Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday warning the United States that Tehran will be “firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack” – following President Trump reiterating threats against the Islamic Republic.

“Our powerful armed forces have no qualms about firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack,” he wrote in reference to the 12-day war of last June.

The top Iranian diplomat stated that this was not a “threat” but a “reality I feel I need to convey explicitly, because as a diplomat and a veteran, I abhor war.”

Araghchi said his country is ready for all-out war, describing that “an all-out confrontation will certainly be ferocious and drag on far, far longer than the fantasy timelines that Israel and its proxies are trying to peddle to the White House. It will certainly engulf the wider region and have an impact on ordinary people around the globe.”

What’s more is he described the most violent part of protests in Iran, which were met with vehement denunciations and warnings by Trump, in reality the result of an anti-Tehran conspiracy and effort by externally supported groups to sow chaos, destabilization, and to begin an insurgency:

As black-clad groups of masked terrorists used rifles and handguns to infiltrate protests and mow down innocent demonstrators on our streets, reports emerged in various media claiming that big cities in Iran had “fallen.” Other reports alleged the continuation of widespread armed violence. In reality, the violent phase of the unrest lasted less than 72 hours.

By many accounts, the ballistic and even hypersonic missiles which fell on Israel last June did significant damage, and put fear into Israeli leadership given just how many among the hundreds of projectiles sent, including drones, were able to evade Israel’s anti-air defenses.

Iran’s foreign ministry is issuing such forceful warnings given the crisis between Tehran and Washington doesn’t appear fully over, at a moment a US carrier group and additional military assets are headed to the Middle East region. WSJ notes that ‘options’ are still being weighed by the administration:

After pulling back from strikes on Iran last week, President Trump is still pressing aides for what he terms “decisive” military options, U.S. officials said, as Iran appears to have tightened its control of the country and targets protesters through a crackdown that has killed thousands.

Meanwhile the WSJ, along with others among the mainstream media, is questioning where Trump the hawk is and why he’s exercised restrained on the Iran question – in the typical fashion of the warmongering media. WSJ’s editorial board wrote:

Araghchi’s not-so-implicit threat of war if President Trump orders help for the protesters… This is a threat against Americans, an attempt to intimidate the Trump Administration. We wonder how President Trump sees this threat, especially since the regime so clearly crossed his “red line” against shooting protesters.

Regardless, the American public won’t stomach yet another drawn out forever war in the Middle East. Poll after poll shows Bush’s overthrow of Saddam Hussein is among the most deeply unpopular US military actions in history.

The dust has barely settled on 20+ year fruitless and deadly occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the severe limitations of US empire were confirmed (also as the Taliban remains in Kabul, and Shia pro-Iran governance is stronger than ever in Baghdad), and yet already the armchair interventionist chickenhawks in the media are eyeing another regime change war.

WOW. Strategic advisor to Iran’s Parliament Speaker, Mahdi Mohammadi:

“We know that we are facing a regime-change war in which the only way to achieve victory is to make credible the threat that, during the 12-day war, although it was ready, did not get the opportunity to be…

— Sharmine Narwani (@snarwani) January 19, 2026

Probably (or rather, hopefully) Trump senses this, and is seeking de-escalation, also perhaps knowing there will be other future Iran protests and ‘opportunities’ to pull the trigger against Tehran. But it won’t be some kind of easy in, easy out Venezuela scenario – and American troops might die.

Authored by Mitzi Perdue via RealClearPolitics,

When news broke of the massive child nutrition fraud in Minnesota, many Americans reacted with disbelief. During the pandemic, roughly $250 million intended to feed hungry children was siphoned off, prosecutors say, and spent on luxury cars, real estate, and other indulgences. To most people, it appeared to be a shocking betrayal of public trust.

To me, it felt unsettlingly familiar.

Decades ago, long before Minnesota became synonymous with one of the largest fraud cases in U.S. history, I had an experience in Somalia that permanently altered my perspective on aid, trust, and good intentions. It is why I read the indictments differently, not with surprise so much as recognition.

