Amid the ongoing fracturing of the private credit industry, which after enjoying years of stable, levered growth (and when it ran out of institutional greater fools, it aimed lower, toward HNWs and retail) finally hit a brick wall thanks to the Claude-inspired SaaSpocalypse, which has led to a historic surge in redemption requests across the biggest (and certainly smallest) names in the industry, last week we said that debt funds managed by powerhouse firms including Blackstone, BlackRock, Cliffwater, Morgan Stanley and Monroe Capital have agreed to honor only 70% of the $10.1bn of redemption requests they have faced, according to FT calculations, as fund after fund is gating investors.

We also said that the number of both redemptions and gates is expected to spike over the coming weeks, as funds managed by Ares Management, Apollo Global, Blue Owl, Oaktree and Goldman Sachs tally up how many of their investors are heading for the exits, as discussed here.

According to the above table, Apollo’s private credit fund, APODS, was supposed to report its Q1 outflow in early May. However, the surge in redemptions was so big the private equity giant decided not to wait that long, and according to Bloomberg, Apollo Global Management has joined a growing number of its peers in gating redemptions from one of its largest non-traded private credit funds for retail investors, becoming the latest alternative asset manager to be flooded by a surge in such requests.

The $25 billion business development company, Apollo Debt Solutions (APODS), capped withdrawals at 5% of outstanding shares Monday after clients sought to redeem 11.2%, according to a shareholder letter seen by Bloomberg, thus gating more than half of the redemption requests. 

“Periods of complexity and uncertainty can create some of the most attractive investment opportunities, but only for those with the flexibility to act decisively,” the firm said, adding that “while the market has repriced risk, the fundamentals of the fund’s underlying borrowers remain strong.”

The firm expects the granted redemptions to amount to roughly $730 million of gross outflows for the first quarter, offsetting the roughly $724 million of inflows for the period. Apollo Debt Solutions has been building its reserves in the past month, doubling the size of one credit line to $1 billion and signing a new $500 million facility.

What’s worse is Apollo has effectively pre-gated next quarter’s redemption requests, saying that it intends to stick to the same cap next quarter as it balances “the interests of shareholders seeking liquidity with those who choose to remain invested,” it said in the letter, noting that challenging times can benefit investors in the long run.

With redeeming investors receiving just 45% of their capital, Apollo Debt Solutions is returning less cash to clients than some of its peers that capped withdrawals. As we reported previously, while BlackRock also capped redemptions from its $26 billion non-traded BDC at a pre-set 5% earlier this month, investors had “only” requested 9.3% of their shares. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley’s North Haven Private Income Fund’s pro-rated redemptions were granted at a similar rate to Apollo’s.

It seems that with every passing week, after Blue Owl started the private credit firesale a month ago, more investors are seeking to return their capital… and more are being gated. 

As regular readers are aware, while private credit funds typically limit redemptions to 5% of outstanding shares, the recent bank run redemption scramble among retail investors has tested firms’ flexibility. Some firms such as Blackstone opted to exceed the cap – and fund the shortfall out of the partners’ own pocket – in the hopes of quelling investor panic and stanching further outflows. That valiant effort failed after Blackstone’s peers such as Blackrock, Cliffwater and Morgan Stanley gated their own investors. 

Apollo, which has been pushing for more transparency in private markets, also said Monday that Apollo Debt Solutions had returned 1% over the past three months. At the same time, its net asset value dipped by 1.2% over the same period. Last night we reported that the largest private credit fund, Blackstone’s BCRED, reported its first monthly decline since September 2022. 

Meanwhile, in related news, late on Monday a private credit fund jointly run by Future Standard and KKR was the first to get junked, losing one of its investment-grade ratings, a rare occurrence in the $1.8 trillion private credit market, and one which will certainly result in higher borrowing costs for the $14 billion investment vehicle.

Moody’s Ratings lowered its assessment of FS KKR Capital Corp. to Ba1, or one level into junk, because of what it described as “continued asset quality challenges” that have hurt profitability and the value of the fund’s portfolio relative to peers, the credit grader said in a statement on Monday.

The fund’s non-accrual rate, which measures soured loans, rose to 5.5% of total investments as of the end of last year, one of the highest percentages among peers. It also expressed concern over other investments not classified as non-accrual that have have suffered significant markdowns, including a loan to software company Medallia.

