Chinese Journalist Who Exposed CCP’s Labor Camp Abuses Still In Custody in Beijing
Chinese Journalist Who Exposed CCP’s Labor Camp Abuses Still In Custody in Beijing
(emphasis ours),
A Chinese journalist whose work exposed human rights abuses committed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been detained in Beijing for more than 100 days.
Du Bin, 54, was formally arrested in November last year, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal. His case has been transferred to the procuratorate for examination and prosecution as of late January, the sources told The Epoch Times.
Du has been held at Shunyi Detention Center in Beijing since October, when he was taken by police from his residence, according to his sister and rights groups.
Authorities told his sister at the time that Du was detained under suspension for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” The vaguely worded charge is often used by the regime to target 
.
Authorities are now pursuing a new charge that may “involve state leaders” after failing to find sufficient evidence to support the initial charge, according to people familiar with the matter.
Details about Du’s case, including what led to his arrest, remain unclear, with authorities citing “state secrecy” as the reason for refusing to provide information to his lawyer.
As a photographer and writer focused on uncovering the history that Beijing seeks to conceal, Du has been targeted by authorities for more than a decade, but this was the first time he had been formally arrested.
Du was taken into custody for 37 days in 2013. His friends told Amnesty International at the time that Du’s detention might have been linked to a documentary exposing the abuses women faced at Masanjia Labor Camp.
Located in the northern Chinese city of Shenyang, the detention facility is 
for its horrific treatment of female detainees, especially those who refuse to renounce their faith in Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa.
The spiritual discipline—featuring meditative exercises and moral teachings centered on truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance—has faced brutal 
an estimated 70 million to 100 million practitioners in China by the late 1990s.
In two books released in Hong Kong in 2014, Du detailed former inmates’ accounts of torture by Masanjia guards, including shocking female Falun Gong practitioners’ genitalia with electric batons and stripping practitioners naked and locking them up in the cells of male prisoners.
Months after his release in 2013, Du was asked in an interview why he chose to write about Falun Gong, one that he himself acknowledged as the most sensitive topic in China.
“We are all human,” he told The Epoch Times in December 2014. “Using such inhuman methods against others is something I can never accept.”
In December 2020, days before his historical book “Red Terror: Lenin’s Communist Experiment” was set to be published in Taiwan, Du was 
by Beijing police, again for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” He was released after 37 days in detention.
‘Growing Intolerance’
Independent journalists and writers such as Du have endured mounting pressure in recent years as the CCP deepens its grip on society.
In 2025, Beijing once again led the world in the number of reporters imprisoned, the Committee to Protect Journalists stated in its latest annual 
, released last month. It marked the third consecutive year that the regime was given the title of “the world’s worst jailer of journalists.”
On Feb. 9, a Hong Kong court handed down a 
prison term to Jimmy Lai, founder of a now-shuttered newspaper known for its critical coverage of the CCP, under a Beijing-imposed “national security” law. The court also gave heavy sentences to six former Apple Daily employees on national security charges.
In mainland China, authorities in Sichuan Province recently detained two investigative journalists who wrote about corruption by local Party officials, according to Reporters Without Borders.
International human rights groups have denounced the harassment campaign against Du and called for his immediate release.
“The international community must step up pressure on Beijing to secure Du’s release, along with that of all other journalists and press freedom defenders detained in China,” Antoine Bernard, director for advocacy and assistance at Reporters Without Borders, said in a December 2025 statement.
Human Rights Watch, in a statement following Du’s arrest, said the charge against Du highlighted “the growing intolerance for dissent” under Xi Jinping, the Party’s top leader.
Du is also a photographer who once contributed to international media outlets, including The New York Times. But he was forced to stop after authorities denied him a work permit over his books.
His work includes “Tiananmen Massacre,” which compiles firsthand accounts of the night of June 3–4, 1989, when CCP leaders 
troops and tanks to suppress unarmed pro-democracy students calling for political reform. That event remains one of the most heavily censored topics in China today.
In an interview with The Epoch Times after his second release, Du appeared calm and undeterred.
“I’m not pessimistic, nor am I afraid,” he said in January 2021, “because my work is based on actual events—all I’ve done is document them.”
Xin Ling and Gu Xiaohua contributed to this report.
Wed, 02/18/2026 - 23:25
The Epoch Times
Chinese Journalist Who Exposed CCP’s Labor Camp Abuses Still in Custody in Beijing
Independent journalists and writers such as Du Bin have endured mounting pressure in recent years as the CCP deepens its control over society.
Du Bin, 54, was formally arrested in November last year, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal. His case has been transferred to the procuratorate for examination and prosecution as of late January, the sources told The Epoch Times.
Du has been held at Shunyi Detention Center in Beijing since October, when he was taken by police from his residence, according to his sister and rights groups.
Authorities told his sister at the time that Du was detained under suspension for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” The vaguely worded charge is often used by the regime to target The Epoch Times
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In December 2020, days before his historical book “Red Terror: Lenin’s Communist Experiment” was set to be published in Taiwan, Du was The Epoch Times
Chinese Independent Author and Award-Winning Photojournalist Detained
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Seven of the 50 arrested Chinese journalists are imprisoned in Hong Kong, according to data gathered by Committee to Protect Journalists.
