The number shown for each state represents births per 1,000 people, and is based on most recent fertility rate data and state demographics.
Utah’s Demographic Advantage
Utah ranks first in the nation, with an estimated 9.7 babies born per 1,000 people each year.
The state’s relatively young population plays a major role, as younger adults are more likely to be in childbearing years. Cultural and religious influences also contribute, with larger family sizes remaining more common than in many other states.
Large States, Strong Numbers
Texas and California rank near the top both in absolute and relative terms. California is projected to see more than 340,000 births per year, while Texas exceeds 278,000. On a per-capita basis, both states are driven by younger populations and higher shares of immigrants.
Where Birth Rates Lag
States in the Northeast and parts of the Midwest tend to rank lower. Maine, Vermont, and West Virginia sit near the bottom, with fewer than eight babies born per 1,000 people annually. Older populations, higher living costs, and delayed family formation all play a role.
The Florida legislature has begun to move legislation (HB 999) to enact their prior approval for gold and silver coins to be legal tender in Florida.
This legislation will exempt gold and silver coins from sales tax in Florida. It also means that within Florida, there will be a means of payment independent of digital money created by governments for the purpose of controlling the population, it’s behavior, and it’s expressed views, in order that governments can rule via official narratives.
It is possible that if circumstances develop the tyrants in Washington will establish martial law in Florida and dispense with the use of real money in place of digital money that has no physical existence.
Unless all states adopt the legalization of gold and silver as legal tender, Floridians would be unable to make out of state payments and would have to become an economy unto itself, producing all of its own needs. This is the safest and most preferable way to exist.
Throughout history, gold and silver have been the means of payments. The Roman legions were paid in silver coins, the denarius. Estates were purchased for gold.
Paper money appeared originally as a receipt on gold holdings. If their gold was a large amount, people kept their gold in the vaults of goldsmiths and wrote notes to the goldsmiths to release the payment amount of the transaction to their business associates in order to pay their bills.
Goldsmiths learned that few ever claimed physical possession of their gold, instead using written notes, in effect checks, to transfer ownership. Thus goldsmiths became the first bankers, knowing that they could lend out the gold in their vaults that few ever came for. Moreover neither did those who borrowed the gold take possession physically. They merely wrote to the Goldsmith that they had made a payment that transferred ownership. Thus some percentage of their holding was transferred to the third-party.
This was the origin of fractional reserve banking.
When I was born gold was no longer a legal means of payment in the United States. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a liberal hero, had confiscated all the goal in the hands of the American population.
Once he had it, he raised the price from $20 an ounce to $35 an ounce. Later, it was raised to $42 an ounce and stood there until Senator Jesse Helms in the 1970s got legislation passed permitting Americans to again own gold coins, but gold was not made an official means of payment.
Following World War II, the Breton Woods agreement gave the US dollar the world reserve currency role. This meant that US debt in the form of Treasury bonds became the reserves of the world’s central banks. Thus, the US government was able to pay its bills by issuing debt as US Treasury debt was the reserves of the world’s central banks. Initially under the Brenton Woods system foreign central banks could redeem their holdings of US treasuries for gold. However, by demanding gold in exchange for France’s holdings of US debt, President Charles de Gaulle prompted the closing of the “gold window” in the 1970s, and US debt could no longer be exchanged for gold.
When I was born, silver was a means of payment. There were one dollar, two dollar, and five dollar Treasury Certificates, not federal reserve notes, that were exchangeable for silver at the price of one dollar per ounce of silver.
In my youth silver was used for transactions less than a dollar.The 10 cent piece known as the dime was silver. The 25 cent piece, or quarter dollar, was silver. So was the 50 cent piece. The penny was copper.
US one dollar bills, whether silver certificates or not, could be exchanged for a silver dollar at a bank, but silver dollars were not used in transactions. They existed to remind us that in the 19th century cowboys were paid 30 silver dollars per month and could survive on it.
