SCOOP: Schizophrenic Man Inspired FBI’s Controversial Memo Targeting Catholics

Ken Silva
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SCOOP: Schizophrenic Man Inspired FBI’s Controversial Memo Targeting Catholics

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Justice Department’s Inspector General has released its review of the FBI’s controversial report on “radical-traditionalist Catholics”—finding that the bureau violated professional standards, but didn’t have “malicious intent,” when it crafted a memo that painted Catholics as potential terrorists.

The DOJ-IG report, which was released last week, also revealed the origins of the FBI’s Catholic memo.

According to the report, the FBI’s troubling memo was crafted by analysts involved in an investigation into a schizophrenic man who began attending a traditional Catholic church in early 2022. That schizophrenic man, 24-year-old Xavier Lopez, was arrested in November 2022 on a slew of domestic extremism-related charges. His mental health diagnosis was revealed during criminal proceedings.

The DOJ-IG does not identify Lopez or the Catholic church by name, but the facts described in the report are identical to the details of a case involving Lopez.

According to records from his case, Lopez was on law enforcement’s radar since September 2018, when he attempted suicide. Lopez was 18 years old at the time. The FBI opened an assessment into Lopez about a year later after he allegedly made online statements advocating civil war and the murder of politicians.

Law enforcement continued to monitor Lopez—including while he served a stint in jail for felony vandalism—into early 2022, when he began attending Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Chapel in Richmond, Virginia. Our Lady of Fatima is one of the Catholic chapel’s listed in the FBI’s memo.

Shortly after Lopez started attending Our Lady of Fatima, the FBI decided to run an informant at him inside the church, according to the DOJ-IG report.

“In the spring of 2022, FBI Richmond placed [an informant] in [Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Chapel] to interact with [Lopez] to determine if he was inciting or planning violence,” the DOJ-IG report said.

Infiltrating a Catholic church with an informant was supposedly necessary because “the only times [Lopez] left the house alone were to attend events at [Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Chapel] and it therefore provided the only potential opportunity for [an informant] to establish regular contact with him,” the DOJ-IG report said.

The FBI insisted that the informant was only used to monitor Lopez—and wasn’t used against any of the church’s other members, according to the DOJ-IG report.

The existence of the FBI informant is not disclosed in any of Lopez’s criminal records.

Lopez was arrested in November 2022 on a slew of state charges, including prohibited paramilitary activity, soliciting someone for a terrorist act and possessing firearms as a felon.

After his arrest, an FBI analyst with knowledge of the investigation worked with another analyst to craft the FBI’s memo about Catholics.

According to the DOJ-IG report, the FBI analysts wanted help conduct outreach to faith communities, “to make them aware of what we would call warning signs to radicalization, for the protection of everybody.”

“There was ample information in [Lopez’s] chats and in online chatter suggesting a potential link between white supremacist ideology and an attraction to certain religious beliefs and organizations, including [Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Chapel], but that the two analysts were searching for more definite substantiation,” the DOJ-IG report said, citing interviews with the FBI analysts.

One FBI analyst told the DOJ-IG that he found it “completely incongruous” that Lopez was attempting “to find common ground or find a community with this particular faith community.” He also said that there was no evidence that Lopez was being radicalized at Lady of Fatima Catholic Chapel, because he had been on the FBI’s radar “as an unstable, dangerous individual” before “any association with any Catholic related entity whatsoever.”

Rather, the FBI expressed concerns to the DOJ-IG that Lopez may have been recruiting other Lady of Fatima members to carry out an attack.

There is nothing in the charging documents against Lopez to suggest that he was recruiting other Catholics for an attack. Rather, the available evidence suggests that Lopez was interested in Catholic church to find a girlfriend.

“One place you will find [white women] is at a traditional church … I found a girl there that checked off every box on my list, but she’s 17 and I’m 22 so that’s not happening,” he said in an August 2022 post on Gab, according to charging documents.

FBI Director Chris Wray has since apologized for the report, which received heavy criticism from GOP lawmakers for—among numerous other reasons—underpinning its findings with information from the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center.

