Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has temporarily suspended its employer contributions to a government-wide pension plan after warning Congress that, without changes, it could run out of cash within the next year.

On Thursday, USPS told the Office of Personnel Management—the federal government’s human resource division—that it would pause its biweekly employer contributions to the Federal Employees Retirement System, or FERS.

The move is expected to conserve about $2.5 billion through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year, according to USPS. The mail agency typically pays about $200 million every other week into the plan.

USPS Chief Financial Officer Luke Grossmann said the temporary withholding would have no “immediate detrimental impact” on current or future retirees. He said the agency would continue forwarding employees’ own FERS contributions, as well as all regularly scheduled payments to the Thrift Savings Plan, another retirement program for federal workers.

“The risk to the Postal Service and the American public from insufficient liquidity for postal operations dramatically outweighs any longer-term risk to the pension funds from not making the currently due payments,” Grossmann said.

Although USPS is generally required by law to make the payments, the Postal Regulatory Commission granted the agency a waiver that gives it flexibility to catch up later.

The cash-saving measure comes as postal officials warn Congress of the agency’s deteriorating finances. At a March 17 hearing, Postmaster General David Steiner told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that USPS could become unable to continue delivering mail by February 2027 if it keeps paying all of its bills on time under the current structure.

“Less than a year from now, the Postal Service will be unable to deliver the mail if we maintain the status quo,” he said in his testimony.

According to Steiner, USPS has already had to rely on extraordinary cash-conservation measures, and he warned that lawmakers might have to consider steps such as reducing delivery frequency from six days a week to five or fewer. He also floated the idea of hiking first-class stamp prices to as high as 95 cents.

“At 78 cents, the U.S. First-Class Stamp is the lowest-priced in the industrialized world,” Steiner told lawmakers at the hearing.

“If we were to change the stamp price to 90 to 95 cents, which is still less than half of the cost of most foreign posts, that would largely solve our controllable loss.”

USPS has struggled financially for years as first-class mail volumes continue to decline and operating costs rise. According to a report published in March by U.S. Government Accountability Office, it has lost money every fiscal year but one since 2007, accumulating a staggering $118 billion in net losses over that time.

The agency has also turned to temporary price hikes to help cover operation costs. The Postal Regulatory Commission has approved an 8 percent temporary increase on priority mail and package prices beginning April 26 and lasting through Jan. 17, 2027.

Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Seven years after Faye Bernstein first blew the whistle on waste, fraud, and abuse concerns, “nothing is changing” at the Minnesota Department of Human Services, she told lawmakers during an April 7 hearing at the state Capitol in St. Paul.

Faye Bernstein, a whistleblower who works for the Minnesota Department of Human Services, testifies before the state’s Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee in St. Paul, Minn., on April 7, 2026. Screenshot via The Epoch Times/The Minnesota House of Representatives’ video livestream

As a 20-year employee who still works for the department while facing alleged demotion and retaliation over her complaints, “I still see a reckless disregard for compliance,” she told the state’s Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee.

Bernstein, a former compliance officer at the agency that faces heightened national scrutiny over massive fraud scandals, gave an example supporting her opinion. She said she learned that, about a year ago, “someone had falsified the audit tracker,” an important internal record that helps workers ensure they remedy problems identified in audits.

“When I heard that, I thought, ‘My gosh, somebody’s getting fired for that!’” Bernstein said; instead, managers excused the falsification, indicating “that person had simply made a mistake, that maybe she didn’t understand instructions,” she said.

“The lackadaisical attitude we have about even keeping track of our findings will partially explain” why some of those same findings recurred in an audit released in January, she said. The audit noted some of the same issues that Bernstein reported in 2019.

After Bernstein’s testimony, the agency’s commissioner, Shireen Gandhi, testified. She pledged to “build a culture of compliance,” and to ensure that all staff members understand their roles and “have the knowledge, skills, and authority to fulfill those responsibilities.”

State Rep. Isaac Schultz, a Republican who serves on the anti-fraud committee, told Gandhi:  “I hope that more people [like Bernstein] continue to shine light on what’s going on inside of your department, because I have a really hard time trusting what leadership is saying to us.”

Another committee member, Democratic state Rep. Steve Elkins, gave Gandhi credit for owning up to problems that the audit revealed.

Having been elected in 2018, Elkins has read quite a few audits. Each one includes a response from the agency that was audited. Typically, “that letter is deflecting, denying, minimizing,” he said.

