Newly obtained documents reportedly show that Dr. Anthony Fauci instructed an aide to permanently delete an email concerning controversial gain-of-function research years before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The emails, obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, date back to 2012, when Fauci was defending experiments that made a highly dangerous strain of bird flu transmissible through the air.

Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier conducted the experiments with funding from Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Fouchier described the resulting virus as “probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make.”

The experiments triggered debate over whether the potential benefits of gain-of-function research justified the potentially catastrophic consequences of an accidental laboratory escape.

New York Times science writer Phil Boffey was among those sounding the alarm, warning of an “engineered doomsday” capable of killing “hundreds of millions of people.”

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A federal appeals court looked at a Wisconsin man’s stash of AI-generated child sexual abuse material, admitted the pictures are now “virtually indistinguishable” from images of real children being abused, and then told the government it could not punish him for keeping them at home.

That is the holding. Not a thought experiment. Not a law-review hypothetical. A published ruling from the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Anderegg.

The Post Millennial reported the decision this week. Fox News, The Daily Wire, and The Federalist all covered the same ugly line the judges said they were powerless to redraw. If no actual child appears in the file, private possession inside the house is treated as First Amendment activity.

Call it “virtual.” Call it “synthetic.” The file still exists to gratify the same appetite that wrecks children.

Steven Anderegg of Holmen, Wisconsin, was charged by the Justice Department in 2024 after an investigation that, according to court coverage, began when Meta flagged an Instagram account sending this kind of material to a minor. Prosecutors alleged he used an AI image generator to produce thousands of photorealistic images of children in sexually explicit situations, then possessed them, produced them, distributed them, and transferred them to a person under 16. A district judge tossed only the possession count. The government appealed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed.

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The people who want to seize the means of production keep seizing brownstones first.

The New York Post has now caught two more New York City Democratic Socialists of America leaders living the capitalist dream they spend their weekends denouncing. Labor coordinator Olivia Gonzalez Killingsworth flipped an inherited Upper West Side triplex for $2.4 million. Steering Committee chair Julie Swoope sits in a half-million-dollar Brooklyn co-op with skyline views and “great closet space.” They join co-chair Gustavo Gordillo, the Yale sculptor whose telecommunications-millionaire father gifted him a $1.5 million Bed-Stuy townhouse.

Three leaders. Three properties. Zero irony detectors.

The Marble Shower Revolution

Killingsworth, elected DSA labor coordinator in 2025, sold the two-bedroom, three-bathroom triplex on September 12, 2022. One block from Central Park. Ten-foot ceilings. Fireplace. Marble showers. Bay windows looking out on Callery pear blossoms. Public records put the sale at $2.4 million. Two days later she closed on a one-bedroom in Brooklyn for $521,000.

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For decades, Americans dreaming about retirement near the water tended to look south. Florida offered beaches and warm winters. Arizona provided sunshine without hurricanes. The Carolinas increasingly became alternatives for retirees who wanted something quieter and less expensive.

Now another destination is emerging along the East Coast, and retirees are arriving so quickly that local communities are struggling to keep up.

Southern Delaware’s Sussex County — home to popular coastal communities including Rehoboth Beach, Lewes and Bethany Beach — has become one of the country’s fastest-growing retirement destinations. A recent Fox Business report highlighted a combination of beaches, comparatively low taxes and proximity to major Northeast cities as reasons older Americans are increasingly choosing Delaware over better-known retirement states.

The numbers show just how dramatic the transformation has become. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Sussex County’s population reached approximately 277,000 in 2025, up sharply from about 237,000 in 2020. Nearly one-third of county residents are now age 65 or older.

That makes Sussex County less like a conventional vacation destination that happens to attract retirees and increasingly like a retirement region that also happens to have some of the Mid-Atlantic’s most popular beaches.

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A high school football game in McKeesport, Penn. was halted Friday night when a gunshot rang out just before 11 p.m., and a 17-year-old suspect was quickly apprehended.

Liberty Borough police anticipate filing charges of receiving stolen property, possession of a firearm by a minor, possession of a weapon on school property, reckless endangerment and carrying a firearm without a license alleged to have fired, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.

The gun was reported stolen.

The game between South Allegheny and Elizabeth Forward high schools was late in the fourth quarter when the incident occurred.

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered state agencies to stop funding Flock surveillance cameras amid growing concerns that the technology could enable government tracking of innocent Americans.

The move follows reports that millions of dollars in Texas funding have been used to purchase thousands of the automated license plate-reading cameras for law enforcement agencies across the state.

Around 2,000 Flock cameras were reportedly purchased through the Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Board using revenue from a $1 fee attached to automobile insurance policies.

Texas also provided another $15.9 million to the Department of Public Safety to purchase approximately 1,200 cameras.

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A Massachusetts state rep. was arrested earlier this week and charged with fraudulently obtaining over $700,000 in COVID-19 unemployment insurance benefits and small-business loans. He allegedly used the proceeds to buy real estate and loan money to clients of his mortgage business before he was elected to public office.

Francisco Paulino, 46, of Methuen, MA, is charged in an 11-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Boston. Paulino is charged with eight counts of wire fraud and three counts of money laundering.

Court records say that Paulino fraudulently obtained Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits in 2020-2021 in the name of an unknowing 77-year-old relative. The PUA program, which was created during the COVID-19 pandemic, provided unemployment benefits for people who were ineligible for regular unemployment benefits, including independent contractors.

In April 2020, Paulino allegedly submitted an online PUA application to the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA) for his relative, in which Paulino falsely claimed that the relative had worked for Paulino’s business, Madison Tax, LLC, in 2019. Paulino allegedly submitted fabricated documents in support of the PUA application and submitted false weekly certifications to the DUA. It is further alleged that Paulino directed the DUA to electronically deposit the PUA benefits into a bank account held solely in Paulino’s name. Between April 2020 and September 2021, the DUA paid over $44,000 in PUA benefits. Paulino allegedly used the money to pay for real estate expenses, loan payments, and transfers into his political campaign account.

According to the indictment, Paulino also committed fraud in connection with three Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDLs). During COVID-19, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) offered taxpayer-funded EIDLs to eligible small businesses experiencing substantial financial disruptions due to the pandemic. The interest rate on EIDLs was 3.75 percent, and the loan use was limited. A business could only use EIDL proceeds as working capital to alleviate economic injury caused by COVID-19.