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The sentence against Lai immediately drew international criticism.
Du is also a photographer who once contributed to international media outlets, including The New York Times. But he was forced to stop after authorities denied him a work permit over his books.
His work includes “Tiananmen Massacre,” which compiles firsthand accounts of the night of June 3–4, 1989, when CCP leaders The Epoch Times
Activists Mourn Tiananmen Massacre Victims, Remind World of CCP’s ‘Brutal’ Legacy
Human rights defenders keep memories alive of 1989 Tiananmen massacre, in defiance of Chinese regime’s censorship.
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge
Zero Hedge
Chinese Journalist Who Exposed CCP’s Labor Camp Abuses Still In Custody in Beijing | ZeroHedge
ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
Under the old system, foreign drivers holding only work permits could obtain commercial trucking licenses because Employment Authorization Documents don't indicate prior traffic violations, accidents, or license suspensions in other countries. States had no way to know whether an applicant had a clean record or a history of reckless driving before allowing them to operate an 80,000-pound vehicle.
The new rule formally codifies Duffy's emergency action from last September that ended the issuance of non-domiciled commercial driver's licenses to truckers with unverified driving histories. EADs will no longer be accepted as proof of eligibility. Applicants must instead present an unexpired foreign passport along with the appropriate Form I-94, which tracks a noncitizen's entry to and exit from the United States.
“Under the provisions, only foreign nationals holding temporary work visas, such as H‑2B, H‑1B, or temporary investor visas from treaty countries, known as E‑2 visas, may be eligible,”
Water rights exceed water supply across much of the western United States. With many watersheds failing to deliver enough water for local needs, the suit is being watched by attorneys, state water managers, and federal agencies. It could potentially set a precedent in revising how states across the West regulate access to water.
The Nevada case, filed by the Walker River Paiute Tribe and Mineral County, may also present an opportunity for a win-win solution, in which nonprofits and government entities purchase private water rights from willing upstream sellers and dedicate them to downstream public benefit.
Without public-private intervention and the changes in state water law that the suit seeks, geologists and environmental experts agree the future is bleak for Walker Lake, a 13-mile long terminal lake about 75 miles southeast of Reno near the California state line in rural, sparsely populated Mineral County.
The lake is completely dependent on diminishing Sierra Nevada snowmelt runoff into the Walker River—runoff that, for decades now, has been almost entirely diverted for irrigation by upstream farmers and ranchers.
As a result, a desert oasis that once generated more than half of Mineral County’s economic activity through recreational pursuits such as fishing, migratory bird-watching, boating, and camping is now a lifeless “sludge pond,” while the town of Walker Lake faces an accelerating prospect of extinction.
“The last fish was caught in 2013 or 2015, I believe. When the fish died, the fishing died; boating, recreation, that all just disappeared,” Mineral County Commissioner Tony Ruse said.
“There were restaurants here. There were hotels here. There were businesses here. Now? All gone, just 300 residents struggling.”
A Mineral County native, Ruse returned in 2020 after working 34 years as a Switzerland-trained chef in Europe and Asia, including 20 years in South Korea, to open The Big Horn Crossing, a restaurant and convenience store in a shuttered bait shop. It’s now Walker Lake’s only remaining retail business.
“It was dead. There was nothing,” he told The Epoch Times. “We should be selling bait here. We should be selling fishing supplies. There should be boats parked in our driveway right now.”
(Top) Walker Lake has receded well beyond the sign on U.S. Route 95, in Mineral County, Nev., in January 2026. Decades ago, anglers could shorecast for fish that can no longer survive in the shrinking lake. (Bottom) Nevada’s Walker Lake, a 13-mile-long lake about 75 miles southeast of Reno near the California state line in rural Mineral County, was once more than 30 miles long and 160 feet higher than it is now, in Mineral County, Nev., in January 2026. John Haughey/The Epoch Times
But with mountain runoff unreliable for decades now, when upstream users divert their share, little to no water makes it to Walker Lake, leaving once-bustling waterfront businesses marooned as hulking shells far from a distant, receding shore.
The case, United States and Walker River Paiute Tribe v. Walker River Irrigation District, is not a new case, but ongoing litigation arising from a lawsuit filed in 1924.
It’s part of a flood of litigation stemming from Walker River allocations, going back to 1902, when rancher Henry Miller sued Thomas Rickey over water rights on the river.
A 1936 Walker River Decree 
The Supreme Court of Nevada building in Carson City, Nev., in this file photo. In 2020, the court determined that all Nevada waters will now be allocated under the public trust doctrine. Steven Frame/Shutterstock
The court directed Mineral County to recommend ways to restore the lake without reallocating water rights, and to work with the Walker Basin Conservancy, a nonprofit created in 2014 with federal funding initially secured by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Walker Basin Restoration Program.
