Month: April 2025

You’ll never guess what state has the highest income requirements in the U.S. — and hint: it’s not New York, California or Florida.

New data from GoBankingRates shows that earning at least $102,000 a year is needed to live comfortably and achieve the American dream in the 50 largest U.S. cities.

The study calculated this figure by analyzing average mortgage, grocery, and childcare costs, then doubling the total to reflect income needed for a comfortable lifestyle.

Washington, D.C. tops the list as the most expensive city to achieve the American dream, requiring an annual income of $189,306 a year to live comfortably, according to GoBankingRates.com. 

High child care costs—topping $51,000 annually—and a hefty $4,165 monthly mortgage help drive D.C.’s cost of living to nearly $95,000 a year.

Other high-cost metros include Boston ($175,628), New York ($173,006), San Francisco ($172,340), and San Jose ($167,958), each needing at least $167,000 for a comfortable lifestyle.

California dominates the list with nine cities in the top 50. In places like San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, L.A., and San Diego, residents must earn at least $143,000 a year.

The GoBankingRates.com study shows that California dominates the upper tier of this list, with nine cities in the top 20. From Oakland to Bakersfield, residents need anywhere from $143,000 to nearly $168,000 annually to live the American dream.

Los Angeles, Long Beach, and San Diego also feature prominently, driven by inflated housing markets and uniform child care costs that hover around $35,000 a year.

Meanwhile, cities like Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Chicago offer relatively lower thresholds—about $132,000—to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, though still far from affordable for many Americans.

Even in these more “accessible” metros, the cost of groceries, child care, and housing adds up quickly, raising serious questions about whether the American dream remains attainable—or merely aspirational—in today’s urban landscape.

In the second half of the list, cities like Phoenix, Chicago, and Mesa still demand a steep income—just above $130,000—for families to live comfortably and achieve what’s commonly understood as the American Dream. While their overall costs are lower than coastal metros, expenses such as child care and housing remain substantial.

For example, in Phoenix, child care alone costs nearly $28,000 per year, with mortgage payments averaging over $2,400 a month.

As the list continues, more affordable cities begin to emerge. In places like Columbus, Miami, and Tucson, required household incomes drop closer to the $120,000 range.

But affordability is relative: Miami’s housing costs are high for its region, with monthly mortgage payments topping $3,800—among the highest outside of the top ten cities. In contrast, cities like Detroit and Jacksonville offer lower barriers, with required incomes under $120,000. Detroit stands out in particular, with a startlingly low average mortgage cost of just $421 per month.

Texas cities like Austin, Dallas, Houston, and Arlington cluster between $115,000 and $118,000 in required income. While Texas boasts relatively low mortgage and tax burdens, rising child care costs and growing population pressures are driving overall expenses upward. In Austin, for instance, housing costs are notably higher than in its peer cities, pushing up the overall cost of living.

At the bottom of the list, cities such as San Antonio, Raleigh, El Paso, and Louisville show the most accessible paths to the American Dream, requiring incomes around $100,000 to $110,000. Louisville is the most affordable among the 50 largest cities, with a household needing just $103,754 annually. 

Authored by Mollie Elngelhart via The Epoch Times,

The phone rang the other morning. It was my ex-husband, letting me know that a longtime friend of ours—someone I had dated in my 20s—had died of a heart attack related to drug use. My heart sank, but sadly, I wasn’t surprised. I get these calls multiple times a year now. Two of my three best friends from high school have lost their younger brothers. Countless kids I went to school with are gone. The amount of senseless death—whether from illegal drugs or legal pharmaceuticals—is staggering. And it’s heartbreaking.

What has happened to our ability to sit in discomfort? What has happened to our stamina for life, especially life when it gets hard?

As an employer of more than 350 people over the past decade, I’ve seen a shift in the younger generation. Many don’t seem to know how to tolerate even mild discomfort. There’s a deep urge to escape anything that doesn’t feel good—whether through substances, screens, sugar, or distractions. And I can’t help but trace this trend back to childhood: when we hand kids a screen so we can finish dinner in peace, when we give them sugar to soothe a meltdown, when we teach them—without ever saying it out loud—that the goal is to feel good all the time.

We’ve created a culture that treats discomfort like a pathology. If something is hard, we assume it must be wrong. But that’s not how life works. 