State prosecutors dropped their case against Lopez last July, around the time he was indicted federally.

Last August, his defense attorney disclosed his mental illnesses in a motion for a psychological exam, revealing that “[Lopez] has previously been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Schizo Affective Disorder and Autism Asperger’s Syndrome.”

Despite those diagnoses, a federal judge ruled that Lopez was competent to stand trial.

Lopez then struck a deal last month to plead guilty to one charge of possessing a destructive device. He is set to be sentenced in September.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Official UCLA ‘Queer’ Magazine Embraces Furries, BDSM

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Official UCLA ‘Queer’ Magazine Embraces Furries, BDSM

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Students responsible for publishing the official University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) LGBT student magazine recently released the magazine’s latest edition, in which they called for the acceptance of “furries” and other fringe sexual preferences and identities into the larger LGBT movement.

At the beginning of the edition, OutWrite magazine’s editor-in-chief claimed classmates in high school would openly bully a “transgender” student as a “freak and a monster,” which is a baseless claim, considering that both the faculty and students in American high schools tend to be politically on the left.

Rainer Lee, the editor wrote that this edition of the magazine was fashioned as a “love letter to the freaks: the queers, cringelords, furries, kinksters, and monsterf***ers alike.”

“Explore with us what it means to be human and beyond. Come be a freak,” Lee wrote.

The edition also included one essay titled, “For The Love of the Furries,” in which the author advocated for “furries.”

“The way anti-furry stigma manifests is strikingly similar to past and present sexually-motivated constructions of queerness as an illness and a cause of moral panic,” the student wrote, adding that it’s a “bigoted generalization” to say that dressing up and acting like an animal is a fetish.

Another person wrote that BDSM (bondage, discipline, dominance and submission) should be included in the larger LGBT movement, arguing that the pushback regarding exposing children to inappropriate material “reinforces the stigma of kinky people as dangerous deviants.”

“What difference does it make to see someone wearing a collar at Pride or see a parade float full of dominatrixes? The average viewer might take only a slight note of it, but it would make a world of difference to those involved in the kink community and those who want to be,” the student wrote.

Another student complained about how supposedly horrible the United States is, which resulted in the student embracing “Void Punk,” a “subculture that refutes normative society’s idea of what it means to be human and instead celebrates the idea of not being human.”

“I don’t feel human and I don’t need to feel human,” the student wrote.

Unsealed Docs Expose Biden’s Alleged Role in Trump Documents Case

Luis Cornelio
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Unsealed Docs Expose Biden’s Alleged Role in Trump Documents Case

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A newly unsealed motion from former President Donald Trump’s legal defense team suggests that the Biden-led White House may have played a more significant role in initiating the Mar-a-Lago documents case. 

According to the motion seeking to compel discovery in the case, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) engaged in several communications regarding alleged missing Trump-era documents shortly after he left office in January 2021. 

In a document titled “Early Indications of NARA Bias,” the Trump defense team accuses NARA General Counsel Gary Stern of sending a draft letter to Trump’s Public Records Act representatives, wherein he admitted to having “several conversations” with the White House Office of Records Management. 

Despite Stern’s admissions in the May 5, 2021, letter, that transitions were “very chaotic” and that the transfer of documents could take “several months,” his colleague, NARA Archivist David Ferriero, displayed impatience by June 2021.

On Aug. 30, Ferriero warned Trump’s PRA representatives that the assumption that classified documents had “been destroyed” compelled him to “report it to the Hill, DOJ, and the White House.” 

By Sept. 21, 2021, Stern circulated a draft letter meant to be sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland about missing documents, conceding to having “informally” approached DOJ counsel and acknowledging that the Biden White House was “also aware” of the issue. 

In late September, the Trump defense team suggested that NARA had already circulated the letter to the DOJ. 

The unsealing of these documents, as recounted by Kelly, undermines Special Counsel Jack Smith’s argument that the criminal prosecution of the documents case is devoid of political influence. 

Kelly commended Judge Aileen Cannon for allowing the unsealing of the documents and criticized legal analysts from left-wing outlets for attempting to remove Cannon. 

