Days after China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian blasted President Trump’s gunboat diplomacy against Venezuela, the head of a U.S. far-left nonprofit with ties to billionaire Neville Roy Singham, a U.S. national reportedly residing in Communist China, discussed what appear to be new marching orders to organize a “Gaza-style” Cuba flotilla, potentially aimed at disrupting U.S. foreign policy operations in the Caribbean.

Stu Smith, an investigative analyst and researcher focused on extremism, influence networks, and transnational political activism at the Manhattan Institute, was the first to highlight discussions involving Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin and Vijay Prashad of the Marxist-aligned Tricontinental Institute for Social Research about organizing a “flotilla to Cuba” modeled on the Gaza flotillas.

Smith explained:

Code Pink Plots a “Gaza-Style” Cuba Flotilla and Wants China to Bring the “Real Boats”

Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin and Tricontinental’s Vijay Prashad openly float a “flotilla to Cuba” modeled on the Gaza flotillas, explicitly recruiting participants in chat and framing it as a political stunt to show “absolute disgust” with the U.S. government. Then they push the escalation button and say the quiet part out loud: get China involved with “real, real, real boats” and “real aid.”

Flooding a heavily monitored corridor like the Caribbean with activist boats creates chaos that smugglers can exploit. Even if that isn’t the intent, it’s the effect. It turns a security environment into a fog machine.

And yes, the dark money Singham influence network angle is relevant here: Neville Roy Singham is listed as Chairman of Tricontinental’s International Advisory Board, and he’s married to Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans (not Medea).

🚨 Code Pink Plots a “Gaza-Style” Cuba Flotilla and Wants China to Bring the “Real Boats”

Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin and Tricontinental’s Vijay Prashad openly float a “flotilla to Cuba” modeled on the Gaza flotillas, explicitly recruiting participants in chat and framing it as a… pic.twitter.com/5dxartb2uY

— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) December 24, 2025

Smith continued:

Quite the opposite. She wants China to play a bigger role as a counterweight and a signal against the United States. She even talks about welcoming the CCP navy less than 100 miles off our coast.

Quite the opposite. She wants China to play a bigger role as a counterweight and a signal against the United States. She even talks about welcoming the CCP navy less than 100 miles off our coast.

— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) December 24, 2025

Singham, who is married to activist Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink, has been alleged by House Republicans to be a major financial backer of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which has organized nationwide protests, including unrest in Los Angeles. According to recent reporting by The New York Times, Singham resides in China while maintaining a long record of supporting far-left organizations, including Code Pink, that oppose U.S. interests and align with U.S. adversaries.

Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer told ZeroHedge earlier this year, “Singham’s anti-American villainy became clear with his financing of the violent Black Lives Matter uprisings — to Communist China’s delight. He is absolutely in bed with the CCP.”

Code Pink’s CCP links and its potential to do the bidding of foreign adversaries through U.S. channels appear to be why the Trump administration has put the radical left nonprofit world in its crosshairs. Perhaps Beijing has found a way to undermine the U.S., knowing it would never win in a shooting war in the Pacific. Sow chaos from within.

Next big theme in the nonprofit world: 

• Is There A “Cuba Connection” Behind The Radicalization Of America’s Nonprofit Left

So when Medea Benjamin says “Resisting Empire,” the key is: what does her radical-left, CCP-linked nonprofit want to replace the American empire with? We can only guess it’s not capitalism nor Western values.

Authored by Paul D. Thacker via The DisInformation Chronicle,

A few days back I took several calls from officials working on President Trump’s policy to limit and track dangerous, gain-of-function pathogen research, the very studies that likely created the COVID virus, which most American believe leaked from a Wuhan lab. Trump signed an Executive Order on May 5 to stop risky gain-of-function scientific studies, leading to controversy and claims by media outlets politically aligned with virologists and the Democratic Party that it will harm science.

“Executive order on gain-of-function experiments could chill research on infectious diseases,” reported Science Magazine.

“Trump freezes ‘gain of function’ pathogen research ― threatening all US virology,” reported Nature Magazine.

In one of the more bizarre, confusing articles to splash across social media, the Daily Caller falsely reported that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is somehow subverting the White House policy process, and that an NIH contractor is somehow creating a potential virus bioweapon, even though he doesn’t work in a lab.

Yes. It’s that nutty out there, people. You’ve been warned.