The rating agency also called out FSK’s higher proportion of payment-in-kind income relative to peers, which it said is a sign of “weaker earnings quality.” PIK provisions allow borrowers to pay interest by accumulating additional debt instead of paying out cash.   

That said, the ratings firm said the fund is “well positioned” from a liquidity perspective, with about $2.5 billion available after repaying a $1 billion note earlier this year.

“FSK remains well positioned despite the decision,” a spokesperson for the fund, referring to its stock-exchange ticker, said in an emailed statement. “It has a strong, well‑laddered liability structure with no 2026 unsecured maturities and limited near‑term maturities, enabling us to continue supporting our portfolio companies and navigate the current market environment.”

And now it’s junk.

Authored by Jim Bovard

Obituaries on eminent Washingtonians usually omit the dreadful precedents they set that will vex Americans long after their death. Not this piece.

Former FBI director Robert Mueller died last week at the age of 81. The New York Times eulogized him as a “button-down, lockjawed, rock-ribbed exemplar of a vanishing caste.” In reality, Mueller was simply a twenty-first century version of J. Edgar Hoover, trampling the Constitution and seizing new power on any pretext.

Mueller took over the FBI one week before the 9/11 attacks and he was worse than clueless afterwards. On September 14, 2011, Mueller declared, “The fact that there were a number of individuals that happened to have received training at flight schools here is news, quite obviously. If we had understood that to be the case, we would have—perhaps one could have averted this.” Three days later, Mueller announced, “There were no warning signs that I’m aware of that would indicate this type of operation in the country.” His protestations helped the W. Bush administration railroad the Patriot Act through Congress, vastly expanding the FBI’s prerogatives to vacuum up Americans’ personal information.

Deceit helped capture those intrusive new prerogatives. The Bush administration suppressed until the following May the news that FBI agents in Phoenix and Minneapolis had warned FBI headquarters of suspicious Arabs in flight training programs prior to 9/11. A House-Senate Joint Intelligence Committee analysis concluded that FBI incompetence and negligence “contributed to the United States becoming, in effect, a sanctuary for radical terrorists.” FBI blundering spurred The Wall Street Journal to call for Mueller’s resignation, while a New York Times headline warned: “Lawmakers Say Misstatements Cloud F.B.I. Chief’s Credibility.”

But the FBI was off and running. Thanks to the Patriot Act, the FBI increased by a hundredfold—up to 50,000 a year—the number of National Security Letters (NSLs) it issued to citizens, business, and nonprofit organizations, and recipients were prohibited from disclosing that their data had been raided. NSLs entitle the FBI to seize records that reveal “where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys online, what he pawns and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work,” The Washington Post noted. The FBI can lasso thousands of people’s records with a single NSL—regardless of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable warrantless searches.

The FBI greatly understated the number of NSLs it was issuing and denied that abuses had occurred, thereby helping sway Congress to renew the Patriot Act in 2006. The following year, an Inspector General report revealed that FBI agents may have recklessly issued thousands of illegal NSLs. Shortly after that report was released, federal judge Victor Marrero denounced the NSL process as “the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values.”

Rather than arresting FBI agents who broke the law, Mueller created a new FBI Office of Integrity and Compliance. The Electronic Freedom Foundation, after winning lawsuits to garner FBI reports to a federal oversight board, concluded that the FBI may have committed “tens of thousands” of violations of federal law, regulations, or Executive Orders between 2001 and 2008.

President George W. Bush, scorning a unanimous 1972 Supreme Court ruling, decided he was entitled to impose warrantless wiretaps on Americans. At an April 2005 Senate hearing, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) asked Mueller, “Can the National Security Agency, the great electronic snooper, spy on the American people?” Mueller replied, “I would say generally, they are not allowed to spy or to gather information on American citizens.”

Mueller presumably knew his answer was at least misleading if not blatantly deceptive. Nearly nine months later, The New York Times revealed that Bush had unleashed NSA to illegally wiretap up to five hundred people within the United States at any given time and peruse millions of other Americans’ emails. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales responded to the uproar by asserting that “the president has the inherent authority” to order such wiretaps. Mueller had no trouble with that dictatorial doctrine—even though the same claim spurred one of the articles of impeachment crafted against President Richard Nixon.

