Quote:Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, says President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s policy of “unlimited immigration” to the United States has been carried out “on purpose — not due to incompetence.”

During a House Oversight Committee hearing this week, Krikorian clarified that Biden and Harris’s welcoming of millions of migrants to American communities in less than four years is deliberate, not by accident.

“The Biden-Harris record on immigration is the result of neither incompetence nor failure. The largest border crisis in the history of our country, probably the largest such event in human history, began on January 20, 2021, on purpose — not due to incompetence,” Krikorian said:

Since that date, there have been more than 10 million encounters of inadmissible aliens at our borders, millions of whom have been and who continue to be unlawfully allowed to enter the United States. This did not happen because the Biden-Harris administration and its impeached Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas made mistakes or miscalculations. [Emphasis added]

Krikorian said Biden, Harris, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s right-to-migrate ideology has dictated the administration’s official border policies even though they are contrary to federal immigration law.

“There are two ways of thinking about the immigration issue overall: Either no one in the world is allowed to come here and we make limited exceptions or everyone in the world is allowed to come here with certain limited exceptions,” Krikorian said:

The Immigration and Nationality Act, of course, is based on the former perspective. No foreigner has a right to move here, but we the people decide the specific grounds to admit a limited number of people. [Emphasis added]

This administration’s approach to immigration is based on … the opposite view — that everyone in the world has a right to move here if they so wish and the American people have no right to place limits on immigration apart from those related to basic safety. [Emphasis added]

Krikorian said that instead of the term “open borders,” he prefers to more accurately describe the Biden-Harris policy as one of “unlimited immigration” regardless of the impact on American citizens.

“I would describe the Biden-Harris approach to immigration as one of unlimited immigration that holds that any limits on the levels of immigration are morally indefensible and circumventing those limits by any means is a moral duty,” Krikorian said.

“This is fundamentally contrary to federal law, of course, but also contrary to the Constitution and the sovereignty and consent of the government,” he continued.

Krikorian’s testimony comes as a report from the House Homeland Security Committee, published this week, detailed how more than 85 percent of migrants arriving at the southern border are being released into American communities.

Quote:The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that almost 98,000 people whose citizenship papers have not been confirmed are allowed to vote in state and local races.

The ruling was handed down on Friday, according to the Associated Press (AP). The outlet noted that the decision came “after officials uncovered a database error that, for two decades, mistakenly designated the voters as having access to the full ballot.”

The report also said those individuals were already entitled to vote in federal races regardless of the court’s decision.

The database error highlighted the problem with those voters’ citizenship statuses, Fox News reported on Friday. The outlet said it affected people “who obtained their driver’s licenses before October 1996 and subsequently received duplicates before registering to vote after 2004.”

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer ® and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) did not see eye to eye on what status those particular voters should have, the AP article explained.

Richer wanted to find an answer to the question, so he filed a special action to Arizona’s Supreme Court on Tuesday.

“It is my position that these registrants have not satisfied Arizona’s documented proof of citizenship law, and, therefore, can only vote a ‘FED ONLY’ ballot,” Richer stated.

According to the AP report, the Republican-leaning court sided with Fontes:

It said county officials lack the authority to change the voters’ statuses because those voters registered long ago and had attested under the penalty of law that they are citizens. The justices also said the voters were not at fault for the database error and also mentioned the little time that’s left before the Nov. 5 general election.

AP noted that Richer and Fontes agreed with the decision.

It is important to note that 24 attorneys general in August were fighting for Arizona to gain permission to require voters to be U.S. citizens to vote in federal elections, Breitbart News reported.

In addition, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) does not believe there is an underlying problem of illegal immigrants voting, the outlet reported on September 4.

“There is no evidence that undocumented migrants vote. This is a solution looking for a problem,” he said.

Quote:A former Drug Enforcement Administration special agent says the activities of the violent Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA), in Texas, could be “just the beginning.”

“TdA is a criminal organization and they grow, they metastasize,” former DEA Special Agent Michael Brown told NBCDFW this week. “So right now, within some communities in Texas, maybe one or two members. Six months from now, it could be 600 members.”

Brown currently serves as global director of counter-narcotics at Rigaku Analytical Devices.

“America does not need another violent criminal organization from south central, south America, setting up operations in their cities,” the former DEA special agent added.

The Texas Senate Committee on Border Security conducted a hearing on Thursday. During the hearing, Texas Department of Public Safety Director, Colonel Steve McCraw told the senators, “El Paso is the hot spot, the hottest spot right now, for the reasons we talked about.”

Earlier this week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a proclamation declaring the Venezuelan TdA gang to be a Foreign Terrorist Organization, Breitbart Texas reported.  The move gives Texas law enforcement officials additional tools and resources to attack the gang and “disrupt their criminal operations and deny their foothold in the state,” the governor stated.

During Fiscal Year 2020, President Donald Trump’s last full year in office, Border Patrol agents apprehended only 465 Venezuelan migrants who crossed from Mexico into the five Texas-based sectors. During the first year of the Biden-Harris administration, a dramatic increase in crossings led to the apprehension of nearly 68,000 Venezuelan migrants.

From FY21-FY24 year-to-date, Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 499,000 Venezuelan migrants who illegally entered the United States in the five Texas-based Border Patrol Sectors, Texas DPS officials reported.

“Our goal is to defend Texas from the growing threat of the gang,” Abbott concluded in his address on Monday. “We will not let them use Texas as a base of operations to terrorize our citizens.”

“They have a target on their back, and we are going after them,” the governor stated. “Texas is the wrong state for them to try to do business in.”

Quote:A Border Patrol agent became the victim of a frightening assault near Sunland Park, New Mexico, as he attempted to apprehend a migrant for crossing the border alongside several others. The migrant punched and bit the Border Patrol agent as he was being led to a transport vehicle on Thursday.

In the El Paso Sector alone, agents have seen the number of assaults rise from 46 in 2021 to more than 70 this year since October.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed to Fox News that the agent “was physically assaulted and bitten” by one of the migrants. One suspect was arrested for the assault and taken to a hospital for medical evaluation. In the Fox News report on the incident, CBP says Mexican officials assisted in apprehending part of the migrant group that managed to flee to Mexico.

According to CBP, the injuries sustained by the Border Patrol agent were non-life threatening. The suspect, who remains unidentified, was arrested for the assault and illegal entry into the United States. The New York Post reports the migrant allegedly “took a bite” out of the agent’s face.

Although migrant crossings along the southwest border have fallen significantly since December, assaults on border agents have not dropped. In RY 2023, more than 90 assaults on Border Patrol agents were reported within the El Paso Sector, according to CBP. Since October, 73 assaults have been recorded despite apprehensions falling more than 60 percent since December, from 33,966 apprehensions to 13,282 in August.

A CBP source tells Breitbart Texas the drop in apprehensions does not mean assaults on agents will drop as well. “The demographic of migrants that are prone to assault agents are smugglers, criminal migrants, and those who know they will be returned to their home country, we are still dealing with these folks daily,” the source explained.

The source says migrants who surrender by the hundreds, knowing they will be released into the United States to pursue asylum claims, are generally peaceful at the time of arrest.

“There’s no reason to fight if we are just going to let you go once you are processed. If, on the other hand, you’ve paid a smuggler thousands of dollars to get to the border and you know we are sending you back, the fight is on,” the sources told Breitbart Texas.

The slowdown of migrant crossings began in late December after significant press coverage of thousands of migrants crossing daily into the small town of Eagle Pass, Texas, received substantial media coverage. As reported by Breitbart Texas, after a series of meetings between the Biden-Harris administration and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador (AMLO), along with other measures, authorities in Mexico all but halted the use of the Bestia train system in Mexico used by the migrants to reach the U.S./Mexico border.

Quote:Four people are dead and numerous others injured after multiple gunmen opened fire in Birmingham, Alabama, just after 11 p.m. Saturday.

KSTP reported that Officer Truman Fitzgerald noted “multiple suspects fired upon a large group of people who were outside in a public area.”

He added, “Detectives believe the shooting was not random and stemmed from an isolated incident where multiple victims were caught in the crossfire.”

A woman and two men were pronounced dead at the scene and another man died after being transported to the hospital.

WTM13 noted that upwards of 18 people were injured in the incident, in addition to those that were killed, and no suspects in the shooting have been apprehended.

Police are working to ascertain who was the intended target in the shooting.

Quote:No charges will be filed against the concealed carry permit holder who shot and killed two people during a Detroit Lions tailgate party last Sunday.

Breitbart News reported on the shooting, noting that it occurred around 4:30 p.m. following a fight and that one person died at the scene. A second individual later died at the hospital.

FOX 2 Detroit noted that investigators determined that the 40-year-old concealed carrier fired his fatal shot after first having a gun pulled on him by Jalen Welch.

The concealed carrier fired one shot that passed through Welch’s head and hit a bystander named Rayshawn Palmer. Welch and the bystander both died.

MLive quoted Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy saying, “The most heartbreaking of all is the fact that a completely and totally innocent bystander, Mr. Palmer was shot and killed with the same bullet that passed through the head of Mr. Welch…It could have been any one of us. We looked at all the applicable law and there is no crime that can be charged and proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Quote:Authorites report that a Canadian teenager posed as a potential buyer of a victim’s Porsche in order to steal it and was caught on security footage running over the owner in his driveway as she drove off.

Sarah Badshaw, whom police say has a criminal history in the Toronto area, was arrested Thursday after stealing a 2022 Porsche Cayenne from a Mississauga, Ontario, home on September 6, Peel Regional Police said.

It was 2:00 in the afternoon when Badshaw, 18, went to the alleged victim’s residence near Winston Churchill and Eglinton Avenue “in response to an Auto Trader advertisement,” the press release stated.

“While viewing the vehicle, the suspect reversed rapidly, striking and injuring the victim before fleeing with the stolen vehicle.”

Doorbell camera footage that the police department shared allegedly shows the Porsche’s owner being sent tumbling to the street as his legs are run over:

The alleged victim later told CTV News Toronto that he suffered elbow, hand, and leg injuries.

An accomplice in a gray Bentley Bentayga parked across the street from the car owner’s home was also involved in the robbery, Fox News reported based on police statements.

The Porsche was found abandoned in Mississauga on Wednesday, and Badshaw turned herself in to the authorities the next day, Peel officials said.

She has since been hit with the following charges:

Dangerous Operation Cause Bodily Harm – Criminal Code

Theft of Motor Vehicle – Criminal Code

Fail to Remain After Accident Resulting in Bodily Harm – Criminal Code

Drive No License – Highway Traffic Act

Quote:Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has blamed the U.S. government for the current cartel turf war that is terrorizing residents of the state of Sinaloa. The politician claimed that if U.S. authorities had not worked to arrest one of the Sinaloa Cartel’s top leaders, the country would be at peace.

The comments come as the state of Sinaloa is ground zero for a fierce turf war between the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel and the faction loyal to the family of recently arrested kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. The turf war has led to dozens of murders and countless more abductions.

During one of his daily news conferences this week, a reporter asked if the U.S. government was responsible for the violence.

“Yes, of course they are,” Lopez Obrador replied. “For having carried out that operation. They need to internalize that they can’t just act like that without taking into account Mexico’s government.”

Lopez Obrador claimed that there was an accord between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Chapitos faction so that Joaquin Guzman Lopez could surrender and capture Zambada. The Mexican politician questioned why the USDOJ changed the detention status of Ovidio Guzman, one of the members of the Chapitos, at the same time that his brother was helping capture Zambada.

“If we are facing this situation in Sinaloa it is because they took that decision,” Lopez Obrador said. “In Sinaloa, we didn’t have the violence that we have now.”

As Breitbart Texas has been reporting, on July 25, the Chapitos captured Zambada during a meeting with top politicians in Sinaloa. They put him in a plane that landed near El Paso, Texas, where U.S. authorities were waiting for him. Since the arrest, there was a short period of tense peace as both factions prepared and on September 9  both factions began openly fighting. While Mexico’s government has only confirmed 48 fatalities, unofficial accounts point to a much higher figure, which brought this part of Mexico to a complete standstill.

Quote:Hospitals in London are prioritising patients who don’t speak English for care while sending native or fluent speakers to the back of the queue, a report has found.

According to the Mail on Sunday, the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which has five hospitals in north-west London under its remit, has begun to push patients who require a language translator to the front of the line.

The policy is supposedly intended to cut costs for interpreters by reducing the number of hours worked. However, this results in English speakers being deliberately passed over.

The policy even reportedly applies in clinics that have a ticketing system for determining the order of patients seen.

One patient told the MoS: “It’s a clinic, so you go in expecting to wait a while, but when someone behind me in the queue was let into see the doctor before me I asked the receptionist why and was told that the people with interpreters are prioritised because they can’t wait for more than an hour.”

London, which has become a minority English city, has the largest proportion of migrants of any region of the UK, with more than 40 per cent of its residents being foreigners.

It is currently unclear if the policy of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is being adopted by hospitals in other areas of the country.

However, the decision to prioritise non-English speakers by a branch of the state-run healthcare system was criticised by former immigration minister and Tory leadership candidate Robert Jenrick.

“Brits are already waiting too long for treatment. The last thing they should be subjected to is the indignity of being pushed to the back of the queue,” Jenrick said.

“This is yet more evidence of the pressure mass migration places on our public services and the difficulties integrating such unprecedented numbers… Non-English speakers shouldn’t be given a queue pass.”

Responding to the report, a spokesman for the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust said: “We are committed to responding to the specific needs raised by any of our patients – and every patient has the right to a professional interpreter.”

Quote:A murderer migrant from Uganda will not be deported after British judges found that sending him back to his homeland would violate his human rights.

The UK Home Office has once again been thwarted by the left-leaning judiciary and foreign laws, as the government attempted to remove a murderer from Uganda, who was convicted in 2006 over the gangland murder of Eugen Breahna in London.

The Ugandan national, known only as ZM because he was granted anonymity, was among three sentenced to jail after chasing down Breahna and beating him to death with baseball bats and golf clubs in the back of an ambulance.

ZM, who was 18 at the time of the killing and who is now 37, was given a so-called “life sentence”, yet was only mandated to serve a minimum of 16 years behind bars.

The British government sought to remove the Ugandan national to his homeland upon his release, however, the deportation was shut down by a judge, who found that it would breach human rights guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which the UK is still bound by despite Brexit as it is technically a separate institution from the EU.

ZM’s lawyers successfully convinced a first-tier immigration judge that he suffers from mental illness and therefore it would be “inhumane” to send him back to Uganda as the African nation cannot provide the same level of care, the Daily Mail reports.

Quote:Kate, the Princess of Wales, made her first public appearance Sunday since she announced she had completed chemotherapy and would return to some public duties.

Kate and her husband, Prince William, were seen Sunday attending church with King Charles III and Queen Camilla near their royal Balmoral estate in Scotland.

Kate, 42, announced on Sept. 9 that she had completed treatment six months after revealing she had an undisclosed type of cancer. Her announcement came six weeks after Buckingham Palace announced that the king was being treated for cancer.

In a video announcing her progress, she said the path to full recovery would be long and she would take it day by day. She said she would undertake some limited engagements through the end of the year.

While she stepped away from most public duties during her treatment, Kate made two appearances earlier this year. First, during the king´s birthday parade in June, known as Trooping the Colour, and most recently during the men´s final at Wimbledon in July, where she received a standing ovation.

Quote:The Irish government has abandoned plans to implement controversial new hate speech laws following widespread backlash from free speech advocates.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee confirmed on Saturday that Dublin will drop new hate speech provisions in the proposed Criminal Justice Bill, admitting that the “incitement to hatred” section of the legislation did “not have a consensus,” the Irish Times reports.

Critics of the speech restrictions have noted that the government failed to actually define what constitutes “hate” and therefore the law would have given broad powers to the state to crush dissent. The scope of the draconian powers would have even included jailing people for up to two years for merely “possessing material likely to incite violence or hatred against persons on account of their protected characteristics.”

Those convicted for “incitement to violence or hatred against persons on account of their protected characteristics” would have faced up to five years in prison.

Proponents of implementing fresh hate speech restrictions have argued that it is necessary for the “common good“, with many citing growing tensions and outbursts of violence against the government’s mass migration agenda, which has radically changed the demographics of Ireland and has put significant strains on public resources.

The decision to scrap the hate speech provision has been hailed as a victory for liberty throughout the West in general. American professor Michael Shellenberger described the turn of events as a “massive Free Speech Victory,” adding: “This is wonderful news that gives us momentum to beat back totalitarianism worldwide!”

The populist Irish Freedom Party said in a statement: “The Govt has strangled anti-free speech legislation after the Irish Freedom Party has helped lead the campaign against the draconian measure since 2019. It’s good to get a result, but we need to get rid of all those politicos who want to restrict our freedoms. Vote them out.”

Quote:Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday will visit the Pennsylvania ammunition factory that is producing one of the most critically needed munitions for his country’s fight to fend off Russian ground forces.

He is expected to go to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant to kick off a busy week in the United States shoring up support for Ukraine in the war, according to two U.S. officials and a third familiar with Zelenskyy’s schedule who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that were not yet public. He also will address the U.N. General Assembly annual gathering in New York and travel to Washington for talks on Thursday with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

The Scranton plant is one of the few facilities in the country to manufacture 155 mm artillery shells. They are used in howitzer systems, which are towed large guns with long barrels that can fire at various angles. Howitzers can strike targets up to 15 miles to 20 miles (24 kilometers to 32 kilometers) away and are highly valued by ground forces to take out enemy targets from a protected distance.

Ukraine has already received more than 3 million of the 155 mm shells from the U.S.

With the war now well into its third year, Zelenskyy has been pushing the U.S. for permission to use longer range missile systems to fire deeper inside of Russia.

So far he has not persuaded the Pentagon or White House to loosen those restrictions. The Defense Department has emphasized that Ukraine can already hit Moscow with Ukrainian-produced drones, and there is hesitation on the strategic implications of a U.S.-made missile potentially striking the Russian capital.

Quote:A blaze tore through a Russian arms depot deep inside the country, triggering explosions and the closure of a major highway, after Ukraine overnight launched over 100 drones at Russia and occupied Crimea, Russian news reports and the Defense Ministry said.

The depot appeared to be just kilometers (miles) from another that was struck by Ukrainian drones early Wednesday, injuring 13 people and also causing a huge fire.

Russian authorities on Saturday closed a 100-kilometer (62-mile) stretch of a highway and evacuated passengers from a nearby rail station after the fire caused a series of explosions. Posts on local Telegram channels on the messaging app said a missile depot was struck near the town of Toropets, in Russia’s Tver region about 380 kilometers (240 miles) northwest of Moscow and about 500 kilometers (300 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Unverified images circulating on Telegram showed a large ball of flame rising into the night sky and dozens of smoke trails from detonations.

An ammunition depot and missile arsenal in southwestern Russia also caught fire in a separate attack Saturday in the Krasnodar region, triggering evacuations after the blaze caused a series of blasts. Videos on social media showed bright orange clouds rising over the horizon, as dull thuds of detonations sounded almost continuously.

Russia’s Defense Ministry early on Saturday claimed that its forces overnight shot down 101 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory and occupied Crimea. There were no immediate reports of casualties in either Russian region.

Quote:Russian strikes hit high-rise apartment blocks in Ukraine’s city of Kharkiv, leaving dozens wounded in a second consecutive nighttime attack this past week.

The bombs fell Saturday night on the district of Shevchenkivsky, north of the center of Kharkiv, the second largest city, local Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Nine residential buildings sustained varying degrees of damage, including 16- and nine-story blocks, he added.

Twenty-one people were wounded, including an 8-year-old, according to Syniehubov and Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov. Terekhov said 60 residents were evacuated from one of the buildings.

Kharkiv has been a frequent target of Russian attacks since Moscow launched its all-out invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

The attack came after another late Friday that wounded 15 people, including a 10- and 12-year-old, as Russian airstrikes hit three Kharkiv neighborhoods, Terekhov said.

According to Ukrainian officials, KAB-type aerial glide bombs were used in both attacks, a retrofitted Soviet weapon that has for months laid waste to eastern Ukraine.

Russia also launched 80 Shahed drones and two missiles at Ukraine overnight into Sunday, the Ukrainian air force said. Ukrainian air defense shot down 71 drones, and another six were lost on location due to electronic warfare countermeasures, the statement said.

Farther south, a 12-year-old girl and a woman died after a Russian drone struck a passenger car in the city of Nikopol, local Gov. Serhii Lysak reported. Two others, including a 4-year-old, suffered wounds.

A Russian artillery strike also killed one person in the eastern town of Kurakhove, regional prosecutors said, as Russian forces continue their grinding advance westwards through Ukraine’s industrial Donetsk province.

Russian drone strikes on Sunday also damaged energy infrastructure in Ukraine´s central Poltava region and the northern city of Shostka, local officials reported.

Shostka lies in the Sumy region, across the border from Russia’s Kursk province – the target of a startling Ukrainian military incursion launched last month. Weeks into the incursion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelneskyy said its aim is to create a buffer zone to prevent further Russian cross-border strikes that have for months wreaked havoc in Sumy.

Quote:Prime Minister Michel Barnier announced President Emmanuel Macron’s new government in France, which will represent a continuity establishment cabinet after months of deadlock and effectively shutting out both leftists and populists from the halls of power.

Over two months after snap legislative elections that left the National Assembly in a three-way power struggle, with no faction securing enough votes to form a majority on their own, newly-installed Prime Minister Barnier unveiled a Macronist-dominated government on Saturday evening.

Despite his faction winning fewer votes than the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) coalition and the populist National Rally (RN) party of Marine Le Pen, Macron partisans secured the most top positions in the new Barnier government, with top allies of the president, Antoine Armand and Laurent Saint-Martin, being installed as the new Economic and Budget ministers, respectively, Le Figaro reports.

The influential post at the Quai d’Orsay, minister of European and Foreign Affairs, will be staffed by Macron loyalist and EU princeling Jean-Noël Barrot, replacing Stéphane Séjourné, who has been tapped to become Brussels’ next censorship czar.

Meanwhile, fellow Macronist and Ukraine War-hardliner Sébastien Lecornu will represent one of the few holdovers, having been tapped to remain in his position as Defence Minister.

Barnier did manage to snag one of the top posts, however, with Senate Les Républicains (LR) leader Bruno Retailleau set to be installed in the Hôtel de Beauvau as France’s next Interior Minister, the cabinet post tasked with managing immigration.

While Retailleau is seen as more of a hawk on migration than his predecessor Gérald Darmanin and therefore his selection was apparently intended as red meat towards the populist right, the senator has also been at odds with the National Rally, having sensationally joined an attempted coup of now-disputed LR leader Eric Ciotti for backing an alliance with the Le Pen party during the legislative elections.

Quote:A century-old artillery round weighing nearly 300 kilogrammes (660 pounds), was safely removed on Sunday from a construction site near the Serbian Parliament in Belgrade, police said.

The 305mm “Morser M.11” howitzer shell, found last Wednesday, was used by the Austro-Hungarian army during the July 1914 siege of the capital during World War I, Interior Minister Ivica Dacic ahead of the removal operation.

Police had ordered nearby residents to remove their vehicles from the area and urged them to be cautious, advising to leave homes if possible.

The shell was sent to a sandy terrain about 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Belgrade, where it was destroyed.

Several bombs left over from previous wars have been found in Serbia, but they have been removed without causing explosions.

In Nis, southern Serbia, a large bomb from the 1999 NATO bombing was discovered in April, while in 2021, a 242-kilogramme bomb from WWII was removed from a construction site in a Belgrade suburb.

Quote:Hezbollah rockets triggered air raid sirens near the Christian holy site of Capernaum on Sunday morning, according to Israeli websites that provide alerts about incoming rockets, missiles, and drones to allow Israelis to take cover.

Capernaum is an ancient town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee where Jesus Christ was based for a significant part of his ministry. It includes important archaeological excavations, including the traditional site of St. Peter’s house, as well as Christian houses of worship.

Hezbollah fired scores of rockets at Israel on Sunday. One Israeli teenager died as the result of a traffic accident during a rocket attack, when the teenager, driving a vehicle, apparently panicked and drove off the road, according to the Times of Israel.

The Israeli military is stepping up attacks on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon, as the two sides move rapidly closer to all-out war.

Israel has vowed to restore the northern residents of Israel to their homes. Over 60,000 civilians from 74 towns in northern Israel have been evacuated since October, when Hezbollah started firing rockets, anti-tank missiles, and drones at the region, without provocation, following the Hamas terror attack on southern Israel.

Quote:Israelis woke up Sunday to air raid sirens across the northern portion of the country as Hezbollah fired scores of rockets, causing damage and fires in open areas, but not causing any serious injuries, thanks to Israel’s defenses.

On Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched waves of airstrikes against Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon, hitting 400 targets, including rocket launchers that the Iranian-backed terror group was about to activate.

In a statement, the IDF said early Sunday morning:

Since the afternoon, with the direction of the IDF Intelligence Directorate, the IAF struck approximately 290 targets, including thousands of launcher barrels, alongside additional terrorist infrastructure in multiple areas in southern Lebanon.

Over the past few hours, in an additional series of strikes, the IDF struck approximately 110 Hezbollah terrorist targets, including launchers and terrorist infrastructure in multiple areas in southern Lebanon.

The IDF will continue operating to dismantle and degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities and terrorist infrastructure.

Later, when Hezbollah began firing at Israeli communities in the north, the IDF said:

Following the sirens that sounded between 6:24 and 6:32 and between 6:52 and 07:00 in numerous areas in northern Israel, approximately 85 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory. Some of the projectiles were intercepted, and fallen projectiles were identified in the areas of Kiryat Bialik, Tsur Shalom, and Moreshet. Israel Fire and Rescue Services are currently operating to extinguish numerous fires that were ignited in the area.

Following the sirens that sounded at 4:48 and 5:10 in the Jezreel Valley area, approximately 20 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory. Most of the projectiles were intercepted, and the rest fell in open areas. No injuries were reported.

Hezbollah appeared to be targeting Israeli air bases, according to Israel’s Army Radio, but only hit civilian areas and open spaces.

Schools were closed for in-person learning in Haifa and communities to the north.

The Israeli military also intercepted missiles fired at the country from Iraq, presumably from Iranian-backed militias.

Asked by the anchor on Army Radio whether the escalation represented the “Third Lebanon War,” or just a step toward it, a correspondent said that it was just a step, but most Israelis expect war, and have been preparing for it.

The escalation came after several days in which Israel surprised Hezbollah leaders with exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, as well as precision airstrikes. Hezbollah attacked Israel without provocation in October, and has fired at northern Israel for months.

War with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon would be the “second front” that U.S. President Joe Biden sought to avoid when he warned Hezbollah and Iran last October, “Don’t.” That warning seems to have failed, as Israel fights alone.

Quote:Israeli Prime Minsiter Benjamin Netanyahu issued statements in Hebrew and English on Sunday after the Israeli military pounded the Iranian-backed terror group in southern Lebanon, following several days of stunning strikes.

Netanyahu spoke after Israel had targeted hundreds of Hezbollah rocket launchers and other Hezbollah sites on Saturday and Sunday in Lebanon, and Hezbollah fired scores of rockets at Israel, causing relatively little damage.

He did not specifically refer to the pager attacks that killed dozens of Hezbollah officials and wounded thousands more; or the walkie-talkie explosions that killed at least a dozen and wounded hundreds more; or the precision airstrike that eliminated one of the group’s top commanders, and several other officials with him. But he warned that Hezbollah would “get the message,” if it had not already, that Israel will return its northern residents to their homes.

Netanyahu also delivered an English version of his statement, with some modifications:

On October 7th, the Hamas terrorist monsters burst into Israel, murdered our people, raped and beheaded our women, burnt babies alive, and took 255 innocent people hostage, including many Americans.

A day later, on October 8th, another Iranian terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, attacked Israel completely unprovoked. They fired missiles and rockets into our cities. They made 60,000 Israelis leave their homes along the Lebanon border, becoming refugees in their own land.

In the subsequent months, they haven’t stopped for a single day attacking us.

No country can accept the wanton rocketing of its cities. We can’t accept it either.

We will take whatever action is necessary to restore security and to bring our people safe back to their homes.

Northern Israel remains on high alert, as the country prepares for a potential all-out war against Hezbollah.

Quote:President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he delegated “everything” as commander-in-chief to Vice President Kamala Harris, including foreign policy and domestic policy.

The acknowledgment is significant because it contradicts Harris’s talking points. Harris has tried multiple times to distance herself from the Biden-Harris record.

“My approach is about new ideas, new policies that are directed at the current moment. And also, to be very honest with you, my focus is very much in what we need to do over the next ten, twenty years to catch up to the twenty first century,” Harris told Brian Taff of Philadelphia’s Action News 6 ABC on September 13.

“I’m obviously not Joe Biden, and you know, I offer a new generation of leadership,” she said, providing examples of what the Biden-Harris administration failed to achieve.

Fifty-seven percent of registered voters believe they are not better off under the Biden-Harris administration as they were four years ago under former President Donald Trump, RMG Research polling found in September. Only 25 percent of Americans rate the economic conditions under the Biden-Harris administration as “excellent or good,” a Pew Research survey showed.

While campaigning for Harris on The View on Wednesday, Biden appeared to blame Harris for the administration’s failure to reduce inflation, secure the southern border, and responsibly withdraw from Afghanistan.

“As Vice President, there wasn’t a single thing that I did that she couldn’t do and so I was able to delegate her responsibility on everything from foreign policy to domestic policy,” he said.

Biden’s statement exacerbated Harris’s conundrum: She cannot campaign on policies to fix crime, inflation, and border security without undermining the Biden-Harris administration’s policies, but she must tout the administration’s policies to validate her record and candidacy.

Quote:On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” host and NBC News Chief Washington Correspondent and Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell discussed new threats by Iran against 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump that he was briefed on and stated that, according to people she spoke to, it is “safe to conclude that Vice President Harris is favored by Iran and that Donald Trump is favored by Vladimir Putin.”

While speaking with former Defense Secretary and former CIA Director Leon Panetta and former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Mitchell said there is “the threat against — the threat from Iran” that has been “credibly reported and confirmed by the community, that Donald Trump was just briefed [on], that there are new threats against him. We know about the former officials, and now, he is another, and that this is a new threat. At this point, it is — I’m told — safe to conclude that Vice President Harris is favored by Iran and that Donald Trump is favored by Vladimir Putin.”

Sherman responded that Harris understands that Iran is a threat and will be tough on them and Iran shouldn’t mistake the desire for diplomatic solutions with weakness, while Panetta said that Trump just gives America’s enemies what they want.

Weird. I thought that it has been Biden and Harris who gave America's enemies what they wanted.

Quote:A Senate investigative report on the July 13 assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump revealed several glaring security errors made by the U.S. Secret Service (USSS), including the hours-long debacle of an agent overseeing the drone system trying to troubleshoot the devices by calling a toll-free tech support hotline.

The interim report, released Wednesday by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, detailed how the USSS failed to secure the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally and the building from which gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks allegedly took shots at Trump.

Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI), Rand Paul (R-KY), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Ron Johnson (R-WI) highlighted the 94-page document’s key takeaways in a statement, decrying how the agency “failed to clearly define responsibilities for planning and security.”

“USSS personnel responsible for planning in advance of the July 13 rally denied that they were individually responsible for any planning or security failures and deflected blame,” the bipartisan group of senators said, adding that “USSS Advance Leads told the Committee that planning and security decisions were made jointly, with no specific individual responsible for approval.”

The committee’s investigation has not only revealed that no specific person with the Secret Service has owned up to approving the failed security measures, but also exposed that not one agent entered or went onto the roof of the AGR International building where Crooks was perched prior to the shooting.

“USSS identified the AGR building as a concern due to the line-of-sight from the roof to the stage, but did not take steps to ensure sufficient security measures were in place,” the committee members found.

“USSS personnel, including the USSS Counter Sniper Team Leader, did not enter the AGR building or go on the roof prior to the shooting,” they continued. “One USSS counter sniper team, whose responsibility included scanning the area around the AGR building for threats, had an obstructed view of the AGR roof.”

The first time USSS agents entered the building and went onto the roof was after Crooks fatally shot one audience member, seriously injured two others, and grazed Trump’s ear.

The agency also failed to coordinate with local and state law enforcement, by not giving them “any specific instructions for covering the AGR building” and not ensuring that agents could “share information with local law enforcement partners in real time.”

“USSS did not adequately consider state and local law enforcement operational plans,” the senators stated.

USSS also denied specific requests for additional Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS) capabilities and a Counter Assault Team liaison, the report found.

“A USSS Counter Surveillance Unit – which could have helped patrol the outer perimeter that included the AGR building – was not requested by USSS Advance Leads,” the senators added.

Quote:Former President Donald Trump criticized the FBI for how it is handling the investigation into the assassination attempts against him, but he told the crowd in Mint Hill, North Carolina, “No threat will shake me.”

“As you know, there have been two assassination attempts on my life that we know of, and they may or may not involve — but possibly  do — Iran, but I don’t really know,” Trump said.

“Can’t be sure, because in the first case, in Butler, Pennsylvania — great place…” Trump said, noting that he is going back to Butler to “finish” his speech. Trump then turned to the FBI, noting that the federal agency seems to be having trouble investigating the assassination attempts.

“The FBI has been unable to open the three potentially foreign-based apps. And in the second case, the assassin had six cell phones in his car, yet the FBI has likewise been unable to penetrate their guard,” Trump said.

“They want to know, and I want to know, and the whole country and maybe the world wants to know, who is he calling? Who is he calling?” Trump asked.

“In the old days, the FBI and the DOJ used to capture people before anything happened. In current days, the upper echelon of the FBI is all talk while they focus on the sitting President’s political opponents,” Trump observed. “That’s what they’re doing.”

“All they focus on is their political opponent. But they must get Apple to open these foreign apps, and they must get Apple to likewise, open the six phones from the second lunatic … and open them immediately, because we have a lot at stake — whether it’s me or any other former president. They break into apps all the time. They had no problem breaking into the apps of the J6 hostages,” he noted.

Mentioning that the alleged attempted assassins’ apps could be foreign, he added, “They could also be something else, but we’ll never know until they’re opened. … And really, why is it that the father of the shooter in the Butler instance has one of the best and most expensive lawyers in the entire state of Pennsylvania? How did he get to this expensive lawyer?” Trump asked, deeming it “strange.”

Trump said if he were president and a former president and leading candidate faced these threats that he now faces — whether Democrat or Republican — he would “inform the threatening country, in this case, Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens.”

Quote:A group that campaigns for more Haitian migration asked judges Tuesday in Springfield, Ohio, to arrest and file criminal charges against former President Donald Trump and JD Vance.

The call comes amid the duo’s criticism of the government-funded migration drive into the citizens’ jobs, homes, and communities.

The charges were requested by the Haitian Bridge Alliance, which has been backed for many years by Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us investor group, and by investor George Soros’ political campaigns. The jarring claim was loudly echoed by pro-Democratic media sites, such as NBCNews.com, who prefer to hide the ordinary civic and pocketbook damage of migration behind elite claims about racism.

“The Haitian Bridge Alliance made the move after inaction by the local prosecutor, said their attorney, Subodh Chandra of the Cleveland-based Chandra Law Firm,” the Associated Press wrote September 24:

Charges brought by private citizens are rare, but not unheard of, in Ohio. Examples might be a grocery store charging a customer for a bounced check. State law requires a hearing to take place before the affidavit can move forward. As of Tuesday afternoon, none had been scheduled.

Trump and Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio, are charged with disrupting public services, making false alarms, telecommunications harassment, aggravated menacing and complicity. The filing asks the Clark County Municipal Court to affirm that there is probable cause and issue arrest warrants against Trump and Vance.

“Guerline Jozef, a co-founder and the executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, filed the charges on behalf of the group,” NBCNews reported:

“Over the last two weeks, both Trump and Vance led an effort to vilify and threaten the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio,” Jozef wrote.
…
“If anyone else had disrupted public service, made false alarms, and engaged in telecommunications harassment in the manner Trump and Vance did with their relentless and persistent lies—even after the governor and mayor said what they were saying was false, they would’ve been arrested by now,” Chandra said in a statement Tuesday. “They must be held accountable to the rule of law in the same way any of the rest of us would be.”

The lawfare follows the government-arranged delivery of perhaps 20,000 Haitians to the city, which has had a huge civic and pocketbook impact in the town of almost 60,000 Americans.

The inflow has been welcomed by business, political, and media leaders in Springfield, but is decried by ordinary Americans who are losing wages, opportunities, housing, safe roads, civic aid, and their stable community to the chaotic migration.

Quote:Former US president Donald Trump on Wednesday accused Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky of refusing to “make a deal” to end his country’s war with Russia.

“We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal, Zelensky,” the Republican White House candidate said in sharply critical remarks at a campaign rally in North Carolina.

“Every time he came to our country, he’d walk away with $60 billion,” Trump said, derisively describing the Ukrainian president as “probably the greatest salesman on Earth.”

“What do you have left now?” Trump sneered. “The country is absolutely obliterated.”

A face-to-face meeting between Trump, who has been highly critical of the aid Washington and the Pentagon have disbursed to Kiev, and Zelensky had been floated for the sidelines of the ongoing United Nations General Assembly in New York.

But the meeting is expected to be scrapped, according to US media, which reported Trump did not appreciate the interview Zelensky gave to The New Yorker magazine, in which the Ukrainian president said he believed the 78-year-old Republican “doesn’t really know how to stop the war.”

Trump’s remarks came shortly after Zelensky addressed the United Nations and accused Russia of plotting potentially catastrophic attacks on Ukrainian nuclear plants.

Trump claimed in early September he had a plan “guaranteed” to end the war but would not reveal it unless he wins the US presidential election.

He also repeatedly asserted he would settle the war between Moscow and Kiev within 24 hours — without explaining how.

In recent months he has been particularly critical of US funding for Ukraine and has called on Europe to step up its contributions.

When contacted by AFP, Trump’s team refused to confirm whether the meeting between the two men had been scrapped.

Quote:Paul Pelosi, the husband of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), sold between $500,000 and $1 million worth of Visa stock, according to public records, just weeks before the Justice Department launched a lawsuit against the credit card company on Tuesday.

The finding raises concerns that many members of Congress trade stocks based on information unavailable to the public.

Seventy-six percent of voters believe congressional members and their spouses have an “unfair advantage” in trading stocks.

Paul Pelosi traded the stock before the DOJ launched a probe into Visa for allegedly monopolizing the debit card market, Bloomberg reported.
The New York Post reported the trade:

Meanwhile, Christopher Josephs, the tech entrepreneur who runs the “Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker” on X, posted a screenshot of a congressional filing on July 3 which showed that the former House speaker’s husband, Paul Pelosi, had sold 2,000 shares of Visa worth between $500,000 and $1 million.

The disclosure form shows that Pelosi’s transaction is marked “SP,” or spouse — a reference to husband Paul, the San Francisco-based venture capitalist and real estate investor.

At the time Paul Pelosi sold Visa stock, there was no public indication that an antitrust lawsuit against the company was imminent.
...
Pelosi’s stock portfolio was up 65.5 percent in 2023, one of the best performances in Congress, an Unusual Whales analysis showed.

Some of the most notable establishment members to beat the market were:

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) — up 65.5 percent
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) — up 52.8 percent
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) — up 38.2 percent
Rep. John Curtis (R-UT) — up 25.3 percent
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — up 18.1 percent

Let's travel back in time and read what happened back in October 17, 2022. Yes, almost 2 years ago!

Quote:Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, exercised seven-figures worth of Alphabet stock call options days before House leadership unveiled a bill that would ban members of Congress and their spouses from trading individual stocks.

The value of the stock purchase was between $1 million and $5 million, according to a certified congressional disclosure made by Nancy Pelosi on October 14. Members of Congress are only required to report the values of such trades in broad ranges.

Paul Pelosi exercised the Alphabet call options, which he purchased in December 2021, on September 16 — the day they were set to expire. (Alphabet is the parent company of Google.)

That date fell just a week before House leadership introduced a Nancy Pelosi-backed bill that would ban members of Congress and their spouses from trading individual stocks.

The disclosure also notes that Paul Pelosi sold call options in NVIDIA and Micron Technology for a loss about a month after President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 into law.

On September 16, Paul Pelosi sold 50 call options (5,000 shares) of NVIDIA at a strike price of $26.86 per share, for a loss of $361,476.

