Our coverage of America’s Group 1 to Group 3 drone industry has centered on Unusual Machines and Ondas, two companies positioned to reap the benefits from what could become a historic procurement cycle next year. The catalyst is the Department of War’s Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, which is preparing to direct $55 billion toward autonomous systems. If that spending materializes as planned, companies offering NDAA-compliant drones and drone components, scalable manufacturing capacity, and field-ready platforms should be best positioned to capture the coming flood of orders.

For more clarity on the drone space, Canaccord Genuity recently hosted the “Drone Dominion” panel, which included executives from AeroVironment, Leonardo DRS, Unusual Machines, Codan Tactical Communications, and Juno Industries.

“The panel opened with a consensus that drone warfare has shifted from individual aircraft for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance applications to massed, expendable strike systems with growing remote autonomy,” Austin Moeller, Canaccord Genuity’s senior aerospace and defense technology equity-research analyst, wrote in a note Thursday.

Moeller’s summary of the panel discussion provides investors with a useful framework for understanding the drone space and identifying the companies best positioned to benefit from a potential procurement supercycle, as demand for Group 1 to Group 3 drones, counter-UAS systems, and domestically sourced NDAA-compliant parts is poised to accelerate.

Drone dominion

We hosted management of Leonardo DRS (DRS), AeroVironment (AVAV), Unusual Machines (UMAC), Codan DTC, and Juno Industries at the 46th Annual Canaccord Genuity Growth Conference in Boston for a Drone/C-UAS panel discussion. Our panel included Leonardo DRS CEO John Baylouny, AeroVironment COO Dr. Robert Smith, Unusual Machines COO Drew Camden, Codan Tactical Communications President and Executive General Manager Paul Sangster, and former Canadian Minister of National Defense and Juno Industries Executive Chairman, Harjit Sajjan. The panel discussed how drone warfare has evolved from being primarily an ISR platform to widespread adoption as autonomous and expendable/attritable tactical and one-way attack systems, along with the corresponding urgent need for counter-UAS layered air defenses, secure supply chains, and integrated battlefield C2 systems and AI edge compute.

The panel opened with a consensus that drone warfare has shifted from individual aircraft for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance applications to massed, expendable strike systems with growing remote autonomy. John Baylouny stated that drones are now weapons that must make sense of the battlefield, and Harjit Sajjan emphasized that integrating sensors into battle management systems to enable fusion/processing of data is central to making those strike capabilities practical and useful. The panel agreed this transition changes not only platform design but also how forces employ drones; for instance, moving from a handful of high-end assets to large numbers of lower-cost munitions used en masse (swarms) to saturate and overwhelm air defenses and targets. This dynamic forces the industry to prioritize rapid iteration and high-volume manufacturing, modular payloads, and mission-tailored autonomy so systems can be adopted and modified quickly as tactics and countermeasures evolve in the field.

The panel agreed that battlefield advantage now depends on resilient, secure command-and-control (C2) networks that connect drones, sensors, weapons platforms, and operators into rapid decision-making workflows. Paul Sangster explained that today’s battlefield is far more networked, requiring secure mesh communications that tie drones, sensors, and vehicles into rapid decision loops. Dr. Rob Smith and the others noted that the tactical advantage now comes from how quickly collected sensor data can be communicated to warfighters and platforms and acted upon, which has elevated architecture, encryption, and waveform design to operational-level priorities. The panel emphasized that interoperability is a prerequisite for scaling effective multi-platform operations. Speakers warned that contested-spectrum environments and adversary cyber-attack tactics could quickly degrade the benefits of massed drone operations unless resilience and redundancy are built into C2 designs.

Counter-UAS defenses being layered and multi-modal were stressed by the panel. Mr. Baylouny described systems combining radar, IR identification, and multiple effectors (e.g., DRS’ Sgt. Stout Stryker air artillery Mission Equipment Package). Dr. Smith outlined a layered approach beginning with Radio Frequency (RF) detection and Electronic Warfare (EW) at standoff ranges, then lasers for cost-effective engagement within line-of-sight, and kinetic interceptors when necessary. Speakers emphasized mobility and integrated C2 so that different defeat mechanisms can be applied as threats evolve, reflecting a pragmatic view that no single technology will defeat every class of drone. As a result, the defense tech market is making investments in software/AI platforms, sensors (radar, RF, EO, IR/thermal), directed energy, and affordable kinetic interceptors to create adaptable defense mechanisms for various defensive scenarios for both point-defense and on-the-move.

Drew Camden and Rob Smith argued that expanding domestic production capacity requires predictable govt. demand and long-term procurement commitments. Manufacturers depend on these factors so that they can invest in facilities, automation, and long-term supplier relationships.

