Zerohedge

Authored by Steve Cohen via RealClearDefense,

The Trump administration seems serious about resurrecting a domestic shipbuilding industry and increasing the size of the Navy. Both are admirable objectives, and neither is possible without the other – assuming that Congress could put aside partisan trench warfare long enough to agree on a multi-year Defense appropriation. There is broad agreement that the Navy needs about 85 additional ships to do the jobs the nation expects it to do. This will cost nearly $1 trillion. That is about $40 billion annually for 25 years – about double what Congress has appropriated annually for the last five years.

The President’s Executive Order establishing the Maritime and Industrial Capability Office – colloquially known as the shipbuilding office – within the National Security Council focusses almost exclusively on commercial ships. And while it doesn’t explicitly address what most knowledgeable observers already know – that we have too few yards, antiquated technology at many of them, and inadequate workforce – it makes some very good suggestions, and calls for a comprehensive Maritime Action Plan within 210 days. (That’s seven months for us history majors.)

The Administration’s focus of commercial ships and yards is fine: without a larger, more predictable flow of both commercial and Navy construction, shipbuilders won’t be able to attract or retain a skilled workforce or have the right financial incentives to invest in new technologies and infrastructure. It is well documented that many of the recent Navy cost overruns were the result of frequent construction errors which had to be corrected. Similarly,  with  virtually no demand for building commercial ships domestically, the few remaining shipbuilders have failed to make adequate investments in technology or infrastructure.

No discussion of Navy shipbuilding delays or cost-overruns could survive a smell test without upfront acknowledgement of the Navy’s complicity. Choose a construction program: the Ford, the LCS, the DG-1000, the new Constellation class frigate – and its history is replete with recurring mistakes: from failures to agree on capabilities, or design, or adequately proving new technologies or just changing direction midstream – the Navy’s track record is not impressive.  The 800-pound gorilla in the room, of course, is that there has been very little high-level accountability for such behavior.

Ever an optimist, I’m hoping that the Maritime Action Plan will rub off on the Navy. Whether it can evolve into a mini-Operation Warp Speed is unclear. But I believe the White House needs to take on one more challenge simultaneously, or the commitment to build more ships will be for naught: we must figure out how to man not only the new ships, but our existing fleet.

For years, the Navy has been unable to meet its recruiting goals. The Navy needs approximately 332,300 sailors and officers to man its current fleet of 295 ships. Because people retire and leave the service, the Navy needs 40,600 new recruits annually. And it has missed that target in two out of the last three years. In 2024, it hit its mark partly because it lowered its standards. Moreover, there is a shortfall of about 20,000 operational gaps at sea.  Moreover, if the Navy ever achieved a fleet size of 355 ships, it would need an additional 50,000 sailors.

Staffing quasi-Navy ships is a problem too. The Navy has 61 U.S. Naval Service ships oilers, supply ships, transports, pre-positioned support vessels, two hospital ships – operated by the Military Sealift Command. Although owned by the Navy, they are crewed by civilians. Last summer, thee MSC announced plans to temporarily mothball 17 Navy support ships  because it didn’t have crews to man them.

The Navy is not alone in its recruiting problems: the Army, Air Force, and Coast Guard have all been having trouble meeting their targets. So, while it is encouraging that the Navy has met its most recent recruiting numbers, lowering standards is not a smart nor sustainable strategy, especially for a fleet that continues to get more technologically complex.

Some observers argue that crewed ships and airplanes with actual pilots are a thing of the past; and given the difficulty in attracting young people to serve in the military, we should just go all-in on drones. But a larger number of unmanned aircraft and vessels are already part of mix for the fleet of the future, and that is not going to ameliorate the need for people to join the military.

Just as President Trump tasked his National Security Advisor to deliver a Maritime Action Plan within seven months, he (or Congress) should demand a similar plan on how we are going to get people to serve in the armed forces. Nothing should be off the table, beginning with whether we still want – and can deliver – an all-volunteer military.

One top newspaper editor I recently spoke with said his paper supports the return of the draft. A retired advertising executive complained to me about the inanity of the Navy’s recent ad campaigns – “Can anyone explain what ‘Forged by the Sea’ means?” – but doubted a new tag line would be enough to connect with Gen Z’ers or the younger Gen Alphas who follow. And last week, a freshman at Yale called me to brainstorm about how to get support for mandatory national service. (He had read several articles I had written arguing for a mandatory program of 18 months  where a voluntary option would be voluntary.)

We need to build more ships, and we need to do so smarter, faster, and cheaper. But if we don’t also figure out how to man them, we will be building a ghost fleet.

Steve Cohen is an attorney at Pollock Cohen in New York, and a former member of the Board of Directors of the United States Naval Institute.

US President Donald Trump in a recent interview with conservative show host Glenn Beck expressed doubt whether the White House can actually achieve a comprehensive peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

Trump has made Ukraine peace the top foreign policy priority of the early part of his administration, and on the campaign trail and within his first hundred days expressed continual confidence that the US can successfully mediate, but this confidence appears to be fading with each passing week.

