s when great powers start to decline. So we have to get those savings.”
Long-Term Prospects “Bode Well” For Nuclear, Goldman Says After Trump Signs Executive Orders
Following President Trump’s signing of multiple executive orders accelerating development of the nuclear industry, Goldman Sachs was out with a note maintaining a positive outlook on the nuclear energy sector, especially in the near to medium term, focusing on opportunities related to uranium fuel supply and the upstream part of the nuclear value chain.
In the note, Goldman, led by analyst Brian Lee, reiterates its Buy rating on Cameco Corporation while also seeing potential in companies focused on small modular reactor (SMR) technologies.
Goldman Sachs believes the new orders could be beneficial for Cameco, a major uranium producer, as increased demand for nuclear power generation would likely raise the need for physical uranium and related fuel conversion services. This impact would be more visible over the longer term.
In the shorter term, Goldman highlights the potential benefit to Westinghouse, in which Cameco holds a 49 percent stake. Westinghouse could see more immediate gains if its reactor technology, particularly the AP1000 design, is selected for upcoming nuclear projects.
For companies involved in small modular reactors, there is potential upside if the executive order leads to specific allocations of loan funding for SMR development. Such support could be directed toward both civilian energy infrastructure and defense-related power needs, Lee and his team said.
Recall, on Friday, President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders designed to fast-track the development and deployment of advanced nuclear reactors on Friday culminating a dramatic policy shift aimed at revitalizing the U.S. nuclear energy sector.
Flanked in the Oval Office by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Trump declared nuclear power “a hot industry” and praised it as “very safe and environmental.”
Burgum called it “a huge day for the nuclear industry,” and added, “Mark this day on your calendar. This is going to turn the clock back on over 50 years of over regulation of an industry.”
In terms of valuation, Goldman sets a twelve-month price target of $65 for Cameco’s U.S. listing and C$89 for its Toronto listing. These valuations are based on a sum-of-the-parts approach that incorporates different valuation multiples for uranium production, fuel services, and Westinghouse’s contributions.
Key risks to this outlook include fluctuations in commodity prices, disruptions in mining operations, timing issues related to contracts and deliveries, and potential delays in nuclear project construction.
For SMR, Goldman assigns a twelve-month price target of $24. This estimate is derived from a blend of discounted cash flow analysis and revenue-based valuation, using longer-term forecasts and applying a relatively high discount rate to reflect risk.
The primary concerns for SMR include execution challenges, ongoing funding needs, uncertainty around customer demand and regulatory approvals, and the final delivered costs of reactor modules.
Recall, the new orders aim to strip away what the administration describes as decades of regulatory overreach that have stifled innovation and stagnated the industry. “America’s greatness has always come from innovation,” Burgum said on Friday. “We led post-World War Two in all things nuclear. But then we’ve been stagnated. We’ve choked it with over regulation.”
The first of Trump’s executive orders directs the Department of Energy (DOE) to accelerate research and development, speed up reactor testing at national labs, and initiate a two-year pilot program for reactor construction.
A second order clears regulatory hurdles for the DOE and the Department of Defense (DOD) to build reactors on federal land — efforts that will bypass the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) entirely by using the agencies’ own regulatory authority.
“We’re going to do a lot of the small ones, and we’re going to do some of the big ones,” Trump said. “But yeah, very safe, safe and clean.”
The third order takes direct aim at the NRC itself. It mandates “a total and complete reform of NRC culture to reorient to ensure reactor safety and promoting the development and adoption of nuclear technology.” The order sets a new requirement that the commission rule on new license applications within 18 months, far faster than the current average of five years.
In support of this agenda, Hegseth underscored the national security implications, especially in powering AI infrastructure: “We’re including artificial intelligence in everything we do. If we don’t, we’re not fast enough, we’re not keeping up with adversaries. You need the energy to fuel it. Nuclear is a huge part of that, modular or otherwise. So we’re going to have the lights on and AI operating when others do not faster than everybody else because of nuclear capability.”
