Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Population growth in medium-sized cities largely remained steady even as the national population barely grew, Census Bureau officials said on May 14.

Midsize cities grew by an average of 0.7 percent from July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025, compared with 1 percent the year prior, according to the newly released analysis. In comparison, the average growth for the largest cities and large cities was just 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively, down from 0.9 percent and 1 percent.

Small cities had an average population growth rate of 0.1 percent, down from 0.3 percent.

“Big-city growth slowed significantly between 2024 and 2025, with some major hubs even seeing small declines,” Matt Erickson, a statistician in the Census Bureau’s Population Division, said in a statement. “In contrast, midsized cities found a ‘Goldilocks zone’ where domestic and international migration, paired with new housing, helped prevent the sluggish growth seen in small towns and larger metropolitan centers.”

The new data came several months after the Census Bureau estimated that immigration to the United States plummeted from mid-2024 to mid-2025, amid a Trump administration crackdown on illegal immigration.

The bureau estimated at the time that the country added 1.8 million people, for a growth rate of 0.5 percent.

The bureau classifies cities as: largest cities (at least 250,000 residents), large cities (50,000 to 249,999 residents), medium-sized cities (5,000 to 49,999 residents), and small cities (fewer than 5,000 residents).

Some of the fastest-growing cities are in the medium-sized group, including Princeton in Texas, which grew by 18 percent to 43,524 residents.

Other large population jumps were recorded in the medium-sized cities of Melissa, Anna, and Forney in Texas; Haines City in Florida; Waukee in Iowa; Kuna in Idaho; and Foley in Alabama.

Even when larger cities saw strong population growth, they were often eclipsed by nearby suburbs. Charlotte, North Carolina, for instance, grew by 20,731 residents between 2024 and 2025, numerically more than any city in the country.

The population in nearby Fort Mill, South Carolina, though, jumped by a larger percentage, increasing by 6.8 percent to 38,673.

Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Celina in Texas, and Seattle, Washington, increased the most numerically behind Charlotte.

New York City, easily the most populous city in the country with some 8.5 million people, logged a population decline of 12,196 during the time period in question.

Most growth across cities of all sizes took place in the South, which includes Texas.

Austin crossed the 1 million threshold between 2024 and 2025, marking the 12th U.S. city to reach seven digits in population.

Capital One is under fire once again over allegations that it has denied banking services to gun retailers and other customers viewed as politically conservative, even as President Donald Trump’s executive actions seek to curb such practices.

A Maryland gun store, United Gun Shop of Rockville, recently filed a lawsuit alleging that Capital One, working through payment processor Melio Payments, blocked it from using the bank’s platform for business transactions after flagging its operations in the firearms industry. The store received notices in 2025 and 2026 stating that Capital One and Melio could not serve businesses in that sector, according to the legal complaint.

The case has drawn attention from Consumers’ Research, a conservative watchdog group, which on Thursday issued a “woke alert” highlighting the allegations against the bank.

“Capital One has been caught debanking law-abiding citizens again. It apparently isn’t enough for Capital One to fund and promote racist DEI, climate activism, and extreme transgender policies; the company is also debanking its own customers simply for holding views outside leftist ideology,” Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild said in a statement to The Daily Wire.

🚨 Despite President Trump’s executive order banning debanking, @CapitalOne is already facing new allegations in a lawsuit from a Maryland gun shop.

United Gun Shop claims the bank effectively debanked them — not for fraud, not for any illegal activity, but seemingly because… pic.twitter.com/q6sIIMDBXA

— Will Hild (@WillHild) May 8, 2026

Capital One is among nine large banks under review by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as part of that broader inquiry, the outlet pointed out.

Capital One is also facing ongoing litigation in Florida after a federal judge in Miami dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Trump Organization accusing Capital One of politically motivated “debanking,” while allowing the claims to be refiled. The suit, filed in March 2025 by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust and affiliated entities — originally in Miami-Dade Circuit Court before being removed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida — alleges that Capital One abruptly closed hundreds of Trump-linked accounts in 2021 following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot in what the Trump family has described as an act of political discrimination.

U.S. District Judge Roy Altman granted the bank’s motion to dismiss on March 20, 2026, calling the original complaint deficient, yet he gave the Trump family until July 2 to file an amended version with stronger evidence. Capital One has denied any discriminatory intent and continues to defend the closures as a legitimate business decision made for legally and regulatorily permissible reasons.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A retired US Army major and former CIA-linked remote viewer issued stark final warnings of a devastating solar “Killshot” before his death in March, claiming the current period of heightened solar activity could trigger infrastructure collapse on a global scale.

Retired Major Ed Dames, who participated in the US government’s classified remote-viewing programs during the Cold War, described the event as enormous solar blasts that would knock out power grids, communications and essential services, potentially leading to millions of immediate deaths and widespread societal breakdown.

Dames died at age 76. In his last recorded interviews he tied the timing directly to Solar Cycle 25 and the recent passage of comet C/2023 A3.

Read more 🔗 https://t.co/YoGr2cu9nG ⬇️

— Daily Mail US (@Daily_MailUS) May 13, 2026

Dames was linked to Project Stargate, a declassified US intelligence initiative that ran from the 1970s until 1995. It explored whether psychic phenomena, particularly remote viewing—the claimed ability to perceive distant or hidden targets mentally—could be used for espionage.

The program originated amid Cold War concerns that the Soviet Union was investigating similar psychic capabilities. 

