Candace Owens Brigitte Macron Harassment Scandal Is Bigger Than Most Know. 10 People Now On Trial
PDS Published 10/28/2025
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Ten people in France are on trial for harassing Brigitte Macron (Brij-eet) with debunked conspiracies that she is transgender.
Right, Brigitte is the first lady of France, and we have talked about these conspiracies before, largely because Candace Owens has just exploded the reach of these claims recently.
But, even though Candace might be one of the most vocal personalities on this matter, she was not the first person to spread the theory.
And back in 2024, Brigitte’s lawyer filed complaints over cyberbullying, which eventually led to multiple arrests in 2025.[]
And now, there are nearly a dozen people facing a two day trial over claims they made regarding her gender and sexuality, as well as equating the age gap in her relationship with president Emmanual Macron as pedophelia.
With a judge saying that these posts have deteriorated the first lady’s physical and mental health.[]
According to reports, the accused include a self-described medium who played a major role in spreading the theory after posting a four-hour YouTube video about the subject in 2021.
An elected official, teacher, and computer scientist are also standing trial.
But according to The Guardian, many of the accused are arguing they were just joking and do not belong in court over their remarks, with one saying:
“It was just a joke… Like a lot of people, I’m asking why I’m here today. Today, you can send people to court for tweets.”[]
Another asking:
“Do you need a permit in France to crack a joke?”
And even though the trial is just two days, a verdict is not expected until later.
But this is a criminal proceeding, so if they are convicted, they go go to jail for up to two years.
But this is not the only legal action the Macrons have taken over these trans conspiracies.
Right, in July they sued Candace Owens for defamation for repeatedly claiming that Brigitte was born male.
But that has not stopped Candace from continuing to spread that theory, right, as recently as this weekend she was posting more “evidence” to back her claims on Twitter.
And the day the trial in Paris began, she also wrote:[]
“If it walks like a dude, talks like a dude, and is listed in the French tax registry as a dude, then it’s the First Dude of France.”[]
So she clearly is not backing down from this conspiracy even though she is in legal trouble over it.
And the Macrons are also not backing down from their fight against her, as just last month, BBC News reported that they would be presenting “photographic and scientific evidence” to a U.S. court to prove she is a woman.
With their lawyer telling the outlet:
"It is a process that she will have to subject herself to in a very public way. But she's willing to do it. She is firmly resolved to do what it takes to set the record straight.”
"If that unpleasantness and that discomfort that she has of opening herself up in that way is what it takes to set a record straight and stop this, she's 100% ready to meet that burden."
Though, the report did not detail what evidence would specifically be supplied.
Btu you have some seeing the explosion of people believing this conspiracy theory and arguing it speaks to larger trends and issues, right, with a professor at the University of Portsmouth in the UK saying:
“These rumours (are) part of the broader 'wars on truth' that characterise much of today’s political discourse. They are primarily a partisan political phenomenon designed to weaken opponents and erode their legitimacy.”[]
But of course, I would love to know your thoughts here, especially on the fact that those spreading it are standing trial in France.
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Texas AG Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit claiming the makers of Tylenol knowingly withheld evidence of the drug’s links to neurodevelopmental disorders.
But, of course, these links? They’re unproven.
And so this just seems to be the latest fallout from Donald Trump claiming that autism can be caused by pregnant women taking Tylenol – which also goes by the non-brand name acetaminophen:
“...acet – well, let’s see how we say that. Aceta –minophen. Acetaminophen. Is that okay?” (52:48-52:58)
But back to this lawsuit, the companies named in Paxton’s complaint are Johnson & Johnson, which sold Tylenol for decades, and Kenvue, a spinoff company that has sold the drug since 2023.
