Quote:The emergency services of Novorossiysk have confirmed reports of blasts and security services have been informed.

Russian social media users reported hearing explosions and gunfire near the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk on Friday morning, which could indicate the first Ukrainian attack on one of Russia's main commercial ports.

The Caspian Pipeline Consortium which loads oil onto tankers in Novorossiysk said the port has temporarily barred all ship movement. It said its facilities had not been damaged and oil loadings continued onto tankers which were already moored

Videos posted on a local online community and circulated by Russian online news outlet Astra showed the movement of ships just off the coast with the sound of gunfire coming from the direction of the sea.

The emergency services of Novorossiysk have confirmed reports of blasts and security services have been informed, Russia's RIA news agency reported. The port is one of the biggest in the Black Sea.

Quote:An Israeli merchant ship that embarked from the Port of Ashdod Monday became the first vessel to openly defy Russia’s blockade of the Black Sea since they pulled out of a deal with Ukraine allowing the country to export grain from its ports in mid-July, Ukrainian news outlet Militarnyi reported on Monday.

Israeli vessel Ams1 seemingly ignored Russian threats and entered the Ukrainian branch of the Danube Monday afternoon, according to Ukrainian reports. It crossed the Black Sea on a direct route from Ashdod Port while the American aircraft P8 Poseidon provided aerial security, the reports added.

Ams1 was followed by four more vessels that have either anchored or will anchor in the Danube shortly.

Russia stepped away from the agreement in mid-July, arguing that demands to improve its own food and fertilizer exports had not been met and that not enough Ukrainian grain had reached the poorest countries under the Black Sea deal.
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Since Russia quit the deal and began attacking Ukrainian food-exporting ports on the Black Sea and Danube River, global wheat and corn futures have risen sharply.

Quote:In a citywide letter to physicians and healthcare administrators last week, Vasan said that the more than 50,000 illegal immigrants that have come to New York City since last year caused a spike in contagious diseases like tuberculosis and polio.

“Many people who recently arrived in NYC have lived in or traveled through countries with high rates of TB,” he wrote, as reported by the New York Post.

Tuberculosis can be cured with antibiotics and generally takes six to nine months to fully recover. According to the Post, the city’s TB rate is now more than double the national rate with 6.1 cases per 100,000.
“Close to nine out of 10 (88%) of these TB cases are people born outside the United States,” it noted. “Every neighborhood in the city has had at least one case.”

“Commissioner Vasan’s letter called on New York to pull out all the stops providing migrants health care, food and legal services,” the Post continued. “Immigrants who lawfully apply for a visa must undergo health screenings and show they are vaccinated, and refugees are screened for TB before entering the United States.”

As Breitbart News reported, President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently admitted thousands of unaccompanied migrant children “with inactive tuberculosis into American communities in the last year.”

Quote:The State Department confirmed on Tuesday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spoken to Bazoum over the phone, the third time since the “Council” had broadcast its coup d’etat on national television a week ago on Thursday. Bazoum is believed to be under house arrest in the presidential residence, allowed to make calls to foreign dignitaries but no longer wielding power. The coup last week is the third such attempt against Bazoum since he was elected in 2021.

The announcement that Washington would begin withdrawing staffers from its embassy in Niger comes two days after the Pentagon claimed that no “imminent threat against any U.S. personnel or American citizens” existed in the country. The head of the coup “Council,” former leader of the presidential guard Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, has not overtly attacked the United States or expressed any desire to sever diplomatic ties, though he has encouraged outside actors not to intervene on Bazoum’s behalf.

Supporters of the coup have taken the streets by the thousands in the past week to condemn the greater West but have mostly directed their ire at the nation’s former colonizer, France, and expressed support for greater diplomacy with Russia.

A flood of pro-Russian coup supporters took the streets of Niamey again on Thursday, but at press time, no reports suggest any attacks on Americans.
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Niamey is the third American embassy to be evacuated since leftist President Joe Biden took office in 2021, following the dramatic evacuation of the embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, after the Taliban’s takeover of the country in August 2021 and the evacuation of the Khartoum, Sudan, embassy in April.

Quote:Trump was arraigned at Elijah Barret Prettyman Federal Courthouse around 4:00 p.m. on the following charges: Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Conspiracy Against Rights, Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding, Obstruction of an Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding.

A grand jury returned a federal indictment on Tuesday in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe.

“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to stay in power,” the document alleges. “So for more than two months following Election Day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election that he actually won.”

It contends Trump “knew” the claims were false.

Trump blasted Smith and President Joe Biden on Wednesday night and contended he would not receive a fair trial in Washington, DC.

Quote:China’s state-run Global Times on Wednesday gleefully pounced on the indictment of former President Donald Trump, calling it further evidence that American democracy has become a “political farce” in which the U.S. electorate stands a good chance of “electing a criminal as president.”

Communist parties that would never have the courage to hold a multi-party election should probably refrain from commenting on democracy, but the Global Times plowed ahead, reveling in the misfortune of the former president who waged a trade war against Beijing:

[Chinese Academy of Social Sciences fellow Lu Xiang] pointed out one apparent impact of being involved in multiple lawsuits is that it has drained his campaign money. Trump’s political action committee, Save America, has spent more than $40 million on legal fees since the start of 2023, CNN said citing a source familiar with the matter whose name was not given.

The expert believes when the legal process does not influence much, Democrats can hardly use the impeachment process to thwart Trump. The 2021 riot in Congress led to Trump’s second impeachment in the House of Representatives – making him the first US president ever to be impeached twice – and ended up nowhere.

The unfolding of the 2024 presidential election is dramatic enough but the political farce is far from conclusion. Since 2016, US democracy has entered an accelerated track of decadence and Americans have no alternative but to choose between the worse and the worst, Lü said.

Quote:Polish and Lithuanian leaders held an urgent meeting Thursday in a strategically sensitive area where their NATO nations border Belarus and the Russian territory of Kaliningrad, warning that they are bracing for provocations from Moscow and Minsk in the area.

The meeting came two days after two Belarusian helicopters flew briefly at low altitude into Polish air space, in what was viewed as a provocative move. Both nations on NATO’s eastern flank have increased their border security following the arrival of thousands of Russia-linked Wagner group mercenaries just across their borders in Belarus after an aborted mutiny in Russia in June.
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The Belarusian Foreign Ministry denied that its country’s helicopters entered Poland. Local Polish residents posted photos on social media of helicopters with Belarusian insignia flying above.
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They met in Suwalki, a town in the Suwalki Gap, a sparsely populated stretch of land running 96 kilometers (60 miles) along the Polish-Lithuanian border. Also known as the Suwalki Corridor, the stretch of territory links the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia with the rest of the NATO alliance. It separates Belarus, an ally of Russia, from Kaliningrad, a heavily militarized exclave of Russia located on the Baltic Sea which is separated from the Russian mainland.

Military analysts in the West have long viewed the Suwalki Gap as a potential flashpoint area in case of a standoff between Russia and NATO. They worry that if Russia were to ever seize the Suwalki Gap, it would leave Lithuania and the other two Baltic states, Latvia and Estonia, cut off from Poland and other NATO allies.

Nauseda said he believes the Suwalki Gap remains a vulnerable place, even though Sweden – located across the Baltic Sea – is on track to join NATO.
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The NATO countries on the eastern flank have felt under pressure for a couple of years.