Dames, who had served in Airborne Infantry and later as a tactical electronic warfare officer, transferred into the remote-viewing unit after studying biophysics and Mandarin at UC Berkeley. 

He maintained that remote viewers sometimes supplied intelligence unavailable through conventional means.

The Stargate Project was, at least officially, shut down in 1995 after official reviews claimed it had not delivered reliable operational value.

In one of his last interviews, recently released, Dames stated: “Right now we’re at the beginning of the solar cycle. 25 Solar Max. Solar Max should last for about two years, and the sun’s doing unprecedented stuff. There are more solar spots than there have been in the last 20-something years.”

He continued: “I predict that this Solar Max will be the beginning of the kill shot sequence. But more, more interestingly, intriguingly, the comet C/2023 A3 that’s in the sky.”

“The timing of that appearance and the orbit exactly matches this passing space body with this huge event called the kill shot looming ahead,” Dames further suggested.

“This comet, we described as a passing space body. We didn’t know what it was, a planetoid or a comet, either one that is concomitant with the initiation of the kill shot sequence, and this comet, the trajectory and the timing is a perfect match,” he urged.

Dames warned of the practical consequences of such an event, “You wake up and there’s no power and there’s no water and there’s no gasoline, it’s going to be a bad nightmare scenario. That’s what you’re going to be confronted with. The government is not going to help you.”

He had previously written: “The true devastation of today’s Killshot will be unlike anything we have previously seen in history with solar radiation actually hitting ground level; resulting in the initial deaths of millions with implications resulting in economic collapse, war…”

“More than 30 years ago, we were looking for nuclear war and finding out that our star was going on a rampage.”

Dames first encountered the Killshot concept, he said, while remote viewing during his time in the classified programs. He later built a career teaching survival techniques and selling materials focused on preparing for the predicted event.

Dames’ warnings have drawn renewed scrutiny in light of separate reporting on extensive doomsday preparations by the ultra-wealthy. 

Billionaires are transforming locations into exclusive enclaves and constructing fortified bunkers in anticipation of what they term “the event.”

Local historian Paul George told the outlet: “Only the very wealthy, the billionaires can afford to live in Indian Creek now. Hundreds of millions aren’t gonna cut it anymore.”

These ultra wealthy elites are purchasing private islands in Hawaii, Fiji and New Zealand while building underground shelters. Examples include Mark Zuckerberg’s reported 5,000-square-foot doomsday bunker at his Koolau Ranch property in Hawaii.

Some observers have noted the thematic overlap between Dames’ long-standing “Killshot” scenario and the vague but urgent “event” referenced in these elite preparedness efforts, though no direct connection has been publicly confirmed by the individuals involved.

NASA and NOAA continue to monitor Solar Cycle 25, which has produced significant flares and geomagnetic storms. Severe solar activity is known to threaten satellites, power grids and communications infrastructure.

Astronomers confirm that comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS passed through the inner solar system on its predicted trajectory, again there is no established scientific link to apocalyptic solar events.

Sceptics have pointed out that several of Dames’ earlier timelines for the Killshot did not materialize. Remote viewing itself remains unproven under rigorous scientific scrutiny, and the Stargate Project was ultimately deemed non-operational by its reviewers.

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.

A new public opinion survey from Emerson College Polling, a nonpartisan polling center based at Emerson College, shows that far-left incumbent Mayor Karen Bass remains the frontrunner in the Los Angeles mayoral race, though challenger Spencer Pratt appears to be gaining popularity and traction, which has clearly alarmed the Democratic Party.

Local outlet Spectrum News 1 SoCal cited Emerson College’s new poll of the L.A. mayoral race, which shows Bass at 30%, Pratt at 22% (gaining ground), and Socialist Councilmember Nithya Raman at 19%.

The poll, conducted between May 9 and 10, came just a few days after the L.A. mayoral debate last Wednesday. An NBC Los Angeles poll showed Pratt dominated, with 88% of respondents saying he won.

🚨 LA MAYOR POLL: A whopping 88% say that @spencerpratt WON the Mayoral debate last night.

Spencer Pratt: 88%
Karen Bass: 7%
Nithya Rama: 5%

It wasn’t even close. pic.twitter.com/EMUmw9sDDs

— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) May 7, 2026

Spencer Pratt has been surging in popularity across L.A., thanks to his social media team’s impressive ability to go viral online, generating millions of likes, retweets, and views.

Karen Bass got FOMO. These AI attack ads are crazy desperate. pic.twitter.com/7nJrFISeQH

— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) May 13, 2026

He has been particularly effective in messaging:

• “No More Nakedness”: Spencer Pratt’s L.A. Mayoral Plan To Restore Order ‘In Weeks’ Has Democrats In Panic Mode

In L.A., that has not been difficult, as he has simply pointed out the truth: far-left Bass and her administration of leftists in City Hall have transformed the metro area into a DEI kingdom of crime and chaos in just a few short years through failed progressive policies.

Earlier this week, TMZ tried to derail Pratt’s campaign with a piece about how he was not living in an Airstream trailer on his burned-out property in the Palisades, which he blames Bass for failing to protect during the fire.

🚨 JUST IN: After TMZ ran a SMEAR PIECE on him, LA mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt took it to them DIRECTLY on their network — he showed up and PUMMELED the lies

They tried saying he misled people about living in the trailer because his house burned down — that he’s at a “hotel”… pic.twitter.com/VCBONdAKJP

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 13, 2026

Well, that backfired. 

“Raman will drop out and Bass will surge, and in order for Pratt to make it beyond June 2, Bass needs to stay under 50%,” political commentator Katie Zacharia noted on X.

