This essay is in response to the flood of videos suddenly appearing on all the American social media about luxury goods with European brands actually being made in China. The story in these videos is that the Chinese factories send the finished products to Italy or France for a few finishing touches, for affixing the label and logo, doing the packaging, and then returning the items to China (and other countries) carrying labels saying "Made in Italy" or "Made in France". And usually being sold at astronomical prices.

The stories are true. This is in fact how things are done.

One person posted a video of a Hermes bag, showing the entire factory where the bag was being made, showing all the steps in the process from raw materials to the finished product, and stating that the actual cost of making the bag was US$1,395 while Hermes sold the bag at retail for US$38,000. The man in the video said "Why don't you just buy it from us for US$2,000?" Many people have done precisely that, and millions of people who have watched these videos are in shock to learn the truth - that Chinese factories manufacture nearly all the very expensive so-called "luxury goods" at very low prices and that consumers are spending 90% of their money for the brand name.

When this news broke, one or two of the large European fashion houses disclaimed it, saying "That's not true", but offering no evidence beyond that, while all the others merely went silent. One European brand published a short video which attempted to contradict the claims, but the video showed only a few designers around a table, working on the design of a new product. Several people immediately posted videos demanding that the European fashion houses produce a video showing the actual factory in Europe, with the thousands of Europeans sitting at sewing machines and stitching a handbag, asking to be shown the factory actually producing the entire product. No fashion house replied to that demand. Nor could they.

The fact of these luxury items being fully manufactured in China but then carrying a "Made in Italy" label is of course fraudulent, but international IP laws and trade regulations permit this to be done, and so they do it.

But this is both different than you might imagine, and also worse than you might imagine. I will explain. Several Chinese cities, Shanghai among them, has what is called a "Free-Trade Zone". This is a bit complicated to explain, but a free trade zone is a kind of diplomatic no-man's land. It is physically within Mainland China but is treated for customs and foreign trade purposes as if it were a separate sovereign entity. Think of it as a kind of "offshore island" near Shanghai.

Illinois Republican state Rep. Dan Ugaste is speaking out against a "nationwide literacy crisis" that counts Illinois among the more than 40 states where just one out of every three fourth grade students are now meeting reading proficiency standards.

Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress report card shows that in Illinois, just 30% of fourth graders are hitting such standards. In a 2024 national exam, the state's students finished 29th in the country for the percentage of fourth graders at or above proficiency.

"This is a huge problem across the country, but it's a real problem here in Illinois," Ugaste told The Center Square. "It's my understanding that our 8th graders are doing a bit better. It speaks to the amount of damage that was done when the schools closed during the pandemic. That's when these children would have first been in school and first learning how to read, write and do math."

Sydney Johnston grew up in a nondenominational Christian household — but now the Upper West Side millennial is a devout Catholic.

"There's just something so beautiful and transcendent about the rituals and the ancient history in the Catholic Mass that's been preserved," Johnston, 30, told The Post. "The church really communicates a degree of reverence that I didn't find in the more liberal, laissez-faire approach of nondenominational churches."

Confirmed in December 2024 at the Church of Notre Dame in Morningside Heights, Johnston is one of a growing number of young people turning to the Catholic Church from other denominations, religions and even no faith at all.

According to the National Catholic Register, some dioceses are reporting year-over-year increases of 30% to 70% in new converts. The Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, for instance, experienced a 72% jump in converts just from 2023 to 2024.

Six of Hayim Cohen's adopted sons gave their victim impact statements Monday morning before he is sent to prison for 40 years.

In 2023, Cohen was taken into custody after one of his adopted sons made an outcry about sexual abuse on a podcast. At the time, the boy was 17 years old. The boys were removed from the home at the time.

The teen said he and his brothers were being sexually abused by their adoptive father and used the term "rape." He said Child Protective Services (CPS) had conducted eight investigations into the family, but nothing ever came of it.

Last week, Cohen pleaded guilty to four counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child and was given 40 years in prison for each count. He also pleaded guilty to indecency with a child and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The sentences will run concurrently, so he will spend 40 years in prison without the possibility of parole. The charges represent seven victims: six of his nine adopted sons and a foreign exchange student who lived at Cohen's home for a period of time and said he was sexually abused.

If you won't see it, you can't fight it
The impact of propaganda at its best — that is, at its most effective — depends on our not seeing it for what it is, mistaking it for "news" or "entertainment," and/or some other content that appears to have no covert intention. Thus disguised, propaganda works far more efficiently, and often for far longer, than when it comes at us as propaganda — as, say, in TV and radio spots, ad banners on the Web, billboards, videos in taxicabs, or any other medium that bluntly sells a product or a candidate. So bald a pitch — known, among the spooks, as "white propaganda" — tends to provoke resistance, as when a telemarketer calls, or a panhandler approaches. By contrast, winning propaganda — as Edward Bernays explains in his eponymous classic(1928) — neutralizes your suspicion by working its "persuasion" into some comic or suspenseful narrative, or journalistic exposé, or (seeming) "fad" or "craze," so that such "gray propaganda" sneaks past your defenses, lodges in your mind without your knowing it, and stays there until you somehow learn the truth, and — crucially — accept it.

