US Allegations: Iran Fired Missiles At Vessels In Strait of Hormuz

On Wednesday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it hit dozens of Iranian ground and naval targets “in response to Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels that were transiting the Strait of Hormuz,” denouncing Tehran for “aggression [that] was unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the ceasefire.”

Iran continues to say that it needs all vessels to obtain its permission to traverse the vital waterway. In response to US attacks, Tehran launched strikes on US military assets in Bahrain and Kuwait. It also claimed to have downed a US drone.

Speaking on the sidelines of the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) summit in Ankara, Türkiye, Trump lashed out at the Iranian leadership, calling them “scum,” “cuckoo,” “sick,” “vicious, [and] violent people,” and confirmed that the ceasefire is “over.”

“I don’t want to deal with them… I’ll speak to our negotiators that want to negotiate… [but] as far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them. They’re liars,” he said of the Iranian ruling class.

It is not a surprise that this war has reignited. In the days immediately following the signing of the interim peace deal known as the memorandum of understanding, Iran declared it a US failure, while media outlets and political pundits in Washington said it read as a surrender by the US to Iran.

Iran Declares Memorandum of Understanding A “Record of US Failure”

Iran has vowed to attempt to lift restrictions on vessels traveling in the Strait of Hormuz, but that could be over now, as the war appears to be back on.

More importantly, Israel never ceased its attacks on Lebanon, which was also a key part of the interim peace deal.

Israel Refuses To Leave Lebanon, And May Instigate Conflict With Syria

The Netherlands helped Ukraine in several ways, including by supplying United States-made F-16 fighter jets as part of a scheme with Belgium, Denmark, and Norway.

“We don’t have opportunities anymore as the Netherlands because we have done so much,” Yesilgoz-Zegerius told Bloomberg on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Türkiye, on Tuesday. “We are at our limit,” she said when asked whether the Netherlands could provide more US-made Patriot missiles to Kiev.

Denmark Delivered More F-16s To Ukraine

The Netherlands has spent €9.1 billion ($10.4 billion) on military assistance to Ukraine and pledged €11.6 billion more, according to Bloomberg estimates. It is not the only country spending a massive amount of money on helping Ukraine in a war it cannot possibly win.

Ukrainian ruler Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly demanded that Western nations send Kiev more weapons while claiming that they are not doing enough. He continues to act like a petulant child, demanding more from allies, while increasingly treading into gray areas of war crimes. 

It’s Never Enough For Ukraine: Zelensky Demands ALL OF NATO Agree With His War Mongering

Zelensky has repeatedly said that there is a shortage of funds available to Ukraine, while several countries are ensuring the opposite.

Many Western and NATO-allied countries are losing interest in funding this war. Its continuation is only possible while the West foots the bill; however, Ukraine is on the chopping block.

For its part, Russia has repeatedly warned Ukraine and its allies to stop crossing its red lines. However, so far, no major repercussions from Moscow have been sent to any of the countries funding Ukraine.

Russia Warns Of “Red Lines” Being Crossed…Again

• • Iran announced service fees for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, with “special considerations” for China and other friendly nations

• • Tehran rejected an Omani plan for a southern shipping route that would have been overseen by the United States

• • The strait was closed by Iran after the U.S.-Israeli war began Feb. 28, and remains a critical chokepoint for global energy supplies

• • Iran attacked a Singaporean ship attempting the southern route, causing the International Maritime Organization to abandon the plan

• • Iran and Oman have since reached an agreement on joint management of the waterway, though tensions persist

The Strait of Hormuz: Iran’s strategic leverage

Iran’s ambassador to China announced on July 4 that the Islamic Republic would impose service fees on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, with “special considerations” for China and other friendly nations, marking a significant escalation in Tehran’s post-war control of the strategic waterway. Ambassador Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli made the declaration during the World Peace Forum in Beijing, as negotiations continue with the United States over a permanent settlement to the conflict that began Feb. 28. The announcement comes amid Iran’s rejection of an Omani plan for an alternative southern route that would have been overseen by the United States, and follows an Iranian attack on a Singaporean vessel attempting that route.

The strategic chokepoint

The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow 24-mile waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, carries approximately one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies during peacetime. Iran closed the strait after the US-Israeli war began Feb. 28, sending global energy prices soaring. The United States responded in April with a naval blockade on Iran’s southern ports. A June 15 memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States temporarily allowed free commercial transit for 60 days, but the future remains uncertain.

