Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

In a now viral video, a woman pulled over, pointed her phone at a cotton field, and spoke as if she had stumbled onto a dark secret.

Overlay text on the clip asks “how do we still have cotton fields?” as the woman states “Okay, I didn’t think they did cotton fields anymore. Y’all check this out. Y’all see that? There is literally a cotton field. Do y’all see that? Isn’t that crazy?”

Watch:

A woman just filmed a cotton field like she discovered a forbidden relic and asked “how do we still have cotton fields.”

Harvesting is done by machines that cost more than most houses. Nobody is out there with a sack.

Are people really this stupid?! pic.twitter.com/LhFv1yx3MD

— Brandon (@LibOrNormal) September 22, 2026

Hard to believe this has to be done but let’s examine why cotton still exists.

We still need it to make clothes and… well anything made of fabric.

There is no sack. There is no overseer. There is a crop. The field is doing what cotton fields have done for centuries: grow fiber that becomes clothes, sheets, towels, and the shirt on the person filming.

Harvesting in the United States is done by machines – spindle pickers and strippers that pull lint from open bolls and pack it into modules on the go. John Deere-class pickers cost more than most houses. One operator replaces the gangs of stooped labor that existed before mechanical harvest took over in the mid-20th century.

Cotton did not magically disappear when the 13th Amendment passed. Slavery ended. The plant stayed. The United States still plants on the order of nine million acres.

The stupidity is off the scale. The assumption that a living industry is a moral leftover. If cotton still exists, the thinking goes, the country never left 1859. History collapses into a single image: Black hands, white bolls, forever.

But to this individual, the field is “crazy” because it reminds her of a story she has been indoctrinated to treat as unfinished business.

This is the same reflex that turns a Converse campaign into a lynching.

Pareidolia plus a victim script. Faces in toast. Hoods in fabric. Slavery in a plant. Once you are taught that racism is the hidden operating system of every American scene, you will find it.

It’s the same mindset that infests organisations such as the BBC which has stripped comedy sketches from its iPlayer because they “no longer work today.”

Several of those sketches were addressing the mindset of racism.

So the rule is complete. A cotton field is now racist because cotton was once picked by slaves. A shoe ad is racist because a shadow can be cropped into a hood. A sketch that ridicules racists is racist because it depicts the thing it is ridiculing. Subject matter is guilt. Intent is irrelevant. Context is a hate crime.

Hell, even jogging is racist.

Ok, add Jogging to the list…??????? pic.twitter.com/c1eNQjI5Kn

— GnosisWolf (@GnosisWolf) September 22, 2026

Anything and everything you can think of is racist and must be perpetually called racist.

The woman in the video is not a historian. She is a product. Decades of media, campus, and corporate training taught a simple algorithm: scan the environment for symbols, assign ancestral pain, film the discovery. Permanent victimhood for some. Permanent virtue signal for others.

That same industry has a diplomatic wing. Earlier this month the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination published “reparatory justice” guidance telling former slaving nations they have a moral and legal “obligation to repair.”

Public spaces, the committee said, “should honour the contributions of people of African descent and clearly acknowledge the wrongs of those who supported or benefited from historical atrocities.” That can mean artworks, statues, memorials and “dedications.”

Britain is the target of choice. The country that banned the trade in 1807, passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, freed more than 800,000 people across the empire, spent the equivalent of 40 percent of annual government outlay to force the measure through, and then sent the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron to seize around 1,600 slaving ships and free some 150,000 Africans is told it has not grovelled enough.

A UN judge has already floated a bill of more than £18 trillion. The committee, guidance largely shaped by American lawyer Gay McDougall and Liberian legal expert Pela Boker-Wilson, treats the Atlantic trade as a live brief for classrooms, speech rules and migration policy. Modern descent-based slavery in the Sahel, and the Arab and East African trades that ran for centuries after Britain quit, barely register.

This movement has become an obsession for many, and does very little aside from revealing just how deeply they despise white people.

‘We’ve all been indoctrinated, Patrick!’

