Read it.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is talking to “dozens” of Congress members about codifying the Education Department’s biggest step toward extinction.

The Daily Signal asked McMahon at Thursday’s press briefing if she was talking to members of Congress about her Tuesday announcement regarding moving certain functions of the department to other executive agencies.

“We’ve been talking to talk to dozens of members of Congress to explain to them exactly what we’re doing, to bring them up to speed,” she said in response to a question from The Daily Signal, “and to say to them, ‘look, when we have completed some of these transfers that we that are working incredibly well, then we will be looking for Congress to codify those.’”

Read it.

Iodized salt is so commonplace in the U.S. today that you may never have given the additive a second thought. But new research finds that humble iodine has played a substantial role in cognitive improvements seen across the American population in the 20th century.

Read it.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday it is redefining the scope of the nation’s bedrock clean water law to limit the wetlands it covers, building on a Supreme Court decision two years ago that removed federal protections for significant areas.

When finalized, the new “Waters of the United States” rule will ensure that federal jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act is focused on relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water, such as streams, oceans, rivers and lakes, along with wetlands that are connected to such bodies of water, the EPA said.

The new rule will help accelerate economic prosperity while protecting vital water resources, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said at a news conference at agency headquarters. The rule will fully implement the direction provided by the Supreme Court in a case known as Sackett v. EPA, he said. The 2023 ruling sharply limited the federal government’s authority to police water pollution into certain wetlands, and boosted property rights over concerns about clean water in a ruling in favor of an Idaho couple who sought to build a house near a lake.

Long time coming,  but glad to see it.

Read it.

One of Jimmy Carter’s famous failures.

majority of registered voters support closing the Department of Education after learning more about what President Donald Trump’s proposal entails, according to a new poll commissioned by the Yes Every Kid Foundation.

When asked about terminating the Education Department, 51% opposed the plan in the absence of other details, while 38% supported it.

But when provided with more information about the proposal, such as folding important elements of the department into other federal agencies and preserving K-12 funding, the numbers flipped — 56% said they were in favor of shuttering the department, compared to 30% who were opposed.

Read it.

UBS Chair Colm Kelleher has discussed a potential U.S. headquarters move with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent if Switzerland presses ahead with tougher capital rules, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.

Read it.

Austria is heading for a heated debate this week as the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ) pushes a motion to declare in the constitution that only two genders exist.

The FPÖ argues that the measure is necessary to “return to biological reality.” However, left-wing parties have accused the FPÖ of fuelling “societal polarization,” signalling tense debates ahead.

Austria is not alone in having this debate. Several other European countries have already taken steps to legally reaffirm the existence of only two sexes.

DHS.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the removal of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico who was arrested in April, despite a judge attempting to help him evade arrest.

On April 18, 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), assisted by deputized FBI law enforcement officials, carried out a targeted operation to arrest Flores-Ruiz, a violent criminal illegal alien at the Milwaukee County Courthouse. His laundry list of violent criminal charges includes strangulation and suffocation, battery, and domestic abuse.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested for obstructing the arrest of Flores-Ruiz. Judge Dugan intentionally directed ICE agents away from this criminal illegal alien to obstruct the arrest and try to help him evade arrest. Thankfully, our law enforcement chased down this violent illegal alien and arrested him. ICE removed this criminal on November 13, 2025.

Ars Technica.

It has been a few years since AI began successfully tackling the challenge of predicting the three-dimensional structure of proteins, complex molecules that are essential for all life. Next-generation tools are now available, and the Nobel Prizes have been handed out. But people not involved in biology can be forgiven for asking whether any of it can actually make a difference.

A nice example of how the tools can be put to use is being released in Nature on Wednesday. A team that includes the University of Washington’s David Baker, who picked up his Nobel in Stockholm last month, used software tools to design completely new proteins that are able to inhibit some of the toxins in snake venom. While not entirely successful, the work shows how the new software tools can let researchers tackle challenges that would otherwise be difficult or impossible.

Read it.

