Together, these brewers produced 42.7 billion U.S. gallons of beer in 2024, equal to 86.3% of global production.
AB InBev Leads by a Wide Margin
AB InBev dominated the global beer industry in 2024, producing 13.1 billion U.S. gallons, or 26.4% of all beer brewed worldwide.
Its output exceeded the combined production of Heineken, China Resources Snow Breweries, and Carlsberg, underscoring the company’s unmatched global scale.
The Belgian company’s scale is especially clear when compared with Heineken, the world’s second-largest brewer. The Dutch company produced 6.4 billion U.S. gallons, or 12.8% of global output, roughly half of AB InBev’s total.
AB InBev is best known for Budweiser, while Heineken’s flagship beer shares the company name. Although both companies are headquartered in Europe, their brands have become household names worldwide.
European Brewers Dominate the Ranking
Europe had more companies in the top 40 than any other region. Its 21 brewers produced a combined 29.6 billion U.S. gallons, equal to nearly 60% of global beer production.
Germany placed six brewers on the list, more than any other country, yet none ranked in the top 20. Its more than 1,500 breweries are mostly family-owned and regional, while brewers from smaller countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark have expanded more extensively abroad.
Asia followed with 11 brewers, led by China Resources Snow Breweries, Tsingtao, and Asahi Group. Asian companies in the ranking produced 10.3 billion U.S. gallons, equal to 20.8% of global production.
Despite being the world’s second-largest beer producer and recording annual beer consumption of 22 gallons per person in 2023, the United States had just two brewers on the list: Molson Coors, a Canadian-American company, and Constellation Brands.
Molson Coors is associated with Coors Light, while Constellation Brands holds the U.S. rights to Mexican beer brands Modelo and Corona. Modelo has been the country’s best-selling beer since 2023.
The highest-ranked was China Resources Snow Breweries, which placed third with 2.9 billion U.S. gallons, equal to 5.8% of global production.
Tsingtao Brewery Group also placed in the top 10, producing 2.0 billion U.S. gallons in 2024. Yanjing and Pearl River added another 1.1 billion and 380 million gallons, respectively.
Together, the four Chinese brewers produced 6.3 billion U.S. gallons of beer, nearly matching Heineken’s global output and highlighting the size of China’s domestic market.
Familiar Brands Behind the Biggest Brewers
Many of the world’s largest brewers are tied to widely recognized flagship beers. The top seven are associated with Budweiser, Heineken, Snow, Carlsberg, Coors Light, Tsingtao, and Asahi Super Dry.
Further down the ranking, regional champions play an important role. Guinness supports Diageo’s beer output, while San Miguel Pale Pilsen, Singha, Chang, Saigon Beer, and Sapporo anchor major brewers across Asia.
A handful of multinational giants dominate global beer production, but strong regional brands continue to shape individual markets. The result is an industry that is highly concentrated at the top while remaining diverse across countries and brands.
An independent review has confirmed what many long suspected: Bill Gates and senior figures at his foundation met with Jeffrey Epstein roughly 30 times between 2011 and 2014, brushing aside repeated internal warnings about the reputational and ethical risks of associating with a man already convicted of sex crimes involving a minor.
The findings, released by the Gates Foundation after a months-long external examination by the law firm WilmerHale, show that foundation staff “raised on multiple occasions the risks of associating with Epstein because of his prior conviction,” and that those concerns reached senior leadership, including Gates himself.
Gates was aware of the reputational issues tied to Epstein’s 2008 conviction and sentencing when the conversations began in 2011. Meetings took place on the foundation’s campus and at Epstein’s Manhattan residence. Interactions centered on potential philanthropy ideas that never materialized and ended by December 2014.
The review found no evidence that the foundation paid Epstein, no evidence of knowledge or participation in his sex-trafficking operations, and no evidence the meetings involved illegal conduct.
Yet the sheer volume of contact, combined with documented staff alarms that went unheeded, underscores a pattern of elite indifference that has defined the Epstein saga from the start.
Bill Gates ignored numerous warnings about the reputational risks of associating with Jeffrey Epstein, according to an independent review.
Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman commissioned the review in March 2026 with support from Gates and independent board members. WilmerHale conducted more than 50 interviews and reviewed foundation records.
In a statement, Suzman said the work “depends on integrity and earning and maintaining the trust of partners” and that the foundation is moving forward with board-approved steps to strengthen vetting, risk management, and accountability.
Gates himself stated: “Completing this review is an important step in providing the clarity that partners, employees, and grantees deserve as well as strengthening our oversight with additional policies going forward.”
The board approved new processes for centralized vetting of intermediaries, escalation of risks introduced by leadership, clearer dual-role rules, and tighter conflict-of-interest policies.
Notably, the review did not examine Gates’s personal emails or communications from his private office – a limitation disclosed in a footnote that leaves significant territory unexamined.
This latest disclosure lands amid a broader reckoning that has already forced Gates into congressional testimony and exposed layers of previous denials.
For years the Microsoft co-founder insisted his contacts with Epstein were limited and regrettable.
In 2019 he admitted the meetings were a mistake, saying he had given Epstein “some benefit by the association” after the financier’s conviction for soliciting a minor.
“My doing that was a mistake,” Gates said at the time. “None of that money ever appeared, and I gave him some benefit by the association, so I made a doubly wrong mistake there.”
That measured language has long contrasted with Gates’s visible discomfort whenever the subject arises. In one 2021 interview he snapped “He’s dead!” when pressed.
In a later appearance he insisted “There never was any relationship of any kind,” then offered an odd smile while repeating that he “shouldn’t have had dinners with him” for the “over 100th time.”
The February 2026 release of millions of Epstein files intensified the pressure. Documents included draft emails in which Epstein alleged Gates had contracted a sexually transmitted infection after encounters with Russian women and contemplated secretly medicating his then-wife Melinda.
A Gates spokesperson dismissed the claims as “absolutely absurd and completely false.” Melinda French Gates, speaking on NPR’s Wild Card podcast, did not contest the specifics.
She described “unbelievable sadness” and said the revelations contributed to the end of their marriage and her departure from the foundation. “They need to answer to those things, not me,” she stated. “And I am so happy to be away from all the muck.”
The files also contained a 2011 email from Hollywood producer Barry Josephson to Epstein referencing a question Epstein had posed to Gates: “How do we get rid of poor people as a whole?”
Josephson claimed to have “an answer.” The exchange then shifted to discussing a 16-year-old relative of Epstein’s for a film project. The document does not record Gates’s response, but it sat alongside the foundation’s documented meetings during the same period.
Even liberal media turned. On The View, hosts mocked Gates’s denials. Joy Behar ridiculed the familiar refrain “I was not on the island,” noting it was hardly the only location where Epstein operated. Sunny Hostin said the Justice Department files meant Gates “should answer to it.”
Lawmakers moved quickly. Rep. Nancy Mace publicly demanded a subpoena, writing that she had watched Melinda Gates’s interview and immediately asked House Oversight Chairman James Comer to compel Gates’s testimony.
“I have questions for Bill Gates about Epstein,” Mace stated. “Nobody is above the law. Not billionaires. Not the powerful. Nobody.” Comer confirmed the committee was consulting counsel and that “the odds are good” Gates would face questions under oath, noting bipartisan interest on the panel.
Gates ultimately sat for a transcribed interview with the Oversight Committee in June 2026.
He told lawmakers he “never witnessed nor had any indication” Epstein was engaged in ongoing criminal conduct, described the association as a “grave error in judgment,” and acknowledged he may have been in the presence of victims.
He has also said he was “quite stupid” to spend time with Epstein, believing it would advance global health philanthropy when it did not.
The foundation’s new review arrives as other strands of the Epstein network continue to fray under scrutiny. This week French model scout Daniel Siad, whose name appeared more than 2,000 times in the released files and who arranged introductions of young women to Epstein for over a decade, was found dead at his home near Paris.
An autopsy has been ordered. Siad is the second French modeling figure linked to Epstein to die before facing trial; Jean-Luc Brunel was found hanged in a Paris prison cell in 2022. Prosecutors say the broader trafficking investigation continues without him.
