Authored by Curtis Hill via RealClearMarkets,

California has decided it should dictate how the rest of America packages everything from cereal and soap to industrial spare parts.

Seventeen Republican attorneys general have filed suit to stop it. They are right. The rest of the country should say so – and reject California’s attempt to impose its policies on everyone else.

California’s Senate Bill 54 effectively tells companies: If you want to sell in California, redesign your packaging, cut plastic on California’s timetable, and pay fees to a private Washington, D.C., organization called Circular Action Alliance. CAA sets the fees, keeps its methodology confidential, and handles disputes through arbitration rather than a court.

But packaging is not a California issue. It is a national supply-chain issue. Companies do not invent a unique box for Sacramento and another for South Bend. They build one system. When California attaches conditions to its market, those conditions travel. Costs travel with them – onto manufacturers, distributors, and the families who buy toothpaste and canned goods in states that never voted for this scheme.

California is using the size of its market to impose its preferences on commerce that happens everywhere else. The attorneys general call that what it is: one state trying to set national policy.

I have seen this movie before.

As Indiana Attorney General, I led multistate efforts against this same tactic. California cities tried to use “public nuisance” lawsuits to dictate national energy policy from a courtroom in San Francisco. I argued then that California localities cannot regulate economic activity beyond their borders, and that the nation should not sit idle while California tried to turn itself into a regulatory empire.

We also led a coalition to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging Massachusetts’s attempt to tell farmers in other states how to house their hens and hogs as a condition of selling eggs and pork in Boston. Same theory. Same abuse. Market access as a weapon.

California and a handful of like-minded states have a playbook: Pass a rule at home. Make compliance a condition of doing business. Watch national supply chains conform because it is cheaper to surrender than to maintain two systems. Then call the result “progress” and dare anyone to object.

That is not federalism. It is the big dog sitting on the porch, growling at every other house on the street.

Multistate action is how the other states push back. One attorney general filing a brief is a protest. Seventeen states joining a federal lawsuit – alongside a business that has already challenged this model in Oregon – send a message a judge must take seriously.

This is not a trade association seeking a special exemption. It is sovereign states defending their authority to set policy for their own people. And it tells Sacramento that when California exports the costs of its policies, the response will be coordinated legal action – not a press release and a shrug.

That is the point of the office I once held. An attorney general is not a commentator; the job is to defend the state’s legal interests when another government tries to impose its policies beyond its borders. California’s packaging scheme does exactly that. Fees collected by a private organization with little meaningful public oversight are one back door. So is a mandate that forces a plant in Iowa or a distributor in Indiana to pay for California’s regulatory experiment.

None of this requires opposition to clean streets, recycling, or reducing waste. States are free to run recycling programs, set their own environmental policies, and punish fraud or deception in labeling. What they may not do is force businesses across the country to follow one state’s rules while handing the collection plate to an unelected private organization. States can pursue their own policies. They cannot conscript the interstate economy into a single regulatory religion.

The seventeen attorneys general are doing the unglamorous work of saying no. They deserve support – from other states, from boards that still remember fiduciary duty, and from anyone who understands that the Constitution divided power for a reason. California is large. It is not the legislature of the United States.

If other states sit this one out, they should not be surprised when the next California rule arrives already attached to their store shelves. Empires are not always built with armies. Sometimes they are built with a market, a mandate, and a fee.

Curtis Hill is Senior Fellow with the Free Enterprise Project and former Indiana Attorney General.

We have highlighted “owning the bottlenecks“ as one of our core themes (aside from nuclear, AI, etc.) as China tightens control over critical materials and the West races to secure conflict-free supplies ahead of a rearmament supercycle. Miners with operating assets and near-term delivery capacity are best positioned to capture the next leg of the cycle, as Western governments seek reliable and conflict-free supplies.

Mining equities have largely de-rated since their May peak, retracing the massive gains made in early 2025, when Beijing’s restrictions on tungsten, germanium, gallium, and other defense-critical materials helped spark the rally. We view the pullback as a correction within a broader structural bull market, with the next phase likely to reward miners capable of converting ore into finished critical materials that meet the coming surge in demand from the defense industry.

We view tungsten, a defense-critical metal, as one of the most critical metals needed for the rearmament supercycle because of its high density, heat resistance, and performance in wear-resistant materials. This metal is commonly found in armor-piercing ammunition, missiles, interceptors, fighter jets, and bombers, and the list of defense applications is endless.

Ahead of Almonty Industries’ Investor Day on Monday, Wall Street’s mining and metals desks have been focused on the company’s position as a leading Western-aligned supplier of conflict-free tungsten outside China. Analysts from Oppenheimer, D.A. Davidson, Cantor Fitzgerald, Stifel, Jefferies, and other firms are expected to attend.

With a supply agreement already locked with Pennsylvania-based Global Tungsten & Powders and its South Korean Sangdong mining operations ramping up, Almonty is positioned to benefit from rising demand for defense-grade tungsten as missile and bomb production expands.

Oppenheimer special situations analyst Ian Zaffino wrote on Thursday that, despite tungsten/APT prices moderating from $3,140 per MTU to $2,700 per MTU in the most recent week, “management believes upstream availability of concentrate remains tight, and should remain so, as US defense restrictions go into effect January 1, 2027.”