Raman will drop out and Bass will surge, and in order for Pratt to make it beyond June 2nd, Bass needs to stay under 50%.

— Katie Zacharia (@KatieZacharia) May 14, 2026

State-level Republicans nationwide should take note of Pratt’s effective campaign strategy and simply copy it. The truth about how Democrats ruined cities with nation-killing progressive policies is very easy to communicate to voters.

Authored by Paul D. Thacker via The DisInformation Chronicle,

“DLA Piper wants to get you,” I was told, from a source in DC over the weekend.

“Well, what can they do to me?” I asked.

“They can’t really do anything,” she said. “But they are pissed off.”

Well, they should be. DLA Piper is one of the largest law firms on the planet, with over 90 offices scattered across more than 40 countries. A week back, I took a shot at one of DLA Piper’s top lobbyists, former Republican North Carolina Senator Richard Burr, and one of DLA Piper’s major clients, the University of North Carolina (UNC).

As I reported last month for RealClearInvestigations, The National Institutes of Health removed UNC virologist, Ralph Baric, from all his NIH grants. And UNC put Baric on administrative leave. This all took place last year, but remained hidden until I exposed it all in a sprawling investigation that delved into Baric’s career, his past lobbying efforts of the federal government to keep taxpayer money pouring into his UNC lab, and Baric’s manipulations of public opinion to shut down speculation that the pandemic started because of the dangerous virus research that he pioneered in collaboration with Shi Zhengli at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

That’s right. Baric’s main collaborators to create experimental pandemic viruses were virologists working in the same city where the COVID pandemic started in 2019.

Neither Baric nor UNC would respond to my repeated inquiries. However, when a reporter sent them questions about my article, UNC said that they couldn’t discuss Baric “citing the university’s policy on personnel matters.” Another reporter who sent UNC questions, received this reply: “Thanks for reaching out. Under the North Carolina State Human Resources Act, the University of North Carolina does not comment on personnel matters.”

But the pressure became overwhelming and the dam finally burst on Tuesday, when UNC administrators sent out an email saying that Baric was retiring. (That email was then leaked to a local North Carolina paper.) Baric also collaborated with Science Magazine’s Jon Cohen, providing him all the details about my prior reporting that NIH removed Baric from grants last year and UNC placed him on leave. Cohen’s editor, John Travis, then tried to sell this repeat of my reporting from last month as an “exclusive backstory” to readers of Science.

Journalism can be a sleazy business. Since the pandemic’s beginning, Jon Cohen has distinguished himself as a soft touch for Tony Fauci-financed virologists who downplayed evidence that the pandemic began at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, earning himself the moniker: “Crooked Cohen”.

UNC’s Biodefense Lobby Hustle

Baric got away with shenanigans for years because, while he was in an elected official and purportedly serving voters, North Carolina Senator Richard Burr helped to protect Baric and sponsored legislation that poured tens of billions of taxpayer cash into biodefense research that paid Baric’s UNC lab, as well as a North Carolina company Baric founded. And let’s not forget all the biopharmaceutical companies that work with Baric and other virologists to suck down taxpayer-financed federal contracts to stockpile government warehouses with biomedical products.

One of Baric’s major sponsors was Tony Fauci, who ran the biodefense program at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Trump officials now tell me that Baric’s cutting-edge biodefense studies led to virus experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that caused the COVID pandemic.

“Baric designed the gun,” I was told by a senior health official. “But the Chinese built it, and then they pulled the trigger.”

A senior Trump official at one of the intelligence agencies refers to this multi-billion dollar biodefense complex as a “contract racket.” Here’s how he said it works:

NIH and other taxpayer-funded federal agencies give grants and contracts to university virologists to find viruses hidden throughout the world, and bring them back to labs for experiments, including dangerous gain-of-function studies that make viruses more deadly;

Academic virologists then partner with Big Pharma and biotech companies to create profitable therapeutics and vaccines to these experimental viruses, with universities getting a cut of the deal;

Biotech executives, academics, and universities make a windfall after these therapeutics and vaccines get sold back to the very taxpayers who paid for all this research in the first place.

I wrote about some of this back in 2023, the year in which President Biden began drowning the academic/biodefense industry in an historic amount of cash: $88.2 billion. That same year, Senator Burr left federal office to catch some of that deluge in dollars as a biodefense lobbyist. However, in 2023 this was all so new, and far too complicated to understand.

But today it’s no longer hard to follow once you take a look at Burr’s 18 lobbying clients:

Academic Research Centers: University of North Carolina, Duke University, Duke University Health System, Wake Forest University, Association of American Universities.

Pharma/Biotech in BioDefense Sector: Biogen, Biotechnology Innovation Organization Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America PhRMA, Novartis AG, REGENEX BIO, AdvaMed, Avalyn Pharma, Lazarus AI, Defence Security and Resilience Bank Development Group.

It’s quite something.

Burr laid the foundation for his lobbying career by sponsoring most of the major pieces of legislation that fund and regulate the biomedical and biodefense industry during his three decades in office. And he’s not shy about trumpeting these accomplishments, because he advertises them to potential clients in academia and corporate America on his bio at DLA Piper.

Burr helped pass the 1997 FDA Modernization Act which regulates pandemic products, and he was a primary architect of the 2006 Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) which provided new authorities for companies to develop medical countermeasures which the government then buys from them. The PAHPA also created BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority). BARDA spends billions every year to subsidize pandemic research, with a big portion of that money buying vaccines and other pandemic products that fill up government warehouses, in case a crazy virus (maybe leaked from a lab!) starts sweeping across the planet, killing people.