They stated that US systems will likely differ in capability from mass-produced foreign drones (Ukrainian drones are using Chinese Raspberry Pis and motors, for example) and that programs like Drone Dominance must create steady, multi-year volume procurement plans such as IDIQs/OTAs to make rapid scaling feasible without stopping and restarting fragile supply chains. Firms are already redirecting R&D and IRAD into domestic tooling and manufacturing readiness to shorten the timeline from prototype to fielded production and advance-purchasing materials inventory for when multi-year contracts are in place, and demand is present. In practice, policymakers must align procurement, financing, and industrial policy to reduce production ramp-up time, reduce lead times for critical components, and stabilize the supply chain.

Speakers raised concerns about deep supply chain and security/espionage concerns. The panel discussed challenges in removing Chinese-made components and subcomponents, as well as securing rare earth materials, noting that compliance requires tracing multiple layers down the supply chain. Many A&D primes have found Chinese materials or components as they investigate deeper into their supply chains. Mr. Sajjan cautioned against focusing on a single supplier or country and urged comprehensive evaluation with trusted national agencies, while Mr. Baylouny described efforts internally to look five or six layers deep to discover where materials and components truly originate from. Mr. Camden explained his company’s strategy of bringing parts, and eventually, chips and motors onshore. He added that while Unusual Machines had initially been sourcing drone motors from China, the company is now doing its own winding with machines in a similar production process to Chinese drone company T-MOTOR. Dr. Smith emphasized the importance of firmware screening, cyber red-teaming, and holistic assurance practices. Addressing these challenges will require sustained funding, clearer regulatory standards (e.g., NDAA and ITAR), and closer public-private partnerships to create resilience and chain of custody among supply chains.

Finally, the panel emphasized that training and acquisition practices must be reformed to keep pace with evolving drone tactics and technologies. Mr. Baylouny argued that the old “design, build, and buy thousands” government PoR model is too slow and called for experiment-driven acquisition. Mr. Sajjan highlighted the importance of close user-developer feedback so deployed troops can refine and optimize systems with their designers for real-world missions. Mr. Camden pointed to improvised civilian and government innovations seen in Ukraine as evidence that militaries must be able to adapt new concepts and strategies quickly. Dr. Smith reinforced that predictable demand signals will also enable investment in the training, sustainment, and industrial pipelines needed to scale manufacturing capabilities. To turn technological advances into enduring operational advantage, the panel concluded that reforms across procurement and training must move forward along with technical, military, and industrial initiatives.

Our mid-June initiation report, “How To Profit From the Asymmetric Warfare Boom” … 

… first identified the leading public and private companies positioned across the drone and counter-drone space.

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times,

While universities debate whether to skip standardized admissions tests and the University of Michigan waives first-term grades for some incoming students, new research suggests that relaxing standards might not be the best way to help kids who are struggling in school.

The new report by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) and the American Enterprise Institute, based on data collected from grade school students by the National Survey of Children’s Health, focused on how kids performed in school and what they said about their home life. The report found that “family structure is a more powerful predictor of school problems, academic performance, and depression than are race and poverty.”

The Department of Education’s Nation’s Report Card sorts results by race, sex or income, but it ignores family structures even though it has been collecting data on that factor since 2013, researchers said.

By contrast, the report looked at “whether or not kids are being raised by their own mother and father,” IFS Senior Fellow Brad Wilcox said, and they found that family structure was often a more important factor in children’s well-being.

“It’s pretty clear that the character of the family you grew up in is more important than the color of your skin,” Wilcox told The Epoch Times.

The study reported that 74 percent of children from “intact, married-parent families” achieved top grades (As and Bs), compared with 60 percent of children from “other family structures.” In addition, the IFS stated that children who were not raised by both biological parents were 47 percent more likely to have disciplinary problems at school and more than twice as likely to be depressed.

“Raising children in a stable married family is incredibly helpful to kids,” Wilcox said.

Graduating Without Basic Skills

The IFS’s findings come at a time when data increasingly indicates that many American children are struggling in school, and looking at grades may not even show the full picture. Reports and anecdotes suggest that even among students who receive passing grades, many are not learning basic skills.

The National Literacy Institute reports that 64 percent of America’s fourth graders do not read proficiently, and more than half of American adults now read below a sixth-grade level. And statewide reports are indicating that grade school children are being passed on to the next grade, or graduating, regardless of whether or not they have basic reading and math skills.

In 2023, Baltimore City schools announced that they would “avoid the punitive approach of failing students,” citing effects of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. This followed a 2021 report by the state of Maryland, which said that across the state, “approximately half of the students who graduated high school and enrolled in a Maryland college or university in 2013 were assessed to need remediation in math, English, and/or reading.”

Studies in Texas, Alabama, and Missouri over the past two decades showed similar findings.

A 2025 report from the University of California-San Diego stated that the math skills of one-in-12 incoming students were below a middle school level. More recently, University of California-Berkeley mathematics professor Zvezdelina Stankova said in an op-ed for the San Francisco Standard that she had to pause her calculus course in order to teach her students middle-school level algebra and fractions.

