The German ambassador to Egypt works out of a house that used to belong to a Jewish family. So does the Swiss ambassador. So does the American one. The homes were confiscated in 1956, when the Egyptian government declared, in a proclamation read aloud from the minarets of Cairo and Alexandria, that all Jews were Zionists and enemies of the state.

The families were given one suitcase. They signed documents “donating” everything else to the government. Then they left. The houses are still there; the families are not.

This is where the argument about Israel begins — not in Europe, but here.

There is a story told about Israel with remarkable confidence in universities, at the United Nations, in the opinion sections of newspapers that should know better. The story goes like this: European Jews, traumatized by European persecution, arrived in a land populated by indigenous Arabs and established, by force, a settler state. European guilt. European migration. European power. Colonialism wearing a Star of David.

The story requires you to ignore the majority of Israelis.

Last year, in the aftermath of Los Angeles’s devastating wildfires, California Governor Gavin Newsom promised to speed up “critical” wildfire-prevention projects.

Newsom issued an emergency proclamation to “cut bureaucratic red tape” and “fast-track critical projects,” including brush clearance, forest thinning, prescribed burning, and other forms of fuels reduction.

“These are the forest management projects we need to protect our communities most vulnerable to wildfire,” Newsom said last spring. “[W]e’re going to get them done.”

We filed a public records request to discover whether Newsom is keeping his word. As of last month, the Newsom administration had fast-tracked fuels-reduction work on roughly 87,000 acres of land. But internal records we obtained from state fire authorities indicate that state-approved organizations had completed projects totaling about 781 acres—less than 1 percent.

These numbers are disastrous. The governor’s office insisted that these projects, which are part of the state’s larger wildfire-prevention efforts, were “critical” and would help “protect communities from catastrophic wildfire.” The documents we obtained, which concern the fast-tracked projects, reveal that the Newsom administration has failed to protect the state.

What has put so much of California at risk to burn? In part, the state’s environmental rules.

Rockefeller built the world's greatest fortune not by drilling for oil but by turning crude into fuel. Standard Nuclear means to do likewise, with a fuel so advanced it can't even release radiation.

A single uranium pellet the size of a gummy bear contains as much energy as 140 barrels of oil. It’s the cleanest, safest energy source known to man.

No one who knows what they’re talking about disputes this.

So why don’t we have nuclear-powered everything?

In short: We buried a miracle in paperwork. Since the 1970s, building a new reactor has effectively been illegal in America. It required $30 billion and 15+ years in regulatory hell.

I bring good news. In my many travels, I’ve met the world’s best nuclear entrepreneurs (yes, that’s actually a real thing now). I’ve now known many of these guys for a while and have become friends with them. This was the first time they’ve ever said the following to me (and they all agreed):

“Regulation is finally becoming a solved problem.”

One founder said his microreactor (a small nuclear reactor, or “SMR”) could be up and running next year.

So let’s talk about the “problems” remaining with nuclear. What do we do with the waste? And how do we get fuel? We’ll meet the entrepreneurs coming to the rescue on both.

Ukraine's increasingly effective long-range drone campaign is piling pressure on Vladimir Putin, striking at the heart of Russia's oil industry, embarrassing the Kremlin on the world stage and compounding a growing list of military and economic setbacks.

The latest blow came on Wednesday when Ukraine staged a massive attack on a major oil port in St Petersburg just hours before the opening of Putin's flagship international investment summit.

The oil terminal on the Gulf of Finland is one of Russia's largest fuel storage and export facilities, handling 12.5 million tonnes of fuel annually.

The strike occurred shortly before the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, known as “Russia's Davos,” where Putin seeks to project economic strength and international relevance despite Western sanctions and the war in Ukraine.

The attack made a mockery of the forum's theme, “Pragmatic dialogue - the path to a stable future,” while also exposing glaring weaknesses in Russian air defences.

The facility is located just 12 miles from the forum venue, yet Moscow failed to prevent the strike.

It is the latest in a string of successful Ukrainian long-range attacks that have increasingly targeted the infrastructure underpinning Russia's war effort.

Europe’s leaders are waking up to the terrifying danger that China could obliterate much of their industrial base within less than a decade, shattering the old political order and the EU project itself.

The Rhodium Group says the Chinese Communist Party is digging in its heels, doubling down on a strategy of systemic over-investment and over-reliance on exports that cannot be absorbed by the rest of the world, and certainly not a Europe already in semi-slump.

The original “Made in China 2025” plan a decade ago targeted a clutch of specific technologies. Beijing is now expanding this into an “industrial policy of everything:” cars, machinery, chemicals, pharma, software, AI, you name it.

China is pursuing this ruthlessly, aiming to capture a larger share of global value added with vertical control of the entire lifecycle.

It is moving towards autarky* in its home market while undercutting the West in its own market and in third countries – everywhere and in every product. [*Autarky:  an economic system or national policy where a country strives for total self-sufficiency, operating as a closed economy without relying on international trade, foreign aid, or global supply chains]

It devours foreign technology without releasing its own. The Rhodium Group said the foundations of G7 manufacturing are under comprehensive threat.

If you must pay the state to stay on your own land, you don’t own it — you rent it.

That simple truth is finally breaking through the noise.

Across the country, a new courage is rising from governors’ mansions, statehouses, and kitchen tables.

Florida is about to end the property-tax trap. Texas is moving more slowly toward zero. Ohio’s citizens are organizing for abolition, which could come as early as November. Indiana is rethinking the lien that never dies.

This feels less like a policy tweak and more like a restoration, a finishing of the American Revolution at the local level: no income tax, no property tax — fund what government must do with transparent sales taxes, trade duties, and tariffs.

I don’t speak here in theories.

Nine states already live without an income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wyoming, and New Hampshire.

Look where the economic gravity sits — Texas, Florida, Washington — among the largest, most dynamic state economies in America. No wonder seven more states are actively considering joining them.

People vote with their feet, their families, and their capital, and they consistently choose places that respect their liberties. The lesson is not complicated:  Prosperity follows liberty, and liberty begins with the state taking its hand out of your pocket before you get home from work.

The next step is to take its hand off your deed.