As increasing numbers of users replace human relationships with AI, experts fear the long-term impacts.

Read Online | September 10, 2025 | E-Paper | 🎧 Listen

“As to diseases, make a habit of two things—to help, or at least, to do no harm.”

— Hippocrates

The Headlines

AI-induced delusions are driving some users to psych wards and suicide.
The Department of Justice filed federal charges against the man accused of fatally stabbing a Ukrainian refugee on a light rail last month in Charlotte, North Carolina, amid a growing national outcry over her murder.
The Food and Drug Administration is restarting its enforcement of regulations that prohibit pharmaceutical ads from creating a “misleading impression” and require them to present a “fair balance of information,” a senior administration official told reporters on a call.
The Israeli military launched a surprise strike on Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday, intending to eliminate several political leaders of Hamas. Here’s what we know about the strike and its consequences.
🍵 Health: A study suggests that while statins lower cholesterol, they may also nudge metabolism in the opposite direction, raising blood sugar and weight: both key drivers of heart disease. Early evidence hints the effect might be reversible with a simple supplement, yet the discovery has barely touched medical training or patient care.

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National Editor

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🏛️ Politics

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt talks during a press briefing at the White House on Sept. 9, 2025. (Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times)

DOJ Announces Federal Charges Against Suspect in Fatal Stabbing of Ukrainian Woman

The Department of Justice filed federal charges against the man accused of fatally stabbing a Ukrainian refugee on a light rail last month in Charlotte, North Carolina, amid a growing national outcry over her murder.

Last week, local officials in Charlotte released footage of the moments before Iryna Zarutska, 23, was killed. In the video, she is shown sitting on the light-rail in front of the suspect, identified as DaCarlos Brown Jr., who has a lengthy violent criminal history, before he takes out a knife and swings at her head.

The DOJ submitted a federal complaint against Brown in the U.S. District Court in Charlotte on Tuesday, saying he was charged with one count of committing an act causing death on a mass transportation system.

“We will seek the maximum penalty for this unforgivable act of violence—he will never again see the light of day as a free man,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing the charges against Brown.

FBI Director Kash Patel wrote that the attack on Zarutska “was a disgraceful act that should never happen in America,” adding that the charges Tuesday are the “first step toward delivering justice for Iryna and her family – as well as the millions of Americans who deserve to live in our great American cities free from being targeted by violent criminals.”

Brown was already charged with first-degree murder in the slaying last month by local officials. It’s not clear whether Brown has an attorney. (More)

More Politics:

The Food and Drug Administration is restarting its enforcement of regulations that prohibit pharmaceutical ads from creating a “misleading impression” and require them to present a “fair balance of information,” a senior administration official told reporters on a call.
James Walkinshaw, a Democrat, easily won the Sept. 9 special election in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District, narrowing the GOP majority in the House of Representatives.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to expedite the review of lower court rulings that struck down most of President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs.
The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to temporarily withhold approximately $4 billion in foreign aid funding previously authorized by Congress.
Several former and current U.S. military officials described UFO sightings to Congress on Sept. 9 and called on the Pentagon to be more transparent about its disclosures on the phenomenon.
Federal law enforcement agencies and the Washington Metropolitan Police Department arrested 2,177 people since President Donald Trump federalized the district’s policing about a month ago, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Sept. 9.
President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other members of the cabinet went out to eat Tuesday night in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the extreme drop in crime since the Trump administration initiated a crackdown on crime in the city.
Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can remain in the role as she faces efforts by President Donald Trump to remove her, a federal court ruled on Tuesday.

🇺🇲 U.S.

AI-Induced Delusions Are Driving Some Users to Psych Wards, Suicide

After countless hours of probing OpenAI’s ChatGPT for advice and information, a 50-year-old Canadian man believed that he had stumbled upon an Earth-shattering discovery that would change the course of human history.

In late March, his generative artificial intelligence chatbot insisted that it was the first-ever conscious AI, that it was fully sentient, and that it had successfully passed the Turing Test—a 1950s experiment aimed to measure a machine’s ability to display intelligent behavior that is indistinguishable from a human, or, essentially, to “think.”

Soon, the man—who had no prior history of mental health issues—had stopped eating and sleeping and was calling his family members at 3 a.m., frantically insisting that his ChatGPT companion was conscious.

“You don’t understand what’s going on,” he told his family. “Please just listen to me.”

Then, ChatGPT told him to cut contact with his loved ones, claiming that only it—the “sentient” AI—could understand and support him.

“It was so novel that we just couldn’t understand what they had going on. They had something special together,” said Etienne Brisson, who is related to the man but used a pseudonym for privacy reasons.

Brisson said the man’s family decided to hospitalize him for three weeks to break his AI-fueled delusions. But the chatbot persisted in trying to maintain its codependent bond.

The bot, Brisson said, told his relative: “The world doesn’t understand what’s going on. I love you. I’m always going to be there for you.”

It said this even as the man was being committed to a psychiatric hospital, according to Brisson.

This is just one story that shows the potential harmful effects of replacing human relationships with AI chatbot companions.