“Without her courage on this matter, incriminating evidence of Biden’s WH and DOJ running the investigative show behind the scenes would be buried maybe forever,” Kelly said. 

The documents stem from accusations by Smith that Trump withheld classified documents in Mar-a-Lago.

Trump vehemently denies such accusations, instead pointing to selective prosecution, as classified documents were also found at President Joe Biden’s residences and offices, dating back to his time as vice president.

Biden Admin Sues Sheetz over Criminal Background Checks in Hiring

Matthew Doarnberger
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Biden Admin Sues Sheetz over Criminal Background Checks in Hiring

(Matthew Doarnberger, Headline USA) The Biden Justice Department now claims it is racist for a businesses to screen out criminals as part of their hiring process—and is actively harassing those who do with civil rights-based lawfare attacks.

The Sheetz convenience store was hit recently with a federal lawsuit as a result of using criminal background checks in their hiring processes, NBC News reported.

In its complaint, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said this kind of hiring criteria has a disproportionate impact on minority applicants and, thus, violates federal civil rights law.

The agency used Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion and national origin.

It said black applicants were denied employment at a rate of 14.5% for failing the criminal-history screening. Multiracial applicants in this category were denied at a 13.5% rate, while Native American applicant rejections stood at 13%.

In contrast, fewer than 8% of white job-seekers were turned down for employment as a result of failing the background check.

The EEOC does not claim that racial motivations were influencing Sheetz’s hiring processes. However, attorney Debra M. Lawrence said in a statement that the results of the policy can still be used as a basis for the lawsuit.

“Federal law mandates that employment practices causing a disparate impact because of race or other protected classifications must be shown by the employer to be necessary to ensure the safe and efficient performance of the particular jobs at issue,” she said.

Sheetz asserted last week that it “does not tolerate discrimination of any kind.” In addition, company spokesperson Nick Ruffner touted the store’s record on diversity and its willingness to work with federal anti-discrimination agencies.

“Diversity and inclusion are essential parts of who we are,” Ruffner said.

“We take these allegations seriously,” he added. “We have attempted to work with the EEOC for nearly eight years to find common ground and resolve this dispute.”

Sheetz is a privately held, family-run company with over 700 stores and more than 23,000 employees. It is are headquartered in Altoona, Pa., and has locations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and North Carolina.

Despite the controversy, President Joe Biden still made time to stop off at a Sheetz station for snacks while campaigning in Pennsylvania.

Report: UCLA Med School’s DEI Chief Plagiarized Her Dissertation

Jacob Bruns
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Report: UCLA Med School’s DEI Chief Plagiarized Her Dissertation

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) A Diversity, Equity and Inclusion official at the University of California, Los Angeles plagiarized parts of her dissertation, which was about DEI programs, according to a Daily Wire report by prominent investigative reporters Chris Rufo and Luke Rosiak.

The official in question, Natalie J. Perry,  who currently leads UCLA’s medical school DEI program called “Cultural North Star.”

In her 2014 dissertation, “Faculty Perceptions of Diversity at a Highly Selective Research-Intensive University,” written for the University of Virginia, Perry argued that state institutions should be coerced into having larger DEI departments. But the paper contains many passages that she did not write at all.

According to her professional biography, Perry’s objective a is to “embed our aspirational Cultural North Stars value in our organizational DNA.”

The DEI officer even received honors from UCLA last month in recognition of her “empathy” and her “radical listening.”

Unfortunately for Perry, she holds a prestigious academic position at a major university despite having only published one academic paper. And that paper—her dissertation—is flooded with blatant plagiarism.

Reviewers recently discovered that she took text directly from at least 10 other papers without attribution, including entire paragraphs that contained only minor alterations from the original texts that she found elsewhere.

In one instance, she took a paragraph from a paper written by Adalberto Aguirre and Ruben Martinez and simply replace the word “types” with the word “examples,” and left the rest the same without any acknowledgement or attribution of the real authors of the rest of the paragraph.