Zaffino is referring to tighter U.S. defense procurement restrictions on tungsten scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027. The requirements will soon extend beyond melting and manufacturing to include mining, refining, and separation, restricting covered tungsten products sourced through China, Russia, and other designated countries.

For example, processing Chinese- or Russian-origin tungsten in a third country would not, by itself, establish the needed compliance. This shift could strengthen Almonty’s competitive position as its Sangdong operation ramps into Phase 2 production.

“Sangdong continues to ramp with its first shipment expected in late-October. This is slightly behind our initial assumptions and we therefore adjust our 3Q26E/4Q26E revenue/EBITDA,” Zaffino said.

He noted that Almonty “has cash of ~$865M (net cash of ~$290M), which should fund projects including Sangdong Phase 2 and the oxide facility, as well as share buybacks.”

Even though Zaffino lowered his 12-month price target from $25 to $19, reflecting lower peer multiples amid the selloff in mining stocks over the last several months, he said, “We believe shares are attractive (5.7x/4.2x FY27E/FY28E EBITDA), particularly as Sangdong ramps and supply remains tight.”

Ahead of Investor Day on Monday, Zaffino outlined five key points:

The Sangdong processing plant received final certification (on 9/17) and is now able to produce concentrate. Grinding is at full throughput, and the company continues to optimize the flotation process. This should put Sangdong on pace to commence shipments in late October. We expect Sangdong Phase 1 to deliver ~640K tons of ore annually (or ~240K MTU of concentrate), worth ~$500M of revenues at current prices.

Outside of Sangdong, ALM has announced several projects to bring tungsten to market. In Rwanda, ALM will acquire, upgrade, and export existing ore, pre-concentrate, and tailings, with exports commencing in November. At Los Santos (Spain), ALM entered into a multi-year offtake agreement for the recycling of the existing tailings stockpile. The Montana/Gentung-Browns project represents longer-term optionality for US supply with “slow-and-steady” development.

While tungsten prices have moderated somewhat from their highs, supply fundamentals remain supportive. Tungsten/APT is $2,700/MTU, vs. ~$3,000/MTU from July through September. Western APT/oxide plants are operating at capacity under long-term contracts, which has limited their ability to absorb additional concentrate. As a result, concentrate prices have softened, even as availability of finished APT/oxide in the West remains constrained.

The company will host an investor day on 10/19. We anticipate an overview of the tungsten market and pricing, and operational updates across the portfolio. ALM should report 3Q26 results in mid-November. For 3Q, we now estimate revenue/EBITDA of C$49M/$25M (vs. C$75M/$47M previously), vs. the Street’s C$94M/$66M. We forecast revenue/EBITDA increases to C$75M/$57M in 4Q26 (vs. C$110M/$99M previously), as Sangdong ramps towards full Phase 1.

Overall, ALM is set to start shipments from South Korea in late October and is well positioned with additional supply/offtake arrangements. Tungsten fundamentals remain healthy, and we anticipate supply will remain tight ahead of US defense procurement rules that cover recycled material as well. We believe catalysts remain, including the investor day, Sangdong’s shipments, buybacks, and the ramp of Phase 2 at Sangdong.

Below are Zaffino’s updated base-case assumptions, upside and downside scenarios, and upcoming catalysts:

Separately, Bank of America metals and mining analyst Lawson Winder wrote on Thursday that Monday’s Investor Day in New York could provide greater clarity on tungsten market conditions and execution of Sangdong’s Phase 2 expansion:

• Tungsten market fundamentals: Management commentary on the sustainability of current tungsten pricing, long-term incentive pricing, the evolution of contract structures (including price floors), the durability of the current defense demand cycle, customer negotiations, and spot vs. contract exposure.
• Sangdong Phase 1 ramp-up: We see Q3’26 primarily as a re-risking quarter for ALM, as it ramps up Phase 1 of its new Sangdong tungsten mine in Korea. On 23-Sep-26, ALM announced first production for Sangdong Phase 1. On 29-Sep-28, CEO Lewis Black said the mill was operating 13 hours per day / 7 days per week, and it would move to 24-hour days / 7 days per week “over the coming days.” We expect the market to watch for a clear statement that the mine is operating continuously, with a timeline to nameplate capacity (around 1,100 tonnes per day (tpd)).
• Sangdong Phase 2 expansion: Update on engineering work, capital requirements, underground development milestones, and key gating factors to increase processing capacity to roughly 1.2m tpa and double concentrate production.
• Sangdong molybdenum project: Progress of the 12,000-meter drilling program and the timeline for the announcement of updated reserves and resources.
• Gentung Browns Lake (Montana): Current permitting and development status at Browns Lake. Potential for funding support and/or an offtake agreement from the U.S. Department of War (DoW).
• Note that ALM is scheduled to host an investor day in New York on Monday, October 19. Many of these issues and more could also be addressed there, in advance of the Q3’26 results release.

On the timing of the Western rearmament cycle, Bernstein’s European aerospace and defense analyst Adrien Rabier wrote late last month that the order boom is expected to begin in 2027 and extend through 2030 (read the report).

Summary:

• Macron In Crisis Mode, Unable To Contain Social Unrest 
• Riots Spread Beyond France Into Other EU States
• Far-Left Violence Escalates Across French Cities
• Yellow Vests Reemerge As Macron’s Political Crisis Deepens

Has France Fallen? 