Anti-racism campaigner Imarn Ayton and @PatrickChristys clash over whether Britain should pay Caribbean countries slavery reparations. pic.twitter.com/8cfRY5ONo5

— GB News (@GBNEWS) September 21, 2026

‘A cohort of Caribbean activists and leaders are lobbying for the cleansing of the curriculum to make it less “Western”‘

‘In particular they want the curriculum to reflect the history of slavery so as to foster resentment in a new generation that will continue lobbying Britain… pic.twitter.com/ukt7ukrGk6

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) September 23, 2026

An 83-year-old Christian grandmother in Ontario was euthanized under Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program this summer, and her family says she never gave her final consent, Fox News reports.

Brigitte Stegemann died by lethal injection on July 10 at The Pearl, a care home in Cannifton, Ontario, after being diagnosed with Stage IV stomach cancer.

Family members claim that Stegemann, a devout Christian, had already turned down MAID because it went against her faith.

“No, I don’t want that,” Stegemann told relatives, according to the family, who said that her wish was to die naturally.

Stegemann’s granddaughter and longtime caregiver, Brigitte Kranendonk, said the process moved forward anyway, and sped up while she was away on vacation.

The family alleges later assessments showed Stegemann couldn’t keep basic family details straight, though a doctor still found her eligible.

Two days before the scheduled procedure, Kranendonk said she asked her grandmother point-blank whether she understood she was going to die that Friday.

Stegemann broke down and cried for about 45 minutes, then said she had made a “mistake,” according to the family.

Relatives also claimed that at one point she ripped out a medical port while screaming that she didn’t want “the death shot.”

Kranendonk said the morning of July 10 was chaotic. A nurse’s first attempt to insert an IV failed, leaving blood on Stegemann, her bedding and the floor.

When the doctor arrived and asked about giving her “medicine,” Kranendonk said her grandmother didn’t speak, nod or open her eyes, while her hands were folded in prayer.

The doctor went ahead with the euthanization and Stegemann was dead within roughly 10 minutes.

Kranendonk said her grandmother gave “no acknowledgment, no head nod, nothing” that morning, and that a final verbal check for consent was promised before the injection but never happened.

Relatives also alleged paperwork was completed after Stegemann had already died, and that the care home hadn’t handed over records that they requested.

On top of a police investigation, the family has filed complaints with Ontario’s chief coroner and the provincial patient ombudsman.

The Pearl and Belleville Police did not respond to Fox News’ requests for comment. A Belleville Police spokesman confirmed to the Daily Mail that the case is open with the force’s Criminal Investigations Division. The care home and the practitioners involved have not commented publicly but reportedly maintain Stegemann legally consented.

Canada legalized assisted suicide in 2016 and expanded eligibility in 2021, dropping the requirement that a patient’s natural death be “reasonably foreseeable.” Critics have long warned the system puts elderly and vulnerable Canadians at risk.

Via Middle East Eye

The Israeli-run municipality of Jerusalem has recruited companies from the United Arab Emirates to invest in a modern industrial park, called Silicon Wadi, in the city’s occupied east. However Palestinian urban planning experts have told Middle East Eye that the plans and the UAE’s involvement has been kept unusually under wraps.

Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, Israel’s deputy mayor of Jerusalem, told Makor Rishon newspaper that “Jerusalem’s branding in the UAE is very strong. They are very excited to see someone from Jerusalem and waiting to visit there.” Israel and the United Arab Emirates have been building official ties since August 2020, when they announced a normalization of relations.

Hassan-Nahoum, who visited the UAE last week, is in charge of the foreign relations and tourism portfolios on behalf of the municipality. My dream is that Jerusalem will become a high-tech center for the entire Middle East,” she said, adding that there an “opportunity” to connect Palestinian high-tech graduates to the UAE.

The project, which was announced in January by the mayor, Moshe Lion, is ambitious. According to Israeli media, it will stretch over 250,000 square meters of real estate for high tech companies and 100,000 square meters split between commerce and hotels. People behind the scheme say it will create 10,000 jobs.

Its estimated cost is 2.1 billion shekels ($600m), and will include 13 pedestrianized thoroughfares, which will replace the industrial area located in Wadi al-Joz, an area of hundreds of workshops, catering units, shops, warehouses and mechanics workshops. 

Wadi al-Joz, meaning the Almond Valley, was once an orchard on the eastern and northern slopes of Jerusalem, within a short walk from the historic walls of the Old City. It is also near the Hebrew University’s facilities and dormitories to the north. 

