Quote:“A Coptic Church was attacked on Sunday morning. Four people were hit by bullets and a priest was assaulted. Mosques were bombed. Two hospitals were raided, reportedly by the members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF),” Radio Dabanga reported.
But let's take a look at how the RSF has ALWAYS been a threat for Sudan.
Quote:The RSF is the junta faction controlled by Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, a brutal militia that grew from the infamous Janjaweed gangs that formed in the 1980s under dictator Omar al-Bashir.
Many of the early Janjaweed fighters were merchants and camel traders banding together to protect their property. The name means “devils on horseback,” referring to their origins as irregular cavalry. Dagalo himself was a school dropout who made his living as a camel trader in Darfur before turning to militia warfare after his family trade caravan was attacked and massacred by bandits.
Bashir had the idea to organize the disparate Janjaweed groups and bring them together as a deputized force that could be deployed against his enemies. In 2013, he tapped Dagalo to head the renamed Rapid Support Forces, and their status was codified in the Sudanese constitution the following year.
The RSF proceed to accumulate a horrifying record of human rights abuses in Darfur, using rape, robbery, and murder as tactics against both rebels and peaceful demonstrators. The robbery tactic was particularly beneficial to Dagalo, who was given special authorization by Bashir to sell gold seized in RSF raids. The former camel trader soon became one of the richest men in Sudan.
Dagalo joined forces with the commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, to force Bashir from power in 2019. The two formed a working relationship after Bashir deployed both SAF and RSF forces to fight as part of the Saudi-led Gulf Arab coalition against the Iran-backed Houthi insurgency in Yemen.
This is another proof of how stupid it is to negotiate anything with militias, as it also has happened in Colombia, because they'll always revert back to their old ways, no matter how good the peace offer might be.
Quote:The whistleblowers range from an IRS agent to an Obama administration stenographer, encompassing alleged corruption in Ukraine and Mexico, along with the FBI and DOJ.
1) Chuck Grassley: Whistleblowers Say FBI Has Evidence Joe Biden Involved in Family Business Schemes
...
Grassley said the whistleblower disclosures “make clear the FBI has within its possession very significant, impactful, and voluminous evidence with respect to potential criminal conduct by Hunter and James Biden.”
It is unclear why the FBI has not acted on the alleged evidence.
...
2) Former Hunter Biden Partner Tony Bobulinski Meeting with Senate Investigators to Turn Over Information
...
3) Ex-White House Aide: FBI Ignored Joe Biden’s Role in Ukraine Business Dealings
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4) IRS Whistleblower Says Biden Admin Interfering in Hunter Tax Fraud Probe
...
5) Joe Biden Bribery Allegations Were Flagged to DOJ in 2018
Bribery allegations were brought to the Justice Department by a whistleblower in 2018 against President Joe Biden; but the allegations were ignored, a former federal prosecutor revealed last week. The second allegation of bribery against Joe Biden involves Hunter Biden’s board membership for Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.
Quote:The source says the arrests of the foreign nationals who illegally crossed the border and attempted to avoid detection and apprehension occurred in separate incidents throughout the day and evening on Friday.
...
According to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection report, a total of 80 migrants who are listed in the Terrorist Screening Database have been apprehended after entering the United States along the southwest border between ports of entry this fiscal year. Two more were apprehended after crossing the northern border with Canada.
The data includes migrants apprehended between October 2022 and March 2023. The migrants whose names are listed in the TSDB differ from migrants who are scrutinized as being from special interest countries.
...
The number of migrants appearing in the TSDB skyrocketed under the Biden administration. During the four fiscal years of the Trump administration (FY 17 through FY 20) agents apprehended only 14 migrants appearing in the national security database. During FY 21, FY 22, and Year-to-Date FY 23 agents apprehended 196 known or suspected terrorists on the list, the CBP report states. These numbers do not include the arrests on Friday.
Quote:A couple, originally from New York but now residing in Florida, told the New York Post the 30 hotel rooms they had booked at the Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh, New York, were abruptly canceled to accommodate border crossers and illegal aliens.
Another couple, from Queens, New York City, said they had booked 37 hotel rooms at the Crossroads Hotel for their wedding but that the rooms, similarly, were canceled to make room for border crossers and illegal aliens.
The cancelations come as Mayor Eric Adams (D) has started busing newly arrived border crossers and illegal aliens out of New York City, a sanctuary city, to surrounding suburban counties, including Orange County, New York where the Crossroads Hotel sits.
Specifically, the Crossroads Hotel is enjoying a lucrative contract to house at least two dozen border crossers and illegal aliens as of late last week. Likewise, Adams vowed to bus migrants to Rockland County, New York but officials quickly secured a temporary restraining order, blocking the mayor from putting new arrivals up in a county hotel.
Orange County officials have filed a similar lawsuit against Adams, stating that the migrant relocation effort exceeds the mayor’s legal authority.
Quote:Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show” that a “rise in white supremacy” was the United States’ greatest domestic terror threat.
Host Jonathan Capehart asked, Today marks one year since white supremacists opened fire in a black neighborhood at the Top Supermarket in Buffalo. The president, yesterday at his commencement address for Howard University graduates, called white supremacy the major domestic terrorist threat in this country. Is that correct? ”
Mayorkas said, “It tragically is. And the terrorism context, domestic violent extremism is our greatest threat right now. Individuals are driven to violence because of ideologies of hate, anti-government sentiment, false narratives, personal grievances. Regrettably, we have seen a rise in white supremacy. The principal under lying our work is that when one community is targeted, Jonathan, when one community is targeted, we as a country are targeted.”
Americans should quickly kick out that blockhead from power for good. He's the guy that should be the first official to remain silent unless the Congress can use his own remarks against him. He truly deserved to be impeached in no time.
Instead of simply securing the borders, he only cares about propaganda.
What about all of those hundreds of terrorists that have been crossing the southern border that are already in the terrorist watchlist?
Quote:Kyiv appears to have dropped its campaign to get British fighter jets flying over Ukraine, instead taking the UK’s assistance in getting the more common, U.S.-made F16 Falcon instead.
Volodymyr Zelensky made a ‘surprise’ visit to the United Kingdom on Monday morning, meeting with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for what the Ukrainian leader said would be “substantive negotiations”.
...Ukraine has recently spoken of wanting to get 200 F-16s, to build five new squadrons.
On his last visit to the United Kingdom, President Zelensky thanked the country “in advance” for the British jet fighters he presumed were going to be handed over, going so far as to present the helmet of a Ukrainian fighter pilot to the Speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, after addressing the Parliament.
Quote:Legendary Italian car maker Ferrari has no intention of phasing out combustion engines and going fully electric or hybrid anytime soon, promising Sunday to keep making the eight and 12-cylinder engines it has made its trademark at least until the end of the 2030s.
The chief of the Italian manufacturer told the BBC in an interview it would be “arrogant” to dictate to customers what they can buy while at the same time walking away from the company’s heritage.
Ferrari instead wants to honor its history of high performance cars using traditional methods of propulsion.
It said electric cars and hybrids would make up an increasing proportion of its range by the end of the decade but would not totally take over manufacturing output.
...Ferarri boss Benedetto Vigna pointed to this decision as a sign that technology was evolving, and denied doing so would undermine the company’s environmental credentials.
...
“It is the client who must choose if they want an ICE (internal combustion engine), a hybrid or an electric car.”
Open Editorial
Ban Gas == Bye-bye Freedom!
It has been proven in several occasions that EV's can burst in chemical flames that can't be extinguished as easily as normal flames. The EV's also get stuck because they freeze during winter. Electric trucks can't handle the same payload traditional trucks have always handled. Just go back to the report on New York's garbage trucks becoming unusable, totally unreliable this last winter.
If Ferrari really cared about their legacy, they wouldn't even care about electric cars at all. They've never been as reliable as traditional combustion cars, the simple but delicious taste of freedom for drivers all around the world.
Yes, there have been crises going on around the world because of oil prices. Yet, you can go to California and see how the state government has made it entirely impossible to drive those EV's. All of this happens because they ALWAYS go through some power crisis and citizens are asked to stay home and don't drive their own cars. They even are blowing up their own dams that produce the vital power they desperately need! They're constantly looking for ways to impoverish its population by blocking fracking. They prefer to offer the homeless people needles and sometimes even drugs instead of electricity or gas or even food. Just ask reporters like Savanah Hernandez who have been there in San Francisco or Portland or even Philadelphia in the East Coast. The sad stories are all but the same.