France’s weeks-long social unrest appears to be intensifying this weekend, with footage circulating on X showing a clear escalation in violence by far-left radicals and a deterioration in public order. The sustained chaos is exposing the limits of President Emmanuel Macron’s rapid response and raising alarming questions about his government’s ability to contain the crisis.

🇫🇷 Footage from central Paris today amid intense rioting across France. https://t.co/Q8YnbJmh2a

— Europa.com (@europa) October 17, 2026

The latest government figures show that 550,000 people joined riots/protests nationwide on Saturday, including 110,000 across the Paris metro area. Separate reports say riots and chaos have spread to other EU countries. This is just embarrassing for the left-wing Brussels elite.

Riots across France today. Looting, fires, vandalism and attacks against policemen and firefighters reported from cities across the country. https://t.co/ZpVnuXTvC3

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 17, 2026

In Paris, police deployed tear gas and water cannons as far-left radicals smashed storefronts, set vehicles on fire and attacked local law enforcement. Rioters targeted luxury retail shops, and some reportedly threatened to storm the Élysée Palace.

Radicals emerged in other major cities. A tourism office burned in Lyon, while rioters reportedly entered municipal buildings in Marseille and Lille. In Marseille, radicals toppled a bust of Marianne and trashed city hall, BFMTV reported.

Rioters targeted stores including Apple, Louis Vuitton, and Hermès in Bordeaux.

🚨🇫🇷 ALERTE INFO | L’Apple Store et la boutique Louis Vuitton ont été PILLÉS à BORDEAUX. https://t.co/uhTt7FBBSf

— Impact (@ImpactMediaFR) October 17, 2026

This footage illustrates the troubling breakdown of public order across France.

The moment the set alight Limoges town hall in France collapsed after being set alight by rioters the same town hall survived the whole WW2 and Nazi occupation. https://t.co/GPDJ4ddGSc

— WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 (@WarMonitor3) October 17, 2026

Footage:

⚠️🔴 À REGARDER JUSQU’À LA FIN JE NE PEUX PAS DÉCRIRE CE QUE JE VIENS DE VIVRE À MARSEILLE. #17octobre https://t.co/F8bLimtd7y

— confrontation française (@confrontfr) October 17, 2026

Holy fucking shit. Paris right now, this evening. Police vehicles try to escape with destroyed tyres. https://t.co/hMBZkT2MRL

— Kosher (@koshercockney) October 17, 2026

Apocalypse in Paris now. This is multicultural France. https://t.co/HNSw5E3yGx

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) October 17, 2026

A liberal French women explains to these African Islamic invaders robbing her family’s store that she’s on their side & voted for them to come here & voted to defund the police They laughed and mocked her and stole all her merchandise & probably r_ped her https://t.co/R8nUYHbA0u

— The Beringer Project (@BradBeringer) October 17, 2026

Corporate media continues to run the narrative that “demonstrators” are merely kids demanding greater education funding, higher teacher salaries, and protection of pensions and public services from budget cuts. This is the far left, which wants nothing more than to burn down the West.

This is the epitome of fake news, covering for the globalists. You should fire whomever put this out; possibly multiple people need to be replaced or put under a less biased editor. @bariweiss

— Joe Lonsdale (@JTLonsdale) October 17, 2026

Watch: 

If you want to understand why France is burning, watch this documentary https://t.co/DAZchrlJpO

— Muckraker (@realmuckraker) October 17, 2026

The problem with France isn’t just social unrest spreading across Europe; it’s also its dire debt situation and budget cuts as the progressive welfare state cracks and services deteriorate.

Reminder: 

• “I Come From Your Future”: A Frenchman’s Warning To All Americans Voting Democrat

Yellow Vests Return As French Protests Spread And Macron’s Crisis Deepens

Remnants of the original Yellow Vests (Gilets Jaunes) movement are joining the ongoing far-left riots/protests, potentially broadening social instability and increasing pressure on President Emmanuel Macron as he approaches the end of his term in crisis.

France’s political, social and fiscal pressures are increasingly reinforcing one another, with high borrowing costs making its expansive welfare state harder to finance. 

🇫🇷 🪧 President Emmanuel Macron called for calm on the eve of nationwide cost-of-living protests on Saturday that authorities fear could lead to a violent escalation of weeks of student demonstrations ➡️ https://t.co/Ss9gSyJdMO https://t.co/kIXt5CaPWR

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) October 17, 2026

France’s five-year sovereign credit default swap spread has jumped to about 79 basis points, more than double its recent level near 30 basis points and roughly its highest since 2013. The surge shows investors demand a higher premium to insure French government debt against default as concern over sovereign credit risk mounts. However, the spread remains well below the 222 bps peak seen during the eurozone debt crisis in 2011. 

These pressures have provided tailwinds for Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally (RN), which is positioning itself as an alternative ahead of next year’s presidential election. Le Pen’s recently unveiled shadow budget proposes spending cuts to restore fiscal common sense and reduce the risk of a sovereign debt crisis.

Le Pen’s Polymarket odds of winning next year’s election currently stand at …

Bloomberg quoted the Interior Ministry early Saturday as expecting hundreds of actions, including blockades of motorway toll booths and service stations, alongside 90 marches.

It looks like a new wave of mass protest have erupted in France, the “Yellow Vests” and students are demonstrating against high prices and working conditions. https://t.co/VslD5oH8Ds

— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) October 17, 2026

“We’re expecting a pretty big mobilization” by protesters, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told local media late Friday.