Mueller’s biggest coup against privacy occurred with Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which entitles the FBI to demand “business records” that are “relevant” to a terrorism or espionage investigation. In 2011 testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mueller “suggested the FBI interpreted (Section 215) narrowly and used it sparingly,” the ACLU noted. But Mueller was the point man for the Bush administration’s bizarre 2006 decision (perpetuated by Barack Obama) that all Americans’ telephone records were “relevant” to terrorism investigations. Several times a year, Mueller signed orders to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, swaying it to continually renew its order compelling telephone companies to deliver all their calling records (including time, duration, and location of calls) to the National Security Agency.

On June 5, 2013, leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden blew the lid off this surveillance regime. Federal judge Richard Leon slammed that records roundup as “almost Orwellian…I cannot imagine a more indiscriminate and arbitrary invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval.”

Mueller sought to dampen the Snowden uproar by testifying to Congress that the feds could not listen to Americans’ calls without a warrant for that “particular phone and that particular individual.” But NSA employees had broad discretion to vacuum up Americans’ info without warrants, and NSA’s definition of terrorist suspect was so ludicrously broad that it includes “someone searching the web for suspicious stuff.”

Mueller was replaced at the FBI by James Comey. After Comey was fired in May 2017 by President Donald Trump, Comey leaked official memos with confidential information to a lawyer who delivered them to The New York Times. Comey’s leak triggered the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Trump. Mueller’s investigation generated endless allegations and controversies and helped Democrats capture control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018. In April 2019, after two years of media frenzies, Mueller finally admitted he found no evidence to prosecute Trump or his campaign officials for colluding with Russia in the 2016 campaign. In July 2019, Mueller testified to Congress on his investigation and the nation was shocked to see Mueller looking mentally clueless time and again under questioning.

It remains to be seen whether the media can restore Mueller’s halo after his death. But whitewashing Mueller’s record will simply invite more FBI depredations of Americans’ rights and liberties.

The Chicago City Council has approved a plan to boost tourism marketing by raising hotel taxes. Under Ordinance 2026-0022544, the total tax rate on hotel rooms will increase from 17.5% to 19% in downtown and nearby areas, according to Fox News.

The higher rate will apply to hotels with more than 100 rooms that choose to participate.

The report says that alongside the tax increase, the council created a Tourism Improvement District (TID) to fund Choose Chicago, the city’s tourism marketing organization. Revenue will support promotional campaigns and help cover bids for major events and conventions.

Chicago is already pursuing the Democratic National Convention, which requires a $1 million bid. The city previously hosted the event in August 2024 and is competing with several other cities.

Mayor Brandon Johnson called Chicago a leading destination for tourism and large-scale events, saying the city will continue investing in growth and development. Choose Chicago CEO Kristen Reynolds described the move as a “transformative moment” that will strengthen marketing efforts and attract more visitors.

Some critics, however, argue the 19% hotel tax — among the highest in the country — could make travel to Chicago more expensive and potentially discourage tourism.

The FCC has banned the import of all new foreign-made consumer wireless routers, citing “severe national security risks”.

The decision, announced today, follows a White House-convened inter-agency review that determined these devices – primarily those manufactured overseas – pose unacceptable threats to US households, critical infrastructure, and the economy.

Major brands like TP-Link (which holds a dominant share of the U.S. market), Netgear, Google Nest, Amazon Eero, Cisco, Linksys, and Asus produce most models abroad, often in China, which controls an estimated 60% of the U.S. home router market.

Interestingly, Netgear’s stock soared (presumably as a US company that has the potential to steal market share from TP-Link)…

The FCC highlighted how malicious state and non-state actors have exploited vulnerabilities in foreign-made routers for cyberattacks on American civilians, including espionage, network disruptions, intellectual property theft, and incidents linked to groups like Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon.

The ban applies only to new models manufactured outside the U.S., regardless of the company’s nationality, but does not affect routers already imported or in use.

Companies can seek exemptions through the Department of Defense or Department of Homeland Security if their products are deemed low-risk.

The move builds on prior FCC actions, such as the December 2025 ban on new foreign-made drones, and aligns with ongoing scrutiny of firms like TP-Link, which faces separate national security probes and a lawsuit from Texas over alleged deceptive marketing and data access risks.