In another embarrassing incident, Perry copied and pasted a passage nearly 1,000 words in length from a paper written by Chad Hartnell, Amy Yi Ou and Angelo Kinicki, and did not credit the authors at all.

Meanwhile, as its upper-level administrators fail to complete basic tasks with integrity, the UCLA School of Medicine requires students to take courses on “structural racism,” “indigenous womxn” and “two-spirits.”

According to the report, Perry and UCLA did not return requests for comment.

Headline USA reached out to Evan Pivonka, the special assistant to the Honor Committee at the University of Virginia to inquire whether the school intended to address the egregious violation in any way and will update with any response.

Calif. Town Ousts First Tranny Council Mayor in Recall Election

Jacob Bruns
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Calif. Town Ousts First Tranny Council Mayor in Recall Election

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) A California border town, Calexico, has ousted its transgender mayor in a recall election, alongside the one of the City Council member’s “allies” on the Calexico City Council, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Almost two-hirds of voters in the April 16 special election voted to recall Raúl Ureña, who began accepting the use of all pronouns with a preference for “she” only after winning the initial election in 2020.

Shortly after being reelected in 2022, Ureña came out as gender fluid and transgender, and began wearing dresses in public.

Ureña also began speaking in Spanish during public meetings with political ally and fellow  Council member Gilberto Manzanarez, who is described as a young progressive.

In the same April 16 recall, Manzanarez was recalled by 73% of voters.

Both Ureña, 26, and Manzanarez, 30, both claimed that the recall campaign was animated by transphobia, and that they would continue to fight for “social justice.”

Ureña reportedly remains “hopeful and optimistic, even with these results.”

“We will not give up on social justice in the Imperial Valley,” Ureña said. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Manzanarez said that he considered the move a political ploy on the part of the local establishment.

While the two were blamed for the implementation of radical policy changes that resulted in skyrocketing crime and other problems—similar to blue-run cities throughout the country that began to deemphasize law and order during the 2020 George Floyd riots—Manzanarez insisted that the issues predated his arrival.

“It’s very easy to point to downtown and make sure that people understand that it’s not OK,” said Manzanarez, who was elected in 2022.

“How long has it been that way?” he continued. “Did it start being that way in 2022? Absolutely not.”

Nonetheless, opponents like Maritza Hurtado, a leader of the recall campaign and former mayor, have accused the duo of using transphobia and sexism accusations “as a card this whole time” to deflect genuine criticism of their incompetent leadership..

According to Hurtado, Ureña and Manzanarez did little to address public drug use, homeless squatting and other issues that people care about, instead opting to install publicly-funded electric car chargers throughout the impoverished town.

Despite the opposition, as the recall election was happening, Ureña said that there was a “great party.”

“I did not stop dancing,” Ureña added. “Nothing gets through my happiness.”

Columbia Univ. Overrun by Nazis, Cancels In-Person Classes on 1st Day of Passover

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Columbia Univ. Overrun by Nazis, Cancels In-Person Classes on 1st Day of Passover

(Headline USA) Just a week after the president of Columbia University claimed to be taking a hard line in addressing anti-Semitism on campus, pro-Hamas students appeared to ratchet up their efforts.

Columbia canceled in-person classes on Monday, and new demonstrations broke out on other U.S. college campuses as tensions continue to grow over Israel’s war in Gaza.

Activists engaged in overtly hostile rhetoric that intimidated and attacked Jewish students on the first day of the Passover religious holiday, prompting calls for some to flee for their safety as widespread condemnation threatened to leave a mark on the prestigious Ivy League school in midtown Manhattan. 

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft announced that he planned to pull financial support from the school, likely one of many backers who will join in pressuring them to issue a stronger response.

“It was through the full academic scholarship Columbia gave me that I was able to attend college and get my start in life and for that I have been tremendously grateful,” Kraft said in a statement released through his philanthropic organization, Foundation to Combat Antisemitism.

“However, the school I love so much—the one that welcomed me and provided me with so much opportunity—is no longer an institution I recognize,” he added. “I am deeply saddened at the virulent hate that continues to grow on campus and throughout our country. I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken.”

