Ukraine Strikes Knock Out Power in Crimea, COVID Vaccine Deaths Revised, Judge Blocks Voter Checks

Daily Digest
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Originally published at: https://peakprosperity.com/ukraine-strikes-knock-out-power-in-crimea-covid-vaccine-deaths-revised-judge-blocks-voter-checks/

Geopolitics

Ukrainian drones struck a thermal power plant in Kerch, Crimea, causing power loss to roughly half the peninsula, with fires also reported at an oil depot, railway sites, and port infrastructure. Governor Sergey Aksyonov suspended civilian fuel sales across Crimea on June 21. President Zelensky commented on the strikes.

Relatedly, the UK tested new long-range strike missiles in the Hebrides, reportedly intended for Ukraine. The weapons have a reported speed over 370 mph, 500-pound warheads, and a 300-mile range. Armed Forces Minister Louise Sandher-Jones described the program as standing “shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine.”

In other news, a senior Somali official told Middle East Eye that Israel deployed roughly 50 soldiers to Somaliland. Defense Minister Israel Katz stated that Israel is training Somaliland’s military and police. Reports indicate Israel is exploring the use of Berbera Port for submarine operations. Israeli officials have described reports of the troop deployment as fake news.

Iran War

President Trump stated on Truth Social that Iran has agreed to high-level nuclear inspections, to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, and that released funds would be held in US-controlled escrow for purchases of American corn, wheat, and soybeans. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said an agreement would release $12 billion in frozen assets, with up to $50 billion possible under a final deal. Iran’s UN ambassador Ali Bahreini rejected the soybean condition, stating Iran would decide the use of its funds. Iran’s Central Bank denied any obligation to buy American agricultural goods. Iran is reportedly considering sending enriched uranium to Russia. Sporadic Israeli fire in southern Lebanon, including a reported killing near Nabatieh, has occurred.

Vice President JD Vance said at a Swiss news conference that Iran had agreed to IAEA inspectors and free transit through Hormuz. Vance credited Jared Kushner with helping design the framework for distributing frozen assets in coordination with Qatar. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a temporary 60-day general license authorizing Iranian oil production, delivery, and sale. Vance announced a new communication mechanism between Israel, Hezbollah, Lebanon, and regional partners. Talks are expected to continue through August.

Energy

At least three supertankers carrying 6 million barrels of Iranian crude transited the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, with destinations listed as Singaporean waters.

Health

Documents released by Sen. Ron Johnson show the FDA’s CBER identified 10 child deaths linked to COVID-19 vaccines in November 2025, later revised to seven. Pathologist Dr. James Gill called the parvovirus B19 explanation a “red herring.” Sen. Johnson described the matter as possibly “the biggest government scandal” of his lifetime.

In health news, a NHANES-based study found roughly 26% of adults with “normal” BMI meet the Lancet Commission’s “clinical obesity” definition. The figure rises above 50% in the overweight range and 85% in severe obesity. Waist-based screening identified about 78% of adults carrying excess fat.

Relatedly, Judge Amy Berman Jackson blocked USDA waivers allowing Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia to bar SNAP recipients from buying soda and candy. The USDA stated it would continue pursuing restrictions.

Economy

China’s gold imports reached 163 tons in May. The PBoC reported adding 9.95 tons. At least four of 11 banks in Hong Kong’s new gold clearing system are importing 400-ounce bars.

In the private equity space, Apollo Global Management capped withdrawals at 5% of its $25 billion Apollo Debt Solutions fund after redemption requests reached 16.8% in Q2. Cliffwater and BlackRock also enforced 5% caps after requests of 17% and 13%, respectively. Filings indicate institutional demand for private credit remains strong.

US Politics

Judge Sparkle Sooknanan blocked the administration’s effort to combine SSA, naturalization, and DHS SAVE database records for voter verification. In a 75-page ruling, she found the effort violated the Social Security Act, Privacy Act, and Administrative Procedure Act. DHS general counsel James Percival criticized the decision.

In other news, Tucker Carlson said he may no longer support the Republican Party and described loyalty to Israel over American interests as “treasonous” and “immoral.” Carlson suggested Charlie Kirk was likely murdered for his views on Israel and rejected accusations of antisemitism.

British Politics

South Yorkshire Police launched a Professional Standards review after footage showed officers shoving teenage girls, drawing batons, throwing a punch, and pointing Tasers during a dispersal order in Rawmarsh, Rotherham. Accusations of “two-tier policing” have been made.

Sources

Trump and Iran Clash Over Nuclear Inspections and $12B Asset Terms

Conflicting Claims Remain: Washington and Tehran continue to dispute whether Iran agreed to extensive IAEA nuclear inspections and the terms of sanctions relief.