What struck me most about the Minnesota case was not only the scale of the theft but the silence surrounding it. The fraud appears to have operated in plain sight within tightly knit circles, yet few people spoke out.  

More than 40 years ago, when I was a rice farmer in California, American rice growers learned of famine conditions in Somalia. Competitors set aside their rivalry and donated an entire shipload of rice for humanitarian relief. I later traveled to Somalia, expecting to see that food had reached people on the brink of starvation.

It had not.

A powerful clan had taken control of the shipment. Once its own members’ needs were met, the remaining rice did not go to feed other Somalis. Instead, it was used to feed animals, while those outside the clan continued to go hungry.

At the time, I tried to explain what I had seen by blaming corruption, weak oversight, or a few bad actors. None of those explanations captured the deeper pattern. The behavior made sense only when I began to understand how differently trust and obligation were organized.

That realization came rushing back as I read about the Minnesota fraud.

According to federal indictments, the stolen money flowed through networks bound by kinship and loyalty. The theft was large, coordinated, and sustained. What stood out was not only who took the money, but who stayed silent. In societies with strong civic norms, whistleblowing is often praised, or at least protected. In tightly bound clan systems, speaking out can mean punishment.

Over time, I found language for what I had observed: the Prisoner’s Dilemma, a concept from game theory that explains how cooperation and trust either compound or collapse. When two parties cooperate, both benefit and trust grows. When one cheats while the other cooperates, the cheater prospers and the cooperator becomes the loser. When both are defective, everyone loses.

High-trust societies solve this dilemma by extending cooperation beyond family and tribe. Laws, institutions, and norms reinforce the idea that cheating ultimately harms everyone, including oneself. Low-trust societies work differently. Trust is reserved for kin. Outsiders are assumed to cheat. In that environment, cheating is not necessarily immoral. It is often rational, expected, and even applauded.

Seen through this lens, both my experience in Somalia and the Minnesota scandal follow the same pattern. Institutions cooperated in good faith. Clan-based networks exploited that trust. Children and taxpayers paid the price.

Somalia represents the most destructive version of this equilibrium. When trust does not extend beyond blood ties, cooperation cannot scale. Investment dries up. Contracts mean little without enforcement beyond kinship. When everyone expects everyone else to cheat, no one can afford to cooperate.

In that context, Somalia’s ranking of 213th out of 215 countries in per-capita income is not shocking. It is almost inevitable. This is not an indictment of individual Somalis. We know that many, many Somalis live honest, productive lives, raise families, and contribute positively wherever they reside. Individuals can transcend the cultures they are born into. Social systems, however, change slowly and are likely to shape behavior.

Somalia sits at the end of a continuum, but the underlying dynamic is not unique to it. Whenever loyalty to the group eclipses loyalty to shared rules, corruption flourishes. The Minnesota scandal was not an aberration so much as a warning: When institutions assume trust without enforcing it, low-trust behavior fills the vacuum. Somalia shows what happens when that low-trust approach is entrenched.

Mitzi Perdue is a fellow at the Institute of World Politics and the co-founder of Mental Help Global, a philanthropy that uses AI to support mental health.

During oral arguments in Wolford v. Lopez, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested that the post-Civil War “Black Codes” – a set of openly racist laws enacted in the Democrat-controlled South to strip newly freed Black Americans of basic rights, including the right to possess firearms – could serve as legitimate historical precedent under the Supreme Court’s Bruen test. That test evaluates modern gun laws by asking whether similar restrictions were accepted in the nation’s historical tradition. The case concerns a Hawaii law that bars licensed gun owners from carrying firearms onto privately owned property open to the public. Jackson relying on the Black Codes for constitutional guidance is hilarious, as those laws were explicitly designed to deny civil rights to Black Americans in defiance of emancipation.