Humanity has been uncomfortable for most of its existence. 

Pain, struggle, and uncertainty are baked into the human experience. Maybe it’s not discomfort that’s the problem—but our inability to face it.

And maybe—just maybe—that inability is linked to something deeper than parenting, media, or education.

As a regenerative farmer, I look at the world through the lens of soil and microbiology, and I can’t help but wonder: Is part of our spiritual and emotional fragility rooted in the literal lack of microbiology in our bodies?

One in three children born today in the United States never passes through the vaginal canal, missing the crucial exposure to the mother’s microbiome. Rates of breastfeeding continue to drop, leaving babies without the microbial foundation that nature designed. Add to that a diet made up of sterile, processed food from nutrient-depleted soils, and we have a recipe for a generation physically and emotionally disconnected from the natural systems that support resilience.

Healthy soil and a healthy gut share over 70 percent of the same DNA. That’s not a coincidence. We are meant to be part of that living system. And when we separate ourselves from it—through our food, our birth practices, our lifestyles—we suffer.

Cultures that still live closely connected to nature—who cook over fire, grow and harvest their own food, and sleep on dirt floors—don’t experience the epidemic of suicide and overdose we see in modern society. Do they experience hardship? Of course. But their drive to live is still intact. They have a rootedness that protects them from the kind of existential despair we’re drowning in here.

And there’s science to back this up. Studies have shown that working with your hands in the soil can be as effective—or even more effective—than SSRIs in treating depression. The microbes in soil literally activate serotonin production in the brain. So why aren’t we prioritizing reconnection with nature in our solutions? Why isn’t getting kids outside, getting their hands dirty, and building real, physical resilience a national conversation?

Yes, we should limit screen time. Yes, we should cut back on sugar. But more importantly, we need to stop teaching our children that discomfort is something to be avoided at all costs. It’s okay to be bored. It’s okay to be hot, or tired, or challenged. Just because something feels bad doesn’t mean it is bad. Most worthwhile things—motherhood, entrepreneurship, marriage, community, growth—will feel hard at some point. That’s not a flaw. That’s the path.

Are we raising a generation of escape artists, or are we raising people who can stay present through difficulty, learn from it, and grow?

Our society turns to drugs, food, porn, social media, and endless forms of distraction to escape the simple reality of being human. But what if we taught our children—and reminded ourselves—that emotions are not emergencies? That pain is a teacher? That we don’t have to be ping-pong balls to our thoughts and feelings, believing every one of them as truth?

We can learn to sit in discomfort and listen. Sometimes, discomfort is just life asking us to change, to grow, to stretch, or to sharpen a skill. And sometimes, it’s just part of being alive.

I believe our disconnection from nature, from hard work, and from each other is at the root of the mental health and drug overdose epidemic. I, for one, am tired of getting phone calls letting me know someone else has died from escapism.

So how do we stop the cycle?

We start by embracing discomfort—not running from it. We model presence instead of avoidance. 

We raise kids who know how to work hard, wait, be bored, get dirty, and stay with what’s real. 

We reconnect with nature, with food grown in healthy soil, with people we trust, with rituals that remind us who we are.

We stop outsourcing our resilience and reclaim the tools that make us human.

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

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pressing forward with replacing the fired head of Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Ronen Bar, despite a temporary injunction against the dismissal issued by the country’s supreme court.

Netanyahu has named retired Vice-Admiral Eli Sharvit, former head of the Israeli Navy, as the new security chief. The prime minister’s office said Sharvit was chosen after “conducting in-depth interviews with seven worthy candidates.”

Adm. Sharvit served in the Israeli armed forces for 36 years, and had led “the maritime defense of the territorial waters and conducted complex operations against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.”

Netanyahu’s cabinet had approved the March 31 firing of Bar, citing “persistent personal and professional distrust” of him and his leadership over the security agency.

The dismissal of a Shin Bet was a first in Israel’s history, and sparked massive street protests – given also a host of other controversial Netanyahu decisions related to resuming the Gaza war.

Critics say that Bar’s firing is a politically motivated attempt to shield Netanyahu from investigation, given that Shin Bet and the police have been probing alleged unlawful ties between two of Netanyahu’s aides and Qatar.

Attorney General Gali Baharav Miara is also in the crossfire, as Netanyahu is seeking her dismissal as well. She also has warned that the dismissal of the Shin Bet chief poses a conflict of interest.