And guess what's the common factor in all those cities? Well, it's not hard to guess. They're all run and ruined by leftists.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:Gunmen attacked a US convoy in southeast Nigeria’s Anambra State on Tuesday, police and a US official said, killing four people and abducting three others.
Separatists who operate in the region have escalated their attacks in recent years, usually targeting police or government buildings.
...
The gunmen “murdered two of the Police Mobile Force operatives and two staff of the consulate,” he said, before setting their vehicle “ablaze.”
The attack took place on Tuesday at “3:30pm (14:30 GMT) along Atani, Osamale road” in Ogbaru district, according to the police.
Joint security forces deployed to the scene, said Tochukwu, but the gunmen managed to abduct two police operatives and a driver.
...
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed the attack during a briefing with reporters in Washington, DC.
“A US convoy of vehicles was attacked. What I can tell you is that no US citizens were involved,” Kirby said.
Quote:Durham’s 300-page report found a damning conclusion: “Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report.”
“Our investigation also revealed that senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received, especially information received from politically affiliated persons and entities,” Durham’s report said, in apparent reference to the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded Fusion GPS “pee dossier” alleging collusion that the FBI relied on to investigate Trump.
Durham said before the allegation from an Australian diplomat that then-Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told him the Trump campaign had dirt on Clinton, there was no evidence of any Trump campaign collusion with Russia. But despite this “unevaluated intelligence information,” the FBI “swiftly opened an investigation, known as “Crossfire Hurricane.”
Special Counsel John Durham Wrote:In particular, at the direction of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Peter Strzok opened Crossfire Hurricane immediately. Strzok, at a minimum, had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump. The matter was opened as a full investigation without ever having spoken to the persons who provided the information.
Quote:A Turkish drone strike in northern Iraq on Tuesday killed three Yazidi fighters affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an Iraqi Kurdish security official said.
It is the latest deadly strike blamed on Turkey in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, where the PKK — whose fighters are Turkish Kurds — has rear bases.
The Turkish military maintains dozens of bases in northern Iraq and carries out air strikes and ground operations against the PKK, which is classified as a “terrorist” group by Ankara and its Western allies.
Quote:Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) has agreed to transfer technologies and knowledge for the ARAD family of assault rifles to a Peruvian arms and ammunition manufacturer.
As part of the deal announced Monday, both companies will establish a weapons assembly and production line in Peru.
The Israeli firm will also provide the know-how on small arms assembly, advanced quality assurance, and maintenance processes.
Moving forward, IWI and Fábrica de Armas y Municiones del Ejército (FAME) will explore the possibility of expanding local production to include additional weapons and optical sights.
“IWI is proud to have signed a cooperation agreement with FAME, which further strengthens its activities in Peru and in Latin America,” SK Group vice president Ronen Hamudot said.
Basically, what it says is that the Peruvian army's factory will be able to make the weapons thanks to this new agreement with the Israeli weapon maker.
Keep in mind that Peru is living in a very dangerous situation ever since former president Castillo was deposed and arrested by the local authorities.
Quote:Japan and China used a new military hotline for the first time on Tuesday, their defense ministries said, following years of negotiations to set up the communication channel.
Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada held a 20-minute call with his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu, Tokyo’s ministry said in a statement.
“Hamada mentioned the existence of security concerns between Japan and China, such as the situation in the East China Sea,” it said.
He “stated that it is necessary to have candid communication especially when there are concerns about Japan-China relations.”
Beijing confirmed the call, saying the air and maritime hotline would “contribute to further maintaining regional peace and stability.”
The hotline, launched on March 31, had been mooted by both sides for over a decade as a way to avert unexpected clashes in the East China Sea.
Quote:Adams has started carrying out a policy that converts a number of public school gyms into migrant shelters with potentially hundreds of border crossers and illegal aliens living on campuses as school children are attending classes.
Outraged parents and students protested on Tuesday outside some of the schools where Adams has started housing migrants, including PS 188 in Coney Island and PS 17 in Williamsburg, providing them with free food as recess is cut for students.
...
Adams, in a statement, shrugged off the protests and effectively told parents that they will have to deal with their children sharing school campuses with newly arrived border crossers and illegal aliens.
“This is one of the last places we want to look at. None of us are comfortable with having to take these drastic steps,” Adams told NY1 News.
"Each gym, the 20 gyms that we are looking at, we have not made a final determination on all the gyms, but that we are looking at are separate from the actual school buildings. They are independent from the school buildings."
Likewise, in a separate statement, Adams warned that “every city service” meant for New Yorkers will be impacted by waves of border crossers and illegal aliens arriving in the sanctuary city, though he defended that policy.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:Official sources from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army refute their own foreign ministry claims that its spy balloons are merely for meteorological research and details the offensive military usages of the near-space vehicles.
The startling findings coincide with remarks reportedly made last week by U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, when he stated the U.S. wanted to "move beyond" controversy caused by the Chinese regime’s surveillance balloon that hovered above the Malmstrom Air Forces Base in Montana in February, where nuclear weapons are stored.
China’s surveillance craft—the size of three Greyhound buses—traversed the United States from Alaska starting in January 2023 until the massive air spy machine was shot down by an F-22 that fired a missile at it roughly six nautical miles off the coast of South Carolina in February. For nearly a week the Chinese regime’s surveillance balloon allegedly accumulated intelligence on the U.S.
The China Media Studies Project run by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published a detailed report, including material on the China Military Network, an official People’s Liberation Army outlet, which published an article before the spy balloon entered the U.S. titled "An Omnipotent Weapon—How Amazing are Near Space Vehicles?".
According to the Chinese article authored by researcher Qiang Tianlin, "The emergence of near-space vehicles not only utilizes the connection between air and space, but also provides new ideas for air defense and anti-missile combat. If equipped with weapons platforms, near-space vehicles will enable more rapid attacks on a global scale greatly accelerating the pace of war."
...
Tianlin continued that "Attaining information superiority in future wars is becoming increasingly critical." He added "near space-based vehicles can play another important role: carrying out space-based countermeasures and strikes."
The significance of MEMRI’s documentation is it reveals that the Chinese spy balloons are designed for both espionage activity and military offensive strikes.
"Oh but they were just meteorological balloons! How dare you take them down?"
Quote:In an interview Thursday with The Daily Wire, which first reported the arrest, a witness who claimed to be Brinton's neighbor said Brinton was arrested about an hour after four unmarked police arrived.
The arrest comes a month after Brinton ... escaped jail time in two separate cases in Minnesota and Nevada involving luggage thefts.
Police charged Brinton in October with stealing a traveler's baggage worth a total of $2,325 from the luggage carousel at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport after flying in from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16.
And in early December, Las Vegas prosecutors charged Brinton with grand larceny of an item valued between $1,200 and $5,000. Police accused Brinton of stealing a suitcase with a total estimated worth of $3,670 on July 6 at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. The bag contained jewelry valued at $1,700, clothing worth $850 and makeup valued at $500.
Brinton faced up to 15 years total for the two alleged thefts. However, in both cases, the presiding judges ruled jail time wasn't necessary.
In addition, a female Tanzanian fashion designer based in Houston accused Brinton in February of wearing her custom designs that were packed in a luggage she reported missing in 2018. Houston police referred that case to the FBI.
Quote:Dozens of Serbian schools on Wednesday received bomb threats, the education ministry said, amid security concerns following two mass shootings early this month, including one in an elementary school.
The education ministry said 78 elementary schools and 37 high schools in Belgrade received warnings by email early on Wednesday that explosive devices had allegedly been planted.
Classes were postponed and students evacuated as police checked the buildings.
There have been no reports that bombs were found in any of the schools, and police are yet to issue their report.
Similar multiple threats have been sent to school addresses in the past, in Serbia and other countries in the region, and have proven false each time. However, the threats could further heighten security fears after the May 3 and May 4 shootings that left 18 people dead and 20 injured.
Quote:Rescue crews worked Thursday to reach towns and villages in northern Italy that were cut off from highways, electricity and cell phone service following heavy rains and flooding, as farmers warned of "incalculable" losses and authorities began mapping out cleanup and reconstruction plans.
The death toll from rains that pushed two dozen rivers and tributaries over their banks stood at nine, with some people still unaccounted for, said Stefano Bonaccini, president of the hardest hit northern region of Emilia-Romagna.