Large numbers of migrants from the Middle East and Africa began arriving two years ago at the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. European leaders have accused Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Russia, of opening the migration route in an act of “hybrid warfare” aimed at creating instability in the West.

Quote:David Rody left his role as a partner at the Sidley Austin law firm in 2022 to join the Department of Justice (DOJ) as a senior counsel in the criminal division. Now, he is helping advise Smith, who has indicted Trump twice for his alleged efforts to challenge the 2020 election and his handling of White House documents.

Interestingly, Rody is a Democrat donor who donated $5,600 to Biden in 2020 and nearly $7,000 to other Democrat causes from 2018 to 2022.
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Rody, who previously led investigations related to bribery, fraud, obstruction of justice, and other federal crimes, used to be head of the Violent Crimes unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. In June, he also steered $1,000 to the campaign for Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who was lead counsel in the first impeachment inquiry against Trump, disclosures show.

He also gave $500 in 2019 to the failed-presidential campaign for now-Vice President Kamala Harris and $2,250 combined to Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-NJ) presidential and Senate reelection campaigns, according to disclosures.
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Karen Gilbert, another lead attorney on Smith’s team, is also a Biden and former President Barack Obama donor, the Examiner reported.

Further, Smith’s wife is a Biden donor and helped produce a documentary about Michelle Obama.
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Federal Election Commission records show that Smith’s wife, Katy Chevigny, contributed $1,000 each to Biden’s 2020 campaign, Biden for President, and the Biden Victory Fund super PAC, on September 9, 2020. Moreover, she donated $150 to the Friends of Rashida Tlaib committee in July 2008 when Tlaib was running for the Michigan House of Representatives in the state’s Twelfth District.

Quote:...former Obama Deputy National Security Adviser and NBC News Political Contributor Ben Rhodes stated that the information China was trying to get from two Navy sailors was information in preparation for a possible U.S.-China conflict and China’s recent espionage activities are examples of “China going really much more aggressively at trying to prepare for a potential military contingency with the United States” over Taiwan.

Host Andrea Mitchell said, “Two Navy sailors arrested, very briefly, there have been hacks of Commerce and the State Department and a New York Times report of a deeper concern about malware embedded in our military.”

Rhodes responded, “And if you look at the arrests, these were people that were passing naval secrets, Navy exercises, the nature of our ships, the nature of our bases. That is China seeking to get information in anticipation of a potential conflict. And the same thing is true with the malware.

Quote:At the end of his morning news conference, Lopez Obrador (AMLO) responded to questions by journalists who asked about the buoys and a response from Texas officials that Mexico should do more to stop illegal immigration.

“You can’t debate with those who don’t have a knowledge of the human condition,” AMLO said. “They don’t know the why of the migration or if they do know, they don’t care. They act in an inhumane way and immoral.”

The comments come just days after Mexican authorities released information that two migrants died on the waters of the Rio Grande and their bodies had been caught on a series of buoys placed by the Texas government in July. As Breitbart Texas reported, Texas Governor Greg Abbott had those buoys placed to slow down or redirect illegal immigration and would-be asylum seekers trying to cross the border.

Lopez Obrador has criticized Abbott repeatedly this week claiming that his stance on a secure border is purely for political reasons that will backfire come election day. The Mexican politician has called for Hispanics in Texas to vote against Abbott, Breitbart Texas reported.

Quote:In a 2-1 decision, Clinton-appointed judges William Fletcher and Richard Paez of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued the stay and ordered the appeal expedited.

Biden’s policy prohibits some migrants from applying for asylum if they did not first apply for protections from other countries while traveling to the United States. Biden’s policy went into effect on May 12 and was slated to have a two-year lifespan. The president announced this policy after his administration ended Title 42.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar struck down Biden’s rule, deeming it “arbitrary and capricious.” Tigar’s ruling would have terminated the asylum rule on August 8 had the appeals court not taken action.

Tigar compared the Biden rule to a similar Trump administration rule he struck down in 2019.

In his dissent, Judge Lawrence Van Dyke noted the Biden policy is not “meaningfully different” from the Trump rule and suggested political bias was at play because the appeals court previously overturned the Trump administration’s version of the policy.
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“My colleagues, who made all that precedent, should not be able to now just elide it,” VanDyke wrote. “It’s hard to shake the impression that something other than the law is at work here.”

Quote:House Democrats introduced legislation Friday that would place a 1,000 percent excise tax on AR-15s and other firearms they refer to as “assault weapons.”

FOX News reported the tax would also apply to “high capacity” magazines.

Rep. Don Beyer (D) and 24 other Democrats are behind the tax which they also pushed last year.

The imposition would force the price of a $500 firearm to jump to $5,000 and “a weapon that normally costs $2,000 would force customers to pay more than $20,000.”

The push for new taxes on AR-15s and other firearms was put forward one day after Democrats sent a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy ®, urging him to allow votes on gun control.

Breitbart News noted the letter to McCarthy came after the House recessed early without taking up any gun control.

Quote:The Philippines on Sunday accused a Chinese coast guard of "excessive and offensive" use of water cannons to stop a Filipino supply boat carrying food, water, fuel and new army personnel to a Philippine-occupied shoal in the disputed South China Sea.

"The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) strongly condemns the China Coast Guard's (CCG) dangerous maneuvers and illegal use of water cannons against the PCG vessels," the Philippine Coast Guard said.

Condemning the belligerence allegedly shown by the Chinese coast guard, the Philippines' armed forces said the Chinese vessel's actions were "in wanton disregard of the safety of the people on board and in violation of international law."

The encounter between the Filipino boat and the Chinese vessel took place when Philippine navy personnel were moving towards Second Thomas in the Spratly Islands, according to Philippines officials.

Because of the clash, a second chartered boat was unable to drop supplies, military spokesman Colonel Medel Aguilar said in a statement.
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China's coast guard has said that its actions were compliant with the law and responded by saying that China has "indisputable" sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and their adjacent waters, including the Second Thomas Shoal. It alleged that the Filipino boat was trespassing and carrying illegal construction material.

Quote:During a meeting with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, Aso Taro, the vice president of Japan's main ruling Liberal Democratic Party, expressed his willingness to further enhance bilateral ties.

Aso, who formerly served as prime minister, met Tsai in Taiwan's presidential office on Tuesday afternoon.

Tsai described Japan as Taiwan's important partner and voiced her willingness to cooperate on reinforcing supply chains and other areas of mutual interest.

Aso responded that even after diplomatic ties between Japan and Taiwan were severed, there has consistently been a sentiment within the LDP advocating for maintaining robust relations with Taiwan.
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The two officials also reportedly discussed how to evacuate Japanese nationals in the event of a potential crisis involving Taiwan.

Prior to the meeting, Aso met Taiwan's Vice President Lai Ching-te, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's official candidate for the upcoming presidential election in January.

Quote:China has condemned remarks over Taiwan by Aso Taro, vice-president of Japan's main ruling Liberal Democratic Party, after he said that "a readiness to fight" serves as a deterrence in the region.

Aso, who formerly served as Japan's prime minister, made the remarks during a speech in Taipei on Tuesday.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday released a comment saying a certain Japanese politician visited Taiwan despite Beijing's strong opposition, to hype up cross-strait tensions and interfere in China's internal affairs.

The ministry added, "China has made serious demarches to Japan and strongly condemns this."

The Chinese Embassy in Tokyo described Aso's remarks as "nonsense."