In the interview he noted his belief – not for the first time – that Russian President Vladimir Putin is open to making a deal on Ukraine, and is actually easier to deal with than Zelensky.

“When Zelenskyy was in the Oval Office. I was talking about getting it done, and he starts screaming, ‘but we need security’, meaning security, after the fact, I said, ‘security’? I don’t even know if we can get this deal done,” Trump told Beck.

That’s when he expressed rare doubt, saying he’s not sure “if we can get this deal done.”

Referencing Zelensky, Trump continued: “He’s asking for more, just more and more and more. And he doesn’t have the cards. He doesn’t have the cards, so hopefully he’s going to get it done,” Trump said. 

And in reference to Putin, Trump explained, “I think he had the idea of going all the way through” if Trump were not in the Oval Office. “I think he’s [Putin] willing to make a deal. And I would say thus far, he’s been easier to deal with than Zelensky,” Trump added.

Another interesting section of the interview came as follows:

Glenn Beck: Yeah, is he the problem? Is Putin the problem? Or is Europe the problem?

DT: So, look: Russia is a very big military force, and Ukraine isn’t. Without Ukraine — and I’m the one that supplied the Javelins [anti-tank missiles] to them, so, you know, I did a lot for them, because the tanks got stuck in the mud, and then they got Javelined, right? And they always say, “Trump gave the Javelins,” and it was, in that case, “Obama gave sheets.” He gave sheets! They said nothing.

But Biden gave money like nobody’s ever seen — $350 billion! He gave military equipment, gave storage. We had massive storage bins full of ammunition — buildings as long as the eye could see.

And in a separate ‘100-day’ interview published in The Atlantic on Monday, Trump said that without a peace deal Ukraine will soon be crushed:

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he believes Ukraine will be “crushed very shortly,” as it is up against Russia’s “big war machine” that it cannot defeat.

“I think I’m saving that nation. I think I’m doing a great service to Ukraine. I believe that,” he said in an interview with The Atlantic published April 28.

Trump argues it has been easier to deal with Putin than Zelensky pic.twitter.com/TsajLRSaBB

— Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) April 29, 2025

Trump admin officials have called this week “very critical” for determining whether lasting peace in Ukraine can be forged:

Rubio said that the coming week will be “very critical” for the White House as it makes a “determination about whether this is an endeavor that we want to continue to be involved in.”

“There are reasons to be optimistic, but there are reasons to be realistic,” Rubio said, adding: “We’re close, but we’re not close enough.”

“Throughout this process, it’s about determining, do both sides really want peace and how close are they or how far apart they are after 90 days of effort here … that’s what we’re trying to determine this week,” Rubio said of negotiations.

Will the US stop arming Ukraine if no peace deal is reached? Will more sanctions simply be piled onto Moscow? Or perhaps Washington will simply step aside and let Europe lead the way in fueling the proxy war.

Already NATO is said to be making plans to fill the sizeable gap of US leadership in the Western military alliance, anticipating the a US drawdown of support.

Authored by Zena le Roux via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Ergothioneine (ERGO), a potent antioxidant made by fungi and soil microbes, is making waves in the world of nutrition. However, many may wonder what it actually is.

Research shows ERGO is important for brain health. When animals are deprived of ERGO, it harms both brain cell growth and cognitive function. People with dementia also tend to have lower levels of ERGO in their blood compared with healthy people of the same age.

Fungi are a vital source of ERGO and typically grow in the rich, healthy soil of forests.

However, as farming practices deplete the soil, we lose its vitality and the nutrients that nourish our food—leaving us reliant on forest-grown mushrooms and improved soil care to help restore healthy ERGO levels.

‘Longevity Vitamin’

ERGO is primarily produced by soil-borne microbes and fungi. Humans cannot produce it, so it must be obtained through diet. Researchers discovered that mammals have a specific transporter protein for ERGO, enabling its absorption from food into red blood cells. These cells then distribute it to tissues throughout the body, where it has powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects—emphasizing its biological importance.

In 2018, Bruce Ames, a renowned biochemist, proposed that ERGO could be classified as a longevity vitamin. These vitamins are essential for the function of longevity proteins that support long-term health and aging. Ames suggested that a deficiency in ERGO could harm long-term health.

Robert Beelman, a professor of food science and director of the Center for Plant and Mushroom Foods for Health at Penn State University, has advanced the understanding of ERGO.

“ERGO is actually an amino acid, but not one that’s found in proteins,” Beelman told The Epoch Times. Unlike other amino acids that build proteins, ERGO acts as an antioxidant with special benefits for brain and organ health. This is one reason why ERGO is linked to aging and cognitive health, and why it stands apart from other amino acids.

“It appears to mitigate many of the chronic diseases associated with aging,” he added.

Cognitive Health and Healthy Aging

Based on limited data, Americans are suggested to consume less ERGO, about 1.1 milligram per day (mg/day) than people in four European countries which take up to 4.6 mg/day, such as in Italy. These lower intakes were associated with a higher prevalence of chronic neurological diseases of aging and lower life expectancies.