In 2021, Mineral County amended its 2015 complaint to intervene in the decades’-long parallel suit by the Walker River Paiute Tribe seeking to boost Walker River flows into a reservation reservoir and secure water rights for 167,460 acres added to the reservation since 1936.
The county’s complaint includes 24 “actions … necessary to restore and maintain Walker Lake’s public trust values.”
After years of procedural delays, including a requirement to individually serve more than 1,000 watershed landowners across the country, the case is set to proceed into discovery. A potential trial looms.
But an alternate “win-win” solution orchestrated by the Walker Basin Conservancy is gaining traction and could, perhaps, mitigate the need for a court-ordered resolution.
‘The Only Solution’
Since its creation, the conservancy has restored public access to 33 miles along the Walker River and purchased more than 13,700 acres of water rights, enough to restore about 60 percent of the river inflow biologists maintain is needed to restore the lake’s fishery.
Conservancy CEO Peter Stanton and Water Program Director Carlie Henneman did not return emails and repeated phone requests for comment about the program from The Epoch Times. Nor did the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Walker River Irrigation District attorney Gordon DePaoli, or Walker Basin Working Group’s Oregon-based legal advisers, Jamie Saul of the Wild & Scenic Law Center and Kevin Cassidy of Lewis & Clark Law School’s Earthrise Law Center.
Several attorneys representing different parties would only speak off-the-record, underscoring the contentious complexities of the case.
A sign of the Walker River Paiute Tribe in Shurz, Nev., on Oct. 16, 2024. Walker Lake retains water flowing east 100 miles from California’s Bridgeport and Topaz reservoirs through Nevada’s Smith and Mason valleys and the Walker River Paiute Tribe's reservation. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
Roderick E. Walston, an attorney with Best Best & Krieger in Walnut Creek, Calif., told The Epoch Times his clients above the Bridgeport Reservoir in California are apprehensive about Mineral County’s suit, which he said essentially demands the federal court to reallocate existing water rights under the public trust doctrine.
“Our response is basically that the Nevada Supreme Court resolved that issue four years ago,” he said.
Walston was a California deputy attorney general in 1983 and argued the Mono Lake case before the California Supreme Court. In that case, the state’s public trust doctrine was used to thwart Los Angeles from purchasing Mono Lake water rights that would have devastated the lake’s ecology and Sierra Nevada economies.
“So I argued both the case in California Supreme Court 40-something years ago and then also argued the case in the Nevada Supreme Court about four years ago,” he said.
Walston said the case could have “great impact” on water disputes in states that uphold the prior allocation doctrine. “This is an absolutely large case,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mineral County District Attorney Ryan McCormick, who assumed his post seven weeks ago, told The Epoch Times he’s playing catch-up in reading filings “from decades and decades of litigation.”
A sign is pictured at Walker Lake in Hawthorne, Nev., on Oct. 16, 2024. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Walker Lake’s water levels have declined more than 160 feet since 1882. Nearly 30 miles long in 1850, the lake is only 12 miles long today. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
“In a perfect world, if we get some specific performance and find a way to divert water back into the lake and have the levels rising again, that would be absolutely ideal,” he said, adding he isn’t privy to the reasoning behind all of the 24 actions assembled by the Walker Lake Working Group.
It’s a complicated case in a long-litigated watershed but the best resolution is simple, McCormick said. “With the best interests of Mineral County, Hawthorne, and Walker Lake in mind here, we would like the lake to be receiving fresh water again. It would be nice to see some economic development right now, right?”
But Walston said odds are slim the court will cast aside the state’s Supreme Court determination that existing water rights cannot be reallocated.
Working with the conservancy and other groups to purchase water rights from willing landowners at $3,000 to $4,000 per acre foot—an acre of one-foot deep water—is a win-win for all involved, he said.
“It’s the only solution, really. The Nevada Supreme Court has said you can’t just take water rights that have been adjudicated and take that water and put it into Walker Lake,” Walston said.
“But you can go to various water users and negotiate with them and buy their water rights. In that case, then you could reallocate.”
The Today Show sports presenter appeared to slur and stumble her way through her segment amid snowstorm, rambling incoherently before dramatically throwing herself to the ground to make snow angels.
Social media has lit up with speculation after popular Channel 9 sports and rugby league host Danika Mason appeared on morning television struggling to get her words out while covering the Winter Olympics in Italy.
📌 READ MORE: 
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Colbert could have aired his interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, if the late-night TV show he hosts complied with federal equal time rules by airing interviews with other Democrats vying for the seat.
“There was no censorship here at all,” Carr told reporters.
“Every single broadcaster in this country has an obligation to be responsible for the programming that they choose to air, and they’re responsible whether it complies with FCC rules or not, and it doesn’t, and those individual broadcasters are also going to have a potential liability.”
Talarico has alleged in posts on his X account that the FCC and the Trump administration had tried to censor the interview and barred him from appearing on Colbert’s program, although the interview was published online.
“The reason the Trump administration and their billionaire friends are trying to silence me and this movement is because they’re worried that we are going to flip Texas in November,” he said in a video, which was posted on X.
Aside from Talarico’s allegations of censorship, Colbert, who is set to leave “The Late Show” in May, also criticized CBS and the Trump administration during his program.