Quote:At a meeting on Wednesday, Kim sacked Chief of the General Staff Pak Su Il and replaced him with General Ri Yong Gil, who held the post for two stints previously and also served as the country's defense minister.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Pak was "dismissed" without providing further details.

Ri, meanwhile, was once thought to have been executed when he was sacked in 2016, only to reappear a few months later in another senior post.
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Kim set a target to boost weapons production and also called for the military to conduct drills with the country's latest weapons.

North Korea is set to stage a military parade on September 9 to mark the 75th anniversary of the Day of the Foundation of the Republic.

Quote:Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a state-owned company to increase the production of suicide drones, which are being used in the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia's presidential office said Monday that Putin met Rostec CEO Sergei Chemezov.

Putin said the drones -- the Cube and the Lancet -- "proved to be very effective." He said "their impact is powerful and any equipment, including foreign-made equipment, not only burns, but ammunition also explodes."

Putin's remarks come as Western nations have been supplying tanks and other military aid to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's internal affairs ministry said Russia conducted two missile strikes on the city of Pokrovsk in the eastern region of Donetsk on Monday, damaging about 20 buildings, including a five-story residential block. It said the attacks killed seven people and wounded more than 80 others, including children.

Quote:The Japanese government has expanded a ban on exports to Russia as part of tightened sanctions over the country's invasion of Ukraine.

The additional ban imposed on Wednesday covers 758 items, including automobiles and optical equipment.

Auto-related items include gasoline and diesel cars with an engine displacement of over 1,900 cc, hybrid and electric vehicles, and parts such as tires for large vehicles.

Used Japanese cars, which are popular in Russia, are also subject to the broadened embargo.

The government had earlier prohibited exports of trucks and luxury vehicles to Russia.

Quote:Russia is blaming Ukraine for a series of arson attacks since late July on its military recruitment offices.

Independent Russian media outlet Meduza reported that there have been about 30 cases, including fires in Moscow, St. Petersburg and the country's far eastern region of Khabarovsk.

On Tuesday, Russia's interior ministry officials and prosecutors claimed that Ukraine was involved, though they did not provide evidence to substantiate the allegation.

The prosecutor general's office said in a statement that the crimes were committed by Russian nationals who had received instructions by phone from Ukraine. The office urged the public not to get involved.

Russia's interior ministry said anonymous callers are using different ways to manipulate victims into committing arson, including telling them that their money is at risk of being stolen.

Quote:Recent heavy flooding in the Chinese capital has left the city reeling as officials on Wednesday announced that the death toll had risen to 33, with 18 more people still missing.

Beijing has been slammed by record rainfall in recent weeks, with the deluge causing havoc to infrastructure and destroying thousands of homes.
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Five rescuers were among the dead.

City officials said some 59,000 homes had collapsed in the flooding, while another 150,000 had been damaged, especially in Beijing's mountainous western outskirts.

The flooding also took its toll on cropland, with more than 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) hit.

Scores of roads across the city region were also damaged, as were over 100 bridges.

Xia said that rebuilding and repairs could take up to three years.
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Hebei province, which neighbors Beijing, officials reported that 15 people had been killed and 22 were still missing. In northeastern Jilin, the toll was 14 dead and one person reported missing on Sunday.

Some 125,000 residents from the city of Zhuozhuo to the southwest of Beijing were able to return to their homes on Saturday after flooding had necessitated their evacuation.

Quote:US President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday to block and regulate US investment in key high-tech industries in China.

The order covers semiconductors, quantum information technologies and artificial intelligence.

Biden said in a letter to Congress he was declaring a national emergency to respond to China's advancements "in sensitive technologies and products critical to the military, intelligence, surveillance, or cyber-enabled capabilities."

Senior administration officials said the order was intentionally narrow in scope and stemmed from national security goals rather than economic interests.
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The order is expected to come into effect next year.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer praised Biden's order, "For too long, American money has helped fuel the Chinese military's rise."
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Republicans said the Biden order did not go far enough. Senator Marco Rubio, for example, said the order was "almost laughable" because it ignored the dual-use nature of some technologies.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said on Wednesday said it is "very disappointed" by the news.

Quote:Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated at a campaign rally on Wednesday evening.

Footage of the incident shows Villavicencio leaving the event and entering a vehicle when gunshots can suddenly be heard.

Villavicencio was wounded and taken to a nearby medical center before he died. It was initially unclear how many other people at the event were injured during the shooting.
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The suspect died from injuries sustained during a shootout with police, according to the Attorney-General's office.

Villavicencio was one of eight candidates in the election scheduled for August 20.

Opinion polls consistently put him in fifth place in recent weeks.

Quote:Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday advised the country's president, Arif Alvi, to dissolve parliament, setting the stage for a general election as the world's fifth-most populous country wrestles with deepening political and economic crises.

Legally, an election should be held within 90 days of parliament's dissolution, but the outgoing government has already warned that polling day is likely to be delayed.

Speculation has lingered that there could be a delay to elections as the establishment contends with overlapping security, economic, and political crises.
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A delay until well into next year is possible if Pakistan's election commission decides it needs to redraw constituency maps based on the results of a recent census.

Parliament's five-year term had, in any case, been due to expire on August 12, with Sharif's announcement merely ending it three days earlier.

Quote:Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) on Thursday said the destructive wildfires impacting Maui Island are “likely the largest natural disaster in Hawaii’s state history.”

The wildfires, which began Tuesday and continue to blaze, have destroyed acres of property and taken dozens of lives.

“What we saw was the utter devastation of Lahaina,” Green said at a press conference. “What we saw was likely the largest natural disaster in Hawaii’s state history.”

Green announced that Lahaina, the former capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom and rich with cultural history, is about 80 percent “gone.”

Lahaina’s famous banyan tree, imported from India 150 years ago, is scorched and locals fear it may not survive the fire.
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Green expects the full extent of the damage to be “in the billions of dollars.”

As of Wednesday, the fire had destroyed 2,000 acres of private and state land.

Quote:The Biden administration on Thursday reportedly struck a deal with Iran to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian financial assets and release a “handful” of Iranian nationals jailed for violating U.S. sanctions in exchange for five Americans taken prisoner by Iran on highly dubious charges of espionage.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations on Thursday said, “Iran’s frozen funds in South Korea will be unblocked and transferred to Qatar,” apparently referring to the $6 billion sum. U.S. sources who spoke to the far-left New York Times publication and Reuters confirmed the financial aspects of the deal.

The Times‘ sources identified the five American prisoners as Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi, and Morad Tahbaz, plus two others the Biden administration did not immediately name. The two other prisoners are reportedly a “scientist” and a “businessman.” One of those two individuals was arrested by Iran in March, stalling the deal to release the others until Iran agreed to include the new detainee as well.

The best-known of the named three is Siamak Namazi, 51, arrested in October 2015 while he was visiting family in Tehran. Namazi was a supporter of the Iranian regime and advocate of closer U.S.-Iran relations who might have fallen victim to a power struggle between secular and theocratic factions within the government.

Quote:“All over the world, people who are stateless live with fear and uncertainty … With this historic step, stateless individuals will be given the opportunity to apply for [U.S.] immigration protections and benefits,” said Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Mayorkas’s statement said that there are “approximately 218,000 people residing in the United States who are potentially at risk of statelessness”

But the Department of State reported, “At the end of 2021, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees … counted 4.3 million stateless persons worldwide but estimated that the actual number may be over 10 million due to underreporting.”