The fourth nuclear-focused order targets America’s uranium supply chain, aiming to “reinvigorate” the domestic nuclear industrial base. It calls for expanded uranium mining and enrichment, while also instructing Energy Secretary Scott Wright to evaluate policies for nuclear material recycling and reprocessing. A senior official explained, “That means America will start mining and enriching uranium and expanding domestic uranium conversion and enrichment capacity.” Nonproliferation and security considerations will guide those efforts.
Trump’s orders reflect a clear strategic intent: to restore the U.S. as a global leader in nuclear energy and science. Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the executive actions would “ensure continued American strength and global leadership in science and technology.”
He lamented the U.S. decline in nuclear progress, saying, “We decommissioned commercial reactors across the country, stepped back from nuclear R and D and abandoned hopes of nuclear energy, power and a bright future. America’s great innovators and entrepreneurs have run into brick walls when it comes to nuclear technologies.”
Kratsios declared that Trump is “telling the world that America will build again and the American nuclear renaissance can begin.”
With energy demands soaring due to AI and data center growth, industry giants like Microsoft, Oracle, Google, and Amazon are now investing in or exploring small modular reactors to power their operations. The administration sees this as a critical opportunity for the U.S. to lead again. “Nuclear energy is necessary to power the next generation technologies that secure our global industrial, digital, and economic dominance, achieve energy independence, and protect our national security,” a White House official said.
Nuclear stocks soared last week on the news of the order. And as we noted on X last week, OKLO is now up 10x since Jim Cramer said “I can’t even look at it” back in October 2024.
Booyah!
On Oklo’s Q1 2025 earnings call earlier this quarter, CEO Jacob DeWitte confirmed the company is engaged in a “pre-application readiness assessment” with the NRC, aiming to smooth its formal license submission for a newly upsized 75-MW reactor design in Q4 2025. The company still targets late 2027 or early 2028 for first power production at its Idaho National Laboratory (INL) site.
DeWitte noted the recent departure of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as Oklo board chair removes a potential conflict of interest should OpenAI become a future power customer. Oklo already holds about 14 GW in nonbinding agreements with data centers and industrial operators.
A UtilityDive report said that Zero Hedge favorite Oklo is also among eight companies eligible for the military’s Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations program, enabling on-base reactor deployments. It’s developing nuclear fuel fabrication facilities capable of reusing spent fuel that would otherwise sit in long-term storage.
For those who missed it, in our original note “The Next AI Trade” from April 2024, more than one year ago, we outlined various investment opportunities for powering up America, most of which have dramatically outperformed the market since then.
For those that missed that note, we pointed out on Friday all the ways to still profit.
Meanwhile the entire world has been jumping on the nuclear power bandwagon.
United States: Major tech. companies have come out in support of nuclear to help power AI data centers, and in places like Pennsylvania, local politicians are pushing for quick restarts and refreshes of nuclear plants like Three Mile Island. President Trump’s goal is to quadruple nuclear capacity over 25 years.
China: China leads the world in nuclear construction, with 30 reactors being built, including the massive Lianjiang plant with six advanced CAP1000 reactors. The country sees nuclear as key to reducing emissions and meeting energy needs.
India: India is pushing forward with 10 new heavy water reactors, each generating 700 MW, to be built in a faster “fleet mode.” This expansion will help meet growing power demand and reduce coal reliance.
Japan: After years of hesitancy post-Fukushima, Japan has restarted several nuclear reactors and plans to extend their lifespans. The government is also supporting the development of next-generation reactors to reduce energy imports and cut carbon emissions.
Germany: Facing high energy costs from phasing out nuclear, Germany is rethinking its position. Discussions are underway about using small modular reactors and cooperating with France on nuclear energy.
France and the UK: Both countries are extending the life of existing plants and investing in new large-scale and small modular reactors to strengthen energy security and meet climate goals.
