Aggregator

People were huddling inside their boats, and running, and screaming outside," a source told Page Six.

People were huddling inside their boats, and running, and screaming outside," a source told Page Six.

SBA, USDA To Combat 'Regulatory Abuse' Lawfare Aimed At Farmers And Ranchers

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Small Business Administration (SBA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have signed a memorandum to counter lawfare targeting rural communities, ranchers, farmers, and small businesses.

Ranchers work to evacuate cattle as the Gifford Fire burns nearby in Los Padres National Forest, Calif., on Aug. 4, 2025. AP Photo/Noah Berger

Lawfare refers to the strategic use of legal proceedings to hinder targets. The SBA's agreement with the USDA gives producers a "direct line to report the regulations and rules driving up costs and impacting productivity," the agency said in a July 2 statement.

It also enables the SBA and the USDA to "identify broader patterns of regulatory abuse to advance lasting deregulatory reform."

The USDA will run a centralized portal that will receive lawfare complaints involving federal agencies, which will be shared with the SBA's Office of the National Ombudsman. Any complaint involving the USDA will be handled by the department, while other complaints will be referred by the SBA to the appropriate agencies.

Under the agreement, the SBA is authorized to analyze complaint data to identify recurring lawfare practices, enforcement, or regulatory issues that are assessed as abusive or disproportionate. This is expected to provide insight that would guide deregulatory action for broader reforms.

In a July 2 X post, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said the agreement between the USDA and the SBA lets "producers get back to what they do best: feeding, clothing, and fueling America."

"Family farms should not have to spend time and resources they don't have fighting crushing regulations or costly legal battles waged by radical anti-ag 'environmentalists,' whether they are inside or outside the government," she said.

In its statement, the SBA said the memorandum is in line with a January 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump, "Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation."

Trump said in the order that the "ever-expanding morass" of complicated federal regulations was creating "substantial restraint" on economic growth and hampering the country's global competitiveness.

For each new regulation issued by any agency, Trump ordered that at least 10 previous regulations be identified for elimination.

Commenting on the memorandum, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said: "This partnership with the SBA creates clear pathways for redress, ensures fairness in enforcement, and demonstrates that Washington stands with, not against, the hardworking Americans who sustain our country.

"Through the USDA Lawfare Portal and interagency collaboration, we are delivering real protection under the Farmer and Rancher Freedom Framework."

The Farmer and Rancher Freedom Framework is a plan aimed at protecting and preserving American agriculture while ending "onerous regulations" and the weaponization of government against ranchers and farmers, according to a Feb. 11 statement from the USDA.

The plan seeks to defend farmers and ranchers from politically motivated enforcement actions, protect agricultural lands from unnecessary federal projects, and remove burdensome rules that stifle productivity.

It also seeks to reform environmental laws to strike a balance between conservation and common sense.

Deregulatory Actions

The action against lawfare is one of the latest relief efforts aimed at farmers undertaken by the Trump administration.

On Feb. 2, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued guidance to manufacturers of farm equipment, clarifying that American farmers have the right to repair their own equipment.

The guidance said that manufacturers can no longer use the Clean Air Act to justify limiting farmers' access to repair tools or software.

"EPA is proud to set the record straight and protect farmers. For far too long, manufacturers have wrongly used the Clean Air Act to monopolize the repair markets, hurting our farmers," said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.

However, American manufacturers have opposed the right-to-repair rules. In a Sept. 22, 2025, statement, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers said that more than 50 companies met with lawmakers and congressional staff to push back against right-to-repair mandates.

They warned that legislation advancing such requirements stands to "hurt innovation, raise costs, and risk exposing sensitive trade secrets to competitors or foreign adversaries."

Meanwhile, on March 27, the EPA announced another rule aimed at benefiting farmers, removing the Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) sensor system requirement for all diesel equipment. DEF is a solution injected into the exhaust systems of diesel vehicles to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.

The EPA said there have been concerns among farmers and other diesel vehicle or equipment operators about DEF system failures.

Shutdowns and speed losses caused by such failures compromise the safety and productivity of operators, which are "unacceptable and problematic," the agency said, adding that removing the DEF sensor system requirement is expected to save farmers and truckers more than $13 billion annually.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 18:25

The pop star's lavish Madison Square Garden wedding was an intimate, highly emotional affair.

The pop star's lavish Madison Square Garden wedding was an intimate, highly emotional affair.

SAN FRANCISCO — In the eyes of Tony Vitello, it’s a shame the All-Star break is so late.  In his past life as a college coach, his season would be long over by now. His new reality as the manager of one of professional baseball’s most disappointing teams, however, means he’s barely past the halfway...

Tobias Forsythe, a goalie for the UMass Lowell men’s soccer team, died in a car crash Sunday, the university announced in a press release Monday. 

The tragic trio died in their homes.

Long before they were wearing the crest across their chest, they were sitting on couches, huddled around televisions, or glued to highlights that would become part of U.S. soccer folklore.

Though Spain has only looked like its best self for stretches of this World Cup, its overall quality, is a level above anything the USMNT have seen at the World Cup, as well as anything on its roster.

VooDoo Doughnut has quietly shuttered its Venice Beach location after just one year in business.

