Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Children whose mothers contracted COVID-19 while pregnant face an elevated risk of developing autism or another neurodevelopmental disorder, according to a new paper.

About one in six children born to mothers who tested positive for COVID-19 during pregnancy was diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder by age 3, researchers with Mass General Brigham said in the study. That was higher than the one in 10 other children who received a diagnosis of one of the disorders and were born to a woman who did not have COVID-19 during pregnancy.

“These findings highlight that COVID-19, like many other infections in pregnancy, may pose risks not only to the mother, but to fetal brain development,” Dr. Andrea Edlow, a specialist at Mass General Brigham and the senior author of the paper, said in an Oct. 30 statement.

In the paper, published by the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology last week following peer review, the researchers detailed how they analyzed records from births that took place within the Mass General Brigham system between March 1, 2020, and May 31, 2021.

The time period was chosen due to there being universal COVID-19 testing in labor and delivery units across the system.

Mothers were defined as having COVID-19 if they tested positive for the illness during pregnancy, and defined as not having COVID-19 if they did not test positive.

The overwhelming majority of each group was unvaccinated, as vaccines only became available in late 2020.

Of the 18,124 women who gave birth and were tested, 861 tested positive for COVID-19 while pregnant.

Other records were reviewed to see if the children received neurodevelopmental diagnoses, using codes for autism and other disorders.

Sixteen percent, or 140 children, born to those women received a neurodevelopmental diagnosis by their third birthday, compared to 1,680, or 9.7 percent, of the 17,263 other children.

After adjustments, the researchers said COVID-19 infection during pregnancy was linked to 29 percent higher odds of neurodevelopmental disorders in children born to the COVID-positive mothers. The risk was higher for infection during the third semester.

Even though there was an elevated risk recorded, Dr. Roy Perlis, another author of the study, said in a statement that the “overall risk of adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in exposed children likely remains low.”

Funding for the study came from grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Massachusetts General Hospital Executive Committee on Research.

In the conflicts of interest section, Perlis listed being a paid editor at another journal, the Journal of the American Medical Association, while Edlow said she is a consultant for several pharmaceutical companies, including Merck.

The researchers said one limit of the study was not tracking children’s diagnoses outside the Mass General Brigham system, which includes eight hospitals. Another was potentially missing asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 among pregnant women.

Amid enduring anxiety over the potential for the Ukraine war to escalate into a third world war, Russia last week offered to cement its disinterest in invading Europe by entering into a formal non-aggression pact with European Union and NATO states. However, Germany quickly signaled its disinterest in such a treaty — at least for now. 

In making the case for pouring weapons and money into Ukraine and urging it to prolong the war at any cost, Western hawks routinely claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin is bent on reconstituting the Soviet Union and eventually conquering Europe. Speaking at the Third Minsk International Conference in Belarus last Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov not only rejected those accusations, but said his country was willing to enter into a non-aggression pact: 

“We have repeatedly said that we had, and have, no intention to attack any current NATO or EU member. We are ready to enshrine this position in future security guarantees for this part of Eurasia.” 

Lavrov also expressed exasperation with Western governments, saying meaningful dialogue with them is futile for now, given their refusal to entertain “genuine collective security guarantees” that address the security interests of all parties — including Russia: 

“The heads of state and government of the European Union avoid considering these future guarantees, which are based on a completely collective foundation, and proudly declare that, after the Ukraine crisis, security guarantees should exist not with Russia’s participation, but against Russia. This is an example of their mindset.”

Following up on Russia’s offer at a press conference held by German Foreign Office spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer, journalist Florian Warweg of NachDenkSeiten asked about the German state’s assessment of the non-aggression-pact overtures. Rather than crediting Russia’s peaceful overture, Deschauer sidestepped the question, saying its Germany’s position that “the Russian side must end its war. In the meantime, “the German government will continue to support Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression.”  

Russia’s offer and Germany’s deflection come several weeks after Lavrov used an address to the United Nations General Assembly to refute the notion that Russia is seeking to attack European Union or NATO states. “Threats of force against Russia, accused of practically planning an attack on the North Atlantic Alliance [NATO] and the European Union, are becoming increasingly common,” Lavrov said. “President Putin has repeatedly debunked such provocations.”

At least temporarily rejecting a potential, major avenue of escalation that’s been making headlines, President Trump on Sunday said he wasn’t about to approve the shipment of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine.  Asked aboard Air Force One if he was thinking of selling the long-range, precision-guided missiles to Ukraine, Trump replied, “No, not really.” 

🚨@POTUS: “No, we’re not planning to supply Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles. While I always reserve the right to adjust policy, that’s not under consideration right now.” pic.twitter.com/hNAqSd7uh8

— Buraq (@Buraq515) November 3, 2025

On Oct 22, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte brought the proposal up at a meeting at the White House, but Trump has expressed concern over depleting America’s supply of the weapons. Last week, the Pentagon told Trump that the DOD had no such reservations, increasing the pressure on Trump to escalate America’s arming of Ukraine. Though dismissing the idea Sunday, he didn’t rule out subsequently changing his mind. 

