“After Decarlos Brown Jr. was arrested for the fatal stabbing of a Ukrainian refugee aboard a North Carolina commuter train, he was quickly sent to a state mental hospital for an evaluation. It was a sharp contrast from a January misdemeanor arrest, where it took more than six months for a court to order a mental evaluation after Brown told officers that he had been given a human-made substance that controlled when he ate, talked or walked. The Justice Department on Tuesday charged Brown, 34, with causing death on a mass transportation system last month when he allegedly killed 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska in what has become the latest flashpoint for the White House’s efforts to paint Democratic-led cities as havens for violent criminals.” (09/10/25)
“Wholesale prices surprisingly fell slightly in August, providing breathing room for the Federal Reserve to approve an interest rate cut at its meeting this month, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report Wednesday. The producer price index, which measures input costs across a broad array of goods and services, dropped 0.1% for the month, after a downwardly revised 0.7% increase in July and well off the Dow Jones estimate for a 0.3% rise. On a 12-month basis, the headline PPI saw a 2.6% gain. The core PPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, also was off 0.1% after being expected to climb 0.3% as well.” [editor’s note: The PPI is reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I’m shocked — shocked! — that a month after Trump fired that bureau’s director for publishing numbers that made him look bad, the numbers are all changing direction. As for credibility? Who knows? – TLK] (09/10/25)
“The United States is set to increase its manufacturing of amoxicillin — a widely used prescription antibiotic that recently faced a national shortage — after Walmart and medical supply and distribution company McKesson inked a deal with the nation’s lone manufacturer of the drug. ‘We are thrilled to work with Walmart and McKesson to bring domestically manufactured antibiotics directly to American families,’ Patrick Cashman, president of USAntibiotics, said in a press release of the announcement on Monday. ‘We extend our deepest gratitude to Walmart and McKesson for their leadership in supporting U.S. manufacturing of critical generic medicines. This collaboration represents more than a business relationship — it’s a commitment to America’s health security.’ USAntibiotics is located in Bristol, Tennessee, and expects to produce ‘enough amoxicillin products to meet 100 percent of the nation’s demand for these essential medications’ under the deal.” (09/10/25)
“A clear majority of Swiss voters support a new deal that deepens the country’s economic ties with the European Union following the shock and uncertainty caused by U.S. tariffs on Switzerland, a survey showed on Wednesday. Published by newspaper Blick, the survey by polling firm GFS Bern of around 1,000 respondents showed that 61% were either strongly in favour of, or more likely to, back the deal agreed in December. … The polling was carried out in July and August, chiefly before the full impact of the U.S. tariffs became known, the paper said. U.S. President Donald Trump on August 7 imposed tariffs of 39% on Switzerland, one of the highest rates worldwide, saying they were justified by the U.S. trade deficit with the country. The tariffs are far higher than the 15% rate Trump imposed on the EU, and caused dismay among Swiss companies, which have traditionally been well disposed towards the United States.” (09/10/25)
“The body camera hung from the top of the IV drip, recording the slightest twitch made by Yang Guoliang as he lay bloody and paralyzed in a hospital bed after a police beating with bricks. By then, surveillance was nothing new for the Yang family in rural China, snared in an intricate network based on U.S. technology that spies on them and predicts what they’ll do. Their train tickets, hotel bookings, purchases, text messages and phone calls are forwarded to the government. Their house is ringed with more than a dozen cameras. They’ve tried to go to Beijing 20 times in the past few years, but masked men show up and grab them, often before they depart. … the Yangs say they are not criminals.” (09/09/25)
“A Princeton University graduate student who was kidnapped and held captive by an Islamic militia in Iraq for more than two years was released on Tuesday. Elizabeth Tsurkov — a Russian-Israeli citizen — was released by the Kataib Hezbollah group, a Shia paramilitary group aligned with Iran, President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social. Tsurkov had been ‘tortured for many months,’ Trump said. The release came after ‘extensive efforts exerted by our security services over the course of many months.’ Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani said on X. … According to New Lines magazine, which was in contact with Tsurkov prior to her capture in Baghdad, she was in Iraq to carry out fieldwork for her doctoral dissertation. Tsurkov is also a fellow at the New Lines Institute, a global affairs think tank in Washington.” (09/10/25)
“The European Union can continue to count nuclear power, and in some cases fossil gas, as ‘environmentally sustainable,’ after the EU’s top court ruled the European Commission was not breaching its obligations to tackle climate change. The General Court on Wednesday found against a complaint from Austria, which sought to overturn the decision to include the two energy sources in the EU’s taxonomy regulation, which determines which investments can be considered as green. The General Court, part of the Court of Justice of the European Union, said in its judgment the Commission ‘was entitled to take the view that nuclear energy generation has near to zero greenhouse gas emissions and that there are currently no technologically and economically feasible low-carbon alternatives at a sufficient scale.'” (09/10/25)
“Multiple Russian drones crossed into Poland in what European officials described Wednesday as a deliberate provocation, causing NATO to send fighter jets to shoot them down. A NATO spokesman said it was the first time the alliance confronted a potential threat in its airspace. The incursion, which occurred during a wave of strikes by the Kremlin on Ukraine, and the NATO response swiftly raised fears that the war could spill over — a fear that has been growing in Europe as Russia steps up its attacks and peace efforts go nowhere. Russia’s Defense Ministry said it did not target Poland, while Belarus, a close ally of Moscow, said it tracked some drones that ‘lost their course’ because they were jammed. However, several European leaders said they believed the incursion amounted to an intentional expansion of Russia’s assault against Ukraine.” (09/10/25)
“Hong Kong lawmakers on Wednesday voted down a bill that would have granted recognition to same-sex partnerships in the Chinese city, despite the rights offered being limited, in a major setback to the LGBTQ+ movement. The Registration of Same-Sex Partnerships Bill, unveiled in July, stemmed from one of the legal victories that pushed the government to offer more equal rights to gays and lesbians. … The staunch opposition from lawmakers was a rare sight since the government overhauled its electoral rules that effectively filled the legislature with Beijing loyalists. It was the first government bill to be voted down since the overhaul. … The bill proposed to allow residents who have already formed unions overseas to register their partnerships locally and grant them rights in handling medical and after-death matters for their loved ones.” (09/10/25)
“US President Donald Trump’s administration is considering launching military strikes on Venezuela, according to new reporting from independent journalist Ken Klippenstein. Military sources on Tuesday told Klippenstein that the Trump administration is mulling an attack against Venezuela unless it cracks down on drug cartels that it claims are shipping fentanyl into the United States. Contrary to the administration’s claims, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies, Venezuela plays virtually no role in fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking. Klippenstein’s sources said the attack was likely to involve ‘shooting down Venezuelan military aircraft or by bombing Venezuelan military airfield,’ and that the US Air Force has been rehearsing for such a mission in recent weeks. Such an attack would mark a dramatic escalation in the Trump administration’s hostilities toward Venezuela, which escalated last week when the administration bombed a boat off the Venezuelan coast that it alleged was carrying drug traffickers.” (09/10/25)
