The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said they have “no information suggesting cyber activity against U.S. election infrastructure” that has “compromised the integrity of voter registration information, prevented an eligible voter from casting a ballot, impacted the integrity of any ballots cast, or disrupted the ability to count votes or transmit unofficial election results in a timely manner.”

But the two agencies said that foreign adversaries still might promote “false or misleading narratives” to sway the election or to undermine American confidence in its election systems and processes.

Specifically, the two agencies warned of election-related content produced by artificial intelligence (AI) that has lowered the guardrails for malicious or foreign actors to create more advanced schemes to influence the election.

“We are seeing foreign actors use these tools to develop and distribute more compelling synthetic media messaging campaigns and inauthentic news articles, as well as synthetic pictures and deepfakes (video and audio) at greater speed and scale across numerous U.S.- and foreign-based platforms,” their joint bulletin said.

“These efforts to develop content are designed to undermine voter confidence and to entice unwitting consumers of the information to discuss, share, and amplify the spread of false or misleading narratives.”

In one example of AI-aided content produced by foreign actors ahead of the election, the agency said that Russian groups have “created and deliberately designed” web pages “to look like legitimate mainstream news websites” such as The Washington Post or Fox News.

“Russian malign influence actors also created fake social media profiles posing as U.S. citizens to direct users to these fake news websites and purchased social media advertisements to drive traffic to the specific fake articles on the fake news site,” the two agencies cautioned.

The PSA highlights specific examples of tactics we have seen used by Russia and Iran during the 2024 election cycle to target all Americans. These include things from mimicking national level media outlets like The Washington Post and Fox News and creating inauthentic news sites posing as legitimate media organizations to using paid influencers to hide their hand.

In late September, three Iranian government employees were charged and identified by the Department of Justice for a wide-ranging hacking conspiracy that targeted both current and former U.S. officials as well as political campaigns.

The bulletin was referring to an indictment that was returned last month that accused Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, and Yasar Balaghi of trying to hack the campaign of a presidential candidate, without providing names. But in a news conference last month, Attorney General Merrick Garland confirmed that they were targeting the campaign of former President Donald Trump.

Iran-backed hackers who breached the Trump campaign in June and July sent emails with hacked campaign materials to people associated with President Joe Biden’s campaign as well as various media outlets, said the FBI, CISA, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence last month.

But the agencies said that the the campaign of Biden, who suspended his presidential bid in late July, was not interested in the hacked materials. There is also no evidence the Biden campaign even responded to the emails, which were described by the intelligence and cybersecurity agencies as unsolicited.

“It is important for voters to critically evaluate information sources, particularly as disinformation campaigns evolve to use AI-generated content,” both CISA and the FBI said in a news release accompanying the bulletin. “Both agencies urge the American public to rely on trusted information from state and local election officials and to verify claims through multiple reliable sources before sharing them on social media or other platforms.”

The survey, released on Oct. 18, found that 52 percent of U.S. adults believe their financial situation has deteriorated since 2020, while 39 percent feel they are better off.

A similar Gallup poll taken at the tail end of the Trump presidency in September 2020 found this sentiment roughly reversed, with 56 percent saying they were better off and 33 percent saying they were worse off than four years prior.

Partisan divides were stark in the latest poll, with 90 percent of Republicans feeling worse off, compared to just 16 percent of Democrats. Crucially, 55 percent of Independents, a pivotal voting bloc in the close 2024 presidential race, feel worse off, with 35 percent saying their financial situation has improved.

The economic confidence index, tracked by Gallup, has been predominantly negative over the course of the Biden administration. In 2022, it reached lows not seen since the 2007–2009 recession, largely due to inflation hitting a 40-year high.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee for the coming election, has blamed President Joe Biden’s policies for inflation and what he calls economic stagnation.

On the campaign trail, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris has been emphasizing the Biden administration’s economic recovery efforts.

“Still, we know that many Americans don’t yet feel that progress in their daily lives,” Harris said. “Costs are still too high. And on a deeper level, for too many people, no matter how much they work, it feels so hard to just be able to get ahead.” […]

— Read More: www.theepochtimes.com

Data from the Federal Reserve, released on Oct. 17, showed a 0.3 percent decline in industrial output, following a downwardly revised 0.3 percent gain in August. Analysts had predicted a smaller drop of 0.2 percent for the month.

