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August 12, 2025

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Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has helped a group of scientists identify five new materials that could power the next wave of batteries without relying on lithium.

The study, published on June 26 in Cell Reports Physical Science, focuses on materials that could enable multivalent-ion batteries — a technology long touted for its potential, but hindered by practical challenges.

The lithium problem for batteries

Lithium dominates in batteries used in everything from smartphones to electric vehicles, but faces challenges — it is costly to extract, geographically concentrated and comes with environmental and geopolitical concerns.

As global demand for batteries surges, researchers are racing to find viable alternatives that are both abundant and efficient. Multivalent-ion batteries offer one potential path forward. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, which carry a single positive charge, multivalent-ion batteries using materials like magnesium or zinc carry two or three.

In theory, this means that they can pack more energy into the same space. However, their larger size and stronger charge make it difficult for them to move through standard battery materials.

“One of the biggest hurdles wasn’t a lack of promising battery chemistries — it was the sheer impossibility of testing millions of material combinations,” said lead author Dibakar Datta, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. “We turned to generative AI as a fast, systematic way to sift through that vast landscape and spot the few structures that could truly make multivalent batteries practical.”

To tackle the challenge, Datta’s team developed a “dual AI” system. The first part, a crystal diffusion variational autoencoder (CDVAE), was trained on vast datasets of known crystal structures. It could generate entirely new porous transition metal oxides, a class of material known for its structural flexibility and ionic conductivity.

The second part was a fine-tuned large language model (LLM) designed to narrow the list.

It focused on materials closest to thermodynamic stability, a critical factor in determining whether a compound can realistically be made and used in the real world.

The CDVAE cast a wide net, creating thousands of hypothetical structures with large, open channels. The LLM then acted as a filter, selecting only those most likely to hold up under actual manufacturing and operational conditions.

Five new battery candidates

“Our AI tools dramatically accelerated the discovery process, which uncovered five entirely new porous transition metal oxide structures that show remarkable promise,” Datta said.

These structures, the study suggests, offer unusually large pathways for ion movement, a crucial step toward making multivalent batteries that charge quickly and last for long periods of time. Quantum mechanical simulations and stability tests confirmed that the materials should be both synthetically feasible and structurally sound.

The five compounds now move to the next stage — experimental synthesis in collaboration with partner laboratories. If successful, they could be incorporated into prototype batteries and eventually scaled for commercial production.

Traditional materials research is often a painstaking, years-long process of hypothesis, synthesis and testing.

By contrast, AI can rapidly explore enormous “material spaces” that would be impossible for humans to search manually, flagging only the most promising candidates for further investigation.

What it means for the batteries of tomorrow

Multivalent-ion batteries have been studied for decades, yet few have reached commercial readiness because the necessary materials either didn’t conduct ions well enough or degraded too quickly.

By using AI to overcome that bottleneck, the research team hopes to accelerate not just battery chemistry, but also the infrastructure needed to support electrification on a global scale.

However, the five materials identified by Datta’s team aren’t ready to replace lithium tomorrow. They still need to be synthesized, tested in lab-scale batteries and proven to perform under real-world conditions.

Safety, scalability and cost effectiveness all remain open questions.

Still, the study’s authors argue that their AI framework has already proven its value by shrinking what could have been a decades-long search into a matter of months.

“This is more than just discovering new battery materials — it’s about establishing a rapid, scalable method to explore any advanced materials, from electronics to clean energy solutions, without extensive trial and error,” Datta added.

Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

This post appeared first on investingnews.com

Lithium, a naturally occurring trace element in the brain, may be able to unlock a key medical mystery: why some people develop Alzheimer’s disease and others don’t, despite similar brain changes.

In a recently published study, scientists at Harvard Medical School state that lithium not only exists in the human brain at biologically meaningful levels, but also appears to protect against neurodegeneration.

Additionally, their work shows that lithium supports the function of all major brain cell types.

The decade-long study drew on mouse experiments and analyses of human brain and blood samples across the spectrum of cognitive health. The Harvard team discovered that as amyloid beta, the sticky protein associated with Alzheimer’s, begins to accumulate, it binds to lithium and depletes its availability in the brain. This drop in lithium impairs neurons, glial cells and other brain structures, accelerating memory loss and disease progression.

“The idea that lithium deficiency could be a cause of Alzheimer’s disease is new and suggests a different therapeutic approach,” said Bruce Yankner, who is the senior author of the study.

Yankner, a professor of genetics and neurology at Harvard Medical School who in the 1990s was the first to show that amyloid beta is toxic to nerve cells, said the new findings open the door to treatments that address the disease in its entirety, rather than targeting single features like amyloid plaques or tau tangles.

To explore this possibility, researchers screened for lithium compounds that could evade capture by amyloid beta.

They identified lithium orotate as the most promising candidate. In mice, the compound reversed Alzheimer’s-like brain changes, prevented cell damage and restored memory, even in animals with advanced disease.

Crucially, the effective dose was about one-thousandth of that used in psychiatric treatments, avoiding the toxicity risk that has hampered lithium’s clinical use in older patients.

