Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

They used to call it the “new world order” – A partially public and partially covert agenda to dismantle western civilization. Its purpose is to upend the global financial system, destroy liberty minded movements and eventually erase nations and borders to produce a single communist-like central government ruled by the elitist class.

Today, there are many names for this “beast system”. Some call it the “multipolar world order” even though it would not actually be multipolar. Others call it the “Great Reset”. But the NWO concept that has been promoted most in our post-pandemic discourse is the idea of “Multiculturalism”.

Multiculturalism has always been in the background, at least since the Obama years. It was right under the surface, waiting to be used as a vehicle to move the globalist vision forward. The American people have been prepped for it for generations. The Europeans are currently suffocating in it and it might be too late for them.

The strategy seems rather simple but it is actually a complex effort relying on numerous moving parts synchronized to maximum effect. The most important mechanism is narrative and social influence; the public has to be taught to accept multiculturalism as an inevitability. This brings us to the modern church and its abandonment of western values.

The Vatican’s Shift Into Multiculturalism

In recent news, Pope Leo XIV triggered widespread debate among conservatives when he offered up a thinly veiled attack on the Trump Administration, calling US strikes on Iran’s infrastructure akin to “war crimes”. Interestingly, Leo refused to condemn the wholesale slaughter of protesters by the Iranian regime until this week, likely due to pressure from conservative critics calling out the hypocrisy.

The Pope has been an avid critic not just of Trump, but conservative anti-immigration movements in general. In December of 2025 he argued:

“I know that in Europe there are, many times, fears that are present, but oftentimes generated by people who are against immigration and trying to keep out people who may be from another country, another religion, another race. And in that sense, I would say we all need to work together…”

This runs parallel to Leo’s statements in July of 2025, when he asserted that:

“The Church, like a mother, accompanies those who are walking. Where the world sees threats, she sees children; where walls are built, she builds bridges… She knows that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community.”

The treatment of immigrants as almost “divine” is a bizarre byproduct of the multicultural religion. This idea has been presented by several popes in recent decades, comparing refugees and illegal immigrants to the Holy Family traveling to Egypt to escape King Herod. In reality, Mary and Joseph were Roman subjects and merely traveled from one part of the Roman Empire to another. They were not “immigrants”, illegal or otherwise.

Keep in mind, the Pope lives within a secure compound protected by two miles of walls standing 40 feet high. The Vatican is one of the most restricted pieces of ground on the planet. Like most globalist elites, he never has to deal with the consequences of the mass immigration policies he supports.

For instance, the Vatican has refused to comment on the rising tide of crime and violence (including rape gangs) caused by mass immigration, specifically from Muslim countries. Nor has he commented on Islamic communities enforcing Sharia Law in Europe in defiance of integration.

In fact, Pope Leo pretends as if these problems simply don’t exist and that the millions of people opposed to third world migration are acting out of bigotry rather than a rational concern for the safety of their families and their culture.

And make no mistake, the Catholic Church has played an integral role in the spread of mass immigration. Under Joe Biden, the Catholic Church enjoyed over $200 million in direct grants for helping bring hundreds of thousands of migrants to the US. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was responsible for settling around 18% of all “refugees” and asylum seekers entering the US from 2021 to 2024.

The EU’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) has budgeted over $10 billion from 2021 to 2027 for organizations helping to settle millions of migrants in Europe, and a large portion of that budget goes to Catholic-based NGOs.

To many Christians the Pope still represents a central figure of influence despite the Vatican’s clear shift to the political left over the past several decades and its increasing abandonment of traditionalism. To non-Catholics (and wise Catholics), the office of the Pope is viewed as a Trojan Horse designed to destroy Christianity and the west from within.

The Vatican has grown into a purveyor of the progressive movement since the Vatican II reforms in the 1960s. These reforms including a focus on “interfaith relations” (universal religion) and a policy of detaching the church from its role as a pillar of western civilization. Today, 47% of Catholics vote Democrat despite the fact that woke ideology directly violates many of the most sacred Christian principles.

The Church’s interest in Muslim immigration spiked in 2010 under Pope Benedict XVI and they have been deeply involved with mass migration programs ever since, often in coordination with leftist politicians.