Source

Half of Crimea Goes Dark After Ukrainian Strike on Thermal Plant

A strike on a power plant caused major power outages across Crimea, leaving about half the peninsula without electricity.

Source

Israel Deploys Covert Forces to Somaliland as Ties Emerge

Israel secretly deployed a small contingent of forces to Somaliland earlier this year following its recognition of the breakaway territory, a senior Somali government official revealed to Middle East Eye (MEE) on 22 June.

Source

Apollo Gates Investors as 17% Seek Exits from $25B Credit Fund

Apollo Debt Solutions, which has roughly $25 billion in assets, capped withdrawals at 5% of outstanding shares on Monday after investors asked to redeem 16.8%, according to a shareholder letter first seen by Bloomberg.

Source

Iranian Oil Exports Through Hormuz Hit Wartime High

That’s the most Iranian crude openly making its way out the key Iranian oil port at Kharg Island and into the Strait of Hormuz in a day since the war began on February 28, according to Bloomberg.

Source

Biden Judge Blocks Trump’s Citizenship Database for Voter Verification

All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote. This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens,

Source

China Gold Imports Hit 2-Year High as Hong Kong Banks Stockpile for Clearing Launch

China’s monthly gold imports reached their highest in more than two years in May

Source

VP Vance: Iran Talks Yield “Good Progress,” IAEA Inspectors Head to Tehran

Iran has agreed to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors into the country to ensure they’re not enriching uranium.

Source

Clinical Obesity Found in 1 in 4 Normal-BMI Adults

clinical obesity remains high even among persons with ostensibly normal BMI values.

Source

South Yorkshire Police Probe Force Against Rotherham Girls Amid Two-Tier Policing Fury

This contrast has intensified accusations of two-tier policing.

Source

FDA Downgrades Child Vaccine Deaths in Revised Autopsy Findings

Scientists at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revised the autopsy results of children who died after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, reducing the number of children the agency classified as having likely died as a result of their vaccination, according to documents released last week by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

Source

UK Tests 300-Mile Missiles for Ukraine to Strike Moscow

that NATO is backing such actions against a nuclear-armed superpower constitutes madness.

Source

Tucker Carlson: Loyalty to Israel Over US Is ‘Treasonous’

How could I or any American voter support a political party that’s not loyal to the United States, that puts the interest of a foreign country above those of its own citizens?

Source

Judge Blocks USDA Bid to Bar Sugary Items from SNAP Benefits in Five States

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Monday blocked the Trump administration from preventing food stamp recipients in five states from using their benefits to buy sugary foods and drinks.

Source

In addition to sources submitted by community members, the following were also used in the creation of this report: Middle East Eye, Israeli/Somaliland statements, Apollo filings, SEC documents.

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Does Russia want to invade Germany?

Putin addresses the German people to dispell this fear.

PRESIDENT PUTIN’S MESSAGE TO THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT AND THE GERMAN PEOPLE This is how the coup de grâce is delivered – without weapons, verbally…

“We don’t want to attack you! Why would we? Those times are long gone! Anyone who is still in their right mind and can think clearly understands that.

First: You already have national debt amounting to 2.5 trillion euros, and no serious economist has any idea how you ever plan to pay that back. And now you want to take on another 1 trillion euros to arm yourselves against us. Do you want the Russian people to foot that bill? Never!

Second: Your country is teeming with millions of migrants who cost you 50 billion euros a year. Should the Russian people be held accountable for that?

Third: A considerable portion of your population is so deranged that they believe they can influence the climate by cycling and eating insects. Perhaps this massive brain damage could be fixed, but that would cost us something too.” a lot.

Fourth: – Your education system was once exemplary. Now, in many classrooms, hardly any teaching takes place anymore because almost no one speaks German.

Fifth: – Your infrastructure is crumbling, and you can’t keep up with the repairs.

Sixth: – Your railways were once the pride of the entire world. Now your trains run like they do in India.

Seventh: – We don’t need your famous engineers. During the sanctions, we learned that we can get by without them. But if we do need them after all, we’ll turn to China. There they’re not only cheaper but also better.

Eighth: – You have neither raw materials nor energy sources. So why should we conquer your country? To solve problems we wouldn’t even have otherwise?

Realistically speaking: Even if you called us, surrendered, and raised white flags, we still wouldn’t come!

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This reminds me of 90s/2000s tough rap. Replace with Eminem and whoa thats a win.

This true? It’s so long ago I havent followed so closely germany. Now Japan is only one with good trains. Western “liberalism” wants to conquer that too.

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Not so fast… even if the straight were to magically open there is another lag in the complex system that is guaranteed to prolong the shortages. In very shallow hot water the barnacles and other marine life have fouled the bottoms of the ships because they weren’t moving and need to be cleaned off by divers. That might take a while. OH look it is common knowledge. https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/23/business/barnacles-strait-of-hormuz

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I don’t know, I a freedom person. Maybe this is not a bad thing. CBDC, you can only buy what they say you can. Shopping cards are the beginning of all this, which the amazing (RIP) Bill Cooper said a long long time ago. You get deal, there’s always a catch.

