Private Company Selling Your DNA in Bankruptcy Court?, China Attempts to Smuggle More "Agriculture Terrorism" to Destroy Food Supply, "Big Beautiful Bill" Hits Useless Degrees (The Five for 06/10/25)
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter, but don’t always make the front page.
Due to how fast things are changing with the current LA riots…I didn’t even try to keep up. But here are five stories that are really important—and you’ve likely missed.
Let’s dive in.
[one]
Much has been written about the “Big Beautiful Bill” (the official name, for some dumb reason—more about how everything is stupid in story #3 today). But most of the coverage has missed a key point—colleges could be forced to repay the government for giving students loans for degrees that don’t lead to employment.
The “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” backed by President Donald Trump and awaiting passage in the Senate, would revolutionize how colleges distribute student loans, disincentivizing schools from saddling students with debt for degrees that don’t lead to employment.
The move would not just provoke left-wing colleges that have been a thorn in Republicans’ side, but also provide a practical, good-governance change that could save taxpayers billions and prevent people from being saddled with student loan payments they can’t afford.
Under the bill, colleges will have “skin in the game,” meaning if they churn out dropouts or graduates with a particular major who can’t afford to pay their student loans, the college will have to eat those costs. That makes it in their interest to discourage people from going into debt for programs in useless or low-quality fields, admitting students who are unlikely to be able to complete a useful program, or charging such high tuition that the increase in earnings isn’t worth it.
Colleges will no longer be able to admit an endless stream of people who take $150,000 in student loans for a gender studies degree when half of them default on their loans and stick taxpayers with the bill. Schools will have to reimburse the federal government for missed loan payments based on the percentage in a “program of study,” meaning a major within a particular school, who drop out or don’t see increased earnings based on the degree.
A “value-added earnings” amount is calculated for graduates of each program based on their median salary four years after completing an undergraduate or doctoral degree, or two years after an associate’s or master’s degree. It looks at how much higher that salary is than 150% of the poverty level for those with undergraduate degrees, or 300% of the poverty level for people with graduate credentials. The number is further adjusted based on the cost-of-living in the metro area of the university, even though graduates may not be working in that region.
How much money schools have to repay is based on the relationship between total tuition cost and value-added earnings. Divide the median value-add by median cost of attendance. That’s the percentage of missed principal and interest payments that taxpayers will eat. Colleges must reimburse the government for the rest.
[two]
A third case of a Chinese grad student bringing “agriculture terrorist weapons” into the country happened this week.
A Chinese scientist has been detained by U.S. authorities, accused of smuggling biological materials into the country from the city of Wuhan, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Monday.
Chengxuan Han, a citizen of the People's Republic of China (PRC), has been charged in a criminal complaint with smuggling goods into the United States and making false statements.
Newsweek has contacted the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. for comment by email.
Han is the third Chinese national in recent days to be accused of smuggling biological materials into the country. On June 3, the DOJ said two Chinese nationals had allegedly smuggled in a fungus known as Fusarium graminearum, which causes a disease called "head blight." It infects major staple crops such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice.
The DOJ did not specify what biological material Han allegedly smuggled into the U.S., but said it was "related to roundworms."
While most of the country is focused on the riots in LA…this is my real concern.
If you want to see true civil unrest…destroy off the food supply and watch how agitated people are after a few days of not eating.
God willing, we never find out. But political violence at the local…matters locally. None of us outside of Los Angeles are effected, although many are tuned in.
But a terrorist attack on the food supply, via bugs or disease? That’s the real threat.
[three]
A complex argument over a bill denouncing the Boulder, CO fire bomb attacks against a group of people (mostly Jews) protesting Hamas for still holding Israeli hostages kicked up some dust on social media after 118 Democrats voted against it.
The bill, which does nothing, was set up to drive a political wedge and nothing more.
Why it matters: Language praising ICE and labeling "Free Palestine" an "antisemitic slogan" are sparking fury from some Democrats, who see the provisions as a GOP maneuver to force them into a difficult vote.
"It's sheer politics," said one senior House Democrat, speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer candid thoughts about a sensitive vote.
A second senior House Democrat told Axios: "It's unfortunate that they're using a serious antisemitic terrorist attack as a wedge opportunity to divide Democrats. They knew what they were doing adding something like that in there."
"Nice little catch to put Democrats on the board," vented a third House Democrat.
State of play: At least 15 people and one dog were injured last week in Boulder, Colo., when a suspect allegedly yelled "Free Palestine" as he threw Molotov cocktails at demonstrators advocating the release of hostages held by Hamas.
Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.), along with his fellow Colorado Republicans, have introduced a three-page resolution denouncing the attack, which is scheduled to be voted on this week.
The measure labels "Free Palestine" an "antisemitic slogan that calls for the destruction of the state of Israel and the Jewish people."
"It's more than unfortunate," the second senior House Democrat said of that clause. "It's very f***ed up."
