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Quote:The manic Manhattan arts professor who held a machete to a Post reporter’s neck and threatened to “chop” him up flashed a brazen smile Thursday after law enforcement sources say she was slapped with harassment and menacing charges.

A smirking Shellyne Rodriguez, 45, held her head high as she was escorted out of the 43rd Precinct in the Bronx in handcuffs just after 11 a.m. — several hours after turning herself in over Tuesday’s caught-on-camera ordeal.

The professor had her slew of tattoos on full display, including “FTP” (for “F–k the police”) inked on her fingers, as well as an image of brass knuckles and the boxing term “southpaw” scrawled across her hand.

Earlier, Rodriguez had worn black sunglasses and was flanked by a handful of supporters as she walked into the precinct to surrender to cops.

Rodriguez’s arrest follows Tuesday’s shocking chain of events, which unfolded when the veteran Post reporter knocked on her apartment door to ask her about viral footage of her cursing out Hunter College pro-life students.

Quote:Many major store chains have blamed a massive surge in theft as a growing challenge, as left-wing prosecutors restrict law enforcement from arresting shoplifters nationwide.

During the company’s first-quarter earnings report meeting on May 25, Dollar Tree CFO Jeff Davis told investors that the retailer expects to “improve our performance on shrink through defensive merchandising efforts, real estate optimization, and perhaps higher prices to compensate for areas of systematically higher shrink” over time.

Davis also told investors that the retailer’s “mix of discretionary will normalize” over time as well.
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Dollar Store reported a 14-cent loss from “shrink” for the first quarter, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“Shrink” is the retail industry’s code for the difference between the number of items a store has according to its records and the number it has on hand, including shoplifting and other inventory losses.

Davis expects that the “combined and continuing full-year earnings impact of unfavorable consumables mix and higher shrink is expected to be approximately $0.55 per share in 2023.”
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CEO Richard Dreilling said they were considering “defensive merchandising,”  a retail industry term for locking up store products and requiring customers to ask an employee to retrieve them.

He also suggested other solutions like “store closures” and “government action at the local level.”

Quote:Late on May 25, the House General Investigating Committee filed 20 articles of impeachment against the state’s top prosecutor. The accusations against Paxton, 60, include misuse of official powers, bribery, and abuse of public trust over several years.

“There is a reason CNN called Texas ‘a legal graveyard for Biden policies,’” Paxton said in a statement posted on Twitter. “I am doing exactly what the voters elected me to do. It is a sad day for Texas as we witness the corrupt political establishment unite in this illegitimate attempt to overthrow the will of the people and disenfranchise the voters of our state.”

The House of Representatives will vote on the committee’s recommendation on May 27.
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He accused the committee members of attempting to oust him from office over false claims.

“Just yesterday, four liberal lawyers put forward a report to the House General Committee based on hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims. Today, that Committee has asked the House of Representatives to use their unsubstantiated report to overturn the results of a free and fair election,” he continued.

Paxton said that neither he nor his office had been given an opportunity to address the allegations.
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On May 23, Paxton accused House Speaker Dade Phelan of being drunk while presiding on the House floor on May 19, calling for the fourth-term Republican lawmaker’s resignation over his conduct.

The speaker’s office said Paxton’s call for Phelan’s resignation was motivated by the House Ethics Committee’s investigation of a $3.3 million whistleblower settlement the attorney general reached with four former employees who accused him of corruption.

Phelan did not respond to Paxton’s allegations of misconduct.

Quote:Expert testimony before a House committee outlined flaws in the Biden administration’s gas stove tests and the potential illegality of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) upcoming rules for the appliances.
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During the hearing, witnesses Matthew Agen, Chief Regulatory Counsel for Energy at the American Gas Association, and Kenny Stein, Vice President for Policy of the Institute for Energy Research, outlined problems with the way the Department of Energy was approaching their rulemaking process.

During his testimony (pdf) Agen argued that the DOE’s analysis projects minimal cost savings for consumers, amounting to a meager $1.51 per year for gas cooktops.

Agen also contends that the proposed rule violates the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) by potentially making gas cooktops unavailable in the market and argues the administration exhibited a predetermined bias against gas burners compared to electric ones.

According to Agen, the procedures used by testers were inherently biased, including the use of different water quantities, skewing the results against high-input rate burners commonly found in gas cooktops.
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Stein made similar claims (pdf), saying that “The Department of Energy’s proposed rulemaking on conservation standards for gas stoves is not a sincere attempt to improve efficiency.”

According to the Institute for Energy Research vice president, the DOE’s rulemaking is “yet another piece of this administration’s whole of government approach to targeting energy sources that it disapproves of for ideological reasons.”

According to Stein, the DOE put together a test group of 21 gas cooktops with important features. The witness asserted that the agency has suggested standards so strict that only one out of 21 gas cooktops meets it. Stein also asserted that the DOE has not tried or told the public about any other gas cooktops that meet the proposed standard and have the necessary features.

Quote:The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has sharply rebuked leaders in Moscow on May 23 saying Russia’s 15-month-long invasion of Ukraine had failed to achieve its primary aims.

A private military company with close ties to the Kremlin, the Wagner Group has led much of the fighting in Ukraine, especially in the eastern Donbas region.

Prigozhin, known for his biting criticisms of Russia’s military establishment, made the claims in an interview with Konstantin Dolgov, a popular pro-Kremlin blogger.

After expounding his views on the factors that led to the conflict, Prigozhin reiterated the invasion’s chief aims, one of which was the “demilitarization” of Ukraine.

But according to the Wagner chief, Moscow’s “special military operation” has only served to flood Ukraine with Western-supplied arms and equipment.

Since the invasion began early last year, Ukraine’s Western allies have provided Kyiv with vast amounts of sophisticated arms and equipment.

These have included HIMARS rocket launchers, advanced combat tanks, and American-made Patriot air-defense batteries, among other high-tech weapons systems.

Quote:The hearing, scheduled for June 21, will follow Durham’s closed-door briefing with the House Intelligence Committee on June 20.

Durham was appointed in October 2020 by then-Attorney General William Barr to conduct an independent inquiry of whether the law was violated by investigators in the Trump-Russia probe, which the FBI internally dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane.”
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In his report, Durham noted that there were clear discrepancies between the FBI’s handling of election interference allegations concerning Trump and those related to his political opponent, Hillary Clinton.

He revealed that in late 2014, the FBI learned from a credible informant that a foreign government was planning to send an unnamed individual to contribute to Clinton’s anticipated presidential campaign to “gain influence with Clinton should she win the presidency.”

The information was independently corroborated by the FBI and a full counterintelligence investigation was opened. However, when expedited authorization was sought for a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) surveillance order, the application remained “in limbo” at FBI Headquarters for about four months.

The reason for the delay, an agent told Durham, was because “everyone was ‘super more careful’ and ‘scared with the big name [Clinton]’ involved.” The agent added that the FBI was “‘tippy-toeing’ around HRC because there was a chance she would be the next President.”
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Yet when it came to the allegations against Trump, Durham found that the FBI had little evidence to support opening an investigation, but did so anyway, relying heavily on unsubstantiated information provided or funded by Trump’s political opponents.