The Alliance Between The Vatican And The Luciferian Elites

Nothing woke up the masses more, in my opinion, than the nightmare of the Covid pandemic. During this crisis the globalists proudly proclaimed their intentions to lock down the world, enforce perpetual vaccine mandates, establish a medical tyranny and fast-track every NWO program imaginable.

One such program was the “Council For Inclusive Capitalism”, which I believe was the intended foundation for a global government; the top of the pyramid. The project was announced as a partnership between globalist controlled corporations, leftist NGOs, climate organizations, the Rothschild Family and, of course, the Vatican.

The Vatican’s mission within the council seemed to revolve around promoting socialism as “Christian adjacent” (This is a lie – Christianity encourages independent and voluntary charity, not forced charity through government taxation or atheistic collectivism). They were also tasked with forming a platform for a “universal religion”, or a union of religions.

The CIC took advantage of the hysteria surrounding the pandemic to advance the multicultural agenda as well as ESG (a program meant to use corporations to enforce woke ideology through social and financial influence). The project ultimately failed when the covid narrative fell apart.

The Council has since gone underground.  However, in 2026 the Vatican Bank approved the appointment of François Pauly, a former Rothschild director, to lead its Board of Superintendence.  The CIC is undeniable proof that the Vatican and associated leaders are intertwined with the luciferian elites. It is no longer a conspiracy “theory”, but a confirmed fact.

The Crusaders Were Right, The Globalist Pope Is Wrong

In 1095 AD at the Council of Clermont in France, Pope Urban II gave a speech on the relentless invasion of the Ottoman Turks which was threatening to destroy Europe and the last vestiges of western civilization. He appealed to Christian men to stand and fight, to stop the erasure of Christendom. For 300 years the Muslims had cut into the heart of the Holy Roman Empire, migrating and conquering as they went.

By the time of Urban’s call to arms, the Islamic caliphates had taken over 60% of all Christian lands and were on the doorstep of Western Europe.

Before this speech it was widely believed that Christians would not organize or fight. The success of Urban’s plea for action shocked the Pope himself. Thus began the First Crusade to save the west. In the end, the Muslims were pushed out of Europe, back to the Arab lands. Without the crusades we would still be living in the dark ages of a Muslim theocracy.

Nothing has changed since then in terms of the conflict. The western world is still completely incompatible with Islam. What has changed, rather, is the circumstances and the players. Today, the Vatican is a multicultural monstrosity working with people who, more than anything, want open borders, the dismantling of the west and the elimination of Christianity.

They clearly see Islamic immigration (and third world immigration from socialist nations) as a valuable weapon for cleaving the US and Europe. As I noted in my recent article “The US Separation From And NATO Is Long Overdue”, European globalists have used mass immigration to implant a foreign army to subdue and control the native population. It is a tactic as old as time – Political leadership using subsidized foreign hordes as a way to control their own rebellious citizens.

This is why they have ignored every reasonable call by the populace for reforms and deportations. This is why they ignore the rape gangs, the murders, the terrorism. They WANT these things to happen. That’s why they let the barbarians inside the gates in the first place. The Vatican and the Pope are a part of this agenda. As an institution, the Papacy was tasked with protecting the western world. If the Vatican is casting aside this sacred duty, then it no longer represents Christianity.

Authored by via The Epoch Times,

China has imposed a 40-day offshore airspace restriction larger than Taiwan without explanation, signaling a potential shift toward sustained military readiness near Japan and U.S. allies.

China filed Notices to Air Missions (NOTAMs) reserving offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, a 40-day window, without announcing any military exercises or offering a public explanation. The reserved zones cover an area larger than Taiwan’s main island, spanning from the Yellow Sea facing South Korea to the East China Sea facing Japan, including airspace north and south of Shanghai.

The restrictions carry no vertical ceiling, designated SFC-UNL, meaning surface to unlimited altitude. Civil aviation remains unaffected. Commercial flights are still permitted to pass through these areas, but must coordinate carefully with Chinese air traffic control authorities.

NOTAMs of this type have previously been used to signal Chinese military exercises, which typically last a few days. China has issued comparable restrictions along the same coastline at least four times in the past 18 months, but those lasted only three days and were openly linked to announced exercises, missile launches, or live-fire training events.

This time, Beijing provided no warning, no declared exercise, and no explanation. China’s Ministry of Defense and civil aviation authorities issued no statements and did not respond to requests for comment.