According to the Fed, the larger-than-expected decline was due in part to disruptions from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, along with the ongoing Boeing machinists’ strike. The aerospace sector, in particular, took a significant hit, with production of aerospace and miscellaneous transportation equipment falling by 8.3 percent, dragging down the overall index.

The broader picture also looks bleak, with industrial output for the third quarter down 0.6 percent. This aligns with other recent indicators pointing to ongoing challenges in the U.S. manufacturing sector.

The latest S&P Global U.S. Manufacturing PMI, a key survey-based measure, showed the sharpest contraction in factory activity in over a year for September. Factory output and new orders dropped sharply, driven by weakened demand.

“The September PMI survey brings a whole slew of disappointing economic indicators regarding the health of the U.S. economy,” Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said in a statement. “Factories reported the largest monthly drop in production in 15 months in response to a slump in new orders, in turn driving further reductions in employment and input buying as producers scaled back operating capacity.”

The deepening decline in U.S. manufacturing, highlighted by the S&P Global report, was reinforced by the Fed’s latest industrial production data. It showed a 0.4 percent month-over-month fall in manufacturing output for September and a 0.5 percent drop compared with the previous year.

Similarly, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) reported a contraction in U.S. manufacturing for September, marking the sixth straight monthly decline and the 22nd contraction in the past 23 months. Timothy Fiore, chair of the ISM’s Manufacturing Business Committee, noted that demand remains sluggish, with companies hesitant to invest in capital and inventory.

The ongoing slump in U.S. manufacturing has become a key issue on the presidential campaign trail, with both major candidates offering plans to revive the sector.

Speaking in Michigan in late September, former President Donald Trump vowed to “reclaim America’s manufacturing power,” promising tariffs on foreign imports and pledging to provide domestic manufacturers with lower energy costs, taxes, and regulatory burdens.

On Oct. 17, she issued an order and opinion arguing that delaying its release would be a form of election interference.

“If the court withheld information that the public otherwise had a right to access solely because of the potential political consequences of releasing it, that withholding could itself constitute—or appear to be—election interference,” she said in her five-page order.

“The court will therefore continue to keep political considerations out of its decision-making, rather than incorporating them as Defendant requests.”

On Oct. 10, Chutkan had authorized the release of the evidence—the appendix to Smith’s immunity motion—in an order on Oct. 10 but delayed its effects for seven days to give Trump an opportunity to evaluate his next steps. In her recent order, she added that the court would issue an order on the following day directing the release of the redacted appendix.

Trump’s attorneys had requested an extension on the delay Judge Chutkan imposed, suggesting instead in an Oct. 17 motion that she should concurrently release both Smith’s appendix and one from Trump’s team.

Trump’s attorneys said that “if the appendices are released simultaneously, at least some press outlets will attempt to report both sides of this case, reducing (although, again, not eliminating) the potential for irreversible prejudice.”

“Similarly, the risk to witnesses will be somewhat reduced, as the public will have a more balanced picture of their testimony and how it connects to this case,” the filing to the judge read.

Chutkan’s motion also said Trump’s team’s justification for delaying the release to help the public gain a better understanding of the issue is “oxymoronic.”

“Setting aside the oxymoronic proposition that the public’s understanding of this case will be enhanced by withholding information about it, any public debate about the issues in this case has no bearing on the court’s resolution of those issues,” she said.

The judge also pushed back on his attorneys’ concerns about tainting the jury pool, saying instead that concerns like that could be addressed in the jury selection process.

Discovery Requests

The filings represented an ongoing back and forth between Judge Chutkan and Trump over the release of evidence—both to Trump and the public.

Chutkan issued an order on Oct. 16 rejecting most of Trump’s requests to compel discovery from Smith’s team. Out of the 14 categories of evidence he requested, Judge Chutkan only granted him three particular sets of information.

To compel discovery means to submit a request to gain access to relevant evidence, including documents or information, held by the other party before a trial begins.

