Authored by Adam Sharp via DailyReckoning.com,

After World War 2, the U.S. emerged as the only major power with its industrial base intact.

Europe, the USSR, and Japan were all devastated.

The Soviet Union alone had 26 million deaths due to the war. The rest of Europe had approximately another 20 million. Japan lost around 3 million.

All the major powers’ infrastructure had been annihilated. Except for America.

Even before the war, the U.S. was the eminent economic power of the world. But this advantage increased significantly following WW2. After all, it was American ships, tanks, guns, and bombs that turned the tide.

B-24 bomber production line at Ford’s Willow Run plant

In 1945, America produced 50% of global industrial output. With just 6% of world population.

By 1947 the bulk of military production lines had switched to civilian goods. Lines that were producing tanks switched to cars and appliances. Factories that were churning out bombers switched to commercial airliners.

And in 1944, the Bretton Woods agreement set Uncle Sam up as a monetary superpower as well. The U.S. became the world’s largest lender, which gave it a stake in much of the world’s re-building.

The result at home was a sustained economic (and baby) boom.

America quickly dominated both the industrial and financial world, setting the stage for 65 years of U.S. exceptionalism.

A New Challenger

The USSR was devastated after WW2, but it also gained a substantial chunk of new territory (either formally or as satellite/vassal states). East Germany, Eastern Poland, much of the Baltics, and some of Japan’s former territory.

For a long time, the Soviet Union was America’s only real competition. But the U.S. won the cold war decisively, mostly due to a superior economic model.

America’s reign as sole superpower lasted from the 1940s until recently.

Today, China is emerging as a new superpower. And in some ways, the country is already more powerful than the USSR ever was. On the economic front, it’s certainly true. China today produces roughly 1/3rd of the world’s manufacturing output. It’s not quite as dominant as America was following WW2, but that was a unique situation as much of the major powers’ infrastructure had been destroyed.

The USSR never came close to that level of industrial strength.

And I would argue that China is also becoming a military superpower. We covered this in depth in Containing China is Becoming Untenable.

Russia is also re-emerging as a major power. I wouldn’t necessarily qualify them as a superpower, not economically anyway. But when it comes to military might, they punch above their weight.

The rise of China, and to a lesser extent Russia, has ended America’s title as sole superpower.

A Shift to the Americas, and a Multipolar World

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

-Karl Rove, 2004

For much of the past 50 years, America has exerted its will on the world. Between our economic and financial might, almost anything was possible. The threat of invasion, nation-building, and sanctions brought nations to their knees.

That era is drawing to a close. And President Trump’s recently released National Security Strategy reinforces this sea change. According to the guiding document:

“After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country. Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests.

Our elites badly miscalculated America’s willingness to shoulder forever global burdens to which the American people saw no connection to the national interest. They overestimated America’s ability to fund, simultaneously, a massive welfare regulatory-administrative state alongside a massive military, diplomatic, intelligence, and foreign aid complex. They placed hugely misguided and destructive bets on globalism and so-called “free trade” that hollowed out the very middle class and industrial base on which American economic and military preeminence depend.”

This is shocking to see in a key American policy document. Our country no longer aims to dominate the entire world. Which is good, because it’s no longer possible or beneficial.

America’s foreign policy focus will shift to the Western hemisphere (the Americas). This is also outlined in the new strategy document:

“We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; we want a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations; we want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine.”

The Monroe Doctrine was a U.S. foreign policy principle announced in 1824 by President James Monroe. In essence it told European powers to stay out of the Americas, and in return America wouldn’t meddle in European wars and politics.

President Trump is essentially shifting our foreign policy focus to the Americas (hence the recent actions vs Venezuela).

The new national strategy document also states that the U.S. will, “seek good relations and peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories“.

Another notable shift. The world is changing. The era of America as the world’s sole superpower is over. And that’s not a bad thing. Like nearly every empire of the past, we overextended, overspent, and made plenty of other mistakes along the way.

If the last 25 years prove anything, it’s that being the world’s policeman is overrated.

America now has a chance to rebuild its once dominant industrial infrastructure and focus on its citizens’ wellbeing. And that’d be a refreshing change.

California, Massachusetts, and 18 other states filed a lawsuit Friday against President Donald Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions.

