Via The Cradle

A Turkish prosecutor has demanded more than 2,000 years in prison for Istanbul’s jailed mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, accusing him of leading a vast corruption network that allegedly defrauded the state of billions of liras, according to an indictment unveiled on Tuesday.

Istanbul Chief Prosecutor Akin Gurlek said the nearly 4,000-page document names 402 suspects, including Imamoglu, and charges them with forming a criminal organization, bribery, fraud, money laundering, and bid-rigging. 

He said the alleged network caused 160 billion Turkish liras (around $3.8 billion) in losses to the state over 10 years.

The indictment, which includes findings by the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) and what Gurlek described as “digital and video evidence,” portrays Imamoglu as the founder and head of the organization. It also accuses several business figures of being coerced into paying bribes through a secret municipal fund.

Turkish media reported that Imamoglu faces 142 separate charges and could serve up to 2,352 years in prison if convicted. 

The mayor, detained since March, has rejected all accusations and denounced them as politically driven. His arrest sparked the largest demonstrations in Turkiye in over a decade.

Imamoglu previously received a separate prison term in July for allegedly insulting and threatening the city’s chief prosecutor – a verdict he is appealing. 

Additional charges against him include espionage, document forgery, and defamation of public officials. He is also accused of transferring residents’ personal data to obtain foreign campaign funding, which Imamoglu has dismissed as “nonsense.”

The government has denied accusations by Imamoglu and his Republican People’s Party (CHP) that the proceedings are politically motivated, insisting that Turkiye’s courts are independent.

The Istanbul municipality and Imamoglu’s lawyers have not commented on the latest indictment, with the trial date to be set once the court accepts the case.

The sweeping indictment against Imamoglu aligns with what Turkish academic and writer Fatih Yasli describes as a broader campaign by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to dismantle the country’s democratic framework. 

Yasli argues that Ankara has turned the judiciary into a mechanism of “de-electoralization,” or criminalizing opposition forces while extending selective overtures to the Kurdish movement. 

Within this context, the case against the Istanbul mayor, the most prominent figure in the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is seen as part of a wider effort to fracture the opposition, reclaim CHP-led municipalities, and entrench Erdogan’s power through judicial and administrative control rather than through elections.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

Viennese teachers are reporting growing challenges with students from immigrant backgrounds who are increasingly unwilling to learn German or adapt to local values, according to teachers’ union representative Thomas Krebs of the Christian Trade Unionists Group (FCG).

Speaking to Heute, Krebs said many of those arriving from conflict or crisis regions now bring radical beliefs that pose problems in Austrian classrooms.

“In the past, people fled from extremism. Now, many people come to us radicalized by extremism and spread these ideas here as well,” said Krebs.

He cited incidents of female teachers being disrespected or assaulted by male students and parents, saying such behavior reflects imported attitudes that reject gender equality.

“This disrespect ranges from refusing to shake hands to insults and physical assaults,” he added.

Krebs said the problem also affects staff relations, with reports of some male teachers refusing to shake hands with female colleagues for similar reasons. He warned that children from Western or secular families are sometimes treated as inferior by classmates, while those from conservative backgrounds who wish to integrate face pressure to conform.

“Students from Western cultural backgrounds are not seen as equals,” Krebs said, adding that liberal democratic values are often dismissed in favor of religious rules.

According to the union, teachers frequently encounter resistance to Austria’s educational standards.

“Our educational principles are often rejected. For example, religious content is prioritized over the content of the curriculum prescribed by Austrian law,” Krebs stated.

The FCG union is calling for new measures to address what it describes as a widening integration gap. It wants not only mandatory German-language instruction but also compulsory integration programs held outside of school, with attendance monitored by authorities.

“Effective teaching is only possible if there is also a willingness to integrate,” Krebs said. “The values of our democratic society must be conveyed in such a way that fundamental rights and culture are understood as an enrichment and not opposed.”

Recent data and testimony have reinforced concerns about language barriers and integration in Vienna’s schools. Of the roughly 16,700 first-graders enrolled in the city, more than 44 percent — about 7,400 children — do not have sufficient German skills to follow lessons. In the 2018/2019 school year, the proportion was 30 percent. Officials note that around 60 percent of these students were actually born in Austria, suggesting that many are growing up in what commentator Andreas Mölzer described as “closed parallel societies that simply refuse integration.”