Her 50-page order accused Trump’s legal team of using speculative reasoning to justify the discovery of various items. It also repeatedly argued that Trump had failed to show their relevance to his state of mind during the acts alleged in Smith’s indictment.

“Defendant has only carried his burden with respect to a small portion of the information he seeks. For most of it, he has proffered only speculation that a search will yield material, noncumulative information,” Chutkan said.

The judge added that while Trump “purports to seek much of this information to show his state of mind at the time of his indicted conduct … he does not indicate that he was aware of the requested information such that it could have affected his state of mind.”

Among the requests she denied were those for information that undercut a statement in which the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency described the 2020 election as the most secure in American history. Another included four types of records related to the Intelligence Community’s (IC) assessment of the 2020 election, which outlined its conclusions about foreign actors’ attempts to influence the election.

The discovery she granted included information the director of national intelligence (DNI) said he reviewed prior to his interview with the special counsel’s office. Chutkan noted how Smith’s original indictment alleged that the DNI “disabused [Trump] of the notion that the Intelligence Community’s findings regarding foreign interference would change the outcome of the election.”

She also acquiesced to Trump’s demand for discovery of “evidence relating to the unauthorized retention of classified documents by Vice President Mike Pence,” which she said could be material for impeaching the former vice president as a witness.

Other evidence included information about Trump’s meeting with Gen. Mark Milley and Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller just days before Jan. 6, 2021. More specifically, Trump sought records of information about security measures that were conveyed to him.

Trump’s motion to compel was filed in November of last year and argued for releasing various forms of evidence in order to, among other things, impeach prosecution witnesses and reveal purported political bias among officials in law enforcement and the intelligence community.

“The [Special Counsel’s] Office cannot rely on selected guidance and judgments by officials it favors from the Intelligence Community and law enforcement while ignoring evidence of political bias in those officials’ decision-making as well as cyberattacks and other interference, both actual and attempted, that targeted critical infrastructure and election facilities before, during, and after the 2020 election,” his attorneys said.

Trump has been given until Oct. 30 to file any additional motions to compel discovery related to the presidential immunity issue. Judge Chutkan also granted discovery requests related to the prosecution team and gave Smith until Oct. 26 to provide those materials to Trump.

She has six employees. When she was fired by NBC in 2018, she believed that it was the end of her career. She went to dark places in her mind.

But she bounced back with her own broadcasting company and has never been happier or more influential.

The same story has been told by Tucker Carlson, whose network is gigantic and whose influence is far beyond even the heights that he obtained at Fox in the old days. I have no direct knowledge of how many people work for his personal channel, but it is a reasonable guess that it is no more than a dozen.

Everyone knows about the success and reach of Joe Rogan’s show. Apart from that, there are many thousands more with influence in their own sectors of reach. The share of influence dominated by legacy seems to be falling dramatically. You can detect their influence in this election season in which candidates are working the podcast circuit.

You might chalk this up to technology: Everyone has the capacity now to make content and distribute it. Therefore, of course, people do it.

The real story, however, is more complicated.

A new poll from Gallup offers an intriguing look. The latest polls show trust in major media is at an all-time low. It’s fallen from a post-Watergate high in 1976 of 72 percent to 31 percent today. That is an enormous slide, impossible to dismiss as mere technological change. Along with that, the poll documents dramatic losses of trust in government and essentially all official institutions.

The loss of trust has hit all age groups but more profoundly affects people younger than 40 years old. These are folks who have grown up with alternatives and developed a sophisticated understanding of information flows, and are deeply suspicious of any institution that seeks control over public culture.

Gallup stated: “The news media is the least trusted group among 10 U.S. civic and political institutions involved in the democratic process. The legislative branch of the federal government, consisting of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, is rated about as poorly as the media, with 34 percent trusting it.”

In contrast, “majorities of U.S. adults express at least a fair amount of trust in their local government to handle local problems (67 percent), their state government to address state problems (55 percent), and the American people as a whole when it comes to making judgments under our democratic system about the issues facing the country (54 percent).”

It seems based on this poll that, in people’s hearts and minds, we are defaulting back to the America of Alexis de Tocqueville, a network of self-governing communities of friends and neighbors rather than a centrally managed and controlled monolith. The farther the institutions get from people’s direct experiences, the less they are trusted. That is how it should be, even aside from other considerations.