The exchange unfolded as Justice Jackson pressed U.S. Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris on why post–Civil War Black Codes should be excluded from consideration when courts examine modern-day gun control laws. Hawaii relied on a 1865 Louisiana statute as historical support for its law, a statute even Neal Katyal, the lawyer representing Hawaii, admitted was “undoubtedly a relic of a shameful portion of American history.”

“So, I guess I really don’t understand your response to Justice Gorsuch on the Black Codes,” Jackson began. She explained that, under Bruen, courts are required to look to history and tradition to assess constitutionality. “The fact that the Black Codes were, at some later point, determined themselves to be unconstitutional doesn’t seem to me to be relevant to the assessment that Bruen is asking us to make.”

Harris responded by emphasizing the fundamentally racist purpose of those laws. “Black Codes were unconstitutional from the moment of their inception because they are pretextual laws that are designed to ensure that newly freed slaves are returned to a condition of sharecropping.”

Justice Jackson, a black woman, immediately pushed back. “Okay, let me stop you there. They were not deemed unconstitutional at the time that they were enacted,” she said. “They were part of the history and tradition of the country, and when we have a test now that’s asking us to look at what people were doing back then, I don’t understand why they should be excluded.”

Harris reiterated that point. “Because they are outliers. They are, by definition, unconstitutional. They have always been unconstitutional.”

Jackson bizarrely remained unconvinced. “Found later, afterwards, not at the time,” she said, returning to the Bruen framework. “And if the test says what’s happening at the time tells us what’s constitutional for this purpose, why aren’t they in?”

Harris responded by insisting the laws should be disregarded because they were aberrations and unconstitutional from their inception.

But Jackson rejected that framing. She argued that their unconstitutionality was determined later, not contemporaneously, making it a legitimate precedent. And, according to Jackson, if the test looks to historical practice at the time of enactment, she asked, why should those laws be left out?

Harris attempted to explain how a law could be unconstitutional from inception, while still accounting for historical analysis. Jackson claimed that Harris’s position effectively dismissed history altogether. When Harris denied that implication, Jackson underscored the contradiction by noting that history either matters under Bruen or it does not.

Harris then stressed that historical inquiry remains essential, though not indiscriminate. “We should deeply care about the history,” she said, adding that Bruen requires courts to identify a genuine national tradition by excluding aberrations. She described the Black Codes as precisely that — laws enacted “for the purpose of trying to reduce newly freed slaves back to conditions of servitude,” including measures that criminalized carrying arms on private property. “Those are obvious outliers which should not count under the whole point of Bruen.”

Things I didn’t have on my bingo card today: Justice Jackson defending the racist Black Codes as precedent for what we should consider constitutional. pic.twitter.com/I9yxcMsDrf

— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) January 20, 2026

Justice Jackson has never distinguished herself on the bench for her bright legal mind, but it was frankly remarkable to see her treating some of the most overtly racist laws in American history as potentially valid reference points for modern gun control. 

By Robert Walton of Utility Dive

On her first day in office Tuesday, New Jersey Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed executive orders seeking to freeze electricity cost increases, issue ratepayer relief in the form of bill credits, and increase distributed energy resources, including utility-scale solar and battery storage.

One order directed the state’s Board of Public Utilities to ensure bill credits by July 1 and to “consider pursuing a pause, abeyance, or modification of the schedule governing any proceedings in which electric distribution utilities seek approvals for rate increases or cost recoveries.” It also ordered the board to publish a study within 180 days of how to “modernize” the traditional electric utility business model, including opportunities to make utility revenue models “less dependent on capital spending.”

Another order focused on growing the state’s electricity supply and increasing efficiency. It directed regulators to initiate solicitations for solar and transmission-scale battery storage and to begin development of a virtual power plant program to be administered by electric distribution utilities and third-party suppliers in the state.

Sherrill, who made affordability and rising energy prices a focus of her campaign, said in her inaugural speech that the orders “will deliver relief to consumers and stop rate hikes.” 