“This means they grow up in families and closed parallel societies that simply refuse integration. Integration into our social system and our cultural fabric depends primarily on language acquisition,” Mölzer wrote in the Austrian daily Krone, warning that many such children risk “entering life without a qualification and with limited career prospects.”

Statistics from Austria’s middle schools show the same pattern. According to STATcube last October, only about 8,500 of Vienna’s 26,800 middle school students use German as their primary language, while 76 percent speak another language at home. In some districts, including Margareten, Hernals, and Alsergrund, that figure exceeds 90 percent.

Freedom Party (FPÖ) education spokesman Hermann Brückl called the situation “a full-blown educational emergency,” claiming that “German is becoming a foreign language in our own classrooms.” He pointed to data showing that 41.2 percent of students in Vienna’s compulsory schools now identify as Muslim, surpassing Christian students, who make up 34.5 percent. The figures were confirmed by the Austrian Integration Fund (ÖIF).

Brückl’s party argued that political leaders have failed to address “parallel societies” in schools. “Instead of demanding achievement and integration, parallel societies are being cultivated directly in our schools,” Brückl said, adding that the number of pupils in German-language support courses has grown by a third since 2019, and those in special education classes have doubled.

Last October, former principal and author Christian Klar warned of what he called a “rapid Islamization” of Austrian schools. In an interview last year, he said schools in Vienna’s northern districts now have up to 90 percent of students from migrant backgrounds, leading to “increasing pressure on non-Muslim students” and rising anti-Semitic incidents. Klar argues that Austrian schools must “take a massive stand” against fundamentalist attitudes and ensure that classrooms remain neutral spaces free of religious coercion.

Teachers’ unions report that Vienna’s schools are struggling to cope. Krebs previously said staff resignations are increasing, citing “violence, extremism, and misogyny” as the main reasons. Evelyn Kometter, chair of Austria’s national parents’ association, described classrooms where “only three out of 22 students can speak German,” forcing teachers to repeat instructions multiple times. “By then, two-thirds of the lesson is already over,” she said.

Krebs warned that expanding capacity alone will not solve the problem. “They can think of nothing better to do than to plow up the last green spaces and sports facilities for schools with excavators and construction equipment and to pave them over with containers and huge extensions without any real plan,” he said.

Read more here…

Authored by Armstrong Williams via The Epoch Times,

When a 29-year-old man in Minnesota can post a TikTok video allegedly offering $45,000 for the assassination of former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, we can’t dismiss it as another outburst from an online extremist. It’s a symptom of something far deeper—the moral corrosion of our civic life.

According to the FBI, Tyler Avalos uploaded a video on Oct. 16 captioned “WANTED: Pam Bondi. REWARD: $45,000. DEAD OR ALIVE (PREFERABLY DEAD),” complete with Bondi’s image in a rifle’s crosshairs. This wasn’t done in secret corners of the dark web. It was posted openly on TikTok—the global stage for attention seekers and provocateurs.

That brazenness should alarm every American. It tells us the guardrails that once kept outrage and violence in check have collapsed.

There was a time when people feared consequences—not irrationally but morally. That fear was a civic virtue, a recognition that actions carried weight. Now, we live in an age where shock replaces shame, and fame replaces fear. Social media has transformed the unhinged into the influential.

Platforms such as TikTok and X reward extremity, not reason. The algorithm doesn’t care if you’re serious or insane, only that you’re loud. For people who feel powerless or ignored, outrage becomes currency. Violence becomes a shortcut to significance.

When someone can post a public assassination bounty and expect followers before federal agents, deterrence is gone.

Avalos’s alleged threat isn’t just criminal—it’s emblematic of political nihilism: the belief that nothing is sacred, that speech is merely spectacle, and that power justifies anything. From threats against judges to violence at rallies, this nihilism has infected the bloodstream of U.S. politics.

And both sides are guilty.

The left excuses its extremists as “activists.”

The right excuses its own as “patriots.”

Each side’s moral blind spot validates the other’s madness. But when society measures justice by team loyalty, it ceases to be a society at all.

The republic only endures when restraint is voluntary—when people choose not to cross the line because they still feel its existence. Today, that line has been erased.