That same day, he also sold 100 call options (10,000 shares) of Micron Technology at a price of $1.84 per share and a total loss of $392,575.

The disclosure of a financial loss is notable as Nancy Pelosi — or any member of Congress — rarely volunteers that level of detail about stock trades by themselves or their spouses. The last time Nancy Pelosi disclosed that her husband traded for a loss was in July, when Paul Pelosi sold $25,000 shares of NVIDIA stock for a loss of $341,365.

Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 with a goal of strengthening "American manufacturing, supply chains, and national security, and invest in research and development, science and technology, and the workforce of the future to keep the United States the leader in the industries of tomorrow, including nanotechnology, clean energy, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence."

Quote:Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Tuesday on CNN’s “The Lead” that Democrats will win the majority in the House of Representatives in November and then vote in House Minority Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) as speaker.

Pelosi said, “Why Don’t We just all agree, whoever wins, we are for the peaceful transfer of power. He’s trying again to just wed himself to this fake conspiracy theory about the election. But you know what? We don’t agonize. We organize. And we organize and make sure that Hakeem Jeffries has that gavel on January 6th. It’s very essential not only for the issues that we care about, our kitchen table issues, lowering the cost of prescription drugs that we have done, lowering the cost of healthcare, which we have done, lowering the cost of childcare, which we did, but we have to renew.”

She continued, “Hakeem will be speaker.”

Pelosi added, “The National Anthem says prove through the night that our flag is still there. You’ve heard me say that again and again. And we this is our night we have to prove through the night that our flag is still there. I’ll give you another Baltimore phrase comes from Horse racing. We’re here, we’re going to whip to the lead, and then we’re going to whip the lead to victory.”

Quote:Arizona police confirmed on Tuesday that the Tempe campaign office for Vice President Kamala Harris was hit with gunfire.

“We can confirm that on 9/23/24, what appears to be damage from gunfire at … a DNC Campaign Office, was discovered,” Tempe police told NBC News on Tuesday.

Public Information Officer, Sgt. Ryan Cook confirmed that no injuries occurred and that the shots were fired during overnight hours.

“No one was inside the office during the overnight hours, but this raises concerns about the safety of those who work in that building, as well as those nearby,” Cook said.

Tempe police said they received calls from workers on Monday reporting what appeared to be “gunshots through the front windows of the office which is shared by staff members for the Arizona Democratic Party,” per NBC News.

The gunfire incident marked the second time in just two weeks that the campaign office had been hit with criminal damage — the first being shots fired from a “BB gun or pellet gun” on September 16.

“The apparent gunfire marks the second incident of criminal damage at that office in recent weeks, according to Tempe police, who said that just after midnight on Sept. 16 the office’s front windows were hit with what appeared to be a BB gun or pellet gun,” noted NBC News.

The gunfire incident occurred following two assassination attempts on former President Donald Trump, which has led to heightened security concerns. Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have condemned all forms of political violence and have called for Americans to “lower the temperature.”

“As we gather the facts, I will be clear: I condemn political violence. We all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence,” Harris said in a statement following the second assassination attempt on Trump’s life in September.

“I am thankful that former President Trump is safe. I commend the U.S. Secret Service and law enforcement partners for their vigilance. As President Biden said, our Administration will ensure the Secret Service has every resource, capability, and protective measure necessary to carry out its critical mission,” Harris added.

Quote:Additional U.S. troops are being rushed to the Middle East during a rise in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah terrorist forces in Lebanon that has elevated risks of a wider regional war, the Pentagon said Monday.

AP reports Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder would provide no details on how many additional forces or what they would be tasked to do. Their precise geographical region of deployment has also not been disclosed.

The U.S. currently has about 40,000 troops in the region. Just last month U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a guided missile submarine to the Middle East and told the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to sail more quickly to the area.

As Breitbart News reported, the U.S. believes Iran or its proxies may launch a strike against Israel as soon as this week.

The new deployments come as Israel is preparing to conduct further operations and the State Department is warning Americans to leave Lebanon as the risk of a regional war increases.

“Due to the unpredictable nature of ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel and recent explosions throughout Lebanon, including Beirut, the U.S. Embassy urges U.S. citizens to depart Lebanon while commercial options still remain available,” the State Department cautioned Saturday, as the AP report noted.

The push of more U.S. forces into the troubled Middle East came as Israel attacked hundreds of Hezbollah targets on Monday in airstrikes that Lebanese health authorities said killed at least 274 people, making it the deadliest day in Lebanon in nearly a year of conflict, CBC News reported.

Quote:Colombia’s far-left President Gustavo Petro declared that neither Israel nor the United States are “the children of God” and accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being a “criminal” in an unhinged speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.

Petro, who called for a “world revolution” and for an artificial intelligence “global public authority,” accused the “richest one-percent of humanity, the powerful global oligarchy” of allowing bombs to fall in “Gaza and Sudan,” and denounced free market ideas for allegedly bringing about “the maximization of death.”

The bombs, according to Petro, are allegedly being brandished by “racists, supremacists, those who stupidly believe that the Aryans are the superior race.”

“The control of humanity on the basis of barbarism is under construction and its demonstration is Gaza. When Gaza dies, humanity will die,” Petro said. “It turns out that God’s people were not Israel, nor the United States, but the whole of humanity and the children of Gaza were just that, humanity, God’s chosen people.”

“[Benjamin] Netanyahu is a hero for the richest one percent of humanity because he is able to show that peoples are destroyed under bombs,” he continued.

Petro, an ardent communist and member in his youth of the M19 Colombian Marxist guerrilla terrorist organization, cut diplomatic ties with Israel in May in response to Israel’s self-defense operations against the jihadist terrorists of Hamas. The rupture followed Petro publicly comparing Israel to Nazi Germany for entering Hamas-controlled Gaza to prevent the terrorists from repeating the atrocities of the October 7 attack against the country.

The far-left president ranted that “no one listens” to governments such as his that demand an end to the “genocide” in Gaza, the “decarbonization” of the world, and his proposal of debt forgiveness in exchange for climate action. Petro claimed that governments with “the power to destroy life” are the ones that are heard instead.

The Colombian far-left president also criticized the free market and accused “the richest one percent” of opposing the end of using oil and coal and advancing the “climate crisis.” Petro claimed that the ones leading humanity “to the destruction of the atmosphere and of life” are those who shout “Long live liberty, damn it!” – using the campaign slogan of President Javier Milei of neighboring Argentina, a fervent anti-communist.

“They [“the richest 1 percent”] pay for the campaigns, they own the media, they are the ones who hide the truth from science, as in the movie Don’t Look Up, they are the ones who say what is thought, what is said, and what should be banned and silenced,” Petro said.

Petro also accused the “global oligarchy” of “economically blockading rebel countries” such as Cuba and Venezuela. Petro notably did not condemn the regimes of those countries for their extensive track records of human rights violations against their own people.

The Colombian president also referred to socialism and asserted that its “red flag,” which did not find its place in history, must now be of “all colors.”

“That word socialism today has another meaning. People are strong if we help each other. It is the basis of socialism,” Petro said.

Petro concluded his speech by calling for a “world revolution” and stressing the need to “build the greatest army of all time, composed of warriors of life” to overthrow the “global oligarchy.”

“It is up to humanity to fight the battle. It is time for the people to take the problems into their own hands. We must turn to the people. New leaderships will appear; the oligarchy will be overthrown. A new history is about to begin,” he concluded.

Keep in mind that a real life example of terrorism like Petro has no stance here criticizing Netanyahu for defending his country from terrorist organizations funded by Iran. No country should be forced to accept the destruction of their nation at the hands of terrorists. 

Quote:Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spent over half of his very lengthy address to the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday criticizing Israel for its war against the terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah.

Erdogan accused the Israelis of genocide, compared them to Nazi Germany, and demanded the U.N. authorize “coercive measures against Israel” to halt the war in Gaza.

“The international community, and all of us in the human family, must fulfill our obligation to the Palestinian people without further delay,” Erdogan demanded.

Turkey’s Islamist leader claimed the U.N. has “failed in its founding mission” and become a “dysfunctional structure” because it has done nothing to stop “the massacre that has been going on in Gaza for the last 350 days.”

“They shredded the charter of the United Nations from the rostrum of the United Nations and shamelessly challenged the whole world,” he said of the Israelis.

“In Gaza, not only children are dying, but also the United Nations system. The values that the West claims to defend are dying. Truth is dying. The hopes of humanity to live in a more just world are dying, one by one,” he declared.

Erdogan blamed the U.N.’s inaction on Israel and its most influential supporters, although he never quite got around to calling out the United States, Turkey’s NATO ally, by name.

“‘The world is bigger than five’ is my motto. International justice cannot be left to the will of five privileged member states of the Security Council,” he said.

Erdogan extensively regurgitated Hamas propaganda about the war in Gaza, absurdly insisting that almost all of the casualties were “women and children” deliberately targeted by Israel in a campaign of genocide.

“I call out to the United Nations Security Council: what are you waiting for to prevent the genocide in Gaza, to put a stop to this cruelty, this barbarism? What are you waiting for to stop Netanyahu and his mass murder network?” he asked.

Erdogan tried intimidating the “countries supporting Israel in an unconditional manner” by asking how long they could “carry the same of witnessing this massacre.” Later, he suggested all of the countries supporting Israel should be held accountable as accomplices to its alleged crimes.

Erdogan accused the Israelis of “disregarding basic human rights,” “trampling on international law,” and “practicing ethnic cleansing–- a clear genocide against a nation, a people, and occupying their lands step-by-step.”

“Just as Hitler was stopped by an alliance of humanity, Netanyahu and his murder network must be stopped by an alliance of humanity,” he declared, asking the UNGA to authorize the use of force against Israel.

Erdogan also insisted Israel must pay “the bill for the billions of dollars of damage caused in the cities that have been destroyed, wrecked, and reduced to rubble.”

The Turkish leader restated his support for South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and said he would not rest until “those who gave the orders, pulled the triggers and dropped the bombs are held accountable for their crimes.”

Erdogan took time to salute the destructive and often violent pro-Hamas protests held in Western countries – an especially savory bit of hypocrisy, given how he deals with dissenting voices in Turkey, and has even ordered his security forces to assault them when on American soil.

“I would like to especially thank the university students and the youth,” he said.

Nowhere in Erdogan’s speech was there even the slightest mention of why Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza, and now Hezbollah in Lebanon. Erdogan mentioned October 7 – but he framed it as the beginning of Israel’s random and remorseless massacre of “41,000 people, mostly children and women.” He studiously avoided mentioning anything unpleasant that might have happened to some Jews on that day.

Erdogan did not even mention Hamas until almost 20 minutes into his speech and his sole reference to the Palestinian terrorist gang was to falsely congratulate them for supposedly accepting every ceasefire offer that came their way.

Erdogan went on to claim Israel deliberately scuttled any hope for peace by “sneakily killing its negotiating partner at the time it was closest to a ceasefire,” a reference to the July elimination of Hamas mastermind Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. Israel has not taken responsibility for the suspected bombing that killed Haniyeh, though its government is widely suspected of orchestrating it.

Erdogan effectively wrote the Palestinians a blank check for terrorism, seemingly including the October 7 atrocities, because they are “exercising their legitimate rights of resistance against this occupation and ethnic cleansing.” Erdogan has in the past repeatedly and explicitly stated, “Hamas is not a terrorist organization,” including shortly after October 7.

“The just resistance of the Palestinian people against the occupiers of their land is noble, it’s honorable, and legitimate,” Erdogan said, taking a moment to wave at his “brothers and sisters in the legitimate resistance in Palestine.”

Erdogan insisted the only possible resolution to the conflict was giving the Palestinians a state carved from Israeli territory, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Erdogan spent some time complaining about issues of particular interest to Turkey, praising the Turkish Cypriots and the BRICS economic collective, and complaining that part of Syria remains “in the grip of terrorism and separatist organizations,” by which he meant the Kurds.

Erdogan, who has styled himself as a defender of global Islam, complained that “Islamophobia, xenophobia, and racism” are “creeping over the world like poison ivy.”

“Every week, attacks are taking place on our mosques and our holy book of Quran. In the middle of Europe, peoples’ homes are set on fire and their lives are taken because of their ethnic and religious affiliation,” he said, demanding the appointment of a special U.N. envoy to combat Islamophobia.

At the end of his long speech, Erdogan caught his second wind and launched a spirited attack against the LGBTQIAP2S+ movement, describing it as a threat to “the institution of the family,” which is a “pillar of society.”

“The disgrace staged at the opening of the 2024 Olympic Games has revealed the extent of the threat we face as humanity. A sporting event watched by innocent children and hundreds of millions of people of all ages and beliefs has been used as a tool for sexist propaganda,” he said.

The disgrace Erdogan referred to was a recreation of what many interpreted to be the Christian Last Supper with drag queens, bracketed by a transgender fashion show and a dance number simulating various forms of gay intercourse, including a threesome. Organizers claimed the feast was meant to portray a Hellenic pagan scene hosted by the ancient Greek god Dionysus.

“Those disturbing scenes of evil have wounded not only the Catholic world, the Christian world, but everyone who respects the sacred values,” he said.

Erdogan said the homosexual agenda has become “a war against the sacred and human nature,” a “multidimensional, comprehensive, and ruthless project of destruction.”

“Anyone who raises a voice against this annihilation project is silenced and targeted by hate campaigns,” he said, declaring that his government would not be intimidated.

“Turkey is determined to break this siege and resist the climate of fear. To this end we became a member of the United Nations Friends of the Family group. Inshallah, together with other member countries, we will not hesitate to defend the family, the human being, and human nature,” he concluded.

Quote:Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian used his address to the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday to attack Israel on behalf of Iran’s terrorist clients in Hamas – an unsurprising, but perhaps slightly disappointing, tirade from an Iranian second-in-command who billed himself as a more compassionate, reformist leader.

Pezeshkian spent a few minutes touting his platform of “reform, national empathy, constructive engagement with the world, and economic development,” and promoting Shia Islam as a religion of “peace, justice, and universal tolerance,” but then began reciting Hamas propaganda about Israel’s supposedly murderous campaign in Gaza.

Pezeshkian railed against the Israelis for referring to their campaign of “genocide, the killing of children, war crimes, and state terrorism” as “legitimate self-defense.”

“They label hospitals, kindergartens, and schools as ‘legitimate military targets.’ They label the freedom-loving and brave people around the world who protest against their genocide as ‘anti-Semitic.’ They label an oppressed people, who have stood up against seven decades of occupation and humiliation, as ‘terrorists,’” he thundered.

Iran is the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism by a wide margin but, in Pezeshkian’s twisted worldview, his country merely supports “popular liberation movements.”

“We have been siding with the people across the world, who have flooded the streets in outrage against Israeli atrocities. We condemn Israeli crimes against humanity,” he said.

Like other terrorist-supporting leaders who spoke at UNGA, Pezeshkian made no mention whatsoever of the unspeakable atrocities perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli civilians – including women, children, and infants – on October 7. He studiously avoided mentioning Hamas’ use of human shields, its terror tunnels, its criminal abuse of hostages, and its penchant for putting weapons in civilian locations.

Pezeshkian painted Iran as a helpless victim of “threats, war, occupation, and sanctions.”

“Iran has never initiated a war. It has only defended itself heroically against external aggression, causing the aggressors to regret their actions,” he claimed.

Of course, Iran constantly wages aggressive war against its neighbors and the West, but it uses cutouts and proxies like the terrorist Shiite militias of Iraq, the Hezbollah terrorist organization that has laid waste to Lebanon with Tehran’s support, and the Houthi pirates of Yemen, who have conducted reckless attacks against international shipping in the Red Sea.

Pezehskian mentioned none of Iran’s vicious proxy forces in his speech, nor did he accept responsibility for arming and training them.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran seeks to safeguard its own security, not to create insecurity for others. We want peace for all, and seek no war or quarrel with anyone,” the Iranian president claimed, at roughly the same time as reports were breaking that Iran brokered a deal with Russia to supply the Houthis with more dangerous anti-ship missiles.

Pezeshkian did briefly mention Russia, but only in the context of claiming that Iran wants “lasting peace and security” for both the Russians and Ukrainians.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran opposes war and emphasizes the urgent need to end military hostilities in Ukraine. We support all peaceful solutions and believe that dialogue is the only way to resolve this crisis,” he said.

Pezeshkian criticized former U.S. President Donald Trump for withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), without mentioning the Iranian cheating that prompted Trump to withdraw.

Pezeshkian also avoided mentioning recent complaints by the the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran has ceased cooperating with its investigators while it races to increase its already treaty-busting stockpile of enriched uranium.

Instead, the Iranian leader blasted sanctions as inhumane, demanded the U.S. unilaterally lift all of them, and said his government is ready to “engage with JCPOA participants.”

Pezeshkian tossed in a complaint about Trump ordering the liquidation of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, without mentioning that Soleimani’s entire job was to destabilize other governments in the Middle East – the very activity Pezeshkian insisted Iran never engages in – or that Soleimani was killed in Baghdad while in the midst of organizing terrorist attacks on Americans with the aid of Iraq’s Shiite militias.

The Iranian leader pitched his closing remarks as a direct statement to the American people, implicitly either pleading with them, or threatening them, not to send Trump back to the White House.

“In order to build a better future world, Iran stands prepared to foster meaningful economic, social, political, and security partnerships with global powers and its neighbors based on equal footing,” he claimed.

“The appropriate response to this message from Iran is not to impose more sanctions, but to fulfill existing obligations to remove sanctions, benefiting the Iranian people and hence laying the foundations for more constructive agreements,” he concluded.

Not like Iran ever cared about meeting the deal's demands at all.

Quote:Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed China’s peace proposals as insincere and even treacherous at the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) on Wednesday, insisting only his own proposals can bring “real and just peace” to his people by ending Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion.

Zelensky began his address to the Assembly by recalling the “terrifying report” he received a month into the invasion about Russian tanks firing at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia – which, he reminded his audience, is the largest nuclear plant in Europe.

“The Russian army stormed this facility just as brutally as any other during this war, without thinking about the consequences, possibly disastrous,” he said.

“This was one of the most horrifying moments of the war, when no one could know how Russian strikes on the nuclear facility would end, and everyone in Ukraine was reminded of what ‘Chernobyl’ means,” he continued, alluding to the infamous 1986 nuclear disaster, which occurred on Ukraine’s soil when it was part of the Soviet Union.

Zelensky repeatedly warned that Russia’s occupation of Zaporizhzhia represents “the major source of radiation danger in Europe, possibly the world,” and demanded the facility be returned to Ukrainian control.

He extended that warning by musing that “smoke from fires in war-torn cities can reach other countries,” and accused Putin of committing “ecocide” by heedlessly causing massive environmental damage during his invasion of Ukraine.

“If – God forbid – Russia causes a nuclear disaster at one of our nuclear power plants, radiation will not respect state borders,” he said.

Zelensky said Putin’s vicious strategy was to wipe out Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, inflicting so much suffering on its civilian population that Kyiv might finally surrender.

“As of today, Russia has destroyed all of our thermal plants, and a large portion of our hydroelectric capacity. This is how Putin is preparing for winter, hoping to torment millions of Ukrainians – ordinary families, women, children, ordinary towns, ordinary villages. Putin wants to leave them in the dark and cold this winter, forcing Ukraine to suffer and surrender,” he said.

Zelensky accused other countries of helping Russia, name-checking North Korea and Iran – a “telling choice of friends,” in the Ukrainian leader’s opinion. He accused Russia’s allies of feeding it satellite data that helped the Russians target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Quote:Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has made an appeal to the U.N. Security Council and “global south” nations to force Russia to peace, accusing the country of “international crimes” and of targeting nuclear power stations.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected the utility of talks to resolve the Ukraine War, saying all the nations of the world to come together to “force” Russia into peace. Addressing the U.N. Security council in a punchy speech, President Zelensky told its members — Russia is a permanent member of the council — that: “we know some in the world want to talk to Putin… but what could they possibly hear from them, that he’s upset because we are exercising our right to defend our people?”.

The Ukrainian leader accused Russia of “international crimes” including razing cities and villages, and said “have have proof” that Russia is targeting Ukrainian nuclear power plants, potentially an extremely serious outcome. “This war can’t simply fade away, this war can’t be calmed by talks”, Zelensky said, remarking of the Russian nuclear attack threat: “If Russia is willing to go this far, it means nothing you value matters to Moscow.”

Making a global appeal, and particularly to nations who aren’t already donors to the Ukraine war effort, President Zelensky made an address to nations like China, Brazil, and African states for help. Britain’s The Guardian characterised his words as a message to the “global south”.
...
He said: I invite all of you, all principled nations to join us in this process, all who truly respect the U.N. charter. We invite China, we invite Brazil, I have already invited India. We are working with African nations, with all of Latin America, Middle East, Central Asia, Europe, the Pacific region, North America, all. All are equally important for peace.

This is due to be a big week for President Zelensky. Beyond his set-piece speeches to the United Nations, he is due to use his time in the United States to meet with key U.S. leaders including President Biden to present what Zelensky has repeatedly hailed as his “peace plan”. As well as the U.S. President, Zelensky also visited a U.S. munitions factory making shells for the war and is due to speak with Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, again on the peace plan.

One key element President Zelensky is expected to be working towards during his time in the U.S. is permission to use long-range missiles to strike Russian military bases deep inside Russia. Ukraine states these facilities are used to launch major air-strikes on Ukrainian cities that are far better defeated on the ground before they launch.

European backers are moving toward supporting Ukraine making these deep strikes into the Russian hinterland but Washington remains opposed, fearing escalation with Moscow.

President Zelensky is scheduled to address the United Nations again today in the morning session of the General Debate of the 79th Session, after 0900 New York time (1400 BST).

Quote:Argentine President Javier Milei used his debut speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday to deliver an enthusiastic condemnation of “globalism and the moral posturing of the woke agenda” and warn that the U.N. flagship Agenda 2030 is a threat to global freedom.

Milei introduced himself as a “libertarian economist … honored with the mandate of the presidency of the Argentine Republic” thanks to the “precipitous failure of over a century of collectivist policies,” marking a notable rift from many General Assembly speeches that amplify U.N. leadership messages on climate change, wealth redistribution, and silencing “misinformation.” Milei became president in December 2023, so Tuesday’s event was his first opportunity to address the forum.

Before delivered a list of damning facts about the current state of the United Nations, Milei applauded the institution for successfully preventing a third world war, the original purpose of its existence.

“We went from having two world wars in less than 40 years, which together took over 120 million lives, to having 70 consecutive years of relative peace and global stability,” he noted, “under an order that allowed the whole world integrate itself commercially, compete, and prosper.”

This “outstanding success in the history of nations,” Milei stated, brought about a prophecy in the Book of Isaiah, which the president, an avid student of Judaism, read to the forum:

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

But the U.N. “started to mutate,” he continued, and became “a leviathan of multiple tentacles that wants to decide not just what every state or nation should do, but how all the citizens of the world should live.” The current U.N. is “a supranational government model of international bureaucrats who want to impose on the citizens of the world a determined way of life,” he warned.

Milei then launched into a searing condemnation of the recent United Nations record, condemning its support of Wuhan coronavirus lockdowns and its support of totalitarian regimes:

This is how we have seen how an organization that was born to defend the rights of man has become one of the principal advocates for the systematic violation of liberty – for example, with the worldwide quarantines during 2020 which should be considered a crime against humanity.

In this very house, which claims to defend human rights, bloody dictatorships such as those of Cuba and Venezuela have been allowed onto the Human Rights Council with not even the least reproach. In this very house, which claims to defend the rights of women, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women allows entry to countries that punish women for showing skin. In this very house, systematically, they have voted against the state of Israel – which is the only country in the Middle East that defends liberal democracy, while showing simultaneously a total incapacity to respond to the scourge of terrorism.

“Crimes against humanity” is a catch-all term in international law for actions that, on a global scale, are prosecutable by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Milei did not single out anyone to charge with the crime, but the context of accusing the United Nations of playing a role in supporting repressive quarantines points to the head of the U.N.’s World Health Organization (W.H.O.), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was reelected to lead the agency uncontested despite his egregious failure in contain the novel coronavirus or holding China accountable for its destruction of relevant biological evidence and silence as the virus began spreading in Wuhan in December 2019. Tedros’ current main project is the development of a “pandemic treaty” that would greatly empower the W.H.O. to act above sovereign states in the face of public health emergencies.

Milei also used his speech to condemn the World Economic Forum (WEF), a venue he has visited to share similar condemnations of globalism.

“What also hasn’t helped is the tutelage of the World Economic Forum, where they promote ridiculous policies with Malthusian veneers, like the policies of Mission Zero, which harm above all poor countries,” Milei told the United Nations, “to policies tied to sexual and reproductive rights — when the birth rates of Western countries are collapsing, announcing a bleak future for all.”

Milei predicted that the world is “at the end of a cycle.”

“Globalism and the moral posturing of the woke agenda have crashed into reality and no longer have credible solutions to offer to real-world problems — in fact, they never had them,” he declared. “If Agenda 2030 failed, as its own promoters recognize, the response should be to ask ourselves if it was not a poorly conceived plan from the beginning, accept that reality, and change course.”

The Argentine president concluded by summarizing the creed of his anti-collectivist, libertarian movement in Argentina.

“We believe in the defense of life — for all. We believe in the defense of the right to property — for all,” he listed. “We believe in the freedom of expression — for all. “We believe in freedom of religion — for all. We believe in freedom of commerce — for all. And we believe in limiting governments — all of them.”

Quote:The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, offered the U.N. General Assembly a succinct speech on Tuesday comprised of two parts: a victory lap on the overwhelming success of his campaign against criminal gangs, and a warning from “a friend” that the current trajectory of the Western world will lead to a “new dark ages of humanity.”

Bukele declared that “the free world is no longer free,” using examples including the erosion of freedom of expression, especially on social media, and rampant crime in major Western cities. He did not specify any particular instances of censorship or crime, but the Salvadoran president has in the past lamented the decline of major American cities such as New York and Baltimore stridently condemned attempts to prosecute American former President Donald Trump while he campaigns to return to the White House.

Bukele spoke on a packed first day at the General Assembly that included despondent remarks from outgoing American President Joe Biden, a 40-minute rant from Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and, immediately before Bukele, a rousing condemnation of globalism from President Javier Milei of Argentina – whose administration has turned to Bukele for advice on fighting crime.

The U.N. typically suggests a 15-minute time limit for speeches, though it does not cut off its high-level speakers if they cross the limit, as in the case with Erdogan. Bukele, going against the current, addressed the Assembly for about ten minutes.

“When I came for the first time to the United Nations General Assembly, in 2019, I know that not many people knew of El Salvador or had even heard talk about El Salvador,” he noted. If they knew about it, they only had bad references, as the most violent country in the world or the Mara country.”

“Five years after that first speech, I come here as the president of a country that now has a voice in the world,” he declared.

Bukele shifted his tone dramatically in this week’s speech from how he initially addressed the Assembly during his first speech in 2019. At that time, Bukele dismissed the forum as irrelevant, comparing it to Blockbuster video, and took a selfie on the podium to prove that the United Nations is so poorly respected more people would see the selfie than hear his speech. On Tuesday, Bukele treated the forum as relevant and used it to offer a warning, particularly to the Western world.

After celebrating the “undeniable” success of his campaign to eradicate MS-13, 18th Street, and other gangs that had taken over his country in five years, he suggested that El Salvador’s progress had occurred simultaneously with an ongoing decline in the “free world” that would lead the planet to doom.

“While the Salvadoran people became more optimist, the majority of people in the modern world become ever more pessimist,” Bukele observed. “And they have a point: the world has become divided, depressed, worried, hostile, and hopeless. And it has done it at an unprecedented pace.”

“The free world is no longer free. This is not an exaggeration,” he proclaimed.

“When the free world became free, it was due to its principles of freedom of expression, equality before the law, unity, and respect for private property. But once a nation abandons the principles that make it free, it’s only a matter of time untl it loses its freedom completely,” he suggested.

Without naming any particular nation, Bukele continued, “In some cities of the so-called free world, stores need to secure their products behind class doors with lock and key to avoid theft. And I’m not talking about expensive products, but simple things like chocolate bars and razors.”

He also addressed the leftist-led campaigns against free expression, particularly online.

“The largest social media platforms in the world were forced to censor their users at the demand of their governments,” the president said. “Citizens of Western states have been arrested for sharing posts on social networks. Governing parties have tried to ban their political opposition.”

“These are not accusations or conspiracy theories. These are provable and widely documented facts,” he added.

“You can’t claim the title of free world if your people are not even free to walk the streets without fear of being harassed, robbed, or murdered,” he suggested.
...

Quote:Ukrainian troops engaged in hand-to-hand combat as they drove Russian forces out of a huge processing plant in the town of Vovchansk in Ukraine’s northeast that had been occupied for four months, officials said Tuesday.

The plant, a partly steel structure with some 30 buildings, had been a Russian stronghold in the Kharkiv border region since May when Russia sought to further stretch Ukraine’s weary forces by launching a fresh push in the area.

Taking back the plant was likely intended to demonstrate that Ukraine is not giving up the fight despite being outmanned and outgunned by the Russian army. The accomplishment coincided with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s trip to the United States where he is looking to ensure continuing foreign support for his country with the war deep into its third year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to grind down Ukraine’s appetite for the fight and sap the West’s support for Kyiv by drawing out the conflict. Russian forces have been creeping forward on the battlefield this year but the progress has been costly. The U.K. Defense Ministry estimates more than 1,000 Russian troops are being killed or wounded each day.

A statement from Ukrainian Military Intelligence said its units recaptured the Vovchansk plant after fierce fighting “in densely built-up conditions.”

The Russian onslaught has reduced Vovchansk, and many other Ukrainian towns and villages, to smoking piles of rubble and bombed-out residential buildings.

Quote:The anti-mass migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is officially the strongest faction in East Germany following the regional elections in Brandenburg on Sunday.

Despite a narrow defeat to the Social Democrats (SPD) in the north-eastern state of Brandenburg, the populist Alternative for Germany party can now boast having the most state parliament seats in the former East Germany. According to calculations from broadcaster NTV, the AfD control 138 seats in the East, surpassing the neo-liberal centre-right Christian Democrat Union following the vote in Brandenburg.

The CDU — the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel — will now only have 128 seats in the East. Before Sunday, both the AfD and CDU were tied at 131 state parliament seats in the socially conservative former Soviet controlled part of the country.

The shift in balance of power towards the right comes after the AfD’s victory in Thuringia, which represented the first time the party came out on top in a state election in its history with 32.8 per cent of the vote.

The populist party also secured a strong second-place showing in Saxony with 30.6 per cent of the vote. In Brandenburg on Sunday, the AfD secured 29.2 per cent of the vote, barely behind the SPD at 30.9 per cent.

Results in Brandenburg also confirmed the staying power of the upstart leftist-populist party of Sahra Wagenknecht, a political firebrand who broke from the Left party over her opposition to the war in Ukraine and mass migration.
...
Wagenknecht’s eponymous BSW party won 13.5 per cent of the vote in Brandenburg, besting the 12.1 per cent for the CDU, which continues to struggle to regain trust after former leader Merkel opened the floodgates to mass migration in 2015.

Despite aligning with the AfD on key issues, Wagenknecht has ruled out an alliance with the right-wing party, joining the so-called cordon sanitaire of establishment parties to block the AfD from joining any government, be it at the state or federal level.

Yet, with the collapse of support for the Green party, over failures of climate-inspired energy policy and continued support for mass migration, Wagenknecht may be seeking to replace the Greens as a coalition party of the Social Democrats. Such an alliance would likely come with a demand that the SPD finally reverse course on migration.

However, following disappointing results in regional elections and struggles in national polling, the governing SPD may be in a state of flux. Although Olaf Scholz has committed to running for a second term as chancellor, his party essentially abandoned him in the Brandenburg campaign. Rather than running on the chancellor’s record, the local Social Democrats focussed on regional leader Dietmar Woidke instead, refusing to even feature pictures of Scholz on any campaign material.

Social Democrat co-leader Lars Klingbei attempted to quell discussion about a leadership change, saying on Monday that there is “absolutely no wobbling… In the leadership of the party, the parliamentary group, among the state governors and ministers, there is no discussion about this in any place.”

Quote:The entire federal executive board of the German Green party resigned on Wednesday after a string of disastrous regional election results as the leftist party is haemorrhaging voters amid growing opposition to core pillars of its platform such as the green agenda, support for the war in Ukraine, and open borders.

Announcing their early resignation, Green leaders Omid Nouripour and Ricarda Lang said that the party is in “the deepest crisis in a decade”.

Their decision to cede control of the party comes after yet another embarrassing defeat at the ballot box, with the Greens only managing to win 4.1 per cent of the vote in the Brandenburg elections over the weekend, falling below the five per cent threshold to be represented in the state’s parliament.

This was a repeat of similarly dismal performances in Thuringia, where the party also fell short of the threshold, and in Saxony, where the leftist party barely met the requirement, with 5.1 per cent of the vote.

Ricarda Lang admitted in comments reported by Welt: “New faces are needed to lead the party out of the crisis.”

The Greens, which currently make up one third of the “traffic light” coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, have suffered a severe decline in popularity as the public’s attitude towards issues like mass migration and the green agenda have soured.

This trend has been particularly noticeable among young voters, with the Greens losing a staggering 74.1 per cent of its support among 16 to 24 year olds in Brandenburg, falling by 20 percentage points from 2019 to just seven per cent support among the age group. Meanwhile, the anti-mass migration populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) increased its vote share among young people by 14 points to 32 per cent.

While the German people have increasingly turned against the mass migration party, with recent Islamist terror attacks carried out on Mannheim and Solingen, forcing Chancellor Olaf Scholz to enact border controls and begin deportations of illegals back to Afghanistan for the first time since the Taliban takeover of the country in the wake of U.S. President Joe Biden’s bungled withdrawal of American forces in 2021, the Green party has continued to argue against limits on migration.

The intransigence of the party on immigration was criticised by popular Social Democrat leader of Brandenburg Dietmar Woidke, who narrowly defeated the AfD at the weekend elections after distancing the local party from the SPD-led government in Berlin. Woidke told German paper Welt that he would have “expected a more pragmatic attitude from the Greens, especially when it comes to migration,” adding that “you cannot make government policy against the clear expectations of the population.”

The Greens have also faced pushback for failures of its climate agenda, which has left the leading European economy vulnerable to external shocks, notably from the war in Ukraine and the drastic reduction in supplies of Russian energy. The coalition government also controversially decided to push forward with Green Party plans to entirely phase out nuclear energy amid the energy crisis, despite the success of the clean form of energy in neighbouring France.

Finally, while Green parties have traditionally been proponents of peace, the current Green party in Germany has been one of the leading advocates for sponsoring Kyiv in its conflict with Russia. Infamously, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, one of the top Green politicians in the country, declared in 2022 that the government would continue to financially support Ukraine “no matter what” the German voter thinks.

The electoral issues facing coalition parties are not contained to the Greens, however, with fellow traffic light partner, the neo-liberal corporatist Free Democrats (FDP) suffering even worse results in recent state elections than the Green Party, only managing to gain 1.1 per cent of the vote in Thuringia, 0.9 per cent in Saxony, and 0.8 per cent in Brandenburg.
...

Quote:Members of Britain’s governing Labour Party dealt Prime Minister Keir Starmer a blow on Wednesday, rejecting his decision to cut payments that offset winter heating costs for millions of retirees.

The vote on the final day of Labour’s annual conference is not binding, but it’s a setback to Starmer’s efforts to unite his center-left party around the contentious measure.

Since winning office in July, Starmer has cautioned that the dire state of the public finances inherited from the last Conservative government means he must make hard choices such as ending the winter fuel allowance, worth between 200 and 300 pounds ($262 and $393), for all but the poorest pensioners.

Trade unions that are among Labour’s funders and allies organized resistance to the cut at the conference in Liverpool, northwest England. They forced a vote on a demand for the decision to be reversed. It was narrowly passed in a show-of-hands vote amid cheers and jeers in the conference hall.

“I do not understand how our new Labour government can cut the winter fuel payment for pensioners and leave the super-rich untouched,” said Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, to applause from delegates. “This is not what people voted for. It is the wrong decision and it needs to be reversed.”

The government has promised the withdrawal of the heating allowance will be offset by an above-inflation increase in the state pension and other measures to reduce poverty.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall told delegates that the cut “wasn’t a decision we wanted or expected to make.” But she argued that “this Labour government has done more to help the poorest pensioners in the last two months than the Tories did in 14 years.”

Starmer tried to unite the party and appeal to a skeptical electorate in his first conference speech as prime minister on Tuesday, telling voters exhausted by years of political and economic turmoil that better times are on the way – if they swallow his recipe of short-term pain for long-term gain.

He said he would make “tough decisions” – code for public spending restraint and tax increases – to achieve economic growth to fund schools, hospitals, roads, railways and more.

Starmer acknowledged some of those decisions would be unpopular, but said: “We will turn our collar up and face the storm.”

Quote:Britain’s left-wing Prime Minister says he hopes to meet with both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris while he is in the United States this week, but his own ministers struggle to keep on message, laying on the criticism of Trump.

Sir Keir Starmer has flown to New York for the U.N. General Assembly, and hopes to use his time in the United States to get into the good graces of the future U.S. President, whoever that may be. Speaking to reporters on his flight, Starmer said: “As far as the candidates are concerned, if possible, it would be very good to meet both of them at some stage before the election. We’ll just have to see what’s possible”, notes The Daily Telegraph.

But Starmer may have an uphill battle ahead of him to secure these meetings, given as The Guardian asserts, he is “understood not to want to see one candidate without also meeting the other”, meaning a refusal by one could see the British Prime Minister coming home empty-handed. The problem for Starmer may be that even as he continues his months-long charm offensive towards the Trump team — the Labour Party’s natural alignment with the Democrats make such less efforts less important there — his own senior colleagues undermine it.
...
Speaking at the Labour Party’s annual conference this week, newly-appointed Minister of State for Border Security and Asylum Dame Angela Eagle spoke in the very specific language of the progressive left employed when they feel they are interacting among their own tribe, bemoaning the toxic “othering” of asylum seekers”, and right-wing rhetoric “creating a space, I think, for overt racism”.

It is difficult for newly arrived immigrants to “rise above the constant drumbeat of toxic anti-immigration, anti-immigrant rhetoric that has become emboldened, not only in Britain but across the western countries”.

Getting into her stride, the ‘Border security’ minister made her actual views on the utility of borders clear, remarking: “I mean, Trump does the same… If you look at some of the memes that he’s using with the wall stuff at the moment, it’s astonishing, quite the level of vitriol that it has created.”

The Trump camp made its displeasure known and bit back, with a spokesman reportedly saying of the comments: “Nobody knows who this random person is or cares what comes out of her mouth… Who is she and what does she do?”.

Politico notes Brexit leader and British Trump ally Nigel Farage looked askance at Eagle’s intemperate comments, observing: “Angela Eagle and the Labour Party are so scared of this subject that all they can do is throw abuse at anyone who is concerned at the unwanted changes to our country” while party leader Sir Keir — off on his charm offensive to America — declined to back up his colleague’s comments at all.

Quote:Federal prosecutors indicted New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday, The New York Times reports, casting doubt on the moderate Democrat’s future as chief executive of the country’s largest city.

The U.S. Department of Justice had been investigating whether Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign received illegal foreign donations from the Turkish government. The probe came into public view in November, when federal agents seized the electronic devices first of an Adams campaign aide in charge of fundraising, and then Adams himself.

A series of additional scandals have since consumed Adams’ mayoralty with federal prosecutors investigating top Adams administration officials for charges that include alleged bribery and shakedown schemes. The steady drip of federal raids and rumored indictments has spurred the resignation of a host of top officials. In the past two weeks alone, Adams’ schools chancellor, health commissioner, police commissioner, and City Hall attorney have all left.

A former female colleague of Adams’ while he was in the New York Police Department is also suing him for sexual assault she says he perpetrated in 1993.

As Adams’ troubles have mounted, he has maintained that he is laser-focused on running the city, which has been dealing with continued affordability challenges for residents and the integration of more than 210,000 asylum seekers who have arrived since 2022.

But there is already a growing field of Democrats challenging Adams in the mayoral primary in June 2025, including state Sens. Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos, City Comptroller Brad Lander, and former City Comptroller Scott Stringer.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, perhaps the most influential progressive in New York City, called for Adams to resign on Wednesday.

“I do not see how Mayor Adams can continue governing New York City,” she posted on X, citing the “flood” of investigations and resignations.