In many cases, the response from schools has been to accommodate a lack of basic skills by loosening assessment tests, or getting rid of them altogether. Currently, more than 2,000 colleges and universities, including some Ivy League and state universities, do not require standardized tests like the SAT and the ACT as a criterion for admission.

In a possible case of “grade inflation,” Harvard University reported that 60 percent of the grades given to students in 2024–25 were As, up from about 25 percent in 2005–06. Meanwhile, the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts announced that starting in the fall of 2027, it would refrain from giving grades to incoming students during their first term, in order to “curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals.”

Family Structure

According to Wilcox, focusing on family structures is likely a better solution than inflating or avoiding grades. He advocates, among other things, making Americans aware of the difference it makes to kids’ success when both parents are raising them in a stable home.

“Not every couple who are having kids should get married and not every couple who are married should stay married,” Wilcox said. “But it’s important when it comes to having and raising kids to do what you can to be married and to stay married.”

In an effort to keep parents together, some advocates have called for the removal of what they call the “marriage penalty,” which occurs when two individuals with similar incomes marry, pushing their joint income to a level that exceeds welfare eligibility.

“Marriage penalties are one of the most damaging and misguided features of the federal welfare system,” said Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) in a statement. “For decades, Washington has punished families for getting married, discouraging responsibility and trapping parents and children in long-term dependency.”

Based on federal data, the IFS states that only 3 percent of subsidized housing serves two adults with children, compared with 30 percent that goes to a female head with children.

The IFS report states that family trends in America are tilting in a slightly positive direction, however. The proportion of American children living in married families hit a low point of 64 percent in 2012, and has since increased to 66 percent as of 2024.

Once known primarily for capturing dramatic footage from inside hurricanes and tropical storms during the Atlantic hurricane season, Saildrone’s autonomous surface vessels have evolved into dual-use platforms that recently demonstrated the ability to deploy Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles (JAGM).

California-based Saildrone revealed in a press release that its unmanned surface vehicle (USV) launched two Lockheed Martin JAGM missiles for the first time during the Rim of the Pacific exercise off Hawaii.

According to Saildrone, the 20-meter Surveyor drone participated in the live-fire exercise in coordination with the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group.

The Surveyor used targeting data on a surrogate high-speed surface craft and executed the engagement through the Navy’s Adjunct Remote Engagement System, or ARES, a remotely operated combat system. The test demonstrated how drone vessels could supplement the missile capacity of carrier strike groups while remaining deployed in contested waters, such as the Strait of Hormuz or other maritime chokepoints, for extended periods.

“This successful live-fire demonstration was the result of pairing one of the most tried and trusted munitions with the most operationally deployed class of USV on the planet,” Saildrone CEO Richard Jenkins wrote in a statement.

Jenkins noted, “Not only does this deliver mission-ready, kinetic USV capability today, but it also de-risks and accelerates our journey of fitting more sophisticated kinetic capabilities, like the Mk70 launcher, to our larger platform, the Saildrone Specter. Saildrone will continue to develop our platform capabilities to meet the rapidly evolving operational requirements of our customers.”

The US Navy has adopted the drone-boat warfare playbook pioneered by Ukraine, recently deploying Saronic Corsair one-way attack drone boats near the Strait of Hormuz to target Iran’s Bandar Abbas naval base.

More importantly, drone-boat operations and live-fire testing signal what could be a massive Department of War procurement supercycle spanning unmanned surface vessels and Group 1 through Group 3 aerial drones.

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times,

In a pre-dawn raid in January, Delta Force soldiers burst in on a sleeping Nicolás Maduro, capturing the Venezuelan leader wanted on U.S. narco-terrorism charges.

The dramatic end of Maduro’s control over a country emblematic of left-wing politics underscored Latin America’s shift to the political right.

Since late 2025, the leadership has flipped from left to right in five Latin American countries: Bolivia, Chile, Honduras, Peru, and Colombia. Uruguay did the opposite, shifting from right to left in November 2024, the same month Trump was reelected.

The conservative realignment under Trump comes as his administration has refocused on America’s southern neighbors in what has been dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine” – a play on the Monroe Doctrine, which asserted U.S. dominance over the region.

Gone is the “pink tide,” a wave of “soft” communism that emerged in Latin America in the late 1990s and extended into the 2000s before reemerging in the early 2020s.

The era gave rise to prominent left-wing leaders such as Maduro’s predecessor, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, and Bolivia’s Evo Morales, whose takeover of oil and gas production tanked his country’s economy.

Experts believe a combination of Trump’s influence, along with economic and security concerns – two areas of strength for conservative candidates – has triggered a reversal of fortunes for leftist governments in the region.

Trump endorsed a number of right-wing candidates in Latin America. In December 2025, he endorsed Chile’s José Antonio Kast, who won a landslide election against the communist candidate Jeannette Jara in December 2025. That same month, Nasry Asfura, a Trump-backed conservative, snatched victory away from Honduras’s socialist government.