In this case, the causal factors are not only the distance and not only the technology that allows for alternatives. Legacy media has been so aggressively partisan for at least nine years that it has alienated vast swaths of the viewing audience. Top executives have known about this problem for a very long time and worked to fix it, but they face tremendous pressure from within, from reporters and technicians with Ivy educations and a dedication to woke ideology.

The New York Times after 2016 attempted to repair the damage from having so completely mishandled and miscalled the election. It hired new editors and writers, but it was only a matter of time before they were driven out in a reminder to the top brass that there was a cultural revolution afoot, and that the personal is the political and visa-versa.

The newspaper defaulted back to extreme partisanship, leaving owners and managers to figure out other paths to sustaining profitability.

As a result, it appears that an entire industry is in the process of a long meltdown with no available fixes. Huge audiences have turned away from it toward alternatives that are not necessarily partisan on the other side but simply display a dedication to telling facts and truths about which actual readers care.

A question has long mystified me: Is this loss of trust entirely because of a change in media bias, or is it that new technological options have fully revealed what might always have been there but was not widely known? I don’t have the answer to that but it is worth some reflection.

When I was a kid, there were exactly three channels on television and one local newspaper. There was never a chance to see The New York Times except perhaps at the public library. The nightly news came on at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. It lasted for 30 minutes. It opened with international news, moved to national news, turned to sports, and then the local affiliate took over with local news and weather.

There was perhaps 10 minutes per day of national news on three separate channels, each reporting more or less the same thing. That was it. People in those days chose their station based on whether they liked the voice and personality of the broadcaster. News media was highly trusted. But was that trust based on reliable and excellent reporting, or simply a reflection of all that people did not know?

In those days, my own father was deeply distrustful of what he saw on television. Somehow, he intuited that Richard Nixon was being railroaded by the Watergate scandal. He theorized that someone was out to get him, not for bad things he had done, but for the good he had done and had planned to do. He preached this opinion constantly and it set him apart from all conventional wisdom. Indeed, as a young man I knew for sure that my father was the outlier: None of my friend’s parents agreed and none of my teachers did, either.

Since then, much has come out that seems to reinforce my father’s views.

If Watergate happened in today’s world, there would be a huge explosion of opinions in all directions, with motives of all actors pushed out on every channel, and there would be widespread competition to find the real story. We certainly would not be relying on two relatively inexperienced reporters at The Washington Post.

I happen to believe that this is a good thing, even though it has come with a loss of trust. Maybe the old trust was not nearly as merited as people thought, simply because there were so few options. As the years went on, there were even more sources, starting with PBS but moving to CNN and C-SPAN. After the web came online and social media took off, that’s when the veil was really pulled back and media wholly transformed.

People on all sides of the political spectrum today express profound regret for this change. Former presidential candidate John Kerry has said that today’s media environment makes governing impossible, and Hillary Clinton has floated the idea of criminal penalties for misinformation, a word tossed around so frequently these days but rarely defined as anything other than speech that some people do not like.

All told, the rise of alternative media has surely contributed to the decline in public trust in the mainstream media. This might not reflect a fundamental change in the bias of media sources but simply the reality that we are only now fully aware of what has always been true. In that case, we are better off seeing these trends as good news all around, provided that we have an attachment to seeing reality as it is. In any case, we all should.

Returning to the Kelly/Carlson business model: They are doing far more with fewer staff members than was ever thought possible. It’s a solid prediction that many legacy media companies will be downsizing in terms of personnel in the future. They can do more with less. And they can do it with more fairness and less bias. Economic realities will likely make it so.

The entire landscape of information and media economies is dramatically shifting. That is precisely why we are hearing ever more calls for censorship. Many elites long for the old days of canned and constructed narratives with no other options. But the well-documented loss of trust makes that little more than a pipe dream. It cannot and will not happen.

The only viable path to earning audience loyalty in our times is to write and speak with fact-based integrity. Trust has to be earned.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

The IMF’s latest Fiscal Monitor report, released on Oct. 15, projects that global public debt will exceed $100 trillion—equal to about 93 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP)—in 2024, and that it could approach 100 percent of GDP by the end of the decade. The United States, in particular, faces significant risks if fiscal policies are not adjusted urgently.