For many years as my articles have documented, the US dollar has been able to maintain its value because gold and silver short-selling was able to hold down the rise in the dollar price of gold and silver.
Unlike equities, it is possible to short the precious metals market without holding collateral against the short. The futures market for gold and silver permits the printing of paper gold and silver in the form of futures contracts that are dumped in the futures market where the contracts drive down the prices of the precious metals. The peculiarity of the precious metals market is that the price of gold and silver has not been determined in the physical market where it is bought and sold, but in the futures market where it can be shorted by printing claims to gold and silver.
Recently in response to uncertainty of the value of increasing amounts of paper dollars not backed by anything, the demand for real money in the form of precious metals has overwhelmed the ability to use short-selling to hold down the prices of gold and silver.
As gold and silver prices rose, speculators joined the rise.
Speculators simply see opportunities, and when they had accumulated sufficient gain, they cashed out of the rise, resulting in a sharp fall in gold and silver prices.
However, the underlying situation that raised the dollar prices of real money has not changed, and therefore once speculative profits are removed from gold and silver prices the rise in the value of precious metals will resume.
One possible reason for President Trump’s desire for Venezuela’s oil and other assets, Greenland, and assets in Ukraine is to prop up the dollar with real things.
As I have pointed out on numerous occasions, the power of the United States rests on the dollar’s role as world reserve currency as this permits the US to pay its bills by issuing debt. China understands the value of having the role 0f being the reserve currency and has announced that it wants this role for the Chinese currency. As China is less indebted, more industrialized, and has a higher gross domestic product than the United States, it is possible that the continuation of the rapid growth of US national debt will result in the US losing the reserve currency role to China.
For several decades, the United States has had a destructive policy of offshoring its manufacturing, thereby weakening its own economy while the US government ran up massive amounts of debt. With the dollar already questionable Washington further undermined the dollar by weaponizing it, thus making it risky for central banks to hold US dollars in the form of Treasury debt as reserves. The seizure of Russian central bank reserves in the amount of $300 billion demonstrated the risk.
With no end of American wars and spending sprees in sight, the US dollar’s role as world reserve currency could well be in jeopardy.
Once this role is lost the dollar’s value in terms of other currencies will fall, and as the United States has become an import-dependent economy, US inflation would explode, further driving down the dollar.
Policy makers should take notice of this threat.
It is a more serious threat to America than is Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, or Russia in Ukraine and the Arctic.
It is far more important for the United States to protect the value of its currency than for the United States to spend another trillion dollars, clearing Israel’s opponents from the Middle East.
Our review of Facebook, X, media coverage, and local officials’ comments suggests that the cold snap across the Mid-Atlantic has put data centers and power bills in the spotlight, especially given that PJM Interconnection is already operating in a very tight grid environment.
Even as residents in Mid-Atlantic states increasingly push back against data centers while watching their monthly power bills soar, local officials, some of whom are partly responsible for tightening grid spare capacity with backfiring “green” policies, are scrambling as public anger grows.
However, Goldman analysts led by Hongcen Wei have some disappointing news for residents in the Mid-Atlantic, and frankly elsewhere, who are trying to slow data center development: “U.S. Local Regulatory Pushbacks Against Data Centers Are Not Slowing Development.”
Wei, Daan Struyven, and Samantha Dart explained:
Media coverage highlights growing local community pushbacks against data center developments, posing a slow-down risk to data center power demand growth, along with US power market tightness. While local regulatory reviews could pause data center approvals temporarily, we believe resulting regulations could lead to fewer pushbacks and streamlined development processes by enhancing power reliability and affordability and establishing clear requirements. Ultimately, we believe power tightness remains the primary risk that could slow the US in the AI race with China.
We note that these pushbacks mostly originated from local communities with little exposure to data centers. In such cases, we expect proposed data centers to relocate rather than be canceled in the extreme scenario of a ban, given elevated demand for data centers and AI. This suggests no significant impact on overall future data center power demand growth at the state or national level.