The president also supported Colombia’s Abelardo de la Espriella, who this year edged out Iván Cepeda, a left-wing opponent aligned with outgoing leader Gustavo Petro, a former Marxist guerrilla.

In four of the five countries, conservatives also made gains in their respective legislatures. Only Colombia saw the left actually gain legislative seats, but neither side holds a majority in its two chambers.

In Bolivia, no party won an outright majority, but the conservative government became the largest force in both chambers of its legislature, while conservative factions together make up a supermajority in both chambers of Bolivia’s government. The former leftist government retained only two seats.

Honduras’s single legislative chamber gained conservative seats on the coattails of Asfura’s victory. In Chile’s legislature, a conservative coalition controls the lower chamber, while the upper chamber is evenly split. Likewise, Peru’s conservative bloc holds a plurality but not a majority in the lower chamber, while the upper chamber is evenly divided.

Crime and Economics

Latin America’s conservative trend was sparked by disappointment with leftist governments, which led to increased organized crime and inflation, according to Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, a Germany-based international political analysis group.

Of 16 democracies with populations greater than 1 million people, 10 have changed political direction since 2022, mostly from left to right, according to the report and recent updates.

Of those examined, only Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, and Uruguay currently have left-wing governments.

Venezuela, which wasn’t counted as a democracy, remains in political limbo after Maduro’s removal, leaving his Vice President Delcy Rodríguez in charge. Cuba remains under communist control that took root in the 1950s. Another country not included in the survey was Nicaragua, ruled by former left-wing guerrilla leader Daniel Ortega, who has been consolidating power since 2007. He recently announced the nation would cease to hold elections.

Guyana, which has about 1 million residents, holds democratic elections but remains firmly in the grasp of socialists.

Just as Maduro’s demise signaled the end of the old communist guard, figures such as Argentina’s golden chainsaw-wielding leader Javier Milei symbolize the rise of conservative populist leaders.

“Figures such as Javier Milei in Argentina and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador embody the new political mood with their populist strategies, while moderate conservatives such as Luis Abinader in the Dominican Republic prioritize stability and pragmatism,” according to the report.

U.S. policy has reinforced the region’s conservative vibe, the report said, leading to positive relationships with right-wing leaders.

“This is hardly surprising given that Washington recently announced its intent to actively support like-minded political forces in the Western Hemisphere, to expand trade relations, and to stabilize Latin American countries in line with its own interests,” the report states.

‘Trump Effect’

Joshua Trevino, senior director for the Western Hemisphere Initiative at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said having a conservative in the White House has driven change in Latin America.

Trump’s influence and policies have contributed to Latin America turning away from socialism and communism, he said.

“So what we see is a Trump administration effect to a lot of it,” he told The Epoch Times. “We can have a lot more open optimism in Latin America than we previously did.”

Read the rest here…

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Internal Revenue Service has announced interest rates for tax underpayments and overpayments for the fourth quarter of 2026, keeping them at 7 percent for individual taxpayers.

When taxpayers do not pay taxes, penalties, and other charges on time, the IRS charges interest on the underpayment. Conversely, when taxpayers pay more tax than they actually owe, the agency pays interest on the overpayment. Those rates are determined quarterly. The 7 percent rate for overpayments and underpayments takes effect Oct. 1, according to the IRS.

For corporations, the overpayment rate is 6 percent, while the rate on the portion of a corporate overpayment exceeding $10,000 is 4.5 percent. The underpayment rate is 7 percent, the same as for individual taxpayers, while large corporate underpayments carry a 9 percent rate. All of the rates are unchanged from the third quarter.

According to an April 26 IRS update cited by The Epoch Times, interest on underpayments begins accruing on the due date of the amount owed and continues until the balance is paid in full.

Interest on overpayments is calculated based on factors including the tax filing due date, payment dates, and when the IRS receives a return in a format it can process.

Taxpayers can file claims if they believe the amount of overpayment interest they received was insufficient.

The rates were announced based on the federal short-term rate for July, which was determined to be 4 percent.

For taxpayers other than corporations, the overpayment and underpayment rates are calculated by adding 3 percentage points to the federal short-term rate.

For corporations, the underpayment rate is the federal short-term rate plus 3 percentage points. The corporate overpayment rate adds 2 percentage points, except for the portion of an overpayment exceeding $10,000, for which only 0.5 percentage point is added.

Penalty Relief

The IRS has also introduced a new automatic penalty relief process for taxpayers, known as the Automatic Exemption from Penalty, or AEP.

The program is available to eligible taxpayers who filed and paid their taxes on time during the previous three years, or during 12 consecutive quarters for quarterly filers. Those who qualify automatically receive relief from common penalties including failure to file, failure to pay, and failure to deposit.

When the IRS applies AEP to an eligible tax return, the taxpayer receives a notice confirming that the relief was granted.