Deterrence requires two things: certainty and consequence. Both have eroded.

Americans watch as violent rioters go free while ordinary citizens who defend themselves face prosecution. They see selective justice—leniency for the powerful, vengeance for the politically inconvenient. When the law looks partisan, people stop fearing it. When the rules depend on who you are, not what you did, deterrence dies.

A nation cannot maintain order when justice is conditional. The law must be blind, not biased.

In a fame-driven society, notoriety has become the new immortality. The unhinged no longer fear prison; they crave recognition. Attention—even infamy—has become reward enough.

That’s why enforcement must be swift and visible. The FBI’s quick action in arresting Avalos was necessary and right. Justice delayed is weakness broadcast. But enforcement alone won’t fix the deeper rot. We must restore moral deterrence—the cultural understanding that some acts are beneath us as human beings and unacceptable as citizens.

What we are witnessing is the collapse of consequence. Every civilization that dies first loses its capacity for shame. Once people stop fearing moral failure, legal punishment soon follows. The boundaries of right and wrong blur into the fog of “my truth” and “your truth.”

That’s where America stands—a nation of endless outrage, with no sense of proportion or restraint. Politicians feed the frenzy because it keeps voters angry and engaged. But anger is combustible. When words lose guardrails, violence finds opportunity.

The answer isn’t just tougher laws. It’s tougher character. It’s moral courage—the kind that refuses to justify violence, no matter who it targets. Deterrence begins not in Washington but in the conscience of every citizen.

America doesn’t need a speech code; it needs a moral compass. We must once again teach that liberty is not license, that freedom requires responsibility, and that the rule of law must apply evenly or it applies to no one.

Until that happens, we’ll keep breeding more Tyler Avaloses—men who confuse infamy with importance, and chaos with courage.

And when fear—the healthy kind—finally dies, civilization follows.

As if nuclear armageddon down here on Earth wasn’t enough to worry about…China could soon be readying particle beams from outer space.

Particle beams — streams of high-speed atoms or subatomic particles — have long been the holy grail of space warfare. The concept sounds simple: zap an enemy satellite with a beam so intense it melts or fries the target. Reality, however, has been less cooperative — mainly because of power, according to the South China Morning Post.

Building such a weapon means delivering megawatts of energy with microsecond precision, a combo engineers usually describe as “pick one.” Systems that are powerful are clumsy; systems that are precise can’t handle the juice.

But Chinese scientists now claim they’ve solved this decades-old physics headache. In a study published in Advanced Small Satellite Technology, a team led by Su Zhenhua of DFH Satellite Co. unveiled a prototype power system that reportedly hits both marks — high power and pinpoint control.

Their device pushed out 2.6 megawatts of pulsed power while keeping synchronization accuracy to 0.63 microseconds. “Existing pulsed power supplies typically have an output power of less than 1 megawatt and synchronisation control accuracy worse than 1 millisecond,” Su’s team wrote.

SCMP writes that the researchers said more juice was needed because “devices like electromagnetic jamming warfare simulators and particle beam systems demand extremely high instantaneous power.” The prototype, they added, “solves the problems of insufficient power supply and degraded control accuracy.”

Instead of relying on miracle materials, the team redesigned the entire system — from solar-fed capacitors to ultra-precise discharge control — ensuring all 36 power modules fire within 630 nanoseconds of each other. The result: 2.59 MW of clean, square-wave pulses, perfect for particle accelerators, lasers, or any other “definitely not weapon” applications.

While the paper highlights peaceful uses — laser comms, ion thrusters, radar — the timing is hard to miss. With the U.S. expanding its Starlink and Starshield constellations, China’s interest in space-based power systems seems less about better weather forecasting and more about keeping pace in the orbital arms race.

Whether the system can survive space’s brutal environment — radiation, vacuum, temperature swings — is still unclear. At least for now, China’s latest power breakthrough may be less “Death Star ready” and more “promising PowerPoint slide.”

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The US War Department has begun sending conventional ground forces to Panama for training in jungle warfare for the first time in more than two decades, ABC News reported on Monday.