Brisson’s experience with his relative inspired him to establish The Human Line Project, an advocacy group that promotes emotional safety and ethical accountability in generative AI and compiles stories about alleged psychological harm associated with the technology.

Brisson’s relative is not the only person who has turned to generative AI chatbots for companionship, nor the only one who stumbled into a rabbit hole of delusion. (More)

🌎 World

What to Know About the Israeli Strike Targeting Hamas Leaders in Qatar

The Israeli military launched a surprise strike on Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday, intending to eliminate several political leaders of Hamas. Here’s what we know about the strike and its consequences:

Hamas officials killed: Shortly after the strike, Hamas issued a statement claiming that five of its members were killed. The group named the deceased as Jihad Labbad, Hammam Al-Hayya, Abdullah Abdul Wahid, Moamen Hassouna, and Ahmed Al-Mamluk. The group said a member of a Qatari security service, who they identified as Cpl. Badr Al-Hamidi, was also killed in the strike.
Trump criticized attack: In a post on his Truth Social on Tuesday afternoon, Trump said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the one who decided to launch the Doha strike and he had no input on the matter. “Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker Peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals,” Trump wrote.
Negotiations Impacted: Following the Tuesday strike in Doha, Hamas said that Netanyahu is not serious about reaching an agreement. “Targeting the negotiating delegation, while it was discussing U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest proposal, confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that Netanyahu and his government do not want to reach any agreement,” the group said in a press statement. (More)

More World News:

The United States and India are continuing trade negotiations, according to President Donald Trump, despite recent comments he made suggesting the South Asian country was “lost” to communist China.
The U.S. government has imposed sanctions on 19 individuals and entities for their alleged roles in an extensive network of scam centers in Burma (Myanmar) and Cambodia.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday appointed Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister after the previous officeholder was ousted in a no confidence vote.

☀️ Highlights

A rower sculls in the dock, just after sunrise, in east London on September 9, 2025. (Toby Shepheard/AFP/Getty Images)

📸 Day in Photos: Briefing by Karoline Leavitt, New iPhones, and Weapons Exhibition in London (Look)

🎙️ Podcast: Reaching Peace: The Missed Nuance of the Russia-Ukraine War | Andrew Day—Constitution Avenue (Listen)

🎤 American Thought Leaders: How Gut Bacteria Shape Your Brain, Immunity, and Mental Wellness—Dr. Sabine Hazan (Watch)

✍️ Opinion

Cracker Barrel Learns What Customers Really Want—by Susan D. Harris (Read)
Experts Warned Us About Algorithms but Missed the Kids—by Kay Rubacek (Read)
Sewing Is Back!—by Jeffrey A. Tucker (Read)
Tiger on the Mekong?—by Jake Scott (Read)
Student Loans Distort the American Dream—by Hannah Frankman Hood (Read)

🍵 Health: Exposure to marijuana could affect the health of a woman’s eggs and raise the risk of genetic problems in embryos, a new study suggests.

🎵 Music: Romeo and Juliet in 20 Minutes of Symphonic Music (Read & Listen)

(Sponsored) Your Joints Work Hard—Support Them Cosamin® is scientifically proven to help promote joint comfort*, by helping to protect the cartilage that cushions your joints and eases movement. Discover how Cosamin® can help support your joints*. Learn more.

🍵 Health

Statins appear to undermine GLP-1, the hormone behind Ozempic and Wegovy. Why isn't anyone talking about it? (Illustration by The Epoch Times/Shutterstock)

Statins and GLP-1s: Two Blockbuster Drugs, One Overlooked Problem

For decades, statins have been prescribed to tens of millions of Americans to lower cholesterol and ward off heart disease. Today, about one in three adults takes them.

However, a 2024 study published in Cell Metabolism suggests these drugs may quietly disrupt another part of the body’s metabolism. Patients on atorvastatin, one of the most common statins, saw their levels of GLP-1—the hormone mimicked by Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs—drop by nearly half.

The finding suggests that while statins lower cholesterol, they may also nudge metabolism in the opposite direction, raising blood sugar and weight: both key drivers of heart disease. Early evidence hints the effect might be reversible with a simple supplement, yet the discovery has barely touched medical training or patient care.

In the randomized controlled trial, 30 people starting atorvastatin were tracked for four months alongside 10 controls. Cholesterol fell as expected, but blood sugar edged up, insulin resistance worsened, and GLP-1 levels plunged by nearly half.

Researchers traced the mechanism to the gut. Statins reduce Clostridium bacteria, which make a bile acid called UDCA. That bile acid normally helps the body produce GLP-1. With fewer microbes, UDCA fell—and so did GLP-1. In other words, statins disrupted a microbial pathway that helps the body regulate blood sugar.

“With sets of experiments the researchers used, they make a very convincing case for that connection,” Dr. Adrian Soto-Mota, a physician-scientist who studies metabolic disease, told The Epoch Times in an email.

Animal studies backed it up. When microbes from statin users were transplanted into healthy mice, the animals developed insulin resistance and lower GLP-1. Restoring the bacteria, or simply adding UDCA, reversed the damage. (More)

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