Taxpayers who do not qualify for AEP can still seek penalty relief on the basis of reasonable cause, which the agency considers case by case.

In a July 8 statement, the IRS said it would begin phasing out the long-standing First Time Abate, or FTA, relief system in favor of AEP during the summer. Under FTA, taxpayers had to contact the agency before the IRS reviewed their account to determine whether they qualified. AEP makes that process automatic for eligible taxpayers.

During the transition, some taxpayers who qualify for AEP may still receive penalty notices involving 2025 or 2026 returns. In those cases, the IRS says taxpayers can contact the agency and request FTA relief.

IRS CEO Frank J. Bisignano said the automatic exemption reflects the agency’s effort to make payment of taxes owed simpler and more consistent.

He added that taxpayers with a history of paying on time should not have to formally request relief that would routinely be granted.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Florida is doing what no blue-state classroom dares: forcing students to confront the actual body count of communism instead of romanticizing it.

Starting this fall, every public school student from sixth grade onward will receive mandatory instruction on the history and evils of communism under standards signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The curriculum covers the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Revolution, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and the recent capture of Nicolás Maduro.

? BREAKING: Florida students are being REQUIRED this Fall to learn about the evils of Communism under a law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis

BASED ????

“Starting in 6th grade, they will touch [on] the dangers of the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Revolution, North Korea, Cuba… pic.twitter.com/LcqfyOhrzU

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 21, 2026

It details the mass deaths under Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Castro, the failure of collectivism, and the superiority of free enterprise and private property.

?? COMMUNISM — This fall, Florida will make it MANDATORY for every middle and high school student to take a yearly class on the history and evils of communism.

The curriculum, developed, covers the mass deaths under Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Castro, the failure of… pic.twitter.com/YlgSzPxk5K

— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) August 21, 2026

Education leaders have been blunt: too many young Americans romanticize socialism because they were never taught its real-world toll.

The requirement builds on Florida’s existing Victims of Communism Day, which already mandated at least 45 minutes of annual instruction on those same regimes.

The fuller standards, approved by the State Board of Education in November 2025 and updated this year to include Maduro’s autocratic rule and subsequent fall, take effect for the 2026-2027 school year.

DeSantis has been consistent. “The truth will set us free,” he said when signing the underlying bill, adding “We will not allow our students to live in ignorance, nor be indoctrinated by Communist apologists in schools.”

“To the contrary, we will ensure students in Florida are taught the truth about the evils and dangers of Communism,” DeSantis further urged.

In a more recent post he added, “The DSA may try to make Castro out to be a HERO – but FLORIDA students know better!”

Former Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas put it this way when the standards were adopted: “With the resurgence of communist ideologies across the United States and throughout the world, it is more important than ever for students to understand the catastrophic failures and human suffering caused by communist regimes.”

The standards themselves ensure students learn “the truth about how communist regimes suppress freedoms, abuse power, and inflict widespread suffering.”

Instruction begins in middle school and continues through high school. Students will examine domestic communist movements and their tactics in the United States, the economic and political conditions that preceded communist takeovers, the spread of Cuban-style communism through Latin America, and direct comparisons between communism, totalitarianism, and the founding principles of American freedom and democracy.

The capture of Maduro has been folded in so the lessons stay current.

Florida’s large exile communities from Cuba and Venezuela already know the difference between slogans and reality. The state is simply making sure every student gets the same clarity before they reach campuses where those slogans still circulate.

While Florida insists on historical accuracy, other jurisdictions continue to push mandatory ideological content in the opposite direction.

In Texas, public school students from Humble ISD’s Kingwood and Atascocita high schools were recently bused to an Islamic center so they could “experience Islam.”

The trip included observation of midday prayer, a presentation by a CAIR representative, and promotional claims that students left “changed.” No equivalent taxpayer-funded field trips to churches or synagogues appear to have been organized.

At UCLA medical school, first-year students have been required to take a course on structural racism and health equity that includes mandatory reading promoting “fat positivity.”

One assigned essay argues that the term “obesity” is a slur used to exact violence on fat people and frames weight loss as essentially hopeless. Former Harvard Medical School dean Jeffrey Flier called the material “extensive and dangerous misinformation” and “pedagogical malpractice.”

At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a required first-year education course for future teachers leaked PowerPoint materials that prioritize leftist framing of immigration, race, and gender over basic classroom skills.

Slides instruct students to reject the term “illegal immigrants,” emphasize “humanizing language,” and treat resistance to ICE as a professional duty. A whistleblower noted the near-total absence of practical instruction on how to teach math or reading.

In Washington state’s Olympia School District, officials refused parental requests to opt students out of Pride-themed lessons, declaring that such opt-outs would be “offensive and demeaning.”

Non-participation was treated as an unexcused absence. The lessons form part of a broader gender-inclusive curriculum tied to state standards.

California has gone further. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation requiring student ID cards in middle schools, high schools, and colleges to carry the Trevor Project’s LGBTQ crisis hotline.

