Justice And Justices' Investments Should Be Blind: The Alito Controversy Raises Persistent Problem On The Court

Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org,

Yesterday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito recused himself from one of the term's most important cases: Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County.

As I have previously discussed, the case involving the liability of energy companies for nuisance actions tied to climate change could have sweeping implications for the country. Justice Alito should be commended for avoiding even the appearance of a personal interest or a conflict in the case. However, the controversy should prompt the Court to explore a longstanding problem for justices in holding financial interests that can conflict with their duties. The solution is simple: justices need to use blind trusts.

Supreme Court Clerk Scott Harris released a letter revealing that Alito decided he "will not continue to participate" in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County.

Suncor Energy, Boulder sued energy companies under "theories of public and private nuisance, trespass, unjust enrichment, and civil conspiracy, claiming that they knowingly contributed to climate change while misleading the public about its impacts." The Colorado Supreme Court ruled for the city and the county in finding that such lawsuits are not barred by federal preemption. If such lawsuits are allowed to go forward, it would expose companies to potentially thousands of climate change lawsuits. Oral agument is set for Oct. 5,

The recusal is a blow for challengers who believe that the opinion could be close and Alito was believed to be on the side of barring such actions. It is now down to 8, so a single loss of another conservative could result in a 4-4 tie - leaving the lower court decision unchanged.

While the letter did not give a reason, critics had called for Alito's recusal due to his financial interest in energy companies which could benefit from the decision.

That included 30 organizations which jointly asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate his involvement in the case. Notably, the court responded to media inquiries by declaring that Alito had no financial interest in any party to the case and that legal counsel had told him that there is no need to recuse himself.

Yet, the standard is whether a reasonable person could question his impartiality and, while he had no interest in the parties, he appears to have investments in other energy companies. Justice Alito previously withdrew shortly before arguments in a separate oil industry case earlier this year.

The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 (EIGA) established financial disclosure reporting requirements for many high-level government officials and employees, including the Justices of the Supreme Court. Supreme Court Justices file publicly available financial disclosure statements that report certain financial transactions. However, they are not required to put their investments into a blind trust.

Justices should be able to have investment portfolios, but they can hold such investments in blind trust or qualified blind trust.

In a blind trust the justice will "have no control over, will receive no communications about, and will (eventually as existing assets are sold and new ones obtained by the trustee) have no knowledge of the identity of the specific assets held in the trust. As such, once a blind trust is established and new assets obtained, an official will not need to (and will not be able to) identify the particular assets 13 5 C.F.R. § 2635.403(b)."

Other federal officials must use such trusts and there is no reason why justices should be exempt, in my view.

This has been a continual and embarrassing problem. Years ago, the Court affirmed an appellate ruling in a major case involving a $400 billion lawsuit in American Isuzu Motors v. Ntsebeza (2008) without a hearing after four justices had to recuse themselves (Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, and Samuel Alito Jr).

The business interests of justices should not interfere with the business of the Court. You should either be an active investor in the markets or a justice, not both. The public has a reasonable expectation that, in seeking this high office, justices are willing to set aside certain privileges or interests. This is one of them.

This is not to cast aspersions on the justices. These recusals show that members, including Justice Alito, are cognizant and committed to avoiding even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Moreover, some judges and justices resolve this question by using diversified mutual funds or ETFs where the justice does not control the micro-allocations within the fund. However, there is still knowledge of financial interests in given areas.

This is not a costless obligation for justices. Blind trusts add costs (which Congress may want to consider defraying) and can be complex. However, the business of the Court is too important to be routinely compromised or complicated by these financial interests.

While legislation has been introduced along these lines, it would be simpler for justices to voluntarily adopt this practice.

Consider it is the price of being one of nine. If you want to sit on this Court, you have to do justice which is only fully possible if your investments, like justice itself, are blind.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor who teaches a class on the Constitution and the Supreme Court and is the best-selling author of "Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution."

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 22:35

US Working To Close Visa Loophole For Chinese Visitors: Homan

Authored by Frank Fang and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration is taking steps to prevent Chinese nationals from exploiting a visa-free travel program to the Northern Mariana Islands, according to White House border czar Tom Homan.

Chinese citizens wait to submit their visa applications at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on May 2, 2012. Mark Ralston/AFP/GettyImages

Speaking to Epoch Times senior editor Jan Jekielek in an "American Thought Leaders" interview aired on Sept. 26, Homan called birth tourism a "driver of illegal immigration."

When asked specifically about Chinese travelers utilizing the U.S. territory's visa-free entry to give birth on U.S. soil, Homan confirmed that federal authorities are moving to close the channel.

"We're on it," Homan said. "It's being addressed."

The push to close the U.S. territory's visa loophole comes amid an ongoing legal battle over U.S. citizenship.

After the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump's 2025 executive order restricting birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens and temporary visitors as violating the 14th Amendment, the president issued two narrower orders, including one banning birth tourism.

On Sept. 2, a federal judge in Maryland blocked enforcement of the new order restricting who qualifies for citizenship at birth.

Birth tourism refers to foreign nationals' traveling to the United States, often on a temporary visa, to give birth so their child can automatically obtain U.S. citizenship.

Currently, Chinese citizens can visit the U.S. territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands visa-free for up to 14 days under the program.

Homan called China and Russia the "two biggest abusers" of birth tourism in the United States. He warned that children of the two nations will eventually have the legal right to vote and run for public office.

"I just think it's a national security vulnerability, and we need to address it," Homan said.

Homan expressed disappointment at the Supreme Court's ruling, but he also said, "It's Congress's job."

A group of Republican lawmakers from both chambers of Congress introduced the One Nation, One Visa Policy (H.R.7780 and S.3857) earlier this year. The legislation would bar Chinese nationals from entering the United States and its territories without a valid visa, a measure intended to curb birth tourism by Chinese nationals.

"It's time to end this abuse by Communist China. America's laws must not be gamed, our generosity must not be exploited, and our national security must not be compromised," Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), who introduced the House bill, said in a statement at the time.

In April, four Republican senators sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, urging them to end the 14-day visa-free program for Chinese nationals. They said the program "threatens America's national security and encourages illegal drug trafficking and birth tourism."

In May 2025, Fang Ye, a Chinese national, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in Saipan for conspiring to possess more than 500 grams of methamphetamine with the intent to distribute.

According to prosecutors, Fang arrived in the Northern Mariana Islands from China in 2016 and overstayed his visa-free admission. He subsequently operated a birth tourism business in Saipan for three years, hosting more than 200 pregnant women and their families from China who traveled to the island to give birth. He later became involved in trafficking methamphetamine.

Fang's co-conspirator, Yang Liang, was sentenced to 55 months in prison in Saipan for trafficking methamphetamine in August 2025.

Beyond birth tourism, Homan said federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been working to track military-aged Chinese males entering the country, noting that the mass influx of these individuals does not occur "without the coordination of the Chinese government."

Homan also said that he expects Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests and deportations to reach record figures next year.

"You can't have strong national security if you don't have border security," Homan said. "We need to know who's coming in, what's coming in, where it's coming in, [and] why it's coming."

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 21:45

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu Paying Illegals $575 To Become 'Organizers'... And US-Born Residents Are Excluded

Boston taxpayers are funding a program that teaches immigrants how to organize, lobby city officials and advocate for political change, then hands participants $575 for completing it. Illegal immigrants are eligible, while U.S.-born Boston residents are not.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu

The Immigrants Lead Boston program, operated by Mayor Michelle Wu's Office for Immigrant Advancement, is a 10-week course for what the city calls emerging immigrant leaders.

Candidates must be Boston residents, at least 18 years old and immigrants. Separately, the city states that interested applicants are encouraged to apply "regardless of their immigration status."

So an illegal immigrant living in Boston can apply for the taxpayer-funded program and its $575 scholarship, while a U.S.-born resident cannot qualify under the city's stated requirement that candidates be immigrants.

According to Boston's own description, participants learn:

• Civic engagement and community organizing
• Public narrative and storytelling
• How to build leadership teams to produce community change
• How to navigate city government and engage city officials
• Immigration issues, racism and equity

Participants also conduct civic activities outside class and are expected to use the skills and relationships developed through the program to advocate for their communities. 