Despite several comments in the Israeli media, Khalil Tafakji, head of the maps department at the Arab Studies Society in Jerusalem, told MEE that “officially” nothing has been launched.

“When you have a building project such as this, you will officially announce it in the newspaper. This did not happen,” Tafakji said, adding that the only information available are the statements to the media.

Tafakji, an expert on Israeli building projects in East Jerusalem, said Wadi al-Joz is currently slated to be the site of a different project, which will also see facilities rented or owned by Palestinians demolished.

“Normally, when the municipality wants to build a project, they should publish and issue a building scheme, and also seize and expropriate the land, and this did not happen so far,” Tafakji said. MEE has asked the municipality for comment, but received no response by the time of publication.

Hatem Abdel-Kader, a former minister for Jerusalem affairs in the Palestinian Authority, told MEE that the Silicon Wadi project is under study and research. 

“It did not start the official approval procedures yet, but what is certain that the Wadi al-Joz area, in the near future, will not be the same,” Abdel-Kader said. “I do not have information about UAE investment in the project, but if it is true, it is certainly dangerous, because this is a settlement project that harms the Arab identity of Jerusalem, despite Israelis claiming it will benefit Palestinians.”

Abdel-Kader added that Israel’s plan is to connect East and West Jerusalem together with the Silicon Wadi project, and “any Arab involvement in it means helping the Judaization of Jerusalem, and helping in making it the unified capital of Israel”.

Last week, Israel and the United Arab Emirates set an agenda to discuss bringing thousands of visitors from the Gulf to the occupied Old City of East Jerusalem, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

“Jerusalem will host between 100,000 and 250,000 Muslim tourists a year; they dream of visiting Al-Aqsa,” Hassan-Nahoum told newspaper Israel Hayom. Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates signed a US-sponsored normalization deal with Israel on September 15, 2020 in Washington.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called for government regulation of the internet as part of a broader effort to reduce loneliness and powerlessness among Americans, two conditions he argues push voters toward leaders like President Donald Trump. Murphy made the remarks on September 21 during an appearance on the I’ve Had It podcast, where he discussed his book, Crisis of the Common Good.

Murphy told the podcast hosts that isolation and helplessness define the country right now. “Those are the two things I think Americans are going through right now… They don’t feel powerful at all, and they feel lonely,” he said.

His remedy for loneliness coincidentally becomes an excuse to grow the government even further.

“And so, government should build a set of rules in which people feel more powerful – that’s why the minimum wage is so important – and people feel so more connected,” Murphy said.

He added, “That’s why, you know, rebuilding healthy institutions in your town should be a project that government is involved in.”

Then he got to the internet and revealed his true objective. “Regulating the internet so that you’re spending less time alone on Instagram should be an important government project,” Murphy said. And if Americans feel more powerful and less alone, Murphy argued, “they are going to be less likely to fall for a bullshit demagogue like Donald Trump.”

Senator Chris Murphy to Jennifer Welch: Government needs to regulate social media so people are less likely to support a candidate like President Trump.

The left will censor your speech as soon as they have the power to do so. They’re not hiding the ball here.

They did it…

— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) September 21, 2026

Murphy’s framework leaves little room for the more than 77 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 over high inflation, the border crisis, or high crime. In his telling, they were lonely, they spent too much time alone on Instagram, and they “fell for” something.

The platform he picked out makes an odd target. A 2024 Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Instagram users found that 23% described the political content they see there as mostly liberal, and only 7% called it mostly conservative. Another 26% said they don’t see political content on Instagram at all. By its users’ own account, whatever politics the app serves up leans left. Though it’s far more likely he has other platforms in mind when he talks about regulating the internet if he thinks social media is causing people to vote for Trump.

Murphy gave no details on what his regulation would look like, whether time limits, design mandates, or rules on content. He was specific about its purpose. He wants fewer voters who “fall for” Trump, and a goal defined by one politician’s support points toward regulating what people see, which is where the censorship concerns begin. Murphy insists none of this is partisan. He claims the things that make people “more connected” and “more powerful” cut across political lines. His own summary of his idea runs counter to that. “Unless you fix what’s broken with the culture, you’re going to be stuck with people like Trump for a long time,” Murphy said.