“Every one of these actions that they do with what they believe are the ‘best of intentions’ inevitably end up having the worst of results,” countered Andrew Arthur, a former immigration justice who is now with the Center for Immigration Studies. “The devil is gonna be in the details about how they … define people as stateless,” Arthur told Breitbart News.

Quote:Thursday, during an appearance on FNC’s “Fox & Friends,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) explained his referral of Dr. Anthony Fauci to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.

According to the Kentucky Republican, the former chief medical advisor lied under oath to Congress.

“I don’t think there has ever been a clearer case of perjury in the history of government testimony,” Paul declared. “And I don’t say that lightly. He said adamantly that the government never funded this gain of function research. We now have the government accountability office, the GAO has admitted that the funding cage from the NIH. We have the acting director of the NIH, [Lawrence] Tabak, admitting it in writing that it came from the NIH. But now we have really the smoking gun. That is Fauci in private saying the opposite of what he was saying in public.”

“When he was publicly telling me that, ‘Absolutely, we do not fund gain-of-function research in China,’ he says privately, ‘We are suspicious that the virus has been manipulated, and we are suspicious because we know they are doing gain-of-function research,'” he continued. “He then goes on to describe the research and it’s exactly the research that the NIH funded. So, he is caught dead to rights here, but we have an incredibly partisan Attorney General Garland who is refusing to act. So, I have taken the extraordinary step of actually going to the local U.S. Attorney in D.C. to see if he will act.”

Quote:Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) moved $200,000 from his campaign funds to his family’s nonprofit group, which claimed its mission is to “revitalize democracy.”

Fox News reported Wednesday the money was put into his wife’s nonprofit and alleged the organization does not do much, yet it pays her son six figures.

In 2017, Breitbart News described Sanders as “the Senator who hates rich people,” noting he made more than $1 million in 2016.
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The independent senator’s committee cut two $100,000 checks to the Sanders Institute for reported charitable contributions in January and March, its Federal Election Commission records show. The expenditures are the largest from the Sanders campaign to any entity this election cycle.

The Sanders Institute home page says its mission is to “revitalize democracy by actively engaging individuals, organizations and the media in the pursuit of progressive solutions to economic, environmental, racial and social justice issues.”
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In 2019, the group said it would suspend operations as Sanders vied for the Democrat nomination for president, but it has since restarted operations.

Its latest publicly available tax forms from 2021 show the nonprofit burnt nearly 40% of its donations on salaries while appearing to conduct minimal work and having very few identifiable accomplishments.

The tax documents indicate that the progressive lawmaker’s stepson is the big winner of the operation. In 2021, the institute raised $716,618 and drove $257,000 into wages, including $152,653 in salary and other compensation to Driscoll, who acts as its executive director.

Breitbart News reported in January that admission to Sanders’ anti-capitalists event may have cost nearly $100 on Ticketmaster, a site the Justice Department previously investigated for possible anti-trust violations.

Quote:House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) says it appears multiple FBI field offices were involved in crafting the memo that detailed plans to target “radical traditionalist” Catholics, despite FBI Director Christoper Wray’s testimony that it was a “product from a single field office.”

On Wednesday, House Judiciary chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government chairman Mike Johnson (R-LA) penned a letter to Wray contending that new information indicates the FBI Portland and Los Angeles field offices influenced the memo, which Wray said last month he was “aghast” to learn about.

Remember the FBI Richmond Field Office memo targeting Catholics as terrorists?

Director Wray testified that it was only “a single field office,” doing so.

Well, a newly subpoenaed document shows otherwise.

It looks like FBI Portland & FBI Los Angeles were also involved.

— Rep. Jim Jordan

From information recently produced to the Committee, we now know that the FBI relied on information from around the country—including a liaison contact in the FBI’s Portland Field Office and reporting from the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office—to develop its assessment.

It notes that the information comes from a less-redacted version of the memo the committee recently obtained. When Jordan questioned Wray last month based upon a more redacted copy, the director contended it “was a single product by a single field office.”

“This revelation raises the question of why you redacted this information in previous versions of the document you produced to the Committee,’ the letter states. It also charges that the new information “raises concerns about the accuracy, completeness, and truthfulness” of the director’s testimony and invites him to “amend” it “to fully explain the nature and scope of the FBI’s assessment of traditional Catholics as potential domestic terrorists.”

Quote:Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel in the “ongoing investigation” into Hunter Biden, “as well as for any other matters that arose or may arise from that investigation.”

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said he hopes Weiss “gets to the truth,” but expressed concern with his appointment.

“I hope Special Counsel David Weiss informs Americans just how many millions of dollars Hunter Biden made on what his ex-partner called an “illusion” of access, and if the President financially benefited,” Bacon said. “How many LLCs were actually formed to mask where the money was sent? The President denied any involvement, but now we know he was on approximately 20 phone calls. I hope the Special Counsel gets to the truth.”

“At the same time, I’m concerned that Special Counsel Weiss previously recommended a sweetheart deal for Hunter that was rightfully rejected by the judge,” Bacon added.
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Weiss’s appointment also came one day after House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) announced he would subpoena members of the Biden family to testify before his committee.

Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY) called Weiss’s appointment “a clear attempt to cover up mounting evidence from the House Oversight Committee.”

Quote:Proterra, an electric bus company that received heavy backing from President Joe Biden’s administration, filed for bankruptcy on Monday.

The Burlingame, California-based EV company has been a source of controversy for the Biden administration because Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm hyped the company in her official capacity despite the fact that she previously served on Proterra’s board and held over a million dollars worth of stock in the company even after she was confirmed as the head of Biden’s Energy Department.
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Proterra was founded in 2004 and, according to Canary Media, had raised “about $682 million in venture capital from investors including Daimler, Generation Investment Management, Kleiner Perkins, Tao Capital Partners, Soros Fund Management, Cowen Sustainable Advisors and GM Ventures to build electric buses that gained a foothold in early North American deployments.”

Biden has heavily promoted Proterra throughout his presidency, at one point saying the company would help America own “the future” if it kept on track. Three months into his presidency, Biden held a virtual tour of the electric bus company’s South Carolina factory to promote his $1.9 trillion infrastructure plan.
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Biden’s promotion of Proterra continued when he highlighted his tour of the Proterra factory during a trip to Wisconsin in June 2021 to promote his infrastructure agenda.

In November 2021, Granholm and Vice President Kamala Harris announced 25 projects that were awarded $200 million in Department of Energy grants, which included $127 million in “SuperTruck 3” grants. Notably, roughly $76.8 million of the $127.8 million SuperTruck 3 grants announced went to a company with ties to Proterra, giving these Proterra-linked companies garnered more than 60 percent of the grants.

Further, Vice President Kamala Harris and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg teamed up in December 2021 to promote Proterra at an event where the company’s buses were used as a backdrop.

Biden also touted Proterra’s investments during a March 2022 speech. In February of this year, Biden appointed Proterra CEO Gareth Joyce to serve on his Export Council, which provides Biden with advice on international trade.

Despite this massive push from the Biden administration, Proterra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday, citing “various market and macroeconomic headwinds” that have impacted its business.

Quote:Prominent Republican members of the House energy committee accused the Obama administration of "wasting" more than half a billion dollars in taxpayer money by making a federal loan guarantee to a "troubled" solar power company that collapsed in bankruptcy Wednesday.

