RealClearInvestigations Picks of the Week

RealClearInvestigations'

Picks of the Week

February 22 to February 28

Featured Investigation:

Bad Bets: Massive EV Subsidies Not Paying Off

James Varney reports for RealClearInvestigations that federal and state governments have committed at least $100 billion to electric vehicle subsidies, loans, and mandates over the past decade, even as consumer demand softens and major automakers report mounting losses. Supporters say the spending is vital to fight climate change and compete with China. Critics warn taxpayers may be left holding the bag if heavily subsidized projects falter.

• In Georgia, a planned $8 billion Rivian plant – backed by a $6.6 billion federal loan and $1.5 billion in state incentives – has been delayed until 2028. The company sold just 25,000 vehicles in 2025, far below projections, and reportedly loses about $39,000 per vehicle.
• Since 2009, beginning under Barack Obama and expanding under Joe Biden, Washington has poured tens of billions into EV tax credits, factory loans, charging stations, school buses, and fleet conversions.
• The Department of Energy has approved more than $21 billion in EV-related loans since 2019, including major financing for battery ventures. The EPA has spent over $6.7 billion on EV initiatives, including $5 billion for electric school buses costing up to three times more than diesel models.
• Major automakers are absorbing steep losses: Ford Motor Company projects $19 billion in EV losses through 2027; General Motors has written off billions; Stellantis, Honda Motor Co., and Volkswagen report similar setbacks.
• Critics liken the risk to the failed Solyndra loan scandal, warning that opaque subsidies and mandates may mask the true costs.

• With the Trump administration reviewing green energy programs but continuing portions of EV funding, the long-term return on this vast public investment remains uncertain.

Featured Investigation:

Ignoring the Science: The Curious Case of Cell Phone Bans

A growing wave of cell phone and social media bans aimed at protecting minors is being advanced by schools and governments worldwide. While these efforts hinge on “scientific” claims that screen time is as addictive as any drug and causes mental health decline and academic failure, Christopher J. Ferguson reports for RealClearInvestigations that a mounting body of peer-reviewed research challenges those assumptions. Experts warn that bans may hurt many youngsters by blaming complex problems on a single villain, preventing schools and parents from addressing underlying issues.

• Large-scale studies, including one tracking over 100,000 Australian students and another involving 25,000 youth in England, found no causal link between social media use and mental health decline. Anxious teens may spend more time online, but increased usage does not predict worsening mental health – high usage appears to be a symptom, not a cause.
• Blanket bans can be actively harmful, cutting youth off from online support networks that research shows can positively predict well-being, particularly for teens facing social anxiety or difficult home environments.
• Real-world data from school phone bans shows little to no benefit. Florida's statewide ban coincided with the state's lowest test scores in 20 years, and Orange County schools saw increases in bullying incidents and mental health referrals after implementing a full-day ban.
• U.S. standardized test scores have remained largely flat for 35 years, with today's scores roughly comparable to those from 1990 – long before smartphones existed – suggesting the "crisis" has been overstated.
• Experts including Boston College's Professor Peter Gray argue that declining engagement stems from government-imposed standardized testing regimes and rigid curricula, not technology. Phone bans, they warn, give schools a temporary distraction from their own institutional failures.

RCI Podcast

On this week’s episode of the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney speak with Jeremy Portnoy, an investigative journalist at OpentheBooks.com who writes RCI’s Waste of the Day feature, about rampant fraud, waste and abuse in government spending. 