Durham also noted that the Crossfire Hurricane investigators pursued a FISA surveillance order against Trump campaign associate Carter Page despite acknowledging that there was likely no probable cause to suspect he was a foreign agent, and that they disregarded “significant” exculpatory information that “should have prompted investigative restraint and re-examination.”

But even though his overall report reads as a scathing indictment of the FBI’s conduct, Durham recommended against “any wholesale changes in the guidelines and policies that the Department [of Justice] and the FBI now have in place.”

New rules and regulations, he reasoned, would be a “fruitless exercise” if agents were not already committed to the bureau’s guiding principles of “Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity” and protecting the American people.

FBI Wrote:The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time.

Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented.

This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect.

Quote:Barcelona residents are saying enough to the mass amounts of tourists pouring into the top destination city along Spain’s northeastern coastline and have called on officials to take counteractive measures.

As tourist rates once again near pre-pandemic levels, locals are pushing back with signs reading, "Go home" and "Tourism kills neighborhoods" sprawling across city districts, including major sightseeing locations like the La Rambla boulevard and the city’s opera house, reported Reuters Friday.

The push to limit the number of tourists able to pour into the Mediterranean city, particularly by cruise ship, comes as Spaniards gear up for local and regional elections set for Sunday.

Quote:"We like tourism, to have visitors, but tourist overcrowding triggers problems of mobility, speculation and gentrification that put our local way of life at risk. Therefore, we have to regulate it," Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau told Reuters.

The far-left mayor, who is seeking a third term, has made regulating tourism a cornerstone of her campaign as the issue has politically taken off across the country.

Quote:Iran has debuted the latest model of its infamous, liquid-fueled Khorramshahr ballistic missile.

The Islamic Republic announced the new military technology Tuesday at a press event in Tehran.

"One of the prominent characteristics of this missile is its ability to evade radar detection and penetrate enemy air defense systems, thanks to its low radar signature," Defense Minister Gen. Mohammad Reza Ashtiani told the press.

He added, "This missile has the capability to utilize various warheads for different missions."

Iranian military officials claim the missile, the Khorramshahr-4, can strike within a range of 1,240 miles with a 3,300-pound warhead.

Quote:Polish lawmakers on Friday approved a contentious draft law on Russia’s alleged influence in Poland that is targeting the opposition and may affect the outcome of fall parliamentary elections.

The new law would establish a state commission for investigating Russian influences in Poland. It is generally seen as targeting former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, now the main opposition Civic Coalition leader, at a time when early campaigning for the fall elections is underway.

The lower house, or Sejm, voted 234-219 with one abstention to approve the law proposed by the right-wing ruling party. It still needs approval from President Andrzej Duda to take effect. It was not clear whether Duda will approve it.

Tusk, who is not a parliament member, was present in the chamber during the vote.

He later said those who voted for the law were "cowards" who have "broken good parliamentary manners and the fundamental principles of democracy, out of fear of losing their power, out of fear of the people, out of fear of responsibility (they should face) after they lose the elections."

He said the opposition has a strategy ready for the commission and called on the Poles to walk with him in pro-democracy marches June 4, the anniversary of partly free elections in 1989 that led to the ouster of communists from power in Poland.

Quote:Guatemala’s top court blocked the candidacy of another presidential hopeful on Friday, this time ending the campaign of poll leader Carlos Pineda for alleged violations of electoral law.

The Constitutional Court rejected Pineda’s appeal after electoral authorities had ruled him ineligible only a month before the first round of voting June 25.

"The Constitutional Court has put an end to this country’s democracy," Pineda told the AP in a phone interview.

"The co-optation of the state prevailed, the rein of corruption and the dictatorship," Pineda said. "It’s incredible. I feel like dead."

Pineda said his final hope rests with the people of Guatemala, that the majority would cast a null vote and that new elections would be held.

Pineda is the third presidential candidate ruled ineligible to run. The court rejected the final appeals of candidate Roberto Arzú on Thursday, and previously had ruled against Thelma Cabrera because of a paperwork issue with her running mate.

A fourth candidate, Edmond Mulet, also faces the possibility of exclusion, as he awaits a decision from the court regarding his candidacy. The Attorney General’s office called for his investigation for allegedly starting his campaign too early by making comments against the persecution of journalists.

Quote:Just after the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, the Chinese regime announced that it is banning products from U.S. memory chip maker Micron, citing national security risks. The move has put the U.S.-led coalition against Beijing to the test, experts say.

Beijing’s move to ban Micron was intended to use the market vacated by Micron to divide the United States from its allies, and South Korea was likely to be its main target, according to experts.

Chinese authorities on May 21 urged local operators of “critical information structure” to stop purchasing from U.S.-based chipmaker Micron Technology Inc., citing “major” security risks while not providing any details.

In response, the White House has condemned the Chinese regime for its ban on purchases of memory chips from Micron, calling it retaliation over a recent Group of Seven (G-7) statement, but said Beijing’s sanction wouldn’t affect Washington’s efforts to improve communication with China.

The Chinese regime’s ban on purchases of Micron’s chips over security concerns is “just baseless,” John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesman, stated at a May 24 press briefing.

Micron is the world’s third-largest memory chip maker after South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix. The company’s main products are DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) and NAND Flash (Flash Memory), widely used in cell phones, PCs, servers, automobiles, and many essential technologies.

NYPost Wrote:WASHINGTON (AP) — With days to spare before a potential first-ever government default, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached final agreement Sunday on a deal to raise the nation’s debt ceiling and worked to ensure enough Republican and Democratic votes to pass the measure in the coming week.

The Democratic president and Republican speaker spoke with each other Sunday evening as negotiators rushed to draft the bill text so lawmakers can review compromises that neither the hard-right or left flank is likely to support. Instead, the leaders are working to gather backing from the political middle as Congress hurries toward votes before a June 5 deadline to avert a damaging federal default.

“Good news,” Biden declared Sunday evening at the White House.

“The agreement prevents the worst possible crisis, a default, for the first time in our nation’s history,” he said. “Takes the threat of a catastrophic default off the table.”

The president urged both parties in Congress to come together for swift passage. “The speaker and I made clear from the start that the only way forward was a bipartisan agreement,” he said.

The compromise announced late Saturday includes spending cuts but risks angering some lawmakers as they take a closer look at the concessions. Biden told reporters at the White House upon his return from Delaware that he was confident the plan will make it to his desk.

McCarthy, too, was confident in remarks at the Capitol: “At the end of the day, people can look together to be able to pass this.”

The days ahead will determine whether Washington is again able to narrowly avoid a default on U.S. debt, as it has done many times before, or whether the global economy enters a potential crisis.

In the United States, a default could cause financial markets to freeze up and spark an international financial crisis. Analysts say millions of jobs would vanish, borrowing and unemployment rates would jump, and a stock-market plunge could erase trillions of dollars in household wealth. It would all but shatter the $24 trillion market for Treasury debt.