Iran’s fee structure and “friendly” nations

Ambassador Fazli’s Beijing speech clarified that service fees would be charged for security, administration and environmental monitoring, not as tolls prohibited under international maritime law. The “special considerations” for China are particularly significant given that Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports, providing tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue. This relationship has deepened since the early 1990s as China industrialized and sought alternatives to coal.

Oman’s competing vision

Oman has developed a detailed legal framework for strait management that would generate income through voluntary contributions and payments for specific navigational services rather than tolls. Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi stated the country opposes tolls prohibited under international law but considers service fees legal. The plan, crafted with UK commercial legal advice, distinguishes between Article 26 of the Law of the Sea, which forbids payment for mere passage, and Article 43, which permits cooperative funding of maritime services.

The geopolitical stakes

The dispute extends beyond shipping fees to fundamental questions of regional control. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi declared that “Hormuz is defined under Iran’s command, not CENTCOM.” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that any separate arrangements would lead to “further complications, delays in reopening the strait and an increase in tensions.” The United States has stated it will not permit tolls under any final agreement, while Iran maintains its maximalist interpretation of the June 15 memorandum.

A delicate balance

The Strait of Hormuz remains the central flashpoint in US-Iran tensions, with implications for global energy markets and international maritime law. Iran’s insistence on controlling the waterway, its rejection of Omani and UN mediation efforts, and its willingness to use military force against vessels attempting alternative routes demonstrate the high stakes involved. The 60-day free transit period established by the June 15 memorandum is set to expire, and no permanent solution has emerged. As negotiations continue in Doha, the world watches whether diplomacy or confrontation will determine the future of this strategic chokepoint.

Sources for this article include:

TheCradle.co

Aljazeera.com

TheGuardian.com

Senator Ron Johnson has released a report documenting federal health agencies’ failure to acknowledge vaccine safety concerns and is pushing for accountability.

This comes as the covid vaccine-injured community is reaching a 5-year milestone.  Many have experienced chronic illness, financial hardship, and emotional suffering over the past five years.

Accountability for the Vaccine-Injured: A Senator Steps Up

By Christopher Dreisbach, as published by Brownstone Institute on 30 June 2026

Five years is a significant milestone in any chronic illness. People can endure extraordinary physical pain, financial hardship, and emotional suffering if they believe that recovery is just around the corner. Hope often carries them through.

But after five years, hope itself begins to erode.

Savings have been exhausted. Careers have been interrupted or lost. Retirement plans have disappeared. Marriages have been strained by the relentless burden of chronic illness and caregiving. Medical appointments that once promised answers begin to feel repetitive and futile.

Gradually, the realization sets in that life may never return to what it once was. Temporary hardship becomes a permanent reality. When physical suffering is compounded by financial ruin, social isolation and the loss of future expectations, despair can become overwhelming.

For thousands of Americans permanently harmed during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, that five-year milestone is arriving now.

Over the past several months, a disturbing number of COVID-19 vaccine-injured people have either taken their own lives or survived suicide attempts. As a board member of React19, a non-profit dedicated to supporting those injured by the COVID-19 vaccines, I have come to know many of these stories personally. These are not statistics. They are husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters who believed that if they persevered long enough, help would eventually arrive.

For many, it never did.

What made their suffering especially devastating was not only the physical injury itself but also years spent feeling invisible. Many lost careers, homes, and financial security. Others depleted retirement savings or accumulated overwhelming medical debt. Almost all experienced some combination of disbelief, dismissal, and isolation. After years of being told their injuries were unlikely, unrelated, or simply impossible, many began to question whether anyone in authority would ever acknowledge what had happened.

Against that backdrop, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ recent interim report, ‘Failure to Warn: How Federal Health Agencies Downplayed and Hid Myocarditis and Other Adverse Events Associated with the COVID-19 Vaccines’, represents an important turning point.

Drawing on internal government records and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the report concludes that US federal health officials delayed acknowledging vaccine safety signals, withheld important information from the public, failed to respond fully to Congressional oversight, and repeatedly placed concerns about preserving public confidence above full transparency.

For the vaccine-injured community, that public acknowledgment matters. For the first time, many who were dismissed for years can point to official government findings confirming that safety concerns existed, were recognized internally and were not fully communicated to the public.

Yet transparency alone is not enough.

A report that documents misconduct but produces no consequences may satisfy historians, but it offers little comfort to those whose lives were permanently altered by the conduct it describes. Facts matter. Investigations matter. But they matter most when they lead to accountability.

