A questionable consensus has hardened on the Democratic Left. Israel, we are told with certainty, sits at the eye of American political power, its lobby the most potent, its money the most corrosive, and its influence the real reason United States policy bends and folds the way it does. The claim is repeated so often, and with such confidence, that it has begun to pass for common knowledge. It is also being deployed, quite deliberately, as a midterm strategy.
According to the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/fara">OpenSecrets</a> compilation of Foreign Agents Registration Act filings since 2016, Israel ranks tenth in total foreign lobbying spending. China, Qatar, Japan, Liberia, and Saudi Arabia all stand higher, and several other states outrank it as well. 
<a href="https://aipac.org/truth-lobbying">Israel</a> is not the largest foreign lobbyist operating in the United States by this measure.
<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/22/mamdani-called-aipac-dark-money-monsters-none-of-the-candidates-seem-to-care-00970873">Zohran Mamdani</a> has called AIPAC “monsters” who move “millions in dark money” to preserve their power, turn Americans against one another, and obstruct an end to what he terms genocide. <a href="https://www.memri.org/tv/abdul-el-sayed-michigan-aipac-two-masters-israel-most-egregious-example">Abdul El-Sayed</a> has described Israel as “the most egregious” foreign government shaping American politics and declared that “our foreign policy has been handed to us by the likes of the State of Israel and AIPAC.”
<a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/10/24/axios-show-bernie-sanders-aipac-oligarchy">Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)</a> has cast the same organization as part of a billionaire oligarchy that systematically defeats progressive critics while shielding Netanyahu. <a href="https://allisraelnews.com/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-says-us-congress-is-overly-influenced-by-aipac">Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)</a> has said Congress is “overly influenced” by AIPAC and labeled it an extremist organization that destabilizes American democracy. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/us/politics/aipac-congress-democrats.html">Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)</a> has asked why other interest groups may be scrutinized while the most “powerful lobbying group” pushing “allegiance to a foreign country” remains insulated, reducing the entire relationship to “all about the Benjamins.”
These statements are more than isolated criticisms. They form a working political agenda that turns policy disagreement into a story of external control and compromised government institutions.
Sixty percent of U.S. adults now hold an <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/04/07/negative-views-of-israel-netanyahu-continue-to-rise-among-americans-especially-young-people/">unfavorable</a> view of Israel, up from 53% last year. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, the number is far higher: eight in 10 view Israel unfavorably, up from 69% a year ago and 53% in 2022. Democrats under 50 years old are especially negative, with nearly half saying their view is very unfavorable. One recent survey also found that nearly three in 10 young Americans now view Jews as a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/nearly-one-third-of-young-americans-view-jews-as-a-threat-to-society-poll/">threat</a> to society. 
Candidates who keep calling Israel the biggest foreign lobby are both speaking to and helping expand an audience that has already moved sharply against the Middle East nation, especially among younger Democrats. The claim encourages the belief that the American government itself is aligned with and controlled by Israel. For socialist and DSA-aligned activists, that picture is unifying. Their attitude is encapsulated by the Faust quote: &#8220;For all that comes into being deserves to perish.&#8221; It is a way of seeing the world that takes less intellectual effort and is more seductive.
That concentration of attention is harder to justify when larger foreign influences are taken into account. Qatar has directed <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/qatars-billions-raise-new-questions-about-foreign-influence-on-campus">billions</a> into American universities, financing socialist student organizations on campuses, research centers, and academic programming that shape how students understand the Middle East and the Jewish state. 
At the same time, a longer-running network with documented ties to the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senate-hearing-pulls-back-curtain-on-muslim-brotherhoods-ties-to-hamas">Muslim Brotherhood</a> and Hamas-supporting infrastructure has spent decades building influence through nonprofits, campus organizing, and educational programming. The 2008 Holy Land Foundation case and later Senate testimony showed this network continuing to operate. This operation helps produce a younger cohort already primed to see Israel as uniquely illegitimate and powerful, which makes the progressive claim that Israel is the top foreign lobby land more easily and turn more readily into votes.
China has spent heavily through its own channels, advancing influence that frequently aligns with socialist and communist political ideologies, and the Foreign Agents Registration Act database shows multiple countries exceeding Israel’s registered foreign agent spending. A movement truly focused on foreign influence would examine the largest spenders and the most embedded ideological networks with equal criticism.
In a midterm cycle in which Democrats are still trying to take back the House, calling Israel the biggest foreign lobby remains useful even when the numbers say otherwise. If they win the chamber, they regain the power to investigate and, if the politics allow it, try to <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/faith-freedom-self-reliance/4539460/republicans-cant-take-2026-midterm-elections-for-granted/">impeach</a> President Trump again. That is why the claim continues. It is not sustained by the data; it’s sustained by what it can still deliver in an election year.