Quote:The 57-page indictment against Eric Adams (D) was released Thursday and contained a litany of serious allegations against the New York City mayor.

Adams has been indicted on a slew of federal charges relating to contributions to his 2021 campaign, “including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him.”

Overall there are five district criminal counts in the Adams indictment including bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations that prosecutors said began when he was a top elected official in Brooklyn and continued after he became mayor.

The indictment alleges Adams defrauded the public matching funds program by submitting inflated donation figures boosted by the Turkish money and receiving eight times that amount in matching public funds.

“As Adams’s prominence and power grew, his foreign-national benefactors sought to cash in on their corrupt relationships with him, particularly when, in 2021, it became clear that Adams would become New York City’s mayor,” the indictment alleges.

A further page notes an Adams staffer deleted messaging apps during an FBI interview.

The counts are:

Count one: Conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery and to receive contributions by foreign nationals

Count two: Wire fraud

Count three: Solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national

Count four: Solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national

Count five: Bribery

As Breitbart News reported, Adams has already responded to the indictment from a grand jury noting the charges against him would be “entirely false.”

“My fellow New Yorkers, it is now my belief that the federal government intends to charge me with crimes,” Adams said in a video. “If so, these charges will be entirely false, based on lies. But, they would not be surprising.”

Adams is the first sitting mayor in the city’s history to face criminal charges.

The charges come after the mayor had his home raided by the FBI earlier this year, and multiple deputies‘ homes were searched earlier this month.

Further details are expected to be revealed at an 11:30 a.m. press conference coming just hours after his phone was seized by the FBI.

Quote:New York City Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán (D) said Thursday on CNN’s “The Lead” that New York City Mayor Eric Adams should be removed by Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) after his indictment for his alleged role in campaign finance and foreign influence crimes.

Cabán said, “The question really for New Yorkers right now is can this mayor in this moment govern, can he deliver the critical services that New Yorkers deserve every single day? And we know that he can’t even before the indictment dropped. So it’s not just that he has now been criminally indicted for first in the history of New York City. It is not just the mass exodus of high level officials in the administration, but it’s this ongoing pattern of mismanagement and corrupt that has broken down on the city’s ability to deliver government services and provisions and you are yes, innocent until proven guilty. I am a huge proponent of due process. But this is about can he deliver and do the job? This is way too distracting in this moment.”

Host Jake Tapper said, “Governor Kathy Hochul has the power to remove Mayor Adams from his position should she?”

Cabán said, “Yes. You know, like I said, this is a moment where it’s very clear that he cannot govern. There is an inability for government to function the way it is.”

Quote:On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Alex Wagner Tonight,” Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) stated that “it’s just unfortunate” that New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) said some of the same things as 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump about migrants and immigration, Trump’s argument “is a horrible one around migrants, around immigration.” And “that is not who New York is. New York is defined by the contributions of immigrants to the city of New York. This is the place, the Statue of Liberty.”

After host Alex Wagner referenced Adams’ comments about migrants, Jayapal said, “I think the challenge here is that the whole argument right now that Donald Trump is pushing is a horrible one around migrants, around immigration. And it’s just unfortunate that Eric Adams [said] some of those same things, he said some of those same things and I think New Yorkers didn’t like it. I think that is not who New York is. New York is defined by the contributions of immigrants to the city of New York. This is the place, the Statue of Liberty. And I think that — so, this is difficult, in many ways.”

Now we should mull the possibility that the charges pressed against NYC mayor are motivated by his remarks on immigration.  

Quote:Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that former President Donald Trump should be extinguished from politics, which she clarified meant “vote him out.”

Raimondo said, “Tax policy, you have to work with Congress but if he decides he wants to do something crazy, like a 200% tariff, which will hurt Americans, raise prices and lose jobs, he could do it as president. Which is why honestly why I’m here in my personal capacity. The stakes are so high in this one. We cannot afford to put him back in the White House.”

She added, “He’s the one that overturned Roe. For me, you know, when I was the governor of Rhode Island, one of the first governors in the country back in 2019 to codify Roe in state statute in Rhode Island. I worked with the legislature, it was because he was president, and I feared exactly what would happen. I said women of Rhode Island would be protected. That’s real protection, stepping up and leading. And what he says is the opposite. It is just another lie. How did we get here? Let’s extinguish him for good. We have an answer, we have a remarkably talented candidate who is sincere, who is pragmatic, who is open. Let’s just get it done.”

Host Mika Brzezinski said, “And extinguish, you mean vote him out?”

Raimondo said, “Yes, absolutely vote him out. Banish him from American politics. Yes just vote him out so he goes away.”

Quote:California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a series of “reparations” bills on Thursday, including a formal apology for slavery, even though the state entered the Union as a free state in 1850.

The apology reads, in part:

Whereas, Well after California entered the Union and declared itself a free state outlawing slavery, more than 2,000 enslaved African people were brought to California from 1850 to 1860.

Whereas, the California Supreme Court enforced fugitive slave laws until 1865, stating that the antislavery law in the California Constitution was merely a “declaration of a principle.”
…
Resolved, The State of California apologizes for perpetuating the harms African Americans faced by having imbued racial prejudice through segregation, public and private discrimination, and unequal disbursal of state and federal funding and declares that such actions shall not be repeated.

Newsom signed several other bills passed by the state legislature and pushed by reparations activists. As Breitbart News noted, however, the bills did not include actual cash payments or a reparations fund, provoking protests.

The movement for reparations gained traction during the chaotic summer of 2020, when protests and riots spread across the country in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by police in Democrat-run Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Newsom signed legislation establishing a committee to study reparations. After it made recommendations that included massive cash payments and racially separate schools, legislators toned down the proposals. Newsom only included $12 million toward the reparations issue in his budget this year, which grappled with a near-$50 billion deficit.

The California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC) hailed the state’s apology, among other “significant Reparations-related legislation.” The hope is that California will inspire other states, and the federal government to do the same.

They only had the chance to do that back in the 19th century. It's a scam to come up with SEVERAL bills now to "repair" what had been dealt with almost 2 centuries ago.  The black people have enjoyed freedom for such a long time that there's no longer an excuse to claim they've been harmed as a minority for decades.

Quote:Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) invited a never-Trumper to Senate Republicans’ private weekly lunch on September 17 to argue that Republicans should prioritize defense spending above election integrity.

McConnell’s pitch undermined the House Republican plan to pass a six-month continuing resolution (CR) attached to the SAVE Act – a bill by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) to eliminate non-citizen voting favored by Donald Trump.

In the meeting, McConnell brought in members of the Commission on National Defense Strategy to present a report that endorsed raising taxes to send billions more taxpayer dollars to the Pentagon, a meeting reported by the Daily Signal.

Breitbart News has learned one of those leaders brought in by McConnell to address Republicans was Commission Vice Chair Eric Edelman, a former Undersecretary of Defense for George Bush. In 2020, Edelman endorsed Joe Biden against Donald Trump, disparaging Trump’s fitness for office.

Edelman maintains his fervent opposition to the Republican standard-bearer. On September 18, the day after he pleaded with Republican Senators to prioritize defense spending over conservative policies, Edelman’s name appeared on a letter with dozens of other national security officials attacking Trump and endorsing his Democrat opponent, Kamala Harris.

The September 17 meeting underscores McConnell’s increasing distance from the conference he has long ruled – and highlights the significance of the battle to replace him.

Three candidates have declared so far in Sens. John Thune (R-SD), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Rick Scott (R-FL).

Thune and Cornyn are considered loyal McConnell disciples. Thune currently serves as Republican Whip –McConnell’s top deputy, while Cornyn served in the role before term limits forced him to step aside.

Scott challenged McConnell for leader at the end of the previous conference. Although McConnell won, Scott’s was the first challenge to McConnell’s leadership in his many years atop the Republican conference.

By amassing ten votes in a race that McConnell was certain to win, Scott showed that members of McConnell’s conference were increasingly willing to stand up to him despite the consequences, signaling McConnell’s loosening grip.

Quote:During an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated that the relationship between the U.S. and China has “gotten closer. I think we have deepened our ties with China.”

CNBC Senior Economics Reporter Steve Liesman asked, “You mentioned in your speech the risk of China and the importance of having a positive relationship with China or at least building on that relationship. Yet, over the course of this administration, you have kept the tariffs put in place by former President Trump and you’ve actually added to them. Do you believe that that relationship has gotten closer?”

Yellen answered, “I do believe it’s gotten closer. I think we have deepened our ties with China. We have found ways to constructively discuss and address our differences. I don’t want to say that there will be some miracle in which we see China address all of our concerns quickly, but we have had productive discussions of our differences so that we better understand one another and we’re cooperating in areas that the world needs us to work together. Financial stability is one of these areas, and, for example, if we were to, God forbid, see a globally systemically important bank…fail, that has operations in China and the U.S. and Europe, we would need to be able to cooperate and we are working closely with financial authorities in China, doing tabletop exercises and deepening our ties so that we would be able to work constructively and quickly to manage a financial crisis that involved the banks and the financial system in our countries.”

Quote:Hurricane Helene, which is expected to make landfall in northern Florida Thursday evening, has been upgraded to a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) upgraded the massive storm, barreling down on Florida, Thursday evening.

“Update 6:20 PM EDT Thurs: Helene now an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane,” the NHC wrote in an update.

“A NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft currently investigating Helene recently found that the maximum sustained winds have increased to 130 mph (215 km/h). The minimum central pressure has also decreased to 947 mb (27.96 inches) based on dropsonde data,” it added:

NOAA Wrote:Update 6:20 PM EDT Thurs: Helene now an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane

A NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft currently investigating Helene recently found that the maximum sustained winds have increased to 130 mph (215 km/h).  The minimum central pressure has also decreased…

The 6 p.m. ET update from the NHC warned that, “A catastrophic and deadly storm surge will occur along portions of the Florida Big bend coast, where inundation could reach as high as 20 feet above ground level.”

“Potentially catastrophic hurricane-force winds are expected within the eyewall of Helene and will spread inland over portions of northern Florida and Georgia when Helene makes landfall in the Florida Big Bend region this evening,” it adds, also warning of “damaging wind gusts” well inland, affecting portions of Georgia as well as the Carolinas.

Quote:U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Israel that fighting Hezbollah would only make it more difficult to return more than 60,000 displaced Israelis to their homes, as he pushed for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

The Times of Israel noted:

During his meeting with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer earlier today on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated the Biden administration’s belief that an Israeli escalation against Hezbollah will only make it more difficult to accomplish the objective of returning evacuated Israelis to their homes along the northern border.
…
“A diplomatic settlement will allow civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes… further escalation of the conflict will only make that objective more difficult,” Blinken told Blinken, according to the US readout.

President Joe Biden is backing a 21-day ceasefire proposal that the administration insists it cleared with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, but which the Netanyahu government denies that it approved. Hezbollah has not commented.

The Biden administration has tried to use diplomacy for nearly a year to resolve the conflict that erupted when Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terror organization, began shooting projectiles at Israeli cities, totally unprovoked.

At first, Israel retaliated only by firing at the sites from which it was attacked. Then it began targeting Hezbollah leaders and weapons caches throughout southern Lebanon. It is now preparing a ground assault in Lebanon.

Israel’s goal is to push Hezbollah back to the Litani River and to restrict its ability to fire on Israeli civilians. Alternative, it also hopes that continued military pressure will force Hezbollah to agree to stop shooting at Israel.

Hezbollah has been unreceptive to diplomatic efforts, insisting that Israel agree to a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza, and that Israel abandon a key military post on the Israeli side of the border, which Israel has flatly refused to do.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, approved in 2006, mandates that Hezbollah leave the border with Israel and be disarmed. The United Nations failed to enforce its own resolution as Iran armed Hezbollah for years.

Quote:Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas demanded Israel be stripped of membership in the United Nations in his address to the 2024 General Assembly (UNGA) on Thursday.

Abbas raged against Israel’s war against the Palestinian terrorist gang Hamas, denouncing it as a “full-scale war of genocide” by the “occupying usurpers” of Israel.

“Entire family names have been wiped out of the civil record,” he said. “More than one hundred families have been completely wiped out. Thousands have died because of the spread of disease, and shortages of medicine and water.”

Like other apologists for Palestinian terrorism at the UNGA, Abbas carefully avoided mentioning exactly why Israel is conducting a war against Hamas, or who started that war. He said nothing about the Israeli men, women, and children murdered, raped, and kidnapped on October 7.

Abbas did not mention Hamas at all, although he did vaguely object to the killing of civilians and say that anyone holding “women, children, and the elderly” as prisoners should release them.

Abbas portrayed himself as “the voice of reason” for calling on Israel to respond to the atrocities he couldn’t quite bring himself to mention by immediately implementing a “two-state solution.” He damned the Israelis for deciding they would rather fight the rapists and murders instead.

In a similar vein, Abbas condemned Israel for “launching a new war of aggression on the brotherly Lebanese people” – another “war of genocide” – without mentioning the terrorists of Hezbollah or their relentless attacks on Israeli civilians.

“Stop this crime. Stop it now. Stop killing children and women. Stop the genocide. Stop sending weapons to Israel. This madness cannot continue. The entire world is responsible for what is happening to our people in Gaza and the West Bank,” Abbas railed at the U.N. member states.

“If Israel thinks that it would get away from being held accountable and punished for these crimes, then it is delusional,” he said.

“The international community must immediately impose sanctions on Israel. The massacres, the crimes, the genocide that Israel has perpetrated against our people since its inception in 1948, to this very day, will not go unpunished. There is no statute of limitations,” he said.

“Israel, which refuses to implement United Nations resolutions, does not deserve to be a member of this international organization,” he said, vowing to “submit an application” to have Israel’s membership revoked.

Abbas railed against the U.S. government for “obstructing” three U.N. Security Council resolutions that would have imposed a ceasefire on Israel.

“The U.S., alone, stood and said no, the fighting is going to continue,” he said. “Added to that, it furnished Israel with the deadly weapons that it’s used to kill thousands of civilians, children and women.”

It's laughable to see how a leader that represents no actual country gets some time to address the UNGA directly and demand the expulsion of a real country. Palestine does NOT meet the UN requirements to get a seat as a full-fledged member of the UN. They have no moral authority to tell the UN what to do with any state, be it Israel or any other nation around the world.

Quote:Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani warned the United Nations in his General Assembly address on Thursday that the world faces a new wave of “occupation,” “terrorism,” and flagrant violations of international law, notably omitting mention of the Iran-backed jihadist terror groups wreaking havoc in his country and region.

Al-Sudani spent much of his speech condemning Israel for its ongoing self-defense operations in Gaza, declaring that “putting an end to the violations taking place in Palestine [sic] and the region is the responsibility of everyone, particularly the Security Council.” He also condemned Israel for strikes against the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, headquartered in Lebanon, again offering no context for why Israel was conducting military operations in the country at all.

The complete absence of any mention of Iran in Al-Sudani’s speech, which largely addressed regional crises Tehran is responsible for, is notable given the Iranian Islamist regime’s growing influence in his own country. In the past decade, the Iraqi government has empowered jihadist Shiite guerrillas through the formalization of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), Iran-backed militias that have repeatedly posed a threat to American forces in the country, there to help fight the Islamic State terrorist group. Baghdad has idly stood by while some of the most belligerent PMF units, most prominently Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH), threatened attacks on U.S. forces — and condemned the American government for violating its “sovereignty” when responding to the KH threat.

Iran’s colonization of Iraq has dramatically accelerated since its proxy, Hamas, conducted an unprecedented massacre in Israel on October 7. Reports in September indicated that Hamas has moved into offices in Baghdad, as have jihadis representing the Houthi terrorists of Yemen. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian made a visit to Iraq his first international trip since his inauguration, timing his presence in the country with Iraqi pressure on Washington to leave the country.

Al-Sudani appeared to be addressing precisely the kinds of threats that Iran presents to the world in his speech, but without mentioning the country — and targeting Israel for his criticism.

“Important principles such as sovereignty, territorial integrity, multilateral cooperation, the laws of war,” he listed, “humanitarian laws, and the international humanitarian law and the responsibility to protect and the right to self determination are being ignored.”

“The world is being pushed towards full-scale confrontations and conflicts while the United Nations Security Council is powerless and without rule,” he lamented.

Man, GE Vernova is investing a $1.4 billion in their country's electrical grid and they still complain about the so called occupation!?

Quote:Australia and New Zealand are looking for an explanation from China on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) for its unusual test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday.

The two island nations said they would consult with other members of the Pacific Islands forum (PIF) before the UNGA wraps up on Friday.

The PIF is an 18-member organization that includes French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, and Samoa in addition to Australia and New Zealand.

China launched an ICBM into the Pacific for the first time since 1980, in an unusually public demonstration of military power. Chinese officials blandly insisted the test-launch was a “routine arrangement in our annual training plan,” even though it was clearly nothing of the kind.

Beijing has been coy about the missile hardware it tested and its intended flight path, but the Associated Press (AP) on Thursday spotted a map published in a Chinese newspaper that showed the missile flying in a straight line from China’s Hainan Island to “the center of a ring formed by Solomon Islands, Nauru, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Western Samoa, Fiji, and Vanuatu.”

The ICBM passed within a hundred kilometers of the northern Philippines on its way to splashdown, and may have passed over Guam.

A spokesman for the New Zealand Foreign Ministry said on Thursday said his government was seeking more details about “the unwelcome and concerning development.”

“Pacific leaders have clearly articulated their expectation that we have a peaceful, stable, prosperous, and secure region. As part of the region, New Zealand strongly supports that expectation,” the spokesman said.

The Australian government said it has “sought an explanation from China” for the missile test.

“The launch comes in the context of China’s rapid military build-up, which is taking place without the transparency and reassurance that the region looks for from great powers,” said the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The Biden administration seemed far less perturbed by China’s strange missile test than Australia and New Zealand. The Pentagon on Thursday praised China for handing out warning messages before the launch.

“We did receive some advanced notification of this ICBM test and we believe that that was a good thing. It’s a step in the right direction and it does lead to preventing any misperception or miscalculation,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh.

Singh hailed China’s launch warnings as a “common-sense, confidence building measure” the U.S. would like to see more of.

The Pentagon might have been effusive in praising China’s transparency because the Chinese military only recently restored bilateral communications with the United States, ending a blackout China imposed in a tantrum after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022.

China took the very unusual step of publishing photographs of its ICBM launch on Thursday, using China Junhao, the media service of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

The photos revealed the missile was a DF-31AG, a vehicle capable of reaching the U.S. mainland from almost any of its known launch sites in China.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russia full supports China’s “sovereign right” to test and improve its missiles. Peskov noted that China has no formal treaty obligation to share information about its missile tests in advance with the United States, but it does have such a treaty with Russia, and the “necessary exchange of information” took place in this instance.

Quote:The head of Haiti’s “Transitional Presidential Council” Edgard Leblanc Fils demanded “historical reparations” for his country at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, asserting that the international community has an “essential role” in Haiti’s recovery.

The Transitional Presidential Council, which Leblanc presides over, was formed at the end of April following a prolonged period of political negotiations to serve as the nation’s working government after months of gang violence left the country on the brink of total collapse. Haiti has not had a president since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021.

In his speech to the U.N., Leblanc extended a salute to all Haitian migrants around the world, assuring them that, wherever they are, the council he leads is “thinking of them until the conditions are right for them to return to the fold.”

Speaking on behalf of the Haitian people, Leblanc also extended “fraternal greetings to all the friends of Haiti” that have shown solidarity with its migrants, making special mention of Springfield, Ohio.

“The long history of friendship and mutual solidarity between our two nations, since our participation in the Battle of Savannah in 1779, allows us to say with confidence that the American people reject any incitement to hatred against our community,” Leblanc said. “The active participation of Haitian immigrants at various levels of American life is tangible and significant.”

“In this respect, the passions that naturally emerge during an election campaign should never be used as a pretext for xenophobia or racism in a country like the United States, a nation forged by immigrants of all origins and which has set itself up as a model of democracy on a global scale,” he continued.

Leblanc stressed that solving Haiti’s problems “rests first and foremost on the shoulders of the Haitian people,” but that the responsibility does not lie with them alone. Leblanc declared the international community, the United Nations, and the “foreign powers that often played a decisive role in Haiti’s history” responsible for an “essential part” of the efforts towards restoring peace and the rule of law in the country.

“In this sense, Haiti’s failure to recover is not just that of a nation. It reflects a collective failure, a global inability to fully respect the principles of solidarity, justice and international cooperation,” Leblanc said. “Together, with shared responsibility and renewed commitment, we can transform this crisis into an opportunity, and chart a lasting course towards peace.”

The head of the transitional council described Haiti as the “great victim of a historical injustice that has … delayed its development,” accusing France of holding its freedom ransom in 1825. Lebland added that Haiti’s colonial past “largely mortgaged its development.”

“On the eve of the bicentenary of this unprecedented event in the history of the world, has the time not come for the restitution of these sums?” Leblanc asked the U.N.

The Haitian transitional council leader affirmed that Haiti has confidence in the United Nations’ role to set up dialogue mechanisms to facilitate talks between “countries that were victims of colonization and the former colonial powers.”

“Here, at this 79th session of the General Assembly, Haiti is, through me, not simply demanding reparation, but raising a question of principle, that of imminent justice,” he asserted.

On the subject of the out-of-control gang violence in Haiti, Leblanc assured his listeners that restoring national security is an absolute priority of the nation’s authorities, who are “fully committed” to ending the spiral of violence and restoring order to the country. Leblanc also expressed support of a U.N. peacekeeping mission to fight gang violence in the country proposed by the United States and Ecuador this month.

“They are aware that peace and stability are the indispensable foundations for Haiti’s recovery, for the restoration of confidence in institutions, and for the socio-economic development of its people,” he said.

Quote:King Abdullah II of Jordan condemned the international community for allegedly failing their “moral duty” to protect Palestinian civilians during his U.N. General Assembly speech on Tuesday, but took a moment to categorically reject the possibility of Jordan taking in Palestinians fleeing war.

The king dedicated the entirety of his speech to condemning Israel’s self-defense operations against the jihadist terror organization Hamas. Israel launched a sweeping anti-terrorist initiative in Hamas-controlled Gaza following the invasion of the country by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. On that occasion, Hamas jihadists stormed residential neighborhoods in Israel, killing entire families in their homes, engaging in gang-rape and torture, and taking hostages. The Israeli government believed 101 people remain in Hamas captivity at press time, while approximately 1,200 were killed on the day of the attack.

King Abdullah did not mention Hamas by name during his speech, though he mentioned “October 7” on several occasions – not as the date of an unprecedented slaughter by jihadists, but as the start of what he claimed was a massacre of Palestinians. Absent recognition of the October 7 attack, the king made the Israeli military operation appear to not be prompted by anything.

“This Israeli government has killed more children, more journalists, more aid workers, and more medical personnel than any other war in recent memory,” the king claimed. “Almost 42,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7 – so is it any wonder that many are questioning how can this war not be perceived as deliberately targeting the Palestinians?”

“The level of civilian suffering cannot be written off as unavoidable collateral,” he added.

The alleged death toll of 42,000 people appears to be a reference to numbers published by the “Gaza Health Ministry,” a Hamas entity.

King Abdullah continued to declare that world nations must act to protect Palestinians – except Jordan, which would not accept Palestinian refugees in the name of rejecting “forced displacement.”

“Now is the time to ensure the protection of the Palestinian people,” he declared. “It is the moral duty of this international community to establish a protection mechanism for them across the occupied territories. This will guarantee the safety of Palestinians and Israelis from extremists who are taking our region to the brink of an all-out war.”

Among those “extremists,” he claimed, were individuals urging Jordan to take in Palestinian refugees.

“That includes those who continue to propagate the idea of Jordan as an alternative homeland,” he added, “so let me be very, very clear: that will never happen. We will never accept the forced displacement of Palestinians, which is a war crime.”

Israel’s attempts to eliminate the genocidal terrorists of Hamas, the king claimed, had created the impression that “some nations are above international law, that global justice does bend to the will of power and that human rights are selective, a privilege to be granted or denied at will.”

Israel declared war on Hamas following the barbaric October 7 attacks, aiming to target its terrorist infrastructure in Gaza and ensure that it cannot repeat a similar massacre in the future. Complicating Israeli efforts is Hamas’s longstanding policy of using Palestinian civilians as human shields – hiding weapons and terror tunnels throughout Gaza’s schools, hospitals, and even children’s bedrooms. Absent any mention of Hamas, King Abdullah also failed to address Hamas’s use of Palestinians as human shields.

Jordan is among the neighboring Mideast states in which residents have apparently expressed support for Hamas terrorism in the past year. Most notoriously, entrepreneurs opened a restaurant in the country called “October 7” shortly after the attack, but changed the name in response to international outrage.

While the West has been open to the possibility of taking in Palestinian refugees, including the administration of leftist President Joe Biden in the United States, Gaza’s neighbors have been far less enthusiastic. In addition to Jordan, the government of Egypt – the only nation besides Israel to share a border with Gaza – has adamantly rejected the idea of offering safe haven to Palestinian refugees, while simultaneously decrying Israel for attempting to liberate them from Hamas.

“Egypt rejects any attempt to resolve the Palestinian issue by military means or through the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land, which would come at the expense of the countries of the region,” Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi proclaimed in October, shortly after the Hamas attack. Sisi suggested displacing Palestinians into the middle of the arid Negev Desert in Israel instead.

“If there is an idea to displace Palestinians from Gaza, why not transfer them to the Negev until the armed groups in Gaza, such as Hamas and PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad], are eliminated?” he asked.

Egypt’s resistance to opening the Rafah border crossing into Gaza, even to allow the entry of humanitarian aid, has repeatedly obstructed the delivery of vital food and medicine. The United Nations has largely supported Egypt in its refusal to allow Palestinian civilians to avoid the Gaza war zone.

If most of the modern Palestinians were actual Jordanians, why doesn't Jordan welcome its expatriates?  Shouldn't a king care for his beloved subjects?

Quote:International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan held meetings on Monday with the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and Islamist President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, all in New York in anticipation of the U.N. General Assembly.

Reports from the meetings indicated that Abbas and Erdogan both enthusiastically pressured Khan to use his position at the ICC to persecute Israeli leaders in response to the country’s self-defense campaign in Gaza, the stronghold of the Sunni jihadist terrorist organization Hamas. Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, conducting door-to-door attacks on civilian neighborhoods and engaging in mass killings, gang rapes, abductions, infanticides, and other atrocities. The Hamas attack, which supporters refer to as the “al-Aqsa flood,” killed an estimated 1,200 people. The Israeli government has identified another 101 people who remain hostage in Gaza as of press time, nearing the anniversary of their abduction by Hamas.

Khan announced in May that he would seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for approving military operations against Hamas after the October 7 attack. His announcement also included that he would seek arrest warrants for several senior Hamas leaders in response to the crimes committed on October 7, but equated them to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) response to them.

The prosecutor pressured the ICC to expedite his request for arrest warrants in early September, but the lengthy process has yet to yield any actionable warrants.

The Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Monday that Erdogan, a vocal supporter of the Hamas terrorist group, received an audience with Khan after having for months “fiercely advocated holding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu administration accountable in international courts of law for its nearly year-long relentless offensive in the Gaza Strip.”

Turkish outlet TRT World added, that Erdogan used his time to accuse Israel of “genocide” for attempting to prevent more Hamas terror attacks, citing the Turkish presidency’s Communications Directorate.

“Israel must be held accountable for the crimes it has committed,” Erdogan reportedly said, “and … it is extremely important for the genocide case filed against Israel at the International Criminal Court to be concluded and for the perpetrators of genocide to receive the punishment they deserve.”

Erdogan, an avowed Islamist, has repeatedly defended Hamas as a legitimate political organization despite its lengthy history of human rights abuses and terrorism. Shortly after the attacks in October 2023, Erdogan declared, “Hamas is not a terrorist organization, it is a group of mujahideen defending their lands.” Before the month was over, the Turkish government organized a rally in support of Hamas, branded the “Great Palestine Rally,” which reportedly convened 1.5 million people against Israel.

“Israel, we will declare you to the world as a war criminal. We are preparing for introducing Israel to the world as a war criminal,” Erdogan said at the event, where he repeated, “Hamas is not a terrorist organization.”

In addition to meeting with Erdogan on Monday, Khan reportedly met with Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the leader of the so-called “moderate” political party Fatah. According to the Palestinian News & Information Agency (WAFA), Abbas similarly accused Israel of “genocide” for targeting Hamas, itself an explicitly genocidal organization, and claimed that Israeli “colonists” had also committed “violations” against his Authority.

“President Abbas demanded to expedite investigations into Israeli war crimes committed during the aggression on the Gaza Strip, as well as into colonial terrorism in the West Bank,” WAFA reported, “violations committed against detainees, and other crimes committed by the occupation in the occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The ICC is a global legal entity that prosecutes only three crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. It was created by the Rome Statute and thus only has jurisdiction to act with state actors that are signatories to the legal document. Israel is not a Rome Statute signatory. The Palestinian Authority signed onto the Rome Statute in 2015 despite not being a state entity.

Khan became the ICC’s prosecutor in 2021, rising to the position after working on cases against Islamic State jihadists and working as an attorney for Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, once known as the most flamboyant son of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi and later accused of war crimes before the ICC. The global court demanded his arrest in 2017 for war crimes, but he evaded detention and attempted to run in the 2021 Libyan presidential election, which was canceled indefinitely.h

Really?  Can you trust a guy that worked for Kadhafi's son!?

Quote:President Joe Biden joined French President Emmanuel Macron and several other nations Wednesday evening in proposing a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah — just as Israel had begun to destroy the terrorist organization.

The text of the ceasefire demand fails to mention Hezbollah, calling only on the government of Lebanon and Israel to comply. It also does not mention Iran, which is the country that arms, funds, and trains Hezbollah’s terrorists.

Hezbollah broke an existing ceasefire in October, when it began shooting at Israel last October. The ceasefire, under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 of 2006, required Hezbollah to disarm and leave the border.

The United Nations failed to enforce the ceasefire, allowing Hezbollah to build up forces in southern Lebanon. Israel evacuated over 60,000 citizens from their homes in October, but focused its military efforts on Hamas in Gaza.

It began fighting back in earnest last week. As Breitbart News reported, Israel disrupted Hezbollah’s communications, killed many of its senior officials, and destroyed some of its weapons, and was preparing for a ground invasion.

With world leaders descending on the United Nations this week, the Security Council held a meeting on the crisis, and the Biden administration joined several other nations in proposing a 21-day ceasefire, leading to a permanent deal.

The U.S and France issued a “Joint Statement by the United States, Australia, Canada, European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Qatar,” which said:

The situation between Lebanon and Israel since October 8th, 2023 is intolerable and presents an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation. This is in nobody’s interest, neither of the people of Israel nor of the people of Lebanon.

It is time to conclude a diplomatic settlement that enables civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes in safety.

Diplomacy however cannot succeed amid an escalation of this conflict.

Thus we call for an immediate 21 day ceasefire across the Lebanon-Israel border to provide space for diplomacy towards the conclusion of a diplomatic settlement consistent with UNSCR 1701, and the implementation of UNSCR 2735 regarding a ceasefire in Gaza

We call on all parties, including the Governments of Israel and Lebanon, to endorse the temporary ceasefire immediately consistent with UNSCR 1701 during this period, and to give a real chance to a diplomatic settlement.

We are then prepared to fully support all diplomatic efforts to conclude an agreement between Lebanon and Israel within this period, building on efforts over the last months, that ends this crisis altogether.

Biden’s envoy, Ambassador Amos Hochstein, failed to broker a diplomatic agreement over the last year. He was described Wednesday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office as “talented” but unable to resolve the crisis.

According to reports, Hezbollah demanded that Israel abandon a mountainside observation post on the Israeli side of the border — meaning that Israel, not Hezbollah, would have to demilitarize the border, leaving itself vulnerable.

Quote:The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran has reportedly ordered all of its members to stop using communications devices, at least until they can all be inspected.

The order came a few days after pagers and handheld radios used by the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah blew up, killing 39 and injuring over 3,000 more.

Two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters on Monday that the IRGC plans to inspect all of the electronics carried by its operatives. The IRGC gets most of its equipment from China and Russia and, in the wake of the Hezbollah blasts, the IRGC fears its supply lines may not be secure.

The security officials said Iran is also worried about “infiltration by Israeli agents, including Iranians on Israel’s payroll,” so a “thorough investigation” of middle- and high-ranking IRGC officers has begun.

“This includes scrutiny of their bank accounts both in Iran and abroad, as well as their travel history and that of their families,” one of the officials said.

The IRGC has reportedly obtained debris from exploded Hezbollah pagers and radios to study how the attack was pulled off, and the Iranians have asked their Hezbollah clients for “technical assessments” from last week’s explosions.

Iranian officials said they were particularly worried about Israel – widely thought to have engineered the pager blasts, although it has yet to claim responsibility for them – using its heretofore-unsuspected skills at weaponizing personal electronics to surveil or sabotage Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.

Neither of Reuters’ sources was willing to disclose how the IRGC’s roughly 190,000 personnel are communicating with each other at the moment. One of them mentioned that the Iranian military stopped using pagers “over two decades” ago. Another spoke of using “end-to-end encrypted messaging systems,” without discussing what sort of battery-powered device might be considered safe to use on either end of those messages.

Iranian opposition news service Iran International noticed on Monday that “regime insider” and former nuclear negotiator Mohammad Marandi has been cranking out social media posts warning Iranians not to purchase electronic devices from Western, Taiwanese, South Korea, or Japanese manufacturers.

Hezbollah’s exploding pagers were ostensibly manufactured by a Taiwanese firm, while it walkie-talkies came from a Japanese company. Both of those companies have said they had nothing to do with the equipment that exploded, describing them as obsolete models and knockoffs.

It is not yet clear whether the pagers and radios were weaponized at the time of manufacture, or if they were intercepted and sabotaged at some point along their supply chain.

Quote:Israeli warplanes targeted more than 300 Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon on Monday and Israel warned civilians to evacuate the area as more intense strikes are on the way.

Lebanese officials said at least 182 people were killed and over 700 injured in the strikes, including “children, women, and paramedics.”

The IDF said Hezbollah fired at least 150 rockets, missiles, and other projectiles at Israeli territory on Saturday and Sunday. Most of the attacks were launched from inside Lebanon and some of them reached further into Israel than previous Hezbollah attacks.

“This morning, the IDF launched extensive, proactive airstrikes, based on precise intelligence, aimed at degrading the capabilities and infrastructure of the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon. This is infrastructure that Hezbollah has built over many years,” Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a statement on Monday.

Hagari said the campaign was focused on eliminating Hezbollah artillery hidden inside civilian structures, which Hezbollah uses to launch indiscriminate barrages against Israeli civilian targets.

“The scenes that can be seen now in southern Lebanon show Hezbollah’s weapons exploding inside homes. Every house that we strike contains weapons – rockets, missiles, UAVs that are intended to kill Israeli civilians,” he said.

“We are preparing to strike terrorist targets in the Beqaa Valley region soon. Hezbollah stores strategic weapons in civilian buildings, knowingly using the population as human shields and endangering them,” he said.

Hagari warned Lebanese residents of the Beqaa Valley to “move away immediately” from “houses where rockets and weapons are stored.”

“You can see the operations we are currently conducting in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah intends to launch these weapons toward Israel, and we will not allow it! Stay away for your own protection,” he warned.

“Hassan Nasrallah is lying to you and putting you in danger,” Hagari said, referring to the leader of Hezbollah. “Listen to the warnings and messages that will be issued by the IDF for your safety and the safety of your families.”

Israeli military officials said Hagari’s warning for civilians to clear the area around Hezbollah’s hidden weapons was the first such warning the IDF has ever issued for Lebanon.

Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealed photos Monday of a Hezbollah missile being stored in a private home in southern Lebanon, as civilians heeded a warning by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to flee the area.

Earlier, IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari had released an infographic showing how Hezbollah uses civilian buildings to hide weapons, and declaring that Israel was determined to destroy those weapons. He urged Lebanese civilians to move far away from such buildings.
Later, Netanyahu released a video in which he urged civilians to leave the area, and said they would be allowed to return to their homes once Israel had completed its mission.

“I have a message for the people of Lebanon: Israel’s war is not with you. It’s with Hezbollah,” Netanyahu said.

Lebanese civilians, apparently taking Netanyahu’s words seriously, soon clogged northbound roads in Lebanon.

The IDF said in a statement:

Over the past day (Monday), the IDF conducted precise, intelligence-based strikes on approximately 1,300 Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon in order to remove immediate threats against the State of Israel.

During the strikes, long-range cruise missiles, heavyweight rockets, rockets with warheads capable of carrying 100kg of explosives, short-range rockets, and explosive UAVs were all struck by the IDF.

Hezbollah located its strategic munitions and capabilities inside Lebanese villages and civilian homes, and intended to fire them toward civilians in Israel while endangering the Lebanese civilian population.

As a result of many of the strikes, there were significant secondary explosions caused by Hezbollah’s weapons that were being stored inside the buildings.

In accordance with the situational assessment, the Minister of Defense extended the special situation for the home front to the entire country. At this time, there are no changes to the Home Front Command defensive guidelines. We will immediately update if any changes are made on the relevant platforms.

Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Wednesday that soldiers are prepared for a ground war in southern Lebanon as Israel continues to pound Hezbollah weapons sites from the air.

The purpose of the ground operation would be to remove Hezbollah from its positions near the Israeli border, where it operates in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which was adopted as an agreement to end the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

The IDF said in a statement:

Yesterday (Tuesday), the Commanding Officer of the Northern Command, MG Ori Gordin, visited the commanders and soldiers of the 7th Brigade during their brigade exercise on the northern border. He assessed their readiness and conducted an operational situational assessment with them.

During the visit, MG Gordin emphasized the importance of the soldiers’ preparedness and readiness in order to change the security situation and enable the residents of the north to return to their homes.

From the remarks of MG Gordin: “We have entered a new phase of the campaign, and we are now in Operation ‘Northern Arrows.’ The operation began with a significant blow to Hezbollah’s capabilities, focusing on their firepower capabilities, and a very significant hit on the organization’s commanders and operatives. Facing this, we need to change the security situation, and we must be fully prepared for maneuvers and action.”

A ground war in Lebanon would prove uniquely challenging, as Hezbollah has had a decade and a half to prepared defenses, with weapons from Iran and a tunnel network that is said to have been built with North Korean assistance.

However, Israel may feel it has no choice but to risk a ground war, in order to protect its northern communities from Hezbollah fire. It has already told civilians to evacuate from areas Hezbollah uses to store weapons in civilian homes.

Israel has prepared for a ground war since Hezbollah began firing in October, following the Hamas attack on October 7. However, it was more concerned about Hezbollah invading Israel. The IDF only recently shifted to the offensive.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said that while Israel would prefer a diplomatic solution, none has been possible, despite the work of the “talented” Biden administration envoy, Amos Hochstein, shuttling back and forth.

Update: The IDF announced Wednesday that it is calling up two reserve brigades for duty on the northern border.

Quote:Hezbollah fired a missile toward Tel Aviv and central Israel on Wednesday morning local time, setting off air raid warnings and sending residents scrambling to bomb shelters and safe rooms.

There were no reports of injuries or damage.

It was not immediately clear what kind of projectile was fired, though Army Radio reported that one “missile” from Lebanon landed in Israel without causing any damage, then reported that the Arrow missile defense system, which is used for longer-range missiles, had intercepted it.

Update: The Times of Israel reported that David’s Sling, another missile defense system, was used instead.

The Army Radio military corespondent, Doron Kadosh, suggested that Hezbollah might be trying to establish a kind of parity with the Israeli military, which has struck targets in Beirut over the past several days. The difference: Israel aims at military targets, such as Hezbollah leaders; Hezbollah aims at civilians (and also hides among civilians).

The Hezbollah attack came a day after Israel killed one of the Iranian-backed terror group’s senior commanders, who was in charge of missile attacks on Israel. It also came less than a day after U.S. President Joe Biden spoke at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Biden issued his infamous “don’t” to Hezbollah and Iran during a visit to Israel in October. That warning appears to have been ignored, as Hezbollah escalates closer to full-scale war.

Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) successfully intercepted a surface-to-surface missile early Friday morning local time that had been launched at Tel Aviv by Houthi rebels in Yemen.

According to the IDF, Israel’s Arrow system, used to knock down long-range missiles, successfully intercepted the Houthi missile outside Israeli airspace.