With a 1,550-mile range, Tomahawks could put targets across a huge swath of Russia within Ukrainian range — including Moscow. Russia has warned against introducing Tomahawks to the war — arguing that their use would necessarily involve American service members. “Using Tomahawks without the direct participation of American military personnel is impossible,” said Putin. “This would mark a qualitatively new, completely new stage of escalation between Russia and the US.”   

Via Remix News,

The EU has a serious shortage of rare earths, which are vital for industrial and technological production on the continent. Poland may have at least a partial solution, and it has to do with Poland’s expertise in mining and extraction.

In a wide-ranging interview, Tomasz Zdzikot from the SET Foundation talks about how Europe has lagged behind in the mining of rare earth minerals for. years, with China clearly dominating the industry.

“Europe correctly diagnoses that raw materials are crucial, for example, in technological development and energy. (…) While the diagnostics have been good for over a decade, this has not translated into actions that could mitigate the identified risks,” the SET Foundation’s Tomasz Zdzikot told the DoRzeczy news portal.

A recent report from the SET Foundation addressed what the EU has identified as a key pillar of national security: the mining industry, and more broadly, ​​the raw materials industry.

Highlighting that Europe must “join the ongoing raw materials race,” Zdzikot said, “For over a decade, Europe has been correctly recognizing that raw materials are crucial, for example, in technological development and energy.”

How can Poland help?

This is where Poland’s mining industry will play a key role, Zdzikot told DoRzeczy. The country is not just involved in coal mining but copper mining, lithium mining, and titanium mining.

Poland’s KGHM is one of the world’s largest silver producers, as well as a major copper producer. The company has mines and mining projects in Chile, the United States, and Canada, allowing it to play a significant role in ensuring Europe’s resource security. 

He also emphasized that Europe must promote careers in mining. 

“From 2000 to today, the number of mining graduates in Europe has fallen by 60 percent. The average age of a miner in Europe is now over 50. Fortunately, we in Poland still have miners, experts, and excellent universities that educate miners,” Zdzikot said. 

“We also have excellent academic staff capable of leading complex projects,” he continued, adding that what Poland lacks “is a coherent resource policy.”

The EU as a whole must decide what raw materials to pursue to try to gain a competitive advantage. This can start in Poland, as the country can provide the continent with all the copper and coal it needs. However, Poland’s mining sector needs to be expanded to other resources as well. 

The SET Foundation report also calls for a European Commodities Fund to support raw material investments worldwide, help identify deposits, and establish financial structures to acquire rights to raw materials.

The challenges are huge

Europe is, however, currently vulnerable to disruptions in the supply of almost all key raw materials.

There are plans, the expert noted, to increase extraction, simplify and shorten procedures, and diversify supply sources, but the EU — along with many other countries — remains highly dependent on outside sources, namely, China.

This is no accident. China, the report emphasizes, has been pursuing its rare earths policy since the 1980s. Today, it supplies 100 percent of global demand for 10 heavy rare earth elements.

Asked about China’s recent decision to limit exports of rare earth metals, Zdzikot confirmed that all companies (including those outside China) that export products containing at least 0.1% Chinese rare earth elements or using Chinese mining, processing, or recycling technologies will be required to obtain a license issued by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. 

It was also announced that, as a rule, approvals will not be granted if it involves building military capabilities or even developing dual-use technologies, such as artificial intelligence with defense potential. 

In 2024, NATO published a list of 12 raw materials it designated as crucial to the defense industry. This is where China still enjoys a global monopoly, Zdzikot said. 

Electric vehicles and other key climate-friendly developments also require increasingly larger amounts of various resources. All in all, demand will be increasing across all metals and rare earth resources. 

For example, global demand for lithium is forecast to increase 40-fold between 2020 and 2040, 25-fold for graphite, and 7-fold for rare earth elements.

Mining countries have an edge

It would take years for countries to just acquire or develop the technology for extracting and processing rare earth resources. Highly advanced mining countries, such as Australia and Canada, estimate that at least six years are needed to achieve the capacity to refine rare earth elements without using Chinese technologies.

The European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act states that the EU aims to meet at least 10 percent of its demand for strategic raw materials through domestic extraction by 2030. Its goal is a processing capacity of 40 percent of its demand for strategic raw materials and a 25 percent recycling capacity. 

The Act also seeks to ensure that no country supplies the European Union with more than 65 percent of a single strategic raw material. 

The key to achieving all of this is to shorten the time required to get mining production up and running, according to Zdzikot.

Read more here…

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

While there are reasons to suspect that the Taliban has self-interested political motives in peddling lies about Pakistan, there are also reasons for Russia to take its latest claim very seriously…

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed over the weekend that “American drones are indeed operating in Afghanistan’s skies; they pass through Pakistani airspace and violate our airspace. This must not happen. They [Pakistan] are helpless here, they can’t stop it. Naturally, this should be seen as a form of incapability, and we understand that. We suspect that major global powers, those who once clashed with us or claimed Bagram are behind this pressure.”