News of the training in Panama comes amid a major US military buildup in the Caribbean and a push toward a potential war with Venezuela, a country with vast jungles. A US military official told ABC that the training in Panama is not intended to prepare troops for a potential mission in Venezuela, but President Trump has reportedly been reviewing options for attacking the country.

While the US hasn’t sent enough forces to the Caribbean for a full-scale invasion of Venezuela, US military planners reportedly do believe it has a sufficient force to seize strategic ports and airfields in Venezuela.

According to a report from The New York Times, one of the options presented to President Trump would involve sending troops to capture airfields or oil infrastructure inside the country.

The ABC report said that US soldiers and Marines are participating in a three-week training course once called “Green Hell” due to the similarities to combat in Vietnam at the Base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón, formerly known as Fort Sherman.

The jungle training course at the base was shuttered in 1999 when the US pulled troops out of the country as part of a deal to cede control of the Panama Canal to the Panamanian government.

Earlier this year, President Trump was calling for the US to “retake” the Panama Canal, which led to the US signing a deal with Panama that allows US troop deployments to bases along the canal for training and military exercises.

Proponents of a regime change war with Venezuela to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro point to the 1989 US invasion of Panama that led to the arrest of Panamanian leader and former CIA asset Manuel Noriega.

But a major difference between a potential invasion of Venezuela and the US invasion that ousted Noriega is the fact that the US had a long-established military presence in Panama at the time.

Maduro has vowed that Venezuela is ready to fight if the US attacks, and Russia has recently delivered air defenses to the country and is considering further support.

The Venezuelan leader also says that a pro-government militia that has millions of members is also ready to take up arms against any invading force.

The Canadian military is hoping to recruit and train 300,000 public servants as part of a national mobilization plan, according to a directive from their defense department.

The plan would call for federal and provincial employees to be given a one-week training course in firearms, flying drones, and driving trucks, according to the directive signed by Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan and defence deputy minister Stefanie Beck. 

The public servants would be inducted into the Supplementary Reserve, which is currently made up of inactive or retired members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return to duty if called. At this point, there are 4,384 personnel in the Supplementary Reserves, but in the case of an emergency, that would be boosted to 300,000, according to the directive from Beck and Carignan.

While the supplementary recruiting push will “prioritize volunteer public servants at the federal and provincial/territorial level” the entry standards wouldn’t be strict, according to the nine-page unclassified directive. –Ottawa Citizen

“The entry criteria for the Supplementary or other Reserve should be less restrictive than the Reserve Force for age limits as well as physical and fitness requirements,” reads the document. 

Once inducted into the ranks, the public servants would need to do one week per year of military training, but would not be issued uniforms. While they would receive medical coverage in exchange for their annual military service, the week of training would not count toward their pensions, the directive reads. 

The directive also approves the creation of a “tiger team” (tigers are not native to Canada) – which will work on establishing a Defense Mobilization Plan (DMP) which will examine what changes are needed between government legislation and other factors to allow for such a large addition of Canadians into the military. 

“Initial planning has begun to explore how the CAF (Canadian Armed Forces) could contribute to greater national resilience, including leveraging increased readiness from an expanded Reserve Force for defence purposes, in times of crisis, or for natural disasters for example,” Department of National Defence spokeswoman Andrée-Anne Poulin told the Citizen – though the military wouldn’t comment on the timelines for the creation of the mobilization plan despite the fact that this directive was issued in May. 

The directive would also beef up the Canadian Forces reservists – volunteers who are in current military units that are considered part-time, and are involved in training on a year-round basis. The current reserve force under the directive would jump from 23,561 to 100,000 for the mobilization plan. And again, they have no plan on how to even do this. 

According Carignan and Beck, the plan requires a Whole of Society (WoS) effort – meaning that all Canadians will need to contribute to the initiative, and that the Privy Council Office would lead a government “approach to population engagement to advance servant culture around sovereignty and public accountability,” whatever that means. 

“Defence will not accomplish the outcome alone, rather it will necessitate shaping, facilitation and engagement with the Privy Council Office, other government departments and agencies as well as socialization with the Canadian public,” they added.

The so-called ‘tiger team’ will also consult with Canadian allies, “including Finland which is a recognized leader in this area.” 

Of note, Finland’s military is based on conscription – every male citizen aged 18-60 is liable to serve in the military, while women can apply on a voluntary basis (but what is a woman?).