Last Wednesday, senior officials from several dozen agencies assembled at the White House to review the plan, and the State Department “blew up the meeting”, I was told by several people. For some of the senior officials who showed up, it was likely their first time reviewing the policy which had been handled by lower-level employees in prior meetings. This might have led to the problems at the Wednesday meeting.

As I previously reported, employees from HHS, FDA, USDA, CDC, DOW, State Department, DNI, CIA, FBI, and branches of the military are among the dozens of officials putting the new policy together. Two employees at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), I am told, are actually holding the pen to write the strategy.

The White House was expected to roll out the rules earlier this month, but the government shut down and several employee problems caused unexpected delays. Dr. Gerald Parker, for example, was considered a key appointment for the White House, but resigned this summer to deal with some personal health issues.

However, I have learned that White House OSTP has decided Trump’s policy will take a “risk-based” approach to determine whether a particular pathogen study will be green lighted. Entities responsible will be penalized if they fail to heed the system.

Four entities will provide multiple checks in the process:

1. Scientist proposing the study;

2. Institution where the scientist works;

3. Funding agency (NIH, DOW, USDA, State Department, etc.);

4. Independent Review Board (this does not yet exist and will scrutinize all studies across the government).

Each entity will have different responsibilities and different penalties if they evade the new policy. For example, a researcher who submits a virus study to an agency for funding without running it through the system may be debarred from federal participation if one of the entities later finds the study is dangerous. That researcher’s institution could also be debarred as well, for not ensuring the scientist followed the new process.

Submitting research proposals to the new Independent Review Board, however, will provide a safe harbor, protecting both scientist and institutions. Program officers at agencies funding research—NIH, State Department, DOW, USDA, for example—will also be forced to evaluate the studies they fund to ensure they follow the rules.

It remains unclear what penalties might befall federal employees who try to evade the rules, and those details will likely be worked out by each separate agency. The Department of Energy, for example, funds millions of dollars in pathogen research each year.

The Independent Review Board will review science study proposals from across the federal government, and might require a new charter and congressional action. The White House is expected to release the final plan in January or February.

NOTE TO READERS: While nobody will reveal who exactly is working on this new policy, an intelligence official, who wishes to remain anonymous, sent me several emails from the last major update to gain-of-function virus research policy in 2017. When White House National Security Council Advisor Hillary Carter emailed the research policy’s final version, she copied in those who had participated in the process.

The list of government employees stretches on for four pages, which you can view here.

One big geopolitical trend of the last year and beyond connected with the Ukraine war has been just how open North Korea and Russia have been about their deepening defense relations.

At the start, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un taking the high risk and controversial step of sending thousands of his DPRK troops to assist Russia was initially kept a secret, with little details made public.

Soon, international press reported at least 10,000 North Korean troops helping Russia, mostly in the Kursk border area.

But the last year saw North Korea go so far as to publish footage of North Koreans coming home from the Ukraine war in flag-draped coffins.

Kim Jong Un said Saturday that his country and Russia had bonded through “blood, life and death” during the war in Ukraine, as he delivered New Year’s greetings to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In his message released by the state-run KCNA news agency, Kim described 2025 as a “really meaningful year” for the partnership between the two countries, saying their alliance had been strengthened by “sharing blood, life and death in the same trench.”

It was only last April that North Korea publicly acknowledged for the first time it had deployed troops to assist Russia’s military operations in Ukraine and confirmed that some of its soldiers had died in combat. However, this had been an ‘open secret’ for much of the year even prior to that.

Earlier this month, Pyongyang also admitted it had sent personnel to remove land mines in Russia’s Kursk region in August 2025. Kim said at least nine members of an engineering regiment were killed during the 120-day mission, speaking at a Dec. 12 ceremony marking the unit’s return home.

Putin too has praised the North Korean soldiers for being especially instrumental in pushing back the short-lived Ukrainian occupation of southern Kurks oblast, in a brazen cross-border operation which lasted for months.

Kim’s New Year’s message to Putin came a day after he ordered officials to ramp up missile production. The world can expect more provocative missile tests from Pyongyang this year.