But there’s more money. So much money.

In his final year as a United States Senator, Burr introduced a bill to create ARPA-H inside the NIH, providing billions more in taxpayer spending for biodefense companies. As the Republican leader of the Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), he then published a report on COVID origins that placed sole blame for the pandemic on Chinese scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, while ignoring extensive published evidence of the research ties between UNC’s Ralph Baric and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“With COVID-19 still in our midst, it is critical that we continue international efforts to uncover additional information regarding the origins of this deadly virus,” Burr wrote in the report’s forward. “I hope this report will guide the World Health Organization and other international institutions and researchers as they proceed with planned work to continue investigating the origins of this virus.”

To give this report’s distorted conclusions some added media juice with liberals, Burr co-opted reporter Katherine Eban to promote his misdirection from Baric’s lab in North Carolina to focus on the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Wittingly or not, that’s exactly what Eban did with an “exclusive” she co-published with ProPublica and Vanity Fair. Eban’s involvement was my first clue that this Burr’s report was a misdirection. As Politico reported in 2012, Eban has a habit of allowing her journalism to serve as “demonstrably false” propaganda for sources who dump documents in her lap. [SEE BELOW: “Katherine Eban Tells You What Power Tells Her”]

Spotlight on Ralph Baric

My investigation for RealClearInvestigations runs for several thousand words and the details of Senator Burr, his 2022 report, and Katherine Eban is only one section. But none of it has been told before.

And my reporting created waves in DC that washed down into North Carolina.

The day before the investigation went live, I sent Richard Burr details about my reporting via his email at DLA Piper. I wrote to Burr that I was a former Senate investigator, telegraphing to him that I understood how Committees put together reports. I then detailed all the problems I found in the 2022 report he released before leaving the Senate to become a biodefense lobbyist.

In my email to Burr, I included a set of facts that we were reporting at RealClearInvestigations and asked him to comment, correct, or clarify.

1) In your final year as Ranking on HELP, you released a 2022 report on the pandemic’s origin. That report pointed the finger solely at China as the purported origin of the virus.

2) That report made no mention of gain-of-function research funded by the NIH, nor any mention of gain-of-function research conducted in the United States.

3) The most notable researcher in the world for generating gain-of-function coronaviruses is Ralph Baric, professor at UNC, who is funded by the NIH.

4) Sources who Committee staff interviewed for your report said that Bob Kadlec removed any mention of gain-of-function research in the United States. Others said you made this decision.

4) After you left office, you joined DLA Piper as a lobbyist on pandemic preparedness, taking with you staff from the HELP Committee.

5) You then joined the board of the company Baric set up for pandemic preparedness, which had also received NIH money.

A few hours later, I got a text message from Douglas Heye, a former speechwriter for the Republican National Committee, and former Republican Hill staffer. According to one bio, Heye is from Burr’s home state of North Carolina and runs a PR firm called “Douglas Media.”

Heye wanted to talk to me about Senator Burr, but I wasn’t interested. He then called me, but I didn’t pick up. I then texted Heye back that Senator Burr could call me himself or email me to answer my questions.

Burr later emailed me that he couldn’t discuss the matter as DLA Piper represents UNC. What he didn’t tell me is that he, Richard Burr, is the person at DLA Piper who lobbies for UNC.

I now know that Burr is deeply embedded within the academic biomedical and biodefense industry that he helped to create with all the legislation he passed during three decades in Congress. Again, just look at his DLA Piper bio explaining all this, and check out Burr’s list of clients in academia and biodefense.

Between two laws he sponsored—BARDA and ARPA-H—taxpayers shovel several billions of dollars down the gaping maw of academic research centers and private companies in grants and contracts every year. Most of BARDA money has gone to big pharma companies such as Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), AstraZeneca, and Sanofi/GSK.

That’s apparently why Burr put out a report in his final months as a United State Senator that pointed the finger at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the sole problem in dangerous virus research. He couldn’t shine a spotlight on UNC and other American universities, as well as their corporate partners in biomedical and biodefense and then expect these same people to hire him as their man in DC.

Katherine Eban Tells You What Power Tells Her

When Katherine Eban partnered with Senator Burr and his staff in 2022, she understood that, in exchange for access to inside information, her role in this alliance was to promote the Senator’s report, not question the conclusions.

Renowned investigative reporter Dean Starkman laid out the problems inherent in Eban’s type of journalism many years ago in a critique of “access” versus “accountability” reporting—the latter being my preference. Access reporting tells you what the powerful said, Starkman explained, while accountability reporting tells you what they did.

And Eban has long snuggled up to the powerful for access, which inescapably hides what they did. It’s a fatal flaw in the scribblings of all stenographers to power.

In 2011, Special Agent John Dodson with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) blew the whistle on the Fast and Furious gun walking scandal. This federal operation allowed over 2,000 firearms to be illegally purchased and then trafficked to Mexican drug cartels in order to track those weapons back to drug smugglers. The tactic was known as “gunwalking.” However, agents lost track of most weapons, which were later used in crimes, including the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

This inept operation drew a target on the back of Agent Dodson’s superiors and U.S. Attorneys who supervised the Fast and Furious Operation. And they retaliated against him by leaking sensitive internal government documents to reporters in a smear campaign. One of those reporters who got inside access to government documents and then smeared agent Dodson was Katherine Eban.

