Quote:The Pentagon announced Sunday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is back in the hospital, weeks after a lengthy hospitalization following prostate cancer treatment and subsequent complications.

Around 5 p.m. Eastern, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder informed the Pentagon press in a statement that said:

Today, at approximately 2:20 pm, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III was transported by his security detail to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to be seen for symptoms suggesting an emergent bladder issue. The Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been notified. Additionally, White House and Congressional notifications have occurred.

The statement said that Austin is retaining his duties “at this time,” and indicated that he would be in the hospital for some period of time.

“At this time, the Secretary is retaining the functions and duties of his office. The Deputy Secretary is prepared to assume the functions and duties of the Secretary of Defense, if required. Secretary Austin traveled to the hospital with the unclassified and classified communications systems necessary to perform his duties,” Ryder added.

“We will provide an update on Secretary Austin’s condition as soon as possible,” he said.

The notification, just hours after Austin’s hospitalization, stands in stark contrast to the last two times Austin was hospitalized. In the first instance, in late December, Austin underwent a surgery for prostate cancer and did not inform the president.

Quote:Breitbart News reported that the attacker was stopped by a good guy with a gun, whom Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez initially identified as a Harris County deputy. However, Gonzalez later issued a correction, noting that the shooter was stopped when “other agencies fired,” according to ABC News.

The shooting occurred just prior to 2 p.m.

During the Sunday afternoon press conference, Houston PD chief Troy Finner explained that the attacker who opened fire in Lakewood Church was a 30 to 35-year-old female armed with a long rifle. She was wearing a trench coat and carrying a backpack.

The female had a small child with her. Two off-duty officers — a 38-year-old TABC agent and a 28-year-old Houston PD off-duty officer — opened fire, shooting the female.

A five-year-old child was shot and is in critical condition, and a 57-year-old man was shot and wounded as well.

Finner said that once she was shot, the female “threatened” and claimed to have explosives. The female shooter died from her gunshot wounds.

Finner stressed that he believes the attack was “an isolated incident.”

Quote:According to Fox News, the outlet obtained a letter wherein the government admitted that “MAGA,” “Trump,” and “Kamala” were among the terms, the news source said Friday.

The report continued:

The letter, sent Friday from the Treasury Department to Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, notes that “Exchange events” convened by its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, “began shortly after January 6 under the prior Administration,” and “included terms such as ‘antifa,’ ‘MAGA,’ ‘Trump,’ ‘Biden,’ ‘Kamala,’ ‘Schumer,’ and ‘Pelosi.’”
...
The letter, signed by Acting Assistant Secretary Corey Tellez, comes in response to a letter sent by Scott to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen demanding answers from the Department and FinCEN after revelations of the surveillance using “politically charged search terms” to flag customer profiles to federal law enforcement surfaced.

Scott blasted the surveillance action in his letter, saying it “represents a flagrant violation of Americans’ privacy and the improper targeting of U.S. citizens for exercising their constitutional rights without due process.”

In May, a House Judiciary Committee report on FBI whistleblowers showed that Bank of America officials gave the agency a list of people who used their services in the Washington, DC, area, even if they did not have anything to do with what happened on January 6, Breitbart News reported.

Quote:Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin posted a weekly recap on X revealing his agents apprehended more than 12,000 migrants. Of those, 144 encounters resulted in charges of federal criminal violations.

The recap included a chart revealing the apprehension of nearly 89,000 migrants in the past seven weeks.

One week earlier, Modlin posted a report showing the apprehension of 13,800 migrants. In those, agents made 189 arrests for federal criminal violations and disrupted 27 human smuggling incidents.

Unlike the Del Rio Sector, where most migrants cross the border to surrender to the first law enforcement official they can find, in the Tucson Sector, migrants often don camouflage and attempt to avoid apprehension.

The Tucson Sector continues to be the busiest of the Border Patrol station with the apprehension of approximately 80,000 migrants in December (2,580 per day), Breitbart Texas reported. The prior record for migrant apprehensions in the Tucson Sector was set in March 2000 when agents encountered 76,245 migrants, according to U.S. Border Patrol Encounter Reports. The December report of approximately 80,000 migrants beats that record by nearly five percent.

Quote:A British man who successfully snuck onto a flight from London to New York City without a passport or plane ticket has gone missing, U.K. authorities say.

Craig Sturt, 46, stowed away on a British Airways flight that landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Christmas Eve 2023, the New York Post reported.

Amazingly, Sturt was allegedly able to navigate through security checkpoints and the boarding gate at Heathrow Airport without showing proper documentation.

“Sturt allegedly boarded and found a seat on the fully booked, international flight because some passengers had missed their connection at the airport,” the outlet reported, detailing how the undocumented passenger enjoyed free food and drinks on his free overseas flight.

Once in the U.S., Sturt’s luck ran out at a customs checkpoint.

After failing to show documents to JFK Airport officials, the British man was arrested and “promptly escorted back onto a returning flight to Heathrow.”

Upon his Christmas Day return, Sturt was taken to a hospital, though the reason is unclear. 

U.K. police charged the unauthorized traveler with Obtaining Services by Deception, Being Unlawfully Airside, and Boarding an Aircraft without permission, the Sun reported.

Somehow, Sturt has managed to further evade authorities and has recently been reported missing, according to the outlet...

Quote:Russian forces launched 45 drones over Ukraine Sunday in a five-and-a-half-hour barrage, officials said, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continued the reshuffle of his war cabinet as the war enters its third year.

In a statement, the Ukrainian air force said it had shot down 40 of the Iranian-made Shahed drones over nine different regions, including on the outskirts of the country’s capital, Kyiv.

The five-and-a-half-hour attack targeted agricultural facilities and coastal infrastructure, officials for Ukraine’s southern defense forces wrote on Telegram. They said that a strike in the Mykolaiv region had injured one person, sparking a fire and damaging nearby residential buildings.

Another person was injured in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region when a blaze broke out due to falling debris from a destroyed drone, said the head of the region´s military administration, Serhiy Lysak.

The strikes come as Zelenskyy continues his shakeup of military commanders in a bid to maintain momentum against attacking Russian forces.

Quote:Greek authorities found 84 migrants arriving by sea and arrested four individuals, accusing them of being the traffickers that transported them, the coast guard said Sunday. Both incidents occurred early Saturday, it said.

In the first incident, the coast guard was alerted to a boat drifting, due to mechanical failure, at sea, 46 nautical miles (85 kilometers) south of the island of Crete.

A Greek Navy frigate found the boat and rescued a total of 72 individuals, 58 of them men and 14 minors, transporting them to Crete.

After questioning the new arrivals, the coast guard arrested two of them, aged 30 and 18, for being the traffickers that piloted the boat.

In 2023, 41,561 people arrived in Greece by sea, up from 12,758 in 2022, according to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. Arrivals peaked at 10,839 in September.

The boat had sailed from the Libyan port of Tobruk. The rescued migrants told Greek authorities that they had each paid between $2,000 and $4,000 for their passage to Greece.

The two arrested individuals face charges of forming a gang, facilitating the unlawful entry of individuals into the country and exposing them to danger.

In the second case, also early Saturday, the coast guard was informed that people had landed on a beach on the island of Rhodes.

The coast guard sent a patrol boat to the waters near the landing site, while the Greek police also dispatched a foot patrol.

The patrol boat intercepted a speedboat with two men who were headed to the Turkish coast. The two foreigners, who were not carrying travel documents, declared they were aged 34 and 24 years old, respectively.

Quote:A Lufthansa Airbus flight from Bangkok to Munich took a tragic turn on Thursday as a German man died mid-flight after exhibiting signs of illness before takeoff. Speaking to the German-Swiss newspaper Blick, fellow travellers, a nursing specialist from the University Hospital in Zurich and her husband, Karin and Martin Missfelder, said the 63-year-old man had “cold sweats and was breathing too much, too quickly” before takeoff.

After being inspected by a doctor on the plane as well as the captain, it was determined that he was fit enough to travel after his Filipina wife explained that they had to run to catch the flight and were out of breath.

“They then gave him a little chamomile tea, but he already spit blood into the bag that his wife held out to him,” said Martin Missfelder.

As they took to the air, the man’s condition dramatically declined and blood began to pout out of his mouth and nose. Missfelder said that the man lost “litres of blood” and that the walls were covered in blood, saying: “It was absolute horror, everyone was screaming.”

Flight attendants attempted to aid the man, said nursing specialist Karin Missfelder, who described their attempts at resuscitation as “unfortunately a bit amateurish” that lasted about half an hour, adding: “It was dead quiet on board.”

Their attempts ultimately failed and the man died. He was carried into the galley area of the plane by attendants and the captain announced to the passengers that the man was dead and that they were flying back to Bangkok to unload his body.

Quote:General Mohammad Salami, commander of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,  was amongst those leading the calls for the destruction of the U.S. and Israel which the regime has blamed along with “Britain and many European countries as well as their stooges […] complicit in the Zionist regime’s criminal acts against the Palestinian people.”

AP reports thousands of Iranians marched through major streets and squares decorated with flags, balloons, and banners with revolutionary and religious slogans.

In Tehran, crowds waved Iranian flags, chanted slogans, and carried placards with the traditional “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” written on them.

Some burned U.S. and Israeli flags, a common practice in pro-government rallies, the report notes.

During the public celebrations, a paratrooper jumped from a plane while displaying a Palestinian flag.

Many high-ranking Iranian officials attended the celebrations in Tehran, including hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi.

Raisi addressed the crowds in Azadi Square and called on the United Nations — in a speech broadcast by state TV — to expel “the Zionist regime,” as the crowds chanted: “Death to Israel.”

Quote:Breitbart News noted the Lakewood Church attacker was a woman with a long gun. She entered the church in a trench coat and had a backpack. She also had a 4- or 5- year-old child with her.

During a Sunday afternoon press conference, Houston Police Department Chief Troy Finner explained that the attacker was confronted by two off-duty officers — a 38-year-old Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) agent and a 28-year-old Houston PD off-duty officer — both of whom opened fire, shooting the woman.

Finner said that once she was shot, the alleged shooter “threatened” and claimed to have explosives. She then succumbed to her gunshot wounds.

The woman is believed to have fired approximately 12 rounds.

As of early afternoon Monday, the female shooter remains unidentified, but CNN reported that she had “Free Palestine” written on her long gun.

ABC News also pointed out that “Free Palestine” was written on the woman’s gun.

The child who was with the shooter was shot during the incident and is in critical condition, according to CNN. A 57-year-old man was shot in the leg during the incident as well, but his injuries are not life-threatening.

Quote:The female shooter who attacked Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church has been identified as 36-year-old Genesse Moreno, who KHOU 11 noted “previously identified as Jeffery Escalante.”

KHOU 11 indicated that they discovered the references to Jeffery Escalante during a Texas Department of Public Safety Records search on Moreno.

The station also found her prior arrest records, including “arrests…[for] failure to stop and give information, assault of a public servant, assault causing bodily injury, forgery, possession of marijuana, theft, evading arrest unlawful carrying weapon.”

Breitbart News did a follow-up search of the Texas Department of Public Safety Records and found that in one entry, the name appeared as “Jeffrey” instead of “Jeffery.”

Quote:Jesus Alejandro Rivas-Figueroa, an illegal alien from Venezuela, was arrested and charged with attempted murder Friday after he was caught on camera Thursday in Times Square seemingly shooting a 38-year-old female tourist from Brazil.

Rivas-Figueroa was denied bail and is being held in jail after a Manhattan judge deemed him a flight risk, likely due to his immigration status.

According to the New York City Police Department (NYPD), Rivas-Figueroa was shoplifting at a sporting goods store in Times Square on February 8 when a security guard stopped him.

On surveillance footage, Rivas-Figueroa can be seen opening fire and shooting the female tourist, hitting her in the leg, before fleeing the scene and hopping on the city’s subway system to return to his mother’s residence in Yonkers.
...
After Rivas-Figueroa returned to his mother’s home in Yonkers, NYPD officers allege he sought to flee New York City the following morning, but United States Marshals arrived at his front door and took him into custody.
...
Rivas-Figueroa had been living in a taxpayer-funded migrant shelter on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and was reportedly involved in a separate armed robbery in the Bronx that occurred in January, as well as a shooting in Midtown Manhattan.

Quote:A self-driving taxi operated by Google’s Waymo was attacked and destroyed by an angry mob in San Francisco over the weekend. A furious mob used fireworks to set the vehicle on fire in a furious clash that brought together lawless California and driverless vehicles.

Techspot reports that on Saturday night around 9:00 p.m., a Waymo self-driving Jaguar I-Pace was surrounded and attacked by a crowd while navigating through Chinatown in San Francisco. According to eyewitness reports, the incident started when there was a minor traffic jam and someone jumped on the hood of the stationary robotaxi and smashed the windshield.

This prompted others to join in and vandalize the vehicle using skateboards and other objects to break the windows. The car was then covered in graffiti as fireworks were thrown inside, setting the empty taxi ablaze.

Quote:Spokesperson Kayla Mamelak said officials with Mayor Eric Adams’ (D) office will impose the curfew — set for 11:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. — at 20 more shelters, which will add to the four shelters already under the restrictions, the Associated Press (AP) reported Sunday:

The curfew impacts about 3,600 migrants, with the largest of the emergency centers housing nearly 1,000 migrants in Long Island City, Queens, according to a listing provided by the mayor’s office.

City officials initially placed a curfew on four shelters last month in response to neighborhood complaints.

Mamelak said the curfews are in line with restrictions already in place at NYC’s traditional homeless shelters and allow for “more efficient capacity management” of migrants in the city’s care.

It is important to note that sanctuary cities and their surrounding suburbs are enduring plaguing crime due to migrants who Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration released after they illegally crossed the border, Breitbart News reported on January 31.

“Police, particularly in the Chicago area and New York City, reported significant increases in crime related to migrants relocated to their cities,” the outlet said.

Quote:Special Counsel Hur’s investigation revealed that Biden had a history of mishandling classified documents, dating back to at least 2010, when he misplaced a highly sensitive briefing book in the Hamptons, demonstrating a pattern of carelessness with classified materials contrary to his public stance on responsible document handling.

While highlighting evidence of America’s oldest-ever president’s “willfully” mishandling classified documents, Hur’s report details Biden’s significant cognitive decline — perhaps more politically damning than his handling of classified materials.

The report, released Thursday, concludes that prosecution is unlikely due to the challenges of proving willful intent beyond a reasonable doubt and Biden’s sympathetic public image.

One key insight in the report appears in the third chapter, which deals with the handling of classified information in the Vice President’s office, and the efforts to retrieve and track the classified material.

According to the report’s account, at the start of Biden’s vice presidency, his first Counsel, Cynthia Hogan, directed his personal aide to ensure all classified documents received by Biden were returned to the Executive Secretary team, advising against storing any classified materials in the West Wing office and emphasizing the immediate handoff of such documents.

It also notes that the team responsible for managing classified materials often struggled to retrieve briefing books from Biden daily, as he sometimes retained them for personal reference or hadn’t finished reviewing them, and, occasionally, also removed documents from the books before returning them.

Quote:A reporter asked the White House press secretary if there is, perhaps, a different level of “vigor” displayed by Biden behind the scenes — a level the American people are not seeing. This theme is on everyone’s minds following the damning report from special counsel Robert Hur, who essentially concluded that they will not prosecute Biden in his classified documents case, repeatedly pointing to his deteriorating mental state.

“Well, let me just first say — and I was on the swing with him recently, right? He went to Wisconsin. He went to Michigan. He went to California. He went to Vegas, and he’s gonna go to Ohio later this week. And so, he visited small businesses, and he met with people on the road, obviously, and spent hours with them,” Jean-Pierre said, pointing to all the stops made by Biden as of late.

“So folks have seen him, and you all have seen him yourselves as you cover this president. And so, you see him interact. You see him engage, and even when he was in Vegas, he took some questions that you all had. … He tends to answer them–and in a light way, a funny way–and was sharp with his answers to some of you about that,” she continued, boasting that Biden also meets with world leaders.

“I spoke already about my experience with him, and just to answer your question, I have spent countless hours with this president, whether in the Oval Office or on the road, and I have to say he’s sharp, he’s engaged, [and] he pushes us for information,” she claimed, also reiterating that she believes Biden is “sharp” and “on top of things.”

Quote:Vice President Kamala Harris was confronted with voters’ concerns about President Joe Biden’s age and told the Wall Street Journal she is “ready to serve.”

Her comments came in an interview with the outlet aboard Air Force Two last Tuesday – days before special counsel Robert Hur released his damning report on the Biden classified documents investigation, noted the Wall Street Journal national politics reporter Tarini Parti:

Vice President Kamala Harris was detailing her priorities for the campaign during a flight on Air Force Two early last week when she was asked a delicate question hanging over the Democratic ticket: Do voters’ concerns about President Biden’s age mean she must convince them she is ready to serve?

“I am ready to serve. There’s no question about that,” Harris responded bluntly. Everyone who sees her on the job, Harris said, “walks away fully aware of my capacity to lead.”
...
After the explosive report dropped, Biden delivered a special address to the nation aimed at pushing back on the narrative but, instead, brought further scrutiny about his age and mental acuity.

While taking questions from reporters following his brief remarks, Biden was pressed about his memory. In one instance, he snapped at a journalist who asked about voters’ concerns about his age, as Breitbart News noted.
...
An NBC News, published on February 6, found that 89 percent of registered voters have concerns, to varying degrees, that Biden lacks the physical and mental health for a second term in office. This included 62 percent of registered voters who have “major concerns.”

Quote:Kirby will have a new title, White House national security communications adviser, and will be named an assistant to the president, the official said Sunday. The official was not authorized to speak about an appointment that has not been publicly announced and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Details of the expanded role were first reported by Reuters.

Kirby came to the White House in 2022 as the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, not long after Karine Jean-Pierre was named White House press secretary, after the departure of former press secretary Jen Psaki. Previously, the NSC didn’t have anyone in such a role.