The left-wing CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail), one of France’s major trade unions, is expected to participate, as indications suggest that weeks of far-left demonstrations are broadening.

The unrest puts significant pressure on Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu as he seeks parliamentary support to curb spending and reduce the budget deficit to 5% of economic output in 2027, a target France missed this year. Notably, France last balanced its budget in 1973. 

The Yellow Vests first emerged in 2018 against Macron’s proposed fuel-tax increase, drawing support from working-class folks concerned about rising living costs in the welfare state.

An uncomfortable reality is setting in for French elites: throwing more money at handouts and degrading services, on top of mass migration, has been a toxic progressive experiment that appears to be unraveling at the seams.

As Macron and his globalist buddies lose control of France, unrest has spread to other corners of the bloc, including Spain, Italy, Albania, and Belgium.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A 5-year-old about to start school is dead after her mother called 911 and said “I killed my daughter,” in what some are calling yet another Lindsay Clancy copycat killing.

In a South Richmond Hill home in Queens, police found 5-year-old Fabiana Cabello unconscious, bleeding from her nose and mouth with a bruise on her temple. Her mother, 32-year-old Francis Cabello, had called 911 just before 7 p.m. on Wednesday, admitting to killing her own child.

Officers rushed Fabiana to Jamaica Hospital. She did not survive. Autopsy findings showed scrapes and broken blood vessels around her eyes, heart, and lungs consistent with asphyxia. Cabello was charged with second-degree murder and held without bail.

🚨 HORRIFIC: A 5-year-old girl in Queens was killed, and police say her own mother confessed to the crime. Little Fabiana was about to start kindergarten. Pure evil. Pray for this family and demand justice for this innocent sweet girl! 💔🙏🏻 https://t.co/mVNqoBVFwX

— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) October 17, 2026

Her father told reporters she had psychological issues, had recently stopped taking medication, and had been hospitalized months earlier.

He said, “I was paying attention because she was already acting strange. I knew that she stopped taking the medication. … She said the doctor authorized her to stop taking the medicine.” He added, “We hope the judge takes into consideration her mental health.“

This is the latest case in a documented cluster that accelerated with the trial of Lindsay Clancy who admits to having strangled her three children in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in January 2023.

At this point it seems to have become an epidemic of horror.

One X user who has been tracking local reports since the Clancy case listed 82 mothers who killed 123 of their own children, with 37 more attempts in which 52 children survived.

Since Lindsay Clancy: 82 mothers have killed 123 of their own children.
 37 MORE mothers tried. 52 children survived.
 These are just the ones that made the local news. 
Every time, the same excuse: Postpartum. Hormones. Psychosis.
 NO. Hormones are not a defense and the mothers are not the victims. The children are. 
 The moment we call the killer a victim, the children never get justice.
 Someone has to speak for them. So I will. 
 America, we have a problem.

— 🏴‍☠️LibertysBelle 🇺🇸 (@Libertys_Belle) October 16, 2026

The update after the Queens death brought the tally to 83 mothers and 124 children. The numbers cover only cases that reached local news.

The recurring frame is identical: postpartum depression, hormones, psychosis, medication. The children are treated as collateral damage to the mother’s crisis.

Clancy’s own case remains unresolved. A jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of finding her not criminally responsible after seven days of deliberations in early September.

The holdout, Michael Desronvil, has since given his first televised interview. He told Kayleigh McEnany he had no reasonable doubt, describing Clancy’s actions as methodical and stating, “What I would like the world to know about me is that I do extremely care about people, especially children, because children are extremely innocent.”

He has reported media swarming his home, including footage of people going through his mail and peering in windows. Other jurors have publicly described him as hostile and unwilling to apply the legal standard.

On October 1, Judge William Sullivan denied the defense motion for a required finding of not guilty, writing that the prosecution’s evidence “was sufficient to satisfy any rational trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt” on both the killings and criminal responsibility.

The next hearing is set for November 2, where the parties will address double-jeopardy arguments, a defense request for further inquiry into the holdout juror, and a possible retrial date.

Clancy’s separate medical malpractice suit against Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island and other providers is also advancing; the hospital has filed responses raising comparative negligence and informed consent defenses.

The cultural response to Clancy has been the through-line. Women gathered outside the Plymouth courthouse in pink, holding signs and telling reporters they understood how she could have killed her children.

Online, mothers posted videos with their own infants under captions such as “Same, Lindsay.” A GoFundMe for Clancy’s parents raised more than a million dollars.

Conspiracy theories shifted blame onto her husband.

The holdout juror and his family faced harassment and stalking once his identity circulated. Supporters threatened the father of the children Clancy killed.

Commentators including Joe Rogan and Bill Maher publicly questioned why a woman who strangled three toddlers had fans.

An Illinois case involving Corie Walsh drew similar attention after she was charged with killing her 2-year-old son. Prosecutors noted she had been texting about the Clancy trial hours earlier.

Whether or not any single subsequent case is a direct imitation, the volume of mothers killing their children and the speed with which mental-health framing appears as the primary story both rose after Clancy’s trial became a social-media event.

When the killer is immediately recast as the principal victim, the dead children disappear from the narrative.

Fabiana Cabello was five years old and preparing for kindergarten. Cora, Dawson, and Callan Clancy were five, three, and eight months. The pattern of treating the mothers as the story and the children as the symptom continues.