After Finnish citizens complete their compulsory full-time military service, they join the reserves – which now has an age limit of 65. 

Buy a Terrance and Phillip tactical patch here… (no affiliation)

Submitted by The Bureau’s Sam Cooper,

A sprawling U.S. investigative report has placed a Richmond, B.C., couple already identified in a high-profile Chinese-diaspora repression case at the center of an even more explosive national-security controversy south of the border: they are linked to a web of shell companies that own a trailer park beside Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri — home to the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and launch point for the June 2025 strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The same couple are named in B.C. court filings and appear in video evidence from a saga outside Vancouver journalist Bingchen Gao’s home, where activists aligned with Miles Guo — a New York–based tycoon with reported Chinese intelligence ties — staged repeated demonstrations in a siege-like campaign.

Taken together, the property records unearthed by the Daily Caller News Foundation, along with court and corporate documents reviewed by The Bureau to verify the American reporting, outline a cross-border pattern of potential Chinese state activity, echoing past cases of high-profile actors using Vancouver as a base for operations into the United States.

Raising the stakes, The Bureau has also identified a former Vancouver business entity tied to the couple, involved in hard-rock lithium exploration in Canada’s Northwest Territories — an alarming detail suggesting their network could intersect with China’s drive for critical minerals supply chains in North America.

The real estate thread south of the border is clear. Missouri business and environmental filings assembled by investigative reporter Philip Lenczycki show the Knob Noster Trailer Park is registered to Property Solutions 3603 LP, with a state operating permit locating the property directly north of Whiteman — roughly a mile from the runway. Companion filings in Utah and Georgia connect similarly named entities to the Richmond residents, Esther Mei and Cheng Hu. The couple, who share a Richmond home according to court documents, did not respond to repeated requests for comment, Lenczycki reported.

A former CIA operations officer said such thinly veiled ownership structures are typical of state-linked activity, including the use of foreign nationals to place assets near critical infrastructure. Bryan Dean Wright, a former CIA officer, told the Daily Caller there was “zero chance a Chinese couple from Canada rolled into Knob Noster and saw a strictly financial investment in a dumpy plot of land,” arguing that the trailer park “would hypothetically give Xi Jinping a range of options to wreak havoc.”

Wright’s assessment is not proof of wrongdoing, but his conclusion aligns with patterns previously reported by The Bureau.

At a recent hearing in Washington, D.C., Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics Director Donnie Anderson told lawmakers that investigations into PRC-linked cannabis operations have uncovered claims of Chinese government interests strategically purchasing property near sensitive U.S. infrastructure — including a munitions plant in Oklahoma supplying a large share of the Pentagon’s heavy weapons.

Across North America, cases of PRC-linked farmland acquisitions are moving from headlines to court filings and prompting calls for official investigations. The Bureau has reported on major land purchases in Prince Edward Island allegedly tied to Beijing’s United Front network, and on the premier’s subsequent call for RCMP and FINTRAC investigations.

What brings the Richmond couple’s story into sharper focus for Canadian readers is the series of incidents outside Bingchen Gao’s home in 2020 and 2023.

Reporting on charges against Miles Guo in 2024, Global News in British Columbia wrote that demonstrators clad in New Federal State of China clothing protested outside Gao’s home for 77 days in 2020 and returned in January 2023. The outlet noted the group “would say little… save calling Gao’ very dangerous’ and calling for his expulsion from Canada.”

In an earlier case, the Chinese journalist Gao fought a high-profile defamation battle with Vancouver developer Miaofei Pan, a leader of the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations (CACA) — which former PRC diplomat Chen Yonglin has publicly described as operating at a “controlling level” of the United Front Work Department in B.C. Pan and another CACA leader dispute that characterization, but they have also been questioned by the RCMP in probes into alleged PRC “police station” activity in Richmond, where no charges have been laid.

Pan, a prominent Liberal donor, was featured in The Globe and Mail’s reporting on wealthy Chinese immigrants hosting fundraisers attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In his defamation case against Gao, Pan was awarded $1 in damages after B.C. Supreme Court Justice Neena Sharma rebuked his conduct, writing that she had “serious concerns” about his credibility.