Waste of the Day

by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books

Thousands of Earmarks in Illinois State Budget, RCI

$8 Water Filter Costs the Government $156, RCI

Utah University Trustees Don’t Know Their Job, RCI

Throwback Thursday - USDA Advertised Caviar, RCI

Improper Payments Totaled $186 Billion in 2025, RCI

Trump 2.0 and the Beltway

CIA Yanks Docs ‘Compromised’ by Leftism, Federalist

DOJ Hiding Epstein Files Related to Trump, NPR

The Top General Preparing War Plan for Iran, CNN

Charlie Kirk Haunting Trump Administration’s Iran Debate, Politico

Progressive Swiss Billionaire Spent $57M Last US Election Cycle, National Review

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

Most in Deportation Proceedings

Had No Criminal Convictions 

Guardian

Although President Trump promised to deport the worst of the worst illegal immigrants, the majority of those apprehended last year had no prior criminal convictions. A Guardian analysis of government records found that 77% of people who entered deportation proceedings for the first time in 2025 had no criminal conviction. The Guardian analysis also found:

• Of those who did have a criminal conviction, nearly half were for nonviolent traffic and immigration offenses.
• Traffic offenses alone made up nearly 30% of the convictions, the largest category by far.
• Some 9% of criminal convictions were for assault, while only 1% were for sexual assault and just 0.5% were for homicide.

The Guardian’s analysis does not address the fact that people who enter the country illegally are breaking the law, nor indicate how many of the people with no prior convictions were apprehended in operations targeting those who did have prior convictions.

In a separate article, the Intercept reports that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s story about a cannibal who ate other people and then, on his Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flight, began to eat himself, appears to be false. “Three officials from federal law enforcement agencies – including Noem’s own Department of Homeland Security – with knowledge of the allegations say the entire story was fabricated. … Two other federal law enforcement officials echoed this, telling The Intercept that the claims were ludicrous and that there was no evidence corroborating the story.” Asked for comment, a DHS spokesperson said Noem was simply relaying the claims of an air marshal. “What ‘fabrication’ of the story of the cannibal?” the spokesperson said. “She was told that story on a deportation flight by one of the air marshals.”

Ex-Cabbie Driving Russia’s Shadow War 

New York Times

The Kremlin’s war in Ukraine is just one of that criminal state’s efforts to destabilize Europe. This article reports that an arson attack that destroyed more than 1,000 businesses outside Warsaw, another that burned an IKEA in Lithuania and a plan to put incendiary devices on cargo planes in Britain, Germany and Poland are all part of the Kremlin’s shadow war. A key figure in these plots, the Times reports, is not an intelligence operative but a scruffy former taxi driver who lives in Russian farm country.

Aleksei Vladimirovich Kolosovsky, 42, who has ties to criminal groups involved in hacking, selling fake IDs and car theft, has made himself an essential player in this new form of unconventional conflict. With the help of Russian intelligence officers, he has overseen the planning and execution of recent plots in Poland, Lithuania, Britain, Germany and perhaps elsewhere, according to court documents and interviews with more than a dozen security officials from five European nations. … Operatives like Mr. Kolosovsky have become more common in the Kremlin’s evolving and increasingly violent sabotage campaign, which has escalated from petty vandalism to bombings, arson and murder. The goal, the security officials said, is to tear at Western unity.

This article reports that civilian contractors like Kolosovsky are especially valuable because they know how to move goods and people without drawing the attention of law enforcement. Most importantly, these contractors reside and can travel in Europe, something that has become increasingly difficult for Russia’s professional intelligence officers.

US Funded Defense Projects Riddled with Chinese Researchers 

Daily Caller

The U.S. Intelligence Community has awarded more than a dozen sensitive defense grants to researchers affiliated with institutions connected to the Chinese government and its military, according to a report exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Since 2017, at least 14 U.S. defense research projects supported by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) – which is tasked by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) with investing in “high-risk, high-payoff research programs” – have included investigators simultaneously affiliated with Chinese national laboratories, state surveillance entities, military units and nuclear weapons development institutions, according to the report published by Parallax Advanced Research, a nonprofit funded by U.S. federal, state and municipal governments.