Putin’s travel in 2025 focused on non-Western and BRICS and non-aligned countries, some of which the West would call ‘rogue states’. But it also crucially included the Alaska Summit with President Donald Trump – the single biggest and most surprising trip since the Ukraine war’s start…

🤝Hands Russian President Putin shook in 2025

This year saw truly historic meetings between Putin and global leaders, including:

🇺🇸 Donald Trump

🇨🇳 Xi Jinping

🇰🇵 Kim Jong-un

🇮🇳 Narendra Modi

🇮🇷 Masoud Pezeshkian

…and many more. Watch to find out! pic.twitter.com/bRLgFogyiC

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) December 26, 2025

In addition to troop deployments, North Korea has also supplied Russia with artillery shells, missiles, and long-range rocket systems. Moscow has in turn provided its growing ally with with financial support, military technology, and supplies of food and energy.

Additionally, CNN reports that North Korea released images of what it claims is its first nuclear-powered submarine, which is designed as a challenge to American naval dominance in the region.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Dec. 25 showed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in the company of senior officials and his daughter, inspecting the new vessel, which was first revealed in March at an indoor construction facility.

Kim first discussed building a nuclear-powered submarine as part of a five-year military expansion plan at a party conference in 2021, and called the construction of the vessel one of the cornerstones of his regime’s defense policy.

“We regard the super-powerful offensive capability as the best shield for national security in developing the armed forces,” Kim was recorded as saying.

The North Korean dictator also listed several high-priority weapons systems at the conference, including solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying multiple warheads, hypersonic weapons, two new guided-missile destroyers, and advanced spy satellites.

Kim called the naval construction program, while inspecting the new sub, “a leap forward in bolstering up the combat capabilities of our fleets,” according to KCNA.

However, as PJMedia.com’s Bryan Jung notes, one of the new destroyers capsized on launch earlier this year, to Pyongyang’s embarrassment, but was subsequently refloated and repaired.

Authored by Mollie Engelhart via The Epoch Times,

I want to be very clear.

Yes, I am a regenerative farmer.

Yes, I farm without chemicals.

Yes, I speak publicly—on podcasts, from stages, and in print—about better ways to grow food.

But I never villainize farmers. Not conventional farmers. Not farmers locked into systems they did not design. Not farmers working with razor-thin margins, massive equipment debt, weather risk, and policy pressure stacked against them.

No one wants to be the generation that loses the farm.

And yet that is exactly what is unfolding across Europe right now…and quietly, steadily, in the United States as well.

Over the past two years, farmers across Europe have mobilized at a scale that should dominate headlines. Instead, it has been treated as background noise.

In the Netherlands, farmers have protested nitrogen rules that would force mass farm closures—even among low-input and regenerative operations. In France, farmers have blocked highways and surrounded Paris with tractors, protesting fuel taxes, land-use restrictions, and impossible compliance burdens. In Germany, tens of thousands of farmers drove tractors into Berlin over the removal of diesel tax exemptions that many farms rely on to survive. In Belgium, farmers dumped produce and manure outside EU buildings in Brussels. In Poland, Romania, and Hungary, farmers have protested cheap imports and regulations that apply to domestic producers but not foreign competitors.

These are not isolated events. They are sustained, multinational protests by people who feed entire continents.

And yet the coverage is minimal, fleeting, or framed as an inconvenient disruption rather than an existential warning.

European farmers are not protesting environmental responsibility. Many already practice conservation, reduced inputs, rotational grazing, cover cropping, and soil-building methods.

What they are rejecting is regulation divorced from reality.

Under policies driven by the European Union and initiatives like the European Green Deal, farmers face rules that impose arbitrary nitrogen caps per acre, treat synthetic nitrogen and organic nitrogen as if they are identical, require land to be taken out of production regardless of local context, and demand extensive reporting and compliance that small and mid-size farms cannot absorb.

This is no longer about practices. There are fully regenerative farmers—no chemicals, integrated livestock, biologically active soils—who are still being regulated to death.

Biology cannot be legislated by spreadsheet.

Cows on grass are not the same as animals in confinement. Cover-cropped fields with livestock integration are not the same as continuous monocropping. Rainfall, soil type, slope, climate, and ecosystem function matter.

Yet modern regulation ignores all of this.

Instead, it relies on modeling, averages, AI projections, and “eco-science” disconnected from outcome-based measurement. These rules are written far from the fields, enforced uniformly across radically different landscapes, and paid for by farmers who were never invited to the table.

If governments want fewer chemicals in the food system, the solution is straightforward: ban the chemical. Then step back and let farmers adapt and innovate.