In a June 2012 “exclusive” for Fortune, Katherine Eban made a series of false allegations against Dodson, claiming that his whistleblowing was just a “grudge” against his superiors.

Dodson hired an attorney and sued Eban’s publisher Time Inc. for defamation, noting that Eban’s reporting was “dubious” and filled with falsehoods. A spokesperson for the Senate Committee investigating the Fast and Furious scandal told Politico, “This kind of misleading and highly opinionated narrative masquerading as objective mainstream journalism is an example of why many Americans distrust what they’re told by the media.”

Eban tried to defend hersefl, but Time Inc. later settled with Dodson.

The Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General later released a report that found a United States Attorney leaked internal government documents “motivated by a desire to undermine Special Agent Dodson’s public criticisms of Operation Fast and Furious.” The ACLU then protested the ATF’s attempt to censor Agent’s Dodson’s 2013 memoir on this gun trafficking scandal, “The Unarmed Truth: My Fight to Blow the Whistle and Expose Fast and Furious.”

That same year, ATF cleared Agent Dodsons of all false allegations made against him by his superiors.

When Fast and Furious first blew up, I had left my job as a Senate investigator so I did not deal with Agent Dodson and the smear campaign orchestrated against him. However, I was friends with the Senate staffer who ran the Dodson investigation alongside a Secret Service Agent who was on detail to the Committee that I had left.

I was appalled at the Eban’s shoddy reporting and defamation of Agent Dodson, and I have never trusted her since.

Eban viciously attacked an American hero, who risked his career and reputation to protect the United States and federal law officers. When I spoke to Agent Dodson a couple years ago about what happened to him, he said he couldn’t discuss the details of his settlement with Eban’s publisher. He did tell me that ATF punished him by never giving him a promotion after he went public about the scandal.

Eban did not return repeated requests to explain her defamation of Agent Dodson, and why she has never apologized publicly. Lionsgate studio picked up the rights to Dodson’s book in 2015 and chose “World War Z” writer Matthew Carnahan to adapt the memoir into a movie. However, plans for a movie on Agent Dodson appear to have been shelved.

Eban reprised her role as unquestioning sidekick to the powerful when she rode shotgun with Senate Burr to promote his 2022 report in co-published stories that ran in ProPublica and Vanity Fair. The articles provided intimate details of the Committee staffers she had grown close to, including colorful highlights of one with “very blue-collar” roots in Greenville, South Carolina.

Just like North Carolina’s Senator Burr, Eban ignored mountains of evidence, available at the time, that NIH-funded scientists like Ralph Baric of North Carolina were partnering with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And just like Senator Burr, Eban focused solely on China as the problem with dangerous virus experiments.

In fact, this laser-like focus on Wuhan, China, is right there in the title of Eban’s ProPublica article.

Propublica later published an editor’s note to Eban’s regurgitation of Senator Burr’s report, adding context and corrections that stretches on for over 2,500 words. I’m not joking. The editor’s note is longer than this article that you are reading now.

Eban pulled a second stunt like this in 2023, shielding Ralph Baric and other corrupt virologlists from scrutiny, when she appeared at a University of Pennsylvania event discussing the origins of the COVID pandemic alongside virologist Susan Weiss. “There is no field where there is more need for clear communication than on the subject of the COVID origins debate,” said the event organizer, professor Claire Finkelstein. “We decided to get five of the smartest, most interesting, and level headed people that we could find together, to rise above the fray to have a serious intelligent discussion.”

Surprise: Event organizer Claire Finkelstein is Katherine Eban’s sister!

Years prior to her sister hosting a university event for Eban to rub shoulders with Weiss, emails spilled out showing that Weiss had allowed Ralph Baric to ghostwrite a 2020 essay she co-authored downplaying the possibility of a lab accident.

Weiss’s 2020 commentary was titled “No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2” and appeared in the journal Emerging Microbes & Infections. Taylor and Francis later congratulated Weiss and her co-authors as their commentary became one of the most widely read pieces published in 2020. Media outlets such as The Week, Buzzfeed, and Baric’s local newspaper, the Raleigh News & Observer, cited the article in passages that dismissed a possible lab accident.

Emails show that both Baric and Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology provided secret edits to Weiss’s manuscript. After one of the Weiss’s co-authors sent Baric a draft, asking for his input, Baric responded, “Sure, but don’t want to be cited in as having commented prior to submission.”

After then submitting alterations to the text in track changes, Baric added, “I think the community needs to write these editorials and I thank you for your efforts.”

But sitting on the stage next to Weiss, Eban didn’t ask a single question about this unethical incident. Even though the story and supporting emails had been made public years prior. Now why is that?

Here’s what I reported for RealClearInvestigations about this tawdry research episode involving Ralph Baric and Susan Weiss:

Although failing to disclose authors on a paper is considered a form of research misconduct, the journal failed to take action. Five years after publication, the journal added a disclosure in January 2025 that acknowledged Ralph Baric’s contribution to the commentary.

This is partly why we’re still trying to figure out today what happened during COVID coverup. Much of the dirt kicked up with these media deceptions is still floating in the air. But let’s keep blowing that dust away.

Authored by Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times,

The Senate unanimously approved a resolution on May 14 that would suspend senators’ pay during government shutdowns.

The measure, introduced by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), passed by voice vote and is scheduled to take effect after the November midterm elections.

Under the resolution, the Senate secretary would withhold lawmakers’ salaries whenever a government shutdown affects one or more federal agencies. Pay would be released once government funding is restored.

Supporters say the proposal is intended to hold Congress accountable as shutdowns become increasingly frequent and prolonged.