Local air raid warnings were triggered in the middle of the night by fragments of the missile that continued flying. Only minor to moderate injuries were reported, most caused when people raced to shelters.

The Houthis, an Iranian-backed terrorist proxy group, occupy portions of Yemen. President Donald Trump listed them as a terrorist organization before leaving office; President Joe Biden removed their terrorist designation, only to restore it three years later, after months of attacks on Red Sea shipping and attempts to attack targets in Israel.

The Houthis have expressed solidarity with Hezbollah, which is currently under attack from Israeli forces in Lebanon.

The missile was the second fired by the Houthis this month; the first was also intercepted, but over Israeli airspace.

Quote:Israel killed Hezbollah missile commander Ibraham al-Kubaisi in an airstrike on the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiya on Tuesday, in an attack that was apparently confirmed by Lebanese sources.

Reuters reported:

An Israeli airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday killed a Hezbollah commander who was a leading figure in its rocket division, two security sources in Lebanon said, as fears of a full-fledged war in the Middle East mounted.

The sources identified the commander who was killed as Ibrahim Qubaisi. The attack, in which six people were killed, dealt another blow to the Iran-backed group which has faced a series of setbacks at the hands of Israel over the past week.

Israel has been targeting senior members of Hezbollah for several days, eliminating many of leader Hassan Nasrallah’s lieutenants.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi vowed Tuesday that Israel would not give Hezbollah a break from attack, as Israeli airstrikes were said to reach 1,600 in a single day.

Israel is seeking to push Hezbollah back from the Israeli border, allowing the evacuated residents of northern Israel both Jewish and Arab, to return to the homes they were forced to leave when Hezbollah opened fire last October.

Hezbollah is occupying southern Lebanon illegally.

Update: The Times of Israel reports that the IDF said that Kubaisi (or Qubaisi) was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of three soldiers in 2000: Staff Sgt. Benyamin Avraham, Staff Sgt. Adi Avitan, and Staff Sgt. Omar Sawaid.

Update: Hezbollah has confirmed Qubaisi’s death, as per the Times of Israel.

Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Thursday that it had killed Hezbollah’s drone commander, Muhammad Hussein Srour, in a precision airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon.

In a statement, the IDF said:

The IDF Spokesperson Unit announces that today (Thursday), September 26th 2024, with the direction of IDF intelligence, the IAF struck and eliminated the terrorist Muhammad Hussein Srour in Beirut.

Srour advanced and directed numerous aerial terror attacks, including drone attacks, cruise missiles, and UAVs aimed at the people of Israel.

In recent years, Srour led the manufacturing project of UAVs in southern Lebanon and established UAV manufacturing and intelligence gathering sites in Lebanon, located adjacent to civilian infrastructure in Beirut, as well as areas in southern Lebanon.

Srour joined Hezbollah in the 1980’s and held several roles within the terrorist organization, including commander in the surface-to-air missile unit, commander in the “Aziz” Unit of the Radwan Force, as well as Hezbollah’s emissary to Yemen and the Houthi terrorist regime’s Aerial Command.

During the “Iron Swords” war, he promoted and executed several terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers using UAVs and explosive devices.

The IDF will continue to operate to undermine Hezbollah’s capabilities and to dismantle the terrorist organization’s top command.

Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declared Saturday, and Hezbollah confirmed, that terrorist mass murderer Hassan Nasrallah had been killed in an airstrike Friday evening in his headquarters deep under civilian buildings in Beirut.

As Breitbart News reported, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the airstrike from his hotel room in New York City, then addressed the United Nations General Assembly while the mission was being carried out.

Netanyahu left a press conference, apparently after being informed of the attack, in which bunker-busting bombs exploded underneath buildings in southern Beirut. Aid the devastation, Nasrallah’s death could not be confirmed.

The IDF said, tentatively, that it believe Nasrallah had been killed, together with other leaders of Hezbollah. But Iranian news sources pushed misinformation to western media outlets, saying Nasrallah was alive, safe, and well.

The Associated Press (AP) described Nasrallah as a “pragmatist,” downplaying his culpability in mass murder in Syria and elsewhere. It obscured his commitment to destroying Israel and his hatred toward America and the west.

Nasrallah, 64, rose to lead the Iranian-backed terror group as it carried out an insurgency against Israeli forces that had occupied southern Lebanon to prevent terrorists from firing rockets at communities in northern Israel. When Israel withdrew in 2000, he became a hero in the Arab and Muslim worlds. His stature increased after 2006, when Hezbollah started the Second Lebanon War and fought Israel to a draw after the international community intervened.

But Nasrallah soon became a hated figure as well, after Hezbollah joined the Syrian civil war that erupted in the Arab Spring of 2011. Hezbollah participated in atrocities against Sunni Muslims and others, as Iran propped up dictator Bashar al-Assad. Many Lebanese people, outside of Hezbollah’s narrow Shiite constituency, resented Hezbollah’s role in Lebanon, which allowed Iran to control the country and to turn it into a base for future attacks against Israel.

In its obituary for Nasrallah, the AP also completely omitted Hezbollah’s role in terror against the U.S., notably its role in the bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut in 1983, which killed 241 servicemen. It was also involved in terror and criminal enterprises worldwide, with tentacles reaching as far as Latin America and Africa, where its operatives raised and laundered money through the “blood diamonds” wars of the 1990s that horrified the world.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said Saturday that Nasrallah had hidden under women and children, and declared that Israel would continue its fight against Hezbollah until it could no longer threaten northern Israel.

The Biden administration was reportedly angry about the attack. As Breitbart News noted, Israel only informed the U.S. about the attack on Nasrallah while it was already in progress, probably because Israel did not trust the Biden administration to keep its plans secret. The Biden administration was already angry at Israel’s apparent rejection of a proposed 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, believing that Netanyahu had strung the White House along to buy time.

There are several questions now: whether Israel will launch a ground invasion to destroy the rest of a shattered Hezbollah; whether Iran will intervene in Lebanon to save its terrorist proxy; and whether the people of Lebanon, plagued for so many decades by war, will be able to enjoy peace and sovereignty.

One thing is certain: one of the worst terrorists and mass murderers in the world is dead, thanks to a war he launched, unprovoked, against civilians.

Update: Following publication of this article, President Joe Biden issued a statement on the White House website in which he praised the killing of Nasrallah but reiterated his desire for a ceasefire, rather than eliminating Hezbollah:

Hassan Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror. His death from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.

The strike that killed Nasrallah took place in the broader context of the conflict that began with Hamas’s massacre on October 7, 2023. Nasrallah, the next day, made the fateful decision to join hands with Hamas and open what he called a “northern front” against Israel.

The United States fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and any other Iranian-supported terrorist groups. Just yesterday, I directed my Secretary of Defense to further enhance the defense posture of U.S. military forces in the Middle East region to deter aggression and reduce the risk of a broader regional war.

Ultimately, our aim is to de-escalate the ongoing conflicts in both Gaza and Lebanon through diplomatic means. In Gaza, we have been pursuing a deal backed by the UN Security Council for a ceasefire and the release of hostages. In Lebanon, we have been negotiating a deal that would return people safely to their homes in Israel and southern Lebanon. It is time for these deals to close, for the threats to Israel to be removed, and for the broader Middle East region to gain greater stability.

Quote:Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved Friday’s airstrike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, from his hotel room in New York City prior to his speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

The Prime Minister’s Office released a photograph that it said showed Netanyahu approving the massive airstrike.
The massive attack targeted Hezbollah’s underground headquarters in the Dahiyeh neighborhood of Beirut.
It was not clear at the time of the photo’s release whether Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had survived the attack.

Netanyahu apparently delivered his address knowing that the attack was under way. He cut short a press conference after the speech when a military aide whispered in his ear.

The prime minister’s office said that Netanyahu would return to Israel Friday, returning home on Saturday, taking the unusual step of traveling on the Jewish Sabbath for reasons of pressing national security.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that it is on high alert, ready for any action, defensive or offensive. There had been no response from Hezbollah or any other Iranian proxies as of 8:30 p.m. in Israel.

Quote:Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed his nation on Saturday night, telling them that the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was a victory for Israel and a warning to Iran.

Netanyahu, speaking in Hebrew, said that Nasrallah was not just “a” terrorist, but “the” terrorist, responsible for the deaths not just of Israelis but also of many American and French citizens, among others.

He said that the successful airstrike on Friday evening was a warning to Iran — the “regime of the ayatollah” — and repeated a warning he delivered in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly.

“Whoever strikes us, we will strike them. … And today you know how true that is.”

Netanyahu added that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar would be more amenable to a hostage deal, now that he “sees that Nasrallah is not coming to save him.”

To those in the Middle East and the world terrorized by Iran and Hezbollah, Netanyahu said, the message of Friday’s attack was: “Israel stands with you.”

He noted that the attack was broadly a message to Israel’s allies, without mentioning the United States. The Biden administration had been pushing for a ceasefire before that attack and reiterated that goal even while welcoming Nasrallah’s elimination.

Netanyahu recounted the year since the October 7 terror attack, when Israel’s enemies hoped that it was “on the path to destruction.”

He declared: “They understand how their hopes have been dashed.”

Netanyahu concluded: “We are determined to continue striking at our enemies, to return our residents [to their homes], and to release all of the hostages, whom we do not forget about for a moment.”

And what does the "leader" of the free world say?

Quote:President Joe Biden issued a statement on Saturday welcoming the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike, but repeating his call for ceasefire deals in Gaza and Lebanon, despite Israel’s advance toward victory.

The full text of Biden’s statement is as follows:

Hassan Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror. His death from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.

The strike that killed Nasrallah took place in the broader context of the conflict that began with Hamas’s massacre on October 7, 2023. Nasrallah, the next day, made the fateful decision to join hands with Hamas and open what he called a “northern front” against Israel.

The United States fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and any other Iranian-supported terrorist groups. Just yesterday, I directed my Secretary of Defense to further enhance the defense posture of U.S. military forces in the Middle East region to deter aggression and reduce the risk of a broader regional war.

Ultimately, our aim is to de-escalate the ongoing conflicts in both Gaza and Lebanon through diplomatic means. In Gaza, we have been pursuing a deal backed by the UN Security Council for a ceasefire and the release of hostages. In Lebanon, we have been negotiating a deal that would return people safely to their homes in Israel and southern Lebanon. It is time for these deals to close, for the threats to Israel to be removed, and for the broader Middle East region to gain greater stability.

The Times of Israel reported that the Biden administration was angry about the airstrike because Israel did not inform it until the operation was in progress, and appeared to have strung the White House along about a ceasefire.

Israel had reason to worry that the White House might not keep the operation secret. The head of intelligence at Biden’s National Security Council, Maher Bitar, is a former radical pro-Palestinian activist. Moreover, President Barack Obama was thought to have leaked information to the media about a potential Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to warn the Iranians and prevent the Israelis from attacking.

The Biden administration has tried, throughout the war that erupted with the Hamas terror attack last October 7, to prevent Israel from destroying terrorist organizations. Vice President Kamala Harris warned Israel against entering Rafah to destroy Hamas.

Quote:On Saturday’s “CNN This Morning,” IDF Spokesman Maj. Doron Spielman responded to frustration from the White House with Israel over ceasefires by stating that “for an entire year, Hezbollah has been firing rockets, over 9,000 rockets, missiles, and killer drones and no one talked about a ceasefire. Now that Israel’s actually taking the assertion to try to protect its civilians, we’re calling for a ceasefire.” And stated that “the world, instead of demanding [that Israel have] a ceasefire, should be demanding that Hezbollah pull out.”

Co-host Jim Sciutto asked, “[A]mong U.S. officials, there are fears now of a wider conflict in the Middle East, which, as you know, the U.S. has been seeking to avoid, and that was part of the motivation behind ceasefire talks as it relates to Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Israel, earlier ceasefire talks as it related to Gaza. Did Israel carry out this attack over U.S. objections?”

Spielman responded, “Israel carried out this attack because, as we’ve said from the beginning, Hezbollah is what stands in the way of Israeli civilians moving north and peace in the entire northern part of the country. Israel clearly felt that Nasrallah is a major target. … We work very closely with the United States. They’re our greatest ally, but Israel, at the end of the day, has independence to try to fulfill its military objectives in order to protect its own people.”

Sciutto then asked, “The truth is, though, that U.S. officials have been frustrated by their relationships, certainly, in the White House, with Benjamin Netanyahu, and the perception is that the U.S. has invested diplomatic and other capital and backed Israel, certainly, militarily, since October 7 and prior to October 7, but that Netanyahu isn’t returning the favor as it were, for instance, in terms of getting a ceasefire and hostage release deal across the finish line in Gaza. Is that a fair criticism?”

Spielman answered, “I can tell you, Jim, that the last year has been the greatest challenge in Israel’s history. We are threatened by seven different fronts, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in the north, Hamas in Gaza, and that’s just to name a few. This is the hour that Israel will look back and the world will look back and say, who stands by Israel in this hour? And the U.S., I’m not a politician, I’m here on behalf of the Army, has been the greatest friend and has supported Israel and understands our objectives. Regarding a ceasefire, for an entire year, Hezbollah has been firing rockets, over 9,000 rockets, missiles, and killer drones and no one talked about a ceasefire. Now that Israel’s actually taking the assertion to try to protect its civilians, we’re calling for a ceasefire. As we’ve said, and as the Israeli Army says, we’re open for anything as long as Israeli civilians can go back to their home[s] and Hezbollah withdraws behind the Litani. What we know is that, right now, Hezbollah, every one of those rockets and missiles is inside one of their own homes, they’re civilian homes. You’ve seen the pictures. They don’t care about Lebanese civilians. They don’t care about Israeli civilians. And the world, instead of demanding [that Israel have] a ceasefire, should be demanding that Hezbollah pull out.”

Quote:The Associated Press published an obituary of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah that referred to him as a “pragmatist” and omitted Hezbollah’s role in murdering hundreds of Americans, among other terror victims.

As Breitbart News reported, Nasrallah was killed Friday evening in an Israeli airstrike; his death was confirmed Saturday.

The AP obituary declared: “Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah transformed the militant group into a potent regional force.” It described Nasrallah’s rise through the terrorist ranks, his wars against Israel, and his decline in popularity after bringing Hezbollah into the Syrian civil war. But it omitted essential facts about Nasrallah, including his role in mass murder throughout the Middle East, his targeting of civilians, and Hezbollah’s role in murdering Americans.

At one point, the AP’s obituary declared: “A fiery orator viewed as an extremist in the U.S. and much of the West, as well as in some oil-rich Gulf Arab countries, he was also considered a pragmatist compared with the firebrand militants who dominated Hezbollah after its founding in 1982, during Lebanon’s civil war.”

The obituary omitted the fact — noted in the White House response — that Hezbollah had been responsible for hundreds of American deaths, including the bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut in 1983.

President Joe Biden noted in a statement:

Hassan Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror. His death from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.

(Biden closed his statement by reiterating his call for a ceasefire.)

Fifty-eight French soldiers were also murdered in the barracks attack, leading Louis Sarkozy, son of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, to praise Israel for eliminating Nasrallah.

The mainstream media have a habit of praising terrorist leaders when they are killed. In 2019, the Washington Post called ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi an “austere religious scholar” after he was killed by U.S. special forces.

Quote:Iran’s supreme leader has said the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah "will not go unavenged", a day after he was killed in an Israeli air strike in Lebanon.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced five days of mourning in Iran in response to what he called the "martyrdom of the great Nasrallah", describing him as "a path and a school of thought" that would continue.

Iranian media reported that a Iranian Revolutionary Guards general was also killed in the Israeli strikes in Beirut on Friday.

Israel’s military said Nasrallah had "the blood of thousands... on his hands", and that it targeted him while he was "commanding more imminent attacks".

There are fears that the strike could plunge the wider region into war, after nearly a year of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah sparked by the 7 October attacks and war in the Gaza Strip.

Key to what happens next in the Middle East is what Ayatollah Khamenei decides.

So far, he and other senior Iranian figures have refrained from vowing to retaliate for the series of severe and humiliating blows that Israel has dealt Hezbollah in recent weeks, seemingly because Iran does not want a war with its arch-enemy.

Iran also has not carried out its threat to avenge the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, which Iran and Hamas blamed on Israel.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas are designated as terrorist organisations by Israel, the US, UK and other countries.

Earlier on Saturday, Ayatollah Khamenei urged Muslims to stand by Hezbollah "with their resources and help" but did not promise to retaliate for the strike that killed Nasrallah.

"The fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the forefront," he said.

Reuters news agency meanwhile cited two regional officials as saying that the supreme leader had been transferred to a secure location inside Iran with heightened security measures. They also said Iran was in constant contact with Hezbollah and other allies to determine their next steps, according to the report.

Friday’s Israeli strike levelled several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahieh, underneath which the Israeli military said Hezbollah’s central headquarters was located.

Hezbollah confirmed Nasrallah’s death on Saturday. But it did not comment on the Israeli military’s claim that Ali Karaki, the head of the group’s Southern Front, and other commanders were killed alongside Nasrallah.

Gen Abbas Nilforoushan, deputy commander of operations for Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), was also "martyred" in Dahiyeh on Friday, according to the IRGC-linked Saberin News outlet.

It provided nor further details, although the moderate Didban news website said he was "assassinated along with" Nasrallah.

However, there has been no official confirmation from Iranian authorities.

Iran uses the IRGC to provide Hezbollah with most of its funding, training and weapons, which have allowed the Shia Islamist group to build a military wing stronger than the Lebanese army.

The US says the IRGC also oversees the co-ordination of Iran’s network of allied armed groups across the Middle East, which are all opposed to the US and Israel and sometimes refer to themselves as the “Axis of Resistance”. Besides Hezbollah, they include Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen and Shia militias in Iraq and Syria.

On Saturday, there were air raid sirens in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv after the Houthis launched a missile in support of Hezbollah. The Israeli military said the missile was intercepted.

Quote:A surface-to-surface ballistic missile launched at central Israel from Yemen Saturday evening was shot down by air defenses “outside the country’s borders,” the IDF said in a statement.

The missile caused sirens to sound in central Israel due to fears of falling shrapnel. Its remains fell near the Jerusalem-area community of Tzur Hadassah, causing slight damage, police said.

The missile was shot down with the Arrow long-range missile defense system, which is designed to take out ballistic missiles while they are still outside the atmosphere.

The missile was fired shortly after the Iran-backed Houthis vowed that “the resistance won’t be broken,” in response to the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an IDF airstrike in Beirut on Friday.

The leader of the Houthis said the missile was aimed and timed to coincide with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s landing in Israel after returning from New York. In a televised speech, Abdul Malik al-Houthi also vowed that the death of Nasrallah “will not be in vain.”

The Houthis also took responsibility for an attack Friday morning, saying they had launched a ballistic missile at a military target in Tel Aviv and a drone at a “vital target” in Ashkelon. The missile was intercepted. The IDF said it was unaware of any drone reaching Israel.

Friday’s missile caused no direct injuries, though a 17-year-old girl was moderately hurt when a car hastily pulling over during the siren accidentally hit her.

The Houthis hinted on Friday that the morning’s missile was retaliation for an Israeli airstrike Thursday that killed senior Hezbollah leader Mohammed Srur.

The Yemeni rebels have launched several attacks targeting Tel Aviv, including a surface-to-surface missile earlier this month.

Israel has yet to retaliate for any of those attacks.

In July, the military conducted a major strike on Yemen’s Hodeidah port after a drone hit Tel Aviv, killing a man in his apartment.

Quote:On Friday’s broadcast of CNN International’s “First Move,” CNN Jerusalem Correspondent Jeremy Diamond stated that “the escalations we’ve seen over the course of the last week and a half have prompted Hezbollah to go further than they have before,” and the strike against Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is “the latest in a series of escalations that we have seen the Israeli military and its government carry out over the course of the last week and a half.”

Diamond said that the Nasrallah strike “marks just the latest in a series of escalations that we have seen the Israeli military and its government carry out over the course of the last week and a half. And that’s because the Israeli government has really, clearly, chosen and articulated this strategy of continuing to escalate this war with Hezbollah to the point where we are now seeing this very real risk of things escalating much, much more significantly. So far, we have seen Hezbollah fire some 65 rockets into northern Israel in the aftermath of that very significant strike in Beirut. But, if, indeed, this strike was targeting Hassan Nasrallah, if he was injured, if he was killed, I think you are going to expect to see a very, very significant response from Hezbollah. And even just the death toll alone from this strike, which is only just starting to come in, but given that several buildings in that area appear to have been flattened, it will be very significant. That, in and of itself, I think, will likely prompt a very significant retaliatory response from Hezbollah. We will see how that all unfolds.”

He continued, “Up until now, the escalations we’ve seen over the course of the last week and a half have prompted Hezbollah to go further than they have before, but still far short of what Israeli officials have been telling me for months they expected to see from Hezbollah in the event of a significant escalation. And that is not hundreds of rockets a day, but hundreds of rockets being fired simultaneously into Israel, perhaps thousands of rockets a day. That we have not yet seen.”

Quote:The Times of Israel reported on Friday that an American official told the newspaper the government of Israel did not notify the White House prior to a massive strike on the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, on that day.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Friday that it successfully bombed Hezbollah’s top headquarters in the Lebanese capital, potentially eliminating the head of that organization, Sayyed Nasrallah. Nasrallah’s status is unclear at press time.

“Moments ago, the Israel Defense Forces carried out a precise strike on the Central Headquarters of the Hezbollah terror organization – that served as the epicenter of Hezbollah’s terror,” IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said. “Israel is doing what every sovereign state in the world would do if they had a terror organization that seeks their destruction on their border.”

Few details about the scale of the strike are available at press time. According to Lebanon’s L’Orient Today, the strikes have leveled at least six residential buildings. Hagari noted in his announcement that Hezbollah – like its similarly Iran-backed allies in Hamas – build terrorist infrastructure in residential communities to use locals as human shields.

Reached for comment on the blasts, an unnamed American official told the Times of Israel that the administration of President Joe Biden was not aware that the IDF would bomb Beirut until the operation had already begun.

“Israel notified the US about the IDF’s major airstrike in Beirut after planes were already in the air and the operation was in motion,” the newspaper reported. “The US did not have any advance knowledge of the strike, says a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity.”

A second anonymous official added that the White House was left to “gather more information” about the matter as it did not receive any prior information from its ally.

The attack on Hezbollah is part of an escalating struggle between the Shiite terrorist organization and the state of Israel that erupted in the aftermath of Hamas’s slaughter of over 1,200 people in an invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023. As a Hamas ally, Hezbollah has been waging war on the north of Israel, displacing tens of thousands of civilians and effectively making it impossible for Israel to control its territory.

The Biden administration has spent the past month pressuring Israel to seek negotiations with Hezbollah, despite the group’s official motto being “Death to Israel” and its repeated explicit calls for the genocidal extermination of Israelis. On Tuesday, Biden again called for negotiations with both Hamas and Hezbollah in his final address to the U.N. General Assembly.

“Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest. Even as the situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible,” Biden claimed. “In fact, it remains the only path to lasting security to allow the residents from both countries [Israel and Lebanon] to return to their homes on the border safely. And that’s what working — that’s what we’re working tirelessly to achieve.”

Quote:Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and other “progressive” Democrats have introduced legislation to restore U.S. funding to the terror-linked United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) despite the fact that several of its employees participated in the Hamas terror attack against Israel on October 7.

The legislation, called the “UNRWA Funding Emergency Restoration Act of 2024,” is almost certain to fail, meaning it is only a symbolic gesture, but a bizarre one.

Then-President Donald Trump cut funding to UNRWA in 2018 amid concerns that it encourages conflict, because it indoctrinates Palestinian children to hate Israel and Jews, and perpetuates the idea that Israel will disappear.

President Joe Biden restored over $700 million to UNRWA after taking office.

After October 7, as evidence emerged that several UNRWA employees had taken part in the deadly terror attack, and that thousands more had cheered it on, the Biden administration suspended funding, as did several other countries.

After a faulty “investigation” that cleared UNRWA — and to which Israel objected — several countries, but not the U.S., restored funding to the agency. Subsequently, UNRWA admitted that nine of its employees may have been involved in the October 7 attack. One of them was specifically accused of abducting a dead Israeli’s body to Gaza.

Still, Schakowsky — whose district includes a large Jewish community — and her colleagues want to force the issue.

In a statement, Schakowsky and other “progressive” Democrats said (emphasis removed):

The United States has historically been one of the largest financial supporters of UNRWA, which serves nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees across the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. In March of this year, the U.S. paused UNRWA funding after the Israeli government alleged that 12 agency employees had direct involvement in Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack.

Following the UN’s investigation and proactive commitments made by UNRWA toward complete accountability and reform, all countries except the U.S. have resumed their UNRWA funding, including the European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Finland, Germany, Japan, and Sweden. Approximately 1.9 million people – 9 in 10 Gazans – have been displaced at least once, and an estimated 43,580 are pregnant women. UNRWA has served as the primary humanitarian aid organization operating in Gaza, and without funding, hundreds of thousands of Gaza civilians are left vulnerable. It is estimated that over 1 million Gazans will not have enough food this month, and availability of basic hygiene items has dropped to 15%. In addition to a polio outbreak, Gazans are suffering from malnutrition and treatable diseases due to “systematic dismantling of healthcare”from bombardments on civilians.

“For decades, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been a lifeline for Palestinians, providing food, clean water, healthcare, shelter, education, and livelihoods. Today, UNRWA remains the backbone of the humanitarian response in Gaza as it endures ongoing war and a dire humanitarian crisis. UNRWA and the United Nations have taken swift and decisive actions to address the concerns raised by the U.S. government when it paused funding in January and our allies have all resumed funding for UNRWA. The U.S. must follow suit and resume funding for this critical humanitarian agency,” said Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. “I am proud to co-lead the UNRWA Funding Emergency Restoration Act to restore funding to UNRWA and help Gazans get the humanitarian assistance they need at a time of unprecedented crisis.”

Notably, the statement did not deny that UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7 terror attack.

The far-left, George Soros-funded J Street organization supports the legislation. J Street claims to be “pro-Israel, pro-peace,” but typically opposes Israel in Congress. In this case, it is supporting a bill that will fund a terror-linked group with the blood of Israeli civilians on its hands.

“Aid workers with ties to terrorists are abhorrent. They should always be rooted out and held to account. But they are the exception. Punishing children and an entire civilian population for the purported sins of a few is not only wrong – it’s immensely dangerous,” said J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami.

Israel has said that UNRWA will have no role in postwar Gaza and that it must be replaced by other agencies.

Quote:The Jordanian army says a grad rocket from southern Lebanon fell this evening in an uninhabited desert area near Muwaqqar, a town southeast of Amman.

No people were hurt in the attack and there was no damage, it says in a statement.

Muwaqqar is about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the Lebanese border.

Earlier, the Israel Defense Forces said a missile fired from Lebanon landed in the West Bank near Jerusalem, marking what appeared to be the deepest rocket fire carried out by Hezbollah since intense fighting began earlier this month.

Quote:Hamas gunmen murdered an aid worker from an American charity in Gaza on Friday, firing at her car and killing her in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.
...
The Times of Israel reported:

Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot and killed an aid worker from a US based charity, firing on her car in what Hamas officials claimed was a case of mistaken identity.

Other unverified reports, meanwhile, said that she was murdered by Hamas gunmen for refusing to turn over aid funds to the terror group.

The car in which Islam Hejazy, Gaza program manager at HEAL Palestine, was traveling was intercepted yesterday in the area of Khan Younis in the south of the enclave.

HEAL Palestine describes itself as “a nonpolitical, nonprofit humanitarian organization” working in Gaza.

There has not yet been any international outcry against the murder, nor have journalists raised the issue; the death appears to have garnered almost no news coverage whatsoever, outside the Israeli media.

Meanwhile, at the United Nations, world leaders addressing the opening of the General Assembly continued to denounce Israel — including the Prime Minister of Slovenia, Robert Golub, who accused Israel of deliberately targeting humanitarian workers in Gaza.

Israel apologized for accidentally killing seven volunteers from the World Central Kitchen earlier this year after their aid convoy was mistaken for a group of terrorist vehicles.

Quote:On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken responded to criticism that there really isn’t a ceasefire with terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas that want to destroy Israel and will keep trying to do so by arguing that “the alternative, potentially a full-blown war, is going to be bad for everyone involved, and it’s not going to achieve the objective of getting people home.”

Co-host Willie Geist asked, “What do you say, Mr. Secretary — and I know you’ve heard this directly — to Israelis who say there is no such thing as a ceasefire with a terrorist group, whether it be Hamas or Hezbollah, they’re going to continue to do what they do, it’s in their charters to destroy Israel, their goal is to wipe Israel off the map, ultimately? So, what is the argument to the Israelis that a 21-day break might actually lead to some kind of a peace?”

Blinken responded, “Well, I think the argument is that the alternative, potentially a full-blown war, is going to be bad for everyone involved, and it’s not going to achieve the objective of getting people home. Israel was in Lebanon for a long time, up to 2000, 15 years, bogged down there. And yes, when they got out, all of these groups were supposed to disarm. Hezbollah didn’t, and it has posed a threat to Israel ever since. But if we can get an agreement that at least gets them off the border, people will have more confidence, and they can get about their lives in their own country. I think what you’re hearing, clearly, is, the world wants to see it move in that direction.”

He continued, “The other thing is, look, if you’re looking at what Israel’s biggest adversary, and one of ours — Iran — wants, it wants to try to bog down Israel in wars of attrition, whether that’s in the north in Lebanon, whether that’s in Gaza, whether that’s anywhere else in the region. So, don’t play into that. The objective can be achieved — getting people home — without going to war.”

Quote:Former President Donald Trump said before a meeting in New York City with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday that it is time for the Ukraine War to end, and thanked Zelensky for defending him during the Democrat Ukraine impeachment hoax.

Speaking to reporters before the meeting, Trump reiterated his pledge to end the war in Ukraine if he wins a second term.

“It has to end. At some point, it has to end. He’s gone through hell,” Trump said, referring to Zelensky. “This country has gone through hell… . Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. It’s a terrible situation.”

Trump also thanked Zelensky for saying that Trump did nothing wrong during the phone call they had that Democrats used to launch the impeachment of Trump in 2019.

Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who was at the time detailed from the Pentagon to work at the National Security Council during the Trump administration, worked with then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) to launch an impeachment of Trump, claiming that Trump tried to withhold military aid from Ukraine until Zelensky handed over information on Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings with a Ukrainian energy company whose CEO was under investigation.

At the time, Zelensky said Trump did not pressure him during that phone call.

Trump said on Friday, “When they did the impeachment hoax, it was a hoax, just a Democrat hoax, which we won. But one of the reasons we won it so easily is that when [President Zelensky] was asked — it was over a phone call with the president — and he said he could have grandstanded and played cute, but he didn’t do that.

“He said President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong. He said it loud and clear, and the impeachment hoax died right there. He could have said, ‘Well, I don’t know. I don’t know.’ And I never even talked to you about this, to be honest. But he was, he was like a piece of steel. He said, ‘President Trump did nothing wrong. We had a very nice call.'”

However, Trump did tell Zelensky that their relationship needed to be reciprocal.

After Zelensky told him, “I really think we’re going to get more good relations,” Trump responded, “But, you know, it takes two to tango.”

Trump said he hoped to work something out with the Ukraine War “that’s good for both sides.”

“It’s time,” Trump said. “And by the way, the president knows that too. He wants to get something done. He doesn’t want to do this. And so we look forward to having them made. I look forward to being with him.”

He thanked Zelensky again, saying, “But what I said is true, he was a piece of steel. He gave a very honest, straight answer, and then it really ended. Essentially ended the impeachment hoax, and I appreciated that.”

Quote:Former President Donald Trump took a firm stance on Thursday against Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) regarding her husband’s Visa stock trades.

Trump, who is running against Vice President Kamala Harris (D) for the White House in 2024, said he believes the former House speaker should be prosecuted, the New York Post reported on Friday.

His comments came during a press conference at Trump Tower in New York:

Nancy Pelosi has a little problem because her husband sold their Visa stock. They had a lot of Visa stock, one day before Visa, it was announced that Visa is being sued by the Department of Justice. Think of that. Nancy Pelosi sold vast amounts of Visa stock one day before the big lawsuit that we all read about a few days ago, was brought against Visa. You think it was luck? … Nancy Pelosi should be prosecuted for that.

The Post cited financial disclosures which show that Pelosi’s husband, Paul, “unloaded 2,000 shares of Visa stock worth between $500,000 and $1 million on July 1,” noting that on Tuesday, “less than three months after the massive transaction, Visa was hit with a DOJ lawsuit alleging that the company illegally monopolized the debit card market.”

Trump suggested that the former House speaker was warned about the lawsuit and told her husband.

Breitbart News senior contributor and president of the Government Accountability Institute, author Peter Schweizer, revealed in 2011 that Nancy Pelosi “apparently bought $1 million to $5 million of Visa stock in one of the most sought-after and profitable initial public offerings (IPO) in American history, thwarted serious credit card reform for two years, and then watched her investment skyrocket 203%,” Breitbart News reported at the time.

Schweizer and the late Andrew Breitbart worked to ban members of Congress from using nonpublic information to their own profit via the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act, Breitbart News reported in March 2012.

“The STOCK Act will make it illegal for members of Congress and their staffs to use material, nonpublic information to inform their private investments and will impose more rigorous public disclosure requirements on all trades by lawmakers,” the article said.

In March 2024 Breitbart News reported that research showing politicians made trades worth over $1 billion in 2023 bolstered a campaign to ban members of Congress from stock trading.

“‘Speaker Pelosi does not own any stocks, and she has no prior knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions,’ a spokesperson for Nancy told The Post earlier this week,” the outlet reported.

Quote:California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill this week to ban one-pound, single-use propane cylinders, meaning that only more expensive reusable cylinders will be available in the state.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported:

Disposable propane canisters like the dark green ones used with camping stoves will soon be phased out in California, after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Sunday requiring all one-pound cylinders sold in the state to be reusable or refillable starting in 2028.

…

Between 4 million and 7 million of the single-use cylinders are sold in California each year, according to an estimate from the California Product Stewardship Council, a nonprofit local government coalition that sponsored the bill.

…

In 2022, Newsom vetoed a near-identical bill, SB 1256. In his veto letter, Newsom raised concerns about prohibiting sales of disposable cylinders “without a plan for collection and refill infrastructure.” The governor also urged the legislature to consider “market-based solutions” over an outright ban.

Democrats say that negotiations with manufacturers failed, and therefore Newsom decided to ban the cylinders.

Critics will note that Newsom’s ban is the latest regulation making life in California more expensive and cumbersome than it is in other states.

On Wednesday, Newsom signed legislation slapping new demands on the oil industry and closing an oil field that has been productive in southern Los Angeles for a century.

Quote:The chief adviser for New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) had her phone seized by federal agents and was “served with a subpoena,” her lawyer confirmed to the New York Times.

In a statement to the outlet, Ingrid Lewis-Martin’s lawyer, Arthur L. Aidala, explained that his client would “cooperate fully with any and all investigations.” Investigators, a state and federal agent, reportedly served Lewis-Martin with her subpoena and informed her that her home had been raided after she had returned to the United States from a trip to Japan, according to the outlet.

This comes after a five-count indictment against Adams was unsealed on Thursday, charging the mayor with bribery, solicitation of a contribution by a foreign nation, solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national, wire fraud; and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and to receive campaign contributions by foreign nationals.

As Breitbart News previously reported, the charges against Adams are in relation to contributions made to his 2021 campaign by “wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him.”

“Ingrid Lewis-Martin has been served with a subpoena from the Southern District of New York and her phones were given to the New York County District Attorney’s Office,” Aidala said. “She will cooperate fully with any and all investigations.”

Video footage posted to X by Courtney Gross, a reporter with Spectrum News NY1, showed law enforcement officials at Lewis-Martin’s home.

Quote:One of the country’s most controversial mayors is back in hot water after a Tuesday evening Thornton Township, Illinois, public board meeting went completely off the rails, leading to police being called.

Tiffany Henyard, the Democrat mayor of the Village of Dolton and the supervisor of Thornton Township, argued with her board’s attorney and accused the trustees of attacking her for bringing up her spending habits, video from the meeting shows:
...
As controversy swirls around Henyard’s lavish $85,000 party with musical performances by singer Keke Wyatt and rapper J. Holiday, her egregious online shopping bills, her alleged participation in a cover-up after one of her colleagues was accused of sexual assault, and other scandals, Thornton Township has been operating without a fiscal budget, CBS News reported.

The board’s trustees are “demanding” that Henyard “become more transparent with her spending,” the outlet stated.

Just minutes into the meeting, Henyard went back and forth with attorney Eric Stach about budget items supposedly already being “approved.”

“No, these matters are being brought before the board now to comply with the new event ordinance because these are events that have to be approved pursuant to the new event ordinance,” Stach said.

“Okay, so I disagree with what the lawyer’s saying,” Henyard said with a smile on her face.

A special investigation conducted by former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot revealed that, under Henyard, Dolton’s general fund balance dropped from $5.61 million to a deficit of $3.65 million in just two years, Fox News reported.

Tens of thousands of dollars were spent on Amazon orders in just one day:
...
“Lori Lightfoot did such a great job in Dolton,” Thornton Township Trustee Carmen Carlisle said of the investigation at Tuesday’s meeting. “I would welcome her to come and do the same thing here at Thornton Township.”

Henyard fired back, claiming that the township already had a deficit before she entered office.

“This is what I mean about my board,” the disgraced supervisor said. “It’s a lot of hate, jealousy, and envy amongst them towards their supervisor.”

At one point, Henyard made the claim that “I am Thornton Township” as the crowd gasped.

“I am the leader for Thornton Township. I am the supervisor of Thornton Township,” Henyard said. “And I’m going to make sure you all give me my respect and stop playing these games every time you come to the meeting.”

“Respect is earned. It is not demanded,” Carlisle shot back.

As the board continued to discuss her spending, Henyard said Carlisle “lies all the time.”

“No, you lie all the time,” the trustee replied.

Resident Paul Robertz made a public comment calling out Henyard towards the end of the meeting and suggested she acts “like an animal,” which led to an outcry from the crowd. A clip of the chaotic moment, shared to social media by an X user, shows the moment Robertz became surrounded by other residents as they shouted at him:

Quote:A senior U.S. defense official said Thursday that China’s latest nuclear-powered attack sub sank in May or June while sitting in a shipyard near Wuhan, a baffling and embarrassing disaster the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has kept secret until now.

The news that China’s new sub went to the bottom – possibly with nuclear fuel on board – was broken by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Thursday.

The defense official who spoke to the WSJ said the lost sub was the first of China’s new Zhou-class nuclear submarines, developed in a bid to reduce America’s enormous advantage in submarine warfare. The Zhou design includes a unique X-shaped stern intended to give the vessel greater maneuverability.

Satellite images showed the Zhou sub, easily identified by its distinctive tail, docked at the shipyard in early March. The sub was reportedly undergoing final outfitting before heading to sea.

By June it was gone, with no sign of ever having sailed out of port. Analysts noticed a cluster of floating recovery cranes had been assembled around the pier, including equipment specialized for recovering oil from the water.

The WSJ’s source in the Defense Department said it was “not surprising” the PLAN would conceal the sinking of their prized first-in-class attack sub.

“In addition to the obvious questions about training standards and equipment quality, the incident raises deeper questions about the PLA’s internal accountability and oversight of China’s defense industry, which has long been plagued by corruption,” the source said.

“Can you imagine a U.S. nuclear submarine sinking in San Diego and the government hushes it up and doesn’t tell anybody about it? I mean, Holy cow!” exclaimed former U.S. submarine officer and Center for a New American Security senior fellow Thomas Shugart, the first analyst to notice China’s new submarine was missing.

Shugart concluded from his study of commercial satellite photos that China was able to recover the drowned sub, but it would take “a lot of work” to make it operational again.

“The whole boat would be full of water. You’d have to clean out all the electronics. The electric motors may need to be replaced,” he said.

The PLAN and other agencies of the Chinese government refused to discuss the incident, what caused the sub to sink, or whether there were any casualties. Satellite photos gave no indication the Chinese were searching the water for radiation leaks. It is possible the vessel was not loaded with nuclear fuel before it sank.