"The scholarship rewards participants for their time and commitment to learn, lead, and advocate for their communities," the city says.

Way More Than $575 Each

The $575 is just what Wu is paying the aspiring organizers - while Boston's FY2026 budget documents allocate $100,000 to Immigrants Lead Boston, with the city saying the money will fund training for up to 40 emerging leaders in immigrant communities.

If all 40 positions were filled and every participant received $575, the scholarships themselves would total $23,000. The budget presentation does not itemize where the remaining $77,000 goes. 

The program predates Wu. It began under former Mayor Marty Walsh in the fall of 2020, with an inaugural class of 18 participants. Wu's administration has continued and expanded it. The city's own alumni pages provide a fairly good picture of what some graduates have done with the training.

Members of the 2021-22 class advocated for driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. Participant Griselda Polanco told the city: "I want to see an opportunity to give driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants."

Another participant, Marie Jacques Toussaint, said she wanted "access to a Driver's License for everyone, including the immigrant community."

Participants also drafted testimony on public-policy issues including housing, mental-health services and immigration. Massachusetts ultimately enacted the Work and Family Mobility Act, allowing residents who cannot provide proof of lawful presence to obtain standard driver's licenses if they meet the other requirements.

Wu's administration later created an advanced alumni program called Immigrants Lead Boston Lab: From Ideas to Action.

That curriculum was developed with 're:power,' which Boston itself describes as a national training organization of organizers, strategists and technologists dedicated to building social-justice movements. For nine weeks, graduates received additional instruction in public speaking, meeting facilitation, conflict management and community organizing.

Their goals are clear. From Immigrants Lead Boston Lab's own website: 

"I want to participate more with City Life and the organizations that are fighting for rent control," said Adelaida Carbajal Rosales. 

Viera Andrea Ilse said she was embarking on a mission to help immigrants obtain driver's licenses "regardless of immigration status."

Cindy Marchando said the program had taught her about "the inner workings of social justice movements" and coalition building, which she intended to apply to her advocacy work.

Another participant described the skills involved as "campaign and community organizing."

The current program is being run in partnership with the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, or MIRA, which Boston describes as New England's largest coalition promoting immigrant and refugee rights and integration.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 21:20

Congress Ordered An Annual Accounting Of Terrorism; The Counting Has Stopped...

Authored by David E. Firester via RealClearDefense,

On May 1, 2026, the State Department released the 2024 edition of the Country Reports on Terrorism - a full year past the deadline in effect when the report came due, and months past even the more forgiving date Congress has since written into law.

No Annex of Statistical Information, the report's statistical backbone in years past, has been published with it.

And the report's own pages cite terrorism-incident rankings from the Global Terrorism Trends and Analysis Center, or GTTAC - the same data program whose funding the department allowed to lapse in March.

The report is not optional. Federal law - 22 U.S.C. § 2656f, on the books since 1987 - directs the secretary of state to transmit to Congress each year "a full and complete report" on terrorism worldwide, including, "to the extent practicable, complete statistical information" on those killed, injured, or kidnapped "by each terrorist group during the preceding calendar year."

For two decades, professionals met that statistical requirement: the National Counterterrorism Center from 2004 to 2011, the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Database from 2012 to 2017, and GTTAC's Record of Incident Database - GRID - from 2018 on. GRID was purpose-built for the statutory task. It applied the government's own definition of terrorism, named its sources, published its codebook, and put its methodology through peer review this year in the journal Democracy and Security.

In March, the funding stopped. The team behind GRID kept collecting for a time on its own; the public record now ends in mid-May. Ambassador Adam Blackwell, a GTTAC principal, told me that appeals to senior officials at the State Department, in Congress, and at the White House all failed, and that he finds the timing difficult to credit: the United States is engaged in active campaigns against Hamas, Ansar Allah, Hezbollah, and the IRGC, and has newly designated cartels and gangs from across the hemisphere - Venezuelan, Salvadoran, Mexican, and Haitian - as foreign terrorist organizations. This is the moment Washington chose to stop counting.

Note the statutory asymmetry. The report is mandated unconditionally; only the statistics carry the qualifier "to the extent practicable." Defund the sole mechanism that made the statistics practicable, and the qualifier becomes an exit. The 2024 report's own compliance chapter makes the gap explicit: it states that the statistical requirement "is satisfied through the inclusion of a statistical annex to the report" - an annex that has not been published. The 2025 edition will be worse still, because the incidents of 2025 are not being systematically collected by anyone charged with the task.

The reflex answer - use the alternative datasets - does not survive contact with the data. I spent my doctorate inside those datasets, and their custodians have been admirably candid about the limits. By its own founding director's account, the Global Terrorism Database's source-validity rule excluded 28 percent of otherwise-eligible cases worldwide in an early-2014 sample - and 76 percent in Syria, precisely where the fighting was.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, the other presumed substitute, measures political violence broadly and does some things well; it was never designed to be the statutory instrument. My dissertation documented what that costs. ACLED codes a suicide bombing only as a stand-alone event, never as part of a battle. Re-coding its Iraq narratives for 2016-2018 by hand, I found 860 suicide bombings where ACLED had coded 344 - and my recount landed within 1 percent of the Global Terrorism Database's independent tally, so the missing events were real. The same re-coding captured 48 percent more incidents than ACLED had coded in Afghanistan, and 111 percent more in Nigeria. ACLED's data are not without merit, as I wrote then. But extracting reliable answers from them requires heavy engineering that most consumers - congressional staff included - will never perform.

Methodology is not a technicality. Across 2018-2020, the years both instruments covered, GRID recorded 30 percent more incidents than the Global Terrorism Database and nearly twice the fatalities - and the two disagreed about whether global terrorism was rising or falling. The choice of instrument decides the trend line the government sees. Choose none, and there is no trend line at all.

There is precedent for the way back. When the Global Terrorism Database lost its State Department funding in 2018, allied governments - first Germany's foreign office, then Britain's - stepped in to keep collection alive, because the capability was too valuable to lose. GRID's case is stronger: the mandate is still on the books; the archive - public once again, and current through mid-May - and the trained pipeline still exist; and the gap to close is measured in weeks, not years. The cost of restarting collection is a rounding error against what the government spends to fight the groups it is no longer counting. The combatant commands consume this data. So do the insurers and reinsurers who price political-violence risk. So do the scholars and students who will train the next generation of analysts.

The 2024 report proves the mandate outlived the capability. The question Congress should be asking - and that any serious funder, public or private, should be answering - is who restores it. The threats were never in doubt. What remains in doubt is whether we intend to see them.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 20:55

87 Foreign Cruise Ship Employees Removed For Possession Of Child Abuse Material

Federal authorities have now pulled 87 foreign crew members off cruise ships under Operation Tidal Wave, a Customs and Border Protection initiative aimed at child sexual abuse material aboard the vessels.

Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations members prepare for a patrol in San Diego, on Sept. 23, 2026. John Fredricks /The Epoch Times

Six Philippine nationals on a cruise ship at the Port of Boston admitted to possessing child sexual abuse material, according to a Sept. 25 CBP statement. Julio Caravia, CBP's acting director of field operations, said authorities won't tolerate the exploitation of children and that the agency will keep identifying and arresting those involved.

The multiagency operation, led by CBP, targets crew members tied to the possession, production, procurement, distribution, or use of child sexual abuse and exploitation material.

As the Epoch Times notes further, the current phase of the operation has been in effect since mid-August, with 41 crew members removed in two previous phases.

In phase 1 of Operation Tidal Wave, which took place in San Diego in April, administrative enforcement actions were taken against 27 crew members from six vessels. These people were processed for removal and sent back to their home nations.

In phase 2, which took place in San Juan during June-July, enforcement actions were taken against 14 crew members from three vessels.

In the case of the Philippine nationals, they were processed for removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act. This provision makes foreign nationals who admit to committing acts involving moral turpitude inadmissible into the United States.