US Currency One Hundred Dollar Bill in a circle on USA Red

The Left’s Israel Obsession And The Fiction Of Its Foreign Influence

2026 midterm election

aipac

antisemitism

israel

politics

zohran mamdani

DSA leader and rent abolitionist Gustavo Gordillo is being <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/08/22/us-news/embattled-nyc-dsa-leader-gustavo-gordillo-sued-for-eviction/">sued</a> for eviction after he stopped paying rent on a Brooklyn apartment, <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/08/22/us-news/embattled-nyc-dsa-leader-gustavo-gordillo-sued-for-eviction/">according</a> to the New York Post.
The New York City Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) co-chair signed a lease on a one-bedroom place in Crown Heights for $2,500 a month in May 2025. He skipped payments for months at a time and only occasionally caught up with a larger sum once the arrears reached three months, the outlet reported.
His landlord took him to housing court in March seeking $5,000 for the missed December and January payments. He did not file an answer, the Post reported, which let the landlord seek a default judgment. The case remains open and the apartment has already been rented to someone else.
His parents bought the Bedford-Stuyvesant row house in 2019 through Chucuito LLC for just under $1 million. It carries a fair market value of $1.4 million. Renovation plans filed in 2023 cover the facade, the interior, new landscaping and two decks, and work was still going on at the house this week.
Gordillo said housing court only mitigates harm and does not abolish landlords and rent which he calls the long-term socialist goals. He has also argued that no one should have a constitutional right to double digit returns on real estate investments.
Gordillo, who built a public profile as a blue-collar tradesman under the handle @unionGustavo, was terminated from his IBEW Local 3 apprenticeship in March after what the union <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/08/20/spoiled-brats-leadership-of-progressive-left/">called</a> &#8220;prolonged absence from and failure to participate in work and classes.&#8221; He never completed the program and is separately three months behind on his union dues.
Last month, without mentioning he had already been fired from the apprenticeship, Gordillo asked NYC-DSA members to convert his unpaid leadership role into a paid position, according to the Post. The group approved $95,000 a year plus benefits for him and co-chair Grace Mausser, both of whom took no salary in 2025.
“This should be surprising, but it isn’t,&#8221; City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino told the Post. &#8220;The entitlement of these rich DSA kids is bottomless. Even when his parents are paying his bills, he still stiffed his landlord.” 
“It’s really appalling that these brats are in charge of our city now, when they’re so quick to screw over working people and can’t even manage their own lives,&#8221; she added.
Attorney Maud Maron noted that he has a luxury home to go with his luxury beliefs while DSA policies raise costs for everyone else without rich parents.
The housing court case against Gordillo remains open.