If the sinking of the Zhou-class sub is confirmed, it would be the second submarine China lost over the span of a year. In August 2023, a Chinese sub attempting to pass through the Taiwan Strait apparently crashed into a “chain and anchor” submarine trap and sunk. China never acknowledged the incident, but Taiwanese officials said they believed the sunken-sub account in May.

Quote:After news broke that rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs owned a large stock of baby oil for use in his sex and drug parties, Costco came out to inform customers that the music and fashion mogul didn’t buy his oil from them.

The big box store spoke out after Diddy’s attorney Marc Agnifilo speculated that he bought his baby oil in bulk from the members-only warehouse company.

“[Diddy] has a big house. He buys in bulk. I think they have Costcos in every place where he has a home. I mean, have you sat in a parking lot of a Costco and see what people walk out of there with?” Agnifilo told TMZ.

Costco, though, did not seem very pleased to be linked to the rapper’s salacious case and contacted TMZ to refute the attorney’s claims.

Indeed, Costco pointed out to TMZ that none of its outlets even sell baby oil, so clearly Diddy wasn’t shopping at Costco.

TMZ added that they also looked into Sam’s Club to see if Diddy could have gone there to bulk buy his baby oil, but the Walmart-owned retailer also does not stock baby oil.

As reported last week, the federal indictment filed against Diddy claims that investigators found 1,000 bottles of baby oil during it raid in March on the rapper’s homes in Miami and Los Angeles.

Combs was arrested last week and denied bail. He is currently being held in jail as his case moves forward.

As Breitbart News reported last week, Combs has been placed on suicide watch “while he awaits trial after being accused of more than a decade of abusing, threatening, and coercing women and others, racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice, among other crimes.”

Quote:The Biden-Harris administration’s effort to keep Prince Harry’s U.S. visa application from being made public prevailed this week as a judge ruled against a suit launched by the Heritage Foundation, which claimed the decision was “suspicious” and vowed to appeal the ruling.

Questions remain around the lawfulness of the wayward British Prince’s immigration status in the United States as Judge Carl Nichols sided with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to keep the Duke of Sussex’s visa application private.

The conservative Heritage Foundation launched a suit against the Biden-Harris administration to unseal the application after the woke Royal admitted in his memoir Spare to have taken illegal drugs, including cocaine, marijuana, and magic mushrooms.

While having a history of illicit drug use does not necessarily prevent people from obtaining a visa, lying on an application could result in deportation and a ban from applying for citizenship.

In a court document obtained by the Daily Mail, Judge Nichols reportedly said that the court agreed with the DHS that “the Duke’s privacy interest outweighs any public interest.”

The judge added that Harry’s public admissions of drug use did not take away his right to keeping his immigration status private, noting that the Duke did not publicly disclose “the following facts”, after which the document was redacted.

The Heritage Foundation has argued that the public has an interest in seeing if the government bends immigration rules for high-status individuals, such as the British Prince, who moved to California with his wife in 2020 to pursue money-making ventures after shirking their Royal duties.

Quote:President Joe Biden’s administration is allowing up to 650,000 criminal migrants and suspects — including at least 13,099 migrant murderers and 222,141 migrants facing criminal charges — to roam through American communities, according to a dramatic data dump by a House Republican.

“The data says that, among those not in detention, there are 425,431 convicted criminals,” reported Fox News, which got the information from Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-TX). The letter from ICE to Gonzalez says:

Your letter requests the number of noncitizens on ICE’s docket convicted or charged with a crime. As of July 21, 2024, there were 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on ICE’s national docket, which includes those detained by ICE, and on the agency’s non-detained docket. Of those, 435,719 are convicted criminals [including 13,099 murders], and 226,847 have pending criminal charges.

The data shows that there are 13,099 migrants convicted of homicide who are not detained, Fox noted.

The report says an additional 222,141 undetained migrants are facing criminal charges, including 1,845 homicide charges, even though the agency is choosing not to use all of its 41,000 detention beds.

The data also shows an additional 15,000 migrant criminals in jail. The jailed population includes 277 migrant murderers and 51 migrants who are facing murder charges.

The data also shows 17,000 migrants found guilty, or charged with, sexual offenses.

The “noncitizens” term in the data refers to illegal migrants, overstay migrants, and green card holders, all of whom can be deported if administration officials assign resources to do the job.

The criminals are not in detention because they have served their time, but have not been deported.

The data dump is an urgent political problem for Kamala Harris, who is scheduled to give a speech early Friday evening promising a “tough” border policy.

In March 2021, Harris reportedly declined to share control of migration policy with President Joe Biden’s border chief, Alejandro Mayorkas. Since then, the Cuban-born Mayarkas has used his power over the nation’s immigration rules to sharply reduce the detention and deportation of migrants, including criminal migrants. His rollback in enforcement is intended to help the “Bidenomics” economic strategy of creating millions of lower-wage jobs for employers who prefer to hire migrants instead of better-paid Americans.

So far, Mayorkas has welcomed almost 10 million legal, illegal, and quasi-legal migrants — or roughly one migrant for every American birth.

Donald Trump quickly blamed Harris for the mass release of migrant murderers and criminals: “Nobody who has allowed this to happen to our Country is fit to be president of the United States!”

Quote:Dame Maggie Smith — the British acting legend who shot to stardom with her Oscar-winning role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and whose multi-decade career was capped by the Harry Potter movies and the hit series Downton Abbey — has died. She was 89.

Her sons, actors Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin, issued a statement to the BBC on Friday.

“It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith,” they said. “She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother.”

Widely considered one of the greatest British actresses of both stage and screen, Maggie Smith tackled many of the most challenging theatrical roles ever written while juggling a movie and TV career that brought her two Academy Awards and three Emmys.

Her high-pitched voice, angular face, and long limbs made her a natural fit for comedy, and she became closely associated with the plays of Noel Coward, especially Private Lives. She could alternately strike an intimidating and imperious air, which led to her being frequently cast as snobbish aristocrats.

Smith was closely associated with Laurence Olivier, who invited her to work with him at London’s National Theater, where she performed in numerous classics. In her later years, she specialized in playing spiky elderly women, most notably her Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey who famously asked, “What is a weekend?”

Quote:Ukraine´s air defenses battled an overnight Russian aerial attack on the capital Kyiv for five hours, officials said Thursday, as missiles and drones again hammered the Ukrainian power grid.

The Kyiv attack injured at least two people, Ukraine´s Emergency Service said. A kindergarten, a gas pipe and around 20 cars were damaged in the city, said the Kyiv Military Administration.

In western Ukraine, the air force said, Russia fired three Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missiles – one of Russia´s most advanced weapons – “in the direction of” Starokostiantyniv, a city in the Khmelnytskyi region, on Thursday morning. The air force said it could not make further information public, suggesting the missiles were aimed at a sensitive site.

Long-range strikes have been a hallmark of Russia´s military campaign in Ukraine, now deep in its third year, often hitting civilian areas. Attacks on the electricity network have knocked out around 70% of Ukraine´s energy generation capacity, according to the United Nations, bringing blackouts as winter approaches.

Air defense systems are a critical need for Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to meet President Joe Biden in Washington on Thursday in an effort to ensure continuing U.S. military support for his country.

Energy infrastructure was hit in Ukraine’s western Ivano-Frankivsk region, causing a blackout in parts of the regional capital of the same name, regional Gov. Svitlana Onyshchuk said.

The power grid was also targeted in the southern Mykolaiv region, local authorities said without immediately providing further details.

Russia launched six missiles and 78 Shahed drones at Ukraine overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, Ukraine´s air force said. Defenses destroyed four of the missiles and 66 drones in the air, it said.

In the south, a missile killed a 62-year-old woman in the Odesa region, where homes and cars were damaged, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said.

In the city of Zaporizhzhia, at least 10 people were injured in the overnight attack, including a 14-year-old, said regional governor Ivan Fedorov. He published photographs of houses with their windows blown out and walls riddled with shrapnel. The Emergency Service said 12 residential buildings were damaged in the city and 18 people were evacuated.

Meanwhile, in the northeastern Sumy region ordnance experts defused a 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) glide bomb that landed without exploding next to a bridge over the River Psel.

Quote:Two consecutive Russian attacks on a medical center in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed at least nine people on Saturday morning, officials said.

The first strike killed one person. Russia attacked again while patients and staff were evacuating, said Ukraine´s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.

Local officials in Sumy said Shahed drones were used in the attack. Twelve other people were wounded, Sumy’s City Military administration said.

Sumy lies some 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have been deployed since Aug. 6 in a bid to divert the Kremlin’s military focus away from the front line in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 69 of 73 Russian drones launched overnight as well as two of the four missiles. City authorities in Kyiv said around 15 drones had been shot down over the Ukrainian capital and its outskirts.

In Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home city, local officials said Saturday that a man’s body was found under the rubble of an administrative building hit by a Russian missile on Friday, bringing the death toll from that attack to four.

In Russia, the Defense Ministry said Saturday that air defenses overnight had shot down four Ukrainian drones over the Belgorod region and one over the Kursk region, both areas bordering Ukraine.

One person was killed in Ukrainian shelling of the Russian border city of Shebekino on Saturday, Belgorod regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Two other people were wounded.

Quote:The British military is too small and the Ukraine war has shown the need to involve “the whole of society” in defence, but the public are deeply averse to the notion of conscription and steering talk away from that is “challenging”, a Parliamentary report on the lessons from Russia’s invasion finds.

The House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee warns Western defence is no longer sufficiently threatening and consequently has failed to deter Russia from invading Ukraine, while lessons from the conflict itself demolish many long-held planning assumptions about what future wars would look like. The British Army is too small to effectively fulfil its NATO obligations or even make a meaningful contribution to more than one conflict at the same time, the committee’s new report states it has found, while condoning recent comments by senior Army officers that in future the civilian world needs to be drawn into defence for a “whole of society” effort.

The size and capability of the UK Armed Forces is predicated on a now apparently out-dated idea that any unexpected conflicts would be resolved in weeks, which has very much not been the case with the Ukraine War. The Lords’ report notes it has been the case a shrinking manpower has been explained away by increasing technical sophistication making up the capability, but argues this position too has been proven as wrong-footed.

The report stated: “…the UK has a well-trained and well-equipped force, but that it is too small and inadequately set up for large, prolonged conflicts like the one in Ukraine… the use of advanced technology has at times been used to justify smaller troop numbers. The war in Ukraine, however, has shown that in a conflict between two technologically capable states, technology is not a magic bullet that can swiftly end a war.”

The “wake up call” paper focusses on the “growing threat from Russia” and notes as well as the endless military recruiting crisis in the UK, caused in part by a dysfunctional recruitment system putting off good potential applicants — the abandonment of a Civil Defence establishment in the Cold War and a comparatively lightweight body of military reserves are also found to be major factors. Taken together, there is said to be a perception among the wider public that fighting wars is something done purely by an entirely separate from wider society military, with fighting done in far-away places and without meaningful impact at home.

While this may have been true in the Afghanistan-Iraq wars era, this time has passed, it is said. The paper states: “Involving the whole of society is crucial if we are to build a resilient and prepared nation. This would entail making the public much more aware of the dangers the UK is facing and, crucially, how they themselves can contribute to greater resilience.”

Although the Lords’ report restates points made in recent memory by senior officers warning that wider society must be prepared to get involved in national defence, it is important to craft these discussions so not to frighten the public. Making clear reference to a definite period at the end of the last government where the question of conscription became a major talking point, with a months long will-they-won’t-they in the newspapers, this new report notes as a warning: “How any discourse around non-military public contributions is articulated is challenging but important. There is always a risk that conversations could end up veering into discussions around conscription”.

Quote:The radical climate plans by the Labour Party government in Britain could cost landlords, taxpayers, and housing associations up to £36 billion to renovate their properties to comply with impending energy efficiency standards, the cost of which will likely being passed onto renters, a report has found.

Energy Security and Net Zero minister Ed Miliband has argued that banning landlords from renting older and energy inefficient homes until they make costly upgrades would lift a million families out of “fuel poverty”. However, critics have claimed that such a move would merely push further costs onto renters, who are already struggling under the weight of housing shortages, inflation, and high taxation.

According to an analysis from The Telegraph of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) data, which tracks the energy efficiency of houses across the country, the leftist government’s plans to demand upgrades to some 1.6 million private rental properties could cost between £18.5 billion and £36.1 billion to landlords, taxpayers, and housing associations.

The report found that private landlords could be forced to shell out £10,000 per property to meet net-zero standards. Costs would likely vary significantly by area, however, with regions with older homes facing a much higher burden by government-imposed upgrades. For example, homes in Ryedale, Yorkshire would on average require £19,250 in green renovation costs, per the broadsheet’s analysis.

Opponents of the eco-diktats, such as Shadow Housing Minister David Simmonds noted that similar measures in Scotland merely served to reduce supply of rental properties and therefore increase the cost of renting.

“The cumulative impact of these regulations will force more landlords to exit the sector and sell their rented accommodation rather than meet the target. Instead of pushing ahead with these proposals, Labour should give the rented sector more time to implement such a drastic change without forcing up rents,” the Conservative MP said.

Founder and managing director of the property firm Eccord added: “Landlords have been saddled over the last few years with higher cost from mortgages, additional regulation and fees, and rising maintenance costs – and now another £10,000 expenditure is looming on the horizon.

“These new rules don’t apply to homeowners so they are understandably questioning why such a burden is being placed on them when the majority are already providing a professional tenant experience and valuable source of private housing.”

Quote:British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was gifted a further £16,000 in clothes from top Labour donor Lord Waheed Alli it has emerged amid the growing scandal surrounding freebies given to senior members of the government.

Donations to Starmer from Labour peer Waheed Alli, made in two instalments including £10,000 in October last year and another £6,000 in February were initially classified as money “for the private office of the leader of the opposition”, however, they have now been re-categorised as donations for clothing, the Guardian reports.

This comes on top of another £16,000 in clothing donations and £2,485 for glasses to Starmer from Lord Alli, taking the total over £34,000 in freebies given to the leftist leader from the media mogul.

Meanwhile, Starmer also admitted to accepting the equivalent of £20,000 in accommodation from Alli for the Labour leader’s son to study for his GCSE tests during the election campaign.

The donations have raised questions as it has emerged that the Labour donor and life peer had been granted a Downing Street security pass even though he is not a member of the government.

Starmer has declared over £100,000 in personal gifts, including tickets to football matches, and Taylor Swift and Coldplay concert tickets.

Amid the growing scandal, Starmer, as well as top members of his government, including Deputy PM Angela Rayner and Chancellor Rachel Reeves have said that they will stop accepting clothing gifts while in power.

They have all maintained that previous gift donations were made legally.

However, there have been demands to investigate the fledgling Labour government over the donations, including from the leftist Scottish National Party (SNP).

SNP MP Brendan O’Hara said that the freebies given to senior Labour politicians need to be “comprehensively investigated” or it will become “inevitable that the damaging drip, drip of revelations will continue to erode public trust”.

Separately, Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe said that he is exploring whether a case can be brought against Starmer and others for potentially having violated the Bribery Act.

“If people accept gifts like this they become bought people,” Lowe argued earlier this week, adding: “I think the whole lot of them are a bunch of pork barreling clowns.”

Quote:NATO members Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland will seek European Union funding to build a network of bunkers, barriers, distribution lines and military warehouses along their borders with Russia and Belarus, Estonia’s officials said Saturday.

The three Baltic countries initially announced the plan for a “Baltic Defense Line” in January. In May, Poland announced a similar project called the “Eastern Shield” with a purpose to strengthen its borders with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus.

“The need for a (Baltic) defense line stems from the security situation and supports NATO’s new forward defense concept,” Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said in a statement, adding that “it is extremely important to coordinate our activities with Poland.”

“At the same time, it strengthens the security of the European Union and the military defense of its borders, which is why we clearly see that the EU could also financially support the project,” he said.

The defense ministers of the four European countries located on NATO’s eastern flank met in the southeastern Latvian city of Daugavpils on Friday to discuss the project’s funding.

They didn’t specify how much financial aid Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland would be seeking for the project from Brussels but noted in a joint statement that “Russia´s war against Ukraine has shown that creating physical obstacles on an open ground with no natural defensive cover is paramount even in technologically advanced warfare.”

The ministers said that external threats at the Baltic-Polish frontier are increasingly growing and ramping up fortifications along the border with Russia and Belarus “remains a high-priority contributing to our pledge to defend every inch of (NATO) territory.”

In Estonia, the smallest of the four countries with a population 1.3 million, the establishment of the border defense line is planned in three stages starting in 2025, the Defense Ministry said.

Officials in Tallinn said earlier this year that Estonia is to construct up to 600 bunkers along its 333-kilometer (207-mile) border with Russia in the coming years at an estimated cost of 60 million euros ($67 million). The project is likely, however, to face difficulties and delays because the bunkers will have to be built on private land.

The Baltic-Polish defense line excludes coastal defenses on the Baltic Sea that is shared by the four countries. No mines, barbed wire, anti-tank weapons or other such devices would be deployed in peacetime along the border fortifications, according to Estonia’s defense officials.

Quote:The facade of Denmark’s foreign ministry in Copenhagen was sprayed with anti-Israeli slogans Thursday, police said.

Police told AFP in a statement that they had been made aware early Thursday that a foreign ministry building had been “vandalized with political graffiti”.

Messages such as “Boycott Israel” and “Israel kills children” was spray-painted on the wall in red.

Pictures from news agency Ritzau showed cleaners removing the paint and words. Police said they were securing video images and conducting technical investigations.

The Gaza war has caused protests across Europe. The conflict began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,534 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Fighting between Israel and Lebanese group Hezbollah has heightened fears that the war could spread across the region.

Quote:At least some appear concerned the shooting of a NATO member Prime Minister by a pro-Ukraine extremist earlier this year didn’t succeed in killing the target, as Slovak’s Robert Fico has a bullet posted to his office.

Constitutional protection officers screening letters addressed to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico inspected a suspicious package on Wednesday, discovering by X-ray it contained a single bullet. Bratislava regional police spokesman, Michal Szeiff confirms his officers have taken over the investigation into the death threat which comes just months after Fico himself was shot repeatedly at point-blank range by a would-be political assassin.

Fico ally Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok has said it will only be a matter of time until the sender is found.

Slovak publication the Konzervativny Dennik Postoj notes the Slovak Prosecutor General Maroš Žilinka said sending a bullet to the Prime Minister was a reckless, callous act and a criminal one too. Calling for colling of sentiment — similar appeals already having been made after Fico was shot — Žilinka said: “I strongly appeal to the whole society for elementary decency and humanity! The cynicism and hatred with which our society is overgrown must stop”.

Prime Minister Fico was shot several times at point-blank range as he left a political meeting at a local town hall. The left-wing populist politician had gone to shake hands with waiting members of the public before getting into his official car when the gunman, a left-wing poet and activist fired five times.

Fico was injured in the gut, hip, arm, leg, and his small intestine was perforated five times. The Prime Minister came close to death but was rushed to hospital by helicopter and received emergency surgery, saving his life.

After his arrest, the political activist gunman identified as Juraj Cintula was reportedly keen to cooperate with police and confessed, telling them he decided to shoot Fico because of his position on the Ukraine war. Fico has prevented Slovakia from becoming involved in the conflict as other NATO nation states have...

Quote:A hostile wave of  “open and aggressive” antisemitism is swamping Germany with government officials cautioning it has been rising steadily since Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7 last year.

“We have experienced a tsunami of antisemitism since October 7th,” Federal Government Commissioner for Anti-Semitism, Felix Klein, said in an interview with the AFP news agency, as reported by Welt.

The deadly Hamas attack “further broke the existing dams regarding antisemitism in our society,” he added.

This is reflected in the police crime statistics for 2023 with around 5,000 antisemitic crimes, half of which were committed after October 7th, and all in the wake of growing numbers of migrants still pouring into the country, the report notes.

Klein went on to make an historical comparison with Germany today and as it was at the end of World War II as Adolf Hitler’s powers began to wane but much of his Nazi ideology remained.

Open and aggressive antisemitism in all its forms in Germany and worldwide is “stronger than ever since 1945,” Klein noted.

According to Klein, this “all-time high” reflects a worrying absurdity: on October 7th, “more Jews were murdered than at any time since the Shoah” yet the hate is building even as Jews work to defend themselves and their faith from attacks.

This is not the first time reports have emerged of Germany’s Jewish residents feeling threatened.

As Breitbart News reported, just on 12 months ago segments of the Jewish population in Berlin were being forced to consider a question many once thought unthinkable in the wake of the atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers and the subsequent promises of “never again” — is it time to leave Germany?

The fear was apparent in testimonies from a host of Jews in the national capital worried about their futures and those of their families as a rising tide of antisemitism is seen once more to cast a shadow across the city.

Quote:A Moroccan migrant rapist suspected of killing a 19-year-old French girl in Paris was set free from prison early and despite having a deportation order was not removed from the country before the alleged murder, sparking demands that the new government finally crack down on immigration.

France has once again been rocked by another gruesome murder apparently at the hands of a migrant, as the body 19-year-old student, named as Philippine, was discovered Saturday half-buried in the Bois de Boulogne park of the affluent 16th arrondissement of Paris.

The suspected murderer, referred to as “Taha O.”, is a 22-year-old migrant from Morocco previously sentenced to seven years in prison for rape. The migrant, who’s DNA was discovered at the scene of the murder, was released from prison early this month after judicial authorities determined that he no longer presented “a threat or a disturbance to public order,” Le Figaro reports.

Yet, after being released from prison, the migrant was given an OQTF (Obligation to leave French territory) deportation order, which also banned him from the country for 10 years. However, he was not removed from the country before the murder of Philippine.

The Moroccan migrant was arrested by police in Geneva on Tuesday and is currently facing extradition back from Switzerland to France.

The gruesome killing has put fresh pressure on the recently-installed government in France, particularly from the anti-mass migration populist National Rally (RN) party of Marine Le Pen, which won the most votes in July’s legislative elections.
...
RN party president Jordan Bardella said the suspected migrant murderer “had no place on our soil, but he was able to reoffend with complete impunity.”

“Our justice system is lax, our state is dysfunctional, our leaders let the French live with human bombs,” the populist leader added.

“It is time for this government to act: our compatriots are angry and are not going to mince words.”

Bruno Retailleau, France’s new interior minister, the cabinet post tasked with overseeing the nation’s immigration system, said in the wake of the killing of Philippine that the government “must work to ensure the safety of our compatriots.”

“It is up to us, public officials, to refuse to accept this inevitability and to develop our legal arsenal to protect the French. Because it is their first right, and therefore our first duty. If the rules need to be changed, let’s change them,” he wrote on X.

According to the BBC, just 10 per cent of deportation orders are actually carried out by the French government.

Quote:Norwegian police have issued an international warrant for a man believed to be involved in the supply chain of a batch of explosive-stuffed pagers which exploded in the hands of Hezbollah militants last week.

The National Criminal Investigation Service of Norway (Kripos) say they issued international an warrant on Thursday for a Norwegian connected to the sale of exploding pagers. The 39-year-old wasn’t named in reported in the national press, other than to say — as in the report of Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen, for instance — that he was “born in another country, but is a Norwegian citizen and has lived in Norway for twelve years.”

Foreign media named the wanted man as Rinson Jose, described as a “Norwegian Indian man” by Britain’s The Guardian, and a man with “dual Norwegian and Indian citizenship” by the Dutch Broadcasting Foundation (NOS). According to government documents, the man founded Norta Global Ltd in Sofia, Bulgaria in 2022, a company thought to be part of the convoluted supply chain that saw pagers with added explosives sent to Hezbollah.

Rinson Jose is reported to have travelled to the United States last week on the same day of the pagers distributed by Hezbollah to its networks exploded, injuring thousands and killed at least 12. The Indian was said by his Norwegian employer to have travelled to Boston for a business conference, but he went missing soon after arriving in America.

Oslo Police said they had received a missing person report. They said in a statement: “A missing persons case has been opened and we have sent out an international warrant for the person.”

Wires service Reuters managed to speak to a man they belive was Jose last week in the immediate aftermath of the blasts, and say of their telephone call with the man that he declined to comment on the pagers and hung up on their journalist when probed further. He is not known to have been heard from since.

As reported last week, investigators attempting to trace the adulterated pagers have, perhaps typically for what most presume to be intelligence agency wet work, come across a complex web obfuscating the origin and route of the digital devices. Branded and sold under the name of a Taiwanese brand, that company said it had licenced out its identity to a Hungarian business to sell a particular pager model, which itself denied being involved in manufacturing and stated it was simply an “intermediate”.

Quote:Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s hit king who then became a pariah for gambling on the game, has died at the age of 83, the medical examiner in Clark County, Nevada, confirmed to ABC News on Monday.

Rose was found at his home by a family member, according to the medical examiner. There were no signs of foul play.

The coroner will investigate to determine cause and manner of death.
The medical examiner told ABC News that Rose was not under the care of a doctor when he died, and the scene is being examined.

The coroner will investigate to determine the cause and manner of death.

ABC News has reached out to Rose's rep.
Rose brought a workmanlike attitude to America's pastime and won innumerable fans for his hustle on the field. By the end of his 24-year career, 19 of which were with the Cincinnati Reds, he held the record for most career hits, as well as games played, plate appearances and at-bats. He was also a 17-time All-Star, the 1973 NL MVP and 1963 Rookie of the Year.

He also won three World Series -- two with Cincinnati's "Big Red Machine" clubs in 1975 and 1976, and a third with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980.

But Rose will always be remembered as much for being banned for life from MLB in 1989 over gambling on games while he was managing the Reds.

With Rose under suspicion, new MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti commissioned an investigation led by John Dowd, a lawyer with the Department of Justice, in April 1989. By June, the damning report was released, documenting at least 52 bets on Reds games in 1987, his first season as solely a manager after serving as player/manager for three seasons. The bets totaled thousands of dollars per day, according to the Dowd Report.

Quote:John Ashton, the veteran character actor who memorably played the gruff but lovable police detective John Taggart in the “Beverly Hills Cop” films, has died. He was 76.

Ashton died Thursday in Fort Collins, Colorado, his family announced in a statement released by Ashton’s manager, Alan Somers, on Sunday. No cause of death was immediately available.

In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Ashton was a regular face across TV series and films, including “Midnight Run,” “Little Big League” and “Gone Baby Gone.”

But in the “Beverly Hills Cop” films, Ashton played an essential part of an indelible trio. Though Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley, a Detroit detective following a case in Los Angeles, was the lead, the two local detectives — Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Ashton’s Taggart — were Axel’s sometimes reluctant, sometimes eager collaborators.

Of the three, Taggart — “Sarge” to Billy — was the more fearful, by-the-book detective. But he would regularly be coaxed into Axel’s plans. Ashton co-starred in the first two films, beginning with the 1984 original, and returned for the the Netflix reboot, “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,” released earlier this year.

Ashton played a more unscrupulous character in Martin Brest’s 1988 buddy comedy “Midnight Run.” He was the rival bounty hunter also pursuing Charles Grodin’s wanted accountant in “The Duke” while he’s in the custody of Robert De Niro’s Jack Walsh.


Speaking in July to Collider, Ashton recalled auditioning with De Niro.

“Bobby started handing me these matches, and I went to grab the matches, and he threw them on the floor and stared at me,” said Ashton. “I looked at the matches, and I looked up, and I said, ‘F—- you,’ and he said, ‘F—- you, too.’ I said, ‘Go —- yourself.’ I know every other actor picked those up and handed it to him, and I found out as soon as I left he went, ‘I want him,’ because he wanted somebody to stand up to him.”

Ashton is survived by his wife, Robin Hoye, of 24 years, two children, three stepchildren, a grandson, two sisters and a brother.

Quote:Kris Kristofferson, who attained success as both a groundbreaking country music singer-songwriter and a Hollywood film and TV star, died Saturday at home in Maui, Hawaii. No cause of death was given, but he was described as passing away peacefully while surrounded by family. He was 88.

Said his family in a statement, “It is with a heavy heart that we share the news our husband/father/grandfather, Kris Kristofferson, passed away peacefully on Saturday, Sept. 28 at home. We’re all so blessed for our time with him. Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.” The statement was offered on behalf of Kristofferson’s wife, Lisa; his eight children, Tracy, Kris Jr., Casey, Jesse, Jody, John, Kelly and Blake; and his seven grandchildren.

Kyle Young, the CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, said, “Kris Kristofferson believed to his core that creativity is God-given, and that those who ignore or deflect such a holy gift are doomed to failure and unhappiness. He preached that a life of the mind gives voice to the soul, and then he created a body of work that gave voice not only to his soul but to ours. Kris’s heroes included the prize fighter Muhammad Ali, the great poet William Blake, and the ‘Hillbilly Shakespeare,’ Hank Williams. He lived his life in a way that honored and exemplified the values of each of those men, and he leaves a righteous, courageous and resounding legacy that rings with theirs.”

Kristofferson had already spent several modestly successful years in Music City’s song mills by the time he broke through as the author of such No. 1 country hits as “For the Good Times” (Ray Price, 1970), “Sunday Morning Coming Down” (Johnny Cash, 1970) and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” (Sammi Smith, 1971). His song “Me and Bobby McGee” became a posthumous No. 1 pop hit for his former paramour Janis Joplin in 1971.

His first four albums for Monument Records, which showcased his rough, unmannered singing and poetically crafted, proto-outlaw country songs, all reached the country top 10, and 1972’s “Jesus Was a Capricorn,” which contained his No. 1 country hit “Why Me,” topped the country LP chart. He won three Grammys: for best country song (“Help Me Make It Through the Night”) and a pair of duets with Rita Coolidge, to whom he was married from 1973-80.

Quote:Dikembe Mutombo, an NBA Global Ambassador and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer, died Monday. He was 58.

According to a statement from the NBA, the former Houston Rockets star passed away from brain cancer and was surrounded by his family in his final moments.

“Dikembe Mutombo was simply larger than life,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said. “On the court, he was one of the greatest shot blockers and defensive players in the history of the NBA. Off the floor, he poured his heart and soul into helping others.

“There was nobody more qualified than Dikembe to serve as the NBA’s first Global Ambassador. He was a humanitarian at his core. He loved what the game of basketball could do to make a positive impact on communities, especially in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo and across the continent of Africa,” Silver, 62, added.

“I had the privilege of traveling the world with Dikembe and seeing first-hand how his generosity and compassion uplifted people. He was always accessible at NBA events over the years — with his infectious smile, deep booming voice and signature finger wag that endeared him to basketball fans of every generation.”

Several athletes shared their condolences online after hearing about Mutombo’s death.

Quote:He will always be their John.

“Days of Our Lives” star Drake Hogestyn, who has played John Black on the soap opera for nearly 40 years, has died. The actor passed away from pancreatic cancer on Saturday at age 70 — one day before his 71st birthday.

The official Instagram account for the iconic show shared the news of his death.

“It’s with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Drake Hogestyn,” the statement read. “He was thrown the curve ball of his life when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but he faced the challenge with incredible strength and determination.

“After putting up an unbelievable fight, he passed peacefully surrounded by loved ones. He was the most amazing husband, father, papa and actor. He loved performing for the Days audience and sharing the stage with the greatest cast, crew, and production team in the business. We love him and we will miss him all the Days of our Lives.”

Hogestyn’s co-stars have begun to pay tribute to the late star via social media in addition to sharing photographs of him from the set and through the years.

Quote:Over 200 retired military generals and admirals endorsed former President Donald Trump in an open letter released on Monday, saying that he has demonstrated the leadership ability needed to provide for the safety and security of the United States.

The group who organized the letter, Flag Officers 4 America, said in a statement: “Donald Trump has a proven track record of success providing the most fundamental responsibilities required of a U.S. President: protecting national security, domestic safety, and the U.S. Constitution.”

Meanwhile, they said, “The current administration, led by the President and Vice President, has allowed our nation to become unsecure, our citizens unsafe, and our country divided due to the cultural war being waged across America in the form of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).” They added:

This divisive domestic strife is dividing our Country, allowing our foreign adversaries to take advantage of the political/social disorder in America. A recent bipartisan congressional report ‘Commission on the National Defense Strategy’ said: ‘The United States confronts the most serious and the most challenging threats since the end of World War II. The United States could in short order be drawn into a war across multiple theaters with peer and near-peer adversaries, and it could lose.’

“We urge our fellow Americans to join us in supporting the election of Donald J. Trump for president. Our future is at stake,” they said.

Quote:Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) referred to the current administration as the “Harris administration” — perhaps, mistakenly, showcasing once again that Vice President Kamala Harris owns the policies and failures of the Biden-Harris administration.

Walz said this phrase during a portion of the debate discussing climate change as the moderators essentially blamed Hurricane Helene on “climate change.” Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) responded by pointing out that even if Democrats were correct that carbon emissions are causing extreme weather, the best solution is to reshore as much American manufacturing as possible and produce as much energy as possible in the U.S. “because we are the cleanest economy in the entire world.”

During his rebuttal, Walz used the phrase, the “Harris administration.”

“What we’ve seen out of the Harris administration, now the Biden-Harris administration, is we’ve seen this investment,” Walz said.

“We’ve seen massive investments,” he continued, touting the Inflation Reduction Act.

Walz’s admission comes as President Joe Biden admitted that he has delegated everything to Harris, showing that, once again, these current failures are her failures.

As Breitbart News detailed:

The acknowledgment is significant because it contradicts Harris’s talking points. Harris has tried multiple times to distance herself from the Biden-Harris record.

…

While campaigning for Harris on The View on Wednesday, Biden appeared to blame Harris for the administration’s failure to reduce inflation, secure the southern border, and responsibly withdraw from Afghanistan.

“As Vice President, there wasn’t a single thing that I did that she couldn’t do and so I was able to delegate her responsibility on everything from foreign policy to domestic policy,” he said.

Once again, this shows Harris cannot commit to fixing current issues without undermining her own administration.

Quote:The CBS News moderators muted Donald Trump running mate JD Vance’s and Kamala Harris running mate Tim Walz’s microphones during the debate on Tuesday night when Vance fact-checked the moderators on housing migrants in Springfield, Ohio.

“Springfield, Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, temporarily protected legal status,” said Margaret Brennan.

“But Margaret, I think it’s important because–” said Vance as the moderators began cutting him off. “The rules were you weren’t going to fact-check, but since you are fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s going on. There is an application CBP One App where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum, or apply for parole, and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand. That is not a person coming in for a green card and waiting for 10 years.”

“Thank you, Senator,” said Brennan.

As Vance continued, Margaret thanked him for “describing the legal process” before eventually cutting off his mic.

Quote:During a 2014 congressional hearing, then-Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN) bragged about being in Hong Kong at the time of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.

There’s just one problem…

He wasn’t.

He was in Nebraska at the time.

Here he is boasting (once again) about something that is not true:

As a young man I was just going to teach high school in Foshan in Guangdong, and was in Hong Kong in May of ’89. And as the events were unfolding, several of us went in. And I still remember the train station in Hong Kong. There was a large number of, especially European, I think, very angry that we would still go after what had happened, but it was my belief at that time that the diplomacy was going to happen on many levels. Certainly people to people, and the opportunity to be in a Chinese high school at that critical time seemed to me to be really important. And it was a very interesting summer to say the least.

Except…

“Contemporaneous news reports show Walz touring a National Guard storeroom in Alliance, Nebraska, in May 1989,” reports the Washington Free Beacon. “They indicate that Walz did not leave the United States until August of that year, at least two months after the student protests ended with the Tiananmen Square massacre.”

As the Beacon points out, far-left NPR discovered the lie, but naturally, the taxpayer-funded welfare queens buried it under some 30 paragraphs:

Walz also once described being in Hong Kong in May 1989, during the student uprising that culminated in the Tiananmen Square massacre — an assertion that is belied by newspaper accounts at the time. …The campaign was unable to produce documentation to back up Walz’s statement that he was there during the uprising.

The Beacon also points out that leftist outlets like the New York Times have reprinted Walz’s self-serving Tiananmen Square lie without bothering to fact-check it. That is called taking dictation, as opposed to performing journalism.

Listen, being in Hong Kong during something as historic as Tiananmen Square is not something you forget or misremember. We all know where we were on September 11, 2001. Hell, I remember where I was when I first saw that protester attempt to block the tank.

The only thing that would make Walz’s latest lie even more perfect would be if he were to claim he worked at a Hong Kong McDonald’s during the massacre.

What doesn’t Kamala Harris’s vice presidential choice lie about?

He claimed he carried weapons in war although he never saw combat as a member of the Minnesota National Guard. Walz lied about his 1995 DUI arrest—something about a misunderstanding due to Walz’s deafness (probably from all that combat he never participated in) and that he was not drinking. But he was drinking. A blood test showed his alcohol level at .128. For years, Walz has repeatedly claimed he retired from the National Guard at a higher rank than he actually did.

This guy is pathological.

Tonight’s vice presidential debate should be interesting. JD Vance is dynamite in these settings and has a ton of ammo to hit this serial-lying clown with.

Quote:CLAIM: CBS Moderator Margaret Brennan claimed that “Iran is weakened” because of President Joe Biden.

VERDICT: FALSE. Biden relaxed sanctions against Iran, giving it access to billions and making it stronger and bolder.
The first question of the vice presidential debate was a very specific one: whether each candidate would approve a preemptive strike against Iran, given that it has continued to attack Israel and is developing a nuclear weapon.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) dodged the question and trashed former President Donald Trump instead. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) said that he would support whatever Israel decided it needed to do to defend itself from Iran.

But the moderator set up the question with an inaccurate statement, claiming that “Iran is weakened” because of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. As Vance pointed out, Iran is stronger under Biden-Harris.

Biden and Harris dropped many of the sanctions that Trump had imposed on Iran, allowing it access to billions of dollars in assets. Biden and Harris also allowed Iran access to global oil markets, where it could earn billions more.

Faced with provocations by Iran, and attacks on Israel by Iranian proxies, the Biden-Harris administration backed down. In fact, they were often more concerned with placing pressure on Israel to make compromises. They also restored funding to organizations such as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which Trump had cut off due to concerns about its connections with Iranian-backed terror groups. The Biden-Harris administration also pressured Israel to give away an offshore gas field to Lebanon, where Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, could benefit.

Moreover, Biden sent a special envoy, Robert Malley, to Europe in a vain attempt to revive the defunct (and fatally flawed) nuclear deal. Malley ended up being suspended due to suspected breaches of classified information with Iran.

The Biden-Harris administration also pulled support for Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival, and removed the Houthi rebels in Yemen, another Iranian proxy, from the terrorism list. That allowed Iran to threaten global shipping lanes as well as the U.S. Navy and American allies. Ultimately, the Saudis restored ties to Iran — and did so in Beijing.

Finally, as Vance pointed out, Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than it has ever been before. Far from being “weakened” under the Biden-Harris administration, Iran is stronger than it has ever been. The only thing that has changed is that Israel is confronting Iran more forcefully than before. It has been forced by Biden and Harris to do so.

Quote:Fresh water, fuel, food, medical, and other essential supplies were being rushed to flood-stricken areas Monday after Hurricane Helene left a trail of destruction across the U.S. southeast.

At least 91 people across several states were killed after the behemoth weather event reached full force over the weekend.

A North Carolina county that includes the mountain city of Asheville reported 30 people killed, AP reports.

Gov. Roy Cooper predicted the toll would rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reached areas isolated by collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding.

Supplies were being airlifted to the region around the isolated city of Asheville, the AP report continued.

Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder pledged she would have food and water to the city by Monday.

“We hear you. We need food and we need water,” Pinder said on a Sunday call with reporters.

“My staff has been making every request possible to the state for support and we’ve been working with every single organization that has reached out. What I promise you is that we are very close.”

President Joe Biden described the impact of the storm as “stunning” and said he would visit the area this week at a time still to be determined.

Quote:John Amos, the star of “Good Times,” “Roots” and more, died on Aug. 21 in Los Angeles of natural causes, his representative confirmed to Variety on Tuesday. He was 84.

“It is with heartfelt sadness that I share with you that my father has transitioned,” said his son Kelly Christopher Amos in a statement. “He was a man with the kindest heart and a heart of gold… and he was loved the world over. Many fans consider him their TV father. He lived a good life. His legacy will live on in his outstanding works in television and film as an actor. My father loved working as an actor throughout his entire life…. most recently in ‘Suits LA’ playing himself and our documentary about his life journey as an actor, ‘America’s Dad.’ He was my dad, my best friend, and my hero. Thank you for your prayers and support at this time.”

Born on December 27, 1939, in Newark, N.J., Amos’ acting career picked up when he landed the role of weatherman Gordon “Gordy” Howard on “The Mary Tyler Moore show” in 1970.