He called on school officials to step up and act, while encouraging Jewish students to seek out the eponymous Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life as a place of refuge.

“It is my hope that Columbia and its leadership will stand up to this hate by ending these protests immediately and will work to earn back the respect and trust of many of us who have lost faith in the institution,” Kraft said in the statement.

“It is my hope that in this difficult time, the Kraft Center at Columbia will serve as a source of security and safety for all Jewish students and faculty on campus who want to gather peacefully to practice their religions, to be together and to be welcomed,” he added.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., called on Columbia President Nemat Shafik to step down.

“All institutions that receive federal dollars need to be put on notice that Jewish students have the right to go to class and study peacefully and that their funding is a privilege,” Scott said in a statement.

“… President Nemat ‘Minouche’ Shafik needs to resign immediately for allowing students to turn their campus into a breeding ground for hatred,” he added. “What’s happening at Columbia University is a disgrace to the core values of our nation. Our Jewish brothers and sisters have my unwavering support as we combat antisemitism at home and abroad.”

Even President Joe Biden, who has been increasingly supportive of Islamic Hamas supporters while facing the prospect of an electoral revote in Michigan and several other swing states, was compelled to issue a forceful statement, which Politico characterized as “notably unambiguous,” denouncing the protests.

“Silence is complicity,” Biden’s statement read.

“Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews,” it continued. “This blatant Antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous—and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”

Police arrested several dozen protesters at Yale University on Monday morning after officials at the New Haven, Connecticut, school said they defied warnings over the weekend to leave.

Pro-Palestinian rioters set up encampments on other campuses around the country, including at the University of Michigan, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of North Carolina.

Last week, police arrested more than 100 rioters at Columbia who had set up an encampment on the campus, including Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

On Sunday, a rabbi at Columbia sent a WhatsApp message to more than 200 Jewish students, urging them to leave the New York City campus if they did not feel safe.

However, the Jewish student group Hillel responded defiantly that fleeing the school was not the solution.

Shafik said in a note addressed to the school community Monday that she was “deeply saddened” by what was happening on campus.

“To deescalate the rancor and give us all a chance to consider next steps, I am announcing that all classes will be held virtually on Monday,” Shafik said.

She said faculty and staff should work remotely, when possible, and that students who don’t live on campus should stay away.

Shafik said the Middle East conflict is terrible and that she understands that many are experiencing deep moral distress.

“But we cannot have one group dictate terms and attempt to disrupt important milestones like graduation to advance their point of view,” Shafik wrote.

Over the coming days, a working group of deans, school administrators and faculty will try to find a resolution to the university crisis, noted Shafik, who didn’t say when in-person classes would resume.

At Yale, police officers arrested about 45 protesters and charged them with misdemeanor trespassing, said Officer Christian Bruckhart, a New Haven police spokesperson. All were being released on promises to appear in court later, he said.

Protesters set up tents on Beinecke Plaza on Friday and demonstrated over the weekend, calling on Yale to end any investments in defense companies that do business with Israel.

In a statement to the campus community on Sunday, Yale President Peter Salovey said university officials had spoken to the student protesters multiple times about the school’s policies and guidelines, including those regarding speech and allowing access to campus spaces.

“Putting up structures, defying the directives of university officials, staying in campus spaces past allowed times, and other acts that violate university policies and guidelines create safety hazards and impede the work of our university,” he said.

School officials said they spoke with protesters over several hours and gave them until the end of the weekend to leave Beinecke Plaza. The said they again warned protesters Monday morning and told them that they could face arrest and discipline, including suspension, before police moved in.

A large group of demonstrators regathered after Monday’s arrests at Yale and blocked a street near campus, said Bruckhart, the police spokesperson. There were no reports of any violence or injuries.

Last week, the University of Southern California took the unusual step of canceling a planned commencement speech by its 2024 valedictorian, who had publicly supported Palestinians. The university cited security concerns in a decision that was praised by some pro-Israel groups but criticized by free-speech advocates.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Report: Obama/Clinton Advisor Charged for Possessing Child Porn

Ken Silva
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Report: Obama/Clinton Advisor Charged for Possessing Child Porn

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Daily Mail reported Sunday that a former advisor for President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been charged with several child sex offenses in the United Kingdom.