"This is really bad news.... Half a billion dollars of taxpayer money and we may end up holding the bag," House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) told ABC News, raising serious concerns about the administration's energy loan program. "This is just a classic case of fraud and abuse and waste."

Solyndra, a California-based manufacturer of rooftop solar panels, opened in 2005 and in 2009 became the Obama administration's first recipient of an energy loan guarantee to the tune of $535 million meant to help minimize the risk to venture capital firms that were backing the solar start-up. Obama made a personal visit to the factory last year to herald its bright future.

Quote:“There is probable cause to believe that the defendant has attempted to tamper with witnesses at least twice,” said U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan at a hearing in New York.

The judge said that Bankman-Fried would be allowed to spend time in his lawyers’ office to prepare for his trial in October, but the revocation of his bail means that the accused fraudster will likely spend the rest of his time leading up to the trial behind bars.
...
Bankman-Fried was one of the richest men in the space before the spectacular collapse of FTX, which filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2022 after its liquidity evaporated.

The founder, often known as “SBF,” used his wealth to become a Democrat super-donor, and was the second-largest contributor to Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020. Scarcely 30 years old, the crypto baron had ambitions to displace George Soros as the largest donor to Democrats and Democrat causes.

Quote:Special Counsel Jack Smith proposed to begin former President Donald Trump’s trial in January 2024 for the charges he’s facing in relation to the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

“The Government proposes that trial begin on January 2, 2024, and estimates that its case in chief will take no longer than four to six weeks,” the filing on Thursday states.

As Breitbart News has noted, Trump faces four charges related to his challenges to the 2020 election result, and the resulting riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. One of the four charges carries a potential death penalty if Trump were to be convicted.

Smith faces accusations from critics that he is shaping his prosecution to interfere with the 2024 election. The judge in the “documents” case in federal court in Miami set that trial date in May 2024 — after most of the GOP primaries will have been held.

Breitbart News has noted a pattern in which the government announces indictments or actions against Trump the day of, or after, damaging revelations about the Biden family.

Quote:President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will not visit Maui in the aftermath of the deadly wildfires because they “don’t want to distract” from the relief efforts, Harris announced on Friday.

The wildfires, which began Tuesday and continue to blaze, have destroyed acres of property and taken dozens of lives. On Friday, local officials announced the death toll increased to 67, making it the deadliest wildfire on U.S. soil since the 2018 Camp Fire in California killed at least 85 people.

The wildfires have destroyed at least 2,000 acres of land, including 80 percent of the Maui town Lahaina, a rich cultural area that was once the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Neither Biden nor Harris will visit the devastated Hawaiian island despite the destruction, according to Harris.

Quote:Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo criticized one of his “heroes,” Brazilian radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on Thursday over the latter allegedly not doing enough to protect the Amazon Rainforest during a regional summit.

Through a series of messages on Twitter, posted by Ruffalo on Thursday in both English and Portuguese, the “heartbroken” actor demanded more action from Lula to protect the rainforest, claiming that this is the Brazilian president’s moment to become “the next Nelson Mandela.”

Ruffalo is an American self-declared “climate justice advocate” with no publicly known family ties to Brazil. He has inserted himself prominently in Brazilian politics, however, engaging in several feuds with conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro and appearing at a Lula campaign rally during the presidential election last year.

“You’re one of my heroes, Lula, but it breaks my heart to see the Belém Declaration has no concrete goals to protect the rainforest,” Ruffalo wrote on Twitter. “The Amazon emergency is a climate emergency, and we can’t afford any delays.”

The Hollywood actor’s message was in reference to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) summit, which Lula hosted in the city of Belém on Tuesday and Wednesday. The summit gathered both regional presidents and representatives from ACTO member nations, as well as representatives of Norway, Germany, and France.

Quote:Russian tankers that would normally carry oil to European customers are instead being rerouted through the Arctic to China, according to an OilPrice report Friday.

“Russia sent two initial crude oil shipments to China in mid-July, with four more oil tankers currently headed the same way via the Arctic, each carrying around 750,000 barrels of crude oil,” the report said.

The Arctic Ocean Northern Sea Route (NSR) is about 30 percent faster for Russian shipments to Asia than the Suez Canal route. The Russians have been contemplating a switch to the NSR for some time, and the Nordic nations have been exploring it as well.

When Europe and the United States imposed sanctions after Russia invaded Ukraine and Europe began what appears to be a permanent move away from depending on Russian oil and gas, the NSR route became more attractive to Moscow.

Interest in Arctic shipping also picked up after the MV Ever Given disaster in March 2021, when a massive cargo ship got stuck in the Suez Canal and blocked a great deal of international shipping for several days. Chinese and Russian officials argued that opening another major trade route for nations with access to the Arctic would reduce dependence on the Suez and provide alternatives in the case of another blockage.

Of course, shipping through the Arctic poses some unique challenges. Analysts told OilPrice that Russia has been building up its fleet of ice-class tankers, and some Russian firms are in a position to switch almost all of their shipping to the NSR.

Quote:The White House is asking Congress to spend another $24 billion fighting Russia in Ukraine — but just $800 million to fight fentanyl and other lethal drugs in U.S. communities.

That spending request seeks an extra $300 for Ukraine aid for every $1 it seeks for counter-drug programs.

In 2022, roughly 110,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, principally, from the fentanyl smuggled in from China and Mexico via free-trade routes.

President Joe Biden and Congress have already spent more than $100 billion to defend Ukraine in the war, which has now turned into a high-casualty, no-negotiations stalemate.

Since his inauguration, Biden has done little to stem the tide of drugs that accompany migrants from Mexico. For example, in 2023, his deputies signed a deal to streamline the flow of migrants from Mexico but have merely continued vague negotiations over drugs.

The White House request to Congress also asks for roughly $3.3 billion to speed the inflow of migrants. The number means that Biden’s deputies want to spend $4.00 importing additional migrants for every $1.00 spent on excluding drugs.

Quote:As migrant apprehensions surge along the Texas border, law enforcement officers face a growing threat of Mexican Cartel violence in South Texas. Border Patrol officials reported the seizure of two cartel rifles and ammunition found Friday on the U.S. bank of the Rio Grande near Fronton, Texas. There were no arrests made in relation to the incident.
...
Chief Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez of the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Sector highlighted the seizure and stated, “Our U.S. Border Patrol Agents confront threats daily as they do their best to secure our border. Agents working jointly with our L.E. partners made a significant discovery of weapons and ammunition hidden by criminal organizations near Fronton, TX.”

The Border Patrol released photos of the weapons seizure of two rifles, several rifle magazines, and an ammunition carrier. The weapons appear to be an AR-15 style rifle and a Kalashnikov-style rifle. One photo shows the Kalashnikov rifle submerged in the river. The agency did not provide any other information regarding the multi-agency discovery other than to indicate no suspects were arrested in connection with the finding.

The small border town of Fronton, with a population of 167 residents, has been the scene of other cartel-related border activity in recent months. On Saturday, the images of three suspected Mexican cartel gunmen crossing the Rio Grande were captured by law enforcement cameras, according to Fox News report. One of the men depicted in the images on Saturday appeared to be wearing body armor. The three suspected Mexican cartel gunmen were not arrested despite a coordinated effort by the Border Patrol to locate them.