Local mayors warned that some remote villages were still completely isolated because landslides had made roads impassable and phone service remained severed. That has prevented rescue teams from reaching residents and authorities from understanding the full scope of their needs, said Mercato Seraceno Mayor Monica Rossi.
...
By Thursday morning, some parts of the city of Faenza were still underwater, with cars submerged and basements swamped by thick, gooey mud. One family standing on their balcony said they didn't have electricity, gas or food. Other residents took shelter at a local gymnasium, where soldiers set up cots on the basketball court for new arrivals.
Quote:About 250 residents were evacuated Thursday from the slopes of Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire as red-hot rock and ash flowed down the slopes toward an area devastated by a deadly 2018 eruption.
Firefighters said residents of the hamlet of Panimache were taken to shelters.
Guatemala’s disaster agency said the volcano had been emitting ash clouds that could affect as many as 100,000 people in communities around the peak.
The 12,300-foot high Volcano of Fire is one of the most active in Central America. The 2018 eruption killed 194 people and left another 234 missing.
Quote:The president of Ecuador dismissed the legislature Wednesday in a move that promised more turmoil around a conservative leader who has been unable to enact a business-friendly agenda as the South American country experiences an alarming rise in crime.
In disbanding the National Assembly, Guillermo Lasso made first use of the Ecuador presidency’s nuclear option under the constitution in conflicts with the legislative branch. His first move was to push a package of tax cuts, but criticism was swift and an appeal to stop him was filed hours after he announced his decision in a televised message in which he accused lawmakers of focusing "on destabilizing the government."
...
Armed soldiers then surrounded the National Assembly in the capital. Lasso had been locked in a showdown with legislators who wanted to impeach him for not stopping a deal between the state-owned oil transport company and a private tanker company, accusations he denies.
Hours later, the president of the National Electoral Council, Diana Atamaint, said that its office will set the date for the next elections in no more than seven days. She anticipated that Ecuadorians would go to the polls to elect a new president and a new Assembly in no more than 90 days.
Quote:The U.S. State Department is warning it will use "a number of tools" to "hold North Korea accountable" if the nation proceeds with an illicit satellite launch.
Deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel addressed the issue regarding the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Wednesday in a press conference.
"Any DPRK launch that uses ballistic missile technology would also include [space launch vehicles] SLVs used to launch a satellite into space and that would violate multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions," Patel told reporters.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has reportedly completed military spy satellite this week as concerns mount that Pyongyang may prepare to launch the spacecraft using banned technology in the coming weeks.
"We had been very clear that we urge the DPRK to refrain from further threatening activity and call on Pyongyang to engage in serious and sustained diplomacy," Patel said of the planned launch.
...
Kim has argued that the satellite is necessary for space-based reconnaissance and in countering the U.S. and South Korea – which have ramped up joint military exercises in the face of increased aggression and illegal missile testing in North Korea.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:A Canadian tourist has been shot and killed in a Mexican beach town just days after a tourist from Argentina was hacked to death in a machete attack in the same Pacific coast resort area.
Prosecutors in the Mexican state of Oaxaca say the Canadian man was found dead in a car with a bullet wound in the town of Puerto Escondido, a relaxed beach town popular with surfers, on Monday.
No details were revealed regarding the specific circumstances of the man’s death, but he was identified as 27-year-old Víctor Masson.
Masson’s death comes three days after a tourist from Argentina was killed in a machete attack in the state of Oaxaca, generally considered one of the safer states in Mexico, roughly 60 miles west of Puerto Escondido in the hamlet of La Isla.
Quote:A Chicago-area man who had his life sentence in prison commuted by then-President Barack Obama in 2015, faces more prison time after being charged with attempted murder in connection with a freeway shooting.
Alton Mills, 54, faces three counts of attempted murder after someone in a vehicle shot at another car on Interstate 57 on Sunday, the Illinois State Police said.
Investigators said troopers responded to the scene and found a victim struck by gunfire in the back seat who was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Mills was arrested Tuesday.
Mills was serving a life sentence when Obama commuted the prison term as part of a clemency initiative for non-violent, low-level offenders arrested during the height of the war on drugs. Mills was arrested in 1993 on federal drug charges. The felony conviction was his third strike, resulting in a life sentence.
He was released in 2016 after serving 22 years in prison. He worked as a mechanic for the Chicago Transit Authority.
After receiving clemency, Mills spoke to the U.S. Senate as part of a criminal justice forum while campaigning for the elimination of mandatory minimum sentencing.
This event pretty much proves the dire need for imposing real and long sentences to criminals instead of commuting them just because you like the guys.
Quote:"Around that time these individuals were claiming that that was their bike. Someone pushed the bike while she was on it, back into the docking station so it locked again," he said.
Comrie claimed she had paid for that specific bike but after the argument put it back in the docking station and rented another one. Marino said he had two receipts that proved his client was telling the truth, with serial numbers that matched the bicycles in question.
He said Comrie sought an attorney because she was fearful she would lose her job over the encounter. After the video went viral and Comrie faced online accusations of racism, Bellevue Hospital put her on administrative leave pending a review of the situation.
First of all, the system doesn't seem to allow the rental of a single bike twice or multiple times at all.
Second, there was no evidence that sustained the black guys' claim that they had rented the bike already. So calling her racist for something that she was clearly allowed to do is a stupid accusation from the very beginning. Plus, why did they have to argue with a pregnant woman in the first place!?
That's abusive for sure!
The hospital's decision is totally unfair and the media are responsible for this mess!
Quote:The Islamic Republic of Iran continued its killing spree of protesters seeking to create a democracy despite a plea on Friday from the Biden administration to "not carry out these executions."
The Iranian-regime controlled Mizan News Agency, which is affiliated with the country’s opaque judiciary, reported that Saleh Mirehashemi, Majid Kazemi and Saeed Yaqoubi were executed on May 19 in a prison the city of Isfahan.
The Norway-based Iran Human Rights group said that there had been at least 90 executions in the last 18 days, marking May as the "bloodiest month" in the nation over the last five years.
"What we’re witnessing in Iran are not executions, but extrajudicial mass killings to create societal fear to maintain power," Iran Human Rights Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.
...
Iran’s regime charged the three men with "waging war against God," a crime that is frequently applied against political activists and dissidents.
During the alleged forced confessions of the men on Iran state television, the men rejected the charge of murder.
Quote:U.S. military officials are walking back a claim that a senior al Qaeda leader was killed in a recent drone strike in Syria, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed to Fox News.
The story was first reported by the Washington Post.
The family of 56-year-old Lotfi Hassan Misto identified him as the person killed by the American missile on May 3, according to the Post.
U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, oversaw the operation and released a statement on the day of the strike saying it conducted a strike "targeting a senior Al Qaeda leader."
No other details were provided and the identify of the person killed was not revealed.
Misto's family claims he had no ties to terrorist organizations and was tending to his sheep when he was killed.
Quote:The man who drove through a Vatican City gate and kept going even after guards fired at his car was taken Friday to a nearby hospital for psychiatric care after a preliminary interrogation, the Vatican said.
The man, who has not been identified by the Holy See, was taken to the Santo Spirito in Sassia psychiatric ward after spending the night in the Vatican police barracks.
...the man rushed the Santa Anna gate sometime after 8 p.m. Thursday, after the Swiss Guards initially refused him entry. He kept accelerating after Vatican gendarmes at an interior checkpoint fired at his tires, and ultimately stopped inside one of the courtyards of the Apostolic Palace. There, Vatican gendarmes arrested him, the Holy See statement said, adding that at the time he seemed in an agitated psychological state.
In an update Friday, the Vatican said the man, who was believed to be in his 40s, was interrogated by a Vatican magistrate in the presence of a lawyer. Given his condition, "he was taken to the psychiatric ward ... for obligatory treatment," the statement said.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:Another person has died from an outbreak of an extensively drug-resistant bacteria that's been tied to Global Pharma Healthcare's recalled eyedrops, according to federal health officials.
As of May 15, 81 patients across 18 states have become infected with Pseudomonas aeruginos, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Of those infected, 14 have reported vision loss, four people had their eyeballs removed and four others died, the CDC said.
In March, the CDC reported that 68 patients in 16 states were infected.
The CDC has been investigating the outbreak, which has been tied to artificial tears manufactured by Global Pharma Healthcare earlier this year, alongside the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as other state and local health officials.
During its investigation, the CDC discovered EzriCare Artificial Tears was the brand most commonly reported from infected patients.