He will run a separate team from the national security press team that will coordinate information across agencies, the official said.

Kirby is a retired U.S. Navy admiral and has been valued in the administration for publicly navigating thorny foreign policy questions with ease. He has also served as the top spokesman at the Pentagon and the State Department during the Obama administration.

Quote:Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin underwent a non-surgical procedure to treat an emergency bladder situation and could resume his duties as soon as Tuesday, the Pentagon says.

Doctors treating Austin at Walter Reed Army Medical Center said Monday he was placed under general anesthesia for the procedure and will be monitored overnight but is expected to be released from the hospital within 24 hours, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters in a briefing.

“A prolonged hospital stay is not anticipated. We anticipate the secretary will be able to resume his normal duties [Tuesday],” he said, relaying a statement from Walter Reed physicians John Maddox and Gregory Chesnut.

They said Austin’s current bladder issue “is not expected to change his anticipated full recovery” from prostate cancer, adding his prognosis for that condition “remains excellent.”

The update was delivered after Austin was hospitalized over the weekend for the bladder issue with his duties being transferred to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks. The Pentagon said Sunday he had been moved to a critical care unit, where he was being closely monitored after undergoing a series of “tests and evaluations.”

Ryder confirmed Monday that Austin will not travel to Brussels this week as originally intended to attend NATO and Ukraine meetings. Instead, he is expected to participate in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting virtually, although even those plans remain “flexible” due to his health.

Also, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. will represent Austin at the upcoming NATO defense ministers’ meeting Brussels, Ryder said.

Quote:If the judge determines on Thursday that Willis engaged in an actual conflict of interest with her lover and fellow prosecutor, Willis would be removed from the case, handing Trump a massive victory in the Georgia election interference case. 

Willis admitted in a court filing to a relationship with Nathan Wade, whom she appointed to prosecute Trump, but denied the relationship interfered in the case.

Trump and codefendant Mike Roman have accused Willis and Wade of corruption for:

Maintaining an improper romantic relationship
Enriching themselves through the taxpayer-funded prosecution
Meeting with Biden administration officials before indicting Trump and codefendants
“I think it’s clear that disqualification can occur if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one,” Judge McAfee said. “The state has admitted a relationship existed. And so what remains to be proven is the existence and extent of any financial benefit, again if there even was one. And so because I think its possible that the facts alleged by the defendant could result in disqualification, I think an evidentiary hearing must occur to establish the record on those core allegations.”

“I think the issues at point here are whether a relationship existed, whether that relationship was romantic or non-romantic in nature, when it formed, and whether it continues. And that’s only relevant because it’s in combination with the question of the existence and extent of any personal benefit conveyed as a result of their relationship,” he added.

Quote:Counsel for former President Donald Trump filed an application to the U.S. Supreme Court Monday to stay a lower court ruling that presidents are not immune to prosecution for alleged crimes from when they were in office.

In the 112-page filing, Trump’s attorneys highlight that Special Counsel Jack Smith previously sought for the Supreme Court “to undertake an extraordinary departure from ordinary appellate procedures and decide the vital and historic question of Presidential immunity on a hyper-accelerated basis” after the U.S District Court for the District of Columbia denied Trump’s immunity claim.

The Supreme Court ultimately declined to take up the matter, which Smith took to the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Trump’s lawyers argue that the court ruled against the claim “in an extraordinarily fast manner.”

The application seeks for the Supreme Court to stay the ruling “and allow President Trump’s claim of immunity to be decided in the ordinary course of justice.”

The Trump attorneys contend that the three-judge panel’s decision at the D.C. Circuit was a “stunning breach of precedent and historical norms,” emphasizing no other former president has ever been prosecuted “for his official acts,” and they should not be now, or in the future...

Quote:Thirty-year-old Michael Lopez Ferrel of Salinas, California, who journeyed frequently to Eastern Washington carrying illegal drugs from Mexico, has been sentenced to prison.

He will spend the next nine years behind bars after the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Tri-Cities office opened an investigation, the Tri-City Herald reported Monday.

A confidential informant working with the DEA who knew Ferrel was a critical part of the investigation, the outlet continued:

Ferrel told the informant in a phone call that he had been traveling from Mexico to Yakima every week with 180 to 220 pounds of methamphetamine, according to prosecutors.

The informant arranged to meet Ferrel at a Pasco storage unit, under the watch of DEA and Tri-City Metro Drug Task Force officers, in March 2022.

The informant had told Ferrel that he could bring him up to 20 pounds of methamphetamine at $2,000 a pound and also had 500 fentanyl pills.
...
The informant then set up another meeting to pay Ferrel. It was at that meeting that officials arrested Ferrel. Authorities served two search warrants at two Sunnyside residences. Inside one of the homes, officials found 10.5 pounds of meth, a digital scale, a loaded pistol, and $32,182.

“Mr. Ferrel was part of a transnational drug trafficking scheme and was responsible for transporting massive amounts of illegal narcotics into Eastern Washington and distributing those drugs into our community,” stated U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington Vanessa Waldref.

Quote:The Democrat Mayor of Denver, Colorado, is imposing wartime-like “shared sacrifice” on Americans rather than curbing his welcome for tens of thousands of illegal migrants.

Mayor Mike Johnston (D-CO) — like other Democrat big city mayors — is also hoping his imposed sacrifice on Americans will spur voter turnout against former President Donald Trump.

Johnston spoke at a February 9 press conference, three days after a Republican revolt blocked the more-migration deal pushed by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY). McConnell’s deal opened Americans’ border to the government-directed mass inflow of migrants and also provided $5 billion to help the migrants settle in a myriad of cities and towns.

“This is a plan for shared sacrifice,” said Johnston — who has already granted aid and support to 35,000 illegal migrants — as he slammed the Republicans’ defense of Americans:

I’m here to talk a little bit about the devastating impact of the failure of Republican leadership in Congress this week to pass regime change, and the impact that will have on both city budgets and on services that we can provide for newcomers in the city … we will start to have to greenlight a set of hard decisions on budget reductions across the city to meet those costs that we know will continue to arrive.

A report by the Congressional Budget Office in February provided more evidence that the establishment’s migration policy shifts family wages and workplace investment toward Wall Street, real estate, coastal states, and government, while also diverting politicians’ focus away from American communities.

Quote:Sens. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ron Johnson (R-WI) joined Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk in an X Space on Monday for more than one hour to slam efforts to rush through tens of millions of dollars in additional funding for Ukraine’s stalemate war against Russia.

The discussion occurred before a crucial expected Monday night procedural vote on the foreign aid package. Sixty senators are needed for that vote on cloture to end debate on the bill, clearing the way for a likely Wednesday vote on final passage.

The trio of senators urged listeners to contact their House members to demand opposition to the package, which has suffered from increased unpopularity as its details are exposed.

“The assumption, as of a day ago, was the thing would certainly pass,” said Vance:

I still think that it’s likely to pass, but I think what we’ve done is two things today. We’ve sort of commandeered the floor of the Senate using various procedural mechanisms to try to delay the thing as much as possible. I think it’s given time for the news media and others to sort of surface some of the important problems with the legislation. And also, I think, sort of gin up our House colleagues to prepare to stop this thing.

“It funds Ukraine to the tune of another $61 billion,” Vance explained, saying the bills fail to “meaningfully address the problems that we have within our own defense industrial base.”

“It does not actually articulate or force the articulation of a strategy for how to end the conflict to begin with. So you basically have a blank check — or a near blank check — for a strategy that’s completely gone off the rails.”

Quote:In a statement issued less than an hour before the Senate began a series of procedural votes to waive budgetary points of order and invoke cloture on the bill, Johnson dismissed the efforts, suggesting the House would not bring up the bill.

“In the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters,” Johnson said. “America deserves better than the Senate’s status quo.”

Additional funding for Ukraine’s stalemate war against Russia has grown increasingly unpopular with the Republican base despite pro-endless funding Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) claiming on the Senate floor Monday, “The vote we will soon take to provide military weapons for Ukraine is the most important vote we will ever take as United States senators.”

Johnson made clear that Congress should make progress in addressing America’s southern border before even considering supplemental foreign aid.

WARNING: If you're black, you won't like to read the next article.
 Seriously, I warned you for a good, valid reason.

Quote:White Tennessee Democrat Congressman Steve Cohen was incensed that Super Bowl fans did not stand in respect for what he called the “Negro National Anthem” during Sunday night’s big game.

As it has for the last several championship games, the NFL opened the Super Bowl with the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which many agitators have proclaimed to be “the black national anthem.”

Of course, it isn’t a “national anthem” at all, but regardless, Congressman Cohen was not happy that the video of fans in the stands showed that not many were standing as R&B singer Andra Day performed the popular song.

He quickly jumped to his X account to scold the fans.

“Very very few stood at Super Bowl for ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’. The Negro National Anthem. Not a pretty picture of Super Bowl crowd,” he wrote.

Cohen’s odd “Negro” phrasing aside — one wonders if he wrote that sitting at a Walgreens lunch counter — his X post was immediately lambasted by those who oppose his premise that people should be standing during the performance of the song.

Cohen barked back at the detractors, claiming that he stands for both songs, and oddly added, “In Memphis, most do.”

Quote:Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by the House Tuesday night in a narrow 214 to 213 vote, becoming the first cabinet official to be impeached in almost a century and a half.

William Belknap, Secretary of War to President Ulysses S. Grant, was impeached by the House in 1876, despite resigning before the vote.

Belknap was acquitted by the Senate, an outcome sure to be repeated if the Senate does not procedurally kill Mayorkas’s impeachment.

Nevertheless, Republicans can claim they secured a rare opportunity in a bitterly divided Congress to hold the Biden administration accountable on what could be the election-defining issue of 2024.

“Secretary Mayorkas’s willful refusal to enforce federal law created an unprecedented crisis at our southern border and left innocent Americans to pay the price,” Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) told Breitbart News in an exclusive statement. “Because Mayorkas failed to do the honorable thing by resigning, House Republicans fulfilled our Constitutional duty by voting to impeach.”

Tuesday night’s outcome follows House Republicans’ failure by a single vote last week to impeach Mayorkas after a wheelchair-bound Rep. Al Green (D-TX) rolled into the House chamber from a Washington emergency room.

Republicans had not counted on Green making the vote, which proved decisive against impeachment.

Quote:On Tuesday’s broadcast of “NewsNation Live,” Chicago Alderman and Democratic U.S. House candidate Raymond Lopez stated that migrants “are basically manipulating the asylum process at the behest of President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas” and are cutting the line.

Lopez said that due to a lack of state and federal help, “Chicago taxpayers are feeling the pinch…and I think that the frustration is going to reach a boiling point this year, particularly as the Democratic National Convention comes to highlight all of the great policies of the Democratic Party, which I belong to, while simultaneously trying to ignore the problem that they created with a broken immigration system.”

He added, “Well, overwhelmingly, a majority of the individuals that came through our borders want to work. They wanted something better. And I still love the fact that we are the country that everyone aspires to get to. But we have to remember something, that they are basically manipulating the asylum process at the behest of President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, leapfrogging over all of those millions of individuals who came here for the same — for the very same reason, and are expecting some sort of support and they’re not getting it. They’re seeing the harsh realities of what it’s like to be in America without any kind of support when you come straight off the boat as the saying goes.”

Quote:President Joe Biden’s jobs record is built on the record hiring of 2.9 million job-seeking migrants — and a persistent 183,000 deficit in the number of Americans with jobs compared to 2019, according to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies.

Biden’s “Immigrant employment … has exploded,” said a statement by Steven Camarota, who wrote the report, titled “All Employment Growth Has Gone to Immigrants, Compared to 2019.”

“The number of U.S.-born Americans working [has grown yet] has still not returned to the 2019 pre-Covid level,” he added.

The data does not say that American job-seekers are being unfairly pushed aside while employers only hire migrants for new jobs.

Instead, the data showed that all of Biden’s extra jobs above the 2019 level are held by his migrants — even as U.S.-born workers have not regained all their jobs held in 2019.

The share of working Americans remains below 2019 rates, partly because many older Americans are retiring while relatively few young Americans are joining the workforce. This demographic decline ensures that CEOs are likely to fill many jobs with hard-working migrants who are replacing the American babies who were not born in the early 2000s.

Quote:Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) raised the alarm on Monday that the $95 billion Senate bill to fund the Ukraine War contains an “impeachment time bomb” aimed at former President Donald Trump if he wins reelection in November, and called on his Republican colleagues to vote against it.

“Buried in the bill’s text is an impeachment time bomb for the next Trump presidency if he tries to stop funding the war in Ukraine. We must vote against this disastrous bill,” Vance posted on X.

Elon Musk, CEO of X and Tesla, commented on X in response to Vance’s post: “This is insane.”

Earlier Monday, Vance sent a memo to his Republican colleagues highlighting that the bill would fund Ukraine through September 30, 2025, which would be nearly a year into the possible second presidential term for Trump if he is reelected.
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The bill includes $1.6 billion for foreign military financing in Ukraine, and $13.7 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. These funds expire on September 30, 2025—nearly a year into the possible second term of President Trump.

He noted that those were the same accounts that then-President Trump was impeached for pausing in December 2019.

Then-Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his twin brother, then-Army Col. Eugene Vindman — who both worked in the National Security Council at the time — had claimed that Trump froze the aid to get dirt on then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine.
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Vance also noted that Trump has pledged to settle the war in Ukraine in 24 hours — but could still be forced to send aid to Ukraine.

He warned:

If President Trump were to withdraw from or pause financial support for the war in Ukraine in order to bring the conflict to a peaceful conclusion, ‘over the objections of career experts,’ it would amount to the same fake violation of budget law from the first impeachment, under markedly similar facts and circumstances.

“Partisan Democrats would seize on the opportunity to impeach him once again. The Washington Post has reported that tying President Trump’s hands on foreign policy is very much top of mind for Biden administration officials,” who, he noted, “are openly boasting about their plans,” mentioning that a U.S. official told the Post the hope was that the bill would “future-proof” aid for Ukraine in case Trump wins reelection.

Quote:According to an FBI agent who spoke to the New York Post‘s Isabel Vincent, members of Tren de Aragua have exploited President Joe Biden’s policies at the United States-Mexico border that help release thousands of illegal aliens into American cities every day.

As a result, the Venezuelan street gang has massively grown its ranks across the sanctuary city of New York City, particularly in the Bronx. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Breitbart News reported last year, allowed top leaders of Tren de Aragua to live in a VIP-style prison and even escape in many cases.

Among those prison escape instances is Hector Guerrero, the leader of Tren de Aragua, whom law enforcement officials have warned may be now living in the U.S. after illegally crossing the southern border.

The FBI is worried that with Tren de Aragua’s growing membership in New York City’s five boroughs, the gang may ally with the MS-13 Gang of El Salvador to carry out violent attacks, robbery sprees, and other illegal activities.

Recently, Franco Alexander Peraza Navas, a 30-year-old illegal alien from Venezuela, was arrested by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

According to police, Navas is the ringleader of a local gang that is responsible for multiple robberies, shoplifting incidents, and a scheme that sees illegal aliens grabbing cell phones off New Yorkers to hack their bank accounts.

Quote:The Hill reported Tuesday that some Democrat senators admit privately that his age is “one of their biggest concerns” heading into the election because polls show so many voters doubt Biden’s ability to do the job.

One Democratic senator told the outlet, “In all of our lunches, it’s never been discussed. It’s kind of amazing,” he added, “but I don’t think that means that people aren’t worried about it. Look, I worry about it.”

The senator added, “I’m less worried about his ability, I’m assuming he’s going to do [the job] but I’m worried about a lot of people in the country” who think he is not up to the task.

According to the report, Democrat senators “quietly acknowledge that the age issue is a big problem,” especially among young voters, but think it is “too late” to do anything to find a new nominee, since the primaries have already started and Super Tuesday is only a few weeks away.

“The general sense of folks is that we’ve hitched our wagon to Biden, that he’s delivered a lot in partnership. It may not be Biden himself, but it’s his team. Right? And we’re already into the primaries,” a second Democrat senator told The Hill.

Quote:Local soccer authorities in Beijing and Hangzhou, China, announced this weekend that they would no longer host friendly games scheduled for March featuring Argentina’s national team, apparently part of the ongoing backlash in China against Argentine star Lionel Messi for being injured during a game in Hong Kong.

Messi, arguably the most popular athlete on the planet and a welcome face in communist China as recently as this past summer, has prompted an international uproar after failing to play during an exhibition match in Hong Kong on February 4, angering fans who had paid hundreds of dollars for the opportunity to watch the soccer great. The Chinese government became involved when Messi continued touring Asia later that week with his team, Inter Miami, and played a match in Tokyo, Japan. Chinese regime-controlled media accused Messi of attempting to make a “political” statement by playing in Japan and accused him of appearing less dour and more jovial in Japan than in Chinese-controlled Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has experienced years of turmoil that began with an attempt by Beijing to violate the “One Country, Two Systems” policy and demand the extradition of people from Hong Kong whom the Communist Party deemed criminals. The move triggered a year-long protest movement attracting millions of dissents – and a subsequent violent crackdown and the de facto end of “One Country, Two Systems.” Hong Kong has struggled to regain the trust of spooked foreign investors since then, who previously flocked to the city as a capitalist oasis exempt from onerous communist regulation.

Messi, the captain of the Argentine national soccer team, has never made any public declarations against Chinese communism, however, or supported the Hong Kong protests. He gave no indication that he was attempting a “political” statement during remarks last week explaining his injury and calling his absence in the Hong Kong match a “shame.”

Quote:Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), the political party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, held massive protests over the weekend to denounce “rigging in the general election” held last week.

Voting in the nationwide elections concluded on Thursday, after which both Khan and his chief rival Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (PMLN) declared victory. A court order effectively removed Khan’s PTI party from ballots, but PTI supported a number of candidates running as “independents.”

Allegations of vote-rigging began swirling even before the polls closed. As the votes were counted on Friday, it became clear that PTI had pulled off an upset victory despite the opposition of the powerful military establishment, which usually plays kingmaker even when it does not simply dispense with elections and seize control in a coup.

