News and Views on the Global Stage....

Sugar
Currently...

How Sweet It Is: Sugar — Building Block of Life — Discovered in Space

Breakthrough detection of erythrulose in interstellar cloud suggests life’s building blocks are manufactured throughout the galaxy. In a discovery that fundamentally challenges our understanding of how life begins, an international team of astronomers has detected erythrulose—the first true sugar ever found floating freely in interstellar space—drifting through a massive cloud of cosmic dust and gas thousands of light-years from Earth. The finding, made in 2026 using powerful radio telescopes trained on a molecular cloud designated G+0.693-0.027, represents far more than a cosmic curiosity. Erythrulose, a four-carbon sugar molecule identical to the compound that flavors red raspberries and bronzes skin in self-tanning lotions, is a direct chemical precursor to the sugar-phosphate backbone that holds together RNA and DNA—the very foundation of genetic life. “This changes everything about how we think life’s ingredients come together,” said Dr. Maria Castellanos, lead astrochemist on the discovery team. “We’re not just finding random organic molecules out there. We’re finding the exact architectural pieces that biology uses to build genetic code, and they’re forming naturally in the freezing darkness of space, long before planets even exist.”

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AI Expo
Currently...

China and Xi Use AI Expo in Shanghai to Claim Global Tech Leadership — and Ownership

The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) — often referred to as the AI Expo — is currently underway in Shanghai (running from July 17 to 20, 2026) under the theme “AI Partnership for a Brighter Future.” [Translation: Partner with China, of course, and let Xi Jinping dictate everything.] It has grown into one of the largest and most influential AI gatherings on the planet, drawing heads of state, top-tier global scientists (like Yoshua Bengio and Richard Sutton), and tech giants from around the world. The massive event spans an exhibition space exceeding 100,000 square meters across multiple tech hubs in Shanghai, featuring over 1,100 enterprises showcasing more than 3,000 advanced technologies. 300+ Global Product Debuts: The expo is serving as the launching pad for over 300 cutting-edge products, China-centric, of course. Major highlights include Huawei’s new AI computing supernode system (Atlas 950), the world’s first agentic AI smartphone, and MiniMax’s M3 multimodal foundation model. An Explosion of Humanoid Robots: One of the biggest physical attractions this year is the massive showcase of humanoid robots and dexterous robotic hands. Unlike previous years of experimental prototypes, this expo focuses on practical, human-sized service and industrial robots designed for deployment in real working

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Hegseth$
Currently...

Pentagon on a Hiring, Lending Spree to Beef Up U.S. Defense Readiness

The Pentagon, aka the Department of War, aka the Department of Defense, is recruiting corporate executives to the tune of $400,000 annually to help it fund the underbelly of the nation’s defense readiness through a multibillion-dollar loan program. The Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) is hiring savvy professionals to support its $400 billion lending program, ensuring the nation has the strategic infrastructure for all its military needs. Instead of providing grants, OSC is giving out loans for everything from mineral mining to missile production — and more. Started under Joe Biden with a much smaller budget, OSC is now overseen by Under Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, who himself hails from an executive-suite background with Cerberus Capital Management, a private-equity firm. Feinberg has already hired 30 former corporate executives and plans to add 40 more. “These are people, many of whom have taken seven-figure pay cuts to do this,” OSC Director David Lorch, also formerly with Cerberus, told the Wall Street Journal. He said the deals involve “highly complex, multibillion-dollar transactions that require the deep transactional expertise that’s only found in the private sector.” Loans so far total $5 billion this year, with another $14 billion ready to go. The goal

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Election
Currently...

Who’s Gonna Elect Our Next President, China or Russia?