The November and December 2024 precedent is directly relevant. In November 2024, Shanghai air traffic control issued a NOTAM restricting seven large sections of airspace off China’s coast for periods spanning three days. Those zones overlapped with airspace subsequently used during large-scale military exercises in December 2024.

China provided no reason for the November restrictions, and they passed relatively unnoticed by the international media. Analysts assessed that they may have served as a rehearsal for the more significant airspace reservations that accompanied the December exercises.

Ray Powell, director of Stanford University’s SeaLight project, which tracks Chinese maritime activity, told The Wall Street Journal that the combination of SFC-UNL designation and a 40-day duration with no announced exercise suggests “a sustained operational readiness posture—and one that China apparently doesn’t feel the need to explain.”

Christopher Sharman, director of the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute, said the zones could provide China an opportunity to practice air combat maneuvers relevant to a Taiwan contingency.

Ben Lewis of PLATracker, an organization that analyzes the Chinese military and regional security development, assessed that the longer window likely gives China’s military scheduling flexibility for spring training and said he does not anticipate major exercises given the Kuomintang chair’s visit to Beijing and the planned Trump–Xi summit in mid-May.

The restricted zones lie hundreds of miles north of Taiwan but sit directly along approaches facing Japan and South Korea. A senior Taiwanese security official told the Journal the reservation is “clearly aimed at Japan,” reflecting Chinese efforts to deter U.S. allies and erode American military influence in the Indo-Pacific while U.S. attention remains on the Middle East conflict.

Past Chinese drills have focused on controlling air routes the U.S. military would use in a Taiwan contingency, and the pause in daily PLA flights near Taiwan that preceded these NOTAMs also remains unexplained.

The restrictions carry implications for the United States, Japan, and Taiwan. The United States recently moved long-range missile assets from the Pacific to the Middle East, and the restricted zones cover approaches directly relevant to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command force projection. Japan faces the most direct exposure, as the East China Sea portion of the restricted airspace faces Japan’s southwestern island chain, where Japan has deployed long-range missiles capable of reaching parts of mainland China.

By using a routine aviation mechanism without stating a military purpose, China imposes costs, heightened readiness, intelligence resources, and diplomatic caution on all three parties simultaneously, without triggering the international backlash that an announced large-scale exercise would generate.

No public U.S. government response to the restrictions has been reported. The U.S. military nonetheless continues operations in the region. USS John Finn conducted a Taiwan Strait transit on March 10, with the U.S. 7th Fleet stating the mission “demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific” and that American forces “will continue to fly, sail, and operate anywhere international law allows.”

On March 28, one day after China’s airspace restrictions took effect, Japanese fighter jets scrambled to intercept a new variant of China’s Y-9FQ anti-submarine warfare aircraft over the East China Sea, approximately 160 miles northeast of Okinawa. Japan’s Ministry of Defense, in releasing details of the intercept, stated that it “will continue to collect information and conduct surveillance on military movements around Japan 24 hours a day and will take all necessary measures against airspace violations.”

Japan has also increased defense spending to 2 percent of GDP ahead of schedule and is working with the United States to expand the joint military presence in Japan’s southwestern region.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by Brett Wilkins

While media coverage of Israel’s war on Lebanon mainly focuses on the slaughter of hundreds of Lebanese civilians and destruction of entire villages, Israel Defense Forces commanders are tacitly condoning widespread looting by their troops in Lebanon, according to reporting Thursday.

Haaretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, interviewed a number of IDF personnel who described routine theft of items including motorcycles, televisions, paintings, sofas, and rugs from the homes and businesses of some of the more than 1 million Lebanese forcibly displaced by Israel’s assault on its northern neighbor.

Vandalized house, with Hebrew graffiti, in Lebanese village of Alma al-Shaab, vai L’Orient-Le Jour.

Israel has seized control of more than 50 villages in southern Lebanon as part of its expanding so-called “Yellow Line,” with residents who cross it risking their lives. Their absence offers IDF troops the opportunity to loot with no Lebanese resistance.

The looting of civilian homes and businesses is formally known as “pillage” and is strictly prohibited under numerous Israeli and international laws and conventions. However, according to the IDF soldiers and officers interviewed by Haaretz, senior and junior commanders know about the pillaging but are not punishing offending soldiers.