The Pakistani military establishment openly despised Khan and PTI, who have accused the military of conspiring with foreign powers to boot Khan from office with an April 2022 no-confidence vote.

Khan was hounded by hundreds of charges of corruption and malfeasance after leaving office, and eventually convicted and jailed for a total of 34 years on four of them, but he and his supporters insist those charges were political hit jobs designed to keep him from winning re-election as prime minister.

Khan’s convictions disqualify him from running for office and he is not even allowed to give political speeches from prison – his two addresses to PTI supporters since he was jailed were both AI-generated, with his approval.

Quote:The Chinese Foreign Ministry — issuing a rare statement during the week-long Lunar New Year holiday — condemned the government of Israel on Tuesday for engaging in self-defense operations in Rafah, Gaza, where the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) rescued two Hamas hostages.

The hostages, identified as Argentine-Israelis Louis Har and Fernando Marman, were among the estimated 250 people abducted from Israel during the Hamas slaughter of October 7, in which an estimated 1,200 people were killed, and Hamas terrorists engaged in a rampage of gang rape, torture, infanticide, and other atrocities. The IDF confirmed on Monday the rescue of the two hostages in Rafah, which reportedly took place between Sunday night and Monday local time, and released footage of the operation.

“This was a complex rescue operation under fire in the heart of Rafah, based on highly sensitive and valuable intelligence from the Intelligence Directorate and the Israel Security Agency,” IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters.

Rafah is on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip and lies on the border with Egypt. In the aftermath of October 7, the IDF launched a series of self-defense operations against Hamas, a genocidal jihadist terror organization, in northern Gaza, sending locals fleeing south. Pro-“Palestinian” voices, most notably the government of Egypt, have vocally opposed any operations that may result in Palestinians fleeing to Egypt. Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has repeatedly insisted that his country would not take in any Palestinian refugees, suggesting stranding them in the Negev desert instead.

China, a distant power of little influence in the Middle East, has attempted to elevate its profile among Muslim nations by supporting Hamas and condemning Israel’s self-defense measures. Many of those powers — including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, among others — have embraced business with Beijing despite China’s ongoing genocide of Muslims in occupied East Turkistan. On Tuesday, it condemned Israeli operations in Rafah.

Quote:Israel’s Channel 14 published the results of a survey conducted by Direct Polls on Tuesday evening, showing that if elections were held now, Netanyahu’s Likud Party would receive 28 mandates, its best numbers since the October 7 massacre — the most brutal attack on Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.

In a matchup for prime minister between Netanyahu and his longtime rival Benny Gantz, Netanyahu is the preferred candidate, securing 47 percent of the total sample’s support compared to Gantz’s 34 percent. In Channel 14’s latest poll, Gantz’s National Unity Party received 26 mandates.

Channel 14 and Direct Polls last published a survey on January 25. That poll showed the Likud Party at 27 seats, with 26 seats for Gantz’s party.

The results come as the Israeli premier vowed Israel would achieve complete victory over the Hamas terrorist organization within months, not years.

On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released footage from a daring overnight raid that succeeded in rescuing two Israeli hostages in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Quote:The Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen claimed on Monday to have targeted and damaged an “American ship” in the Red Sea with an “accurate and direct” missile strike.

The target, a cargo ship named MV Star Iris, is actually Marshall Islands-flagged and Greek-owned. The incident appears to be the first time the Houthis have attacked a ship bound for Iran.

“The naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces targeted the American ship Star Iris in the Red Sea with a number of suitable naval missiles, and the strikes were accurate and direct,” the Houthis said in a statement on Monday.

Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree discussed the attack in a televised speech from the occupied Yemeni capital of Sanaa, which the Houthi insurgents captured in 2014.

Saree said the missile strike was conducted “in vindication of the oppressed Palestinian people, in support and solidarity with our brothers in the Gaza Strip.” He also described the attack as an act of “retaliation to the American-British aggression on our country.”

Quote:On Tuesday, Al Jazeera issued a statement accusing Israel of deliberately targeting two of its journalists with a drone strike — referring to “Israeli occupation forces,” the preferred terminology of anti-Israel activists and terrorists:

Today, Tuesday, February 13, 2024, Israeli occupation forces targeted the Al Jazeera crew in the Mirage area, north of Rafah, by a drone, seriously injuring Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Ismail Abu Omar, which led to the amputation of his leg and the serious injury of photojournalist Ahmed Matar.

Al Jazeera Media Network confirms that targeting of the reporter Ismail and the photographer Ahmed is a full-fledged crime added to Israel’s crimes against journalists, and a new part in the series of the deliberate targeting of Al Jazeera’s journalists and correspondents in Palestine.

The Times of Israel noted that Ismail Abu Omar has been suspected of accompanying Hamas terrorists in their brutal attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz, during which a quarter of the residents were murdered or abducted.

On Sunday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arabic spokesman Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee revealed that a laptop computer recovered in Gaza contained evidence that an Al Jazeera journalist was also a Hamas terrorist commander:

The Times of Israel noted:

Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, says that several weeks ago, troops found a laptop in a Hamas base in northern Gaza, which belongs to a man by the name of Mohamed Washah.

Washah, from central Gaza’s Buriej, has been featured in Al Jazeera broadcasts in recent months, with the Qatari-owned station calling him one of their journalists.

Adraee says that evidence recovered from the laptop reveals that Washah is also a “prominent commander” in Hamas’s anti-tank missile unit, and in late 2022, he began to work in research and development for the terror group’s air unit.

Quote:Venezuela’s socialist regime once again threatened neighboring Guyana on Sunday if American oil company ExxonMobil executed its plan to drill oil in the waters near the Essequibo contested territory.

The Essequibo represents two-thirds of the area of Guyana. Venezuela has claimed it for itself for more than 120 years.

Dictator Nicolás Maduro’s regime, via its Foreign Ministry, issued a statement on Sunday denouncing a purported “malicious campaign prepared and financed by ExxonMobil” and allegedly backed by Guyana against Venezuela’s constitutional obligation “to establish a complete policy, in the land, insular and maritime border areas, to preserve, through the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, its territorial integrity, national sovereignty and the defense of the Homeland.”

Venezuela “reserves its right to diplomatic actions, and all those enumerated in international law, to make all the rights that belong to it count,” the statement asserted.

Maduro issued the threat days after ExxonMobil announced its intention to conduct an offshore exploration in Essequibo’s waters in search of oil. Alistair Routledge, the head of ExxonMobil in Guyana, reportedly asserted that the planned exploratory drilling would be “well south” of the contested territory.

According to local media, the area where the planned offshore oil exploration drilling will take place is the same area where the Maduro regime deployed its navy to threaten ExxonMobil in December 2018, preventing a planned oil exploration venture at the time.

Quote:The leaders of Germany and Denmark joined in a ground-breaking ceremony for a new ammunition factory on Monday, underlining Europe’s efforts to ramp up its weapons production as Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds on.

The plant being built by defense company Rheinmetall at its existing site in Unterluess in northern Germany is expected eventually to produce around 200,000 artillery shells per year along with explosives and possibly other components, including warheads. Rheinmetall is shouldering the cost of about 300 million euros ($324 million).

Rheinmetall said that production at the site will primarily meet the needs of Germany’s military, the Bundeswehr. The company said the priority is to start production as soon as possible and it expects construction to take about a year.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who attended the ceremony with his defense minister and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, said Rheinmetall was “laying the foundation for supplying the Bundeswehr and our partners in Europe with artillery ammunition independently and above all durably.”

He said that was particularly important in light of Ukraine’s ammunition needs, German news agency dpa reported.

Quote:The German government believes if Ukraine loses the war with Russia, a mass exodus of up to ten million migrants will flee the country, particularly into Germany, where the asylum system is already cracking under the pressure of the past decade of open borders policies.

Berlin is expecting that approximately ten million more people would leave the country in the event of a Russian victory, with the vast majority heading towards countries in Western Europe, a newspaper report citing parliamentary and security services sources claims.

However, some have warned that this estimate may be downplaying how many Ukrainians will seek lives in other countries, with migration researcher Gerald Knaus telling the Welt am Sonntag newspaper: “If Ukraine lost the war, many more than ten million refugees could come to the EU. It is already the largest escape movement in Europe since the 1940s.

“There is a big difference compared to the mass exodus in the context of the war in Syria. Turkey has now closed the border with Syria and built a wall. The EU will not do this in relation to Ukraine. So if [Europe] does not want the number of refugees to increase, it must now help Ukraine to win its defensive war.”

Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of the Bundestag parliament for the centrist Christian Democratic Union (CDU), added: “If we don’t change our strategy to support Ukraine, the worst-case scenario of a mass exodus from Ukraine and an expansion of the war to NATO countries will be much more likely. Then ten million refugees would be a low estimate.”

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, over six million people fled the country, with millions more displaced from their homes within the country as well.

Quote:An appeals court ordered the Dutch government on Monday to halt the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, citing a clear risk of violations of international law.

A trio of human rights organizations brought a civil suit against the Netherlands in December, arguing authorities needed to reevaluate the export license in light of Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip.

“It is undeniable that there is a clear risk that the exported F-35 parts are used in serious violations of international humanitarian law,” Judge Bas Boele said in reading out the ruling, eliciting cheers from several people in the courtroom.

The exports must cease within seven days.

The decision came as Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte traveled to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the conflict. Rutte was also expected to separately meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.

“We are extremely grateful that there is justice and that the court was willing to speak out on justice,” lead lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld told reporters after the hearing.

Oxfam Novib, Pax Nederland and The Rights Forum filed the case in December. They argued the continued transfer of the aircraft parts makes the Netherlands complicit in possible war crimes being committed by Israel in its war with Hamas.

Quote:Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday that his administration will craft legislation to ban the practice of doxxing after a group of pro-Palestinian activists leaked personal information about hundreds of Australian Jews, including their names, photos, and employment information.

“I’ve asked the attorney general to bring forward legislation in response to the privacy act review, including laws that deal with so-called doxxing, which is basically the malicious publication of private information online,” Albanese said in an interview with Nine Radio.

Albanese added that Attorney General Mark Dreyfus is looking at ways to “strengthen laws against hate speech” following the incident.

Dreyfus said his proposals would amend existing privacy laws to criminalize the malevolent use of personal data.

“The increasing use of online platforms to harm people through the malicious release of their personal and private information is a deeply disturbing development,” he said. “The recent targeting of members of the Australian Jewish community through doxxing was shocking, but sadly a far from isolated event.”

The incident that rocked the Australian government involved a group of pro-Palestinian activists obtaining and leaking the membership roster and chat logs of a private WhatsApp group formed by around 600 Jewish writers, artists, and academics last year.

Quote:The Democratic minority leader of the House Oversight Committee engaged in “character assassination” and leveled “false allegations” related to Tony Bobulinski’s testimony in President Biden’s impeachment inquiry, a lawyer for the former Biden family business associate said Wednesday.

Attorney Stefan Passantino highlighted the “abusive conduct and disingenuous mischaracterizations” of Bobulinski’s testimony in a scathing letter to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, obtained by The Post.

“Minority assassination of Mr. Bobulinski’s character and grotesque mischaracterizations of his words will only serve to highlight the gaslighting and vilification Mr. Bobulinski has endured since he reluctantly came forward almost four years ago to share with the public the facts of his business experience with the Biden family,” Passantino wrote.

“As the public will see soon enough, Mr. Bobulinski has the facts and the receipts, and no amount of character assassination will change that.”

Raskin said Tuesday that Bobulinski “did not provide any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden, nor did he provide any evidence at all that President Biden was involved in his family’s business dealings” during his more than eight hours testimony.

Quote:President Biden on Wednesday ordered an 18-month pause on the removal of certain Palestinians in the US as Israel wages war on Hamas terrorists in Gaza, citing the deteriorating conditions in the region.

“While I remain focused on improving the humanitarian situation, many civilians remain in danger; therefore, I am directing the deferral of removal of certain Palestinians who are present in the United States,” a memorandum issued by the president read.

Under Biden’s order, Palestinian tourists, students and workers in the US will be allowed to skirt deportation until at least August of 2025, and many will be legally allowed to seek employment in the US.

“I further direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to take appropriate measures to authorize employment for noncitizens whose removal has been deferred, as provided by this memorandum, for the duration of such deferral, and to consider suspending regulatory requirements with respect to F-1 nonimmigrant students who are Palestinians as the Secretary of Homeland Security determines to be appropriate,” Biden, 81, said.
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The White House official noted that the deferred removal order will cover “most Palestinians in the United States.”

“Those convicted of felonies or who are otherwise deemed to pose a public safety threat are not eligible for deferred enforced departure,” Sullivan said. “Anyone who voluntarily returns to the Palestinian territories would lose any such protections.”

Hundreds of Democratic lawmakers have urged Biden, 81, since last November to grant Palestinians deportation relief because of the conflict.

Biden has previously invoked Deferred Enforced Departure for certain citizens of Liberia and Hong Kong residing in the US.

Similar measures were taken with respect to Ukrainians in the US after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of the former Soviet state...

Quote:Special counsel Jack Smith urged the US Supreme Court on Wednesday to let former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case proceed to trial without further delay.

Prosecutors were responding to a Trump team request from earlier in the week asking for a continued pause in the case as the court considers whether to take up the question of whether the former president is immune from prosecution for official acts in the White House.

Two lower courts have overwhelmingly rejected that position, prompting Trump to ask the high court to intervene.

The case — one of four criminal prosecutions confronting Trump — has reached a critical juncture, with the Supreme Court’s next step capable of helping determine whether Trump stands trial this year in Washington or whether the proceedings are going to be postponed by weeks or months of additional arguments.

The trial date, already postponed once by Trump’s immunity appeal, is of paramount importance to both sides.

Prosecutors are looking to bring Trump to trial this year while defense lawyers have been seeking delays in his criminal cases.
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Reflecting their desire to proceed quickly, prosecutors responded to Trump’s appeal within two days even though the court had given them until next Tuesday.

Though their filing does not explicitly mention the upcoming November election or Trump’s status as the Republican primary front-runner, prosecutors described the case as having “unique national importance” and said that “delay in the resolution of these charges threatens to frustrate the public interest in a speedy and fair verdict.”

Quote:One person was killed and 22 others injured after a shooting near the Kansas City Chief’s Super Bowl parade route following the festivities on Wednesday afternoon, officials said.

Panicked crowds raced for cover as gunfire erupted west of Union Station at the end of the victory parade — attended by hundreds of thousands of fans

The Kansas City Police Department said that one person died and a total of 22 were wounded by gunfire. Children’s Mercy Hospital Kansas City told KSHB that the hospital is treating nine kids who have gunshot wounds.

Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a mother of two and die-hard Chiefs fan, died during surgery at a local hospital after being shot in the abdomen, loved ones told the Kansas City Star.
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A KCPD spokesperson would not confirm to The Post whether Lopez-Galvan was the slain reveler.

Three people were taken into custody, cops said.
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The shooting is not terror-related, law enforcement sources told The Post.

“I’m angry at what happened today. The people who came to this celebration should expect a safe environment,” Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves told reporters at a press conference.

“Because of bad actors, which were very few, this tragedy occurred even in the presence of uniformed law enforcement officers,” she said, noting that there were some 800 cops deployed in the area at the time of the shooting.

Quote:In November 2021, PILF filed suit against Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) accusing her of keeping nearly 26,000 dead registrants on Michigan voter rolls and thus violating the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

The lawsuit claims 25,975 dead registrants remain on Michigan’s voter rolls, including 23,663 registrants who have been dead for five years or more, 17,479 registrants who have been dead for at least a decade, and 3,956 registrants who have been dead for at least 20 years.

In footage released by PILF this month, the watchdog group visited several graveyards in Michigan showing some of the dead Americans who remain registered to vote in the state.

One such registrant was before World War I and would be 110 years old today if she were alive. Another died 25 years ago, the year former President Bill Clinton was impeached, while one registrant has not been alive for 12 federal election cycles.

“Secretary Benson is vigorously opposing our efforts to investigate the tens of thousands of deceased registrants we found on the voter roll,” PILF President, J. Christian Adams said in a statement.

In August 2022, Benson sought to have PILF’s lawsuit thrown out by a federal court but the request was denied and the case continues.

Quote:Court filings and sources close to the situation told the New York Post that Soros Fund Management has “bought up $400 million of debt in Audacy — the No. 2 US radio broadcaster behind iHeartMedia with stations including New York’s WFAN and 1010 WINS, as well as Los Angeles-based KROQ, according to bankruptcy filings.”

Soros could than have control of more than 220 radio stations nationwide. One Republican insider close to the situation told the outlet that Soros could be trying to have media outlets to potentially influence public opinion during the 2024 election.

“This is scary,” the source said.

Should Soros prove successful, he will likely have a 40 percent stake in the company’s senior debt, which would give him strong control of the company when it emerges from bankruptcy. He will not have a majority.
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“Under Audacy’s current Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan, existing shareholders are expected to be wiped out,” it added. “High-ranking creditors like Soros would be repaid with stock in the restructured company.”

Audacy, which filed for bankruptcy on January 7 with $1.9 billion in debt, confirmed the investment from Soros.

Quote:Turner made the announcement on Wednesday in a short and cryptic statement.

“Today, the House Permanent Select committee on Intelligence has made available to all Members of Congress information concerning a serious national security threat,” Turner wrote.

“I am requesting that President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat,” he added:

No other information was made available, but speculation is trickling out on social media. One Democrat source familiar with the threat reportedly told NBC News that this is a “serious issue that could lead to a destabilizing situation and a national security threat,” describing it as a “potential foreign threat”...