Lawmakers, including Rep. John Moolenaar (R), chair of the House Select Committee on China, praised the order as a strong defense against Chinese cyberattacks.

“Routers are key to keeping us all connected,” he said, “and we cannot allow Chinese technology to be at the center of that.”

This policy could reshape the router market, encouraging domestic production or more secure alternatives while protecting against supply-chain vulnerabilities.

Existing devices remain unaffected, giving consumers and businesses time to adapt.

The Chinese Embassy has not commented.

A new report says that the J.P. Morgan Wealth Management office at Rockefeller Center in New York City has installed a Muslim foot-washing station designed to facilitate ritual washing before prayer.

X user Viral News NYC explained:

Report: JPMorgan Installing Muslim Foot-Washing Stations at Rockefeller Center Office

According to a source, JPMorgan Chase is installing foot-washing stations inside bathrooms at its Rockefeller Center office.

The source stated that the installations are intended to accommodate Muslim employees who wash their feet before prayer, a practice associated with daily religious observance.

Report: JPMorgan Installing Muslim Foot Washing Stations at Rockefeller Center Office

According to a source, JPMorgan Chase is installing foot washing stations inside bathrooms at its Rockefeller Center office in Rockefeller Center.

The source stated that the installations are… pic.twitter.com/JrZL6Rt1qL

— Viral News NYC (@ViralNewsNYC) March 22, 2026

Amy Mekelburg, founder of the RAIR Foundation USA, centered on topics such as immigration, Islam, left-wing politics, and globalism, stated on X that Muslim foot-washing stations at the JPM building in NYC come as no surprise, indicating “this isn’t random.”

“JPMorgan openly structures billions in Sharia-compliant deals: Murabaha, Sukuk Islamic bonds, liquidity products – all avoiding ‘riba’ interest per Islamic law,” Mekelburg said.

She noted, “While everyday Americans get stuck with interest-based banking, the elite side bends to Sharia rules, funnels capital into Islamic finance, and now embeds wudu rituals in corporate bathrooms.”

Sharia Finance: The Transformation of Global Banking

Of course, JPMorgan Chase is NOW installing Muslim foot-washing stations (wudu facilities) in bathrooms at their Rockefeller Center NYC office – so employees can ritually wash feet 5x daily before prayer without using sinks… https://t.co/HWiYdcRhXK

— Amy Mek (@AmyMek) March 23, 2026

“This is textbook Islamization: Western banks profit from Sharia, then accommodate Islamic practices in workplaces to keep Muslim talent/clients happy and normalize it for everyone else,” Mekelburg warned.

Socialist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani would certaintly approve. 

Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com,

Key senators and the White House have reached a tentative agreement on cryptocurrency legislation aimed at resolving a dispute between banks and digital asset firms over stablecoin yields, according to Politico reporting.

The move could clear the way for a landmark crypto regulatory bill stalled in the Senate Banking Committee since January.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) said Friday they have an “agreement in principle” on language intended to balance innovation with financial stability.

The legislation seeks to prevent stablecoin rewards programs from triggering widespread deposit withdrawals from traditional banks, a concern raised by Wall Street groups.

“The agreement allows us to protect innovation while giving us the opportunity to prevent widespread deposit flight,” Alsobrooks said. Tillis described the deal as a positive step but noted the need to consult with industry stakeholders before finalizing details.

While specifics of the agreement remain unclear, early indications suggest it could bar yield payments on passive stablecoin balances.

The tentative deal signals progress toward an April vote on the crypto market-structure bill, potentially unlocking the first major federal regulatory framework for digital assets.

Crypto legislation background 

The fight over a U.S. crypto market‑structure bill stems from a broader effort to build on 2025’s landmark stablecoin legislation, the GENIUS Act, which established a federal framework for stablecoins — requiring full backing, transparency and reserve disclosures for digital dollars. 

That law was widely seen in the crypto industry as a breakthrough for regulatory clarity while attempting to align digital assets with traditional financial standards.

After the GENIUS Act’s passage, the Senate turned its attention to more expansive digital asset oversight through what’s often referred to as the CLARITY Act or the crypto market‑structure bill. 

This legislation aims to define how U.S. regulators would police and oversee trading platforms, tokens, custody services and other infrastructure — essentially the backbone of a regulated digital asset ecosystem.