Murphy’s comments come as lawmakers in both parties push to rein in social media companies to protect younger users, and some have floated rolling back Section 230’s liability shield. Protecting children is a legitimate cause. Any tool Congress builds for it, however, will belong to whoever holds power next.

Journalist Lara Logan couldn’t help but acknowledge the hypocrisy of Murphy’s proposal to regulate the internet.

“Are these the same people screaming foul about certain media organizations being kicked out of the White House?” she asked on X.

Authored by Bryan Cutsinger via RealClearEducation,

The organization tasked with accrediting the nation’s law schools will appear before a federal advisory panel later this month to defend its government-recognized status as an accreditor. This status gives the Council of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar the power to determine which schools have access to federal student aid and, in most states, whether graduates may sit for the bar. In short, federal recognition gives the council extraordinary power over entry into the legal profession.

Last month, the Department of Education identified numerous compliance failures by the council and recommended ending that recognition. Among the Department’s findings was that the council is not sufficiently “separate and independent” from the ABA – a charge that is far from surprising.

The council is not separately incorporated from the ABA. Nor do the two organizations possess a distinct employer identification number, or file separate tax returns. Moreover, the ABA has the authority to amend the council’s bylaws, giving the profession’s principle membership organization authority over the accreditor’s governing framework. The council does have procedures in place to insulate individual accreditation decisions from ABA politics. But these internal checks are unlikely to be effective if the two entities are one in the same.

The problem extends far beyond the legal profession. In a forthcoming study in the European Economic Review, I examined whether there was similarly structural entanglement between all 25 federally recognized professional accreditors and their corresponding professional or membership associations. I found that 22 share an employer identification number, consolidated tax filing, or single legal identity.

My findings don’t prove that every accreditation decision is improper. They do, however, identify a potential conflict of interest that can lead to worse outcomes for students and consumers alike. Incumbent professionals benefit when entry into their profession is limited – fewer lawyers means higher salaries. Students and consumers, by contrast, benefit from affordable, innovative routes into a profession.

To be sure, accreditation standards can play an important role in protecting quality. But they can also suppress competition by excluding new schools or less costly methods of training. An independent accreditor is necessary because the same rule can serve either purpose.

Consider distance education in law. Until 2018, the ABA limited how many hours a law student could earn online to 15 of the 83 necessary to earn a law degree. The council then increased that limit to one-third and, after the pandemic demonstrated the viability of remote learning, increased that limit to half. Those earlier restrictions may have been justified on the grounds that they promote higher quality education, but law students deserved to have that decision made by an institution structurally independent of the profession benefiting from the entry limits those restrictions created.

Federal regulations already require accreditors to be separate and independent from affiliated trade or membership organizations. However, a grandfather provision exempts accreditors continuously recognized since Oct. 1, 1991, while another provision permits shared personnel, facilities and equipment. As it happens, most established professional accreditors predate the cutoff. For them, formal independence has largely been optional.

The Department of Education has proposed eliminating both exceptions. The proposed changes would also bar association staff from serving on accreditor decision-making bodies, require independently determined budgets, and mandate disclosure of organizational affiliations.

Those are important reforms, but they do not go far enough. Every accreditor should be required to separately incorporate and file its own tax return. At least 60 percent of an accreditor governing board should be independent of the affiliated association, so that one vacancy or recusal cannot transfer control. And no professional association should provide more than 15 percent of an accreditor’s revenue – a benchmark adapted from international auditor-independence rules.

Critics will argue that accreditation requires professional expertise. I agree. Experts can play an important advisory role without creating a conflict of interest. The separately incorporated nursing, public-health and naturopathic-medicine accreditors in our study show that independence and expertise can coexist.

The central question the members of the panel must ask themselves later this month is simple: “Can an accreditor be meaningfully independent when it has no legal existence apart from the professional association it regulates?” The answer is obvious: No.

Explicit calls to overthrow capitalism only suggest revolutionary goals within the reformist socialist movement. There have been reports that some of these reformist socialists have coordinated with foreign subversion networks in Cuba and China or used NGOs to conduct hybrid information warfare.

President Trump has clearly been briefed. 