The Parallax report asserts that this cooperation reflects “a deliberate effort by China’s intelligence and public security apparatus, alongside military-affiliated entities, to extract lessons, methodologies, and technical knowledge from IARPA-funded programs. This includes attempts to reverse-engineer research outputs, replicate experimental designs, and adapt [U.S. Intelligence Community] technologies for use in China’s mass surveillance apparatus and strategic military capabilities.”

In a separate article, the Daily Mail reports that, five years before Alysa Liu’s gold medal performance in the 2026 Olympics, China sent an agent to her California home. Liu’s father, a Chinese dissident who had fled to America years before, sensed there was something wrong when the man, who claimed to be an official from the US Olympic Committee, demanded copies of their passports. In consultation with the FBI, this article reports, Liu’s father later determined that the Chinese agent had probably been sent to see if Alysa would compete for China at the 2022 Beijing games – following in the steps of freestyle skier Eileen Gu. “If she could be persuaded to represent China, it would have been a stunning propaganda coup,” the article reports.

Despite Sanctions, Crypto Still Flows to Iran 

New York Times

This article reports that internal investigators at the giant cryptocurrency exchange Binance made a series of startling discoveries last year: About $1.7 billion had flowed from two Binance accounts to Iranian entities with links to terrorist groups, a possible violation of global sanctions. After reporting the transaction to top executives, at least four employees involved in the investigation were fired or suspended, according to documents reviewed by the Times.

The sequence of events shows that Binance, the world’s largest venue for crypto trading, has continued to find evidence of potential legal violations on its platform, even after it pleaded guilty to breaking anti-money-laundering laws in 2023. … It’s unclear exactly why the investigators were disciplined. Over the last few months, more than half a dozen compliance officials have left Binance, including a sanctions manager and the leader of the enterprise compliance team.

The article tries to tie Trump to these actions by reporting that “internal warnings about the Iranian transactions surfaced last year, in the months before President Trump granted a pardon to Binance’s founder, Changpeng Zhao, who had spent four months in federal prison in 2024 for his role in the firm’s crimes. … The Trump family’s crypto start-up, World Liberty Financial, has forged close business ties with Binance, and Mr. Zhao was a guest this month at a conference at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla.” While that pardon seems sketchy, there is no evidence, despite the implication, that the administration knew about the money flows to Iran.

Citizen Sleuths Help Unravel Tangle of Epstein Documents 

Associated Press

The growth of true crime stories has inspired thousands of Americans to use their internet connections and research tools to investigate a wide range of cases. This article reports that the release of millions of documents related to the late financier and convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein has inspired a passel of citizen sleuths to delve into the trove of information. These include Ellie Leonard, a New Jersey mother of four who is determined to expose Epstein’s illicit sex ring and his relationships with some of the world’s most powerful people, and publish what she finds on Substack. “I like a good puzzle,” Leonard said. “I like an investigation. I like things that we have to solve and looking for clues.”

The downside … is that few of these people are trained in the painstaking task of verifying facts – or, for that matter, who understand the legal implications of publishing rumors. The New York Times, in a story that explained to readers how it is examining the material, stressed this need for care. “We don’t publish anonymous information that we can’t verify ourselves,” the newspaper said. … Many unproven accusations, some outlandish, are included in the Epstein files. How much of that unvetted material will find its way into the public discourse – to say nothing of false or doctored information created by the unscrupulous?

This article reports that authorities involved in the Arizona search for the missing mother of NBC’s Savannah Guthrie have complained about distractions caused by amateur sleuths.

In a separate story, the Wall Street Journal reports that online sleuths have drawn a tenuous connection between an Epstein-connected billionaire, Leon Black, and Lifetouch, the photography company hired by thousands of U.S. schools each year to take portraits of students. Black is the former CEO of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management that acquired Lifetouch’s parent company, Shutterfly, one month after Epstein’s death in 2019. It is one of nearly 200 companies in Apollo’s vast portfolio, which Black hasn’t overseen in five years. Nevertheless, the connection has prompted a backlash as school districts across the country have cancelled their contracts with Lifetouch.