“You have to be careful about extrapolating from mouse models, and you never know until you try it in a controlled human clinical trial,” Yankner cautioned. “But so far the results are very encouraging.”

The path to these findings began with access to an unusually rich source of brain tissue.

Working with the Rush Memory and Aging Project in Chicago, the team examined postmortem samples from thousands of donors, from cognitively healthy individuals to those with mild cognitive impairment and full-blown Alzheimer’s.

Using advanced mass spectrometry, they measured trace levels of about 30 metals. Lithium stood out as the only one whose levels dropped sharply at the earliest stages of memory loss.

The pattern matched earlier population studies linking higher environmental lithium levels, including in drinking water, to lower dementia rates. But unlike those correlations, the Harvard team directly measured brain lithium and established a normal range for healthy individuals who had never taken lithium as medication.

“Lithium turns out to be like other nutrients we get from the environment, such as iron and vitamin C,” Yankner said. “It’s the first time anyone’s shown that lithium exists at a natural level that’s biologically meaningful without giving it as a drug.”

To test whether this deficiency was more than an association, the researchers fed healthy mice a lithium-restricted diet, lowering brain lithium to levels seen in Alzheimer’s patients.

The animals developed brain inflammation, lost connections between neurons and showed cognitive decline; however, replenishing them with lithium orotate reversed these changes. What’s more, mice given the compound from early adulthood were protected from developing Alzheimer’s-like symptoms altogether.

The findings raise several possibilities. Measuring lithium levels in blood could become a tool for early screening, identifying people at risk before symptoms emerge. Furthermore, amyloid-evading lithium compounds could be tested as preventive or therapeutic agents, potentially altering the disease course more fundamentally than existing drugs.

For now, researchers stress that no one should self-medicate with lithium supplements.

The team emphasized that the safety and efficacy of lithium orotate in humans remain unproven, and clinical trials will be needed to determine whether the dramatic benefits seen in mice translate to people.

Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

This post appeared first on investingnews.com

Here’s a quick recap of the crypto landscape for Monday (August 11) as of 9:00 p.m. UTC.

Get the latest insights on Bitcoin, Ethereum and altcoins, along with a round-up of key cryptocurrency market news.

Bitcoin and Ethereum price update

Bitcoin (BTC) was priced at US$118,815, down by 0.1 percent over the last 24 hours and its lowest valuation on Monday. Its highest price for the day was US$120,693.

Bitcoin price performance, August 11, 2025.

Chart via TradingView.

Analyst Omkar Godbole offered a cautious outlook, pointing to lower trading volumes for Bitcoin despite similar prices in July and a Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) discount suggesting weak US institutional demand.

Ethereum (ETH) has outperformed after a weekend rally.

Ethereum broke past US$4,300 on Monday as FG Nexus announced the acquisition of 47,331 ETH, worth about US$200 million. Meanwhile, data from Etherscan shows rising daily transaction counts over the past several weeks.

Creator coins like ZRO and PUMP also saw gains after announcements like Coinbase’s new DEX feature and LayerZero’s acquisition. Bondex CEO Ignacio Palomera called these developments an evolution in how creators can monetize their content. US consumer price index data on Tuesday (August 12) could fuel or dampen the crypto rally.

Altcoin price update

  • Solana (SOL) was priced at US$176.39, down by 3.6 percent over 24 hours and its lowest valuation for the day. Its highest price was US$180.86.
  • XRP was trading for US$3.16, down 1.7 percent in the past 24 hours and at its lowest valuation of the day. Its highest was US$3.22.
  • Sui (SUI) was trading at US$3.69, down by 5 percent over the past 24 hours, and its lowest valuation of the day. Its highest level was US$3.77.
  • Cardano (ADA) was trading at US$0.783, down by 3 percent over 24 hours and its lowest valuation on Monday. Its highest was US$0.8008.

Today’s crypto news to know

Bullish aims for US$4.82 billion valuation in upsized IPO

Bullish has increased the size of its planned initial public offering (IPO), targeting a valuation of up to US$4.82 billion. It plans to raise as much as US$990 million by selling 30 million shares priced between US$32 and US$33 each, a higher range than its previous filing, but still below its US$9 billion target in a failed 2021 SPAC merger.

The cryptocurrency exchange said it will convert a significant portion of its IPO proceeds into US-dollar-backed stablecoins through partnerships with token issuers. BlackRock-managed funds and Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment have shown interest in purchasing up to US$200 million worth of shares.

Bullish is expected to price the offering on Tuesday and debut on the NYSE under the ticker “FLY” the next day.

Tether and Rumble propose joint acquisition of Northern Data

Tether and Rumble (NASDAQ:RUM) have proposed to jointly acquire all shares of artificial intelligence infrastructure company Northern Data, according to a press release issued on Monday.

According to the proposed terms, USDt issuer Tether, already Northern Data’s largest shareholder, would support the transaction, which would see each Northern Data shareholder receive 2.319 newly issued Class A Rumble shares for each Northern Data share offered, leading to roughly 33.3 percent of Rumble ownership being transferred to Northern Data shareholders. The final exchange ratio may be adjusted for the potential sale of Peak Mining and a related debt reduction, which would increase the exchange ratio.