Fortunately, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), the chairman of the Subcommittee, has made clear that this report is not the end of his work – it is the beginning.

Throughout the pandemic and the years that followed, Senator Johnson has courageously pressed federal agencies for answers, demanded documents, convened hearings and, perhaps most importantly, given COVID-19 vaccine-injured Americans an opportunity to tell their stories publicly. His message has remained remarkably consistent: transparency is essential, but transparency must ultimately be followed by accountability.

That accountability cannot stop with institutions.

Too often, government failures are blamed on agencies, departments, or bureaucratic systems, as though decisions simply emerged from the machinery of government. Institutions become shields behind which individuals disappear.

But institutions do not make decisions. People do. Government agencies did not conceal information. Individuals did. Government agencies did not ignore safety signals. Individuals did. Government agencies did not delay informing the public. Individuals did.

Every significant decision described in Senator Johnson’s report was made by identifiable people exercising authority and judgment. Accountability, therefore, requires more than institutional reform. It requires determining whether those entrusted with protecting the public fulfilled their responsibilities and, if they did not, whether they should face professional, civil, or criminal consequences.

For the vaccine-injured community, accountability is not about revenge. It is about affirming a principle fundamental to every constitutional republic: no public official is above responsibility, and every citizen deserves honesty from those entrusted with protecting public health. Simply put, it is about justice.

Certainly, justice cannot restore damaged nerves. It cannot erase years of pain, financial ruin, or shattered careers. It cannot bring back those who lost their battle with despair before recognition finally arrived.

However, the pursuit of justice can restore something that has been steadily disappearing over the past five years. Faith. Faith that truth still matters. Faith that public service still carries responsibility. Faith that those who suffered were not forgotten.

That may ultimately become Senator Johnson’s greatest contribution, not simply exposing what happened but demonstrating that the search for truth does not end when the headlines fade. For thousands of Americans who have waited five long years to be seen, heard, and believed, that renewed faith may prove to be the best medicine of all.

About the Author

Before his own life-altering vaccine injury, Christopher Dreisbach primarily practiced criminal defense throughout central Pennsylvania. His client base ranged from individuals facing minor offenses such as driving under the influence to those charged with serious offenses, including homicide. In addition to his private clients, Chris served as court-appointed counsel representing incarcerated individuals under Pennsylvania’s Post Conviction Relief Act. In 2009, he was recognized as Advocate of the Year for his work on behalf of victims of violent crime. He is now Legal Affairs Director of React19, a science-based non-profit offering financial, physical, and emotional support for those suffering from long-term COVID-19 vaccine adverse events globally.

Donald Trump announced “major combat operations” against Iran on February 28th, with massive joint U.S.-Israeli strikes targeting military, government, and infrastructure sites. This was, which “ended” in a US surrender, is precariously perched on an agreement that is a huge loss for the US.

In spite of the agreement, the US and Iran nonetheless exchanged limited strikes in late June despite the signing of the memorandum and amid the continuation of peace talks. We reported on the strikes, in which both sides accused the other of “violations” of the interim ceasefire agreement.

The US and Iran Exchange Strikes

Most recently, the US accused Iran of striking a United Kingdom vessel. There was a report by the UK Maritime Trade Operations Center of an “unknown projectile” striking a tanker off the Omani coast early on Tuesday.

“No casualties or environmental impact reported,” UKMTO said.

The tanker, which was not identified by name, caught fire after the strike, UKMTO said in a warning posted on social media. UKMTO has recommended that vessels proceed with caution when traversing the Strait of Hormuz.

UKMTO WARNING 080-26 – ATTACK

Click here to view UKMTO Products⤵️ https://t.co/Oc7hGsk3Do#MaritimeSecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/uK8cm9a76M

— UKMTO Operations Centre (@UK_MTO) July 6, 2026

US mainstream media outlet Axios reported that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) carried out the strikes on two commercial ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, citing statements from a US official.

According to a report by DW, Iran has continued to threaten to take action against ships that use routes outside an authorized corridor along its coastline. Iran has also stated it wants to set up a fee system for vessels to use the Strait, which the US opposes.

Giving Iran Permanent Control Of The Strait Of Hormuz Will Be A Disaster For The Global Economy

Those working on the Ebola frontlines said that the working conditions were too poor to continue. They reported unpaid benefits, low wages, and inadequate supplies since the outbreak officially began in May.