CBP clarified that under federal law, people involved with child sexual exploitation material can face severe penalties, including removal from the country, 10-year inadmissibility into the United States, and criminal prosecution.

In addition to CBP, Homeland Security Investigations and the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force were also part of the operation.

According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), its CyberTipline received more than 21 million reports last year related to child exploitation. CyberTipline receives reports of suspected child sexual exploitation from the public and electronic service providers.

More than 19 million reports were related to the manufacture, possession, and distribution of child pornography. Other reports included child sex trafficking, child sexual molestation, online enticement of children for sexual acts, and unsolicited obscene material sent to children.

In Operation Relentless Justice, conducted last year to tackle child exploitation in the country, 205 child victims were located, and 293 alleged offenders were arrested. And in April, the month-long Operation Iron Pursuit resulted in more than 200 child victims being rescued and more than 350 alleged offenders being arrested nationwide.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 20:30

Hegseth To Cut Top Generals, Admirals 'By 20%' Amid Ongoing Pentagon Shakeup

Via The Cradle

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is due to announce plans to reduce by 20 percent the number of positions reserved for generals and admirals, according to an exclusive released by Fox News on Tuesday. 

"Hegseth approved reduction plans for the Army, Navy, Air Force and the military's joint pool earlier this month," the US outlet reported, citing memos. 

via Reuters

"The services were directed to implement the plans and complete the reductions by January 1, 2027. The new target doubles the 10 percent overall reduction in general and flag officer positions Hegseth ordered last year as part of his effort to streamline the military's senior ranks," Fox News added.

The announcement will come during a State of the Force address on Wednesday. The earlier directive separately called for a 20 percent decrease in active-duty four-star positions, as well as a 20 percent reduction in National Guard general officers. 

A Department of War source told Fox News that "The latest reductions apply to billets – positions designated for generals and admirals – rather than an across-the-board removal of 20 percent of the officers currently serving in those ranks."

Some of the positions will be "downgraded" instead of removed completely, the report goes on to state. 

"Hegseth directed officials to establish O-6 requirements for general and flag officer positions identified for downgrade, allowing colonels and Navy captains to fill those jobs," according to a September 16 memo cited by Fox News. 

The report follows a string of resignations within the military establishment, the latest of which saw US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll step down. The White House announced his resignation without much elaboration, but reports said the move followed months of "friction" with Hegseth.

The war secretary had ousted former chief of staff General Randy George in April. Additionally, the US military’s Europe and Africa commander, General Christopher Donahue, resigned suddenly in June.

Hegseth had said last year that those who did not support his "reforms" for the military could step down. In late 2026, the New York Times (NYT) reported that Hegseth's "purge" has left the US military "rudderless."

"There were 10 four-star generals on active duty [when Hegseth took office]. The service currently has five, the fewest in decades," that report said. 

The war secretary’s reduction plans come as 50,000 US troops are deployed across West Asia.

More recent reports have said that US President Donald Trump plans to renew bombardment of the Islamic Republic after mid-term elections. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war on Iran, which has never been formally authorized by Congress, has killed thousands.

On September 19, Bloomberg reported that cuts within the Pentagon led to the US airstrike on an elementary school in Minab that killed at least 120 Iranian schoolchildren at the start of the war. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 20:05

California Governor Vetoes DUI Bill Redefining 'Drive' To Include Using Autopilot Under The Influence

California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Sept. 27 that would have added people using autopilot features in their cars after drinking or consuming drugs to the state's driving under the influence law.

The legislation would have redefined the term "drive" for certain driving under the influence, reckless driving, and vehicular manslaughter criminal offenses when a car is operating with autonomous technology - such as Tesla Autopilot.

The term would have included the "volitional movement of a vehicle with driver support features engaged that require a person to supervise the vehicle in order to steer, brake, or accelerate, as needed to maintain safety."

As Jill McLaughlin further reports for The Epoch Times, the governor vetoed Assembly Bill 2502 (AB 2502) and recommended that lawmakers revisit the issue next year.

Newsom gave several reasons for declining to sign the bill.

"I share the author's goal of ensuring that drivers cannot avoid responsibility for impaired driving by engaging partially automated technology," Newsom said in the veto message.

"Unfortunately, this bill as drafted introduces significant uncertainties into DUI law, which could have the unintended consequence of making it more difficult to hold dangerous drivers accountable," the governor said.

The governor said by using undefined terms that are not in alignment with established standards, such as using "driver support features," as a term, the bill could leave police officers, prosecutors, and courts to resolve complex questions about a vehicle's software and capabilities before determining if an impaired person was legally driving.

The bill's author, Democratic Assemblywoman Gail Pellerin of Santa Cruz, created the bill after a Tesla driver in San Francisco passed out on the Bay Bridge in 2018 with a blood alcohol level of more than twice the legal limit, she wrote in a statement to the legislature.

When the driver awoke, he argued that he wasn't driving drunk because the car was on autopilot, she said.

"These incidents are occurring more often and stem from consumers being misled into believing that it is acceptable to drive a semi-autonomous vehicle while impaired as long as the 'autopilot' system is engaged," Pellirin added.

"This confusion is worsened by companies using misleading language in advertising and exaggerating their vehicles' capabilities, leading consumers to believe the vehicles are fully self-driving."

The Automobile Club of Southern California and AAA Northern California, Nevada and Utah clubs supported the measure, saying it closed a gap in DUI enforcement and prevented the misuse of partially automated systems.

Although Pellerin does not name Tesla in the legislation, the company and its CEO Elon Musk have disputed California's accusations of misleading advertising claims about Tesla Autopilot, arguing in court filings that their statements were not misleading and were legally protected speech.

Pellerin didn't return a request for comment about the veto by the time of publication.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 19:40

Waste Of The Day: Trips To Tiki Bar, Nightclubs

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

It's no wonder that California's infamous high-speed rail line has more than tripled in cost and been delayed by 20 years. The consultants working on the project have been killing time at a tiki bar, a nightclub, an escape room, a gym and more.

Their travel expenses add up to more than $2 million, including $592,000 that was "not allowable," per a Sept. 15 inspector general report.

Key facts:

The consultants are allowed to bill taxpayers for legitimate business expenses, but the state "routinely" allowed them to travel without advance approval, as required. State officials admitted they sometimes had no idea the consultants had taken trips until the invoices arrived.

Many travel expenses had no written justification, or had vague explanations like "typical travel" or "meetings."

Consultants booked first-class flights and premium services like Uber Black, which picks up riders in a luxury car. One consultant booked a premium Uber to travel 25 miles to a steakhouse, and another used the service for "repeated" trips to Planet Fitness gym locations around Sacramento. Another took a ride to a nightclub at 9:40 p.m. and booked his return trip at 2:30 a.m.

State employees said the absurd expenses were approved due to "the volume of travel expense claims, limited time to review them, and errors."

One legal consulting firm's contract allows employees to earn $570 per hour while traveling on a plane, plus the price of airfare. The consulting firm billed for more than 30 trips. Only three were approved in advance, and even those contained no "adequate explanations for why the travel was necessary."

When state officials tried to enforce their authority over travel approvals, they were "resisted or overridden," according to the report. Consultants argued that Ian Choudri, CEO of the California High Speed Rail Authority, had asked them to travel for in-person meetings, and so all their expenses were justified. Choudri has no authority to approve travel for consultants, according to the audit.

The audit reviewed four consulting firms, which are not identified by name.

The Rail Authority said it would only make some changes to its travel expense procedures, arguing that "state regulations do not require justification for each consultant trip."

Background:

The high-speed rail was supposed to be finished in 2020 at a cost of $40 billion. Barely any track has been laid, and the estimated completion date is now 2040 at a cost of $126 billion.

Last year, President Donald Trump rescinded federal funding and told reporters the project has "the worst overruns that there have ever been in the history of our country."

Summary:

Californians have lost billions of dollars and countless hours of taxpayer-funded labor waiting for their high-speed rail line to be built, but at least the contractors working on the project are enjoying themselves.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 19:15

Mystery Explosions: Syria's Recovering Gas Network Keeps Getting Sabotaged

Syria has reported at least two acts of major sabotage against its gas infrastructure in six weeks, and it raises questions over who or what group is behind it, and what this means for future energy transit projects.