NYC-DSA holds a rally to tax the rich

DSA Leader And ‘Rent Abolitionist’ Sued For Failing To Pay Rent

brooklyn

democratic socialists of america

eviction

gustavo gordillo

vickie paladino

The oldest surviving copies of biblical texts are on view for a final few weeks at the Museum of the Bible in Washington. <a href="https://www.museumofthebible.org/exhibits/dead-sea-scrolls-the-exhibition?utm_source=google&amp;utm_medium=paidperformancemax&amp;utm_campaign=cqr&amp;utm_content=pre_dss&amp;gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=23086097899&amp;gbraid=0AAAAADn6_nIDOICSo6jhJQGOtoovTnfUC&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwkaXUBhASEiwAZI3ds2g1quLXuRKg7dGTHaUnBof4HRYJZTQmtN_2cnsGj3Y6lQgJLakZZhoCdfkQAvD_BwE">Dead Sea Scrolls: The Exhibition,</a> now in its last rotation on the museum’s fifth floor, closes September 7. The fragments recovered from the caves near Qumran remain among the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century, offering a direct window into the Hebrew Scriptures and the Jewish world of the Second Temple period.
Dr. Carlos Campo, President and CEO of the Museum of the Bible, walked The Daily Wire through the galleries and spoke about what the manuscripts still make clear.
By Campo&#8217;s breakdown, roughly a third of the collection is biblical, another third covers the life and rules of the community that preserved the texts, and the rest concerns ancient practice. The people who lived at Qumran are usually called Essenes. They were Jewish separatists who withdrew to a remote place by the Dead Sea, studied the texts with care, and followed strict rules of purification. Campo explains that many scholars believe they settled there to prepare for the coming of the Messiah.
“There was an emphasis on the Messiah,” he says. “So very often, you think of Messiahship only as something related to Christianity, but that’s not true. Matter of fact, not just this scroll, of course, but if you look at the scrolls that were retained by these men in this community, a lot of them talked about the Messiah and the coming of the Messiah. And so while there’s clear debate between Jews and Christians about who was the Messiah, or has the Messiah come, there was no debate about the emphasis on the Messiah, and how he is pointed to in the Hebrew scriptures.”
The same collection shows how varied Jewish life already was. Pharisees and Sadducees appear often in the New Testament. The Qumran group stood outside both. “These men probably were Essenes,” Campo says. 
“If they were the Essenes, and that’s what we generally see, they would make up a whole different sect that are outside of those two. And so I think that’s the other thing that these scrolls demonstrate is that, certainly, as within Christianity, that many denominations and beliefs within those denominations, the same is true in Judaism. It’s a very diverse faith.”
One of the fragments on display comes from the Book of Isaiah and includes part of the Suffering Servant passage. Campo returns to the reliability of the text. Before 1947, the oldest Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible available to scholars were medieval, copied in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The Qumran material pushed that horizon back by roughly a thousand years.
“We’re looking at a text even though this was a later Isaiah text, it’ll probably, you know, first century. So, AD. But still, the remarkable similarity between these texts and the text that we have today. So this is at least 1,000 years older than the oldest text that we had. And if you were to compare these texts to those texts, it’s extraordinary how similar they were. I mean, it’s not every jot and tittle, but it’s pretty darn close. So I think that’s one. The whole idea of the reliability of scripture, the Dead Sea Scrolls do many things, but for Jews and Christians today, it’s the reliability of the text.”
A Damascus Document fragment makes the historical texture concrete. It rules that an animal which falls into a well or ditch on the Sabbath should not be pulled out. Jesus spoke of the same situation and took the opposite view. “There’s actually a passage in the one that we have that talks about, what do you do if your animal falls into a well or falls into a ditch. This idea that, which of you, if your animal falls into a ditch, do you not pull it out. Even on the Sabbath. Well, this Damascus scroll actually says, You shouldn’t do that.”
Nearby sits the Magdala Stone, uncovered on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in 2009. Israeli antiquities officials were running a required salvage dig ahead of construction on a Catholic retreat center when a tractor turned up carved limestone barely a foot below the surface.
The stone came out of a first-century synagogue at Magdala, the town most scholars take to be Mary Magdalene&#8217;s home. Campo says she would have known the building. Archeologists have since uncovered a second synagogue at the same site.
The museum has its own history with these texts. In 2020, an outside investigation it commissioned and paid for found that all 16 fragments it had purchased and displayed as Dead Sea Scrolls were modern forgeries, manufactured on scraps of old leather to pass for antiquities. Nothing in the current exhibition comes from that collection. The fragments on the fifth floor are on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority, which holds the authentic corpus recovered from the caves.
 Each fragment may stay in the light for only three months. After that it must spend at least five years in complete darkness so the material does not break down further. “They treat these with the utmost care,” Campo says. “They see these as the most important relics in all Jewish history.”
Yet in a time of rising antisemitism the scrolls still function as texts that Jews and Christians both receive, manuscripts capable of closing distance rather than widening it. He reaches for an African saying. “When you’re really far away, you seem to me to be a wild beast. As you get closer, I can see you’re a human being. When you get closer, still, I see you’re a member of my family, and when I feel your breath upon me, I know you are my brother. And to me, that&#8217;s a message that is biblical.” He adds, “You have to atomize a human being into something less than human before you can hate them.”
What he hopes visitors take away is a desire to keep reading the written word. “We say that the Bible is one of the few documents in the world where the deeper you go, actually, the more you feel that you know about yourself. The more you know, the more you realize how little you know. That’s one of the things we believe about scripture. The deeper you go, the more you realize my goodness. This document is so much more complex than I thought it was. And to me, the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal some of that.”
The fragments remain on the fifth floor through early September. Then they must return to five years of darkness. Campo hopes people leave with a clearer sense of the continuity these texts have maintained from the Second Temple period to the present.

DSC09670-lowres

The Oldest Biblical Fragments On Earth Leave Washington In Two Weeks — Then Return To The Dark

arts

bible

carlos campo

dead sea scrolls

museum of the bible

qumran

Smart ring maker Oura was hit Thursday with a proposed class action <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/21/oura-faces-lawsuit-accusing-it-of-misleading-consumers-about-sleep-tracking-accuracy/?utm_medium=organic_social&amp;utm_source=TWITTER">lawsuit</a> alleging it misled customers about how accurately its $500 ring tracks sleep.
Clarkson Law Firm filed the suit on behalf of Madison Surber, a California woman who says she paid roughly $514 for an Oura Ring 4 in May 2025. The <a href="https://clarksonlawfirm.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/COMPLAINT-26-cv-08686-Surber-v.-Oura-Inc.-et-al.pdf">complaint</a> alleges the ring lacks any sensor capable of picking up the biological signals that define sleep stages, and that Oura instead runs the wearer&#8217;s heart rate, movement and skin temperature through a machine-learning model that produces an estimate — one with what the filing calls &#8220;a coin flip&#8217;s chance of being correct.&#8221;
Complaints about the ring&#8217;s sleep readings have circulated among owners for years, and the filing leans on them. It reproduces screenshots of complaints pulled from a Facebook owners&#8217; group and the Oura subreddit, including users who describe waking up exhausted and then being handed a high score by the app.
Oura <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/08/21/oura-rings-sleep-lawsuit/91402959007/">told</a> USA Today it rejects the claims. &#8220;We dispute the allegations in this complaint and intend to defend against them,&#8221; the company said. Oura did not immediately respond to the Daily Wire&#8217;s request for comment.
According to the complaint, Oura marketed its rings, priced at $300 and higher, as able to do what only a hospital sleep lab can do: identify the four different stages of sleep. 
Oura&#8217;s marketing has described the ring as &#8220;[b]uilt for accuracy&#8221; and promised &#8220;Unparalleled Accuracy,&#8221; according to the filing, which cites the company&#8217;s product pages and blog. The complaint says Oura has advertised 79% agreement with polysomnography — the overnight lab study that is the clinical benchmark — in sorting wake, light, deep and REM sleep, and more recently has promoted &#8220;95% Sleep Staging Accuracy compared to clinical sleep lab&#8221; on the Oura Ring 5 product page.
The suit argues the hardware makes the promise impossible to keep. &#8220;Sleep happens in the brain, not on one&#8217;s finger,&#8221; the complaint states. Sleep staging is defined by brain wave activity, eye movement, and muscle tone, it argues, signals captured through scalp electrodes and leads placed near the eyes and chin — none of which fit on a ring.
Ryan Clarkson, co-founder and managing partner at Clarkson Law Firm, said in a statement: “When people rely on a device to guide decisions about their health, misinformation cannot be tolerated. Oura users trust that the numbers on their screen reflect reality. 
&#8220;People structure their days, interpret the way they feel, and design their lives around inaccurate figures spit out by these devices. Marketing an inaccurate sleep tracker as precise and reliable is dangerous because people believe it — and change their behavior accordingly.”
The complaint asks the court to order Oura to stop advertising capabilities the firm says the rings do not deliver, to prevent further alleged misrepresentations, and to provide restitution to customers who bought the products based on those claims.