In the subsequent Surrey neighborhood-siege case, civil pleadings and video evidence show Gao alleging an extended campaign by New Federal State of China demonstrators, including Esther Mei and Cheng Hu, outside his residence, followed by online amplification.

Gao’s claim states that from September 15, 2020, to December 3, 2020, and from January 20 to 25, 2023, the defendants appeared in front of his home, holding signs declaring “Gao Bingchen is a spy of the Chinese Communist Party.” The filing names several individuals, including the Richmond couple linked to the Missouri trailer park.

With this network’s legal connections to Miles Guo — also established in B.C. court records reviewed by the Daily Caller — the rabbit hole deepens. The NFSC formally launched in 2020, and Guo was convicted in New York in 2024 in a billion-dollar fraud case. A U.S. bankruptcy adversary filing lists Vancouver Sailing Farm Ltd. among defendants, a documented Canadian arm within the Guo-linked network. Guo has publicly described intelligence “affiliations” and proximity to senior Chinese security figures.

As I reported in Wilful Blindness (pp. 72–78), fugitive smuggling tycoon Lai Changxing — who migrated to Vancouver and was long alleged by police to have Big Circle Boys ties — operated within a PLA military-intelligence milieu overseen by Maj. Gen. Ji Shengde, later purged amid the Yuanhua scandal. U.S. fundraiser Johnny Chung testified that Ji directed $300,000 toward the 1996 Clinton campaign, and Miles Guo has claimed close ties to both Lai and Ji, saying he was asked by Ji to assist the PLA’s 2nd Department — a characterization he later repeated in interviews describing himself as an “affiliate” of Chinese state security.

If the Missouri trailer-park findings ultimately confirm Chinese-state adjacency through direct links to Vancouver-based property owners, they would fit a well-established Canadian pattern.

Historian Dennis Molinaro’s Under Assault traces how Beijing has repeatedly used Canada as a staging ground to reach its true strategic target — the United States. He charts a progression from political influence and industrial theft to targeted scientific infiltration, often leveraging patriotic sentiment and financial inducements within the overseas Chinese diaspora.

The book revisits Su Bin’s Boeing-theft case from Vancouver and a Toronto conduit for U.S. Tesla battery IP — both examples where Canadian enforcement followed only after U.S. intervention.

Su Bin — arrested in Richmond, B.C., in 2014 and later extradited — admitted conspiring with China-based accomplices tied to the People’s Liberation Army to hack major U.S. defense contractors for export-controlled data on flagship air programs, including Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III and, by tasking, the F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters. He pleaded guilty in March 2016 and was sentenced to 46 months that July, with the plea acknowledging a years-long operation to steal sensitive military information and transmit it to China in violation of computer-intrusion and Arms Export Control statutes.

As former FBI agent Justin Vallese — cited by Molinaro — said after Su Bin’s conviction, he “didn’t know how many Su Bins there are.”

More storms clouds are gathering over the torrid, and in some cases chaotic, rollout of US data centers. 

Fermi’s massive 11 GW energy and data center project in Texas, called Project Matador, which the company has envisioned to be the world’s largest AI data center and energy campus in the Texas Panhandle, near Amarillo, is struggling to close the deal with its first major data center tenant. And since Fermi is set up as REIT that allocates income from tenants to shareholders, the delay may raise doubts about attracting other potential money-generating tenants, in a toxic feedback loop.

Fermi’s Donald J. Trump campus is an array of solar, natural gas and nuclear power generation, as well as storage and 2.6 million square feet of data-center capacity. With 11 gigawatts of power, including 6 gigawatts of nuclear power and 5 gigawatts of gas-powered generation, Project Matador ranks as the “largest advanced energy and data campus in the world” to deliver next-generation AI at scale, Fermi said.

Besides the name of the plant, the company has ties to Trump through Rick Perry, a co-founder and board member. The latest filings show that Perry owned a little more than 16.5 million Fermi shares, which represented 2.5% of the shares outstanding.

Fermi CEO Toby Neugebauer said Fermi’s goal is to catch up in November and regain the roughly 21-day delay in signing its first tenant with “intense” face-to-face meetings. It expects the lease to be signed in the current fourth quarter.