The organization has faced criticism for its approach to gender issues and parental notification. Newsom framed the mandate as a direct response to federal policy changes under the Trump administration.

In Maryland’s Montgomery County, LGBTQ-inclusive books were made mandatory reading in the English language arts curriculum with no parental opt-out and no advance notice required for most of the materials. Parents and even local Muslim organizations objected that the policy violated parental rights.

And in Kansas, sixth-graders at Marshall Elementary School in Eureka were told they could not name Charlie Kirk, President Trump, or Jesus Christ as role models in a “Find Your Voice” assignment.

The guidance counselor reportedly became angry when those names were suggested and excluded political and religious figures entirely. The American Center for Law & Justice has filed a civil rights complaint.

These examples reflect a pattern in which certain ideological frameworks are treated as non-negotiable while the documented human costs of 20th-century communism are often soft-pedaled or ignored.

Florida has chosen the opposite path: require the history, include the body count, and let students judge the results for themselves.

The new standards do not claim communism is the only source of historical evil. They simply refuse to leave students unequipped when they encounter professors or activists who still treat failed experiments as moral inspiration.

In a state that absorbed hundreds of thousands of people who fled those experiments, the choice is neither surprising nor complicated.

Florida students will now learn, as a matter of required curriculum, what the rest of the country too often prefers to forget.

The DSA can keep trying to rehabilitate Castro. The classrooms in the Sunshine State will keep teaching the opposite.

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

Tehran has on Saturday further addressed the new Trump-Bessent plan of long-term economic ‘strangulation’ and isolation, which in the US Treasury Secretary’s words seeks to “collapse” the Iranian government with the “toughest sanctions in history.” This of course means that Washington will have to at the same time pressure other nations that do business with Tehran to immediately cease, which could prove a tall order – given already China and Russia are clearly not going to comply.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, said the new sanctions initiative amounts to a “declaration of war” on all countries and goes beyond “an illegal economic war against a single nation.“

Baghaei said: “The announcement of new sanctions represents an attempt by the United States to exert extraterritorial sovereignty over all independent UN member states.”

“No government has the right to force foreign banks, enterprises, or airports, each operating under the exclusive jurisdiction of their own sovereignty, to refrain from engaging in legitimate trade with a third country,” he continued, according to Fars news agency.

The ministery added that “such secondary sanctions have no basis in international law” and “violated the fundamental principle of sovereign equality enshrined in Article 2, Paragraph 1 of the UN Charter.”

Baghaei previewed and warned that a surrender to “such intimidation would lead to the total erosion of national sovereignty” and serve as “a catastrophic return to blatant, full-scale colonialism.“

This is clearly an attempt to put other countries on notice, urging them not to play Washington’s game. The appeal might gain a sympathetic ear especially in BRICS and Global South countries.

The statement was issued on the heels of Iran’s military days ago giving a more direct warning and threat to America’s regional Gulf allies. On Wednesday Ali Abdollahi, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, announced that “any assistance or facilitation provided to the aggressor US military amounts to participation in the US military operation.“

“It seems unlikely that such a large number of military aircraft, particularly refuelling aircraft, could be present at regional bases without knowledge of host countries,” said Abdollahi. 

All of this is a mirror response to Bessent’s Bush-style “you’re either with us or against us” rhetoric.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and top negotiator, has issued some fresh words of his own. He claimed Tehran has received “numerous messages” related to new security and economic arrangements in the region as a result of US-Israeli aggression.

“The United States put the security of every single one of its allies at such risk through bullying and pure disregard for their interests for the sake of Israel that they briefly saw their entire existence on the line,” Ghalibaf stated on X.

“A homegrown, independent order is what will actually deliver peace and security,” he added. Iran has for months said that various countries are seeking to strike their own separate arrangements for vessel passage through the Strait of Hormuz, something which if true gives the Islamic Republic further leverage. But the White House has been seeking to counter this narrative by feeding reports to Axios…

There are essentially two ways to interpret the administration’s claims about the volume of oil now moving through the Strait of Hormuz.

The first is that Washington is significantly overstating the numbers in an effort to calm energy markets, push oil prices down, and… https://t.co/RJKJyER3nt

— Danny (Dennis) Citrinowicz ,داني سيترينوفيتش (@citrinowicz) August 22, 2026

At the moment, Axios is claiming that millions of barrels of oil are still transiting via a ‘stealth’ corridor ensured by the US Navy, but there are many expressing skepticism over this. The past days have actually seen no new attacks on foreign vessels in the strait, as the plot thickens over competing narratives (given the Iranians have dismissed the Axios reporting as fabrications).

Authored by Kent Ingle via RealClearEducation,

Rather than fearing generative tools or treating them as mere compliance threats, higher education must train students to master AI as an exponential multiplier for innovation, career success, and national prosperity. Generative artificial intelligence is vastly more prevalent, sophisticated, and accessible today than it was even six months ago.