We take Georgia as an example, where we estimate the power market is not tightening and power price increases were below the national average in 2025. There was wave of moratoriums enacted by at least six counties in the past year, putting a pause on new data centers for at least a few months (for example, in Coweta and DeKalb counties). However, most of these counties have no existing data centers, only proposed projects to start in a few years, so we do not expect these moratoriums to impact data center developments in the near future. Going forward, with no clustering advantage within these counties (to stay close to another data center with established data highways), we believe even permanent bans would only result in project relocation to a more welcoming area (potentially the neighboring county) rather than cancellations
In other communities with both regulatory actions and existing data centers, regulatory reviews are often followed by continued and even accelerated growth. Rather than creating red tape, we believe updated regulations could streamline development processes by clearly defining specific requirements for data centers which are easier to follow than addressing diverse local community concerns.
Douglas County, the only one of the six Georgian counties with existing data centers (a top-10% county in the US), activated multiple new data centers in 2H2025 and more are scheduled for later following its 90-day moratorium on data centers starting from March 2025 (Exhibit 1).
Nationally, Loudoun County, Virginia, the world’s capital of data centers, started reviewing and updating its data center regulations in 2024 and approved them in 2025, with further regulations under consideration. However, the county continues to lead in data center capacity, with additions in the past year surpassing any other US county and its own previous records
Beyond local ordinances, we also see state-level legislation increasingly focusing on power affordability and reliability, which we do not expect to slow down data center developments. Specifically, we expect more regulations in the next few years aiming to shift more power costs from the public to data centers to incentivize additional power supply and to mitigate power bill increases. These regulations could take various formats, such as the President and several governors’ plan for the PJM (Mid-Atlantic) power market, or reductions in data center tax exemption (as seen in bills introduced in Arizona and Maryland). Nevertheless, we expect higher power costs to have limited impact on future data center power demand growth, as power costs are not a primary driver for data center expansion
Conversely, we believe state-level regulations that enhance power affordability and reliability could lead to a more favorable environment for accelerated data center developments, as Texas has started to demonstrate (Exhibit 2).
In June 2025, Texas passed its Senate Bill 6 (SB6) to regulate large electricity consumers, including data centers and cryptocurrency miners. The bill could be a bellwether for other states, with its new requirements for large-load customers to ensure power reliability, including backup generation and potential curtailments during emergencies. We do not expect these requirements to be a dealbreaker for new data centers, given our estimate that the Texas (mainly ERCOT) power market will be softer than other key regional power markets, resulting in a lower probability of curtailments, a key factor for data centers when choosing their location, while backup generation is always a standard component of data centers. In fact, Texas/ERCOT ranked second only to Virginia/PJM in data center capacity and additions across US states/power markets in 2025 (Exhibit 3). Going forward, we continue to consider Texas as one of the most competitive states for new data centers, with both high power availability and low time to client.
At least 31 people were killed and 169 others injured on Friday when a suicide bomber struck a Shia mosque on the outskirts of Islamabad during Friday prayers, Pakistani officials said, in one of the capital’s deadliest attacks in over a decade.
The blast happened in the Khadija al-Kubra Imambargah mosque in the outskirts of Islamabad, with police saying the attacker had been stopped at the mosque gate before opening fire and setting off explosives among worshipers, according to officials cited by Reuters.
Footage and images from the site showed bodies and debris scattered across the mosque’s carpeted prayer hall, with the wounded lying in the compound gardens, as bystanders called for help and rushed victims to hospitals.
Islamabad deputy commissioner Irfan Memon said the death toll stood at 31, adding that 169 injured people had been brought in for treatment, some in critical condition.
No group claimed responsibility yet; however, conflict monitor ACLED said the attack “bears the hallmarks of the Islamic State,“ while officials noted that Shia communities, a minority in Pakistan,have repeatedly been targeted in sectarian violence by extremist groups, including the Islamic State and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the bombing as “a crime against humanity,” ordering full medical assistance to be provided for the wounded.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said a thorough investigation is underway and that “those who are responsible must be identified and punished.”