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DAVID MARCUS: Woke Virginia tears down statue of Geneva Convention pioneer

Do not adjust your calendars. You may have seen images this week of Confederate statues coming down in Richmond’s capitol grounds and thought we had slipped back in time to the tumult of 2020, but no.

Rather, the commie Commonwealth of Virginia is still tearing down American history in the year of our Lord 2026.

As bad as the removal of all of these monuments has been, this particular round of damnatio memoriae on Friday, captured in its illiberal net the statue of a man named Dr. Hunter Holmes McGuire, whose work provided a major contribution to the Geneva Convention, the global gold standard of wartime humanitarian rules.

McGuire served as a Confederate surgeon for almost the entirety of the Civil War, saving countless lives. One life he failed to save was that of General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, who died under the doctor’s care. A Jackson statue also came down on Friday.

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While the system of justice should be structured to avoid sending innocent people to prison, the modern fixation on one side of the judicial and law enforcement equation has devastating consequences.

ustice delayed is justice denied.” “The wheels of justice grind slowly but ever so fine.” “Better that one-hundred guilty persons go free than one innocent person should suffer.” These are incompatible aphorisms that at various times have been asserted about the American justice system.

The first was clearly employed when William McKinley was assassinated in 1901. The President died on September 14, and his killer was executed a month and a half later. As a Facebook contributor noted, “If the justice system worked the way it did for McKinley, [Tyler] Robinson would have been dead by December, 2025.” More accurately, Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer would have exited this life by Halloween last year.

The assertion that “justice delayed is justice denied,” despite its frequent repetition, is a concept honored more in the breach than in the observance. Tyler Robinson’s preliminary hearing, for example, won’t be concluded until September, almost a year after Kirk’s murder. Karmelo Anthony’s trial took over fourteen months after the knife-totting youngster stabbed and killed Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet. Recently Anthony’s hearing for a retrial was denied. Appeals will doubtless follow.

That the wheels of modern American justice “grind slowly” is obvious, but the “ever so fine” conclusion is risible. Jury or judicial politicization is clear in cases involving, for example, O.J. Simpson, Donald Trump, and thousands of January 6 defendants. Meanwhile, we wait without much hope for justice to be “ground out” for the high-profile criminals involved in Crossfire Hurricane and Arctic Frost.

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In a recent online panel featuring members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), activist and streamer Michael Beyer said efforts to reshape the Democrat Party and the country would be “a violent process,” according to video circulated by Canary Mission. Beyer argued that “the Democratic Party establishment that we have has to be ripped out” and that “we can actually start to grab hold of the ship of state and steer it in our direction, but it’s going to be a, you know, violent process.”

The remarks, captured during what appears to be a DSA‑linked video meeting or panel, were compiled into a viral clip shared on X that shows multiple DSA figures discussing revolutionary change and the overthrow of existing U.S. institutions.

Separately, so called democracy advocate Ian Bassin, co‑founder and executive director of the nonprofit Protect Democracy, has described organizing “wargames” with Democratic senators and election‑law experts to rehearse responses to potential threats to the 2026 midterm elections. In a recent episode of the podcast “The Court of History,” Bassin explained that participants were assigned roles such as congressional leaders, administration officials, civil‑society litigators, online conspiracy influencers, and foreign actors like Russia or Iran to “walk through a set of scenarios” and stress‑test the system.

He told host Sidney Blumenthal that the exercises were designed as method‑acting‑style simulations, encouraging players to “get into the mindset” of figures ranging from an acting director of national intelligence to a conspiracy‑minded online influencer or major media outlet.

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“I’ve done this a long time and haven’t seen one quite like this one, I have to say.”

So said U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth, who has sat on the D.C. federal court bench since Ronald Reagan appointed him in 1987, last April.

What exactly stumped the senior judge that day? Another pending mistrial in the government’s prosecution of two of MS-13’s most notorious gang leaders.

For the second time in five months, a D.C. jury refused to convict Moises Rivera-Luna and Tokiro Ramirez on two racketeering conspiracy counts originating from a 2011 federal indictment (read: brought by the Obama DOJ, not Trump’s) for criminal gang activity in Washington, D.C. and surrounding areas. It appears from the official court docket that the pair became fugitives before the case could go to trial back then.

But in March 2025, the Trump administration extradited Rivera-Luna from Guatemala to finally face his day in court; Ramirez had been extradited from Honduras in 2022.

“Rivera-Luna is alleged to be an international leader of MS-13 who was sending orders and advice to an MS-13 clique operating in the Washington area via cellular telephone calls from his prison cell in El Salvador,” a March 2025 DOJ press release stated. “The indictment alleges that he and another alleged MS-13 leader… also incarcerated in El Salvador directed a coalition of MS-13 cliques to be formed in the Washington area. They advised local clique members that the coalition’s aim was to seek and kill MS-13 members who were found to be cooperating with law enforcement officials.” The indictment also accused the defendants of “narcotics distribution, extortion, [and] robberies.”

Both men pleaded not guilty; the first trial began on December 2, 2025, just a few weeks after the shooting of two D.C. National Guardsmen, which resulted in the death of one, amid strong public opposition of the Guard’s presence in the nation’s capital. The start of the trial also coincided with nationwide anti-ICE protests including in Washington. And a group called “Free DC” at the time was hosting online seminars as part of its Trump 2.0 resistance operation, advising D.C. residents how to serve on juries to “influence outcomes and help create a more equitable legal process.”

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A Georgia high school football game erupted into a chaotic brawl that sent attendees running and ended with a gun on the ground and several arrests including three teenagers.

The boys, aged 16, 17 and 18, became involved in a fight during the Newnan High School and East Coweta High School football game Friday night, resulting in five people being taken into custody, according to WSB-TV 2 News.

Dramatic video shared to Facebook  by 11Alive captured a group of boys launching into the violent confrontation, punching and shoving each other to the ground as the surrounding crowd scrambled away.

Meanwhile, two other fistfights appeared to break out on either side of the scuffle.

Several deputies and a GSP trooper then raced onto Garland Shoemake Stadium, splitting up to restrain those involved and wrestle them to the ground.

Bystanders scrambled to flee the chaos, with some appearing to get caught up in the fighting while others backed away to record.

The footage ended with uniformed officers ordering the crowd to leave as several young men are led away in handcuffs.

The Coweta County Sheriff’s Office said the altercation broke out near the home-side concession stand around halftime. It remains unclear how many of those involved, if any, were students, according to WSB-TV.