“This will also create the conditions to massively expand New Jersey’s power generation, because more power in-state will help lower costs,” she said. 

Electric rates were a key issue in the governor’s race, particularly after bills spiked as much as 20% last year. Another increase is slated to go into effect this summer. The increases are a result of higher capacity prices in PJM’s recent auctions, which are held several years in advance and reflect both current and projected power demand. 

Residential bill credits will rely on the same or similar funding sources used in August 2025 to provide credits, according to Sherrill’s first executive order. Last year, the BPU said all 3.9 million New Jersey residential ratepayers of Public Service Electric and Gas, Atlantic City Electric, Jersey Central Power and Light, and Rockland Electric would receive $100 in direct bill assistance.

PSE&G emailed a statement responding to Sherrill’s orders, saying “steps must be taken to safeguard long-term energy reliability and cost effectiveness for residents as New Jersey relies on imported electricity for more than 40% of its power.”

“We are confident that open dialogue and information sharing will lead to workable solutions,” the utility said.

Grid advocates hailed the governor’s focus on developing new sources of energy.

“These executive orders are tackling peak demand, unlocking customer-sited resources, and speeding deployment of solar and storage,” Katie Mettle, New Jersey state lead at Advanced Energy United, said in a statement.

According to the second executive order, the BPU has 45 days to initiate a solicitation “for qualifying solar facilities or solar facilities in combination with storage” under the state’s Competitive Solar Incentive program. Within the same timeframe, the BPU must also open 3 GW of capacity for registration under New Jersey’s Community Solar Energy Program, “endeavoring to expedite the registration process by any necessary and appropriate means.”

Regulators must also accelerate the development of grid-scale storage through the Garden State Energy Storage Program by holding a solicitation within 45 days, launching Phase 2 of the program within 90 days, and “thereafter establishing a specific tranche of capacity for electric distribution utilities to develop to support interconnection of distributed energy resources and grid stability.”

And, within 180 days, the BPU must begin development of a virtual power plant program that aims “to drive down peak demand by aggregating behind-the-meter distributed energy resources.”

“Virtual power plants are a proven, cost-effective way to lower peak demand, improve reliability, and put downward pressure on energy bills,” AEU’s Mettle said.

Allison McLeod, interim executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, said the group was “particularly encouraged” by the actions aimed at solar and battery storage development.

“These are two of the fastest, most affordable tools we have to bring energy online and stabilize our grid,” McLeod said in a statement. “While taking some pragmatic steps to lower emissions and increase efficiencies in the near term with our existing fleet, New Jersey is continuing to lay the groundwork for a truly clean energy future.”

It’s not just the Danes who are virtue signaling their adherence to a dying globalist world order by loudly liquidating their tiny allocation of US Treasuries, which as Scott Bessent correctly pointed out they were already selling anyway and amount to a rounding error in terms of total US holdings…

When U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked how concerned he is about European investors pulling out of treasuries, Bessent said at a press conference at the World Economic Forum: “Denmark’s investment in U.S. Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant.”… pic.twitter.com/CP7ULKtzps

— CNBC (@CNBC) January 21, 2026

… overnight Australia’s second-biggest ​pension fund also said it is reducing its exposure to the US dollar through currency ‌hedging as falling interest rates and ongoing global volatility have investors around the world reassessing their U.S. allocations.

Andrew Fisher, Australian Retirement Trust’s (ART) general manager of total portfolio management and resilience, told Reuters that the prospect of US rate cuts while some other major economies were expected to lift rates would weaken the dollar this ‌year. Financial markets have already priced in 50 basis points worth of interest rate ​by the Fed in 2026, whereas rates are expected to rise in Japan and Australia and remain steady in Europe.

ART has A$353 billion ($237.39 billion) of funds under management and is the second-largest fund in Australia’s ‍A$4.5 trillion pension system, known as superannuation.

Fisher said while ART was not reducing its U.S stock holdings, it was increasing its currency hedging position to reduce exposure to a forecast weakening greenback.