And you’ve already had a spokesperson for Johnson and Johnson noting that the company “divested its consumer health business years ago” – adding:
“...all rights and liabilities associated with the sale of its over-the-counter products, including Tylenol, are owned by Kenvue.” []
And actually, with that, Paxton’s suit also claims that this is the real reason Kenvue was created – to shield Johnson & Johnson from liability over Tylenol. []
But notably, Paxton has provided no evidence of that. []
And when Johnson & Johnson first announced the spinoff in 2021, it said it was just a business decision.
That said, the company had also recently dealt with massively expensive lawsuits over its role in the opioid epidemic and accusations that talc once used in its baby powder caused cancer…but the Tylenol lawsuits didn’t really pick up steam until 2022.
With hundreds being filed in state and federal courts by families who claimed that their children were diagnosed with autism or ADHD after use of Tylenol during pregnancy.
In New York, a judge dismissed the biggest batch – more than 500 of them– back in 2023 – citing a lack of scientific evidence.
And now those plaintiffs are appealing the decision and a hearing is actually scheduled for November 17th. []
With the key difference now being that the president and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are openly discouraging pregnant women from taking Tylenol due to the risk of causing autism.
Right, and they’ve pointed to the same study now being cited in Paxton’s lawsuit: a research review which looked at 46 studies and found evidence of a link.
But the researchers who conducted the review cautioned that their findings weren’t conclusive – advising that Tylenol may still be used but no more than necessary.
And that’s what standard medical advice is already anyway.
Also, notably, another major study of nearly 2.5 million children born in Sweden found that any potential link disappears when accounting for genetics. []
And independent experts and major medical groups haven’t stopped recommending tylenol – noting that it’s considered the only pain reliever safe for use during pregnancy to treat high fevers.
And high fevers? If untreated, unlike Tylenol, we know without a doubt they can pose serious risks to the health of the baby and the mother. []
Of course, despite all that, Trump has only doubled down – writing on Truth Social over the weekend:
“Pregnant Women, DON’T USE TYLENOL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, DON’T GIVE TYLENOL TO YOUR YOUNG CHILD FOR VIRTUALLY ANY REASON”
And with that, this lawsuit is no surprise coming from Ken Paxton – who has repeatedly proven himself willing to bring a case as long as it’s in line with Trump’s priorities.
He has, for example, challenged the results of the 2020 election;
and tried to remove Democratic lawmakers from office as part of the battle over redistricting.
So we’ll have to see if the administration’s recent moves make a difference in how this plays out in court.
But for now, just don’t take medical advice from Donald Trump.
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Trump is trying to rig California’s special election and is already preparing to subvert the will of the voters.
That is what top officials — including Gov. Gavin Newsom — are saying just days before people head to the polls to vote on Prop. 50.
Which would allow the state to redraw its Congressional maps to give Democrats five more seats in the House and counter Trump’s sweeping campaign to gerrymander more Republican seats in red states.
Right, and specifically, the allegations of interference come after Trump’s DOJ announced that it will be sending federal election monitors to five counties in California that together make up more than 40% of the state’s population —
Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Fresno, and Kern.
With that announcement coming after the California Republican Party Chair sent a letter to the department requesting the monitors, claiming that the party had “received reports of irregularities” in those five counties during recent elections.
And arguing that those alleged “irregularities” could “undermine either the willingness of voters to participate in the election or their confidence in the announced results of the election.”
Now, notably here, federal monitoring is a routine part of elections — particularly federal elections.
But experts say the issues flagged in the California GOP’s letter don’t seem to fall under federal jurisdiction because they concern state law and state elections.
And the federal government isn’t the right place to bring state-level concerns — those complaints should go to the California attorney general’s office and the California secretary of state.
But, even beyond that, experts have also questioned whether the DOJ has adequately explained why federal election monitors are needed in California, instead just regurgitating the same points the state GOP made.