“President Trump’s illegal $100,000 H-1B visa fee creates unnecessary—and illegal—financial burdens on California public employers and other providers of vital services, exacerbating labor shortages in key sectors,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement.

The lawsuit alleged the fee is unconstitutional because the administration exceeded the fee-setting authority granted by Congress and did not go through a notice-and-comment process.

As Jill McLaughjlin details below via The Epoch Times, Trump instituted the $100,000 fee on Sept. 19, saying the order and his immigration Gold Card program would “reduce our taxes greatly and hopefully bring some great people into our country.”

Foreigners in “specialty occupations”—such as tech, science, and medicine—can apply for the temporary work visas, which can last up to six years. The workers must be sponsored by an employer to be accepted into the program.

Trump said in his Sept. 19 proclamation that the measure is designed to curb “systemic abuse” of the high-skilled visa system and protect U.S. workers—especially in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.

The president said that many companies were exploiting existing rules by laying off their U.S.-citizen workforce and replacing them with cheaper H-1B workers. When announcing the changes on Sept. 19, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that their aim was to encourage companies to hire American citizens.

Current H-1B visa holders and renewals are exempt from the fee, according to the White House.

Congress limits the number of work visas available each year for most private employers, with the current nationwide cap set at 65,000, and an exemption for 20,000 people with a master’s degree or higher.

Bonta and the other states involved in Friday’s lawsuit argued Congress makes decisions about the program’s operations.

The states opposing the new fee also said they were concerned that some employers selectively disfavored by the Trump administration would be more likely to be charged the fee.

Bonta said the visa fee is “devastating for all states, including California, and threatens the quality of education, healthcare, and other core services available to our residents.”

The plaintiffs are also concerned that the visa program would worsen the national teacher shortage, as educators are the third-largest occupation among work visa holders.

The other states that have joined in the legal action are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Friday’s lawsuit is the 49th legal action filed by Bonta against the Trump administration this year.

Attorney General of Massachusetts Andrea Joy Campbell speaks onstage during EMILYs List’s 2023 Pre-Oscars Breakfast at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., on March 7, 2023. Araya Doheny/Getty Images for EMILYs List

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature, dominated by a Democratic supermajority, set aside $25 million in taxpayer funds last year to pay for litigation against Trump. Bonta spent $5 million of that this year to hire attorneys specifically to handle the extra workload, his press office told The Epoch Times on Dec. 1.

The office is also getting another $14.2 million in this fiscal budget cycle, which runs until June 30, 2026, to hire more attorneys for additional lawsuits against the administration.

“We’re appreciative of [Newsom] and the Legislature for seeing the importance of this work and ensuring our office has the resources we need to take on the fights ahead,” Bonta’s press office said.

Authored by Jonathan Miltimore via The Washington Examiner,

In early 2020, the University of California set the tone for the rest of the country when its regents voted to drop SAT and ACT admissions requirements through 2024. That decision, initially framed as a pandemic necessity, quickly reshaped admissions nationwide. By late 2022, roughly 1,750 schools, or about 80 percent of U.S. universities, had adopted test-optional policies, according to Forbes.

“It’s a sea change in terms of how admissions decisions are being made,” Robert Schaeffer, of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, told NBC News.

“The pandemic created a natural experiment.”

Five years later, the results of this “natural experiment” are in. A report released by UC San Diego in November tells the story.

“Over the past five years, UC San Diego has experienced a steep decline in the academic preparation of its entering first-year students—particularly in mathematics, but also in writing and language skills,” a new university report reads.

“This trend poses serious challenges both to student success and to the university’s instructional mission.”

Those words might sound ominous, but they don’t do justice to just how bad the slide has been.

Roughly 1 in 8 UCSD freshmen are working with math skills that don’t clear the high school bar – a 30-fold jump since 2020.

It gets worse, however.

The report concluded that 70 percent of those students fall below middle school levels.

To give you an idea of what we’re talking about, a full quarter of students failed to solve the following equation: 7 + 2 = [ ] + 6.

This means that my 9-year-old son, who tests high in math, is likely more equipped mathematically than many of these college students. I say this not as a point of pride, but to emphasize the disservice done to students thrust into (very pricey) college courses.

It’s not just math, however.