“This is the first time … where the head of the agency stepped up and said almost everything in the report was accurate, and this is what we’re going to do about it, and this is when we’re going to have it done, and this is the person who’s responsible for getting it done,” Elkins said. “And I think that that’s a remarkable turnaround.”

Shireen Gandhi, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, answers questions at a meeting of the state’s Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee in St. Paul, Minn., on April 7, 2026. Screenshot via The Epoch Times/The Minnesota House of Representatives’ video livestream

Lawmaker Urges: ‘Draw a Line in the Sand’

Minnesota’s government-program fraud dating to 2018 could reach $9 billion or more, prosecutors have said. Fraud concerns have expanded nationwide; the national leader may turn out to be California, where scammers may have bilked taxpayers out of “hundreds of billions” of dollars, a federal prosecutor said.

Many of Minnesota’s still-emerging fraud scandals involve programs that are now under Gandhi’s purview. She has worked for the agency since 2017 and has headed it since last year; Gov. Tim Walz made her temporary appointment permanent earlier this year.

State Rep. Kristin Robbins, a Republican who chairs the fraud-prevention committee, told Gandhi: “The most important thing is to make sure we’re being good stewards of taxpayer money.”

“As Ms. Bernstein said, we’ve been talking about this for years … so we have to draw a line in the sand and say: ‘We are not going to allow this to continue anymore,’” Robbins said.

Robbins and other committee members repeatedly asked Gandhi about holding people accountable when procedures aren’t followed or when records are falsified; the latest audit revealed that employees created new records—and backdated them—in the midst of the auditors’ probe.

“I was shocked to hear this information,” Gandhi told the committee, calling any such fabrications “absolutely unacceptable.” However, Gandhi said state law prohibits her from revealing details of the internal investigation into the falsified records.

When Robbins inquired further, Gandhi said information was presented to state authorities for possible criminal charges. The agency is also putting together internal processes “for preventing and catching this sort of issue going forward,” Gandhi said.

Minnesota Rep. Kristin Robbins, chair of the state’s Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee, in St. Paul, Minn., on April 7, 2026. Screenshot via The Epoch Times/The Minnesota House of Representatives’ video livestream

No-Bid Contracts Awarded, Procedures Not Followed

In mid-2025, lawmakers approved a two-year budget of $17 billion for Gandhi’s agency, accounting for 40 percent of the state’s total budget, state legislative records show.

One branch of the department, the Behavioral Health Administration, distributed more than $2 billion in grants from July 2022 to December 2024. The money goes to businesses and organizations that provide mental-health or substance-abuse services.

However, during that 29-month span, the state agency “did not comply with most requirements we tested,” Valentina Stone, an audit director for the Office of Legislative Auditor, testified to the fraud committee.

Auditors found 13 problems that need to be fixed to safeguard taxpayers’ money, including four recurrent issues, Stone said.

During the study period, the agency handled 830 unique grant agreements. Auditors combed several batches of those grants, looking for compliance with different “internal controls”—rules and procedures to ensure proper use and tracking of money.

Among 24 grants examined for compliance with competitive-bidding rules, auditors found the agency had inappropriately awarded more than half of them. The agency doled out five grants totaling $4.7 million without seeking competitive bids first or giving a reason for skipping that process.

Other tests revealed more internal-controls violations. The agency paid grantees even before grant agreements were signed, failed to visit providers to ensure they were complying with agreements to render services, and awarded new grants to past providers without reviewing how those providers performed.

“It concerns me greatly … that money is still going out the door in real time to some of these same grantees when these processes haven’t been tightened up,” Robbins said.

In March, a separate audit of Human Services’ fraud-ridden autism-treatment reimbursement program found that the agency mistakenly believed that it lacked authority to probe allegations of kickbacks without evidence of another alleged offense. The problem appears to have stemmed from a decades-old definition of “fraud” that failed to explicitly list kickbacks, which are illegal payments to people who cooperate with scammers.

* * *

Israeli cities have suffered heavy bombardment under Iranian and Hezbollah missiles over the past many weeks going back to the start of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury on February 28, but the start of the fragile Iran ceasefire has seen the bombs halted, at least for now.

A sense of normalcy is finally returning across Israeli society, after millions of citizens have on a daily basis had to scramble to get to bomb shelters. Emergency restrictions have been lifted across most parts of the country, and even holy sites in Jerusalem are being opened back up, after Israeli authorities starting last month severely restricted access.