The attack unfolded as Islamabad was already under heightened security for a visiting foreign leader, with checkpoints and armed patrols deployed across the capital.
While bombings are rare in the capital city, officials say militant violence has surged across the country in recent months.
Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif accused India of sponsoring the attack without presenting evidence, a claim New Delhi did not immediately respond to and has repeatedly denied in the past.
The deadly mosque attack comes after Pakistani security forces launched large-scale operations in Balochistan – a vast, sparsely populated region in southwestern Pakistan – following a wave of coordinated gun and bomb attacks over the weekend that killed about 50 people.
A suicide blast in Shia mosque has killed more than 31 people in Islamabad, Pakistan. Jinnah made a country for Muslims but Muslims kill more Muslims than any other religion in Pakistan. pic.twitter.com/YQcVaY8bgs
Islamabad announced the killing of at least 145 separatist militants from the Balochistan Liberation Army, according to provincial officials. Authorities said the assaults targeted multiple districts, including Quetta and Gwadar, and included suicide bombings and gunfire at security installations.
Pakistan’s provincial leadership accused Afghanistan and India of backing the militants – claims that New Delhi has denied – as Islamabad imposed sweeping security restrictions across the province amid a broader surge in militant violence.
“Tough Choices”: Grant Cardone Puts Private Jet Up For Sale During Bitcoin Crash
Minutes after Bitcoin plunged below the $70,000 handle on Thursday evening, Grant Cardone of Cardone Capital told followers on X that, with “Bitcoin crashing,” he now has to sell his $75 million private jet.
“Bitcoin is crashing so I have to say bye to the love of my life. Tough choices,” Grant Cardone posted around 7:32 p.m. ET, minutes after Bitcoin slipped to around $69,000. Hours later, in Asian trading, it crashed further to about $60,033 (has since recovered to $70,000 by EOD Friday).
Cardone continued, “2024 Bombardier Global 7500, loaded, 5-year warranty, full programs, only 190 hours, full k-band, and ready for Starlink.”
Bitcoin is crashing so I have to say bye to the love of my life. Tough choices. 2024 Bombardier Global 7500, loaded, 5 year warranty, full programs, only 190 hours, full k-band and ready for starlink. Interior is gorgeous. 😢😢😢 find it on controller. pic.twitter.com/h9c5ndbC0u
He noted that the $75 million Global 7500 (fitted for 17 passengers) is listed on Controller, a website with a searchable marketplace for buying and selling aircraft (jets, turboprops, piston airplanes, helicopters).
Controller states the jet’s tail number is “N724EM” and has approximately 59.8 hours on the airframe. Total landings are about 25, an indication that use of the jet was fairly light.
Cardone’s X feed has seen a flood of posts over the last year about a “Bitcoin hybrid” strategy that works as a real-estate syndication, running a built-in Bitcoin accumulation plan inside the same fund.
Bitcoin drawdowns appear to be a stress test for Cardone’s hybrid model. One can only imagine what a worst-case scenario, combining a crypto drawdown with tightening liquidity and stress across commercial real estate, would do to that strategy.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the country’s central bank, and seven Chinese regulatory agencies published a joint statement on Friday banning the unapproved issuance of Renminbi-pegged stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).
The ban applies to both domestic and foreign stablecoin and tokenized RWA issuers, according to the statement, which was also signed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and China’s Securities Regulatory Commission. A translation of the announcement said:
“Stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies perform some of the functions of fiat currencies in disguise during circulation and use. No unit or individual at home or abroad may issue RMB-linked stablecoins without the consent of relevant departments.”
Winston Ma, an adjunct professor at New York University (NYU) Law School and former Managing Director of CIC, China’s sovereign wealth fund, told Cointelegraph that the ban extends to the onshore and offshore versions of China’s Renminbi, also called the yuan.