Quote:This week, 41-year-old Marlon Enrique “Gordo” Gallegos Rapalo appeared before Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane in McAllen, Texas. The judge sentenced him to six and a half years in prison. Gallegos pleaded guilty to human smuggling charges earlier this year following an arrest in July 2022.

According to information released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, Gallegos was living in the U.S. under asylum protection — meaning that he could not be deported at the time of his multiple offenses. Court documents show that he had been arrested several times and had been sent to prison two times before, once in 2015 and once in 2017, on human smuggling charges. During the sentencing hearing, Crane said Gallegos had “committed a serious abuse of the system” and ordered that he be deported after completing his sentence.

Quote:Brandon Presley, a candidate for Mississippi’s governorship and who positioned himself as a moderate, accepted $10,000 in campaign funds on June 26, 2023, from Pin Ni, the president of Wanxiang America, a CCP-linked company.

A Chinese multinational conglomerate, Wanxiang has ties to the Bidens.

In 2012, Seneca Global Advisors, Hunter Biden’s business, had a client named GreatPoint Energy that partnered with Wanxiang on a $1.25 billion natural gas plant in communist China. Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping was at the signing deal between the two entities.

The deal between GreatPoint Energy and Wanxiang is notable because Hunter’s business, Rosemont Seneca Partners, also invested in the Fisker car company that Wanxiang bought after Fisker went bankrupt in 2013.

“Hunter was listed as a creditor on its [Fisker’s] filings,” the Daily Mail reported. According to the report, Hunter bought one of Fisker’s vehicles for $142,300, but the car had apparently failed to operate. Wanxiang’s American president, Pin Ni, who had met with Joe Biden four days prior, offered to service Hunter’s vehicle.

Before Fisker’s bankruptcy in 2013 and later sale in 2016 to Wanxiang, Joe Biden claimed to broker a massive deal between Fisker Automotives and an automotive plant with a taxpayer-funded loan.

Quote:...Interior Minister Juan Zapata described the killing as a "political crime of a terrorist nature" aimed at sabotaging the August 20 presidential election.

He had added that "those arrested belong to organized crime gangs."

"The national police now have the first arrests of the alleged material authors of this abominable event and will employ all of their operative and investigative capacity to discover the motive of this crime and its intellectual authors," Zapata said.

"All of them, including the deceased, are Colombians," police told the AFP news agency.

During the arrests and raids, police found weapons including a rifle, a submachine gun, four pistols, three grenades, two rifle magazines and four boxes of ammunition. They also found a stolen vehicle.

Quote:The Islamic Republic of Iran is close to possibly testing a nuclear weapons device and has sought to obtain illicit technology for its active atomic weapons program, according to a series of shocking European intelligence reports released in 2023.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) first published translations of the intelligence documents on its website. The Jerusalem Post is the first Israeli newspaper to report on the intelligence findings from the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany.

The most unsettling revelation from the batch of  intelligence data comes from the Netherlands General and Intelligence Security Service (AVID).

The AVID determined the Iranian regime’s fast-moving development of weapons-grade uranium "brings the option of a possible Iranian first nuclear test closer."

According to the Dutch intelligence report, "Last year, Iran proceeded with its nuclear program. The country continues to increase stocks of 20% and 60% enriched uranium. By means of centrifuges, this can be used for further enrichment to the 90% enriched uranium needed for a nuclear weapon."

Quote:The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Friday it had “no information” about President Joe Biden’s plan to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian assets from South Korean banks to pay ransom for five American hostages.
...
“Our government has been closely consulting with involved countries such as the United States and Iran to resolve the frozen fund issue, and hopes that the issue will be resolved amicably,” the South Korean Foreign Ministry said, referring to longstanding negotiations over the Iranian funds.

The Biden plan has been rolled out very awkwardly, with media reports on Thursday sourced to unnamed officials. The only immediate official confirmation came from the Iranian regime, which used its state media to confirm that “Iran’s frozen funds in South Korea will be unblocked and transferred to Qatar,” in exchange for which four of the five American hostages were moved from Iran’s infamous Evin dungeon into house arrest. The fifth hostage was reportedly already under house arrest.

Even the anonymous Biden administration sources who broke the story to major media outlets were only willing to name three of the hostages: Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharhi, and Morad Tahbaz. All three have been held by Iran for years on spurious “espionage” charges. Namazi has been held the longest, having been arrested in October 2015 during a family visit to Tehran.

Administration sources said the process of transferring Iran’s funds from South Korea to Qatar would take several weeks, during which time the hostages will be kept under house arrest. The deal, allegedly mediated by Qatar, along with Oman and Switzerland, will supposedly permit Iran to access its funds only to purchase food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies.

Quote:China's foreign ministry on Sunday condemned a brief U.S. visit by Taiwan Vice President William Lai, saying he was a separatist and "troublemaker through and through" and Beijing would take strong steps to protect its sovereignty.

Lai, front-runner to be Taiwan's next president at elections in January, arrived in New York late on Saturday for what is officially a transit on his way to Paraguay for the inauguration of its president.

China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has repeatedly denounced Lai's trip, which includes another stopover in San Francisco on Wednesday on his way back to Taipei.

In a statement issued shortly after Lai landed in New York on a scheduled flight from Taipei, China's foreign ministry said it opposed any form of visit by "Taiwan independence separatists" to the United States.

"Lai stubbornly adheres to the separatist position of Taiwan independence and is a troublemaker through and through," the ministry said.

Taiwan is the "core of China's core interests" and facts have shown again and again that the reason for the rise in tensions in the Taiwan Strait is Taiwan trying to "rely on the United States to seek independence", it said.

"China is closely following developments and will take resolute and vigorous measures to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Quote:U.S. is pushing Iran to stop selling armed drones to Russia as part of discussions on a broader unwritten understanding between Washington and Tehran to de-escalate tensions, the Financial Times said on Wednesday, citing people briefed on the matter.

The U.S. is pressing Iran to stop selling armed drones to Russia, which Moscow is using in the war in Ukraine, as well as spare parts for the unmanned aircraft, the report said, citing an Iranian official and another person familiar with the talks.
...
The news comes as Washington and Iran are trying to ease tensions and revive broader talks over Iran's nuclear program. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that he would welcome any Iranian steps to de-escalate its "growing nuclear threat."

These discussions have taken place alongside the negotiations on a prisoner exchange deal last week, the newspaper said. Iran allowed four detained U.S. citizens to move into house arrest from Tehran's Evin prison while a fifth was already under home confinement.

Quote:North Korea said that Travis King confessed to crossing into the North because of "inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army," state media reported on Wednesday, the first public acknowledgement of the incident by Pyongyang.

The soldier, Private Travis T. King, dashed into the North while on a civilian tour of the Joint Security Area (JSA) on the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas. US officials have said they believe King crossed the border intentionally.

North Korean investigators have also now concluded that King crossed deliberately and illegally, with the intent to stay in the North or in a third country, state news agency KCNA said.
...
"He also expressed his willingness to seek refugee in the DPRK or a third country, saying that he was disillusioned at the unequal American society."

KCNA said King was "kept under control by soldiers of the Korean People's Army" after his crossing and the investigation is still active.
...
The Pentagon said it could not verify King's comments as reported by KCNA, and remains focused on his safe return. It did not address whether it had heard more details from North Korea.

A spokesman for the United Nations Command (UNC), which oversees the border village where King crossed, said he did not have anything to add to previous statements.