Near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem. Shutterstock

Jerusalem police on Thursday announced the removal of all restrictions and deployed hundreds of officers and volunteers across the city.

Access to Christian, Jewish, and Muslim holy sites was either fully prohibited or limited to small groups, amid the prior daily barrage of Iranian missile and drone attacks.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound has been reopened too. It had remained closed for much of Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which was somewhat unprecedented in recent history. This created immense tensions between Palestinian Muslims and Israeli security forces.

Roman Catholics and Western Christians were severely limited during last weekend’s Easter observances at the Church Of The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City.

However, the Iran ceasefire and reopening coincides with upcoming Orthodox Christian Easter (Pascha) celebrations on Sunday.

Typically tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims from Russia, Greece, Eastern Europe and elsewhere descend on Jerusalem ahead of Orthodox Holy week, however, travel difficulties and the threat of renewed war have had a chilling effect, and much fewer are expected to attend.

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III led a group of clergy members to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for prayers on Palm Sunday, following restrictions on gatherings in large groups in Jerusalem’s Old City pic.twitter.com/vTDupzFQEb

— Reuters (@Reuters) April 5, 2026

Israeli police may still move to limit gatherings, and typically they set up barricades in various parts of the Old City in and around the Christian quarter in the name of imposing greater security.

Still, there’s a sense of optimism, but Israeli raids in Lebanon have kept things unpredictable. Iran has been warning against ongoing Israeli strikes on Beirut and elsewhere, and so the war could be renewed at any moment.

Israeli cities have suffered heavy bombardment under Iranian and Hezbollah missiles over the past many weeks going back to the start of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury on February 28, but the start of the fragile Iran ceasefire has seen the bombs halted, at least for now.

A sense of normalcy is finally returning across Israeli society, after millions of citizens have on a daily basis had to scramble to get to bomb shelters. Emergency restrictions have been lifted across most parts of the country, and even holy sites in Jerusalem are being opened back up, after Israeli authorities starting last month severely restricted access.

Near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem. Shutterstock

Jerusalem police on Thursday announced the removal of all restrictions and deployed hundreds of officers and volunteers across the city.

Access to Christian, Jewish, and Muslim holy sites was either fully prohibited or limited to small groups, amid the prior daily barrage of Iranian missile and drone attacks.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound has been reopened too. It had remained closed for much of Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which was somewhat unprecedented in recent history. This created immense tensions between Palestinian Muslims and Israeli security forces.

Roman Catholics and Western Christians were severely limited during last weekend’s Easter observances at the Church Of The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City.

However, the Iran ceasefire and reopening coincides with upcoming Orthodox Christian Easter (Pascha) celebrations on Sunday.

Typically tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims from Russia, Greece, Eastern Europe and elsewhere descend on Jerusalem ahead of Orthodox Holy week, however, travel difficulties and the threat of renewed war have had a chilling effect, and much fewer are expected to attend.

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III led a group of clergy members to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for prayers on Palm Sunday, following restrictions on gatherings in large groups in Jerusalem’s Old City pic.twitter.com/vTDupzFQEb

— Reuters (@Reuters) April 5, 2026

Israeli police may still move to limit gatherings, and typically they set up barricades in various parts of the Old City in and around the Christian quarter in the name of imposing greater security.

Still, there’s a sense of optimism, but Israeli raids in Lebanon have kept things unpredictable. Iran has been warning against ongoing Israeli strikes on Beirut and elsewhere, and so the war could be renewed at any moment.

Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

Big Tech’s leading AI faces growing accusations of enabling violence rather than preventing it.

Attorneys representing the family of Robert Morales, killed in the April 17, 2025, Florida State University shooting, announced plans to sue OpenAI and ChatGPT. The law firm Brooks, LeBoeuf, Foster, Gwartney and Hobbs stated the suspected gunman, Phoenix Ikner, was in “constant communication” with the chatbot leading up to the attack.

Ikner opened fire outside the FSU student union, killing Morales, a 57-year-old Aramark worker and father, and Tiru Chabba, 45, a vendor from South Carolina. Six others were wounded. Court records list more than 270 images of ChatGPT conversations as exhibits.

BREAKING: Florida State University gunman had 270+ chats with ChatGPT right before the shooting that left 2 people dead.