“Shutting down government should not be our default solution to our refusal to work out our issues and our differences,” Kennedy said in a floor speech on Wednesday.

“This is about putting our money where our mouth is.”

Kennedy initially wanted the measure to take effect immediately, but included delayed implementation language to comply with the 27th Amendment, which bars changes to congressional pay until after the next House election.

He also accused Democrats of potentially using a shutdown before the elections “to create chaos” and influence the political environment heading into the midterms.

The legislation follows two major shutdowns over the past year that caused financial strain for thousands of federal employees, especially workers at the Department of Homeland Security. The agency reopened last month after a 76-day partial shutdown—the longest funding lapse affecting a federal agency in U.S. history.

That shutdown came shortly after a separate 43-day closure of the entire federal government, another record-setting disruption.

While federal workers often miss paychecks during shutdowns, members of Congress continue to receive salaries because the Constitution guarantees lawmakers’ compensation.

During a previous shutdown tied to disputes over health care subsidies, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) proposed a constitutional amendment requiring lawmakers to forfeit their pay during shutdowns.

“If members of Congress had to forfeit their pay during government shutdowns, there would be fewer shutdowns, and they would end quicker,” Graham said at the time.

Graham argued that a constitutional amendment would be the most legally secure solution, though such an effort would require ratification by three-fourths of the states.

Lawmakers have previously pledged to voluntarily reject their salaries during shutdowns, but Kennedy told reporters his proposal would ensure that “shared sacrifice” becomes official policy.

He acknowledged the resolution does not apply to the House of Representatives, saying, “the House’s business is the House’s business,” while also referencing tensions between the two chambers.

“There’s a very strong undercurrent of animosity among some of my friends in the House,” Kennedy said. “It’s quickly becoming like two kids fighting in the back of a minivan.”

Billionaire and Democrat donor Stephen Cloobeck was arrested Tuesday in Los Angeles on suspicion of felony charges of attempting to prevent or dissuade a victim or witness from testifying after a warrant was issued for his arrest. 

Cloobeck, founder of Diamond Resorts – who until recently was a major financial supporter of former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D) failed campaign for California governor, was booked into custody in West Hollywood, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department records. He was later released on $300,000 bail.

In a terse statement to the California Post, a press representative for Cloobeck said of the arrest: “These charges are false and we look forward to our day in court.”

Cloobeck cut ties with Swalwell following multiple allegations of sexual assault – but not before the now-former congressman recorded a bizarre apology video from inside his swanky mansion.

“I was with my counsel and we had a chat with him, I just told him, ‘You busted the trust,’” Cloobeck said of Swalwell at the time the allegations broke. “I’m shocked, I’m disturbed and get the fuck out of here.’ Then I walked away and that was it.”

“I was blown away!” the billionaire claimed. “Like blown away. Like, there’s no way I would have endorsed him. It’s such a shock.”

The billionaire, who briefly ran for governor himself last year before dropping out to support Swalwell, has since rebranded himself a Republican.

“I am no longer supporting Eric. Fucking tell everyone I’m a libertarian. Fuck you, Democrat Party,” he told the California Post.

Cloobeck has also recently made headlines thanks to his 28-year-old fiancée, Penthouse Pet Adva Lavie, who faces six felony charges for allegedly preying on older men through dating apps. However, his lover’s legal troubles haven’t impacted the impending nuptials, according to the billionaire.

“The marriage is still on, the date is now a secret,” he said.

Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com,

The Senate Banking Committee advanced the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act on a 15–9 vote Thursday, with Sens. Ruben Gallego (D‑Ariz.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D‑Md.) joining all 13 Republicans to move the sweeping crypto market structure bill to the full Senate.

The Clarity Act is the Senate’s bid to build a federal framework for digital asset trading, stablecoins and intermediaries, splitting oversight between the SEC and CFTC and setting registration, disclosure and compliance rules for exchanges, brokers and custodians. It now advances alongside a related bill from the Senate Agriculture Committee, with the two texts expected to merge before a floor vote.

Chair Tim Scott (R‑S.C.) cast the markup as a turning point after years in which crypto firms operated in what he called a “regulatory gray zone” under “outdated rules.” 

He said the bill aims to protect consumers, keep innovation in the United States and “close the doors that criminals, terrorists and hostile regimes have tried to exploit,” after months of cross‑party talks that expanded the draft by more than 200 pages.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R‑Wyo.), who leads the committee’s digital assets panel, called the Clarity Act “the hardest piece of legislation” she has worked on across decades in state and federal office. She described it as a “case of first impression” that tries to fit new asset types and software into a regulatory code built for earlier markets.

BREAKING: 🇺🇸 Senate Banking Committee PASSES the Clarity Act in 15-9 vote.

The bill now goes to the full Senate. pic.twitter.com/TCs6T283y2

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) May 14, 2026

Warren’s camp: “industry‑written” and “not ready”

Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D‑Mass.) led the opposition, arguing the committee should focus on groceries, health costs and credit card rates, not “a bill written by the crypto industry for the crypto industry.” 

Warren warned that the draft “blows a hole” in securities law that has protected investors since 1929, preempts state anti‑fraud rules and allows banks to load up on volatile crypto exposure in ways she linked to pre‑2008 practices. 

She said the bill “declares open season on defrauding American consumers who use crypto,” and accused Republicans of advancing a framework that helps “the President of the United States’ crypto grift.