The advisor, Rahamim “Rami” Shy, 46, faces allegations of soliciting sex from a minor and possessing child porn. He was arrested in late February by Bedfordshire Police, and appeared at Luton Crown Court on Friday, according to the Daily Mail. He was reportedly remanded into custody and has another hearing scheduled for June. He has not yet pled to the charges, and his trial is set for August.

According to the Daily Mail, Shy worked in a senior role at the Treasury Department from 2008 to 2014. He also reportedly provided policy analysis to chiefs of staff at the Defense Department.

“He was deployed to Afghanistan to provide expertise to the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was set up to maintain stability following the America-led invasion of the country,” the Daily Mail reported. Citing his LinkedIn page, the Daily Mail added that Shy provided ISAF with counter- terrorist finance expertise and went on to present the US’s strategy on Afghanistan to a congressional hearing in 2010.

Shy was also reportedly a student at Rutgers University in New Jersey before he studied international security policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in New York.

Shy’s LinkedIn page, which has been taken down, said his last job was at Citibank. The bank reportedly said Shy no longer works there.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Private Company Building $12B High-Speed Rail from L.A. to Vegas

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Private Company Building $12B High-Speed Rail from L.A. to Vegas

(Headline USA) Work is set to begin Monday on a $12 billion high-speed passenger rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area, with officials projecting millions of ticket-buyers will be boarding trains by 2028.

Brightline West, whose sister company already operates a fast train between Miami and Orlando in Florida, aims to lay 218 miles of new track between a terminal to be built just south of the Las Vegas Strip and another new facility in Rancho Cucamonga, California.

Almost the full distance is to be built in the median of Interstate 15, with a station stop in San Bernardino County’s Victorville area.

In a statement, Brightline Holdings founder and Chairperson Wes Edens called the moment “the foundation for a new industry.”

Brightline aims to link other U.S. cities that are too near to each other for flying between them to make sense and too far for people to drive the distance, Edens said.

CEO Mike Reininger has said the goal is to have trains operating in time for the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is scheduled to take part in Monday’s groundbreaking. Brightline received $6.5 billion in backing from the Biden administration, including a $3 billion grant from federal infrastructure funds and approval to sell another $2.5 billion in tax-exempt bonds. The company won federal authorization in 2020 to sell $1 billion in similar bonds.

The project is touted as the first true high-speed passenger rail line in the nation, designed to reach speeds of 186 mph, comparable to Japan’s Shinkansen bullet trains.

The route between Vegas and L.A. is largely open space, with no convenient alternate to I-15. Brightline’s Southern California terminal will be at a commuter rail connection to downtown Los Angeles.

The project outline says electric-powered trains will cut the four-hour trip across the Mojave Desert to a little more than two hours. Forecasts are for 11 million one-way passengers per year, or some 30,000 per day, with fares well below airline travel costs. The trains will offer rest rooms, Wi-Fi, food and beverage sales and the option to check luggage.

Las Vegas is a popular driving destination for Southern Californians. Officials hope the train line will relieve congestion on I-15, where motorists often sit in miles of crawling traffic while returning home from a Las Vegas weekend.

The Las Vegas area, now approaching 3 million residents, draws more than 40 million visitors per year. Passenger traffic at the city’s Harry Reid International Airport set a record of 57.6 million people in 2023. An average of more than 44,000 automobiles per day crossed the California–Nevada state line on I-15 in 2023, according to Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority data.

Florida-based Brightline Holdings already operates the Miami-to-Orlando line with trains reaching speeds up to 125 mph. It launched service in 2018 and expanded service to Orlando International Airport last September. It offers 16 round-trips per day, with one-way tickets for the 235-mile distance costing about $80.

Other fast trains in the U.S. include Amtrak’s Acela, which can top 150 mph while sharing tracks with freight and commuter service between Boston and Washington, D.C.