.@POTUS: The Cuban regime has also spent decades coordinating with left-wing radicals and Communist networks here in the United States. As our State Department has detailed, they have cultivated ties to subversive and radical groups such as the Communist Party USA, Antifa, and… pic.twitter.com/Bopz3W6sXz

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 22, 2026

The latest comments about revolution and the hope for violence in America come from far-left influencer Hasan Piker’s China-based producer, Eric Hovagim, who also worked on socialist Zohran Mamdani’s campaign and said on a recent podcast that he would be “very surprised if there is no violence going forward in the United States.” 

Hovagim said, “I mean, it is simply the situation that they have put the working masses in. And I mean, we’re seeing what’s happening in the Global South, where you have October 7th happening. You know, this is something that happens when you put people in a pressure cooker, a concentration camp, when you do not allow them the basic human rights that we love to champion in the West.”

“The workers of the United States are in the exact same predicament as the workers of the Global South. And it is frankly in their long-term interest to partner with them, to ensure that they can see eye to eye, to build an internationalist movement that goes beyond the four walls of the capitalist states of the United States of America. Because frankly, otherwise they are doomed,” he continued.

He noted, “There is no militant group that has had any success whatsoever, maybe since the Black Panthers. But again, we saw what happened when the Black Panthers did have any success. So I don’t know what’s going to happen.” 

🚨 Hasan’s China Guy Says He’d Be “Very Surprised” If Violence Doesn’t Hit America

A viral clip of Hasan Piker calling for “Chinese-style communism” and “Cultural Revolution shit” is making the rounds. People should also know about Eric Hovagim, who works with Hasan and… pic.twitter.com/ywf01jc9D8

— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) September 23, 2026

In a separate podcast, Hovagim discussed his close friendship with China-based Marxist billionaire Roy Singham, whose network of revolutionary NGOs has been accused of promoting pro-Beijing and communist propaganda through what some describe as a possible foreign subversion network.

Via Free Press:

Taken together, these comments from Hovagim point to the broader far-left agenda, suggesting that the Democratic Socialists of America are not truly focused on affordability, Palestine, climate change, opposition to data centers, or whatever the hottest issue of the day may be.

Instead, they appear more focused on dismantling the foundations of America’s capitalist system.

In fact, DSA leaders state their intentions very bluntly:

On another stream earlier this year, Hovagim told his followers: “I’m friends with Roy Singham. He’s dope.”

Roy Singham and a network of far-left NGOs are under intense scrutiny by the federal government …

Interesting https://t.co/HHh8RcM3gI

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 29, 2026

According to investigative reports (e.g., New York Times, 2023), Singham has worked closely with pro-CCP propaganda networks targeting the US.

Where self-described socialist reformers advocate dismantling capitalism and existing US institutions, their stated objectives point toward a violent revolution.

Any shift toward socialist unrest would raise a separate national security concern: who stands to benefit from social unrest?

Well, it’s a shared interest of foreign adversaries as two wars rage in Eurasia, resource nationalism explodes, and the world is on a dangerous path. The good news is that Scott Bessent’s NGO team may have disrupted any mobilization of riots this summer, since there were none. But that only suggests more chaos is just around the corner as these revolutionaries regroup. 

* * *

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Federal officials on Monday said the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) intercepted an alleged smuggling vessel with nearly two-dozen people on board, including 13 Chinese nationals, near Florida’s coast.

Last week, the Coast Guard and CBP detected “a surface target of interest” near Angelfish Creek, Florida, according to a Border Patrol news release. When they intercepted the vessel, they discovered it was a 27-foot-long cabin vessel before it was interdicted.

They found that one suspected human smuggler, a Cuban national, and 22 illegal immigrants of various nationalities were on board. That included 13 Chinese nationals, eight Ecuadorian nationals, and one from the Dominican Republican, officials said.

The people who were apprehended were transferred to Coast Guard cutter ship Pablo Valent for more processing, while the 27-foot long vessel was seized by federal authorities, the release said.

Lt. Corryn Ulrich, commanding officer of the Pablo Valent, said that the apprehensions show that the Coast Guard is “ready to save lives and enforce federal law at sea.”