Justice for the dead requires rejecting the idea that hormones erase responsibility. The children are the victims. Someone still has to say so.

For the past year, critics have warned that DOGE gutted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission just as the nuclear renaissance was getting started.

If the president really wants to kickstart the “nuclear renaissance,” gutting the NRC of its expertise and rubber-stamping projects isn’t the way to go. It will only slow processes down, increase the potential for accidents, and erode public trust.

— Josh Freed (@jsfreed) July 30, 2025

The NRC’s headcount fell more than 16% between July 2024 and June 2026, from 2,957 to 2,477, according to a new GAO report. About 740 people left, only 270 were hired, and attrition hit 12.4% in FY2025, up from 7.6% a year earlier.

But the GAO never says the agency is broken. Instead, their report says “most stakeholders and NRC officials told us they were not concerned about NRC’s ability to ensure safety or the timely review of applications.”

Some have also characterized the staffing reduction as a purge. The GAO report objectively contradicts that claim, as the NRC let go of just four, and nine in ten departures were retirements or resignations.

Hiring stalled under a federal freeze, but by this recent spring new hires outnumbered departures again.

“The NRC did not lose its way or the ability to perform its mission,” Commissioner David Wright, who chaired the agency through the exodus, said in March. “Instead, everyone stepped up.”

Would keeping them have even mattered?

What the GAO is unable to prove is that the NRC would be ready for the coming wave of applications if all those people had stayed.

History suggests it wouldn’t be. When the GAO sounded a similar alarm in 2007, the NRC was bracing for “at least 20 applications for 29 new nuclear power reactors.” It staffed up to about 4,000 employees by 2010, still took nearly four years to license Vogtle 3 and 4, and watched most of the other applications fizzle.

In other words, the NRC shed roughly 1,000 people in the 14 years before anyone had heard of DOGE.

“In the last renaissance, the NRC hired a lot of people for what they anticipated in new reactor licensing applications,” Chairman Ho Nieh told House lawmakers in April. This time, “instead of just hiring people to handle the work, we are fundamentally looking at how we make these decisions.”

What the GAO didn’t weigh

The report also doesn’t test whether that streamlining has made up for the people the NRC lost. 

It’s “too soon to assess,” the GAO says, and it skips the math of how many applications are coming, how many hours each takes under the new rules, and how many qualified reviewers that requires.

NRC officials told the GAO that new efficiency measures could cut the agency’s staffing needs by about 300 full-time positions. That’s more than half of what it lost on net.

Asked about staffing at a May Senate hearing, Doug Weaver, the newest commissioner, said the NRC is “not simply doing the same old way of doing our work and trying to do it faster with fewer people. We’re fundamentally changing the way we do licensing.”

And it’s already showing. Late last month, the NRC approved construction of the first BWRX-300 small modular reactor in 14 months. “Four months ahead of schedule is what the new NRC looks like,” Nieh said.

But Chairman Nieh is still missing the bulk of the celebration. Back when the NRC was looking at a significantly larger staff, the estimated timeline was 36 months to hear back for the same license. Today, they have less staff and finished 22 months faster.

The DOGE operative

Seth Cohen, the ex-Kirkland & Ellis lawyer who came to the NRC with DOGE and later became the Energy Department’s chief counsel for nuclear policy, sat on the steering committee overseeing that rewrite. ProPublica’s Avi Asher-Schapiro made him the face of the “DOGE Goes Nuclear” piece.

Yet Cohen told an American Nuclear Society conference last November that “the NRC is almost certainly going to be growing in the coming years,” and denied the goal was to “make this the tiniest Nuclear Regulatory Commission it can be.”

When he left government in June, Asher-Schapiro labeled Cohen “one of the key figures reshaping the regulatory environment to benefit Silicon Valley-backed advanced reactor firms.”

Cohen’s reply? “Get bent, soyboy”

Now that I’m out of government, I can finally respond for myself: Get bent, soyboy. We didn’t do this for “Silicon Valley . . . companies.” We did this for you, for your family, your community, your state, your nation, and your species. Nuclear energy provides the safest, highest density, reliable power available on our planet. My career colleagues at DOE and NRC inspired me to think about nuclear as a way to forge American steel and electrolyze aluminum without releasing particulate matter, to desalinate water in the Middle East and save humanity from resource wars. By rejecting the false narratives and Cold War hysteria, we can secure the next American century while raising whole countries out of poverty. Do you really think I left an incredible career at Kirkland, paid out of pocket for an apartment in DC and dozens of cross-country trips, and left my family on the west coast because I wanted to enrich people I never met before taking this job? I came to D.C. to do something that mattered, to satisfy a driving curiosity (more on that later), and, most importantly, to serve. As I learned more about nuclear energy and its history, I developed a conviction that one nuclear’s biggest issues was a culture of cynicism: nothing new or exciting could happen because it would end in disappointment, and that militated against rocking the boat even a tiny bit. The career staff in government and their industry counterparts lived through dark winters before and stopped believing that warm springs could bloom into summers. I have two core philosophies. First, I believe in ruthless optimism. Rational decision making requires detached risk analysis. But we also cannot win if we believe we can lose. Merging the two requires orienting teams around driving missions. That way, when a real opportunity presents itself, you can take a huge swing. If I take credit for anything—honestly, almost all of the success belongs to the incredible and dedicated people at @ENERGY and @NRCgov—it’s countering the cultural rot and morass that risked forfeiting American excellence. My colleagues and I gave cover to the scientists and engineers, which freed them up to focus on delivering safe power. And, as success materialized, they started to dream again. That’s why the pilot program succeeded, and why I feel confident about the future of NLICs and NRC reform. Nobody needs me anymore because they can innovate on their own. My second core philosophy is to assume positive intent. Avi, I know that you heard about my real motivations from multiple people you interviewed when preparing your hit piece on me. Rather than telling that story, one which could help inspire another generation of people to use their talents for the greater good, you ignored them. Instead, you implied that Peter Thiel recruited me for nefarious purposes. (I’ve never met him, but, @peterthiel, if you’re reading this, I’m a huge fan!) Nuclear regulation starts and ends with safety. I promised everyone I worked with that I would resign before doing or pushing for anything that could compromise public safety. But I also distinguished between real safety and performative bullshit. That’s what the careers came to embrace, too. We love nuclear, why would we do anything that could risk threatening its future? America faces a crossroads. We can either trod a road of cultural decay or hike our way back to the peak of global innovation. Join me on the latter path. Correct the fear mongering and conspiracies and tell the story of America’s great reindustrialization. Tell the story of our public servants, our great entrepreneurs, our scientific dominance. Tell the real story about how DOGE went nuclear.