Meanwhile, former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas has detailed how federal prosecutors in 2019 persuaded his office to halt its probe of Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in exchange for a promise to return state-related materials once the federal case concluded.
That promise was never kept. Current New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez has waited more than 130 days for unredacted files while agents recently searched the property for possible remains.
Balderas said the Justice Department “burned” his office and is now burning the current one.
The pattern is consistent. Warnings are ignored. Evidence is withheld. Associates exit the stage under opaque circumstances. Powerful figures issue carefully lawyered statements of regret while the machinery of accountability moves slowly, if at all.
The Gates Foundation review closes one chapter with institutional reforms and a finding of no direct criminal knowledge. It does not erase the documented decision to meet a convicted sex offender nearly thirty times after staff raised alarms, nor does it resolve the unanswered questions that still surround the broader network of influence, money, and protection that allowed Epstein to operate for so long.
Accountability for the elite has never been the default setting of the administrative state. It remains a demand that must be forced.
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Humanoid War Robot Gets Advanced AMD-Powered AI Brain
At the start of February, we began tracking startup Foundation Robotics after publicly available news reports and X posts suggested it could become one of the first US companies to deploy humanoid robots on the modern battlefield.
TIME later reported that the company’s robots had been sent to Ukraine for testing and evaluation, raising the prospect that these war bots could soon reach the front lines in Eastern Europe.
In another signal that Foundation is preparing its war bots for battlefield deployment, Reuters reported that the startup partnered with Advanced Micro Devices to supply high-end AI processors for its second-generation Phantom MK-2 robot.
Foundation plans to open a factory in October capable of producing 5,000 robots per year, followed by a second facility with capacity for 50,000 units. Industrial robots will be leased for about $100,000 annually, while defense models designed for logistics and reconnaissance will be sold for $300,000 per unit.
Phantom MK-1 robot
Last month, we were also the first to publish video from a Las Vegas testing range showing the Phantom MK-1 operating a light mortar system.
Phantom MK-1 robot
Founded in 2024, Foundation said its first-generation Phantom MK-1 robots are already operating in the automotive supply chain and contributed to the production of more than 24,000 vehicles last year.
Beyond the factory floor, the key question is when these bots will reach the front lines. Our report earlier this month, citing a Ukrainian news outlet, revealed that Kiev is preparing to launch a grant competition for war bots, with Foundation appearing well positioned to secure funding.
Every summer seems to follow the same predictable media script.
Wildfires ignite somewhere in North America. Smoke drifts hundreds or even thousands of miles. Air quality alerts are issued. Television stations fill the screen with hazy skylines. Then, before investigators have even determined how the fires started, headlines begin linking the smoke to climate change.
This year has been no different. As smoke from Canadian wildfires spread across parts of the Midwest and Northeast, much of the news coverage quickly shifted from reporting on the fires to treating them as evidence of a worsening climate crisis. Yet one crucial fact was often left out: many of the fires responsible for the smoke were ignited by lightning, a natural cause that has existed for as long as forests have.
Lightning is not new. Smoke carried by prevailing winds is not new. What is new is the growing tendency to treat every smoky sky as proof of climate change.
That illogical leap simply isn’t supported by the evidence.
One of the most striking graphics I’ve seen tells a story you probably haven’t seen in the news. Using data from the European Commission’s Global Wildfire Information System, it shows that 2026 has experienced the lowest cumulative burned area across the Americas in at least the past decade.
A second graphic, using the same global database, shows that every inhabited continent is running below its recent average for area burned this year, with Africa, the Americas, and Europe at record lows.
Those are remarkable statistics. They don’t mean wildfires have disappeared or that smoke isn’t a serious public health concern. They simply demonstrate that the broader wildfire picture is very different from the one often portrayed in daily news reports.
If global burned areas are unusually low, why are so many stories describing an escalating wildfire emergency and attributing it to climate change?
Part of the answer lies in how we consume news. Reporters naturally cover fires that are burning today, not forests that aren’t burning. Dramatic images of smoke-filled cities attract attention. Maps showing below-average burned area rarely do. The result is a form of selection bias: the public constantly sees active disasters while receiving little context about longer-term trends. It’s a variation of the old news adage, “If it bleeds it leads.”