From there, he brought his comedic talents to CBS’ “Good Times,” a spinoff of “Maude” and “All in the Family,” and played father James Evans Sr. in 1974. The Norman Lear program made history as the first TV show to follow an African American, two-parent household. The hardworking and devoted father figure role resonated with audiences. After three seasons, however, Amos was displeased with the direction of the show and portrayal of his character’s son, James “J.J.” Evans Jr. He was fired after Season 3, and Season 4 began by killing James Evan Sr. off-screen.

Amos received an Emmy nomination in 1977 for his role as adult Kunta Kinte in the ABC historical miniseries “Roots.” The series, about slavery in the United States, won nine Emmys, a Golden Globe and Peabody Award and received massive viewership in the country. More than 130 million people tuned into the series, which was more than half of the population of the U.S. in 1977. The final episode holds the record for the third-highest-rated episode for any type of TV series and the second-most-watched series finale in history.

Quote:The Iran-backed dictatorship of Bashar Assad in Syria was the first state to address the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, using the opportunity to mourn the head of the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shiite terrorist organization, confirmed the death on Saturday of leader Hassan Nasrallah, a mass murderer, following a massive Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bombardment of Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon. Hezbollah has targeted Israel with terrorist attacks for decades – including the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the Western Hemisphere prior to 2001, the bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires – but in the past year has dramatically escalated its activities.

Following the massacre of Israeli civilians by fellow Iran-backed jihadist terror organization Hamas on October 7, 2023, Hezbollah launched a campaign against residents of northern Israel, displacing tens of thousands and limiting the Israeli government’s ability to protect the region. The strikes on its Beirut compound on Friday were a response to Hezbollah’s terrorism in northern Israel.

“Israel’s war is not with you. It’s with Hezbollah,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address to the Lebanese people last week. “For too long, Hezbollah has been using you as human shields. It placed rockets in your living rooms and missiles in your garage. Those rockets and missiles are aimed directly at our cities, directly at our citizens.”

As an Iranian proxy, Hezbollah has long enjoyed the support of the Assad regime, which relied heavily on Iranian and Russian support to remain in power through a decade of civil war. Syrian Foreign Minister Bassam Sabbagh used his address at the United Nations to mourn Nasrallah and Hezbollah’s defeat, as well as call for more opposition to Israel’s self-defense operations at the already notoriously anti-Israel venue.

Quote:Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, elected in a special election this year after campaigning as a “moderate” candidate, menacingly declared weekend his regime would give Israel a “decisive” response to its elimination of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

Killing Nasrallah, the head of a genocidal terrorist organization responsible for the displacement of tens of thousands in northern Israel in the past year, was “unacceptable,” Pezeshkian said on Sunday, according to the Iranian propaganda outlet PressTV, and Tehran would help Hezbollah, as well as promote the “importance of supporting the Hezbollah fighters.”

Pezeshkian joined a chorus of Iranian voices, including “supreme leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, promising to avenge the removal of Nasrallah from the battlefield. The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Monday promised reporters that radical Islamists would soon “celebrate the death of Zionism” despite the loss of one of international jihad’s most prominent figures, and that Iran would support global efforts to destroy Israel.

Pezeshkian reportedly condemned Nasrallah’s killing on onday in conversations with several new ambassadors to Tehran, including those of Germany, Denmark, Norway, Qatar, and Niger.

“If the Islamic governments had had unity and solidarity and had acted and protested against the Zionist regime’s [Israel’s] crimes with a united voice, we would have not witnessed the commitment and rude continuation of the criminal measures of the (Israeli) regime,” Pezeshkian reportedly complained, suggesting Muslim countries are not doing enough to support anti-Israel terrorism.

A day prior, Pezeshkian declared that Iran must give a “decisive” response to Nasrallah’s death.

“Addressing a cabinet session on Sunday, Pezeshkian once again strongly condemned Israel’s assassination of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah,” PressTV reported, “in a massive airstrike on southern Beirut on Friday using American-supplied bunker-buster bombs.”

“This crime once again proved that this criminal regime does not adhere to any of the international principles and rules,” Pezeshkian was quoted as saying, calling the removal of a mass murderer from the battlefield “unacceptable” and promising it would “not go unanswered.”

“Pezeshkian stressed the importance of supporting the Hezbollah fighters in their war with Israel,” PressTV added, “to prevent the atrocious regime from attacking countries of the axis of resistance and killing innocent women and children.”

Nasrallah died following a targeted airstrike by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Hezbollah’s compound in Beirut on Friday. The IDF reportedly eliminated a large number of Hezbollah leaders in the attack, a response to Hezbollah’s incessant terrorist attacks this year in support of fellow Iran-backed terrorist outfit Hamas. Hamas conducted an unprecedented siege of Israel on October 7, 2023, that resulted in 1,200 deaths and dozens of abductions. About 100 Israeli hostages remain in Hamas captivity at press time.

Nasrallah became the leader of Hezbollah, a Shiite genocidal jihadist organization based in Lebanon, in 1992. Hezbollah has for decades received support and guidance from the Iranian Islamist regime and has, in turn, conducted violent terrorist acts on behalf Iran. Hezbollah is particularly responsible for at least hundreds of American deaths in terrorist attacks on American targets such as embassies and military outposts.

“During the Iraq War, according to a U.S. congressional research report, Hezbollah members armed and trained Shia militias that carried out attacks on U.S. forces during their deployments between 2003 and 2011,” NPR noted in its coverage of Nasrallah’s death.

“Hassan Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror,” outgoing American President Joe Biden said in a statement. “His death from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.”

Outside of targeting Israel and the United States, Argentine investigators found Hezbollah and Iran jointly responsible for 1992 and 1994 bombings in the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA), respectively. The latter bombing killed 85 people and was the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the Western Hemisphere prior to September 11, 2001. An Argentine court declared Hezbollah guilty in April of executing the attacks, adding that it did so at the Iranian government’s bidding.

Pezeshkian’s vocal support of one of the Middle East’s deadliest terror leaders contradicts the public image the Iranian president has attempted to build in the West as a “moderate” seeking to limit the power of radical Islamist elements of his government over his people. Pezeshkian campaigned as a political mildly critical of Iran’s “morality police” focused on fighting inflation and solving the problems Iranians face in their daily lives, de-emphasizing Iran’s role as the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism. Pezeshkian has also flirted with the possibility of returning to nuclear negotiations with the United States after former President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal in 2018.

Quote:The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Sunday that two targeted airstrikes in Syria eliminated 37 terrorists aligned with the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, including several senior leaders.

CENTCOM revealed the first of the previously undisclosed airstrikes was conducted on September 16 on a “remote ISIS training camp in central Syria.” At least 28 ISIS operatives were killed, including four “senior leaders.”

“The airstrike will disrupt ISIS’ capability to conduct operations against U.S. interests, as well as our allies and partners,” CENTCOM said.

On September 24, a second targeted strike in northwestern Syria killed “nine terrorist operatives” of a group called Hurras al-Din, including a senior leader called Marwan Bassam.

“Hurras al-Din is an al-Qaeda-affiliated organization based in Syria with global aspirations to conduct attacks against U.S. and Western interests,” CENTCOM explained.

Hurras al-Din is the successor to the infamous Nusrah Front as the leading al-Qaeda franchise in Syria. The Nusrah Front broke away from al-Qaeda’s control in 2018, absorbing several smaller Syrian rebel militias that were reluctant to join al-Qaeda and renaming itself Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Hardcore al-Qaeda loyalists in the Nusrah Front created a new group called Hurras al-Din, which found itself struggling to survive against Western counter-terrorist operations, the Syrian government, and HTS, which decided to eliminate any threat posed by its former Nusrah Front comrades. HTS and Hurras al-Din members have been known to abduct and kill each other over the past six years as they struggle for influence and resources.

In August, the U.S. military eliminated Hurras al-Din leader Abu-Abd al-Rahman al-Makki with a “targeted kinetic strike” in Syria. Al-Makki was the operational commander of the group’s terrorist activities in Syria.

CENTCOM’s statement on Sunday said there was “no indication any civilians were harmed” in either the September 16 or September 24 strikes.

Quote:U.S. officials reportedly warned Tuesday that Iran is about to fire ballistic missiles at Israel, as Israeli forces battled Iran’s terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, in Lebanon.

Israel reacted to the warning by saying that it had not detected any incoming missiles from Iran yet, but that it was ready.

Meanwhile, the State Department told employees of the U.S. embassy to shelter in place.

In April, Iran fired some 300 missiles, projectiles, and drones directly at Israel. Almost all of them were intercepted by Israel’s air defenses, and those of other US allies in the region.

The Biden administration urged Israel not to mount a significant response. Israel did retaliate, but did so in limited way, targeting Iran’s air defenses, and demonstrating that Israel could penetrate them easily.

Iran is suddenly vulnerable to Israeli attack. The Iranian regime had used Hezbollah as a deterrent force against any attack on its nuclear program, but Hezbollah’s capabilities have been severely degraded over the past two weeks.

Iran had also vowed to avenge the killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, but apparently had not managed yet to mount a significant response.

Israel officially announced Tuesday that it had begun ground operations in Lebanon, and revealed that it had been sending commando units into Lebanon for months.

Quote:The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reportedly pulled back from Lebanon’s border with Israel, as Israel began shelling Hezbollah positions ahead of a ground assault on Monday night.

As Breitbart News reported, citing other media reports, Israel had informed the U.S. of its plans for a “limited” ground operation in Lebanon to remove Hezbollah outposts.

Reports circulated Monday that the LAF and UNIFIL had withdrawn. The Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that the LAF had begun repositioning its forces in response to information about Israeli troop movements from the U.S.
There were also unconfirmed reports that UNIFIL, which is meant to enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions against Hezbollah’s presence near the border, but has failed to do so, also withdrew from some positions.

The Times of Israel reported that there was “heavy” Israeli shelling reported near a Lebanese border town. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declared the area around Israel’s northernmost border communities to be a closed military zone.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday afternoon that the Biden administration understood that Israel’s strategic purpose was “to make sure that Hezbollah cannot maintain the capacity to attack Israeli communities from the immediate opposite side of the border.”

She reiterated President Joe Biden’s call for a ceasefire.

Update: The IDF’s Arabic spokesperson, Avihay Adraee, posted maps of buildings in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital city, that he said local residents should avoid:
...

Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel Security Agency (ISA) announced Monday that they had killed Fateh Sherif, who led Hamas in Lebanon. He was also a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) employee.

In a joint statement, the IDF and ISA said:

Overnight, during a joint IDF and ISA intelligence-based activity, the IAF struck and eliminated the terrorist Fateh Sherif, Head of the Lebanon Branch in the Hamas terrorist organization.

Sherif was responsible for coordinating Hamas’ terror activities in Lebanon with Hezbollah operatives. He was also responsible for Hamas’ efforts in Lebanon to recruit operatives and acquire weapons.

He led the Hamas terrorist organization’s force build-up efforts in Lebanon and operated to advance Hamas’ interests in Lebanon, both politically and militarily.

The IDF and the ISA will to continue to operate against anyone who poses a threat to the civilians of the State of Israel.

UNRWA acknowledged that Fateh Sherif had been the principal of one of its schools, the Times of Israel reported:

Sherif was killed today in an airstrike on the al-Bass refugee camp in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, along with his wife and children. Reports indicate he had been the principal of the UNRWA-run Deir Yassin Secondary School in al-Bass.

“Fateh Al Sharif was an UNRWA employee who was put on administrative leave without pay in March, and was undergoing an investigation following allegations that UNRWA received about his political activities,” UNRWA says in response to a Times of Israel query.

Sherif’s suspension for three months had sparked protests in Lebanon, the Times of Israel added.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer told reporters on Monday that Sherif had been head of the UNRWA teachers’ association in Lebanon.

He said that UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini  had to answer: “What on earth is a terrorist doing as one of your teachers?”

Several UNRWA employees were also found to have participated in the October 7 terror attacks. Israel has called for the dismantling of the agency.

Then-President Donald Trump cut off its U.S. funding in 2018, but President Joe Biden restored it upon taking office. The Biden administration suspended funding to UNRWA after evidence of its ties to terror emerged after October 7.

Several Democratic members of Congress, backed by far-left J Street, have proposed a bill to restore funding to UNRWA; they acknowledge its role in terror but insist it can be reformed and trusted with U.S. taxpayers’ money.

Mencer said that UNRWA could not be reformed, and recounted the agency’s collaboration with Hamas in Gaza and elsewhere. “UNRWA, unfortunately, is a front for Hamas.”

Sherif was the latest major terrorist leader to be killed in two weeks of Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel also killed three senior members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), another terrorist group.

In a statement, the IDF and ISA said they had killed Nidal Abdel-Aal, head of the PFLP’s Lebanon branch, as well as Imad Odeh, the head of the PFLP’s military office in Lebanon. They added that Abdel-Aal had directed terror attacks on Israelis in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), including a bus bombing and a shooting attack, both in 2023.

Quote:The Third Lebanon War has officially begun, according to Israel’s Army Radio, as Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ground forces crossed into Lebanon early Tuesday morning to remove Hezbollah outposts that threaten Israeli communities.

The IDF apparently crossed into Lebanon at the “finger” or “panhandle” of Israel’s Galilee region, near the town of Metula, which was Israel’s northernmost town until the capture and annexation of the Golan Heights.

In a statement, the IDF said:

In accordance with the decision of the political echelon, a few hours ago, the IDF began limited, localized, and targeted ground raids based on precise intelligence against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon. These targets are located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.

The IDF is operating according to a methodical plan set out by the General Staff and the Northern Command which IDF soldiers have trained and prepared for in recent months.

The Israeli Air Force and IDF Artillery are supporting the ground forces with precise strikes on military targets in the area.

These operations were approved and carried out in accordance with the decision of the political echelon. Operation “Northern Arrows” will continue according to the situational assessment and in parallel to combat in Gaza and in other arenas.

The IDF is continuing to operate to achieve the goals of the war and is doing everything necessary to defend the citizens of Israel and return the citizens of northern Israel to their homes.

The ground invasion began exactly two weeks after Israel’s security cabinet decided to adopt a new war goal, namely the safe return of Israel’s northern residents to the homes from which they were evacuated when Hezbollah opened fire in October.

According to Army Radio, the goal of the war is not to occupy southern Lebanon, or to establish a “security zone” (see below), but simply to remove Hezbollah bases and positions from which terrorists have been firing on Israeli citizens.

The First Lebanon War took place in 1982, when Israel invaded southern Lebanon to remove Palestinian guerillas who had shelled Israeli communities. Israel won the war but went astray when it continued on to Beirut and tried to install a friendly government in Lebanon, amid civilian casualties and atrocities by local militias. While the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was forced to leave Lebanon, Israelis came to regard the war as their own Vietnam.

For 18 years, Israel occupied a “security zone” north of the border, until repeated attacks by Hezbollah insurgents led the Israeli government to seek a negotiated withdrawal. When talks failed, Israel simply left unilaterally in 2000 — under fire from Hezbollah, which claimed victory.

The Second Lebanon War began in 2006, when Hezbollah kidnapped and killed several Israeli soldiers. Israel hit Hezbollah hard, but its ground forces, which had been focused on responding to the threat of the second Palestinian intifada, were ill-prepared and underequipped.

While the Israeli Air Force (IAF) successfully pounded Hezbollah positions, civilian casualties prompted global protest, and the George W. Bush administration pushed Israel to accept a stalemate and a compromise — namely, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which said Hezbollah had to withdraw north of the Litani River.

Hezbollah ignored the resolution, and neither the United Nations nor Lebanon enforced it. That allowed Hezbollah to build a massive arsenal, and underground tunnels, which posed a threat to Israeli communities. Iran, which arms and funds Hezbollah, also used the terror organization as a deterrent against an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

Last October, Hezbollah began firing at Israel after Hamas launched its brutal terror attack in the southern part of the country. The Biden administration sought a diplomatic resolution, on the heels of his push in 2022 for a deal in which Israel gave up some of its offshore gas fields in exchange for vague guarantees Hezbollah would not start another war.

But rather than a deal, Hezbollah preferred to continue firing at northern Israel, or at least to emerge with an agreement that would allow it to claim its intervention had forced Israel to accept an unfavorable ceasefire in Gaza.

That appears to have been a major strategic blunder. In the space of two weeks, Israel has destroyed Hezbollah’s leadership and communications infrastructure, as well as much of its arsenal, and is now pressing its advantage.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears determined to ensure that the Third Lebanon War does not end with the indeterminate result of the first two, but rather with Israeli victory, and a Lebanon free from enemy interventions.

Quote:Iran launched missiles at Israel on Tuesday evening local time, as Israelis throughout the entire country were ordered to take cover in bomb shelters until further notice.
The IDF said in a statement:

A short while ago, missiles were launched from Iran towards the State of Israel.

You are instructed to remain alert and precisely follow the Home Front Command’s instructions

In the last few minutes, the Home Front Command has distributed life-saving instructions in various areas across the country. The public is asked to adhere to the Home Front Command’s guidelines. Upon hearing a siren, you must enter a protected space and remain there until further notice.

The IDF is doing and will do everything necessary to protect the civilians of the State of Israel.

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari addressed the nation, telling them that the Home Front Command would communicate to them via mobile phone alerts.

“We are strong, and we are capable in this attack also,” he said.

Other officials warned Israelis not to film or photograph during the attack, and to avoid windows in case missiles fell nearby.

The U.S. had revealed earlier that it had indications of a pending Iranian attack.

In April, when Iran launched nearly 300 missiles and drones at Israel, nearly all of them were intercepted by Israeli air defenses and by those of several regional American allies, without causing damage. One Bedouin girl was injured by falling shrapnel.

Update: Iran was reported to have fired toward Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona, in the Negev desert.

Update: The IDF released another statement:

Iran’s attack is continuing. You are requested to remain in a protected space until further notice. The explosions you are hearing are from interceptions or fallen projectiles.

The Aerial Defense Array is currently identifying and intercepting launches.

Israel’s Army Radio said that Iran had announced that its attack was a response to the killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July; to Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Friday; and to the death of a senior Hezbollah officialm Abbas Nilfroshan, alongside Nasrallah.

Iran claimed to have aimed at military targets.

Unconfirmed reports on social media suggested that 400 missiles had been launched and that two had possibly hit Israel, while the rest appeared to have been intercepted.

Update: IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told Israelis at roughly 8:30 p.m. local time that the Iranian attack had ended, and that there had been no injuries or deaths.

He urged the public to exercise caution.

He said Israel would respond to Iran “in the place and the time we determine. … We have plans.”

Update: The IDF estimated that about 180 missiles were launched and most were intercepted, with no injuries to Israelis and little damage. Initial reports had cited 400 possible missiles.

Quote:On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” IDF International Spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani stated that a Palestinian was killed in Iran’s attack on Israel earlier that day.

Host Jake Tapper asked, “Lt. Col., what can you tell us about any casualties? Jim Sciutto mentioned that the U.S. had referred to a Palestinian American in the West Bank being killed possibly. Do you know anything about that or any other casualties?”

Shoshani answered, “Well, this large-scale attack happened just recently. We’re still assessing the situation. I can tell you, in the moment, we know of multiple people injured and we know of a Palestinian who was killed by this attack in the area of Jericho and we are still assessing the situation because this scale of attack is one of the largest attacks we’ve seen, definitely in the history of Israel, maybe in the history of ballistic [missile] attacks.”

Shoshani continued that the low number of casualties is due to people taking shelter and strong air defense by Israel, the United States, and other nations.

Jericho Governor, Hussein Hamayel, told Agence France-Presse, “A Palestinian worker in Jericho was killed when pieces of a rocket fell from the sky and hit him.”

Quote:Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement Tuesday evening from a security cabinet meeting in the Kirya, the military headquarters in Tel Aviv, warning: “Iran has made a big mistake tonight, and will pay for it.”

Netanyahu spoke shortly after Iran launched hundreds of missiles at central and southern Israel, almost all of which were intercepted by Israeli and American air defenses. Only a few landed; no Israelis were injured or killed.

He began his remarks by offering condolences to the families of the victims of a terror attack that took place in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, earlier in the evening, when two gunmen opened fire on commuters, killing six innocent civilians.

He thanked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for defending the country from the missile attack, and thanked the United States. Then he launched into his warning, vowing that the Iranian regime would learn what his proxies had learned: that Israel is determined to defend itself, and to punish its enemies.

He repeated a warning he delivered at the United Nations General Assembly last Friday — as Israeli warplanes were bombing Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, killing arch-terrorist Hassan Nasrallah: “If you strike us, we will strike you.”

Netanyahu did not specify when, where, or how an Israeli counterattack might happen. Earlier in the evening, IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari warned that Israel would strike back “in the place and in the time that we determine.”

Update: The Prime Minister’s Office released a transcript of Netanyahu’s remarks:

Citizens of Israel, at the start of my remarks, I send condolences to the families of those who were murdered in the abhorrent terrorist attack in Jaffa and my best wishes for a quick recovery to the wounded.

As in the missile attack, there was also a murderous guiding hand behind this terrorist attack – it came from Tehran.

This evening, Iran again attacked Israel with hundreds of missiles. This attack failed. It was thwarted thanks to Israel’s air defense array, which is the most advanced in the world. I commend the IDF for the impressive achievement. It was also thwarted thanks to your alertness and responsibility, citizens of Israel. I also thank the US for its support in our defensive effort.

This evening, Iran made a big mistake – and it will pay for it. The regime in Tehran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and to exact a price from our enemies.

Sinwar and Deif did not understand this; neither did Nasrallah or Mohsen. Apparently, there are those in Tehran who do not understand this either.

They will.

We will keep to the rule we have determined: Whoever attacks us – we attack them.

This is true wherever we fight the axis of evil. It is true in Judea and Samaria. It is true in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria – and it is also true in Iran. We are fighting the axis of evil everywhere, including in southern Lebanon and Gaza, where our heroic soldiers are active.

Today, more than ever, the forces of light in the world must unite and work together against the ayatollahs’ dark regime, which is the source of terror and evil in our region. They must stand alongside Israel. The choice has never been more clear, between tyranny and freedom, between the blessing and the curse.

On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, I say to you, citizens of Israel: Israel has the momentum and the axis of evil is in retreat. We will do whatever needs to be done to continue this trend. To achieve all of our war objectives, especially the return of all of our hostages, and ensure our existence and our future.

A good and safe year to you all.

Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealed Tuesday that its soldiers had recovered a map prepared by Hezbollah in Lebanon as part of a plan called “Conquer the Galilee,” in which it hoped to execute an October 7-style raid on Israel.

The revelation was made in a press briefing by IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, who spoke less than 24 hours after Israel officially began a ground invasion of Lebanon to dislodge Hezbollah from the border.

Hagari declassified a trove of intelligence and confirmed what Breitbart News had reported since April — that IDF soldiers had been conducting limited missions inside Lebanon. Hagari said that the IDF had been locating Hezbollah tunnels and weapons caches and destroying them. Many were located in civilian areas, with entrances inside civilian homes.

Hezbollah began attacking Israel on October 8, a day after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel from Gaza and murdered 1,200 people, taking over 250 hostages (97 of whom remain in Gaza today, with 33 reported to be confirmed dead).

Israel feared that Hezbollah might invade as well, and rushed some 100,000 troops to the northern border. (Breitbart News reported from inside the “red zone” in November, as the IDF prepared near the border for a possible attack.)

As Hezbollah continued to fire at Israeli civilian communities, Israel evacuated 60,000 residents from their homes.

Hagari said:

Hezbollah has openly declared that it plans to carry out its own October the 7th massacre on Israel’s northern border, on an even larger scale. They call this plan, “Conquer the Galilee”. For years, Hezbollah has been planning to do in northern Israel what Hamas did in southern Israel on October 7th: invade Israel, infiltrate civilian communities and massacre innocent civilians.

To make sure that Hezbollah can never carry out such an attack and in order to enable all 60,000 Israelis to safely return back to their homes in northern Israel, the IDF is taking action. Hezbollah planned to launch their October 7th attack from villages across southern Lebanon where they have been building up their arms; capabilities; and forces for the last two decades. Hezbollah also dug tunnels under homes in these villages close to the border with Israel.

Hagari also revealed videos of IDF infiltrations into Lebanon, showing Israeli soldiers discovering tunnels and weapons, and showing tunnels and other Hezbollah infrastructure being destroyed in controlled explosions.

Quote:Combined U.S. military forces are being rushed to the Middle East to deter an Iranian response in the wake of Israel’s enhanced air campaign against Hezbollah and the start of a ground operation in southern Lebanon to remove terrorist outposts that threaten Israeli communities, U.S. and Israeli officials said Monday.

The infusion of fighting assets, which includes air-defense units, will add to the tens of thousands of American personnel already on high alert there, said Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

The push follows other moves to enhance and reposition U.S. forces already in the troubled region, as Breitbart News reported.

The Washington Post reports the fresh military dispositions were ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after Israel last week used a series of airstrikes around Beirut to kill Hezbollah terrorist leader Hasan Nasrallah, and as U.S. officials anticipated Israel could soon launch a limited ground entry into Lebanon which has since occurred. The Post notes:

Singh told reporters that to further boost the number of personnel in the Middle East, the Pentagon will extend some deployed units that were scheduled to rotate home and send additional forces to augment them, including squadrons that fly F-16, F-15E and F-22 fighters and A-10 attack jets. Austin also issued prepare-to-deploy orders for an unspecified number of other units that are in the United States, she said.

Singh linked the additional deployments directly to rhetoric from senior Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has called for all Muslims to stand with Hezbollah as it confronts Israel. Writing on social media over the weekend, he declared that “the blows struck by the Resistance Front on the worn-out, deteriorating body of the Zionist regime will become even more crushing.”

The “resistance front” is a reference to the network of militant proxy forces that Iran backs across the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and several militia forces in Iraq and Syria.

The decision brings the total number of American troops in the region to as many as 43,000, including more than a dozen warships.

The beefed-up presence is designed both to help defend Israel and protect U.S. and allied personnel and assets.

It comes after U.S. Navy warships shot down a barrage of Houthi terrorist cruise missiles and drones launched Friday from Yemen at the shipping lanes of the Red Sea.

The Pentagon confirmed the attack and the successful response on Friday.

The USS Abraham Lincoln and its carrier strike group are in the region on an extended deployment.

The accompanying strike group includes three destroyers: USS Spruance, USS Stockdale, and USS O’Kane.

Quote:Then-Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow in 2019 that then-President Donald Trump would be responsible for a dangerous escalation with Iran.

The video resurfaced Tuesday after Iran launched 181 ballistic missiles at Israel — the second such missile attack, after Iran’s proxies had attacked Israel for a year.

Harris spoke to Maddow in the wake of an Iranian missile attack on Saudi oil fields that, many expected, would lead to a U.S. response. (Trump called off an airstrike.) Harris criticized Trump for not being tough enough on the Saudis. (Once in office, she and Biden pulled back support for Saudi Arabia, emboldening Iran and the Houthis in Yemen.)

The transcript reads as follows:

HARRIS: And again, you know, listen, as far as I;m concerned, this president is motivated by his — his personal insecurities more than he is our national security. And so, what we’re looking at is, again, a threat that might be taken seriously. And I — and I would dare to say that that threat was issued without serious consultation with our allies, with our military leaders, with our diplomatic leaders. What are our alternatives?

Let’s also be clear, if this president is thinking about putting us in a position where we’re in a war with Iran, the consequences will be absolutely unacceptable and tragic in terms of the young men and women who are American soldiers who would be sent and deployed into something that was completely avoidable.

MADDOW: If you did believe, if you were president right now, and you came to believe that Iran had carried out this act — and, again, you know, we have the president’s assertions, the government’s assertions on these things, we haven’t seen the evidence. But if a U.S. president came to be convinced that Iran had shot these missiles into Saudi Arabia to screw up their oil output, would you approach that as if the United States had — the United States had a responsibility to backstop Saudi Arabia militarily? There’s an assumption that we would, but would that be true in a Harris administration?

HARRIS: Well, in a Harris administration, one, we wouldn’t have gotten ourselves into this mess in terms of we would — we would have stayed as part of the partnership that was part of the Iran nuclear deal, and we would have kept our word. And we would have held up our end of the bargain.

Also, let’s step back and look at this president’s relationship with the Saudis, and the Kingdom. Do you know that this president during his tenure in the White House has issued five vetoes total? Four of them related to Saudi Arabia.

In 2020, both then-candidate Joe Biden and Harris objected when President Trump ordered an airstrike that killed Iranian terror general Qasem Soleimani. Iran’s feeble response showed the regime had been deterred, and the dire predictions of many Democrats that Trump had started a new war failed to materialize.

Quote:Former President Donald Trump vowed, hours after Iran fired hundreds of missiles at Israel on Tuesday, that there will be “peace in the world again” if he is elected president versus chaos if Vice President Kamala Harris wins.

Trump’s remarks came during an event in Waunakee, Wisconsin, as tensions in the Middle East escalate in the home stretch of the U.S. election.

Trump said that Iran “desperately wants Kamala Harris to be president,” going on to add that America’s adversaries believe “as long as she’s in power, they can take advantage of America like never before.”
...
Trump, who made significant progress toward peace in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords during his administration, pledged if elected, “We will have peace in the world again.”

“If she gets four more years, the world goes up in smoke. This world will go up in smoke,” Trump added, also invoking harbingers of a potential World War III in his remarks.

The 45th president, who said today’s attack was driven by a lack of respect for the U.S. on the world stage,  also blasted the ‘incompetent’ Biden-Harris adminsitration for “flooding [Iran] with cash” after the nation was “in check” during his time in office.
...
“Iran was on the verge of bankruptcy. They had no money left. They had no money for Hamas. They had no money for Hezbollah, the people [Israel’s] fighting now,” he said.

“They would have been willing to make any deal. You could have made any deal, but Kamala flooded them with American cash, and even now, I mean, they’re flooding them with cash,” he added. “Honestly, it’s not even believable.”

Trump contended that today’s attack on Israel would not have happened if he were in charge and said toward the beginning of his remarks that neither would many other significant issues facing America and the globe.
...
“The whole Middle East has been unraveling, but, of course, the whole world has been unraveling since we left office,” Trump said.

“Russia would have never attacked Ukraine. This would have never happened in the Middle East. There wouldn’t have been an October 7. You wouldn’t have had inflation,” he added, also pointing to the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.

Trump’s speech comes on the heels of a press release earlier in the day outlining many of the same arguments and points.

Quote:On Thursday’s broadcast of FBN’s “Mornings with Maria,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) warned of the consequences of the Biden administration’s policy decisions and the impact on Iran’s behavior.

According to the junior Missouri U.S. Senator, Iran was actively supporting Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and had “assassination teams” in the United States trying to kill her opponent, former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee.

“John Ratcliffe, on ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ this Sunday, said to me the issue is is that the U.S. government, Kamala Harris shares a goal with Iran, the same, and that is stop Trump,” host Maria Bartiromo said. “That is why Iran hacked into Trump’s campaign. And that is why Iran threatened to assassinate President Trump. Are those things, in your view, an act of war? Should that have been responded to by this administration — the fact that Iran, the state terrorism supporter, is trying to hack into a presidential campaign and assassinate a former president of the U.S.? Because there has been no response to that.”

“Right,” Schmitt replied. “Also, there hasn’t been a response to the Houthis, which are also funded by Iran, are attacking U.S. warships. They are attacking the U.S. Navy. We have not responded to that. That is insane. That doesn’t inspire any detterence. Yes, Iran is public now. We have been aware of confidential or classified briefings. Iran is supporting Kamala Harris. They want her to win. That is out there. That is out there that is not classified information. They have assassination teams in the United States trying to kill President Trump.”

Schmitt added, “Meanwhile, the Biden administration, Maria, people tell you getting the same level of Secret Service protection. They are lying to you. He has more manpower but still being denied defensive assets — things that can be used that President Biden and Vice President Harris get President Trump still doesn’t get. And we know they are trying. The Iranians want to kill President Trump. So, it is very obvious Iran doesn’t want Trump. They want Harris to win. They want to kill Trump. They are leaking information. So, it is very obvious that Iran doesn’t feel like going to suffer consequences from that. And that is a direct result of Joe Biden’s weakness. You can tie all the way back to withdrawal of- from Afghanistan. The world saw it. Iran saw it. Russia saw it. China saw it.”

Quote: Wrote:Vice President Kamala Harris announced $750 in aid for Hurricane Helene victims, just days after her and President Joe Biden’s administration announced $8 billion in a new installment of aid for Ukraine.

Harris spent the weekend campaigning on the West Coast as the hurricane unleashed deadly destruction across the nation’s southwest, killing hundreds of Americans, with hundreds more still missing.

On Wednesday, Harris visited Georgia — two days after former President Donald Trump visited — and announced what many are criticizing as a measly amount of aid for hurricane victims: $750.

Harris touted during remarks in Augusta, Georgia, “The federal relief and assistance that we have been providing has included FEMA providing $750 for folks who need immediate needs being met, such as food, baby formula, and the like. And you can apply now.”

The $750 is $50 more than the amount the administration gave the 2023 Maui wildfire victims, which included many who had lost their homes and loved ones.

Just a week ago, the Biden-Harris administration announced $8 billion for Ukraine. The administration has sent Ukraine at least $175 billion over the last two years since the war began.

The discrepancy in the amount for Hurricane Helene victims and the Ukraine War has prompted harsh criticism of the administration’s poor response.

Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) posted on X:

$750 for Hurricane Helene victims.
$700 for Maui fire victims.
$175 BILLION to Ukraine.
FREE flights, health care, housing, and food for illegal aliens.

Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, American citizens come last.

Quote:Politico’s chief Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza is on a leave of absence after his former fiancée Olivia Nuzzi filed a court complaint accusing him of blackmail and harassment.

Just when you thought this story could not get any more awesome…

This all started earlier in the month when Nuzzi was herself placed on leave by New York Magazine, where she was considered their star reporter. Everything fell apart when it was discovered she had been reporting on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. while pursuing a personal relationship with him.

According to various sources, after interviewing Kennedy, who is married to actress Cheryl Hines, Nuzzi got flirtatious during a phone call. Kennedy responded by blocking her number. Through various machinations, she was able to convince him to unblock her once in a while. Then per the source, she would send him sexy pictures of herself. Someone leaked this information to New York Magazine. Nuzzi was put on leave. Lizza announced Nuzzi was now his EX-fiancée. Kennedy is currently looking into suing her.
...
In her court complaint, Nuzzi says that Lizza “explicitly threatened to make public personal information about me to destroy my life, career, and reputation—a threat he has since carried out.”

Nuzzi also claims “Lizza had stolen a personal electronic device from her, was hacking her devices, then anonymously shopping information about her to the media.” She adds that some of this information might have been “doctored” by Lizza to look worse than it was. She also believes Lizza impersonated “an anonymous campaign operative” to damage her reputation with a political campaign.

Per the court document, Nuzzi believes it was Lizza who told her employer about her relationship with Kennedy. She further alleges he “threatened her with violence to assume his share of financial responsibility for a joint book contract they had.”

According to her, it was all about blackmailing her into not breaking up with him.

As of now, a judge has granted Nuzzi’s request to bar Lizza from having any contact with her. A court date is set for October.

Quote:U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday glibly ruled out any imminent Israeli strikes against Iran as the strife-torn region prepares for a response to the recent missile attack on the Jewish state.

“First of all, we don’t ‘allow’ Israel, we advise Israel. And there is nothing going to happen today,” Biden told reporters at the White House when asked if he would allow Israel to retaliate against Iran.

He made the remarks on the South Lawn before departing aboard Marine One without any further clarification or citing of a source for the military intelligence revelation.

A reporter had asked if he supported Israel striking Iran’s oil facilities with Biden responding, “we’re discussing that. I think that would be a little… anyway.”

Oil prices jumped five percent over concerns about the Middle East after Biden spoke.

The comment came in the wake of Democrats and the media frequently criticizing former President Donald Trump for allegedly talking with Russia yet here is Biden telling Iran directly that it is safe from attack.

As Breitbart News reported, Iran launched an unprecedented 180-plus missiles at Israeli targets on Tuesday, in what it described as retaliation for the killings of several militant leaders and Israeli aggression in Gaza and Lebanon.

The large-scale strike followed Israel’s airstrike a week earlier killed terrorist Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon, as well as Abbas Nilforoushan, a high-ranking commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Quote:U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan Wednesday unsealed special counsel Jack Smith’s latest motion in his salvaged case against Donald Trump for interference in the 2020 election.

Chutkan’s release of the redacted motion – filed last week – follows Trump’s surge in swing state polls and comes the day after Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), Trump’s running mate, shined in the vice presidential debate – likely the last debate in the election cycle.

Under local criminal rule 47(e) of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, motions of this type are limited to 45 pages. Yet Chutkan allowed Smith to file a mammoth 165-page motion, which Smith used to rehash – in official court documents – political attacks and Democrat grievances against Trump yet to be proven in court.

Smith’s motion includes one-sided allegations that turn on Trump’s state of mind, repeating that Trump’s claims regarding the election were knowingly false and deceitful without allowing the possibility that Trump believed what he said.

Trump emphatically denies Smith’s charges, and many commentators profess that Trump sincerely believes that he would have won if all relevant laws were faithfully enforced.

The 165-page document is unusual in other respects, including the timing and manner of its release.

Chutkan could have kept the motion under seal until after the election. Instead, she released a lightly redacted motion that appears to have redacted little other than names.

Trump’s team argued more redactions were necessary if Chutkan chose to release the motion publicly. They also objected to the timing, noting that early voting has already begun.

Smith’s team Tuesday rejected any accusations of political motivation behind the filing or its timing, saying that despite the timing so close to Election Day, they have “no role or interest in partisan politics.”

DOJ policy does not allow prosecutions or legal actions that could influence ongoing elections.

Smith was forced to go back to a grand jury to salvage his case after the Supreme Court ruled in July that all presidents enjoy partial immunity for actions taken in office in an official capacity. Yet Smith’s superseding indictment contained the same four charges Trump originally was charged with, reconfigured to charge Trump in fact had acted as a private citizen, not as president, and therefore not immune. That is a disputed legal question that will be hashed out in court.

“The superseding indictment, which was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case, reflects the Government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings and remand instructions in Trump v. United States,” Smith wrote at that time.

Trump wrote at the time that Smith’s latest effort “has all the problems of the old indictment, and should be dismissed immediately.”

Smith’s appointment itself was ruled unconstitutional in a Florida court this summer, where a Florida judged tossed Smith’s documents case against Trump.

Quote:Five Chinese nationals were indicted on federal charges on Wednesday for conspiracy, lying to federal investigators, and destroying records pertaining to their strange midnight visit to a Michigan Army National Guard base in August 2023.

The defendants, who were University of Michigan students at the time, were caught with cameras near a major National Guard live-fire training exercise at Camp Grayling. The exercise, dubbed “Northern Strike,” involved military vehicles and classified communications equipment. Visiting personnel from Taiwan were involved in the drills.

The indictment filed on Wednesday did not pertain to the suspicious activities of the students near the military base, but rather to the false statements they gave investigators. When they were approached by a National Guard officer after bypassing abundant caution tape and “no trespassing” signs to enter the Northern Strike area, the five Chinese nationals falsely claimed to be members of the media, then fled the area.

Local law enforcement soon discovered the five had booked themselves into a motel in Grayling, seemingly for the purpose of observing the military exercise.

One of the students, 23-year-old Renxiang Guan, changed his story after he was detained at Detroit Metropolitan Airport while attempting to travel to Shanghai a few months later. Guan reportedly claimed the five were “stargazing,” but two photos of military vehicles taken on the day of their visit to Camp Grayling were found in his personal electronics.

The other four students – Zhekhai Xu, 22; Haoming Zhu, 21; Jingzhe Tao, 22; and Yi Liang, 23 – were questioned by the FBI three months later, when they flew into Chicago O’Hare International Airport from Iceland.

The quartet gave inconsistent statements to FBI investigators, including implausible claims of visiting the Camp Grayling to watch a meteor shower on a rainy, overcast night. They also gave conflicting statements about whether they knew they were near a military base, and made false statements about when they booked their motel room.

The FBI also discovered WeChat messages in which the defendants admitted to deleting photos from their cameras and phones, and using third parties to carry their electronics on their trip to Iceland so they could avoid searches.