Someone wants a little treat now and then, so what? Maybe an educaton program in health would be good. Because we need more govt programs lol. How about ones that actually do some good that aren’t huge grift machines.

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This article segues into that. Germany and Europe are preparing for war with Russia because they are collapsing and are frothing at the mouth over Russia’s $70T worth of natural resources.

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A little treat now and then? Plenty of these are land whales that appear to live on “treats”.
If you’re on my money, and I have a say, you don’t get to live on Fiery Cheetos and Mountain Dew.
Restrictions on what can be purchased would be much more effective than any education program. But, that’s just me.

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Land whales eating Fiery Cheetos! LOL Whoa, Cheetos and Mountain Dew, I’m getting nauseous.

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I just talked to my husband about this, and he made some good points. He said having food restrictions complicates matters too much. It places a burden on the stores and also on the people in line behind them who have to wait for these people to pay for the accepted stuff with the food stamps and the unaccepted stuff with cash. Also, it just so happens, healthy food is more expensive. Sad but true.

Community gardens in poor areas is a phenomenal idea, we actually have 2 of them near me. I was part of the development of one (not my idea, but I was on the team) and did see a lot of stuff get stolen from the garden. However, these gardens are thriving. Poor people are perfectly capable of learning these skills and embracing them. It is very good for these areas that unfortunately are also crime-ridden. This should become more of a trend.

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Heres my view of the landmines :wink: still to be cleared before ‘normal service is resumed’.

  1. Ship owners and insurers have to actually believe they can safely transit - the ‘deal’ can fall apart at anytime, and even if it doesnt, did the Iranians actually lay mines? If so how long until they are cleared, what is the likelihood of an unintended minestrike on a tanker anyway?
  2. Ships trapped in the gulf will be less efficient as they exit due to fouling - so will take longer/cost more to reach their destinations than usual …many will require maintenance after their first unloads - some before. Will fouled tankers even be allowed into distant ports due to ‘biosecurity’ concerns?
  3. Oil which has been in the trapped ships for over 100 days may need testing/reprocessing before being usable.
  4. Tankers exiting the gulf en masse will face queing at their destinations.
  5. Once the trapped ships do exit, what comes next - shut down oil fields will be slow to restart and may lose capacity, local processing faciities in the Gulf may be damaged
  6. Ships may be slow to return to the gulf - some will be mothballed or contracted elsewhere, and owners and captains will be sceptical of the durability of the opening.
  7. Having just had the utility of strategic reserves demonstrated, countries will be incentivised to refill/expand those reserves for next time - competing for supply
  8. Trump still has access to his phone and his tweetstream…
  9. Bibi still has access to the IDF and IAF

So, no, I dont think its ‘over’, even if its ‘open’.

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As Gerald Celente says… ‘when all else fails they take you to war…’

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From the article:

Oil supertankers are more than 1,000 feet long with a beam (horizontal length) of around 150 feet. That’s roughly 150,000 square feet of bottom to clean; crews of five to six divers will need to spend roughly four to five hours with hand scrapers and power washers to rid each vessel of biofoul.

Yeah - nah… I cant see 5 divers cleaning the hull of a supertanker in half a day … they couldnt even swim over the whole area in 5 hours.

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People can eat whatever they want - but if I’m paying for their food via taxes, then I’m not going to pay for poison junk food that will make them sick and diabetic. Then I have to pay for their GLP-1 and other prescription drugs.

The only thing SNAP and others food stamps should pay for is unprocessed foods- produce, milk & dairy, and meats.

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And that, in a nutshell is the modern welfare state … bad decisions get rescued by the ever decreasing pool of prudent citizens

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My daughter spent a month in Europe after recently graduating from college.

She reported that the German trains were horrific. She missed some connections because of it. One trip involved her train breaking down multiple times then having to wait on another broken down train.

When I was in Europe in 2019, Germany seemed demoralized. Germans we met called themselves Europeans with a German passport. A couple of years later daughters German roommate called her self a European not a German also.

When planning the trip, I had anticipated buying some nice made in Germany items while there. I had a couple thousand dollars to spend and hoped I would find some nice kitchen items and tools, perhaps a manicure set, a fancy pocket knife, maybe some outstanding garments or shoes. I was unable to find those things. Germany is flooded with the same Chinese crap we are here in the USA.

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I agree. And my husband and I coordinate a free-will food pantry in my town.