Monday evening saw a fire rage out of control for many hours at a gas pipeline between al-Shola and Deir Ezzor following a mystery explosion. 

Syrian media: illustrative file image.

Syrian Petroleum Company (SPC), which oversees the site, called it an act of sabotage which abruptly halted gas flows from the Jbeissa gas plant to power generation stations, according to details from state-run SANA.

The New Arab writes that "In January, the SPC began pumping raw gas from the Jbeissa fields in Hasakah to the Furqlus gas plant in Homs province, with around 1.2 million cubic metres passing through the network each day to support electricity generation."

The report adds, "Damascus has also been working to reconnect other major eastern gas facilities to the national network."

For several years stretching through much of the last decade, Syrian cities - including the capital - have suffered intermittent and long power outages. It was especially during the tail-end of the proxy war to oust Assad that lack of fuel and electricity became a major crisis.

Damascus residents, for example, often had a mere one hour of electricity in their homes per day - if at all. Entire remote villages and towns simply proceeded with daily life amid a total and persistent blackout. This was to a large degree the result of a US-led sanctions war which in effect strangled the population. US troops had even for years directly occupied Syria's eastern oil and gas fields, which had been crucial for meeting domestic energy needs.

But now after Jolani and his HTS jihadists seized power, and with Washington sanctions declared removed, the country is trying to restore and rebuild services.

While no group has yet claimed responsibility for sabotaging facilities in the east, it illustrates how the country is still in a deeply unstable situation.

Powerful explosion hits a gas pipeline in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor, near the Iraqi border.

Follow: https://t.co/Ez42KDdHXv pic.twitter.com/G0eS2BUCO1

— PressTV Extra (@PresstvExtra) September 28, 2026

As for the initial attack among these two latest, it happened on August 18 and involved an explosion at the Jbeissa plant's gas export pipeline. Other sabotage examples back when the war was at its height are plentiful.

One explanation which has emerged for Monday's incident is being reported in The National:

Hisham Al Saleh, a gas sector official at the Syrian Petroleum Company, said crews began isolating the area immediately after the fire broke out.

The local official said that the explosion was apparently caused by thieves who broke into the pipeline to steel the gas. “It seems that the theft had gone wrong. It takes a degree of professionalism to break into a gas pipeline and emerge unscathed,” the official said.

Whether sabotage or theft, it raises big questions as regional officials talk about 'reviving' energy pipelines crossing Syria as an 'alternative' to Hormuz Strait shipping, given the war-ravaged country's longtime geopolitical importance and access to the Mediterranean. A future Iraq-Syria oil pipeline, for example, could be a prime target for unknown terror entities.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 18:50

UAE's Next $25 Billion Bet On India Includes Energy Sector

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

The United Arab Emirates has expressed intent to invest another $25 billion in India, including in the energy sector, Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said at a high-level meeting in Mumbai.

The UAE has already invested about $25 billion in India and has signaled its intent to invest another $25 billion in the near term, the Indian minister said at the 14th Meeting of the India-UAE High Level Joint Task Force on Investments.

The UAE ultimately targets to have $100 billion invested in India in the long term, according to the minister.

The UAE-India meeting was co-chaired by Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, managing director of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), and was attended by Thani bin Al Zeyoudi, the Emirati Minister of Foreign Trade.

The Indian minister noted that he held "productive discussions on further strengthening our robust trade & investment partnership, with a focus on advancing cooperation across energy, infrastructure, logistics, advanced technology, food security and other priority sectors."

ADIA's Al Nahyan and the Indian minister also discussed "accelerating the India-UAE economic partnership and fully leveraging the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), a landmark framework driving trade, investment, and building resilient supply chains," Goyal said.

The India-UAE bilateral trade has doubled to $100 billion since the countries signed the CEPA deal four years ago. Now they plan to double this again to $200 billion by 2032, India's Goyal said at the investment task force meeting.

Earlier this year, at the peak blockage of the Strait of Hormuz in May, India signed a strategic agreement with the United Arab Emirates to receive liquefied petroleum gas from the UAE, as well as a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on strategic petroleum reserves.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed the LPG supply deal and the strategic reserves pact during a quick two-hour visit to the UAE in the middle of May, as India was scrambling to ease energy supply pressures that began to hit its economy.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 18:25

Duke Lacrosse Hoax 2.0? Cornell DA Reopens Rape Case - Accuser Described Sex As 'Voluntary, Conscious, And Consensual'

The Cornell fraternity rape case produced a national outrage campaign two years ago, after a student claimed she was raped at a fraternity house. Her allegations surfaced two weeks ago after the woman, known as Jane Doe in the lawsuit, sued seven men, the university, her sorority and the fraternity. 

People walk on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in February 2024. AP Photo/Seth Wenig

Except, now we find out that the accuser's original sworn statement described the encounter as consensual. Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten is reopening the investigation into allegations that seven former members of Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity sexually assaulted a student in October 2024. And shall we take a guess as to why there were no charges filed?

According to CBS News, Van Houten said the woman’s November 2024 statement "did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped" by multiple men.

"On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual."

That's the prosecutor’s characterization of her earlier account. It conflicts sharply with the civil lawsuit filed this month - and creates an obvious question for the reopened investigation: how should those accounts be reconciled?

The woman, identified as Jane Doe, was 20 at the time. Her lawsuit alleges that she arrived at the fraternity house already intoxicated, was pressured into taking what she was told was ketamine, and was sexually assaulted by multiple men over several hours.

She reported the incident to campus police approximately three weeks afterward. The nearly two-year gap concerns the civil lawsuit; it does not mean she waited two years to contact police.

Then there are the texts.

CBS News New York obtained screenshots that a source described as an exchange between Doe and one defendant two days after the alleged assault.

In that exchange, the woman wrote that "non(e) of the sexual stuff was illegal," said she liked being with him and another man, and suggested they smoke together again - "but like leave out the extra 5 billion men and ketamine."

The man replied by apologizing for "how things went down." He described his memory as “kinda fuzzy” and said he and another man felt bad about being too intoxicated to stop the situation and remove others before it got out of hand. The woman described her own memory as “super clouded too.”

So she may or may not have willingly let a group of frat boys bust a train on her, and now she's suing. 

Doe’s attorney, Thomas Giuffra, confirmed that she exchanged texts with the defendant, but could not confirm that these were the specific messages. He told CBS she was traumatized and in denial, had been intoxicated to the point of incapacity, and was trying to obtain information without alienating someone who could explain what happened.

Then there's the fraternity's group chat. CBS reported a message advertising the woman’s availability for sex, followed later by “Shop still open?” and the reply “Yea.”

Van Houten called the exchange “disgusting, vulgar” and said it would be presented to the grand jury. His position is that the messages do not resolve the question of consent.

The Investigation

The university says it conducted a months-long Title IX investigation followed by a hearing at which both sides could testify and present evidence. Sanctions included expulsions and suspensions. The Chi Phi chapter closed in 2024 and remains barred from campus.

“None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement,” Cornell said.

That, of course, is open to scrutiny. Claims that the university imposed no meaningful consequences do not comport with the expulsions, suspensions and shutting down the fraternity's chapter. Meanwhile, the political verdict has been considerably less tentative.

At a Sunday event near Cornell, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned a “culture of rape” protected by elite institutions and treated the group chat as evidence that the conduct had become normalized, according to the Associated Press. The prosecutor said his office had received a flood of messages, including insults and threats.

Public pressure can expose institutional failures. It can also reward certainty long before the underlying facts justify it.

There are substantial questions for investigators, too. Van Houten told CBS his office did not have Cornell’s Title IX records and was seeking them. He also said there was no indication that police had interviewed the seven accused men at the time.

Giuffra says his client received no investigative follow-up after her initial campus-police report. Van Houten defends the officer who took that statement as experienced and trained in trauma-informed sexual-assault investigations. He also says Doe’s lawyers never approached his office to correct the original account or request reconsideration before he contacted them following the lawsuit.