“It’s on a crazy scale,” one soldier said. “Anyone who takes something – televisions, cigarettes, tools, whatever – immediately puts it in their vehicle or leaves it off to the side, not inside the army base, but it’s not hidden. Everyone sees it and understands.”

Soldiers interviewed said commanders’ responses range from turning a blind eye to prohibiting looting but not punishing offenders. “In our unit, they don’t even comment or get angry,” one soldier claimed. “The battalion and brigade commanders know everything.”

Another said that “battalion and brigade commanders do speak up and get angry, but without action, those are empty words.” Some IDF soldiers have even posted videos of their looting on social media – usually with no consequences.

Responding to the Haartez report, the IDF claimed:

The military views any harm to civilian property and acts of looting with utmost severity and unequivocally prohibits them. Any allegation or suspicion of such acts is thoroughly examined and addressed with the full weight of the law. In cases where sufficient evidence is established, disciplinary and criminal measures are taken, including prosecution. The Military Police Corps conducts inspections at the northern border crossing as forces exit Lebanon.

However, some military police checkpoints along the border have been removed, and in some locations there have never been any checkpoints at all.

🇮🇱🇱🇧IDF soldiers reportedly filmed looting homes in southern Lebanon.

The video shows troops taking belongings from civilian houses during the ground operations.

Israel’s campaign has displaced over 1 million Lebanese in under three weeks…pic.twitter.com/RRgjX8T9Rb https://t.co/iGcjA9NbXt

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 20, 2026

Widespread looting by IDF soldiers has previously been documented in Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank, sometimes by the perpetrators themselves.

IDF looting has also been reported in Syria, where Israel has seized as many as 200 square miles of additional territory in 2024, including dozens of border villages, under cover of the Gaza genocide. Israel already conquered and occupied much of the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967.

Israeli forces also allegedly backed Palestinians who looted Gaza aid convoys in order to boost the narrative that it’s Hamas, not Israel, thatof is preventing humanitarian aid from reaching starving Gazans.

Looting of Palestinian property was particularly rampant during the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” when more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs were ethnically cleansed to make way for the establishment of Israel.

The systematic theft of Palestinian land, homes, and property – which continued with the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan Heights in 1967 – is accelerating today, and can be witnessed in videos of settler pogroms in the West Bank and infamous footage of an American-born settler colonist telling a Palestinian family whose home he’s trying to steal that “if I don’t steal it, someone else is going to.”

Lebanese media reports Israeli airstrikes in the southern Lebanon town of Deir Aames.

The IDF warned residents of the town earlier to evacuate after it said Hezbollah had launched rockets from the area. pic.twitter.com/FQVwrwwmPh

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) April 24, 2026

Such unchecked usurpation emboldens further thievery. One soldier interviewed by Haaretz for Thursday’s article said the pillage would effectively end if there were serious consequences for offenders, pointing to units in which commanders took a tough stance against looting, resulting in negligible levels of the crime.

“Lenient enforcement sends a clear message. If someone were dismissed or jailed, or if military police were stationed at the border, it would stop almost immediately,” they said. “But when there is no punishment, the message is obvious.”

Authored by Lawrence Kadish via The Gatestone Institute,

For decades, fusion energy has been the great scientific pursuit – clean, limitless power drawn from the same physics that powers the sun. Enormous progress has been made in the technology required to harness nuclear fusion and significant investment is now being made by private companies and President Donald J. Trump’s White House.

As we advance on fusion success, however, there is a danger of progress being halted by an enormous challenge: the supply chain. Without an American-based industrial infrastructure to source, manufacture, and deliver the materials fusion energy requires, our nation’s dominance in this crucial field is at risk.

Consider the “shopping list” needed to create a viable fusion reactor.

Start with its fuel, tritium, a rare hydrogen isotope. There are not a lot of tritium supplies anywhere in the world.

Accordingly, you need to manufacture them – an enormous challenge before you even get to sustaining the actual fusion reaction.

The same issue applies to magnets needed to keep the fusion reaction contained and running.

The list goes on.

It is not a secret for those advancing our nation’s energy independence through fusion.

David Kirtley, CEO of Helion Energy, a major leader in the field, has stated that supply chain challenges could put fusion’s future here in America at risk.