And that was also echoed by Gov. Newsom in a recent interview:
“The DOJ just sent out election monitors for a state ballot for a state constitution. They have no basis and they have no business for doing that.” 10:59 - 11:09
And Newsom didn’t mince words about how he views this effort:
“They're rigging the election. They're creating the pretext that after we're successful with Prop 50, after there's a Democratic governor in New Jersey — there will be one in Virginia unquestionably — that they can suggest somehow these were fraudulent. These elections were rigged against them. This is a preview of 2026. Wake up everybody. I mean, what more? And they're just doing it in the open. They're doing it out loud. He's not just trolling you.” 8:39 - 9:06
But it’s not just Newsom — yesterday, you had California Attorney General Rob Bonta telling reporters he believes the Trump administration will use false reports of voting irregularities to try to challenge the outcome of the election.
With Bonta claiming there isn’t any evidence of widespread fraud that would require federal election monitors.
But arguing that, despite that, it’s “naive” to think Trump will accept the results, given his long history of lying about elections.
So, in response, the state AG said that California will be dispatching its OWN observers to watch the federal monitors.
Because, you know, nothing screams democracy like needing a second set of observers to watch a first set of observers who have only been sent to intimate voters…
But, beyond all that, like Newsom, Bonta also argued that this is just the beginning, saying:
“All indications, all arrows, show that this is a tee-up for something more dangerous in the 2026 midterms and maybe beyond.”
With the AG also specifically pointing a post Trump made on Truth Social over the weekend clearly trying to undermine the election from a different front, but one we’ve seen him use many times before.
Saying, without evidence, that Democrats were “cheating on Elections,” and repeating the false claim that he beat Biden in 2020.[]
With Trump going on to say that unless the DOJ cracks down, “it will happen again, including the upcoming Midterms,” and then adding:
“No mail-in or ‘Early’ Voting, Yes to Voter ID! Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is! Millions of Ballots being ‘shipped.’ GET SMART REPUBLICANS, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!”
Now, of course, there is literally zero proof of any fraud or anything even vaguely “dishonest” with early and mail-in voting on Prop. 50.
And there’s nothing wrong with millions of ballots being “shipped” to voters — California law literally requires all registered voters to be sent ballots.
What’s more, Trump’s message urging people not to vote early or by mail DIRECTLY contradicts the official messaging of the California GOP, which has encouraged Republican voters to do exactly that.
So it’s abundantly clear what’s happening here — we’ve seen this exact playbook before, there’s no guesswork involved.
Trump and his administration are sowing the seeds to subvert democracy and undermine the will of the people — and California is just the preview.
So for now, we’re just going to have to watch this situation closely.
But if you vote in California, please, please, please go out and vote in this election — the stakes truly could not be higher.
Not only will your vote help determine control of the House in 2026, it will also set the tone for Trump’s inevitable efforts to deny the outcome of certain midterm elections — only the ones he wants, of course, not any of the ones Republicans win.
And while Trump and his allies will try to scare voters and likely foment violence again, the only way we can fight back is by exercising our democratic rights en masse at such a scale they can’t deny the will of we the people.
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Elon Musk is building his own AI-driven encyclopedia that’s only going to tell you his version of the truth!
Right, Musk just dropped his latest project called “Grokipedia” - a competitor to Wikipedia but instead of crowdsourcing information, Grokipedia’s articles are created using Musk’s xAI and their chatbot Mecha Hitler.
I mean, Grok.
And this whole idea was born about a month ago when Musk made an appearance on the All-In Podcast hosted by David Sacks- where he was singing Grok’s praises.
[“Musk: If you take Wikipedia - as an example but this really applies to books, PDFs, websites, any form of information - Grok is using heavy amounts of inference compute to look at, as an example, a Wikipedia page and say, ‘What is true, partially true, false, or missing from this page? Now rewrite the page to remove the falsehoods, correct the half-truths, and add the missing context.’ Sacks: Elon, can you just publish that? Can we create like a Grokipedia?” 0:00-0:30]
With Sacks going on to say that something like this is necessary because he says Wikipedia has become heavily partisan and “full of activists.”