Quote:According to the Washington Post, DHS is considering having ICE release thousands of illegal aliens in the agency’s custody into American cities and towns as the Biden administration claims they need billions from Congress to avoid carrying out the plan in a seemingly quasi-extortion scheme.
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has drafted plans to release thousands of immigrants and slash its capacity to hold detainees after the failure of a Senate border bill that would have erased a $700 million budget shortfall, according to four officials at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.
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Some of the proposed cost savings in ICE detention would occur through attrition — deportations — but much of it would have to happen through the mass release of detainees, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations. [Emphasis added]

RJ Hauman of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE) suggested that Biden’s DHS is not spending funds as they were allocated by Congress, noting that the agency was given more funding for detention space than they had even requested.
...
Already, Biden’s DHS has drastically cut the number of illegal aliens in ICE custody who are arrested throughout the U.S. interior, often for various pending criminal charges and convictions.

For example, fewer than 11,000 illegal aliens are in ICE custody today who were arrested by ICE agents within the U.S. interior. Compare that detainee population to May 2019 when more than 19,500 illegal aliens were in ICE custody after being arrested by ICE agents.

In total, more than 3-in-10 illegal aliens in ICE custody — including those arrested by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) after being arrested near the southern border — have either pending criminal charges against them or convictions.

The drafted Biden plan would make almost certain that illegal aliens with such convictions and pending criminal charges are released into the U.S. interior under the guise of a lack of funding for the agency.

Quote:Russian President Vladimir Putin said President Joe Biden would be better for Russia than Donald Trump, calling him “old school” and “predictable.”

Putin expressed his feelings about Biden during an interview with broadcaster Rossiya 1 TV.

“[Biden] is a more experienced, predictable person. He is a politician of the old school. But we will work with any leader of the United States, who is trusted by the American people,” Putin said.

Putin ordered the invasion of his neighbor country, Ukraine, during Biden’s presidency.

During the same interview, Putin also said that he believes reports of Biden’s cognitive decline to be overdone.

“When I met with Biden in Switzerland — it was, indeed, a few years ago, three years — even then there were talks about him being incompetent. I saw nothing of the sort. Yes, he glanced at his notes. Honestly, I glanced at mine too,” Putin said. “There’s nothing to it.”

Putin said he had less to fear about Biden’s health than with Washington’s position on Russia, which he called, “extremely harmful and erroneous.”

The White House responded to Putin’s comments on Wednesday, urging him to stay away.

“Mr. Putin should stay out of America’s elections,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates.

Critics of former President Donald Trump long accused him of being a “Russian asset” or “Putin’s puppet” due to his willingness to have diplomatic relations with the country while maintaining a tough foreign policy designed to forbid him from aggressive maneuvers.

Quote:Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law Wednesday that will allow authorities to confiscate money, valuables and other assets from people convicted of spreading “deliberately false information” about the country’s military.

The bill sailed through the lower and upper houses of the Russian parliament, and was unanimously endorsed by the upper house last week.

The speaker of the lower house, Vyacheslav Volodin, said the measure includes harsher punishment for “traitors who sling mud at our country and our troops” and would “strip those scoundrels of honorary titles, confiscate their assets, money and other valuables.”

Russian officials have used the existing law against “discrediting” the military that covers offenses such as “justifying terrorism” and spreading “fake news” about the armed forces to silence Putin´s critics. Multiple activists, bloggers and ordinary Russians have received long prison terms.

The new confiscation law would also apply to those convicted of publicly inciting “extremist activities” and calling for actions harmful to state security or “discrediting” the armed forces. Discrediting the Russian military became a criminal offense under a law adopted as part of a sweeping government crackdown on dissent after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Russian state news agency Tass said that if someone is convicted under the new law, only money, assets and property “gained through criminal means” or used for activities against Russia’s national security could be confiscated. Draconian Soviet-era legislation authorized the seizure of housing for a variety of criminal offenses.

Quote:Estonia´s prime minister has been put on a wanted list in Russia because of her efforts to remove Soviet-era World War II monuments in the Baltic nation, officials said Tuesday as tensions between Russia and the West soar amid the war in Ukraine.

The name of Prime Minister Kaja Kallas appeared on the Russian Interior Ministry´s list of people wanted on unspecified criminal charges. While independent Russian news outlet Mediazona first reported Tuesday that Kallas was on the list, it said she has been on it for months. The list includes scores of officials and lawmakers from other Baltic nations.

Russian officials said that Kallas had been put on the list because of her efforts to remove World War II monuments.

Kallas dismissed it as Moscow’s “familiar scare tactic.”

“Russia may believe that issuing a fictitious arrest warrant will silence Estonia,” she said. “I refuse to be silenced — I will continue to vocally support Ukraine and advocate for the strengthening of European defenses.”

Estonia and fellow NATO members Latvia and Lithuania have pulled down monuments that are widely seen as an unwanted legacy of the Soviet occupation of those countries.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago, numerous monuments to Red Army soldiers also have been taken down in Poland and the Czech Republic, a belated purge of what many see as symbols of past oppression.

Moscow has denounced those moves as desecrating the memory of Soviet soldiers who fell while fighting Nazi Germany.

Quote:A 71-year-old Ukrainian man died in a Russian prison while on trial for espionage, activists said Sunday.

Court documents found by human rights group Memorial revealed that the Russian state had closed its case against the late Viktor Demchenko, who was accused of spying, participation in a terrorist group, and the illegal possession of weapons and ammunition.

Officials later told Russian state news agency Tass that Demchenko died on Dec. 31 as the result of a stroke several days earlier, but did not say why it had taken so long for the news to become public.

Demchenko, who was born in the town of Mospino in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, had been on trial in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don since August 2023. By the time of his death, there had been seven hearings in the case, all of them behind closed doors.

Russian authorities have detained a number of people on spying charges since the start of its full-scale war against Ukraine, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was jailed in March 2023 on espionage charges he denies.

Quote:Russia’s landing ship Caesar Kunikov has been sunk off the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea, Ukraine’s armed forces claimed Wednesday.

The BBC reports powerful explosions were heard in the early pre-dawn hours, according to local social media, which suggested the landing ship had been hit not far south of the town of Yalta.

Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence published a video of what it said were Magura V5 naval drones striking the Soviet-era ship.

There was no confirmation from Russia’s navy that the Caesar Kunikov had been sunk in the Black Sea, merely that six Ukrainian drones had been destroyed, the BBC report set out.
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Russian military bloggers did not deny it had been hit, saying only that the crew had survived. Russia’s military rarely reports major losses and Russians rely on a handful of popular bloggers for information.

If its sinking is confirmed, it would be the second successful strike in the Black Sea this month.

A small warship, the corvette missile Ivanovets, was hit by a swarm of drones in a special operation almost two weeks ago, as Breitbart London reported.

Another Russian landing ship, the Novocherkassk, was hit while in port in Feodosiya in December.

Quote:Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who reportedly died under murky circumstances in a brutal prison camp at the age of 47 on Friday, was a fierce critic of strongman Vladimir Putin and the corruption of the Russian elite.

Navalny was himself imprisoned on corruption charges he dismissed as false and supposedly died while taking a walk after surviving an attempt by the Putin regime to assassinate him with chemical weapons.

Alexei Anatolievich Navalny was the son of a Soviet military officer and an economist who spent much of his youth living in his father’s military garrison posts. He often visited his grandmother in Chernobyl and the government coverup of the horrific nuclear disaster there in 1986 seems to have been a formative experience for him.

Navalny grew up to become a lawyer, obtaining his degree from the People’s Friendship University in Moscow in 1998. He earned an economics degree three years later and, while studying for that degree, he joined a pro-democracy, pro-market political party called Yabloko. He was expelled from Yabloko in 2007, supposedly because he engaged in prohibited “nationalist activities,” but Navalny said it was a power play by a rival for party influence.

Navalny did take a more stridently nationalist tone during his early political career. Among other positions, he called for deporting migrants from Russia to preserve its ethnic integrity, he supported the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, and his criticism of Putin’s annexation of Crimea was rather nuanced.
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Navalny’s exit from Yabloko was the first of many times he would claim to be accused of wrongdoing for political reasons. Such accusations came with increasing frequency as he reported on the corruption of the Russian elite and became a persistent critic of Vladimir Putin, who rose to power in 2000.

Navalny won some major victories over the past two decades. During a brief interregnum in Putin’s power when Dmitry Medvedev was president of Russia, Navalny’s persistent criticism forced Medvedev to admit corrupt officials were embezzling over $30 billion a year from the national treasury.

Putin was back in the saddle soon enough, rewriting the Russian constitution to effectively make himself president-for-life. Navalny founded an anti-corruption website that pulled a million visitors a month. He dubbed Putin’s United Russia the “party of crooks and thieves,” and it stuck.
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One of Navalny’s first big protest marches was against election fraud in 2011. Even though the vote was heavily rigged to keep Putin in power, Navalny managed to hold United Russia down to less than half the vote. He ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013 and was promptly sentenced to five years in prison for “embezzlement” in a politicized trial.

Navalny and his brother Oleg were accused of embezzling about $500,000 from a state-owned timber company while he was an advisor to the governor of the Kirov region in 2009. When the judge handed down a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence to Oleg, Navalny cried: “Aren’t you ashamed? Why are you jailing him? This is a dirty trick. To punish me more?”
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The Putin regime settled for suspending Navalny’s sentence, which allowed him to remain free but effectively barred him from running for office, maintaining a fiction of opposition that Putin’s regime called “managed democracy” or “competition without change.”

Putin would occasionally set up hapless punching-bag opponents to run against him in dubious elections he would “win” by gigantic margins, stuffing the ballot boxes as needed to ensure his margin of victory made headlines, while legally barring genuine opposition leaders like Navalny from contesting his power. When Navalny tried to run for president in 2018, his embezzlement conviction was invoked to disqualify him.
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In August 2020, Navalny was flying back to Moscow after working with activists in Siberia when he became mysteriously ill, sweating profusely and losing consciousness. Navalny’s team immediately suspected he had been poisoned. His plane made an emergency landing in Siberia, where Navalny spent some time hospitalized and breathing through a ventilator.
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Navalny’s friends and family insisted he was not safe in Russia, especially after Siberian doctors blithely insisted they could find no trace of toxins in his system. He was transferred to a German hospital, whose doctors quickly determined he had been poisoned with a lethal nerve agent called Novichok, the same poison Russia used on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the United Kingdom in 2018.

Navalny survived and in December 2020 he claimed he was able to trick an agent of Russia’s FSB security service into admitting he was part of the unit assigned to shadow Navalny during his trip to Siberia and put Novichok in his underwear.

Navalny returned to Moscow from Germany in January 2021, fully aware he would be arrested upon arrival. The Russian government charged him with violating his probation from the 2013 embezzlement case and took him into custody at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow.
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While imprisoned in January, Navlany’s investigative team released its most provocative corruption report to date, a video expose of the lavish “billion-dollar Putin palace” constructed in southern Russia, allegedly by oligarchs who wanted to demonstrate their fealty to the authoritarian ruler. The palace was the size of a small city and included amenities to indulge all of Putin’s expensive hobbies including wine-making, ice-skating, tennis, and cinema. It even boasted a nightclub with a stripper pole, which Navalny sarcastically suggested might have been a “training ground for firefighters.”
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The Putin regime was infuriated by the expose, bouncing Navalny into increasingly harsh prisons and heaping more charges and sentences on him. The NBK and other groups linked to Navalny were outlawed as an “extremist” organization and their offices across Russia were shuttered in June 2021. Navalny’s allies later relaunched the NBK as an international organization with American and European members.

When he was sentenced to nine more years in prison for embezzlement in March 2022, Navalny quoted from the American television show The Wire: “You only do two days. That’s the day you go in and the day you come out.”

“I even had a T-shirt with this slogan, but the prison authorities confiscated it, considering the print extremist,” he added.

Navalny disappeared for most of December 2023, to the great alarm of his friends and allies. He reappeared in the Arctic prison camp known as Polar Wolf near the end of the month, having been transferred in secret.

In January 2024, hundreds of Russian doctors signed a letter to Putin asking him to “stop abusing” Navalny, whose health was deteriorating in prison.
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This pleading fell on deaf ears, and Navalny reportedly died in the Polar Wolf camp on Friday, supposedly collapsing soon after he complained of feeling unwell after an exercise walk. The prison claimed its medical team tried to resuscitate him and failed. Navalny was seen in good health, and in good cheer, in a video of his court appearance on Thursday.

Putin did not comment on Navalny’s passing, but the Kremlin said he was informed while traveling through the Urals to visit factories. Navalny’s wife Yulia said she was not sure he was really dead, because “Putin and his government lie incessantly.”

Quote:President Joe Biden said Friday that the apparent death of Russian anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny brings new urgency to the need for Congress to approve tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine to stave off Moscow’s invasion.

Speaking at the White House, Biden said that no matter the cause, he holds Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible for Navalny’s death. He added, “I hope to God it helps” push U.S. lawmakers to send more aid to Ukraine.

Biden said that “history is watching” lawmakers in the House, which hasn’t moved to take up a Senate-passed bill that would send funds and armaments to Ukraine, whose troops U.S. officials say are running out of critical munitions on the battlefield.

“The failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten,” Biden said. “And the clock is ticking. This has to happen. We have to help now.”

Biden said the U.S. had not confirmed Navalny’s death in a Russian prison above the Arctic Circle, but that he had no reason to doubt it either.

The president sharply criticized House Republicans for letting the chamber enter a two-week recess without moving on the Ukraine funding.
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Republican Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this week said the House won’t be “rushed” to pass the aid, but on Friday he said Putin was “a vicious dictator and the world knows he is likely directly responsible for the sudden death of his most prominent political opponent.”

“We must be clear that Putin will be met with united opposition,” Johnson, R-La., said in a statement. “As Congress debates the best path forward to support Ukraine, the United States, and our partners, must be using every means available to cut off Putin’s ability to fund his unprovoked war in Ukraine and aggression against the Baltic states.”

Quote:Judge Arthur Engoron fined former Donald Trump and the Trump Organization on Friday in civil a fraud case for more than $350 million and barred him from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation for three years.

New York Attorney General Letitia James sought to essentially bankrupt Trump by calling for a $370 million fine and a lifetime of from the real estate industry in New York State. James claimed Trump committed financial fraud.

Trump plans to appeal the ruling. “This is a case that should have never been brought, and I think we should be entitled to damages,” Trump said during closing arguments.

Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley called the ruling “confiscatory, extreme, and abusive.”

The judgment is the second this year in which Trump was found guilty and required to millions. In writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him, the judge orderedTrump to pay $83.3 million.

Quote:Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis allegedly reimbursed her lover and fellow Trump case prosecutor, Nathan Wade, with cash for extravagant vacations they spent together, Wade said on the stand in a Georgia courtroom Thursday. Wade said the expenses were initially paid for with his business credit card.

If the presiding judge determines Willis engaged in an actual conflict of interest with her lover and fellow prosecutor, Willis would be removed from the case, handing former President Donald Trump a massive victory in the Georgia election interference case. 

Judge Scott McAfee said during a Monday hearing that disqualification from the case is “possible” for Willis.

Trump and codefendant Mike Roman accused Willis and Wade of corruption for:

Maintaining an improper romantic relationship
Enriching themselves through the taxpayer-funded prosecution
Meeting with Biden administration officials before indicting Trump and codefendants
Thursday’s revelations appear to confirm the accusations and contradict Willis’s claims.

Wade testified Thursday that his relationship with Willis began in 2022 after Willis opened the case against Trump in 2021. But former Fulton County District Attorney employee and friend of Willis since college, Robin Yeartie, said she was definitely in a relationship with Nathan Wade since 2019, contradicting Wade and Willis.

Quote:With more than 40,000 migrants arriving since 2022, Denver is at a breaking point with the weight of the costs of delivering free housing, free medical care, free legal advice, free education for their children, and other things to migrants.

In response, Democrat Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has come down to massive budget cuts to city services to legal residents to address the issue.

Up until last month, Denver has put $42 million into caring for Joe Biden’s flood of illegal aliens that have inundated the Mile High City. The costs may amount to more than $180 million this year, according to the New York Times.

Mayor Johnston said that the $9 million coming from the federal government to be dedicated to the migrant issue was simply not enough to solve the crisis. So, to address the shortfall, Johnston says the city needs to pick up the difference.
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“We want to continue to be a city that does not have women and children out on the street in tents in 20-degree weather,” he added. “And we also want to provide all our constituents with the services they deserve and the services that they expect.”

“This is a plan for shared sacrifice,” said Johnston said.

Johnston went on to propose cuts in services to city residents.

Perhaps absurdly, the Democrat mayor tried to blame Republicans and Donald Trump for the illegal alien issue and claimed that Trump scotched a a “bipartisan Senate deal” and he and Republicans worked to “kill that bill just so this crisis would continue just because he thinks he has a better chance of reelection.”

Quote:The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ judicial body for handling disputes among countries, declined Friday to block Israel from undertaking military operations in Rafah, Gaza, against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

South Africa, which is pursuing a separate legal action against Israel for supposed “genocide” in Gaza, brought an urgent application to the ICJ on Monday, hours after Israel rescued two hostages from Rafah. South Africa complained of an “assault” but left out the hostages.
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The Court notes that the most recent developments in the Gaza Strip, and in Rafah in particular, ‘would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences’, as stated by the United Nations Secretary-General (Remarks to the General Assembly on priorities for 2024 (7 Feb.2024)).

This perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the Court in its Order of 26 January 2024, which are applicable throughout the Gaza Strip, including in Rafah, and does not demand the indication of additional provisional measures.

The Court emphasizes that the State of Israel remains bound to fully comply with its obligations under the Genocide Convention and with the said Order, including by ensuring the safety and security of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Israel says it needs to attack Hamas in Gaza to eliminate the last four Hamas battalions, capture the Hamas leaders, and rescue the remaining 130 or so Israeli hostages.

Many nations, including the U.S., are discouraging Israel from launching an attack on Hamas in Rafah – partly out of concern for the number of Palestinian civilians who have fled there, and partly because some want to use Hamas’s presence in Gaza as leverage to force Israel to accept a Palestinian state as a condition for a hostage release.