ERGO levels in human blood naturally decline with age, but decrease even more rapidly in people with cognitive decline. Beelman highlighted that people with low levels of ERGO in their blood face a higher risk of developing chronic neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

*  *  *

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Beelman and his team have estimated ERGO consumption across five countries—the United States, France, Finland, Ireland, and Italy.

“Our findings showed a strong association between higher ERGO consumption and longer life expectancy, as well as a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease,” Beelman noted.

While there is no official recommended daily intake for ERGO, Beelman suggested starting with 5 mg/day as a general guideline. For example, 100 grams of oyster mushrooms can provide roughly that amount.

Agricultural Practices, Soil Health, and Nutrient Levels

Why are ERGO levels so low and potentially declining over time?

The answer lies in modern farming practices—how our food system prioritizes affordability and crop yield over the health of consumers, plants, animals, and the environment, according to Beelman.

“Healthy soil is the foundation of healthy plants,” Alison Steiber, a registered dietitian with a doctorate in human nutrition, told The Epoch Times.

Modern agricultural practices often rely on chemical additions to control pests and diseases, but these chemicals can harm the microbial populations in the soil that plants rely on for nutrition, said Steiber. These practices also reduce the organic matter in soil, lowering its ability to retain water and making the soil more susceptible to drought, she added.

Plants and soil share a symbiotic relationship, with soil microbes playing a critical role in delivering nutrients to crops. However, certain agricultural practices, such as intensive tillage, can disrupt this relationship. Tillage reduces the diversity of soil bacteria and fungi, particularly damaging the root-like fungal structures that help plants absorb minerals, Steiber said.

“Intensive tillage can decrease ERGO concentrations in crops like oats, soybeans, and corn by as much as 30 percent,” Beelman said.

While macronutrient levels, like carbohydrates and proteins, may not differ much between conventional and organic farming practices, there is clear evidence of differences in micronutrient levels—vitamins, minerals, and compounds like ERGO.

“Shouldn’t the focus shift to consider the interconnected health of all these elements?” Beelman asked.

Mushrooms: A Powerful Source of ERGO

As soil quality declines and many people fall short of getting enough ERGO in their diets, increasing mushroom consumption offers a simple and effective strategy to bridge the gap.

ERGO is only made in nature by fungi, cyanobacteria—blue-green algae—and a few bacteria, Beelman said. Since mushrooms are the part of fungi that release spores to reproduce, they are by far the richest source of ERGO in our food supply, he added.

While most foods contain small amounts of ERGO, thanks to fungi in the soil transferring it to plants through their roots, mushrooms stand out as a particularly potent source. Varieties like maitake, porcini, king oyster, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms are especially rich in ERGO, Beelman said.

Better Soil, More Nutrients

Another approach to boosting ERGO levels is to adopt regenerative farming practices that can enhance ERGO and other nutrients in our food. These practices include minimal or no tillage, crop rotation, cover crops, and reduced use of pesticides and fertilizers.

Farming practices directly impact soil health, which in turn affect the uptake of essential micronutrients by plants. By improving soil quality, farmers can enhance the nutrient content of their crops—creating a win-win for both the farmer and the consumer, Beelman said.

“I’ve seen firsthand over the past 50 years the relentless drive to improve crop yields, often at the cost of long-term health. The focus on yield, without considering nutritional quality, has likely contributed to poor health outcomes and rising health care costs. Someone needs to step up to help bring about change.”

Over 100 illegal immigrants were arrested at a Colorado Springs underground nightclub allegedly frequented by members of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua (TdA) on Sunday.

“Rocky Mountain led a multi-agency enforcement operation along with our local and federal partners early this morning. @DHSgov has taken more than 100 illegal aliens into custody. Drugs and weapons have also been seized at this underground nightclub in Colorado Springs,” read a post from the Rocky Mountain branch of the DEA.

#DEA Rocky Mountain led a multi-agency enforcement operation along with our local and federal partners early this morning.@DHSgov has taken more than 100 illegal aliens into custody. Drugs and weapons have also been seized at this underground nightclub in Colorado Springs. pic.twitter.com/R4Smb3voAg

— DEARockyMountain (@DEAROCKYMTNDiv) April 27, 2025

The video shows the moment that approximately 300 federal and local agents breached the facility – after which dozens of people can be seen streaming outside the club only to be met with orders to get down. 

In another post, the Rocky Mountain DEA said that 200 people were in attendance at the club, of which over 100 were in the custody of ICE.

💥 200+ inside an underground nightclub in CO Springs had their illegal party upended this am.#DEA RMFD, ⁦@ERODenver⁩, ⁦@FBIDenver⁩, ⁦@ATF_Denver⁩, ⁦@HSIDenver⁩, ⁦@CSPDPIO⁩, ⁦@EPCSheriff⁩ & others seized drugs/guns. 100+ illegals arrested. pic.twitter.com/L5FOOyAlX3

— DEARockyMountain (@DEAROCKYMTNDiv) April 27, 2025

“DEA partners and @DHSgov placed patrons (in the U.S. illegally) on buses for processing and likely eventual deportation,” read a subsequent post.