History provides even more perspective.
Another telling graph comes from fire research published by the Royal Society. Drawing on evidence from more than 800 fire-scar sites across western North America, it shows that large wildfires were substantially more common before 1900 than they are today. Fire activity declined with changes in land management, livestock grazing, settlement patterns, and organized fire suppression. In other words, today’s forests are not burning at historically unprecedented levels.
The broader scientific literature reflects this. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in chapter 12 of their Sixth Assessment Report has concluded there is low confidence in observed global trends for fire weather and burned area. The IPCC also reports with high confidence that the global land area burned has declined in recent decades. That is a far more cautious assessment than many news reports suggest.
None of this means climate has no influence on wildfire behavior. Weather has always affected fire, and changing climate conditions may influence fire risk in some regions. But wildfire is driven by many interacting factors: ignition sources such as lightning, accidents, and even arson, wind, humidity, fuel accumulation, insect damage, forest management, decades of fire suppression, and simple bad luck. Reducing every wildfire to somehow being caused by climate change ignores most of what really determines how a fire starts and how it spreads. The smoke itself tells us even less.
Smoke is transported by normal atmospheric circulation. A relatively modest fire season can produce severe smoke episodes if winds carry the plume over densely populated areas. Conversely, enormous fires in remote regions may receive little attention if the smoke disperses harmlessly elsewhere. Smoke over Chicago, Milwaukee, or Buffalo tells us where the wind blew from. It does not tell us why the fire started, nor does it prove that climate change was the primary cause.
Good journalism should provide readers with both immediate news and historical context. Unfortunately, wildfire coverage increasingly follows a predictable formula: smoke appears, climate change is declared the culprit, and the broader evidence rarely enters the discussion.
The public deserves far better than reporting by following a script.
Wildfires are serious. Smoke poses real health risks. Those realities don’t require exaggeration or selective reporting. Before every smoky summer is presented as another chapter in an inevitable climate catastrophe, readers deserve to know the full picture, including the parts that don’t fit the prevailing narrative.
Because good science depends on evidence, good journalism should too.
Anthony Watts (awatts@heartland.org)) is a Senior Fellow for Environment and Climate at The Heartland Institute and has over 40 years of weather reporting experience in radio, television, and print.
Public opinion toward the world’s two leading powers has undergone a notable shift. Pew Research Center’s Spring 2026 Global Attitudes Survey reveals significant differences in how countries perceive China and the United States.
The visualization below, created by Visual Capitalist’s Iswardi Ishak using Pew Research Center data, compares favorability toward both countries across 36 nations, showing where each holds the strongest public support and where opinions remain closely divided.
How the World Views the U.S. and China
The chart below plots favorable opinions of China and the U.S. using Pew Research Center’s Spring 2026 Global Attitudes Survey.
Regional differences are pronounced. Many countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and parts of Latin America express more favorable views of China. The U.S. leads in nine countries: Brazil, Ghana, Hungary, India, Israel, Japan, the Philippines, Poland, and South Korea.
The Development Divide
The scatterplot reveals several broad clusters. Wealthier Western democracies generally remain skeptical of both countries, with Germany, France, Sweden, Australia, and the Netherlands posting relatively low favorability ratings for each.
Much of the developing world falls into the opposite quadrant, where China receives majority support while views of the U.S. lag behind. Pakistan stands out with a 90% favorable opinion of China versus 15% for the United States. Large gaps also appear in Malaysia (75% vs. 19%) and Indonesia (72% vs. 29%).
Several African countries, including Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria, express positive views of both powers. This suggests many respondents see value in maintaining relationships with each country rather than viewing them as mutually exclusive.
Why China’s Image Has Improved
China’s improving standing reflects both rising favorability toward Beijing and declining perceptions of the United States. Recent reporting indicates that this reversal has been especially pronounced among several longstanding U.S. partners, including Canada and countries across Europe.
Public opinion rarely hinges on a single issue. Analysts point to expanding Chinese trade and diplomatic engagement, alongside changing perceptions of U.S. foreign policy and reliability. As countries deepen economic ties with Beijing, trade has become an increasingly important factor in international relationships.