3d rendering futuristic Abstract background, Neon Colored Motion Striped line texture for Business science and Technology advertising,

Do Oura Rings Work? Lawsuit Says Metrics From $500 Smart Ring Are Guesswork

class action lawsuit

consumer protection

health

oura

sleep

wearable technology

City council members in Dearborn, Michigan, refused to denounce Sharia law when a local pastor demanded each of them do so at a town hall meeting Tuesday.
Lorenzo Sewell, who leads 180 Church in Detroit, had told the council members earlier that the city was no longer governed by American law. &#8220;America, we have lost this city. This is a city that is no longer up under American laws; we are up under Sharia law. We will not have it anymore,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Enough is enough.&#8221; Looking at the members seated in front of him, he added: &#8220;You are only 1% of this nation. We are not a nation of Muslims.&#8221;
&#8220;None of them denounced Sharia,&#8221; Sewell told the Daily Wire. &#8220;They laughed at me.&#8221;
None of them took up his demand. The crowd&#8217;s reaction that followed made the moment feel to Sewell, like something that should not have been happening in an American city. He later told the Daily Wire that walking into the Dearborn city council meeting “felt like walking into Iran.”
Dearborn officials reject the premise. Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, speaking at the same meeting, argued that casting the city as overtaken by Muslims erases its Christian residents and those of other faiths.
Dearborn&#8217;s demographics changed how the confrontation landed. The 2020 count was the first in which the Census Bureau designated Middle Eastern and North African origins as their own category, and the results showed 54.5% of the city&#8217;s roughly 110,000 residents claiming MENA ancestry — enough to make Dearborn the first majority-Arab city in the country, the Detroit Free Press <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2023/09/26/arab-americans-now-a-majority-in-dearborn-new-census-data-shows/70929525007/?gnt-cfr=1&amp;gca-cat=p&amp;gca-uir=false&amp;gca-epti=z1175xxu003361e1175xxv002161&amp;gca-ft=173&amp;gca-ds=sophi">reported</a>.
The confrontation did not emerge abruptly. Sewell has spent years watching the same reality unfold around him in Dearborn. “I cannot go to a place right now where I’m sitting and not encounter Muslims,” he said. The encounters are ordinary and constant, he said. Gas stations, car washes, oil-change shops, the places that sell candy bars, cookies, and chips. “Multiply that by 700,000 people,” he said. “This is what people don’t understand.”
To Sewell the town hall reassured what he said to be commonplace for a long time. What struck him most was how ordinary the moment should have been. “A pastor in a Christian country talking about Jesus,” he said. “What did I do? I did what the Bible says to do.” 
Since the town hall incident, the public response has been different. People stop Sewell on the street, they call him, and send emails. Many tell him they share the same concerns about the direction of the city but are too scared to say so in public. 
Sewell noted that the video of him at the town hall went more viral than the prayer he once delivered at a presidential inauguration. He told the Daily Wire he found it crazy that a black pastor simply talking about Jesus in a place still called a Christian country would spread that far and draw that kind of reaction.
Sewell tied the town hall to what he sees as a global pattern of Christian persecution, and faulted Pope Leo XIV for how the pontiff has described the killing of Christians in Nigeria. Leo has addressed Nigeria more than once — in June 2025 he <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=66019">condemned</a> the killing of roughly 200 people in Benue State, most of them displaced families sheltering at a Catholic mission — but in November he <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/cna/pope-leo-xiv-on-nigeria-christians-and-muslims-have-been-slaughtered">told reporters</a> that both Christians and Muslims have been slaughtered there and attributed the violence largely to terrorism and fights over land and money. That framing is what Sewell rejects. &#8220;He would never say anything against Sharia law. Never,&#8221; Sewell told the Daily Wire. &#8220;He should be an imam, not a pope.&#8221;
The Dearborn town hall ended with no council member denouncing Sharia law. The video of the exchange has continued to circulate.