Van Houten says he hopes to present the case to a grand jury within 45 days. Cornell supports reopening the investigation, and Doe’s attorney has welcomed it while pressing for a thorough review.

For now, the public record contains a serious allegation, a sharply different earlier account as described by the prosecutor, reported text messages, competing explanations and unanswered questions about the original investigation.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 18:00

Another Federal Judge Strikes Down New York's $75 Billion Climate Superfund

Authored by Tom Gantert via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge has struck down New York's Climate Change Superfund Act, blocking the state from collecting $75 billion from fossil fuel companies to pay for projects addressing concerns the state attributed to climate change.

The Justice Department on Sept. 28 hailed the ruling as a "significant step in ... protecting American energy from state overreach." U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel issued a judgment against the law on Sept. 25 after stating two days earlier that it intruded on federal authority in multiple ways, including by regulating greenhouse gas emissions that cross state lines.

The law would have required large companies involved in fossil fuel extraction or crude oil refining to pay into a state fund over 25 years. Each company's share would have been based on greenhouse gas emissions attributed to its products from 2000 through 2024. New York intended to use the money for infrastructure and other projects to help communities address issues the state blames on climate change.

The Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency sued to block the law. They argued that New York's law ran afoul of the legal doctrine of preemption, which says that federal law takes precedence if there is a conflict with state law.

The federal government said the Clean Air Act gives the EPA authority to decide whether and how to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. It said New York's law would impose its own liability on fossil fuel producers based on emissions attributed to their products worldwide.

New York argued that its law did not regulate emissions. It said the payments would compensate the state for harm from past emissions and fund projects to protect New Yorkers from problems it attributed to climate change. Castel rejected the state's argument, saying the charges effectively regulated interstate emissions.

Castel found that the law reached beyond New York's authority even though the state planned to spend the money on local projects.

Castel also said the law infringed on foreign affairs by seeking payments from fossil fuel companies for activity outside the United States. Citing an earlier appeals court ruling, he said holding oil companies accountable for what they did outside U.S. territory would bypass diplomatic channels and "needlessly complicate the nation's foreign policy."

Two federal judges have now ruled on New York's Climate Change Superfund Act because different plaintiffs brought separate lawsuits. There were 22 states and business groups that challenged the law in the Northern District of New York, where U.S. District Judge Brenda Sannes blocked it on Aug. 31.

The DOJ and EPA filed their own case in the Southern District, where Castel issued a second ruling.

"New York's woke climate change law is not only unconstitutional, it is harmful, jeopardizing every American's access to affordable and reliable energy," said Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward, Jr., in a statement on Monday.

"We are pleased with the district courts' decisions finding New York's law unlawful and recognizing that the Federal Sovereign, not the States, regulates our Nation's energy market."

Advocates such as the Fiscal Policy Institute had supported the Climate Change Superfund Act. The Fiscal Policy Institute had said that the $75 billion was needed to "adapt to rising sea levels and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events - measures that wouldn't be needed but for the high emissions caused by these companies' business activities."

New York had said the federal government didn't have standing in the case because it hadn't shown how the state's law would stop it from enforcing federal law or interfere with compliance with international agreements. The state also argued its law didn't seek to regulate emissions, just compensation for harm it attributed to climate change.

The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James did not respond to an emailed request for comment. James was named as a defendant in the lawsuit in her official capacity.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 17:20

Texas Governor Declares Disaster Over Soaring Diesel Prices

Texas ranchers and truckers could start seeing some relief at the fuel pump starting this week after Gov. Greg Abbott proclaimed a statewide disaster on Sept. 28 to ease diesel shortages.

"Texas agriculture and freight run on diesel," Abbott said in a statement.

"Record prices put both industries at risk and raise costs for every Texas family."

Record-high diesel prices in the Lone Star State have increased in the past few weeks, hovering at an average of $5.90 per gallon on Sept. 28, about 10 cents less than a week ago on average, but $2.70 more than a year ago, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).

The national average reached $6.44 per gallon on Sept. 28, about 2 cents less than the day before but $2.77 more than last year, AAA reported.

As Jill McLaughlin further report for The Epoch Times, Abbott's declaration allows for the expanded use of dyed diesel on Texas roads and raises the allowable weight for fuel, agricultural, and timber loads.

The proclamation also suspends the state's low emission diesel rules to a level authorized by federal environmental standards. This is expected to increase diesel supplies and ease the record-high fuel prices.

Abbott also asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to waive federal ultra-low sulfur diesel requirements.

Dyed diesel is off-road fuel marked with solvent red 164 dye and is typically only used in agricultural operations. The fuel is sold without a motor fuel tax, which is why the state usually prohibits its use on public roadways.

Using red-dyed diesel doesn't compromise fuel quality or engine performance, but it can stain tanks, hoses, and skin, according to Senergy Petroleum.

"From a performance standpoint, clear diesel and dyed diesel are virtually identical," the company stated.

The Texas governor sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zelden on Sept. 28, asking for a temporary Clean Air Act waiver of federal ultra-low sulfur diesel rules and the Texas low emission diesel rules that apply in 110 counties.

The rules limit which diesel can be sold, and a waiver would let the state allow more fuel to reach Texas pumps, Abbott said.

The Texas Forestry Association applauded Abbott's diesel declaration.

"A BIG WIN FOR LOGGING & TEXAS FORESTRY!" the association posted on X.

"Gov. Abbott's new disaster proclamation expands dyed-diesel use on Texas roads and allows fuel, agricultural, and timber loads up to 95,000 pounds."

Oil prices surged on Sept. 28 after President Donald Trump turned down Iran's conditional seven-day proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. He told reporters over the weekend that he had rejected it and declined to rule out restarting strikes on Iran ahead of the midterms.

The rejection dashed hopes of diplomacy seen last week at the U.N. General Assembly, said oil expert Patrick De Haan in a social media post. Early trading sent oil prices slightly higher for domestic and international crude.

Prices for diesel fuel nationwide have rocketed to record levels this month after a combination of events reduced supplies and caused uncertainties in the global oil market.

Conflicts in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine have slowed delivery of supplies reaching the United States.

Diesel supplies are expected to remain tight and below average through much of next year, according to an analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the federal statistical and analytical agency for energy data.

"We assume global production of distillate fuel will remain below last year's levels in the coming months, contributing to low U.S. diesel inventories and high diesel prices," the EIA reported on Sept. 9.

However, oil prices are expected to start falling at the start of next year, as production in the Middle East rises in the coming months with more traffic coming through the Strait of Hormuz and alternative routes out of the region, the EIA reported.

U.S. natural gas inventories are on track to be above the five-year average at the start of winter, due to rising production in the U.S. Permian Basin and Haynesville Shale regions, according to the EIA.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 17:00

The Industrialization Of Fraud: How Global Scam Farms Are Evolving To Target Your Wealth

Authored by Adam H. Douglas via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Financial fraud has morphed into a massive, highly organized global industry powered by transnational scam farms. These industrial-scale operations are largely concentrated in Southeast Asia but are rapidly expanding their reach to target your wealth.

AI is helping scam farms make fraud more convincing and scalable, making it more important to recognize the warning signs. NONGASIMO/Shutterstock

These syndicates are becoming much more sophisticated. They deploy advanced psychological tactics and emerging technologies to drain your life savings.

But how does this brutal business model work? And what are some actionable consumer defense strategies you can employ to protect your finances?

Quick Answer: How Do Scam Farms Work?

Scam farms are organized fraud syndicates, and one of the most popular techniques they use is a devastating, long-term confidence trick coined a pig-butchering scam. Scammers spend months building deep personal trust with you, metaphorically “fattening” you up with fake initial investment profits before stealing your entire principal. These operations are rarely run by lone hackers - they are orchestrated by massive, industrial-scale scam farms often located in Cambodia and Myanmar, but slowly spreading to many other countries.

Global scam farms operate like illicit corporations with specialized teams for different stages of the fraud. Alarmingly, many front-line workers in these compounds are victims of human trafficking, forced into labor under the threat of violence.