🥂 Part of busting up the underground nightclub in Colorado Springs included the arrest of 114 illegal aliens.#DEA partners and @DHSgov placed patrons (in the U.S. illegally) on buses for processing and likely eventual deportation. pic.twitter.com/aLyQUdy5YN

— DEARockyMountain (@DEAROCKYMTNDiv) April 27, 2025

As the Epoch Times notes further, photos posted to the account show containers of beer and unidentified drugs. The DEA also said that they found “tusi,” a substance laced with ketamine and other drugs, said to be a “calling card” for MS-13.

At an April 27 news conference following the raid, DEA Rocky Mountain Division Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Pullen said that inside the illegally-operated club was “significant drug trafficking, prostitution, crimes of violence.”

“We seized a number of guns in there. We had active-duty service members who were running security at the club and involved in some of these crimes,” Pullen added. He said that more than a dozen such service members were detained, including both staff and patrons.

“Colorado Springs is waking up to a safer community today,” Pullen said.

President Donald Trump praised the raid and the arrests in a post on Truth Social.

“A big Raid last night on some of the worst people illegally in our Country—Drug Dealers, Murderers, and other Violent Criminals, of all shapes and sizes, and Judges don’t want to send them back to where they came from. If we don’t win this battle at the Supreme Court, our Country, as we know it, is FINISHED!”

Trump referenced ongoing injunctions and other orders from the judicial branch that have slowed his implementation of mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

Two major cases currently pending at the Supreme Court, which both name Trump as the respondent and don’t name the plaintiffs directly, concern Trump’s attempts to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport foreigners judged to have ties to MS-13 or TdA, both of which have been named terrorist organizations by the administration.

Attorney General Pam Bondi weighed in on the raid as well, saying in a post on X, “This morning @DEAHQ apprehended over 100 illegal aliens at an underground night club frequented by Tda and MS-13 terrorists. Cocaine, meth, and pink cocaine was seized. 2 people were also arrested on existing warrants.”

“As we approach his 100 days in office, @POTUS Trump’s directive to make America safe again is achieving results!”

A low-profile government complex in northern Virginia – long rumored to be a CIA spook site – briefly appeared on a federal real estate for-sale list last month, only to disappear from the market within hours, in a mysterious vanishing act worthy of a spy novel.

The nondescript Parr-Franconia warehouse complex, tucked just off I-95 a few miles from the Pentagon, popped up on a Trump administration list of “non-core” federal properties slated for potential sale, Bloomberg reports, noting that the list was yanked down less than 24 hours later – including more than 400 other buildings and offices, some housing cabinet-level agencies.

But it was the Springfield cluster that raised eyebrows — 14 buildings, some going by names like “Franconia Building B” and “Butler Building 12,” which don’t appear on any other public database of government real estate.

The CIA’s official response? A non-denial denial.

“The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence” of records related to the proposed sale, the agency said Monday in a response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Bloomberg News – deploying its classic “Glomar” language, coined during a Cold War submarine recovery op in 1974.

That’s spy-speak for: Don’t ask us – we’re not telling.

The site, which dates to 1952, has been the subject of decades of local speculation. Foreign Policy once identified it as a heavily guarded compound used to store “classified files, equipment, and supplies.” Marc Ambinder of The Week called it “perhaps the worst-kept secret in Springfield,” where neighbors talk openly about the strange security measures and rotating surveillance.

“It’s been identified in numerous public forums. The bad guys know it exists; the CIA and the Air Force often assign counter-surveillance teams to the area,” wrote Armbinder.

Even Fairfax County assigns a hefty valuation: the 1.2 million-square-foot property is tax-exempt but carries an appraisal of over $115 million.

The Trump administration has made waves with its effort to trim the government’s bloated real estate portfolio, but this listing — along with the headquarters of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which Secretary Scott Turner famously slammed as “the ugliest building in DC” — may have gone a step too far.

In the end, the administration backtracked on all 443 proposed sales, citing a need for further review. But the sudden appearance of a shadowy Springfield site, potentially connected to U.S. intelligence, suggests someone in the bureaucracy might’ve hit “publish” without reading the fine print — or the classification stamps.

Neither the CIA nor the General Services Administration will say more — not even to confirm the property exists. Which, in the world of cloak-and-dagger real estate, probably says everything.

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal appeals court on April 28 lifted its previous order that had allowed the Trump administration to carry out workforce reductions at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

On April 11, the appeals court partially stayed a preliminary injunction issued by a district court, allowing the CFPB to proceed with laying off workers if a “particularized assessment” determined their roles were not essential to the agency’s statutory duties. However, the court barred the administration from enforcing a stop-work order at the agency.

In a divided ruling, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit lifted the partial stay amid arguments over the meaning of the “particularized assessment” requirement.

“The parties vigorously dispute whether this language permits judicial review of the questions whether the assessment at issue was ‘particularized’ and whether the employees subject to the RIF are ‘unnecessary to the performance of defendants’ statutory duties,’” the order stated, referring to the acronym for reduction in force.

According to the order, a “particularized assessment” is defined as a determination—made by an official responsible for the workforce reduction—that each division or office within CFPB will be able to perform its statutorily required duties without the employees who are subject to termination.

