News of the World

[kyonides]

US NEWS

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Afghanistan Gold Star Parent: Evidence on Ability
to Prevent Kabul Attack Is Being Covered Up

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” Mark Schmitz, whose son, Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, was killed in the Kabul airport attack in 2021, said that he hasn’t gotten answers on whether the Kabul suicide bomber could have been taken out before the attack and accused the Biden administration of covering up evidence on the issue.

After playing video of Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews testifying about the failure to prevent the attack, host Martha MacCallum asked, [relevant exchange begins around 1:40] “You ever get any answers on that part of what happened there, sir?”

Schmitz answered, “Nothing yet. In fact, I’ve asked for copies of the SD card footage off of his rifle scope. That would have been recorded, and they would have been able to have that as evidence that this was or was not, in fact, the bomber. That card has been ‘misplaced,’ as they say. So, I don’t know what the truth is anymore. We can’t seem to get a straight answer out of anybody.

Brandon Johnson’s Chicago
At Least 17 Shot Friday into Mid-Afternoon Saturday

ABC 7 / Chicago Sun-Times reported the one shooting fatality occurred around 4 a.m. “in the 2500 block of West Monroe Street.” Police responded to calls about the shooting and found a man who had been shot “in the chin and ankle.”

He was transported to a hospital where he later died.

Breitbart News noted nearly 40 were shot last weekend in Chicago, seven of them fatally, and at least 23 were shot in Chicago during the weekend prior.

The Sun-Times pointed out that 392 people were killed in Chicago January 1, 2023, through August 25, 2023.

Bob Barker, Beloved Host of ‘The Price Is Right’
for Nearly Four Decades, Dead at 99

“It is with profound sadness that we announce that the World’s Greatest MC who ever lived, Bob Barker has left us,” Barker’s publicist Roger Neal said in a statement sent to multiple outlets on Saturday. No additional information was given.

With his twinkly eyes and smooth demeanor that put contestants at ease as they competed for the big prize, Barker was an endearing presence who enlivened daytime TV with an almost effortless charm. From 1972 to 2007, his near-perfect attendance on CBS’s “The Price is Right” became a ritual for millions of housewives and children staying home from school.

With his year-round tan, silver hair, and long-handled microphone, Barker was a TV icon who was often parodied but seldom equaled. Even his daily “The Price is Right” sign-off was memorable.
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Later, he hosted the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants for two decades — resigning when they declined to use synthetic furs — and even played himself in the 1996 Adam Sandler golf comedy Happy Gilmore.

Virginia Thief Steals Package out of FedEx Driver’s Hands

From wheeling cart loads of stolen merchandise out of a Burlington store in California to swiping a package out of a FedEx driver’s hands, thieves in America are growing bold.

The most recent account of a porch pirate stealing a package comes out of Chesterfield County, Virginia, WBOY reported. The thief stole a box containing a $1,600 iPad from the hands of a delivery driver.

Ring footage shows the suspect walking beside the delivery driver on the sidewalk of Jessica Saenz’s home, then snatching the package out of the FedEx worker’s hands. The thief then runs across the lawn toward his white BMW parked on the side of the road and drives off.

“I was in a meeting, and then the FedEx lady started knocking on my door, like, really hard,” Saenz told the news outlet. “I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’”

Neighbor Johnny Eubanks told WBOY he saw the incident while walking his dog.

“People are pretty desperate,” Eubanks said.

For some cities, like Seattle, theft has become such an issue that the United States Postal Service temporarily halted delivery for an entire zip code, Breitbart News reported.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

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Kowtow: Don’t Call China and Russia ‘Hostile States’, Says UK Foreign Office

The globalist-minded government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is said to have urged its underlings to tamp down criticisms of rouge states and instead lay the focus on “hostile actors” rather than “hostile states”.

According to a report from The Times, guidance from the Foreign Office said that “states aren’t inherently hostile themselves, they just do hostile things.”

This comes despite persistent threats from top-level Kremlin figures such as Dmitry Medvedev threatening to use nuclear weapons against the UK and Communist China trampling on the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong and reportedly threatening exiled freedom fighters on British soil.

Responding to the mealy-mouthed guidance from the government, former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: “Our position towards China is that we’ll deal with it with robust pragmatism but often you can’t be robust and pragmatic at the same time.

“This is Orwellian political speak in which you invent terms that are themselves meaningless to describe genuine dangerous and difficult circumstances because you have an ulterior motive such as not frightening your own people or not to upset those you are dealing with.

“The idea that China is not a hostile state is absurd.”

Other News

Stolen Treasures Scandal Brings Down
Director of British Museum Hartwig Fischer

British Museum director Hartwig Fischer announced his resignation Friday after admitting he failed to investigate revelations into stolen artefacts sooner and even tried to place some blame for the taken items onto the whistleblower who revealed the thefts.