The report emphasizes that countries, including the United States, need to address debt risks with carefully crafted fiscal strategies. It warns that debt levels could be worse than anticipated because of large spending pressures, sizeable unidentified debt, and overly optimistic debt projections.

Unidentified debt, which refers to liabilities that do not appear explicitly in budget documents—such as contingent liabilities, losses at federally owned enterprises such as the U.S. Postal Service, and other off-balance-sheet obligations—poses a significant risk to debt sustainability, according to the IMF.

“There are good reasons to believe that future debt levels could be higher than currently projected,” the report’s executive summary states, highlighting that actual debt-to-GDP ratios three years ahead tend to be about 6 percentage points higher than originally forecasted, on average.

The IMF attributes the potential underestimation of debt levels to several factors, including a political climate increasingly favoring higher government spending. This spending is being driven by concerns around security, an aging population, and the push to invest in green transitions.

“Rebuilding fiscal buffers in a growth-friendly manner and containing debt is essential to ensure sustainable public finances and financial stability,” the report urges.

In a related blog post titled “Global Public Debt Is Probably Worse Than It Looks,” IMF economists assert that current efforts to curb debt growth are insufficient. Delays in fiscal actions, they argue, will lead to even higher costs and greater risks.

“Experience shows that high debt and lack of credible fiscal plans can trigger adverse market reaction, constraining room to maneuver in the face of turbulence,” the economists wrote, emphasizing the need for proactive measures such as paring back spending.

The IMF’s analysis shows that planned fiscal adjustments—such as reducing spending by 1 percent of GDP over six years—are insufficient to stabilize debt. Instead, a cumulative tightening of 3.8 percent of GDP is needed to significantly cut debt levels, the economists contend, with the effort required in the United States being “substantially greater.”

Without substantial fiscal adjustments, U.S. debt will continue on an unsustainable path, the report warns. The country faces mounting spending demands, largely because of health care costs, an aging population, and defense needs, all of which are exacerbated by growing geopolitical tensions.

The IMF identifies the reform of mandatory spending programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, as a crucial step. These programs account for a large and inflexible share of the U.S. budget, and reforming them could help rein in expenditures. Besides spending cuts, the IMF suggests that the United States could raise revenues by raising taxes or removing tax exemptions.

The IMF’s newly developed “debt-at-risk” framework—a tool used to estimate potential debt outcomes under different economic conditions—indicates that U.S. public debt could rise sharply under adverse scenarios.

Stronger fiscal governance is also essential, according to the IMF, which describes it as “key to mitigating the buildup of unidentified debt and containing debt vulnerabilities.” Countries with better fiscal governance—marked by budget transparency and adherence to fiscal rules—tend to have lower levels of unidentified debt, even during times of financial stress.

Closures of Walgreens stores were announced in June, but the company had not disclosed the number of affected stores at that time. It had more than 8,000 stores in the United States as of Aug. 31 last year.

In a statement, the company said that as part of a “footprint optimization program,” there will be about 1,200 closures around the country until 2027. That includes about 500 store closures in the fiscal year 2025, which will “immediately” provide the company with some “free cash flow.”

“Our financial results in the fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2024 reflected our disciplined execution on cost management, working capital initiatives and capex reduction,” Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth said in the statement.

He said that in the next fiscal year, Walgreens will be “focusing on stabilizing the retail pharmacy by optimizing [the company’s] footprint, controlling operating costs, improving cash flow, and continuing to address reimbursement models to support dispensing margins and preserve patient access for the future.”

“This turnaround will take time, but we are confident it will yield significant financial and consumer benefits over the long term,” said Wentworth, who was named chief executive officer in 2023.

Walgreens, like its competitors, has been struggling for years with tight reimbursement for the prescriptions it sells as well as other challenges such as rising costs to operate its stores. Drugstore chains have also been dealing with more competition from online retail giant Amazon, as well as Walmart and Target.

Rival CVS Health Corp. is wrapping up a three-year plan to close 900 stores. Another major chain, Rite Aid Corp., emerged from a bankruptcy reorganization earlier this year after whittling its store count down to about 1,300 locations.