“I wouldn’t take anything as a sign of weakness with that delay,” Neugebauer told Wall Street analysts. “I would just say, you know, these are very large corporations who have multiple different stakeholders who have to sign off on everything that’s agreed to. And sometimes that takes longer than the commercial guys would prefer.”

It’s not all bad news. The company which went public on Oct 1, said it is still on track to start generating power next year; it has also already reached some major milestones with respect to regulatory progress with the NRC, as well as securing the permitting for the initial 6 GW of gas turbine power.

Progress with the NRC has included acceptance of their initial portion of a combined license application (COLA) for four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, achieved back in early September. Fermi has since submitted additional portions of the application, and will continue to submit the remainder of the required portions over the next year. This process could be sped up considerably if required environmental pre-work is reduced due to NEPA regulation revisions. The NRC has also agreed to an 18-month review timeline after the application is fully submitted. Fermi signed a Front-End Engineering Design contract with Hyundai E&C in October, with forging of long-lead nuclear components by Doosan Enerbility now in production

Last month, Fermi also scored a major win that has stifled the development of an endless number of data centers in the US. They were able to secure over 2.5 million gallons of water per day from the city of Amarillo, and agreed to pay twice the rate typically charged. Their location near one of the largest aquifers in the world has proven to be a huge benefit.

For gas power, earlier this month, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality granted preliminary approval for 6 GW of natural gas-based power generation, marking over half the project’s capacity and positioning it as one of the world’s largest such facilities. This approval, subject to additional discussions and close out administrative proceedings, integrates combined-cycle gas turbines with the first gigawatt targeted for coming online by late 2026.

While the regulatory rollout for the Trump-linked Fermi is going according to plan, the company’s latest headache appears to be with bringing potential tenants to the table for signing formal lease agreements.

While Fermi did not name the prospective tenant, it described it as an investment grade-rated corporation with power needs, and which has signed a letter of intent for a 20-year term, plus four additional five year blocks, in addition to advancing $150 million for the purpose of beginning some construction.

Investors are concerned with the 21-day delay in signing on the tenant, but management argues that the delay is not a sign of cold feet, and instead point to the $150 million construction advance as a sign of good faith, claiming investors should not be concerned with continued progress across multiple fronts.

It is also hard to imagine a data center would not see the benefit of signing with Project Matador due to the massive delays experienced at other locations with regards to securing permits or power, such as the recent headaches seen in California.

Project Matador is in many ways the embodiment of the Trump administration’s goals of building AI data center infrastructure in the United States as fast as possible, along with ensuring the majority of that is powered by nuclear energy. With constant reference to the AI race being the new “Manhattan Project”, it is hard to imagine the administration will not do everything within its power to ensure the success of America in the new global arms race.

That said Fermi’s stock fell Tuesday as investors brushed aside some positive developments announced in the company’s first release of quarterly results, such as beating an internal estimate for the amount of gas-fired generation it expects to bring online in 2026; following the news of the delay, FRMI is almost back to its post IPO lows.

The company reported a net loss for the first nine months of 2025 of $332 million, including $173.8 million in “charitable contributions”, $111.6 million of losses related to convertible notes and other securities. Fermi also said it expects to have about 2.2 gigawatts of gas-fired generation secured or under letter of intent in 2026, up from its initial target for 1 gigawatt from earlier this year.

Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Donald Trump issued a proclamation on Nov. 7 announcing “Anti-Communism Week,” which will commemorate the approximately 100 million victims who lost their lives to communist political systems over the years.

“This week, our Nation observes Anti-Communism Week, a solemn remembrance of the devastation caused by one of history’s most destructive ideologies,” the proclamation, issued on the National Day for the Victims of Communism, reads.

The order highlights the “devastation” of communist rule in countries around the world since its inception in Russia in 1917 by Vladimir Lenin following the Bolshevik Revolution. The collectivist ideology stems from “The Communist Manifesto,” written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848.

Common principles of communist rule include the destruction of family structures, the abolition of traditional societal morals, and the outlawing of religions and spiritual liberty.

In the proclamation, Trump honors individuals “taken by regimes that sought to erase faith, suppress freedom, and destroy prosperity earned through hard work, violating the God-given rights and dignity of those they oppressed.”