“The Beijing crypto ban rule applies across all RMB-related markets, whether CNH or CNY,” he said. CNH is the offshore version of the Renminbi, designed to give the currency flexibility in foreign exchange markets, without sacrificing currency controls, Ma said.
“This is the latest step in a multi‑year project: Keep speculative crypto outside the formal financial system, while actively promoting the usage of e-CNY, the sovereign CBDC issued by China’s central bank,” he said.
The announcement follows the Chinese government approving commercial banks to share interest with clients holding the country’s digital yuan, a central bank digital currency (CBDC) managed by state authorities
Chinese government briefly considered yuan-pegged stables, but focused on CBDC instead
In August 2025, reports began circulating that China’s government was considering allowing private companies to issue yuan-pegged stablecoins, a major reversal of long-standing policy.
However, the Chinese government restricted stablecoin and digital asset issuance in September of that same year, instructing stablecoin issuers to pause or halt their stablecoin trials until further notice.
Bessent Says Iranian Leaders Wiring Money Out Of Country ‘Like Crazy’
Lest anyone still entertain the idea that Washington conducts military interventions abroad for the sake of “democracy” or because it “stands with the people” or for “human rights” – we bring you Thursday’s testimony of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent before the Senate Banking Committee…
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Iran:
We created a dollar shortage in the country. It came to a swift conclusion.
I would say the culmination came in December, when one of the largest banks in Iran went under after a bank run. The central bank had to print money.… pic.twitter.com/vjtGaMDyt0
Bessent boasts, not for the first time, that it was actually crippling US sanctions which in large part fueled the January mass protests and riots which left thousands dead, also following intense clashes with police, and in some cases attacks on security services and the burning of buildings.
This isn’t actually the first time the Treasury Secretary was this blunt and revealing about the aim of US sanctions and regime change.
In March 2025, he spoke to the New York Economic Club and said the goal is “Making Iran Broke Again”. “Watch this space,” he said at the time. “If economic security is national security, the regime in Tehran will have neither.”
US sanctions are all about applying enough pain and suffering on the common populace in order to foment destabilization. Interestingly, Bessent has further claimed that Iranian leaders are moving money out of the country “like crazy” in a signal which could spell “the end may be near” for current Iranian rulers.
He went on in the Thursday Senate presentation to the declare “the rats are leaving the ship” in Iran, pointing to what he described as accelerating capital flight among the country’s leadership.
Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent:
“We have seen the Iranian leadership wiring money out of the country like crazy. The rats are leaving the ship.” pic.twitter.com/p3PcShjmS3
The geopolitical and miliary fronts have seen setback after setback for Iran as well:
Israel has carried out assassinations of top Iranian nuclear scientists, as well as helped plan the US assassination of IRGC Commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.
Over the past two years, it has also assassinated the leadership of anti-Israel groups funded by Iran in the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
In June, a 12-day war began with Israeli strikes on Iran that killed between 1,060 and 1,190 Iranians. This constant scenario of being under political and military siege pushes Iran into cycles that dig its economic hole deeper.
Trump is keeping up his maximum pressure campaign, and has been able to get Tehran to the table, but there’s still an uphill battle if the two sides hope to forge a new agreement.
Marco Rubio lays out the four US demands for Iran:
🔹End nuclear program
🔹Limit range of ballistic missiles
🔹End support for proxies like Hezbollah
🔹Protect the rights of Iranians
The above Rubio speech outlines where things stand from Washington’s perspective, and so a new US strike on the Islamic Republic in the near future seems likely at this point.
Soaring Trucker Rejection Rates Suggest “Epic Year” For Drivers
Trucking advocacy group American Truckers United set the narrative late last year that the Trump administration’s crackdown on fraudulent, non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses that flooded US highways during the Biden-Harris regime era – linked to deadly crashes nationwide and the collapse in spot rates for mom-and-pop American truckers – was finally set to end and begin transitioning into industry tailwinds in 2026.