And who could blame them?

Staten Island lawmakers are reviving a long-running effort to have the borough secede from New York City, arguing that Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s win earlier this month has deepened the political divide between the so-called “forgotten borough” and the rest of the city.

State Sen. Andrew Lanza, a Staten Island Republican who has pushed secession legislation since 2008, said the political climate is now aligning with Staten Island’s longstanding frustrations.

“The Democratic Socialist could not be further out of sync with the values of communities on Staten Island,” Lanza told The New York Post, adding that Democrats may be less motivated to block the effort because losing Staten Island could make it even harder for the city to elect a Republican mayor.

Read it.

The Trump administration will require millions of food aid recipients to recertify their information to receive benefits, part of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ effort to overhaul the program, she told Newsmax on Thursday.

On “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Rollins said she plans to “have everyone reapply for their benefits, make sure that everyone that’s taking a taxpayer-funded benefit through … food stamps, that they literally are vulnerable and they can’t survive without it.”

Rollins was discussing fraud in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and said after receiving data on recipients from 29 red states that “186,000 deceased men and women and children in this country are receiving a check.”

Cue Democrat outrage.

Read it.

Indiana’s Republican-controlled Senate on Friday shut down a special-session redistricting push sought by President Donald Trump, an unexpected setback for the White House as Republicans try to secure a stronger House majority heading into a complex 2026 midterm cycle.

Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray said Republicans in the chamber do not have enough support to reconvene next month to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries, ending months of internal lobbying by state and national GOP leaders.

In a statement, Bray said lawmakers had given “very serious and thoughtful consideration” to revisiting the map but ultimately lacked the votes to advance the proposal.

Would Democrats have done that? I think not.

Read it.

China’s newest supercarrier is sending shock waves through the Pacific and underscoring how urgently the U.S. must rebuild its own naval edge.

Beijing this month officially launched and commissioned the Fujian, its third and by far most advanced aircraft carrier, an 80,000-ton flat-deck ship able to carry roughly 60 aircraft and sail with up to 10 escort warships.

Analysts say the ship dramatically narrows the naval capability gap with the U.S. and gives China a far more formidable tool to threaten Taiwan and bully neighbors in the South China Sea, The Washington Post reported.

Richard Hanania.

A Democratic organization called Deciding to Win just put out a report on the popularity of dozens of policy positions.

[interesting chart}

There’s not much surprising here for anyone who has looked at polling data before. People love Social Security and Medicare, dislike immigration, and want tough on crime policies. They are skeptical of government creating new programs (free universal childcare, free public college), but like ideas that raise costs and burdens on employers in favor of workers (increase minimum wage, protect the right to strike).

One thing the chart captures is just how much people support giveaways to old people over other forms of welfare. Below is a figure that simply extracts policies that are aimed either at helping the old or helping families with young children.

Read the Whole Thing.

The War Zone.

Recent imagery indicates that China is progressing with work on a new aircraft carrier, its fourth, which is expected by many sources to introduce nuclear propulsion. A new detail that is now visible of the makings of the ship’s hull structure would appear to directly support this. The development comes just a week after the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) commissioned its first domestically produced carrier, the Fujian. Meanwhile, there are increasing reports that Beijing may also still be working on at least one more conventionally powered carrier, too.

Read it.

When the future King of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) visits the White House on November 18th, he will bring with him a number of major agreements and business deals. Among these may be the long-awaited US-Saudi Nuclear Energy Cooperation Agreement (referred to as a “123 Agreement”, the section of the Atomic Energy Act that governs US technology transfer to international partners). That agreement, under discussion for over a decade, appears to be close to finalization and may lead to significant business for US nuclear companies.This pact would enable the transfer of US nuclear technology, materials, and expertise to Saudi Arabia, facilitating Riyadh’s civil nuclear program that aims to build at least two large pressurized water reactors (PWRs) on the Arabian Gulf under a new holding company, the Duwayhin Nuclear Energy Company (DNEC).