Meanwhile Israeli media reports that pressure is also being put on Netanyahu from the AG’s office. “Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara instructs the police to summon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give testimony in the ongoing investigation into his aides over their allegedly unlawful ties to Qatar,” according to Channel 12.

“Netanyahu’s testimony would be given as someone with knowledge of the affair and not as a suspect at this stage,” the report says.

As for Bar, he too has described his dismissal as ultimately motivated by Netanyahu’s “personal interests”. In a letter he strongly suggested the problems which led to the security failures of Oct.7 originated from the top: “a policy of quiet had enabled Hamas to undergo massive military buildup” – he said of the lead-up to the terror attack on southern Israel. Netanyahu has in turn blamed Bar for massive security failures.

Bar added: “The dismissal of the head of the service at this time at the initiative of the Prime Minister sends a message to all those involved, a message that could put the optimal outcome of the investigation at risk. This is a direct danger to the security of the State of Israel.”

His tenure was supposed to extend and end next year, and has been investigating Netanyahu’s close aides for alleged breaches of national security. In addition to the suspicious Qatar links and dealings, this includes allegations of selective leaks given to the media in order to improve the Netanyahu government’s image.

Authored by Antonio Graceffo via The Epoch Times,

The United States and China are locked in a high-stakes race to build the world’s first grid-scale nuclear fusion power plant, a competition that could shape the future of energy in the 21st century—and potentially equip the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with the most advanced weapons ever imagined.

A fusion reactor is a device designed to generate energy by replicating the same nuclear process that powers the sun—fusing light atomic nuclei, such as hydrogen, under extreme heat and pressure. Unlike nuclear fission, which splits atoms to release energy, fusion produces no greenhouse gases and generates far more power with minimal long-term radioactive waste.

The potential of fusion energy is revolutionary; it could provide virtually limitless, carbon-free power and reshape global energy markets. Fusion, often called the “holy grail” of clean energy, produces immense power without greenhouse gas emissions or long-term radioactive waste, potentially becoming a $1 trillion market by 2050.

The United States first harnessed fusion in the 1952 hydrogen bomb test, but controlling plasma for power generation has remained a challenge. While private U.S. investment in fusion startups has surged past $8 billion—backed by major companies like Amazon, Google, and Meta—China dominates in public funding and reactor construction. Beijing invests about $1.5 billion annually in fusion, more than any other nation, and nearly double U.S. federal spending, according to the U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences.

China has taken the lead in fusion-related patents, produces 10 times more Ph.D. graduates in fusion science, and is aggressively securing critical materials such as superconducting magnets, specialized metals, and semiconductors. China’s aggressive approach includes rapid reactor construction and experimental designs that may not be viable under U.S. regulations.

Satellite images from Planet Labs reveal China’s construction of a massive laser-fusion site in 2024. Set in the Mianyana mountains, in southwestern China, the facility features a containment dome twice the size of the U.S. National Ignition Facility. Experts suggest this could be a fusion-fission hybrid, a model more feasible under China’s state-controlled system.

The nation that first achieves commercial-scale fusion will control a critical pillar of the global economy. U.S. senators and fusion experts are calling for a $10 billion federal investment to maintain leadership, but with government downsizing under Trump’s second term, future funding remains uncertain. If China wins the fusion race, it could dominate the future energy market, much as it has with solar panels, electric vehicle batteries, and rare earth minerals.

Beyond economic implications, fusion energy development carries significant geopolitical and national security concerns. Control over fusion technology would give the CCP immense diplomatic leverage, allowing it to dictate terms to energy-dependent nations, just as it currently does with its near-monopoly on rare earth minerals.

A breakthrough in fusion could also power future military infrastructure, including naval vessels, space-based systems, and directed energy weapons. The ability to generate unlimited energy on-site would revolutionize military logistics, making bases, aircraft carriers, and even space stations self-sufficient without the need for vulnerable supply chains.

China’s development of fusion-fission hybrid reactors raises concerns about new nuclear capabilities, as these systems could blur the lines between civilian energy production and military applications. While fusion itself is not classified as weapons technology under existing treaties, hybrid reactors could circumvent non-proliferation agreements.