Screen Shot: Dearborn TCD News

Dearborn City Council Laughs As Pastor Demands They Denounce Sharia Law

abdullah hammoud

dearborn

lorenzo sewell

pope leo xiv

sharia law

Seventeen members of an Iran-based hacking operation have been <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/17-iranians-charged-conducting-massive-cyber-theft-campaign-behalf-islamic-revolutionary">charged</a> in a massive cyber theft campaign that prosecutors say targeted hundreds of universities and other institutions around the world, stealing more than 31 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property in attacks conducted in part on behalf of Iran&#8217;s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
A 14-count superseding indictment unsealed Tuesday in New York describes a campaign that began around 2013 and continued through at least late 2017. Prosecutors say the Mabna Institute targeted more than 100,000 professor accounts and successfully compromised roughly 8,000 of them at 144 U.S. universities and 178 universities in other countries.
Once inside the accounts, the hackers allegedly stole research papers, theses, dissertations, academic journals, and other materials. U.S. universities spent more than $3.4 billion to license and obtain the kind of research and intellectual property taken by the defendants, according to prosecutors.
Nine of the defendants were first charged in 2018. The new filing adds eight more defendants and, according to the Justice Department, reveals a broader network behind the operation.
“[A]t the behest of entities including the IRGC, these defendants hacked into universities and other research institutions worldwide, including the United States, stealing at least 31 terabytes of information and intellectual property of untold value,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said. 
According to the indictment, Gholamreza Rafatnejad and Ehsan Mohammadi founded the Mabna Institute around 2013 “to assist Iranian universities and scientific and research organizations in stealing access to non-Iranian scientific resources.” The company later contracted with a network of hackers for hire to carry out the intrusions.
The hackers allegedly used stolen credentials to access university library systems and moved the stolen academic material to servers outside the United States.
Some of the stolen information was later sold to customers inside Iran through two websites connected to one of the defendants. One site offered the stolen materials directly, while another allowed customers to use compromised professor accounts to access university library systems.
The alleged operation extended beyond universities. Members of the network also compromised employee email accounts at private companies and government offices, with victims including at least 42 U.S. companies, 11 foreign companies, five U.S. federal and state agencies, and two non-governmental organizations. 
Targets included the Department of Labor, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the states of Hawaii and Indiana, the United Nations, and the United Nations Children&#8217;s Fund.
Several of the defendants were also allegedly involved in the 2017 hack of HBO, in which hackers stole proprietary data and attempted to extort the company for roughly $6 million in bitcoin. Behzad Mesri was previously charged in connection with hacking HBO systems.
In other attacks against private companies and government entities, prosecutors say some of the defendants used techniques that caused victims to rack up more than $20 million in investigation and remediation costs. 
The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program is offering up to $10 million for any information leading to the location of five of the defendants.

Iran, Pro-government Protest Rally In Tehran

17 Iranian Hackers Charged In Massive U.S. University Cybertheft Scheme

cybersecurity

hacking

iran

islamic revolutionary guard corps

justice department

An experimental cancer vaccine has kept high-risk melanoma from returning for longer and reduced the risk of it spreading in a late-stage trial.
Moderna and Merck said Wednesday in a <a href="https://www.merck.com/news/merck-and-moderna-announce-phase-3-interpath-001-trial-of-intismeran-autogene-plus-keytruda-met-endpoints-of-recurrence-free-survival-rfs-and-distant-metastasis-free-survival-dmfs-in-patient/">press release</a> that their experimental personalized mRNA vaccine, Intismeran, combined with Merck’s Keytruda, met both its primary and secondary goals in a late-stage trial of high-risk melanoma patients who had already undergone surgery. The coupling prolonged the time before the cancer returned and reduced the chance it would spread to other organs.
The late-stage trial was conducted on more than 1,000 people, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/moderna-merck-vaccine-succeeds-in-preventing-melanoma-from-returning-540e9e18">according</a> to The Wall Street Journal. Every participant had already undergone surgery to remove a melanoma. Roughly half received the personalized vaccine along with Keytruda. The rest received Keytruda by itself. Treatment lasted about a year. The aim was to lower the odds that the cancer would return after the tumor was gone.
“I have a feeling that this is just the beginning of a new field,” Jane Healy, a vice president of oncology at Merck, told The Wall Street Journal. The goal for patients, she said, is “to give them longer without having to worry about treatments for cancer.”
The companies withheld their exact figures on the duration patients stayed free of progressing disease and how long they lived overall. Those numbers are scheduled to be presented at a medical meeting later this year. How strong and how well tolerated the benefit proves to be will shape both regulatory chances and eventual use.
No personalized mRNA cancer vaccine had previously succeeded in a late-stage trial. The outcome follows prolonged efforts to design treatments that target the unique mutations present in each patient’s tumor.
The outcome gives Moderna a potential entry into the cancer-drug market, which exceeds $240 billion, at a time when its COVID-19 vaccine revenue has been falling. Merck, meanwhile, could gain another product to help offset the coming loss of exclusivity on Keytruda.
Moderna’s stock jumped  &#8220;more than doubled&#8221; Wednesday morning, and Merck shares rose more than 10%, per the Journal.
“We are now an oncology company,” Moderna Chief Executive Stéphane Bancel said. “By Christmas, you could have a company that’s going back into sales growth for the first time in four years.”
Each dose is made personalized to the patient. Once the melanoma is surgically removed, a blood sample and tumor biopsy are sent for analysis. Researchers pin down mutations specific to that patient’s cancer cells that are most likely to be noticed by the immune system. Those genetic targets are then written into mRNA and turned into a vaccine. Manufacturing takes about six weeks from the time of the biopsy. In the meantime, patients begin Keytruda to keep the disease in check, WSJ reported.
The two companies started working together on these types of vaccines in 2016. They chose melanoma first because the tumors typically contain many mutations. Additional trials are already running in bladder cancer, a frequent type of lung cancer, and kidney cancer.