What does not work is regulating farmers themselves with arbitrary input limits that punish nuance and reward consolidation.

When farming becomes unworkable, land changes hands.

Small and mid-size farms fold first. Family land is sold. Consolidation accelerates. Institutional capital moves in. Farmers become tenants—or disappear entirely.

European farmers understand this. That is why they are angry. They are not fighting for comfort. They are fighting for their land, their livelihoods, and their way of life.

They want to be left alone to grow food.

What Europe is experiencing is not a foreign anomaly. It is a preview.

In the United States, the regulatory burden on farmers and food entrepreneurs is already staggering. Joel Salatin titled his book “Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal” because for many farmers, that is not hyperbole—it is daily life.

Every permit, inspection, compliance mandate, and fine functions as a form of taxation without representation.

No founding generation imagined a country where every carcass must be stamped by a federal inspector, where farmers are criminalized for selling food directly to their communities, or where innovation outside industrial models is functionally illegal.

And yet here we are.

If all this interference produced extraordinary health outcomes, perhaps the argument could be made that it was worth it.

But Americans are sicker than ever.

More than 40 percent of adults are obese. Nearly half of adults have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes. Metabolic dysfunction is now normal.

This is not happening despite regulation. It is happening alongside it.

So why, after decades of food and farm regulation, are health outcomes collapsing?

Because regulation does not target the true problem. It protects corporate interests.

Farmers do not have powerful lobbies. Chemical companies do. Seed conglomerates do. Large processors do.

Regulation often preserves harmful substances in the food system while making it illegal for farmers to operate outside centralized, industrial pipelines.

After the Food Safety Modernization Act under President Barack Obama, many farmers were suddenly unable to sell directly to grocery stores.

Food had to travel farther. Middlemen became mandatory. Small producers were pushed out.

The result was less fresh food, lower nutrient density, and greater distance between people and their food.

We may have reduced certain types of foodborne illness—but we did not create a healthier population.

Every layer of interference pulls us further from food, farmers, and biological truth.

European farmers are not extremists. They are early warning systems.

They are telling us that overregulation destroys resilience, undermines food security, and centralizes control of land and food.

They are telling us that stewardship cannot be mandated by spreadsheet.

And they are asking something profoundly reasonable.

Talk to us. Not at us.

Invite farmers to the table. Regulate at the chemical level if something is unsafe. Measure outcomes, not inputs. Reduce bureaucracy instead of expanding it.

Why are tractors filling European cities while the media barely notices?

Because acknowledging these protests would require admitting something uncomfortable: that governments are overreaching, that farmers are right, and that the systems sold as “for the public good” are failing both the public and the people who feed it.

What’s happening in Europe should concern every American.

Because once you regulate farmers out of existence, you don’t get them back.

And no society survives long after it breaks its relationship with the land—and the people who know how to work it.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Brazilian authorities are really going after some of the loyalists of imprisoned ex-President Jair Bolsonaro. In the latest, a former Brazilian police chief who fled the country after being convicted for his role in an alleged “attempted coup” linked to Bolsonaro has been arrested in Paraguay.

Silvinei Vasques was detained Friday at Silvio Pettirossi International Airport in Asunción, Paraguay authorities confirmed in a statement. He was detained charges of “identity theft” after trying to bypass immigration checks by posing as a Paraguayan citizen.

He was trying to board a flight to Panama, claiming El Salvador as his final destination. Apparently he didn’t enter Paraguay legally, but entered “clandestinely” while “evading justice in his home country.”

Vasques as a powerful former police official in Brazil was accused of ordering highway patrol officers to block voters in left-leaning regions during the 2022 election, which Bolsonaro eventually lost to current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

He was arrested in 2023 and released under supervision with an electronic ankle monitor while awaiting trial. His legal proceedings have been running simultaneously to the more high profile Bolsonaro case.

At the conclusion of his trial, Vasques was sentenced to more than two years in prison to be served under house arrest, after which he fled the country. Regional reports indicated that he broke his ankle monitor and drove into Paraguay.

But he apparently made a break for it after on Friday Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the former police chief’s preventive detention as a precaution.

Other alleged co-conspirators who are allies of Bolsonaro have also fled. One notable one is former intelligence agency director Alexandre Ramagem, who earlier left Brazil in September and has since been living in the United States.