DNEC submitted a site license application to the Saudi Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Commission (NRRC) in May 2022 for its flagship Duwaiheen Nuclear Power Plant on the Gulf coast, targeting an initial capacity of 2.8 GW. Observers note that 2.8 GW matches the output of two of KEPCO’s AP-1400 reactors, the same built across the border in UAE, leading many to speculate that the Koreans have been in the lead for supplying the Saudi’s nuclear plant technology.

The associated tender for the two Duwaiheen plants, launched in 2022, has faced multiple delays. Initially slated for bids in April 2024, the deadline shifted repeatedly and still remains pending. Analysts have understood it to be the Saudi’s intention to delay selection until after a 123 Agreement is signed in order to enable US companies to bid on the project and to ensure that the Saudi program has a nod of approval from the US.

The Foundry.

President Donald Trump has threatened to punish New York City for electing the Democrat mayoral candidate, socialist Muslim Zohran Mamdani.

Though the action a president can legally take against a city is limited, Trump can use the Foreign Agents Registration Act to prevent foreign influence wielded by Mamdani in New York City, according to Nicole Kelly, senior counsel at Lex Politica, the law firm that represents Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and other key Republicans.

“Zohran Mamdani’s election is the foreign influence story we’ve been sounding the alarm on for years, playing out in real time,” Kelly told The Daily Signal. “His election could be the open door for foreign actors to shape our politics from the inside.”

Read it.

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

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

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

Read it.

The International Olympic Committee appears to be moving toward declaring a complete ban on male-born competing in female categories across all sports — a policy likely to take effect by the 2028 Summer Olympics, the Daily Mail reported on Monday.

Olympic sources confirmed that such a measure is very much the “direction” of the IOC, but it is highly unlikely the rule will be in force before the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy in February.

A rule change could be announced by February, according to a source, but insiders said it would take between six months and a year for it to be approved and cleared.

Read it.

Markets always soar when Democrats cave. I wonder if there could be a connection there….

Read it.

Medical interest in venom has long centered, reasonably enough, on snakebites. As many as five and a half million people per year — usually agricultural workers and children in Africa, Asia and Latin America — are bitten by venomous snakes. Those bites are responsible for more than 100,000 deaths, along with many more amputations, leading the World Health Organization to declare them “a neglected public health issue.”

But most venomous interactions take place outside our awareness, among invertebrates that we are liable to squish without a second thought. Now that researchers can, with the tiniest venom sample, identify every constituent molecule down to the last amino acid, they are discovering substances of extraordinary complexity. Tarantula venoms, for example, contain more than a hundred molecules. In the venoms of some spiders and snails, that number runs into the thousands.

Venom is generally considered distinct from poison. Whereas poison is passive — a substance, like a laundry-detergent pod or berries from a black nightshade plant, that can be lethal if ingested — venom must be actively administered by an animal, often via fangs, teeth or barbs, usually to capture prey or defend against predators. Nature has engineered this capacity surprisingly often. There are at least 1,250 species of venomous catfish alone, each with its own venom formula. Venomous creatures include insects, spiders, corals, mollusks, snakes, lizards and a few mammals (platypuses, shrews). Many of them, such as marine species, are difficult to observe in their natural habitats, and so we know next to nothing about how and why they use their toxins.

…

Other applications being investigated in other labs include a scorpion peptide that binds precisely to malignant tumors, including those in the brain. This peptide is engineered to be fluorescent so that during surgery to remove a tumor, doctors can see whether they have cut it all out. Eventually, similar molecules may be programmed to kill cancer cells outright, without chemotherapy or radiation, says Jim Olson, a professor at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute and the University of Washington, who initiated the project. A peptide from sea-anemone venom is in clinical trials as a treatment for some autoimmune diseases, according to Christine Beeton, the immunologist leading the investigations at the Baylor College of Medicine. In Brazil, a biochemist and neuroscientist, Maria Elena de Lima, is developing a peptide derived from the venom of a banana spider to treat erectile dysfunction.

Read it.