Tumour infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, illustration

New Vaccine Shows Early Signs Of Stopping Cancer Spread

cancer vaccine

melanoma

merck

moderna

mrna vaccine

Dr. David Morens, the longtime senior science adviser to Anthony Fauci, pleaded guilty this week to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses and to defraud the United States.
The 78-year-old former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases official entered the plea after an April indictment. He faces a maximum of five years in federal prison as well as a $250,000 fine, The Washington Examiner <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/investigations/4692082/former-fauci-aide-pleads-guilty-covid-19-conspiracy/">reported.</a> 
Morens first garnered backlash in 2023. The House Oversight Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic found that he had conducted official business on his personal Gmail account specifically to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests. In 2021, he told colleagues to contact him on that personal email and said he would “delete anything [he did not] want to see in the New York Times,” per the Examiner.
The same investigation showed a personal friendship between Morens and then- EcoHealth Alliance president Dr. Peter Daszak. That private organization received government funding for bat coronavirus research carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The $3.1 million grant titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” included a $600,000 subaward to the Wuhan lab. Some researchers who reject the animal-to-human spillover explanation have referenced that work as a possible source of SARS-CoV-2. 
Prosecutors charged Morens with concealing records related to that grant, alleging he acted with at least two other unindicted co-conspirators.  According to the case, the group worked to reinstate the funding after it was terminated and to push back against the idea that COVID-19 resulted from a laboratory incident.
Although Daszak is not named in the plea agreement, the document identifies “Co-Conspirator 1” as the author of an April 2020 email that the Washington Examiner previously reported as coming from Daszak. 
In that message, EcoHealth Alliance staff confirmed they would “communicate with [Morens] via Gmail from now on.” The plea agreement says that Morens and his co-conspirators then “plotted and repeatedly expressed their intention to conceal federal records to evade FOIA and provided information to Senior NIAID Official 1 that was favorable to Co-Conspirator 1 and Company #1.”
That senior NIAID official is widely speculated to be Fauci, who at the time was the public figure of the federal COVID-19 response.
When Fauci testified before the House Oversight Committee in 2024, he distanced himself from Morens’ email practices, saying “he should not have been doing that.” Yet, the two men co-authored more than 50 scientific papers during Morens’ tenure at the agency from 2006 to 2022. Morens also briefed Fauci ahead of key White House Coronavirus Task Force meetings in his role as top scientific adviser.
Fauci himself appeared before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on July 29 and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 111 times. 
Republicans voted to hold Fauci in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fauci-held-in-contempt-after-refusing-to-answer-questions-about-bombshell-diary">contempt</a> of Congress after he refused to answer questions despite a pardon from former President Joe Biden that covered the relevant period. The contempt resolution has been forwarded to the Department of Justice, which will decide whether to prosecute. 
A federal judge is scheduled to sentence Morens on November 12.