It drives us crazy when even granola bars (which are usually filled with sugar and often worse than candy bars), cereals high in sugar, cookies, or any other “treats” are left in our donations bin. Don’t even get me started on Pop-Tarts :enraged_face:

While we have to accept all food donations (as per the policy of the place where the food pantry is located), donors leave these items despite the fact that we literally tell them the kinds of food staples that are needed each week. It’s a conundrum.

Our only solution to this has been to push donations of grocery gift cards or monetary donations over physical food donations so that we can use the funds to go shopping ourselves and purchase staples and higher quality foods. We do that on a weekly basis.

Since it’s a free-will food pantry, SNAP benefits don’t come into play. Anyone can take what they need, no questions asked, and like I said, we need to accept all donations. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t going to focus on the staples and higher quality foods.

Many people have told us that they appreciate the higher quality foods - and I believe that most people are grateful that these items are made available to them - but that doesn’t stop all the crappy food from coming in. It kills us to have to put it on the shelves, but we’ve had to pick our battles.

We’ve also done some education, but I think there needs to be much more. Sometimes, though, it’s not that people don’t understand what are healthy foods and what are not. They understand what they “should” be eating, generally speaking.

I find it more a matter of needing to break bad habits (and addictions, especially to sugar) and understand how much they’ve been brainwashed by the media and our society to eat certain things because of the way that they have been advertised. Sometimes it’s just sentimentality, like “I ate Frosted Flakes as a kid watching cartoons, so therefore it’s fine if my kids eat them”. I don’t think this way, but I get it.

Sometimes people think it’s cheaper to eat crap - and they’re not entirely wrong about that, at least from a shopping point of view - but, of course, they’re not taking into account what the ‘true expense’ is down the road when they are sick or diabetic.

I also find many people just don’t know how to cook. This is becoming more and more of an issue with some families I see. The children (both boys and girls) are not taught. To me, this is a basic life skill, no matter who you are. I’m personally passionate about this since our kids were homeschooled. I was famous for saying “no one leaves here without knowing how to make a good pot of soup!”.

There is an epidemic of children out there who do not know where their food comes from or how to cook anything. This is where recipes and cooking classes come in.

FWIW, there are at least 12 states that have received a federal waiver to opt out of having to include soda, candy, and energy drinks as part of SNAP benefits as of 2026, so there’s been a little progress.

The fact that you can buy soda, candy, and energy drinks with SNAP benefits in most states - and yet things like vitamins, protein powders and even non-food items like soap (for basic hygiene - hello?!) are still prohibited makes absolutely no sense to me. But I digress.

Anyway, sorry to ramble! Food security is something I care deeply about and to me that needs to include healthy food.

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I’ve become so careful when I personally grocery shop. Only recently did I discover that the Olive Bar in my local store has its olives soaking in seed oils. WTH? I’ve always assumed that olives… would be sold in… olive oil. SMH.

This is so very true. Growing up in a lower middle class household, I think I can count on both hands the number of times we ate at a restaurant compared to home cooking. Nowadays, people eat out or DoorDash processed food all the time.

I wasn’t really taught to cook growing up, but I do a lot of cooking now. I completely agree that it is a critical life skill that as a society are not teaching to children / teenagers. If I was king for a day, I’d make sure that school education included cooking, food and nutrition (plus financial literacy, but that’s a story for another day).

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It’s a conundrum.

It certainly is.

Let’s look at this from inside a car where several kids have mom trapped and are expressing their frustrations with hard times.

Mom, why can’t we get pizza.

I’m sick of living like this.

It’s your fault, if you had a real job like you used to we could have snacks, I don’t understand why you quit your last job.

I know we are suppose to eat healthy but this is going way to far and you know it.

Mom does not explain to the kids that her boss insisted she provide sexual services three times the last week she worked there. She also doesn’t explain that the man she thought she was going to trade work for firewood decided a sexual service was the price after all since he did not need her to work for him this week.

She goes to work where the severely demented elderly woman she does elder care for pulls her hair, swings punches and calls her a dog and a whore. She thinks to her self that that might not be the worse option at this point but that ironically she is dodging punches precisely because she is not a whore. She is glad the old woman doesn’t hit as hard as her ex did.

What she really wants to do is get drunk and or go away, or hit an Indian buffet or get a massage, anything, just a break of some kind. But no, she puts gas in the car buys more stuff the school says the kids need to bring, with the grocery money, and hopes the food bank has something anything that will shut them up when she goes the next day.

That junk food might be a blessing we cannot understand for someone. The above is based on a true story.

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Years ago, there was a youtube video running around of a KFC (or similar) restaurant that ran out of chicken. Mom was screaming at the box something like, “how are my kids going to eat?”

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SNAP seems to me like it has transformed into being, in part, a subsidy for Walmart and the large corporations that produce the corn syrup, corn flour, corn starch, corn oil, and corn, corn, corn, .. laden processed foods.

I remember cashier training from back in the day and almost all of that stuff was off limits.

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