As a result, they have moved some key technology manufacturing in-house.

In testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Jackie Siebens, Helion Energy’s Director of Public Affairs, stated that building the supply chain and infrastructure necessary to scale fusion is “chief among” the company’s challenges.

She warned that fusion power plants will rely on key components including semiconductors, capacitors, high-quality metals, and magnets —and that the manufacturing of those key items is currently concentrated in a few countries, chiefly China. Why are we not surprised?

The geopolitical stakes could not be higher. Helion Energy correctly argues that without a strong domestic supply chain, the U.S. risks losing its strategic energy dominance even as it advances on fusion energy success

Our nation’s leaders must treat protecting the supply chain with the same urgency as research funding to achieve fusion energy breakthroughs.

Washington needs to recognize the challenge and encourage the creation of an “American made” network of fusion technology suppliers that will protect our future.

It is a race where second best will leave a nation in the dark.

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is facing fresh accusations after Republicans flagged her reported push to direct more than $1 million in federal taxpayer funds to a small Somali-led nonprofit whose listed project address matches a Minneapolis restaurant.

The nonprofit, Generation Hope MN, describes itself as providing addiction recovery services, peer support, job training, and mental health support for the East African community. The address tied to Omar’s earmark request – 326 Cedar Ave S / 411 Cedar Ave S – matches Sagal Restaurant and Coffee, a Somali eatery. Conservative investigator Angela Rose documented the site in a video, using Google Street View archives and on-site footage to show minimal or no clinic signage over years, with the building primarily operating as a restaurant. The owner has confirmed Generation Hope uses upstairs space in the multi-tenant property, but critics highlighted the optics amid Minnesota’s fraud history.

Minnesota Rep Ilhan Omar attempted to send $1.46 million dollars in funding to an address for a nonprofit called “Generation Hope”

The address to receive the money isn’t a treatment facility, it’s a restaurant

After this was discovered House Republicans stripped the earmarked… pic.twitter.com/iwwSZMi75H

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 24, 2026

Omar, joined by Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, had requested approximately $1.031 million (with some reports citing up to $1.46 million in initial figures) through the Department of Justice’s Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program for the group’s “Justice Empowerment Initiative.” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and other Republicans flagged multiple concerns: the restaurant address, three directors listing the same residential home address in filings, and the organization’s limited demonstrated capacity for large-scale treatment services. House Republicans stripped the earmark from a FY2026 spending package in January 2026. GOP senators later requested a formal DOJ fraud investigation into Generation Hope MN.

This development coincides with a separate but related state-level investigation. On April 22, 2026, Minnesota State Rep. Kristin Robbins (R), chair of the House Fraud Prevention & State Oversight Committee, publicly released a formal data request letter to Omar after the congresswoman reportedly declined multiple invitations to testify about her MEALS Act (H.R. 6187, 116th Congress). That 2020 legislation, incorporated into the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, expanded child nutrition programs and loosened some eligibility requirements during the pandemic—changes critics say contributed to conditions enabling the massive Feeding Our Future scandal, which allegedly defrauded taxpayers of more than $250 million. Court records and trials have implicated numerous individuals in Omar’s district, many from the Somali-American community, with some having ties to her orbit (including a former staffer who pled guilty and associates at sites like Safari Restaurant, where Omar appeared in a 2020 promotional video). Omar has distanced herself from the defend ants and called the fraud “reprehensible,” while urging the public not to broadly blame the Somali community.

Robbins’ letter demands detailed records of Omar’s communications with key players, her office staff, and the Minnesota Department of Education by May 5. Omar has not publicly responded to the latest demand.

Additional layer of recent scrutiny: Omar’s amended financial disclosures and dissolved winery Compounding questions about oversight of public funds, Omar is also facing intense Republican-led scrutiny over her personal finances. In her 2024 disclosure (filed in 2025), she and husband Tim Mynett reported combined assets valued between $6 million and $30 million – a dramatic increase from prior years – largely tied to two companies Mynett co-owns: eStCru LLC (a California winery) and Rose Lake Capital (a venture capital firm). After inquiries from the Office of Congressional Conduct and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), who requested records citing “serious public concerns,” Omar amended the filing in mid-April 2026. The new version lists joint assets at just $18,004 to $95,000, with the companies now valued at “none.” Her office blamed an “accounting error” in which liabilities were not properly subtracted and stated she is “not a millionaire.”