Judge Neomi Rao dissented, saying the district court’s injunction raises concerns about the “separation of powers” and that it interferes with the government’s management of federal agencies.

“The district court overstepped our stay. Rather than remedy the judicial error, today’s order hamstrings the Executive and prevents the CFPB from downsizing until the merits of the appeal are resolved,” Rao stated in her dissenting opinion.

The Epoch Times reached out to CFPB for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

In February, the National Treasury Employees Union sued Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget and acting director of the CFPB. The union accused the Trump administration of violating the nation’s separation of powers by moving to dismantle the agency without congressional approval. Several other groups joined the suit in an amended complaint days later.

On March 28, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a preliminary injunction, blocking the administration from laying off CFPB employees and from enforcing a stop-work order at the agency.

“If the defendants are not enjoined, they will eliminate the agency before the Court has the opportunity to decide whether the law permits them to do it, and as the defendants’ own witness warned, the harm will be irreparable,” Jackson wrote in her opinion.

The CFPB was established by a 2010 law in response to the 2008 financial crisis. According to the agency’s website, CFPB “implements and enforces federal consumer financial law and ensures that markets for consumer financial products are transparent, fair, and competitive.”

President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Elon Musk previously stated on the social media platform X that the agency is “duplicative” and should be eliminated.

Jacob Burg and Sam Dorman contributed to this report.

On Monday, Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar of Michigan announced that he’s filed seven articles of impeachment against President Trump, alleging that various actions such as deporting suspected MS-13 gang member Kilmar Barego Garcia, cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency without congressional approval, and Trump’s tariffs are impeachable offenses.

“Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he is unfit to serve as President and represents a clear and present danger to our nation’s constitution and our democracy,” Theander said in a press release.

This congressman who can barely speak English is filing 7 articles of impeachment against our President.

We need to ban foreign born people from serving in Congress and in our judicial system.

This has only been a net negative for American society.
pic.twitter.com/oqcGGEUokf

— Savanah Hernandez (@sav_says_) April 28, 2025

But the India-born Thanedar – a chemist and business owner – is now under fire over resurfaced allegations of animal abuse in connection with a bankrupt animal testing lab he owned and operated.

According to a 2018 Huffington Post report, approximately 170 dogs and monkeys had to be rescued in 2010 from an abandoned pharmaceutical testing lab owned by Thanedar – who had to shutter the New Jersey testing facility, AniClin Preclinical Services, after its Thanedar-owned parent company, Azopharma, went bankrupt in April 2010.

Three months after the bankruptcy, local animal rights activists learned that 118 beagles and dozens of monkeys were still stuck inside the facility, with lab workers allegedly jumping the bankrupt lab’s fences to provide food and water to the animals.

Shri Thanedar left 100’s of dogs to die in cages after testing chemicals on them when his business went bankrupt. He can spare us on the moral outrage. https://t.co/3wWFR41yLK pic.twitter.com/0ZrOtHzrm3

— Senator Aric Nesbitt (@SenAricNesbitt) April 18, 2025

The situation was sickening according to local accounts.

“We believe that they have never been outside, ever,” said an unnamed woman in a video report by the Times Herald-Record. “I don’t think they’ve actually had their paws on the grass. When I walked in here it looked like they were walking on eggshells. They were kind of afraid to walk on the grass.”

A few days after the report, California-based group, In Defense of Animals, rescued 55 long-tailed macaque monkeys that were abandoned in the shuttered AniClin testing facility.

Thanedar defended himself at the time, telling HuffPost “I have no knowledge how well the bank took care of the animals,” and said that while the lab was in operation “No animal was harmed or subjected to any harmful conditions. No electric experiments were conducted,” which is oddly specific.

But wait, there’s more!

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO:

INDIAN SCAMMER DEMOCRAT CONGRESSMAN WHO FILED ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST PRESIDENT TRUMP GETS CONFRONTED ON VIDEO

Today, @LoomerUnleashed confronted Indian-born, Democrat Michigan Congressman Shri Thanedar @RepShriThanedar, who filed articles of… https://t.co/Ra4w1SSWQx pic.twitter.com/GNJEvvdOI3

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) April 29, 2025

During his closely-watched CNBC interview today, Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that he has a trade deal with an unnamed country, pending approval. Speculation promptly emerged who that country may be, with the most likely candidates named as India, South Korea and Japan.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announces he has a trade deal done and he’s waiting for the country’s prime minister and parliament to give their approval.

This huge news has sent the US stock market soaring!

Trump’s tariffs are already working as a strong negotiation tool. pic.twitter.com/sMgfVPLRLQ

— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) April 29, 2025

Of the three, India is the nation most likely to announce the first major trade deal with the Trump admin, not only because of Apple’s decision to shift all US-focused iPhone production from China to India, but because India and China have a bit of a regional superpower rivalry between them, with the former recently surpassing the latter as the world’s most populous country (China is facing a crippling demographic crisis in several decades that would rival Japan’s), and with ambitions to overtake China’s GDP over the next 2 decades.