The report found that 40 percent of students deficient in arithmetic also couldn’t write (or, in the euphemistic language of the report, “required remedial writing instruction”).

The report was unflinching in its assessment.

“Admitting large numbers of students who are profoundly underprepared [for college] risks harming the very students we hope to support, by setting them up for failure,” it declares.

UC San Diego should be commended for coming forward to report a phenomenon that is undoubtedly true at universities across the country.

Many at the time warned that ditching standardized tests was a bad idea. Research shows that high school GPAs don’t tell you much about how students perform once they get to campus. Standardized test results, however, do.

So, why did universities engage in this “natural experiment”?

There is no single answer, but politics, ideology, and crass incentives all played a role.

Let’s start with politics.

As David Leonhardt pointed out in the New York Times, universities are run by progressives, and “standardized tests have become especially unpopular among political progressives.”

Some progressives say standardized tests cause too much stress.

Others say they’re biased to explain why men score higher, on average, than women and why some racial groups perform better than others.

Ideology, a kissing cousin of politics, also plays a role. The fact that universities ditched standardized testing during the peak of the DEI craze is not a coincidence. As Leonhardt noted in the New York Times, the hostility to standardized tests is based largely “on the theory that they hurt diversity.”

This is a kooky claim for various reasons, not least because it is rooted in bigotry. But there was also a method to the madness. Abandoning standardized tests, which are rooted in objectivity, gave universities the ability to admit students on their terms. By making admission more subjective, universities were giving themselves cover for their own unlawful admissions policies.

Finally, there’s the financial incentive.

It’s no secret that demand for higher education is plummeting. (This trend is partly driven by pure demographics, but high tuition and the diminishing value of college degrees also play a role.)

As a result, universities are confronting an “enrollment cliff.” While declining numbers of new students would have posed a challenge regardless, the problem was worsened by pandemic-era learning losses caused by widespread high school closures. Removing standardized tests was a (kind of) solution to this problem. If not enough students are qualified to attend university, remove the qualifications.

In the end, ditching standardized tests will be remembered as a chapter in the broader story of the decline of U.S. universities. The decision didn’t cause the fall, but it accelerated a trend toward lower academic standards—one that harmed not just the reputation of universities, but also students who were admitted for all the wrong reasons.

Sadly, they will be left paying the price.

Despite the frustrating lack of real progress in the stalled Ukraine peace deal talks, the United States continues to achieve smaller separate deals with Russia, and their appears to be a slow improvement of bilateral ties.

On Saturday, Belarus, which forms a ‘Union State’ with Russia, announced that it has released 123 detainees, in return for the United States easing long-existing sanctions on Minsk.

Among those freed from Belarusian prisons included prominent protest figure Maria Kalesnikava, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, and former presidential hopeful Viktar Babaryka, according to the AFP.

President Alexander Lukashenko’s said the large-scale amnesty which included mostly foreigners – including 114 Ukrainians – was due to Washington lifting of “unlawful” sanctions on the country’s vital potash sector, and the rolling back of some other punitive restrictions.

Some of the freed had been serving sentences related to a government crackdown on protests related to the last election which extended strongman Lukashenko’s rule:

Relatives of the prisoners gathered outside the US embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania, where it is expected some of them will be taken from Belarus. Ukrainian authorities said that 114 civilians, including Ukrainian and Belarusian citizens, were transferred to Ukraine.

Trump’s Belarus envoy, John Coale, told reporters in Minsk that the US would be lifting sanctions on potash, “as per the instructions of president Trump”.

The US and EU placed sanctions on Belarus after the government cracked down on popular protests following a contested election in 2020…

Human rights monitors have estimated that Belarus was holding some 1,200 political prisoners as of November of this year.

This follows an initial successful prisoner release deal from back in September. That prior deal saw 50 political prisoners released, which was reportedly at Trump’s request. It included many Ukrainians and foreigners, who were transferred bordering Lithuania. In return, the US lifted sanctions on the country’s national airline, Belavia – sactions which had been in place since 2023.

President Trump statement at the time suggested there were more deals on the horizon. “52 is a lot. A great many. Yet more than 1,000 political prisoners still remain in Belarusian prisons and we cannot stop until they see freedom!” – he had said.

Authored by Mollie Englehart via The Epoch Times,

My phone started dinging almost all at once.