However, negotiations bogged down over one central issue: whether regulated exchanges should be allowed to offer yield‑bearing rewards on stablecoin holdings. 

Banks and major financial institutions argue that these rewards resemble unregulated deposit‑like products that could siphon funds away from FDIC‑insured accounts, potentially threatening lending and financial stability. 

Crypto firms — including major issuers like Circle and Coinbase — counter that such incentives are crucial for competitive markets and for user adoption of digital money.

The current tentative deal being negotiated between senators and the White House seeks a middle ground — potentially allowing activity‑based rewards while restricting passive yield — in hopes of unlocking Senate committee action by April.

Whether that compromise holds both bank and crypto support will be decisive for the future of U.S. digital asset regulation. 

SoftBank and American Energy Power Company (AEP) are launching a major new power initiative in Pike County, Ohio. The project transforms the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site into a hub for 10 GW of generation capacity, including at least 9.2 GW of natural gas-fired output dedicated to supporting up to 10 GW of data center development.

Yesterday in Ohio, we broke ground on a new partnership to build more than 9 gigawatts of natural gas power generation and a data center complex that will provide thousands of jobs and result in LOWER electricity costs. pic.twitter.com/lXKpQBhtKw

— Secretary Chris Wright (@SecretaryWright) March 21, 2026

Japanese investors through SoftBank Group and SB Energy are committing $33.3 billion to the gas generation component. A separate $4.2 billion investment will fund new electrical transmission infrastructure in partnership with AEP Ohio. The deal also includes a $40 million Community Benefits Agreement and federal land leasing.

“Thanks to President Trump, the U.S. government is leveraging its assets—like our federal lands—to add power generation, create jobs, and ensure the United States wins the AI race,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright. “I’m pleased to be working with our partners at SoftBank and AEP Ohio on this important project. By bringing new power online and upgrading our existing infrastructure, this investment supports the AI boom and cutting-edge technologies while strengthening our energy system and helping keep costs down for the American people”.

This announcement aligns with Ohio’s broader energy buildout at the same Pike County location. Centrus Energy continues expanding its commercial uranium enrichment facility there, as the company recently launched centrifuge manufacturing and secured a $900 million DOE award to scale both low-enriched uranium and high-assay low-enriched uranium production.

Oklo and Centrus announced a planned joint venture for HALEU deconversion services, co-located at the Piketon site and adjacent to Oklo’s proposed 1.2 GW nuclear power campus. Meta Platforms has signed an agreement with Oklo to advance that campus, providing prepayments to secure fuel and accelerate Phase 1 development targeted for the early 2030s.

Meta separately entered a 20-year power purchase agreement with Vistra for more than 2.1 GW from existing nuclear plants, including Ohio’s Perry and Davis-Besse power plants, plus uprates at those sites. These nuclear commitments complement the new gas capacity, as Ohio positions itself as one of the leading options for AI data center deployments. 

Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Staffing agencies provide job and career opportunities to more than 10 million Americans, including more than 1.7 million in California. While the state has the nation’s largest temporary employment market, experts said staffing agency fraud is rampant due to a lack of oversight.

Many employees are unable to access workers’ compensation due to these fraudulent practices, and taxpayers ultimately bear these medical costs, the experts noted.

According to the California Department of Insurance, authorities identified 2,932 suspected workers’ compensation fraud cases in the 2023–24 fiscal year in the state, resulting in 128 arrests and potential fraud losses of about $157 million.

Legitimate Firms Undercut

Siyamak Khorrami, host of The Epoch Times’ “California Insider,” recently spoke with employment and legal experts in the state to explore the issue.

“The staffing companies have the employees, and they assign those employees to their client employers,” said Jennifer Lentz Snyder, a former Los Angeles County district attorney.

“They are the employer, so they’re responsible for things like workers’ compensation insurance and payroll taxes and all of that.”

Snyder noted that when these staffing firms offer their client companies deals that are “too good to be true,” they often quote a rate that would not permit them to pay into the payroll tax funds that legitimate businesses pay into for workers’ comp premiums. In the end, she said, these illegitimate staffing agencies are competing unfairly with legitimate staffing firms.

“They’re absolutely taking advantage of the workers, and they’re lining their pockets at the expense of the legitimate businesses,” Snyder added.

“In an environment where we want to create a robust and maintain a robust economy in California, the last thing you need to do is to permit this cheating to continue.”