“As we honor their memory, we renew our national promise to stand firm against communism, to uphold the cause of liberty and human worth, and to affirm once more that no system of government can ever replace the will and conscience of a free people,” Trump wrote in the proclamation.

He highlighted the progress made since the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, ending the decades-long Cold War, while also cautioning against the subversive and persistent nature of tyranny.

“New voices now repeat old lies, cloaking them in the language of ‘social justice’ and ‘democratic socialism,’ yet their message remains the same: give up your freedom, place your trust in the power of the government, and trade the promise of prosperity for the empty comfort of control,” the proclamation reads.

Standard attempts to infiltrate Western societies include the use of disinformation campaigns, divisive rhetoric, the polarization of issues, and the manipulation of political movements to amplify pro-communist messaging, among other tactics.

Signs promoting communist ideologies were visible at the recent No Kings rallies in Washington, and The Epoch Times also observed dozens of pro-communist banners and placards in protests surrounding the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Some activists are calling for the elimination of private property and the dissolution of existing social structures. The messaging echoes the communist notion that political discord and chaos are necessary to create order.

Slogans depict the movement as one for the workers and common people, a theme used to generate support, though the historical record repeatedly demonstrates the trajectory of communism toward totalitarian control.

Approximately 1.5 billion people in five countries currently reside under communist regimes, with the majority in China and others in Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam.

Chinese Communist Party leaders have maintained strict control of the society since 1949, using imprisonment, forced organ harvesting, and murder, among other methods, to keep citizens in line.

Communist authorities uniformly seek to eradicate traditional values, aiming to elevate the regime to the highest authority on moral matters and to consolidate power at the top of the regime’s hierarchy.

The United States “rejects this evil doctrine,” and demonstrates a commitment to its founding principles, the president’s proclamation states.

“No ideology, whether foreign or domestic, can extinguish them,” the proclamation reads.

“We honor the victims of oppression by keeping their cause alive and by ensuring that communism and every system that denies the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness will find their place, once and for all, on the ash heap of history.”

Among many nonprofit groups addressing communism, the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is advocating for a “world free from the false hope of communism.”

“Communism has always been, and will always be, incompatible with liberty, prosperity, and the dignity of life,” the organization said in a statement. “We remember that while it always promises equality and liberation, it has only ever robbed people of their most basic rights and freedoms.”

Authored by Ken Silva via HeadlineUSA,

Remember Ray Epps, the J6er who encouraged others to go into the Capitol and committed violence against police officers, only to receive a year of probation for his crimes?

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., hasn’t forgotten. Massie announced on Friday that he wrote a letter to the FBI about Epps last month, seeking answers about its investigation into him.

Massie asked why the FBI initially closed its investigation into Epps by July 2021, despite having an abundance of evidence about him.

I sent a letter to the FBI director one month ago requesting unreleased information on Ray Epps. pic.twitter.com/I3amze9lUZ

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) November 9, 2025

According to FBI records, agents had “photographic/and or video evidence that James Ray Epps conspired to and/or recruited others to storm the United States Capitol Building.”

However, a July 29, 2021, FBI report said that its “investigation did not reveal sufficient evidence that Epps … engaged in acts of violence or committed any other criminal violations.” That’s despite the fact that video had already surfaced showing him pushing a sign into a group of police officers, and that Epps had admitted to trespassing on Capitol grounds.

The Justice Department apparently reopened the Epps case after Massie, Revolver News and other conservatives began to question whether he was being protected by government. The DOJ eventually slapped him with a lone misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct, and he received one year of probation in January 2024.

“This disparate treatment is particularly troubling when contrasted with the cases of most January 6 defendants,” Massie said in his recent letter to FBI Director Kashyap Patel. “Moreover, it raises the broader question of whether other defendants were similarly spared prosecution under comparable circumstances.”

Massie seeks all internal communications between FBI Headquarters and its Phoenix field office, which initially investigated Epps. He also seeks all communications between the FBI and DOJ about him.

Additionally, Massie wants to know whether the DOJ or any of its components, including the FBI, had any communication with Epps prior to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill protest. Such communications might indicate whether Epps was working for the government at the time.

Massie sought answers by Oct. 10. It’s unclear whether the FBI ever responded to the congressman’s letter, which is dated Oct. 3.

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.