Such truth can hurt, so that accepting it is often difficult — unless, of course, it tells you what you want to think is true. We have no trouble spotting propaganda from "the enemy," whoever that may be: propaganda that we disagree with, and therefore call it "propaganda" as that word is commonly deployed, as a mere synonym for "lies." If, on the other hand, the enemy says something true, and (naturally) we want to think it's false, our dismissing it as "propaganda" in the pejorative sense is itself that very kind of propaganda, meant to have you thinking that true claims are false, and falsehoods true. (Not everyone who does this is aware of what s/he's doing, but speaks out of wishful thinking, tribalistic and defensive.) If, however, the enemy's propaganda comes at us disguised as something else — something thrilling, beautiful or fun — we can absorb it just as easily as we often do with propaganda hidden in domestic news or entertainment. (Dr. Goebbels was especially adept at managing that sort of masquerade, such as the films of Leni Riefenstahl, and other spectacles with no explicit hints of pending war or genocide.)

The head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, has died at the age of 88, the Vatican has announced.

Francis began his papacy in March 2013 and was the first pontiff from Latin America.

"At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church,″ Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo, said in a statement on Monday morning.

Pope Francis "taught us to live the values of the Gospel with faithfulness, courage, and universal love, especially for the poorest and most marginalized," Farrell wrote.

"With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite, merciful love of God, One and Tribune,″ the cardinal added.

Pope Francis was last seen in public on Easter Sunday when he attended the Holy Mass at St. Peter's Square in the Vatican.

His traditional Easter address was delivered by a member of the clergy due to the pontiff's poor health. Afterwards, the Pope got out of his wheelchair and waved to the cheering crowd from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, saying: "Dear brothers and sisters, happy Easter."

Earlier on Sunday, the head of the Catholic Church held a meeting with US Vice President J.D. Vance.

A senior figure at the BBC's Middle East desk, Raffi Berg, has been exposed as a former employee of a CIA propaganda division and a collaborator with Israel's intelligence agency Mossad, according to a detailed investigation by MintPress News.

Berg, who currently heads the BBC's Middle East coverage, is facing growing internal criticism. At least thirteen BBC journalists have reportedly accused him of holding an overt bias in favour of Israel. Staff allege that Berg's influence is so extensive that his role essentially revolves around "watering down" any reporting that might be overly critical of Israel. One source described him as wielding a "wild" degree of power within the newsroom.

A separate investigation published by Drop Site News in December disclosed that an atmosphere of "extreme fear" prevails at the BBC when it comes to covering stories critical of Israel, with Berg allegedly playing a central role in steering the network's output towards what has been described as "systematic Israeli propaganda".

Connecticut State Police say 'there is no information at this time suggesting any connection to similar remains discoveries'

At least seven human remains found across Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts between March and April warrant "review and investigation," according to Pennsylvania-based criminal defense attorney and former Lawrence County District Attorney Matthew Mangino.

Over the last two months, human remains have been located in New Haven, Norwalk, Groton and Killingly, Connecticut; Foster, Rhode Island; and Framingham and Plymouth, Massachusetts.

It is unclear at this point if the deaths of these seven victims are related in any way, and Connecticut State Police told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that "there is no information at this time suggesting any connection to similar remains discoveries, and there is also no known threat to the public at this time," regarding the deaths in Connecticut.

Beijing has reportedly slashed purchases of American crude by 90% amid the tariff war.

China has been importing record amounts of crude oil from Canada and drastically reducing supplies from the US in light of the trade war with Washington, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

Washington and Beijing have implemented a series of reciprocal tariff hikes over the past two months in light of which the latter has slashed purchases of US oil by roughly 90%, according to the outlet. China previously indicated that it would not implement more tariff hikes against US goods but would rather employ alternative ways to retaliate.

Chinese crude imports from a port near Vancouver on Canada's Pacific coast soared to a record 7.3 million barrels in March and may exceed the figure this month, Bloomberg reported, citing data from London-based global oil and gas cargo tracking firm Vortexa Ltd. Chinese imports of US oil, meanwhile, have fallen to 3 million barrels per month from a peak of 29 million last June, it added.

I'm writing this now, because Celia Farber has written an article exploring a toxic connection between citric acid, a very common ingredient in food and nutritional supplements, and Aspergillus Fumigatus, a mold/fungus.

That mold was used in secret US Army experiments on US citizens.

NY Times, December 23, 1976: "In one test in a warehouse at Mechanicsburg, the Army used a fungal substance that it acknowledged could cause disease. The substance was aspergillus fumigatus, which is commonly found in compost piles and damp hay and can cause aspergillosis, an uncommon sporadic disease that can take the form of asthmatic attacks or infection in the external ear."

Deseret News, via NY Times, July 27, 1994: "...an early germ-warfare test. It took place in 1951 near Newport News, Va....The Army released an organism called Aspergillus fumigatus at the Norfolk Naval Supply Center because most workers were black. For some reason, the testers imagined an enemy might target the blacks at military bases."

"'Since Negroes are more susceptible to coccidioides than are whites,' a report said, 'this fungus disease was simulated by using Aspergillus fumigatus.' Aspergillus, further, was known to cause lethal infections."

KNOWN TO CAUSE LETHAL INFECTIONS??!!??