He concluded by observing that “They don’t come directly, but they assign others to provoke unrest in the region and create pretexts. We stand firm against any conspiracy and won’t allow misguided ambitions to become reality in the region.”

His latest claim follows a similarly scandalous one from early October alleging that the Crocus terrorist attack was orchestrated from Pakistan.

The larger context concerns the cross-border violence between them that prompted fears of Pakistan invading Afghanistan.

This didn’t occur in a vacuum but amidst the rapid US-Pakistani rapprochement and Trump’s renewed demands to return US forces to Afghanistan’s Bagram Airbase, both of which preceded a report from the Financial Times about Pakistan offering the US a port ostensibly for economic purposes. Given this background, while there are reasons to suspect that the Taliban has self-interested political motives in peddling lies about Pakistan, there are also reasons for Russia to take its latest claim very seriously.

It’s not the first time that the Taliban claimed that those two are conspiring against it in this way.

Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoob alleged around the one-year anniversary of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan that “US drone aircraft are coming from Pakistan and entering Afghanistan territory.” Pakistan denied that allegation just like it denied the latest one, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the CIA secretly reobtained access to drone bases there in exchange for Trump backing Pakistan over India lately.

Russia should therefore investigate the Taliban’s claim about US-Pakistani drone cooperation. Despite their own rapid rapprochement, Russia twice hinted in recent years that Pakistan might be playing a double game. The first indication came in November 2022 when Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said that “The Americans are openly blackmailing Taliban leaders, threatening them with a drone attack and forcing them to distance themselves from Russia and China”.

The innuendo was that these drone attacks would be facilitated by Pakistan letting the US use its airspace given that it’s the only realistic way for them to bomb Afghanistan. In late August of this year, Secretary of the Security Council Sergey Shoigu then wrote in an article that “The situation is aggravated by the recorded facts of the transfer of militants from other regions of the world to Afghanistan. There is reason to believe that behind these actions are the special services of a number of Western countries”.

As with what Kabulov said nearly three years prior, the innuendo is that Pakistan is facilitating the Western intelligence-backed infiltration of these terrorists into Afghanistan, once again due to it being the only realistic way for them to enter that country. Coupled with the Taliban’s recent claim that the Crocus terrorist attack was orchestrated from Pakistan, the pieces are in place for Russia to investigate whether its new partner is playing a double game and then reconsider their relations if this is confirmed.

Authored by Cara Michelle Miller via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

For years, people have been told their sadness was the result of a chemical imbalance—a fixable flaw—like how insulin helps people with Type 1 diabetes.

The “chemical imbalance” theory has shaped mainstream treatment for depression, fueling widespread prescriptions of antidepressants. Yet, psychiatrist and former U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) medical officer Dr. Josef Witt-Doerring said the theory, popularized in the 1950s, has never been proven and lacks scientific backing.

In a recent episode of American Thought Leaders, Witt-Doerring told host Jan Jekielek that relying on the chemical imbalance narrative can lead to overmedication, often with worse—not better—outcomes for patients, and that the way antidepressants are prescribed needs reform.

Origins of the Chemical Imbalance Theory

The chemical imbalance theory first emerged with doctors’ amazement that a tuberculosis drug called iproniazid seemed to energize and lift patients’ moods. Psychiatrists soon tested the drug on people with depression and saw similar improvements.

Iproniazid worked by preventing the breakdown of neurotransmitters—chemical messengers such as serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine—thereby increasing their levels. Researchers theorized, based on their observations, that depression must be caused by a shortage of these chemicals in the brain.

The idea revolutionized psychiatry, offering a biological explanation for emotional suffering and paving the way for widespread prescription of antidepressants. For decades, the chemical imbalance theory dominated both medical practice and public perception.

However, once accepted as a medical fact, the theory has begun to crumble.

“A lot of people think that they [antidepressants] work in that they are fixing this imbalance; they are restoring them to a normal state,” Witt-Doerring said. However, growing evidence disputes this.

For instance, a 2022 systematic review published in Molecular Psychiatry found no consistent evidence that low levels of serotonin cause depression. Additional clinical studies have likewise failed to identify reliable differences in neurotransmitter levels between people with and without depression.

“There is no way to differentiate patients who are depressed from those who are not depressed using any objective markers,” he added. “That’s why when you go and see a psychiatrist or a family medicine doctor, they’re not doing blood tests, they’re not scanning your brain—they’re essentially just doing a checklist.”

What Antidepressants Do

Witt-Doerring said that antidepressants don’t correct an underlying defect but instead create a predictable drug effect. For the most common class—selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)—the effect is often one of emotional blunting or numbing.

SSRIs boost the amount of serotonin in your brain. Serotonin is a chemical that helps manage your mood and emotions. Normally, once serotonin delivers its message, it is taken back into the brain cell that released it. SSRIs slow down that process, so more serotonin stays active between brain cells for a little longer.