— Seth Cohen (@OverReactor1776) June 20, 2026

The real competition

Cohen himself now sits on the board of fuel maker Standard Nuclear, which points to the NRC’s real staffing problem.

The agency has always lost people to industry, but never to this many well-funded startups at once. Investors have poured $4.6 billion into U.S. nuclear startups this year, as we noted last week, and half the stakeholders the GAO interviewed had hired former NRC staff.

“They’re hiring people from the NRC and they’re paying them far more than the federal government pays,” Nieh said in June.

The NRC hasn’t fought back much on pay. Of the hiring, pay and bonus tools Congress handed it in the ADVANCE Act, it has used only 18 performance bonuses worth $335,000 combined. Officials told the GAO that targeted raises would be hard to justify without raising pay across whole job series, which would likely mean higher fees for applicants.

The GAO’s fix? Finish a workforce planning tool that has already missed two target dates, and set metrics for whether the NRC’s hiring tools are enough.

* * *

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

An NHS nurse in the UK has been denied compensation despite being permanently damaged by a COVID vaccine during a trial.

Marie-Claire Hoyle, who volunteered for the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine trial in 2020 developed transverse myelitis two weeks after her second dose, temporarily shutting down the global trial.

The qualified advanced nurse practitioner and NHS England’s network manager for high-consequence infectious diseases, lost the use of her hands, became numb from collarbone to thigh, and still carries permanent spinal cord damage visible on MRI. The Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme acknowledged the vaccine caused her condition yet refused the £120,000 one-off payment because her disability improved below the rigid 60% lifelong threshold.

Nurse struck by rare condition linked to Covid vaccine ‘not disabled enough’ for compensation https://t.co/wuobqdFmB0

— GB News (@GBNEWS) October 16, 2026

Hoyle that’s related how she was on shift when pain hit her neck and spine, spreading within an hour into her shoulders and hands. “I lost the ability to use my hands, I couldn’t hold a pen, I couldn’t hold a toothbrush. I was completely numb from my collarbone down to my thigh level because the signals from my spine and brain had been damaged.”

An MRI confirmed transverse myelitis. The trial paused worldwide while her case was assessed; she survived and recovered enough for it to resume. Permanent damage remains. “I’ve had an MRI since and there is still damage in my spinal cord, which will never heal. I have really poor grip in my fingertips, so I constantly drop things. I still have nerve pain down the left side of my arm and numbness across my central chest and that will never resolve,” she further stated.

She received a high five-figure out-of-court settlement from Oxford University. The VDPS, however, ruled she no longer qualified. “They acknowledged that the vaccine caused my transverse myelitis, based on the evidence I supplied with all my medical records, and at the time I was seriously harmed on a value of up to 60%. However, they said: ‘You aren’t now, so you don’t need the payment.'”

Hoyle, a mother of three who later had her youngest vaccinated and says she continues to support vaccines in principle, wants a scalable system matching actual ongoing harm rather than an all-or-nothing cutoff.

AstraZeneca later withdrew its Vaxzevria vaccine worldwide in 2024, officially citing commercial reasons and the shift to updated formulations. The company had already admitted in court documents that the shot can cause thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome. Kate Scott, whose husband was left with permanent brain injury, said the decision looked less commercial and more like recognition that the product no longer sat “within the acceptable safety parameters,” given 445 confirmed VITT cases and 81 deaths in the UK alone. The company maintained the vaccine had saved over 6.5 million lives in its first year.

Baroness Hallett’s COVID-19 Inquiry Module 4 report, published in April 2026, called the scheme “not sufficiently supportive” and demanded urgent reform: raise the £120,000 payment at least in line with inflation (suggesting over £200,000), introduce graduated payments by degree of injury, and scrap or soften the 60% threshold that leaves people with significant neurological damage with nothing.

The government published its response on 16 October 2026, accepting the need for reform and committing to a review to make the scheme “fit for purpose and delivered effectively,” while noting concerns over administrative costs.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman offered “deepest sympathies” and said officials were carefully considering the recommendations.