Walgreens has also been backing away from a plan to add primary care clinics next to some of its stores after launching an aggressive expansion under previous CEO Rosalind Brewer.

Walgreens said Tuesday that its net loss swelled to more than $3 billion in the final quarter of 2024. The company said softer U.S. retail and pharmacy performance hurt operating income. It also booked some hefty charges tied to opioid litigation settlements the company had recognized in previous quarters and an equity investment in China.

Walgreens shares rose by almost 4 percent on Tuesday morning before Wall Street’s opening bell.

A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in August revealed that Walgreens had considered selling off at least parts of its VillageMD subsidiary business. VillageMD describes itself as a doctor-staffed primary care clinic operator.

Earlier in October, CVS said it was cutting about 2,900 jobs across the United States as part of a cost-savings program, according to a statement. Those layoffs will mainly impact corporate jobs and will represent fewer than 1 percent of the company’s workforce.

The reductions, part of CVS’s previously announced plan, would primarily impact corporate roles and not frontline jobs in stores, pharmacies, and distribution centers, it said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Wray on Oct. 10 regarding allegations that the FBI has not taken sexual misconduct accusations seriously. Grassley said the FBI and the Department of Justice had failed to produce information that he had requested two years ago.

Another group of lawmakers announced an inquiry into the FBI’s actions on Oct. 4, questioning Wray on what the agency has done to make changes in the months following a damning audit by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

The audit report, released in August, exposed flaws in the FBI’s handling of the sexual abuse cases and in handling tips that it received about sex offenses against children.

A group of 11 senators underscored the urgency of the situation in a joint letter to Wray.

“At a time of historically low trust in American institutions, the FBI continues to undermine its own credibility when it comes to safeguarding our children from predators who wish to do them harm. It is not only outrageous but unacceptable that the FBI continues to fail the victims of sexual abusers. These victims deserve justice,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) and 10 other senators stated.

The letter further requested answers from the FBI regarding the failures highlighted in the OIG report and urged the agency to implement reforms in a timely manner.

In light of the OIG findings, Schmitt and his colleagues directed several questions to Wray, including questions about whether the FBI faces any hurdles that hinder compliance with mandatory reporting rules.

Their concerns revolved around the wake of the Larry Nassar scandal, a sports doctor whose clients included champion gymnasts.

Additionally, Schmitt and his colleagues have requested information regarding the disciplinary measures implemented against FBI personnel who have been found consistently negligent in adherence to established rules.

The senators wanted to know how many workers have been fired or put on administrative leave for not following company policy, and for those who were able to resign, they wanted to know what happened before they left.

The lawmakers specifically cited the FBI’s response to the Nassar scandal, after which the agency assured the public that it will do everything possible to ensure that safeguards are in place to keep the failures in that case from happening in the future.

The August report said the FBI has updated its policies, training, and systems since the OIG’s 2021 report on Nassar, but found instances of FBI employees not complying with the relevant law or policy when handling such cases.

Olympic champion Simone Biles and dozens of other victims of sexual assault committed by Nassar sued the FBI for more than $1 billion in June 2022, saying that the bureau ignored their warnings about Nassar’s misconduct. Nassar pleaded guilty in 2017, but his assaults continued after the allegations were reported to the FBI.

A spokesperson for the FBI responded to The Epoch Times’ request for comment, confirming the receipt of both letters and referring to the agency’s previous statement about the OIG report.

“Ensuring the safety and security of children is not just a priority for the FBI; it is a solemn duty that we are committed to fulfilling with the highest standards,” the statement reads.

“The FBI’s efforts combating crimes against children are among the most critical and demanding undertakings we do. … We are committed to maintaining the public’s trust by implementing the necessary improvements to ensure the important changes we made to our Violent Crimes Against Children program in 2018 and 2019 have the intended effect of promoting the highest level of compliance and effectiveness.”

To be fair, this may be a matter of activist law enforcement covering it up as the news apparently was dropped via text message with the county sheriff. But one would think this would still make national news at some point and it’s been nearly a full day since the incident.

