In an interview with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, two British political figures turned podcasters, she openly stated she would vote for unification with Romania if there were a referendum.
Unionists on both sides of the River Prut were elated. For more than three decades, they have been pushing for the removal of the border which had separated the two sister countries since 1940, when Romanian-speaking Moldova was annexed by the Soviet Union.
Pro-Russian factions in Chișinău lashed out, decrying Sandu’s “betrayal of national interests,” and calling for her resignation.
With passion running high on both sides, it was no surprise the Moldovan government rushed to reassure the public, insisting the latest statement merely reflected Sandu’s personal choice and not her official position.
But those who have been paying attention, particularly to the energy sector, will have noticed some intriguing developments in recent years.
Moldova’s electricity and gas policies have been aligning closer with Romania’s, and the step is arguably one of the most critical towards the unification of the two countries.
There’s no conspiracy here; it’s simply that the alignment has been driven by necessity.
Much of the impetus has come from Kremlin meddling. Since 2021, Russia has sought to trigger repeated energy crises, expecting to blackmail Moldova’s pro-EU government and derail the country’s aspirations to join the bloc.
Until then, Moldova had depended for all its gas consumption and three-quarters of its electricity demand on Russian-controlled resources.
It’s hardly an exaggeration to say the country’s single biggest vulnerability to Moscow’s blackmail was its extreme reliance on Russian energy resources.
But Russia’s plans to destabilize the small country of 2.5million people have backfired.
By limiting gas supplies to Moldova in winters 2021 and 2022 and then cutting deliveries altogether to Transnistria in winter 2025, the Kremlin lost its grip over the whole country.
Moldova acted fast to diversify away, while Transnistria, a breakaway Russian-speaking province internationally recognized as being part of Moldova, could soon see major structural changes since the Kremlin is no longer able to use free gas supplies to fuel separatism.
Chișinău’s gas diversification plan was the first step towards severing its links to Russia.
Moldova can now buy gas in any neighboring European country, but to bring them home it uses an interconnector with Romania, which entered operation only a few weeks before the first energy crisis of winter 2021.
Since then, Moldova has taken other critical steps to align with Romania.
It passed rules allowing it to shift the operation of its strategic gas transmission infrastructure from a company majority owned by Russia’s Gazprom to the operator of the Romanian-Moldovan gas interconnector. The latter is a daughter company of the Romanian gas grid operator, Transgaz.
Technical experts say the two gas markets should now merge to streamline operations and cut costs.
Moldovan companies have secured licenses to trade in Romania, just as Romanian energy exchanges, suppliers, and producers have been opening subsidiaries in Chișinău.
Romania’s commitment to Moldova is even embedded in its national energy strategy up to 2035.
The document specifically mentions that the integration of its electricity and gas infrastructure with that of Moldova is of “strategic importance.”
It also notes that Romania’s energy security is unequivocally tied to that of Moldova’s and that it “should be in a position to guarantee all of Moldova’s energy needs for an indefinite period of time and under any circumstances.”
The strategy is taking shape.
Within a few weeks, Moldova will also boost its electricity supply security as a much-delayed direct, high-voltage line linking it to southeastern Romania is expected to come into operation.
Moldova had been using lines built in the Soviet era that passed through Transnistria to import electricity from Romania, presenting a major security risk.
Two additional electricity interconnectors with eastern Romania scheduled for operation later this decade will also boost Moldova’s security of supply, as the country will be able to import more electricity from Romania.
Even Transnistria, which depended on free Russian gas deliveries to sustain its separatist structures, has been relying on Russian-funded exports delivered via Romania.
Although Moscow uses Hungary and Dubai-based companies to buy and deliver the gas to Transnistria, the arrangement is difficult to sustain amid international sanctions against Russia.
If circumstances persist, Transnistrian authorities will have to consider structural reform, which would inevitably align it with Moldova and implicitly Romania.
Unification may not enjoy widespread popular support on either side of the River Prut, at least for now (polls suggest a majority oppose such a move, with around 30% in favor).
However, the rapid convergence of the two countries’ energy sectors shows that alignment is already underway, primarily driven by security concerns.
For Bucharest, regional stability is linked to Moldova’s energy security. The events of the last five years showed Russia was ready to use the energy lever to destabilize the country and the wider neighborhood.
For Chisinau, Romania is a guarantor of resilience, which it requires on its path to EU integration.
The countries may tactfully avoid the subject of unification, and it will be argued that this isn’t on the cards for now. But the truth remains that work is underway to ensure that in a sudden crisis, the barriers to union could be overcome.
That’s the share of young liberal women who oppose deportations of illegal immigrants. In a country where 61% of voters support deportation efforts, one demographic has positioned itself further from the American mainstream than any other group in modern polling.
This hasn’t shown itself in just one issue. It’s a pattern. And understanding it explains a lot about our current political dysfunction.
The inversion here is striking. White young liberal women oppose deportations at 94%. Their non-white counterparts? Eighty-three percent opposed.
The women who look least like the people being deported hold the strongest opposition. The women who share ethnic backgrounds with many deportees are 11 points less absolute in their position.