As a result, legitimate entities have to pay more than their fair share as workers’ compensation costs continue to escalate, she said.

Fraud Runs Into the Billions

“It’s now significantly more profitable and less risky to engage in workers’ compensation fraud than it is to rob a bank,” Mike DiManno, CEO of EmployInsure, said.

According to DiManno, an “underground market” for workers’ compensation and staffing has existed for nearly 30 years. He noted that clients hiring temporary staff are often unwilling to accept insurance certificates from some staffing agencies because they often fear that those certificates are not legitimate. As a result, the client would be responsible for any claims.

However, when demand for labor increases, he said, employers have no choice but to rely on these “shady” agencies to provide the personnel.

“The state doesn’t slap them on the hand, and so now, especially after COVID, there’s absolute, complete disregard to check and make sure that a staffing agency has workers’ [compensation],” DiManno said.

“You know if you can come in and undercut the legitimate players, the market share goes to you, and right now, all of the honest staffing owners can’t compete.”

When that happens, DiManno said, those legitimate agencies start leaving the business and are placed by “criminals” engaging in workers’ compensation fraud.

“When you put a criminal in charge of that with no governance, they start stealing tax money, and they start stealing wage money from these workers who don’t have attorneys to defend themselves, and they don’t have the knowledge to really understand what’s being done to them,” he said.

DiManno said that the fraud runs into the billions. For example, he noted, bad actors can buy a small company, “a little landscaping company with, let’s say, 12 employees on it,” and get an insurance policy under that company. Then they attach an inflated payroll to the policy and defraud insurers into paying out fraudulent claims.

In such a scheme, DiManno said, if an employee suffers minor injuries, the employer pays them under the table. However, if the injury is more serious, the employer is likely to shut down the company and start another, thereby bypassing any responsibility to pay the claim. That leaves the State of California to foot the bill.

Banks and factoring companies usually helped prevent fraud, DiManno said—but the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything. During that period, he said, all staffing agencies—both legitimate and illegitimate—received funds from the federal Paycheck Protection Program and used them to pay off their bank debts.

Sitting on huge stacks of cash and realizing that little enforcement was applied to these schemes, banks and factoring companies began financing the agencies without verifying their insurance, DiManno said. As a result, the fraudulent practices “exploded,” he said.

“This worker’s [compensation] practice is kind of like the gateway where the criminals have entered this trust business called staffing, where I can undercut somebody and get all of the cash flow, the wages, the taxes, and you tell the client, we’re taking care of everything, and you know, it’s my liability, and I just steal,” DiManno said.

Workers Also Take a Hit

Shaddi Kamiabipour, a former senior deputy district attorney for Orange County, told Khorrami that much of the fraud began with larger firms seeking seasonal help in manufacturing or warehousing.

“They don’t want to have people year-round. They want to have staffing during their high season, right when they’re doing that kind of work,” she said.

Nationally, U.S. staffing firms hired 12.7 million temporary and contract employees from 2023 to 2024, according to the American Staffing Association.

Nearly 73 percent worked full time, with 36 percent in industrial jobs, 24 percent in clerical or administrative positions, 21 percent in managerial positions, 11 percent in engineering and tech roles, and 8 percent in healthcare roles, according to the American Staffing Association.

If someone is injured on the job, Kamiabipour noted, both the employer and the staffing agency are technically liable under workers’ compensation to provide services to the employee. However, she said that, too often, employees who ask for compensation face retaliation in the form of reduced job offers.

The reason this exists is that there’s no oversight in the nation’s most populous state, according to Kamiabipour.

“Even in California, there’s only a small category of businesses that have special licensing for staffing, yet California has the biggest temporary employment market in the country,” she said.

Kamiabipour noted that temporary work is attractive for employers because of the costs often associated with running a business. However, she believes there needs to be an incentive or disincentive for employers to avoid transferring liability to a temporary agency rather than carrying it themselves.

New Bill Targets Staffing Fraud

In discussing solutions, DiManno mentioned a new bill proposed by California state Sen. Eloise Gómez Reyes, a Democrat, on Feb. 10, which would require licensing, background checks of staffing agency owners, and legitimate certificates for workers’ compensation insurance.