According to The Epoch Times:

The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department arrested an armed man who allegedly said he wanted to “kill the president” outside the perimeter of a Trump rally on Oct. 12, Sheriff Chad Bianco told The Epoch Times in a text message on Sunday.

“We arrested a man trying to get in the perimeter with two firearms who ended up saying he was going to kill the president,” Bianco said in the text.

The arrest occurred in the wake of two previous alleged assassination attempts on Trump, the first on July 13 when a shooter’s bullet grazed his ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the second at the former president’s golf course in Florida in mid-September.

Further details of the California arrest were not immediately available.

Another man, an Iraqi national, who was singled out as a “hit” by police dogs trained to identify explosives, was also turned away from the event, Bianco said.

An armed man who claims he wants to assassinate a presidential candidate was arrested outside of one of that candidate’s rallies. That should be national news. Let’s see if we’re just ahead of the curve or if corporate media will bury it.

Since the global financial crisis of 2008–09, central banks have been significant gold buyers, and their investments are paying off. These institutions are striking gold as prices have notched more than two dozen record settlements this year.

The metal has rallied about 30 percent in 2024, rising to as high as $2,708 per ounce. Its sister metal commodity, silver, has also performed well so far this year, surging 32 percent, to $32 an ounce.

Precious metal prices have rocketed on several factors.

Over the last 12 months, the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), a gauge of the greenback against a basket of currencies, has slumped 3.5 percent. A weaker buck is good for dollar-denominated commodities because it makes it cheaper for foreign investors to purchase.

Despite its recent uptick, the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield has weakened by a full percent since November 2023 on Federal Reserve policy expectations. This has diminished the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding bullion.

Financial markets have witnessed an invasion of gold bugs, bulls that have ushered in precious metal euphoria to the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

But central banks have ostensibly been ahead of the pack.

According to data compiled by the World Gold Council, central banks acquired 1,037 tons of gold last year, the second-highest annual purchase in history. This came one year after the institutions purchased a record high of 1,082 tons.

In August, central banks reported net purchases of eight tons, led by the National Bank of Poland, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, and the Reserve Bank of Turkey.

But while central-bank purchases have significantly increased over the last three years, this has been a long-term trend, says Joseph Cavatoni, a senior market strategist at the World Gold Council.

“It’s a 14-year trend that’s basically been playing out since the global financial crisis,” Cavatoni told The Epoch Times.

“[There] has been a real desire to diversify their holdings and add the component of gold to the portfolio to achieve a better performance outcome.”

Though purchasing sizes have slowed recently, central banks anticipate adding more gold to their reserves in the coming years.

A 2024 World Gold Council survey showed that 81 percent of central banks will increase their gold holdings over the next 12 months. Looking ahead to the next five years, 66 percent of central banks think gold’s share of their overall reserves will be “moderately higher.”

In today’s “increasingly uncertain global economic environment,” the trends make sense, says Matthew Jones, a precious metals analyst at Solomon Global.

“Central banks are increasing their gold purchases as a strategy to diversify reserves, hedge against inflation, protect themselves from geopolitical risks, and reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar,” Jones told The Epoch Times. “Gold’s historical role as a stable and universally accepted asset makes it an attractive option, especially in an increasingly uncertain global economic environment.”

The U.S. dollar hegemony might play a vital role in central banks’ ferocious gold appetite.

Gold in a Reforming Global Monetary Order

Changes to the international monetary order have been unfolding, with central banks gradually transitioning away from the U.S. dollar.

According to the International Monetary Fund’s Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves data, the U.S. dollar share of worldwide foreign-exchange reserves is 58 percent, down from 72 percent in 2000.

“Recent data from the IMF’s Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) point to an ongoing gradual decline in the dollar’s share of allocated foreign reserves of central banks and governments,” IMF officials said in a report this past summer. “Strikingly, the reduced role of the U.S. dollar over the last two decades has not been matched by increases in the shares of the other ‘big four’ currencies—the euro, yen, and pound.”

Like gold-buying, the de-dollarization campaign has been ongoing since the Great Recession, kicking into overdrive after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. This initiative involves countries trimming their reliance on the greenback as a reserve currency.

Leaders have been responding to the potential dollar weaponization, says Vijay Singh, the managing partner and chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital.