We’re not measuring empathy. We’re measuring ideology. The positions don’t correlate with proximity to the issue. They correlate inversely with it.
Women 55 and older support deportations 66-27. Men of all ages support them by similar margins. But women under 55 flip to 42-53 opposition. Drill into that cohort and you find young liberal women driving the entire gender gap single-handedly.
A chasm separates them from the general electorate. It goes beyond disagreement to being in a parallel universe.
The Algorithm Did This
Values didn’t change generationally. Your grandmother and your 28-year-old cousin both believe in fairness, family, and compassion. What changed is information architecture.
Forty percent of young liberal women are highly online, 40% are watching national broadcast news, and a third get news from TikTok. They’re triple-dosing on media that reinforces identical narratives from different platforms.
Compare that to the general electorate: only 8% use TikTok as a news source. When one group’s primary information channel differs from everyone else’s by a factor of four, they’re not seeing the same country.
Senator Saddam claims that Virginia is in the middle of an ‘Islamophobia’ crisis. The second Muslim selected for the state senate, after Ghazala Hashmi, who is now acting as Virginia’s Lt. Governor, the Bangladeshi immigrant, from a country where non-Muslims are being murdered in the streets, has made complaining about ‘Islamophobia’ in his new home his signature issue.
Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim’s first priority has been a bill to define ‘Islamophobia’. The most notable thing about his bill SB 624 ‘Assault and battery; definition of “Islamophobia”, penalty’ is how completely unnecessary it is. Virginia already has multiple layers of hate crimes enhancements for assaults motivated by race, ethnicity and religion. During Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s term, the legislature has already passed SB 7 (Senate Bill 7) and its counterpart enhancing the assault charge for anyone who “intentionally selects the person against whom a simple assault is committed because of his race, religious conviction, gender, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, color, or ethnic or national origin.”
That should cover Islam and Muslims. And yet Sen. Saddam introduced a 3 page bill with 10 clauses in its first section a whole lot of whom do nothing more than add (including Islam) where it isn’t remotely needed or useful. For example “because of his race, religious conviction (including Islam), gender, disability, gender identity” or “because of his race, religious conviction (including Islam)”. Islam appears to be the only religion being singled out this way.
Why provide Islam with this privileged status? Because it makes Islam distinct, which is a step towards making it superior, and making Islam distinct and superior is the religious mission of all believing Muslims.
This isn’t about making sure that attacks on Muslims are prosecuted, but about providing Islam with special privileges.
And it’s about using supposed crimes against Muslims as bait for Islamophobia indoctrination. The Islamophobia ‘switch’ in SB 624 comes after the ‘bait’ about assaults. First, the bill sets out a definition of ‘Islamophobia’ which transforms a term created by Islamists seeking to impose their religion on society into an official legal term.
Notably, the definition in SB624 states that “Islamophobia means malicious prejudice or hatred directed toward Islam or Muslims.” This distinction is legally significant as ‘prejudice’ towards Islam distinct from prejudice towards Muslims. For example, in the UK burning a Koran has been prosecuted as a form of hate towards Islam. And that opens the door to blasphemy law.
Having malicious prejudice towards Muslims is perfectly sufficient in prosecuting an assault or a case of discrimination. Islam however is a religion and just like any religion or any other belief system, people have the right to be opposed to it as long as they don’t mistreat others.
The use of “Islam or Muslims” embeds the first stage of blasphemy law inside Virginia law.
But that’s the whole reason why ‘Islamophobia’ was manufactured as a political term. Unlike ‘racism’ or ‘antisemitism’, it’s not hatred towards a group, but towards an ideological abstraction. ‘Islamophobia’ legislation isn’t protecting persecuted individuals, but the status of an ideology. And those forms of ‘protection’ invariably turn out to ban ‘blasphemy’ against Islam by censoring cartoons, art (at least one art professor was fired for showing paintings of Mohammed in class) and any public criticism of the Islamic persecution of women, minorities and all non-Muslims.
SB 624 claims that it’s not trying to “regulate or restrict any speech, expression, or belief”, but by including a definition of ‘Islamophobia’ that mentions ‘Islam’ and puts it first, it’s laying the groundwork for doing exactly that.
Compare this to HB 2261 under Gov. Youngkin, which Islamist and leftist groups urgently opposed, which defined antisemitism and which did not mention ‘Judaism’, but rather defined it as a “hatred toward Jews and includes rhetorical and physical manifestations of hostility or hatred that may be directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals or their property, the Jewish community, or Jewish institutions and religious facilities.” In all of these cases, antisemitism involved hatred against Jews, synagogues or other facilities, not ‘Judaism’.
Why doesn’t Sen. Saddam’s ‘Islamophobia’ bill use that as a model? Because it’s not about protecting Muslims from violence, but about imposing Islam as a legal concept on Virginia.
The object of SB 624 and every effort to define ‘Islamophobia’ isn’t Muslims, it’s Islam. The pretense that Muslims are facing violence and need a new bill to protect them falls apart because the very definition is aimed at protecting ‘Islam’, the religion, not the individuals.
Virginia’s extensive hate crime codes already amply protect Muslims from anything and everything. The only ‘gap’, from the Islamist perspective, is the status of Islam.