Coverage from the BBC and analysis from the Council on Foreign Relations also suggest that many countries are pursuing pragmatic relationships with both powers, balancing security partnerships with growing economic ties to China.
Soft Power Remains a Global Competition
Although China receives stronger favorability ratings across most countries surveyed, the results do not necessarily translate directly into geopolitical alignment.
Instead, the survey points to an increasingly multipolar world in which economic influence, trade, diplomacy, and public perception all contribute to global power. As China expands its international presence and the U.S. works to maintain longstanding alliances, competition between the two superpowers is increasingly measured not only in economic and military terms, but also through global public opinion.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, during a Congressional hearing on Tuesday, said a failure to appropriate $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon’s Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) budget constitutes the “greatest threat” to US national security.
Hegseth, joined by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday to discuss the Trump administration’s request for an additional $87.6 billion in supplemental spending.
Most of the money would go to the Pentagon, but approximately $11.1 billion would go to US farmers. The war with Iran has depleted Pentagon funding, and the shock to the oil economy will have a direct impact on the fertilizer market farmers depend on.
On Wednesday, the House of Representativesvoted to authorize $1.15 trillion of the massive military budget, but the Senate has yet to approve it.
There is no guarantee the Republican-controlled Senate will sign off on the funding. Democrats have generally opposed the funding on party lines (only six democrats in the House voted for it) and even Republican senators have balked at the massive price tag.
Pete Hegseth: Not funding this department at $1.5 trillion is the greatest threat our nation faces. pic.twitter.com/j2AvDMdpzg
Hegseth characterized the full budgetary request as a “generational investment” and claimed the supplemental funding was of the utmost importance:
“As you know, we live in a dangerous world that requires bold and swift action. Hence, this supplemental request for fiscal year 2026. This request is an urgent, necessary injection of resources to address the immediate needs of our department,” he said.
The “immediate needs” refers to the ongoing war with Iran, which analysts believe has cost far more than the Pentagon is willing to admit.
On Tuesday, Hegseth told Senators the war has cost approximately $37.5 billion thus far. Credible independent analysis, however, suggests the cost could already be north of $100 billion, a number much closer to the supplemental money the White House has requested.
The Pentagon wants more money than the US spent in all of World War 2 https://t.co/q6nxT8axWK
Regardless of the true cost of the war, Hegseth’s commitment to the $1.5 trillion funding target tracks typical military bureaucratic logic, and it marks a major boost in military spending, a nearly 50% increase from this year’s more than $1 trillion military budget.
From Porn Star To Politician: Amaranta Hank Sworn In To Colombia’s Congress
A former adult film actress was sworn in as a Colombian senator on Monday, and she is vowing to fight for the rights of the country’s adult-content creators.
Deyci Alejandra Omaña Ortiz, 33, who performed as Amaranta Hank before leaving the business, took her seat in Bogotá for the left-wing Historic Pact party, La Opinión reported. She won it as the 23rd name on the party’s closed candidate list.
Villa del Rosario está presente en el Congreso de la República. Fue en el Templo Histórico donde se firmó la primera Constitución de la Gran Colombia, donde Simón Bolívar tomó posesión como Presidente y donde se abolió la esclavitud. También fue Villa del Rosario donde me crié,… pic.twitter.com/fx0gTLViB4
The former journalist turned adult performer turned politician was elected in March to represent the Norte de Santander region, and she is wasting no time. Her signature priority is guaranteeing social-security rights for adult performers, who she says are ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous companies and agencies.
“These women have been unprotected by the state because, due to misinformation, prejudice and double standards, no one has declared to regulate it,” she said in a campaign video obtained by the Post.
This is not Omaña’s first role in Colombian government. Before her election she served as a deputy minister in the Ministry of Equality under President Gustavo Petro, appointed alongside another former adult performer, Juan Carlos Florián – a pair of appointments that stirred considerable controversy within Petro’s administration. Her Senate run, in other words, was a step up rather than a leap from nowhere.