The note was penned on Dec. 27 and titled“Trump’s Highway Enforcement Lays Groundwork For U.S. Trucking Revival.“ ATU pointed out that the Trump administration’s purging of illegal alien truck drivers was set to create fairer wages, safer roads, and protect the jobs of honest, hard-working citizen truckers.
ATU noted a reversal in trucking spot rates in late 2025. Fast forward to today, rejection rates published on X by FreightWaves founder and CEO Craig Fuller show what is shaping up to be a stellar year for American truckers.
Fuller posted Truckload Rejection Index (TRI) data from SONAR showing rejection rates of 14%.
TRI tracks the percentage of contracted truckload shipments that carriers reject instead of hauling at the agreed contract rate, and only suggests that truck capacity is tightening after the Trump administration began purging illegals from the trucking industry.
Fuller emphasized, “26 could be an epic year for truckers.”
Rejection rates break 14% as the rally in trucking continues
LAS VEGAS—Every morning, Raul Contreras rides his mountain bike along the quiet streets of northeast Las Vegas, passing tidy stucco homes and lawns that reflect a good quality of life.
To him, the area is a hidden gem, far from urban crime and congestion. Families thrive, kids play and go to school safely, and neighbors look out for each other.
He had no idea that one of these homes was hiding a secret that could threaten public health.
On Jan. 31, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police and SWAT teams raided the house at 979 Sugar Springs Drive, a place Contreras passes every day.
Inside the garage, they discovered a suspected biological laboratory containing a freezer, several refrigerators, a centrifuge and other specialized equipment, and over 1,000 vials and gallon-sized containers of unknown red and brown liquids.
“That’s kind of scary,” Contreras, who lives about two blocks away, told The Epoch Times. “You don’t know what the hell is in that stuff.”
“Now, you know it can happen in any neighborhood—even the quietest,” he said.
The discovery has left residents feeling unsettled and unsure. Some are asking how this suspected biolab went unnoticed, possibly as long as three years, in an active crime watch community.
A crime watch community is one in which residents partner with local law enforcement to reduce crime through increased surveillance, reporting, and, in some cases, technology.
“I feel they shouldn’t have let it go on,” said Kathy, who gave only her first name, as she walked her dog near the now-empty home.
“It’s scary. It’s really easy to operate under the radar here.”
Cody Human, who owns a tree trimming service in Las Vegas, said he and his crew had planned to work at the house next door on the day of the raid.
However, when they arrived, they saw police officers and hazmat-suited personnel throughout the property.
“If I lived in this neighborhood, I would definitely be scared,” Human told The Epoch Times as he resumed work on Feb. 3.
“Anything like that is scary, especially for neighborhoods like this that have kids and families,” he said.
“I mean, this neighborhood is known as a family-oriented neighborhood. You’ve got churches. This is one of the better neighborhoods. It’s very clean, very quiet.”
Meanwhile, a team of local, state, and federal investigators is working to identify the materials seized from the suspected biolab and their purpose.
“We recognize that the public is seeking clarity,” Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters on Feb. 2. “What were they testing for? What possibilities are being considered?”
FBI scientists and specialized evidence teams entered the garage, where they opened the refrigerators and a freezer to inspect their contents.
Some items appeared to have been used to store biological and chemical materials, McMahill said.
The joint investigation involved multiple agencies and a “layered use of technology,” including Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department drones and a robotic dog, to assess environmental conditions at the residence to limit risk of exposure to potential pathogens.
McMahill said investigators collected more than 1,000 pieces of evidence and stored them temporarily at the Southern Nevada Health District building.
On Feb. 2, FBI agents transported the materials by aircraft to the National Bioforensic Analysis Center in Maryland, according to Christopher Delzotto, special agent in charge of the investigation at the FBI’s Las Vegas office.
McMahill said the Sugar Springs Drive home is owned by David Destiny Discovery LLC, whose principal is David He, the same person connected to an illegal biolab shut down in Reedley, California, in 2023.
The Epoch Times previously reported that David He is the pseudonym used by Jia Bei Zhu, a Chinese national.