Dr. Fauci Testifies In House On COVID Origins

Fauci Adviser Pleads Guilty In COVID Records Case

anthony fauci

covid-19 origins

david morens

national institutes of health

peter daszak

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War Secretary Pete Hegseth&#8217;s visit to Iowa is fueling speculation that he could be testing the waters for a 2028 presidential run.
Officials familiar with Hegseth’s thinking told the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/08/17/hegseth-travels-iowa-his-personal-capacity-amid-2028-speculation/">Washington Post</a> that the Iowa visit fits the actions of someone considering a run for president after his time in the Trump administration ends. One of those officials, speaking anonymously, described the trip as something of a test run for a possible 2028 bid.
Iowa&#8217;s longstanding role as an early presidential proving ground has added to the speculation surrounding Hegseth&#8217;s visit.
Hegseth traveled to the state in his personal capacity and appeared with several House and Senate Republicans. The Pentagon confirmed that he traveled aboard a U.S. military aircraft because he is designated a “required use” traveler.
That status requires Hegseth to use military aircraft for official and personal travel because of the need for secure communications and transportation associated with his national security responsibilities.
Hegseth appeared Monday alongside Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA), where he praised Nunn and defended continued American involvement in the war with Iran.
He also appeared alongside Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), the Republican nominee for the open Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Joni Ernst, and was expected to appear with Rep. Mariannette Miller Meeks (R-IA).
The appearances come as Republicans work to hold ground in a state where recent polling has shown tighter races than in previous cycles.
<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/hegseth-iowa-campaign-midterms-2028-b3035168.html">The Independent</a> noted that previous defense secretaries largely stayed out of overt political campaigning while in the job. Hegseth has aligned himself closely with President Donald Trump’s policy goals and has taken a more active role supporting Republican candidates while continuing to promote the administration’s national security priorities.
Other administration figures were also in Iowa this week, including U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, and Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler. Their visits coincided with the Iowa State Fair, a traditional gathering that draws both statewide candidates and national political figures.
The fair routinely attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors and has long served as an important stop for politicians looking to connect with Iowa voters.
Ernst’s decision to retire has made Iowa&#8217;s Senate race a major focus this year. Hinson is running against Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek, a two-time Paralympic gold medalist, as both parties battle for control of the Senate.
Hegseth has not publicly announced plans to run for president in 2028.
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Defense Secretary Hegseth And Joint Chiefs Chairman Caine Brief Media At Pentagon

Hegseth’s Iowa Trip Raises Early Questions About 2028

ashley hinson

iowa

joni ernst

pete hegseth

zach nunn

A black man wearing a Chucky-style mask <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/08/18/us-news/philadelphia-man-wearing-chucky-mask-allegedly-targeted-six-people/">asked</a> a female jogger if she was ready to die before chasing her through Center City Philadelphia as she screamed for help, police said.
Philadelphia <a href="https://www.phillypolice.com/news-blotter/wanted-suspect-for-assault-in-the-9th-district-video-3/">police</a> say the masked suspect spent about 15 minutes early Wednesday morning targeting at least six people at random near Philadelphia City Hall. The suspect remains at large.
The incidents began shortly after 5:20 a.m. on August 12, Philadelphia Police Capt. Jason Smith said.
The suspect first walked into a Dunkin&#8217; Donuts wearing a distinctive white, Chucky-style Halloween mask with black hair. Staff refused him service because he was behaving erratically, according to police. He then began approaching people nearby while holding a cell phone in front of them and appearing to record the encounters.
One of those people was a 40-year-old woman jogging near 1500 JFK Boulevard. Smith said the masked man stopped in front of her, held his phone toward her face, and asked, “Are you ready to die?”
When she looked startled, he asked the same question again. She ran off, screaming for help as the suspect chased her, police said. She injured her leg while trying to escape.
During the encounter, the suspect kept one arm concealed behind his back, according to police.
No weapon appears in the surveillance video, but police say the suspect is wanted on charges including possession of an instrument of crime, terroristic threats, harassment, assault, reckless endangerment, and intimidation.
A woman named Jameka saw what was happening and tried to warn the jogger from across the intersection. She later confronted the suspect herself and kicked him in the chest.
“He just seemed so disoriented about what his goals actually were,” she said. “I had bags. He wasn’t reaching for those. It didn’t seem like he had a clear goal to like actually get in La Colombe to do anything, so I was like OK, well, let’s see if you can fight, and he couldn’t.”
The suspect eventually fled into SEPTA Suburban Station.
Police describe him as a black male between 16 and 20 years old with a medium complexion, standing about 5 feet 8 inches tall with a thin build. He was carrying a black-and-blue plaid backpack.
Investigators believe he approached multiple people that morning, although police said only the jogger has formally reported an incident as of their latest update.
“It’s really unsettling just trying to get to work and have a kid like this actively terrorizing women,” said Kate Egan, who works at a nearby coffee shop. “I really hope he is caught.”
Police have produced footage and still images of the suspect, including video showing him briefly lowering the mask.
Anyone with information is asked to call Philadelphia Police at 215-686-TIPS or submit a tip through the department&#8217;s website. Law enforcement has warned members of the public not to approach the suspect.