Having more serotonin can help even out your mood and ease feelings of anxiety or sadness. However, it can also make emotions feel somewhat flat—you might notice less excitement or joy, as well as less distress—sometimes referred to as emotional numbing or blunting.

For some patients, the dulling of emotional extremes can be therapeutic. For others, it suppresses emotions that need to be processed, leaving underlying issues unresolved.

“If you are in a state where you’re having a lot of anxiety, and you take a drug and it kind of constricts that, it sort of numbs that out, you’re going to feel better,” he said. “And if you’re highly suicidal, you might even say the medication saved your life.”

Hidden Risks of Long-Term Antidepressant Use

Relief derived from antidepressants can come at a cost. Over time, the body adapts to the medication’s effects.

“People become tolerant to them,” Witt-Doerring said, explaining that the drug starts to wear off, doses are increased, and “eventually you’re maxed out—still struggling with the same issues that led you to seek help in the first place.”

To compensate, other medications—mood stabilizers, sleep aids—may be added, a practice known as polypharmacy. However, stacking drugs can also mask, rather than resolve, the underlying problem.

“And this is why you hear that some people are on four, five, six medications,” he said.

When medications lose effectiveness, the body has simply adapted, yet patients are often told they have treatment-resistant depression and are prescribed more drugs—continuing the cycle. The more medications a person takes, the higher the chance of unpleasant or dangerous side effects—and it can become harder to tell which drug is causing which reaction.

*  *  * Try natural lithium instead…

Higher doses or multiple drugs may also increase the risk of agitation, impulsivity, or, in rare cases—especially among young people—new or worsening suicidal thoughts during the first few weeks of treatment. The risk is greatest for teens and young adults under 25, which is why antidepressants carry an FDA black box warning for suicidal thinking in this age group.

Meanwhile, life’s problems—stressful relationships, work challenges, or unresolved trauma—often remain unaddressed.

The Dangers of Withdrawal

Many people decide to come off antidepressants at some point—sometimes because they’re feeling better, want fewer side effects, or find the medication isn’t helping as much as it used to.

Stopping antidepressants can be challenging. Some people experience withdrawal effects—such as mood changes, dizziness, or “brain zaps”—when they try to come off the medication. Research suggests that nearly a quarter of people who take SSRIs long-term have withdrawal symptoms lasting more than three months.

Witt-Doerring estimates that 5 to 10 percent of people need medical support to safely stop.

He cited the case of Bryson Burks, a promising college athlete prescribed three antidepressants for pain after a football injury—though he’d never had depression—a practice sometimes used for chronic pain.

Burks—known for his leadership, generosity, and aspirations—appeared happier and stronger after recovering from his injury, according to his mother. However, when instructed to taper off the medications, reducing one pill each week, he developed sudden, extreme mood swings and tragically died by suicide during the fourth week, just before his twentieth birthday. His mother has since spoken publicly about the risks of abrupt or poorly monitored discontinuation of psychiatric medications.

Witt-Doerring also noted that, in rare but serious cases, abrupt medication changes have been linked to extreme agitation or manic reactions. Some high-profile tragedies have prompted questions about whether sudden shifts in psychiatric medication could play a role.

After the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, theater shooting, forensic experts observed that the perpetrator, James Holmes, showed marked behavioral changes after his antidepressant dosage was increased shortly before the attack.

Psychiatrist David Healy, who later interviewed Holmes, said that the timeline warranted closer scientific scrutiny, according to Witt-Doerring. While the courts did not find the medication change to be a legal cause of the violence, the case underscored the importance of careful monitoring whenever antidepressant doses are adjusted or discontinued—particularly for young or vulnerable patients.

Many patients can taper off antidepressants with only temporary discomfort. “Within a couple of months, they have really nasty withdrawal,” but their brains adapt and they move on, Witt-Doerring said. “I would say that they have very healthy, elastic brains.”

A smaller group experiences severe symptoms—insomnia, agitation, tinnitus, cognitive fog—that can last months or even years. For them, a standard two-month taper is too abrupt.

Because doctors rarely expect lingering withdrawal, these symptoms are often mistaken for relapse. Patients are placed back on medication, convinced they cannot live without it, Witt-Doerring said.

In rare but devastating cases, people develop what’s known as protracted withdrawal, a long-term hypersensitivity of the nervous system. “It’s like you’ve had a concussion,” Witt-Doerring said. “It takes 18 months to two years, sometimes longer, for the nervous system to recover.”

Stories like Burks’—who was not Witt-Doerring’s patient—have reshaped how he practices psychiatry. He now runs a tapering clinic specifically for people navigating the withdrawal process, providing careful monitoring and guidance.

His advice to anyone considering coming off antidepressants is to do so gradually—over many months, sometimes years. The safest approach is to proceed slowly and with close support.

Rethinking Care

Today, most psychiatric medications are prescribed by family doctors, gynecologists, and other front-line providers working under intense time pressure. The system often prioritizes quick fixes over long-term wellness.

Witt-Doerring envisions a different care model—embedded in primary care—but focused on “dealing with the real problems.” Patients would receive structured education and group guidance on four areas that drive anxiety and depression: healthy relationships, meaningful engagement—through work, faith, or community—physical health, and substance use.