The bill would require staffing agencies to register annually with the California Labor Commissioner, provide their financial status and proof of workers’ compensation coverage, submit the names and addresses of the firms’ owners, partners, or those with a financial interest, and pay a $5,000 fee at the time of registration.

The bill would also require the commissioner to post a list of registered staffing agencies on the California Department of Industrial Relations website. Under the bill, businesses must verify a staffing agency’s registration before using its services.

The bill would further allow a registered staffing agency to take action against an unregistered agency or a business that uses an agency without verifying its registration.

Snyder is confident that the new bill is a good first step to ending the fraud.

“Every employer in California has to have workers’ [compensation] insurance or be self-insured,” she said. “Why should staffing agencies be any different?”

OpenAI claimed  Friday that a so-called technical glitch was the culprit behind ChatGPT slapping safety warnings on links to affected links to WinRed, the leading online fundraising platform for the Republican candidates. Unsurprisingly, ActBlue, the main Democrat fundraising platform, did not trigger a similar warning.

The issue was flagged in an X post by Mike Morrison, an eagled-eyed digital marketer, when he asked ChatGPT to produce links from WinRed and ActBlue.

“WILD. ChatGPT universally marks [WinRed] links as potentially unsafe,” Morrison told his followers. “Of course ActBlue links are totally fine.”

WILD. ChatGPT universally marks @WinRed links as potentially unsafe.

Of course ActBlue links are totally fine. pic.twitter.com/DXzPuwSP80

— Mike Morrison 🦬 (@MikeKMorrison) March 20, 2026

When ChatGPT provided links to GOP-affiliated stores hosted on WinRed, it appended a warning urging users to check whether the link was “safe,” adding that it may contain data from your conversation that will be shared with a third-party website. Morrison said that the OpenAI chat bot did not replicate the same warning for the Democrat fundraising platform.

WinRed CEO Ryan Lyk blasted the blatant bias, calling it “election interference.”

This is election interference. @OpenAI @sama https://t.co/xMGOt2v9Hv

— Lyk – WinRed.com (@RyanLyk) March 20, 2026

An OpenAI spox scrambled to save face for the company, telling the New York Post in a statement that “this shouldn’t be happening and it’s getting remedied.”

OpenAI was so jilted by getting caught (errr, finding the bug), that another press person from the AI behemoth issued a longer statement attempting to cover it’s behind.

“As soon as we saw the post, we reached out to the individual and looked into it,” OpenAI’s Kate Waters said in a statement to the Post. “This wasn’t about partisan politics. The model generated some website links that weren’t in our search index yet for both WinRed and in one instance for ActBlue, and our systems flagged them as AI-generated as part of our standard safeguards.”

“The issue is now in the process of being fully resolved,” Waters added. “The company added later that “this issue is related to how URLs are discovered.”

*  *  * Peer-reviewed studies show:

Elon Musk announced that his proposed “Terafab” chip factory will be built in Austin and operated jointly by Tesla and SpaceX, according to Yahoo Finance and Bloomberg.

The plan is to start with a smaller, highly advanced fabrication facility capable of producing and testing a wide range of chips, before expanding to a larger operation.

Musk argues the semiconductor industry isn’t scaling fast enough to meet his companies’ growing demand for AI and robotics, so he sees building his own supply as necessary. His long-term goal is to support massive computing capacity—eventually reaching a terawatt annually—though he hasn’t provided a timeline.

Yahoo writes that the project would likely sit near Tesla’s Austin headquarters and could produce cutting-edge chips, potentially at the 2-nanometer level. One set of chips would power vehicles, robotaxis, and humanoid robots, while another, more powerful line would be designed for space-based computing used by SpaceX and xAI.

Despite widespread concern about chip shortages, it’s unusual for companies to build their own fabs due to the enormous cost and complexity. Musk acknowledged existing suppliers can’t fully meet Tesla’s future needs as it shifts toward AI-driven products.

He also outlined broader ambitions, including space-based data centers powered by satellite networks. A prototype “mini” satellite could deliver about 100 kilowatts, with future versions reaching megawatt levels. These efforts are tied to SpaceX’s planned IPO and larger vision of expanding computing infrastructure beyond Earth.

Overall, the Terafab project reflects Musk’s push to vertically integrate chip production while supporting his longer-term goals in AI, robotics, and space technology.

*  *  * WAR TRADE

Iodine

Water filter

3 Months of Food