Turnabout is fair play, as they (whoever they are) like to say, so it wasn’t too surprising tonight that President Trump basically credited Joe Biden’s election as president to Chinese election interference. This follows the 2016 Democrat mantra that Russian election manipulation got Donald “Hitler” Trump elected. Which Trump cleverly labeled  — and dismissed — as the “Russia, Russia, Russia” hoax. Trump took to the airways tonight to lay out his case for Chinese involvement in our election process, but never came out and proclaimed that Xi Jinping et al. got Biden his White House throne. “Our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen, and the trust of the American people was lost,” he said. He even suggested that no third-world country would tolerate the election vulnerabilities that we do. Except for rigging them outright, I guess. The president, in his talk, referred everyone to the WhiteHouse.gov website, which he said contains documents proving not only Chinese interference but also U.S. Swamp complicity and cover-up. I looked and the site does contain documents under four categories: election vulnerabilities, Chinese exploitation of voter info, Michigan election irregularities, and noncitizen voter registrations. The files are in zip format, however, and

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Pelosi
My Take

Here We Go Again — Dems Set to Abandon Another Ally

Democrats love getting into wars and then bailing on them, leaving a wreck behind. Think of South Vietnam. We fought alongside their forces for decades to prevent the communists from the north from taking over. Then, Senator Ted Kennedy in 1974 led a movement to strip financial support from South Vietnam after we had withdrawn our troops. North Vietnam swooped in, and within weeks, there was no longer a South Vietnam. Our ally under legislative doomsday planning these days is Israel. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced a measure to cease selling arms to Israel, and he got 103 Demofiends to join him. No other Republican voted yea, and the measure failed, 314-104. Notably, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi voted for the arms embargo. Both Pelosi and Massie are in their final terms, Pelosi because of retirement, and Massie because President Trump engineered a takedown in the recent primary. Also notably, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, the only Democrat these days who makes a bit of sense, told NBC News that leaving our alliance with Israel — forged by a Democrat in the White House named Harry Truman — would constitute a bridge too far. He might renounce his affiliation,

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ICE
Currently...

Avoiding Deportation 101a: Get in Your Car and Speed Away

After two fatal shootings involving suspects in cars driving away to elude capture, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are now being ordered not to chase or stop illegals in their moving vehicles. Most ICE apprehensions begin by searching the suspected alien’s residence, but the illegals, sensing or seeing their approach, often just hop in their cars and speed away. So the new policy represents a major shift — and hurdle — for field agents. In the past, ICE agents would stop or pursue the vehicles to apprehend for deportation any illegal they found. Now, what? Follow their vehicles and hope they run out of gas first? The policy shift comes on the heels of two incidents of aliens trying to flee in their vehicles when agents came to their location to apprehend them. One incident happened last week in Houston, and just this week, a similar shooting of a fleeing alien took place in Biddeford, Maine. The Wall Street Journal attempted to verify the policy shift but got only a vague response from a department official:  “We are always evaluating our procedures to keep our officers safe and criminals off our streets.” The new policy, when agents are

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ytyAS
My Take

France Celebrates Bastille Day. But Independence Day à la America It Wasn’t

The French stormed the Bastille, a notorious prison, on this day — July 14– in 1789. A tumultuous turn of events ensued, starting with the execution of King Louis XVI. Events began swirling out of control as ideas and politics kept taking increasingly bizarre twists until Napoleon came along to restore order. In short, the French Revolution did not lead to freedom, as our July 4th did. Quite the contrary, after years of sending their political opponents — and the public at large — to the guillotine, the French ended up with an Emperor. Napoleon, indeed, had quite the run, and his legacy carried on long after his death. There was even a Napoleon III. The French monarchy was restored as well for some time. At any rate, France celebrated Bastille Day this year with a huge military parade (taking a lesson from Trump, are they?) down the Champs-Élysées, which ends at the Arc de Triomphe, a monument Napoleon commissioned to honor his military victories. (Interestingly, Trump is now copying the idea for a similar arc in D.C. Donald Bonaparte?) I was in Paris for the 200th Bastille Day in 1989. Doubtful I can live long enough for No. 250,

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