On Friday, reports emerged that Egypt is building a walled enclosure near its border with Rafah in possible anticipation of an influx of up to 100,000 Palestinian refugees — a sign that Egypt may quietly help Israel defeat Hamas by evacuating civilians.

Separately, the ICJ is set to hear testimony from 52 states against Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) as part of a process to issue a non-binding advisory opinion that was initiated through the United Nations in 2022, long before the war.

Quote:Former Iranian Nuclear Chief Ali-Akbar Salehi discussed in a February 11, 2024 interview that aired on Nasim TV (Iran) whether Iran is capable of producing a nuclear bomb. He said that Iran has crossed "all the scientific and technological nuclear thresholds" necessary to create a nuclear bomb.

Transcript of the Most Relevant Part of the Interview

Interviewer: "Do we have the capability to produce a nuclear bomb?"

Ali-Akbar Salehi: "We have [crossed] all the scientific and technological nuclear thresholds. Let me give you an example so you can understand for yourself."

Interviewer: "No, please…I just want to know if we can do it or not."

Salehi: " Let me give you an example. What does it take to make a car? You need a chassis, an engine, a wheel, a gearbox..."

Interviewer: "I see that you are being diplomatic..."

Salehi: "If you are asking me if we built the gearbox and the engine, my answer is yes. Each part has its own role."

Quote:Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that hostage talks are going nowhere, despite intense pressure from the Biden administration, because Hamas refuses to drop a demand that Israel withdraw from Gaza and agree to end the war.
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Israel did not receive in Cairo any new proposal of Hamas on the release of our hostages.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that Israel will not give in to Hamas’s delusional demands.

A change in Hamas’s positions will allow the negotiations to advance.

Israeli negotiators returned Tuesday from meetings in Cairo with Egyptian and Qatari mediators, as well as senior U.S. officials.

The Biden administration is proposing a six-week pause in fighting, during which Hamas would release Israeli hostages in stages, and Israel would release at least three Palestinian terror convicts in exchange for each of the roughly 130  Israeli hostages.

Hamas has responded by insisting that Israel withdraw from Gaza and end the war; that it release thousands of Palestinian terrorists, including the perpetrators of the October 7 terror attack; and that it facilitate the rebuilding of Gaza at its expense.

Netanyahu has responded that these conditions are non-starters. Hamas is losing badly, and has been reduced to four battalions, which are located in the town of Rafah on the Egyptian border, from which two Israeli hostages were rescued early Monday.

Quote:Family members of Israeli hostages traveled to The Hague, Netherlands, on Wednesday to file charges against Hamas with the International Criminal Court (ICC), submitting a 1,000-page document on Hamas’s crimes since the October 7 terror attack.

The Times of Israel reported:

The family members of hostages held captive by Hamas in Gaza formally submit[ted] their war crimes complaint against the terror group to the International Criminal Court [ICC] in The Hague.

“We came to demand justice. On the 7th of October we went through a second holocaust. These human monsters are the heirs of Hitler, Eichmann and Goebbels. They must be wiped out and the notion of collective death which they spread must be eliminated. History will not repeat itself, we are taking our fate into our hands and demanding the justice that we are owed,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum organization declares.

Several hundred people attend a rally staged by the forum outside the court amid the rain in the Dutch city, in which parents, siblings and children of the hostages, along with those who were released from Hamas’s captivity back in November, and survivors of the October 7 atrocities, address the crowd.

The ICC is different from the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The latter, where Israel is currently defending itself against charges of “genocide” brought by South Africa, is for settling disputes between countries. The former has jurisdiction to pursue violations of international law. Though Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that grants authority to the ICC, and is not subject to its jurisdiction, the court’s jurisdiction can still be arguably extended to war crimes by non-state actors like Hamas.

Quote:The leader of the Lebanese Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah, claimed in a speech on Tuesday the group’s attacks had displaced 100,000 Israelis and another two million could lose their homes, the latest in a series of escalating threats against the Jewish state from Beirut since October 7.

Nasrallah used his remarks on Tuesday – at a “ceremony held by the Lebanese resistance movement [sic] in honor of Lebanon’s wounded and captured [terrorists],” according to Iran’s PressTV state outlet – to declare that Hezbollah would respond proportionately to any self-defense operations by Israel to prevent more jihadist slaughter on its territory. “All options are on the table,” he declared.

Hezbollah has faced significant pressure from other jihadist organizations to become more active in the war against Israel since October 7, when Hamas – a Sunni terrorist organization that competes for funding and armament from the Iranian state with Hezbollah – invaded Israel from its stronghold in Gaza, killing an estimated 1,200 people and engaging in atrocities including the killing of children as young as infants, widespread torture of civilians, gang rape, and desecration of the corpses of their victims, filmed for social media. Iran’s extensive network of jihadist terror groups united to support Hamas in the aftermath of the attack, including some, such as the Houthi terrorist gang of Yemen, formally declaring war on Israel.

Nasrallah refrained from declaring war on behalf of Hezbollah and did not issue an official speech until November, building anticipation for a major address against Israel.

Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched airstrikes Wednesday on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and beyond, in response to a rocket attack on northern Israel that hit the holy city of Safed, as well as a military base, killing a female soldier.

Safed is one of the four holy cities in Judaism, the others being Jerusalem, Hebron, and Tiberias. It is a center of the Jewish mystical movement known as Kabbalah. It is located in the northern Galilee, in a region populated by many Arab villages as well.
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An Israeli soldier was killed and eight others were wounded as a barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon slammed into Safed and an army base in the northern city, the military and medical officials said.

In response to the attack, the Israel Defense Forces said it launched “widespread” airstrikes against targets belonging to the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon.
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The slain soldier was later named as Staff Sgt. Omer Sarah Benjo, 20, of the 91st Division’s 869th Combat Intelligence Collection unit, from Ge’a.

It was not immediately clear why Israel’s Iron Dome missile system did not intercept the rockets, though Hezbollah has been firing anti-tank missiles that fly close to the ground and are not detected by the radar used to intercept other projectiles.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that the attacks on Israel would only stop when Israel’s “aggression” against Gaza stops.

Quote:Police in Mersin, Turkey, confirmed on Tuesday that they had arrested an unnamed man working at the construction site of the Russian-built Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant in connection with an investigation into the Islamic State.

According to a translation of a Mersin police statement by the Turkish outlet Duvar, authorities said that the person in question was an employee at the future nuclear power plant site and had obtained work there using a false identity. The person was identified only by the initials “U.A.” and allegedly found to be a Russian citizen, though some reports conflict with that information and state that his nationality remains publicly unknown.

Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear power company, is in charge of the construction of the Akkuyu facility. Once completed, it will be Turkey’s first nuclear power plant. Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has celebrated the project as elevating Turkey’s geopolitical profile by allowing it to enter the “club” of nuclear-capable states and the plant as boasting state-of-the-art security features.

The police announcement of the Islamic State-linked detention on Tuesday included photos of the man being arrested, but no specifics on why, aside from the use of fake identification, he was detained or what kind of criminal charges he may face. It is unclear at press time what the man’s job was at the Akkuyu site. Police also did not directly state if the man was believed to be a member of the Islamic State, only that his arrest occurred “within the scope of the work carried out by our Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism Branch Directorates” against the Islamic State.

Quote:At a time when the Jewish state is battling an existential threat, President Joe Biden assured the Jordanian king that Jewish and Christian prayer would continue to be banned — under what is known as the “status quo” — on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the holiest site in the Jewish faith and revered by Christians worldwide, so as not to inflame Muslim anger.

On Monday, President Biden and King Abdullah II of Jordan discussed the Gaza war at the White House, with Abdullah advocating for an immediate end to the war, even with an undefeated Hamas still ruling the coastal enclave. This despite the fact that the U.S.-designated Islamic terror group, whose charter calls for the murder of Jews and the elimination of the Jewish state through relentless jihad, perpetrated the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history in October, in an operation stemming from its radical beliefs.

The attack, which Hamas dubbed “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” after the Temple Mount, saw some 3,000 terrorists burst into Israel by land, sea, and air, and gun down participants at an outdoor music festival while others went door-to-door hunting for Jewish men, women, and children in local towns who were then subject to torture, rape, execution, immolation, and kidnapping.

It resulted in nearly 1,200 dead inside the Jewish state, over 5,300 more wounded, and at least 242 hostages of all ages taken — of which nearly 140 remain in Gaza. The vast majority of the victims are civilians and include dozens of American citizens.

The Jordanian monarch also warned against an impending Israeli ground operation in Rafah, despite the location and rescue of two Israeli hostages there on Monday morning, as he insisted “we must not ignore the situation in the West Bank and in the holy sites of Jerusalem.”

According to a White House readout of the meeting, President Biden agreed, and “underscored the importance of upholding the status quo at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount, recognizing Jordan’s crucial role as the custodian of Muslim holy places in Jerusalem.”

Jerusalem holds a paramount place in Jewish history, serving as the ancient capital under King David and housing the First and Second Temples, central to Jewish worship and pilgrimage for millennia. Contrary to claims of its Islamic sanctity, Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran, though it is mentioned nearly 700 times in the Hebrew Bible. The city’s deep Jewish roots are also evidenced by its continuous Jewish presence, and the enduring practice of facing Jerusalem in prayer, underscoring a long-standing connection that predates and outstrips its significance in Islamic tradition, where Mecca holds primacy.

Quote:The European Union, already racing towards becoming a federal superstate in its own right, may need to develop its own nuclear deterrent “on the way to a European army” a top German MEP says.

The leader of German governing party in the European Parliament the Social Democrats (SPD) Katarina Barley MEP responds to Russian aggression in the east of Europe and clear signals from President Trump that Europe needs to do more to protect itself in line with NATO treaty requirements by suggesting the time may have come for nuclear weapons.

Speaking to the German liberal-centrist-positioned newspaper Der Tagesspiegel Barley said the certainty of the “U.S. nuclear umbrella” for Europe was waning and consequently nuclear weapons for the European Union “could also become an issue on the way to a European army.”

Given what she said was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interest in Poland and Lithuania, “it shows how vigilant we must be”, she said, remarking if the U.S. was overcome by war fatigue in Ukraine and stopped supplying weapons to Kyiv then Europe would have to step in.

The EU had two nuclear-armed states before Brexit, when the United Kingdom withdrew from the continental power bloc, leaving just France with its 290 warheads. In addition, European states Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands host and train with U.S. nuclear weapons through the NATO nuclear sharing programme. Their own aircraft can carry and launch American nuclear weapons, but only with American permission, making the system an extension of the U.S. programme through NATO rather than an independent deterrent.

Extending nuclear weapons to more states is fraught with legal difficulty, not least due to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1968 which absolutely forbids this. Indeed, several nations condemned Russia for deploying parts of its nuclear arsenal to allied state Belarus last year, saying this breached the Treaty, making Europe attempting to do the same thing questionable in practice.

Russia argued that by giving Belarus the ability to launch nuclear weapons from its aircraft on its behalf they were merely doing the same thing the U.S. had by integrating its own bombs into the German air force, for instance. Yet the U.S. nuclear sharing programme predates the Non-Proliferation Treaty by years, and consequently was ‘grandfathered in’ at the time of signing.

Quote:The protest forced the leader of the local Flemish government, Jan Jambon, to cancels his scheduled trip to Barcelona to try to come to a deal with the farmers. Speaking ahead of the protest, Jambon said per Dutch public broadcaster NOS: “I don’t think anyone would like to see the blockade of the port of Antwerp happen, but it is up to everyone to take their own responsibility. I hope that people will be reasonable tomorrow. ”

On Tuesday, Flemish Minister for the Environment Zuhal Demir offered to meet with a delegation of farmers from the Antwerp protest, saying that they would have a police escort to meet with her in Brussels. However, the farmers, many of whom appear intent to continue their blockade of the port overnight, scoffed at the offer, arguing that if she felt the issue was so important, she could come to them, the Antwerp-based Het Laatste Nieuws reports.

Although the blockade of the port comes amid a wider struggle of farmers across Europe, who have faced increasing difficulty amid rampant inflation, the mass importation of cheap Ukrainian agricultural products, and the EU’s green agenda, the latest protest in Antwerp came in response to the Flemish government’s latest decree on nitrogen, demanding that they are cut in half by the end of the decade in order to comply with European Union standards.

Farmers have argued that the decree disproportionately impacts them, while giving carveouts to big business. Speaking to the Gazet van Antwerpen a group of farmers said: “First of all, industry is allowed to emit forty times more than farmers. We are also accused of producing for export. But what about companies like Ineos here in the port of Antwerp, or Volvo Cars? Don’t they also export?”

“This protest comes from below. This time the initiative comes from the farmers themselves. It is mainly us, young farmers, who see our future melting away before our eyes. That is the life’s work of sometimes several generations in the family,” they continued.
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The broad support for farmers against the climate change-inspired regulations and taxes has sparked fear among globalist governments throughout Europe and even the EU leadership in Brussels announced that it would be walking back several elements of its Net Zero plans in an attempt to quell the anger of the farmers.

However, with around 400 million people set to head to the polls in June to decide the makeup of the next European Parliament, farming groups appear intent to keep the pressure up to ensure that agriculture remains at the top of mind for voters. Arnaud Rousseau, the head of the FNSEA agricultural union in France, said this week that it is “very probable” that farmers in France will once again take to their tractors to demand better treatment.

Quote:18 of NATO’s 31 member states are expected to hit the two per cent of GDP spent on defence minimum required by alliance treaty this year after a period of “unprecedented” increases in defence spending among allies. While 13 states continue to be what Donald Trump calls “delinquents”, the average spend over all European NATO members is now at a point where, for the first time in 25 years, they are spending two per cent of GDP on defence among them.

At the end of the Cold War, NATO’s European members spent an average of 3.5 per cent of their GDP on defence — compared to 6.5 per cent by the United States — but this rapidly fell in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. European states spent an average of 2.5 per cent by the early 1990s, and incredibly spending continued to fall even after Russia’s occupation of Crimea and a pledge by all members to do better, both in 2014, hitting just 1.44 per cent by 2015.

That all changed with the bullish talk of Donald Trump in the runup to the 2016 Presidential Election, and after in office, where he warned members to start paying their dues. Defence spending of European states started to rise from that time, going from 1.56 per cent in 2019 to 1.85 in 2023, and finally a projected 2 per cent in 2024.
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[NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg reiterated that “two per cent is a minimum”, admonishing the many NATO members that haven’t made that figure, and even those that have which see it as a target rather than the floor. Stoltenberg has praised President Trump for helping force up NATO spending figures in the past, saying his “message is having a real impact… all allies have stopped the cuts” in 2019, but changed tack today, warning against taking Trump’s recent remarks on NATO literally.

Stoltenberg said, "We can never take peace for granted, but there is no imminent military threat against any NATO ally. NATO will continue there is no room for miscalculation in Moscow about our readiness and resolve to protect all allies… we should give no room for miscalculation or misunderstanding."

President Trump had said last week: “You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?… No I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills”, sparking public expressions of outrage among European leaders.

Quote:Firefighters in Sweden were struggling for the second day on Tuesday to put out a blaze at a water park that’s under construction at one of the country’s biggest amusement centers. One park employee is missing and 16 people, mainly workers, were slightly injured.

Authorities could not say what had caused the fire at the Oceana water park in the popular Liseberg amusement complex in Goteborg, Sweden’s second-largest city. The fire broke out on Monday and spread over several water slides and the pool area.

Svante Carlsson of the city’s fire department said his firefighters have gotten the fire under control on Tuesday. There was “extensive damage and some parts of the structure have collapsed,” he said, adding that he expects his crews “to be on the scene for some time.”

A nearby hotel and office facilities were evacuated. Police earlier said they were investigating the blaze as a workplace accident and a case of “gross public negligence.”

Quote:Sources confirmed to ABC News and the New York Times that Biden attorneys Ed Siskel and Bob Bauer wrote “to Attorney General Merrick Garland, complaining that details in the report about the president’s recollections during an interview with investigators ‘openly, obviously and blatantly violate department policy and practice.'”
...
Bradley Weinsheimer, a senior Justice Department official, responded the following day that the “identified language is neither gratuitous nor unduly prejudicial because it is not offered to criticize or demean the President; rather, it is offered to explain Special Counsel Hur’s conclusions about the President’s state of mind in possessing and retaining classified information.”

Upon the release of Hur’s report, Siskel and Bauer responded to Weinsheimer’s letter that they “fundamentally disagree with [his] assessment that the comments contained in Special Counsel Hur’s report were consistent with Department policy and practice.”

“They surely were not,” they asserted.

As Breitbart News reported last week, Robert Hur said in his report that the president has suffered from cognitive decline, which has affected his memory. Hur even used this as a basis to recommend that he not be prosecuted for “willfully” retaining classified documents.

Quote:Co-host Annmarie Hordern asked, [relevant exchange begins around 35:00] “Senator, there [have] been a lot of sanctions and penalties levied at President Putin and the Russian economy. But, given what we’ve seen in terms of Putin not backing down in Ukraine, we have the latest instance this morning of what the vice president called brutality, with the death of Alexei Navalny. Is it high time that the administration sanctions Russian oil and gas? Because you and I both know that is how Putin is able to fund this war.”

[Sen. Ben] Cardin [D-MD] responded, “Well, we do have sanctions on the energy sector. So, there are sanctions. The question is, how do we enforce those sanctions? And we need to look at secondary sanctions, beyond just a Russian entity, but other countries that are avoiding the sanction regime to be able to take action against their companies that are violating the restriction we have on Russian energies. So, yes, we can enforce the sanctions more aggressively, and Congress may need to provide additional authorities in order for that to be done.”

Hordern then asked, “Well, we do see Europe doing that. They’re going after secondary sanctions, they’re going after some companies in China. Would the U.S. be willing to go after Chinese companies that you think are moving around the current sanctions on Russia?”

Cardin answered, “We have legislation pending before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that does exactly that. It’s under active consideration. And we’re in negotiations right now as to what we can do to enforce sanctions against Russia, including looking at Chinese companies that are violating those sanction regimes.”