American Nuclear Energy: The Highest Ambitions And The Highest Costs

McKinsey published its take on the nuclear sector titled "Nuclear power: A renaissance in the making." The report starts by highlighting the bull cases for nuclear, such as AI data center demand, electrification, onshoring, decarbonization goals, and energy security concerns.

The firm goes on to reiterate their projection that global nuclear capacity could at least double and potentially triple by midcentury under net-zero scenarios, reaching as high as 1,200 gigawatts.

But, that's about as far as the happy feelings go. From there, it's a review of the disturbing cost of construction for nuclear energy in the US.

This isn't the first time McKinsey has laid out the case for the incredibly wide gap that needs to be filled in terms of investments and skilled labor to support a nuclear future. Our readers should recall their recent report projecting up to $170 billion of required investments for the domestic nuclear fuel chain just to support the US commercial reactor fleet.

While that report was followed up a few weeks later by Centrus Energy and Oklo announcing an agreement for domestic uranium enrichment to supply reactors in Ohio, a solution for actually expanding fuel chain capacity has yet to be presented.

So far, the US has done one thing in the nuclear industry better than any country in the world: Talking...

The problem outside of Asia has been glaringly identified as a lack of ability to coordinate the large consortium of companies required to construct large reactor plants. The ability to coordinate these mega-projects used to be in-house at the major US utilities, but that staff has increasingly atrophied over the recent decades as McKinsey lays out the difference between East and West enterprises:

“Historically, the “owner engineer” model in which utilities maintained strong in-house engineering and project-delivery capabilities was a major source of execution strength, particularly in the United States as well as in France and Japan. Over time, many utilities reduced internal engineering capacity and largely lost these capabilities. Today, European programs are led mainly by state-backed utilities that rely on government-supported financing; US plants are owned and operated by private utilities, backed by federal financing support and overseen by a federal safety regulator, and Chinese projects are vertically integrated state-owned enterprises that span fuel, equipment, construction, and operations.”

Vertically-integrated central planning setups apparently have its advantages in the nuclear renaissance…

The US certainly has no lack of demand for nuclear energy, and also no lack of federal support for getting it built. We've repeatedly covered these data points as the U.S. has pledged over $17 billion for new reactors from the DoE, up to $80 billion for nuclear in coordination with the DoC, and recent announcements to finish what was started at the VC Summer plant in South Carolina.

This begs the question of why is there no steel getting put in the ground? McKinsey points to construction costs:

“Construction costs account for the largest share of levelized cost differences between countries and this cost is composed of direct construction costs and the cost related to capital expenditure inefficiency … Compared to the South Korea benchmark, total construction costs add $50 to $60 per megawatt-hour to projects in France and the United States, while in China, these costs are approximately $3 less due to lower materials and labor costs.”

We've pointed this out repeatedly. The US simply does not have the headcount required to meet these ambitious goals of building out AI and new reactor plants…

And then there is the issue of where the US gets 300,000 engineers to build all this missing power supply by 2030 https://t.co/a18crhqZ4v pic.twitter.com/tinW8SHDwM

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 14, 2025

McKinsey sums up what the status of the US construction industry means for costs:

“Compared to South Korea, US construction labor costs adjusted for productivity are about 80 percent higher, and US concrete prices are roughly 200 to 250 percent higher.”

When it comes to determining what it takes to win and find the efficiency enjoyed by the South Korean nuclear industry, the playbook is incredibly straightforward. Just have the same people build the same thing over and over and over again…

“For instance, the Emirates has deployed a proven Korean design and associated requirements and regulations. That project also illustrates how programs that set design early, build multiple identical units on a single site, and keep the same Tier 1 suppliers from unit to unit reduce construction hours and rework. As teams repeated identical scopes, indirect services and owner’s costs fell sharply at the Barakah plant, helping reduce costs from construction of the first unit to the fourth by roughly 40 percent.”

The US wants to win the nuclear race, but it has shown itself (so far) to be incapable of organizing the builder-buyer consortiums required to execute.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 18:00

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on Monday called on Graham Platner to end his Senate bid in Maine after a disturbing rape allegation was leveled against him.

President Trump has branded his face, name and signature on an array of commemoratives for America’s 250th birthday and for his legacy-building initiatives.

Displays including a T. rex tooth are a bold marketing stroke at Sotheby’s, the world’s largest auction house with over $5 billion in annual sales at locations around the world.

"It is simply absurd ​that, in the modern world, ​production has still not been scaled up to the level actually ​required to protect ​people from ballistic terror," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address after Moscow's devastating strikes on the country's capital of Kyiv.

Platner denied the alleged sexual assault, but said he is “mindful" of the political reality and is “taking the time to reflect on the best path forward.”  

The Department of Health said 18 people tested positive for the pneumonia-like illness, after previously reporting 14 cases on Sunday -- a nearly sevenfold increase from when the first two diagnoses were announced July 2.

Skylar Diggins may have lost her starting role with the Sky, and it’s safe to say she’s less than thrilled. 

The worst potential byproduct to come out of the FIFA ruling to reinstate U.S. men’s national team striker Folarin Balogun is hate for what is a highly likable U.S. team.