The ‘Islamophobia’ definition of SB 624 gives a distinct and special status to Islam, it defines Islam as an entity that must be protected by the government and the law enforcement agencies whom the bill obligates to use this definition of ‘Islamophobia’ when prosecuting hate crimes. And that paves the way for criminalizing Koran defacement and Mohammed paintings.
It’s telling that Virginia’s highest profile ‘Islamophobia’ case was a lie. And it happened in Fairfax County, which is represented by Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim. Darwin Martinez Torres, an illegal alien MS-13 gang member, killed Nabra Hassanen, a Muslim teenage girl, and rather than blaming Fairfax’s sanctuary policies that enabled Torres to be there roaming the streets, Islamist groups and their radical allies falsely blamed ‘Islamophobia’ and intimidated local authorities, including prosecutors, into propping up their hoax. Police initially correctly stated that it was road rage before being forced to spread the lie that it had been motivated by Islam.
The evidence that it was a ‘hate crime’?
In the words of a Washington Post reporter “hitting a 17-year-old girl with a bat and dumping her body in a pond would be an act born of hate.” Perhaps, but not of Muslims or of Islam.
Nabra Hassanen’s murder was used to promote the myth that there was an ‘Islamophobia’ crisis in Virginia and SB 624 is the next stage in which Islamists profit by creating a distinct legal status for Islam. That is how one lie about ‘Islamophobia’ becomes a state law.
The EEOC’s investigation and subpoena sought information related to these allegations, with some requests going back to 2018. Information sought included criteria used in selecting employees for layoffs; information related to the company’s tracking and use of worker race and ethnicity data, including as a factor in setting executive compensation; and information about 16 programs which allegedly provided race-restricted mentoring, leadership, or career development opportunities. When the company failed to produce all the information sought by the subpoena, the agency filed an enforcement action in federal court.
The EEOC’s investigation and subpoena sought information related to these allegations, with some requests going back to 2018. Information sought included criteria used in selecting employees for layoffs; information related to the company’s tracking and use of worker race and ethnicity data, including as a factor in setting executive compensation; and information about 16 programs which allegedly provided race-restricted mentoring, leadership, or career development opportunities. When the company failed to produce all the information sought by the subpoena, the agency filed an enforcement action in federal court.
Nike is under federal investigation for discriminating against White workers.
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is probing Nike for discriminating against Whites with its DEI programs.
“When there are compelling indications, including corporate admissions in extensive public materials, that an employer’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion-related programs may violate federal prohibitions against race discrimination or other forms of unlawful discrimination, the EEOC will take all necessary steps—including subpoena enforcement actions—to ensure the opportunity to fully and comprehensively investigate,” said EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas.
“Title VII’s prohibition of race-based employment discrimination is colorblind and requires the EEOC to protect employees of all races from unlawful employment practices. Thanks to President Trump’s commitment to enforcing our nation’s civil rights laws, the EEOC has renewed its focus on evenhanded enforcement of Title VII,” Lucas said.
Nike claimed they are committed to “fair and lawful employment practices.”
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced today that the federal agency filed an action in federal court to compel NIKE, Inc. to produce information related to allegations that the company discriminated against white workers, including as a result of NIKE’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion-related 2025 Targets and other DEI-related objectives.
According to the EEOC’s court filing, the agency is investigating systemic allegations of DEI-related intentional race discrimination, specifically that NIKE may have engaged in “a pattern or practice of disparate treatment against white employees, applicants and training program participants in hiring, promotion, demotion, or separation decisions, including selection for layoffs; internship programs; and mentoring, leadership development and other career development programs.”
The EEOC’s investigation and subpoena sought information related to these allegations, with some requests going back to 2018. Information sought included criteria used in selecting employees for layoffs; information related to the company’s tracking and use of worker race and ethnicity data, including as a factor in setting executive compensation; and information about 16 programs which allegedly provided race-restricted mentoring, leadership, or career development opportunities. When the company failed to produce all the information sought by the subpoena, the agency filed an enforcement action in federal court.
According to the EEOC’s court filing, the agency is investigating systemic allegations of DEI-related intentional race discrimination, specifically that NIKE may have engaged in “a pattern or practice of disparate treatment against white employees, applicants and training program participants in hiring, promotion, demotion, or separation decisions, including selection for layoffs; internship programs; and mentoring, leadership development and other career development programs.”
Rural Texas residents claim that a Muslim city is being built in their backyard and accuse local officials of being very secretive about the deal.
Kaufman, Texas, residents didn’t think much of it when Kaufman Solar LLC bought a massive parcel of land in 2022. However, now that a mysterious buyer from the Middle East is looking to purchase an estimated 2,000 acres of land right next door to the planned solar farm to establish a sustainable city, they are worried about the impact.
Residents first became aware of the potential new settlement through a Facebook post from a concerned citizen Friday, Jan. 30.
“Serious question and maybe one of you all can help answer this or maybe be made aware? A few weeks ago, I was told that a Geocity was coming to Kaufman, Texas. This would be funded by Saudi [Arabian] investors,” the post stated.