More than 24,260 COVID-related claims had reached the scheme by 30 June 2026, yet only 264 resulted in awards – just over 1%. Roughly 580-603 claims had causation accepted by medical assessors yet failed the 60% disability bar.

Running costs since April 2022 hit £83 million, more than double the roughly £32 million paid to victims. Transverse myelitis was later listed among the vaccine’s extremely rare side effects, and dosing intervals were widened after cases like Hoyle’s.

Officials maintained benefits outweighed risks, but the scheme’s design – built for older industrial-style injuries – fits poorly with the neurological, fluctuating, and sometimes partially recovering harms seen with these products.

Patterns of injury have been gradually acknowledged. Last year, Post-Vaccination Syndrome research from Yale was published, documenting high rates of brain fog, exercise intolerance, extreme fatigue, sleep disruption, tingling or numbness, and confirmed signals for myocarditis, tinnitus, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia, and Guillain-Barré Syndrome.

A Taiwanese study of 467 healthcare workers, all of whom had received at least three doses, found neurological and psychiatric symptoms matching “long COVID” in a group that had never been infected.

Of the 222 with no record of infection and negative nucleoprotein antibodies, more than 30% reported mild fatigue, nearly 10% reported trouble concentrating, and 11.7% reported worsening memory.

The authors noted no statistically significant difference in symptom severity between those with confirmed infection, asymptomatic infection, and those never infected, yet did not examine vaccination as a possible cause.

A South Korean cohort study of more than 8.4 million people, published in Biomarker Research in September 2025, reported associations between COVID-19 vaccination and elevated risks of six cancers.

Booster doses were linked to a 125% increase in pancreatic cancer risk. Prostate cancer risk rose 69%, lung cancer 53%, thyroid 35%, gastric 34%, colorectal 28%, and breast 20%.

The authors stated that “COVID-19 vaccination could be associated with an increased risk of six specific cancer types” and noted that booster doses substantially affected risks for gastric and pancreatic cancers.

In the United States, the picture is similarly lopsided. The Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), which covers COVID vaccines, had received 14,250 claims by 1 October 2026, the bulk alleging vaccine injury. Of 8,369 decisions, only 66 had been compensated and 120 found eligible.

A Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing in April 2026 examined VAERS data showing COVID vaccines associated with more adverse events and deaths than all other vaccines combined over the system’s history, including rates 55 times higher for deaths than the flu vaccine. FDA staff had flagged masking of safety signals and were ordered to stop certain analyses.

Myocarditis and pericarditis signals for the mRNA vaccines appeared in Israel within a month of rollout in early 2021. Israel shared the data with the CDC and EMA in February, yet public and clinician alerts came only months later, after most eligible young people had already received two doses.

An Oxford analysis found an eight-fold risk of myocarditis in under-40s within a week of a second Pfizer dose and a 44-fold risk after Moderna. Hong Kong reported a one-in-3,000 risk in adolescent boys after a second dose and switched to a single-dose policy.

A Thai study of teenagers found 29% with signs of heart disturbance after a second Pfizer dose. No comparable reckoning has followed the delayed disclosure.

In Australia, FOI documents showed 35 people died on the same day as their COVID vaccination. The Therapeutic Goods Administration completed causality assessments for only 24 of them and referred none to its Vaccine Safety Investigation Group.

Of more than 1,000 deaths reported to the TGA’s database, only 14 were officially linked to the vaccines. Where timing data existed, one in four occurred within three days and 39% within a week.

Dr Suzanne Niblett called the claim of thorough review “very misleading” when most cases had not been properly analysed. Dr Rado Faleti noted that in the vaccine-injured community, “not a single person reports being followed-up or investigated by the TGA.”

Meanwhile, new Moderna formulations for the 2026-2027 season received FDA approval in late August 2026, 81 days before the scheduled start of the human Phase 3b/4 safety and immunogenicity study.

Legislation introduced in September 2026 would further tilt the process: S. 3323 would require the CDC director to adopt ACIP recommendations unless unsupported by a preponderance of peer-reviewed evidence, while raising the bar for withdrawing recommendations or removing entries from the Vaccine Injury Table.

Hoyle’s case is not isolated. Hundreds of people whose injuries medical assessors linked to the vaccines sit below the arbitrary 60% line and receive nothing from the state scheme, even as the bureaucracy costs more than the payouts.

The inquiry has forced an official admission that the current rules do not match the injuries that occurred. Whether the promised review produces real graduated support or simply more process remains to be seen.

People who stepped forward under official assurances of safety and necessity now face the same bureaucratic gatekeeping that defined the rollout.

Accountability for the injuries, and the freedom to weigh risks without coercion or denial, still lag behind the volume of claims.

Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times,

The percentage of American high schoolers who say they are homosexual or bisexual has plummeted after years on the rise.

Based on data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, psychologist and researcher Jean Twenge found that “the decline appears to be driven almost entirely by girls.”

Girls identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual dropped 5 percentage points, hitting 22 percent last year. Among boys, that percentage fell by 2 percentage points to 7 percent.

“The trends are striking,” especially compared to data from a decade ago, Twenge, a professor at San Diego State University, wrote on her blog in late September.

Reasons for the decline in teen in lesbian, gay, or bisexual identification are not readily apparent. “I have to confess: I have no idea,” Twenge wrote.