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A South Carolina cop died and another was wounded in a shootout with a gun-wielding career criminal, who was also killed in the crossfire, according to police and local reports.

Gunshots rang out near the South East Park area of Columbia, S.C., on Saturday morning when the officers involved went to check out a domestic violence complaint, according to the Columbia Police Department.

“And it’s with heartbreak and sadness that I inform you that one of our officers has succumbed to [his] injuries,” said the city’s top cop, Chief W.H. Holbrook, at a press conference.

The killed cop was identified as Officer Christopher DeLong, 29, who had been with the Columbia Police Department for two years.

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Joe Biden privately considered issuing a presidential pardon for Donald Trump during his final months in office but never acted on it, a revelation the Trump White House says proves Democrats knew they had weaponized the justice system all along.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, recounted a phone call from August 2023 in which Biden told him the idea of pardoning Trump was already on his mind. Cox had raised the subject himself, pitching it as a way to break the cycle of partisan retaliation. Biden’s response, as Cox told The Atlantic, was not dismissal. It was something closer to agreement.

Biden told Cox he had “actually considered this for a while,” and that he and First Lady Jill Biden had discussed it at length in a private conversation that same week. The pardon never came. Instead, Biden spent his final weeks in office shielding allies, family members, and political appointees, issuing clemency to more than 1,500 individuals while leaving Trump to face the legal machinery Biden apparently understood was politically motivated.

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President Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” escalating a trade dispute with Canada that has already triggered billions of dollars in reciprocal tariffs on both sides of the border.

Trump signed the order Thursday in the Oval Office, directing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to update the federal Geographic Names Information System within 30 days. The move came hours after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports, and days after trade negotiations between Washington and Ottawa collapsed, triggering 50% U.S. tariffs on nearly $20 billion in Canadian exports.

The executive order laid out a blunt case for American stewardship of the Great Lakes. It stated that the U.S. Coast Guard supplies nine of the 11 ice-breaking vessels operating on the lakes, keeping commercial shipping lanes open free of charge. It noted the U.S. has invested nearly $4 billion in protecting the Great Lakes freshwater ecosystem over the last decade, and that Canada “has invested far less in similar initiatives over the same period.”

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WICOMICO COUNTY GOVERNMENT OFFICES

Wicomico County Government Offices will be closed Monday, September 7, 2026, in observance of Labor Day.

CONVENIENCE CENTERS, LANDFILL, BRUSH PILE, FERRIES
LABOR DAY HOLIDAY SCHEDULE

On Monday, September 7, 2026, the Newland Park Landfill and Brush Pile will be closed. All external Convenience Centers will be closed. Upper and Whitehaven Ferries will be closed also.

For more information, please contact the Newland Park Landfill at 410-548-4935. Ferry information is available by calling 410-543-2765.

Prince Harry and Meghan arrived back in Britain on Wednesday with their two children after six years in California.

A source close to the couple told NBC News last week that the family was returning for an “extended period,” not to resume official royal work.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, 41 and 45, flew privately from California with Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, according to British news outlets.

The Telegraph reported they landed around midday at Birmingham Airport.

A Sussex representative would not say where they will live, citing privacy and security.

The same representative confirmed the family brought their dogs and left their chickens at the Montecito, California, estate they have occupied since 2020.

They are expected to keep that house and a property in Portugal while basing themselves at a private, non-royal home outside London, the Associated Press reported.

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Independent journalist Nick Shirley turned the tables on a New York Times reporter who repeatedly pushed the Democrat defense of California’s so-called “Stop Nick Shirley Act.”

Independent journalist Nick Shirley, the 24-year-old YouTuber whose viral reporting on empty Somali-run “learing centers” in Minnesota and hospice schemes in California helped blow open a national fraud scandal, was interviewed by NYT reporter Laurel Rosenhall outside the State Capitol after a rally against Assembly Bill 2624.

Rosenhall is The Times’ Sacramento-based California politics correspondent. She showed up with a notepad. Shirley showed up with a camera, a “Califraudia Republic” hoodie, and a simple question the paper of record could not answer: why is California writing a law that protects the people spending public money instead of the people exposing how that money disappears?

Shirley posted the clip Thursday with a caption that said it all:

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In a key clinical trial, patients receiving the drug achieved a median overall survival of 13.2 months, compared to 6.7 months for patients offered standard chemotherapy.

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a new treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer, which is the first to attack a genetic cause of the aggressive, highly lethal disease.

The drug, called daraxonrasib, will be sold under the brand name Rasonque, was developed by biotech company Revolution Medicines, the New York Times reported.

The drug, which is taken as two pills per day, is not a cure, but it is the first treatment to substantially extend the lives of patients with pancreatic cancer. In a key clinical trial, patients receiving the drug achieved a median overall survival of 13.2 months, compared to 6.7 months for patients offered standard chemotherapy.

Some of the patients taking the drug through clinical trials lived for years.

While the company didn’t announce how much it plans to charge for the drug, Wall Street analysts have said they expect the drug to cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Insurance is expected to cover most of that cost, with varying out-of-pocket costs for patients.

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There is a growing national outcry to ban Flock cameras. We do not give up our constitutional rights when we get into our vehicles, and we do not want authoritarian control freaks watching us, monitoring us and tracking us everywhere that we go.

This is an issue that is uniting people all over the country, and so you would think that politicians from both parties would be getting on board. Unfortunately, that is not the case at all. Many top Republicans are coming out against Flock cameras very strongly, but the silence from the left has been deafening. Yes, there are a few voices on the far left that appear to be concerned about our civil liberties, but most prominent Democrats have been eerily silent about Flock cameras. Why is that?

If you want cameras to watch you everywhere that you go, move to China.

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The agency referred a former United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees school teacher and Hamas operative for debarment for allegedly receiving and holding civilian hostages beginning on October 7, 2023.

The United States’ Agency for International Development’s Inspector General’s office announced Wednesday that it has referred more than 100 current or former employees of a United Nations relief agency to the State Department over their participation in the October 7 terror attacks in Israel.

The referrals include three people they suggested be debarred by the department, including a former United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees school teacher and Hamas operative who allegedly received and held civilian hostages beginning on October 7, 2023.

The agency did not give a full number of employees it referred, but said its investigation has resulted in one total debarment so far, after the individual was found to have coordinated communications with other suspected Hamas members during the terror attacks while serving as an UNRWA school principal.