Amid the outbreak, Global Pharma Healthcare issued a recall for all lots within the expiry of the EzriCare and Delsam Pharma’s artificial tears products due to possible contamination. It also agreed to recall Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Eye Ointment over the same concern.
In April, federal inspectors wrapped up their inspection of Global Pharma Healthcare's facility in India where the company manufactured EzriCare and Delsam Phama Artificial Tears products.
The FDA reported that the company did not follow proper sterilization or cleaning procedures at its manufacturing facility.
Quote:A fierce turf war between rival factions of the Gulf Cartel turned one of the main cities in Tamaulipas into a war zone. Convoys of gunmen in armored vehicles clashed while Mexican authorities continue their claim that the state is safe and that violence in a myth spread through social media.
Since late last month, two rival factions of the Gulf Cartel have been engaged in a fierce turf war. The faction in Reynosa known as Los Metros joined forces with the Old School Zetas (Vieja Escuela) based in San Fernando. The faction also allegedly has the support of Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) in their fight against the Matamoros faction of the Gulf Cartel known as the Escorpiones.
The city of San Fernando, called Sierra Fox by gunmen, experienced the worst fighting so far as gunmen riding in armored SUVs in convoys — at times larger than 40 vehicles — roam dirt roads and the main highways searching for rivals. When these convoys encounter each other, the fighting is intense as these gunmen carry high-powered weapons and explosives that they use trying to defeat each other’s armored vehicles.
Quote:House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and other House Republicans have pushed back against a Biden administration proposal that would limit children’s access to chocolate milk and other drinks in schools across America.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is considering limiting certain foods and drinks such as chocolate milk to “reduce children’s risk of chronic disease.”
...
“USDA is proposing to allow flavored milk for high school children only (grades 9-12),” the USDA proposal explained. “This approach would reduce exposure to added sugars and would promote the more nutrient-dense choice of unflavored milk for young children when their tastes are being formed. The proposed regulatory text for this alternative would allow flavored milk only for high schools (grades 9-12).”
...
The Biden administration appears to be taking a page from New York Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed ban on chocolate milk, which he backed off from after Stefanik and many others attacked the proposal. Notably, Adams follows a vegan diet and has urged Congress to allow vegetarian options in New York City schools.
Stefanik proposed a bill, the Protecting School Milk Choices Act, which would ensure schools participating in the National School Lunch Program offer at least one flavored milk option.
Quote:Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) signed legislation Friday containing a red flag law and universal background checks, both of which are already in place in California and are failing to stop mass shootings.
KARE 11 reported that Walz made a statement as he signed the gun control:
I understand our rights as Americans… but I refuse to allow extremists to define what responsible gun ownership looks like and to make this about the 2nd Amendment. This is not about the 2nd Amendment, this is about the safety of our children and our community.
On May 17, 2023, Breitbart News reported that Minnesota Democrats had passed the gun controls that were already failing in California.
Gabby Giffords’ gun control group noted California has had a red flag law since January 1, 2016. The Golden State adopted expanded background checks — i.e., universal background checks — in the early 1990s.
Despite having both these controls, California led the nation in “active shooter incidents” in 2021.
Illinois’ red flag law is failing to stop the raging gun violence in Chicago.
Quote:Defense Department revealed it can send more weapons to Ukraine without Congress spending approval after the Pentagon overestimated the value of the arms it has already sent Kyiv by some $3 billion.
AP reports the error was caused when officials wrongly used valuation for new equipment, rather than for used equipment drawn from U.S. stocks, to assess the cost of weapons already despatched to the war zone.
The poor accounting methodology has been exposed as the Pentagon faces increased pressure by Congress to show accountability for the billions of dollars it has sent in weapons, ammunition, equipment, and training to Ukraine and as some lawmakers question whether that level of support is sustainable.
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The $113 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine has eclipsed the annual military budget of every country in the world except the United States and China.
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[Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh] added the mistake hasn’t constrained U.S. support to Ukraine or hampered the ability to send aid to the battlefield.
According to the AP report, a defense official said the Pentagon is still trying to determine exactly how much the total surplus will be.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the comptroller has asked the military services to review all previous Ukraine aid packages using the proper cost figures.
Quote:President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) opted not to prosecute U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Rachael Rollins after the Office of the Inspector General determined that she lied under oath and referred its allegation to the DOJ.
The OIG released the results of an investigation into Rollins, who the Heritage Foundation notes was previously backed by left-wing billionaire George Soros, on multiple fronts on Wednesday, finding that she allegedly attempted to influence the Suffolk County District Attorney’s race last year and subsequently lied under oath during an investigation into the matter. Although the watchdog referred their findings to the Department of Justice, it opted not to pursue prosecution.
US Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) Wrote:Rachael Rollins committed so many ethical violations that an Inspector General referred her for criminal prosecution. What did Merrick Garland do? Nothing.
Just another example of DOJ’s double standard.
Quote:“On December 16, 2022, pursuant to the Inspector General Act, 5 U.S.C. § 404(d), the OIG referred the false statements allegation to the Department for a prosecutive decision. On January 6, 2023, the Department informed the OIG that it declined prosecution,” reads a footnote on page 80 of the report.
A conviction on such a charge carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, as Cornell Law School notes.
The report found that Rollins, who President Joe Biden nominated to be a U.S. attorney in 2021, aided Boston City Councilman Ricardo Arroyo (D) in the Democrat primary for Suffolk County district attorney by providing negative information about his opponent, then-interim Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden, to the Boston Globe and Boston Herald. This effort allegedly included Rollins giving the Herald “non-public, sensitive [Department of Justice] material,” which she only had access to because of her position.
Quote:Hong Kong’s Beijing-controlled chief executive, John Lee, insisted on Thursday that his government should identify books with “bad ideologies” – such as those that tell the truth about the Tiananmen Square massacre – and remove them from public libraries.
Lee, who was Hong Kong’s security chief before succeeding Carrie Lam as chief executive in May 2022, was meeting with members of the Legislative Council (commonly known as “LegCo”) when a lawmaker challenged the removal of Tiananmen accounts and other books from libraries as a violation of the semiautonomous island’s nominal free speech guarantees.
“Books we are lending to the public are those recommended by the government. We would not recommend books that are illegal, have copyright issues or those with bad ideologies,” Lee replied.
Skeptical lawmakers noted that the national security law has been used to shut down publications and terrorize Hong Kongers away from events that might bring down the wrath of Lee’s paranoid security state. A prominent example last week was the abrupt termination of a hugely popular 40-year-old comic strip from artist Wong Kei-kwan, who uses the pen name “Zunzi.”
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that Russian troops weren’t occupying Bakhmut even though they may have “razed it” to the ground and it is no longer in full possession of Kyiv’s forces.
That assertion made in Hiroshima, Japan, where Zelensky is meeting members of the G7 at their annual conference directly contradicts Moscow’s claims the eastern Ukrainian city has fallen.
On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated mercenaries from the Wagner organisation and regular units for the operation to “liberate” the town.
Responding to a reporter’s question about the status of the city, Zelenskyy maintained: “Bakhmut is not occupied by the Russian Federation as of today.”
This appeared to contradict the president’s response in English to a question earlier at the summit about the status of Bakhmut which was interpreted by many as saying the city had indeed fallen to Russian forces, AP reports.
Quote:Hungary has announced that it will block an EU military aid package for Ukraine, labelling the country as “hostile” after an alleged plan to blow up an oil pipeline leaked in the Western press.
Hungarian government officials have expressed their fury at Ukraine in recent days, decrying the country as being “hostile” after the country’s alleged plans to blow up an oil pipeline leaked in the Washington Post last week.
As detailed by the leaks, Zelensky has reportedly been considering an attack on Russia’s Druzhba pipeline that supplies oil to Hungary in what would appear to be an attempt to sabotage the country.
Kyiv has also blacklisted Hungarian bank OTP, listing the firm as a sponsor of Russia’s invasion, causing further anger in Budapest.
According to a report by the Associated Press, senior officials in the Hungarian government say that they are blocking EU attempts to send more weapons and ammo to Ukraine in retaliation for the blacklisting.
Quote:According to the provisional deal, deliveries of the medium-range IRIS-T SLM air defense system – manufactured by weapons maker Diehl Defence of Germany – could begin in 2025.
The value of the deal and detailed information about the numbers of the system weren’t disclosed as talks with the supplier are still ongoing, defense ministries of the two countries said.
Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur described the deal as “a joint project of historical proportions for our defense cooperation, the largest one to date” between Tallinn and Riga.
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The German air defense system, consisting of truck-mounted launchers, missiles and a separate command vehicle, is designed to protect cities, armies and civilian population from air attacks, and being effective at neutralizing planes and helicopters.
The system can be used for protection from a host of other threats, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles and loitering munitions.
Quote:Vladimir Rogov, a talking head on Russian television, suggested that Vladimir Putin should begin arming Irish terrorists in the hopes they would attack Buckingham Palace.
The outlandish suggestion is largely par for the course in terms of the Russian-language war rhetoric produced domestically in the country, with pundits and politicians regularly recommending that Putin solves all of the country’s problems with precision nuclear strikes.
According to a report by the Belfast Telegraph, Rogov reportedly said that the Russian government should, in response to the UK sending missiles to Ukraine, begin “accidentally” arming the “Irish Republican Army”.
“Can’t we somehow (ensure) the remaining combat wing of the Irish Republican Army, which is fighting against British occupation, has normal weapons (to) hit Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street, and elsewhere?” he asked his fellow commentators on the ‘Evening with Vladimir Solovyov’ television show.
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He went on to suggest that such a move would be ethical as it would help provide “self-determination for the Irish”, as well as — somehow — “free” Scotland.
Quote:At the tail end of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, President Biden said that President Zelensky provided him with a “flat assurance” that Western-supplied F-16 fighter planes will not be used to attack Russia itself, but rather “wherever Russian troops are within Ukraine and the area,” the Reuters news agency reported.
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On this front, Zelensky was successful, with President Biden announcing that despite the ongoing feud in Washington over the debt ceiling, the American taxpayer would supply Ukraine with another $375 million in military aid, including armoured vehicles and artillery.
Perhaps more crucially was the approval from the White House for its NATO allies to supply Ukraine with American-made F-16 fighter jets, a move which President Zelensky has long lobbied for under the premise that its current fleet of MiG-29 Soviet-era planes previously supplied by Poland and Slovakia are outdated and inefficient compared to the American hardware.
President Biden also gave the go-ahead for Western allies to begin training Ukrainian fighter pilots on how to operate the F-16 jets in Europe.
Quote:New York City has lost nearly half a million residents over the course of just two years, newly released United States Census Bureau data reveals.
The Census Bureau data, which shows population estimates for mid-2022, finds that fewer than 8.4 million residents remain living in New York City — still making the Big Apple the nation’s most populous city by several million.
...more than 8.8 million residents lived in New York City. This figure indicates a population loss of more than five percent from April 2020 to July 2022 with almost half a million residents leaving the city.
Americans moving out of deep blue cities is widespread, the Census Bureau data shows.
The second largest city, Los Angeles, California, and the third largest city, Chicago, Illinois, also lost residents over the course of two years. In Los Angeles, for instance, about 3.8 million residents remain in the city as of July 2022 compared to about 3.9 million residents in April 2020, a loss of about 100,000 residents.
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Similarly, Chicago had about 2.67 million residents as of July 2022 but in April 2020, the city had about three percent more residents. Over the two years, about 85,000 residents left Chicago.
In addition to crime and social unrest following racial riots, housing prices are a major driver for Americans to leave one area for another. As the real estate site Redfin recently noted, only four major cities in the U.S. have home prices that are cheaper than rent prices: Detroit, Michigan; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Cleveland, Ohio; and Houston, Texas.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
The 600th Person to Enter Earth Orbit now headed to the International Space Station
Reverse angle of Second Stage Jettison
Quote:Rayyanah Barnawi on Sunday (May 21) lifted off with fellow Saudi Space Commission (SSC) astronaut Ali AlQarni, privately funded astronaut John Shoffner of Tennessee and former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson on the second mission organized by Houston-based space services company Axiom Space. The four Axiom 2 (Ax-2) crewmates launched at 5:37 p.m. EDT (2137 GMT) on the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft "Freedom" atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Less than nine minutes later, Barnawi and her crewmates began circling the planet. AlQarni and Shoffner are first-time fliers as well, but based on a precedent set in 2021 when the 600th person entered space — a figure that also included suborbital flights — the count is based on the astronauts' mission designations.
As pilot, Shoffner became number 598. AlQarni is number 599, flying as mission specialist 1. As such, Barnawi, as mission specialist 2, claimed the round number. With Barnawi, only 72 women help comprise the 600-person total.
Up is down, left is right and sideways is straight ahead. - Cord "Circle of Iron", 1978 (written by Bruce Lee and James Coburn... really...)
Quote:President Joe Biden on Friday told G7 leaders at a summit in Japan that the United States will support a joint international effort to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16s, a move paving the way for providing the fighter jets to Ukraine. Biden has not yet decided if the United States will directly send the aircraft to the country, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday.
Biden’s Democratic contender Kennedy strongly rebuked the move, saying the United States continues to waste money in an effort that is counterproductive to the people of Ukraine.
“We must stop using Ukraine as a geopolitical pawn,” Kennedy told The Epoch Times. “[Biden should] negotiate a swift end to this war that is hemorrhaging Ukrainian blood and American treasure.”
Responding to accusations that the move is escalatory, Biden said he received a “flat assurance” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that F-16s will not be used on Russian territory.
The assurances come ahead of an insurgency into Russia’s Belgorod region, apparently by Ukraine-aligned militias, with online imagery showing Maxxpro 1224 mine-resistant humvees, vehicles the United States has provided to Ukraine. Moscow claimed on Tuesday to have repelled the attack.
Quote:Approximately 300 bills failed to pass California’s Assembly and Senate Appropriations Committees on May 18, with lawmakers potentially eyeing the state’s $31.5 billion deficit in failing to advance the legislation, following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s May budget revision announced a week before.
The bills were part of what is known as a suspense hearing, with the Senate referring any proposals with a minimum $50,000 effect to the committee, while the Assembly committee considers those exceeding $150,000. Those that survive are reviewed by the other house’s appropriations committee before being sent to the floor for final consideration.
When Assembly Bill 335 targeting retail theft failed to pass, author Assemblyman Juan Alanis (R-Modesto) expressed his disappointment with the decision.
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More than 1,100 bills were considered in the fast-paced sessions, with many decisions made prior to the hearing. The few that required roll call votes were often split by party line, and the Democratic party’s supermajority voted in unison in most instances, allowing contested bills to proceed.
Nearly 900 bills were passed by the committees, with the Senate approving 71 percent of those considered and the Assembly approximately 78 percent.
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While no mention of the budget deficit was made in either hearing, cuts to the Democratic majority’s long-sought-after legislation promoting abortion access, climate initiatives, gun control, and homelessness suggest lawmakers are mindful of the predicament.
Quote:Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday he has “total confidence” in the work being done by special rapporteur David Johnston, who earlier in the day recommended against holding a public inquiry into allegations of foreign interference in Canada’s elections.
“I committed to listening very carefully and abiding by the recommendations that the former governor general made, and he explained and justified his thought processes by it and we will be following his recommendations,” Trudeau told reporters.
The prime minister appointed Johnston to be the special rapporteur on March 15 following multiple media reports suggesting widespread interference by the Chinese regime. Instead of launching a public inquiry, which opposition leaders repeatedly called for, the prime minister said he would heed the recommendations of Johnston.
Johnston said Tuesday that a public inquiry could not be held because the classified information informing his decision could not be revealed to the public. The former governor general said he had been favourable to the idea of holding an inquiry before he started the review, but conversations with senior security and elected officials and reviews of intelligence files changed his mind.
The prime minister said he supported Johnston’s suggestion of public hearings into election interference, as well as his recommendation about an open dialogue with the foreign diaspora that is often targeted by foreign interference.
Quote:The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency says it’s tackling 23 active wildfires in the north, including five fires that are not contained and three of them requiring crews to protect property.
The agency says it’s supporting 500 people who were forced to evacuate from various communities, including Buffalo Narrows, Dillon and Patuanak.
Steve Roberts, vice-president of operations at the agency, says there’s no update on when people can return home.
He says the fires are extremely aggressive and creating lots of smoke, which has made it difficult for crews to get on the ground.
Quote:The genomics company, BGI, had three of its subsidiaries blacklisted by the U.S. Commerce Department in March over their alleged involvement in military programs and the repression of ethnic minorities in China.
Citing a Reuters report that said BGI had used a military supercomputer to re-analyse data collected through its NIFTY pregnancy test, the cross-party group of MPs and Peers urged the information tzar to look into how the company handles data of pregnant women.
