IL Names Assisted Suicide Bill "Sanitary Food Preparation," Feds Catch "Agriculture Terrorism" Weapon in Michigan, GOP Clashes Over NFL/MLB Stadium Costs (The Five for 06/03/25)
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Ag terrorism and billion dollar sports stadiums and ISIS is back…oh my.
Let’s dive into the news.
[one]
Well, this is a new one. The feds found an “agricultural terrorism” agent being smuggled into the U.S.
Federal agents have arrested a University of Michigan scholar from China on charges she tried to smuggle a biological pathogen into the United States characterized as a potential agricultural terrorism weapon that can be used for targeting food crops.
The FBI counterintelligence case against UM scholar Yunqing Jian, 33, and her boyfriend, 34-year-old Zunyong Liu, was unsealed in federal court in Detroit on Tuesday and marks the second time in less than a week a Chinese national with ties to the university has been charged with federal crimes.
On Friday, prosecutors unsealed a criminal case against a former University of Michigan Chinese student who voted illegally in the 2024 election, saying he fled the U.S. to avoid prosecution.
Jian is a citizen of China who received a doctorate degree in plant pathogens from Zhejiang University, and investigators say they have discovered information describing her membership in and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. Prosecutors say she received money from a Chinese foundation funded largely by the Chinese government to conduct post-doctoral work, including research on a fungus known as Fusarium graminearum, a biological pathogen that can cause devastating diseases in crops.
Prosecutors say her boyfriend illegally smuggled a biological pathogen into the U.S. at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport on July 27.
[two]
“Sanitary food preperation” May not be the most ethical thing to name a bill about Assisted Suicide in Illinois.
As Illinois lawmakers consider a bill that would allow terminally ill adults to end their lives with medical assistance, opponents warn the measure could worsen longstanding disparities in health care, especially for people who live below the poverty line, are disabled or are incarcerated.
The bill would legalize the use of prescription drugs that aid in dying, what’s commonly referred to as physician-assisted suicide.
An Illinois House of Representatives committee voted Wednesday to push the bill forward.
Disability rights advocates, including Access Living policy analyst Sebastian Nalls, are urging lawmakers to halt the bill. Nalls argues that legalizing medical-assisted death in a state with deep health care inequities puts already vulnerable populations at greater risk.
“We want to prioritize increasing the amount of independent living support that folks have, increasing the access to end-of-life care and improving the quality of that end-of-life care,” said Nalls.
Access Living has long opposed measures like the End-of-Life Options Act, warning that the bill could function less as an act of compassion and more as a de facto death sentence for Illinoisans who lack access to hospice, palliative care or mental health services.
[three]
In somewhat surprising news to people outside the Midwest, both “Kansas City” pro teams play in Missouri, as the city straddles a state border.
Whether or not the teams move to Kansas (with lucrative incentives for the teams to cross the border) is causing a major rift in Republican politics, and shows just how quickly a party can start to break apart after winning a decisive election.
But the Chiefs and Royals — and the stadiums that they call home — come with an eye-popping cost, a cost that requires help from government handouts. According to the Kansas City Star, a new stadium for the Royals could cost over $1 billion, while renovations for Arrowhead could come with a pricetag of $800 million.
The cost is worth it to the governor. According to Kehoe’s office, the Chiefs “contribute $575 million annually in economic value and over 4,500 jobs in Jackson County alone, bringing the State of Missouri nearly $30 million in annual tax revenue,” while a “new Royals ballpark district is expected to support 8,400 jobs and generate $1.2 billion in economic output annually.”
In a statement to The Daily Wire, a Kehoe spokeswoman said that the governor “has been working for months to develop a competitive package to keep both the Kansas City Royals and Chiefs in Missouri where they belong.”
Conservative Republicans in the Missouri Freedom Caucus, however, don’t buy the governor’s economic estimations and don’t want to use taxpayer dollars for the benefit of billionaire owners. Instead, the Freedom Caucus Republicans argue that the state should focus on helping average Missourians with tax cuts.
“I hate the thought of billions of taxpayer dollars going to fund bread and circuses, to be honest with you,” Republican State Senator Rick Brattin told The Daily Wire. “And that’s exactly what this is, especially when you see the Royals posting the ‘Pride’ stuff and totally disconnected from reality.”