Subject to definitive documentation, Tether would also significantly increase its investment in Rumble, becoming a key customer with a multi-year GPU purchase commitment.

Chainlink to partner with ICE

Blockchain oracle platform Chainlink announced a partnership with US-based Fortune 500 company Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE) on Monday to bring foreign exchange and precious metals data onchain.

The collaboration will unite Intercontinental’s consolidated feed, an aggregator of market data from over 300 global exchanges and marketplaces, with Chainlink Data Streams’ derived data sets, which provide market information to power tokenization for over 2,000 decentralized applications and major financial institutions.

This partnership is the latest move to further integrate traditional market infrastructure with blockchain systems.

El Salvador targets wealthy investors with new Bitcoin banking law

El Salvador has approved a new investment banking law designed to attract institutional and high-net-worth crypto investors. Licensed investment banks with at least US$50 million in capital will be able to provide Bitcoin and other digital asset services, but only to clients meeting “sophisticated investor” criteria.

Requirements include at least US$250,000 in liquid assets and advanced financial knowledge.

The banks will be allowed to issue bonds, structure public-private projects and offer digital asset products. Lawmakers say the changes aim to position the country as a regional financial hub and draw in foreign private capital.

The move comes as President Nayib Bukele consolidates political power through constitutional reforms extending presidential terms and removing term limits.

Blue Origin to accept crypto payments for space flights

According to a Monday press release, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has partnered with payment processing company Shift4 Payments (NYSE:FOUR) to allow customers to buy tickets to outer space using crypto and stablecoins.

Trips will take place on Blue Origin’s New Shepard reusable rockets, and direct payments will now be accepted from popular wallets from the likes of MetaMask and Coinbase.

“Our mission has always been to revolutionize commerce by simplifying the transaction process, and we’re thrilled to now extend that vision beyond Earth,” said Taylor Lauber, CEO of Shift4.

“This partnership will enable adventurous travelers to book the adventure of a lifetime, no matter their preferred payment method — all with a simple, frictionless experience,’ he added. Blue Origin has flown more than 75 passengers past the Kármán Line, the boundary separating Earth’s atmosphere and space.

“We believe crypto and stablecoins are going to become an increasingly popular way for consumers to pay, particularly for high-end purchases, as both the consumer and merchant benefit financially from these transactions,” commented Alex Wilson, head of crypto at Shift4.

Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

Securities Disclosure: I, Meagen Seatter, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

This post appeared first on investingnews.com

Nuvau Minerals Inc. (TSXV: NMC) has begun its minimum 1,500 m drill program aimed at testing continuity and extensions to the orogenic gold system discovered last month. The discovery was made with the first hole drilled of an inaugural gold-focused exploration program, in the footwall of the Bracemac-McLeod Mine approximately 200 m below surface. The follow-up program is being drilled immediately north east of this base metal mine, which was in production until mid 2022.

The Matagami Property is in the northern Abitibi Region of Quebec, one of the world’s most prolific gold endowed districts. This northern part of the Abitibi region includes Canada’s largest gold producing mine with the country’s largest gold mineral reserves: the Detour Lake Mine owned by Agnico Eagle Mines Limited. Hecla Mining Company’s Casa Berardi Mine, which has produced over 3 million ounces of gold, is located to the southwest of the Matagami Property (see Figure 1 below).

While the Abitibi’s first recorded gold discovery was 119 years ago in Rouyn-Noranda, the Matagami Property remains one of the largest areas in the region that has not been subject to a gold focused exploration program. Previous owners were concentrating on defining and developing multiple VMS deposits into multiple mines that produced extensive copper and zinc for more than 60 years. This was one of the primary opportunities Nuvau identified when it entered into the agreement to acquire the Property from Glencore. The Company recently began compiling gold related historic data, as well as launching several gold-focused initiatives (including till sampling) aimed at defining initial targets for drilling.

Figure 1: Matagami property location

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11236/262123_8f984e3ef4857b89_001full.jpg

Nuvau’s current gold-focused exploration program has identified three initial priority targets:

  1. Bracemac Footwall Discovery
  2. Gold-in-Till Anomaly Target
  3. Thunder Mine (1988) Target

The map below shows the location of these three targets (Figure 2). The vast majority of this 1,300 km2 land pack remains open for gold exploration.

Figure 2: Current gold targets

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11236/262123_8f984e3ef4857b89_002full.jpg

1. Bracemac Footwall Discovery

The recent discovery of gold mineralization in the footwall of the Bracemac Mine is located only 25 m from the access ramp of this permitted mine. The steeply dipping, strong shear zone structure with quartz veining mineralized with pyrite and locally visible gold was intersected at a depth of approximately 200 m. The visible gold was observed over approximately 0.5 m of core and assays are still pending on the discovery hole, BRCG-25-001.

Although located within the immediate footwall of the past-producing Bracemac-McLeod mine, the mineralized structure occurs in a late intrusive that truncated the mine host rock units (see Figure 3). The intrusive has seen very little drilling as the stratigraphy was not of interest for VMS exploration.

The follow up drill program is now underway to continue to step-out both up and down dip, and along strike, to test continuity of mineralization within the structural corridor as well as providing critical data on the dip and strike of the vein.