Fake passports found on ‘wanted’ ex highway police chief as he was trying to make it to El Salvador…

El exdirector de la Policía de Tránsito Federal brasileña, Silvinei Vasques, llega a Brasil tras ser entregado por las autoridades paraguayas.

El Director de Migración de Paraguay, Jorge Kronawetter, informó que al contrastar datos se confirmó que Vasques portaba un documento… https://t.co/XXtJH58nV6 pic.twitter.com/EBzOw5PFBz

— Nacho Lemus (@LemusteleSUR) December 27, 2025

As for Bolsonaro himself, once dubbed the “Brazilian Donald Trump” – at the age of 70 he is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence after being convicted in September of trying to prevent Lula from taking office.

Last week the former president underwent surgery for a hernia, and has been suffering a variety of health problems while first under house arrest and now under confinement, after he too was caught trying to break his ankle monitor.

Authored by James K. Glassman via RealClearEnergy,

There’s a lot of crowing in certain quarters about the 2% decline in U.S. electric vehicle sales in 2025 compared to the year before. Francis Menton, the lawyer who writes the Manhattan Contrarian blog, for instance, claims vindication for his prediction in February 2023 that electric vehicles would not “sweep the country and become the dominant form of transportation.”

The reasoning behind his forecast: “It is always wise to bet against central planning of the economy.” In this case, central planning amounted to state CO2 emissions goals, CAFE mileage requirements and federal and state tax subsidies. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act ended the $7,500 tax credit for EV purchases, and President Trump on Dec. 3 issued an order to roll back CAFE standards “to levels at which combustion vehicles can comply.”

Like Menton, I don’t like central planning. Nor do I support mileage standards or subsidies. Americans have proven in the past that the best route to prosperity and health is free competition without government meddling. Unfortunately, that is not what we have anymore.

Our own government is denying Americans the opportunity to buy the cars of their choice by imposing huge tariffs on low-priced electric vehicles, which are pouring into the rest of the world.

EV sales in the U.S. are languishing for many reasons, including a lack of charging stations, but the biggest problem is cost. Our EVs are absurdly expensive. Competition from China, India and perhaps even Mexico and would help bring down prices – and make U.S. EV makers more efficient.

In the rest of the world EV sales are booming,  up 21% through November compared to last year. In all, sales of cars and trucks powered by electricity will reach 20 million by year-end. In 2020, global sales were just 3 million.

One of the biggest changes is the advent of inexpensive Chinese-built EVs, which carry a special 100% U.S. tariff, initially imposed by Joe Biden in 2024 and extended under Donald Trump. These EVs are effectively barred from the U.S. market, the world’s second-largest (after China itself). Nevertheless, China sells 62% of the world’s EVs and 71% of global EV batteries.

The European Union also has high tariffs on Chinese EVs (43%), but the UK does not. As a result, the British are rushing to buy electrics like those offered by BYD in its more than 100 retail outlets across the country. BYD, now the world’s largest EV maker, is selling 10 times as many cars in the UK as it did last year. Total EV sales in the UK have jumped 25% this year, and 22.7% of vehicles registered in the country in 2025 are  fully electric, compared with a little less than 10% in the U.S.

BYD is building EVs 25% more cheaply than Western competitors. The company has a broad lineup, but what’s happening in the UK and around the world is that the EV is no longer a rich person’s novelty. The small BYD Dolphin Surf has list price of 18,650 British pounds, or $25,129. The company’s Seagull starts at under $8,000 in China. Meanwhile, Mexico is promising to build a line of economy EVs that will debut next year and cost $4,400 to $7,400 U.S. dollars.

Electric cars and trucks have far fewer moving parts than vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, and they are cheaper to build and operate. “The battery, motor, and associated electronics require little to no regular maintenance,” says the U.S. Department of Energy. And EVs have instantaneous torque, that is, maximum power from the starting line, so even a large vehicles like GM’s Hummer EV can go from zero to 60 in just three seconds. They are fun to drive.

Nations concerned about climate change have been subsidizing EVs, but the economics of have changed, and subsidies are no longer necessary to get people to buy electric. We see the same phenomenon in electricity generation at utility plants. Because of technological innovation, solar and wind, with battery back-up, have become the cheapest and fastest way to add power to the grid – without subsidies. This is not about climate-change ideology.