Text messages, links, alerts—people were telling me that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was about to make a major announcement on Dec. 10 related to regenerative agriculture. A YouTube link was circulating. The livestream was about to begin. There was a sense of anticipation in the air.

When the video came on, Rollins stood alongside Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others. What stood out immediately was not the funding amount, but the language: soil health, human health, nutrient density, the microbiome, and microbiology. The living systems beneath our feet and within our bodies were finally being discussed as part of one connected reality.

That language matters.

Then the announcement itself came: $700 million allocated toward regenerative agriculture.

On paper, that sounds significant. In reality, when spread across acreage that is already regenerative, it comes out to roughly $16 per acre. My phone began lighting up again—this time with frustration and disappointment. Farmers were doing the math. Many compared it to the $12 billion recently allocated to soybean farmers to ease losses from China no longer buying at previous levels. The imbalance felt familiar.

I felt that disappointment myself. But I stopped.

Because the truth is, the government is not going to save us. It never was.

What matters is what was said on stage—out loud, at the highest levels of agricultural leadership. Years of pushing, educating, farming, and speaking have forced the mainstream to acknowledge that regenerative agriculture exists and that what many of us have been saying for years is not fringe, not experimental, and not untested. It is rooted in biological reality.

Unused soil remain on the side of squash plants at Reeves Family Farm in Princeton, Texas, on June 9, 2023. This farm is one of the farms in Collin County following regenerative agriculture farming. Shafkat Anowar/The Dallas Morning News/TNS

Not long ago, when regenerative agriculture was barely even a term, a simple Google search would return little more than my brother Ryland Engelhart’s small website and the work of Allan Savory. That was essentially it. Today, regenerative agriculture is discussed in policy rooms, media, and public health conversations. That shift did not happen by accident.

As someone who has spent years pounding the pavement on small stages, podcasts, newspaper articles, Instagram posts, and anywhere else someone might listen, hearing words that could have come straight from my own mouth—or from the mouths of so many friends—spoken by the Secretary of Agriculture was a real turning point.

It was not only agricultural language that shifted.

In the same period, advisers for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held hearings on the hepatitis B vaccine and made recommendations to reconsider whether it should be universally mandatory in infancy. Hepatitis B is primarily transmitted through blood and bodily fluids, including sexual contact and needle exposure. These modes of transmission do not logically apply to newborn infants.

For decades, the trend has moved in only one direction, with more interventions introduced earlier and with less public debate. Seeing even one policy questioned openly represents a meaningful shift. It does not mean the system is fixed, but it does suggest that logic and discussion are beginning to reenter conversations where they have long been absent.

For years, soft language has been used to control public discourse. Conversations about vaccine efficacy, soil degradation, chemical agriculture, and the microbiome were not debated openly. They were often shut down through social pressure and professional risk.

That grip appears to be loosening.

Government leaders are now speaking openly about the microbiome, soil microbiology, and nutrient density. There is growing acknowledgment that chronic disease, metabolic dysfunction, and declining fertility do not exist in isolation from how our food is grown. Regenerative agriculture, once dismissed as niche, is now part of national policy discussions.

Regenerative farmer and business owner Mollie Engelhart in Fillmore, Calif., on Oct. 30, 2023. Engelhart says that unlike organic farming, which avoids synthetic inputs, regenerative agriculture focuses on restoring soil health, water resources, and biodiversity. Tal Atzmon/The Epoch Times

Is this the sweeping reform some of us want? No.

Is it enough? No.

But it is movement. And movement matters.

I also want to acknowledge someone who has been pushing this work forward long before it was widely accepted. My brother, Ryland Engelhart, started Kiss the Ground as a small nonprofit in his garage at a time when regenerative agriculture was rarely discussed outside of farming circles. Through years of commitment, education, and personal sacrifice, he helped bring this conversation into the mainstream.

He has since stepped away from Kiss the Ground and is now focused on a new advocacy effort called American Regeneration, continuing his work to advance soil health, regenerative farming, and national policy conversations around land stewardship.

Today, Kiss the Ground has produced two documentaries—“Kiss the Ground” and “Common Ground”—available on Amazon Prime, introducing millions of people to the realities of soil regeneration and land stewardship. That progress did not happen because institutions embraced the message early. It happened because people refused to stop pushing.