Quote:New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) will soon begin housing border crossers and illegal aliens in a previously closed Harlem jail as the city has had to deal with the arrival of more than 70,000 migrants since the spring of last year.

According to NY1 Spectrum News, Adams has been given permission by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) to move forward with plans to transform the old Lincoln Correctional Center — a 10,000 square foot facility — in Harlem into a migrant shelter.

The jail was closed in 2019 by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).

Adams’ office said in a statement that the jail would become a migrant “emergency respite center” and that no border crossers and illegal aliens would be held in actual jail cells.

“We’re grateful to the state for providing this site and partnering with the city to open this space as a temporary site for asylum seekers as New York City continues to face this humanitarian crisis,” Adams’ office said in a statement.

The latest move comes as Adams has contracted with the owners of New York City’s iconic Roosevelt Hotel, which closed following economic shutdowns from the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, to begin housing thousands of border crossers and illegal aliens in the hotel.

The annual cost to New York City taxpayers will be $75 million.

Quote:NATO-led troops and police clashed with protesters in Northern Kosovo Monday amid an ongoing standoff between ethnic Albanian authorities and local ethnic Serbs who ignored warnings not to seize municipality buildings.

The violence comes after Kosovo's police raided Serb-dominated areas in the region's north and seized local municipality buildings over the weekend. The demonstrations have led to injuries on both sides, which more than two dozen NATO troops injured.

Serbia, which maintains close contact with ethnic Serbs, raised combat readiness of its troops stationed near the border and warned it would intervene if Serbs in Kosovo are attacked again.

The increasingly chaotic situation has fueled fears of a renewal of the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo that claimed more than 10,000 lives and left more than 1 million homeless.
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Ethnic Albanian rebels launched a rebellion in 1998 to rid the country of Serbian rule. Belgrade's brutal response prompted a NATO intervention in 1999, which forced Serbia to pull out and cede control to international peacekeepers.
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Last month, Serbs boycotted local elections in northern Kosovo, where they represent a majority. Newly-elected ethnic Albanian mayors moved into their offices with the help of Kosovo's riot police last Friday. Serbs tried to prevent them from taking over the premises, but the police fired tear gas to disperse them.

Quote:China’s new ambassador to the United States has called on his Chinese compatriots and Chinese students in the United States to work with the Chinese Embassy to serve communist China in his open letters published on the embassy’s official website.

Upon his arrival on May 24, the new ambassador, Xie Feng, published the letters in both English and Chinese. In one letter titled “To Fellow Compatriots in the United States,” Xie directly addressed Chinese Americans and Chinese expats in the United States on behalf of the motherland, trying to invoke nationalistic or ethnic sentiment with phrases such as “blood is thicker than water.”

He called on the Chinese community in the United States to help the regime improve U.S.–Sino relations as defined by Xi Jinping, leader of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and to serve as “a bridge that connects the two countries” because that community has “a stake in China-U.S. relations.”
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“A China marching toward modernity is a boon to the Chinese people and to countries across the world,” he wrote. “You are most welcome to visit China often to experience the progress of the country and find opportunities there for self-fulfillment.”

At the end of the letter, Xie expressed his desire to expand his connections in the Chinese community in the United States.
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Xie told Chinese students in the United States to “stay united” in “loving [China] and studying abroad to serve the motherland,” and to work with the Chinese Embassy. He told them, “Tell China’s story well to your American friends.” “Tell China’s Story Well” is the Chinese communist regime’s overseas propaganda slogan to push the CCP’s narrative of its rule in China to the world.

Quote:A leaked essay written by a police officer in Qingtian county of China’s eastern Zhejiang Province covers details of how the county’s police conduct long-arm overseas policing in collaboration with Chinese consulates.

Yan Huarong, the author of the essay, was chief of the Qingtian County Police Bureau in 2019 when the essay was published, according to the official website of Lishui city.

Yan’s article, titled “Exploration and Practice of New Age Fengqiao Experience in Foreign Countries—A Case Study of Qingtian County,” depicts how the county’s police have carried out its long-arm policing in foreign countries by mobilizing overseas Chinese people of Qingtian origin.

The so-called “Fengqiao experience” refers to the practice of Fengqiao township authorities “of mobilizing the masses and strengthening dictatorship over class enemies,” which was applauded by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) back in the Mao era in the 1960s. Fengqiao is a town in Zhejiang Province.

In 2013, the CCP’s current leader Xi Jinping bragged about Fengqiao’s way of dictatorship as the experience of “relying on the masses to solve conflicts locally.”

Yan’s article boasts about learning from Fengqiao’s experience and setting up huge policing networks in foreign countries by mobilizing Qingtian-born overseas Chinese people to carry out policing on foreign soil.

Quote:Malaysia’s maritime agency has detained a Chinese ship and its crew members for illegal anchoring in its waters and found it was carrying a cannon shell believed to be from a British World War II-era warship wreck in the South China Sea.

The agency said the bulk carrier, which is registered in Fuzhou, China, was detained on May 28 for failing to show a permit to anchor in the waters of Malaysia’s Johor state, The Star reported.

“Inspection of the vessel found 32 crew members consisting of 21 men from China, 10 men from Bangladesh, and one local man,” Johor Maritime Director First Adm. Nurul Hizam Zakaria said on May 29.

The agency found the shell during an inspection of the ship, which may be related to a previous seizure by police of unexploded ordnance (UXO) at a private scrapyard in Johor, Zakaria stated.

“We believe the UXO is related to the HMS Prince of Wales case that was reported on May 19,” he said.

The maritime agency will cooperate with the police and other relevant agencies to determine whether the shell came from the World War II vessel, Zakaria said.

The New Straits Times earlier reported that illegal salvage operators were caught looting steel from the wrecks of the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, which were sunk in 1941 by Japanese torpedoes.

Quote:Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is a wanted man in Russia for comments he made while visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday.

Russia's Interior Ministry put out a warrant for Graham's arrest on Monday in response to an edited video released by Zelenskyy's office in which Graham praised U.S. support for Ukraine's defense and noted that Russians are dying as Ukraine fights for its freedom.

In the video, Graham noted that "the Russians are dying" and described the U.S. military assistance to the country as "the best money we’ve ever spent."

While Graham appeared to have made the remarks in different parts of the conversation, the short video by Ukraine’s presidential office put them next to each other, causing outrage in Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented Sunday by saying that "it’s hard to imagine a greater shame for the country than having such senators," according to the Associated Press.

Russia's Investigative Committee moved to open a criminal investigation against Graham and the Interior Ministry followed up with a warrant for his arrest.

Graham considers the arrest warrant to be a "Badge of Honor."

Quote:Saudi Arabia said it executed two Bahraini men on Monday after being convicted of belonging to a militant group wanting to destabilize the two Mideast kingdoms. Amnesty International had criticized their trial as being "grossly unfair."

The Saudi Interior Ministry's announcement, carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, identified the men as Jaafar Sultan and Sadeq Thamer.