Which is a cause that Musk himself has taken up this year - that Wikipedia is too “woke” and generally disparaging what he called “an extension of legacy media propaganda.” []
Anyway, since that moment with David Sacks, the idea of “Grokipedia” very quickly snowballed into reality - with Musk saying that it’s, quote, “super important for civilization,” and “a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.”
As for how it works exactly, there are still a lot of unanswered questions.
The big difference is obviously the lack of apparent human authors - with Grokipedia saying their articles are, quote, “fact-checked” by Grok. []
Which has sparked some concern because large-language models like Grok have been known to make up or hallucinate “facts.”
But even with those questions and concerns going largely unaddressed, the first iteration of Grokipedia went live yesterday - with the homepage touting some 885,000 articles.
It feels worth noting here that Wikipedia’s English version has more than 7 million pages. []
Anyway, right off the bat, there were some issues.
Firstly, the launch was delayed by about a week - with Musk saying they had to, quote, “do more work to purge out the propaganda.”
Then, when the site did launch yesterday, it crashed within hours before coming back up last night.
But the big thing people are talking about is the content of these articles.
Because some of these articles seem to be skewed in favor of Musk’s recent views and general right-wing talking points in general.
For example, the article about transgender people refers to trans women as “biological males identifying as female” and claims that trans women existing in women-only spaces, quote,
“... has generated significant conflicts, primarily centered on risks to women's safety, privacy, and sex-based protections established to mitigate male-perpetrated violence.” []
Then there’s the entry about January 6th - which Grokipedia says happened, quote, “amid widespread claims of voting irregularities.” []
Before going onto say the events of that day,
“...fueled enduring disputes over its nature—ranging from a legitimate expression of grievances against perceived electoral flaws to a premeditated threat to democratic transfer of power—with mainstream accounts often amplifying casualty figures and intent beyond forensic evidence while downplaying antecedent failures in election oversight and riot containment.” []
And then there’s the EXPANSIVE entry on Musk himself - which has flowery things to say like, quote, “his public persona blends innovative visionary with irreverent provocateur,” []
Before adding tidbits about his sleep habits, his diet, as well as a detailed outline of his life and career.
Some journalists have also already pointed out some blatantly incorrect information included - like the entry claiming that pornography made the AIDS epidemic worse.
And that’s despite Elon’s promises of Grokipedia being, quote, “... the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
There’s also the fact that, as some have pointed out, some of Grokipedia’s articles seem to be verbatim copies of the corresponding Wikipedia articles.
With Stephen Harrison, a journalist and author who has covered Wikipedia extensively, pointing out there were concerns leading up to the launch that something like this would happen.
Saying,
“Every major AI system trains on Wikipedia’s freely licensed knowledge. The irony is that Grokipedia will be built on the unpaid labor of the volunteer Wikipedia editors Musk has gone out of his way to vilify.” []
Regardless, as you can imagine, the reception has been mixed - with Grokipedia having some big fans over on X but facing some heated criticism in other parts of the internet.
But we’re just going to have to wait and see how things develop from here because this is definitely only the beginning.
With Musk calling this iteration of Grokipedia the 0.1 version - promising the 1.0 version will be even better.
Though he says even at this stage, Grokipedia is better than Wikipedia.
So we’ll have to keep our eyes on this.
In the meantime, I would love to know your thoughts about this in those comments down below.
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If you’ve paid any attention to what’s been going on in cities around the country recently, you’ve seen that a lot of people are not happy with ICE …
[Clip, 00:28 - 00:31, 00:46 - 00:50; Clip, 00:01 - 00:03, 00:43 - 00:47, 02:11 - 02:15]
… But there’s another, more surprising person who’s upset with immigration enforcement too, and his name is Donald Trump. [Image]
Right, it may sound crazy to anyone who’s appalled at how aggressive ICE has been so far, but reportedly the White House is frustrated that they’re not being aggressive enough. [B roll, 00:00]
Because back in May, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller reportedly berated and threatened to fire senior immigration officials unless they started arresting 3,000 migrants a day. [Quote, first line and lead B roll into clip]
[Clip, 00:29 - 00:35, 00:42 - 00:52] Caption: “And President Trump is gonna keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day. … And we can’t take the risk of letting these Biden illegals roam around freely so that the next American daughter can get raped, the next American kid can get murdered.”