“They plan on bringing over 20,000+ people into this giant city they are making. Now this could just be a good ole rumor. But it also could be true? Partly true? Semi true? Who knows? But I would love to be educated. And after watching this and seeing this post (video of the county commissioner’s November meeting) … I am thinking maybe the public should be aware of what could be coming to Kaufman,” the post continued.
Shortly after the post went live, a source who wished to remain anonymous confirmed to the original poster that the company seeking to build a sustainable city plans to buy land in an unincorporated area of Kaufman County.
“‘Hey that Arab city thing is real. The commissioners met with the school so admin and the board are aware. Seems like Kaufman city/county have been trying to keep it quiet,’” the text reads. The Daily Caller confirmed the text’s authenticity.
The Kaufman County Commissioner Court meeting Jan. 20 confirms that a buyer, through a Dallas, Texas, law firm, is seeking to purchase the land, contingent on the county approving three new municipal water districts for a potential sustainable city. The lawyer verified that the potential developer is SEE Holding, a UAE-based, privately held global holding group headquartered in Dubai, apparently focused on sustainability and spearheading a net-zero emissions future.
Republican Rep. Lance Gooden also told the Daily Caller that the buyer is based in Dubai, which he says raises serious concerns that need to be addressed before any approval for the city is potentially granted.
“The group reached out to me, and I said under no circumstances would we accept any planned community that included mosques or religious buildings or schools. 20,000 foreigners is news to me, but that would also be a nonstarter, obviously,” Gooden said.
“They said they would put that in writing and agreed with me, and I suggested they delay their hearing. We have a lot of crappy, run-down developments in Kaufman County and would welcome something nice, but this group will need to convince the community before I get on board,” he continued.
“If they were from New York and not Dubai, then we likely wouldn’t be concerned, but considering what our neighboring counties have been through, they’re going to have to actively involve the community to get buy-in, and that has yet to happen,” Gooden said.
A source familiar with the planned sustainable city in Kaufman County claims that when they first contacted Kaufman County Commissioner Terry Crow about the deal, he said he was unaware of it. That source later confirmed that Crow allegedly had detailed knowledge of the proposed city before citizens became aware of it.
The Daily Caller reached out to Kaufman County Commissioner Terry Crow for comment. Crow has not responded as of Wednesday afternoon.
The Kaufman County Commissioners Court had originally planned to bring the approval of the new water districts up for a vote Feb. 10. However, it later removed the item from the agenda during its Feb. 3 meeting.
“Next week, we were supposed to have a hearing on the freshwater District for the sustainable city. I’ve been visiting with Congressman Gooden and myself with the principal involved here from Dallas, and they have asked to pull that from the agenda for next week,” County Judge Jakie Allen stated.
“They will be coming later with a full set of plans so that people can ask questions and any questions would be answered at that time; and we’ll go wherever in the county we need to go cause it affects the entire county,” he continued.
“Last night when I spoke with the man in Dallas, he said they would go as far as … I know some people worried about it being a Muslim community, so he guarantees it’s not; and they would put in the deeds that there will be no mosque ever built on the location, so anyway, so that will not be on the agenda for next week,” Allen said.
“It seems like they’re canceling the public hearing just to buy time to think of ways to convince us it’s not what we know it is,” a source familiar with the planned sustainable city said.
“I do know that all officials are being very careful and not putting anything in writing. Only phone calls are being answered and made. No one has had any luck communicating in writing at the moment. Which makes it super hard. Very smart on their part,” the source said. “I pretty much don’t believe anyone anymore with what they say they will do.”
A resident of Kaufman County, speaking anonymously to the Daily Caller, said they have three major concerns: whether the local water supply can meet the demand of three new water districts, especially during drought season; what the potential social impact is with having 20,000 Arab residents in rural Texas after seeing construction of the highly contentious East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC City or The Meadow) and the new viral video out of Wylie, Texas; and why local officials have seemingly been secretive about the deal.
In the video, Marco Hunter-Lopez, president of the Wylie East High School Republican Student Club, claimed that female high school students were approached during lunchtime by an Islamic organization called “Why Islam?” The female students were offered hijabs, copies of the Quran, and pamphlets explaining Shariah Law.
“The district was not made aware of this incident until a video referencing it began circulating on social media later that evening, around 8:30,” Wylie ISD said in a statement.
“Once we became aware, we immediately began an investigation. While that investigation remains ongoing, we have confirmed that district protocols for guest speakers and student club interactions were not followed. Ultimately, this issue stems from a failure to follow established procedures,” the statement continued.
Texas residents have become increasingly frustrated with the seemingly blind eye Texas elected officials have turned to residents’ concerns about their changing communities and an influx of immigrants.
Paul Ammons protests Rady Children’s Hospital’s decision to end most of its gender affirming care services in San Diego on Jan. 24, 2026. Photo by Zoë Meyers for The San Diego Union Tribune
In summary
The Unruh Civil Rights Act provides the fundamental protection for equal access to health care regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, experts say. The state has not acted to uphold those protections, transgender rights groups claim.