Last year, Amnesty said the men were detained in May 2015 and held incommunicado for three-and-a-half months.

The Saudi statement said that the Specialized Criminal Court convicted the two men of belonging to a militant group — headed by a man wanted by the Bahrani authorities — spreading chaos and smuggling explosives to be used inside Saudi Arabia. The statement did not identify the group or their leader.
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The execution took place in Saudi Arabia's predominantly Shiite Eastern Province.

Quote:A Libyan court Monday sentenced 23 suspected Islamic State group militants to death for launching deadly attacks that killed dozens of people, including Egyptian Coptic Christians.

The appeals court in the western city of Misrata also sentenced 14 other militants to life in prison who were convicted on the same charges, which include destruction of police facilities and public property.

The court sentenced nine defendants to between three and 12 years in prison. It acquitted five suspects.
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Hundreds of alleged former Islamic State fighters remain incarcerated in Libyan prisons, many of whom are awaiting trial.

Quote:At least nine people – including minors – were injured Memorial Day after shots rang out near the beach boardwalk in Hollywood, Florida.

Police responded to a call just before 6:45 p.m. local time regarding multiple people shot near Johnson St. Officers rendered aid and the victims were transported to Memorial Regional Hospital and Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital.

Police said the shooting stemmed from an altercation between two groups. One person of interest has been detained and another remains at large, police said. A department spokesperson said the suspect at large is believed to be a Black male with dreads, a black short sleeve shirt, and camo shorts.

Videos circulating online shows a packed crowd scrambling on the beach boardwalk after shots rang out.

Police said there would be a heavy presence of officers as the investigation continues. Officials were also setting up an area for family members to reunite.

Quote:House Republicans gathered in the Capitol building to discuss the debt ceiling deal and gave McCarthy a round of applause. The California Republican said he would give Republicans time to talk about the debt limit deal, otherwise known as the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

The House will tentatively vote on the legislation Wednesday.

The California Republican emphasized that the debt deal would allow Republicans to have more leverage during this fall’s spending bill fight, something that conservatives such as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) have noted.

Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA) said the IRS will not hire any agents as a result of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The debt limit legislation reduces the IRS’s budget by $1.4 billion, and the compromise struck between McCarthy and President Joe Biden for future appropriations bills would also reduce IRS funding in fiscal year 2024 by $10 billion and fiscal year 2025 by $10 billion.

Graves, who was one of the chief negotiators with the Biden White House, received a standing ovation when he relayed that the White House complained that Democrats did not receive any priority spending or legislation in the bill.

Quote:China on Monday rejected a request from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to meet his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore this coming weekend, according to the Pentagon.

The rejection comes despite a “weekslong effort” by the U.S. to secure a meeting with Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu at the annual conference, which included a letter from Austin to Li, according to the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
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“Overnight, the PRC informed the U.S. that they have declined our early May invitation for Secretary Austin to meet with PRC Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu in Singapore this week,” Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder said in a statement. “The Department believes strongly in the importance of maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication between Washington and Beijing to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict.”

The Chinese Embassy Spokesman Liu Pengyu told the WSJ that the U.S. was “seeking to suppress China through all possible means and continue imposing sanctions on Chinese officials, institutions and companies.”

“Is there any sincerity in and significance of any communication like this?” he added.

While Austin was rebuffed, other officials have been able to recently meet with their counterparts.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo met with her counterpart last week.

Quote:Reade made her defection known in an interview with the pro-Vladimir Putin outlet Sputnik during a press conference.

“I’m still kind of in a daze a bit but I feel very good,” Reade said. “I feel very surrounded by protection and safety.”

According to The Guardian, Tara Reade was joined by Maria Butina, “a convicted Russian agent jailed in the US but now a member of parliament in Russia.”

In March of 2020, Tara Reade claimed that then-senator Joe Biden sexually assaulted her while she served as an aide in his Senate offices during the Clinton administration. Shortly thereafter, she detailed her account in multiple interviews and filed a criminal complaint against the former vice president with the Washington, D.C., police department.

A former neighbor of Reade and Reade’s brother have both publicly stated that Reade told them of the alleged assault in the 1990s. Evidence also suggests that Reade’s mother called into CNN’s Larry King in the 1990s to complain about a prominent senator with whom her daughter had “problems.”

Biden has denied the accusation.

Quote:The policy proposal, contained in one of his Agenda 47 videos his campaign released, was obtained exclusively by Breitbart News ahead of its public release.

“As part of my plan to secure the border, on day one of my new term in office I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law going forward the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship,” Trump says in the slightly more than three-minute-long video.

Trump argues that birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens serves as a “magnet” and an “incentive” for future prospective migrants to attempt to enter the country illegally.

“Joe Biden has launched an illegal foreign invasion of our country allowing a record number of illegal aliens to storm across our borders,” Trump says in the video. “From all over the world, they came. Under Biden’s current policies, even though these millions of illegal border crossers have entered the country unlawfully, all of their future children will become automatic U.S. citizens. Can you imagine? They’ll be eligible for welfare, taxpayer-funded healthcare, the right to vote, chain migration, and countless other government benefits, many of which will also profit the illegal alien parents. This policy is a reward for breaking the laws of the United States and is obviously a magnet helping draw the flood of illegals across our borders. They come by the millions and millions and millions.”

..."My policy will choke off a major incentive for continued illegal immigration, deter more migrants from coming, and encourage many of the aliens Joe Biden has unlawfully let into our country to go back to their home countries. They must go back."

Quote:Moscow’s war in Ukraine made itself felt at home again this morning as a wave of drones attacked the Russian capital with air defences taking on what are described to be at least eight unmanned aerial vehicles. Moscow’s mayor said citizens woke up Tuesday morning to the sound of explosions across the city.

The Russian Ministry of Defence officially claims to have disabled or shot down the whole attack, although several buildings in Moscow were damaged early Tuesday, either by drones that snuck through Russia’s defences or by falling wreckage.

The drone attack, which appeared to closely resemble the now almost-nightly drone attacks launched by Russia against Ukrainian was a “Kyiv regime… terrorist attack”, Moscow thundered as they revealed the incursion. Ukraine, for its part, stuck to its usual policy of officially denying involvement but expressed pleasure at seeing it happen.

Russia’s account of the attack states of eight drones three were downed by electronic countermeasures and five by anti-aircraft fire.

State media released a flurry of statements on the attack in the hours after the blasts, insisting there were no casualties and no hospitalisations, and that the city’s airports were operating normally this morning. Damage to buildings in the city was “minor”, the official statements insisted.