“Then I was told, in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on,” the “The Late Show” host said on Tuesday, adding that “because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”
The interview with Talarico was uploaded to Colbert’s YouTube channel on Tuesday evening.
In statements to media outlets in response to Colbert’s claims, CBS denied that “The Late Show” was barred by the network from airing the Talarico interview and instead said that its lawyers advised the company that the broadcast could trigger the equal time rule.
“The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled,” CBS said in the statement.
It noted that the interview was published on the show’s YouTube channel instead.
The issue came just hours before early voting opened Tuesday in Texas’s primary elections, which feature hotly contested Senate nomination races in both parties.
Talarico’s main opponent in the primary is Crockett (D-Texas) and both have built national profiles through viral social media clips.
On the Republican side, four-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn is facing the political fight of his career against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas).
In a notice last month, the FCC said that it is changing the rules exempting certain late-night and daytime talk shows from being mandated to provide equal airtime to opposing candidates.
“Importantly, the FCC has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late night or daytime television talk show program on air presently would qualify for the bona fide news exemption,” the FCC said on Jan. 21.
“Moreover, a program that is motivated by partisan purposes, for example, would not be entitled to an exemption under longstanding FCC precedent.”
The Epoch Times contacted the FCC for comment Wednesday.
Four rising humanoid robot startups - Unitree Robotics, Galbot, Noetix, and MagicLab - demonstrated their robots on state TV. In one show, a dozen Unitree humanoids performed sophisticated fight scenes.
China's humanoid robot industry is preparing for two major initial public offerings this year: AgiBot and Unitree.
As we've previously reported, these bots are beginning to push beyond scripted video stunts - such as shown in the video above - into real-world applications. The factory floors are now being invaded, then these bots will be battlefield-ready.
Related research and roadmap of what's ahead:
Yet, as we document in a new report for the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, there are signs that religion is enjoying more than a nascent revival. Data emerging from the 2020s suggest that we are witnessing a complex spiritual restructuring that intersects with economic mobility, demographic resilience, and a profound intellectual realignment.
For the first time in decades, Pew Research notes, in the U.S. at least, Christianity has 
There are ways to lower your monthly mortgage by using recasting or refinancing. Each option works differently, so it’s important to understand how they compare.
Recasting a Mortgage
Mortgage recasting is when you make a lump-sum payment to your principal balance. Once done, your lender then calculates a new, lower monthly payment. Your interest rate stays the same.
For example, suppose you owe $250,000 on your mortgage and receive a $50,000 inheritance. If you use all of it to recast your mortgage, your lender will recalculate your monthly payments based on a $250,000 balance, lowering your monthly payment.
Refinancing a Mortgage
With refinancing a mortgage, you take out a new home loan and use it to pay off the outstanding balance of your existing mortgage. This is often done to secure a lower rate. Typically, the new rate results in a lower monthly payment and less overall cost.
Refinancing doesn’t require a lump sum payment toward the principal.
Costs of Recasting and Refinancing a Mortgage
According to Experian, both recasting and refinancing come with costs. For example, you will be charged an administrative fee for a mortgage recast. This typically runs a few hundred dollars, depending on the lender.
Mortgage refinancing has a different cost structure. Closing costs can total two to five percent of the loan amount.
Can All Types of Mortgages Be Recast or Refinanced?
Conventional loans can be recast, but according to PNC Insights, not all mortgage types are eligible. Government-backed loans, including those from the Federal Housing Administration, Veterans Affairs, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are not eligible for recast.
Conventional and government-backed mortgages are eligible for refinancing.
When Do Borrowers Refinance or Recast a Mortgage?
Refinancing, technically, gives you a new mortgage with new interest and terms. For example, if you have a 30-year mortgage, you can refinance to a 15-year mortgage or vice versa.
Most borrowers refinance to obtain a better interest rate or switch from an adjustable-rate to a fixed mortgage. They also may use it to switch equity to cash.
A mortgage recast uses cash to pay down some of the loan’s principal. It is often used when a borrower receives a large sum of money, such as a bonus or an inheritance.
According to PNC Insights, it can be used when a borrower purchases a house before selling the current one. When the previous home sells, the proceeds can be used to recast the new home’s mortgage.
However, the lender may require two months of on-time payments before authorizing a recast.
Advantages of a Mortgage Recast
There are several benefits of a mortgage recast. By reducing your principal, you lower your monthly payment without extending your loan term.
A recast mortgage is not a new loan. So, you will not need a credit check or home appraisal to apply.
If you’re already locked into a low interest rate, it’s a way to keep your current rate while lowering your monthly payment.
There usually are lower administrative fees associated with a recast mortgage. According to Alcova Mortgage, they typically fall between $150 and $500.
According to SoFi Learn, if you make a lump-sum payment to bring your loan down to 80 percent of the home’s value, you can request to stop paying the private mortgage insurance or have it automatically dropped when the value reaches 78 percent.
Disadvantages of a Mortgage Recast
According to Rocket Mortgage, there are cons to a mortgage recast. One disadvantage is that your lender may not allow a recast. You are also limited to a conventional loan, because government-backed loans don’t allow a mortgage recast.