My own conclusion is that, because of economics and the driving pleasure they provide, EVs are the future. But I could be wrong. To find out, let’s drop the subsidies and the tariffs and leave the choice of cars and trucks to consumers themselves.

James K. Glassman served as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the George W. Bush Administration. He was also formerly a fellow in ecnoomics and technology at the American Enterprise Institute. Long ago, he was the car columnist for The Washingtonian magazine. 

In the Trump administration’s latest display of creativity when it comes to unloading unwanted immigrants, the United States has made a deal with the rulers of the tiny Pacific island nation of Palau, which will take 75 rejected migrants off Uncle Sam’s hands in exchange for $100,000 per head. The deportees in question will be a diverse group, but they’ll likely share one thing in common — none of them are from Palau, or ever heard of it.  

Palau will serve as a small relief valve for situations where a migrant’s home country refuses to take them back. “Palau and the United States signed a Memorandum of Understanding allowing up to 75 third country nationals, who have never been charged with a crime, to live and work in Palau, helping address local labor shortages in needed occupations,” said Palauan President Surangel Whipps in a statement. 

Located in the Pacific region of Micronesia, Palau comprises some 350 tiny coral and volcanic islands, with a population of only 18,000. It was administered by the US government from World War II to 1994, when it became independent. However, it has maintained close relations with America via an arrangement called “free association,” which lets Palauans work, live or study in the United States — but we’re guessing that privilege won’t be extended to the 75 deportees. Palau also uses the US dollar as its currency, and its mail is delivered by the USPS.

The cash-for-unwanted-migrants deal was opposed by Palau’s legislature. “We strongly advise against proceeding further on this matter,” said the leaders of both houses in a joint letter. “We cannot afford to overpromise or commit to something we cannot fulfill.”  Palau’s advisory Council of Chiefs firmly objected too, similarly concerned that the island chain already has enough challenges on its hands without having to assimilate 75 deportees from who-knows-where speaking who-knows-what languages: 

“Our position has not been an easy one to reach because the request comes to us from our number one ally, the U.S. We are certain, however, that our best friend understands our precarious and fragile situation as a tiny island nation seeking to exist in this complex world.”

Palau’s president plunged ahead anyway, after trying to reassure skeptics by saying, “These are not criminals. Their only offense was entering the United States illegally and working without proper permits.” Beyond raking in $7.5 million from the United States for “public service and infrastructure needs” associated with handling the newcomers, Palau will also get a $6 million injection “to prevent collapse of the civil service pension plan,” plus another $2 million for law enforcement initiatives.  

Palau is a regular beneficiary of US wealth transfers, and a hefty 12% of Palau’s GDP comes from US and other foreign aid. Not coincidentally, Palau is one of four tiny, inconsequential Pacific states that routinely join the US in voting against anti-Israel resolutions at the UN; the others are Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Nauru. 

Palau joins a small handful of third-world nations who’ve either agreed to take third-country deportees from the United States, or are deliberating that pitch — among them, Eswatini, Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda. Unlike Palau, the tiny African kingdom of Eswatini has accepted violent illegal immigrants, whom a senior US Homeland Security official described as “so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.” 

The Trump administration’s “safe third-country” agreements create a novel and amusing deterrent for illegal immigrants and bogus asylum-seekers — a veritable roulette wheel that could have them waking up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and playing their own version of “Survivor.” 

Authored by Michael Zhuang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Chinese billionaires and elites are increasingly using the United States’ permissive surrogacy system to have large numbers of children—sometimes dozens, or more—according to allegations made in Chinese media.

The surrogate children become U.S. citizens through birthright citizenship. 

According to Chinese media, Chinese gaming company Duoyi Network released a statement on social media disputing a report from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) saying that Xu Bo, Duoyi’s founder and chairman, fathered potentially more than 100 children in the United States via surrogacy. The statement said that Xu “only had 12 children in the United States via surrogacy.”

Xu’s company later issued a statement on social media acknowledging that Xu had more than 100 children born via surrogacy in the United States.

WSJ cited court documents saying that in 2023, Xu petitioned a Los Angeles family court for parental rights over four unborn children. During the proceedings, the judge determined that Xu was already the father—or in the process of becoming the father—of at least eight children through surrogacy.