Today’s incoming students arrive on campus with the collective knowledge of human history sitting directly in their pockets.

They are navigating a digital landscape that is fundamentally rewriting how information is processed, analyzed, and created. Predictably, administrators across the country are responding with panic. Elite institutions are rushing to expand their rulebooks, update honor codes, and purchase unreliable detection software in a futile attempt to police the classroom.

This reactionary mindset misses the entire point. When higher education views artificial intelligence primarily as a cheating hazard, it defaults to censorship and control. But when we approach technology through the lens of human potential and future readiness, our entire perspective transforms. We should be asking how to train our students to master it responsibly from the ground up.

Attempting to ban these platforms is like trying to ban the calculator in a modern engineering department. Whether we choose to embrace it or not, generative software is now a permanent fixture of the global economy. In fact, it is currently the number one most marketable skill for people looking for new jobs out of college. Recent labor market data reveals that demand for artificial intelligence competency in entry-level roles has nearly tripled in less than a year, extending far beyond traditional technology companies into marketing, operations, human resources, and finance. To compete in a rapidly evolving market, the next generation cannot simply be passive consumers of technology. They must be fluent directors of it.

When leveraged properly, artificial intelligence becomes an exponential work and impact multiplier. It streamlines complex research, accelerates problem-solving, and synthesizes massive datasets in seconds. A properly equipped student learns to direct artificial intelligence as a powerful research assistant while maintaining total ownership over the final outcome. We must teach our young adults the difference between outsourcing their intellect and augmenting their capabilities.

Using artificial intelligence to skip the hard work of learning is a misuse of human potential. But using these platforms to elevate our thinking, automate routine labor, and tackle grand challenges is the exact formula for lifelong success and prosperity. This is not just about individual career placement. It is about national survival. Artificial intelligence is currently the fastest-growing economic sector in our country. It is catalyzing a trillion-dollar infrastructure buildout that is reaching all fifty states, revitalizing communities, and creating unprecedented opportunities across every sector. If American industry is going to maintain its leadership on the global stage, our workforce requires graduates who understand how to harness these tools to innovate at breakneck speeds. If we are going to continue to lead on the global industrial stage, we need more students ready to embrace AI, not less.

Censoring students from trying to cheat does not protect academic integrity. It simply leaves our graduates woefully unprepared for the economic realities of tomorrow. Relying on software for baseline tasks means that the value of genuine critical thinking and strategic foresight is actually higher than ever. Employers are actively seeking out graduates who possess the discernment to evaluate machine-generated outputs, spot inaccuracies, and apply human judgment to elevate mediocre drafts into exceptional final products.

Our duty as educational leaders is to prepare students for a life of success, prosperity, and leadership in a highly competitive world. We completely fail in that core mission if we allow administrative fear to prevent us from teaching digital mastery. Instead of building higher digital walls, universities must build stronger practical foundations. We must teach students that true excellence lies in combining technological fluency with unshakeable personal integrity. We must show them exactly how to prompt, evaluate, refine, and deploy these tools ethically so that they enter their careers equipped to perform.

Artificial intelligence is driving the fastest economic transformation of our lifetime, and it is the key to America’s future competitive edge. The universities that thrive in this new era will not be the ones that tried to ban the future. They will be the ones that trained their students to lead it. As a new academic year begins, we owe it to the next generation to step forward with vision and confidence, equipping them to master this technology and secure the ongoing prosperity of American industry.

As regular readers know, establishment Democrats have been freaking out over the rise of socialist candidates – whose policy positions are virtually identical, except the socialists are getting elected saying the quiet part out loud – giving the game away. 

On Tuesday, Democratic Socialist Angie Nixon beat Russiagate hero Alexander Vindman in a shocking double-digit primary win in Florida – setting the stage for Nixon to square off with Republican Sen. Ashley Moody in November. The battle to unseat Moody was always going to be uphill – and now the state’s Democratic party is freaking out.

According to Axios, Nixon and the state party’s chair – Nikki Fried, got into a heated shouting match over the phone – with Fried reportedly warning Nixon that her DSA ties give the GOP an easy angle to attack going into midterms. 

“Nikki wants her to back away from DSA, from socialism,” one person who spoke with Nixon told the outlet. “She’s listening to other people saying that they’re afraid, they’re scared – the Jewish members and the Hispanic caucus. But to Angie, Nikki doesn’t want Angie to be who Angie is. Angie has already done the backing-away.”

On the call, Nixon told Fried, “You never gave a care about me from the beginning, and now you’re telling me how to run my campaign?” according to the source. -Axios

An official with the Florida Democratic Party disputed that Fried yelled at Nixon – insisting that the state party tried to contact Nixon’s team multiple times about a coordinated campaign – but that their calls weren’t returned. That said, Nixon’s field team did participate in a call with the party’s coordinated campaign last week. 