The loan-repayment term is not shortened, either. Your payment goes down, but if you have a 30-year loan, you can’t change it to a 15-year or other-year loan.
Losing access to equity is a problem. Your contributed cash will be tied up in your home equity. This means you’ll need to refinance or apply for a home equity loan or home equity line of credit if you need access to your home’s equity.
Refinancing Mortgage Advantages
You have options when refinancing. The loan conditions can be changed. For example, you can shorten or lengthen your term, take a lower interest rate or refinance to a new loan.
Almost any loan qualifies for a refinance. It may be your only option if you want a lower payment and you have a government-backed loan.
You also have the option to choose a new lender if you’re not satisfied with the current one.
Refinancing Mortgage Disadvantages
Refinancing is a new loan and usually has more costs than a recast. Refinanced loans include origination fees, appraisal fees, and other closing costs.
The clock turns back with a refinanced loan. This means if you’re 15 years into a 30-year loan, if you finance for another 30-year loan, it starts over. You lost the 15 years you already paid for.
With refinancing, since it’s technically a new loan, you pay more in interest at the beginning of your loan. You don’t start paying on the principal until later in the term. This means you could end up paying more interest throughout the life of the loan.
Mortgage Recasting and Refinancing
A mortgage recast lowers your monthly payments and saves you money on long-term interest. But you tie up equity.
However, not everyone qualifies for a recast. If you have a government-backed loan, for example, you’ll need to refinance.
The Epoch Times copyright © 2026. The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors. They are meant for general informational purposes only and should not be construed or interpreted as a recommendation or solicitation. The Epoch Times does not provide investment, tax, legal, financial planning, estate planning, or any other personal finance advice. The Epoch Times and ZeroHedge hold no liability for the accuracy or timeliness of the information provided.
After a flood of more than 10.8 million illegal immigrants (official figure) entered the United States under Biden, net immigration - both legal and illegal - has gone from roughly one million people per year in the 2010s to around 500,000 in 2025, with a further drop to just 200,000 projected by Goldman for 2026. This has sharply reduced labor-force growth and lowered the economy's "breakeven" pace of job creation, the bank opines.
Here's Goldman vs. Brookings vs. the Congressional Budget Office on net immigration:
Now, the US will only need around 50,000 new jobs per month by the end of this year to keep the unemployment rate from rising, down from roughly 70,000 today.
At the same time, Goldman says labor demand still looks "shaky" because job growth is narrow and job openings are trending lower - with the main downside risk being a faster, more disruptive AI-driven adjustment that could tamp down hiring or raise job losses beyond current estimates.
Elevated deportations, tighter visa / green-card policies, a pause in immigrant visa processing that affects dozens of countries, and the loss of Temporary Protected Status for some groups, Goldman suggests there is additional downside risk to the workforce.
A shakier demand picture
Of course, new math on the labor supply doesn't mean the labor market is strong (duh)... In fact, Goldman describes demand as “shaky,” writing that job growth has become increasingly narrow - dominated by healthcare - and that job openings have continued to fall. Openings are now around seven million, below pre-pandemic levels and still declining.
Because fewer new workers are entering the economy, hiring no longer needs to run as hot to prevent unemployment from drifting higher. “A small pickup is all that should be needed to sustain job growth at the breakeven pace,” according to the report, arguing that weaker-looking payroll numbers may increasingly mask a labor market that is merely treading water rather than deteriorating.
Official data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show a similar trend, with job openings drifting toward the mid-six-million range late last year. A continued slide in openings, Goldman warns, would increase the risk that unemployment rises more meaningfully, even with slower labor-force growth.
There is also a risk that tighter immigration enforcement is pushing more workers into informal or off-the-books employment. If so, official payroll data could understate the true level of labor-market activity, complicating the Federal Reserve’s task of gauging economic momentum.
AI looms as the wildcard
Goldman sees artificial intelligence (AI) as the largest downside risk to the labor outlook - not because it has already triggered mass layoffs, but because it may restrain hiring at the margin. So far, the firm estimates that AI-related substitution has shaved only 5,000 to 10,000 jobs from monthly growth in the most exposed industries. But a faster or more disruptive deployment could weigh more heavily on demand.
...the main reason that we worry about downside risk to our baseline forecast that the labor market will stabilize going forward is the possibility of a faster and more disruptive deployment of artificial intelligence (AI). While plenty of recent anecdotes point to a potentially faster rate of adoption and corresponding job losses, it is hard to know how these will translate to macroeconomic outcomes. -Goldman
The bank shows that job growth has slowed and turned slightly negative in several subindustries where AI is most ready to deploy, while company-level anecdotes indicate that AI is already reducing the need for workers. The impact, while visible, remains 'moderate' so far.
For now, the bank expects the unemployment rate to drift only modestly higher, toward 4.5%, while Goldman chief economist Jan Hatzius said in a 
In the face of increased pressure from U.S. sanctions, Iran and Russia have boosted their bilateral relations to strategic cooperation and Russian companies help develop oilfields in Iran.