The Justice Department releases a photo of Jia Bei Zhu, arrested in connection with an illegal Chinese biolab in Reedley, Calif., on Oct. 19, 2023. Department of Justice
Investigators at the Reedley biolab found materials possibly linked to infectious diseases, including hepatitis, COVID-19, HIV, malaria, and other dangerous pathogens, McMahill said.
Police have named He as a suspect in the Las Vegas case, and said federal authorities were already holding him because of charges related to the 2023 investigation.
A second suspect, Ori Salomon, 55, a nonimmigrant foreign national, was also arrested in the Las Vegas investigation. Salomon, who also spells his surname as Solomon, manages the home on Sugar Springs Drive and a nearby house on Temple View Drive.
Police booked Salomon at the Clark County Detention Center for disposing of and releasing dangerous waste, and he was released on $3,000 bail. Salomon is also facing a federal felony charge of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.
His next court appearance is scheduled for March 4.
The sheriff said the Reedley investigation raised significant concerns about what local authorities might encounter at the Sugar Springs Drive property.
“While it is unknown whether similar materials were present here at the Las Vegas residence, the possibility required us to proceed with extreme caution,” McMahill said.
On Jan. 31, the FBI also executed a search warrant at the property on Temple View Drive, where several people resided, but found no illegal biological materials inside.
When police went into the property on Sugar Springs Drive, they found three people living in different rooms they were renting. These people are not involved in the current investigation, McMahill said.
According to county documents obtained by The Epoch Times, David Destiny Discovery purchased the Sugar Springs Drive property in October 2022 from Wang Zhaoyan, who was connected to companies involved in the Reedley case.
Cuba Ready To Negotiate With Trump, But Urges Dialing Down Of Pressure
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has offered to enter negotiations with Washington, but has made clear that this must happen “without pressure” – at a moment the Trump administration is seeking to economically strangle Cuba – even going so far as to openly tout the desire to see regime change.
“Cuba is willing to engage in dialogue with the United States,” the Cuban leader announced Thursday. He made clear this can be a “dialogue on any topic… but without pressure or precondition.”
But his key caveat is that for dialogue to take place, it must happen “from a position of equals, with respect for our sovereignty, our independence and our self-determination” and without “interference in our internal affairs.“
Díaz-Canel added that Cuba has long been subjected to “intense media campaigns of slander, hatred, and psychological warfare.”
President Trump has been seeking to end oil imports to Cuba, and after the Maduro overthrow, this has become a real possibility, given that the United States can now demand that the interim government in Caracas end its oil exports to Havana. Venezuela has always been Cuba’s number one supplier.
Mexico too has recently halted oil sales to Cuba so that it can avoid coming under a White House pressure campaign.
But there’s still a lifeline: “Russian oil has been supplied to Cuba on numerous occasions in recent years. We expect this practice to continue,” Moscow’s ambassador to Cuba, Viktor Koronelli, has explained.
In the background, Cuban immigrants in the US dread the possibility of being sent back to Cuba, especially with its economy in a sanctions-induced tailspin:
“It’s been brutal,” said Estévez. “Imagine Dylan hugging his phone every night when he sees his dad. I wouldn’t wish this on any mother.”
As the US government heaps pressure on Cuba, cutting off access to its oil shipments, Donald Trump has framed the campaign as an effort to make the island safe for Cuban Americans.
“A lot of people that live in our country are treated very badly by Cuba,” Trump said recently. “They all voted for me, and we want them to be treated well. We’d like to be able to have them go back to a home in their country, where they haven’t seen their family, their country for many, many decades.”
Last weekend, Trump said “We’re starting to talk to Cuba” and explained his view that “It doesn’t have to be a humanitarian crisis. I think they probably would come to us and want to make a deal. So Cuba would be free again.”
But there’s some clear regime change activity happening behind the scenes, with The Wall Street Journalreporting last week that the White House is “searching for Cuban government insiders who can help cut a deal to push out the Communist regime by the end of the year.”