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If there is something that is causing only slightly less angst in the general public’s equilibrium than the current wars over data centers, I would have to guess it’s the ongoing battle against the proliferation of these Flock cameras. The supposed ‘license plate’ readers that are capable of doing so much more [CUE: evil laugh], which are popping up like mushrooms on poles in what seems like every town in the country.

The only reason they don’t get the attention that data centers do, I think, is because people don’t really understand the capabilities of these insidious technological marvels and they’re nowhere near as big and splashy a target.

I’m kind of thinking their time may be coming.

Much like the subversive war on the ULEZ cameras in London, where a stealthy gang of midnight raiders has been cutting them down and carting them off for a couple of years now, the Flock cameras are starting to garner their own guerrilla gang of raiders.

The tactics are ranging from outright vandalism…

…to more of a passive resistance movement that can become a community involvement effort with no imminent arrests.

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America’s new home market is showing fresh signs of strain, with sales plunging in July even as the typical price of a newly built house fell to its lowest level in five years.

The median sales price of a new home dropped to $393,800 last month, down 2.3 percent from June and the lowest figure recorded since July 2021, according to newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development.

But while the falling price tag may sound like good news for would-be homeowners, there is a catch: buyers are still staying away in large numbers.

Fishing for Chesapeake Channa in the middle to upper sections of the region’s tidal rivers is good. Anglers are targeting the grass flats with chatterbaits, soft frogs, and buzzbaits with good success.

White perch offer some fishing action in the tidal rivers and creeks. The early morning and late evening hours offer the best fishing opportunities.

Deep Creek Lake and similar western region reservoirs are offering good fishing for largemouth and smallmouth bass, walleye, holdover trout, and depending on your location, other species like yellow perch, northern pike, chain pickerel, crappie, and of course bluegill sunfish.

Read more about the week ahead!

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources announces that, following our scoping and proposal process, the following regulation changes will be effective August 31, 2026:

This idea is effective. The graphic (left) demonstrates where this falls in the five steps it takes for ideas to become effective regulations. Visit our regulation definitions page to learn about each step of the process.

Soda purchases fell about 13 percent among Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) beneficiaries after 10 states restricted purchases of sugary drinks with SNAP funds in 2026, a study found.

SNAP restriction waivers banned non-nutritious items like soda and candy to ensure that taxpayer dollars are directed toward nutritious options that improve health outcomes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture stated on its website.

The August study from the National Bureau of Economic Research – not yet peer-reviewed – evaluated the immediate effects of SNAP food restriction waivers in 10 states that implemented the bans.

Researchers used a Nielsen consumer dataset of about 5,000 SNAP households from July 2025 to June 2026.

Before the ban, the average SNAP household bought about 185 ounces of soda per month. That’s about 15 cans. The 13 percent drop is about 24 ounces, or two cans less per month.

Purchases of energy drinks also decreased by 4 ounces per household per month.

Interestingly, as Sylvia Xu reports for The Epoch Times, the study found that even households having enough cash to offset the restrictions reduced soda consumption by 18.5 percent, down 40 ounces per month.

When states labeled soda as an unapproved purchase, it acted as a powerful psychological signal, according to the report.

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Jonhatan Anguiano, 29, was pronounced dead at scene after officers confronted him inside restaurant

A California McDonald’s employee allegedly shot a co-worker inside the restaurant Monday morning before the armed suspect was killed when responding officers confronted him, authorities said.

The Lodi Police Department said officers responded to the McDonald’s on West Lodi Avenue at approximately 9:30 a.m. after dispatchers received a report of an armed suspect inside the restaurant.

When officers arrived, they heard gunfire coming from inside and discovered an employee who had been shot, according to police.

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Company to produce steel, titanium components for military’s armored vehicles

Judges say Worcester commissioners failed to explain decision

A federal judge in Boston has again blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with new mail-in voting restrictions ahead of the November midterms for at least another two weeks.

Judge Indira Talwani ruled Thursday night that a group of blue states and private voting rights groups were likely to succeed in their claims that the U.S. Postal Service rule is unconstitutional, and that the agency lacked authority to issue it.

The temporary restraining order blocks enforcement of the rule for 14 days, which extends beyond when some of the first states begin sending out absentee and overseas ballots.

“Based on the record presently before the court, Plaintiff States face irreparable harm where they are required to comply with a likely unconstitutional regulation for which compliance is practically impossible as to the 2026 midterm elections, now little more than two months away,” Talwani wrote.

The Postal Service published its final rule in the Federal Register Wednesday, which requires that mail ballots have certain designs and specifications, including a unique logo and barcode with an embedded ZIP code.

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Another appeal, another defeat.

Ghislaine Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in a scheme to sexually exploit and abuse multiple minor girls with Jeffrey Epstein over the course of a decade.

Following a blockbuster one-month jury trial, Maxwell was found guilty on December 29, 2021, of ‘conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors to participate in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor to participate in illegal sex acts, sex trafficking conspiracy, and sex trafficking of a minor’.

So, that’s the end of her, right? Wrong.

Ever since her conviction, Maxwell is devoted to a seemingly endless series of appeals, trying to overturn both conviction and sentencing.

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The FBI arrested Massachusetts State Rep. Francisco Paulino (D-Methuen) on Wednesday morning after a federal grand jury indicted the second-term Democrat on 11 counts of wire fraud and money laundering.

Prosecutors say Paulino treated COVID relief programs like an ATM, fraudulently obtaining more than $700,000 in pandemic unemployment benefits and Small Business Administration disaster loans.

Paulino represents the 16th Essex District, which includes Methuen and Lawrence, the same Merrimack Valley corridor that just saw Lawrence Mayor Brian DePeña arrested two weeks ago on separate $1.5 million-plus COVID loan fraud and money-laundering charges.

Both men are Dominican-born Democrats. Both, prosecutors allege, used the pandemic as their “personal cash cows.”

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Violent crime fell at a record rate in President Trump’s first year back in office. It was the largest year-to-year decline since the Bureau began estimating crime trends in 1936, according to newly released FBI data.

Violent crime numbers decreased by 9.3% from 2024 to 2025.

The FBI reported:

The Indiana Fever-Chicago Sky game was the most watched WNBA game since the league’s opening weekend in 1997, averaging 3.31 million viewers on NBC and Peacock on Sunday.

At one point in the game the audience size surged to 3.8 million viewers, another record for a regular season contest.