After the postwar Bretton Woods conference, the U.S. dollar essentially became the world reserve currency, pegging every other currency to the buck. As a result, the federal government has exploited the U.S. dollar as a tool to bolster Washington’s foreign policy, which was on full display after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S.-led Western alliance froze about half of the Russian central bank’s more than $600 billion in assets. It limited the Kremlin’s access to the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) payment system, the financial artery for financial communication.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned that cutting Russia out of SWIFT would trigger “unintended consequences.”

“I don’t think anybody likes to be bullied,” Singh told The Epoch Times. “If you look at a lot of our foreign policy, it does involve kind of using the dollar strength globally against countries that they’re not going to forget.”

Singh says several formal efforts are underway to sidestep the U.S. dollar, including expanding the coalition of anti-dollar developing nations known as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).

In August 2023, the group officially invited six other nations to join the bloc: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), though Saudi Arabia has still yet to join. Nineteen other countries have expressed interest in becoming members.

“We value the interest of other countries in building a partnership with BRICS,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement. “We have tasked our foreign ministers to further develop the BRICS partner country model and a list of prospective partner countries and report by the next Summit.”

A part of the organization’s objective is to bolster bilateral trade settled in local currencies, such as the Chinese yuan, the Brazilian real, and the Indian rupee.

In the last year, many media reports have shown that countries are creating arrangements to complete bilateral trade in local currencies.

Iran and Russia finalized an agreement in December to trade in their local currencies rather than the U.S. dollar, according to Tehran’s state media. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk confirmed this past spring that 92 percent of trade settlements between Moscow and Beijing are conducted in rubles and yuan. India and Indonesia inked a deal in March to trade in local currencies.

Over the years, rampant speculation has been that BRICS members would establish a gold-backed reserve currency. To date, nothing has materialized, and experts are skeptical that it will happen anytime soon.

While discussions are likely occurring, “it’s really not a quick” fix to displace the U.S. dollar, according to Cavatoni.

“It’s quite a bit of work to get that done,” he said.

“I think there’s still the necessity for dollars to be in the middle of the mix, and there’s not a lot of viable alternatives to start a new currency, to get something that’s completely independent, to have it embedded in clearing and have it embedded in trade settlements.”

While gold is a politically acceptable instrument to nations outside the Western alliance, there are broader challenges, say State Street economists.

“Gold reserves are simply not ‘user-friendly’ in large quantities,” they wrote in a paper. “Gold needs to be stored domestically and requires an international transaction to convert it into foreign currency for payment purposes.”

“In brief,” they concluded, “gold performs well on safety but falls short on liquidity.”

A more realistic proposal would be tying gold to a stablecoin, Vingh says. This would consist of a cryptocurrency in which the digital asset’s value is pegged to a reference asset, such as the U.S. dollar or gold.

“I think that’s actually more workable, and what they might do,” he stated. “There’s so much flexibility involved with these stablecoins, theoretically.”

The next BRICS Summit later this month will take place in Kazan, Russia, and might rekindle murmurs about de-dollarization and a gold-backed currency.

Gold Prices in 2025

Will gold extend its record run into 2025? Financial experts agree that worldwide markets should brace for elevated prices.

Goldman Sachs Research forecasters prognosticate that gold should hover around $2,700 by early next year, “buoyed by interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve and gold purchases by emerging market central banks.”
“The metal could get an additional boost if the U.S. imposes new financial sanctions or if concerns mount about the U.S. debt burden,” they said.

“Gold is our strategists’ preferred near-term long (the commodity they most expect to go up in the short term), and it’s also their preferred hedge against geopolitical and financial risks.”

Jones believes gold investors will “enjoy this current bull” entering 2025 and target a spot value approaching $2,800 in early 2025.

Supporting factors will be the same as they have been over the last couple of years.

“I think we will enjoy this current bull run as we enter into 2025 driven by: continued demand from central banks (in particular the central banks from the BRICS nations as they reduce their reliance on the U.S. dollar), persistent or increasing inflation, geopolitical uncertainty (a soft euphemism for war), currency diversification, and the risk of an economic slowdown or recession,” Jones noted.