But although arrest numbers shot up right after those comments to more than 2,000 a day, they’ve since declined to less than 1,200 as of late last month. [Quote, find “2,000” and Quote, find “1,178”]
And far from reaching Trump’s goal of a million deportations by the end of his first year, DHS says they’ve done just over half that, and expect to hit less than 600,000 by the deadline. [Quote, find “527,000” and “600,000”
Plus according to The New York Times, even those numbers are slightly misleading, since they count people who were turned back at the border and other ports of entry as “deportations,” even if they’ve never lived inside the United States. [Quote, find “misleading”]
So ICE has already removed its acting director and top deportation officials twice. [Quote same link, find “already removed”]
And now, according to NBC, the White House is about to reassign at least a dozen ICE regional directors — around half the agency’s leadership — and replace many of them with border patrol officials. [Quote, find “least a dozen”]
That because border patrol apparently has a reputation for being much more aggressive than ICE.
Right, whereas ICE is known for conducting these time-intensive, targeted operations that go after specific people they’ve been investigating, [B roll, 00:40 - 00:48]
CBP prefers these big sweeping raids that often scoop up the wrong people, cause panic and provoke protests. [B roll, 00:51]
Right, they were behind some of the flashiest scenes in recent months, such as when agents rappeled from a Black Hawk helicopter into an apartment building as families slept in Chicago.
Or when they jumped out of a rental truck and swarmed a Home Depot parking lot in LA, arresting more than a dozen people.
So as one DHS official told NBC:
“The mentality is CBP does what they’re told, and the administration thinks ICE isn’t getting the job done. So CBP will do it.” [Quote]
Now according to Fox News, the ICE directors being replaced are in Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, Portland, Philadelphia, El Paso and New Orleans. [Quote, find “Orleans”]
And reportedly that list was compiled by Corey Lewandowski [Pronounce 00:04] — one of Kristi Noem’s advisors — and Greg Bovino [Bo-veeno], the Border Patrol sector chief in Chicago. [Quote, find “compiled” and Image]
Now Bovino’s an interesting name to bring up, because last week, he was filmed throwing what appears to be a tear gas canister into a crowd of protesters in Chicago. [B roll, 00:04]
Which may have been illegal, because earlier in the month, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking agents from using excessive force against protesters there.
And that wasn’t the only time; right, CBP’s deployed tear gas against people in Chicago over and over again recently.
Now in its defense, DHS claimed that Bovino had been hit in the head by a rock, and that agents warned people to back up before using gas. [Same B roll and Quote, find “rock”]
But regardless, the judge summoned him before the court today to explain his and his agents’ actions, and it did not go well for him. [Image]
With her first grilling him about a number of incidents where tear gas was deployed allegedly without warning, including one on Saturday just before a Halloween parade.
Saying, “Kids dressed in Halloween costumes walking to a parade do not pose an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer. They just don’t.” [Quote]
Then adding more generally: “The warning has to be, ‘I’m going to deploy tear gas.’ The warning really has to be, include what it is that you’re doing to do before you do it, and allow people time to comply.” [Quote same link]
Next, she ordered him to provide all use-of-force reports and body cam footage since September 2 by the end of the week.
And after chastising Bovino himself for not wearing a camera, he promised to begin doing so and to make sure his agents do as well.
But finally, the judge ordered him to meet with her every weekday until their next hearing and recount to her everything that happened that day.
Warning, “Halloween is on Friday. I do not want to get violation reports from the plaintiffs that show that agents are out and about on Halloween, where kids are present and tear gas is being deployed.” [Quote same link]
So for now, that’s it, and I will be watching alongside the judge for what, if anything, happens this Halloween.