The Rise of Industrial-Scale Fraud Compounds

The volume of money moving through these transnational fraud syndicates is staggering.

Recently, the United States Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) identified approximately $12.7 billion in suspicious financial activity tied to digital asset investment scams over a two-year period. This highlights how overseas scam centers have become a structural threat to the global financial system.

Law enforcement agencies are pushing back, but the criminals continuously adapt.

Following major international enforcement efforts and crackdowns launched in Cambodia throughout 2025 and 2026, many scam operators simply relocated their headquarters. They bribe local officials and employ professional money launderers to move stolen funds through complex networks of offshore stablecoin exchanges.

The average American is up against a multi-billion-dollar shadow industry, making extreme caution necessary.

The Anatomy of a Long-Term Crypto Investment Scam

modern scam farms utilize a slow, methodical approach to social engineering. The process begins with a seemingly innocent mistake, such as a text message from a wrong number or a match on a dating application.

If you reply, the scammer initiates a friendly conversation. Over weeks, they cultivate a relationship, posing as a successful entrepreneur.

Once trust is firmly established, they casually introduce the topic of cryptocurrency investing. To build credibility, they direct you to download a trading platform that looks entirely legitimate.

You're encouraged to start with a small deposit, and the platform will show fabricated, extraordinary returns. Once you deposit a substantial portion of your wealth, the platform freezes your account, the scammer vanishes, and your funds are instantly funneled into the syndicate's wallets.

How Scammers Use Artificial Intelligence to Scale

Global scam farms are increasingly integrating artificial intelligence into their operations. AI allows criminal networks to scale their reach exponentially without sacrificing personalization.

• Previously, a scammer could only manage a few victims due to language barriers.
• Now, syndicates use large language models to automate thousands of interactions simultaneously.
• These tools instantly translate messages into flawless English, eliminating grammatical errors.

Scammers also utilize AI-generated deepfakes. If you ask to verify their identity on a video call, they use real-time face-swapping software to appear exactly like the stolen photographs used to build their fake profile.

Actionable Consumer Defense: Red Flags to Watch For

Defending your wealth requires vigilance and an understanding of behavioral red flags rather than purely technical indicators. Here are the critical warning signs:

• The Accidental Text: Unsolicited messages claiming to be a wrong number that pivot into a friendly conversation are almost certainly scam attempts.
• The Rush to Private Messaging: Scammers quickly move conversations away from monitored dating applications and onto encrypted messaging services.
• Too Good to Be True Returns: Anyone guaranteeing consistent, risk-free returns in the cryptocurrency market is lying.
• Unfamiliar Trading Platforms: If you're instructed to use a specific, obscure trading application you can't verify independently, it's likely a fraudulent platform.
• High-Pressure Tactics for Taxes: When you attempt to withdraw your funds and the platform demands an upfront tax using additional funds, this is typically the final phase of the theft.

FAQs: Global Scam Farms What Is a Pig-Butchering Scam and How Does it Work?

A pig butchering scam is a devastating fraud tactic where criminals build trust with a victim over an extended period. The scammers initiate contact through dating applications or accidental text messages, eventually moving the conversation to investments. They convince you to deposit money into a fraudulent cryptocurrency platform that displays fake profits. This creates a false sense of security, encouraging you to invest larger amounts. Once you attempt to withdraw your money, the scammers lock your account and disappear, taking your entire investment with them. These scams are highly organized and designed to drain your life savings methodically.

What Are the Red Flags of a Crypto Investment Scam?

The primary red flag of a crypto investment scam is an unsolicited online contact who eventually steers the conversation toward finance. Be extremely wary if someone guarantees high returns with zero risk or pressures you to act quickly on an insider tip. Another major warning sign is being directed to download an unfamiliar trading application that cannot be found on official app stores or verified by independent financial authorities. Asking you to pay an additional, unexpected tax or fee just to withdraw your own money is another hallmark of a scam.

Can You Recover Funds Lost to a Global Fraud Syndicate?

Recovering funds lost to a global fraud syndicate is exceptionally difficult and extremely rare. These organizations often employ professional money launderers who can move your deposits through complex networks of offshore stablecoin exchanges and cryptocurrency mixers - the funds are nearly impossible to trace or freeze. You should report the crime to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center and local law enforcement, but the money is likely gone. One more note: be highly suspicious of secondary "recovery companies" that contact you promising to retrieve your money for an upfront fee, as these are often the same scammers looking for a bonus score.

What Is FinCEN Doing About International Scam Compounds?

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is actively working to disrupt international scam compounds by tracking the illicit flow of money. FinCEN collects and analyzes suspicious activity reports from domestic financial institutions to identify the money laundering networks used by these syndicates. They recently identified billions of dollars linked to overseas scam centers and issued alerts urging banks to monitor for specific transaction patterns. Furthermore, FinCEN shares this critical financial intelligence with international law enforcement partners to coordinate global crackdowns, freeze criminal assets where possible, and dismantle the financial infrastructure that allows these transnational organizations to operate and profit.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 16:20

Trump Launches America.Gov Website Simplifying Access To Government Services

Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Sept. 29 directing all federal agencies to integrate services with a new website designed to make it easier for users to find information and interact with the government.

He described the tool as "one of the most revolutionary product launches of all time."

America.gov will serve as a landing page consolidating nearly 30,000 federal government websites into one chatbot, powered by SpaceX's Grok and Google's Gemini. The site allows users to ask questions and receive guidance about procuring services.

"The federal government no longer stands in your way, and it stands only at your service," Trump said.

"We're simplifying it. We're glamorizing it. We're making it what it should be."

Plans for full integration with more than 10,000 forms across agencies will provide opportunities for full-service enrollment, where visitors can "apply, enroll, and track progress directly in the chat," according to a statement on the new site.

Users will find a "front door" to the government replacing the "endless maze" of websites and regulations, according to the president.

"It's not just simply a website. It's a restoration of America's founding promises, and it's a reinvention of your government for the 21st century and beyond," Trump said. "We're putting power and control back into the hands of the people, right where it belongs."

Once complete, Americans can request replacement Social Security cards, apply for passports and name changes, and access countless other government services.

"And with this, nobody can any longer complain about providing proof of citizenship or voter ID," Trump said, while calling for lawmakers to pass the SAVE America Act, which would mandate proof of citizenship to register and IDs to vote. "They're always saying it's too complicated. It's not complicated anymore."

Privacy is built into the system, no login is required, the site does not track visitors, and no personal information or conversations are recorded, according to administration officials.

Preventing data leaks and hacks is a priority, Trump said during his address, noting rapid advancement in technology and potential threats while touting security precautions against any attempts to infiltrate the system.

Visitors can type queries into the text box, mirroring modern AI interfaces. The chatbot can also translate three spoken languages - English, Spanish, and French - with more additions coming soon.

While the technology is built on artificial intelligence platforms, the president is proposing a universal name change for the innovation, suggesting that super intelligence, or SI, is superior to the "artificial" alternative.

Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, the nation's first chief design officer, revealed the website to the public in a product-demo style presentation at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium in the nation's capital.

"There was a time when Americans entered great public buildings to meet our government, and when they did, the spaces achieved a user experience unlike anything else," Gebbia said, noting the impact of architectural design and grand rooms that communicated "dignity and respect" to all who entered.

"America.gov carries that idea into the age of super intelligence to reimagine a government built around you that respects your time, that works for you, that we can be proud of as Americans."

Approximately 39 million Americans visit federal government websites every day, collectively spending more than 10 billion hours annually on government-related paperwork, according to administration officials.

The website is live as of Sept. 29, with more features expected in the coming months.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 15:45

Senate Passes 'Protect College Sports Act'

The Senate on Sept. 28 passed a bill that seeks to bring stability to the rapidly changing landscape of collegiate sports, sending it to the House of Representatives.

The Protect College Sports Act of 2026 passed on a 77-22 vote. The bill aims to address growing concerns surrounding athlete compensation, transfer rules, conference realignment, and long-term athlete protections. Since the House is out of session, it is unlikely to vote on the bill until after the November midterm elections.