Case in point, Indian trade negotiators are planning to showcase the country’s large pipeline of Boeing plane orders and the potential for more to come as they seek a favorable deal with the US, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter. In the absence of a deal, Indian goods exports to the US face up to 26% levies after Trump’s 90-day pause on implementation of reciprocal tariffs ends in July.

The plan is to get Indian carriers’ existing orders and under-negotiation deals with the American planemaker counted in discussions for a bilateral trade pact that could potentially shield the country from higher US tariffs.

Along with Air India, Akasa Air-operator SNV Aviation and SpiceJet have placed a combined order for 590 aircraft worth $67 billion with Boeing in recent years. With deliveries and payments for 506 of those planes staggered over several years, India wants to highlight how these private purchases would serve to narrow the more than $47 billion trade surplus New Delhi runs with Washington — a key gripe of President Donald Trump.

Underscoring how India hopes to use airplanes as leverage in the global trade war, Air India, the erstwhile state-owned carrier acquired by the Tata Group in 2022, is already looking to take deliveries of some Boeing planes that were rejected by Chinese carriers in a tit-for-tat move over Trump’s reciprocal tariffs. The airline is also discussing fresh orders with the American plane maker.

Indian carriers growing orders with Boeing is also boosting the American plane manufacturer’s share in the South Asian market. Of the nearly 900 commercial passenger aircraft registered in India, a majority 538 belong to the Airbus SE 320 family, according to data consultancy KnowIndia.net. Only 140 are Boeing 737s, with the rest made up of widebody, turboprops and other types of aircraft. While India’s largest carrier IndiGo operates an Airbus fleet, it last year decided to lease some Boeing 787 aircraft for a few international routes.

India is not alone in wanting to use aircraft orders as a leverage for trade negotiations. Vietnam is also employing a similar tactic to win favor with the White House.

Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi committed to buying more US goods, including crude oil, liquefied natural gas and defense items in a meeting with Trump in Washington in February, officials feel adding private commercial aircraft deals to the list could bolster New Delhi’s case for a trade deal with the US.

The Modi administration has already offered several concessions to the US, including overhauling its tariff regime to bring down levies on some 8,500 industrial goods including key American exports such as Bourbon whiskey and high-end motorcycles such as those made by Harley Davidson Inc.

Besides airplanes, India is also hoping to appease Trump by boosting the amount of oil the country imports from the US.

Indian refiners, who have relied largely on Russian oil in recent years, have been boosting US oil purchases before trade talks between the two nations next month. Around 11.2 million barrels of crude are set to arrive in India from the US in June, the highest volume since last August, according to data from analytics firm Kpler. That comes after a drop in prices in the West Texas Intermediate benchmark as the result of lower demand because of a refinery overhaul n Singapore, along with reduced appetite in China — the world’s biggest oil importer.

“WTI has to discount significantly more than usual to incentivize the rest of Asia to take in the barrels,” said June Goh, a senior oil market analyst at Sparta Commodities. “There is also a geopolitical element, where Asian buyers may seek more WTI as a negotiating tool with the US to reduce the reciprocal tariffs, per what we are observing with Indonesia and India.”

India’s trade deficit widened more than expected in March, as oil imports jumped more than 60% from a month earlier. The nation’s exporters have been urging New Delhi officials to seal a bilateral trade deal with the US as soon as possible, with in-person negotiations set to start in the second half of May, after President Donald Trump paused a proposed 26% tariff on the Asian nation this month.

State refiners including Indian Oil Corp and Bharat Petroleum have purchased at least 6 million barrels of June-arrival crude from the US across various tenders held this month, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Bharat Petroleum — which is also seeking spot supplies including grades from the US — bought 1 million barrels for the four months through September. Indian Oil has also started buying crude for July, including 3 million barrels from the US.

Via VigilantFox.com,

The student loan bubble is about to burst, and Zuckerberg knows it. He says there’s one huge problem with college today that no one can ignore anymore.

It started with a strange but telling moment. One that pulled back the curtain on the secretive world of Mark Zuckerberg.

On This Past Weekend podcast, comedian Theo Von joked about wanting to dig a tunnel underground. What he didn’t expect was for Zuckerberg to casually admit he had already done it.

“I do have an underground tunnel,” Zuckerberg said without hesitation.

Theo, caught completely off guard, asked, “Do you really? In the USA?”

Zuckerberg confirmed it was real and even bigger than Theo expected.

“I have this ranch in Kauai,” he said. “There’s this whole meme about how people are saying, I built this, like, bunker underground. It’s like more of underground storage.”

Theo, laughing, teased him: “Zucky got that bunky. What’s under the ground? Just more water, right?”

Zuckerberg brushed it off, but he didn’t deny the core of the rumor.

“It’s basically what you just said. It’s sort of a tunnel that just goes to another building.”

Not exactly a bunker, according to Zuckerberg, just an underground passage connecting parts of his remote island fortress. Well… Nothing to see here, right?

It started with a strange but telling moment. One that pulled back the curtain on the secretive world of Mark Zuckerberg.

On This Past Weekend podcast, comedian Theo Von joked about wanting to dig a tunnel underground.