The DRC Ministry of Health has now confirmed 1,561 cases in the outbreak, with the epicenter in Ituri province and significant transmission in North and South Kivu provinces, as well. Thirty-three of the DRC cases are new, as are 14 of the deaths. Neighboring Uganda has 20 cases, two of them fatal. –University of Minnesota’s CIDRAP (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy)

The strike is threatening to further complicate already difficult tracking and tracing procedures. But it could also negatively impact the execution of two experimental therapies that were launched this past week in the DRC. Enrollees will be given the antiviral drug remdesivir, the experimental antibody treatment MBP134, or a combination of both, with survival rates calculated during a 28-day follow-up period.

This comes as the deaths have surpassed 500. More are likely to be reported in the coming days, too, as healthcare officials are having trouble handling the Bundibugyo strain, the current strain of the virus spreading in an active conflict zone.

Ebola Deaths Surpass 500

The trial of two new experimental therapies provided some much-needed hope to the infected regions of DR Congo and Uganda. Additonally, the World Health Organization (WHO) also added the first diagnostic test for the Ebola Bundibugyo virus to its emergency use listing. The test can quickly confirm infection in blood samples, which will help those attempting to track the spread of the virus to know much sooner if someone is infected.

Despite increased testing, contact tracing remains difficult in the region, and a patient zero has still not been identified in this outbreak.

All of these positive steps are being trampled under the weight of a possible strike.

Back in late June, Ukraine struck a Moscow refinery and caused “oil rain” to pour over the Russian capital of Moscow.

Drone Strike on Moscow Refinery Causes “Oil Rain” in Russian Capital

The Russian Defense Ministry added that Vladimir Zelensky, Ukraine’s ruler, ordered the attacks on the eve of the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) summit in Ankara “to demonstrate to his European sponsors, including the UK, his willingness to strike civilian targets in Russia from Ukraine at their expense.”

The UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) attack occurred on the Omsk Oil Refinery in Omsk Region and is the first in central Russia since the start of the Ukraine conflict.

The Omsk Oil Refinery, which is operated by Gazprom Neft, specializes in the production of gasoline, diesel, aviation kerosene and road‑building bitumen. The refinery has an installed capacity of 20.5 million tons of crude per year. Omsk accounts for around one in every six liters of Euro‑5 gasoline and diesel fuel produced in Russia, as well as a significant share of the country’s aviation fuel.

Governor Vitaly Khotsenko wrote on Telegram on Monday that the facility was hit after several drones reached the city’s northern industrial zone.  Khotsenko said most of the incoming UAVs were destroyed by air defenses and that, according to preliminary information, there were no deaths or injuries, according to a report by RT. 

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday that more than 600 Ukrainian drones were destroyed or suppressed across more than 20 regions in the latest mass raid and that the primary targets were energy facilities.  –RT

Ukriane is amping up the war by using drones to strike further into cvililan areas of Russia. If Russia ever gets sick of these attacks, it’ll quickly destroy Ukraine, but probably not before NATO and other Western allies jump in, helping to ignite World War III.

Russia has unleashed another massive drone and missile attack wave on Ukraine’s capital, just on the eve of the major annual NATO summit, which is in Ankara, Turkey, this week.

Over a dozen people were killed, with heavy damage to residential structures observed. The death toll could rise, but “In total, 14 people have died, and 117 have been injured in Kyiv,” the office of the attorney general said on Monday morning. Rescue crews have been retrieving bodies from under rubble throughout Monday.

via Associated Press

The Russian Defense ‌Ministry announced that it used long-range weapons ‌and drones to carry out a “massive” attack on ​Kiev and other cities, saying that military bases and energy facilities were successfully struck.

According to details of the timing of the attack wave:

The Kyiv Independent reported that the first explosions were heard at about 1:40am local time, followed by more strikes at 2:10am and 3:15am.

Thousands of residents fled to underground shelters, it reported, as air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine. At least 15 buildings were damaged in Kyiv in the strikes, including four in the capital’s historic Podilskyi district, Tkachenko said.

As for the significant numbers of projectiles focused on the Ukrainian capital alone, another source reports:

Ukraine’s air force said Russia used 68 missiles, including 23 ballistic and six super and hypersonic missiles, as well as 351 drones in the attack. Air force units shot down or neutralized 37 missiles and 326 drones, but none of the ballistic missiles or super and hypersonic missiles, the air force data showed.

Neighboring Poland briefly scrambled fighter ​jets as a preventive measure.

Rumors of warehouse with depleted uranium having been struck…

Rumors persist…

But Ukraine has been launching its own significant drone salvos against Russia, with devastating effect against its energy infrastructure.