In a Truth Social post, President Donald Trump called the Senate's passage of the bill "a really big deal."

"It will not only save college sports, it will save the colleges themselves," he said.

Under the legislation, the NCAA would be exempt from antitrust laws, and there would be a nationwide standard for name, image, and likeness (NIL) rules that would override the current patchwork of state laws.

As Jackson Richman reports further for The Epoch Times,The bill would allow student-athletes to use five seasons of eligibility within a five-year window and limit athletes to one transfer during their college careers. Division I schools would also be required to honor scholarships for up to 10 years after an athlete's final season.

Additionally, it would revise the Sports Broadcasting Act, allowing athletic conferences to pool television rights.

Another major component of the bill is player health and safety provisions.

Division I schools would be required to cover out-of-pocket medical costs for sports-related injuries both during participation and for five years after an athlete's final competition.

The legislation would mandate catastrophic injury coverage, access to second opinions, and post-career physical examinations, and establish a $60 million medical trust fund from the NCAA's coffers to assist smaller schools and athletes with long-term medical conditions.

The bill would also create an independent office within college athletics to provide confidential, free guidance to student-athletes and help resolve disputes involving schools, conferences, or athletic associations.

College football coaches would be prohibited from leaving midseason to take on another college football coaching job. This provision came after Lane Kiffin left his role as head coach of the University of Mississippi football team in November 2025 to take the same title at Louisiana State University.

Under the measure, at least one-third of governing boards or rulemaking committees within athletic associations would be required to consist of current or former student-athletes.

The bill also targets what lawmakers describe as abuses within the NIL system. It would ban compensation arrangements intended to bypass revenue-sharing limits or disguise pay-for-play incentives while preserving legitimate education- and athletics-related benefits established under the House settlement framework.

Under the House v. NCAA settlement, Division I athletes are eligible to receive a share of up to $20.5 million in school-generated revenue, with that cap expected to increase over time. The settlement also included nearly $2.8 billion in back pay for athletes who competed between 2016 and 2024.

The Protect College Sports Act would extend the revenue-sharing cap beyond the expiration of the House settlement after the 2034-35 academic year while allowing annual inflation adjustments.

The measure would create a bipartisan congressional commission to study the long-term future of college athletics, including athlete compensation, Olympic and women's sports, spending limits, health and safety standards, agent regulations, and the overall structure of college sports.

One unresolved issue in college athletics is whether student-athletes should be classified as employees of their schools.

The new legislation does not take a position. Congress has previously attempted to address the issue through measures such as the SCORE Act and SAFE Act. The House had planned to vote on the SCORE Act in May, but the vote was canceled amid concerns about insufficient support. That proposal would prevent student-athletes from being classified as employees.

Moreover, the legislation would prohibit certain large-revenue conferences, such as the Southeastern Conference and the Atlantic Coast Conference, from consolidating with or acquiring other conferences. It would limit the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC to 19 schools. Any school from these conferences that changes to another conference would need to operate independently for three years. This provision would sunset in six years.

The bill has the support of the major conferences such as the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference, and others.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who introduced the bill with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), said the bill is necessary to bring sanity to college sports.

"The Protect College Sports Act is bipartisan legislation designed to bring order to the chaos, designed to put simple, common-sense rules in place so that college sports remain strong and vibrant for decades to come," Cruz said at a press conference on Sept. 14.

Cantwell said at the press conference, "This is about reining in the bad practices that are happening in college sports today, the runaway costs that are sending people to the state legislature, asking for bailout from taxpayers to pay for sports, asking people to take endowment funds that really should go to things like wheat research or AI, and instead have to be spent because of the runaway arms race in sports spending."

Most importantly, the bill has the support of President Donald Trump.

"The alternative just is no good. ... We have to get it voted on, and we're counting on the House - and I think the House will come through, too," the president told political commentator Clay Travis in an interview on Sept. 26.

Opposition to the bill has come from the NAACP and some Democrats.

"We recognize that the bill contains provisions concerning scholarships, healthcare, athlete agents, safety standards, and student-athlete representation," the NAACP's president and CEO, Derrick Johnson, wrote in an Aug. 4 letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

"College athletes deserve those protections. They should not, however, be used as political cover for provisions that insulate institutions and conferences from legal and economic accountability."

In a speech on the Senate floor on Sept. 16, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) disagreed with those who advocate for the bill.

"It's not about the safety, it's not about the well-being, it's not about the education of college athletes," he said. "This is a money play, plain and simple."

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 15:25

Supreme Court Lets Trump's Third-Country Deportations Resume, Takes Case

Update (1516ET): The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to resume third-country deportations and agreed to hear the underlying dispute this winter.

In a brief emergency-docket order in DHS v. D.V.D., the justices stayed U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy’s Feb. 25 judgment, which had blocked the Department of Homeland Security from sending people with final removal orders to countries not named in those orders unless they first received notice and a chance to raise persecution or torture claims.

The stay puts the First Circuit’s Sept. 18 ruling on hold and lets DHS restart removals under its March 2025 guidance while the case proceeds.

The Court also treated the government’s application as a petition for review and granted certiorari. Argument is set for the December 2026 sitting. The stay lasts until the Court issues its final judgment.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the stay.

The order is the Court’s third intervention in the same litigation. It previously paused Murphy’s preliminary injunction on June 23, 2025, and clarified on July 3, 2025, that the pause applied in full - including a flight the administration sought to send to South Sudan after it was diverted to a U.S. base in Djibouti.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Court last week that the First Circuit’s late-night dissolution of its own stay had thrown removal operations into chaos, including cancellation of a flight carrying about 70 deportees - some with criminal convictions - to three countries.

DHS counsel James Percival has said more than 25,000 people have already been removed under the program. Rights groups put the figure at more than 25,000 people sent to about 29 countries, many of them to Mexico.

The justices directed briefing on whether the district court had jurisdiction, whether classwide declaratory relief and APA vacatur are allowed under 8 U.S.C. §1252(f)(1), and whether the third-country guidance is unlawful under the removal statute, the Due Process Clause, or CAT/FARRA.

Tuesday’s order does not decide those questions. It restores the policy for now and tees them up for a full hearing.

* * *

The Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 24 to revive its third-country deportation program that sends deportees to countries that were not named in their removal orders.

The Trump administration has said it removes individuals to third countries when it cannot quickly return them to their home countries.

However, critics say the policy is used to bypass legal restrictions and deter illegal immigration.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy, adopted in March 2025, allows immigration officials to deport foreign nationals in as little as six hours.

The Supreme Court has already ruled in favor of the program twice on its emergency docket.

As Matthew Vadum further reports via The Epoch Times, following Supreme Court rules, the application is addressed to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson because she oversees emergency appeals from decisions of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

However, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer took the unusual step of asking Jackson to refer the stay request to the full court instead of ruling on it herself if she will not freeze the lower court's order.

Jackson voted against the government both times when the litigation previously came before the high court.

Sauer said lower court decisions were throwing into chaos the delicate arrangements the government has negotiated with other nations to take in deportees who are not their citizens.

"Third-country removals require careful negotiation with foreign governments, which are rarely enthusiastic about accepting foreign citizens (especially criminals), and often requires obtaining travel documents and devoting significant manpower to the staging of flights to protect government officers and flight crews," he said.

Disrupting those plans "imposes massive costs on the government," and forces it to engage in new instances of diplomatic engagement with countries "who may be all the more skeptical of our removal efforts given the disruption."

The filing concerns a First Circuit ruling from Sept. 18 that struck down DHS guidance allowing removal based on diplomatic assurances that receiving countries will not persecute or torture people sent to them.

The three-judge panel raised concerns about "blanket assurances" from third countries that promise U.S. deportees won't be tortured or persecuted, saying this promise is not sufficient and does not properly allow foreign nationals to raise persecution or torture concerns.

The panel affirmed the final judgment U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy issued Feb. 25 vacating the DHS guidance. In its Sept. 18 decision, it affirmed the striking down of the policy.

Murphy previously certified the respondents, who are people with final removal orders, as a nationwide class.