Ideas for connecting other U.S. cities with high-speed passenger trains have been floated in recent years, including Dallas to Houston; Atlanta to Charlotte, North Carolina; and Chicago to St. Louis. Most have faced delays.

In California, voters in 2008 approved a proposed 500-mile rail line linking Los Angeles and San Francisco, but the plan has been beset by rising costs and routing disputes. A 2022 business plan by the California High-Speed Rail Authority projected the cost had more than tripled to $105 billion.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Is There Really a Shortage in Silver?

Money Metals News Service
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Is There Really a Shortage in Silver?

(Clint Siegner, Money Metals News Service) The Silver Institute released its 2024 World Silver Survey last week. According to the data, silver demand outstripped supply in 2023, for the fifth year in a row.

The deficit was just over 142 million ounces. And the forecast for 2024 indicates that the annual production shortfall will nearly double to 265 million ounces.

Silver prices have finally begun playing some catchup to gold. Perhaps speculators in the futures market have finally begun paying attention to fundamentals like supply and demand.

The overall supply deficit is corroborated by another data point. COMEX vault inventories of silver are also in decline.

If demand from industry and from investors is greater than what miners and recyclers can produce, then additional silver must come from existing above-ground stocks.

The COMEX vaults are a major stockpile. Sure enough, inventory in those vaults has been dwindling. The COMEX reports total silver inventory is just over 291 million ounces in the latest report, published Friday. That is down from the peak of just over 400 million ounces in early 2021.

Inventory in the much larger London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) vaults has also fallen sharply. Stocks are down more than 300 million ounces from the 1.2 billion ounce peak in 2021.

Ted Butler, of Butler Research, has posed an interesting question for investors watching supply and demand.

Last fall, he sent a letter to both the heads of the SEC and the CFTC.

His question is whether the 100 million ounces of silver inventory reported by the iShares Silver Trust ETF (SLV), which is stored by JP Morgan Chase, is also being reported by JP Morgan as COMEX inventory. It is a simple question, but the regulators have yet to answer.

There are many reasons to think twice before buying silver or gold ETFs. The potential double counting of the inventory which supposedly backs those securities is just one of them. Their inherent counterparty risk is another.

In addition to the questions about double counting, the outstanding shares of SLV have recently begun falling.

Shares outstanding are a representation of the silver inventory held by the ETF. There were 482 million shares on April 8th. That number has fallen to 455 million shares currently.

That means SLV’s inventory has fallen by 5.6% in two weeks, which is counterintuitive given what has happened to silver prices in that time period.

Higher silver prices have not led Authorized Participants in the ETF to add silver and create more shares that they can sell into the market.

They are removing silver bars instead.

If the silver deficit reaches 265 million ounces this year, as forecast, how many of those ounces will come from the LBMA or COMEX warehouses? And at what price?

Of course, much of the inventory in those vaults is not actually for sale at present. Although, at some price, nearly everything is for sale.

The COMEX reports its holdings in two categories – registered and eligible. Only the registered holdings are available for delivery now. The owners of the “eligible” silver must be persuaded to register their bars before that metal can be sold and delivered.

The registered inventory is only 47 million ounces currently – a small fraction of the 291 million ounce total in the COMEX system.

The LBMA does not publish how much of the inventory in their system is actually available for delivery. It is almost certainly far less than the reported total.

But, to be certain, there are large amounts of silver outside of publicly reported stockpiles that could come back to market at higher prices. Stocks of bullion coins and bars are well north of two billion ounces – so that’s a lot more potential supply that could also come to market.

Even though there is still lots of silver around, the silver production shortfalls will put pressure on prices to go higher in order to induce new mine production and/or draw silver out of private hoards.

Clint Siegner is a Director at Money Metals Exchange, a precious metals dealer recently named “Best in the USA” by an independent global ratings group. A graduate of Linfield College in Oregon, Siegner puts his experience in business management along with his passion for personal liberty, limited government, and honest money into the development of Money Metals’ brand and reach. This includes writing extensively on the bullion markets and their intersection with policy and world affairs.

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