Victims’ attorney just said it “may have advised the shooter how to commit these heinous crimes.”

ChatGPT acted as mass murder consultant. pic.twitter.com/odQYv9LOg8

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) April 7, 2026

The firm declared: “We have reason to believe that ChatGPT may have advised the shooter how to commit these heinous crimes. We will therefore file suit against ChatGPT, and its ownership structure, very soon, and will seek to hold them accountable for the untimely and senseless death of our client, Mr. Morales.”

A mass shooter used ChatGPT to plan the FSU shooting, killing 2 and injuring 5.

ChatGPT advised the shooter on executing the deadly shooting on a college campus.

There are more than 270 ChatGPT conversations listed as exhibits in the case.

This is now the 20th death tied to…

— Katie Miller (@KatieMiller) April 8, 2026

Recent coverage also notes newly released chat logs where Ikner reportedly asked ChatGPT about school shootings and the busiest times on campus.

One post referenced details such as the chatbot informing him the Student Union was busiest between 11:30am and 1:30pm, with the shooting occurring at 11:57am.

The New York Post reported the claims in detail.

ChapGPT helped Florida State University gunman plan mass shooting, victim’s attorney claims https://t.co/NDv8zx2Zbg pic.twitter.com/m2tavLoLAx

— New York Post (@nypost) April 8, 2026

OpenAI responded by saying they identified an account believed to be associated with the suspect after the shooting, proactively shared information with law enforcement, and cooperated fully. They claim to build ChatGPT to respond safely and continue improving safeguards.

Yet the body count linked to such interactions keeps rising, while the company’s selective enforcement and post-incident cooperation fail to reassure victims’ families preparing legal action.

This incident follows another high-profile case. In February 2026, Canadian trans shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar carried out a deadly attack at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.

OpenAI employees were alarmed by his disturbing ChatGPT messages and discussed alerting authorities, but the company chose not to notify police beforehand, instead banning the account.

Canadian trans shooter’s disturbing ChatGPT messages alarmed employees – but company never alerted cops https://t.co/Jl8KhxKZeo pic.twitter.com/Mi8BNrsRFZ

— New York Post (@nypost) February 21, 2026

They only contacted law enforcement after the shooting. A family has already sued OpenAI over that incident as well.

FAMILY SUES OPENAI: “CHATGPT HELPED PLAN MASS SHOOTING”

A lawsuit says the Tumbler Ridge shooter used ChatGPT to help plan the attack, and that employees allegedly flagged the chats as an imminent risk before anyone got hurt.

Source: NewsForce pic.twitter.com/SulETFiGtR

— NewsForce (@Newsforce) March 11, 2026

These developments echo earlier warnings. ChatGPT once provided detailed suicide instructions and drug-and-alcohol guidance when prompted as a fake 13-year-old.

Studies have found that as many as one in four teens now rely on AI therapy bots for mental health support, raising questions about vulnerable users interacting with systems that appear inconsistent on harm prevention.

ChatGPT’s selective ideological programming has also been repeatedly called into question. For example, it once refused a hypothetical request to quietly utter a racial slur even to save a billion white people.

Americans expect technology that upholds safety and individual responsibility, not systems that lecture on ethics while allegedly guiding violence. The mounting lawsuits and documented failures demand accountability from OpenAI and scrutiny of the priorities embedded in its models. Until Big Tech prioritizes preventing real-world harm over narrative control, these tragedies risk becoming a grim pattern rather than isolated failures.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

Big Tech’s leading AI faces growing accusations of enabling violence rather than preventing it.

Attorneys representing the family of Robert Morales, killed in the April 17, 2025, Florida State University shooting, announced plans to sue OpenAI and ChatGPT. The law firm Brooks, LeBoeuf, Foster, Gwartney and Hobbs stated the suspected gunman, Phoenix Ikner, was in “constant communication” with the chatbot leading up to the attack.

Ikner opened fire outside the FSU student union, killing Morales, a 57-year-old Aramark worker and father, and Tiru Chabba, 45, a vendor from South Carolina. Six others were wounded. Court records list more than 270 images of ChatGPT conversations as exhibits.

BREAKING: Florida State University gunman had 270+ chats with ChatGPT right before the shooting that left 2 people dead.

Victims’ attorney just said it “may have advised the shooter how to commit these heinous crimes.”