I used to be an avid reader of the Weekly Standard until it ceased publication in 2018. Since then you have Bill Kristol who is sympathetic to Zohran Mamdani migrating to one end of the political spectrum. Tucker Carlson has moved in an opposing direction and gave a softball interview to Nicholas J. Fuentes, a white nationalist. In between, you have people like John Podhoretz and Matthew Continetti who might be considered not pro-Trump but “Trump Curious.”

Where would you all place the these former Weekly Standard staff is the following categories: Crazy left (CL) , Never Trump (NT), Trump Curious (TC), Pro-Trump (PT), Crazy-right (CR). You can use the abbreviations. Are these categories sufficient? I have added some of my observations

Bill Kristol (CL)
Stephen Hayes (NT)
Fred Barnes, (TC)
Johnthan Last (NT)
Philip Terzian (PT)
Max Boot (CL)
Joseph Bottum
Tucker Carlson (CR)
Matthew Continetti (TC)
Joseph Epstein (TC)
David Frum (NT)
David Gelernter
Reuel Marc Gerecht
Michael Goldfarb
John Podhoretz (TC)
Mary Katharine Ham (TC)
Brit Hume (PT)
Frederick Kagan
Robert Kagan
Tod Lindberg
Irwin Stelzer

The Times (UK).

When Kathryn Sargent, the first female master tailor in Britain, meets a new client in her London atelier she needs to “get to know their body”. So she asks: what’s your daily diet? Is your weight stable? Do you work out? These days she is toying with adding a new question. Does she mean: do you dress to the left or the right, sir? “No, I never ask that! It’s the pen. Are you on the pen?”

Caroline Andrew, who, like Sargent, is one of a growing breed of female British tailors who make bespoke suits for both men and women, wrestles with the same issue at her Mayfair studio. “American customers are happy to admit they’re taking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic or Mounjaro. But the Brits aren’t so open. If they suddenly drop three sizes, they tend to say, ‘I’m just eating really healthily.’ ”

Read it.

Federal prosecutors in Washington are conducting a corruption investigation into Mayor Muriel E. Bowser, examining a foreign trip she took with staff that was paid for by Qatar, according to people familiar with the inquiry, The New York Times reports.

The investigation is being overseen by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington and has been underway for months.

Bowser, who has served as Washington’s mayor since 2015 and is a Democrat, has not been formally notified of the investigation.

The War Zone.

Two days after passing through the Strait of Gibraltar en route to the Caribbean, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford has not moved significantly from a position just west of Morocco in North Africa, the Navy confirmed to us Thursday. The flattop and elements of its strike group were ordered by President Donald Trump to join the ongoing enhanced counter-narcotics mission in the region, but it is unclear if plans have changed.

The relatively static position of the Ford and at least two of its escorts comes as reports are emerging that the Trump administration has decided, for now, not to carry out land strikes against Venezuela. It is unknown at the moment if there is a correlation, and the possibility remains that the carrier could still soon sail westward. We have reached out to the White House for clarification.

The War Zone.

A special operations team is pinned down in a valley deep inside contested territory. Ammo is running low, and close air support is nonexistent. Extraction forces are still hours out. The operatives have kept the enemy at bay, but their ability to do so is dwindling with every round they fire. Their stocks of 40mm grenades have long been exhausted; now their rifles will soon run dry too. The sky cracks with a sonic boom, which echoes across the valley, and fighting pauses for a split second as fighters on both sides look up. Soon after, the shooting resumes, but out of the blinding sun comes a capsule stuffed with ammunition hanging on a parachute and flying right toward the special operations team.

Help has arrived… From orbit.

The above is a scene that sounds like it’s ripped right out of a Call Of Duty: Modern Warfarevideo game, but one company is working to make it a reality.

California-based space startup Inversion has unveiled its design for a fully reusable, lifting-body spacecraft named Arc. The spacecraft is intended to deliver critical cargo from space to any point on Earth within an hour, landing on water, snow or soil with a precision of around 50 feet, the company says. The concept, aimed squarely at the defense sector, reflects longstanding U.S. military interest in using space-based systems to rapidly move cargo around the globe to meet commanders’ urgent needs.