“The U.S. dollar seems to be the ⁠one place where I think the U.S. administration is going to get what it wants, which ‍is a weaker dollar,” Fisher told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

“They made it clear they want the dollar ‌to ‌weaken. It’s hurting US competitiveness, and I think they’re going to succeed.”

Previously, almost all pension fund investors in U.S. equities would have very little currency hedging because the dollar was expected to rise on negative shocks.

A low-hedging strategy would insulate a fund because if the value of its U.S. stocks ⁠fell, it would be cushioned ⁠by the dollar also ​going down. ART holds about A$53 billion of U.S. stocks, according to the fund’s figures.

“We’re not going to change our allocation to U.S. equities, we’re just going hedge more of the U.S. equities and unhedge more of the ‍other equities,” Fisher said.

“Our Japanese exposure might be fully unhedged and our U.S. exposure might be much more hedged than it has been in the past to try and get that balance right,” he said.

While the dollar traded ​near a six-week high last week, the currency has eased ‍this week against the safe-haven yen and Swiss franc after US President Donald Trump threatened additional tariffs on goods imported from European nations ​that oppose his planned takeover of Greenland.

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: Texas Southern University has no idea where most of its inventory is located, ignored safeguards meant to prevent overspending, and reported inaccurate information to the Texas Comptroller, according to a state audit released Dec. 31. 

Key facts: University policy requires inventory to be physically counted every year, but a count has not happened since 2019, according to the audit.

Auditors randomly selected 60 pieces of property owned by TSU, and university employees were unable to locate 50 of them. 

Every piece of property must have a “custodian” responsible for its care. Half of the university’s property either had no custodian or had a custodian who no longer worked for TSU.

The university’s purchasing system was equally disastrous. Employees need signed approval before making purchases to ensure the school does not spend more than its budget allows. But auditors reviewed 60 random purchases and found that not a single one had approval.

Purchases over $25,000 must include a written contract, but 77% of a random sample of purchases had no contract. When contracts did exist, they could often only be located after “extensive research,” and 97% of them had incorrect information.

The school’s reported expenses were “significantly inflated” because school employees recorded many purchases twice in the university’s accounting software.

The university’s financial statements from 2023 and 2024 were completed months after the state deadline and contained “significant errors,” including misstating how much the school spent paying back bond debt.

In a written response, TSU President J.W. Crawford III agreed with all of the audit’s findings. 

Background: TSU is one of the nation’s largest public, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs. It received $111 million in state funding and $130 million in federal grants and contracts in fiscal year 2025. 

TSU had not been audited since 2006, according to Crawford.

Both the auditors and Crawford blamed some of the issues on staffing vacancies in warehouses and the Information Technology department.

Financial records support that claim. Payroll data obtained by Open the Books and university financial statements both show the school’s payroll expense decreased between 2019 and 2024 — a rarity for any college or public entity.  The nearby University of Texas at Austin, for example, increased its payroll by more than $500 million in the same timeframe.

Open the Books has not yet obtained Crawford’s salary. His predecessor, Lesia Crumpton-Young, made up to $434,000 in a single year.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Critical quote: “The results of the State Auditor’s report released today on Texas Southern University are beyond disturbing,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a statement. “The Governor, Speaker, and I have already taken action by putting a stop to any spending on any contracts other than ongoing university expenses to keep the school open. 

“It is my hope, for the sake of the students at the university, that TSU can continue. However, to do so, dramatic and permanent changes must occur immediately to comply with state standards.”

Patrick also directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to investigate any potential criminal wrongdoing at TSU.

Summary: Any entity receiving hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funding should be able to track how the money is being spent.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

Authored by Rex Widerstrom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The 2,880-megawatt Eraring coal-fired power station will continue to operate until 2029, operator Origin Energy has announced.

The facility is the country’s largest power station by output and is situated on the banks of Lake Macquarie, north of Sydney in New South Wales (NSW).