The government still has a long way to go. I do not trust it to lead this transformation on its own, and neither should farmers, parents, or patients. Pressure matters. Accountability matters. Demanding more matters.

But so does recognizing when something has shifted.

Once certain truths are spoken publicly, they cannot be taken back. The connection between soil health and human health has been named. The role of microbiology in food and medicine has been acknowledged. Regenerative agriculture cannot be pushed back into obscurity once it has entered the national conversation.

We are not winning through sweeping victories. We are winning incrementally. And for those of us who have been pushing uphill for years, that matters.

Incremental wins are still wins. And the direction of the wind has finally changed.

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

A Georgia woman is recovering in the hospital after being attacked with an unknown chemical substance (probably acid) that left her with third-degree burns. 

Ashley Wasielewski, 46, was walking in Forsyth Park in Savannah after attending a Christmas program at a nearby church when she was approached from behind by a stranger who poured a ‘corrosive liquid’ over her head, according to friends and family. Wasielewski reportedly let out a ‘blood-curdling scream’ as the chemical burned her skin, ate through her clothing, and melted her car’s key fob that was in her pocket, the NY Post reports.

No arrests have been made in the case, however local police are working with the FBI to locate the individual below, wearing blue jeans and a dark hooded Bugs Bunny hoodie:

“She was instantly like, ‘Why are you pouring water on me?’” before her skin started burning, close friend Connor Milam told the Post, adding that Wasielewski often volunteered in her community and provided essential items to the homeless. “She looked down and her pants were starting to burn off her body. She started screaming. They didn’t rob her. They didn’t take anything from her. This was a random person in the park who went out of their way to disfigure another human being.” 

Wasielewski was rushed to the Augusta Burn Center, where she’s being treated for second- and third-degree burns over half her body, including her face, scalp, hands and legs, according to her son Westley.

The concerned son said he learned of the attack from a good Samaritan who came to his mother’s aid, adding that he could hear her wailing in agony over the phone.

“We don’t know who did it,” Westley said.

“She doesn’t have any enemies. She is a friend to everyone.” -NY Post

“Our Police Department is treating this case with the highest urgency,” said Savannah Mayor Van Johnson in a Thursday Facebook post. 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Many years ago, as a law student, I had the honor of working with the great prosecutor William J. Kunkle Jr., who put away John Wayne Gacy. I was a young intern at the litigation firm of Phelan, Pope & John and loved listening to Bill’s stories about his famous cases. I even had to take a couple of calls from Gacy from prison when Bill was out.

(I was asked to write down everything that he would say in the routine calls. On one call, Gacy told me, “Tell Bill he was wrong. I was not guilty of homicide. I was guilty of running an indoor funeral parlor without a license.”).

One story of Bill’s came to mind last night when Democrats released their latest tranche of “bombshell” photos from the Epstein files to suggest that Trump is implicated in the scandal.

Bill told me how he would stage the trial room to maximize impact on the jury.

In the Gacy trial, he was allowed to create an exhibit showing the pictures of the victims. He knew that defense counsel would not want the faces staring at the jury throughout the trial. So he made the exhibit so large that it would be difficult to move and waited for the defense to insist that the pictures themselves be removed.

When they did so, they found that each picture was attached to the board by Bill with large red tape. Throughout the trial, the jurors stared at each name with a large red X beneath it.

It was better than the pictures themselves.

Bill’s story came to mind yesterday when the Democrats released the photos from the Epstein files.

The White House accused Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of spreading a “false narrative” with photos. It is more of an effort to create “false light,” a term from tort law where true photos are presented in a misleading and harmful way.

The photos of Trump show women with their faces obscured as “possible” victims of human trafficking with underaged girls.

Even a photo with a single woman on what appears to be a plane is blacked out. There is no context offered, but the blacked-out faces suggest that these women have to be protected as possible victims.

It has the same effect as Kunkle’s Xs.

However, the real question of false light is the inclusion with the other photos selected for release.

The Democrats included pictures of sex toys, novelty condom boxes with Trump’s face (saying “I’m Huuuge”) and even Epstein in a bathtub.

The combination is meant to make the other photos seem more sinister, even though we have no information on where they were taken or who the women are in the images. Just Xs.