The game included the league’s second-most popular player Sophie Cunningham, a tough Midwestern woman who recently spoke out against biological men in women’s sports.

And, the game was not without its drama when former NBA great Enes Kantor Freedom was escorted from the building after Sky player Natasha Cloud started screaming at him for wearing a T-shirt with the definition of woman on it.

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A 28-year-old Houston man already free on a $600,000 bond in a murder case is now accused of running a nearly $24 million check-theft ring, by recruiting U.S. Postal Service mail carriers to steal checks off their own routes and selling the loot on Telegram.

Tryston Tremaine Vaughn, 28, is alleged to have recruited USPS mail carriers to steal checks on their delivery routes, the DOJ said in an August 25 statement.

Those checks were then allegedly bought from the postal workers by Vaughn and others, advertised on a Telegram channel called “slipsandchips,” and shipped to buyers across the country via FedEx.

Prosecutors say the haul totaled approximately $23,973,338.15. One stolen check was for $1.5 million.

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Lots of people who live in Los Angeles are disgusted by the two choices they have for mayor this year, Democrat incumbent Karen Bass and radical DSA candidate Nithya Raman.

It is still amazing to think that leftists managed to bump Republican Spencer Pratt off the ballot, leaving voters with the choices of far left or super far left.

The city is in need of rescuing, but no one is coming to the rescue. The left made sure of that by removing Pratt from the race.

FOX News reports:

Los Angeles’ Democratic mayoral candidates were torched by residents after a debate night in America’s second-most populous city that one voter described as “disgraceful.”

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Virtually everyone agrees that our public schools are in a state of decline. Needless to say, it isn’t because we aren’t spending enough money. The federal government, our state governments and our local governments are collectively spending nearly a trillion dollars a year on public education. That is a colossal pile of money. Since 1960, spending per student has increased by 350 percent. That is even after adjusting for inflation.

At this stage, we spend more money per student than any other nation on the entire planet other than Luxembourg. Anyone that believes that we can solve our education crisis by spending even more money is simply being delusional.

For nearly a trillion dollars a year, we should be getting a world class education system.

But we aren’t.

In fact, students in the U.S. just keep dropping down the global rankings.

Urgent action is required if we are going to turn this around.

Gallup conducted a survey that discovered that an all-time low 35 percent of U.S. adults are satisfied with the quality of public education in the United States.

There appears to be a growing consensus that we have a major national crisis on our hands, and those that are responsible for this crisis need to be held accountable. The following are 16 facts about the shocking decline of public education in the U.S. that every American should know…

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UPDATE: The deceased is identified as Timothy David Wolfe, Jr., 35.

(CHURCH CREEK, MD) The Maryland State Police Homicide Unit continues a death investigation in Dorchester County.

The identity of the deceased is pending autopsy results.  Investigators are also waiting on autopsy results to determine cause and manner of death.

At approximately 1:50 p.m. on August 15, 2026, deputies from the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office responded to the report of a body of a man located in the phragmites in the area of Golden Hill Road in Church Creek, Maryland. The preliminary investigation indicates a passerby located the body and subsequently called police.

At the request of the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office, the Maryland State Police Homicide Unit responded to lead the investigation.  The circumstances surrounding the death of the unidentified man remain under investigation. There are no further details at this time.

Anyone with information relevant to this investigation is urged to call 202-953-1903.  All calls may remain confidential.

The investigation continues.

A Colorado man who suffocated his healthy 91-year-old mother to death by placing a plastic bag over her head has avoided prison with a slap on the wrist and is now set to inherit a fortune from his dead mom’s estate.

Instead of jailing David Norton for his crime, a liberal judge ordered him to donate $25,000 to an organization that promotes “assisted suicide.”

In a cushy plea deal, Norton, 68, pleaded guilty to manslaughter by aiding suicide and tampering with physical evidence after the death of his mother, Mildred Roller.

Norton and his sister, Kim Roller, were accused of conspiring to end the elderly woman’s life.

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Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf did not write a speech this time. He posted the email.

Last week the sheriff said a whistleblower inside Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office had shown him how non-citizens, including illegal aliens, get swept onto the voter file when they change an address. Skeptics wanted paper.

On August 26 he put a redacted message from a Michigan Department of State employee on X and let the words do the work. The Gateway Pundit published the screenshot.

I honestly think it is a CARS programming error that anytime anyone that changes their address, that document prints off and if/when it hits the county clerks office, nothing happens. As in she is not actually going to be registered to vote because they will see she is not a citizen. If that makes sense to you.

It does not make sense. That is the point.

The same employee then described the new default. Register everyone. Mail a paper. Hope the ineligible person bothers to send it back and say no.

With the new way of registering EVERYONE and requiring them to send back a paper to NOT be registered we are going to have so many people on the voter file who shouldn’t be. I am not a fan of this new way – as you can probably see. It just creates errors that can be possibly not caught.

An insider in Benson’s own department is telling a sheriff the machine is built to load the file first and sort citizenship later. Later never comes.

Congratulations, You Are Going to Be Registered

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At least 31 people were confirmed dead, and hundreds of tourists and travelers remained missing after a catastrophic flash flood tore through Nepal’s border region with Tibet.

The South China Morning Post shared horrifying security-camera footage circulating online that appeared to show people fleeing as a giant wall of water, mud, and debris crashed through a checkpoint on the China-Nepal border.

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The absolutely devastating floods and mudslides that we just witnessed along the border between Nepal and Tibet look like something out of a science fiction movie. It is a tragedy of epic proportions, and it has made us forget all of the other catastrophic disasters that have been hitting our planet recently. Unfortunately, the victims in Nepal and Tibet will also soon be forgotten because more catastrophic disasters are on the way.

We live at a time when global weather patterns have gone absolutely nuts, giant earthquakes are occurring with alarming regularity, the northern hemisphere is experiencing the worst wildfire season in history, and our overheating oceans threaten to kill billions of fish.

I have never seen anything quite like the disaster that just occurred along the border between Nepal and Tibet on Wednesday.

The footage that one camera captured is particularly horrifying…

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Meta Platforms has reached a $16.7 billion settlement to resolve a landmark claim brought by several states that the company designed Instagram and Facebook to addict children, improperly collected children’s personal data, and misled consumers about their safety.