Since Axios leans pretty hard left, I read the three page bill myself, thinking the text might be misrepresented. It’s not.
From the House Bill:
Whereas, while shouting ‘‘Free Palestine’’, an antisemitic slogan that calls for the destruction of the state of Israel and the Jewish people, Mohammed Sabry Soliman attacked the peaceful demonstrators with homemade Molotov cocktails;
This entire thing…was set up to create social media reactions. Members of Congress really just want to be social media stars and YouTubers. Gabe Evans (R-CO) likely wrote this thing so that Democrats would vote against it, not to support the victims of the attack.
And even if he did write the bill to support the victims—how the hell is that legislating? Congress is there to make laws, not declarations of emotion.
We seem to have an unfixable problem here…a good number of people in Congress are acting, not for the districts or states they represent, but for social media accolades.
I cover both politics and pop culture in this outlet, because I’ve had a foot in both worlds—politics as a news reporter and pop culture as a radio and TV host and entertainment journalist.
I’ll be the first one to tell you that Hollywood is full of shallow, self-centered narcissists. But for the first time in my life, I’m starting to wonder if D.C. is about to snatch the crown on that toxicity.
Social media has changed the world in a lot of ways—one of those ways is to make politicians into aspirational rock stars. And you can see it in our legislation. As my friend Craig Dunham put it, “Is Everything Farce”
Whether Republican or Democrat, conservative or progressive, it’s getting harder and harder to take our “leaders” seriously—certainly when political shenanigans we all knew were happening are finally now coming to light, but especially when current leaders cannot define foundational legal concepts like “habeas corpus” nor acknowledge obvious reality that men and women are biologically different.
It’s difficult to write seriously about unserious people, the majority of whom our unserious populace have elected. What are they thinking? What were we?
I try not to conclude stories with “everything is stupid and I don’t see a way out of this” as that’s generally unhelpful journalism.
But…everything is stupid and I don’t see a way to un-dumb society anytime soon.
[four]
Tragically, Libya is no longer a united country, with warring factions, backed by Turkey and Qatar in the western potion of the country and Egypt, the UAE and Russia backing Eastern forces.
Turns out, when a country is in a civil war, it’s pretty easy for civilians to get killed, then forgotten about. The Government of National Unity (Western forces, backed by Turkey and Qatar) is accused of mass slaughter.
The United Nations is calling for an independent investigation after the discovery of dozens of bodies and evidence of human rights violations at militia-run detention facilities in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said Wednesday he was “shocked” by revelations of gross human rights violations uncovered at sites run by the Libyan militia SSA. He called for the sites to be immediately “sealed off” and for Libyan authorities to conduct “prompt, independent, impartial and transparent investigations.”
Formed in 2021, the SSA (Stabilization Support Apparatus) is an umbrella group of militias that is prominent in western Libya and has faced previous allegations of committing atrocities and human rights abuses in the violence that has wracked Libya since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime more than a decade ago.
“The discoveries confirm the longstanding findings by the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the former UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission… regarding the existence of such sites and the extent of violations committed in connection with them, including torture and enforced disappearances,” Türk said.
Reports received by his office between May 18 and May 21 detail the excavation of 10 “charred bodies” at the SSA headquarters in the Abu Salim neighborhood in Tripoli. A further 67 bodies were discovered in refrigerators at Abu Salim and Al Khadra hospitals in the capital, with some of the remains said to be in an advanced state of decomposition due to power outages.
The UN can investigate all it wants (and should), but there’s no apparatus on the ground to enforce any kind of human rights…and bureaucratic paperwork can’t change that.
[five]
Remember when DNA tests were all the rage?
Turns out…if you took one, you likely just traded your DNA to a private company to hold…forever. Now that 23andMe is filing for bankrupty, they want to sell your DNA to another company.
Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia on Monday filed a lawsuit in bankruptcy court seeking to block the sale of personal genetic data by 23andMe without customer consent. The lawsuit comes as a biotechnology company seeks the court’s approval to buy the struggling firm.
Biological samples, DNA data, health-related traits and medical records are too sensitive to be sold without each person’s express, informed consent, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said in a news release about the lawsuit. Customers should have the right to control such deeply personal information and it cannot be sold like ordinary property, it said.
23andMe customers use saliva-based DNA testing kits to learn about their ancestry and find long-lost relatives. Founded in 2006, the company also conducted health research and drug development. But it struggled to find a profitable business model since going public in 2021. In March it laid off 40% of its staff and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Eastern District of Missouri, raising concerns about the safety of customer data.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals said last month it aimed to buy the company for $256 million. Regeneron said it would comply with 23andMe’s privacy policies and applicable law. It said it would process all customer personal data in accordance with the consents, privacy policies and statements, terms of service, and notices currently in effect and have security controls in place designed to protect such data.
Until the next one,
-sth