Quote:Justice, who is also a GOP Senate candidate hoping to unseat Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), is the latest to experience political targeting from Biden’s DOJ, as it has filed a civil complaint against his family’s coal empire — over a dozen coal businesses ran or owned by his son Jay Justice — citing “repeated violations of the law” in hopes of recovering what the assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division Todd Kim described as “penalties they owe as a result of those violations.”
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U.S. Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh for the Western District of Virginia claimed defendants have “engaged in over 130 violations of federal law, thereby posing health and safety risks to the public and the environment” over the past five years, concluding the Justice family businesses “failed to remedy those violations and were ordered over 50 times to cease mining activities until their violations were abated.”
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According to a press release detailing the civil action, total penalties and fees come to roughly $7.6 million.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) was among the first to accuse the Biden DOJ of sheer abuse of power, connecting the announcement to Justice’s recent candidacy for Senate.
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“Did anyone really think that Biden’s weaponization of the DOJ to target his political opponents was going to stop with Trump?” Donald Trump Jr. asked.
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“Utterly brazen,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) remarked. “When I said the Biden DOJ is the most political & partisan DOJ in history, I wasn’t kidding…”
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The DOJ’s action comes on the heels of recent polling showing Justice leading Manchin by double digits as he hopes to unseat the Democrat to help Republicans take back the majority in the Senate:

Quote:The FBI confirmed the existence of an informant file the bureau refuses to provide Congress that allegedly links President Joe Biden to a $5 million bribery scheme, a confirmation the Justice Department previously did not deny, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) revealed Wednesday.

Comer and FBI Director Christopher Wray conducted a scheduled meeting Wednesday in which  the bureau chief confirmed the file’s existence. The file allegedly details an arrangement involving an exchange of money for policy decisions between now-President Biden and a foreign national.

But Comer said the FBI still refuses to provide the subpoenaed, unclassified file to Congress, triggering Comer to double down on his threat to hold Wray in contempt of Congress. Instead, the FBI reportedly said Comer could view the document at the FBI’s headquarters.
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“While Director Wray – after a month of refusing to even acknowledge that the form existed – has offered to allow us to see the documents in person at FBI headquarters, we have been clear that anything short of producing these documents to the House Oversight Committee is not in compliance with the subpoena,” Comer continued. “If the FBI fails to hand over the FD-1023 form as required by the subpoena, the House Oversight Committee will begin contempt of Congress proceedings.”

On Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) warned Wray that if he failed to provide the file, he would begin the process to hold Wray in contempt of Congress.

Comer’s probe into the Biden family found that the Biden family business over the course of several years received at least $10 million from business schemes in Romania and China. A total of nine Biden family members received payments from the family foreign business ventures, including two of Joe Biden’s grandchildren, he revealed in May.

Quote:Voice of America News (VOA) reported on Tuesday that while the international community is nervously monitoring the brutal war between factions of the Sudanese junta and scrambling to deal with the ensuing humanitarian disaster, Communist China is moving full speed ahead with plans to “advance its own interests” in Sudan’s oil and mineral resources.

Fighting broke out on April 15 between Sudanese army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former junta partner, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The two appear to be evenly matched in the power struggle, leading to a grinding war of attrition in which fighting scarcely slows down for so-called “cease-fires.” Burhan and Daglo have said the conflict will continue until one of them is dead.

The United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) said last week that over 1.3 million people have been displaced by the fighting in Sudan, with hundreds of thousands fleeing across the border into Egypt, South Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, and Libya. Sudan’s hospitals and clinics are overwhelmed with casualties, and many facilities have been deliberately attacked or captured by the warring factions.

VOA noted that China is maintaining a “neutral stance” in the conflict while protecting its considerable investments.
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China also has major interests in Sudanese mining and agriculture, including gold mines, and it covets Sudanese territory as a key element of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), because China needs Red Sea ports. Even as the ruling junta makes war against itself, China also sees Sudan as an important piece of the African political puzzle.

Quote:The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Wednesday announced that it quietly withdrew from a U.S.-led security coalition called the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) two months ago.

The government claimed the reason behind the departure was an “ongoing evaluation of effective security cooperation with all partners,” but some speculated the move was a sign of a growing rift between Gulf Arab states and America after President Joe Biden drove Saudi Arabia into the arms of China and Iran.

Iran International noted on Wednesday that the withdrawal time frame provided by the UAE “roughly corresponds with Saudi Arabia’s decision in early March to restore diplomatic relations with Iran, which has been much discussed as a shift in Riyadh’s regional policies.”
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It was also the next step in a Saudi realignment away from the U.S. that began when Biden vowed during his 2020 campaign to make the Saudis into a “pariah” among nations. Biden wound up begging the Saudis for oil after his approval ratings plummeted in office, but Riyadh evidently did not forget the insult.

The CMF is headquartered in Bahrain, along with the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. It is commanded by the same U.S. Navy Vice Admiral who oversees the Fifth Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT). The deputy commander is a commodore in the U.K. Royal Navy.

Before the UAE withdrew, CMF had 34 members, who volunteered to help with “countering illicit non-state actors on the high seas and promoting security, stability, and prosperity across approximately 3.2 million square miles of international waters.”
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Iran International suggested the UAE and other regional powers have been uneasy ever since the Trump administration backed down from military retaliation against Iran for using its Yemeni proxies to bomb Saudi oil facilities in 2019.

The UAE was reportedly even more frustrated by the Biden administration’s passivity in the face of escalating Iranian assaults on Gulf shipping.

Quote:President Joe Biden’s “senior advisor on migration” has taken over the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) agency and is promising to help extract more poor migrants from their home countries for transport to cities and towns in the United States.

“Our goal at IOM is to enable the choice to migrate,” ION chief Amy Pope told radio host Steve Inskeep at National Public Radio. The migrants are needed to replace missing populations in Midwest states where populations are falling.
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“Migration is not the answer to the [economic and civic] problems that are plaguing these cities and the people in these cities,” responded Jessica Vaughan, the policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies. “The [problems facing these cities and towns] have much more to do with the [development and economic] policies being enacted at the local level .”

The elites’ policy of transplanting poor people from foreign countries harms American families. It harms families by cutting wages, spiking rents, distracting K-12 schools from the needs of American kids, and diverting voters’ attention from the economic policies that favor coastal elites.

The IOM is a Switzerland-based branch of the multinational United Nations organization and uses U.S. taxpayer dollars to extract, feed, and transport many migrants from their poor countries up to the U.S. border. The traffic is overseen by President Joe Biden’s pro-migration border chief, Alejandro Mayorkas.

Pope took over after U.S. officials pressured other nations to let her replace the Portuguese chief, Director General António Vitorino.
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That establishment-managed goal of “revitalization” and replacement via extraction migration survives and expands because it delivers many lower-wage workers, government-funded consumers, and renters to local businesses.

Extraction migration also provides many new clients to government-funded VOLAG agencies and elite-backed nonprofits that collect and deliver many migrants to U.S. towns, And it provides jobs to the state and local government welfare agencies who help the migrants pay their rents and buy groceries.

The business-backed International Institute of Akron boasts “Currently resettling in Akron are refugees from countries including Bhutan, Burma, Nepal, Myanmar, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Vietnam, Syria, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and [the] Democratic Republic of Congo.”

But the extraction migration policy really worsens the problems it promises to fix — by impoverishing American towns and starving American families of the income that they need to have more children.