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NPR has called out The Washington Post for secretly pushing the agenda of billionaire owner Jeff Bezos.
Right, according to NPR, at least three times in the past two weeks, the Post’s Editorial Board has published opinion pieces on issues in which Bezos has a financial or corporate interest.
In each case, the Board has failed to disclose that interest.
And in each case, the opinion has aligned with this interest.
In one piece, for example, the Post praised the military's effort to develop a new generation of small nuclear reactors – writing:
“...it's a worthy gamble that could provide benefits far beyond its military applications.” []
But it didn’t let readers know that Bezos’s Amazon last year purchased a stake in a company that is currently developing this type of reactor for the military.
It also didn’t disclose that Bezos himself has a stake in a Canadian firm trying to advance nuclear fusion technology.
In another piece, the Post urged DC officials to move faster in greenlighting self-driving cars – writing:
“Safety is a phony excuse for slamming the brakes on autonomous vehicles.” []
And this came less than three weeks after the Amazon-owned autonomous car company Zoox had announced D.C. would be its next market.
And finally, in the third piece? You had the Post defending Trump's decision to demolish the East Wing of the White House without going through the normal approval process.
And what you had the paper failing to mention this time was the fact that Amazon is a major corporate donor for Trump’s ballroom project – at least, at first.
Right, it did add an acknowledgement of Amazon’s contribution after the fact but:
1) this was only after a faculty member at Columbia Journalism School commented on a social media post and asked about it.
and 2) it didn’t flag the change as a correction or offer any sort of clarification to readers.
And, of course, adding to all that, this is just the latest controversy sparking concern about the Post’s editorial independence.
Last year, for example, Bezos blocked an endorsement of Kamala Harris for the presidency.
With him then publishing his own opinion piece explaining the decision and conceding:
“When it comes to the appearance of conflict, I am not an ideal owner of The Post.” []
And then, in February, Bezos announced that the Post’s opinion page would start focusing on two main priorities: personal liberties and free markets – saying:
"We'll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others."
This led the top opinion page editor as well as other editors, columnists, and contributors to quit.
And you also had some 75,000 people cancelling their subscriptions to the paper, adding to the roughly 250,000 who did so after the blocked Harris endorsement, which had also sparked a few resignations as well.
Now, all that said, as concerning as all this, we are largely talking about the Editorial Board and the opinion section.
The Post otherwise remains a super solid source of information – but of course we’ll have to see where things go and if that continues to be the case.
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AI layoffs are here, full stop.
For a few years now, we’ve heard plenty of anecdotal evidence of people losing their jobs because of AI, but now we are seeing this happening at a massive scale from some of the biggest companies in the U.S..
Right, just today, Amazon announced that it will be laying off 14,000 corporate workers.
Now, of course, Amazon is a huge corporation, but that still represents a whopping 4% of its ENTIRE corporate workforce.
And this despite the fact that Amazon is already thriving ahead of the anticipated holiday boom.
Right, last quarter, the company reported $167.7 billion in revenue — a notable increase of 13%.
With the company’s net income also surging by 35% to $18.2 billion.
In fact, Amazon is doing so well that you even had Beth Galetti, the SVP of people experience and technology, addressing it in a memo to employees, writing:
“Some may ask why we’re reducing roles when the company is performing well. Across our businesses, we're delivering great customer experiences every day, innovating at a rapid rate, and producing strong business results.”
But then going on to make it clear that AI is the overarching force that drove this decision.
Pointing to a memo that Amazon’s CEO sent back in June that warned of upcoming staffing reductions due to efficiency gains from using A.I., with her adding:
“What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly. This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it's enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before.”
And going on to argue that the layoffs are necessary for Amazon to continue, quote:
“shifting resources to ensure we’re investing in our biggest bets and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs.”
Right, so that is obviously a major move from one of the most dominant companies in the country, but Amazon is far from alone here.