Black Man In Chucky-Style Mask Chased, Threatened Woman With Death

crime

philadelphia

philadelphia police department

A new report reveals a growing divide among U.S. allies over China.
Titled <a href="https://polaris-us.org/docs/stars-and-stragglers.pdf">Stars and Stragglers</a>, the report from Polaris National Security examined 20 countries across technology infrastructure, economic policy, military cooperation, and diplomatic positions.
&#8220;This report qualitatively assesses which U.S. allies and partners are doing the most to help or hinder America’s efforts to counter China’s economic, technological, military, and diplomatic influence,&#8221; the report states.
Ten of those countries are designated as &#8220;Stars&#8221; for taking concrete steps to limit Beijing&#8217;s power. The remaining nations are designated as &#8220;Stragglers&#8221; for strengthening their ties with China.
The report broke down &#8220;Stars&#8221; as &#8220;Allies and partners helping America counter Chinese aggression and influence.&#8221; &#8220;Stragglers&#8221; were &#8220;Allies and partners failing to counter China — and even undercutting U.S. efforts to do so.&#8221;
Australia was designated a &#8220;Star.&#8221; The nation banned Huawei, absorbed Chinese tariffs without folding, and, according to the report, &#8220;committed nearly $3 billion to expand U.S. and British submarine capacity.&#8221; It joined a critical minerals push with the United States and received a $400 million conditional loan for an aerospace and defense project.
Japan also received a &#8220;Star&#8221; designation. The report stated that &#8220;Aside from Taiwan, no U.S. ally sits closer to the front lines of China’s ambitions than Japan.&#8221; The Far East nation also views China as its &#8220;greatest strategic challenge.&#8221;
The remaining &#8220;Stars&#8221; are: India, Israel, Lithuania, Palau, Paraguay, Philippines, Taiwan, and Ukraine.
Nations designated as &#8220;Stragglers&#8221; are heading in the opposite direction. Brazil&#8217;s trade with China hit $171 billion — more than double its trade with the U.S., while Huawei holds about 44% of its 5G networks.
Canada cut tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles from 100% to 6% and set a goal of raising exports to China by 50%.
South Korea does roughly $340 billion in trade with China, and about half of its rare earth mineral imports come from there, per the report. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung president called the continued partnership with Beijing &#8220;irreversible.&#8221;
France&#8217;s President Emmanuel Macron has told audiences that China is welcome in Europe and has pushed for more Chinese investment in nuclear and artificial intelligence.
Thailand has approved a $10 billion high-speed rail project under the CCP&#8217;s Belt and Road Initiative that will eventually connect Bangkok to China. It also continues joint military exercises with Chinese forces.
Sebastian Borda, executive director of Polaris National Security, expressed what was at stake for the U.S.: “China is the defining national security challenge of our time and the United States cannot meet it alone.”
He added that “many allies are stepping up but others have yet to match that resolve.” Borda said U.S. allies face a choice to “share the burden of deterring China or leave America to shoulder it alone.”
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A US and a Chinese flag wave outside a c

Some U.S. Allies Are Selling Out To China

australia

china

japan

polaris national security

united states foreign policy

world

<div>
Federal records show that Turkey’s ruling party held <a href="https://efile.fara.gov/docs/7115-Supplemental-Statement-20260712-8.pdf">meetings</a> with high-profile American media voices, including far-Left political commentator <a href="https://efile.fara.gov/docs/7115-Supplemental-Statement-20261230-7.pdf">Mehdi Hasan</a> and Neil Patel, co-founder of The Daily Caller and CEO of the Tucker Carlson Network.
The Turkey AK Party&#8217;s Representation to the United States also met with former CIA officer John Kiriakou, the intelligence official who blew the whistle on the agency&#8217;s use of waterboarding and other forms of torture against detainees during the War on Terror.
On March 11, 2026, Turkey’s AK Party Representation to the United States LLC met face-to-face with Kiriakou, and the next day, it held a virtual meeting with Patel. Months earlier, the same office met with Hasan and attended a banquet hosted by the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR has faced scrutiny from Republicans over its historical connections to individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Those relationships have been examined in congressional hearings, including a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senate-hearing-pulls-back-curtain-on-muslim-brotherhoods-ties-to-hamas">Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing</a> earlier this month.
The AK Party Representation to the United States is registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and its filings are signed by Halil Mutlu, who has been publicly identified as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s cousin.
In the 12 months covered by its two most recent supplemental statements, the office reported receiving nearly $2.1 million in wire transfers from AK Party headquarters in Turkey. Its reported expenditures included construction, architecture, plumbing, electrical work, staff, and the costs of keeping a permanent political operation running in Washington.
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<div>
The office&#8217;s activity logs repeatedly <a href="https://efile.fara.gov/docs/7115-Supplemental-Statement-20250630-6.pdf">describe</a> its meetings using broad phrases such as “Discussion regarding U.S.-Turkey Relations” and “Public Event,” often providing little to no additional information about what was discussed. The entries include the CAIR-NY banquet and an earlier meeting with Kiriakou on April 23, 2025.
The meetings garnered attention because Kiriakou later appeared on Tucker Carlson’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OHs57Om9mE">show</a>. In a July 2026 episode, the two discussed CIA culture, deception tactics, and how the agency treats whistleblowers. The Tucker Carlson Network has also sold Kiriakou’s book, &#8220;The Ultimate Guide to CIA Skills, Tactics, and Techniques.&#8221;
The FARA filings provide a paper trail of meetings between the Turkish party’s Washington operation and a number of politically influential American personalities. It is unclear what was discussed during any of those meetings. The filings record the names, the dates, and the money, but almost nothing about the substance of the conversations.
Patel has rejected suggestions of an improper relationship with Turkey. On Monday, he <a href="https://x.com/NeilPatelTDC/status/2089356754328920090">wrote</a> on X, “These boring and disingenuous smears don’t work anymore. I meet with all sorts of people every week to try to figure out what’s really going on in an increasingly complicated and dangerous world. Unlike so many others, we’ve never taken a dime from foreign interests.&#8221;
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Leona Salinas