The deal was in a Wednesday court filing in California after a lawsuit was brought by 29 states – with attorneys for  Colorado, California, New Jersey and Kentucky – leading the group. The states argued that features like infinite scroll were purposely engineered to keep young users hooked, that Meta misled the public about the safety of its platforms for adolescents, and that the company improperly collected and monetized children’s personal data in violation of federal law.

As part of the settlement, Meta must implement daily usage limits and ‘nighttime blocks’ for teenagers who use the company’s apps like Facebook and Instagram, as well as “enhanced age assurance measures” that would prevent children from using them, and also providing parents with additional tools, CNBC reports.

Additionally, Meta is tying another $5.3 billion of the settlement to Google and TikTok adopting similar teen safety measures – cutting default teen time limits from 2 hours to 1 hour per day.

The attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming joined the settlement.

Prior to the settlement, Meta warned that maximum statutory penalties could theoretically reach $1.4 trillion, while the attorneys general have indicated they may seek around $200 billion. That said, the company still faces thousands of lawsuits filed by school districts and individual plaintiffs alleging harms from social media.

While shares spiked as much as 5% premarket on the news, the move was quickly reversed at market open.

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The Trump administration has paused visa appointments for applicants worldwide as the State Department launches a global training initiative at all U.S. embassies and consulates, according to a department spokesperson. Appointments for visa services will be rescheduled to accommodate the training.

The State Department offered no specific details on the training or its timeline. Officials said the initiative aims to help consular officers screen out applicants deemed likely to become dependent on U.S. public benefits. It is also intended to ensure evaluation of visa applicants comprehensively and consistently.

“A more prosperous America means ensuring that visa applicants are not likely to become a public charge, as defined under U.S. law and regulation, and not likely to become dependent on U.S. public benefits reserved for qualified Americans in need,” a State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.

Immigrant visa applicants with scheduled interviews at U.S. embassies and consulates have been contacted about any changes to their appointments, the spokesperson said.

The State Department has not indicated how long the adjustments will last.

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A major fissure within the LGBTQ+ movement burst into public view last week when Log Cabin Republicans abandoned transgender advocacy and the Human Rights Campaign condemned the move.

Log Cabin Republicans, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year, voted to remove the “T” from its advocacy. Ross Hemminger, the group’s president, announced the move in a Townhall op-ed last week.

Hemminger noted that Log Cabin Republicans added the “T” to its mission in 2015, but he attacked the transgender movement for focusing “nearly all of their efforts” on minors, rather than consenting adults.

“They push schools to teach radical gender ideology; they want biological men in women’s sports regardless of the consequences; perhaps most offensively, they support gender reassignment treatments for minors, often without the knowledge or consent of the parents, knowing full well these treatments are mostly irreversible,” he added.

“That is why, after significant discussion with our membership, our Board of Directors voted to refine Log Cabin Republicans’ national advocacy focus to concentrate specifically on issues of sexual orientation and conservative values—in other words, we are an LGB advocacy organization, as our founders envisioned and as our moral center calls us to be,” Hemminger announced.

He said the decision does not mean Log Cabin Republicans will exclude members who identify as transgender, but that the organization will focus on “issues of sexual orientation.”

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On Monday the WNBA has ruled that former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White are ineligible to enter the league’s draft or play in the women’s circuit after both men announced they identify as women and formally declared for the 2027 draft.

The league has reportedly dismissed the moves as publicity stunts intended to mock the organization.

According to reports from Front Office Sports, the WNBA stated it “is not going to give oxygen to efforts designed to mock the league or use this topic to demean and marginalize others” and “will not allow outside pressure or manufactured controversy to dictate league processes.”

It was another preachy nothingburger from the world’s most dysfunctional sports league.

“17 years old, and now he could spend most of his life in prison. That is a hell of a sentence for a teenager.”

In the wake of a judge denying Karmelo Anthony a new trial for the killing of Austin Metcalf, Don Lemon has complained about how the convicted murderer will have to serve 35 years in prison.

“Breaking and it’s complicated, so make sure you pay attention. Karmelo Anthony is not getting a new trial,” Lemon said. “And after what came out of the court last week, I have questions. We learned there was a private, off-the-record agreement to keep the troubled youth’s backgrounds—both teenagers—away from the jury. Austin Metcalf had allegations involving racial slurs, bullying, and assault. Karmelo had allegations involving threatening texts, stalking, and assault. None of that came in.

“And Karmelo’s former lawyer says that they had planned to put him on the stand, but all of this helped change that decision. So now the defense says the first trial was too controlled, too secretive, and unfair. The judge said no. 35 years still stands. And I’m still stuck on one thing: he was 17. 17 years old, and now he could spend most of his life in prison. That is a hell of a sentence for a teenager.”

In April of 2025, Anthony, who is now 19, fatally stabbed Austin Metcalf, also 17, at a Texas track meet. Anthony had sat under another team’s tent, where Metcalf had been, and did not leave despite multiple people asking him to. Anthony had claimed that he acted in self-defense, a claim that was rejected by the jury, which handed down a guilty verdict. He was later sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Anthony’s team had sought a new trial, alleging that their client’s rights had been violated, but the judge rejected the motion. The order stated, “Upon reviewing the motion, the record, the evidence and argument, the briefs, and the relevant case law, the Court has determined that the motion should be denied. It is therefore considered, ordered, and adjudged by the Court that the Motion for New Trial is denied.”

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The US Supreme Court on Monday upheld President Trump’s executive order restricting mail-in ballots ahead of the midterm elections.

Earlier this month, US District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, expanded her previous block on President Trump’s executive order on mail-in voting.

The Boston-based Judge previously blocked President Trump’s March 2025 executive order, specifically his attempt to create a federal voter list.

In March 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14248: Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.

“Free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion are fundamental to maintaining our constitutional Republic. The right of American citizens to have their votes properly counted and tabulated, without illegal dilution, is vital to determining the rightful winner of an election,” the executive order said.

“Under the Constitution, State governments must safeguard American elections in compliance with Federal laws that protect Americans’ voting rights and guard against dilution by illegal voting, discrimination, fraud, and other forms of malfeasance and error. Yet the United States has not adequately enforced Federal election requirements that, for example, prohibit States from counting ballots received after Election Day or prohibit non-citizens from registering to vote,” the executive order said.

“Several Federal laws, including 18 U.S.C. 1015 and 611, prohibit foreign nationals from registering to vote or voting in Federal elections,” Trump said.