ChatGPT acted as mass murder consultant. pic.twitter.com/odQYv9LOg8

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) April 7, 2026

The firm declared: “We have reason to believe that ChatGPT may have advised the shooter how to commit these heinous crimes. We will therefore file suit against ChatGPT, and its ownership structure, very soon, and will seek to hold them accountable for the untimely and senseless death of our client, Mr. Morales.”

A mass shooter used ChatGPT to plan the FSU shooting, killing 2 and injuring 5.

ChatGPT advised the shooter on executing the deadly shooting on a college campus.

There are more than 270 ChatGPT conversations listed as exhibits in the case.

This is now the 20th death tied to…

— Katie Miller (@KatieMiller) April 8, 2026

Recent coverage also notes newly released chat logs where Ikner reportedly asked ChatGPT about school shootings and the busiest times on campus.

One post referenced details such as the chatbot informing him the Student Union was busiest between 11:30am and 1:30pm, with the shooting occurring at 11:57am.

The New York Post reported the claims in detail.

ChapGPT helped Florida State University gunman plan mass shooting, victim’s attorney claims https://t.co/NDv8zx2Zbg pic.twitter.com/m2tavLoLAx

— New York Post (@nypost) April 8, 2026

OpenAI responded by saying they identified an account believed to be associated with the suspect after the shooting, proactively shared information with law enforcement, and cooperated fully. They claim to build ChatGPT to respond safely and continue improving safeguards.

Yet the body count linked to such interactions keeps rising, while the company’s selective enforcement and post-incident cooperation fail to reassure victims’ families preparing legal action.

This incident follows another high-profile case. In February 2026, Canadian trans shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar carried out a deadly attack at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.

OpenAI employees were alarmed by his disturbing ChatGPT messages and discussed alerting authorities, but the company chose not to notify police beforehand, instead banning the account.

Canadian trans shooter’s disturbing ChatGPT messages alarmed employees – but company never alerted cops https://t.co/Jl8KhxKZeo pic.twitter.com/Mi8BNrsRFZ

— New York Post (@nypost) February 21, 2026

They only contacted law enforcement after the shooting. A family has already sued OpenAI over that incident as well.

FAMILY SUES OPENAI: “CHATGPT HELPED PLAN MASS SHOOTING”

A lawsuit says the Tumbler Ridge shooter used ChatGPT to help plan the attack, and that employees allegedly flagged the chats as an imminent risk before anyone got hurt.

Source: NewsForce pic.twitter.com/SulETFiGtR

— NewsForce (@Newsforce) March 11, 2026

These developments echo earlier warnings. ChatGPT once provided detailed suicide instructions and drug-and-alcohol guidance when prompted as a fake 13-year-old.

Studies have found that as many as one in four teens now rely on AI therapy bots for mental health support, raising questions about vulnerable users interacting with systems that appear inconsistent on harm prevention.

ChatGPT’s selective ideological programming has also been repeatedly called into question. For example, it once refused a hypothetical request to quietly utter a racial slur even to save a billion white people.

Americans expect technology that upholds safety and individual responsibility, not systems that lecture on ethics while allegedly guiding violence. The mounting lawsuits and documented failures demand accountability from OpenAI and scrutiny of the priorities embedded in its models. Until Big Tech prioritizes preventing real-world harm over narrative control, these tragedies risk becoming a grim pattern rather than isolated failures.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

The Democrat tendency to talk down to their constituencies as if they are children has become a mainstay of American political discourse in the past several years.  This behavior is rooted in a simmering arrogance among the political class, but it also tends to expose their lack of understanding when it comes to some of the more basic economic and industrial concepts. 

In other words, Democrats treat people as if people are dumb because they are, in fact, dumb.

I just signed an Executive Order to bring enough energy into Massachusetts to power 2 million homes — and save families and businesses $10 million.

So how does our all-of-the-above energy strategy actually lower your bills?

Let’s break it down in terms everyone understands:… pic.twitter.com/BijgHM5XTB

— Governor Maura Healey (@MassGovernor) April 6, 2026

Maura Healey, the Governor of Massachusetts, has been in office since 2023. A Democrat, she boasts of being the first woman and first “openly LGBT” person elected to the position.  Her administration’s focus is dedicated to climate change issues, which plays a large part in the reasons why MA is currently facing record high power prices and an overall energy crisis. 