Nordic countries:
Sweden: Plans to build new reactors and extend the life of existing ones, aiming for stable, fossil-free electricity.
Finland: Recently completed the Olkiluoto 3 reactor, the largest in Europe. It now supplies about 14% of Finland’s electricity.
Denmark: Considering lifting a 40-year ban on nuclear energy, spurred by small modular reactor interest and regional trends.
As of late 2024, 63 nuclear reactors were under construction worldwide. Three-quarters of these are in emerging economies, and half are in China. The International Atomic Energy Agency projects that global nuclear capacity could more than double by 2050 to support clean energy goals.
In other words, we could very well still be in the early innings of this renaissance…
Lefty activist CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins appeared visibly pissed off Thursday as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke of the media’s complicity in eroding freedoms during the COVID pandemic.
Kennedy noted that the likes of CNN acted as parroting mouthpieces for spreading false information, coercing people to accept lockdowns and vaccine mandates.
“You know, one of the big mistakes that you and many of your media colleagues made during COVID is to try to convince the American people that they should trust the experts,” Kennedy said.
RFK JR: “[People] should also be skeptical about any medical advice, they need to do their own research.” pic.twitter.com/6Q1g6DK4aS
“What we should do is trust the science,” he urged.
Collins responded, “The message WAS to trust the science, and what studies were finding.”
“No, it was trust the experts,” Kennedy Fired back.
Oof. Sit down Katie.
Kennedy emphasised that Americans are free to question any medical advice they choose to, especially untested vaccines, and that they should do their own research.
“I would say be skeptical of authority. My father told me that when I was a young kid. People in authority lie. And we’ve seen a lot of that in our country,” Kennedy contended.
“People in the media lie,” he contiuned, adding “people need to make their own judgments and be skeptical, and maintain their capacity for critical thinking.”
“That was shut down during COVID, and the media was complicit in that,” he asserted.
“Disagree on that last part,” Collins pathetically replied before abruptly ending the exchange.
RFK is correct. Every step of the way when it comes to COVID the ‘conspiracy theorists’ were right, from the lab leak to the harmful effects of rushed out big pharma mRNA shots.
Indeed, the FDA is now forcing Moderna and Pfizer to update warnings on the vaccines about the possible risk of myocarditis and pericarditis.
The FDA is requiring COVID vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna to update their warnings about the possible risk of myocarditis and pericarditis. https://t.co/KWQ2WpuBI6
As we highlighted yesterday, despite these realities being plain and clear, with the legacy media pushing its propaganda, the Biden administration secretly labeled Americans who opposed the vaccination and mask mandates as “Domestic Violent Extremists.”
Let that sink in.
They put people who questioned all of this on terror watch lists.
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Ukraine Tried To Attack Putin’s Helicopter Mid-Flight, Russia Alleges, Responds With Massive Strikes On Kiev
The Kremlin as well as Russian state media are alleging a huge, potentially conflict-altering incident which will surely escalate the war in Ukraine – an attempted attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin himself.
A high-ranking Russian military commander on Sunday described that last week, as Putin traveled to the Kursk region for the first time since is liberation after 6+ months of Ukrainian occupation, Ukraine tried to attack Putin’s helicopter mid-flight, sending a wave of drones to swarm the flight path of the chopper.
The presidential helicopter was caught in the “epicenter” of a massive Ukrainian drone attack, commander of an air defense division in Kursk, Yury Dashkin, told Russian media. The headline is the top featured story of English-language RT on Sunday, something which suggests the allegations are largely aimed at grabbing the attention of the West.
The incident is said to have happened Tuesday as the helicopter transported Putin to tour Kursk – a southern oblast which has suffered much destruction since the initial Ukrainian cross-border incursion of last August.
Commander Yury Dashkin told Russia 1 in an interview which aired Sunday said that Putin’s helicopter had found itself “in the epicenter of an operation to repel a massive drone attack by the enemy” in Kursk Region.