The NIFTY test, which stands for the Non-Invasive Fetal TrisomY test, is a screening test that can detect some genetic anomalies such as Down Syndrome and Edwards Syndrome.
According to the NIFTY test website, over 9 million tests have been carried out by clinicians in more than 80 countries. A separate BGI webpage said 10 million NIFTY tests had been carried out by the end of 2021.
But Reuters in 2021 said the company had developed the tests with the Chinese military and has used to data to “map the prevalence of viruses in Chinese women, look for indicators of mental illness in them, and single out Tibetan and Uyghur minorities to find links between their genes and their characteristics.”
The report said the company had confirmed that data collected from overseas prenatal tests were also stored in the Chinese regime’s gene database, but claimed the database only held location data on women in China.
At the time, BGI was also selling the product in the UK but had not registered it with the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The test has since been approved by the MHRA.
Quote:An attack on Russia’s western Belgorod region, initially launched on May 22 from neighboring Ukraine, has been decisively routed, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
“As a result of air strikes, artillery fire, and action by units of the Western Military District … the nationalist formations have been blocked and destroyed,” the ministry said in its daily briefing for May 23.
“Remaining nationalists were pushed back into Ukraine, where they continued to be hit until they have been completely eliminated,” it added, claiming that 70 “Ukrainian nationalists” had been killed during the course of the operation.
The Epoch Times was unable to verify the ministry’s claims.
Quote:Ukraine reconnected the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to its external power supply on Monday after a brief outage that had left it reliant on emergency generators.
Back-up diesel generators had earlier kicked in at the plant in southern Ukraine to ensure nuclear fuel was kept cool and prevent a potential disaster.
Each side blamed the other for the power outage. A Russia-installed local official said Ukraine had disconnected a power line and Ukrainian state nuclear energy company Energoatom said the problem was caused by Russian shelling.
Announcing that repair work had been carried out, Ukrainian national grid operator Ukrenergo said: “The station is switching [back] to power supply from the Ukrainian power system.”
The incident had alarmed Rafael Grossi, the head of the United Nations nuclear energy watchdog, who said the nuclear safety situation at the plant was “extremely vulnerable” and underlined the need for international protection.
Even though the six reactors are shut down at the plant, they still need a constant supply of electricity to keep the nuclear fuel inside cool and prevent a possible meltdown.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:Turner who initially found fame in a turbulent musical partnership, became one of the biggest acts in the world as a solo artist and one of the defining pop icons of the 1980s
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She had suffered ill health in recent years, being diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016 and having a kidney transplant in 2017.
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Mick Jagger admitted to taking inspiration from her high-kicking, energetic live performances for his stage persona.
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became one of the defining pop icons of the 1980s with the album Private Dancer. Her life was chronicled in three memoirs, a biopic, a jukebox musical, and in 2021, the acclaimed documentary film, Tina.
In a statement on Wednesday night, her publicist Bernard Doherty said: “Tina Turner, the ‘Queen of Rock’n Roll’ has died peacefully today at the age of 83 after a long illness in her home in Kusnacht near Zurich, Switzerland. With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model.”
Quote:Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during his 2024 presidential announcement that he would remove FBI Director Chris Wray if he were elected president.
During his presidential announcement on Twitter Spaces, DeSantis was asked how he’d address growing concerns over misconduct and misuse of resources at the FBI, which is a primary subject of the House Republicans’ ongoing investigation into the weaponization of the federal government.
Asked if he would keep Wray, who began his tenure as FBI chief under President Donald Trump, DeSantis said he would not.
“No, I would not keep Chris Wray as director of the FBI,” he replied quickly. “There’ll be a new one on day one.”
“The DOJ [Department of Justice] and FBI have lost their way,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis discussed the need for a strong attorney general, the official in charge of most domestic federal law enforcement activities.
Quote:More than 200 arrests were made and over 4,700 pounds of fentanyl were seized over the past two months, in what local law enforcement officials described May 23 as an “unprecedented” increase in enforcement actions against alleged drug smugglers, traffickers, and dealers.
The law enforcement campaign dubbed Operation Blue Lotus took place from March 13 through May 10 and was centered on the southern border in the Southern and Central districts of California, as well as the District of Arizona.
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The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the surge in fentanyl-related enforcement has led to a marked increase in the amount of fentanyl seized in San Diego County. Over the same time period, 732 pounds were seized last year as compared with 2,931 pounds seized this year.
More defendants are also being prosecuted than ever before for fentanyl-related crimes in the Southern District of California, which comprises San Diego and Imperial counties.
Take in consideration that all of that fentanyl comes mainly from China which later sends it to Mexico to make it pass as a local Mexican product.
Quote:An art professor at Hunter College in New York City has been “relieved of her duties” after accosting students hosting a pro-life booth on the school campus, before waving a machete at New York Post reporters who approached her for a subsequent interview.
Until recently, Shellyne Rodriguez had been an adjunct assistant professor in Hunter College’s Art & Art History Department. Her departure from the university came after she was involved in an altercation with members of Students for Life, a pro-life organization that hosted a booth at the college.
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“You’re not educating [expletive]. This is [expletive] propaganda,” she said to the students. “What are you going to do, like, anti-trans next? Is that what you’re going to do next?”
“I mean, no. We’re talking about abortion,” the male student replied.
“This is [expletive]. This is violent. You’re triggering my students,” she continued.
As the confrontation escalated, Rodriguez uttered more profanities as she vandalized the booth by flipping over some of the students’ materials before pushing some of the materials off a table the students were using.
Hunter College reprimanded Rodriguez after the initial incident.
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After her altercation with the pro-life students, a New York Post news crew tracked Rodriguez down to her home for an interview. The publication reported that Rodriguez approached their reporters with a machete and held the blade to one reporter’s neck after the news team knocked on her door on Tuesday.
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Dashcam footage from the news crew’s vehicle showed a woman in a black hoodie holding a machete while chasing the photographer around the vehicle before eventually walking away.
Quote:A woman who suffered severe nerve damage after receiving a COVID-19 vaccination and four others with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 vaccine injuries launched a lawsuit against President Joe Biden and his administration on May 22.
Top government officials violated the plaintiffs’ rights to free speech and peaceful assembly when they pressured Big Tech companies to crack down on people sharing their experience after receiving the COVID-19 vaccines, Brianne Dressen, the woman, and the other plaintiffs say.
“Through threats, pressure, inducement, and coercion, Defendants now work in concert with social media companies to censor content the government deems ‘disinformation,’ ‘misinformation,’ and ‘malinformation’—a feat that the government could never lawfully accomplish alone,” the 124-page suit, filed in U.S. court in southern Texas, states.
In addition to Biden, defendants include Rob Flaherty, a top adviser to Biden; White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre; the Department of Homeland Security; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
The CDC declined to comment. The other defendants did not respond to requests for comment, or could not be reached.
Quote:A B.C. man who developed severe health complications after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has launched a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company, the federal and provincial governments, and the pharmacy that gave him the injection.
Ross Wightman, 41, of Lake Country, B.C., says he was temporarily paralyzed and developed Guilliane-Barre Syndrome after he was given his one and only dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in April 2021.
“My reasoning for pursuing alternate legal action or other financial compensation is that what was being offered by the government is so inadequate for people like myself who have been injured,” he told The Epoch Times on May 15.
Wightman was one of the first Canadians to have his vaccine injury certified for compensation from the federal government’s Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP). The program offers financial compensation to Canadians who have experienced a serious and permanent injury as a result of receiving a Health Canada-authorized vaccine administered in Canada on or after December 8, 2020.
In his lawsuit submitted to B.C. Supreme Court, Wightman says he was not given adequate warning of the potential risks of the COVID-19 vaccine. The lawsuit names AstraZeneca Canada, Interior Health, the federal and provincial government, Verity Pharmaceuticals, Hogarth’s Clinic Pharmacy, and the person who administered the vaccine.
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Wightman developed facial tingling, which culminated with full facial and body paralysis and a diagnosis of Guilliane-Barre Syndrome, a neurological disorder where the body’s nervous system attacks its nerves. Wightman was also diagnosed with Bells Palsy—a condition that causes sudden weakness in the muscles on one side of the face. His lawsuit names additional injuries including damaged reflexes and eyesight, weakness of his limbs, and more.
He spent two months in the hospital and undertook months of rehab before he could walk again.