As Attorney General and Governor, Healey has pursued a lawsuit against Exxon for “not disclosing” climate risks caused by their products to investors and consumers through marketing campaigns.  Of course, there are no “climate risks” caused by Exxon’s products.  Why would they disclose a risk that doesn’t exist?

In November 2024, Healey signed “Clean Energy” legislation which includes reforms to prevent natural gas expansion by limiting gas utility investments that conflict with climate change mandates. This disrupts the creation of new fossil fuel infrastructure in an attempt to “phase down” public reliance on gas and redirect focus toward green energy. Critics argue that these policies hinder gas reliability and raise long-term costs for citizens of MA.  

Since Healey took office, gas heating prices in MA have risen by 35%-50% and electricity prices are listed among top five most expensive states in the US.  Massachusetts already had high energy rates before Healey, but they surged after her climate change policies were implemented. 

Green energy, as everyone knows, is far less efficient than oil, gas or coal (20% to 60% less efficient depending on the source).  State programs that prioritize green tech while suppressing carbon based energy usually result in higher prices for everyone while also creating a bottleneck and shortages during weather related disasters or global supply chain disruptions. 

When Healey holds up donut holes as a representation of Massachusetts’ limited energy resources, what she doesn’t mention is that, unlike donut holes, not all energy sources are the same.  Wind power or solar power is far less reliable and efficient compared to natural gas.  Electric vehicles often still rely on power generated by coal and natural gas.  Around 75% of MA’s energy output comes from natural gas because it is by far the most reliable and affordable source. 

Healey’s solution for storage (green tech, batteries, etc.) is far less practical and far more expensive.  Natural gas storage is vastly superior in terms of cost and energy output.  Massachusetts doesn’t have below ground storage for gas, but relying on storage in other states is still cheaper than the billions of dollars they would need to build battery-based storage in MA.  

The Governor then, of course, goes on to blame Donald Trump’s opposition to green tech development as the cause of higher prices.  Keep in mind, prices exploded in MA well before Trump took office in 2025.  Furthermore, Trump’s criticisms are completely reasonable.

First, climate change theories are a sham.  There is no concrete evidence of a causation relationship between carbon, human industry and global warming.  None.  In fact, the atmospheric carbon record for the past 400 million years doesn’t match the temperature record in the slightest. 

And, temperatures today are far cooler than they have been in the past. That is to say, we are nowhere near record high temperatures for the Earth.  Climate scientists make these claims based on records that only go back around 140 years, which is an extremely narrow time window.

Meaning, the pursuit of green tech in the name of saving the planet is pointless, and it’s causing economic suffering for the citizenry.  Green energy might one day be efficient enough to supply ample power to the world, but for now it has hobbled legitimate energy production.  Today, most financial resources should be put into oil, coal, gas and perhaps nuclear (nuclear plants take 6-10 years to build, plus another 5 years for approval). 

Climate obsessed Democrats like Healey are the primary cause of high energy prices in blue states.  It is undeniable.     

The Democrat tendency to talk down to their constituencies as if they are children has become a mainstay of American political discourse in the past several years.  This behavior is rooted in a simmering arrogance among the political class, but it also tends to expose their lack of understanding when it comes to some of the more basic economic and industrial concepts. 

In other words, Democrats treat people as if people are dumb because they are, in fact, dumb.

I just signed an Executive Order to bring enough energy into Massachusetts to power 2 million homes — and save families and businesses $10 million.

So how does our all-of-the-above energy strategy actually lower your bills?

Let’s break it down in terms everyone understands:… pic.twitter.com/BijgHM5XTB

— Governor Maura Healey (@MassGovernor) April 6, 2026

Maura Healey, the Governor of Massachusetts, has been in office since 2023. A Democrat, she boasts of being the first woman and first “openly LGBT” person elected to the position.  Her administration’s focus is dedicated to climate change issues, which plays a large part in the reasons why MA is currently facing record high power prices and an overall energy crisis. 

As Attorney General and Governor, Healey has pursued a lawsuit against Exxon for “not disclosing” climate risks caused by their products to investors and consumers through marketing campaigns.  Of course, there are no “climate risks” caused by Exxon’s products.  Why would they disclose a risk that doesn’t exist?

In November 2024, Healey signed “Clean Energy” legislation which includes reforms to prevent natural gas expansion by limiting gas utility investments that conflict with climate change mandates. This disrupts the creation of new fossil fuel infrastructure in an attempt to “phase down” public reliance on gas and redirect focus toward green energy. Critics argue that these policies hinder gas reliability and raise long-term costs for citizens of MA.  