In an announcement to the ASX (pdf), Origin said the move would reduce risks to system security, highlighted by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) in its recent Transition Plan for System Security.

That report warned that, in NSW alternative energy assets required to “maintain system security are not currently scheduled to be operational before the announced retirement date of Eraring Power Station.”

“We’ve taken the decision to extend Eraring’s operations after assessing a range of factors, including the needs of our customers, market conditions and the important role the plant plays in the NSW energy system,” Origin CEO Frank Calabria said.

“Good progress has been made on the delivery of new energy infrastructure, including major transmission works and projects like our large-scale battery at Eraring, but it has become clear Eraring Power Station will need to run for longer to support [a] secure and stable power supply.”

The decision is aimed at providing more time for the delivery of renewables, storage, and transmission projects, he said. It also reflected uncertainty about the reliability of Australia’s ageing coal and gas fleet.

The company originally planned to close it in 2025, then extended it to August 2027 after the NSW Labor government struck a $450 million risk-sharing deal for the ageing facility, which committed the state to covering a percentage of losses up to $225 million per year if given advance notice by Origin.

About half of Australia’s national electricity grid is powered by black coal-fired power stations such as Eraring.

Government Welcomes Extension

The state’s Minister for Energy Penny Sharpe welcomed the announcement in a statement.

“My number one job is keeping the lights on and putting downward pressure on power prices. NSW is making real progress in replacing ageing coal-fired power stations. Since the election, we have increased the amount of renewable energy capacity in operation by almost 70 percent. That’s equivalent to Eraring’s capacity,” Sharpe said.

“Current energy security projections show NSW is expected to have sufficient energy supply when Eraring closes in 2029, thanks to new renewable generation and storage coming online.

“The agreement reached with Origin in 2024 gets the balance right and has so far not cost NSW taxpayers a single dollar.”

The guarantee is due to expire in August 2027.

Extending Eraring’s life is not expected to affect Origin’s 2030 emissions reduction targets or its long-term ambition to achieve net zero by 2050, the company said.

Beyond 2029, Eraring will remain a part of the National Electricity Market thanks to its battery, the first stage of which commenced commercial operation in 2025, with the final stages expected to come online in the first quarter of 2027. Once all stages are complete, the battery will deliver 700MW, providing an average storage capacity of 4.5 hours.

The power station first started operating in 1984, and Origin paid $75 million to take it over when it was privatised in 2013.

Bank of America upgraded Oklo from Neutral to Buy following Meta’s recent, massive nuclear deal. According to the BofA report (available to pro subs), Meta’s agreement with the hyperscaler provides investors with “tangible evidence advanced nuclear is moving from concept to execution.”

Meta prepaid $25 million for Phase 1 of Oklo‘s nuclear campus construction in Ohio for approximately 150 MW of energy. The funding is expected to be used for fuel procurement, site preparation, and early development ahead of final PPAs.

With 16 reactors expected to come online between 2030 and 2036, this drives BofA’s 2036 targets to $5.9 billion in revenue (vs. $5.5 billion prior), 117 units (vs. 111 prior), and 6.7 GW deployed (vs. 6.3 GW prior), leading to a price target of $127, up from $111 prior.

BofA analyst Dimple Gosai, who covers US cleantech at the bank, highlights the sequencing of a ramp to 1.2 GW thanks to the Meta deal, which moves “Oklo‘s opportunity set from ‘conceptual’ to ‘actively financed’ development.”

The bank also expects longer-dated cashflow thanks to continued progress on fuel supply and licensing. Specifically for the Ohio nuclear campus, Phase 1 is projected at 150 MW from two reactors online in 2030/31, Phase 2 adding two more reactors in 2032/33, Phase 3 adding four reactors in 2033/34, and finally Phase 4 adding eight reactors in 2035/36.