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On Friday evening, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against the state’s largest children’s health provider. The complaint accused Rady Children’s Health in San Diego of taking steps to illegally terminate gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
News of the lawsuit spread quickly through chat groups of parents of transgender kids, LGBTQ organizations and the broader transgender community. It was the first major action the state has taken against a hospital that had severely limited or ended transgender health services.
Many in the community see this move as a major step towards protecting transgender health, but some still question why the state’s legal claims don’t rest on broader civil rights questions. Instead, the key argument relies on the state’s corporations code — a provision governing business transactions — to try to compel Rady into continuing gender-affirming care.
The claim filed against Rady alleges the health system violated a merger agreement signed last year when Rady took over Children’s Hospital of Orange County and Children’s Hospital of Mission. That agreement requires Rady to maintain existing services, including transgender health care.
“We have anti-discrimination laws on the books. We have legal protection of gender-affirming care on the books. But if Rob Bonta does not feel confident in his ability to win a case on the basis of those laws do we really have those laws?” said Kanan Durham, executive director of Pride at the Pier, an Orange County group organizing opposition to Rady’s announced transgender clinic closure.
Durham said he was in a room full of trans people when the news of the lawsuit broke. People cheered, he said. But many were conflicted about the narrow application of the claim.
California’s civil rights law — the Unruh Civil Rights Act — is the backbone of the state’s guarantee of equal access to transgender health services, which can include puberty blockers, hormones, surgery and therapy, said Megan Noor, a staff attorney at the Transgender Law Center. The law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Noor said that means, for example, if a hospital offers puberty blockers to a cisgender child who is starting puberty too young, they cannot deny access to that same treatment to a transgender child even if it is for a different purpose, such as giving the child more time to explore their gender identity.
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Other laws require insurers to cover gender-affirming care and protect the privacy of transgender patients and their doctors.
In a press release, Bonta said “We will fight to uphold the law and ensure Californians can access gender-affirming care without facing unfair roadblocks.” His office, in an unsigned statement, said it had no comment on enforcement of the state’s civil rights law.
Ben Metcalf, a spokesperson for Rady Children’s Health, said in a statement that the organization could not comment on pending litigation, but called the decision to shutter gender-affirming care services “very difficult.”
“That decision was guided by our responsibilities as a nonprofit pediatric health care system to continue serving all children and families across our communities, including through participation in essential federal programs,” Metcalf said.
null
Rady notified parents of transgender children in mid-January that it would be closing its Center for Gender Affirming Care on Feb. 6.
Hospitals under pressure
Over the past year, transgender youth and their parents have watched with growing fear as California’s largest health systems retreated from providing transgender health services to people under the age of 19.
Hospitals say their hands were forced by an unfriendly federal government that does not recognize the existence of transgender people.
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order characterizing transgender health procedures as “chemical and surgical mutilation” and directing agencies to defund any supportive programs.
Rady, in a statement issued prior to the state’s lawsuit, confirmed the Health and Human Services inspector general was investigating the hospital, and said “the environment around gender-affirming care has changed dramatically.”
The American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and dozens of independent scientific studies reject the claim that gender-affirming services are harmful to children with gender dysphoria. Instead, they conclude that “trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression” and having access to supportive health care positively impacts youth mental health and decreases suicidality.
Most recently, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is considering proposed rules that would eliminate government funding for hospitals that provide transgender health care to minors. If formalized, the rules would effectively create a near-total national ban on gender-affirming services for young people because nearly all hospitals in the U.S. receive more than 50% of revenue from Medicare and Medicaid payments, according to the American Hospital Association.
Advocates, legal experts and parents say that even with this existential threat hanging over health providers, for now, it’s just that: A threat.
“Nobody needs to stop this care at this point. It is a policy that has been announced. There has not been a law passed, nothing has been finalized,” said Kathie Moehlig, executive director of TransFamily Support Services based in San Diego. “We have to resist.”
Parents and advocates look to leaders to uphold state protections
Bonta has sued the Trump administration multiple times in an effort to protect transgender patient care, but some parents and advocates say his office needs to do more to uphold state law.
The attorney general must review nonprofit hospital transactions, and can impose conditions to preserve patient care.
Dannie Ceseña, director of the California LGBTQ Health and Human Services Network, said it was meaningful that Bonta did that in Rady’s merger, adding language protecting gender-affirming and other specialty health services for 10 years.
“What about all of the other hospitals and families that don’t have this protective clause? They are still violating families’ civil rights. They are still stopping access to care,” Ceseña said. “Why isn’t the attorney general doing more in regards to this issue?”
Last February, the California Department of Justice sent a letter to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles warning that its refusal to serve transgender minors would violate the state’s civil rights law. In July, the hospital permanently closed its transgender health clinic.
Ceseña says he feels the state has been inconsistent in its support of the trans community. He and other LGBTQ advocates expected the state to sue Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and others well before the Rady lawsuit. And specifically, to protect civil rights for trans children.
“We need to stop with the letters. We need to stop with the announcements. We need to see action,” Ceseña said. “Our kids are suffering.”
Others say it’s significant that the state stepped in at all after months of “despair.”
Arne Johnson, a Bay Area parent and organizer with Rainbow Families Action, acknowledged that many members of the community had “complex feelings” about the latest lawsuit.