Open  Editorial

Bringing immigrants that don't speak the language nor care to learn it and enslaving them just for the sake of making money out of their efforts is totally evil. They wanna make them get addicted to the local state and the federal welfare programs!

Well, I'm not surprised by this.  Leftists have tried to implement some universal basic income system in the US and UE for quite some time.

Anyway, there's a wrong assumption the writer made there. The problem is not that Americans don't earn enough money to raise more children than they're doing right now. It's their poor mentality that makes them think that  babies are a burden instead of an integral part of society, actually its future!

Even if Americans could earn 5 times their current wages and inflation didn't hit them hard at all, they'd still look for ways to "enjoy life" instead of procreating and educating their kids. Societies have become quite hedonistic in the Western World.  Fun is not just another part of life but one of its core anti-values now praised as an actual value.

Quote:Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said he’ll give nuclear weapons to states willing to join with Russia and Belarus, according to reports.

“It’s very simple. You have to join the union between Belarus and Russia, and that’s it: There will be nuclear weapons for everyone,” Lukashenko said on Russian state TV, as reported by NBC News.

“I think it’s possible,” Lukashenko said, per NBC, noting that he was expressing his personal view. “We need to strategically understand that we have a unique chance to unite.” 

The comments come after the Belarusian leader and Russian President Vladimir Putin last week went ahead with a deal to deploy Moscow’s tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine.

The move of the weapons, which Putin announced earlier this year, has been interpreted by some as a warning to NATO. The Russian president has repeatedly threatened nuclear weapon use amid its ongoing war.

Quote:Authorities in Japan are on high alert as Wednesday is the first day of the period during which North Korea says it will launch what it calls a "satellite." Japanese officials say they believe North Korea will use ballistic missile technology for the launch, and it is possible the projectile would pass above Japan's southwestern prefecture of Okinawa.

Pyongyang notified the Japan Coast Guard on Monday of its plan to launch a satellite between Wednesday and June 11.

A senior official of the ruling Workers' Party said on Tuesday that the launch of its first military spy satellite will happen in early June.

Japan's government says North Korea has not issued any notice of a change in the launch window and that the firing could happen on Wednesday.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Matsuno Hirokazu said that a satellite launch involves the use of technology that is almost the same as, and is compatible with, the technology used to fire ballistic missiles.

He said the government believes North Korea will use its ballistic missile technology, regardless of how it describes the launch, and any launch by Pyongyang violates UN Security Council resolutions.

Quote:Kishida was about to give an election campaign speech at a fishing port in Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan, when a man threw the explosive device. The prime minister was unharmed as police guards quickly shoved the bomb away and evacuated him. Police arrested 24-year-old Kimura Ryuji on the spot.

The agency's report released on Thursday says the organizer of the event told the Wakayama prefectural police in advance that only people who had links with the local fisheries association would be allowed to enter the venue.

The report says that was deemed an important precondition for making Kishida's security arrangements.

Employees of the fisheries association were supposed to check visitors at the venue's entrance. But the report says their checking was inadequate as none of them noticed the suspect when he entered the designated area for the audience.

The report says the local police failed to include effective safety measures in their security plan due to a lack of thorough discussions with the organizer. The report says this failure allowed the attack to happen.

The National Police Agency found that local police had requested metal detector checks of visitors' belongings, but these were not carried out.

Quote:The German government has told Moscow to shut down four Russian consulates in the country after Berlin was forced to restrict its own diplomatic missions in Russia.

A German foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday that it will close three of its four consulates in Russia because Moscow has imposed limits on the number of German officials who are allowed to work in the country.

The spokesperson said Germany in turn is revoking the licenses of four of the five Russian consulates, which will be expected to cease operations by the end of the year.

The spokesperson said the measure is intended to achieve a balance in terms of personnel and structures between the two countries.
Berlin has condemned Moscow's moves, saying they are unjustified. Revoking the licenses of the Russian consulates is viewed as a retaliatory measure.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that Germany's actions were "unfriendly" and were further destroying the multifaceted, mutually-beneficial relations that had spanned decades.

It said Berlin's "ill-conceived" and "provocative" actions would not go unanswered.

Quote:Fearing that they might be targeted after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Sweden and Finland abandoned their traditional positions of military nonalignment to seek protection under NATO´s security umbrella. Finland became NATO´s 31st member country in April.

NATO must agree unanimously for countries to join. Turkey´s government accuses Sweden of being too lenient on terrorist organizations and security threats, including militant Kurdish groups and people associated with a 2016 coup attempt.

Hungary has also delayed its approval, but the reasons why have not been made publicly clear.
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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that he would travel to Ankara “in the near future to continue to address how we can ensure the fastest possible accession of Sweden.” He was unable to provide a precise date for his trip.
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German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that “it is essential that we can finally welcome Sweden as the 32nd member.” She stressed that the Swedish government has Berlin´s “full support.”

Quote:Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro offered on Monday to once again provide the Brazilian state of Roraima with electricity — despite most Venezuelans facing lengthy daily blackouts as a result of the nation’s decaying power grid.

Maduro made the offer in a joint press conference between Maduro and Brazilian radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva held after their official meeting in the presidential Planalto Palace in Brasilia. Between 2001 to 2019, Brazil paid the Venezuelan socialist regime to provide power to the the border state of Roraima.

“Venezuela is prepared to rebuild electric cooperation with the state of Roraima, Boa Vista, and the entire border population,” Maduro said on Monday. “We have an offer of 120 megawatts ready, what it merits is a basic investment of about four or five million dollars in function of rebuilding the transmission lines.”

Maduro requested that private enterprises in Brazil aid the collaboration so that the socialist regime could reconnect Roraima to Venezuela’s power grid “very soon.”

Roraima is a state located in northern Brazil that, due to its geography, is logistically isolated from the rest of the country.

Quote:The gruesome crime scene comes as rival cartels fight for control of the lucrative local drug distribution, trafficking, and money laundering businesses in the region.

The case took place this week outside of a Mexican Army base in Cancun, the local news outlet NotiCaribe reported. Military forces first went outside the base after getting a call of a banner hanging outside the fence. When the soldiers went to remove the banner, they found three severed heads next to it and called state authorities to document the crime scene.

Authorities took the banner, which showed a series of threats from one criminal organization to the other. While the cartel responsible is not named, the violence in Cancun and other parts of the state of Quintana Roo is tied to a fierce turf war where factions of the Sinaloa Cartel clash with factions of Cartel Jalisco New Generation for control of various illegal enterprises including the local distribution of drugs, drug trafficking routes, local sex trade, and others.

As Breitbart Texas has reported, some of the violence has taken place in tourist areas with shootouts and murders happening inside or right by luxurious hotels.

Quote:MS-13 gang members, released into the United States by federal officials, are among five illegal aliens charged with murdering a 15-year-old boy in Frederick County, Maryland.