“Within the framework of four contracts and in the field of development of oil and gas fields, we are jointly implementing the development of seven oil fields with Russian companies, and fortunately some of these projects have led to production, which is considered a valuable achievement,” Paknejad said on Wednesday, as 
One question is whether this is connected to the Pentagon's Iran-related build-up a little further to the east. WSJ notes on this, "The officials said the withdrawal was unrelated to the current U.S. deployment of naval and air forces in the Middle East for potential strikes against Iran if talks about that country’s nuclear program fail."
Another issue is the Kurds. The US for a decade trained and armed the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), but now is cutting them lose. Kurdish leaders have warned of attacks by hardline Sunni militants under the new Damascus government.
"The Trump administration has decided that a U.S. military presence in Syria is no longer necessary, two U.S. officials said, because of the near-total disbandment of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the main U.S. partner in countering Islamic State in Syria for the past decade," WSJ continues.
And yet US officials previously admitted to 
Sibblies reimbursed himself a total of $35,519 from 2021 to 2024 using cash meant for a school club, without approval or supervision from anyone besides his own secretary, according to an audit obtained by 
Larry Aronstein, the district’s former interim superintendent, told Newsday that Sibblies was paying himself back for expenses he had laid out on behalf of the school. Sibblies told Newsday the steak and lobster meal was “school-related” but declined to answer other questions.
The school board appears unsatisfied with that explanation. They appointed legal counsel in November 2025 to investigate the audit’s findings, according to Newsday.
“We know what is personal and what is for the sake of students,” board trustee Jarod Morris told Newsday. “A steak and lobster dinner in Delaware is personal.”
Separately, auditors flagged other questionable expenses at the Wyandanch Free Union School District, including a jet ski rental in Bermuda. The school district was also missing records showing how much was spent on field trips and donated to clubs.
The audit was completed in early 2025 and made public last month.
Background: Sibblies likely could have afforded his luxury meal himself. He made $192,479 in 2024, according to payroll 
The UK-based fund sent a letter to Toto's board asking for more disclosure over its advanced ceramics segment, which produces electrostatic chucks used in NAND manufacturing - specifically for a process called cryogenic etching. Toto's chuck technology uses ceramics designed to remain stable at very low temperatures, which can help firmly secure silicon wafers during chip production.
According to Palliser, Toto is "the most undervalued and overlooked AI memory beneficiary," and says that the Japanese company has a five-year competitive "moat" before other companies can catch up, adding that the advanced ceramics segment could deliver 30% or more revenue growth over the next few years, "driven by Nand upgrade cycle and stable replacement demand."
Palliser also says that Toto is doing a terrible job of explaining the importance of electrostatic chucks to shareholders, and too little of the company's planned investment was devoted to growing the highly profitable segment.
The activist investor began its involvement with Toto roughly six months ago and is a top-20 shareholder in the business, according to the Financial Times. The fund's other investments include holdings in property company Tokyo Tatemono, Keisei Electric Railway, which runs trains in Tokyo, and Japan Post Holdings.
Palliser thinks Toto shares could rise over 55% if it expands its advanced ceramics business, sold cross-shareholdings, and used its $496 million (¥76bn) in net cash better.
Toto is best known for its heated toilet seats and "Washlet" bidet features, however Palliser says they've "quietly evolved from a traditional domestic sanitary ware champion into a rising powerhouse in advanced ceramics for semiconductor manufacturing."
Shares in the company have already risen over 60% in the past year.
In late January, Goldman 
Yeaw went on to say President Trump was considering testing a nuclear weapon. The Assistant Secretary asserted the US was confident China had conducted nuclear weapons tests in recent years. Yeaw argued that the US was at an "intolerable disadvantage" if it was maintaining a nuclear test ban while other countries were testing weapons [hint, hint: 
GLP-1 starter dose NBRx trends (up to 2/6/2026)
GLP-1 starter dose NBRx market share (up to 2/6/2026)
Obesity GLP-1 all doses Total Prescriptions (TRx, up to 2/6/2026)
Weston concluded:
NBRx trends for Wegovy continue to look strong with an encouraging start to the Wegovy pill launch. The uptick in NBRx at the start of the year for Wegovy pen is also going in the right direction. Importantly, the high proportion of Wegovy NBRx pill to TRx and high proportion of Wegovy pill starter dose NBRx to total NBRx suggest that there is very little cannibalisation of Wegovy pen volumes through the pill launch. Further focus points later in the year will be Medicare coverage from July, high dose Wegovy (7.2mg) launch and competitive dynamics from LLY's orforglipron launch (UBSe April).
The latest GLP-1 headline came from Europe earlier on Tuesday, when the European Commission cleared Novo to use a higher 7.2 mg maintenance dose of Wegovy. This approval reinforces that even greater demand for semaglutide is inbound.
In markets, Novo shares in Copenhagen have been pummeled by market share losses to rival GLP-1 drugs, a public feud with Hims & Hers over copycat GLP-1 offerings, and a recently 
Meanwhile, Goldman analyst Faris Mourad previously told clients that "obesity drug narrative sentiment is on the rise" and "
School officials quickly notified Heidorn on Jan. 22 about growing social media chatter.