But he said he cried after hearing of the lawsuit against Rady.
“The thing that is so powerful for so many of us who have been working so hard and crying out for someone to do something is that it’s the first time the state has recognized our children are valid members of society and worthy of protection by the laws of this state,” Johnson said. “That’s all we’ve been asking for.”
Parents are fighting back
Parents of transgender kids say they have been moved to action by the steady erosion of gender-affirming care in the state. In December, hundreds of Northern California parents protested Sutter Health’s initial decision to stop gender-affirming care.
Last month, more than 600 people rallied outside of Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego while another 100 protested at the system’s affiliate Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
Ceseña said this marks a “huge change” since the start of the Trump administration among families who have transgender children and had previously kept their heads down in hopes that the issue would blow over.
That includes Todd, a San Diego native and father to a 15-year-old transgender boy. He asked to be identified by his middle name only to protect the identity of his son.
Before Rady informed parents it would stop services, Todd hadn’t been too involved in the transgender community. But he attended the protest and is looking to do more; Rady’s decision felt like a “betrayal,” he said.
“It felt like people who said ‘you can trust us’ were now collaborating with the people trying to hurt us,” Todd said.
Todd’s son came out to his parents when he was 11. He saw a therapist for two years before going to Rady’s where, for more than a year, the family spoke with doctors and counselors to “help him understand himself” and “find the words and language to explain to himself what he was feeling.”
The process looks different for every child and family, Todd said. Some kids think surgery is important to them, while others don’t; some want puberty blockers and hormone therapy, while others just want to be in an environment that is supportive. The process – broadly supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other leading medical societies – is often lengthy and involves the whole family, Todd said.
“If you’re not dealing with it personally, you don’t have to know those details, but what you do have to do is allow doctors and families to do the correct things to make their families healthy,” he said.
Todd said he’s optimistic the state’s lawsuit will help Southern California families and build momentum.
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A set of internal documents published by the Republican members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee (Judiciary GOP) has sent shockwaves through Brussels.
Released under the title The EU Censorship Files, Part II, the investigation presents documentary evidence of a sustained strategy by the European Commission to influence public debate on social media and digital platforms, pressuring major tech companies to censor lawful content, alter their internal rules, and restrict certain political viewpoints.
🚨The EU Censorship Files, Part II
For more than a year, the Committee has been warning that European censorship laws threaten U.S. free speech online.
Now, we have proof: Big Tech is censoring Americans’ speech in the U.S., including true information, to comply with Europe’s… pic.twitter.com/Fg0gxzoTxD
The revelations go far beyond an abstract debate over content moderation. According to the material made public, the Commission has directly or indirectly intervened in at least eight electoral processes across six European countries since 2023, using high-level meetings with digital platforms in the days and weeks leading up to elections to demand stricter censorship of political speech.
A decade-long censorship architecture
The leaked files show that this policy did not originate with the Digital Services Act (DSA), but dates back at least to 2015. As stated in the Committee’s official thread on X, “it began as early as 2015, when the European Commission created ‘codes’ and ‘forums’ through which it could pressure platforms to censor speech more aggressively.” These mechanisms, publicly presented as voluntary and consensus-based, functioned in practice as tools of regulatory coercion.
Internal communications from the tech companies themselves, included in the dossier, are particularly revealing. They acknowledge that “the Commission sets the agenda, forces consensus, and platforms don’t really have a choice.” The primary goal was not the removal of individual pieces of content, but rather the reshaping of community guidelines—the global rules that define which ideas are allowed to circulate in the digital public square.
From the pandemic to electoral control
During the COVID-19 crisis, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and then–Vice President Vera Jourová actively pressured platforms to remove content that challenged official narratives about the pandemic and vaccines. The report summarizes it bluntly: “They told platforms to change their rules and take down content questioning established narratives about the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine.”
From 2022 onward, this strategy became institutionalized. Between 2022 and 2024, the Commission organized more than 90 meetings under the Disinformation Code, urging platforms to tighten their moderation rules on a global scale. With the entry into force of the Digital Services Act (DSA), the pressure intensified further, with companies warned that they would have to submit their rules to a “continuous review of community guidelines” in order to avoid sanctions.
The impact was immediate. In 2024, TikTok changed its global rules “to comply with the Digital Services Act,” a move that, according to the documents, resulted in the censorship of truthful information and broad, vague categories of protected speech, even outside Europe. “That’s right: because of Europe’s censorship law, TikTok censors true information in the United States,” the Committee stresses.
Interference in European elections
The most sensitive aspect of the report is the direct link between these practices and specific electoral processes. Since 2023, the Commission held meetings with digital platforms ahead of national elections in Ireland in both 2024 and 2025; in France in 2024; in the Netherlands in 2023 and again in 2025; in Slovakia in 2023; in Moldova in 2024; and in Romania that same year. In every case, the meetings took place at critical moments of the campaign and were aimed at intensifying the censorship of political content deemed problematic.
Internal platform documents show that following these meetings, TikTok censored widely used conservative political claims, such as the (true) assertion that there are only two sexes. The DSA Election Guidelines themselves state that platforms must “adapt their terms and conditions” ahead of elections to combat so-called disinformation. Although officially presented as voluntary recommendations, a senior DSA official admitted in private conversations that they were, in practice, mandatory.
