ALABASTER TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A marijuana grow operation uncovered in rural Michigan has been linked to an international crime ring involving Chinese nationals, according to the Iosco County Prosecutor’s Office.

Four Chinese nationals were charged after Michigan State Police raided a warehouse in Alabaster Township on May 29, 2025. Inside, investigators discovered 5,057 marijuana plants in various stages of growth, from clones to fully flowering plants. The estimated value of the seized crop exceeds $5 million.

Iosco County Prosecutor James A. Bacarella said the suspects—identified as Meiqing Chen, Zhenhong Nei, Wenying Wu, and Changning Zhen—were all in the U.S. legally but now face charges of possessing marijuana with intent to deliver and maintaining a drug manufacturing facility. The charges carry prison terms of up to 15 years and 2 years, respectively.

The bust appears to be part of a larger, organized criminal network that spans multiple U.S. states and reaches into China. Authorities said evidence discovered at an apartment in the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base further tied the suspects to the grow operation.

 

Troopers later spotted the suspects traveling southbound on U.S. 23. A traffic stop revealed the four individuals inside the vehicle. Police said the GPS on the driver’s phone was set for a destination in New York, indicating they may have been attempting to flee.

Three of the suspects—Chen, Wu, and Zhen—have pleaded not guilty. The fourth, Nei, is currently in ICE custody and has yet to be arraigned.

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Local officials praised the efforts of state police and narcotics investigators in uncovering what they describe as a sophisticated, multi-state operation tied to Chinese networks.

All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

 

 

NASHVILLE, TN - Nashville’s Democrat mayor released the names of multiple federal law enforcement agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), drawing ire from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who say that the mayor is putting law enforcement at risk.

Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s office released information on interactions between ICE agents and Nashville emergency service personnel, dropping data that included the names of federal law enforcement personnel. O’Connell says their names were released by mistake, but the Department of Homeland Security isn’t convinced.

“They claimed it was a mistake. There’s zero chance it was a mistake and there will be repercussions,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin charged in response to the incident. “Our ICE enforcement officers are already facing a 400% increase in assaults against them and he’s essentially handing over intelligence to these criminal gangs so they can target our ICE enforcement officers. It’s wrong. It’s beneath the city of Nashville.” Click here to read more.

 

Michigan’s economy is experiencing the consequences of the state’s two years of Democratic policymaking.

Michigan’s Democratic lawmakers passed a lot of bad laws in 2023. They now force workers to pay unions. They voted to stop using the state’s already paid-for power plants and move to unreliable wind and solar. They increased the costs of government construction for no other reason than to hand construction unions a favor. And they gave out billions in pork projects.

It’s no way to run a state or serve its people. It’s no way to put the state ahead, either. Michigan’s economy has fallen behind since the new laws went into effect last February.

Michigan’s unemployment rate is veering in the wrong direction, rising from 4.0% to 5.5%, the third worst in the nation, behind only Nevada and Washington D.C. While most of the country is scrambling to fill jobs, in Michigan, it’s getting harder to find one. Click here to read more.

 

LOS ANGELES, CALIF - California has declared war on its middle class, and the special interests controlling the state are doing everything they can to impose this punitive economic model on the rest of America. It’s a quasi-feudal system, with the entire population divided into aristocrats and serfs. The means to destroy the middle class is to engineer an unaffordable cost of living for households, and a regulatory environment that only huge corporations can afford to navigate. The moral justification for this destruction is to cope with the “climate emergency” and to achieve social “equity.”

While the Trump interregnum has slowed the march of neo-feudalism in the rest of America, in California, the plan continues to move relentlessly forward. If you’re extremely wealthy, California’s abusive cost of living is not a big concern, and you stay for the scenic beauty and abundant sunshine. If you’re extremely poor, you stay because California’s taxpayer-funded assistance programs—financial aid, food assistance, healthcare, and other support services—offer a lifestyle orders of magnitude better than what you may have previously endured in the barrios of Tegucigalpa or the suburbios of Maputo.

But if you’re not rich, and you’re not poor, but just work, pay taxes, and pay for everything you need with after-tax earnings and without government assistance, California is a hostile environment. Click here to read more.

 

WASHINGTON D.C. - The Department of Labor on Thursday announced it has paused its Job Corps operations, cautioning that the program has issues with student safety and fiscal sustainability.

“Job Corps was created to help young adults build a pathway to a better life through education, training, and community,” Department of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a written statement. “However, a startling number of serious incident reports and our in-depth fiscal analysis reveal the program is no longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve.”

The Department of Labor just released its first-of-its-kind Job Corps Transparency Report, using data from program year 2023, which found concerning results.

The Job Corps program is a federally funded residential career training and education program that is often popular with unions and centered around low-income young adults.

The report found that the average graduation rate for the program is only 32 percent. After graduating from the program, participants only earned $16,000 annually, which is barely above the poverty line. Click here to read more.

 

WASHINGTON — San Francisco education officials have swiftly abandoned a controversial "equity grading" system for K-12 schools just a day after its introduction, following intense bipartisan backlash.