“Imagine a family doctor saying, ‘You’re struggling with relationships and health issues—here’s an assessment, and then you can join a group to learn and talk through these problems with professionals,’” he said.

“That takes the pressure off prescribing medication as the only solution and gives patients real tools to improve their lives.”

There are around 772,000 homeless Americans (nearly 230 for ever 100,000 Americans), according to the last time a point-in-count assessment was done in 2024.

In this visualization, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, take a look at the highest homelessness rates by state, measured per 100,000 residents.

The data for this visualization comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, paired with 2024 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

⚠️ Caveats: Point-in-time counts were conducted in January, 2024 by local Continuums of Care (CoCs), with latitude in methodology. They risk undercounting unsheltered populations, people couch‑surfing, or those avoiding contact.

High Housing Costs & Homelessness

Hawaii tops the ranking with 805 people experiencing homelessness for every 100,000 residents.

This is more than three times the national average of 227.

Washington, D.C. is next at 800, reflecting the high cost of living and limited affordable housing in the nation’s capital.

New York ranks third at 795, driven largely by the concentrated shelter population in New York City.

Together, these three jurisdictions account for nearly 175,000 unhoused individuals.

West Coast Living Costs Pressures Push Numbers Higher

Four West Coast states—Oregon, California, Washington, and Alaska—sit firmly in the top 10.

Oregon’s rate has climbed to 535 amid rising rents in Portland, while California’s 187,000 unhoused people represent the largest absolute total in the country.

Seattle’s booming technology sector and limited housing supply help push Washington to nearly 400 per 100,000.

These states share a common thread: home prices that have consistently outpaced wage growth, leaving some residents on the brink of housing insecurity.

📊 Related: Look at the newest data around average house prices in each U.S. state.

Southern and Midwestern States See Lower Rates

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Southern and Midwestern states generally report far lower rates.

Mississippi posts the lowest figure—just 35 people per 100,000—followed by Louisiana (75) and Virginia (81).

Lower housing costs, sprawling land availability, and fewer large metro areas likely contribute to these lower rates, although undercounts in rural regions remain a challenge.

Even populous states such as Texas and Florida fall near the middle of the pack at 89 and 134 respectively, showing that population alone does not dictate homelessness levels.

Overall, the data underscore a powerful link between housing affordability and homelessness. States with soaring rents and tight markets consistently rank higher, while those with more modest housing costs tend to fare better.

For more related coverage, check out The World’s Most Unaffordable Housing Markets on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Authored by Benjamin Weingarten via RealClearInvestigations,

After taking the helm at New York’s financially troubled Nassau University Medical Center late last year, Megan C. Ryan stumbled upon something baffling in the books: a two-decade-long series of transactions engineered by New York State that may have shortchanged the hospital by a staggering $1 billion in matching funds.

As a hospital primarily serving patients on Medicare, Medicaid, or who are uninsured, the medical center qualified for federal matching grants tied to state contributions. Ryan’s discovery indicated that the state was having the medical center itself post its share of the match – for around 20 years at $50 million per year – essentially cheating it out of the state’s matching dollars. “We just couldn’t wrap our heads around how a hospital that serves the poor would be forced to put up tens of millions of dollars” in place of state funds, Ryan told RealClearInvestigations.

Ryan says she called James Dering, previously general counsel of the New York Department of Health, for a legal opinion about the financial arrangement. That opinion indicated it was improper.

What seems like a local tussle over health care has all the trappings of a bigger partisan political fight in the run-up to one of the more important races for governor next year in New York. 

Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is running for reelection, is the central player in the dispute. The hospital – already at loggerheads with Hochul’s administration over claims the state was unduly withholding needed aid – filed suit last December against New York seeking to be made whole for the $1 billion it believed it was owed.

That litigation would help set in motion a series of events culminating in the takeover of the hospital by Hochul, removing control of the public benefit corporation from the hands of Republican Nassau County executive, Bruce Blakeman; the firing of Ryan and the mass exodus of the hospital’s leaders as the new regime took over; and new legal battles between Ryan and the hospital’s Hochul-appointed leaders.

Nassau University Medical Center’s ousted leaders say the takeover smacks of retaliation for their filing of a lawsuit that exposed alleged malfeasance and political corruption.

Despite Dering’s opinion, the state has argued there was nothing wrong with the hospital putting up the matching funds, and that its interventions in the hospital’s operations have been necessary to rescue a debt-riddled facility that has been hobbled by Republican-linked cronyism and mismanagement in one of the few downstate areas where the GOP is competitive. “It has been for years a Republican patronage pit,” Jay Jacobs, chair of both the state’s and Nassau’s Democratic parties, told Politico. “The place is run by Republican Party operatives.” 

The hospital saga has already drawn scrutiny from both the FBI and Republican congressional investigators – the latter suggesting that the alleged financial scheme is part of a broader effort to save the state’s balance sheet by shifting the Medicaid burden to counties and low-income hospitals. The state’s Medicaid spending is by far the highest in the country, at $4,942 per person.

Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, who is expected to run against Hochul, has made healthcare one of her key issues, jousting publicly with the governor over their divergent policies and approaches to Medicaid. Adding to the drama is the partisan battle over federal subsidies for rising Obamacare premiums, which is fueling the ongoing federal government shutdown.

The alleged financial shenanigans at the Long Island medical center focus on the convoluted funding mechanisms used to reimburse hospitals for hundreds of billions of care delivered across the country. The saga playing out in Long Island also illuminates the indelibly political nature of healthcare across the country, where two parties often divvy up and spar over control of facilities that are crucial to the lives of voters.

Nassau University Medical Center is a 530-bed Level I Trauma Center located in East Meadow that serves some 270,000 patients each year. It is the only hospital providing care to all comers regardless of their finances, in the suburbs of Nassau County, east of Manhattan. Until Hochul’s state takeover of the hospital this past May, control of the center was split among state leaders, generally Democrats, and local leaders, sometimes Republicans – with county officials retaining the upper hand.

The medical center’s finances have been shaky for years. A report produced by the turnaround firm Alvarez & Marsal concluded in 2020 that the only “potentially sustainable” option going forward would be to reduce the hospital staff by more than 90% – from 3,400 employees to roughly 300 – while eliminating emergency room and medical/surgical inpatient service altogether. 

Under Ryan, the hospital’s performance had improved. Nevertheless, after years of posting losses, the hospital had accumulated a $1.4 billion deficit as of the end of 2024.

While state leaders attributed this shortfall to mismanagement, local and hospital leaders say it is because of the state’s failure to provide necessary financial support – something the state disputes. 

According to one of the medical center’s lawsuits, its shortfall can be traced to a scheme that worked this way: “[T]he State would instruct the Nassau County Treasurer to instruct the Hospital to make a transfer of funds to the State with the assurance that the funds would be returned to the Hospital – along with the matching federal funds – within 10 days. And indeed, like clockwork, the money was paid to the Hospital within days.”

The state does not deny this description, but it rejects the hospital’s claim that the arrangement was dubious – a “conscious effort to make it appear that the nonfederal portion was coming from the County – when it was in fact coming from the Hospital” – let alone illegal. 

Noting that federal law allows states to cover their non-federal share of Medicaid matching funds through a variety of means, including via intergovernmental transfers from local authorities, New York countered in court filings that counties may put up matching funds and that counties may tap the hospitals themselves for the match. 

Although this would seem to be a straightforward legal issue, the law is murky. Healthcare experts with whom RCI spoke indicated that while intergovernmental transfers are common, they could not opine as to the legitimacy of the ones challenged in the Nassau Center’s case.

The New York State Department of Health and several other county hospitals did not respond to RCI inquiries about whether this arrangement was common practice. 

The courts would never resolve the Nassau University Medical Center dispute. In early May, Hochul effectively seized control of the facility and quashed the hospital’s suits against New York and the hospital’s financial monitor. 

Blakeman, the Republican county executive, called the takeover “illegal” and vowed to file suit.

The takeover had come just weeks after reports had emerged that the FBI was probing the hospital’s underlying allegations of $1 billion in withheld funds, with Blakeman and his handpicked hospital chairman, Matthew Bruderman, cooperating with the investigation.

In July, congressional Republicans running the House Oversight Committee opened a probe into New York’s alleged “abuse of the Medicaid system” through withholding federal Medicaid funds to fill New York budget shortfalls, as well as the alleged years-long $1 billion scheme concerning the Nassau University Medical Center.

A spokesperson for the committee told RCI that there was no update as to its investigation. As for whether other hospitals might be impacted, or analogous efforts were being undertaken in other states, the spokesperson said that the committee believes “this issue is unique to New York State Medicaid.”

In response to inquiries about potential federal probes, the Justice Department and Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment. 

An already complicated saga became even more convoluted this summer with contrasting claims about the hospital’s current finances and its future. Before she was fired in June, Ryan had tendered a letter of resignation in May amid the governor’s takeover that was to be effective July 20. In a separate letter to the hospital’s employees obtained by RCI, Ryan stated that in contrast to claims of mismanagement that had filtered out to the press as the dispute between the hospital and state escalated, the facility had improved its operational and financial performance – including significantly increasing cash reserves – while modernizing and expanding.

“[O]ur team has worked tirelessly to restore financial accountability, clinical excellence, and community trust,” according to the letter. “Despite these gains, powerful interests have spent years trying to undermine this institution and distort my record [through leaks to the press alleging mismanagement]. Their intent is not to improve health care but to consolidate political power, dismantle NUMC’s services, and potentially repurpose our hospital for private development.”

In 2024, as the hospital sought additional New York aid amid accumulated losses totaling several hundred million dollars, the state required that the hospital implement changes to support financial stability, while seeming to endorse Alvarez & Marsal’s 2020 recommendation that the facility be significantly downsized.

Hochul, meanwhile, has undertaken an initiative to repurpose state-owned sites as housing – including easing the ability to create higher-density housing. 