“Attempting to enter the United States illegally by sea is extremely dangerous and will not go undetected,” a CBP regional director, Andres Blanco, said in a statement. “This interdiction demonstrates the strength of our maritime partnerships and our commitment to stopping human smuggling organizations before they can put more lives at risk. Those who attempt these dangerous voyages face arrest, prosecution, removal, and the very real possibility of losing their lives at sea.”

The interdiction was carried out under the Coast Guard’s Operation Vigilant Sentry, which is designed to stop illegal immigration into the United States from sea.

Photos of the arrest were published by an official Coast Guard X account earlier this week, showing a Coast Guard ship approaching the alleged smuggling vessel as well as the individuals who were on board.

Coast Guard officials this week said they discovered and interdicted a 30-foot-long vessel around a mile east of Ocean Reef, Florida, on Sept. 15.

On the vessel, Coast Guard boat crew members found 23 people before they transferred 20 of them to the Bahamas for processing. The other three were taken into Homeland Security Investigations custody, the Coast Guard said.

The Trump administration has made border security alongside mass deportations of illegal immigrants a priority. Since January 2025, President Donald Trump has issued a number of executive orders to stop border crossings.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees both the Coast Guard and CBP, reported 16 straight months of releasing no illegal immigrants into the United States at the U.S. – Mexico border, according to a statement published last week.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

A Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into the University of California-San Francisco’s (UCSF’s) medical school has determined that the institution discriminates on a racial basis during its admission process.

The investigation looked at whether admission policies of the UCSF School of Medicine complied with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and the university was deemed to have “illegally discriminated on the basis of race in its medical school admissions processes for the incoming classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025 and in its operation of diversity pipeline programs,” the DOJ said in a Sept. 22 letter sent to the university chancellor.

“UCSF Med openly admits that its goal is to increase enrollment from specific racial groups it designates as underrepresented minorities in medicine (URM), which excludes all white students and most Asian students,” the DOJ said.

Title VI prohibits programs and activities receiving federal funding assistance from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. The investigation specifically looked at whether UCSF Med complied with Title VI as interpreted by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard case. In the SFFA case, the Supreme Court struck down the use of racially discriminatory admissions policies at U.S. colleges in June 2023, thereby ending so-called affirmative action in higher education institutions.

The letter cited a student-selection admissions policy of the UCSF Med to ensure that the student population “reflect the population of California.” According to the DOJ, this was despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in the SFFA case that “outright racial balancing” was “patently unconstitutional.”

Meanwhile, the university said that it would engage with the DOJ and looked forward to resolving the matter.

“UC San Francisco disagrees with the Department of Justice’s finding regarding the School of Medicine’s admissions process,” the university said.

Every application to medical school is evaluated “through a rigorous, individualized review process that prioritizes academic excellence,” according to the university.

Favoring Certain Applicants

According to the DOJ, the UCSF Med’s Admissions Committee invites Hispanic and black applicants for interviews at “far higher rates” than Asian and white applicants, despite the black and Hispanic individuals having lower mean MCAT scores and undergraduate GPAs.

Post interviews, the committee decides on which applicants to admit. Between 2023 and 2025, these decisions “heavily favored” Hispanic and black individuals over their white and Asian counterparts, according to the letter.

During this period, the school accepted 1.5 to 1.7 percent of white applicants and 1.98 to 2.55 percent of Asian applicants, which are lower rates than the 4.83 to 6.69 percent for Hispanic applicants and 6.96 to 11.43 percent for black applicants, the DOJ said.

UCSF Med also featured diversity programs that involved scholarships, stipends, assistance with college admissions, and research opportunities, which preferred certain student populations, the DOJ said in the letter.

One such program, the university’s Programs in Medical Education (PRIME) initiative, seeks to increase medical student enrollment. In a February 2025 report on the PRIME program, the university said that “increasing the racial and ethnic diversity” of the health workforce was one of the ways to improve health outcomes and attain “health equity.”

In a Sept. 22 statement, the DOJ said that UCSF Med was 12.6 times more likely to admit black students and 4.6 times more likely to admit Hispanic students, even when their socioeconomic traits, MCAT scores, and GPAs were the same as white students.

“Unfortunately, at UCSF Medical School, MCAT scores and undergrad GPAs have taken a backseat to race,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in the statement.