Read it.

A two-day operation led to the arrest of 70 illegal immigrants in Oklahoma, which included 34 drivers operating a semi-truck or a commercial vehicle, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a Nov. 4 statement.

The arrests were made in partnership with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol between Oct. 28 and 29, said the agency. It is part of Operation Guardian, which has “resulted in the arrest of many illegal aliens driving trucks that had been issued Commercial Drivers Licenses in states with sanctuary policies such as California, Illinois, and New York,” the agency said.

In places that follow sanctuary policies, local officials refuse to enforce immigration laws or comply with federal authorities.

Out of the 34 illegal immigrant truck drivers, 26 were issued a commercial driver’s license (CDL) while eight were “dangerously driving” vehicles without such licenses, ICE said.

Fox News.

Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, is formally introducing impeachment articles against U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Tuesday for his role in the “Arctic Frost” probe.

Republican allies of President Donald Trump have been criticizing Boasberg after news broke that he was the judge who signed off on subpoenas and other measures in former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe.

“Chief Judge Boasberg has compromised the impartiality of the judiciary and created a constitutional crisis. He is shamelessly weaponizing his power against his political opponents, including Republican members of Congress who are faithfully serving the American people within their jurisdiction,” Gill told Fox News Digital.

“Judge Boasberg was an accomplice in the egregious Arctic Frost scandal where he equipped the Biden DOJ to spy on Republican senators. His lack of integrity makes him clearly unfit for the gavel. I am proud to once again introduce articles of impeachment against Judge Boasberg to hold him accountable for his high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Read it.

Chances are, you’re already aware that birthrates are falling throughout the developed world, sagging well below the “replacement rate” and sparking worries about the implications of a future dearth of workers and consumers. However, the emphasis on economic implications has allowed a powerful political undercurrent to go almost entirely unnoticed: Birthrates are varying significantly by political orientation, a trend that has the potential to shape electorates and policies for generations to come — to the benefit of conservatives.

Replacement birthrates vary over time and place depending on shifts in related variables such as child mortality. In developed countries, sustaining populations without immigration currently requires reproduction at a rate of 2.1 births per woman of childbearing age. Except for an outlier replacement-level pace in 2007, the US birthrate has been sub-2.1 since the early 1970s. Last year, America hit a record-low 1.6, with even lower lows recorded elsewhere in the developed world: the birth rate in England and Wales fell to 1.41, while Scotland’s dropped to 1.25 and Italy’s to 1.2. Mainland France’s 1.59 was the lowest since World War I.

Media coverage has uniformly emphasized those top-line numbers. However, Financial Times columnist and chief data reporter John Burn-Murdoch recently waded deeper into the data and illuminated a sub-trend that could shape the future of the West. It turns out the drop-off in top-line birthrates is primarily the result of plummeting parenthood among progressive leftists, with conservative fertility slipping to a far smaller degree.

I’ve always said that people who have (and support) abortion are weeding themselves out of the gene pool. It’s only a matter of time (hopefully before they collapse civilization…).

The Financial Times.

A small start-up in New Zealand claims it has created plasma, the first step towards nuclear fusion, in under two years and for less than $10mn after experimenting with an unconventional reactor design.

OpenStar, founded by chief executive Ratu Mataira in 2021 in his Wellington apartment, said on Tuesday that it had created and contained a plasma cloud at around 300,000 degrees Celsius for 20 seconds in its first experimental reactor.

While much higher plasma temperatures are required to achieve nuclear fusion, OpenStar’s test stands apart for its unconventional reactor design, which the company said could be faster to scale and commercialise.

This was first published about a year ago, so they’re obviously not burning down the house turning it into a practical product.

The War Zone.

Even as the U.S. continues to build up forces in the Caribbean ostensibly for an enhanced counternarcotics operation that could include inland strikes, there are reported plans underway for attacks on cartels inside Mexico.