BofA has yet to take into account any of the fuel recycling potential with regards to the mega-project announced for Tennessee. The campus in Tennessee is expected to include recycling and reprocessing facilities to convert used nuclear fuel from traditional reactors into fuel for Oklo‘s fast-spectrum Aurora reactors, as well as process plutonium for use in their Pluto reactor design. Pluto reactors are expected to be deployed at the recycling site in Tennessee as well.

Oklo also has multiple other projects, including the Air Force has in Alaska and likely many other hyperscaler deals on the horizon.

Not long ago, OpenAI boss Sam Altman left Oklo’s board to preclude any conflicts of interest, hinting at a possible deal on the horizon with OpenAI.

The positive news still need to be counterbalanced with potential construction and operation headaches of these novel reactor designs. While it is not the first time the US has constructed sodium reactors, the time it takes to achieve operational proficiency and maintain availability greater than 90%, similar to the current commercial fleet, could take years or even decades.

More in the full note available to pro subs.

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times,

One of the architects of the Health and Human Services (HHS) review of medical interventions for pediatric gender dysphoria said in a recent interview that fraud is an integral part of the transgender medical field.

​Nearly a year after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to protect “children from chemical and surgical mutilation,” Leor Sapir, who assembled a team of experts to produce the HHS review, emphasized that doctors relying on unproven gender-affirming guidelines are misleading patients.

​Sapir, an HHS report author and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told The Epoch Times there is no solid evidence that puberty blockers, hormones, or surgery benefit children who reject their sexual identity, but that evidence exists that these procedures can cause harm.

​The 409-page HHS report states that psychotherapy, rather than unproven medical interventions, has greater benefits for children with gender dysphoria, reinforcing the need for evidence-based approaches.

​“Fraud is not just a feature, or, I should say, it’s not just something that happens in this field. It’s almost fundamental to the field itself,” Sapir said during an interview with American Thought Leader host Jan Jekielek that aired Jan. 15.

​Sapir said that doctors and organizations often rely on guidelines from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which he describes as an activist group that presents itself as a medical organization. The group is key in influencing current practice.

​WPATH doesn’t advocate for mental health assessments and helps make sure that the procedures are covered by insurance, he said.

​An Alabama lawsuit involving WPATH disclosed internal documents indicating that WPATH withheld negative findings about treatments for transitioning children, he added.

​Groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics, WPATH, and The Endocrine Society cite one another’s guidelines as evidence that the treatments are safe, he said.

​In part, support for medically transitioning children came about because it was framed as a civil rights matter, according to the report. Additionally, this led many in the medical community to neglect the evidence against it and to curtail debate.

​Medical organizations often formed specialized committees to recommend protocols for treating gender dysphoric children. For example, some committees focused on LGBT issues and, according to the report, members’ careers depend on supporting pediatric transitioning.

​The HHS report, titled “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices,” was originally released in May 2025. While it received many positive peer reviews in November 2025, it also received backlash from those supporting medical intervention for gender dysphoria.

​Sapir noted that the HHS review is unique because it is the first to address the ethics of medically transitioning children and to critique the language that inaccurately describes the procedures.

​“It seems so intuitively obvious that this is ultimately an ethical debate,” he said.

​Ethical considerations include an examination of the risks and benefits of treatment and the idea of patient autonomy, which allows the patient to choose whether to have a procedure.

​The report situates medical ethics within a historical context, referencing the Hippocratic Oath and the principle of “do no harm.”

​One potential harm is that children with gender dysphoria often later identify as gay, so they are disproportionately impacted by transitioning.

“We know, based on research, that a significant portion of these kids, if not socially and medically transitioned, will actually come out to be gay later on in life,” Sapir said.

Medical ethics has shifted toward informed consent, strengthening protections for patients against unwanted medical interventions. But the doctor still has an obligation to protect and promote patient health, especially when it comes to children, according to the HHS report.

​“Patients don’t get to demand treatments from doctors. Doctors have a professional, ethical obligation to only prescribe things that are more likely than not to benefit their patients and not likely to harm them,” Sapir said. ​“But in the context of gender medicine, the principle of autonomy has been reinterpreted to mean the doctors have to give patients what they want.”