As Breitbart News reported this week, 21-year-old illegal alien Alexis Alfredo Ayala Lopez, 23-year-old illegal alien Jose Roberto Ramos Lopez, 29-year-old illegal alien Ismael Lopez Lopez, 27-year-old illegal alien Elmer Bladimir Reyes Reyes, and 20-year-old illegal alien Ismael Ivan Rivera Canales have been arrested and charged with murdering Limber Lopez Funez, who went missing in February before his remains were found in Gambrill State Park in April.

According to Frederick County Sheriff’s Office, which works closely with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency through its 287(g) agreement, Ramos Lopez and Lopez Lopez are both validated members of the violent MS-13 gang, which often funnels its recruits through the federal government’s Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) pipeline.

Thanks to Frederick County’s 287(g) agreement with ICE, the agency has placed detainers on all five illegal aliens so that they will be turned over to their custody if they are released from local police custody at any time.
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The sheriff’s office also announced that a sixth suspect, MS-13 gang member Josue Mauricio Arrue-Paniagua has also been arrested and charged with attempted murder in connection to Funez’s death.

Jon Feere, Director of Investigations at the Center for Immigration Studies and a former ICE official in the Trump administration, reports that three of the illegal aliens charged with Funez’s murder arrived at the United States-Mexico border as UACs.

Together, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the illegal aliens — two of which are MS-13 gang members — into the U.S. interior as a result.

Quote:President Joe Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act on Saturday, suspending the debt ceiling for 19 months and bringing a monthslong political battle to a close.

The compromise legislation negotiated by Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) passed both houses of Congress with bipartisan support this week, averting a potential default on the nation’s financial obligations.

“Passing this budget agreement was critical. The stakes could not have been higher,” Biden said in a Friday evening address to the nation from the Oval Office.

Congressional leaders in both parties, eager to avoid financial disaster, endorsed the bill.

McCarthy referred to the legislation in historic terms, calling it the biggest spending cut ever enacted by Congress. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, “We’ve saved the country from the scourge of default,” after the bill passed the Senate on June 1.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) both supported the bill.

Quote:Only 255,162 of the millions of pistol stabilizing braces known to be in civilian hands have been registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) by the May 31 deadline set by the agency.

“Possessors of such firearms were also provided the option to comply with the final rule by permanently removing and disposing of, or altering, the ‘stabilizing brace’ such that it could not be reattached or by destroying the firearm,” Erik Longnecker, deputy chief of the ATF’s Public Affairs Division, told The Epoch Times by email on June 3.

“ATF is unable to estimate the number of possessors of such firearms that used either of these methods to comply with the final rule. Likewise, we have no data currently available for the number of firearms abandoned to ATF.”

Pistol brace owners have been estimated at between 3 million and 40 million. So, the number of registered owners is anywhere from 8 percent to 0.6 percent. This does not consider the pistol brace owners covered by injunctions issued by federal judges.

On Jan. 13, the ATF issued criteria outlining that pistol stabilizing braces converted pistols into short-barreled rifles (SBR), which are regulated by the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968.

That rule went into effect on Jan. 31.

Quote:Former Vice President Mike Pence will face no criminal charges in relation to the discovery of classified documents at his Indiana home earlier this year, according to a letter seen by NBC News.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had its own national security division formally inform Pence’s attorney Thursday it had closed the case and based on the “results” of that probe, no charges will be filed, the NBC News story details.

The department declined to comment but a DOJ official confirmed to the outlet the missive had been sent.
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Pence later acknowledged “mistakes were made” with the classified documents and took responsibility for them ending up at his home. He also subsequently pledged to “fully cooperate” with any FBI investigation.

A Pence adviser told NBC the former vice president and his team are pleased but not surprised by the investigation’s conclusion.

Beyond Pence, two DOJ special counsels are continuing to investigate the handling of classified documents by both Trump and Biden.

Quote:Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping on May 30 told his top national security officials to be ready for “worst case scenarios” and “stormy seas”.

Xi was addressing officials attending the first National Security Commission meeting since the CCP’s 20th National Congress last year, according to state-run Xinhua.

As commission chairman, Xi  said they must deeply understand “the complexity and difficulty of the national security issues we now face have increased significantly.”

Xi called on CCP officials to carry forward the “spirit of struggle” and “must adhere to bottom-line thinking and worst-case-scenario thinking, and get ready to undergo the major tests of high winds and rough waves, and even perilous, stormy seas.”

Xi’s use of “bottom-line thinking and worst-case-scenario thinking” has drawn the outside world’s attention.
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Xi also emphasized the regime must speed up the modernization of the military, making it more effective in “actual combat and practical use,” as the CCP faces a “complex and grave” situation in terms of national security.
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In the meeting, Xi also required the construction of a national security risk monitoring and early warning system, enhanced national security education, and improved data and AI security management.

Quote:The new policies instruct the China Coast Guard to arrest foreigners and have drawn international scrutiny due to territorial disputes in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The CCP’s move was seen as an escalation of those disputes.

On May 15, the China Coast Guard adopted new rules regarding handling “criminal cases,” which will come into effect on June 15, 2023. The rules (pdf) further specify that foreigners may be held liable for crimes against Chinese citizens or the Chinese state, even when committed outside of China’s territorial waters.

Xia Yifan, a member of the Federation for a Democratic China and an expert on Chinese social issues, believes that according to the 2016 judgment of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the Chinese regime’s maritime claims and actions in the South China Sea violate the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Therefore, the CCP wants to enforce the law by virtue of its own decree, and it authorizes the China Coast Guard to arrest what it considers to be foreign “criminals.” Such an act in and of itself is a violation of international law.
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China has escalated its outward expansion, and China Coast Guard vessels, including state-backed fishing vessels, have often confronted or clashed with these countries.

On Feb. 6, a Philippine Coast Guard vessel was on a mission to assist the Philippine Navy in the South China Sea on the Second Thomas Shoal when it was approached by a China Coast Guard vessel. The Philippine Coast Guard was forced to change its course due to the Chinese ship aiming military laser beams and temporarily blinding several Philippine crew members. The CCP’s foreign ministry claimed that the Philippine ship was in Chinese waters although the Philippines is in control of the disputed atolls.

On May 7, a China Coast Guard vessel photographed a Vietnamese drilling platform in the waters of Vanguard Bank to collect “evidence,” but was stopped by Vietnam’s Fishery Administration vessel. This was considered a new incident of conflict between the two countries.

Quote:The two governments say the U.S.–Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade will strengthen commercial relations by improving customs, investment, and other regulation.

The measure was signed by employees of the unofficial entities that maintain relations between the United States and Taiwan, a center for high-tech industry. They have no formal diplomatic ties but maintain unofficial relations and have billions of dollars in annual trade.
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The Chinese communist regime accused Washington of violating agreements on Taiwan’s status and demanded the U.S. government stop official contact with the island’s elected government.
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The CCP has stepped up efforts to intimidate Taiwan by flying fighter jets and bombers near the island.

Quote:A Chinese warship came within 150 yards of hitting the USS Chung-Hoon on Saturday before crossing its bow a second time at closer to 2,000 yards while the U.S. destroyer was conducting joint exercises with Canada in the Taiwan Strait, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) confirmed.