The San Antonio class amphibious transport dock ship USS Fort Lauderdale has left Mayport, Florida, and is returning to the Caribbean to rejoin the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (ARG)/22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), a U.S. official confirmed to The War Zone Monday morning. The vessel left on Sunday and is now south of Miami in the Straits of Florida, according to an online ship tracker. It will provide additional air and troop support once it arrives on station. San Antonio class ships can launch and land two CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters or two MV-22 tilt rotor aircraft or up to four AH-1Z, UH-1Y or MH-60 helicopters at once. In addition, they can carry Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) hovercraft or other landing craft and boats in their well deck, and can transport up to 800 Marines.

Watch it.

This has no chance of going anywhere of course; Democrats on the coast aren’t going to give up any part of their population (tax base), any more than the Soviet Union allowed free emigration. But I like the fact that they feel about it strongly enough to make the effort. (The only reason West Virginia exists is because Virginia had seceded and was in a state of rebellion, so Congress felt free to ignore it.)

Read it.

Automotive giant Stellantis is expanding its U.S. operations. Any sign of an investment turnaround in Germany, which Chancellor Friedrich Merz touted just weeks ago, is nowhere to be seen.

The European carmaker, home to brands like Opel, Peugeot, and Citroën, is turning away from its European sites. On Monday, Stellantis announced it will invest $13 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, increasing American production by 50%. The expansion will create 5,000 new jobs across plants in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana.

The concrete impact on German production remains unclear. Stellantis offered no comments on potential layoffs, but it’s safe to assume significant parts of production will shift to the U.S. in the coming years. High energy costs and U.S. tariffs likely influenced this decision.

CEO Antonio Filosa emphasized that this largest investment in company history will create American jobs and systematically expand U.S. manufacturing. The U.S. will now be Stellantis’ top priority.

The Economist.

In the history of medicine, a few drugs tower above all others. Humira for rheumatoid arthritis; Prozac for depression; statins to prevent heart disease and strokes. All have helped patients far beyond doctors’ initial expectations and continue to benefit millions of people every day. A new class of drugs is set to join their ranks and has the potential to eclipse them all—glp-1 receptor agonists.

These drugs mimic the action of a naturally occurring hormone, glucagon-like peptide (glp-1), and for decades have been used to treat diabetes. More recently they have become a wildly popular way for people to lose weight. But in March semaglutide (a glp-1 receptor agonist sold as Ozempic for diabetes and Wegovy for weight-loss) was approved in America for cardiovascular disease in overweight people. In April tirzepatide (sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound) showed positive results in late-stage trials for sleep apnoea, a breathing disorder. In other trials it seems to reduce chronic kidney disease.

This is just the start.

New York  Post.

A Dallas-based biotech company has nearly completed its reconstruction of the Tasmanian tiger just two years into its de-extinction project.

The last known thylacine, commonly referred to as the Tasmanian tiger, died in captivity on Sept. 7, 1936. None have been spotted across Tasmania since, despite countless expeditions attempting to rediscover the tiger.

Without the top predator intact to maintain order and keep the foof chain in check, its former habitat has buckled under pressure as wildfires, disease and invasive species thrived unopposed.

Ars Technica.

Like nuclear fusion, the idea of space-based solar power has always seemed like a futuristic technology with an actual deployment into communities ever remaining a couple of decades away.

The concept of harvesting solar power continuously from large satellites in space—where there are no nights, no clouds, and no atmosphere to interfere with the collection of photons—is fairly simple. Large solar arrays in geostationary orbit collect solar energy and beam it back to Earth via microwaves as a continuous source of clean energy.

However, implementing this technology is not so simple. In recent years, in search of long-term power solutions and concerned about climate change, the European Space Agency has been studying space-based solar power. Some initial studies found that a plan to meet one-third of Europe’s energy needs would require massive amounts of infrastructure and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. At best, such a system of very large satellites in geostationary space might come online by the middle of this century.