He went on to describe that this “unprecedented” attack was successfully repelled by anti-air defenses in the region. Air defense units in the area had to “simultaneously conduct anti-aircraft combat and ensure the safety of the president’s helicopter in the air. The task was accomplished,” Dashkin stated. “The attack of the enemy drones was repelled, with all aerial targets being hit.”
While this could just be a mid-level officer’s attempt to toot his own horn, given the world is just hearing about what’s tantamount to an ‘assassination attempt’ on one of the world’s most powerful leaders being alleged – and coming belatedly a number of days after the incident in question – this seems part of Moscow’s ongoing messaging that the UAV incursions are an attempt to derail the US-brokered peace talks between Moscow and Kiev.
The drones are being launched on Russia in record numbers, with literally multiple hundreds sent over the past week, in some cases halting inbound and outbound flights at major airports, including in the Moscow area. Ukrainian officials have boasted that the operations is trying to disrupt and destabilize daily life in Russia, in hopes that the government could lose control.
A major new allegation coming from Russia’s military:
Ukraine tried to ATTACK Putin’s helicopter mid-flight over Kursk
Russian Air Defense Division officer says Ukrainian drones attempted to swarm chopper flight path
Significantly, Russia’s military pummeled the Ukrainian capital of Kiev again overnight, with emerging images showing raging fires and devastation in city neighborhoods and populated areas. Other regions were hit as well, in a second straight night of some of the largest strikes of the war.
There were significant casualties. According to Ukrainian emergency authorities, cited in national media:
Russia attacked Kyiv and other Ukrainian regions with drones and missiles overnight on May 25, killing 12 people, including three children, and injuring more than 60, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram.
Russia launched 69 missiles overnight and 298 drones, according to Ukraine’s Air Force.
The Air Force reported that 45 cruise missiles were shot down by air defense and 266 drones were neutralized, while 22 locations recorded a direct strike.
The attacks come one night after one of the heaviest Russian assaults on Kyiv throughout the full-scale war. The attack also coincides with Kyiv Day, a city holiday typically celebrated on the last Sunday in May.
Zelensky after Russia’s massive overnight attack:
“Almost 300 Shahed drones and 70 missiles hit Ukrainian cities—Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Odesa, Khmelnytskyi, and more. Homes, dorms, businesses destroyed. Children killed.
US media outlet NPR also acknowledges that “The scale of the onslaught was stunning — Russia hit Ukraine with 367 drones and missiles, making this the largest single attack of the more than three-years-long war.”
The attack featured heavy use of Iranian-designed Shahed drones, Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force, said. It was “the most massive strike in terms of the number of air attack weapons on the territory of Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022,” Ihnat emphasized.
Given the sizeable death toll and casualties, this is sure to get Washington and Europe’s attention, at a moment the Trump administration has been losing patience with both sides over lack of progress in attempted peace negotiations, the last round which was held in Istanbul just over a week ago. Washington is still threatening more anti-Moscow sanctions, a move which would likely terminate the peace negotiation process.
By all appearances, Putin is actually ready to expand the ground operation inside Ukraine, in part to establish a ‘buffer zone’ in order to better defend the constant drone attacks coming out of Ukraine on Russian territory.
Russian troops at the same time continue advancing slowly on the eastern front in Donbass, having reportedly captured two settlements in Donetsk region as well as one in Ukraine’s northern region of Sumy, according to a Saturday Russian Defense Ministry statement.
Reuters cites the statement as saying Russian forces had “captured the village of Stupochky in Donetsk region, east of Kostiantynivka, a town under recent Russian pressure.” It also named the villags of Otradne and Loknya, the latter which is inside the Russian border in Sumy region – as coming under Russian control. That makes three more settlements captured in eastern Ukraine. All of this strongly suggests that peace is no closer on the horizon.