Determining whether the numbers reflect the start of a trend requires further examination, she and other professionals say.

Competing explanations for the shift are emerging amid a larger debate over alternative sexuality in America.

Patterns Emerge

By comparing the CDC’s newly released 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey with its 2023 figures for grades 9 through 12, Twenge identified a pattern: The younger the grade level, the sharper the decline in lesbian, gay, or bisexual identification.

Ninth graders calling themselves lesbian, gay, or bisexual dropped from 17 to 11 percent.

For 12th-grade students, the number dipped by 2 points, from 18 to 16 percent.

Twenge’s analysis excluded responses from students who said they describe their sexual orientation “another way,” were unsure, or didn’t understand the survey question.

Identifying as transgender – which is a gender identity, rather than a sexual orientation – also was not specifically addressed.

The newly reported drops contrast with data from preceding years.

With 2015 as a baseline, the number of girls identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual ballooned 128 percent in six years; for boys, the number went up 99 percent in eight years, Twenge wrote.

At the same time, the percentage of young adults aged 18 to 24 identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual “is no longer racing upward as it did between 2014 and 2022,” Twenge wrote in another blog post.

In ‘Free Fall’?

A few studies appear to reflect findings similar to those Twenge described in the CDC data.

Between 2022 and 2025, students identifying as “straight” or heterosexual climbed from 76 percent to 83 percent, the University of Minnesota reported. That study surveyed Minnesota schoolchildren in grades 5, 8, 9, and 11.

And, a year ago, Canadian political science professor Eric Kaufmann pointed to a few studies reporting non-heterosexuality was dropping among high schoolers and college students.

The data showed “trans identification is in free fall among the young,” he wrote on X.

Twenge referenced Kaufmann’s quote and wrote that while declining lesbian, gay, or bisexual identification is not dramatic in older teens, the data for ninth graders “really does look like a free fall.”

That observation about Generation Alpha – young people born in 2010 or later – “could be a harbinger of a coming wave of change, or it could be a blip – it’s hard to say,” Twenge wrote.

Presidential Politics

Liberals and conservatives alike opined that the pro-traditional-family policies of President Donald Trump appear to be playing a role.

Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, which combats “anti-family extremism,” told The Epoch Times that his organization has supported the Trump administration’s efforts to “eliminate transgender ideology from school curriculum” and to ban boys from playing in girls’ sports.

The administration has done a good job overall with “getting this type of ideology out of our schools, and instead embracing normalcy,” he said.

A married father of eight, Schilling said: “It’s very clear across all social data that families are incredibly important to someone’s fulfillment and happiness and well-being in life.”

He has witnessed lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual ideology tearing families apart and distorting what “love” means.

“So many of these young people are getting lost in this seemingly attractive ideology that proposes tolerance and acceptance – when, ultimately, it doesn’t provide either of those things,” Schilling said. “It’s eliminating anyone in their lives that might have concerns or questions about these newfound identities, it’s just a totally tragic and sad political ideology that’s taking hold.”

‘Oppression’

Biology professor and blogger PZ Myers, who calls himself a “godless liberal,” is skeptical about the CDC data possibly revealing a trend.

“Are teenagers actually becoming straight again? That makes no sense,” he wrote in an essay.

Those young people are “in the process of discovering their sexuality; it’s not as if ten year olds were biased towards gayness and then ‘straightened up’ when they were 15,” Myers wrote on his blog.

His essay – titled, “Oppression Works!” – implies that the respondents may have been unwilling to admit they are lesbian, gay, or bisexual in the current political climate.

“This is not a good time to honestly express yourself, because the [expletive] crazy Republicans are running roughshod over schools, education, and science,” Myers wrote.

The data Twenge compiled shows that a slight drop in lesbian, gay, or bisexual identification began in 2021 for students in ninth and tenth grades. That year, Trump ended his first term in office.

More noticeable declines began around 2024, during Democratic President Joe Biden’s tenure, even though his administration advanced pro-LGBT policies.

‘Fad’ Versus Human Nature

Politics aside, Pennsylvania licensed professional counselor Andrew Rodriguez believes cultural influences and human nature could be driving the decrease, if it holds.

“It’s clear there was a social contagion, because of the ‘fad’ aspect of this,” he told The Epoch Times. “And now people are starting to realize, ‘Oh, this isn’t truly who I am.'”

“Social engineering” – using society-wide influences to steer a culture in a desired direction – helped make identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual socially acceptable or even cool, especially for girls, Rodriguez said.

For some young people, “it just was an idea, and they jumped on it … there was some social capital they got out of it, and now they’re realizing that’s not as popular anymore,” he said.

Rodriguez, who owns and operates Integrity Christian Counseling, said he believes God instilled people with a drive toward unions with the opposite sex.

He thinks more girls are probably realizing “I really do want to be a wife and mom.”

Texas psychologist David Pickup said a recent historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling will help more people face “reality” about sexuality and gender.

In Chiles v. Salazar, the court held that a Colorado law violated therapist Kaley Chiles’s constitutional right to fully explore sex and gender issues with some clients.

Pickup leads a group that includes therapists, scholars, and researchers who believe adolescents and their parents “should not be pressured to affirm homosexual identity.”

With the ruling, coupled with other societal shifts, “some people are realizing that LGBT issues are not inborn and change is possible,” Pickup said.