Quote:The official court website of Fulton County, Georgia, published what appeared to be an indictment against former President Donald Trump on Monday before deleting it — a bizarre, unexplained act that at least one critic says violated Trump’s constitutional rights to due process of law.

Reuters first reported that the document had been filed, then had to update its report when the document was removed from the court website and the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis denied that an indictment had yet been issued.

Yet Reuters preserved the initial document, which lists 39 charges against Trump, including the “serious felony” of racketeering. All of the other 38 charges — solicitation of the violation of an oath, false statement, and conspiracy charges — are felonies.

The Fulton County District Attorney’s office said in a statement that no charges had been filed against Trump.

The document was dated Aug. 14 and named Trump, citing the case as “open,” but is no longer available on the court’s website. Reuters was not immediately able to determine why the item was posted or removed.”The Reuters report that those charges were filed is inaccurate. Beyond that we cannot comment,” a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s office said.
...
[Vivek] Ramaswamy advised Trump to file for the immediate dismissal of the charges and the grand jury investigation.

Quote:Trevian Kutti, a Chicago publicist who has worked for Kanye West and other hip-hop artists, was hitherto not known to be associated with Trump or his campaign. Nevertheless, she has found herself swept up in the dragnet orchestrated by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D).

Kutti stands accused of having tried to pressure Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman to report election fraud.

The indictment alleges Kutti was sent to Georgia by a pastor, Stephen Cliffgard Lee, though there is no evidence that the pastor coordinated with others. In addition, Kutti is said to have spoken to the election worker in the presence of police personnel, indicating she probably did not think she was doing anything illegal.

It remains unclear when Kutti worked for Kanye West.

A spokesperson for West said in a statement in 2021 that “Trevian Kutti was not associated with Kanye West or any of his enterprises” at the time in question.

The Fulton County DA’s indictment of Trump hit a major snag Monday after someone posted the official charges online before the grand jury had concluded deliberations.

Quote:The Taliban stormed into Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, on August 15, 2021, after launching a national campaign to oust the government of then-President Ashraf Ghani. The Taliban had originally agreed to a deal with the government of former American President Donald Trump to not attack American assets or maintain ties to other terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda if U.S. troops withdrew from the country by May 1, 2021, but current President Joe Biden violated the deadline and extended the 20-year Afghan war into August, prompting the Taliban to attack.

The Taliban conquered Kabul bloodlessly, as Ghani immediately got on a helicopter out of the country and has yet to return at press time.

Taliban leaders celebrated the anniversary on Tuesday with mass events bringing together the terrorists for poetry, jihad speeches, and other celebrations. While the group canceled a previously scheduled parade in Kandahar, crowds of men supporting the jihadists stormed most major cities, chanting “death to Westerners” and taking over sites that were once occupied by American officials.
...
The Chinese Communist Party was among the first to do so and celebrated the Taliban’s return to power almost immediately after it occurred, lauding the “sunny day in Kabul” through its government propaganda outlets.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry shared the same positive outlook towards the radical Islamist terror group in remarks during its regular briefing on Tuesday.

“Two years on, with the active support of Afghanistan’s neighbors and other countries in the region, the transition in Afghanistan has been generally stable, and the future of the nation is back in the hands of its people — a historic achievement,” spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters. “The interim government [the Taliban] has taken a number of practical measures in recovering its economy, improving people’s livelihood, prohibiting narcotics, fighting corruption and safeguarding security.”

Quote:China announced on Tuesday that it had arrived at a novel solution to the problem of burgeoning unemployment among its young men and women. The jobless rate for China’s young, between the ages of 16 and 24, has been rising steadily for six months. In June it officially hit 21.3 percent, up from 12.2 percent before the pandemic. The unemployment rate was expected to climb even higher as millions of graduates hit the job market in the coming months.

China’s authorities have responded by suspending the publication of data on youth unemployment. Like the old riddle which posits that a tree falling in the forest cannot make a sound if there is no one there to hear it, youth unemployment in China presumably cannot continue to rise if there is no one counting it.

Although this particular application is new, this is really just the latest version of a not uncommon response by China’s authorities to inconvenient facts: conceal them.
...
Many China-watchers already believed unemployment was higher than the official statistics revealed. Zhang Dandan, a Peking University economist, estimated back in March that the unemployment rate was 46.5 percent if you counted the youngsters who had dropped out of the workforce.

...it is doubtful that even sending out consumer stimulus checks would do very much to increase consumption. While much of the rest of the world is battling inflation, China is locked in a deflationary spiral.

Quote:A gang of thieves ransacked an East Los Angeles Nike store over the weekend, stealing an estimated $1,000 in merchandise.

The theft occurred this past Sunday evening when a man and two women entered the Nike Community Store on Whittier Boulevard. The gang began grabbing every piece of merchandise within reach as staff and customers helplessly looked on.
...
At least one of the suspects is seen carrying a trash bag filled with boxes. At one point, he drops the bag and quickly puts the items that spilled out back into it before following two other suspects out of the store.

Police described the suspects as a black male and two black females; all three remain at large.

The theft came just a day after a flash mob ransacked a Nordstrom in the Los Angeles Topanga Mall, making out with over $300,000 in merchandise. Police said that up to 25-50 suspects were involved. The thieves even went as far as to bear spray security before grabbing designer purses and luggage items.

Quote:Brazilian radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Monday that he hopes to see more American investments in Brazil’s green energy projects one week after failing to invite President Joe Biden to an environmental summit despite Biden pledging $500 million to Lula’s Amazon fund.

Lula said that he expected U.S. “green” investments to help both countries “drive the energy transition forward.”

The Brazilian president made his remarks during the latest issue of Conversa con o Presidente (“Talk with the President”), a weekly show broadcast through the state-owned Canal Gov television channel and on both Lula’s and the Brazilian government’s social media accounts.

“[Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando] Haddad showed us that it is possible, through a very strong energy and climate transition, to bring money from abroad for investment here in Brazil,” Lula said. “I hope that the United States is also embedded in this idea.”

Last week, Lula launched the “Growth Acceleration Plan” (PAC), an ambitious program that seeks to attain upwards of 1.7 trillion Brazilian reais ($347.5 billion) over the next four years in Infrastructure works to “fulfill the role of putting the State’s capacity at the service of the Brazilian population’s dreams of a better life.” The program also includes provisions towards Brazil’s “green” energy transition.
...
The PAC program allows foreign financing of works that encourage the expansion of clean energy use in the South American country.
...
“This is the will of many people, both in European countries, in Saudi Arabia, and in the United Arab Emirates,” Lula said.

Quote:Biden said the three nations would establish a communications hotline to discuss responses to threats. He announced the agreements, including what the keaders termed the "Camp David Principles," at the close of his talks with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

"The purpose of our trilateral security cooperation is and will remain to promote and enhance peace and stability throughout the region," they said in a joint statement.

"Our countries are stronger and the world will be safer as we stand together. And I know this is a belief that all three share," Biden said as he opened the meeting.

Biden maintained, as have US, South Korean and Japanese officials, that the summit "was not about China" but was focused on broader security issues.

Yoon noted in particular the threat posed by North Korea, saying the three leaders had agreed to improve "our joint response capabilities to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, which have become sophisticated more than ever."

Quote:William Lai – the frontrunner in Taiwan's presidential election next year and a vocal opponent of Beijing's claims to the island – returned Friday from a trip to Paraguay, during which he stopped in New York and San Francisco.