After meeting with HR staff that same day, he resigned briefly, then rescinded his decision hours later.
He was set to return on Monday pending an investigation. The investigation never got that chance.
"This process has been professionally and personally devastating and surreal," former West Chicago teacher James Heidorn
For much of its existence, the institution maintained a low public profile.
Only after the 2008 global financial crisis did the Fed begin communicating more openly, introducing post-meeting press conferences and allowing monetary policymakers to engage more frequently with the media.
Greater transparency, however, has brought greater scrutiny.
Public sentiment toward the Fed and its leadership has fluctuated over the years. Today, YouGov polling suggests the central bank is viewed favorably by 44 percent of Americans and unfavorably by 18 percent.
If the Fed pursues a series of reforms, it will have “another great 100 years,” said Kevin Warsh, who was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as the institution’s next chair.
Comparable to past central banks, Warsh said, the current Federal Reserve System is beginning to lose the consent of the governed.
“You can think about the Jacksonians of prior times say that the central bank seems like they’re trying to focus and they’re all preoccupied with those special interests on the East Coast, and they’ve lost track of what’s happening to us in the center of the country,” Warsh said in a July 2025 interview with the Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson.
“It’s a version of what worries me today.”
What happened in the past, and why is it relevant to today’s central bank?
The First Bank of the United States
In the aftermath of the American Revolution, the United States faced a series of immense economic disruptions, forcing the nation’s architects to rebuild the economy.
The objective was to lower inflation, restore the value of the nation’s currency, repay war debt, and revive the economy.
Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the Treasury under the new Constitution, proposed establishing a national bank modeled on the Bank of England. Hamilton stated that a U.S. version would perform various duties, including issuing paper money, serving as the government’s fiscal agent, and protecting public funds.
Not everyone shared Hamilton’s ebullience over a central bank.
Thomas Jefferson, for example, feared that such an institution would not serve the nation’s best interests. Additionally, Jefferson and other critics argued that the Constitution did not grant the government the authority to create these entities.
Nevertheless, Congress enacted legislation to establish the Bank of the United States. President George Washington then signed the bill in February 1791.
Two of America's founding fathers: Thomas Jefferson (L) and Alexander Hamilton. The White House
While bank officials did not conduct monetary policy as modern central banks do, they did influence the supply of money and credit, as well as interest rates.
The entity managed the money supply by controlling when to redeem or retain state‑bank notes. If it sought to tighten credit, it would require payment in gold or silver, thereby draining state banks’ reserves and limiting their ability to issue new notes. If it wanted to expand credit, it simply held on to those notes, boosting state‑bank reserves and enabling them to lend more.
By 1811, the national bank’s charter expired.
While there had been discussions of allowing it to continue maintaining operations, Congress—both chambers—voted against renewing its mandate by a single vote.
Its closure came shortly before the War of 1812, which fueled inflation and weakened the currency.
Second Bank of the United States
Lawmakers believed another central bank was critical at a time of fiscal, inflationary, and trade pressures.
Congress used a similar 20-year model to produce the Second Bank of the United States, headed by Nicholas Biddle. The second incarnation had a federal charter, was privately owned, and was tasked with regulating state banks (with gold and silver for note redemption).
President James Madison, who opposed the first central bank on constitutional grounds, supported the new institution out of financial necessity.
Its creation stabilized credit and brought down inflation. However, by the 1830s, the bank faced strong opposition, particularly from President Andrew Jackson.
Labeled the Bank War, Jackson engaged in a years-long initiative to dissolve the central bank.
Jackson claimed the national bank was a tool for the wealthy eastern elite and a threat to self-government.
“The Jacksonians described themselves as conscious hard-money men who supported the rigid discipline of the gold standard, yet they opposed the newly powerful national Bank because it restrained the expansion of credit and, thus, thwarted robust economic expansion,” author William Greider wrote in “Secrets of the Temple.”
In 1832, Jackson vetoed legislation to recharter the bank four years early, delivering a fiery message that historians say was one of the most important vetoes in the nation’s history.
“It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government,” Jackson wrote.
“There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me, there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.”
The charter expired in 1836, leading to the panic of 1837.
An economic crisis unfolded, leading to bank failures, business bankruptcies, rising unemployment, and contracting credit. While the collapse of the central bank is often considered a leading cause, the British also urged London banks to reduce credit to American merchants, causing a sharp drop in global trade.
As the smoke cleared and dust settled, it was not until the 1840s that the United States embarked on a historic economic recovery, now known as the Free Banking Era.
Banking was decentralized, and finance was largely unregulated. Despite an erratic financial system, the U.S. economy grew rapidly: agricultural production accelerated, railroads were built, and the country expanded westward. Additionally, deflation was paramount throughout most of the economic expansion.
The Federal Reserve System
The panic of 1907 led to the creation of the Federal Reserve System.
Following years of heavy borrowing, speculative commodities investments (mainly copper), and enormous stock market gains, a financial crisis was brewing. The event nearly brought down the U.S. banking system.