Figure 3: Past producing Bracemac-McLeod Mine and relative position of gold target drilled (left); schematic of the stratigraphy (right)

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11236/262123_figure3.jpg

Figure 4: Visible gold found in more than 30 gold chips identified in logging the core

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11236/262123_8f984e3ef4857b89_005full.jpg

2. Gold-in-Till Anomaly Target

As part of Nuvau’s target generative exploration program, an overburden (till) drilling program was launched in 2023. This program resulted in the discovery of significant gold-in-till mineralization that was announced on March 4, 2025.

From the 2023 sonic drill program, hole PD-23-030s produced a notable gold grain anomaly detected at a depth of between 29.26 to 29.87 m in the overburden and featured more than 2,000 gold grains per 10 kg of material. In addition, a near-contiguous sample with 295 gold grains per 10 kg of material between 31.12 to 32.00 m was also encountered with the interval between consisting of a large locally derived boulder. Based on the almost pristine nature of the gold grains, and their close proximity to the bottom of the hole, the source is expected to be relatively close to this hole. (See images of gold grains below in Figure 5.)

To assist in defining targets in this area, a detailed drone MAG survey was completed. The limited rock outcrops were also mapped recently and together with the MAG data, a drill program is being designed for later this year. The objective of this drill program will be to gain a better understanding of the local geological structures and to test for the potential source of the extensive gold grains.

Figure 5: Mosaic of backscattered electron images of gold grain

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11236/262123_figure5.jpg

Notice the delicate textures and silicate attachments. LEFT: Image of 230 gold grains found in sample 155320186, hole PD-23-030s, RIGHT: Image of 112 gold grains found in adjacent sample 155320187.

3. Thunder Mine (1988) Target

The Thunder Mine property was acquired by Nuvau in 2023 for its potential for both base metal and gold mineralization. In 1988, Thunderwood Exploration Ltd. drilled a series of holes as follow-up to a 1959 hole that intersected copper mineralization (see Figure 6).

This follow-up program identified multiple gold-bearing structures; however, no subsequent follow-up work was completed. Highlight intercepts from the available public domain report include the following:

  • DT-14-88: 209.00 – 209.80 m (0.80 m) @ 26.40 g/t Au.
  • DT-10-88: 205.00 – 206.00 m (1.00 m) @ 78.16 g/t Au.
  • DT-18-88: 100.80 – 107.30 m (6.50 m) @ 1.55 g/t Au, incl.: 0.30 m @ 4.89 g/t Au.
  • DT-19-88: 226.00 – 231.00 m (5.0 m) @ 2.27 g/t Au, Incl.: 0.50 m @ 10.39 g/t Au.
  • DT-20-88: 136.80 – 137.10 m (0.30 m) @ 10.37 g/t Au and 204.50 – 205.00 m (0.50 m) @ 6.48 g/t Au.
  • DT-21-88: 310.50 – 319.90 m (9.40 m) @ 4.02 g/t Au, incl.: 0.70 m @ 42.03 g/t Au and 0.70 m @ 7.30 g/t Au.

These results been extracted from historical information, and are not compliant with NI 43-101. The original results are available via GESTIM, GM 48216, and GM 08790 at the following links:

    Thunder mine drilling is planned as part of Nuvau’s winter drilling program in Q1 2026.

    Figure 6: Thunder Mine Past drilling

    To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
    https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11236/262123_8f984e3ef4857b89_012full.jpg

    About Nuvau Minerals Inc.
    Nuvau is a Canadian mining company focused on the Abitibi Region of mine-friendly Québec. Nuvau’s principal asset is the Matagami Property that is host to significant existing processing infrastructure and multiple mineral deposits and is being acquired from Glencore.

    Qualified Person and Quality Assurance
    Bastien Fresia P. Geo. (Qc), Technical Services Director of Nuvau and a ‘qualified person’ as is defined by National Instrument 43-101, has verified the scientific and technical data disclosed in this news release, and has otherwise reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information in this news release.

    Drill core samples are sawn by staff technicians to create half core splits. One split is retained in the drill core box for archival purposes with a sample tag affixed at each sample interval and the other split is placed in a labelled plastic bag along with a corresponding sample number tag and placed in the shipment queue.

    Quality control samples including blind certified reference material (‘CRM’), blank material, and core duplicates are inserted at a frequency of 1 in every 20 samples and sample batches of up to 60 samples were then shipped directly by Nuvau personnel to the ALS Canada Ltd. preparation laboratory in Rouyn-Noranda, Québec.

    All submitted core samples are crushed in full to 95 % passing less than 2 mm (ALS code CRU-32). A 1000-gram sample was then riffled split from the crushed material and pulverized to 90 % passing 75 μm (SPL-22 and PUL-32a). Pulps are shipped from the preparation laboratory to ALS Canada Ltd.’s analytical lab in North Vancouver, British Columbia, for assay.