Notably, the eStCru winery LLC was officially terminated (dissolved) on April 4, 2026 – days before the amendment became public. Independent investigator Angela Rose (who also produced the Generation Hope video) previously visited the listed address and described the operation as a “phantom” or shell business: no active wine production, no tastings, no product available for purchase, and a facility sign confirming it had “ceased operation.” ZeroHedge and other outlets have reported on suspicions of inflated valuations and potential shell-company activity.

No criminal charges have been filed against Omar personally in any of these matters. Her office has defended the MEALS Act as emergency pandemic aid, distanced her from Feeding Our Future defendants, and called the disclosure revisions voluntary and accurate. Generation Hope’s supporters maintain it is a legitimate community organization operating within available space. Rose Lake Capital and eStCru have faced prior investor disputes, but Mynett has denied wrongdoing.

Still, the overlapping controversies – the earmark red flags, the state records demand, deep ties to individuals later implicated in fraud schemes, and the sudden financial disclosure swing followed by a business dissolution – have fueled outrage among critics who argue they reflect insufficient transparency around public funds and personal finances in Omar’s district. With the May 5 deadline approaching, lawmakers, watchdogs, and taxpayers are watching closely for any response.

We can’t wait for absolutely nothing to happen to her. 

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

Federal regulators on Thursday approved the first gene therapy to restore hearing, just two months after the therapy’s maker formally requested a license.

Dr. Marty Makary, the Food and Drug Administration’s commissioner, in an undated file photograph. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The Food and Drug Administration approved the Regeneron therapy, Otarmeni, for children and adults with severe or profound hearing loss associated with OTOF gene variants.

The approval came 61 days after Regeneron filed for a biologics license, under a new effort known as the Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher Program that emphasizes quickly reviewing applications for products that address unmet needs.

“Today’s approval is a significant milestone in the treatment of genetic hearing loss,” Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA’s commissioner, said in a statement.

“Through the national priority voucher pilot program, the agency is accelerating therapies for rare diseases with unmet medical needs while proving we can successfully review even the most complex submissions—such as novel dual vector gene therapies and combination products requiring coordination across multiple offices and centers—in significantly shortened timeframes.”

Genetic mutations account for about half of cases of inherited hearing loss. Variants in the OTOF gene account for 2 to 8 percent of those cases.

To treat deafness, Otarmeni is administered to each ear using a syringe and catheter provided in the accompanying kit.

Regulators approved Regeneron’s therapy after reviewing data from a clinical trial involving 24 patients aged 10 months to 16 years. Of the 20 patients included in the efficacy analysis, 80 percent experienced improvement in hearing after receiving Otarmeni.

Common side effects of the drug included ear infection, nausea, and dizziness.

Dr. A. Eliot Shearer, an otolaryngologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an investigator in the trial, said in a statement released by Regeneron that the one-time therapy provides “remarkable hearing improvements.”

“I’ve witnessed firsthand my trial participant responding to their mother’s voice, dancing to music and interacting with the world, and these moments are now possible for more children born with this specific form of hearing loss,” he said.

Dr. Marty Makary, the Food and Drug Administration’s commissioner, in an undated file photograph. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Regeneron said it will provide the therapy free of charge to patients in the United States as part of a deal struck with President Donald Trump and announced on Thursday.

Dr. George D. Yancopoulos, president and chief scientific officer of Regeneron, said in a statement that Otarmeni was an “unprecedented breakthrough” in gene therapy.

“Otarmeni is a huge scientific leap and is representative of Regeneron’s approaches to continually push the boundaries of science to benefit humanity,” he said.

“This unprecedented breakthrough in gene therapy has already proven to be life-changing for many of the children in our clinical trial and their families. We are honored to be in the position to be the first company to ever offer such a gene therapy advance for free to those in the U.S. and serves to highlight our belief that the biopharmaceutical industry can be a genuine force for good in the world.”

The U.S. military’s 55-day war with Iran has alarmingly drawn down several categories of high-end air-delivered munitions, forcing the Department of War to draw from critical stockpiles in Asia and Europe. The drawdown of these weapons only suggests a possible readiness problem and helps explain why President Trump’s war economy is set to accelerate, with expected increases in munitions production. 

