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In 2019, a sitting president was impeached after pressing Ukraine to investigate matters involving Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Viktor Shokin's explosive new book, “Biden’s Corruption and War,” offers a first-person account from one of the figures at the center of that controversy.No freedom-loving American can forget the video of then-Vice President Joe Biden recounting how he threatened to withhold U.S. loan guarantees unless Ukraine fired its prosecutor general.Americans deserve to know how their government uses power abroad, how foreign aid is distributed, and whether politically connected families benefit.“Well, son of a bitch. He got fired,” Biden said. “And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”The clip has been replayed for years because it sounds, at minimum, astonishingly cavalier: a sitting vice president boasting that American leverage forced the removal of a foreign prosecutor.The central dispute is why.Shokin says he was removed because he was pursuing corruption connected to Burisma and investigating matters involving Hunter Biden. Biden and his defenders have long maintained that Shokin was ineffective and that U.S. pressure for his dismissal reflected a broader Western anti-corruption consensus.That conflict is the heart of Shokin's book.The stakes were high enough that Trump's efforts to press Ukraine for investigations eventually produced one of his impeachments. Shokin's account asks readers to revisit the events that made Ukraine such a combustible subject in American politics.Here was Joe Biden celebrating the removal of Ukraine's prosecutor general, Shokin — the man who says he was pursuing Burisma, the energy company that had placed Hunter Biden on its board.For years, Biden and his allies insisted there was nothing improper to see in Hunter Biden's Burisma role or Joe Biden's conduct in Ukraine.Now the fight over that history has begun in earnest. Joe and Hunter Biden are back on the interview circuit, while the ex-president’s memoir is on the way. The authorized version of history is being written now. Shokin's book is meant to challenge it.RELATED: Trump 2019 impeachment exposed: Gabbard provides damning insights into deep-state stitch-up Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesThe Ukraine war as a vehicle for hidden agendasShokin presents a stark thesis: He argues that the war in Ukraine became a vehicle for corruption and hidden agendas extending far beyond the battlefield.Among his most explosive allegations are claims that $350 billion in U.S. taxpayer money was recycled through political and globalist networks, that arms arrangements were tainted by corruption, and that wartime chaos facilitated the trafficking of Ukrainian women and children.Those are grave allegations. They come from a man who says he paid a personal price for getting too close to uncomfortable truths. But they remain allegations, and the book should be read as Shokin's case — not as independent proof of every charge.Inside Biden’s corruption and warShokin has practiced law since the 1980s and served multiple times as deputy prosecutor general before becoming prosecutor general. He says his troubles began when he was investigating Mykola Zlochevsky and Burisma.Shokin in the book gives his account of the pressure campaign that ended with his removal.He writes that Joe Biden was known in Ukraine as the "Vice King" and portrays the vice president as wielding extraordinary influence over then-President Petro Poroshenko and the Ukrainian government.The book lays out names, dates, meetings, and episodes that Shokin says connect the Burisma investigation to the effort to fire him.RELATED: The Biden tapes blow open the autopen scandal Celal Gunes/Anadolu/Getty ImagesCensorship and the fight for the recordShokin also argues that his story has been suppressed through limited media attention and reduced online visibility. He describes a system in which war, foreign aid, lobbying, and personal enrichment became intertwined, and he presents his own removal as one episode in that larger pattern.Whether readers accept all of his conclusions or not, the book raises questions that deserve examination rather than dismissal.Shokin's case is not merely historical. He argues that the same patterns of influence, opaque foreign aid, and political pressure continue today in Ukraine and elsewhere.That claim should be tested, not waved away.Americans deserve to know how their government uses power abroad, how foreign aid is distributed, and whether politically connected families benefit from relationships that ordinary citizens would never be allowed to maintain without scrutiny."Biden's Corruption and War" is valuable because it puts the testimony of a central participant into the record. It may not be the final word, and it does not relieve readers or journalists of the duty to verify its most serious claims.But it does make it harder to pretend there is no dispute at all.Read it before the people who tried to bury this story write the only version anyone remembers.