“Aspiring doctors should be admitted based on their qualifications. The Supreme Court has spoken clearly – federally funded medical schools may not admit students based on misguided and illegal notions of diversity.”

The Epoch Times reached out to UCSF for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Summary

• US-Iran talks uncertain: as Iran has stuck by its conditions while engaging Kushner-Witkoff in NY at UN.

• Iran threatens escalation beyond Persian Gulf: Tehran warned the conflict could spread to the Indian Ocean if attacked again.

• Yemen front intensifies: Saudi Arabia said it intercepted six Houthi ballistic missiles.

• Oil markets react: Renewed tensions pushed Brent crude to $106/barrel, undermining hopes for a quick deal.

*  *  *

Tehran Willing to Strike Deal Before Midterm Elections

President Trump has on multiple occasions indicated his belief that Iran will hold off making a deal to end the war until after the US midterm elections in November. In somewhat surprising statements which contradict this, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has just told American media that Tehran is willing to strike an agreement before the midterms. Per the Thursday afternoon NBC report:

“We don’t want it to get to the midterm elections,” Pezeshkian said Thursday in a brief meeting with NBC News and other news organizations on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

“We wish Americans to return to the MOU before the midterms,” Pezeshkian added, referring to a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran that laid out plans for a temporary ceasefire. The agreement, signed in June, eventually collapsed.

Meanwhile, even if an Iran deal is stuck soon – and this is a big if at this point, there remains the Yemen conflict: Yemen’s Houthis say they attacked Saudi Aramco facilities in Yanbu; attacked what they called a “sensitive target” in Saudi capital Riyadh, it’s being reported.

Denial of Deal Optimism Headlines

Iranian journalist and analyst Mohammad Ghaderi, who often accurately presents Tehran’s point of view or reaction to fast-paced events, has slammed the earlier Reuters report as ‘false’.

That prior report said that the “US and Iran reportedly discuss phased deal to reopen Hormuz and end US blockade, according to Reuters citing sources.” But the reaction from Tehran is below:

The Reuters report is false and its goal is to control the price of oil. no negotiations are underway. #Iran‘s position remains unchanged: the U.S. must fulfill the stipulated conditions in a single step so that the Strait of #Hormuz can be opened under Iranian control. Period.

— Mohammad Ghaderi | محمد قادری (@ghaderi62) September 24, 2026

Additionally this is via Israel’s i24: “A senior Israeli official says “The chance of an agreement between the US and Iran is ‘small’ – but not impossible’.”

Reuters Headline Signals [Dubious] Return to ‘Deal in Motion’

Crude tumbles on a new Reuters report signaling a return to [dubious?] ‘deal in motion’ headlines: US and Iran reportedly discuss phased deal to reopen Hormuz and end US blockade, according to Reuters citing sources

This seems just a reiteration of Iranian demands, but crude still reacted (per Rtrs):

• A senior Iranian official said the most plausible way to end the impasse would be a phased arrangement, with Iran allowing navigation through Hormuz in return for the US lifting its economic blockade and Tehran potentially gaining access to frozen assets.
• Neither side wants to surrender leverage driving diplomacy
• Iran signals flexibility on fees, not on Strait of Hormuz
• Gulf states reject Iranian control of the strait

Iran Threatens to Spread War to Indian Ocean

It was just this month which saw the Iran conflict spill over into a renewed fight between the Saudi coalition and Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Now Iran is threatening to expand the fight further, even into the Indian Ocean.

Yahya Rahim Safavi, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, warned Thursday of another significant expanse of the war if the Islamic Republic suffers attack again.

“Since the conflict has spread from the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz to the Red Sea, it is possible that, in response to more war, the front will expand even further, reaching the Indian Ocean and perhaps beyond,” said Safavi in a video published by Iran’s Fars news agency.

This marks the first time that an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader explicitly mentioned hitting targets in the Indian Ocean as a heightened military threat.

The strategic British military base at Diego Garcia, which is also heavily used by the United States, lies deep in the Indian Ocean – some 2400 miles away.

The Iranians are believed to have actually fired ICBMs on the base at the height of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury.

Diego Garcia was first targeted on March 21st, with The Wall Street Journal at the time reporting that one missile had a mid-flight malfunction, while the other was engaged by an SM-3 interceptor missile fired from a US Navy vessel, though it’s unclear whether this latter projectile ever hit its target.