The proposed system allowed students to retake tests, skip homework without penalty, and earn an "A" with an 80% score. A 41% would receive a "C."

"This policy proves California stays at the top of the idiot index. This is such a stupid idea," criticized businessman Kevin O'Leary.

"You want to teach kids good habits so when they become an adult, they can be successful in the adult world, and what equitable grading does is it rewards or incentivizes unsuccessful behaviors," explained Rhyen Staley, a researcher with Parents Defending Education.

San Francisco's Democratic Mayor Daniel Lurie expressed his own concerns on social media, writing, "We owe our young people an education that prepares them to succeed. The proposed changes to grading at SFUSD would not accomplish that." Click here to read more.

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SEATTLE, WASH - As of the latest official count, there are a grand total of 195 nations on the planet. And if you consult a history book, they’ll tell you that we’ve had 195 nations for more than a decade, ever since the sovereignty of “South Sudan” was recognized in East Africa during the Obama administration. Who could forget that moment. Ask any person off the street, and they’ll tell you, with a sparkle in their eye, exactly where they were on that momentous day when South Sudan became a country.

Unfortunately, all the rubes who buy into this narrative are being lied to. In reality, South Sudan is not the newest nation that’s been formed. That’s because, for a brief shining moment, back in the summer of 2020, a brand-new country was born, of all places, right here in the United States. The “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” or CHAZ, became the 196th nation, seemingly out of nowhere. The local homeless population teamed up with the Antifa and trans activists. They cordoned off a six-block radius in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, seized control of the East Precinct police station, named a warlord-slash-rapper named “Raz” as their King, and declared their independence. “You are now leaving the USA,” read a sign at the entrance to CHAZ. Click here to read more.

 

LANSING, Mich - A representative of a deceased three-year-old Detroit resident, Chayce Allen, has sued the state in federal court after employees of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services failed to stop a death allegedly caused by years of abuse.

Chayce Allen, 3, was one of 9,200 children in Michigan’s foster care system.

On June 24, 2022, Chayce’s decaying corpse was found in a broken freezer in the basement of his birth mother’s home. Officials from child protective services had visited that home several times before the child’s death, according to a lawsuit filed on March 31 by Juwan Allen, who seeks a jury trial.

Over three years of life, Chayce Allen’s alleged injuries included bruised ribs, nonaccidental blunt force trauma that caused permanent blindness, black eyes, third-degree burns, and regular vomiting from blows to the chest, the lawsuit says. Click here to read more.

 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis signed two bills into law designed to strengthen protections for animals, particularly dogs, by increasing penalties for aggravated cruelty and prohibiting the abandonment of restrained pets during natural disasters.

‘Trooper’s Law’ – Dog abandonment

• What it does: SB 150, brought by Sen. Don Gaetz and Rep. Phillip Griffitts in the House, creates a new offense of animal abandonment for abandoning a restrained dog outside during a natural disaster and makes it a third degree felony. The crime is punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a fine of not more than $10,000.

• Why: Last October, Tampa Florida Highway Patrol troopers rescued a dog left tied to a pole on I-75 as Hurricane Milton was expected to make landfall. “Trooper” has since been adopted.

  Click here to read more.

 

WASHINGTON D.C. - There is no evidence that former President Joe Biden knew of at least eight climate-related executive actions he supposedly signed during office, according to a pro-American energy watchdog group.

Power the Future, a nonprofit organization founded by energy expert Daniel Turner, released a report this week revealing “troubling” implications about several significant actions from the previous administration, especially given the recent reports that most of the official documents Biden signed during his time were via autopen signature.

Back in March, the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project released a review of “every document we could find with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency,” along with the disturbing conclusion that all of them had the same autopen signature except for the one announcing that he was ending his campaign for reelection:

“Whoever controlled the autopen controlled the presidency,” the Oversight Project wrote in their announcement. Click here to read more.

 

President Donald Trump is often in the headlines for the millions of dollars taxpayers spend to fund his golf trips, but he’s far from the only one enjoying the expensive hobby.

The Department of Defense owns scores of golf courses all over the world and recently spent $200 million to renovate five of them, according to reporting from The Intercept. Two courses in Germany and one each in Korea, Japan, and Massachusetts will receive upgrades.

Key facts: The Intercept was able to identify 144 military-owned golf courses. Ten are owned by the Marines, 29 by the Navy, 51 by the Air Force, and 54 by the Army. At least 24 are in foreign countries, and two are in Guam.

That may be an underestimate. The golf courses have been in watchdogs’ crosshairs for decades, with Sen. William Proxmire (D-WI) calling out the Pentagon in 1975 for spending $14 million per year maintaining 300 golf courses. The number of courses has seemingly fallen since, but the Pentagon has also removed some from its lists or listed separate courses as one facility.

Maintenance costs vary. One Army golf course in Virginia costs around $1 million per year to operate and spent $406,000 replacing golf carts in 2021. MIC.com reported in 2012 that a “very conservative estimate” of annual costs for all the golf courses is $140 million. Click here to read more.