Trump is not alone in the framing of such photos. The release included a previously public photo of Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz simply meeting with Epstein, who is wearing a Harvard sweatshirt. There is no information on when or where it was taken. (Epstein was a major donor to Harvard, and Dershowitz was a Harvard professor as well as someone who served as counsel to Epstein).

The Democrats have long despised Dershowitz, a liberal who broke ranks with the party and represented Trump in his impeachment. Now, he is included with the photos of condoms and Epstein in a bath.

In torts, litigants can bring cases for “false light” when photos may be true images but are presented in a misleading way.

While some states have rejected false light claims in favor of using defamation actions exclusively, other states recognize both claims.

Under a false light claim, a person can sue when a publication or image implies something that is both highly offensive and untrue. Where defamation deals with false statements, false light deals with false implications.

California produced an important case that is particularly illustrative in this circumstance. In Gill v. Curtis Publ’g Co., 239 P.2d 630 (Cal. 1952), the court considered a “Ladies Home Journal” article that was highly critical of couples who claimed to be cases of “love at first sight.” The article suggested that such impulses were more sexual than serious. The magazine included a photo of a couple, with the caption, “[p]ublicized as glamorous, desirable, ‘love at first sight’ is a bad risk.” The couple was unaware that the photo was used and never consented to its inclusion in the magazine. They prevailed in an action for false light given the suggestion that they were one of these sexualized, “wrong” attractions.

The standard California jury instruction asks the jury if “the false light created by the disclosure would be highly offensive to a reasonable person in [name of plaintiff]’s position” and whether “there is clear and convincing evidence that [the defendant] knew the disclosure would create a false impression … or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.”

Likewise, in Solano v. Playgirl, Inc., 292 F.3d 1078 (9th Cir. 2002), the court found false light in the use of an actor’s photo on the cover of Playgirl magazine. In combination with the headlines, the plaintiffs argued that the magazine created the false impression that nude photos of the actor were featured inside the magazine.

Congress is protected from such lawsuits, and even without those protections, it is unlikely that this case would be viable as a tort action. However, the underlying concept is still relevant. The Democrats were suggesting that there was a cover-up of Trump’s (and others’) involvement in these crimes. They have not produced such evidence. They can, however, release images in a way that suggests such untoward or even illegal conduct.

If Dershowitz’s picture were just re-released on its own, it would hardly be notable. However, in the company of condom boxes and bathtub shots, it can feed a news cycle of eagerly awaiting and enabling media.

In the end, the photo dump is unlikely to change any minds or move the needle in polls. Some will see a cover-up and others will see a frame-up.

The difference with the Gacy trial is that most of the jury has already left the room, leaving only the Xs behind.

Last week, readers were briefed on the emerging theme of data centers in low Earth orbit, a concept now openly discussed by Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Jeff Bezos, and Sam Altman, as energy availability and infrastructure constraints on land increasingly emerge as major bottlenecks to data center buildouts through the end of this decade and well into the 2030s.

Nvidia-backed startup Starcloud has released a white paper outlining a case for operating a constellation of artificial intelligence data centers in space as a practical solution to Earth’s looming power crunch, cooling woes, and permitting land constraints.

Terrestrial data center projects will reach capacity limits as AI workloads scale to multi-gigawatt levels, while electricity demand and grid bottlenecks worsen over the next several years. Orbital data centers aim to bypass these constraints by using near-continuous, high-intensity solar power, passive radiative cooling to deep space, and modular designs that scale quickly, launched into orbit via SpaceX rockets.

“Orbital data centers can leverage lower cooling costs using passive radiative cooling in space to directly achieve low coolant temperatures. Perhaps most importantly, they can be scaled almost indefinitely without the physical or permitting constraints faced on Earth, using modularity to deploy them rapidly,” Starcloud wrote in the report.

Starcloud continued, “With new, reusable, cost-effective heavy-lift launch vehicles set to enter service, combined with the proliferation of in-orbit networking, the timing for this opportunity is ideal.”

Already, the startup has launched its Starcloud-1 satellite carrying an Nvidia H100 GPU, the most powerful compute chip ever sent into space. Using the H100, Starcloud successfully trained NanoGPT, a lightweight language model, on the complete works of Shakespeare, making it the first AI model trained in space.