“The subjects discussed their encounter with the (sergeant major) at Bear Lake, attempted to coordinate their accounts of what happened so that the stories would match if any of them were questioned in the future and deleted potentially incriminating photos from their phones and cameras to preclude law enforcement from finding them,” the criminal complaint against the five Chinese students said.

The complaint referred to other instances of Chinese students performing what appeared to be surveillance of sensitive American facilities, including two other University of Michigan students who were caught snapping photos at Florida’s Naval Air Station Key West in 2020.

The two Chinese nationals in the Key West case wound up serving prison time, but the indictment against the five students on Wednesday indicated they attended the University of Michigan as part of a two-year joint program with Shanghai Jiao Tong University and left the country in May 2024 after it was completed. None of the five are currently in custody.

“Should they come into contact with US authorities, they will be arrested and face these charges,” Gina Balaya, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit, said on Wednesday.

Quote:Nearly 200 people are reportedly dead after Hurricane Helene slammed the southeast portion of the United States.

NBC News reported on Thursday that 194 people lost their lives amid the destruction the storm brought, with over half of the deaths occurring in North Carolina.

“Hundreds are still missing and officials have reported difficulties in identifying some of the dead,” the outlet said.

It added “President Joe Biden visited North Carolina yesterday and announced that up to 1,000 active-duty soldiers will join the North Carolina National Guard in delivering supplies, food and water to isolated communities.”

Video footage shows floodwaters moving entire buildings, holes in roofs where residents busted through to escape the rising water, and landslides in the mountainous areas, per Today.

“There are significant challenges ahead between three different states; North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, there are roughly still a million people without power,” a reporter on the show said.

The village of Chimney Rock, North Carolina, has been described as being “washed away,” Breitbart News reported on Monday.

Meanwhile, a GoFundMe authorized by former President Donald Trump to help victims of the storm has raised $4,460,640 of its $1,000,000 goal, as of Thursday morning.

An update on the page reads:

President Trump and his supporters are using the GoFundMe platform to direct unprecedented levels of generosity from MAGA supporters to help Americans facing the terrible aftermath of Hurricane Helene. In just a matter of days, this account for those across the Southeastern US has raised millions of dollars. Please continue to support your fellow Americans in their recovery efforts! President Trump is grateful for your support of this effort and as funds come in we will disperse to those who have been impacted. We have selected Samaritan’s Purse and Water Mission as the recipients of this generosity. We have made an initial disbursement and will continue providing more funds as support continues to come in.

Country music star Morgan Wallen donated $500,000 to the American Red Cross through the Morgan Wallen Foundation in an effort to help communities hit by the storm, Breitbart News reported Tuesday.

Quote:Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the remainder of hurricane season, yet $640 million has been allotted to DHS specifically for issues related to illegal immigrants.

“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds — FEMA does not have the funds — to make it through the season,” Mayorkas revealed.

This is problematic, as hurricane season does not end until November 30. According to Fox News’s Chad Pergram, “Congress made sure FEMA had more than $20 billion in last week’s emergency spending bill ahead of the storm, but last year, Congress awarded DHS $640 million to help communities provide shelter and aid to people in the country illegally.”

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is among those who have sounded the alarm, contending that officials laundered the money for their illegal immigrant pet projects.

“This is not something that has just happened recently,” she said, explaining that “Florida’s been warning about this since this administration took over.”

“Mayorkas has come in like a virus and infected these — what need to be healthy, strong, fundamental programs to ensure the stability and safety of Americans in times of disaster. So you heard, they have taken the FEMA emergency food and shelter program and over time, siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars into basically making it an illegal immigrant resettlement program,” she revealed, adding that these moves encourage more illegals to come here.

“Biden and Harris are having to fund that on the backs of the American people. And now, right now, in Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, all of these states are hurting,” she continued.

At least 190 have been confirmed dead in the aftermath of the storm, which made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend before wreaking havoc as far inland as Asheville, North Carolina, and beyond.

This also comes as the Biden-Harris administration is under fire not only for the lackluster Helene response — Harris actually opted to party with celebrities in Los Angeles in the aftermath of the storm — but for the latest call from the Department of Transportation instructing drone pilots to stop their relief efforts.

“Drone pilots: Do not fly your drone near or around rescue and recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene,” the U.S. Department of Transportation said in an X post.

“Interfering with emergency response operations impacts search and rescue operations on the ground,” it continued, sharing a video of Buttigieg touting “temporary flight restrictions to make sure that the airspace is clear for any flights or drone activity that might be involved in helping to allow those emergency responders to do their job.”

Quote:Growing lines of container ships continued to form outside major U.S. ports on Thursday as the biggest dockworker strike in nearly 50 years entered its third day.

The choke points are threatening shortages of everything from bananas to auto parts and are anticipated to grow in coming days if no resolution is forthcoming.

Reuters reports no negotiations were scheduled between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and employers, but the port owners, under pressure from the White House to hike their pay offer to land a deal, signaled they were open to new talks.

Some 45 container vessels that have been unable to unload had dropped anchor outside the strike-stricken East Coast and Gulf Coast ports by Wednesday, up from just three before the strike began on Sunday, according to Everstream Analytics.

“Many seem to have decided to wait it out, possibly in hopes of a prompt resolution to the strike action, rather than taking the proactive decision to divert,” said Everstream’s Jena Santoro in a video presentation seen by Reuters.

As reported by Breitbart News, the ILA launched its strike by 45,000 port workers from Maine to Texas, its first major stoppage since 1977, on Tuesday after talks for a new six-year contract with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) employer group broke down.

The ILA is seeking a big pay raise along with commitments to halt port automation projects it fears will kill jobs. The USMX had offered a 50 percent pay bump, but the ILA said it was insufficient to address its concerns.

“Reaching an agreement will require negotiating,” USMX said late on Wednesday. “We cannot agree to preconditions to return to bargaining, but we remain committed to bargaining in good faith to address the ILA’s demands and USMX’s concerns,” it said.

Quote:Mexican Army soldiers mistook a fleeing convoy of vehicles that was moving a large group of Middle Eastern migrants for cartel gunmen in the state of Chiapas. The subsequent chase and shooting killed at least four migrants, while some accounts point to six dying.

The shooting took place on Wednesday evening in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas along the highway that connects the towns of Villa Comaltitlan and Huixtla, a statement from Mexico’s Army revealed.

According to the military, a contingent of soldiers patrolled the roads when they saw a pickup that suddenly sped off. The fleeing vehicle was closely followed by two cargo trucks that gunmen commonly use the military claims in that region.

Two soldiers claimed to have heard gunshots and began firing at the fleeing vehicles. One of the trucks stopped, and when military forces approached, they found a total of 33 migrants from Egypt, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, and Cuba.

The information revealed by the military differs from local news accounts that claim that six migrants died and that the army chased down the fleeing human smuggling group for several miles and fired numerous times. As the army statement revealed, the driver of one of the trucks lost control, rolled over, and did not stop.

According to the Mexican Army, four migrants died, 12 others were injured, and 17 others were unharmed. However, according to local news reports, six migrants died, and nine were injured. The military forces provided first aid and rushed them to local hospitals.

The Mexican military revealed that the two soldiers who fired their weapons had been placed on leave pending investigations by federal authorities.

Quote:A group of gunmen riding on jet skis pulled up to one of the luxurious hotels in Cancun, shot an unidentified man, and fled before authorities could arrive. The shooting is just one of several that have taken place in recent months in the popular beach resort area as rival drug cartels wage a fierce turf war.

The shooting took place on Wednesday morning on the private beach of the Riu Hotel in Cancun, Mexico’s Noticaribe.mx reported. The shooting took place in the luxurious Cancun beach area, which has several ritzy hotels with private beaches along a beachfront boulevard.

At least two gunmen walked up to the unidentified victim, shot him numerous times, and then ran off towards a nearby hotel, where they got on their jet skis and sped away on the water.

By the time first responders arrived, the victim was already dead. A subsequent search by Mexican authorities did not yield any results.

Despite efforts by Mexico’s government to suppress negative news, Cancun has become a hotspot for violence in recent years as rival drug cartels fight for control of drug distribution and the lucrative sex trade. While most of the killings take place in the inner city areas, away from the beach resorts, as Breitbart Texas reported, killings inside resort areas and trendy nightclubs have become more and more common.

In July, a group of gunmen shot and killed a 12-year-old boy who was vacationing with his family in that same beach area, Noticaribe.mx reported at the time. The boy was not the target but was caught in the crossfire as a group of gunmen riding in jetskis clashed with another group of gunmen. The gunmen were from rival drug gangs fighting over the local drug trade.

In August, a group of cartel gunmen threw a grenade at a luxurious apartment complex called Koa Towers in Cancun, Breitbart Texas reported.  While the device did not explode, it caused widespread panic as authorities had to seal off the area until military forces could safely retrieve the explosive, which was described as a fragmentation grenade.

Quote:Humberto Ortega, younger brother of Nicaragua’s communist dictator Daniel Ortega, died on Monday, four months after his brother placed him under house arrest and accused him of “treason” for questioning the regime’s continuity.

The younger Ortega sibling denounced being a political prisoner of his brother’s regime in an audio recording posthumously released hours after his death by the local newspaper Confidencial.

According to a statement from the Nicaraguan military, Humberto Ortega suffered respiratory arrest in the early midnight hours of Monday at the Alejandro Dávila Bolaños Military Hospital in the capital city of Managua.

The younger Ortega sibling had not been publicly seen or heard from since he was placed under house arrest in May. Following months of rumors, the hospital confirmed on Sunday that Ortega had been hospitalized in the facility since June 11.

Humberto Ortega, 77 at the time of his death, was a retired general who participated in the Sandinista revolution alongside his brother and played an instrumental role in the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), helping his brother’s dictatorial rule during the 1980s by serving as his defense minister, army chief, and strategist.

The younger Ortega began taking a critical stance of his brother in April 2018 amidst the wave of anti-communist protests against Daniel Ortega that called for an end to his regime’s decades-long rule over Nicaragua. Ortega responded to the protests with a brutal persecution campaign that left over 300 people dead.

The strained relationship between both Ortega siblings further deteriorated in the following years and reached a crucial point in May after Humberto Ortega gave an interview to the Argentine outlet Infobae where he questioned the continuity of the Nicaraguan communist regime without the leadership of his brother Daniel, who is presently 78 years old.

Humberto Ortega asserted that, in a hypothetical scenario in which Daniel Ortega is suddenly absent, there would be an “impossibility” for the ruling Sandinistas to consolidate power again.

The younger Ortega expressed his doubts to Infobae that Daniel Ortega’s wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo, or son Laureano Ortega Murillo, would be capable of succeeding the communist dictator upon his death.

“Without Daniel, there is no one because, all in all, Daniel is the only leader, historically, who still retains the credits of that struggle,” Humberto Ortega told Infobae at the time. “Without Daniel, I see it very difficult for two or three to get together, much less one in particular, and more difficult in the family.”

“With the absence of Daniel, it would be very fragile to sustain everything that, until now, he has managed to sustain with great effort and with enormous complexities,” he continued. “Not only internally but also with the allied forces of the left and the governments of the region. The only one they know is Daniel.”

Daniel Ortega responded to his brother’s interview by placing him under house arrest and having the Nicaraguan police seize his phone, computer, and other communication devices. Days later, Daniel Ortega publicly accused his brother of being a “traitor” without directly mentioning him and claimed “he had given his soul to the devil.”

Quote:Venezuela’s socialist regime kicked off the “Merry Christmas 2024” season on Tuesday as decreed by dictator Nicolás Maduro.

Christians normally celebrate the Christmas season in a four-week period in December known as Advent that marks the arrival of Jesus of Nazareth on December 25, Christmas Day.

The Venezuelan socialists have a long track record of misinterpreting Christian faith and co-opting the religion to suit their ideological pursuits, maintaining a longstanding animosity towards the Venezuelan Catholic Church. Maduro has repeatedly rescheduled the start of Christmas in Venezuela to either October or November, depending on what best suits his own interests at a given time.

The 2024 Venezuelan Christmas period, according to Maduro’s latest orders, started on October 1 and will run through January 15, 2025. The dictator claimed in September that the decision to move Christmas earlier this year was to express his “gratitude” to Venezuelans for the “results” of the July 28 sham presidential election, which Maduro and the Venezuelan institutions under his control fraudulently insist he “won.”

The Episcopal Conference of Venezuela (CEV) issued a statement rejecting the regime’s political use of Christmas and condemning the move, emphasizing that, for Catholics – the majority of Venezuelans – Advent begins on December 1.

“Christmas, as a liturgical season, begins on December 25 with the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ and extends until the Epiphany of the Lord in January,” CEV said at the time. “Therefore, Christmas is a celebration of universal character.”

“The manner and time of its celebration is a matter for ecclesiastical authority. This feast should not be used for propagandistic or political purposes,” the statement concluded.

Maduro reiterated his decision to start Christmas in October on Monday during the latest broadcast of his weekly television show With Maduro Plus and responded to CEV’s September criticism by stating that Christmas will start in October “as it was decreed.”

Quote:Smoke from thousands of out-of-control fires in the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil is covering as much as 80 percent of the country, several outlets reported over the weekend.

Local emergency personnel in some of Brazil’s largest cities have documented a dramatic increase in the number of people seeking medical help for respiratory problems; in Brasilia, the national capital, the number of such cases has multiplied by 20. Experts asserted that inhaling smoke from the fires can cause effects comparable to smoking four or five cigarettes a day.

Nearly 60 percent of the Amazon Rainforest occupies Brazilian territory. The Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, faces recurring fires every year that in recent times became an international political controversy during the administration of conservative Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who served from 2019 to 2022. Bolsonaro was the target of several campaigns led by Hollywood celebrities and international heads of state to condemn the former Brazilian government for the “destruction” of the rainforest.

Presently, under the socialist government of radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Amazon Rainforest is experiencing the most severe fires in over a decade. Despite the dire situation, the loud international outrage seen under the Bolsonaro administration has not resurfaced.

According to statistics from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) reported by the local outlet Poder 360 on Tuesday, Brazil ended September with 83,157 documented fires, making it the worst month in 2024 so far and representing a 78.74-percent increase from September 2023’s 46,498 fires.

INPE has documented 210,208 fires in 2024 so far as of Tuesday, at an average of 210.2 per day — a number that, according to Poder 360’s report, surpasses the average of 197.6 fires per day logged in 2019 during the first year of Bolsonaro’s presidency. In 2007, during Lula’s second presidential term, Brazil experienced its worst forest fire rate in 26 years at an average of 393.9 fires per day.

Karla Longo, an atmospheric chemistry and pollutant dispersion specialist at INPE, told the local newspaper O Globo last week that the smoke cloud from the fires had spread to 80 percent of Brazil, extending across 7 million square kilometers (some 2.7 million square miles).

Longo explained that the smoke spread through the “flying rivers” of the Amazon Rainforest, air channels that normally exist in the atmosphere and distribute humidity during rainy seasons — but, she explained, carry smoke during fires beyond the rainforest.

The scientist explained that the smoke has not only spread over a larger area, but stressed that it can remain in the atmosphere for up to ten days, devastating air quality in the country and carrying tiny particles from everything burned by the fires that are harmful to health, in addition to other pollutants.

“These are long-term effects. It is high time for Brazil to prioritize combating fires. The situation should improve by the end of the month in the Southeast. But the Amazon will not see relief soon,” Longo said. “The drought in the north region is expected to continue at least until the end of October.”

A report recently published by the left-wing Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo stated that at least 40 percent of of the population of the southern cities of Belo Horizonte and São Paulo said they experienced health complications from the fires, while 29 percent of the citizens in Rio de Janeiro and 27 percent of Recife’s inhabitants also reported similar health complications.

The situation has reportedly led to locals wearing masks, placing wet towels and buckets of water near fans in their homes, and a temporary suspension of classes in nearly 40 schools in the capital city of Brasilia, where local authorities recommended residents stay hydrated and avoid outdoor exercise.

Quote:The President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele met his “great friend,” Argentine President Javier Milei, on Monday during his first visit to the South American nation since he took office in 2019.

Milei granted Bukele an hour-long private meeting at the Casa Rosada (“Pink House”) presidential palace while several Argentine ministers met with their Salvadoran counterparts in tandem. Milei and Bukele then held a broader meeting in the company of their respective delegations.

According to the Salvadoran presidential office, the countries signed joint project agreements on nuclear energy, culture, sports, airport hubs, and water resources management. The countries also vowed to strengthen their commitment and “strategic cooperation” in economy and security.
...
Monday’s meeting marks the second official encounter between the presidents following Milei’s visit to El Salvador on June 1 on the occasion of Bukele’s swearing in ceremony for his second presidential term (2024-2029).

The two additionally met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last week where, according to reports, Bukele agreed to swap positions on the list of speakers with Milei to avoid an impasse between the Argentine president and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Milei’s speech, reportedly, was originally scheduled minutes before Pezeshkian’s.

Argentina holds Iran and its proxy, the Shiite jihadist organization Hezbollah, responsible for the 1994 bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) and the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. The 1994 AMIA bombing was the deadliest terrorist attack in the Western Hemisphere prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Under Milei, Argentina has “realigned” its foreign policy, embracing the United States and Israel as its main allies following nearly two decades of socialist governments that pushed the nation towards China, Russia, and Iran.

The Salvadoran president arrived last Thursday in Argentina but reportedly spent the weekend in the southern region of Patagonia carrying out a private agenda. Bukele kicked off his official agenda on Monday with a wreath-laying ceremony at the monument of Argentine independence hero José de San Martín in Buenos Aires in the company of Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino.

Quote:Newly released footage shows Russian forces striking a Ukrainian town, using what pro-Kremlin sources have claimed is one of the most potent non-nuclear weapons in the world.

On Tuesday morning, videos began circulating on Russian and Ukrainian media of a "vacuum bomb" being dropped on the town of Vovchansk in the country's northeastern Kharkiv Oblast.

Ukrainian news agency InsiderUA posted the video to its Telegram channel, citing Russian military bloggers who said that the bomb was the ODAB-9000, a three-ton glide bomb sometimes referred to as "the father of all bombs."

In the video, the bomb can be seen descending from the top right corner of the screen, exploding in the already derelict city and damaging the surrounding buildings.

A pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel shared the video but said that the munition was the ODAB-3000 thermobaric bomb and that the use of the more powerful explosive was a lie spread by "Rashists," a Ukrainian term used to refer to members and backers of the Russian Armed Forces.

A thermobaric or "vacuum" bomb draws in oxygen to generate intense, high-temperature combustions. According to the International Review of the Red Cross, an international law-focused academic journal produced by the humanitarian organization, the use of thermobaric weapons in built-up, civilian areas could constitute a war crime.

Russian "milbloggers" have continued to share the footage and reiterate claims that the bomb was the ODAB-9000, which one called "the most powerful non-nuclear munition in the world."

"A decision was made to use something awesome in Volchansk: The ODAB-9000 vacuum bomb. The first use during the entire war," another prominent pro-Kremlin channel wrote alongside the video.

"I doubt that any of [them] survived," it added, using a common ethnic slur for Ukrainians.

The Telegram channel for the operational and tactical unit (OTU) of Kharkiv responded to the claims.

"The information about the alleged use of the ODAB-9000 aerial bomb by the Russian occupation forces in Vovchansk is not true," it said before referencing a statement given by Kharkiv OTU spokesperson Vitaliy Sarantsev.

"For the use of this munition, a suitable carrier is required, which theoretically could be, for example, a Tu-160 strategic bomber, but the movement of such aircraft was not recorded," Sarantsev was quoted as saying. "A smaller weight and power munition was used, the explosion of which was used by propagandists to create a 'spectacular' picture."

Sarantsev said that footage of the strike and claims that the ODAB-9000 caused the explosion was likely intended to demoralize Ukraine's Armed Forces, as well as the local population.

Quote:Chinese nationals serving as "mercenaries" have been killed on the front lines in Ukraine, according to a social media group focused on honoring fallen Russian soldiers.

Thousands of foreigners have fought for Russia since Moscow's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but no solid evidence has emerged that Chinese nationals are among them.

"The Ukrainian Armed Forces have killed two Chinese mercenaries according to Russian channels," an X (formerly Twitter) account called PS01△ said on Wednesday.

Below the tweet, the netizen shared a post from the Telegram channel for a pro-war volunteer group known as ZOVNovoshakhtinsk.

The post included a statement on the deaths of a pair of soldiers nicknamed "Sprite" and "Cola."

"The guys from China. Good guys, great fighters, Died...," the poster wrote alongside photos of two young Asian men wearing military gear. Below the brief eulogy, members of the group seemed to be discussing how soon the soldiers had died after joining.

Newsweek could not independently verify the post. Newsweek reached out by email to the Russian and Chinese Foreign Ministries for comment outside office hours.

A Russian media outlet earlier this year called ZOVNovoshakhtinsk "an initiative group of volunteer wives, sisters and relatives of mobilized Novoshakhtinsk residents who died in the [Special Military Operation] zone."

Novoshakhtinsk is a mining city in the southwest Russian region of Rostov and sits just a few miles from the Ukrainian border. The "Special Military Operation" is the Kremlin's term for the war against Ukraine.

The write-up detailed the group's installation of billboards around the city featuring Novoshakhtinsk residents who had been killed in action.

Kyiv has also welcomed thousands of foreign mercenaries since launching its International Legion for the Territorial Defense of Ukraine. These included an army veteran from Taiwan, Tseng Sheng-guang, who in November 2022 became the first person from an East Asian country to be killed in the fighting.

Quote:Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a federal law suspending part of the All-Russian Population Census.

According to some sources, this measure is intended to hide Russian society from the demographic impact that the casualties in Ukraine are having on the population.

A tally by independent Russian media outlet Mediazona and BBC News Russian released on September 27 said more than 71,057 Russian soldiers had been confirmed to have been killed, an increase of 1,998 since its last update in mid-September, although an estimate by Kyiv in the same month put the Moscow's total losses at 649,170.

Newsweek has not been able to independently verify the figures.

The law, effective until January 1, 2029, halts Paragraph 4 of Article 3 of the census law, affecting the frequency of selective federal statistical observations, which traditionally cover a sample of at least 5 percent of the population.

The suspended paragraph had mandated regular surveys as part of Russia's ongoing efforts to track population changes. However, with this change, it is unclear how Moscow will proceed with population tracking in the coming years.

The suspension was approved by the Federation Council on September 25, 2024. Russian officials have yet to clarify if or how they plan to compensate for the lack of up-to-date population data over the next five years.

Additionally, Moscow's suspension of this key census component may affect international bodies and businesses that depend on the country's demographic data for analysis, market strategies, and forecasting. It also adds Russia to a growing list of countries grappling with how to maintain accurate population statistics in the face of financial, technological, and political obstacles.

While the suspension is set to end in 2029, it remains uncertain whether other changes to Russia's census process will be introduced during this period.

Russia Seizes Key Ukrainian Stronghold

Meanwhile, in a separate development, Ukraine is set to pull out of Vuhledar, a town that has been a critical point of contention between Ukrainian and Russian forces for more than two years.

The town, located on a strategically important hill in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk province, has fallen into Russian hands after intense fighting. Kyiv's Khortytsia ground forces confirmed the withdrawal to protect military personnel and equipment, stating that Moscow's forces had launched flanking attacks, which led to a potential risk of troops being encircled.

Quote:Four NATO fighter jets were scrambled and an emergency alert issued in response to a Russian drone attack on targets near the Romanian border in Ukraine's Odesa region.

The jets were deployed after Russian drones were detected near Romanian airspace flying toward Ukrainian territory in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the country's Ministry of National Defense said in a statement.

It comes amid several recent reports of Russian drones flying into NATO territory, leading to calls from the Bucharest 9 bloc for a "collective answer" from the alliance.

After the drones were detected, two Spanish Air Force F-18 aircraft, part of NATO's Air Policing Combat Service, and two Romanian Air Force F-16 aircraft were scrambled to "monitor the situation."

Romania also issued emergency alerts for people living near the Ukrainian border in Tulcea and Galați Counties at 2:41 a.m. local time. The two Spanish jets had completed their mission by 3:00 a.m., while the Romanian aircraft had done so by 5:00 a.m.

"During this timeframe, Romania's radar surveillance system did not detect the intrusion into the national airspace of the drones involved in the attack against the Ukrainian targets," the Ministry of National Defense said in its statement.

It went on to condemn "these attacks conducted by the Russian Federation against certain facilities and elements of Ukrainian civil infrastructure, which are unjustified and seriously violating the international law norms."

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment.

A few weeks ago, the Bucharest 9 bloc—consisting of Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia—issued a joint statement voicing concerns about the possibility of Russian drones and missiles landing in NATO territory.

Independent Russian outlet Verstka has reported that debris from missiles and drones had landed in countries neighboring the conflict 34 times, on 20 occasions in NATO member states.

Romanian territory has been affected 13 times, often close to Ukrainian Danube ports that are frequent Russian targets.

"We express our profound concern over the repeated incursions of NATO airspace…by the Russian Federation's drones and missiles, and the escalations of tensions along NATO's borders," the bloc said.

Latvia's government said that a Russian drone had come down in the east of the country on September 7, likely after crossing the border into the NATO nation from Russian ally, Belarus.

Separately, but on that same weekend, Romania's foreign ministry said "criminal" Russian drones had violated Romania's airspace while targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.

Quote:A Russian glide bomb struck a five-story apartment block in Kharkiv on Thursday, injuring at least 12 people, including a 3-year-old girl, Ukrainian officials said.

The bomb hit between the third and fourth floors, igniting a fire, according to local officials. Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, has frequently faced aerial attacks throughout the ongoing war against Russia, now in its third year.

The increasing use of glide bombs, launched from Russian aircraft within Russia, has terrorized civilians and overwhelmed the Ukrainian military's front-line defenses.

These weapons played a crucial role in Russia's recent capture of the tactically significant town of Vuhledar, where Russian forces are wreaking destruction in the eastern region, forcing Ukrainian troops to withdraw from battered towns.

During a news conference, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized the need for increased military support from Western allies by stating that the latest Kharkiv attack highlights the urgent need for increased support from Ukraine's Western allies.

As Zelensky addressed the media, NATO's newly appointed Secretary-General Mark Rutte was visiting Ukraine for the first time since taking office. Rutte met with Zelensky in Kyiv as air raid sirens sounded twice, underscoring the perilous situation on the ground. He vowed to bolster Western support for Ukraine, which has been defending itself against Russia's full-scale invasion since February 2022.

Rutte expressed confidence in working with whoever is elected president of the United States in November, as that election could significantly impact Ukraine's access to ongoing Western assistance. During their meeting, Zelensky discussed the elements of Ukraine's so-called victory plan, ahead of a NATO meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany next week. This gathering will unite defense leaders from over 50 partner nations to coordinate weapons aid.

Quote:A new Ukrainian-developed ballistic missile has passed flight tests, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, as Kyiv ramps up investment in its domestic weapons production more than two-and-a-half years into the war with Moscow.

"Our new ballistic missile has successfully passed flight tests," the Ukrainian leader said during an appearance at a defense industry conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.

Ukraine relies on Western aid deliveries to keep its missile arsenal stocked but has heavily invested in its homegrown weapons production and defense industry as its grueling war against Russia has continued.

The U.S.-based think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which tracks daily changes and developments in Ukraine, said on Wednesday that Kyiv's push to beef up its domestic production of military equipment and weapons will help ease its dependence on its Western backers in the long-term, but the war-torn country will still need "considerable Western assistance for the next several years."

Zelensky said in late August that Ukraine had tested a domestically-produced ballistic missile, describing the results as "positive." He declined to provide further details.

Ukraine has a variety of ballistic missiles, excluding Western-provided equipment like the U.S. Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, noted Jacob Parakilas, research leader for Defense Strategy, Policy and Capabilities at the European branch of the RAND think tank.

Kyiv is not permitted to use long-range Western weapons like ATACMS against Russian targets over the border. Ukraine has appealed against this restriction, but despite signaling from officials last month, it remains in place. Domestically-made ballistic missiles would not fall under this ban.

Ukraine has prewar stocks of missiles like the short-range tactical Tochka-U, which is of some—but limited—use to Kyiv, Parakilas told Newsweek. Kyiv has converted some older air defense missiles into land-attack ballistic missiles, Parakilas said, but these are "not as effective as purpose-built ballistic missiles."

"As with the Tochkas, there's a limited and declining supply of such weapons available, so they're a stopgap measure at best," Parakilas added.

Zelensky's remarks this week likely refer to the Hrim-2, a missile long in development though to have an estimated range of around 500 kilometers, or just over 300 miles, Parakilas said.

This is "not enough to hit Moscow," Parakilas said, but it is a long enough range to threaten key Russian sites like air bases, ammunition storage sites or other military facilities from Ukrainian territory.

Quote:Ukrainian drones struck a Russian military airfield inside Russia overnight, according to a Ukrainian source and Russian reports, as Kyiv plugs away with its long-range attacks on destructive Russian aerial bombs and high-value aircraft.

Ukraine targeted the Borisoglebsk airfield in Russia's border Voronezh region overnight into Thursday, a source in Ukraine's SBU security service told Newsweek.

The SBU, along with other branches of Ukraine's military, attacked warehouses where Russia stored KAB precision-guided aerial bombs, the source said. Kyiv also targeted Su-34 and Su-35 fighter jets and aviation fuel storage sites at the airfield, the source added.

It is not yet clear how many jets were damaged. Satellite imagery showed four fires in the area, according to the source. The NASA-run Fire Information for Resource Management System showed several fires around Borisoglebsk in the past 24 hours.

Footage circulating online, which Newsweek couldn't independently verify, appears to show at least one large fire close to what looks to be a residential street.
...
Moscow said on Thursday that air defenses had intercepted 113 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight, including 25 over the Voronezh region.

Voronezh regional governor, Alexander Gusev, said in a post to messaging app Telegram early on Thursday that "about three dozen Ukrainian drones" were shot down by air defense systems or taken out by electronic warfare systems.

In a later statement, Gusev said one person had been injured and admitted to hospital, and 16 homes had been damaged by falling debris.

Ukraine has consistently targeted Russian military airfields and airbases across the border with long-range drones, although it is not allowed to use Western-provided long-range missiles to strike inside Russian territory. Kyiv has appealed against this restriction, but despite signaling from Western officials last month, the ban is still in place.

Quote:The Russian military has lost 37 artillery systems, 43 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and 75 vehicles within 24 hours, according to Ukrainian officials.

The report, posted on Thursday to Ukraine's Ministry of Defense page on X (formerly Twitter), also said that 1,150 troops, six tanks and an air defense system were eliminated over the same period.

Russia does not officially publish its military losses, and military analysts are skeptical of reports released by both sides.

These latest figures would bring Russia's total losses since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine to 656,710 personnel, 8,893 tanks, 18,906 artillery systems, 964 air defense systems, 16,393 UAVs, and 43,346 vehicles, still according to Kyiv.
...
Alongside the ministry's post was a quote attributed to U.S. Navy admiral Chester W. Nimitz which read: "Leadership consists of picking good men and helping them do their best."

Russian losses of artillery systems and prized equipment hit record highs in July and August, according to Ukrainian figures.

In July, Russia lost 1,520 artillery systems and 1,517 in August. In September, 1,219 were reportedly destroyed.

This period also saw some of the highest losses of Russian military personnel so far, with 35,680 in July, 36,810 in August, and 38,130 in September.

Data sourced from Ukraine's armed forces suggested that in September, Russia suffered almost 10,000 casualties within the space of a week.

On Thursday, Ukrainian forces said they had successfully hit a $100 million Russian Nebo-M radar station with ATACMS ballistic missiles.

The Nebo-M is "very complex" and able to operate in "stealth mode," Ukraine's military said.

It added that the station's destruction "significantly reduces the ability of the Russian army to detect, track and intercept aerodynamic and ballistic targets."

Kyiv said Russia has just 10 Nebo-M radar stations remaining and put the cost of each system at more than $100 million.

Quote:Former President Donald Trump said Friday in Fayetteville, North Carolina, that Israel should destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program in response to the second massive ballistic missile attack by the Iranian regime earlier this week.

Trump was responding to questions during a town hall, and drew a contrast between his policies and those of President Joe Biden, who said earlier this week that Israel should not hit Iran’s nuclear program or oil facilities.

Trump said:

I listened to Biden yesterday, you know, since I went under the wing, you know, I used to go under the wing of the aircraft. Nobody ever did that before. I did all of a sudden, Biden started — but he only takes like a half a question, usually can’t answer it. [Laughter] But they asked him, what do you think about, what do you think about Iran? Would you hit Iran? And he goes, “A long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff.” That’s the thing you want to hit, right? I said, I think he’s got that one wrong. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit? I mean, it’s the most, it’s the biggest risk. We have nuclear weapons, the power of nuclear weapons, the power of weaponry. You know, I rebuilt the entire military jets, everything I built it, including nuclear and I hated to build the nuclear, but I got to know firsthand the power of that stuff, and I’ll tell you what, we have to be totally prepared. We have to be absolutely prepared. But when they asked him that question, the answer should have been hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later. And that’s why they should, if they’re going to do it, if they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it, but we’ll find out whatever their plans are.

Trump also talked about his success in promoting peace through the Abraham Accords, and said that the U.S. could avoid war by being feared and respected again by America’s enemies and allies throughout the world.

Iran fired 200 missiles at Israel, 19 of which misfired and 23 of which hit Israeli air bases without causing significant damage. The other 158 missiles were intercepted by Israeli defense systems, as well as the U.S. and other allies.

Quote:President Joe Biden made a rare personal appearance in the White House briefing room on Friday and told Israel that it should not hit Iran’s oil facilities in response to this week’s ballistic missile attack.

“Look, the Israelis have not concluded what they will do in terms of a strike. It’s under discussion. If I were in their shoes, I would be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields.”

Biden had said earlier in the week that Israel should not attack Iran’s nuclear sites.

Reliably left-wing reporter Weijia Jiang of CBS News asked Biden whether he thought that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might try to influence the U.S. election.

“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None. None. None. And I think Bibi should remember that. And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know, but I’m not counting on that.”

President Donald Trump did more for Israel than any president since President Harry S. Truman, who recognized Israel upon its declaring independence in 1948.

Another reporter asked Biden why he expected Israel to listen to him given that “over the past few months, they’ve consistently defied your administration’s own advice.”

As the Times of Israel noted, the reporters were asking “leading questions goading him to criticize Israel.”

Quote:The United States announced that it would be providing $157 million in humanitarian aid to address the “crisis in Lebanon” and those who have been affected by it.

In a press release on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed that the “nearly $157 million” in humanitarian assistance would go towards addressing “new and existing needs to internally displaced persons and refugee populations” for communities in Lebanon.

“The United States will provide nearly $157 million in new U.S. humanitarian assistance to support populations affected by conflict in Lebanon and the region,” Blinken said in the press release. “This funding will address new and existing needs of internally displaced persons and refugee populations inside Lebanon and the communities that host them. The assistance will also support those fleeing to neighboring Syria.”

The press release from Blinken comes as Israel has been waging war against Hezbollah terrorists located in Lebanon.

Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Joel Pollak reported that over the course of Thursday and Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had continued advancing on Hezbollah terrorists, carrying out airstrikes. Within “four days of combat,” the IDF was reported to have killed more than 200 Hezbollah terrorists.

As Breitbart News previously reported, as the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has continued, “hundreds of Lebanese Christians” have been reported to be leaving their homes as Israel has directed them to evacuate:

Although Israel has declared it is not at war with Lebanon in general and is targeting fighters and weapons from the Shia militia Hezbollah, which is designated a terrorist organization by the United States, this has not stopped it from forcibly evacuating a number of Christian villages in southern Lebanon, which is a Shia majority area interspersed with Christian communities not aligned with Hezbollah.

Quote:Victims of Hurricane Helene’s devastation are voicing their frustration with the federal government’s response to the storm that wiped out communities and claimed the lives of more than 200 people.

The western portion of North Carolina appears to have been hit the worst, with the towns of Asheville, Chimney Rock, Swannanoa, and Biltmore Village among the most damaged by flash flooding.

When asked by an NBC News anchor if she had any “faith” in getting aid from the government, one Asheville woman replied, “No. No.”

“Nobody’s going to help us… I don’t know what we’re going to do,” the resident said from a pile of debris.

Jordan Lanning, another Asheville resident who lost a friend to the floods, told Fox News’ Jesse Watters that the response took “too long”:

“It took five days for Biden to come here, and he didn’t think we were worth coming down to see us himself. He had to fly over on his way to Raleigh,” he said during a Thursday interview.

“It’s disgraceful… I mean, they keep saying ‘We the people.’ No, there is no ‘We the people.’ It is them versus us,” Lanning continued. “Like, they’re not for us. It’s all about them — they tell us what we need instead of listening to us.”

Vice President Kamala Harris has received nationwide backlash for announcing just $750 in immediate Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) aid for Helene victims, just days after her and President Joe Biden’s administration pledged another $8 billion to Ukraine.

When Watters asked if $750 — just $50 more than what the victims of the 2023 Maui fires received — was enough, Lanning said it was not.

“There’s people that have lost everything… I’m not expecting [them] to give us thousands of dollars, but they can do more than that,” the disgruntled Asheville man said.

Since the $750 in aid has garnered negative attention from locals and others from all over the United States, FEMA put out a “fact-check” saying that victims may get “other forms of assistance” if they “qualify.”

Quote:Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp ® criticized the Biden-Harris administration over the way it has handled the response to Hurricane Helene — namely, the fact that the administration did not do enough in its original emergency disaster declaration.

“When the first emergency declarations came down, there was only 11 counties in that,” Kemp said, according to WRDW/WAGT.

“A lot of people were outraged, including me, because there was such devastation and, you know, up to 90 counties. So, we called the White House. We spoke to the president’s chief of staff, the FEMA administrator and said, look, you’re sending the signal that you’re not paying attention to some of these rural communities,” he continued.

Kemp said the White House added 30 more counties after that phone call.

“I absolutely think we will have a lot more counties added. We’re at 41 right now and I could see it going anywhere from 70 to 90,” Kemp said.

According to reports, at least 204 people have been confirmed dead in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which ravaged the southeast.

Former President Donald Trump visited one of the impacted areas this week alongside Christian evangelist Franklin Graham, head of Samaritan’s Purse.

“We came down with truckloads of things, and we’re going to have that done by Franklin’s incredible organization. They’ve done such a good job,” Trump said during a visit to Valdosta, Georgia.

“We’ve done this before, but we have a lot of truckloads of different items — from oil to water to all sorts of equipment that’s going to help them,” Trump continued, making it clear that they “stand in complete solidarity with the people of Georgia and with all of those suffering in the terrible aftermath of Hurricane Helene.”

Trump is also expected to appear alongside Kemp on Friday.

Quote:President Joe Biden again undermined Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign on Friday by tying her to their administration’s policy failures.

Biden’s comments are damaging to Harris because she has been trying to run away from a catch-22: She cannot campaign on policies to fix crime, inflation, and border security without undermining the Biden-Harris administration’s policies, but she must tout the administration’s policies to validate her record and candidacy.

Under the Biden-Harris administration, costs increased by about 20 percent across the board, Russia invaded Ukraine, Hamas and Iran attacked Israel, the illegal migrants invaded the southern border, and the nation suffered the deadly Afghan withdrawal.

“I’m obviously not Joe Biden, and you know, I offer a new generation of leadership,” Harris told Brian Taff of Philadelphia’s Action News 6 ABC on September 13. “My approach is about new ideas, new policies that are directed at the current moment. And also, to be very honest with you, my focus is very much in what we need to do over the next ten, twenty years to catch up to the twenty-first century.”

Biden, however, refuses to allow Harris to campaign without escaping her record as his vice president.

“We’re singing from the same song sheet. She helped pass all the laws. She’s a major player in everything we’ve done,” Biden told White House reporters. It was his first press conference from the White House press briefing room as commander in chief, according to the Republican National Committee’s research team.

Biden previously undermined Harris last week when he stated that he delegated “everything” as commander in chief to Harris, including foreign policy and domestic policy.

Fifty-seven percent of registered voters believe they are not better off under the Biden-Harris administration than they were four years ago under former President Donald Trump, RMG Research polling found in September. Only 25 percent of Americans rate the economic conditions under the Biden-Harris administration as “excellent or good,” a Pew Research survey showed.

Quote:The dockworkers’ strike that could have severely hurt the American economy and the supply chain weeks before an election has been paused until January 15, diverting what could have been a political catastrophe for Vice President Kamala Harris.