    Lead, silver, copper and zinc analyses were determined by ore grade four acid digestion with an inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (‘ICP-AES’) or atomic absorption spectroscopy (‘AAS’) finish (ALS codes Pb-OG62, Ag-OG62, Cu-OG62 and ZnOG62), whereas gold was determined by 50 g fire assay analysis with an AAS finish (code Au-AA23).

    ALS Canada Ltd. is an accredited, independent commercial analytical firm registered to ISO/IEC 17025:2017 and ISO 9001:2015.

    For further information please contact:
    Nuvau Minerals Inc.
    Peter van Alphen
    President and CEO
    Telephone: 416-525-6023
    Email: pvanalphen@nuvauminerals.com

    Cautionary Statements
    This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, ‘forward-looking statements’) within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Any statements that are contained in this news release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as ‘may’, ‘should’, ‘anticipate’, ‘will’, ‘estimates’, ‘believes’, ‘intends’ ‘expects’ and similar expressions which are intended to identify forward-looking statements. More particularly and without limitation, this news release contains forward-looking statements concerning drill results relating to the Matagami Property, the results of the PEA, the potential of the Matagami Property, the timing and commencement of any production, the restart of the Bracemac-McLeod Mine, the completion of the earn-in of the Matagami Property and the timing and completion of any technical studies, feasibility studies or economic analyses. Forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain, and the actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, assumptions and expectations, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, including expectations and assumptions concerning the Company and the Matagami Property. Readers are cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking statements may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. Readers are further cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, as such information, although considered reasonable by the management of the Company at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated.

    The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and are expressly qualified by the foregoing cautionary statement. Except as expressly required by securities law, neither the Company nor Nuvau undertakes any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

    Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.

    To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/262123

    News Provided by Newsfile via QuoteMedia

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    President Donald Trump has renewed his call for Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, to undergo a cognitive test. 

    ”Congresswoman’ Jasmine Crockett is a Low (Very!!!) I.Q. Individual, much in the mold of the AOC Plus Three Gang of Country Destroying Morons – Only slightly dumber,’ Trump wrote on TRUTH Social on Monday. 

    ‘Each of these political hacks should be forced to take a Cognitive Exam, much like the one I recently took while getting my ‘physical’ at our GREAT Washington, D.C., Military Hospital (WR!),’ Trump said. ‘As the doctors said, ‘President Trump ACED it, something that is rarely seen!’ These Radical Left Lunatics would all fail this test in a spectacular show of stupidity and incompetence. TAKE THE TEST!!!

    Trump previously said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., should take a cognitive test in June when the progressive ‘Squad’ leader demanded his impeachment over the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. 

    Meanwhile, as the White House pushes Republican states to redistrict mid-cycle ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Crockett has accused Trump of pushing a ‘white supremacy agenda’ and ‘diluting the voices of people of color.’ The Trump administration asserts that Democratic states have engaged in ‘gerrymandering’ for years and encouraged illegal immigration to boost their congressional influence. 

    In Texas, Democratic state lawmakers fled the state in an effort to stop the vote on a GOP redistricting plan that likely would have resulted in Republicans picking up five House seats. 

    Crockett has accused Trump of hurling the low IQ insult as a racially-coded tactic to insult ‘people of color,’ including ‘The Breakfast Club’ host Charlamagne tha God. 

    ‘Newsflash, Wannabe Dictator: I don’t care how many times you shake the Etch A Sketch trying to redraw these lines,’ Crockett wrote on X last week. ‘I’m not disappearing. I’ll be back, still on your behind every step of the way. We’ve already been over this. I’ve got the degrees, the credentials, and the receipts. If you’re looking for ‘low IQ,’ try looking in the mirror – or at your own Cabinet.’ 

    Despite the president describing her as having a low IQ, Crockett said Trump has the ‘most incompetent Cabinet in the history of this country,’ referring to the Signal-gate scandal earlier this year. 

    Crockett has also dubbed Trump a ‘Temu dictator.’ At a progressive rally in Phoenix, Arizona, earlier this month, the congresswoman said on stage, ‘Donald Trump is a piece of sh–.’ 

    ‘This is a person who has a problem with people of color. Period,’ she told CNN. ‘I don’t care how many Black MAGA [are] out there with [their] hats, I want to be clear, when we look at who it is that he’s kicking out of this country, it’s people of color.’ 

    This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

    President Donald Trump took aim at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a press event on Monday over his frustration with the Ukrainian leader’s objection to ‘land swapping.’

    ‘I get along with Zelenskyy, but, you know, I disagree with what he’s done, very, very severely, disagree. This is a war that should have never happened,’ Trump said, reiterating his belief that the Ukrainian president is in part at fault for Russia’s illegal 2022 invasion.

    ‘I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelensky was saying, ‘Well, I have to get constitutional approval’,’ Trump said. ‘I mean, he’s got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap, because there’ll be some land swapping going on.’

    ‘I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody,’ Trump added, noting it was ‘for the good of Ukraine.’

    Zelenskyy – who did not declare war on Russia, as Moscow had already invaded, did declare Martial Law on Feb. 24, 2022 with the approval of Ukraine’s parliament, which gave him presidential powers to mobilize a military response — made clear over the weekend that he objected to Trump’s ‘land swapping’ proposal and has repeatedly said it would require a national referendum under the nation’s constitution, not a unilateral decision by him. 