Starcloud (@Starcloud_Inc1) recently made history by launching a satellite with an NVIDIA H100 into orbit — the first time a GPU that powerful has ever operated in space. It’s the first step toward building AI data centers in orbit, powered by continuous sunlight and cooled by… pic.twitter.com/xf7C1D583N

— Y Combinator (@ycombinator) November 13, 2025

Starcloud is also running Google’s open-source LLM Gemma in orbit, representing the first time a high-powered Nvidia GPU has been used to operate a large language model in space.

One solution (before nuclear power generation gets ramped up) to keep up with the rapid advances in AI and the ever-increasing demand for power and resources to prevent bottlenecks is to shift some of these data centers to low Earth orbit. This in itself will spark a space race-themed investment theme, hence why SpaceX is planning to go public next year at a valuation of $800 billion. Starlink will likely be powering these space-based data centers.

*  *  *

Read the full report: 

Live updates here:

Update (1840ET): According to AP, at least two people were killed in the shooting and several others were injured. 

At 4:22 p.m Saturday, the university’s Department of Public Safety sent a campus-wide alert urging students and staff to run, hide, and fight as a last resort due to the presence of an active shooter. 

According to the Providence Journal:

Cranston Police Chief Michael Winquist said Cranston Police had received a request from Providence Police for mutual aid at the scene of an active shooting at Brown University. Cranston Police have responded to the request; he had no further information to provide at this time.

Student Chang-heng Chien ’32 says he spent two hours under a desk. 

Live with a reporter on the ground:

* * * 

Update (1820ET):

“I have been briefed on the shooting that took place at Brown University in Rhode Island. The FBI is on the scene. The suspect is in custody. God bless the victims and the families of the victims!” – President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/3aajBXd3XT

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 13, 2025

Hmm.

I have been preliminarily briefed on the active shooter incident at Brown University. Praying for all the victims of this tragic attack.

The NYPD is coordinating with partners in Rhode Island.

Here in NYC, we are deploying additional resources to local universities as a…

— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) December 13, 2025

* * * 

Update (1735ET): 

Suspect is not in custody, as per Brown…

BrownUAlert: 3rd, Continue to shelter in place. Remain away from Barus & Holley area. Police do not have a suspect in custody and continue to search for suspect(s). Brown coordinating with multiple law enforcement agencies on site. Visit https://t.co/Qm87sy5ILr for updates.

— Brown University (@BrownUniversity) December 13, 2025

It’s not clear who the police arrested. 

Brown University shooting suspect arrested.

Asian male. pic.twitter.com/JNFzrV9bCF

— rustle (@rustle4444) December 13, 2025

* * * 

Brown University issued an emergency alert reporting an active shooter situation on its Providence campus, with one suspect in custody. Students were instructed to shelter in place, lock doors, and silence phones.

Police from Brown and the City of Providence responded near an engineering building on the east side of campus, and the number of injuries remains unknown.

Journalist Nick Sortor has posted live scanner audio stating that authorities believe there may be up to 20 victims, though that number remains unconfirmed. Today is the second day of final exams.

🚨 BREAKING: MASS CASUALTY event declared at Brown University as now a possible 20 VICTIMS reported following an active shooter situation

Several reports that a masked suspect is now IN CUSTODY, thankfully

Say a prayer for these victims. The exact number of deceased versus… pic.twitter.com/6FetYiAHU5

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 13, 2025

There are conflicting reports on whether the shooter is in custody.

🚨 BREAKING UPDATE: After originally saying a shooter was in custody, Brown University is now saying the shooter is AT LARGE

Shooter was reportedly masked during the incident.

STAY ALERT IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND! pic.twitter.com/VBxo03twET

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 13, 2025

Another report of gunfire. 

Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island just issued an alert saying there’s a report of shots fired near Governor Street. pic.twitter.com/QX94jWU95G

— AZ Intel (@AZ_Intel_) December 13, 2025

*Developing…  

For years, Democrats have wielded the tired accusation that Republicans lack a healthcare alternative to the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare. 

On Friday, House Republicans called that bluff, unveiling the Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act, a legislative package aimed at dismantling the cost drivers embedded in the Affordable Care Act while expanding choice and transparency. The bill heads to the House floor next week, and predictably, Democrats are already scrambling to kill it.