Since Healey took office, gas heating prices in MA have risen by 35%-50% and electricity prices are listed among top five most expensive states in the US.  Massachusetts already had high energy rates before Healey, but they surged after her climate change policies were implemented. 

Green energy, as everyone knows, is far less efficient than oil, gas or coal (20% to 60% less efficient depending on the source).  State programs that prioritize green tech while suppressing carbon based energy usually result in higher prices for everyone while also creating a bottleneck and shortages during weather related disasters or global supply chain disruptions. 

When Healey holds up donut holes as a representation of Massachusetts’ limited energy resources, what she doesn’t mention is that, unlike donut holes, not all energy sources are the same.  Wind power or solar power is far less reliable and efficient compared to natural gas.  Electric vehicles often still rely on power generated by coal and natural gas.  Around 75% of MA’s energy output comes from natural gas because it is by far the most reliable and affordable source. 

Healey’s solution for storage (green tech, batteries, etc.) is far less practical and far more expensive.  Natural gas storage is vastly superior in terms of cost and energy output.  Massachusetts doesn’t have below ground storage for gas, but relying on storage in other states is still cheaper than the billions of dollars they would need to build battery-based storage in MA.  

The Governor then, of course, goes on to blame Donald Trump’s opposition to green tech development as the cause of higher prices.  Keep in mind, prices exploded in MA well before Trump took office in 2025.  Furthermore, Trump’s criticisms are completely reasonable.

First, climate change theories are a sham.  There is no concrete evidence of a causation relationship between carbon, human industry and global warming.  None.  In fact, the atmospheric carbon record for the past 400 million years doesn’t match the temperature record in the slightest. 

And, temperatures today are far cooler than they have been in the past. That is to say, we are nowhere near record high temperatures for the Earth.  Climate scientists make these claims based on records that only go back around 140 years, which is an extremely narrow time window.

Meaning, the pursuit of green tech in the name of saving the planet is pointless, and it’s causing economic suffering for the citizenry.  Green energy might one day be efficient enough to supply ample power to the world, but for now it has hobbled legitimate energy production.  Today, most financial resources should be put into oil, coal, gas and perhaps nuclear (nuclear plants take 6-10 years to build, plus another 5 years for approval). 

Climate obsessed Democrats like Healey are the primary cause of high energy prices in blue states.  It is undeniable.     

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced Wednesday it will vote on an order to revamp satellite spectrum-sharing rules that would benefit low-Earth orbit broadband providers – and SpaceX stands to gain the most.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink satellites is seen over Sebastian Inlet after launching from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Feb. 26, 2025. Sam Wolfe/Reuters

“By discarding last century’s satellite regulations, we could see billions of dollars in benefits for the American economy and broadband speeds many times faster than what is available today,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a statement.

“This overdue rethinking of space spectrum sharing rules will bring greater competition to the broadband marketplace and reduce the number of satellites needed to serve a given area.”

The vote on April 30 could reshape how tens of millions of Americans, particularly those in rural communities, connect to the internet from space.

The proposed order would raise the power levels that low-earth orbit (LEO) operators are permitted to use in frequency bands shared with incumbent geostationary orbit systems. For SpaceX, whose Starlink network already spans more than 10,000 satellites, the change would mean substantially faster and more reliable service.

Not everyone is on board. Geostationary operators, including Viasat, SES, and DIRECTV, have opposed the move, arguing that allowing Starlink to transmit at higher power would cause damaging interference to their own networks.

In a filing submitted Tuesday, DIRECTV told the agency that SpaceX’s interference studies contain “significant unresolved questions.”

SpaceX has dismissed those concerns as a defense of the status quo. 

“The question of whether the [equivalent power flux density] framework harms consumers by unnecessarily constraining [LEO] services has been definitively resolved: it does,” SpaceX wrote last month. The company added that the current rules unfairly favor what it called outdated satellite systems while leaving rural users underserved.

The FCC appeared to agree. The agency said in its release that “government-imposed overprotection of GSO systems has meant that American households and businesses—most critically in rural and remote areas—do not receive the fastest space-based broadband American innovation has available.”