​The very idea that children, some as young as 8 or 9, are mature enough to understand the consequences of puberty blockers and medical transition is called into question in the report. Medical providers “often fail” to inform patients that there’s no strong evidence that the procedures benefit those with gender dysphoria.

The report noted that language has “distorted the clinical picture” in pediatric gender medicine. Therefore, doctors should use language that is accurate and not misleading.

​Terms such as “gender-affirming care” were also called into question by the report. The procedure of removing breasts in physically healthy females is referred to in euphemisms such as “gender-affirming chest surgery” or “top surgery” rather than a mastectomy.

Likewise, phrases such as “sex assigned at birth” used in the industry imply that sex is determined subjectively rather than biologically.

“The American Psychological Association style guide, for example, classifies ‘birth sex’ and ‘natal sex’ as ‘disparaging terms’” because they imply that sex cannot be changed, according to the report.

​The test used to determine if a child is transgender is to ask the child, the report says. Children know who they are, according to advocates of the gender-affirmation model.

​“There is a conscious, deliberate, systemic effort in the field of pediatric gender medicine to treat children, even children who are not even in puberty, as if they’re mature adults,” Sapir said.

In what could have been the starting gun of Trump’s de-escalation, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the US President was right about security in the Arctic.

“When it comes to the Arctic, I think President Trump is right. Other leaders in NATO are right. We need to defend the Arctic,” the former Dutch prime minister said. “We know that the sea lanes are opening up.”

Rutte said that China and Russia were becoming increasingly active in the Arctic Circle, and acknowledged that this posed a problem for the alliance.

“There are eight countries bordering on the Arctic. Seven are members of NATO. That’s Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Canada, and the U.S.,” Rutte said.

“And there’s only one country bordering on the Arctic outside NATO, and that’s Russia. And I would argue there is a ninth country, which is China, which is increasingly active in the Arctic region. So, President Trump and other leaders are right, we have to do more there, we have to protect the Arctic.”

Furthermore, as Guy Birchall reports for The Epoch Times, Rutte also praised Trump for upping the contributions from many NATO member states to the alliance’s budget.

“Do you really think that without Donald Trump, eight big economies in Europe, including Spain, Italy, and Belgium, Canada, by the way, also outside Europe, would have come to 2 percent in 2025 when they were only on 1.5 percent at the beginning of the year?” Rutte said.

“No way. Without Donald Trump, this would never have happened. They are all on 2 percent now.”

NATO’s Rutte:

I know many of you criticize Trump. But do you really think that, without Trump, eight big economies in Europe—including Spain, Italy, and Belgium—and Canada would have reached the two-percent defense spending target in 2025?

At the beginning of the year, they… pic.twitter.com/KVmv0J6hXO

— Clash Report (@clashreport) January 21, 2026

Rutte’s comments about NATO’s presence in the Arctic come as Trump’s stated ambition of annexing Greenland has driven a wedge between Washington and European allies.

Before departing for the summit, Trump expressed confidence that NATO and the United States would reach a deal on the Arctic island that benefits all parties.

“I think that we will work something out where NATO is going to be very happy and where we’re going to be very happy,” Trump said during a Jan. 20 White House press conference.

“We need it for national security and even world security. It’s very important.”

U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance tour the U.S. military’s Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on March 28, 2025. Jim Watson/AP

During his speech in Davos, the president ruled out taking the island by force but remained forthright in his insistence that the United States must acquire the territory.

“People thought I would use force, but I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force,” Trump said.

“We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it. They have a choice: They can say yes, and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember.”

Trump also said that Denmark promised to spend “over $200 million to strengthen Greenland’s defenses” and that it has “spent less than 1 percent of that.”

He was referring to a 2019 commitment from the Danish government, made during his first presidency, when the idea of the United States taking control of the territory was first raised.

Copenhagen has not disputed that the implementation of that commitment has been slow.