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D‑Ga.) tied his no vote to ethics concerns, calling President Donald Trump’s digital asset business ties “pure corruption” and faulting Republicans for refusing enforceable conflict‑of‑interest rules for all elected officials, including the president and vice president.

Illicit finance, mixers and stablecoins

National security concerns drove a series of Democratic amendments that Republicans rejected in 11–13 votes. Warren proposed stronger sanction tools against crypto mixers and DeFi services, citing Treasury’s 2022 designation of Tornado Cash and warning that the bill does not isolate mixers in statute. 

Sen. John Kennedy (R‑La.) pressed her on why new anti‑money‑laundering sections do not already cover those services, then joined Republicans to defeat the proposal.

Sen. Jack Reed (D‑R.I.) described how Iranian actors use stablecoins to buy drone components, import sensitive goods and collect tolls from tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. He said the Treasury still must “go hat in hand” to issuers such as Tether for voluntary cooperation, and sought explicit power for regulators to block foreign illicit stablecoin flows; his amendment failed on the same party‑line split.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D‑Md.) pointed to estimates that more than 150 billion dollars in digital assets flowed through wallets tied to illicit activity last year and highlighted a large North Korean exchange hack where DeFi services helped launder funds. 

His proposal to make it unlawful to release a DeFi protocol with the stated purpose of enabling money laundering, sanctions evasion or terror finance also fell in an 11–13 vote, after Republicans argued that existing criminal statutes already reach that conduct.

Republicans, led by Lummis and Sen. Bernie Moreno (R‑Ohio), answered that Titles II and III of the bill already tie digital asset intermediaries into the Bank Secrecy Act, expand Treasury’s “special measures” authority and bring kiosks, brokers and exchanges into clearer federal oversight than the House version.

President Trump, World Liberty and failed ethics amendments

Ethics provisions tied to Trump’s business ties to World Liberty Financial and other crypto ventures produced some of the sharpest exchanges. Van Hollen offered an amendment to bar the president, vice president and members of Congress from business ties to crypto firms and to require more disclosure, saying it was needed because “the president and members of his family” had been involved in “corrupt crypto ventures and various crypto scams.”

Moreno said the measure belonged in the Judiciary Committee because it carried criminal penalties and defended Trump as “a good man,” accusing Van Hollen of declaring criminal conduct without a court record. The amendment failed 11–13.

Warren tried to force banking regulators to release confidential supervisory records related to Jeffrey Epstein, arguing Epstein had backed early crypto investments and that exam files could reveal what banks and supervisors knew as he moved funds through major institutions. Lummis answered that confidential supervisory material is outside a market structure bill’s scope, and that amendment also failed, even after Kennedy said he would have supported it without “co‑conspirator” language.

DeFi safe harbor deal exposes Democratic split

One of the most consequential votes came on Lummis Amendment 122, a technical package negotiated with Sen. Mark Warner (D‑Va.) that refines when a DeFi protocol counts as controlled by a small group and interacts with the bill’s core safe harbors. 

Warren argued the amendment embeds “a narrow test” for which entities count as crypto intermediaries and imports a Section 604 “loophole” that shields decentralized services from basic anti‑money‑laundering rules, saying that “it doesn’t matter if you have rules if nobody has to follow them.”

After a short technical fix to strike two lines, the committee adopted the amendment 18–6, with Warner, Cortez Masto and Alsobrooks joining Republicans. That vote marked a clear split: Warren, Reed and Van Hollen opposed the compromise, while a “crypto Democrat” bloc accepted the DeFi framework as a basis to refine before floor action.

Process fight over which amendments get heard

The markup also turned into a test of Scott’s control over the amendment list. Before the hearing, he ruled more than a dozen proposals out of order on drafting and filing grounds, including a National Sheriffs Association‑backed fix from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D‑Nev.) on decentralized platform enforcement and a community‑bank‑supported stablecoin‑yield tweak from Reed and Sen. Tina Smith (D‑Minn.).

Later, seeking a bipartisan outcome, Scott reinstated several amendments, including Lummis 122, after Democrats such as Warner and Gallego said committee votes on those compromises would make support easier. Warren objected that he was reviving a subset of Republican‑side language while leaving law enforcement and community‑bank proposals sidelined. 

Van Hollen noted that some of his own properly drafted amendments never reached a vote, even as previously disqualified Lummis text passed 18–6. 

Scott replied that he and Warren had agreed to cap amendments from each side, and that within that cap he was using discretion to serve Democrats who wanted a bipartisan result.

Gallego and Alsobrooks give Clarity Act its bipartisan spine

Through the day, Republicans accepted targeted changes that industry and moderates backed, including Sen. Mike Rounds’ AI sandbox and Sen. Dave McCormick’s portfolio‑margin language, both adopted with Democratic support. They rejected every Democratic attempt to extend sanctions tools, bar bailouts, tighten DeFi liability or write ethics rules into the bill.

By the final vote, the Democratic side had split into clear camps. Warren, Warnock, Van Hollen, Smith and Reed built a record that presents Clarity as an industry‑driven framework that weakens enforcement and leaves presidential conflicts untouched. Warner helped shape key language but kept leverage for later stages. 

Gallego and Alsobrooks supplied the decisive Democratic votes that turned a partisan project into a 15–9 bipartisan committee win, while both signaled that support on the floor will depend on further movement on ethics and enforcement as the bill heads toward merger with the Agriculture Committee’s version and a 60‑vote test before the full Senate.

Well, that escalated quickly…

With the Rupee accelerating its declines to ever lower record lows against the dollar, Indian authorities have stepped up capital controls, focusing on curbing demand in the gold ‘exit’ route.