The international power limits at the center of the dispute were established in the 1990s and were designed to shield geostationary satellites from interference caused by lower-orbiting constellations. At the time, LEO broadband networks like Starlink did not yet exist.

The FCC took an early step toward reform in January, when it approved 7,500 additional second-generation Starlink satellites and granted SpaceX a temporary waiver from the power restrictions while the agency’s broader rulemaking proceeded.

SpaceX has argued that the existing Equivalent Power Flux Density (EPFD) limits rely on obsolete computer models that fail to account for modern beamforming and interference-mitigation technologies now standard in newer satellite systems.

As of March, Starlink’s constellation comprised more than 10,020 satellites in low Earth orbit, accounting for roughly 65 percent of all active satellites worldwide, with more than 10 million subscribers reported as of February.

A formal vote on the new power rules would mark the most consequential shift in satellite spectrum policy in a generation.

China is accusing U.S. federal authorities of “hostile questioning” by US law enforcement following the death of a groundbreaking Chinese semiconductor researcher who fell to his death inside a University of Michigan building last month, while American law enforcement and university officials remain tight-lipped about any federal involvement.

Danhao Wang, an assistant research scientist in the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering, died after falling from an upper level inside the George G. Brown Building on the Ann Arbor campus around 11 p.m. on March 19. University police responded to the scene and pronounced him dead. The incident is being investigated as a possible act of self-harm, with no indication of foul play or any ongoing threat to the campus community.

GG Brown Building Addition (Architect Magazine)

Chinese officials, including the embassy in Washington and the consulate in Chicago, have strongly linked Wang’s death to what they describe as “unwarranted” interrogation by U.S. law enforcement just before the incident. Beijing has lodged multiple “solemn representations,” accusing the U.S. of overstating national security concerns, engaging in political manipulation, and subjecting Chinese scholars to discriminatory practices that create a “chilling effect” on academic exchanges.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry and embassy spokespeople have publicly demanded a full investigation, a “responsible explanation” to Wang’s family, and an end to such alleged harassment. The embassy confirmed Wang died by suicide and has been assisting his family.

U.S. authorities have offered no confirmation or denial of any questioning. The FBI’s Detroit field office cited its longstanding policy of neither confirming nor denying investigations involving specific individuals. University police and administrators have released only basic details about the fall while the case remains active.

The University of Michigan, as we learned in June and November of last year, is full of China’s operatives. Danhao Wang could have been another one of them. https://t.co/Diw9HnUyiP

— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) April 7, 2026

Wang had worked in Prof. Zetian Mi’s lab since 2022, focusing on wide-bandgap III-nitride semiconductor materials and devices. His research centered on emerging wurtzite ferroelectric nitrides — advanced materials with unique polarization properties that could revolutionize electronics.

Groundbreaking Research

Wang’s most significant contribution was as co-first author on a landmark 2025 paper in Nature titled “Electric-field-induced domain walls in wurtzite ferroelectrics.” The work solved a long-standing puzzle: why these ferroelectric nitrides remain stable despite extreme polarization discontinuities that should theoretically tear the crystal apart.

Using transmission electron microscopy and density functional theory, the team discovered that when an electric field reverses polarization, “domain walls” form at the interfaces. These walls feature a unique buckled hexagonal atomic arrangement – never observed before – where dangling bonds with negatively charged electrons precisely compensate the positive charge buildup, stabilizing the material.

Critically, these domain walls also create highly conductive pathways – roughly 100 times more charge carriers than in standard gallium nitride transistors. The conductivity is electrically tunable: it can be turned on/off, moved, or adjusted in strength using the same field that controls polarization.

The breakthrough has sweeping implications for the semiconductor industry:

Ultra-low-power computing and AI: Ferroelectric field-effect transistors (FeFETs) could integrate non-volatile memory and logic in the same material, slashing energy use in AI chips, edge devices, and data centers.
High-power and high-frequency electronics: Domain-wall transistors promise superior performance in RF devices, power amplifiers, and next-generation power electronics.
Neuromorphic and memory tech: The materials support brain-like synaptic behavior and energy-efficient non-volatile memory.
Broader applications: Sensors, MEMS devices, quantum photonics, and hybrid optoelectronic systems all stand to benefit from the tunable ferroelectric properties.

University of Michigan Engineering Dean Karen Thole called Wang “a promising and brilliant young mind” whose work represented a landmark advance in uncovering the switching and charge compensation mechanisms of these emerging nitrides.