The resignation comes after the revelation that a thief had been taking objects from the British Museum for years and that between 1,500 and 2,000 artefacts are missing. The objects concerned were not on public display and were from the vast and not always perfectly catalogued archives. The thief is alleged to have used knowledge of this poorly managed system to take pieces that may not have been missed.

It is claimed some were sold, and some were even feared to have been melted down for the gold. A longstanding employee of the museum has been fired, who British newspapers identified as curator of Greek collections, Greek sculpture and the Hellenistic period Peter Higgs, who has worked at the museum for decades. Mr Higgs denies all wrongdoing.

A Times report claims items among those taken were silver necklaces, ancient coins, ceramic fragments, beads, and pendants, and in some cases, items were sold for just hundreds of pounds, when their true value was many times more. The scandal has been called one of the worst in the Museum’s history.

Accusations have grown that the British Museum and director Fischer were actually made aware of the alleged thefts years ago but failed to act. The information first came from Dr Ittai Gradel, a Danish art collector, who bought several items from a favourite eBay seller over the years. However, he eventually realised some of the things he had bought had previously appeared in British Museum catalogues.

Drone Attack Forces Shutdown of All Three of Moscow’s Major Airports

A new drone attack on Moscow early Saturday forced a temporary shutdown of all three major airports serving the city, Russian state media reported. Officials blamed Ukraine for what appeared to be the latest of near-daily strikes on the Russian capital and the surrounding region.

Kyiv has since early this year sought to take the 18-month-war into the heart of Russia, also saying recently that it was behind strikes on Russian military assets far behind the front lines.

Russia’s defense ministry and Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said that a drone was shot down over the Istra district of the Moscow region, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Red Square. Sobyanin said in a Telegram post that there were no immediate reports of any casualties or damage.

According to Russia’s state Tass agency, the Sheremetevo, Domodedovo and Vnukovo airports all suspended flights for over an hour early on Saturday.

Russian Telegram channels on Saturday posted videos, some of them apparently from home security cameras, of what they claimed was Russian air defense downing the drone. One video shows a car parked outside what appears to be suburban home, its alarm beginning to blare seconds after two loud blasts sound in the distance.

Cartel Gunmen Hang Bodies from Border State Overpass in Mexico

The gory crime scene took place on Thursday early morning in Salinas Victoria, located just north of the Monterrey metropolitan area. At the scene, authorities found the bodies of three unidentified victims who had been strung up from a highway overpass near the 21st-kilometer marker along the highway that connects Monterrey with the Colombia International Bridge.

The incident took place as the state of Nuevo Leon continues to be one of the regions with the most targeted killings in Mexico. Various cartels continue to fight for control of drug corridors into Texas.

Soon after the killing, one of Monterrey’s most outspoken politicians, Waldo Fernandez, a state legislator from the MORENA Party, took to social media to call for a unified front in dealing with cartel violence.

He said that criminal organizations are intimidating and spreading fear among innocent civilians while government officials and authorities are busy trying to score political points.

Nicaraguan Dictator Bans Jesuits and Seizes All Their Assets

Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega has declared the Jesuit religious order illegal, mandating the confiscation of all its assets.

The Jesuit order, which supported the leftwing Sandinista guerilla group and rise to power of Daniel Ortega in the late 1970s and early 1980s, had grown more and more critical of the Ortega regime in recent years.
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As Daniel Ortega began adopting an ever-harsher stance against the Catholic Church, however, the Jesuit order became more and more critical of his policies, and the Jesuit-run Central American University (UCA) in Managua was a hub for 2018 protests against the Ortega regime.

On August 15, 2023, Ortega seized possession of the university through an order issued by Judge Gloria Saavedra, in which she alleged that the UCA had become a “center of terrorism,” “betrayed the trust of the Nicaraguan people,” and “transgressed the constitutional and legal order.”

The seizure of the university, one of 26 Nicaraguan universities closed by the Sandinista regime since 2021, was followed three days later by the eviction of the local Jesuit community from their nearby residence.

In response, the Central American province of the Jesuit order issued a formal rebuke to the government, denying the charges against the UCA as “totally false and unfounded.”

Niger Military Junta Demands French Ambassador Leave the Country

Niger’s military rulers, who seized control of the government in July, gave the French ambassador 48 hours to leave the country, Niamey’s foreign ministry said in a statement Friday.

Relations between the new regime in Niamey and several Western powers, as well as the West African bloc ECOWAS, have deteriorated since the coup on July 26.

France’s government quickly rejected the order against its ambassador, repeating that it did not recognise the military rulers’ authority.

The French foreign ministry told AFP on Friday evening: “The putschists do not have the authority to make this request, the ambassador’s approval coming solely from the legitimate elected Nigerien authorities.”

The ultimatum against the French envoy comes days after ECOWAS threatened military action to reverse last month’s coup, which overthrew president Mohamed Bazoum.

Paris has repeatedly backed calls by ECOWAS for the reinstatement of Bazoum.

France has 1,500 soldiers based in Niger who had been helping Bazoum in the fight against jihadist forces that have been active in the country for years.