The Romanian case is particularly controversial. A court annulled the 2024 presidential election, citing alleged Russian interference via TikTok. However, the platform itself informed the Commission that it had found “no evidence of a coordinated Russian campaign” to support the winning candidate, Calin Georgescu. Subsequent investigations revealed that another Romanian political party had in fact funded the campaign attributed to Russia.
The Judiciary GOP revelations force a reassessment of the balance between regulation and freedom within the European Union. Beyond the official rhetoric about combating disinformation, the documents describe an architecture of narrative control that strikes at the heart of democratic pluralism and citizens’ right to debate freely without ideological oversight.
One of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates, has broken his silence following allegations surfacing in the latest round of documents released regarding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The focus was always, he knew a lot of very rich people and he was saying he could get them to give money to global health,’ Gates said in an interview with Nine News on Wednesday.
Gates gave his ‘only Australian TV interview’ with the network during a trip to the country for the Australian Open, which ran from January 12 to February 1 at Melbourne Park
The billionaire continued: ‘You know, in retrospect that was a dead end and I was foolish to spend time with him. I am one of many people who regret ever knowing him.
‘Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself. That email was never sent. The email is, you know, false.
‘I don’t know what his thinking was there. Every minute that I spent with him, I regret and I apologise that I did that.
‘I was only at dinners… I never went to the island, I never met any women, and so, you know, the more that comes out, the more clear it’ll be, that although the time was a mistake, it had nothing to do with that kind of behavior.’
The latest tranche of documents contains allegations against a number of well-known people including Gates, who met Epstein on multiple occasions to discuss expanding his philanthropic efforts.
email Epstein sent to himself in 2013 shows him frustrated over Gates’ decision to end their friendship and appears to allege Gates contracted an STD and sought his advice to secretly give an antibiotic to his then-wife Melinda.
‘TO add insult to injury you them implore me to please delete the emails mails regarding your std, your request that I provide you antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda and the description of your penis,’ the email with typos reads.
Another section showed Epstein writing he was ‘dismayed beyond comprehension’ by Gates’s decision to ‘disregard our friendship developed over the last six years.’
Does Bill Gates have more explaining to do?
Yes No The emails were among the hundreds of thousands of Epstein files published by America’s Department of Justice on Friday morning.
Melinda, who divorced Bill Gates in 2021, earlier on Tuesday said those mentioned in the documents, including her ex, should publicly address the allegations.
During Tuesday’s episode of NPR’s Wild Card podcast, Melinda, 61, said she felt sorry for the victims of Epstein.
‘I think we’re having a reckoning as a society, right? No girl, no girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him,’ she said, shaking her head.
She added: ‘It’s beyond heartbreaking. I remember being those ages those girls were, I remember my daughters being those ages.
As for me, it’s personally hard whenever those details come up.’
Melinda and Bill were married from 1994 to 2021 and she has cited his friendship with Epstein as one of the reasons for the divorce, but has not divulged further details.
Melinda reportedly hired lawyers to plan the split in 2019, after reports emerged about his repeated meetings with Epstein, contradicting the Microsoft founder’s earlier public denials.
She retained counsel after becoming concerned about her husband’s alleged business dealings with the disgraced financier, The Wall Street Journal reported.
A spokesman for Gates previously told the Daily Mail: ‘These claims are absolutely absurd and completely false.
‘The only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein’s frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame.’
Strongly Antisemitic Harvard University has been feeding a lot of ‘nonsense’ to The Failing New York Times. Harvard has been, for a long time, behaving very badly! They wanted to do a convoluted job training concept, but it was turned down in that it was wholly inadequate and would not have been, in our opinion, successful. It was merely a way of Harvard getting out of a large cash settlement of more than 500 Million Dollars, a number that should be much higher for the serious and heinous illegalities that they have committed. This should be a Criminal, not Civil, event, and Harvard will have to live with the consequences of their wrongdoings. In any event, this case will continue until justice is served. Dr. Alan Garber, the President of Harvard, has done a terrible job of rectifying a very bad situation for his institution and, more importantly, America, itself. He was hired AFTER the antisemitism charges were brought – I wonder why??? We are now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University. As The Failing New York Times clearly stated, ‘Some connected to the University, however, think Harvard has no option but to eventually cut a deal. The Administration has repeatedly attempted to cut off research grants, which would be an untenable crises. Like many major research universities, Harvard relies on federal funding for its financial model.’ Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
The conflict between Trump and Harvard intensified in 2025 as the administration launched investigations into alleged antisemitism and ideological bias on campus. In response to Harvard’s refusal to implement proposed reforms, including changes to hiring and admissions practices, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in federal research funding and, in May, barred the university from enrolling students on foreign visas.
In September 2025, a federal judge reversed the funding freeze, ruling it violated constitutional free speech protections and federal law, while also claiming the administration had a legitimate interest in combating antisemitism and criticizing Harvard’s past tolerance of hateful behavior.