Long Articles on Health Issues
And just before anybody starts claiming that they are exaggerating, even after having posted other articles in the past year, here I will leave other articles published earlier this year, demonstrating that the jabs were NOT fully tested as they claimed to be. There are strange or highly undesirable consequences for those who took them.
Quote:Women vaccinated with the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are at higher risk of vaginal bleeding, according to a new study.
One or more doses of the messenger RNA shots increased the risk of the bleeding in women aged 12 to 74, Swedish researchers reported in the study, published on May 3 by the British Medical Journal.
Adjustments to the data resulted in the removal of some of the heightened risks, but even after adjustments, younger women were still more likely to experience bleeding after the first and third doses and older women were more likely to suffer from the issue after the first, second, and third doses.
A number of studies, primarily based on self-reporting of symptoms, have identified menstrual irregularities and bleeding as potential side effects of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. People have also filed reports to various reporting systems, such as the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, and Israeli officials found signs that Pfizer’s vaccine causes menstrual issues.
The Swedish researchers sought to examine the risks among the vaccinated by examining national data that covers every woman aged 12 to 74 in the country. After excluding women who had a history of certain conditions such as menstruation disorders and women living at special care facilities, the study population was 2.94 million. Cases were only included if they were diagnosed at a hospital or another health care facility.
Researchers plugged the data into a model that compared the person-time among the unvaccinated, including individuals who later received a vaccine, to the vaccinated. The top-level results were reported, as were numbers broken down by dose and age group, with the population divided into younger women (aged 12 to 49) and older women (50 to 74).
The study covered Dec. 27, 2020, to Feb. 28, 2022.
Prior to adjustment, women of all ages in the population were found to be at higher risk of vaginal bleeding following vaccination. The younger women were also at a heightened risk of menstrual disturbance, defined as being diagnosed with “absent, scanty and rare menstruation” or “excessive, frequent and irregular menstruation.”
After adjusting for covariates such as marital status and days in the hospital, the risks were removed for some doses and diminished for others.
Adjustments almost entirely removed the menstrual disturbance risk, for example, though women were still found at increased risk within seven days of dose one. The risks of bleeding for the younger women were also reduced, though still present within seven days of doses one and three.
An increased risk of bleeding was still present for older women following the adjustments, with a hazard ratio of 1.28 within seven days of a third shot and 1.25 between eight and 90 days following a third dose.
That so called adjustment really sounds like hiding a vital piece of evidence for the sake of their convenience.
Quote:The Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines did not impact overall mortality, a reanalysis of clinical trial data found.
The two vaccines, both based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, protected against deaths from COVID-19 but that effect was offset by vaccinated trial participants being more likely to die from cardiovascular problems, Christine Stabell Benn, a health professor at the University of Southern Denmark, and other researchers reported in April in the Cell journal.
On the other hand, vaccines that utilized adenoviruses, such as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, had a favorable impact on both COVID-19 mortality and overall mortality, according to the reanalysis.
The research analyzed data from randomized clinical trials (RCTs) reported by the companies that manufacture the vaccines.
“In the RCTs with the longest possible blinded follow-up, mRNA vaccines had no effect on overall mortality despite protecting against some COVID-19 deaths. On the other hand, the adenovirus-vector vaccines were associated with lower overall mortality,” researchers said.
“The differences in the effects of adenovirus-vector and mRNA vaccines on overall mortality, if true, would have a major impact on global health,” they added later.
Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca did not respond to requests for comment.
Study
Benn and colleagues took data from three RCTs for the mRNA vaccines and six RCTs for the adenovirus-vector vaccines that had mortality data available. They compared the overall deaths in the vaccinated arms with the placebo arms. They also broke deaths down into different categories: attributed to COVID-19, cardiovascular problems, other non-COVID-19 causes, accidents, and non-accident, non-COVID-19 causes.
“We extracted the number of deaths from the studies that led to approval of the new mRNA and adenovirus-vector COVID-19 vaccines. We calculated the relative risk of dying, overall, and for various causes of death, for each vaccine type,” Benn told The Epoch Times in an email.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the researchers found, were associated with lower COVID-19 mortality but higher cardiovascular and non-accident, non-COVID-19 mortality. There was no difference in overall mortality between the vaccinated arms and the placebo groups.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was associated with lower overall mortality and with lower non-COVID-19 mortality, with no effect on COVID-19 mortality. AstraZeneca’s shot, never authorized in the United States but cleared in some other countries, performed well against overall mortality and other categories across several trials, except for one trial where slightly more vaccinated people died from non-COVID causes or non-accident, non-COVID-19 causes.
“The results suggest that adenovirus-vector vaccines compared with placebo have beneficial non-specific effects, reducing the risk of non-COVID-19 diseases. The most important cause of non-COVID-19 death was cardiovascular disease, against which the data for the current RCTs suggest that the adenovirus-vector vaccines provide at least some protection,” researchers said.
They noted that trial populations were largely healthy adults and that in the real world, even mRNA vaccines were expected to reduce overall mortality. But “the intriguing differences in the effects on non-accident, non-COVID-19 mortality are likely to persist and should be investigated in future studies,” they added.
Overall mortality spiked in a number of highly vaccinated countries after the vaccines were rolled out, including the United States. Researchers are divided as to the causes, with some arguing the vaccines primarily drove the increases and others blaming COVID-19 and other factors.
The study was published ahead of peer review in 2022, but the authors struggled to find a journal that would accept the paper, Benn said. Several journals rejected it without explaining why, causing a delay in publication.
Quote:A former CBC journalist who testified at the National Citizen’s Inquiry (NCI) in Ottawa on May 18 said the public broadcaster failed in its coverage of the pandemic by barring journalists from writing stories on lockdown harms, COVID-19 vaccine injuries, and protests against vaccine mandates.
“I know that as a public broadcaster, you’d expect us to be telling you the truth, and we stopped doing that,” said former CBC Manitoba reporter Marianne Klowak. “And it was a number of stories that I have put forward that were blocked, but it seemed to me as a journalist who’d been there 34 years, it’s like the rules had changed overnight. And it changed so quickly that it left me just dizzy.”
Klowak, who left the CBC in December 2021, told the NCI she was blocked from writing several pandemic-related stories she pitched to her editors, such as those highlighting protests against vaccine mandates, concerns with adverse reactions from COVID-19 vaccines, and problems doctors were facing with reporting vaccine injuries using the Adverse Events Following Immunization Surveillance System.
The NCI describes itself as a “citizen-led and citizen-funded initiative that is completely independent of government.” It has been examining how the COVID-19 pandemic measures put in place by all levels of government impacted Canadians in the categories of health, fundamental rights and freedoms, social well-being, and economic prosperity.
The inquiry ended in Ottawa on May 19 after holding eight hearings in cities across the country, including testimony from expert witnesses and members of the public.
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When contacted for comment, Chuck Thompson, head of public affairs at CBC, told The Epoch Times in an email that CBC News “covered all aspects of the pandemic thoroughly and fairly.”
“Over the course of the pandemic, CBC News had multiple stories sharing the perspective of those Canadians who opposed COVID vaccine mandates,” he said on May 18. “While we didn’t cover every protest, we covered many. And to be clear, there was no overarching directive banning our journalists from writing about them.”
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In June 2021, Klowak wrote an article about Canadian parents that were concerned about potential links between the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine and heart inflammation in children. She said while everything in her article was factual, her editors asked her to drop the Canadian COVID Care Alliance from the story because they supported ivermectin, even though the article did not mention the drug.
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While another story by Klowak on a woman injured by the COVID-19 vaccine did get published, she said her editors modified the article until its meaning was completely changed.
But wait a second! Here are other articles on studies indicating that the vaccines had serious side effects.
Quote:People who received COVID-19 vaccinations were more likely to develop Bell’s palsy than those given a placebo, according to a review of multiple studies.
The review, published in the JAMA Network journal on April 27, looked at whether rates of Bell’s palsy were different between those who received a COVID-19 vaccination and those who were given a placebo.
Bell’s palsy is a temporary paralysis or weakness on one side of the face, with the condition usually improving after a few weeks. The condition has been reported as an adverse event following COVID-19 vaccination. However, a causative relationship between the two has so far not been established. For the review, the researchers analyzed 50 studies.
In phase 3 trials of all four major vaccines that were approved and administered globally, the incidence of Bell’s palsy was found to be “significantly higher” in the vaccinated group compared to a placebo group, according to the review. The vaccines were manufactured by Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca.