Richard Kessel, the chairman of the hospital’s financial overseer, the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, had previously led the county’s industrial development agency. It had provided economic incentives to aid in several housing projects, repurposing existing land for housing in the vicinity of the medical center.

Seemingly connecting those dots, Bruderman, the former hospital chair, said amid news of Hochul’s upcoming takeover in April that the governor’s efforts aren’t about “saving the hospital, our employees or our patients, but rather a Democratic Party power play. We have documented evidence that Albany intends to shut down the hospital, fire the employees and utilize this land for other purposes for political benefit.”

A Hochul spokesperson said of claims of a hostile takeover, “The board’s restructuring is unequivocally the best possible news for anyone who relies on NUMC.”

“Due to years of gross mismanagement…the hospital is in financial peril,” the spokesperson added. “This is a desperately needed intervention. The state’s priorities for NUMC have always been ensuring quality patient care and achieving financial stability.”

The medical center was reportedly poised to post an $11 million profit in 2025, after posting losses totaling over $140 million in each of the two years prior. 

As for any sort of land deal, a July 2025 opinion piece from a Newsday editorial board member indicated that developers had already begun to reach out to the hospital regarding the nearly 100 acres its facilities cover in a “highly desirable county that has little space to grow.”

“Everything’s on the table except eliminating the safety net hospital,” its Hochul-approved chairman, Stuart Rabinowitz, told the newspaper.

The implication among Hochul’s critics is that high-density housing would most likely benefit Democrats.

Ryan’s attempt to tender her resignation, which was followed by a mass exodus of other hospital leaders, was rejected. Instead, in June, the new board terminated her for cause, denying her severance pay. Ryan notified the hospital that she would seek legal redress.

Before she did so, in August, the hospital filed suit against her seeking $10 million in damages, claiming she had, among other things, engaged in systemic mismanagement, including in authorizing “over $1 million in excessive and improper termination payments” for herself and her exiting colleagues on the way out, and other expenses for reimbursement vastly greater than allowable amounts – including for a lobster dinner on the night one of the executives resigned.

Last month, Ryan countersued, defending her record and claiming the accusations leveled against her were false and defamatory.

Meanwhile, the ousted CEO asserted in her complaint that her successor was hired at a salary roughly 25% higher than her own – which she argues is discriminatory; that the new CEO “has had his hand in prior actual and attempted hospital closures much like the one that now seems imminent” at Nassau University Medical Center; and that the hospital had signed off on $10 million in no-bid contracts in just its first three months under its new board.

While the legal battles intensify, the fate of the safety-net hospital remains unclear.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

For the first time in my career, I’ve been fielding many questions from mainstream reporters. This is because I’ve been tagged as a “person of interest”—as law enforcement would say—in the staffing of federal public health agencies and committees. Sometimes I pick up the phone and sometimes not. The high dudgeon over my supposed role strikes me as wildly overwrought.

The issue is the upheaval going on in public-health bureaucracies. The FDA is changing. The CDC staff and mandate has been winnowed back dramatically. The food pyramid is being overhauled. Priorities are changing as regards NIH science funding. And the vaccine schedule for children is being pared back and changed.

As a result, industries and their media backers are agitated and angry. They simply cannot understand why this is happening. As a result, several major stories have appeared in the press that seem to blame me personally and the institution I head (Brownstone). Reading their stories, I’m truly in a state of disbelief that this is a prevailing outlook, as if I’m some kind of behind-the-scenes puppet master.

In other words, these reporters assume there is some kind of conspiracy. Seriously. They are asking detailed questions about my phone contacts, conversations I might be having with this or that person, my personal relationships with administration employees, funding sources, payment systems, with whom I am socializing, and so on.

At some point, I flat-out said it’s no one’s business. No, I won’t hand over my cellphone and bank records.

It’s all quite absurd. As I’m talking with these reporters, and trying to help them understand the broader context and the organic nature of these reforms—they had to happen in light of the last five years—it’s like talking to a brick wall. They begin their reporting with the presumption that there is some plot afoot. Their job is to find the malefactor. I’m just a convenient target.

It’s as if these people haven’t considered that what is happening is a reflection not of a scheme but of a population-wide blowback against terrible policies that were shockingly imposed upon the whole population that turned out to be enormously destructive. It would be more surprising if the status quo remained in place.

If anything, the reforms are going too slowly to satisfy public demands. The loss of trust in the CDC is an example. About one-third of the staff has been fired. Is that really so shocking? This agency is the one that imposed six feet of distance, one-way grocery aisles, sanitizer baths, the rental moratorium reversed by the Supreme Court, small-business closures, school closures, and even mail-in ballots.

Did they really think that once this was over, it would be business as usual? That seems to be what many ideologues on the left want. But it is not to be. What happened instead is exactly what one would expect in a democracy: the systems of government are responding to the grassroots. The bureaucracies are being rolled back. The mandates are being restricted. Protocols are being changed.