    Trump wouldn’t detail what exactly he hopes to get out of the meeting with Putin and described it as a ‘feel-out meeting,’ saying within ‘the first two minutes [he’ll] know exactly whether or not a deal can be made.’

    ‘I’m going in to speak to Vladimir Putin, and I’m going to be telling him, you got to end this war, you got to end it,’ Trump said, reiterating his belief that if he had won the 2020 election, Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine, saying ‘he wasn’t going to mess with me.’

    ‘I go into that thing fully loaded right up there, and we’re going to see what happens,’ he continued. ‘It could be a good meeting, and we’ll go a step further. We’ll get it done. 

    ‘I’d like to see a ceasefire very, very quickly, very quick,’ he continued. ‘And, we’re going to be dealing with the European leaders and, we’re going to be dealing with President Zelensky and hopefully we’re going to have a great success.’

    This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

    A Democratic whistleblower told the FBI that Adam Schiff approved leaking classified information in order to discredit President Donald Trump, according to newly-released documents.

    The documents, which were obtained by Just The News, were recently handed over to Congress by FBI Director Kash Patel. 

    The whistleblower reportedly worked for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee for over ten years, and reported Schiff’s alleged behavior to the FBI in 2017.

    According to the report, the intelligence staffer called the leaking ‘treasonous’ and ‘illegal,’ in addition to being unethical. He was most recently interviewed by the FBI in 2023.

    The staffer also said that he personally attended a meeting where Schiff greenlit the leak.

    ‘When working in this capacity, [redacted staffer’s name] was called to an all-staff meeting by SCHIFF,’ the documents state, per Just The News. 

    ‘In this meeting, SCHIFF stated the group would leak classified information which was derogatory to President of the United States DONALD J. TRUMP. SCHIFF stated the information would be used to indict President TRUMP.’

    ‘[The whistleblower] stated this would be illegal and, upon hearing his concerns, unnamed members of the meeting reassured that they would not be caught leaking classified information,’ the report added.

    John Solomon, who co-authored the piece with Just The News’ Jerry Dunleavy, appeared on Fox News Channel’s ‘Hannity’ to discuss the report.

    ‘This is the first of several major leak investigations we’re going to see over the next several days,’ Solomon said. ‘You’re going to see other major people that were clearly identified by the FBI, having leaked classified secrets.’

    ‘Their own staff turned them in when interviewed by the FBI. Nothing, again, happened,’ he added. ‘It’s a common pattern. The question now is, in Donald Trump’s Justice Department, does that dynamic change?’

    Soon after the report was published, Patel shared it on X, saying that the FBI ‘found it [and] declassified it.’

    ‘Now Congress can see how classified info was leaked to shape political narratives – and decide if our institutions were weaponized against the American people,’ Patel’s post read.

    Fox News Digital’s Brooke Curto contributed to this report.

    This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

    In a lengthy and beautifully crafted address on Independence Day, July 4, 1821, then-President John Quincy Adams delivered an extraordinarily detailed and learned lesson on the founding of America. It’s one that still deserves repeated and close reading — though much of it will simply not be understood by most Americans today, for it is dense in references to history no longer taught widely in the United States. 

    Adams’ most memorable sentences are often quoted:

    ‘[America] has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence, has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.’

    The declamation that America ‘goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy’ is a favorite text of both the pre-World Wars One and Two isolationists in America, but of course both global conflicts reached out and drew the United States into them. 

    Now, far, far more than in 1917 and 1941, the assumptions of our sixth president simply no longer apply. 

    There is no longer any ‘abroad.’ 

    The idea of an ‘abroad’ about which Americans could be either indifferent or at most the subject of a distant approval or remote scorn, is dead.

    To repeat: There is no such thing as ‘abroad.’ 

    Not even remotely. 

    What remained of the concept after Pearl Harbor was shattered by Sputnik in 1957, and then by successive generations of missile technology.  With the rise of hypersonic missiles only fools would believe that there is an ‘abroad’ anywhere on the globe that the United States can disregard. 

    Beijing’s hypersonic arsenal can reach Washington, D.C. in two hours or less, and that margin is going to shrink rapidly. Russia’s hypersonic missiles can reach the lower 48 even sooner and Alaska in a blink. 

    Other nations will inevitably add to the number of potential adversaries that can change the world via hypersonic missilery and wreck enormous, perhaps Republic-ending damage on the country. 

    Of course, America possesses a ‘second strike’ capability deep under the seas in our Ohio-class submarines, and even an enormous fusillade of thousands of hypersonic missiles would be unlikely to cripple all of our B-2s and B-21s or ever missile silo. The United States would take down with it all of the evil powers that combined to strike it first, just as it did from 1941 to 1945. 

    But there would be no ‘Marshall Plan’ waiting for anyone or any country on the other side of such an unimaginable catastrophe. Thus it must be deterred. Deterrence is only accomplished by the reality of American military power and the military power of the allies on which it can rely.

    To repeat a third time: There is no ‘abroad.’ 