China has reacted angrily to the US stops, and on Saturday reiterated that Lai was a "troublemaker" while vowing to take "resolute measures... to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity".

The People's Liberation Army "launched joint air and sea patrols and military exercises of the navy and air force around the island of Taiwan" on Saturday, military spokesperson Shi Yi said, according to state media outlet Xinhua.

Taiwan said 42 warplanes had entered its air defence zone since 9 am (0100 GMT), and eight Chinese vessels cooperated in the exercises.

Twenty-six of the warplanes involved crossed the Taiwan Strait median line, the island's ministry of defence said in a statement.

Xinhua said the drills were carried out "in the waters and airspace to the north and southwest of Taiwan Island" to test the PLA's ability "to seize control of air and sea spaces" and fight "in real combat conditions".

Quote:China is reportedly constructing an airstrip on disputed territory that is claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam, according to a Friday report by The Associated Press after analyzing satellite photos of the scene.

The land disputed in question is the South China Sea island. The new airstrip only started to appear last month.

Reports cite the satellite images which show the airstrip stretching across Triton Island, however, the runway itself is reportedly much shorter than others China has built on contested islands, according to the South China Morning Post.

Triton Island is the westernmost and southernmost of the Paracel Islands.

The United States chose not to take a stance on to whom the land is sovereign.

China claims the entire South China Sea as its own, according to the Press, and also reported that the entire runway would be over 2,000 feet (600 meters) long. The runway in question would be able to hold turboprop aircraft and drones but is not suited for bombers or fighter jets.

The island had some buildings and a small harbor belonging to China, but the country has refused to provide the construction work details that were done in the area, the Press reported.

Quote:Twelve years after the triple catastrophe – earthquake, tsunami, reactor meltdown – that struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in 2011, Japan is preparing to release part of the treated wastewater from the stricken plant into the Pacific Ocean this month. A recent article from the daily Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun revealed the upcoming release without specifying a date.

The release of contaminated water by the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has been on the cards since 2018 but it was repeatedly postponed until it finally received endorsement from the International Atomic Energy Agency in early July. After a two-year review, five review missions to Japan, six technical reports and five missions on the ground, the international nuclear watchdog said the discharges of the treated water were consistent with the agency’s safety standards, with “negligible radiological impact to people and the environment”. The green light, which cleared the path for the completion of the project, was greeted with scepticism by some members of the scientific community and with animosity by many local fishermen who fear that consumers will shun their products.
...
To avoid such an accident, the Japanese government has decided to gradually discharge millions of tonnes of water into the Pacific Ocean over the next 30 years. The process is simple: the water is set to be released one kilometre away from the coast of Fukushima Prefecture via underwater tunnel.

Releasing treated wastewater into the ocean is a routine practice for nuclear plants all over the world. Water is usually made to circulate around a nuclear reactor to absorb heat, making it possible to trigger turbines and produce electricity. In the process, the water becomes loaded with radioactive compounds, but it is then treated before being released into the sea or rivers.

Quote:Niger's new military ruler said Saturday a transition of power would not go beyond three years, and warned that any attack on the country would not be easy for those involved.

"Our ambition is not to confiscate power," General Abdourahamane Tiani said in a televised address, adding that an attack on Niger would not be "a walk in the park".

His warning came a day after ECOWAS declared its readiness for armed intervention to restore democratic order in Niger.

In a 12-minute televised speech, Tiani announced the launch of a "national dialogue" which has 30 days to formulate "concrete proposals" to lay "the foundations of a new constitutional life".

The announcement came after an ECOWAS delegation arrived in Niamey earlier Saturday for talks to try to defuse the political crisis in Niger.

Quote:The devastating fires in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories are just the latest in a summer of dramatic wildfires across the country that have left millions of acres scorched.

According to estimates, 19,000 people were evacuated from Yellowknife, the Northwest Territories' capital, over 48 hours, its environment minister Shane Thompson said late Friday.

The city, home to some 20,000, was largely a ghost town following the largest ever evacuation from the region.

More than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) south in British Columbia, fire also bore down on Kelowna, a city of 150,000 people in the Okanagan Valley.

Blazes have already destroyed several properties in West Kelowna, separated by Okanagan Lake from its larger, eponymous neighbor.
...
Overall, the number of people under evacuation order in British Columbia was 15,000, Emergency Management Minister Bowinn Ma said, according to Canadian media.

Quote:The regional government for the Canary Islands said that 4,000 more people were ordered to evacuate on Saturday. Those were in addition to the 4,500 people who on Friday were forced to move out of harm’s way on the Atlantic island that is home to around a million people and is also a popular tourist destination.

That figure of more than 8,000 evacuees is expected to rise, and perhaps sharply.

Emergency services for the Canary Islands said later that the number of evacuees “could surpass 26,000” according to provisional calculations based on the island’s census. The service added that all those people who needed somewhere to take refuge would be directed to shelters.

The regional government said that “the fire is beyond our capacity to extinguish it” due to hot and dry conditions and high winds that have fanned the huge flames. Firefighters have been unable to establish a perimeter around the blaze that has consumed at least 5,000 hectares (12,355 acres)
...
Some 265 firefighters battled the blaze with the help of 19 aircraft, which included units from the mainland sent to help. More reinforcements are on the way, the central government said.

The fire is located in a steep and craggy mountain area with pine trees, with several municipalities on its flanks. Access for firefighters is extremely difficult.

Quote:General Jean-Louis Georgelin, 74, died on Friday in the Pyrenees mountain range straddling the France-Spain border, said the prosecutor's office in the southern French city of Foix.

A mountain rescue team deployed to the Mont-Valier peak "discovered the body of a man who has been formally identified as General Georgelin", a spokesman said, adding that an accident was the likely cause.

Notre-Dame has lost "the overseer of its rebirth" and France "one of its great servants", President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter, now rebranded as "X".
...
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo hailed Georgelin on the same social media platform for creating "the human and organisational conditions for successfully completing the reconstruction of Notre-Dame".

A five-star general who was the French army's chief-of-staff between 2006 and 2010, Georgelin supervised operations in Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, the Balkans and Lebanon.

Quote:Iranian IRGC leaders bragged over the weekend about the increased strength of their proxies and the successes they believe they are having against the US and Israel.

Hossein Salami, the commander of the IRGC, and Ismail Qaani, the IRGC’s Quds Force commander, both made comments on Saturday that were reported in Iranian pro-regime media. The comments illustrate how Iran is positioning itself today in the region by seeking to support Palestinian attacks on Israel and also strengthening Hezbollah. 

Qaani said that Iran is witnessing to a “decline of the Zionist regime in the region” and that the Iranian-backed proxies' “axis of resistance has the upper hand over the Zionist regime.”

He then noted that Hezbollah had succeeded last year in threatening Israel and forcing a maritime agreement on Israel so that “Hezbollah was able to get its right to gas from the occupying regime of Jerusalem, and this would not have been possible without the resistance of Lebanon's Hezbollah.”

This is important because reports last year claimed that the gas deal between Israel and Lebanon was going to benefit Lebanon. Iran is now admitting that the gas deal was primarily executed to benefit Hezbollah and that Iran’s hand was likely behind Hezbollah escalating tensions before the deal was made. The deal was made before Israel’s elections last year and since then Hezbollah threats have increased.