“The DSA label could create an opening for misinformation and allow Angie’s opponents to define her in ways that don’t reflect her actual record or positions, rather than letting voters hear directly from Angie about what she believes and what she’s running on,” said the source. 

A second source told Axios that not only was the feud a clash of ideology – but “also a clash of personalities.” 

“Nikki needs to be careful,” said the source. “She can’t afford to be seen by black voters disrespecting a black woman.”

Another Florida Democratic official told the outlet that Nixon an Fried have always hated each other, and that Fried “was very disappointed that Angie won. She made that pretty well known.”

More via Axios:

• Before the election, the source said, Fried was predicting Nixon would lose and was “calling around telling people, ‘Hey, can you make sure when he wins that Angie is nice and welcoming and does all the things to bring everybody together?'”
• “I know Nikki doesn’t like it, but Angie is the engine right now. Angie is the national story, and Nikki just can’t stand it.”
• One of the Florida Democratic Party sources said that the organization did not favor Vindman over Nixon and was neutral in the primary.

Fried’s freakout is just the latest example of establishment dems pushing back against the DSA. That said, Nixon was a recent ‘convert’ to the party, and according to the report – she was trying to distance herself from various DSA positions. She says she doesn’t back abolishing prisons, just for-profit ones, she doesn’t support open borders, and she doesn’t want to defund the police (or so she says). 

Summary: 

• National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Slams Trump Admin
• Trump To Flood US With 300,000 Tons Of Tariff-Free Ground Beef To Tame Prices Ahead Of Midterms

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Slams Trump Admin

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) responded to President Trump’s move to import 300,000 tons of tariff-free ground beef to stabilize prices ahead of the midterms in a series of posts on X.

NCBA, the largest national trade and lobbying organization representing US cattle producers and broader beef-industry interests, was not pleased with the new Trump policy.

“Undercutting American farmers and ranchers with inferior products from foreign competitors does nothing to create market confidence or encourage rebuilding the herd,” the group wrote.

No cow-calf producer in America is asking for increased imports. Undercutting American farmers and ranchers with inferior product from foreign competitors does nothing to create market confidence or encourage rebuilding the herd. pic.twitter.com/8aLZXuUfxj

— National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (@BeefUSA) August 21, 2026

NCBA raised several additional objections:

1. Incentivizing additional foreign imports undermines America’s producers at a critical time as they make decisions about rebuilding numbers for next year. U.S. farmers and ranchers need stability.

2. Unlike spur-of-the-moment trading decisions made based on White House social media posts, the decisions and investments ranchers make in their herds are made YEARS in advance, not days or weeks.

3. The Trump Administration’s repeated whiplash on trade policy and beef imports has real impacts on cattle producers in rural America. USDA created and promoted a stronger “Product of the USA” label, only to abandon it and decide that MCOOL was the only option.

4. Today’s announcement is not about helping producers. It’s not about putting their finger on the scale for one cattle industry group or another. It is 100% about the 74 days between now and the midterm elections.

Trump To Flood US With 300,000 Tons Of Tariff-Free Ground Beef To Tame Prices Ahead Of Midterms

With 74 days remaining until the midterm elections and average retail ground-beef prices hovering near $7 per pound, President Trump said in a Truth Social post Friday morning that his administration will temporarily waive certain tariffs on ground-beef imports. The move follows our Monday report highlighting signs that consumers are balking at record beef prices, with demand destruction beginning to surface against a backdrop of household stress, including Walmart sales that missed estimates and dismal July retail-sales data.

“Today, I concluded a deal to substantially lower the price of ground beef for working American families. As everyone knows, under President Biden, beef prices soared at their fastest rate and the American beef herd fell to its smallest size in modern history,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump continued, “As we work to rebuild this herd and help our ranchers, for the next 90 days, the United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported with no out-of-quota tariff.”

He concluded, “We have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices. This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again.“

The temporary import waiver appears intended to address affordability concerns in supermarket aisles ahead of the midterm elections.

Because the relief is temporary, the longer-term supply backdrop remains challenging. Bank of America analysts recently cited Oklahoma State University agricultural economist Derrell Peel, who warned that the US cattle cycle is unlikely to improve anytime soon and that beef prices are poised to remain elevated through at least next year.

Data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that the national average price of ground beef in supermarkets is hovering just below $7 per pound, a record high, as a prolonged cattle shortage shows no signs of abating anytime soon.

New data from Chicago-based market research company Circana, first published by Bloomberg on Monday, show that beef sales volumes declined .3% during the 13 weeks through mid-July. Volumes had risen about 5% during the same period in each of the previous two years. The decline is notable because it occurred during the peak grilling season around Memorial Day and July Fourth. Translation: demand destruction.

Read:

• When Will The Cattle Cycle Turn? BofA Has Answers For Beef Lovers

With the cattle cycle likely to take several years to rebound properly, we recently outlined the one overlooked protein that is far cheaper than beef (read here).