What’s at issue here comes down to a kind of worldview. I was explaining this strange problem to a friend who said plainly that these reporters on the left are simply assuming that we are operating as they have always operated. They plot, scheme, and trade quid pro quos, so they naturally assume we do too. Their operations are driven by the cash nexus so they assume that ours are too.

That could be the whole explanation. And yet I sense there is more going on.

Think about the term Progressive. Its root is progress. Real progress can take many forms but in the minds of the Progressives, there was only one way forward. That way involved the march of the state in league with corporate elites and academics. The most intelligent and credentialed people in society would take possession of society’s resources and organize them more intelligently than they otherwise would be.

That was and is the essence of the Progressive agenda.

And what were the Progressives against? They were opposed to a society that turned over the forces of social evolution to the people themselves in their communities and lives as individuals. To them, this was the essence of the old world they wanted to leave. It meant free markets, organically emerging community structures, decentralized government, families of any size including very large ones, and businesses that came and went based on the wiles of the market.

Every Progressive was against this sort of system on grounds that it all seemed too chaotic, unpredictable, and random. It seemed unintelligent. Thus was born the binary of Progressive vs. Reactionary. To them, history would, should, and could only move one direction: toward social and economic planning. Everything and anything else was considered reactionary or revanchist.

And from where did this strange view of history arrive? It traces back to the usual suspect: G.F.W. Hegel writing in the early decades of the 19th century. He was a German nationalist who was trying to bring a form of philosophical therapy to the German people following the loss of territory at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Hegel’s solution was a new model of history that removed personal forces and replaced them with a meta-narrative. Impersonal forces were in charge that were ultimately driving the narrative of history toward a single end, that of the triumph of the German state against all its enemies.

Hegel’s views became hugely influential in German academia, particularly among those people who favored empire and a unity of nation, corporation, church, and state. In the second half of the century, communists like Karl Marx picked up the Hegelian view of history and wedded it to socialist utopianism. Marx called his views scientific precisely because they were rooted in this strange Hegelian view of history. The triumph of communism was inevitable, he said, and therefore everyone who resists it is a reactionary holding back the “tides of history.”

These Marxian views became so influential that the Fabians in the UK and the left-socialists in the United States picked them up. That’s how movements for higher taxation, public school, the banning of youth labor, and so many other causes—not all of them bad—came to be called Progressive. Progress toward state control by administrative elites was inevitable.

This entire paradigm of progress/regress has dominated the public mind for a century.

Even low-end reporters for mainstream media outlets have picked it up. This is why Trump’s efforts to drain the swamp and gut the deep state have been greeted with such hostility. It is why RFK Jr.’s efforts on health are considered reactionary even though his views have not changed from decades ago when they were aligned with crunchy liberalism.

As a result of this worldview—people learn their Hegel not from books but from the streets of academia—people who accept it simply cannot imagine that any rollback of their plans is due to anything other than a scheme or plot or conspiracy designed to thwart the forward march of “progress” toward ever more control by the administrative state. This mindset rules out the existence of organic shifts in public life that do not go their way.

I can assure these reporters all day that I’m a mild-mannered guy with a newspaper column and a research institute but it doesn’t matter. They still believe that I’m some kind of string-puller with hidden billions and a mysterious control over the levers of power. They would rather believe this than come to terms with how horrible the COVID response was and how fed up people are with the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.

They say the same about Donald Trump. He surely did not win fairly either in 2016 or 2024. He must have cheated or had Russian help. He is not legitimate precisely because he wants to take the country in a different direction than the one of which they approve. He is seen as “reactionary” whereas they are “progressive” and therefore he is wrong and they are correct.

In other words, the real conspiracy theorists are on the mainstream left these days, simply because they refuse to believe what is in front of their eyes. They cannot see their own failure for what it is and therefore cannot see the efforts to unravel the messes they made as a just and necessary correction.

Today, BRICS countries represent half of the global population, a coalition with growing economic heft.

Unlike many Western powers, many BRICS countries are seeing rapid GDP growth driven by significant investment, trade, and demographic change. In an increasingly multipolar world, this group is exerting more influence as it expands.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, compares real GDP growth projections of BRICS vs G7 countries, based on data from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook October Update.

BRICS vs G7 Real GDP Growth

Below, we show GDP growth forecasts for BRICS nations in 2025 and 2026:

As we can see, India is projected to see one of the fastest growth rates across the bloc, at 6.6% in 2025 and 6.2% in 2026.

In China, 4.8% growth is forecast for 2025 as the country strengthens trade across Asia, Europe, and Africa. Like India, growth is forecast to decline in 2026.

On average, BRICS growth will exceed G7 rates by more than threefold in both 2025 and 2026—a stark contrast visible in the table below.

With just 1% average growth for G7 countries, many countries are facing headwinds of aging populations and trade uncertainty.

Notably, Germany is forecast to see one of the world’s slowest GDP growth rates in 2025, rising just 0.2%. However, it is set to pick up to 0.9% in 2026—a trend mirrored in several other G7 nations.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on BRICS share of GDP compared with G7 countries.