What he didn’t expect was for Zuckerberg to casually… pic.twitter.com/toWveHm7H3

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) April 28, 2025

As the interview went on, Zuckerberg shifted gears and dropped a much bigger bomb.

He admitted what millions of Americans are starting to feel: college isn’t preparing young people for the real world anymore, and the student debt crisis is heading straight for a reckoning.

It’s a personal subject for Zuckerberg, who famously dropped out of Harvard to build Facebook, and now sees the system he left behind collapsing under its own weight.

“I’m not sure that college is preparing people for, like, the jobs that they need to have today,” he said. 

“I mean, I think that that’s like there’s a big issue on that. And like, all the student debt issues are like really big issues.”

He pointed to the crushing cost of a degree and the broken promises that come with it.

“I mean, the fact that college is just so expensive for so many people and then, like, you graduate when you’re in debt,” he said.

“If it’s not preparing you for the jobs that you need and you’re kind of starting off in this big hole, then I think that’s not good.”

In Zuckerberg’s view, the system isn’t just broken — it’s on borrowed time.

“There’s going to have to be a reckoning,” he warned.

“People are going to have to kind of figure out whether that makes sense.”

And the taboo around questioning college?

He says that’s starting to crumble too.

“It’s sort of been this taboo thing to say, like, maybe not everyone needs to go to college,” he said. 

“Because there’s like a lot of jobs that don’t require that.”

“But I think people are probably coming around to that opinion a little more now than maybe like ten years ago.”

As the interview went on, Zuckerberg shifted gears and dropped a much bigger bomb.

He admitted what millions of Americans are starting to feel: college isn’t preparing young people for the real world anymore, and the student debt crisis is heading straight for a reckoning.

It’s… pic.twitter.com/x7UpBt06X0

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) April 28, 2025

And he wasn’t done yet.

The conversation soon turned to another taboo—one that most tech CEOs wouldn’t dare touch: the role of media elites in misjudging, mislabeling, and underestimating ordinary people.

Strange coming from the man involved in censoring millions of Americans and the president himself, but nonetheless, Zuckerberg unleashed on the media.

He slammed the entire idea that the public is too dumb to make their own decisions, a belief quietly pushed by many in the media.

“Like, I’ve always been a person who really kind of believes that people are smarter than people think,” he said, “and, and I think in general, are able to make good decisions for their lives.”

The real problem, Zuckerberg argued, isn’t the people — it’s the media’s failure to understand them.

“And when they do things that like the media or whatever thinks don’t make sense, it’s generally because the media doesn’t understand their life, not because the people are stupid.”

In one of the sharpest moments of the interview, he flipped the whole “misinformation” narrative on its head.

“Like if people are saying something that seems wrong, it’s not usually misinformation. It’s usually that you don’t understand what’s going on in that person’s life.”

And he didn’t stop there.

Zuckerberg called out the deep-rooted arrogance that still runs through legacy media outlets.

“I just think that there’s like a certain kind of paternalism in, in some of the, like, mainstream narratives and some of the media narratives,” he said.

But now, he hinted, the tide might finally be turning — because the so-called “experts” are losing their grip.

“I think it’s a little more receptive as maybe some of those cultural or media elite people are having a harder time predicting what’s going to happen in the world. Maybe there’s a little more humility of like, okay, maybe we don’t understand all of this.”

And he wasn’t done yet.

The conversation soon turned to another taboo—one that most tech CEOs wouldn’t dare touch: the role of media elites in misjudging, mislabeling, and underestimating ordinary people.

Strange coming from the man involved in censoring millions of Americans… pic.twitter.com/70hyuuEDYb

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) April 28, 2025

Finally, Zuckerberg ended with a brutal warning for the tech world—one rooted in hard experience.

The biggest mistake tech companies make? 

Thinking they’re smarter than the people they claim to serve.

Zuckerberg explained why arrogance toward everyday users almost always leads to disaster.

“To me, the best predicting thing has always been like, all right, if you build something, do people actually think it’s good?” he said. 

“Because like at some level, you know, it’s like, I just believe that people are actually very smart and understand their lives very well.”

He reiterated that the real test isn’t winning awards or impressing other executives. It’s whether real people actually find what you build useful.

“If you’re building something that is useful for them, then they will use it,” he said. “And if you’re building something that is not useful for them, then they have other options. They will do something else.”

Zuckerberg said trusting people’s judgment — not lecturing them — has been his greatest advantage.

“I don’t know, it’s always served me well to generally have faith in people and believe that people are smart and can make good decisions for themselves.”

But he also offered a serious warning.

Whenever companies start thinking they know better than their customers, it’s the beginning of the end.

“Whenever we try to, like, adopt some sort of like attitude of, oh, we must know better than them, it’s like—we’re like—we’re the people building technology. That’s when you lose, right?”

And when you lose touch for long enough, the fall is brutal.

“If you have that attitude for long enough, then you just become a shitty company and you lose and you lose and you lose and then you’re irrelevant.”

In the end, Zuckerberg said, it’s not the elites who shape the future, it’s the people.

“I tend to just think that at the end of the day, yeah, I mean, I think people are smarter than a lot of people think, and I think ultimately drive the direction that society goes in.”