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Most people have seen a rally. Everyone in the same colors, chanting the same lines, clapping before they can realize if they even agree with what they just heard.

In the center of the rally a man wears a shirt that reads I AM AN INDIVIDUAL. He believes that the shirt proves he is a sore thumb.

It does not. Thousands of people can buy the same shirt and wear it to the same rally.

And that’s what happens. The same man goes to a later rally and finds many people wearing the same shirt. They all chant in unison “I AM AN INDIVIDUAL.” They believe their words but deep down they hope they just became the tribe’s latest colors.

We never ask what the tribe demands from us before we are granted a place within it. The price is always the same. It demands the individual sacrifice their individualism .

Do not confuse the individual with personality. Personality is a style. Nor is the individual a set of preferences, a person’s taste, or their biography. The individual is something more fundamental: the unrepeatable particularity of a human being. It’s a specific configuration that makes one person this person and not that person a specific arrangement of experience and perception that only exists once in reality and is never seen again.

Some believe that society bestows dignity upon an individual through rights, recognition, and laws. These things matter as they can protect dignity. But they do not create it. Before any government or constitutions there were particular human beings whose existence mattered simply because no one else could occupy the specific space that they occupied. Each of those people carried something that had no duplicate. They carried something that if lost would leave a particular shape of absence in the world.

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If you live in an Islamic or communist society and you feel like somebody’s always watching you, you’re right because both systems demand it.

In revealing the commonalities of the Reds and the Greens in the Red-Green Axis, we have elucidated the shared goals of communists and Muslims, including violence, monopoly rule by elites, slaughter, etc. (See the full list of essays exposing these commonalities at the end of this article.) Here, we explore surveillance, informants, and social enforcement networks.

Islamic political systems and Marxist-Leninist communism both built what have, through the present, been permanent institutions for watching their own populations and enlisting ordinary members to report on one another. Neither could rely on voluntary conformity alone. Each system claims jurisdiction over belief and private conduct.

Ordinary law enforcement cannot reach that far into a household, so each ideology had to invent two further instruments: an office charged with monitoring public behavior and a wider practice of recruiting believers or citizens to inform on deviation among their neighbors, coworkers, and kin. This is not incidental to either project.

A system that claims comprehensive authority over conscience and conduct must continuously find out, at the level of the individual household, whether that authority is actually being honored. That requirement produces surveillance and informants as a matter of structural necessity, not administrative preference.

Writing in Abbasid Baghdad in the mid-eleventh century, the jurist Abu al-Hasan al-Mawardi (974–1058), in his treatise al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya (The Ordinances of Government), set out the first systematic legal description of hisba, the caliphal office of commanding right and forbidding wrong, as a standing branch of government rather than a personal virtue.

Al-Mawardi’s muhtasib, the officer who carried out hisba, was unlike a judge: he could act on his own observation, without waiting for a plaintiff to bring a complaint, and could appoint assistants to extend his reach through the markets and public spaces of the city. This is the institutional core of the mechanism.

Because hisba authorized officials to investigate suspected wrongdoing before anyone had accused anyone of anything, it built continuous, proactive watching into the structure of Islamic governance. It did so with the explicit sanction of the Quranic duty known as al-amr bi-l-maʿruf wa-l-nahy ʿan al-munkar, which scripture and prophetic practice had already established as an obligation on the community itself, not merely its rulers.

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The Conference Board’s measure of Americans’ Consumer Confidence fell from a revised-lower 90.2 to 89.4 in August (below the 90.2 exp) – the lowest since January.

Interestingly, under the hood, we saw Expectations plunge to January lows while Present Situation spiked from 5 year lows…

“Consumer confidence moderated slightly in August for a second consecutive month,” said Dana M Peterson, Chief Economist, The Conference Board.

“The Expectations Index slipped further into negative territory, which was offset by a moderate rise in the Present Situation Index after declining in the past three months. Consumer appraisals of current business conditions were mildly positive. Perceptions of the current labor market improved, reversing three months of moderate decline. Looking ahead, consumers were more pessimistic about business conditions and the labor market over the next six months. Expectations for household incomes moderated but remained optimistic overall.”

On a six-month moving average basis, confidence across all age groups trended down slightly, remaining highest among consumers under 35.

By income, confidence was mixed, but generally higher-income groups were more optimistic.

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American car buyers could be hit with an unwelcome price shock if President Donald Trump follows through on his threat to double tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks and auto parts to 50 percent next year.

Trump announced the threat on Monday, writing on Truth Social that tariffs on ‘all Cars, Trucks, both large and small, Automotive Parts, and Steel’ would rise from 25 percent to 50 percent.

Trump said the higher tariffs would take effect on January 1, 2027, escalating an already bitter trade dispute with one of America’s biggest trading partners.

The deep integration of North American auto manufacturing means that almost no cars sold in the US are 100 percent made in America.

Auto parts and sub-assemblies crisscross the Canada-US border – and the Mexico-US border – throughout the manufacturing process, so the tariff impact would certainly not be limited to vehicles that see final assembly in Canada.

Automakers could face higher costs for parts, components and finished vehicles – costs that can ultimately feed through to consumers in the form of higher prices.

According to an analysis by Wolfe Research from the first round of Trump tariffs in 2025, average US retail car prices would have risen by $3,000 from the administration’s 25 percent tariff on Canadian autos – suggesting that could be at least $6,000 this time around, if not more.

‘In the event of strong counteractions, severe trade dislocations and significant economic consequences would occur, leading to collapsing demand in all three countries,’ TD Economics wrote of last year’s round of 25 percent tariffs – suggesting that this week’s version could be even more harmful.

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The NFL’s biggest health issue is much worse than doctors and researchers initially feared.

A study published on Tuesday by the British Medical Journal found that at least one in four NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 had developed the brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

The research focused on the commonality of CTE in NFL players and found that of the 878 former football players that appeared in at least one NFL game and died in that six-year span, at least 25 percent had the disease.

CTE is a disease that can only be diagnosed after death, meaning research on the subject depends on brains donated by players or their families.

Researcher Dr Daniel Daneshvar warns that the estimate of 25 percent is on the ‘low end’ and found that the maximum possible prevalence of CTE in NFL players came in at 97 percent.

However, he believes the real number is ‘somewhere in the middle’ of those two figures.