    This very dangerous word will only grow more so with the years. President Trump’s decision to destroy the Iranian nuclear weapons program alongside Israel’s blows against that fanatical theocracy’s ballistic missile capability shielded the entire world from the most unstable and terror-addicted regime in the world obtaining the ability to threaten all of the West and beyond with Armageddon. 

    For a time, at least, the precise and purposeful application of American military force to the missile and nuclear arsenal of an enemy on the brink of ‘breakout’ kept the number of nuclear powers stable. 

    Bravo, President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Whatever criticisms come their way on whatever other subject, the most important mission of their careers is complete. (Though both men may be obliged by the fanatics in Tehran to do it again.)

    The West still has enemies, of course, and the most formidable one is the Chinese Communist Party that dominates the People’s Republic of China, and its ruthless leader, Xi Jinping. Xi and the CCP are followed in second place by Xi’s equally ruthless if not quite as powerful ally in Putin’s Russia, not to mention the unstable nuclear powers of North Korea and Pakistan. 

    The West’s nuclear arsenal —distributed among our allies Great Britain and France and especially alongside that of Israel and our sometimes friend India— combines with our own prodigious, yet in-need-of-modernization nuclear arsenal to hold the most dangerous enemies at bay. 

    There are only four actual superpowers in the world —the quartet of nations that can project nuclear power far beyond their borders and which possess intelligence and espionage capabilities that are unmatched except by each other’s capabilities: The United States and Israel on the side of the West and the PRC and Russia on the side of despotism. All others in the ‘nuclear club’ have limitations imposed by their own chaotic domestic politics or lack of deliverable firepower and the will to use it. 

    That’s national security realism in a nutshell. 

    When two of the leaders of any of these four nations meet, it is a significant occasion. It is a very good thing that President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu have met three times in 2025 and have spoken far more frequently than that. 

    Xi and Putin have only met in person twice in this year, but their ‘partnership’ is very close even though Xi is to Putin as Trump is to Netanyahu: the senior partners to their powerful but not nearly as powerful junior partners. 

    This is the basic geopolitical structure of the world and only with that understanding of reality can analysts judge what President Trump gets out of his meeting with the Russian tyrant this week —if anything is even made public afterward. It will take months, if not years, to assess what happens this week. 

    Putin has attempted to play every American president since Bill Clinton, sometimes successfully, sometimes fooling them only for a time. The temptation to ‘strike a deal’ with Putin is the same as the apple on the forbidden tree in Genesis. That way lies ruin. But sizing up the tree and the apple at close range can have benefits. 

    President Trump has met with Putin six times prior to this week and has spoken with him often. The real estate developer-turned-television force-turned president has as much of the skills set anyone could have to deal with such a stone-cold killer as Putin. Trump survived not just two assassination attempts in 2024 but years of lawfare preceded by the plots of the permanent left embedded in our vast administrative state during his first term. 

    Trump is as tough and as resilient as any president since Richard Nixon. There will be no hot mic whisperings of weakness, nor will there be blunt assessments spoken like that of former Vice President Dick Cheney: ‘[W]hat I see [in Putin is] a KGB colonel.’

    Trump is a realist, just like his friend of old from New York in the 1980s and early 1990s, RN. Trump is as tough as W standing in the ruins of the Twin Towers, as tough as the genuine war hero H.W., as tough as Reagan, Ford and Ike. 

    If Trump can bring an end to the savagery underway in Ukraine on terms acceptable to President Zelensky, it will be an achievement greater than his interventions to stop the hostilities between India and Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, Thailand and Cambodia and last week’s peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.   

    Trump’s destruction of the Iranian nuclear program is the biggest building block of his legacy, rivaled only by the Abraham Accords.  If he can bring a ceasefire to Central Europe that is acceptable to our allies and the Ukrainian people, it will be the third pillar of his legacy, with the fourth —the rebuilding of the American military into so potent a force that no one, not even China’s Xi, dares to risk a confrontation with us— as his fourth. On top of those four pillars can rest an era of prosperity and renewed American growth and innovation. 

    If anyone is hoping for the president to fail in this endeavor as described, they are not patriots but partisans blind to the realities of the world. There are a lot of those sorts of partisans in the U.S., and increasingly our NATO allies are showing themselves to be unreliable. 

    Like it or not, the near-term security prospects of the West rest on Trump, and serious people must prefer that to the infirmities of President Biden or the illusions of President Obama. 

    Trump has confidence in his own abilities and serious analysts of realpolitik should too. At this point, after ‘Midnight Hammer’ and the other ceasefires, after all of the decade since he came down the escalator, there is very good reason to believe he can achieve as much as any other American at the table with Putin. Anyone hoping for his failure should assess their own mental health. It is in the interests of everyone on the planet that knows no ‘abroads’ that stability break out everywhere, beginning in Alaska this week. 

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    Senate Democrats have undergone a steady tonal shift on Israel, with a recent vote to block arms sales to the Jewish State giving a glimpse at the evolution on the Hill.

    More Democrats in the upper chamber than ever before voted alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to halt the $675 million sale of thousands of bombs and guidance kits for the bombs and to block the sale of automatic rifles to Israel.