Omaña, who entered the adult industry in 2017 and left two years later, has defended her decision to run despite her past. “My experience allowed me to understand inequality, the struggle for freedom and the popular economy, arguments that I now promise to bring directly into legislative debate,” she said, according to the Post. “The problem is that society consumes adult films but denies us the possibility of speaking in spaces of power.”
Her agenda extends past the industry that made her famous. Omaña has said she will also push for improved mental-health services and stronger measures to prevent sexual abuse, and has floated designating her home city of Cúcuta a special border, commercial and historic district. Born in Cúcuta and a working journalist until 2017, she has framed her arrival in the Senate as the start of a broader project.
“We can look for a different way of doing politics,” she said. The Historic Pact, currently Colombia’s strongest political force, won more than 4.4 million votes – 22.7 percent of the Senate ballot – and took 25 seats in the March elections that carried her into office.
Election data that was provided by California state officials for last month’s primary elections show that more than 148,000 mail-in ballots were rejected, an uptick of more than 40,000 from the 2024 primary.
All in all, 148,241 were rejected in the state’s June 2 primary election, according to data released by the California Secretary of State’s office, which manages elections. The figure represents 1.73 percent of all mail-in ballots.
According to the data released earlier this month, more than 93,000 mail-in ballots were rejected by officials because they arrived too late. Another 8,300 were rejected because there was no voter signature on the ballot, and nearly 44,000 were rejected due to a non-matching signature.
Meanwhile, some 580 weren’t used because no photo ID was provided, more than 740 were rejected because the voter had already voted, around 640 were rejected because the ballot was missing from the envelope, and roughly 450 were flagged as having multiple ballots in each envelope, the election figures show.
The data provided by the office did not list the rejected ballots by party registration.
The rejection rates varied by county, with Tulare County having the highest rate at 3.52 percent. Alpine and Merced counties saw 3.36 percent rejection rates, according to the data. The lowest was reported in Placer County, with a 0.93 percent rejection rate.
Los Angeles County, the county with the highest population and most voters, reported a 1.34 percent rejection rate, while San Diego County saw a 1.37 percent rate, the figures show.
The 2026 primary rejection figures are up from the 2024 primary, when 108,982 mail ballots were tossed, representing a 1.56 percent increase, according to the California Secretary of State’s office.
Kim Alexander, the head of the California Voter Foundation, told media outlets this week that ballot rejections during the primary election last month were largely due to them being mailed too late.
“Ballots rejected due to lateness are caused primarily to being postmarked too late to count, not because they arrived too late to count,” Alexander told The Associated Press.
Following last month’s primary, President Donald Trump criticized California’s election system. At one point, he questioned results showing Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt falling to third place behind two Democrats.
“Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had,” Trump wrote on social media at the time. “Rigged Elections!”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has sought to counter claims made by Trump that elections are being mismanaged in the state, including a post issued on X last week.
“California law is clear: You MUST be a U.S. citizen to vote state and federal elections,” the post said. “Voter fraud is EXTREMELY RARE – and almost always committed by U.S. citizens.”
Newsom added that the Trump administration has “provided NO evidence to support” recent claims of non-citizens being registered to vote in California. It came as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said on July 17 that around 250,000 non-citizens were registered in New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and California.
The Trump administration has sought to tighten rules around mail-in ballots, issuing an executive order that would create a voter list regarding who could get a mail-in ballot during elections that was blocked by a judge in late June. Trump has long said, especially in the lead-up to and after the 2020 election, that voting by mail leads to fraud and irregularities.
On Thursday, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers called on the U.S. Postal Service to address delays in the state in April.
“Hundreds of absentee ballots received by the Postal Service before Wisconsin’s Spring Election were delivered after Election Day, preventing them from being counted,” the two Democrats wrote to U.S. Postmaster General David Steiner.
The California Secretary of State’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sent letters to the Medicaid director in each state urging them to phase out mercury-containing dental fillings by restricting or ending state Medicaid coverage for dental amalgam, fillings that combine mercury and other materials to treat cavities.
“Americans should feel confident that the health care they receive is always working in their best interest,” CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said in a statement.