Beijing could integrate fusion technology into key military advancements where the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is already making significant progress, including pure fusion weapons, enhanced thermonuclear warheads, directed energy weapons, advanced naval propulsion, space-based systems, neutron bombs, electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons, hypersonic technology, and undersea warfare capabilities.

Fourth-generation nuclear weapons, including pure fusion weapons, represent a major shift in nuclear technology. Unlike traditional nuclear weapons that rely on fission or fission-triggered thermonuclear reactions, these advanced weapons use alternative nuclear processes that do not fall under existing arms control treaties, such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Unlike conventional thermonuclear bombs that rely on an atomic explosion to ignite fusion, these weapons do not require a fission trigger. Instead, they could achieve controlled fusion through high-powered lasers or magnetic confinement, reducing radioactive fallout. This makes pure fusion weapons both militarily viable and politically acceptable, as they produce intense neutron radiation with minimal blast effects, enabling precise tactical strikes with limited collateral damage.

Additionally, these weapons boast higher energy efficiency, transferring more energy directly to the target and making them significantly more destructive for their size. Their ability to concentrate neutron radiation while minimizing traditional nuclear blast damage could revolutionize modern warfare. At the same time, China is working to dominate the fusion materials supply chain—controlling critical components for reactors, superconductors, and advanced energy weapons—giving the PLA a significant asymmetric advantage.

China’s lead in fusion has far-reaching implications beyond economics and energy security, presenting serious national defense risks. If the Chinese regime masters fusion technology first, it could leverage its energy dominance to reshape global politics while enhancing the PLA’s combat capabilities and challenging U.S. military dominance.

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

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

U.S. officials transferred 17 accused Tren de Aragua and MS-13 terrorist gang members to El Salvador on Sunday evening, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed on Monday morning.

Both gangs were designated by the Department of State as foreign terrorist organizations in February, as the Trump administration attempts to target illegal immigrants with criminal records.

Describing it as a “successful counter-terrorism operation,” Rubio said the U.S. military transferred 17 individuals from Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan-based gang, and MS-13, a Salvadoran gang, to the Central American country. U.S. officials worked alongside Salvadoran authorities to assist in the deportations, he added.

“These criminals will no longer terrorize our communities and citizens,” Rubio said. 

“Once again, we extend our gratitude to … the government of El Salvador for their unparalleled partnership in making our countries safe against transnational crime and terrorism.”

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele confirmed the U.S. action on social media platform X, writing that all those who were deported from the United States “are confirmed murderers and high-profile offenders, including six child rapists.”

In the social media post, Bukele included a video of what appears to be U.S. military officials handing over the individuals to Salvadoran custody before their heads were shaved and they were transferred to a prison.

U.S. Transfers 17 Dangerous Criminals to El Salvador Prison in Joint Operation

In a coordinated effort between U.S. and Salvadoran authorities, 17 high-profile criminals linked to the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs have been transferred to a prison in El Salvador.

Salvadoran… pic.twitter.com/piTEPmrens

— Breaking News of the Day (@Breakingne66541) March 31, 2025

The Trump administration is currently challenging a federal judge’s order to prevent U.S. officials from using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to implement deportations of alleged members of both gangs. 

Earlier in March, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg blocked the administration from using the law to implement the deportations and later sought details about why a deportation flight wasn’t turned around.

Last week, a U.S. appeals court declined to block Boasberg’s order that blocked the deportation of Venezuelan illegal immigrants to El Salvador, prompting the government to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

“Here, the district court’s orders have rebuffed the President’s judgments as to how to protect the Nation against foreign terrorist organizations and risk debilitating effects for delicate foreign negotiations,” Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in the court filing to the high court.

In the legal spat, attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union initially filed their lawsuit on behalf of five Venezuelan illegal immigrants who were being held in Texas, hours after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act.

Aside from the appeals, the Trump administration has invoked a “state secrets privilege” and indicated it would not give Boasberg any additional information about the deportations. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and some Republicans have called for Boasberg to be impeached and removed.

In a statement responding to those calls, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said earlier this month that he believes “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

Trump has made mass deportations and imposing stricter border controls a priority under his second term. In the early days of his administration, the president signed a number of executive orders and issued directives relating to the border and the removal of illegal immigrants, including ending the Biden-era CPB One app, declaring a national emergency at the southern U.S. border, and ending birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrant parents.