In its second large-scale attack in under a week, drones were sent against an oil terminal and port in St. Petersburg, with damage being observed in the Baltic Sea ports of Vysotsk and Ust-Luga. More attacks also impacted Sevastopol on the Black Sea, resulting in a power blackout there.

According to some further details in the CNBC report:

Ukrainian officials reported that forces struck a major oil terminal in Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, as well as the Kronstadt Naval Base, the main base of the Russian Baltic Fleet, on Friday and Saturday. The attacks reportedly caused fires at both the oil terminal and the military facility.

Further Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure were reported on Monday morning. Ukraine’s military said via Telegram that it had struck oil refineries in Russia’s Yaroslavl and Leningrad regions overnight. CNBC couldn’t independently verify the report.

It was only on Saturday that President Trump said he had a “business-like and constructive” nearly 90-minute phone call with his Russian counterpart, Putin.

The prospect of renewed US mediation efforts to find peace in the Ukraine conflict was discussed, and Trump was even (once again) invited to visit Russia for an in-person summit.

While the prospect of renewed talks and diplomatic effort was raised, the two warring sides seem further from dialogue than ever, and the Zelensky government is finally sensing that it has found a ‘weak point’ – hammering Russian energy and creating a national fuel shortage crisis.

Did you know that the number of Americans who are out of work right now is far higher than it was at any point during the Great Recession? I know that sounds crazy, but I will prove it to you in this article. A whopping 111 million Americans do not have a job, and we are spending more than a trillion dollars a year on the social safety net that supports them. Of course, we cannot afford to do this because the national debt has already reached 39 trillion dollars, and it is growing at an astounding rate. If we do not fix our economy, disaster is inevitable.

The bureaucrats in Washington keep telling us that the unemployment rate is low, even though there are vast numbers of adults all around us who are not working.

The way that they are able to do this is by dumping almost everyone who is not working into a category known as “not in labor force”.

This allows them to keep the official rate of unemployment suppressed even as the labor force participation rate hits an insanely low level…

On the surface, a June drop in the unemployment rate helped provide some upside to what was an otherwise downbeat jobs report — but it was for all the wrong reasons.

That’s because the decline in the jobless level to 4.2%, the lowest in a year, came largely from an exodus of workers from the labor force, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data Thursday.

In fact, the measure of the working-age population either employed or looking for a job slid to 61.5%, the lowest since March 2021. Excluding the Covid-era jobs market, it was the lowest labor force participation rate in exactly 50 years.

Today, there are just over 7 million Americans who are officially unemployed.

That doesn’t sound bad at all.

But they rarely mention those who are considered to be not in the labor force. This is how the Federal Reserve defines that category…

Persons who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force. This category includes retired persons, students, those taking care of children or other family members, and others who are neither working nor seeking work.

As you can see from the chart below, the number of people that they have been dumping into that category has grown dramatically since 1990.

Right now, there are 104 million Americans who do not have a job and are considered to be not in the labor force…

When you add the 7 million Americans that are officially unemployed to the 104 million Americans that are considered to be not in the labor force, you get a grand total of 111 million Americans that do not have a job right now.

At no point during the Great Recession did that combined figure ever reach 100 million.

That is how bad things are in the U.S. at this moment.

Of course, the 111 million Americans who are not working need to be supported somehow.

Some of them are supported by other family members who have incomes coming in.

But most of them are either partially or totally supported by our social safety net.

According to the House Ways and Means Committee, we spend more than a trillion dollars a year on more than 80 different social safety net programs…

Buying Americans out of poverty is undermining incentives to work, with families living in poverty relying more on taxpayer-funded welfare checks than income from work, according to a newly released report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Costing well over $1 trillion, America’s social safety net encompasses more than 80 federal programs, and is discouraging beneficiaries from seeking income from work.

The report, which was requested by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08), shows low-income families are becoming increasingly dependent on government transfers. In 1979, families living below the poverty line earned about 60 percent of their income from work. In 2021, that number dropped to an all-time low of around 25 percent. The report also shows how the dramatic increase in dependency on government transfers for low-income families was accelerated by COVID-era benefits.

Read that first paragraph again.

I had no idea that it was this bad.

For over a decade I have been writing about America’s ongoing economic collapse, and now we have reached a very advanced stage.

If the federal government was not supporting them, tens of millions more Americans would be living in poverty right now.

So what would our society look like if we stopped borrowing gigantic mountains of money to fuel this system?

And each day, even more Americans are losing their places in the middle class because they are getting laid off.