The respondents argue that the government may deport a removable noncitizen to a willing third country, but not without inquiring about whether the person would be persecuted or tortured in that country.

The case is known as DHS v. D.V.D.

On Sept. 24, Jackson did not respond to Sauer's request. Instead, she directed the other side to file a response to the application by 4 p.m. on Sept. 28.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 15:16

Why Businesses Haven't Left California - Yet

Authored by Tom Wilson via the Mises Institute,

California has a strange relationship with business. Its lawmakers seem determined to make doing business more expensive, yet companies continue to operate there. Taxes rise, regulations accumulate, and new compliance requirements are added, but California remains home to some of the most successful companies in the world. That raises a question more interesting than whether California is "business friendly." Why do businesses continue to stay - and how far can the state push them before they finally decide the benefits of California are no longer worth the cost?

Adam Smith understood part of the answer long before California became an economic powerhouse. In The Wealth of Nations, he explained that the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market. California offers businesses an enormous and highly-developed market. Its ports connect them to the world, its universities and industries provide specialized labor, and decades of accumulated capital and expertise create opportunities that aren't easily duplicated elsewhere. Silicon Valley wasn't built overnight, and neither were California's entertainment, agriculture, and international trade networks. Those advantages help explain why businesses tolerate costs in California that they might never accept in a smaller or less developed market. But California shouldn't mistake an advantage for immunity.

Some businesses have already decided those advantages are no longer enough. Tesla moved its headquarters to Texas. Chevron - a company with roots in California stretching back more than a century - moved its headquarters to Houston. Oracle moved its headquarters from California to Austin. These aren't struggling companies desperately searching for somewhere cheaper to survive. They are enormously successful businesses with the resources to operate almost anywhere. Their departures don't prove that California's economy is collapsing. They demonstrate something more important: even California's considerable economic advantages have a price.

A business doesn't have to leave California for California to lose. A company headquartered in Los Angeles can keep its offices there while building its next warehouse, factory, or distribution center in Arizona, Nevada, or Texas. No headline announces another company fleeing the state. The investment simply lands somewhere else. Multiply that decision across thousands of companies making thousands of quiet calls each year, and it may matter more than any single high-profile departure.

One bill now sitting on Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk offers a good example of the direction California continues to take. AB 2599 would require certain large companies with sufficiently old corporate roots to search historical records for connections to slavery and report what they find to the state. Whatever one thinks of the goal, those records won't search themselves. Someone has to locate them, attorneys have to determine what must be disclosed, and employees have to ensure the company complies. For a corporation with billions in revenue, that expense alone is unlikely to send it running for the Texas border. But that is precisely the point. If Newsom signs the bill, it becomes another requirement, another expense, and another reason for a business to consider making its next investment somewhere else.

California's strength can mask this. Silicon Valley doesn't vanish because of one more regulation, the ports don't relocate to Nevada, and Hollywood isn't rebuilt in Austin overnight. That durability can convince lawmakers businesses will tolerate almost anything. But Texas, Nevada, Arizona, and Tennessee don't need to match everything California offers - they only need to close the gap enough that lower costs start to win. Workforces can be trained, capital can move, and networks can form elsewhere. California didn't earn a permanent lease on its advantages; it just got there first.

This helps explain why businesses haven't abandoned California. Its markets, access to trade, skilled labor, capital, and generations of accumulated economic activity still provide enormous advantages. But those advantages shouldn't be confused with permanence. Every new tax, mandate, and compliance requirement asks businesses to calculate once again whether California is worth the price. Some have already answered no. Others continue to stay. The question California's lawmakers should be asking isn't how much more businesses can afford to pay. It's how many times they can raise the price of staying before more businesses decide to build their future somewhere else.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 15:05

Trump Mulls Big Russia Sanctions Relief For Prisoners, Risking Wrath Of Allies & Hawks

Diplomacy is obviously stalemated and almost non-existent when it comes to the Iran conflict and Hormuz Strait crisis, and so the White House needs some level of a 'win'.

It seems President Trump continues to look for this in the years-long Ukraine crisis, as he's said to now be mulling a major deal which would see the Kremlin free some political prisoners in exchange for a significant easing of sanctions on the Russian economy.

The Atlantic on Tuesday in reporting the initiative characterized the potential deal as so sweeping that it "could outrage even his allies." Of course, the Zelensky government and Europe is actively trying to tighten the screws on Moscow.

via AFP

But the proposed plan would in many ways be a reversal of the prior policy of 'global isolation' of Putin. The report says:

Donald Trump’s envoy to Eastern Europe came to the president with a new idea for breaking the deadlock in U.S. relations with Moscow. The plan involved a quid pro quo reminiscent of the Cold War: The Kremlin would free some political prisoners, and the United States would reward their release by easing sanctions on the Russian economy. Trump signed on.

This new initiative, which is still in its early stages and has not been previously reported, promises to advance several of Trump’s goals at once. It would help reintegrate Russia into the global economy and broaden Trump’s talks with the Kremlin beyond the intractable war in Ukraine, which his envoys have failed to end after more than a year of diplomacy. It would create a path for the U.S. to sign lucrative deals involving Russian oil, diesel, rare earth minerals, and other commodities. As a bonus, the release of prisoners on humanitarian grounds could bolster Trump’s case for his long-coveted Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump's envoy to Eastern Europe, John Coale, had reportedly first pitched the initiative "a few months ago," and "Trump signed on," the report notes.

However, it's said to still be early stages, but if it gets close to the finish line the plan "is likely to outrage the Ukrainians, Europeans, and even many of Trump's allies on Capitol Hill," The Atlantic underscores.

But such concerns have never stopped Trump before, and it could actually help jump-start the long dormant peace process, and possibly cool soaring tensions with NATO.

The report also comments that "any potential business deal between the US and Russia would risk funneling money to the Russian military even as it continues to terrorize Ukraine and threatens a wider war against US allies in Europe."

An important caveat which could hinder an ambitious prisoner release for sanctions relief is that fact that Trump just drastically upped the ante by earlier this month signing a bill co-authored by the late NeoCon senator Lindsey Graham which authorized the president to "impose severe sanctions on Russia and its trading partners."

Lindsey Graham, even from the grave, still dictating -- or at least being the avatar of -- Trump's foreign policy.

From "I'll end the Ukraine/Russia war in 24 hours" to "More sanctions on Russia!"

Also, those who claimed Putin ruled Trump through blackmail can't explain this: https://t.co/rb7e44ZJ7E

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 19, 2026

So if Trump was wishing to soon strike a deal and cool tensions with Russia, why sign the Graham bill? A lot of contradictions in Washington policy remain. The Trump administration has also had a running 'love-hate' relationship with Zelensky. At times Zelensky is being berated, at others he's being praised. Like the Iran conflict, MAGA and conservatives in general have by and large been divided on the issue of Ukraine and what US policy should be.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 14:45

Education Department Scraps Biden-Era Title IX Gender Identity Protections

Via American Greatness,

The Education Department announced Monday that it has formally rescinded the Biden administration's interpretation of Title IX that extended sex-discrimination protections to students based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Schools will instead return to Title IX regulations adopted during President Donald Trump's first administration in 2020, a move the department says will protect women's sports and provide greater clarity for schools and families.

"Thanks to today's action, the published Title IX regulations faithfully reflect court orders and Congressional intent - reducing confusion for parents, students, and educational institutions," Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.

"We will continue to relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy, or athletic opportunities of our women and girls," she added.

The Biden-era rule had already been struck down in federal court following legal challenges brought by Republican-led states.

Since Trump returned to office, his administration has pursued policies defining sex under Title IX in biological terms and has pressed schools to change policies allowing transgender athletes to participate in women's sports. The University of Pennsylvania, for example, reached a deal with the administration to remove transgender athletes from its women's athletic programs.

Critics claim the administration's approach will harm transgender students and could weaken protections for victims of sexual violence.

Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women's Law Center, accused the administration of "weaponizing Title IX to attack trans students."

"Sexual harassment and assault continue to be pervasive in schools and, to the fullest extent possible, we should be working to enforce the laws that protect student survivors of sexual violence," Patel said.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 14:25