Xu, who was in China at the time, appeared at a closed-door hearing by video. Through an interpreter, he reportedly told the court he hoped to have more than 20 U.S.-born children and expressed a preference for sons, saying boys were better suited to inherit a family business, according to WSJ’s account of the hearing.

Xu said the children were being raised by nannies in the United States while awaiting travel documentation to China. He told the court he had not yet met the children due to his work commitments. 

Amy Pellman, the judge overseeing the case, reportedly ruled that surrogacy is intended to help people build families—not to facilitate large-scale reproduction beyond the scope of ordinary child-rearing. In a rare move, she denied Xu’s parental rights petition.

The Epoch Times cannot independently verify the details of the court case because such family court proceedings take place behind closed doors and are not published.

Xu was a former senior executive at China’s online gaming giant NetEase. His personal fortune has been estimated by Chinese media at roughly 28 billion yuan (about US$3.9 billion).

Claims About Scale of Surrogacy

The case has drawn renewed attention in China following social media posts by Tang Jing, described in Chinese media as Xu’s former girlfriend. In a post published on Weibo in November, Tang alleged she had helped raise 13 of Xu’s children in Japan, including two daughters she said were born naturally to the couple and 11 children born through surrogacy using donated sperm.

Tang alleged that Xu had “no fewer than 300 children.” 

Although Xu’s company rejected the figure of 300 children in a statement posted online, Xu has publicly referred to himself as “China’s No. 1 Dad.”

Verified social media accounts linked to Xu show repeated statements about his desire to build what he called a large “family dynasty.” In posts dating back several years, Xu wrote that “having more children can solve all problems” and said he hoped to have “50 high-quality sons.” 

Others Linked to US Surrogacy

Xu’s case is not isolated. According to Chinese state-controlled media reports, other wealthy Chinese individuals have also reportedly used surrogacy services in the United States to produce large families.

According to state-controlled The Time Weekly, one former executive of XJ International Holdings paid large sums to obtain eggs from American models and musicians and used surrogacy to have 10 daughters. The supposed goal was to groom the children for future marriages into powerful or influential families around the world. Online discussion of the case briefly surfaced in China in 2021 before being quickly censored. Chinese media said that the executive’s father declined to comment on the matter, while the company’s staff disputed the claim and said it was a mere “rumor.”

Some senior Chinese officials have also been linked to overseas surrogacy. In 2023, the Financial Times, citing six anonymous sources familiar with the matter, reported that former Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang had an extramarital relationship with a Chinese state-owned Phoenix Television host and that they had a son born in the United States via surrogacy. Qin was later removed from office amid unrelated political turmoil.

The U.S. surrogacy industry has developed into a full-service ecosystem involving agencies, law firms, fertility clinics, and childcare providers. Some foreign clients are able to complete the process by only providing genetic material and never entering the United States.

A single surrogacy arrangement could cost anywhere from $100,000 to $250,000, according to American Surrogacy.

Most states do not prohibit foreign nationals from using surrogacy services, and many court proceedings related to parental rights are sealed. There is also no comprehensive mechanism for sharing surrogacy-related data across states, creating regulatory blind spots.

Lin Yan contributed to this report. 

New York City’s incoming mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has named retired EMS chief Lillian Bonsignore to run the FDNY, and the pick has generated some legitimate skepticism from those who believe that she wasn’t picked for her qualifications. The appointment makes Bonsignore only the second woman to serve as fire commissioner and the first openly gay person to hold the position. But critics zeroed in on a far more consequential fact: she has never served as a firefighter.

While it’s true that Bonsignore spent 31 years with the FDNY, all of it was on the emergency medical services side. She joined as an EMT in 1991 at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx and climbed through the ranks, eventually running EMS operations during the COVID-19 pandemic from 2019 to 2022. She retired in 2022 and will now return to oversee 11,000 firefighters, 4,500 EMTs, and more than 2,000 civilian employees.

“I am honored, so honored, and humbled to stand before you as the new fire commissioner,” she told reporters. “I know the job. I know what the firefighters need, and I can translate that to this administration who’s willing to listen. I know what EMS needs, I’ve been EMS for 30 plus years.”

But even Bonsignore isn’t oblivious to the identity politics at play. She also highlighted the symbolic value of her appointment for the LGBTQ community. 

“There are some young LGBTQ members that maybe don’t see this as a possibility for them, and I want them to know that there’s nothing that can stop them from finding success,” she said. 