The New York Times has released a report that says since the US-Iran conflict began in late February, the US military has burned through roughly 1,100 JASSM-ER long-range stealth cruise missiles, more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, over 1,200 Patriot interceptors, and more than 1,000 Precision Strike and ATACMS missiles.

“The Iran war has significantly drained much of the U.S. military’s global supply of munitions, and forced the Pentagon to rush bombs, missiles and other hardware to the Middle East from commands in Asia and Europe,” the outlet said, citing internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials.

The report continued, “The drawdowns have left these regional commands less ready to confront potential adversaries like Russia and China, and it has forced the United States to find ways to scale up production to address the depletions, Trump administration and congressional officials say.” 

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, stated earlier this week, “At current production rates, reconstituting what we have expended could take years.” 

One of the first major signals that the DoW was set to call on private industry to begin ramping up Trump’s war economy was a report earlier this month that said the Trump administration was exploring whether U.S. manufacturers, including GM, Ford, GE Aerospace, and Oshkosh, could convert civilian industrial capacity into weapons production as multiple conflict areas across Eurasia drag on and deplete critical weapons stockpiles.

The historical precedent is that America converted its automotive base during World War II to produce record numbers of main battle tanks, bombers, and fighter planes to win the war.

“The United States has many munitions with adequate inventories, but some critical ground-attack and missile-defense munitions were short before the war and are even shorter now,” Mark F. Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the outlet. He recently published a study estimating US weapons stockpiles.

Evidence of converting underused civilian industrial capacity has recently emerged, with the German automaker Volkswagen set to transform its Lower Saxony factory from producing T-Roc Cabriolets to manufacturing parts for the Iron Dome missile interceptor system.

The important signal we are gathering here is that the US may have to convert underutilized civilian industrial capacity, including truck and auto production lines, to weapons output.

To be frank, this is no longer peacetime procurement. It is wartime industrial mobilization, with Washington now being forced to confront the gap between the weapons it burns in the Middle East and the weapons its defense base can actually replace.

Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

Rep. Andy Ogles was adamant when asked if the Southern Poverty Law Center bears responsibility for the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The Tennessee Republican connected the dots between the SPLC’s long-running smear campaign against conservatives and the fresh Trump DOJ indictment exposing the group’s fraudulent operation funding the very extremists it claimed to oppose.

In a bombshell interview on The Benny Show, Ogles laid out the case plainly, tying the SPLC’s “heat map” of supposed hate groups directly to the violence that claimed Kirk’s life. 

The timing couldn’t be more damning: just one day after the DOJ dropped its 11-count indictment against the SPLC for wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering tied to over $3 million in donor funds secretly funneled to KKK leaders, National Socialist Movement members, and other violent extremists.

Congressman Says SPLC Is ‘Absolutely’ Culpable in the Assassination of Charlie Kirk

The SPLC’s disgusting “Hate Map” didn’t just smear conservatives like Charlie as racists and Nazis — it incited violence against them.

I asked Rep. Andy Ogles if he believes the SPLC bears… pic.twitter.com/fVFqX3meFd

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 22, 2026

As we highlighted, the Trump DOJ’s action exposed the SPLC’s decade-long scheme. 

The group raised millions by promising donors it would dismantle racist hate groups—then turned around and paid their leaders to stage activities the SPLC could report on, all while branding mainstream conservatives as the real threat. 

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche put it bluntly: “The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence.”

Ogles made the direct link to Kirk’s murder crystal clear.

“Absolutely, if you and I did that, they would be coming after us. They threw everything at us that they could… just follow the facts… If the right was doing this to the left, I mean, we all would have been in jail,” Ogles stated.

He continued: “Kudos to the DOJ for going after this. It can’t be lost, ladies and gentlemen, when you think about the murder of Charlie Kirk, when you think about some of these hate crimes that have happened across this country, would they have happened had it not been for this vile rhetoric from the left?”

Ogles didn’t stop there. He zeroed in on the SPLC’s infamous “heat map” that painted Kirk and Turning Point USA as dangerous extremists right up until the activist’s assassination.

“People need to understand that this conspiracy that was built by the left to paint the right as racist and Nazi and violent is totally fabricated!” he declared.