Brent surged to around $106 after a military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader said Tehran may expand the war to the Indian Ocean if the US or Israel attacks again, further undercutting hopes of a deal. —Bloomberg

Iranian negotiators are vowing they will not back off Tehran’s firm conditions for ending the war, after this week sitting down with the US team in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Saudi Arabia Says Intercepted 6 Houthi Missiles

Meanwhile another attack on the Saudi kingdom by the Houthis:

Saudi led coalition in Yemen says it intercepted six ballistic missiles launched by Iran-backed Houthis

“They broke the agreement and committed another vicious act. We have therefore toughened our conditions,” spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Brig. Gen. Hossein Mohbi told AFP in an interview this week. He also said that if the US doesn’t change its trajectory, it “will only make things difficult for themselves”.

“We are not their playthings, and they cannot unilaterally violate an agreement they signed whenever they please,” he emphasized.

Bloomberg just dropped the most disturbing investigation I have read this year, and every AI builder should read it and take it seriously.

On February 28, two Tomahawk missiles hit an elementary school in Minab, a small town in southern Iran. 156 people died. At least 123 were… pic.twitter.com/RqT1lwzsLP

— Ihtesham Ali (@ihteshamali) September 23, 2026

“We believe we have won this war, and we are currently consolidating that victory into a total deterrent force,“ he added.

* * *

Wall Street is largely on board with the nuclear bull case. But investor patience is thinning with an industry that is enjoying both political support and demand from deep-pocketed customers, yet still struggles to this day to get any projects actually started.

We noted a similar sentiment with Barclay’s nuclear outlook, as investors increasingly want evidence of real delivery.

New research from Jefferies and Bank of America echo similar verbiage (Professional subscribers can read the full notes here at our marketdesk.ai portal).

Jefferies’ Laurence Alexander projects global nuclear capacity reaching 1,903 GW by 2100, (almost 5x from 2025 baseline). Their forecast also has solar capacity expanding roughly 22x, geothermal 18x, and wind 12x.

Jefferies frames the rising electricity consumption as leaving room for generation expansion growth across all four low-carbon sources, instead of one just taking over.

Most of the concerns come down to project financing. Massive upfront costs and years without revenue make nuclear particularly sensitive to financing costs. Government support is a way of bridging the gap, but standardized construction and repeat orders will be what really drives down execution risk. 

BofA’s conference recap highlights China’s approach to repeatable fleet deployment, contrasted against Western developers’ reluctance to break ground.

Representatives from nuclear companies in China stated their solution to rapid nuclear deployment was standardization, specialization, and centralization. Emphasizing that this must be done across all key areas, including engineering, construction, and talent, the less-than-democratic nation proves why China’s success isn’t exactly repeatable in the US.

At the recent World Nuclear Association Symposium, the fuel market found itself at the center of attention as one of the notable constraints of the ongoing nuclear renaissance.

Enrichment was the hot topic of the fuel chain. European enrichment giant Urenco noted their order book had grown from just under €9 billion in 2021 to over €21 billion recently.

We’ve commented repeatedly on not only the lack of enrichment capacity within the US, but the specific lack of unobligated enrichment capacity. Significant investment is still required across the nuclear value chain, but finding a way to create a fuel supply for America’s national defense needs (unobligated) is even further behind.

BofA took notes on Amazon discussing contributing capital and expertise to X-energy, Equinix supporting developers, and Exxon exploring nuclear industrial heat. Grid connections, completed designs and allocating construction risk remain obstacles, while new reactors’ timelines extend beyond the immediate data-center boom.

Jefferies favors Cameco, Kazatomprom, NexGen and Denison, while BofA prefers Constellation, Cameco, Oklo and Standard Nuclear.

Needham’s Sean Milligan initiated NANO Nuclear with a Buy rating and $33 price target. He highlighted its $8.5 million acquisition of Ultra-Safe Nuclear Corp’s development work behind the 15 MW KRONOS design. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign project is in formal NRC construction permit review, with key milestones targeted for 2027.

Milligan argues that 9.9% initial enrichment could ease fuel sourcing compared with designs requiring approximately 19.75%, while $580 million of liquidity supports the licensing runway.