In short, the plan would require massive up-front costs, with no guarantee that it all would work out in the end.

This was one of Jerry Pournelle’s fondest dreams.

Read it.

At first glance, the 400 acres of soybeans growing on the Preston family’s dairy farm in southern Michigan looks like a typical field. But these aren’t ordinary soybeans. They represent a breakthrough partnership with Michigan State University that’s saving the family tens of thousands of dollars a month in livestock feed costs—and it could change the dairy industry forever.

Read it.

President Trump said on Friday that he’s yet to make a final decision on launching a military attack on Venezuela, but President Nicolás Maduro is not waiting around while taking the US leader’s word on it.

Maduro is reportedly urgently reaching out to Russia, China, and Iran for any possible military aid, including defense items which may have already been negotiated or are in the works. The Washington Post says it’s obtained internal documents showing such recent and high-stakes requests.

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A GOP led House Oversight Committee has submitted a report to Attorney General Pam Bondi asserting that former president Joe Biden’s “cognitive decline” was so severe he may not have been aware of pardons he allegedly signed by autopen.

Republicans argue that the proper course is to err on the side of caution given evidence of Biden’s decaying mental condition – Even if the President was made aware of the sweeping documents rather than his aides using his autopen signature to falsify the pardons, it is likely that he still had no understanding of what the documents actually contained.

Conservatives on the committee advise Bondi that the 4,245 presidential pardons and commutations issued by the Democrat, 82, should therefore be placed under review and could be considered invalid. Republican Senator Josh Hawley chimed in on the issue, expressing deep concerns over some of the Biden signatures, including commuted sentences for multiple criminals who victimized children.

Read it.

A new European Union deal to liberalize trade with Ukraine took effect Wednesday, but Poland, Hungary and Slovakia are defying it, maintaining their protectionist bans on imports from the country. Their defiance comes amid mounting grievances over EU prioritization of the West’s proxy war on Russia over the prosperity of EU member states and their citizens.

Approved on Oct 13, the new EU arrangement expands tariff-free Ukrainian access to European markets, replacing a temporary lowering of trade barriers adopted after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. “We believe (the agreement) is a stable, fair framework, that can be reliable both for the EU and for Ukraine, to ensure a gradual integration in our single market, while providing stable trade flows,” said European Commission spokeswoman Ariana Podesta. The European Commission (EC) is the EU’s principal executive branch.

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Airship Industries is designing its vehicle to dominate transoceanic air freight. It checks all the right boxes. It shortens end-to-end freight delivery time. It lowers freight handling costs, delays, and breakage. It’s highly profitable on a unit basis. It lowers fuel burn and carbon emissions by 75 percent without any sustainable fuel breakthroughs.

Read it.

With college costs climbing and artificial intelligence reshaping office work, a growing number of Gen Zers are turning to construction, a new report shows. According to industry professionals, “They’re showing up in droves.”

The share of Generation Z workers—those aged 18 to 28—in the construction labor force more than doubled from 2019 to 2023, rising from 6.4 percent to 14.1 percent, according to an Oct. 10 report by the Home Builders Institute.

The share of millennials (age 29 to 44) grew to 37.7 percent from 35.7 percent over the same period. Conversely, the share of Baby Boomers (age 61 to 79) dropped to 14.2 percent from 20.6 percent as older workers moved into retirement.

The median age of construction workers during this period was 42.

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As we have been writing about for the better part of the last 2 years, growing electricity needs from artificial-intelligence data centers are pushing tech giants back toward nuclear power.

On Monday, NextEra Energy and Google announced a deal to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which closed in 2020 after 45 years of operation. The 615-megawatt plant is expected to return to service in early 2029 under a 25-year power purchase agreement with Google, Reuters reported.

Shares of NextEra rose more than 1% after the announcement. The move adds to recent nuclear-supply arrangements tied to hyperscale cloud operators, echoing plans at the former Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania aimed at Microsoft data centers. As we have written about extensively on Zero Hedge, companies including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have also signed agreements to buy future energy from advanced nuclear projects such as small modular reactors and fusion systems.