“So that begs the question, this HEAT MAP that they created, this vile contempt for Republicans, how did that play into Charlie Kirk’s murder?”

“Were they there on January 6th? You have millions upon millions of dollars. I mean, even in Nashville, you had the Patriot Front, they were posing as Nazis, marching in Nashville, right? You have a conservative organization, several in my district that are on this heat map of being the alt-right hate groups.”

The SPLC’s pattern is now impossible to ignore. For years the group has wielded its “hate map” like a weapon, smearing pro-life organizations, border security advocates, and America First voices as domestic threats. Kirk called them out repeatedly—exposing the fraud before his death. The SPLC kept attacking anyway.

The Trump DOJ’s indictment confirms what Kirk and countless others warned about: the SPLC wasn’t fighting hate. It was profiting from it, using donor cash to prop up the very groups it listed while targeting conservatives who dared push back against open borders, woke indoctrination, and deep state overreach.

The SPLC’s rhetoric helped create the toxic environment where political violence against figures like Kirk became thinkable. Ogles is right to demand real consequences. When the left’s smear machine gets exposed funding actual extremists, the same rules they demand for everyone else must finally apply.

The broader picture shows a pattern of leftist hypocrisy now unraveling under Trump’s DOJ. Multiple outlets have covered the indictment, confirming the SPLC secretly paid informants inside the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America, Aryan Nations, and National Socialist groups from 2014 to 2023.

The group deceived donors, hid payments through shell companies, and used the resulting “reporting” to justify its bloated budget and political hit lists.

Charlie Kirk was right about the SPLC all along. His murder demands more than thoughts and prayers—it demands justice. The Trump administration’s move to hold these frauds accountable is a vital first step in restoring sanity and protecting free speech from the real inciters..

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

The head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) demanded that states across the nation take action to crack down on fraud in Medicaid, one of the federal government’s health insurance programs.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, speaks during an interview with EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” in Washington on Jan. 16, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

In letters to state Medicaid directors, CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said they should develop and file with his agency a comprehensive strategy to ensure that Medicaid providers are legitimate.

“Corrupt individuals and organizations masquerading as health care providers are defrauding Medicaid, and American taxpayers, of billions of dollars each year, placing valuable resources out of reach for those the program was intended to serve: low-income senior citizens, children, and disabled individuals,” Oz wrote.

Oz had recently previewed the effort, saying it would involve proving whether the providers “actually exist.”

“I love Medicaid; I cannot say that more fervently,” Oz said at a summit held by Politico. “If you love something, you protect it. You don’t let it get defrauded. You don’t let it get taken advantage of.”

If states do not take action, then audits may be an option, he said.

CMS has been investigating Medicaid and Medicare, and officials have said they have identified billions in fraudulent or potentially fraudulent spending, leading to actions such as deferring $259 million in payments to Minnesota. They have had to clarify some claims, including acknowledging an error in calculations regarding New York.

The new letters said CMS is acting under its responsibilities outlined in federal law, including the Social Security Act, and that CMS understands that states face challenges administering the complex Medicaid program. Oz said in the letters that CMS analyses are suggesting “a persistent and growing Medicaid threat posed by sophisticated actors knowingly exploiting these complex systems for financial gains.”

“A foundational element of Medicaid program integrity is ensuring that only legitimate, qualified providers are enrolled and participating in the program,” Oz said. “Confirming that each state maintains accurate and regularly updated provider enrollment information is a critical foundation of CMS’ efforts to safeguard Medicaid program integrity, as it supports effective screening, monitoring, and oversight of participating providers.”

States were instructed to notify CMS of revalidation plans within 10 days and to follow up within 30 days with the strategy to make sure that providers are valid. It did not include any audit threats for noncompliance.

CMS declined to comment on the letters.

Oz added in a video statement that criminals are costing billions in taxpayer funds each year, and taking resources away from the needy.

“Here’s the bottom line: It’s time to make sure that providers of high-risk services are valid and meet all the requirements to deliver care to Medicaid beneficiaries,” Oz said in the video.

States have the ability to define which providers are high-risk, which might include providers without national identifiers, according to Oz.

“These are the gaps that criminals, including foreign nationals, exploit,” he said. “Revalidation works. It forces accountability, it removes bad actors, and it sends a clear message that the Medicaid system is not an unguarded piggy bank.”