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“For the mRNA vaccine subgroup, there were significantly increased odds of Bell’s palsy in the vaccinated group compared with the placebo group … However, for the viral vector vaccine subgroup, the analysis yielded insignificant results,” the review said.
“This systematic review and meta-analysis suggests a higher incidence of Bell’s palsy among SARS-CoV-2–vaccinated vs placebo groups.”
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Dr. Meryl Nass, a board-certified internal medicine physician, biological warfare epidemiologist, and expert in anthrax, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement: “I identified this as a side effect of the mRNA COVID vaccines when they rolled out, on Dec. 17, 2020, based on information provided at the VRBPAC meetings for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines on Dec. 10 and Dec. 17, 2020 respectively,” referring to her blog post. VRBPAC is the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which is part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“While the rate of Bell’s palsy after vaccination was said then to be consistent with the expected background rate, I found it to be much higher,” Nass said.
Quote:Since the advent of the COVID-19 vaccines, neurologists Dr. Diane Counce and Dr. Suzanne Gazda have been seeing many novel neurological manifestations among their patients.
Counce said a common neurological complication she sees is peripheral neuropathy. These are diseases that affect neurons outside of both the brain and spinal cord—including nerves in the internal organs, limbs, and skin.
Among them, small fiber neuropathy is the most common.
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Heat intolerance and impaired or excessive sweating are common manifestations of small fiber neuropathy and can occur in the absence of pain.
Since symptoms and severity are highly variable, Dr. Svetlana Blitshteyn, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Buffalo said the disease could be significantly underdiagnosed.
In the United States, small fiber neuropathy is usually associated with diabetes. Diabetic neuropathy is known as the classic small-fiber neuropathic presentation. This is where numbness, tingling, pins-and-needles, or pain initially sprout in the fingers and toes, gradually moving up the limbs in a stocking and glove formation as the disease worsens. Due to its prevalence, the diabetic neuropathic pattern is the most recognized, neurologist Dr. Matthew Bain told The Epoch Times.
There are also less common presentations of small fiber neuropathy. These include all peripheral neuropathies that don’t follow a stocking and glove pattern; the arms may be affected before the hands, or the head, chest, and torso areas may be the first places affected. The neuropathy can also be migratory, meaning that the numbness, tingling, and pain can change places from time to time, making it even harder to diagnose the disease.
Counce, who has treated about 300 patients who developed symptoms postvaccine, told The Epoch Times that while acute and long-COVID patients tend to follow the classic diabetic-like patterning, the small fiber neuropathies linked to the COVID-19 vaccine can be atypical.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:The stoplight warning system for the Popocatépetl volcano in Mexico rose to yellow phase 3 on Sunday, according to officials.
In a tweet, the government shared a chart showing that alarm was just below the "red" level.
The phase includes large domes developing and exploding with increasing intensity, sending rock into the air and pyroclastic material down the sides.
For most of the years since the stoplight was introduced, it has been stuck at some stage of "yellow."
On Tuesday morning, the government tweeted that there is no visibility toward the stratovolcano, which is situated about 40 miles southeast of Mexico City, but that it "has been possible to observe an emission with a low ash content."
"The tremor episode of variable amplitude recorded during the last hours continues," it said.
Officials warned at a press conference the day before that there was "no risk to the population at this time."
On Monday afternoon, the Hermanos Serdán International Airport was reported to have suspended operations due to the presence of ash falling on its runways. This comes after Mexico City's two main airports temporarily shut down on Saturday due to the ash.
In addition, alert protocols were activated in hospital and medical units due to the alert phase.
Quote:China’s special representative on Eurasian affairs Li Hui is set to travel to Moscow Friday to meet with top Kremlin officials to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, though Western officials remain dubious when it comes to Beijing’s neutrality in the matter.
China has come under international scrutiny for its refusal to condemn Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine that began more than 15 months ago, though Beijing turned heads earlier this year when it released a 12-step peace plan for restoring calm in Eastern Europe, which one expert described as lacking "any real substance."
"I'm not optimistic, for a variety of reasons, that this is going to actually result in any kind of meaningful peace proposal," Heino Klinck, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia and military attaché to China, told Fox News Digital.
Ukraine has flatly rejected any attempts to broker a deal with Russia if it involves conceding any territory, including Crimea, which Russia has illegally occupied since 2014. Additionally, Klinck argued that Kyiv is unlikely to be willing to negotiate with Moscow at all while its forces remain on Ukrainian territory.
Quote:Three people including two police officers were killed in Nagano in central Japan on Thursday and a suspect with a rifle and knife was holed up inside a building, police said.
NHK public television said a person later escaped from the building and that some other people might still be inside.
A witness told NHK that a woman fell while being chased by the suspect, who then stabbed her with a knife and shot at two police officers as they arrived at the scene in a patrol car in Nakano city in Nagano prefecture.
The witness said he asked the suspect why he attacked her, and he replied that he wanted to kill her, NHK said.
The three victims were taken to a nearby hospital, where they were later pronounced dead, police said. A fourth person who was injured could not be rescued because he was near the suspect, Kyodo News agency reported.
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Police described the suspect as a man wearing a camouflage outfit, a hat, a mask and sunglasses, Kyodo News said. Police set the area within a 300-meter (330-yard) radius of the site as no-go zone, and city officials urged people in the neighborhood to stay home.
Quote:UK police arrested a lone driver after he drove a car into the gates of the UK prime minister's residence on Downing Street in London on Thursday.
Police arrested the man on suspicion of criminal damage and dangerous driving, but officials have yet to determine whether the crash was intentional. Armed security patrols the gate at all time, but no one was injured in the incident.
Images showed the vehicle, a white sedan, crashing into the gate at relatively low speed.
"I heard a bang and looked up and saw loads of police with taser guns shouting at the man," witness Simon Parry, 44, told the Associated Press. "A lot of police vehicles came very quickly and were very quick to evacuate the area."
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was inside the offices connected to the residence at the time of the incident.
London police closed Whitehall, a main thoroughfare connecting many of the city's popular monuments and tourist attractions, immediately after the incident. Officers soon reopened the road to the public.
Quote:Cyprus authorities say they’re taking extra efforts to ensure flight safety isn’t compromised from Turkish warplanes and military drones flying inside Cypriot-monitored airspace without filing either flight plans or communicating with air traffic control.
The issue over unregulated Turkish military flights again came to the fore earlier this month when Cypriot authorities said a Turkish warplane "illegally" flew low over a United Nations-controlled buffer zone that cuts across the ethnically-divided island nation on what was believed to be a surveillance mission.
"Despite these illegal acts by Turkey, and the illegal operation of the self-styled air traffic control by the secessionist entity, the Department of Civil Aviation of Cyprus is doing its utmost to ensure the safe provision of air traffic services within the Nicosia FIR in its entirety," the Cyprus government told The Associated Press late Wednesday.
Despite the International Civil Aviation Authority recognizing the Cyprus government as the sole air traffic authority within the island’s 67,567-sq. mile Flight Information Region (FIR), Turkish Cypriots have declared their own airspace in the north and direct flights in and out of an airport in the north that saw a combined 23,224 arrivals and departures last year.
Quote:Colombia’s government said Monday it is suspending a cease-fire with rebels accused of recently killing four Indigenous people — at least three of them minors — who tried to avoid forced recruitment in the south of the country.
President Gustavo Petro’s administration said in a statement that the military will resume attacks on factions of the FARC-EMC group operating in the provinces of Caqueta, Putumayo, Guaviare and Meta, due to the group's lack of commitment to the cease-fire.
"If a bilateral ceasefire is not effective in protecting the life and integrity of the entire population in certain territories, then there is no point in persisting," the statement said.
The government said, however, that it will continue to maintain a cease-fire with FARC-EMC in other parts of the country where attacks on civilians have decreased, and said that it will soon appoint delegates who will lead peace talks with the rebel group.
Indigenous organizations accused FARC-EMC last week of killing four people who had escaped from one of the group's camps in the province of Putumayo, where they were being recruited into the organization. The government said at least three of them were minors.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
News of the World
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Keep in mind that Peru is living in a very dangerous situation ever since former president Castillo was deposed and 
arrested by the local authorities.
why did they have to argue with a pregnant woman in the first place!?
media are responsible for this mess! 
Warning! The photos are quite graphic, guys! 
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jabs were NOT fully tested as they claimed to be. There are strange or highly undesirable consequences for those who took them. 