4 days ago, there were no signs of import duty hikes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi  issued a rare weekend appeal urging citizens to forgo gold purchases as well as unnecessary foreign travel in order to help hold up the currency..

2 days ago, tariffs were more than doubled on gold and silver imports to 15% and 6% respectively.

And today, they are doing even more with India now tightening the advance authorisation route, effectively capping how much gold individual exporters can bring in through that channel. 

A government notification stated that imports of bullion exceeding 100 kilograms would be subject to prior authorization, adding that any subsequent imports would only be granted after exports equivalent to 50% had been carried out.

The notification also introduced stricter checks for first-time applicants seeking permission to import gold under the scheme.

The government has also linked future import approvals to export performance.

India, the world’s third-largest oil importer, has been hit hard by the inflationary shock caused by energy disruptions in the Persian Gulf. 

Higher import bills have driven sharp foreign-exchange outflows, pushing the rupee down to a record low and prompting the Reserve Bank of India to step in and sell dollars.

And the fact that gold is the country’s largest import item after crude oil does not help, which is why India is doing everything in its power to limit capital outflows. 

As UBS explains, the new curbs don’t directly restrict the importing banks, but it does limit how much metal each participant can access, reducing the ability to build larger positions and tightening flows through the system.

The broader backdrop is that India is no longer purely a jewellery-led market.

Demand has become more investment‑driven, with a growing share of imports moving into financial holdings, including ETFs.

A significant part of last year’s import surge appears to have gone into investment rather than fabrication, which changes how the market behaves. During the initial phase of the recent Middle East escalation, Indian ETFs were among the first to react, selling roughly ~20 tonnes in the opening week of the move.

More immediately, demand has already been soft in recent weeks, as reflected in recent import data.

Monthly India Gold Imports below in tonnes, source: UBS

Near‑term uncertainty around fertiliser (urea) supplies also poses a risk to this year’s crop cycle, with the key monsoon period running into August, which could weigh on rural incomes and, by extension, gold buying.

The recent moves underscore policy concerns around curbing import-led dollar outflows from high foreign exchange-draining sectors, Madhavi Arora, economist at Emkay Global Financial Services said.

“We expect gold imports to fall by around 20-25% this year due to these steps.”

New Delhi is weighing several further emergency steps to shore up foreign-exchange reserves and limit the damage from the war in the Middle East.

If demand does recover, however, as seen in previous tightening cycles, attempts by the government to limit capital outflows via precious metals will only encourage activity to re‑route via unofficial channels (with smuggling picking up when the onshore market is constrained), to preserve purchasing power, and it is only a matter of time before India joins the rest of the financially suppressed developing world in actively pursuing such non-fiat alternatives as tether and bitcoin if the traditional gold and silver pathways are limited. 

Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint on May 13 against the D.C. Bar, alleging it has acted as a “partisan arm of leftist causes.”

According to the DOJ, the agency seeks to advance President Donald Trump’s directives to end the weaponization of the federal government while nullifying the D.C. Bar’s prosecution of former Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark.

D.C. Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton P. Fox III, the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, the D.C. Court of Appeals, the District of Columbia itself, the D.C. Bar, and others are named as defendants and accused of unlawfully prosecuting Clark based on his internal deliberations of potential fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

The Epoch Times reached out to the D.C. Bar for comment and was referred to the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Clark wrote a draft letter for his litigation on potential fraud, which was never issued, and the D.C. Court of Appeals’ disciplinary authorities punished him over it, according to the complaint.

The D.C. Bar and others’ investigation and discipline of Clark were improperly based on “their disagreement with Mr. Clark’s performance of his discretionary Executive Branch duties, particularly with respect to a predecisional and deliberative document about potential election fraud in Georgia, which remains the subject of criminal investigation and civil litigation years later,” the complaint said.

Allowing proceedings against Clark to continue would mean state bar authorities can exert control over the executive branch, the DOJ said, adding, “That is not the law.”

The DOJ cited the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, or preemption, as a cause for dismissing proceedings and discipline against Clark. Preemption, the DOJ said, prevents states and the District of Columbia from regulating or interfering with federal officials performing their duties.

In the complaint, the DOJ also argued that a 2024 Supreme Court decision, Trump v. United States, offers protection for Clark.

In that landmark ruling, the justices said the president is entitled to absolute immunity “for conduct within his exclusive sphere of authority” because the president should have the “maximum ability to deal fearlessly and impartially with the duties of his office.”

The president would enjoy little immunity if federal attorneys could be targeted and disciplined for internal deliberations, the complaint said.

In the news release, the DOJ said this filing furthers Trump’s executive order, “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” and his presidential memorandum, “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Courts.”

“The D.C. Bar will no longer be permitted to probe sensitive Executive Branch deliberations and target Executive Branch officials with whom they happen to politically disagree,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said. “Federal attorneys will once again be free to share their candid legal advice with their bosses and colleagues.”

In a similar case to Clark’s, the DOJ said it filed a statement in support of former interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, who is looking to have the D.C. Bar’s prosecution of him taken up in a neutral federal court.

The DOJ noted in its news release that three former attorneys general have acknowledged that the D.C. Bar’s push to discipline federal attorneys “for making recommendations, factual assertions, and providing legal advice during confidential internal agency deliberations on law enforcement and sensitive public policy” is “improper and constitutionally impermissible.”

“President Trump promised to put an end to the weaponization of the legal process, and today’s lawsuit against the D.C. Bar makes good on that promise,” Woodward said.