J.P. Morgan, a financier, intervened and emulated the actions of modern central banks. He met with the nation’s top bankers, facilitated emergency loans to financial institutions, and backed stockbrokers. The damage had been done as the United States fell into a year-long recession, marked by high unemployment and widespread bank failures.
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors seal in Washington on Oct. 29, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times
Washington realized that it could not rely on private bailouts to prevent sharp downturns.
Sen. Nelson Aldrich (R-R.I.) is widely regarded as one of the chief architects of the modern Federal Reserve System.
In 1910, Aldrich hosted the famous Jekyll Island meetings, a gathering of U.S. officials and bankers, to discuss the blueprint of a new central bank.
While the initial draft laid the foundation for the institution, the official Federal Reserve Act was drafted by President Woodrow Wilson, Rep. Carter Glass (D-Va.), and H. Parker Willis, an economist on the House Banking Committee.
The new system was a public-private hybrid, with the federal government firmly in charge, and bankers running the regional reserve banks.
“It was Wilson’s great compromise,” wrote Greider, “creating a hybrid institution that mixed private and public control, an approach without precedent at the time.”
The legislation triggered a contentious political debate over the extent of its independence from the Treasury and the degree of authority delegated to policymakers over currency issuance.
Days before Christmas, the bill cleared both chambers and was signed into law by Wilson on Dec. 23.
“Wilson’s conviction that he had struck the right moderate balance seemed confirmed, however, by the reactions to his legislation,” Greider noted.
“It was attacked by both extremes—the ‘radicals’ from the Populist states and the bankers in Wall Street and elsewhere.”
Since its inception in 1913, the modern Federal Reserve has undergone numerous changes and has gained greater power.
The New Deal, for instance, allowed the Fed to become the lender of last resort as Washington learned the central bank could not prevent bank failures.
In 1951, the 
In a 
Wexner would go on to open doors for Epstein - who managed "many aspects of his financial life."
By 1995, Epstein was a director of the Wexner Foundation and Wexner Heritage Foundation and president of Wexner’s N.A. Property Inc., which developed the Ohio town of New Albany, where Wexner lives. Epstein also was involved in Wexner’s superyacht, “Limitless,” attending meetings at the London studios of the firm that designed the vessel. -
According to an account by Italian model Elisabetta Tai, Epstein tried to take advantage of the 21-year-old aspiring Victoria's Secret model in 2004 after she was promised that a meeting with a 'very important' man could land her a gig with the apparel company.
Accuser Holds Wexner Responsible
In late 2019, a woman who says Jeffrey Epstein and his 'madam' Gislaine Maxwell sexually assaulted her holds Victoria's Secret billionaire Leslie Wexner "responsible for what happened to me," because she was staying on a property monitored by Wexner and his wife, and guarded by their security team, according to the 
Behind-the-Meter power is a costly and likely temporary bridge to initial grid gaps. While a single digit percentage of data centers in the pipeline have BTM requests, Mr. Monroe highlighted this can still be significant for power demand given these are typically larger data centers. Primarily deploying natural gas simple cycle generators, onsite power solutions cost 5x-20x more than grid power. However, Mr. Monroe highlighted that deploying BTM solutions to push forward data center startups can be an economically viable choice given the immense profitability of large scale AI data centers. According to Mr. Monroe, data centers deploying BTM power ultimately aim to connect to the grid eventually over three years, while either relocating to other data centers, integrating and selling power back into the grid, or retiring BTM assets.
2. Water: Community, regulatory and chip advancement pressures likely to shift the industry towards more water-efficient cooling technologies coming at significant energy costs. The industry is seeing a shift from the traditional water-intensive evaporative approaches towards more waterless designs, especially among hyperscalers, as community, regulatory and technological pressure mounts. According to Mr. Monroe, the shift towards closed-loop and waterless cooling systems is likely to raise Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) from best-in-class levels of 1.08 to 1.35-1.40, representing a 35%-40% energy overhead versus 8% in evaporative systems. Although innovations such as direct-to-chip liquid cooling and higher-temperature water cooling could enable more efficient heat transfer in more geographic locations, co-location data centers are likely to remain committed to chiller-based designs given their diverse customer base and need to commit to cooling architecture early in construction. Regardless of any diminishing share of overall data center cooling solutions, according to Mr. Monroe the demand for chillers is expected to continue to see a material increase over the next decade, driven by overall growth in data center capacity.
3. Labor: Skilled labor shortage could become the next gating factor for data center deployment. Data centers are differentiated from generic industrial buildings by the specialized electrical and mechanical systems required, making electricians and pipefitters critical to the continued data center build out. According to Mr. Monroe, the skilled labor shortage represents the next major constraint after power. Industry organizations, in collaboration with technical universities and colleges, are actively developing training programs to address this gap, while attempting to reach students as early as middle school to make skilled trades more attractive career paths. We estimate the US will require >500,000 net new workers across manufacturing, construction, ops & maintenance, and transmission and distribution to deploy all the power to meet demand by 2030.
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