Quote:A Pennsylvania judge is accused of shooting her ex-boyfriend in the head while he slept — just a few years after being cleared of criminal intent for shooting her ex-husband.

Michael McCoy, 54, is now blind in one eye after being shot in his Harrisburg-area home on February 9, reports the New York Post.

Dauphin County Magisterial District Judge Sonya M. McKnight, 57, was arrested Thursday and has been charged with first-degree attempted murder and aggravated assault, court records show.

A Susquehanna Township Police arrest affidavit obtained by the outlet stated that McCoy had made “numerous” attempts to end the year-long relationship with his live-in girlfriend when she allegedly tried to kill him.

“McCoy had returned home from a tavern to find McKnight relaxing on his couch in her pajamas and again told her she needed to leave, saying he would enlist the help of her mother to get her out of his home if he had to,” the Post reported of that Friday’s events. “She allegedly agreed to go.”

“Michael McCoy stated that it was like she finally understood that it was over,” police said in the affidavit.

McCoy then went to bed around 11:00 p.m. with the understanding that McKnight realized that the pair were broken up.

Sometime later that night, he woke up with a “massive head pain” and could not see.

While he screamed in pain, McKnight reportedly came into the bedroom and asked, “Mike, what did you do to yourself?”

Quote:Police in the U.S. arrested a Mexican state police officer linked to the mass killing and incineration of 16 migrants and three human smugglers in 2021. Police found the fugitive hiding in Kyle, Texas, in an attempt to avoid prosecution in Mexico.

Alan Alvarez, a former member of the Tamaulipas State Police, has been a wanted fugitive in Mexico for his alleged role in a 2021 massacre where police officers allegedly mistook a human smuggling convoy for cartel gunmen, shot them, executed the survivors, and then torched the vehicles in an attempt to cover up the crime. Alvarez is one of over a dozen Mexican cops linked to the mass killing. However, he fled to Texas in an attempt to avoid prosecution.

Earlier this year, U.S. authorities arrested Alvarez in Kyle, where he was living illegally. After facing immigration charges, U.S. authorities contacted their Mexican counterparts to arrange Alvarez’s deportation so he could be turned over to Mexican authorities and stand trial in that country.

Under heavy guard, U.S. Border Patrol agents walked Alvarez across an international port entry where Mexican authorities were on hand to take him into custody.

Quote:The Texas Military Department is set to construct a Forward Operating Base on 80 acres of land along the Rio Grande that will house up to 1,800 Texas National Guard soldiers, with the ability to accommodate an additional 500, Abbott’s office stated.

Abbott’s administration explained that the base will be equipped to “respond to the open border chaos created by the Biden Administration, complete with recreational, chaplaincy, medical and psychological health facilities.

“Texas is expanding our border security capabilities by building a new Texas Military Department base camp to increase and improve border security operations in this area,” Abbott said at the press conference. “This will increase the ability for a larger number of Texas Military Department soldiers in Eagle Pass to operate more effectively and efficiently.”
...
“In the coming weeks, we will also be expanding operations north and south of Eagle Pass, putting up additional barriers to fortify our border. We are also adding three more fan boats and expanding our drone program radar truck capabilities,” said Adjutant General of Texas Major General Suelzer. “Under Governor Abbott’s leadership, we are deploying every available resource and strategy to protect and defend Texas.”

According to Texas Border Czar Mike Banks, “The key thing I want you to take away from this is that we are providing a better quality of life for our Texas National Guard soldiers.”

Quote:A Minnesota man has been charged with providing and conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, according to documents unsealed Friday.

The Justice Department alleges that Harafa Hussein Abdi, 41, joined and trained with ISIS in Somalia and that he encouraged others to join.

“As alleged in the complaint, Abdi, moved from Minnesota to Somalia in 2015,” the Justice Department said in a press release Friday. “Once there, he joined a group of ISIS fighters at an ISIS training camp in the Puntland region of Somalia.”

Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Abdi carried weapons and encouraged others to attack the United States while he was training with ISIS fighters.

“Abdi allegedly carried an AK-47, threatened to attack civilians in New York City, and encouraged others to carry out such attacks,” Williams said.

The Justice Department says that, during his time with the militants, Abdi uploaded pro-ISIS rap music with lyrics threatening to attack the United States.

Quote:“This is a painful reality and not one that I take lightly,” [President and CEO John] Donahoe, who is also the chairman of PayPal, announced. “We are not currently performing at our best, and I ultimately hold myself and my leadership team accountable.”

The first round of firings took place on Friday and will continue through the end of May. Ultimately, two percent of Nike employees are set to be laid off.

As one of the largest employers in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, Nike has more than 15,500 workers in the Portland, Oregon, and Southwest Washington State area — as well as 83,000 worldwide.

“In December, the company announced a $2 billion cost-cutting and restructuring strategy, signaling that there may be layoffs,” the ABC affiliate reported, speculating that the layoffs will target the company’s Oregon headquarters.

According to Donahoe, the layoffs will not impact store or distribution center employees.

Quote:A prominent Canadian human rights organization, Democratic Spaces, condemned the communist government of Cuba recently for its “distorted use of Interpol’s Red Notice system,” warning the Castro regime appears poised to attempt to curb the right to free movement of a list of “terrorists” that includes prominent human rights activists, journalists, and Youtubers.

The communist regime published this list of 61 people in December. Law enforcement officials within the regime handed the list over to their American counterparts on February 7 as part of an initiative under leftist President Joe Biden known as the “U.S. – Cuba Law Enforcement Dialogue.”

The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations (Minrex) noted that it handed over its list of “terrorists” while simultaneously demanding America remove Cuba from its list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Cuba belongs on that list for its close ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist narco-terrorist organization, and to the government of Iran – the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism – and proxies such as Hezbollah.

The Cuban Ministry of the Interior, responsible for much of the regime’s political repression, claimed the list included “committers and promotors of terrorist acts,” including those “who incite, organize, and finance actions that affect the social order in Cuba.” In reality, the list consisted of a small number of individuals accused of actual criminal violence and a large number of journalists, human rights activists, and prominent conservative voices in the Cuban-American community. Included on that list are prominent YouTubers Alexander Otaola, one of the most influential voices on politics in the Miami area, and Alain “Paparazzi Cubano,” a YouTuber who similarly blends celebrity gossip stories with original reporting on human rights abuses by the regime.

Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat – the coordinator of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, a longtime human rights advocate, and Breitbart News contributor – also appeared on the list of “terrorists.” In December, Gutiérrez-Boronat told Breitbart News, “the Biden administration cannot take for granted the systematic pattern of harassment, intimidation, and even murders carried out by the Cuban dictatorship against U.S. citizens.”

Adding to the lack of credibility of the list was the fact that at least two of the people on it were dead.

Quote:This week, Tamaulipas State Police officers discovered land mines and IEDs planted along dirt roads in the northern part of the state. The discoveries took place along roads connecting the cities of Rio Bravo, San Fernando, and Valle Hermoso — all located in Tamaulipas.

That region is currently being fought over by two main rival factions of the Gulf Cartel known as Los Metros and Los Escorpiones. Authorities have not determined which faction planted the mines. Law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart Texas that after the initial discovery, government officials told the state police officers not to make waves and to leave the devices where they were. In the following days, authorities began disabling the devices they found; however, dozens of more mines are believed to have been planted along rural roads in the region, placing local farmers at risk.

A law enforcement source provided Breitbart Texas with photographs of the mines and revealed that they are made by hand with a remote detonator that can be tripped at some distance from the explosives.

As Breitbart Texas reported, other drug cartels in Mexico, including Cartel Jalisco New Generation and Carteles Unidos, have been manufacturing explosives in clandestine factories in Jalisco and Michoacan. The increased use of land mines and other devices comes as Mexico’s government has been claiming that violence has decreased. In reality, violence has continued to spread and has reached once-peaceful areas, including beach resorts and tourism hubs in central Mexico.

Quote:Joseph Humire, executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS), warned in a report recently published by Diálogo Americas of the role that Iran could be playing in backing terrorist plans worldwide — especially in Latin America, where its influence continues to grow unchecked.

Humire conversed with Diálogo Americas about Iran’s presence, plans, and operations in Latin America, starting with Bolivia, which he has previously described as Iran’s “most successful” project in the region.

Bolivia, through the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party, has recently brokered several agreements with the Islamic regime, ranging from the purchase of Iranian-made drones to undisclosed security and defense agreements.

Bolivian Defense Minister Edmundo Novillo, who traveled to Tehran last year, has described Iran as a “model for Bolivia to achieve the freedom of nations.”

Iran has reportedly managed to infiltrate the collaborating local governments’ military, with a “legitimate” military presence in some Latin American countries. Humire referred to Venezuela and Bolivia, two countries that have signed defense agreements with Iran.

“The Venezuelan Armed Forces are the first to have armed drones in their inventory, courtesy of Iran. As well as the shipment of Iranian-made precision-guided short-range missiles, probably to arm the drones,” Humire explained. “All has been delivered under the guise of commercial cargo shipment. This has been Iran’s modus operandi, as it did with Yemen; now we are seeing it in the region.”

The military cooperation was once again confirmed during socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro’s visit to Tehran in 2022, when he met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

Quote:The government of self-proclaimed conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol announced on Thursday that it had established diplomatic ties with the Communist Party of Cuba, disregarding Cuba’s close ties to North Korea, its long history of espionage, its status as a U.S.-designated state sponsor of terrorism, and its deplorable human rights record.

An unnamed “senior official” in Yoon’s office told reporters that allowing the Communist Party a formal presence in Seoul via an embassy would deal “a considerable political and psychological blow” to North Korea. In reality, Cuba has a long history of spying for its communist allies, most prominently Russia and China, and presents a significant natural security threat to a top American ally.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry said it was planning to expand “economic” links to Cuba, a chronically impoverished nation, thanks to half a century of plundering by its communist elite. Under figurehead “President” Miguel Díaz-Canel, Cuba’s economy has become so destitute that a study published in September found 88 percent of Cuban live under the poverty line. Rather than expanding the political rights of their people and ceasing its sponsorship of terrorism and other rogue behavior, Díaz-Canel has attempted to protect communist elites from the economy through medical slavery, demanding more money from Russia and China, and luring unwitting European and Canadian tourists.
...
Speaking to the country’s Korea JoongAng Daily newspaper, an unnamed Foreign Ministry official made the bizarre claim that Cuba agreed to establish ties to South Korea in part because of “the general public’s affinity for Korean dramas and music.”

Lim Soo-suk, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said on the record that the Yoon administration hopes to “establish an institutional foundation to expand economic cooperation between the two countries and support the advancement of Korean companies.”

Quote:Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels on Saturday claimed an attack a day earlier on an oil tanker in the Red Sea, the latest in a series of strikes which have led to retaliation by Britain and the United States.

The Huthis said the vessel was British, although the US military later said it was Danish.

Huthi naval forces “carried out an operation targeting the British oil tanker Pollux in the Red Sea” with missiles, rebel spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement.

He did not say how the rebels had determined a “British” connection to the ship.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that four anti-ship ballistic missiles were launched from Huthi-controlled areas of Yemen, between Friday afternoon and 1:00 am (2200 GMT) on Saturday.

“At least three of the missiles were launched towards… MT Pollux, a Panamanian-flagged, Denmark-owned, Panamanian-registered vessel,” CENTCOM said in a statement on social media.

It added that it had “successfully conducted two self-defence strikes against one mobile anti-ship cruise missile and one mobile unmanned surface vessel” in Yemen, which it said “presented an imminent threat to US Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region”.
...
A US State Department spokesperson said on Friday the vessel was able to continue on its voyage.

Quote:Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is set to start a new tour in Latin America next week, including scheduled visits to Cuba and Venezuela before heading to Brazil for a G20 foreign minister meeting, the Russian state-run TASS news agency announced on Wednesday.

Lavrov is returning to Latin America less than a year after his five-day tour in 2023 that included stops in Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

The Russian government informed on Wednesday that Lavrov’s tour will begin with a visit to Cuba on February 19, where he will hold encounters with the communist Castro regime’s figurehead President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Lavrov is expected to discuss “topical issues of bilateral collaboration, global, and regional agenda” topics with Castro regime officials.

“The talks will focus on key aspects of further strengthening the Russian-Cuban strategic partnership on the basis of deepening political dialogue and building up ties in trade and economic, financial and investment, scientific and technical, cultural and humanitarian and other areas,” Zakharova said.

Quote:French police shot and killed a Sudanese national who had attempted to attack passengers on a Paris tram with a butcher knife in the early hours of Saturday morning.

A 40-year-old man from the nation of Sudan dressed in a North African djellaba robe and carrying a “notebook with Arabic inscriptions” in one hand and brandishing a butcher’s blade in the other was shot and killed by Paris police at around 3 am on Saturday morning, Le Figaro reports.

According to police info, the Sudanese man had asked a fellow traveller on the train for a lighter and when he was refused, the 40-year-old took out a meat cleaver from his Moroccan dress and began attempting to attack the passenger.

The passenger was able to evade the attacks and quickly notified the police. The Paris prosecutor’s office said that officers discovered the African “holding a butcher’s blade in one hand and a notebook with Arabic inscriptions in the other”.

While police ordered him to throw down his weapon, the Sudanese man refused to comply and only responded with “words in Arabic”.

Officers initially used tasers on the knifeman, however, he was undeterred and attempted to rush officers from the railway brigade with the knife. At this point police opened fire on the attacker, firing off around twenty rounds, one of which shot the Sudanese man through the head, killing him on the spot.

The local prosecutor’s office has opened two investigations, including one for “attempted intentional homicide against a person holding public authority” against the deceased attacker and another against the officers who killed the knifeman for “intentional violence by police officers leading to death”.

Quote:Ukraine’s military chief said early Saturday that he’s withdrawing troops from the city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, where outnumbered defenders have battled a Russian assault for four months.

The timing is critical as Russia is looking for a morale boost ahead of the second anniversary on Feb. 24 of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the March presidential election in Russia.

In a short statement posted on Facebook, Ukrainian commander Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said he had made the decision to avoid encirclement and “preserve the lives and health of servicemen.”

The commander-in-chief added that troops were moving to “more favorable lines.”

“Our soldiers performed their military duty with dignity, did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units, inflicted significant losses on the enemy in terms of manpower and equipment.

“We are taking measures to stabilize the situation and maintain our positions,” the statement read.

The withdrawal came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday made another trip to western Europe, hoping to press his country’s Western allies to keep providing military support.

It was Syrskyi’s first major test since being appointed as Ukraine’s new army chief last week.

Quote:Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested that assassination awaits Russian strongman Vladimir Putin while backing the “destruction of his regime” in an address to the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.

Appearing before world leaders as they converged to Munich, Germany for the annual security conference, President Zelensky said that the only “two options” left for Putin, either face a war crimes trial at The Hague or be assassinated.

“One may have different attitudes towards international institutions, but the International Criminal Court’s warrant for Putin’s arrest for kidnapping and forced deportation of children from Ukraine clearly demonstrates where Putin’s so-called ‘career’ should end. He has only two options ahead – to be in the dock in The Hague, or to be killed by one of his accomplices who are now killing for him,” Zelensky said per a readout of the speech from state media Ukrinform.

Zelensky accused Putin of being the “source of wars and destabilization” and therefore the West should do “everything possible to defeat the aggressor”.

“We should not fear Putin’s defeat. Putin is a threat to all free nations. And yes, for those who still haven’t heard – Putin is the monster who invaded Ukraine and killed thousands and thousands of people and kidnapped and deported at least tens of thousands of Ukrainian children,” the Ukrainian president continued.

Zelensky also claimed that Putin “murdered another opposition leader” about the death of Russian dissident Alexy Navalny, which the Ukrainian leader suggested was Putin sending a “clear message” to Western leaders ahead of the Munich conference.

Quote:Weber said, “[L]ook, it’s unbelievable what this President has done. And you said it, nine Democrats voted with us. They know what’s at stake here. If you think about it, last year, President Biden told the European countries they needed to get off of Russian LNG and we would supply their LNG, America would. But, guess what? It’s a campaign year now. And so, all of a sudden, he’s taken this tack to appease his radical climate base. … It’s going to hurt the Gulf Coast of Texas, jobs for people, energy independence, it seems like this President is intent on killing our energy industry.”

He added, “This is a gift to Putin and to the Iranian killers, who just killed — basically, their proxies killed three of our fine servicemembers. I cannot believe that this President is going to stay this course and that Americans aren’t paying attention.”

Quote:Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday called for Republican Senate leaders who voted for the Ukraine aid bill to be replaced, after the Senate voted to pass the $95 billion bill that contained $61 billion for the Ukraine War.

Trump Jr. in a post on X listed those who voted against the bill and those who voted for it, saying “they need to be replaced”:

Only 2 members of Senate GOP Leadership opposed the Ukraine First funding bill- @SteveDaines & @barrassoforwyo.

The rest of GOP Leadership stood with DEMOCRATS to send billions more to Ukraine- @LeaderMcConnell, @SenJohnThune, @SenCapito & @joniernst.

They need to be replaced.Only 2 members of Senate GOP Leadership opposed the Ukraine First funding bill-
@SteveDaines & @barrassoforwyo.

The rest of GOP Leadership stood with DEMOCRATS to send billions more to Ukraine- @LeaderMcConnell, @SenJohnThune, @SenCapito & @joniernst.

They need to be replaced.

Open Editorial 1

It's not like I'd support the Ukraine Aid bill at all, but his call here sounds way too off to me. It could significantly destabilize the GOP in a very short time.

As you may have noticed, there are 2 factions fighting for control of the Republican party, the old school guys and the MAGA ones. This could become an issue if Trump becomes the next president and is unable to convince many of those old guys and neocons of joining his faction in 2025. A not so drastic approach seems to be a realistic alternative for Trumpists. So they gotta get rid of Lis Cheney and Mitch McConnell at once.

Quote:Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and others are demanding passage of the aid without hinderance at the 60th Munich Security Conference, which coincided with Ukraine withdrawing troops from the eastern city of Avdiivka after months of intense combat, AP reports.