Trump’s administration has maintained that Harvard acted with “deliberate indifference” toward Jewish and Israeli students and has cited a series of incidents—including physical altercations during anti-Israel protests and the hiring of individuals previously involved in such events—as grounds for punitive action. The Department of Justice’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, led by Leo Terrell, has made campus antisemitism its primary focus and has conducted investigations at multiple universities, including Harvard.
Alan Garber, who assumed the Harvard presidency amid campus turmoil following the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, has repeatedly discussed institutional failures in public statements and interviews. In a March 2025 letter to the Harvard community, Garber wrote that antisemitism “is present on our campus,” adding, “I have experienced antisemitism directly, even while serving as president.”
In a January 2026 podcast appearance, Garber said the university “went wrong” by allowing faculty activism in classrooms, stating that such conduct “chilled free speech and debate on campus.” He has also acknowledged complaints about ideological imbalance, saying the administration has heard that “conservatives are too few on campus and their views are not welcome,” and conceding that, “insofar as that’s true, that’s a problem we really need to address.”
Despite those remarks, Garber has pushed back against the Trump administration’s methods. During an interview on NBC Nightly News, he stated:
What they are indicating is that they want to directly review who we hire on our faculty. That has implications for what kinds of views can be expressed on campus. They also want to be able to tell us who we need to fire and they also want to intervene in our admissions processes. That is what we are objecting to.
Harvard’s attorneys also issued a formal response to the administration’s demands, writing in a letter reported by Breitbart News:
“It is unfortunate, then, that your letter disregards Harvard’s efforts and instead presents demands that, in contravention for the First Amendment, invade university freedoms long recognized by the Supreme Court.”
In Minneapolis a war is raging, and it’s no longer limited to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Thanks to criminal indictments, the battlefront has moved from city streets to federal courts. At issue are two different rights, each guaranteed by the First Amendment: freedom of the press and freedom of religion. Two defendants invoke the former, while members of the church that was the target of protest invoke the latter.
The star of this legal drama is former CNN anchor Don Lemon. On the morning of Jan. 18, according to prosecutors, Mr. Lemon joined 20 to 40 agitators in a “coordinated takeover-style attack” on Cities Church in St. Paul during Sunday service.
On Friday, Mr. Lemon and eight others were criminally charged on two counts stemming from that attack. The first is conspiracy to deprive Cities Church congregants of their religious liberty, and the second is interfering with their religious liberty in a house of worship. Though Mr. Lemon is the much bigger name, another arrested and charged was Georgia Fort, an independent journalist with roughly 8,000 followers on YouTube.
Those who broke up the service were protesting ICE deportations. They chose Cities Church, they say, because one of the church pastors, David Easterwood, is also an ICE official. In a statement after his client’s arrest, Mr. Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, invoked Mr. Lemon’s First Amendment right:
“Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done,” Mr. Lowell wrote. “The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.”
He’s correct—up to a point. Mr. Lemon’s constitutional right to report at Cities Church isn’t in question. But another part of the First Amendment is implicated here. The right of Americans to the “free exercise” of their faith is mentioned in the same amendment that protects Mr. Lemon’s speech. That is a right the protesters violated when they disrupted the service.
Scott Johnson, a St. Paul resident who writes the Power Line blog, cuts to the heart of the competing First Amendment claims with this question about Mr. Lemon and his fellow Cities Church protesters:
“Do they have a First Amendment right to interfere with the First Amendment rights of others?” asks Mr. Johnson. “I think the question answers itself.”
It isn’t an intractable clash of absolutes. Much will come down to factual rather than constitutional distinctions: Was Mr. Lemon inside Cities Church in his capacity as a journalist? Or was he also part of the group that plotted and executed the storming of Cities Church? Does it matter that the people accused of violating religious liberty here are private protesters and not state actors?
The attack itself was ugly—and the ugliness didn’t come from the Cities Church faithful. Protestors shouted at children, “Do you know your parents are Nazis? They’re going to burn in hell.” Amid the disturbance some must have wondered if this was the lead-up to another church shooting. The chaos and confusion were part of the plan.
The Justice Department has shown what it thinks. Prosecuting newsmen is a delicate proposition because it implicates a constitutional right. But religious liberty is also a constitutional right, even when exercised by mostly white Southern Baptists.
Their religious liberty claims haven’t received the attention they should from a media almost exclusively worried about Mr. Lemon’s claim to First Amendment protections—which he invoked that day. “I’m not here as an activist,” Mr. Lemon said during his livestream as the protestors disrupted the church. “I’m here as a journalist.” Another fact not getting attention is that the pastor said he asked protestors to leave the church and they didn’t.
We’ll see how it all plays out in the courts. In the meantime, here’s one last, basic fact that appears to be misunderstood: The First Amendment doesn’t give journalists a right to disobey laws.
“Don Lemon has exactly the same First Amendment right to barge into a church and disrupt a worship service as I would have to walk into his home and start reporting on his private dinner party—namely, none at all,” says Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
“Neither journalists nor protesters enjoy any constitutional right to invade someone else’s private space to report on the news or proclaim their message. By Lemon’s logic, the KKK could claim a First Amendment right to storm a black church during services and stage a protest. That gets the First Amendment completely backwards.”
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 