 Underestimate everyday people and you lose everything.

Finally, Zuckerberg ended with a brutal warning for the tech world—one rooted in hard experience.

The biggest mistake tech companies make?

Thinking they’re smarter than the people they claim to serve.

Zuckerberg explained why arrogance toward everyday users almost always… pic.twitter.com/3IsrG9WZd0

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) April 28, 2025

Watch the full conversation between @TheoVon and Mark Zuckerberg here:

Upon returning to the White House, President Donald Trump unleashed a wave of executive orders and aggressive policy shifts, making his first 100 days of his second term one of the most impactful starts to a presidency in recent memory.

Now serving as the 47th president, Trump has resumed many of the core initiatives from his previous administration -initiatives he says were obstructed by the Russia probe, civil unrest tied to Black Lives Matter protests, and the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With renewed urgency, Trump has zeroed in on the cornerstone issues of his “Make America Great Again” platform: securing the southern border, confronting China’s trade abuses, and boosting American energy independence.

And or course, the highly controversial tariffs that sent investors on a round-trip rollercoaster from hell this month.

Trump has already surpassed President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s historic mark of 99 executive orders within the first 100 days, a sign of his determination to reshape federal policy without waiting for Congress.

Which were of course met with a flood of legal challenges in front of left-wing judges…

Nearly all of the legal challenges are working their way through the courts. Some of the president’s actions have been blocked or allowed temporarily pending further court action. The court allowed the deferred resignation, or voluntary departure plan, by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to continue. Harvard University’s legal challenge to the administration’s funding freeze over anti-semitism and removal of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs has yet to be heard by the court. –Epoch Times

Backers view Trump’s opening stretch as a return to American assertiveness, while critics argue it reflects executive overreach and instability.

Eager to seize the early momentum, Trump has pushed forward rapidly on both international and domestic priorities, knowing the political clock is already ticking.

As his administration hits the 100-day mark, here is a breakdown of the major actions taken so far by the Epoch Times.

Economic Indicators: Up, Down

Economic indicators mostly improved through March, the last month for which complete data is available. Nonfarm job creation nearly doubled since Trump took office, although the unemployment rate rose 0.2 percent.

Inflation declined by 0.5 percent, reaching 2.8 percent, its lowest level since February 2021.

Trump’s tariff strategy, launched on April 2, which he called “Liberation Day,” appeared to cause uncertainty among investors, which could affect economic indicators for April.

The president said his tariff strategy is to reverse the trade imbalance between the United States and other nations by levying reciprocal tariffs on their goods coming into this country. The tariffs will also encourage manufacturers to create products in the United States, according to Trump.

The Standard and Poor’s 500, an index that tracks the performance of leading companies, dropped steeply in the days following the tariff announcement. Prices rallied on April 8, the day after Trump announced a pause in many of the tariffs.

Manufacturing Build-Back: $1.75 Trillion

More than a dozen domestic and foreign manufacturers have announced large investments in their U.S. operations since Trump took office.

In at least one case, Trump’s tariff policy played a part in the decision to invest here. Honda is expected to manufacture its next-generation Civic hybrid in Indiana rather than Mexico.

Nissan and Hyundai are expected to move some manufacturing facilities to the United States as well, according to the White House.

Those investments include more than $1 trillion from tech giants Nvidia, Apple, Oracle, and others. Merck, the German pharmaceutical company, opened a $1 billion manufacturing facility in North Carolina this year.

Multinational automaker Stellantis announced a $5 billion investment in its U.S. manufacturing sites.

Illegal Border Crossings: 90 Percent Reduction in 40 Days

Trump’s early actions on border security included a national emergency declaration, invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to combat speed deportation, and directing the military to augment security at the nation’s borders.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began increased deportation operations targeting criminal illegal immigrants on Jan. 21. Immigration officials reported 32,800 arrests in the first three weeks of the Trump administration, about 73 percent of whom were illegal immigrants with a criminal charge or conviction.

ICE made 113,400 total immigration arrests during the last fiscal year of the Biden administration, according to the agency’s records.

Customs and Border Protection reported a nearly 90 percent drop in illegal immigrant apprehensions at the southern border between December 2024, the last full month before Trump took office, and March.

Taxpayer Savings: $1.6 Billion per Day

Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, on Jan. 20. Headed by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, DOGE took rapid action to reduce government spending with the goal of reaching $1 trillion in cost savings.

Immediate targets included tax-payer funded programs related to gender ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion. DOGE also targeted waste, such as leases on unoccupied buildings.

Agency heads have reduced spending to save Americans about $160 billion in 100 days, or nearly $1,000 per taxpayer, according to DOGE.

Trump offered a Deferred Resignation Program, which allowed federal employees to voluntarily resign and retain salary and benefits until Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. About 77,000 of the more than 3 million federal employees opted into the program.

Other staff reductions have eliminated about 66,000 positions, nearly all of which were retirements or voluntary transitions, according to DOGE.

Three other recent presidents made significant staffing reductions during their first 100 days, as did Trump during his first term.

Now let’s see what happens in May with all this port FUD and talk of empty shelves…