That remark drew swift criticism from those who view the appointment as driven by Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) priorities rather than actual firefighting credentials for someone picked to lead one of the world’s largest fire departments.

Mamdani presented Bonsignore’s appointment as a component of his larger plan for public safety. He insists that reducing response times, enhancing hospital coordination, increasing e-bike charging stations to prevent lithium-ion battery fires, and addressing EMT pay parity are among Bonsignore’s top priorities.

“I am dedicated to the fostering of a culture of support, innovation, and continuous improvement within the department,” Bonsignore said. “My goal is to ensure that every member has the resources and environment they need to perform their roles safely and effectively.”

Despite Mamdani’s claim that the appointment of Bonsignore is part of his safety agenda, Elon Musk blasted the appointment.

“People will die because of this,” Musk wrote Friday. “Proven experience matters when lives are at stake.”

He is not wrong, and the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year proved how a city’s obsession with DEI and politics can cripple a Fire Department’s readiness when it matters most. 

Instead of making sure the department was adequately staffed, trained, and equipped, LAFD leadership and Mayor Bass’s administration had used their political capital on image, ideology, and diversity box-checking while residents faced “life-threatening” wind and fire conditions. 

Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, the first openly gay and female leader of the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD), spent her tenure more focused on DEI initiatives than readiness or preparedness. In fact, on her watch, the LAFD spent millions to create a DEI bureau that developed programs to recruit more women and LGBTQ+ firefighters.

The result was an ill-prepared force that could not fully mobilize when the January fires hit, even though internal documents showed the department had the capacity to send hundreds of firefighters and additional engines into high‑risk corridors. In fact, former fire chiefs argued that long‑standing wildfire tactics could have significantly reduced the damage.

Los Angeles offered a cautionary tale to all of us, and New York, under Zohran Mamdani’s leadership, clearly didn’t learn the lesson. When DEI takes precedence over experience and competence, public safety suffers. Los Angeles paid a colossal price to learn that lesson.

The troubling question now is whether New York City is heading down the same path. Hopefully, it won’t take a disaster like the Palisades fire to answer that question.

Authored by Amin Haqshanas via CoinTelegraph.com,

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said any attempt to reopen the GENIUS Act would cross a “red line,” accusing banks of using political pressure to block competition from stablecoins and fintech platforms.

In a Sunday post on X, Armstrong said he was “impressed” banks could lobby Congress so openly without backlash, adding that Coinbase would continue pushing back on efforts to revise the law.

“We won’t let anyone reopen GENIUS,” he wrote.

“My prediction is the banks will actually flip and be lobbying FOR the ability to pay interest and yield on stablecoins in a few years, once they realize how big the opportunity is for them. So it’s 100% wasted effort on their part (in addition to being unethical),” Armstrong added.

The GENIUS Act, passed after months of negotiations, bars stablecoin issuers from paying interest directly but allows platforms and third parties to offer rewards.

Coinbase CEO warning against reopening the GENIUS Act. Source: Brian Armstrong

Bank lobbying targets stablecoin “rewards”

Armstrong’s comments came in response to a post by Max Avery, a board member and business development executive at Digital Ascension Group, who outlined why parts of the banking sector are pushing lawmakers to revisit the legislation.

Avery argued that proposed amendments would go beyond banning direct interest payments by stablecoin issuers and instead restrict “rewards” more broadly, cutting off indirect yield-sharing mechanisms offered by platforms and third parties.

Avery pointed out that while banks currently earn around 4% on reserves parked at the Federal Reserve, consumers often receive close to zero on traditional savings accounts. Stablecoin platforms, he said, threaten that model by offering to share some of that yield with users.

“They’re calling it a ‘safety concern.’ They’re worried about ‘community bank deposits,’” he wrote, adding that independent research “shows zero evidence of disproportionate deposit outflows from community banks.”

US lawmakers propose tax relief for stablecoin payments

Last week, US lawmakers unveiled a discussion draft aimed at reducing the tax burden on everyday crypto users by exempting small stablecoin transactions from capital gains taxes. The proposal, introduced by Representatives Max Miller and Steven Horsford, would allow payments of up to $200 in regulated, dollar-pegged stablecoins to avoid gain or loss recognition.

Beyond payments, the bill targets taxation issues around staking and mining by allowing taxpayers to defer income recognition on rewards for up to five years.