Filmmaker and mother Jessica Solce was frustrated by the difficulty of finding healthy, all-natural products for herself and her family. To make it easier, she created the Solarium, a curated marketplace for third-party-tested foods, clothing, beauty products, and more — free of seed oils, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, and other potentially harmful additives.In this occasional column, she shares recommendations and research from her continuing education in health and wellness.Every time I return to my parents' home, I find myself standing in my mother's closet.My parents are moving, and I'm helping. Just as when I was a kid, I still take pleasure in running my hands across the fabrics of my mother's clothes. Everything is silk, cotton, wool. Sturdy, perfectly kept, and just as soft and vibrant as they were 40 years ago.Acrylic or polyester becomes 'faux fur'; polyurethane or PVC becomes 'vegan leather.' The language makes the substitution sound almost virtuous.What isn't in her closet is just as striking. It isn't overflowing with heaps of disposable fashion bought for a season and forgotten. Everything seems chosen — the accumulation not of endless consumption but of decades of taste and considered decisions. She bought things she liked, cared for them, and kept them.Fast and cheapThis kind of restraint is out of style. Modern closets can be filled cheaply and frequently, thanks to synthetic fibers. Polyester, nylon, and acrylic are inexpensive to produce, easy to care for, and endlessly adaptable — and we embraced them. What is stranger is how even luxury fashion followed. Materials once prized precisely for their natural beauty — silk, wool, linen, cashmere, leather, and fur — increasingly share racks and runways with petroleum-derived fabrics. We've gained an astonishing abundance of clothing while losing some of the tactile abundance that made clothing worth keeping in the first place.The transformation began nearly a century ago. In 1935, DuPont chemist Wallace Carothers produced nylon, the first fully synthetic fiber to become a consumer product. Nylon is a plastic, made from petrochemical-derived polymers, but it could be spun into fibers that looked and behaved like textiles.Nylon's first great consumer success was women's stockings, and the appeal was obvious. Silk stockings were expensive, delicate, and prone to runs. Nylon promised something stronger, cheaper, and easier to care for. Women loved them: When DuPont introduced nylon stockings nationwide in 1940, nearly 800,000 pairs sold on the first day.The appeal wasn't hard to understand. Silk was expensive and delicate. Nylon was strong, inexpensive, and practical. Soon, other synthetics offered similar promises: Polyester resisted wrinkles, and later synthetic blends offered stretch, moisture-wicking, and easy washing.RELATED: Finally: Vaccine guidelines that make sense for parents Creative Commons/H. Armstrong Roberts/Classicstock/Getty ImagesWool undefeatedConsumers had perfectly good reasons to want these new fabrics. But somewhere along the way, convenience made us lose sight of the qualities that made natural materials beautiful in the first place.Acrylic, for example, could imitate wool at a fraction of the price, without the moths or troublesome washing. But the bargain came with costs: Acrylic retains odors more readily, generates static, manages moisture poorly, and can melt when exposed to flame. A good wool sweater can still look beautiful decades later. Anyone who has owned a cheap acrylic sweater knows that isn't always true of its substitute.What few people standing at a department-store counter in 1940 could have imagined was the scale to which synthetics would come to dominate the clothes we wear. Polyester alone accounts for roughly 59% of global fiber production. We have reached the point at which much of the clothing touching our skin every day is made principally from plastic.Plastic by any other nameThat has consequences far beyond the feel of a shirt. Synthetic textiles shed microscopic plastic fibers as they are manufactured, worn, washed, and dried. Researchers have found these fibers in wastewater, household dust, and indoor and outdoor air. A fleece jacket doesn't cease being plastic because it has been transformed into something soft enough to wear.Yet we have developed increasingly flattering language for the substitution. Fur and leather, natural materials used by human beings for millennia, are increasingly treated as environmentally or ethically suspect. Replace them with petroleum-derived synthetics, however, and plastic acquires more flattering names. Acrylic or polyester becomes "faux fur"; polyurethane or PVC becomes "vegan leather." The language makes the substitution sound almost virtuous.Recycling has helped make plastic similarly easier to embrace. Turning discarded bottles into clothing can reduce the demand for new petroleum-derived material, but it doesn't make the plastic disappear. A recycled-polyester shirt can still shed synthetic fibers, and at the end of its useful life, it presents many of the same disposal problems as other synthetic textiles.You are what you wearThen there is the more complicated question of what all this means for our bodies.No one anticipated the emerging health problem of microplastics. Synthetic fibers like polyester, nylon, spandex, and acrylic constantly shed microplastic particles. These particles can contain or carry chemicals, including PFAS — the persistent “forever chemicals” used in some water- and stain-resistant textiles — phthalates, dyes, and flame retardants, some of which are known or suspected endocrine disruptors. The fibers themselves can be inhaled or ingested, while researchers continue to investigate the extent to which chemicals associated with them enter the body through different routes.Studies have found that chemicals released from textile microfibers may contribute to effects including hormonal disruption, immune