Brattin added that the Royals can “move to Kansas for all I care,” saying that the team’s games are “sparsely attended.”
The state senator said his colleagues are prepared to negotiate with the governor to come to an agreement on tax cuts for all Missourians in exchange for stadium funding. He argued that incentives offered to the billionaire sports owners should be matched with tax cuts for average citizens.
Some Democrats are also questioning the stadium funding, arguing that more money should be allotted for disaster relief after a major tornado struck St. Louis in May, killing five people and injuring dozens more.
As a St. Louis Cardinals fan…I will withold my opinion on where I think the Kansas City Royals (and Chicago Cubs, and New York Yankees) should go.
[four]
I’m no fan of dictatorship, but starting to wonder if the average Syrian would be better off if Bashaar al-Asaad was still in power in the country…considering that ISIS is once again moving to rule the nation with an iron fist.
ISIS has claimed two attacks on Syrian security forces – the first since the transitional government under former jihadist Ahmed al-Sharaa took office.
The terror group, also known as Islamic State, said it had killed and injured seven members of “the apostate Syrian regime” with an explosive device that was detonated on a road in southern Syria. It said the attack took place in the remote desert area of Talul al Safa in the southern Syrian province of Suwayda.
A military source in the Suwayda region told CNN that a reconnaissance unit from the Free Syrian Army was ambushed Wednesday while tracking ISIS movements in the area. One fighter had been killed and three injured.
Units of the Free Syrian Army are supported by the US military in what is called the al Tanf Deconfliction Zone close to the borders with Jordan and Egypt, where the US has a small outpost.
The source added that the Talul al Safa area is “extremely rugged and dangerous area, as ISIS had been exploiting its terrain for a long time.”
ISIS lost almost all the territory it controlled in Syria by the end of 2017 but has maintained a foothold in Syria’s vast central desert. ISIS claimed another attack in the same area several days ago.
Whenever an evil person or party falls from power…there is no guarantee that better people and ideas will be able to solidify a new government in a vacuum. President Obama famously said in his 2009 inauguration "The arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice, but it doesn't bend on its own."
Sometimes, it does. On other occasions (Lybia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen) things get much, much worse for the average Joe and Jane living on the ground.
Let us hope and pray for the defeat of ISIS, which is not guaranteed.
[five]
And finally, a major reversal on drilling in Alaska coming down from the Trump administration.
Millions of acres of Alaska wilderness will lose federal protections and be exposed to drilling and mining in the Trump administration’s latest move to prioritize energy production over the shielding of the US’s open spaces.
Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, said on Monday that the government would reverse an order issued by Joe Biden in December that banned drilling in the remote 23m-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), the New York Times reported.
The former president’s executive order was part of a package of protections for large areas of Alaska, some elements of which the state was challenging in court when he left office in January.
Burgum was speaking in Alaska on Monday accompanied by the Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin, and the energy secretary Chris Wright.
He said the Biden administration had prioritized “obstruction over production” and Biden’s order was “undermining our ability to harness domestic resources at a time when American energy independence has never been more critical”.
In a post to Twitter/X, Wright said oil production was the “engine of economic growth” in Alaska, funding more than 90% of the state’s general revenue. “Unleashing American energy goes hand in hand with unleashing American prosperity,” he wrote.
Donald Trump declared a “national energy emergency” on the first day of his second term of office in January, promising an avalanche of executive orders friendly to the fossil fuel industry and supporting his campaign message of “drill, baby, drill”.
Environmental groups had long feared Alaska would be the US president’s number one target given the state’s abundance of untapped oil and gas reserves, and immediately criticized the move to open up drilling in an area crucial to the survival of imperiled Arctic species.
“The Trump administration’s move to roll back protections in the most ecologically important areas of the Western Arctic threatens wildlife, local communities, and our climate, all to appease extractive industries,” Kristen Miller, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said in a statement.
Until the next one,
-sth
Love the new positioning. I would cut to 3 stories and increase frequency. These posts make great mini threads on X. Test them with a video summary and without. Great work. Cheers!