But Vance told the final day of the conference, an annual gathering of security and foreign policy officials, “the problem in Ukraine … is that there’s no clear end point” and the U.S. simply doesn’t make enough weapons to support endless wars in eastern Europe, the Middle East and “potentially a contingency in East Asia.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson insists he won’t be “rushed” into approving the $95.3 billion foreign aid package from the Senate that includes the help for Ukraine, but the bill has been held up by Republican opposition over its lack of funding and support for U.S. border security.

Johnson said he had requested a meeting with President Joe Biden months ago on these issues, and was still waiting for the opportunity to talk one-on-one.

If the package goes through, “that is not going to fundamentally change the reality on the battlefield,” Vance argued, pointing to limited American manufacturing capacity.

He then set out, “Can we send the level of weaponry we’ve sent for the last 18 months?. We simply cannot. No matter how many checks the U.S. Congress writes, we are limited there.”

Vance continued, “I think what’s reasonable to accomplish is some negotiated peace,” he said, arguing Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the U.S. all have an incentive to come to the table now and that the two-year-old war will at some point end in a negotiated peace, the AP report notes.

Ricarda Lang, a co-leader of one of Germany’s governing parties, the Greens, countered that Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown repeatedly “that he has no interest in peace at the moment.”

Open Editorial 2

Some people might argue now that he's a traitor, especially if they come from the left, but let's be honest. Ukraine isn't going anywhere right now. It started attacking Russian cities as if that were a priority for a country that hasn't retaken all the relevant cities in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. In fact, it's leaving Avdiivka in the next few days or weeks according to the Ukrainian general in charge.

Even a short lived peace that could last a couple of years would benefit Ukraine. Stocks could be piled up instead of getting depleted too fast. Current technologies could be improved and tested before endangering unprepared crews.

Do I believe that Russia would keep its word? Hell no!
But time is valuable and any pause longer than a couple of months is good for anybody defending itself from invaders, don't you think?  

What the US and the EU should be doing now is looking for a certain aspect or flaw in Russian politics or army that they can exploit to force Putin's hand to stop attacking Ukraine at once. This is greatly important for the US now that they fear China could take advantage of American low ammo stocks and serious problems to recruit new cadets to invade the small island of Taiwan. Japan alone could never stop the CCP from taking control of the neighbor nation.

Quote:Two police officers and a medical first responder were shot and killed Sunday around 5:30 a.m. while responding to a domestic situation in Burnsville, Minnesota.

The AP posted to X:

The Minneapolis Star said a third officer was wounded in the incident.

Details on the incident are scant at this time, but a “law enforcement source says that police were called to a residence on a domestic incident when shots were fired,” the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.

A SWAT vehicle on scene “had multiple bullet holes visible on its windshield,” WCCO reported.

Quote:Bay Area public radio station reported Thursday:

The newest member of the San Francisco Elections Commission, a seven-member civilian body that oversees and creates policy for the city’s Department of Elections, isn’t legally allowed to vote.

Kelly Wong, an immigrant rights advocate, is believed to be the first noncitizen appointed to the commission. At a swearing-in ceremony administered by Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin on Wednesday at San Francisco City Hall, dozens of people gathered to commemorate the occasion.
...
Wong’s appointment is the result of a 2020 voter-approved measure that removed the citizenship requirement to serve on San Francisco boards, commissions and advisory bodies. Each of the commission’s seven members is appointed by a different city official, such as the mayor, city attorney or district attorney. The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to appoint Wong.

As Breitbart News has noted, non-citizens are allowed to vote in San Francisco in school board elections.

Open Editorial 3

As Ilhan Omar has proven in the recent past, non-citizens or even naturalized citizens like her can come up with plans that go against all US interests. Allowing an illegal immigrant that has not been vetted properly to become a supervisor of any elections defeats the purpose of organizing any sort of election in the first place.

Can they prove that Wong isn't working for the CCP? Nope, they can't because they never checked her political background in China.

Quote:A Chicago man accused of stabbing a stranger on Christmas was released by a judge — then missed his court date for attempted murder while he was allegedly busy stabbing another random woman.

Allen Erenburg was set to be in court Wednesday after a grand jury charged him with seven felonies for the December 25 incident during which he allegedly knocked a man off his bicycle, “struck the man in the head with a hammer and stabbed him repeatedly with a knife,” CWBChicago reports.

Instead of going to court, the 44-year-old was back on the street stabbing a woman and threatening her boyfriend with a hammer, prosecutors say.

Erenburg was caught in the first place not after he allegedly attempted to kill the man on the bike, but five days after that attack when he was arrested in a separate incident in Roscoe Village, according to the outlet.

“A 49-year-old woman reported that she was sitting in her car in the 2300 block of West Belmont when a man started shouting at her, then pulled out a knife and slashed one of her tires,” the publication stated, citing a Chicago Police Department (CPD) report.

Erenburg then allegedly broke the woman’s rear window and fled, but CPD was able to find and arrest him just minutes later when the victim identified him as the perpetrator.

Quote:A labor union in Germany has called on ground staff for Lufthansa to walk off the job at seven airports on Tuesday following a similar strike earlier this month.

The Ver.di union said Sunday that the one-day strike will affect the airports in Frankfurt and Munich, Lufthansa’s two main hubs, as well as Berlin, Duesseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne-Bonn and Stuttgart. It will run from 4 a.m. Tuesday to 7:10 a.m. Wednesday.

A 27-hour strike at five of the same airports that started Feb. 7 prompted the airline to cancel hundreds of flights.

The union is seeking pay raises of 12.5%, or at least 500 euros ($539) more per month, in negotiations for about 25,000 employees, including check-in, aircraft handling, maintenance and freight staff. Several-hour or one-day “warning strikes” are a common tactic in German contract negotiations.

A round of talks on Feb. 12 produced no agreement. More negotiations are scheduled for Wednesday.

Quote:Over 400 people were detained in Russia while paying tribute to opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died at a remote Arctic penal colony, a prominent rights group reported.

The sudden death of Navalny, 47, was a crushing blow to many Russians, who had pinned their hopes for the future on President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe. Navalny remained vocal in his unrelenting criticism of the Kremlin even after surviving a nerve agent poisoning and receiving multiple prison terms.

The news reverberated across the globe, and hundreds of people in dozens of Russian cities streamed to ad-hoc memorials and monuments to victims of political repressions with flowers and candles on Friday and Saturday to pay a tribute to the politician. In over a dozen cities, police detained 401 people by Saturday night, according to the OVD-Info rights group that tracks political arrests and provides legal aid.

More than 200 arrests were made in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city, the group said. Among those detained there was Grigory Mikhnov-Voitenko, a priest of the Apostolic Orthodox Church – a religious group independent of the Russian Orthodox Church – who announced plans on social media to hold a memorial service for Navalny and was arrested on Saturday morning outside his home. He was charged with organizing a rally and placed in a holding cell in a police precinct, but was later hospitalised with a stroke, OVD-Info reported.

Quote:Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned allies Saturday that an “artificial deficit” of weapons for his country risks giving Russia breathing space, hours after his military chief said he was withdrawing troops from the eastern city of Avdiivka.

Zelenskyy spoke to the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of security and foreign policy officials. Ukraine is back on the defensive against Russia in the nearly 2-year-old war, hindered by low ammunition supplies and a shortage of personnel.

“Ukrainians have proven that we can force Russia to retreat,” he said. “We can get our land back, and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin can lose, and this has already happened more than once on the battlefield.”

“Our actions are limited only by … our strength,” he added, pointing to the situation in Avdiivka. Ukrainian commander Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said early Saturday that he was withdrawing troops from the city, where outnumbered defenders battled a Russian assault for four months, to avoid encirclement and save soldiers’ lives.

“Dear friends, unfortunately keeping Ukraine in the artificial deficit of weapons, particularly in deficit of artillery and long-range capabilities, allows Putin to adapt to the current intensity of the war,” Zelenskyy said. “The self-weakening of democracy over time undermines our joint results.”

The president said that the troop withdrawal was “a correct decision” and emphasized the priority of saving Ukrainian soldiers’ lives. He suggested that Russia has achieved little, adding that it has been attacking Avdiivka “with all the power that they had” since October and lost thousands of soldiers – “that’s what Russia has achieved. It’s a depletion of their army.”

Quote:Democrat mega-donor and chairman of the leftist-globalist Open Society Foundations (OSF), Alex Soros, declared on Saturday that the West “must not abandon Ukraine”.

Soros, who took over the Open Society Foundations last year from his father, Hungarian activist billionaire George Soros, met with Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday to express his continued support for Kyiv in its war with Moscow.

Urging Western nations to continue pouring billions in taxpayer money into the conflict, Soros wrote on X: “We must not abandon Ukraine.”
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Alex Soros, like his father, has been one of Ukraine’s most vociferous supporters, most recently travelling to Kyiv in December to meet with both President Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska, whom he gave $1 million to her charity, which he said has become a partner of the Open Society Foundations.
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The globalist Soros activist empire has been heavily involved in Ukraine for decades, establishing the International Renaissance Foundation (IRF) in Kyiv in 1990, shortly before the fall of Soviet control of the country. The Soros network has claimed that the IRF has been the “largest independent funder of Ukraine’s vibrant array of civil society and citizen’s groups for more than three decades.”

In total, the Open Society Foundations network has poured some $230 million into the country, “including more project funding over the past decade than to any other country in Europe.”

The director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, which is funded by the Open Society Foundations, Mark Leonard said last year that Ukraine is one of Alex Soros’ top interests, saying that he was “in daily contact with the Soros Foundation in Ukraine, talking to different governments about their policy towards Ukraine.”

Going into 2024, the 38-year-old billionaire activist said that a top aim of his will be to stop former President Donald Trump or any other “MAGA-style” Republican from taking the White House, arguing that “such an outcome will imperil European unity and undermine the progress achieved on many fronts in response to the war in Ukraine.”

Quote:Riots between rival factions of Eritrean migrants broke out in the Dutch city of The Hague on Saturday evening as police officers were left injured and cars were set on fire outside a conference centre.

The home of the war criminal trying International Criminal Court saw war zone-like scenes brought to its doorstep as supporters of the leftist government of Eritrean dictator Isaias Afwerki gathered in the Opera Hall Centre in The Hague’s city centre on Saturday evening.

A group of anti-government Eritreans gathered outside of the building in protest, however, it quickly devolved into open riots, with the anti-government faction smashing the windows of the hall and setting it on fire.

Riot police were dispatched to help protect the building from further damage and the pro-government Eritrean group within the conference centre were escorted from the building under police escort, Der Telegraaf reports.

Cashes between the two groups ensued and the riots continued to rage late into the evening, with several police and fire brigade vehicles being set ablaze and other privately owned cars being burnt during the altercations. Several officers and riot police were injured during clashes with the Eritrean mob, who took to pelting officers with stones.

The chairwoman of the Dutch Police Union (NPB) Nine Kooiman described the riots between the two groups of Eritreans as “devastating and too idiotic for words” and Ramon Meijerink of the ACP police union called them “completely unacceptable” while praising police officers for their “courage to step forward under difficult circumstances.”

The local fire brigade was initially prevented from putting out the fires because of the violence from the rioters. A spokesman said: “We initially received a report of a police car that was on fire. We had to withdraw because the situation was not safe. Later, a police van was also on fire at the hall complex.

Quote:During an interview with “PBS NewsHour” Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent Nick Schifrin aired on Friday, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas responded to 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump’s comments about NATO by stating that while “all these statements from the United States are making us worried,” “we haven’t taken defense seriously enough.” And Trump’s comments have “been a wake-up call for many European countries that haven’t done enough. And I think that is a positive thing, if they start to do more.”

Schifrin asked, “This week, the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service released a new assessment that says Russia is preparing for a military confrontation with the West within the next decade. What is that based on, and can it be prevented?”

Kallas responded, “It can be prevented if we invest in our defense, because, if you think about the aggressor, the aggressor takes the step of attacking somebody when he thinks that he can win because the other side is weaker. So, we haven’t taken defense seriously enough. And that means all the NATO allies have to do more.”

Schifrin then asked, “We’ve been focusing on Europe, but I want to ask about the U.S. Is the United States a reliable partner?”

Kallas answered, “Of course all these statements from the United States are making us worried, because the United States has been the biggest ally. And the only time Article V has been used is when [the] U.S. called us. So, this is something that we need to do together. When you have aggression that pays off [in] some part in the world, it will invite other aggressors in the world to start wars elsewhere.”

Schifrin then asked, “Does Europe need to assume that the United States cannot defend Europe and cannot provide, perhaps, Europe a nuclear umbrella anymore?”

Kallas responded, “I don’t think so. We have the agreements in place in NATO, all the structures in place. What we definitely have to do ourselves is to do more, like I said before. But the United States has been a reliable partner. And, of course, we hope that it’s going to be in the future as well.”

Quote:Japan’s economy and currency weakened somewhat more than expected in 2023, causing it to slide behind Germany to become the world’s fourth-largest economy.

According to current projections, India will pass both countries by 2030 to become the number three economy, behind the United States and China.

Barron’s on Wednesday quoted analysts who said the big problem for Japan was a “sharp fall in the yen against the dollar.” Japan’s economy grew 1.9 percent in 2023 while Germany’s contracted by 0.3 percent, but the yen took a 20-percent nosedive against the U.S. dollar over the past two years.

The weaker yen may have helped Japan with some key exports, such as automobiles, but it left the total value of Japan’s GDP at $4.2 trillion, losing third place in the world rankings to Germany’s $4.5 trillion.

Both Germany and Japan are suffering from worker shortages due to collapsing demographics, but Japan has a much worse problem with birth rates and analysts said Germany’s pro-business policies were better at keeping production high.

Japanese bank officials on Wednesday warned against “rapid moves” in currency speculation that were harming the national economy.
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Kanda was evasive about whether the government would intervene to protect the value of the yen or not, while Finance Minister Suzuki Shunichi left the press conference without another word when asked the same question.

Quote:Brazilian radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva condemned Israel on Thursday, accusing the country of killing “women and children” in its self-defense operations against the jihadist terrorist organization Hamas.

The Brazilian president, during an official visit to Egypt, issued his accusations against Israel as part of a speech given during a session of the League of Arab States, in which Lula also made demands for the United Nations to recognize “Palestine” as a state with Jerusalem as its capital. Lula then repeated its accusations against Israel in a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Lula also condemned the United Nations Security Council and urged the institution to reform its rules — a longtime demand the socialist president has made and amplified since Hamas’s brutal October 7 terrorist attack on Israel. Lula has aggressively condemned Israel for its self-defense operations after October 7 but had little to say to condemn Hamas.

“Brazil’s position is clear. There will be no peace until there is a Palestinian state within mutually agreed upon and internationally recognized borders, which include the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and East Jerusalem as capital,” Lula told the Arab League.

Lula claimed Israel’s response to October 7 was “disproportional and indiscriminate.”

“Under the pretext of defeating Hamas, they are killing women and children, something never seen in any war that I know of,” Lula said at a press conference following his meeting with the Egyptian president.

“The killing must be stopped,” he said at a later point in the press conference. Lula has previously accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza for defending itself against the terrorist organization.

Quote:Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula, caused outrage Sunday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by comparing Israel’s war against Hamas to the Holocaust, then defending Russian president Vladimir Putin in the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

“What’s happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn’t happened at any other moment in history. Actually, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” he adds.

Lula also says nobody should assume Russian President Vladimir Putin had anything to do with the death of prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, after he died of “sudden death syndrome.”

“A citizen died in prison. I don’t know if he was ill or had any issues,” Lula says. “To make an accusation is to trivialize. I hope that a coroner will provide an explanation for why the individual died, that’s all.”

Lula’s comments provoked an immediate reaction from Israeli leaders across the spectrum.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said (via Government Press Office):

By comparing Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization, to the Holocaust, President da Silva has disgraced the memory of the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis and demonized the Jewish state like the most virulent anti-Semite. He should be ashamed of himself.

Quote:Kim Yo-jong, the politically influential sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, said on Thursday that her brother might be willing to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio provided the latter is “respectful.”

Kishida has been seeking talks with the communist tyrant to discuss the fate of the Japanese civilians North Korea kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s.

North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency quoted Kim Yo-jong saying that if Japan “makes a political decision to open a new path for improving ties based on mutual respect and respectful behavior, it is my view that the two countries can open a new future.”

KCNA said Kim qualified her statement by adding that it was only her personal opinion, and she had no knowledge of plans by her brother’s regime to arrange a meeting with Kishida – but she is considered highly influential and occupies a strange position in the strange government of North Korea, often acting as her brother’s spokeswoman and close adviser. Kim Yo-jong is technically only a deputy department director in the North Korean Workers’ Party, but she seems much more influential than officials who technically outrank her.

Kim added that a meeting would be possible only if Kishida “does not lay such a stumbling block as the already settled abduction issue.” She suggested that Japan would be demonstrating “anachronistic hostility and unattainable desire” by dwelling too much on the kidnapping issue.

Japan certainly does not consider the abduction issue “settled,” although many of the victims have died over the years. Japan brings up the nearly two dozen of its citizens known to have been kidnapped over the years by North Korean agents whenever Pyongyang’s human rights record is discussed. North Korea has admitted to some of the abductions, claiming that it wanted to train the victims as “spies,” but it has resisted a full accounting of the sinister program. President Joe Biden met with the families of abductees during his visit to Japan in May 2022 and promised to support their efforts to learn the fate of their loved ones.

Prime Minister Kishida is pushing hard for a diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea, encouraged by some positive feedback from North Korean officials. Kim Yo-jong, among others, speaks of Japan in much less negative terms than she did a few years ago.

Quote:A massive scandal rocked the world of science fiction and fantasy writing on Thursday, as leaked emails revealed authors were quietly disqualified from winning the prestigious Hugo Awards if their work displeased the Chinese Communist Party.