“Nearly 15 years ago, the Democrats’ Unaffordable Care Act broke the American health care system. Since its inception, premium costs have skyrocketed, networks have shrunk, and the system has become bloated, inefficient, and riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse. While Democrats demand that taxpayers write bigger checks to insurance companies to hide the cost of their failed law, House Republicans are tackling the real drivers of health care costs to provide affordable care, increase access and choice, and restore integrity to our nation’s health care system for all Americans,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement. 

“Earlier this year, Democrats had a chance to help make life more affordable by supporting the Working Families Tax Cuts legislation,” Johnson continued. “Instead, they voted to raise taxes, protect waste and fraud, and continue providing free health care to illegal immigrants. Democrats’ ‘affordability’ charade has gone on long enough.”

Johnson said the new Republican proposal offers a responsible path forward on health care, cutting premium costs while expanding access to quality health care options for Americans nationwide. “The Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act will actually deliver affordable health care – and we look forward to advancing it through the House.”

A key aspect of the legislation is a push for transparency for pharmacy benefit managers. PBMs, the middlemen who negotiate drug prices and rebates, have long operated without any transparency at all at the expense of employers and patients. The proposed legislation would force PBMs to disclose detailed data on prescription drug spending, rebates, spread pricing, and formulary decisions. Employers and workers would finally see what they’re paying for – and what they’re not getting in return.

According to Johnson, the bill also appropriates funding for cost-sharing reduction payments beginning in 2027. These payments, meant to lower premiums and stabilize the individual market, would be directed toward low-income enrollees. The measure aims to ensure taxpayer dollars are spent responsibly rather than being dumped into a system that rewards insurers for inflated costs, as the current system does.

Beyond transparency, the legislation expands health coverage options for American workers through Association Health Plans. These plans allow employers, including the self-employed, to pool resources across industries to purchase high-quality, more affordable coverage. 

Republicans have long advocated for the idea that by banding together, small businesses and independent workers gain the negotiating power currently monopolized by large corporations and government-run exchanges.

The bill also clarifies that stop-loss insurance – coverage that protects employers from catastrophic claims—is not “health insurance coverage” under federal law. This distinction allows small and mid-sized businesses to tailor their employee benefits without triggering the burdensome regulations of Obamacare. 

Another provision codifies and strengthens the 2019 rules that allow employers to offer defined contributions for employees to purchase their own coverage. These arrangements, rebranded as CHOICE arrangements, let employees pay premiums on a pre-tax basis while selecting plans that fit their needs rather than accepting whatever their employer chooses. 

The concept is simple: give workers control over their healthcare dollars and let them shop for the coverage that works best for them.

Naturally, Democrats hate it.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wasted no time trashing the proposal, dismissing it as “likely to be a disaster” before he even knew what was in it. Speaking to MS NOW on Friday, Jeffries claimed the package would diminish rather than enhance American healthcare, though he offered no specifics to support his assertion. His vague prophecy of doom reflects the Democrats’ broader strategy: attack anything that threatens Obamacare’s legacy, regardless of the facts.

Jeffries suggests that a vote on the GOP health care bill + amendment vote on Fitzpatrick bill won’t be suitable for Democrats.

“Their health care package, as I understand it, is likely to be a disaster and actually not enhance the health care of the American people. It will… pic.twitter.com/Sr6JbZE9zT

— Mychael Schnell (@mychaelschnell) December 12, 2025

But that doesn’t change the fact that the Affordable Care Act has been a disaster. A recent Forbes analysis found that since it was passed in 2010, premiums have nearly tripled and deductibles have more than doubled. The cost of coverage for a family of four has surged by more than $10,000. Worse, the coverage itself has deteriorated. Americans are paying more for less, a reality that Democrats refuse to acknowledge.

The Forbes analysis also shows that Obamacare deductibles run far higher than those in employer-sponsored plans. The law was marketed to the public as a way to create affordable, accessible care. Instead, it became a case study in government overreach that enriched insurers and bureaucrats while sticking middle-class families with soaring costs. That was entirely by design.

Republicans are betting that Americans have had enough. The Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act offers a clear alternative: transparency over opacity, choice over mandates, and market competition over government control. Whether it passes remains to be seen, but the message is unmistakable. Democrats built Obamacare. Republicans are offering a way out.