The incident occurred as U.S.-Chinese tensions remain high in the South China Sea.

The Chinese ship "executed maneuvers in an unsafe manner," overtaking the USS Chung-Hoon on its portside at 150 yards while the U.S. destroyer was sailing "through waters where high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply" with Canada's HMCS Montreal, USINDOPACOM said in a release. 

The Chinese ship then crossed Chung-Hoon’s bow a second time "starboard to port at 2,000 yards and remained off Chung-Hoon’s port bow," the release added.

USINDOPACOM said "its actions violated the maritime ‘Rules of the Road’ of safe passage in international waters."

The U.S. told the Chinese ship to stay away from the destroyer and at the last moment the Chinese altered course, Canada's Global News reported The Chung-Hoon slowed down to 10 knots but maintained its course.

Quote:China is reportedly drilling a hole measuring 32,800 feet deep into the Earth’s crust in the Xinjiang region.

The drilling began Tuesday and is part of a “research project” in the oil-rich area, the New York Post reported Thursday, citing state media.

“The venture is being led by state scientists as a means to further China’s deep Earth exploration venture launched by President Xi Jinping in 2021, the Xinhua News Agency reported,” the outlet said, adding the work was happening in the Tarim Basin.

Britannica describes the Tarim Basin as a “vast depression drained by the Tarim River in the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang,” noting it covers approximately 350,000 square miles.

The area is “enclosed by the Tien Shan (mountains) to the north, the Pamirs to the west, the Kunlun Mountains to the south, and the Altun Mountains to the east,” the site said, adding it is an extremely dry area.

Meanwhile, Chinese Academy of Engineering scientist Sun Jinsheng said drillers will go down in more than 10 layers of rock during the project.

“The drilling is expected to take about 457 days and is being led by the China National Petroleum Corp, which will use the project to test underground drilling machines and gather data on the Earth’s interior,” the Post article said.

China does not have a positive record when it comes to the Xinjiang region.

In March, the U.S. State Department released its 2022 human rights report on the country.

Quote:Video from Wednesday night shows men, at least two of whom were armed with machine guns, opening fire on innocents in gun-controlled Chicago.

CWB Chicago reported that the incident occurred in “the 4200 block of South Wells.”

Responding officers found four gunshot victims on the ground, one of which was a deceased 14-year-old boy named Pierre Johnson. The other wounded individuals were 19, 19, and 21-years old.

When police arrived to investigate, a 16-year-old boy with a handgun opened fire on them. The boy was subsequently arrested and charged with “six counts of attempted murder of peace officers.”

The 16-year-old was also charged with allegedly firing at a vehicle in which officers were sitting and for possessing a gun while under the age of 21.

42 people were shot Friday into Sunday morning in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s (D) Chicago.

Nearly 240 people have been killed in Chicago thus far in 2023.

Quote:Authorities were scrambling on Sunday to understand the cause of a three-train collision in India that killed at least 288 people, claiming that “no one responsible” will be spared.

The country’s deadliest rail accident in more than 20 years left a blood-stained wreckage, with compartments smashed and some carriages flung far from the tracks.

Debris was piled high at the site of the Friday night crash near Balasore, in the eastern state of Odisha.

“I saw bloodied scenes, mangled bodies and one man with a severed arm being desperately helped by his injured son,” researcher Anubhav Das, 27, told AFP after surviving the crash.

There was confusion about the exact sequence of events, but reports cited railway officials as saying that a signalling error had sent the Coromandal Express running south from Kolkata to Chennai onto a side track.

It slammed into a freight train and the wreckage derailed an express running north from India’s tech hub Bengaluru to Kolkata that was also passing the site.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the crash site and injured passengers being treated in hospital and said “no one responsible” would be spared.

Quote:The Turkish defense ministry announced Saturday it will be sending a commando battalion to northern Kosovo in response to a NATO request for troops to help quell violent unrest.

The request came from NATO’s Joint Force Command Naples, the ministry said in a press statement posted on its official Twitter account, and the battalion will join the alliance´s peacekeeping mission in the region, known as KFOR, as a reserve unit.

A defense ministry official said around 500 Turkish troops would be going to Kosovo. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with ministry regulations.

NATO announced on Tuesday that it would be sending 700 troops to bolster the force in the area. KFOR currently consists of almost 3,800 troops, including some 350 from Turkey.

Violent clashes with ethnic Serbs on Monday left 30 international soldiers – 11 Italians and 19 Hungarians – wounded, including fractures and burns from improvised explosive incendiary devices.

The clashes grew out of a confrontation that unfolded earlier after ethnic Albanian officials elected in votes overwhelmingly boycotted by Serbs entered municipal buildings to take office and were blocked by Serbs.

Quote:Far-left Mayor of London Sadiq Khan declared that London needs “more migrants” and that the government should give cities the power to set their own immigration policies.

“I have no hesitation at all saying that we need more migrants in London, ” Kahn told Channel 4, going on to claim that there were social and cultural benefits to the city through mass migration.

Khan went on to claim that there are shortages of labour and skill within the British capital, particularly in areas such as the healthcare system, social care, tech, and hospitality.

Interestingly, while the Conservative government has overseen record waves of migration following Brexit, the hospitality sector has been one of the few sectors to have its labour supply actually restricted, which has resulted in native hospitality workers seeing their wages grow at a significantly faster pace than the national average.

In his interview with Channel 4, the far-left mayor went on to suggest that the government give local authorities, such as himself, the power to determine their own immigration policies.
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Khan said that there the “pipeline” of training Londoners for jobs would be insufficient in covering the needed supply of workers, which he claimed could only be filled by foreign labour, despite it presumably being easier to recruit workers from different parts of the UK rather than from abroad.

Quote:Hong Kong-born Chinese Canadian Member of Parliament (MP) Jenny Kwan Wai-ching recently confirmed to the media that she was briefed by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) that she had become a “target” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), presumably due to her criticism of the CCP.

In an interview with Canadian media, The Globe and Mail, a few days ago, Jenny Kwan revealed that CSIS had briefed her earlier, saying that she had been targeted by the CCP as early as 2019 because she spoke out for the human rights situation in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. But for security reasons, she could not reveal further how she was on the CCP’s radar.

Kwan participated in the “June 4 Democracy Walk” commemorative event held in Vancouver last Saturday, May 27, marched with about 200 people to the gate of the CCP Consulate in Vancouver, and delivered a speech at the scene. She said that having been targeted by the CCP as a member of parliament, she could imagine how difficult it would be for ordinary people. “For ordinary Canadians who have family or relatives in Hong Kong and mainland China, their fear is real. The danger is real.”

In an interview with Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA), Kwan said that she would not be intimidated by the CCP and would not be silenced in any way. “I support Hong Kong people and the Uyghurs in fighting for basic human rights. I, and other MPs, voted in the parliament to support the motion to condemn the CCP’s treatment of the Uyghurs as genocide. We want to tell the government that foreign interference of any kind will never be tolerated.”