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Governor Moore released the following statement after DHS officials announced mass deportation operations in Maryland without notifying state officials:

“Public safety is my top priority, and Marylanders know I have neither patience nor tolerance for violent criminals. When federal law enforcement takes violent offenders off our streets and lawfully removes them from our country, that makes our communities safer. Maryland will continue working with our federal partners to do exactly that.

“But ICE’s own numbers tell a very different story. According to them, a mere fraction of the more than 1,300 people they arrested in the past two weeks had ever been convicted of or charged with any crimes. We’ve seen frightening footage of older women being taken from their apartment buildings, workers chased in residential neighborhoods, parents separated from American children – and we are deeply concerned by reports that an individual suffered a broken neck during an ICE arrest. 

“These actions also undermine our economy.  I’ve heard firsthand from business leaders across the State that these immigration policies are taking legal workers out of our nursing homes, scaring farmworkers from showing up to work, and making the cost of everything from groceries to delivery services higher.

“Deploying untrained, unqualified, and unaccountable agents to sweep through our communities and spread fear is not a public safety strategy. It undermines trust between law enforcement and the people they serve, and it does not make us safer.

“We do not have to choose between holding violent offenders accountable and protecting the constitutional rights and basic dignity of our neighbors. In Maryland, we will continue to do both.” 

A North Carolina doctor was arrested Aug. 22 after he allegedly fired into a Jeep during an interstate road rage incident, wounding two sisters, ages 12 and 20, according to Virginia State Police.

Dr. Richard Thomas Arriviello, 61, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was driving north on Interstate 77 in his Mercedes-Benz around 8:50 a.m. when gunfire erupted about three miles north of the North Carolina-Virginia state line.

State police said in a press release that Arriviello fired into the moving Jeep, striking both sisters in the legs.

Both victims were airlifted to a hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening, according to police.

Arriviello then fled in his Mercedes-Benz, police said.

Troopers spotted and stopped the Mercedes-Benz about 15 miles away and took Arriviello into custody.

Arriviello faces several felony charges, including malicious shooting into an occupied vehicle, maliciously causing bodily harm to another with intent to maim and use of a firearm while committing a felony.

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A beloved couple were killed in a horrific car crash after a Mercedes G-Wagon, allegedly occupied by four teens who were fleeing police in New Jersey, smashed head-on into their vehicle.

Alice Stilwell, 67, and Robert Barr Jr, 54, died Saturday in Mays Landing, about 18 miles from Atlantic City.

Surveillance footage of the crash appeared to show the Mercedes crossing the center line on Route 50 before colliding head-on with a sedan.

Police officers spotted the G-Wagon moments before the crash, according to charging documents cited by Action News.

At about 3.45am, Longport police attempted to stop the Mercedes. However, the driver fled, and officials later determined the vehicle had been stolen.

About four hours later, the roughly 6,000-pound SUV was spotted by Hamilton Township police, who attempted a traffic stop but were unsuccessful after the driver fled.

Moments later, officers were responding to the crash, according to the outlet.

Footage showed at least one of the teens attempting to flee the scene after the crash. The teen appeared uninjured, and all four suspects were arrested.

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Danny Conservative: For the past 25 years the push to “Transition” from Traditional Energy to Renewables in the Country.

The push since 2000 to move from “Traditional Energy’ to “Renewables” wind & solar has led to the “Retiring” of 780 coal power units, individual generators capable of producing energy, have retired, according to The New York Times. Energy nonprofit organization Resources for the Future estimated in 2017 that around 816 natural gas units and 791 petroleum-fired units had retired since 2005. With the plan to replace all of that with windmills and solar panels.

Here in Maryland “In Maryland, 16 coal-fired units have shuttered since 2012, representing 3,866 megawatts of electricity, according to the industry tracker Global Energy Monitor. Experts say the trend is fueled by the emergence of cheap natural gas and increasing competition from renewable energy sources like wind and solar. They say stricter federal environmental regulations are also to blame.”….

One of the last plants in Maryland, Brandon Shores in Anne Arundel County is on its ” Deathbed” with the State increasing “environmental regulations” & the Sierra Club which has sued the plant, Brandon Shores is “hanging on by a thread” currently…

Since January 2023 Maryland & the Moore Administration has aggressively moved towards “renewables” wind and solar & Away from Traditional Energy.

The Moore Administration and the Democrats signed and passed the “power act” in 2023 to make the State the ” wind Capital” of The US. & In 2024 MD 2024 SB 1 which was a “34 page regulatory” bill to kill competition on traditional energy in the State.

Since that time energy rates in Maryland have increased by 1000 percent, and Maryland now has the highest energy rates in the country.

Maryland Imports 40 percent of energy from other States, and in 2025 it was reported with the demands for Data Centers & AI that if the States lack of energy generation isn’t addressed the State could be facing blackouts.

While Virginia was building data centers, Maryland was “destroying” its traditional energy generation infrastructure, closing plants largely replacing them with “expensive” import deals with States like Pennsylvania and Ohio, & Solar Energy in which even after $7 Billion Dollars of investment makes up about 7 percent of the States energy generation currently…

Solutions from the Moore Administration & the Democrats in Annapolis on the States energy crisis have been “token rebates” , a plan that saves $12 dollars a month, and the continued push of Solar Expansion.

Gov. Wes Moore and the Maryland Department of General Services (DGS) announced a 20-year agreement to purchase solar energy generated in Western Maryland, a deal state officials say could save Maryland approximately $300 million while expanding the state’s use of renewable energy.

The agreement with REV Renewables will provide approximately 250,000 megawatt-hours of renewable electricity annually beginning in 2028 from the Jade Meadow III Solar Project. The 300-megawatt project will be located primarily on a reclaimed coal mine in Garrett County, with DGS purchasing approximately half of the electricity generated for state energy accounts.

According to DGS, the agreement is projected to save between $298 million and $515 million over its 20-year term, depending on future electricity market conditions. The electricity purchased annually is equivalent to the amount used by more than 20,000 homes and is expected to supply nearly 15% of the state’s electricity portfolio beginning in 2028.

None of this is really addressing the issue of increasing real energy generation to bring real economic relief to our States businesses and citizens, like a Natural Gas Pipeline that just recently broke ground in New York. Yes BGE & Delmarva Power are proposing rate increases to do upgrades, but the reason these things are happening is due to the “terrible planning” to phase out traditional energy and “transition” to renewables by the Majority Party in Annapolis.

Maryland without question needs a “Course Correction” in its current energy policies which is currently failing its businesses and citizens….