“That’s why we’re urging state Medicaid programs to end the use of mercury-containing dental fillings. This is a straightforward and meaningful step that reflects our shared commitment to safe, higher quality care for all Americans and supports the Trump Administration’s broader goal to Make America Healthy Again.”
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. added: “Mercury has no place in the mouths of our children or in modern American health care. For decades, we have relied on a material that contains one of the world’s most toxic heavy metals when safe, effective mercury-free alternatives are widely available. The Make America Healthy Again agenda means confronting outdated practices that needlessly expose Americans to toxic substances.”
The letters to the state officials noted that the Indian Health Service, which provides healthcare to American Indians, announced in February that it would end the use of mercury-containing fillings by 2027, citing “health concerns regarding mercury exposure.”
Researchers have found signs that amalgam can cause health problems, including higher mercury concentrations in the blood, and patients attributing health problems to the amalgam.
The Minamata Convention on Mercury, signed by the United States in 2013, advises countries to restrict the use of amalgam and identify alternatives, and some countries have already phased out the fillings.
Certain groups such as the American Dental Association say amalgam fillings are safe.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says there is limited data on long-term health outcomes of amalgam in young children, and advises that populations such as children under 6 may face a greater health risk due to mercury exposure.
Alternatives to amalgam fillings include composite resin, porcelain, and glass ionomer.
The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology says that composite fillings are as durable as amalgam and are the most frequently chosen alternative because the white coloring matches the teeth well, and the cost is moderate.
Death Toll Revised Lower: Trump Admin Accused Of Playing Politics With Iran War Casualties
The US administration and Department of War has just reduced the total number of American service members killed during the Iran war from 18 to 14.
Removing the four most recent deaths, which occurred in Jordan and in Iraq last week, appears to be politically-driven as a way to keep official casualties lower related to President Trump’s decision to go to war. That’s what’s being widely alleged anyway.
The NY Times, which reported the significant change, wrote that “Three military officials said that one reason behind the change was that the Trump administration decided to remove four service members killed this past weekend from the list — three in Jordan and one in northern Iraq — because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.”
On Wednesday, the Pentagon reported on its casualties website that a total of 18 American service members had been killed during the war in Iran.
By Thursday, the Defense Department had lowered that number, reporting that 14 American troops had been killed in the war.
The White House is being widely accused of using troop deaths to play cheap political tricks for the sake maintaining image, and ahead of the November midterms and as voters increasingly turn negative on the dragged-out war.
For example, some scathing commentary out of Rolling Stone says the following:
Soldiers die in war. But ever since the death toll in Vietnam broke a generation’s appetite for war, the American public has been uniquely sensitive to casualty counts as a result of our military actions abroad.
We venerate fallen servicemembers as heroes, no matter how just the conflict they died in was. But now, Donald Trump’s administration is reportedly trying to say that some deaths don’t count.
On Thursday, the Pentagon’s official roll of servicemember deaths as a result of the Iran war suddenly changed, with four names dropping off the list, bringing the total number from 18 down to 14. The New York Times reported that the change came as a result of a direct action, with the Trump administration declaring that four servicemembers who were killed last weekend at bases in Jordan and Iraq don’t count toward the tally of deaths in the Iran conflict, as they occurred after he had declared the conflict to be at a ceasefire in late April.
This kind of paradoxical, absurdist logic is core to the administration’s messaging on the Iran war. We are at war, but not technically at war, because there is a cease fire. However, neither side has ceased firing; four American soldiers just died. However, because there was a cease fire, their deaths cannot be attributed to the Iran war, which is not technically an active conflict, despite the conflict being very active.
Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesperson, on Thursday claimed on X that “the site errors on the Defense Casualty Analysis System were due to a temporary data disruption” and the “site anomalies are currently being resolved in coordination with the Military Services.”
US defense officials explained that “their deaths occurred after Trump announced a ceasefire in the war in April.”
This was after the Pentagon website that informs the public about the dead and wounded had clearly changed with no explanation. But the bottom line is that at the start of the week the four service members’ deaths were listed under Operation Epic Fury but by Thursday their names were dropped. By close of Friday the website has remained uncorrected, displaying the lower number.