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One of America’s most influential economists finally had the moxie to admit what any American with half a brain could see about the Trump tariffs: The elitist, stuck-up doom prophets were all wrong.

Wharton School Professor of Practice Mohamed El-Erian joined the October 27 edition of Fox News’s America Reports to discuss President Donald Trump’s ongoing tariff negotiations with communist China. “What the U.S. has managed to achieve on tariffs was something most economists didn’t think was going to happen,” El-Erian told co-anchor Sandra Smith.

We thought there would be massive retaliation against the U.S. — there hasn’t been. Europe, the U.K., a number of Asian countries have all signed framework agreements. The only outstanding ones are India, Canada and China and there’s clear progress on China,” El-Erian continued.

Read it.

Read it.

President Trump has overseen the signing of an expanded ceasefire deal between the leaders of Thailand and Cambodia after his intervention in the border conflict between the two nations.

The conflict is one of those that Trump claims to have brought to an end “within less than a day” after he called the then leaders of the two countries, urging them to end hostilities, or risk their respective trade talks with Washington being put on hold.

The simmering conflict flared up after a Cambodian soldier was killed in a clash between patrols at the end of May and, in July, two Thai soldiers were badly injured by what they insist were newly laid landmines, a charge that Cambodia rejects.

The Guardian, a Voice of the Crust.

Researchers have peered into the brains and bodies of living animals after discovering that a common food dye can make skin, muscle and connective tissues temporarily transparent.

Applying the dye to the belly of a mouse made its liver, intestines and bladder clearly visible through the abdominal skin, while smearing it on the rodent’s scalp allowed scientists to see blood vessels in the animal’s brain.

Treated skin regained its normal colour when the dye was washed off, according to researchers at Stanford University, who believe the procedure opens up a host of applications in humans, from locating injuries and finding veins for drawing blood to monitoring digestive disorders and spotting tumours.

Freethink.

Could solar energy be the key to unlocking a future free from fossil fuels and extreme poverty? Casey Handmer, founder and CEO of Terraform Industries, believes so. His company is pioneering technology that could revolutionize how we produce and consume energy, potentially solving climate change and global energy inequality in one fell swoop.

Terraform Industries is developing machines that create synthetic natural gas from sunlight and air. It sounds like science fiction, but the technology is rooted in simple chemistry and powered by the rapidly advancing field of solar energy.

But Handmer’s vision extends beyond just replacing fossil fuels. He sees solar energy as the catalyst for a new era of human progress. By providing cheap, abundant energy to every corner of the globe, we could potentially eliminate extreme poverty within our lifetimes. It’s an ambitious goal, but one that Handmer believes we have a responsibility to pursue.

Read it.

Scientists have used an eye implant to improve the vision of dozens of people left functionally blind by age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The implant, which measures 2 millimetres by 2 millimetres, and is just 30 micrometres thick, is surgically inserted beneath the retina to replace the light-sensitive cells that have been lost to the disease.

The clinical trial, which is described today in The New England Journal of Medicine1, involved 38 people with advanced AMD whose retinas had degenerated severely. One year after device implantation, 80% of participants had gained a clinically meaningful improvement in their vision.

“Where this dead retina was a complete blind spot, vision was restored,” says trial leader Frank Holz, an ophthalmologist at the University of Bonn in Germany. “Patients could read letters, they could read words, and they could function in their daily life.”

Read it.

John Roverts: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

Read it.

The average retail prices for gasoline in the U.S. are nearing the sub-$3 mark, but food inflation has remained sticky as the Trump economic team embarked this week to correct the worst cattle shortage the nation has experienced in a generation, a crisis that sent prices sky-high well before Trump’s second term. The good news this upcoming Thanksgiving holiday season won’t be the absence of American spirit at the White House, but also Walmart offering an affordable holiday meal package at price levels not seen since 2019.

Thank you,  Donald Trump.