In the last few months, Microsoft has laid off a total of 15,000 employees, with experts widely speculating that the cuts were driven in large part by the company’s efforts to expand its investments in AI.
And last month, Salesforce also slashed its workforce by around 4,000 — a move that came mere months after the CEO said that AI was doing 50% of the work at the software company.
But this is just the beginning — plenty of other major corporations are also predicting AI-related layoffs in the near future.
Like Goldman Sachs, which sent a memo earlier this month warning employees to expect job cuts — despite skyrocketing profits — as the bank integrates AI into more of its operations.
Hell, we’re ALREADY seeing reports that Amazon is planning ANOTHER round of corporate layoffs in January after the busy holiday season.
So clearly, this is just the start of a much broader trend.
But this is all in its early stages, so we don’t fully know the long-term economic consequences of these actions, even as big companies plow forward with mass AI-related layoffs.
So this will be a big issue to watch, and for now, I’d really love to know what you make of all this.
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I'm also worried that we're going to see it sooner than we think.
Then next up today we should talk about Donald Trump is opening up a million and a half acres of Alaskan wilderness to oil and gas drilling.
Entire coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is one of the largest, virtually untouched expanses, is a wilderness in the U.S, land that's also considered sacred to some local indigenous communities.
And it's home to wildlife including polar bears, caribou, whales and seals.
And underneath the surface, there are believed to be billions of barrels of crude oil. Right.
And that is just one of the reasons you had Interior Secretary Doug Burgum saying last week, Alaska is open for business.
He also announced an oil and gas lease sale with the National Petroleum Reserve, which is the first sale in that 23 million acre area since 2019.
He also confirmed the approval of a road through the Eisenberg National Wildlife Refuge.
Which I one handle helped connect a remote town with an airport that could be used for emergency medical evacuations, but also. Right.
According to critics, it'll cause irreparable harm to wildlife, as well as many Alaska Native tribes that rely on hunting and fishing for food.
But also those impacts might be small in comparison to the department also reissuing necessary permits to establish the Ambler Road project.
Because that's a controversial proposal for a 211 mile industrial road across northwestern Alaskan Arctic, including 26 miles of Gates of the Arctic National Park.
And according to the National Wildlife Refuge Association, that road will endanger more than 200,000 migratory birds that cross through the refuge annually, as well as other wildlife. And again.
That's before considering it will threaten multiple indigenous tribes that rely on the area for hunting and food,
Which is that a big reason why at least 39 of Alaska's interior villages and 37 tribes have opposed the project?
Also, despite that, the state's congressional representatives are in favor of
They've argued that it's necessary to access a copper deposit believed to be worth around $7 billion, as well as other valuable minerals, including cobalt and zinc.
You know, currently it's not clear exactly how this is going to play out.
Right.
Major oil companies previously passed on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife, largely because of how expensive it was, as well as at least some concerns about backlash.
And actually with that, some major banks have committed to not financing drilling in the refuge.
Then, of course, you've got environmental groups expected to file lawsuits to try to block any future drilling from going ahead.
That includes the Alaska Wilderness League, whose executive director said in a statement.
The Arctic Refuge is the Crown jewel of our public land system.
During the government shutdown, when everyday Americans are left without basic services, President Trump has chosen to double down on failed policies that prioritize oil corporations over people and adding
Opening the entire coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge to drilling would destroy one of the most ecologically significant landscapes on Earth.
Then with that, noting that the land is sacred for the Gwich'in people who have stewarded its resources for millennia.
Well, so with that, I will say that local indigenous groups are somewhat divided.
With some supporting oil and gas projects, noting that the associated taxes had in the past funded basic services such as schools and running water.
So.
There's a lot at play here.
But the bottom line is some of Alaska's most pristine nature.
It may soon never be the same again.
That, my friends, is the end of today's show.
Thank you for watching. I've got more for you to watch right here.
If you want to click or tap or I've got links in the description.
Whatever you do, let me just say I love, you know, faces.
And I'll see you right back here tomorrow.