stress, and oxidative damage. Other research has linked exposure to certain endocrine-disrupting chemicals, including some used in plastics and textiles, with effects on male reproductive health.Exactly what ordinary exposure to microplastics means for human health over a lifetime remains an active area of research. The ubiquity of plastics is nevertheless a profound environmental problem affecting the globe.Cleaning houseSo what do we do?We don't have to empty our closets tomorrow, and we aren't going to eliminate synthetic materials from modern life. They have legitimate uses, and in some circumstances, they are remarkably useful.But we can begin paying attention again.We can look at the tag before buying a sweater. We can choose wool instead of acrylic, linen instead of polyester, cotton instead of a synthetic blend when those choices make sense. We can buy fewer things and expect more from them. We can seek out manufacturers that tell us what their products are made from and make things intended to survive more than a season.Consumer choice helped make the world we have, and I believe it can help change it. Every decision to buy something made from natural materials, to choose something made well enough to keep, or simply to refuse another disposable product creates demand for something better.Clothes and connectionThat belief is part of what led me to create the Solarium. I wanted to make it easier to find the foods, clothing, and everyday products I was already searching for myself — and to connect people with the makers and producers who are still trying to do things well. If convenience helped lead us away from many of these things in the first place, perhaps we can make choosing them convenient again.And perhaps buying less, choosing better, and keeping things longer isn't a retreat from progress. It's a way of caring for the world we actually inhabit.My mother's closet offers a small reminder of what that can look like. Those clothes have been kept for decades because they were worth keeping. Someone chose the fabric carefully. Someone made the garment to last. And because it lasted, someone cared enough to preserve it.That relationship between maker, material, and owner once seemed ordinary. Perhaps it can again.

A Delaware dance instructor was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing teenagers who attended classes at the studio where she worked, according to authorities. Law enforcement warned there could be more sexual abuse victims. Delaware State Police said in a statement that 23-year-old Emily Pryor Albino of Seaford was arrested and charged with four felony counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a child by a person of trust and one felony count of sexual solicitation of a child using a computer/cell phone/other electronic device'Further investigation revealed that Pryor Albino also exchanged sexually explicit messages with the two victims.'According to Delaware law, a person convicted of first-degree sexual abuse of a child by a person of trust faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison. An individual convicted of sexual solicitation of a child using a computer/cell phone/other electronic device faces up to 25 years in prison.Albino was arraigned and committed to the Delaware Department of Correction after her bail was set at $110,000 cash, state police said. RELATED: Teacher who's wife of town police chief, daughter of mayor learns fate after conviction for sexually abusing 15-year-old boyPolice said Emily Pryor Albino is a dance instructor at the X-Treme Dance Studio in Laurel.Detectives launched an investigation into Albino on Aug. 4 over suspicions that the dance teacher sexually abused two teens who attended the studio, according to police. "Further investigation revealed that Pryor Albino also exchanged sexually explicit messages with the two victims," the Delaware State Police stated. Detectives said they have reason to believe there are additional victims involving Albino.The Delaware State Police Troop 4 Criminal Investigations Unit, in conjunction with the Delaware Department of Justice, is continuing the investigation into the case. The X-Treme Dance Studio and Delaware state investigators did not immediately respond to the New York Post's request for comment.Those with information about the case or any other victims are urged to contact Detective R. Mitchell by calling 302-752-3794, Delaware Crime Stoppers at 1-800-847-3333, or the official Facebook account of the Delaware State Police via private message.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here

Mackinac Island is an island located in Lake Huron between Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas — and Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat nominee for Senate in Michigan, hates it.Known for banning motor vehicles for over 125 years, the island relies on bicycles, walking, and horse-drawn carriages.And in a recently resurfaced video of El-Sayed walking on the island, he says, “I hate Mackinac so much.”“It’s funny because, like, if we win, this is going to be the, like, summer home,” he said, adding, “I'm just going to be, like, every time I’ve ever come here I’ve hated it. Why am I here?”“So if you live in Mackinac Island, understand that the guy that wants to represent you in the U.S. Senate hates you. Just hates your island there,” executive producer Keith Malinak says on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”“The homes are awesome there,” Jeff Fisher comments.“And he hates it,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray says.“You can get a house there relatively cheap for the size. Like, you can get a beautiful mansion for like $2 million, but it can only be open during the summer,” Fisher points out, explaining that it gets closed down in the winter.“The trade-off is that your governor is Gretchen Whitmer,” Malinak adds.Want more from Pat Gray?To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.