In fact, it is being reported that Microsoft is preparing for yet another round of massive layoffs…

Microsoft is reportedly planning another round of layoffs, expected to be announced as early as next week.

The cuts will impact thousands of roles across sales, consulting, and the Xbox gaming division. Total layoffs will amount to less than 2.5%% of the company’s workforce.

Microsoft employs roughly 220,000 people across the globe. The company eliminated approximately 15,000 positions just last year — 6,000 layoffs in May 2025 and another 9,000 layoffs in July 2025.

But if we just throw the entire country into the “not in labor force” category, we can pretend that the unemployment rate is at 0.0 percent and that everything is just fine, right?

What a joke.

Of course, most Americans who are actually working are really struggling these days.

Home prices in the U.S. have risen by about 60 percent since the beginning of the last pandemic, and at this stage housing in the U.S. is more unaffordable than it has ever been before…

Home prices have grown by roughly 60 percent since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to JP Morgan data. Mortgage rates are historically high, and have been so since 2022. And the U.S. homeownership rate hit its lowest level since 2019 last year, at 65 percent, according to Census data.

“I think right now the housing market is pretty unprecedented,” Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, told Newsweek. “We have the highest home prices that have ever been on record, along with pretty high mortgage rates. The mortgage rates aren’t the highest we’ve seen on record—they exceeded 18 percent in 1981—but they are higher than they have been for the last 10 years or so.

“And so housing affordability has gotten really bad, especially for young people who don’t already own homes. Breaking into the housing market is incredibly tough.”

How are young adults supposed to purchase homes in this environment?

Home prices have risen far faster than incomes have, and this has “put homeownership out of reach for millions of millennial and Gen Z Americans”…

Back in 1975, a typical home cost about 2.4 times as much as the average under-40 household earned in a year, a standard measure of housing affordability, according to a new report from Pew Research Center.

By 2019, that price-to-income ratio had risen to 2.9. In 2024, it reached 3.5.

Over the past decade, home prices have risen much faster than wages. The rising ratio of price to income, coupled with elevated interest rates, has put homeownership out of reach for millions of millennial and Gen Z Americans.

This is one of the biggest reasons why young adults are so angry.

They simply can’t afford to live normal lives.

Last year, the percentage of first-time homebuyers dropped to the lowest level ever recorded…

First-time buyers represented only 21% of all home purchasers in 2025, a record low, according to the National Association of Realtors. The typical age of a first-time buyer climbed to 40, an all-time high.

Meanwhile, virtually everything else is becoming more expensive too.

For example, the price of ground beef is up 13 percent over the past year, and the price of steak is up 16 percent over the past year…

The average price of ground beef was $6.75 per pound in May, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, up nearly 13% from a year ago and just below April’s record high of $6.90. Beef steak prices averaged $12.80 per pound, up 16% from a year earlier and the second-highest level on record.

Tens of millions of Americans are deeply hurting right now, and what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

This is why I rant about the economy so much.

I hear from so many people out there who are in very real pain.

Decades of very foolish decisions have resulted in decades of economic decline, and now we really have reached a breaking point.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com, including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books, you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream, and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

US Screwworm Cases At 16

The latest effort comes through a $300,000 research investment announced this week by the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR), which is partnering with biotechnology company Agragene and researchers at North Carolina State University to develop genetically sterile male screwworm flies that could outperform the insects currently used in eradication programs, according to a report by Hoosier Ag Today. 

The sterile male fly method helped eradicate the screwworm previously, so it’s a known effective strategy. The implementation of this idea aided in the elimination of the New World screwworm from the United States by the 1960s and has remained a cornerstone of international eradication efforts.

Sterile Fly Facility Opens To Combat Screwworm

The screwworm has become a threat because its larvae feed on the living tissue of warm-blooded animals rather than dead or decaying flesh. Infested cattle, sheep, goats, horses, wildlife, and other animals can suffer severe wounds, rapid weight loss, and, if left untreated, death.

Is The Screwworm A Problem For The Meat Supply?

“There are major advantages to releasing only sterile males for New World screwworm control,” said Maxwell Scott, an entomology professor at North Carolina State University leading the project. “The goal is to develop an alternative way to produce competitive sterile males without the cost and liabilities of gamma irradiation.”

“The stakes are high, and we need to ensure that all possible options for addressing this invasion are on the table,” Miriam Martin LeValley, scientific program manager at FFAR, added to the conversation. “New World screwworm poses a dire threat to the U.S. livestock industry.”