    Sanders’ push ultimately failed late last month, but over half of all Senate Democrats voted alongside him, with many voting with him for the first time. Meanwhile, all Senate Republicans voted against them.

    ‘The tide is turning,’ Sanders, who routinely caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement. ‘The American people do not want to spend billions to starve children in Gaza. The Democrats are moving forward on this issue, and I look forward to Republican support in the near future.’

    Getting Republicans on board for future attempts, as Sanders hoped would happen, is a stretch at best.

    ‘Republicans stand with Israel,’ Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Jim Risch, R-Idaho, told Fox News Digital in a statement.

    ‘Senator Sanders’ resolution to block arms sales would have reinstated the failed policies of the Biden administration and would abandon America’s closest ally in the Middle East,’ he continued. ‘We can’t afford to go back there.’

    But the change within the Democratic caucus was likely spurred by the release of photos of starving children in the Gaza Strip, which earned shocked reactions from both lawmakers and President Donald Trump.

    Many Democrats have pinned the blame on Israel and argued that the Jewish state has put a chokehold on aid that is meant for civilians in Gaza, while Republicans contend that the terrorist organization Hamas is stealing the food.

    ‘What’s going on is unacceptable, and Israel has the power to fix it,’ Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told Fox News Digital.

    Like Sanders, King typically caucuses with Senate Democrats. But unlike his fellow Independent colleague, he has routinely stood firm in his support of Israel. But the photos and reports of widespread malnutrition prompted him to vote to block arms sales.

    ‘Israel’s the one that’s not letting the aid get in,’ he said. ‘The humanitarian response is entirely within Israel’s hands, and they’ve been blocking, slowing, starting and stopping, to the point where I just could no longer stand silent.’

    And like King, Sen. Jean Shaheen, the top ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, changed course and voted in favor of blocking arms sales out of concern that food aid was not making its way to Palestinians.

    ‘I think it’s important to send the message to Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his government that things need to change,’ the New Hampshire Democrat said in an interview with PBS Newshour.

    But Republicans charged that it was not Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fault that food aid was not making its way into Gaza, and instead believed that it was Hamas stealing the food.

    Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said that Israel wants to make sure that the food aid actually makes it to civilians in Hamas.

    ‘Israel and the US have cut out, cut off most of Hamas’ cash flow,’ Kennedy said. ‘And a lot of their cash flows depends on stealing the food and selling it, sometimes to their own people, absorbing the prices.’

    And not every Senate Democrat is on the same page when it comes to their position on the Jewish State.

    Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., has routinely slammed Democrats for criticizing Israel, and believed that his party was moving further away from his position.

    ‘What I really fundamentally believe, there’s been a wholesale shift, even within my party, to blame Israel for the situations and the circumstances overall,’ Fetterman told Fox News Digital. ‘And I don’t really understand. It’s like we’ve seen the same pictures and, of course, what’s happened in Gaza is devastating.’

    ‘But so, for me, I blame Hamas and Iran,’ he continued. ‘And I don’t know why there’s not like a collective global outrage.’

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    NEW YORK — A top official at the Federal Reserve said Saturday that this month’s stunning, weaker-than-expected report on the U.S. job market is strengthening her belief that interest rates should be lower.

    Michelle Bowman was one of two Fed officials who voted a week and a half ago in favor of cutting interest rates. Such a move could help boost the economy by making it cheaper for people to borrow money to buy a house or a car, but it could also threaten to push inflation higher.

    Bowman and a fellow dissenter lost out after nine other Fed officials voted to keep interest rates steady, as the Fed has been doing all year. The Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, has been adamant that he wants to wait for more data about how President Donald Trump’s tariffs are affecting inflation before the Fed makes its next move.

    At a speech during a bankers’ conference in Colorado on Saturday, Bowman said that “the latest labor market data reinforce my view” that the Fed should cut interest rates three times this year. The Fed has only three meetings left on the schedule in 2025.

    The jobs report that arrived last week, only a couple of days after the Fed voted on interest rates, showed that employers hired far fewer workers last month than economists expected. It also said that hiring in prior months was much lower than initially thought.

    On inflation, meanwhile, Bowman said she is getting more confident that Trump’s tariffs “will not present a persistent shock to inflation” and sees it moving closer to the Fed’s 2% target. Inflation has come down substantially since hitting a peak above 9% after the pandemic, but it has been stubbornly remaining above 2%.

    The Fed’s job is to keep the job market strong, while keeping a lid on inflation. Its challenge is that it has one main tool to affect both those areas, and helping one by moving interest rates up or down often means hurting the other.

    A fear is that Trump’s tariffs could box in the Federal Reserve by sticking the economy in a worst-case scenario called “stagflation,” where the economy stagnates but inflation is high. The Fed has no good tool to fix that, and it would likely have to prioritize either the job market or inflation before helping the other.

    On Wall Street, expectations are that the Fed will have to cut interest rates at its next meeting in September after the U.S. jobs report came in so much below economists’ expectations.

    Trump has been calling angrily for lower interest rates, often personally insulting Powell while doing so. He has the opportunity to add another person to the Fed’s board of governors after an appointee of former President Joe Biden stepped down recently.

    This post appeared first on NBC NEWS