“The union that represents tens of thousands of East Coast dockworkers and the shipping industry reached a tentative agreement on wages and are extending an expired contract through Jan. 15, 2025,” announced Politico on Thursday.

The union said on Facebook that “effective immediately, all current job actions will cease and all work covered by the Master Contract will resume.”

The threat of a strike could have severely hurt the American supply chain, which would have dramatically affected the economy going into the November presidential election between former President Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Upon news that the strike would be going forward earlier this week, Americans began to panic-buy essential goods.

“I don’t know how bad it’s going to get, but the south east just got smacked by a hurricane and now the supply chain is going to be impacted through this strike … I would rather be overprepared than scared,” a woman in Fort Worth, Texas, said in a social media post this week.

As Breitbart News reported, port congestion had already been building as the threat of a strike loomed large over the nation.

“Growing lines of container ships continued to form outside major U.S. ports on Thursday as the biggest dockworker strike in nearly 50 years entered its third day,” it reported. “The choke points are threatening shortages of everything from bananas to auto parts and are anticipated to grow in coming days if no resolution is forthcoming.”

“Some 45 container vessels that have been unable to unload had dropped anchor outside the strike-stricken East Coast and Gulf Coast ports by Wednesday, up from just three before the strike began on Sunday, according to Everstream Analytics,” it added.

Quote:The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has agreed to hear Smith & Wesson’s bid to end Mexico’s $10 billion lawsuit against the renowned American gun makers.

On August 4, 2021, Breitbart News reported the government of Mexico was suing six American gun makers and one Boston-area wholesaler, claiming “massive damage” created by “unlawful trafficking” of firearms to cartel and criminal elements.

The government of Mexico’s suit opened with trafficking claims and named the six manufacturers and the wholesaler:

Plaintiff Estados Unidos Mexicanos (the “Government”), a sovereign nation, brings this action to put an end to the massive damage that the Defendants cause by actively facilitating the unlawful trafficking of their guns to drug cartels and other criminals in Mexico. Almost all guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico — 70% to 90% of them — were trafficked from the U.S. The Defendants include the six U.S.-based manufacturers whose guns are most often recovered in Mexico — Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Century Arms, Colt, Glock, and Ruger. Another manufacturer defendant is Barrett, whose .50 caliber sniper rifle is a weapon of war prized by the drug cartels. The remaining defendant — Interstate Arms — is a Boston-area wholesaler through which all but one of the defendant manufacturers sell their guns for re-sale to gun dealers throughout the U.S.

The number of entities being sued eventually reached eight in total.
...
On Wednesday, August 7, 2024, U.S. District Judge Dennis Saylor dismissed the major portion of the lawsuit. However, the BBC reported that “Smith & Wesson Brands and Witmer Public Safety Group remain defendants following the judge’s ruling.”

On Friday, October 4, 2024, Reuters noted that SCOTUS announced it will “hear a bid by U.S. gun maker Smith & Wesson and firearms wholesaler Interstate Arms to throw out Mexico’s lawsuit accusing them of aiding the illegal trafficking of firearms to Mexican drug cartels.”

Quote:Taiwan’s growing obsession with envisioning a Chinese invasion will soon extend to the realm of board games, as a crowdfunding drive raised $100,000 for a game called “2045” that will allow players to simulate a Chinese attack 20 years in the future.

The game uses many conventions common to modern board games, including a mix of cards and tokens to represent military and political forces and the tactics they employ. The players can become everything from Taiwanese government officials to criminal gangs and Chinese espionage agents.

Mizo Games founder KJ Chang told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Thursday he chose the invasion landing sites on his game board by reading social media posts from real soldiers in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

“We can’t predict the future, but if a conflict is unavoidable, I hope this game gives people a chance to experience war on the tabletop before it reaches us,” Chang said.

In an interview with Taiwan News last month, Chang said he set the game 20 years in the future to give it a “cyberpunk” theme, and so that players could “distance” themselves from the simulated nightmare scenario.

Chang said one of his goals was to give players a means of understanding how Taiwanese society would respond to a devastating Chinese attack.

One method the game uses to accomplish this goal is randomly assigning roles to the players, which means they could end up playing a role that is “completely at odds with their personal positions.”

“It’s definitely not the case that players must defend Taiwan in this game, it’s every player for themselves,” Chang said.

Chang said in September he has offered all of Taiwan’s 113 legislators, including members of the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the more pro-China opposition Kuomintang (KMT), a chance to play his game. He said many of them have accepted, along with former officials and members of the media.

Chang said the game was not intended to make a political statement, and he shares the hope of his players that “this will never happen, or that it only happens in a game.” He acknowledged that the provocative subject matter created some marketing problems, including other publishers refusing to share a booth with him at an international board game expo, and possible “shadowbans” of advertisements for “2045” on social media.

Chang noted that while most Taiwanese board games have components manufactured in China, Chinese companies refused to produce the board and pieces for “2045.” He said he has located a factory in New Taipei that is willing to manufacture the game.

Quote:North Korea’s communist dictator Kim Jong-un regaled his soldiers with a violent rant in which he questioned the mental abilities of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, state media reported on Friday, and asserted he would “without hesitation” use nuclear weapons if deemed necessary.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Pyongyang’s flagship state propaganda outlet, reported that Kim supervised military training and delivered his remarks to commanding officers in his military on Tuesday, focusing on response to South Korea celebrating its Armed Forces Day with a parade on the same day. The South Korean parade featured the display of some of Seoul’s most powerful missiles, including a massive conventional missile clearly intended to send a message to Pyongyang that it would face a significant attack in response to any preemptive nuclear strike.

In addition to Kim’s speech, his sister, senior communist official Kim Yo-jong, published a commentary on Friday mocking South Korea’s missiles and declaring its military inferior due to its lack of nuclear weapons.

Kim Jong-un first used his address to the training soldiers to insult Yoon, noting that his South Korean counterpart had used his speech to discourage Kim from bombing his country.

“The puppet Yoon bragged about overwhelming counteraction of their military muscle at the doorstep of a state possessing nuclear weapons,” Kim said, “and it was a great irony that caused misgivings about whether he is an abnormal man,” apparently suggesting that Yoon has below-average mental capacity.

Elsewhere in Kim’s rant, the dictator announced that “the enemy” would “never deprive us of our nuclear weapons,” calling them “an irreversibly absolute strength as a nuclear power.”

“‘If’ the enemy, seized with extreme foolishness and recklessness, make a step forward and attempt to use their armed forces to encroach upon the sovereignty of our Republic,” Kim vowed, “the DPRK [North Korea] will use without hesitation all the striking forces in its possession, including nuclear weapons.”

He added the caveat that he allegedly did not intend the statement as a “rhetorical threat, but a realistic prediction of the physical destructive power, which the world people cannot but admit.”

Kim Yo-jong, meanwhile, focused on addressing the weapons on display at South Korea’s military parade on Tuesday. The highlight of the parade was the display of a missile model known as “Hyunmoo-5,” which South Korea’s JoongAng Daily described as a “monster” conventional missile capable of carrying eight-ton warheads and causing damage comparable to a tactical nuclear weapon.

Kim’s sister scoffed in her commentary at the possibility that a conventional weapon could be in any way similar to a nuclear bomb, calling the parade a “foolish farce” by a “group of curs.”

“If a man has a certain degree of common sense, he could not talk about the ‘end of regime’ of someone with a weapon of worthless large bulk. They must know the shame,” Kim Yo-jong wrote. Kim was referring to Yoon’s threat that Seoul and Washington would jointly eliminate the North Korean communist regime if it attacked either with a nuclear weapon.

Quote:The Reuters news agency reported on Thursday that Gulf nations are concerned that any escalation between Iran and Israel will implicate them and threaten their oil facilities, leading to attempts to ingratiate themselves with Iran.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was in Doha for meetings with Qatari government officials, while the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – which includes Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates (UAE) – held a meeting intending to give them a platform for conversations with Tehran.

Saudi media reported that Iranian leaders held meetings with the GCC foreign minister on Thursday centered around the year-long conflict between Israel and Iran-backed terrorist groups that began on October 7, 2023, when the Iranian proxy terror group Hamas invaded Israel and massacred 1,200 people, in addition to committing widespread crimes against humanity. The conflict escalated as Iran activated other terrorist proxies – most prominently the Houthis of Yemen and Lebanese Hezbollah – to attack Israel. Hezbollah has waged months of war on Israel’s northern border, displacing more than 60,500 people in the region. Israel adopted restoring sovereignty to its northern territory as a goal of the war against Hamas and its allies in September and killed the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, on September 27.

Israel has since launched what it described as a limited ground operation in Lebanon to finish off the lower-ranking membership of Hezbollah. Iran, in turn, fired a barrage of more than 100 missiles at Israel on Tuesday, resulting in no casualties and, according to the Israeli government, minimal damage.

Reuters reported Thursday that much of the conversation between Iranian leaders and GCC representatives centered around the latter’s concerns of getting roped into the conflict.

“Gulf Arab states sought to reassure Iran of their neutrality in the conflict between Tehran and Israel in meetings in Doha this week on the back of concerns that a wider escalation in violence could threaten their oil facilities,” Reuters reported, citing two anonymous sources.

“Urgent de-escalation was at the top of the agenda for all discussions taking place at the moment, one of the sources said,” according to the news agency.

Reuters also cited a Saudi commentator, Ali Shihabi, whose assessment of the meeting was similar. Shihabi said that the GGC parties “think it’s unlikely that Iran will strike their oil facilities, but the Iranians are dropping hints they might from unofficial sources.”

Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continued advancing against Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon on Thursday and Friday, uprooting outposts and hitting terrorist leaders in airstrikes.

In one airstrike in Beirut on Thursday, the IDF targeted Hezbollah’s Hashim Safi al-Din, the reputed successor to Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed last week.

In other advances, the IDF battled Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon and killed hundreds of them.

In four days of combat, the IDF said in a statement, it had killed 250 Hezbollah terrorists, including 20 commanders:

Earlier this week (Monday), IDF troops began limited, localized, targeted ground raids based on precise intelligence in southern Lebanon.

With fire and intelligence support from the divisions and the Northern Command, five battalion commanders, ten company commanders, and six platoon commanders were eliminated.

The troops of the 98th Division were the first to begin the targeted raids earlier this week, followed by troops of the 36th Division.

The troops are conducting brigade-level operations, combining aerial activity with tank and artillery support. As part of the activities, IDF forces are eliminating terrorists entrenched in buildings and positions near the border. The forces are also locating and destroying weapon warehouses, ready-to-launch rocket launchers, and abandoned Hezbollah explosives.

The Israeli Air Force are supporting troops at all times, including preemptive strikes on military targets being operated against as part of the raids in order to neutralize threats in the area.

So far, approximately 250 terrorists have been eliminated from the air and ground, and over 2,000 military targets have been struck, including terrorists, terrorist infrastructure, military buildings, weapon warehouses, launchers, and more.

There have been nine total reported IDF deaths in Lebanon thus far.

In addition, the IDF said, it had struck a 3.5-kilometer tunnel underneath the border between Syria and Lebanon that had been used to supply Hezbollah with weapons from Iran.

Quote:The Russian Foreign Ministry announced on Friday that a decision has been “taken at the highest level” to remove the Taliban from Russia’s list of terrorist organizations.

Russia designated the Taliban as a terrorist organization in 2003, in part because the Taliban was backing separatists in the North Caucasus at the time. The Russians were still worried about that connection as recently as 2021, when they feared President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan would inspire Islamist North Caucasian militants – some of whom gained combat and terrorism experience by volunteering to fight for the Taliban in Afghanistan – to emulate the Taliban’s victory.

Moscow evidently set those concerns aside to build political and economic ties with the Taliban regime in Kabul.

President Vladimir Putin’s envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, told Russian state media in May that relations with the Taliban had improved enough to remove them from Russia’s list of terrorist organizations.

“There are still a few hurdles to overcome, after which the Russian leadership will make a decision,” Kabulov anticipated, without saying what those issues might be.

At around the same time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Taliban was clearly the “real power” in Afghanistan, so delisting it as a terrorist organization simply reflected “objective reality.”

On Friday, Lavrov called on Western nations to lift their sanctions on the Taliban, return “Kabul’s expropriated assets,” and “recognize their responsibility for the post-conflict reconstruction of Afghanistan.”

“It is obvious that it is impossible to solve problems or even discuss an Afghan settlement without Kabul,” he said. He went on to praise Taliban leaders for curbing the production of opium and fighting the Islamic state.

Lavrov made his remarks from a Russian-led diplomatic forum on Afghanistan, at which Kabulov was also present, along with Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.

Muttaqi expressed gratitude at the forum for Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan removing the Taliban from their own terrorist lists.

“We also appreciate the positive remarks by the high-ranking officials of the Russian Federation in this regard and hope to see more effective steps soon,” the Taliban minister said.

Kabulov said there were still some procedural hurdles to overcome before the Taliban was officially removed from Russia’s terrorist list. He did not give a timetable for completing these steps.

Quote:President Emmanuel Macron may have run into trouble trying to reform France according to his vision, but he wants to try it again on a continental scale, warning the European Union could “die” if his warnings are not heeded.

French President Emmanuel Macron spoke at the Berlin Global Dialogue this week, an event focussing on ‘shaping a new economic era’, making stern warnings that China and the U.S. were leaving the European Union behind in key areas of development, and calling for reform to catch up. The remarks are just the latest instance of the French leader warning the EU faces death if it doesn’t follow his lead, having previously used the word to describe the threats he perceives from Russia, and his own political rivals on the right-wing.

Addressing the forum, Macron said: “The EU could die, we are on a verge of a very important moment… Our former model is over – we are over-regulating and under-investing. In the two to three years to come, if we follow our classical agenda we will be out of the market.”

Remarkably, the French leader advocated considering breaking with international organisations to further European interests. Citing the World Trade Organisation, Macron pointed out China and the United States already ignored the globalist body when it suited them, leaving the European Union the only major world power playing by the rules and disadvantaging itself by doing so.

He said, reports Politico of his address: “If we want clearly to be more competitive and have our place in this multipolar order first we need a simplification shock… Twenty-five years ago, we thought that [with] China joining WTO it would comply with the laws. It is not the case… I have a suggestion… when both U.S. and China do not respect the rules, we should not be the only one in the room to just abide the rules.”

This approach should fall short of Europe becoming protectionist, he said — although many would state protectionism is woven into the bloc’s DNA — but “this is an awful world” and the Union should be fair to “our industry, our farmers, our people”.
Macron said areas Europe was falling behind in included economic growth, investment, artificial intelligence, defence, and security.

The answer, inevitably, is more ‘Europe’, meaning more rule from Brussels. Macron prescribed a further deepening of single market rules and said, per Euronews, that if his warnings were ignored the bloc only had five to ten years until it would have to launch a rescue plan to save itself.

Quote:Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Wednesday that there is not enough money available for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to meet the needs of the communities affected by Hurricane Helene, which has killed more than 160 people.

The funding shortfall has come under scrutiny at a time when at least $640 million in FEMA funding is being spent on assisting communities across the country dealing with an influx of migrants.

Republicans called out this spending after Secretary Mayorkas' remarks that FEMA was "meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have," while adding that the agency did not have enough funding to make it through another hurricane this season.

"This is easy," Texas Governor Greg Abbot posted on X, formerly Twitter. "Mayorkas and FEMA — immediately stop spending money on illegal immigration resettlement and redirect those funds to areas hit by the hurricane. Put Americans first."

An account linked to former President Donald Trump's campaign also posted that it was a "scandal" that this money was being spent on migrants rather than U.S. citizens.

What is FEMA spending on migrants?

The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) provides funding to non-federal agencies to spend on humanitarian services for non-U.S. citizens. For the 2024 fiscal year, which ended on Monday, $640 million was made available.

The FEMA website says this funding is intended to "support CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) in the safe, orderly and humane release of noncitizen migrants from short-term holding facilities." The money can be spent on a range of services, including food, shelter, transportation, acute medical care, clothing and translation services.

The budget for the past year was a significant increase from the 2023 fiscal year, when $363 million was allocated. Together, more than $1 billion has been spent on non-citizen services over the past two years.

However, SSP is a small share of FEMA's overall yearly budget. For the new financial year which began Oct. 1, the agency laid out a need for $33.1 billion.

"These claims are completely false," a DHS spokesperson told Newsweek Thursday, addressing the accusations by Abbott and others. "As Secretary Mayorkas said, FEMA has the necessary resources to meet the immediate needs associated with Hurricane Helene and other disasters.

"The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA's disaster-related authorities or funding streams."

And just in case you wonder if there were other reports on this weird way of spending federal funds...

Quote:The federal government is giving communities rallying around immigrants recently released from border patrol custody a share of $380 million.

It's the latest wave of funding, after over $259 million was allocated in April as part of the Department of Homeland Security's Shelter and Services Program (SSP). In 2023, over $780 million was distributed,

DHS said the scheme was in such high demand, not all applications from groups and communities could be granted.

"This grant cycle provides a new opportunity through a competitive program and builds on the support being provided to communities on the border and in the interior," DHS said in a press release Wednesday.

The money is used by organizations working to offer food, shelter and clothing to migrants, as well as healthcare and transportation.

Previous recipients of funds include counties such as Pima County in Arizona, which received $21.8 million, through to smaller church ministry organizations with grants around $10,000.

States along the border and elsewhere have previously seen grants. In the last round, over 30 Texas organizations and local governments were given cash.

FEMA projects that dozens of projects will be given grants by the time the scheme completes in September 2026.

Community organizations and county authorities often bear the cost of noncitizens, especially when they are released from Customs and Border Protection custody along the southwest border.

Those awaiting immigration or asylum hearings may have very little personal possessions or means to pay for services. SSP is designed to ensure a "humane" release from custody for those new arrivals.

In October 2023, mayors from across the U.S. said there was an urgent need for additional funding for the communities looking after migrants.

"We are mayors from cities all over America – cities on or near the border and cities in other parts of the country to which migrants, including those awaiting asylum requests, have come," the 139 mayors said in a joint letter to Congress.

"While we welcome migrants to our cities, we need more help to provide them food, housing, services and access to employment," the group continued. "In many of our cities, both city government agencies and local non-profits are overwhelmed; they simply cannot keep up with the need to provide them this most basic assistance."

At the time, border crossings were high, but DHS said Wednesday that numbers had dropped significantly in recent months, potentially signaling a drop in demand in the coming months.

Quote:Tech titan Elon Musk made his first-ever appearance at a Republican rally, delivering a fiery endorsement of former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign.
The event, held in Butler, Pennsylvania, was charged with emotion following the assassination attempt on Trump at the same location in July by 20-year-old shooter Thomas Matthews Crooks.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, took the stage to laud Trump's resilience. "This is a man who has COURAGE UNDER FIRE!" he declared to the roaring crowd, his voice booming through the packed venue.

The billionaire first made his endorsement of Trump public on July 13, in the immediate aftermath of the first assassination attempt against the Republican nominee.

Musk, known for his outspoken nature and controversial social media presence, didn't mince words as he addressed rallygoers. "This is the most important election," he declared.

He then made a series of contentious and false claims, stating without evidence, "They want to take away your arms. They want to take away your freedom of speech. They want to take away your ability to have fair elections."

The mogul proclaimed, "Free speech is the bedrock of Democracy! There's a reason why it's the First Amendment!" He then tied his support directly to constitutional preservation, insisting, "President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution!"

As the rally reached its crescendo, Musk's rhetoric intensified. He urged attendees to take action, shouting, "REGISTER TO VOTE AND GET EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO VOTE! TEXT PEOPLE NOW! NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT!" The tech billionaire concluded with a battle cry: "FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT VOTE VOTE VOTE!"

Quote:Twelve bodies were discovered in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato amid escalating cartel wars over turf.

Local authorities said the violence was over a dispute between two between organized crime syndicates over a square.

According to the state prosecutor's office, all the bodies were discovered within two hours across five locations in the city of Salamanca.

The victims, three women and nine men, were found on roads, bridges, and avenues, with gunshot wounds and signs of torture, while one was dismembered.
The perpetrators left messages in which a cartel took responsibility for the violent crime, state prosecutors said.

The bodies were discovered after unknown gunmen attacked a rehabilitation centre, killing four people and injuring five the same municipality on October 2,

Crime rates have increased in Guanajuato, according to local officials.

"This month of October has started with very high crime rates here. That makes 16 people (murdered) so far," Salamanca Mayor Cesar Prieto told reporters.

In Celaya, Guanajuato, two police officers were shot dead by the brutal Santa Rosa de Lima gang amid increased attacks on authorities.

Quote:Mexico's new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, vowed to enact dramatic climate policy change shortly after being sworn in on Tuesday.

Sheinbaum became Mexico's first female president and its first Jewish president when she took office on Tuesday. During her first public speech after being inaugurated, Sheinbaum talked about her goals for the future of Mexico's energy sector. The new president has experience in the field as she has a PhD in energy engineering and degrees in physics.

"We are going to boost renewable energies. The goal is that by 2030, they will have a 45 percent share [of total electricity production]," she said Tuesday in a speech in Mexico City's Zocalo square.

This goal is well above the 24 percent of clean electricity that Mexico represented last year, according to the country's ministry of energy.
Sheinbaum said she will release an "ambitious energy transition program" aimed at "the reduction of greenhouse gases that cause climate change" in the coming days.

She also told the Congress of the Union, Mexico's federal governing body, that the country will have a first-ever oil production limit of 1.8 million barrels a day. All crude oil in Mexico is produced by state-owned oil company Pemex. Sheinbaum's oil production goal is roughly what the company produced in 2023 on an average day.

But the new president also promised to "strengthen Pemex" and build up Mexio's Federal Electricity Commission, which owns older plants that mainly burn fossil fuels.

Sheinbaum's proposed policies are a big shift from those of her predecessor, former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a staunch supporter of fossil fuels.

López Obrador spent over $20 billion to build a new oil refinery and stopped auctions that allowed developers to build solar and wind farms in Mexico. Sheinbaum's oil production goal is substantially less than the 2.6 million barrels per day limit that López Obrador promised at the start of his term, which began in December 2018.

On Wednesday, Sheinbaum visited Acapulco, in the southern state of Guerrero, on her first trip as president. She was there to assess the damage caused by Hurricane John, which first hit the coast as a hurricane and then again as a tropical storm last week. Hurricane John and last year's Hurricane Otis, which also hit Acapulco, have been made more powerful by rising ocean temperatures attributed to global warming.

While Sheinbaum's goals to combat climate change could curb global warming, it is uncertain if she can implement them within Mexico's current legal framework. López Obrador pushed through a constitutional reform before leaving office that strongly favored the Federal Electricity Commission.

Sheinbaum has supported the reform and promised that Mexico will keep control of 54 percent of electricity generation. Meanwhile, she has said she will once again encourage private investment in renewable energy, something the previous government discouraged.

Quote:One of the most advanced nuclear-powered submarines in the United States Navy arrived in Japan on Friday, as China continues the rapid expansion of its fleet of warships in a bid to challenge American naval dominance.

USS Seawolf, an attack submarine and the lead ship of its class, arrived at Yokosuka, a city in Japan's Kanagawa Prefecture, according to a ship spotter who posted photos of the vessel on X, formerly Twitter. The prefectural government has confirmed the visit by the American submarine.

The U.S. Navy describes the Seawolf and its two sister ships as "exceptionally quiet, fast, well-armed, and equipped with advanced sensors." Each is equipped with eight torpedo tubes and can carry up to 50 weapons in their torpedo rooms, including land-attack cruise missiles and torpedoes.

According to the U.S. Naval Institute News, the Seawolf-class was initially developed for deep-water operations to counter Soviet submarines. The class was later upgraded and modified to conduct sensitive missions following the end of the Cold War.

The Seawolf-class is part of the larger American attack submarine fleet of 53 boats, all powered by nuclear reactors. They are designed to seek out and destroy enemy vessels, project power and conduct spying missions, among other tasks.

The Chinese military, which has the world's largest navy by number of hulls, only operates a small number of nuclear-powered attack submarines. Unlike its American counterpart, the Chinese navy also has 48 diesel powered/air-independent powered attack submarines in service.

China has two Type 093 and four Type 093A nuclear-powered attack submarines. Beijing launched two new nuclear-powered attack submarines, the Type 093B, between May 2022 and January 2023, and could have three boats of this class by 2025.

The U.S. Navy has routinely deployed attack submarines in the Western Pacific Ocean to project power and support allies. USS Vermont, a Virginia-class attack boat armed with 25 torpedoes and 12 cruise missiles, visited Busan in South Korea on September 23.

Quote:There have been unconfirmed reports that a Russian aircraft or drone has been shot down over Ukraine's Donetsk region on Saturday, possibly in a friendly fire incident.

According to the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper the Russian aircraft had been launching guided aerial bombs at Ukrainian positions and was shot down its own troops on the ground.

Footage shared on social media showed an aircraft being hit in the air by a missile and the remnant of an aircraft after it crashed into the ground, though it is unclear whether they were taken from the same incident. A former adviser to Ukraine's Internal Affairs Ministry suggested the downed aircraft was either an Su-25 ground support jet or a Hunter S-70 drone.

Russian forces have been advancing slowly in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, which President Vladimir Putin annexed in September 2022, but at the cost of heavy casualties. Earlier this week the Ukrainian military confirmed it had withdrawn from Vuhledar, a city in Donetsk province which had a pre-war population of around 14,000, following weeks of intense fighting.

However Putin's troops are still struggling to recapture parts of Kursk province in Russia which were seized by Ukrainian troops in a surprise August offensive.

Citing a source in the Ukrainian air force, Ukrainska Pravda reported a Russian aircraft was brought down over the Donbas in a friendly fire incident. The newspaper said it was hit while dropping glide bombs, large but cheap explosive devices that have been used to devastate Ukrainian defenses. Russian military bloggers also reported one of their aircraft had been destroyed, though some details remain unclear.

Anton Gerashchenko, formerly an adviser to Ukraine's internal affairs minister, shared footage of a destroyed aircraft on X adding: "Videos appeared online showing a Russian Su-25 that crashed in Donetsk region.

"There is unconfirmed information that it could have been friendly fire by Russians themselves."

Gerashchenko later said the aircraft could have been "a Russian Hunter S-70 drone that was allegedly carrying out a reconnaissance flight," citing a Russian military Telegram channel.

Quote:Russian pilots flying a Tu-22M3 supersonic bomber mistakenly hit a grain ship in the Black Sea having "targeted it in haste," likely while trying to evade Ukrainian air defenses, U.K. defense officials have said.

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a social media post that the merchant vessel Aya may have narrowly avoided catastrophic damage because a missile failed to detonate.

The Russian Defense Ministry has been contacted for comment via email.

In an intelligence update shared on X, formerly Twitter, the MoD said: "On 11 September 2024, the merchant vessel Aya was struck by a missile in the Black Sea as it transited south from the Ukrainian port of Odesa, having been loaded with more than 26 thousand tons of grain bound for Egypt.

"It is almost certain that the missile was an AS-4 KITCHEN anti-ship missile launched by a Tu-22M3 BACKFIRE Russian bomber that was operating in the area at the time. It is a realistic possibility that a detonation failure avoided catastrophic damage."

The MoD said it was unlikely that the ship was the intended target of the mission and an aging munition may have been used.

"It is a realistic possibility that this incident occurred due to pilots incorrectly identifying MV Aya as their target in haste, wanting to depart the area immediately after launch for fear of being targeted by a Ukrainian surface-to-air missile," British officials said.

They reported that Russia has grown increasingly cautious about its strike operations in the Black Sea region since the loss of a Tu-22 earlier this year.

In April, Ukraine downed a Russian Tu-22M3 for the first time in the war, according to Kyiv's military intelligence.

Ukraine said that Kyiv's forces shot down the aircraft, causing it to crash in Russia's Stavropol Territory.

The Tu-22M3 is a long-range bomber designed to destroy sea- and ground-based targets with guided missiles and bombs.

Quote:Russia "will not hesitate" to resume nuclear weapons testing if similar steps are taken by the United States, according to Sergei Ryabkov, the country's deputy foreign minister.

According to Russia's TASS news agency, Ryabkov made the comments during an interview with state-backed RT television network, though there are no indications the U.S. is planning new nuclear weapons tests.

The remarks came against the backdrop of renewed nuclear threats from senior Russian officials as the Kremlin seeks to discourage Western military support for Ukraine. Speaking at Russia's Security Council on September 25, President Vladimir Putin hinted Moscow could respond with nuclear weapons to what it described as a "joint attack" from a non-nuclear-armed country backed by an ally with nuclear capability.

Speaking to RT, Ryabkov said that if Washington conducts new nuclear weapons tests "we will not hesitate" to respond in kind. Ryabkov was repeating a warning he made to Russian news agencies in September when he said Moscow would not initiate fresh nuclear tests unless the U.S. made the first move.

In his September remarks, Ryabkov insisted "nothing has changed" in Russia's nuclear doctrine, adding: "As defined and formulated by the president of the Russian Federation, we can conduct such tests, but we will not conduct them if the United States refrains from such steps."

The U.S. has not conducted any nuclear weapons tests since 1992 and there are no indications it plans to do so. Both Washington and Moscow signed, but did not ratify, the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty which prohibits any nuclear weapon detonations for testing purposes.
...
Speaking to Newsweek Mark Galeotti, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said: "This notion that a non-nuclear state that is being supported and backed by a nuclear state could trigger a nuclear response is a pretty transparent way of saying, 'If Ukraine launches some kind of major offensive in those circumstances, we reserve unto ourselves the right to be able to go nuclear in response.'"

Speaking at the U.N. Security Council on September 28, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed Washington and London have "already prepared Europe to leap into a suicide venture," highlighting what he called the "pointlessness and danger of the very idea to fight to victory with a nuclear power like Russia."

Quote:The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has released footage which it claims shows a Russian tank being destroyed by a drone which covered it with "molten thermite."

The 26-second clip, attributed to Ukraine's 30th Mechanized Brigade, was shared on X, formerly Twitter, by Kyiv on Friday.

Over the past few weeks a number of videos have emerged showing Ukrainian "dragon drones" dropping thermite charges on Russian positions. Thermite, a mixture of aluminum and rust, burns at over 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit according to the Science Channel, making it twice as hot as molten lava.

In Friday's video a Russian armored vehicle is filmed advancing, followed by an explosion as it strikes a mine or is hit by a Ukrainian rocket, leaving it damaged. A drone then approaches the vehicle from above and drops molten thermite, causing it to catch fire and become consumed by the blaze.

It is unclear where the video was filmed and its authenticity has not been independently verified by Newsweek.

Quote:Russian authorities have struggled to contain several blazes that broke out overnight following a string of Ukrainian drone attacks on the country's oil depots.

"From 9.50 to 11.30 Moscow time, attempts by the Kyiv regime to carry out terrorist attacks using aircraft-type UAVs against targets on the territory of the Russian Federation were thwarted," the Russian Ministry of Defense wrote on Telegram.

"Six UAVs were destroyed over the territory of the Belgorod Region, six UAVs were destroyed and intercepted over the territory of the Voronezh Region, five UAVs were destroyed over the waters of the Sea of Azov and one over the territory of the Rostov Region."

Ukraine took credit for the Voronezh attack and said that the target was the Annanefteprodukt fuel and lubricants storage base in the town of Anna.
"The work of the Russian air defense system was recorded in the area of the facility," Ukraine's General Staff wrote on Telegram. "At least one of the vertical tanks is confirmed to have been hit. There was a fire."

On Telegram, Voronezh Oblast Governor Aleksandr Gusev said that "several UAVS" were destroyed by Russia's air defenses, falling debris from which had caused the fire.

Gusev said no casualties were recorded in the blaze, which was extinguished "immediately after the firefighters arrived."

On Friday morning, a larger fire also broke out in Perm Krai, around 1,118 miles from Ukraine, according to the Russian Emergencies Ministry.

"A fire in Perm Krai has been extinguished on 10,000 square meters. Russian Emergencies Ministry investigators are establishing the cause of the fire," the ministry said, noting that drone attacks were not being considered as a possible cause.

Perhaps it didn't go as planned but it's still an actual achievement for the Ukrainian forces, I guess.

Quote:Moldovan authorities have accused a Moldovan Israeli oligarch of trying to interfere in their upcoming presidential elections by convincing citizens to vote with a candidate against joining the EU through compensation on behalf of Russia, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Ilan Shor, a Moldovan-Israeli pro-Russia oligarch and former member of the Moldovan Parliament, has been accused of organizing a network that allegedly paid $15 million to 130,000 Moldovan citizens in exchange for their vote in accordance with instructions sent on Telegram, alongside misinformation about the EU.

Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in Moldova on October 20 and will include the opportunity for Moldovans to vote on a referendum deciding whether the country should join the EU, according to Reuters.

Shor is the leader of the Șor Party, a pro-Russia party in Moldova that has been banned due to being declared unconstitutional, according to Reuters, and has been accused of money laundering and sentenced in absentia, as he lived in Israel, for money laundering in April for a separate $1 billion bank scandal.
...
Discussing the allegations, Moldova's chief of police, Viorel Cernăuțeanu, told Politico, "Moldova is facing a phenomenon of voter bribery, combined with hybrid warfare and disinformation, the likes of which our country has never seen before."

Cernăuțeanu added, "This 'mafia-style' network, orchestrated from Moscow, aims to influence voters ahead of the presidential elections and EU referendum."

Quote:French President Emmanuel Macron has called for an embargo of Western arms to Israel used in the conflict with Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

Just days before the anniversary of the barbaric killing of over 1,200 people by Islamist Hamas terrorists, who broke into Southern Israel on October 7th last year to carry out a mass terror campaign, President Macron said on Saturday that France has stopped supplying Israel with weapons to use against the terrorists.

The French leader went on to call for a broader embargo on arms deliveries to Israel, saying in comments reported by Le Figaro: “I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza.”

Despite being one of the most hawkish supporters of the war in Ukraine, going so far as to float the idea of sending Western troops into the country as it fends off the Russian invasion, Macron has conversely attempted to play the role of the dove during the Israeli conflict, having called for a “truce” less than a month after the October 7th attacks.

The French president has also recently joined U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders in calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have been targeting Hamas terrorists and the leadership of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group.

Macron has previously faced criticism from Jerusalem after he appeared to suggest that Israel was intentionally targeting “babies” and “ladies” in its military operation in Gaza to eliminate Hamas, although he later backtracked the allegations.

Quote:Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chastised Emmanuel Macron for calling for a Western arms embargo on Israel’s military operation to root out Hamas terrorists in Gaza, branding the French president’s comments as a “disgrace” while vowing that Jerusalem will prevail in its fight with or without support from Paris or other fickle allies.

Israel is defending itself and civilization as a whole against those who would “impose a dark age of fanaticism” on the world, Prime Minister Netanyahu said on Saturday in a video response to France’s Macron, who revealed that France has cut off arms supplies to Israel and urged Western powers to “stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza”.

“President Macron and other Western leaders are now calling for arms embargoes against Israel. Shame on them,” Netanyahu said.

“Is Iran imposing an arms embargo on Hezbollah, on the Houthis, on Hamas and on its other proxies? Of course not. This axis of terror stands together. But countries who supposedly oppose this terror axis call for an arms embargo on Israel. What a disgrace!” he declared.

Netanyahu argued that particularly in the wake of this week’s direct missile attack by the Islamist Iranian regime, it is incumbent upon “all civilized countries” to stand by Israel’s side in the conflict.

Nevertheless, the Israeli leader said that his country will prevail regardless, saying: “Israel will win with or without their support. But their shame will continue long after the war is won.”

“Rest assured, Israel will fight until the battle is won – for our sake and for the sake of peace and security in the world,” Netanyahu vowed.

It is not the first time that a diplomatic row erupted between Paris and Jerusalem over comments made by the French leader. In November of last year, Macron appeared to suggest that Israel was intentionally targeting “babies” and women as it sought to eradicate the Islamist Hamas terrorists from Gaza in the wake of the October 7th terror attacks which saw over 1,200 people murdered and hundreds more taken hostage from Israel.

Quote:An Israeli strike on a refugee camp in north Lebanon on Saturday killed Hamas commander Saeed Atallah Ali and his family, the militant group has said.

In a statement, Hamas reported that an early Saturday strike on the Beddawi refugee camp targeted the home of Atallah Ali. The attack also claimed the lives of Ali's wife, Shaimaa Azzam, and their two daughters, who were described in the statement as children, The Associated Press reported.

Beddawi camp is near the northern city of Tripoli. Atallah Ali was a key leader of the al-Qassam brigades. Israel has yet to comment on the strike.

Israel has repeatedly targeted Hamas and Hezbollah officials in Lebanon since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted almost a year ago on October 7, when 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 were taken hostage.

Israel declared war on the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip in response, and so far 41,000 Palestinians have been killed, with just over half of the dead being women and children, according to local health officials.

On Tuesday, Israel stepped up its attacks against Hezbollah, beginning a ground incursion into Lebanon. The Israeli military said nine of its soldiers have died in the conflict in the south of the country. Meanwhile, Hamas has announced the deaths of at least 18 of its militants in Lebanon, while nearly 2,000 civilians have died.

Quote:The U.S. has facilitated the flights of around 250 Americans out of Lebanon amid ongoing fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and heightened tensions across the Middle East.

Senior officials from the State Department and the White House met Thursday with two prominent Arab American leaders to discuss U.S. efforts to assist American citizens in leaving Lebanon. The Arab American leaders also held separate meetings with officials from the Department of Homeland Security.

Michigan state Rep. Alabas Farhat and Abed Ayoub, executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, used their meeting at the White House to highlight critical concerns facing their community. Ayoub said that they used the meeting to "really drive home a lot of important points about the issues our community members are facing on the ground and a lot of the logistical problems that they're encountering with it when it comes to this evacuation."

In Michigan, which has the largest Arab American population in the country, several officials and community leaders have urged the U.S. to initiate a military evacuation. However, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh stated that such a move is not currently being considered.

"The U.S. military is, of course, on the ready and has a whole wide range of plans. Should we need to evacuate American citizens out of Lebanon, we absolutely can," Singh said while speaking to reporters this week.

Israel has intensified airstrikes and launched a ground offensive in southern Lebanon, targeting leaders of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group. Meanwhile, Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles toward Israel on Tuesday, heightening concerns that the escalating conflict could spiral into a full-scale regional war.
...
Countries including Greece, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, and Colombia have organized flights or deployed military aircraft to evacuate their citizens from the region.

Meanwhile, a family in Dearborn, Michigan, is mourning the loss of Kamel Ahmad Jawad, a metro Detroit resident killed in southern Lebanon on Tuesday. Relatives say he chose to stay behind to assist civilians who were too elderly, sick, or impoverished to escape. Kamel Ahmad Jawad was on the phone with his daughter when the force of a strike knocked him to the ground, his daughter, Nadine Kamel Jawad, said in a statement.

Quote:Russia has ordered its citizens to leave Israel amid escalating tensions between Hezbollah and Iran.

Anatoly Viktorov, Moscow's ambassador to Tel Aviv, recommended that Russian nationals depart Israel without delay.

In remarks to the Russian news agency TASS on October 3, the diplomat highlighted the worsening situation in the region and reiterated his advice against traveling to Israel.

"As for the current extreme aggravation, we reinforce this recommendation [not to visit Israel] and suggest that those citizens who are now in Israel even think about leaving this territory while there are such opportunities in the form of continued regular flights operated by a number of airlines, including the Israeli airline El Al," Viktorov said.

"Before coming to Israel or making a decision to stay for a long time [in the Jewish state], you need to think hard about how justified it is and whether it is worth risking your lives and health," the Russian ambassador said.

He noted that some airlines are still operating scheduled flights and encouraged Russian citizens to take advantage of this opportunity.

The Israel-Lebanon conflict escalated in October 2024, fueled by Israel's invasion of southern Lebanon and amid fierce fighting and intensified clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants.

This escalation is closely linked to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that began in Gaza in 2023.

Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group backed by Iran, initially joined the conflict over support for Palestinians, and it has since launched thousands of cross-border attacks against Israel, resulting in severe casualties and displacement on both sides.

Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon on October 1, 2024, following months of rising tensions and airstrikes that targeted Hezbollah infrastructure throughout Lebanon.

The Israeli government justified the invasion as a necessary measure to neutralize Hezbollah's military presence in southern Lebanon, which Israel sees as a direct threat to its northern communities.

Hezbollah, in turn, aims to pressure Israel by opening a second front to stretch its military resources while also retaliating for Israeli strikes that killed senior Hezbollah leaders.