The Hugo Awards are among the oldest and most prestigious awards for science fiction and fantasy literature. They have been presented annually since 1955 by the World Science Fiction Convention, or Worldcon, a massive and loosely organized literary society. The members nominate works published the previous year in numerous categories, such as Best Novel, Best Short Story, and Best Professional Artist. The annual convention to present the awards is held in a different city every year.

The 2023 Hugo Awards were held in October in the city of Chengdu, China, whose community of sci-fi fans lobbied hard for the honor of hosting the meeting.

Soon after the finalists were announced, the sci-fi world began rumbling with questions about why certain popular authors had clearly accumulated enough votes from Worldcon members but were not listed as awards finalists. The mysteriously excluded authors included Rebecca F. Kuang, Xiran Jay Zhao, Paul Weimer, and perhaps the biggest name on the list, The Sandman and American Gods author Neil Gaiman.

Rebecca F. Kuang is a New York Times best-selling American author whose book Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution recently won several other high-profile awards, so her fans immediately noticed its exclusion from the Hugo finalists. Kuang herself expressed bafflement that her book could win the other awards but not be considered a Hugo finalist.

Quote:Police in India used drones to drop tear gas on a growing legion of angry farmers as they marched on New Delhi on Tuesday. The police also threw up barricades on major roads leading into the national capital and banned gatherings of more than five people to thwart the protests.

Indian farmers previously staged massive protests in 2020 and 2021, angered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agricultural reforms. The reform package was supposed to modernize the farming industry and remove some inefficient price supports, but farmers who were already struggling with poverty said the “three laws” proposed by Modi would make it impossible for them to survive.

Modi personally pleaded with the farmers to break up the protest camps they erected around New Delhi and return home, but the farmers stayed put for more than a year, braving harsh seasons and the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. Modi eventually gave in and repealed the three controversial laws.

The new protest once again involves tens of thousands of angry farmers converging on New Delhi, many of them riding on tractors and trucks. The farmers say Modi reneged on some of the promises he made to end the 2021 protests, including pledges to double farmers’ incomes and guarantee minimum crop prices.

The farmers are demanding a pension program for farmers over 60 years of age and special terms for farm loans. They want India to withdraw from free trade agreements and the World Trade Organization (WTO) because they see those memberships as distorting the price of Indian agricultural products.

Most importantly, the farmers want an expanded system of minimum support prices (MSP) — a guaranteed minimum price the government will pay to purchase crops, set high enough to compensate farmers for implicit costs, risks, and setbacks, such as market fluctuations and bad weather.

Quote:The announcement, apparently representing the position of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, was made on Sunday by opposition leader Benny Gantz, who has joined the war cabinet as part of an emergency government of national unity.

The Times of Israel reported:

“The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know — if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, to include the Rafah area,” Gantz said.
...
“We will do so in a coordinated manner, facilitating the evacuation of civilians in dialogue with our American and Egyptian partners to minimize civilian casualties,” the former IDF chief of staff and defense minister told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, as they convened in Jerusalem.

“To those saying the price [of an offensive] is too high, I say this very clearly: Hamas has a choice — they can surrender, release the hostages, and the citizens of Gaza will be able to celebrate the holy holiday of Ramadan,” he said.

The announcement represents a new approach to hostage negotiations. Hamas has dug in and said it will not release hostages unless Israel ends the war and withdraws completely from Gaza — which would mean Hamas would survive and Israel would lose.

Quote:Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defied U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday by submitting a resolution to his government opposing a Palestinian state imposed from outside, and having the resolution endorsed unanimously.

Netanyahu acted after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken continued to press for Israel to accept a Palestinian state as the outcome of the war against the Hamas terrorists who began the conflict with a brutal terror attack on Israel on October 7.

The Prime Minister’s Office released the following statement:

The Israeli Government has unanimously approved a declaratory decision regarding Israel’s opposition to international diktats.

The text of the final statement:

1. Israel utterly rejects international diktats regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians. A settlement, if it is to be reached, will come about solely through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions.

2. Israel will continue to oppose unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such recognition in the wake of the October 7th massacre would be a massive and unprecedented reward to terrorism and would prevent any future peace settlement.

The Biden administration has been obsessed with a Palestinian state since before the conflict, reportedly blocking Saudi-Israeli peace negotiations in September 2023 because the proposed deal did not explicitly call for the creation of a Palestinian state.

Quote:Venezuela’s socialist regime expelled the staff of the United Nations human rights office stationed in Caracas on Thursday, ordering the office to shut down its operations and giving its personnel 72 hours to leave the country.

The announcement followed a statement in which the U.N. Human Rights Office publicly expressed concerns over the arrest and disappearance of Venezuelan activist and lawyer Rocío San Miguel this week, whom the socialist regime accused of being involved in a dubious assassination plot against dictator Nicolás Maduro.

San Miguel’s whereabouts remain unknown at press time. The U.N. human rights officials described her detention as a potential “enforced disappearance,” which drew the ire of the socialist regime.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil made the official announcement on Thursday afternoon. Maduro ordered the 13 U.N. staff members to leave the country by Sunday. They will not be allowed back “until such time as they publicly rectify before the international community their colonialist and abusive attitude, in violation of the Charter of the United Nations.”

Gil asserted that Maduro had agreed to the office’s opening in September 2019 to “show the world the advances in human rights in Venezuela.”

Quote:Mexican authorities found a cache of RPGs, shoulder-fired rockets, and various other weapons after a shootout with cartel gunmen in the beach resort town of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco.

The case took place this week in Puerto Vallarta, a region known for its luxurious beach resorts, with many tourists arriving each year.

According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by Mexico’s National Guard, the incident took place in the rural areas of Puerto Vallarta when a group of guardsmen were patrolling an area known as El Ranchito. The guardsmen spotted two gunmen leaning next to a vehicle. When authorities approached them, the gunmen tried to flee but crashed into one of the military vehicles.

After the crash, the gunmen fired at authorities in an attempt to flee, but authorities fired back and surrounded them, forcing their surrender. One of the gunmen sustained a gunshot injury to his leg and had to be rushed to a local hospital.

When authorities searched the vehicle, national guardsmen reported seizing two rocket launching tubes, ten rockets, seven grenades, rifles, handguns, ammunition, and tactical gear.

The use of rocket launchers and explosives by cartel gunmen comes as Mexico continues to see a high level of violence as a result of policies known as “Hugs Not Bullets” pushed by Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Quote:A video taken inside a New York City migrant shelter shows five New York Police Department (NYPD) officers trying to detain a struggling suspect as migrants pelt them with objects and seek to interfere with the arrest.

The incident occurred on February 15 as officers tried to detain a suspect at the Randall’s Island migrant shelter.

Hostile shelter residents surrounded the five officers and began to throw bottles, backpacks, and other items at them. Some pushed forward at the officers, attempting to interfere with the arrest.

The officers were also treated to epithets hurled at them in Spanish.

Shelter security reportedly called in the NYPD when a man was “acting in a disorderly fashion,” according to the New York Daily News.

The suspect seen in the video, wearing a white shirt and being detained by the police, was reportedly not a shelter resident.

Shelter security operatives eventually surrounded the police officers to give them cover to exit the building with their suspect in tow.

It is the second video of migrants attacking NYPD officers that has gone viral in less than a month.

Quote:Armed suspects targeted a Gucci store in New York City on Monday, and law enforcement is still looking for the alleged robbers.

The incident happened at the store on 14th Street just after noon, according to the New York Post.

The suspects were identified as two men and one woman who entered the store, flashed a firearm, and told workers to lie down on the ground while they grabbed items.
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After taking $51,000 worth of high-end merchandise, police said the woman pulled up to the curb, right near the store entrance, in a black Honda CRV. Once the men were inside, the vehicle sped off down 9th Ave., nearly hitting another vehicle and a person on a bike.

Police said the suspects drove through the Lincoln Tunnel into New Jersey. Their whereabouts after that were unknown.

Video footage shows two suspects, wearing dark clothing, hoods, and masks, carrying what appears to be purses out of the store. One is seen dragging a suitcase.

The shop closed for the rest of the day, and neighbors were disturbed when they heard the news.

Quote:The man who fatally shot two Burnsville, Minnesota, police officers and a firefighter/paramedic Sunday morning has been identified as 38-year-old Shannon Cortez Gooden.

KARE 11 reported Gooden “was prohibited from possessing firearms as the result of a 2008 2nd-degree felony assault with a deadly weapon conviction.”

They noted that Gooden sought to have his firearm rights restored in 2019 but First District Court Judge Dannia Edwards refused.

Breitbart News noted police officers Matthew Ruge and Paul Elmstrand and firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth were shot and killed while responding to a domestic call at Gooden’s house shortly before 2 a.m. Sunday, February 18, 2024.

Gooden was found dead inside the home around 8 a.m. and KARE 11 pointed out his death was a suicide.

KEYC observed a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension statement that Gooden “had several guns and a large amount of ammunition within the home” when he killed the officers and paramedic.

Mike Bloomberg affiliated Everytown for Gun Safety ranks Minnesota the #14 state in the Union for gun control strength.

Quote:The Associated Press reported the two individuals — Dominic Miller and Lyndell Mays — were allegedly among “several others” who pulled guns following a dispute.

Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said that Mays allegedly “pulled his handgun first almost immediately,” followed by others.

Peters Baker indicated that the bullet that killed radio host Lisa Lopez-Galvan allegedly came from Miller’s gun.

The charges against Miller and Mays include second-degree murder.

On Friday, Breitbart News noted that two juveniles were charged in connection with the shooting. They face firearm-related charges and charges for resisting arrest, but the AP pointed to a news release from the Jackson County Family Court indicating “additional charges are expected in the future as the investigation by the Kansas City Police Department continues.”

Quote:The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is suing election officials in Alameda County, California, which includes Oakland and Berkeley, for refusing to disclose those foreign nationals who are on the voter rolls and have voted in past elections.

This month, PILF filed a lawsuit against Alameda County Registrar of Voters Timothy Dupuis, accusing him of violating the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) when he failed to turn over all records related to foreign nationals voting in the area.

“For more than four months, we have been trying to obtain records about foreign nationals getting on the voter roll,” PILF President J. Christian Adams said...

In September of last year, PILF asked Alameda County election officials for all records showing the number of foreign nationals who have had their voter registrations canceled, as well as records for each foreign national who voted before having their registration canceled.

The following month, PILF notified Dupuis that his office violated the NVRA, which requires counties and states to hand over records on voter rolls and voting history. Dupuis’ office suggested they would make such records available to PILF, if the office had them, by mid-January 2024.

Lawyers with PILF, though, said they have yet to hear back from Alameda County.

Quote:On Tuesday, as Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw first reported, Jordan sent a subpoena to Becerra requesting all information related to various cases of UACs who ultimately victimized American citizens after their being resettled with adult sponsors by HHS.

“The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of the Department of Health and Human Services’ mismanagement of the placement of UACs,” Jordan writes:

This mismanagement has resulted in unvetted UACs, who have been released by HHS to sponsors in the United States, committing heinous criminal acts against Americans. To that end, we have requested the case files for several UACs who have been charged with committing crimes while in the United States after being released by HHS. Your response without compulsory process has been woefully inadequate.

Since June 2023, the Committee has requested several HHS case files for criminal aliens charged with serious and violent crimes, including theft, brutal assault, and murder. The Committee has followed up on its requests on numerous occasions. Following months of nonresponsiveness, on September 28, 2023, HHS finally provided a response that included a variety of baseless excuses to justify withholding the requested criminal alien case files. Among other excuses, HHS noted its concern for the privacy interests of criminal aliens and asserted that the Committee lacked a legitimate oversight purpose to obtain the case files.
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Most recently, an MS-13 gang member who arrived in the U.S. as a UAC via the southern border in October 2015 was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents after being convicted of child sex crimes in the sanctuary state of Maryland.

Jordan sent Becerra a similar subpoena last month after he said HHS refused to disclose details on how the agency handles UACs who are discovered to be criminals or gang members after they have been placed with an adult sponsor in the U.S.

Quote:Former President Donald Trump must pay nearly half a billion dollars as a bond to New York State before he can appeal the ruling by Judge Arthur Engoron last week that he must pay $354 million in fines — over $450 million, with interest — for fraud.

Critics have noted that Trump is the only person ever to be sued under an obscure New York fraud statute that does not require any harm be done, and that effectively criminalizes the everyday practice of real estate valuations in negotiations with banks.

Though Attorney General Letitia James — who ran for office promising to target Trump — claimed that no one is above the law, her case against Trump marks the only such case in the history of the state. And the staggering fine is likewise unprecedented.
...
Under New York law, Trump cannot appeal this ruling without depositing the full amount, including interest, in a court account. Even for Trump, $455 million is hard to come by. Likewise, a bond would require a company to guarantee payment for a defendant who has been barred from doing business in New York and is facing the need to liquidate much of his portfolio.

Nothing succeeds like excess for judges like Engoron. By imposing this astronomical figure, he can make it difficult or impossible for a defendant to appeal, absent declaring bankruptcy or selling off assets at distress prices.

Quote:While pundits speculate, Harris criticized the Biden campaign for often being in a “bubble.” She aims to rectify the campaign’s strategy and tactics, according to a recent CNN report. However, some Democrats fear the campaign is past the point of no return:

Quote:More than two dozen sources tell CNN that Harris has been gathering information to help her penetrate what she sometimes refers to as the “bubble” of Biden campaign thinking, telling people she’s aiming to use that intelligence to push for changes in strategy and tactics that she hopes will put the ticket in better shape to win.
Multiple leading Democrats, anxious about a campaign they fear might be stumbling past a point of no return, say their conversations with Harris have been a surprising and welcome change, after months of feeling sloughed off by the White House and Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.

“The ‘bedwetting’ complaints are running thin with people,” a person who attended one of the meetings told CNN about the general state of anxiety in Democrat circles. “The West Wing and the campaign need to be better.”

Quote:Thirteen Republican senators are urging GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to force a formal impeachment trial of President Joe Biden’s pro-migration border chief, Alejandro Mayorkas.

Mayorkas was impeached on February 13 for refusing to enforce the nation’s border laws. But Democrats — and some pro-establishment GOP senators — are hinting they will ignore the House’s indictment and will not conduct Mayorkas’ trial in the Senate.

The senators’ letter to McConnell said:

We call on you to join our efforts to jettison this approach by Democrats to shirk their constant duty, ensure that the Senate conducts a proper trial and that every Senator, Republican and Democrat, adjudicates this matter when the Senate returns.

A Senate decision to ignore the House’s indictment “is an action rarely contemplated and never taken by the U.S. Senate in the history of our Republic,” the GOP letter said, adding:

It remains to be seen if the Senate rules will even allow us to brush aside our duty in this manner, but one thing is sure, if a similar strategy was contemplated by Senate Republicans while we were in the majority with a Republican occupying the White House, the opposition would be fierce and the volume from Democrats would be deafening.

The 13 GOP Senators include Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rick Scott (R-FL), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Ted Budd (R-NC), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).

Quote:The United States vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution Tuesday calling for a permanent ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas terrorists in Gaza, but has prepared its own resolution calling for a “temporary” ceasefire.

The resolution, introduced by Algeria, passed 13-1, with Great Britain abstaining. A ceasefire would end the war with Hamas still intact and able to carry out attacks.

The U.S. wielded its veto power as one of five permanent members of the Security Council. However, as Breitbart News reported, the U.S. has also prepared an alternate resolution, which would stop Israel from destroying the last Hamas battalions in Rafah.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the UN Ambassador from the U.S., explained the veto in a statement:

Proceeding with a vote today was wishful and irresponsible.

And so, while we cannot support a resolution that would put sensitive negotiations in jeopardy, we look forward to engaging on a text that we believe will address so many of the concerns we all share: A text that can and should be adopted by the Council, so that we can have a temporary ceasefire as soon as practicable, based on the formula of all hostages being released.

This temporary ceasefire is critical to getting aid into the hands of Palestinian civilians who desperately, desperately need it.

Quote:Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on Sunday she asked her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to “help influence the Houthis to keep the Red Sea open.”

Joly said she met with Wang on Saturday and tried to convince him that keeping the Red Sea shipping lanes safe was “in China’s interests as an exporter.”

Joly and Wang spoke on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, which concluded on Sunday. Wang promised in his address to the conference that China would be a “force for stability” in the world, which would seem to imply that China might help to protect international shipping through one of the world’s busiest sea lanes against a vicious terrorist organization.

Wang told Joly that his government wants to repair relations with Canada, which were severely damaged during the Meng Wanzhou affair.

Meng — the chief financial officer of telecom giant Huawei and a critical figure in the Chinese Communist Party — was arrested in Canada in December 2018 and held under house arrest for extradition to the United States on sanctions evasion charges. China took several Canadians hostage in retaliation and released them shortly after the charges against Meng were dropped in late 2021.

Canada has also accused China of interfering with its elections, and an investigation is ongoing. Wang alluded to these issues when he said the “current difficult situation” is “not what China wants to see.”

Quote:A report has found that the British taxpayer has subsidised foreign students and “economically inactive” migrants without jobs to the tune of £36 billion over the past three years.

An analysis of the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) by the Centre for Migration Control think tank has found that jobless migrants who entered the country legally have received £23.74 billion in support from the taxpayer since 2020.

According to the latest ONS figures, between October and December, an estimated 724,000 migrants were living in the UK between the ages of 16 and 64 deemed to be “economically inactive”, which the government defines as “people not in employment who have not been seeking work within the last 4 weeks and/or are unable to start work within the next 2 weeks.” This has risen from 623,500 in 2020, a 16 per cent increase.

When taking international students into account, the number of foreigners receiving financial support from the government climbs to 1,135,949 in 2023, compared to 909,771 in 2020, a 25 per cent increase. In total, according to the Centre for Migration Control, foreign students and jobless legal migrants cost the UK taxpayer £35.84 billion since 2020, The Express reported.

Despite longstanding promises from the Conservative government to reduce migration to the tens of thousands — which senior officials have admitted was merely election rhetoric and not something the party ever had any intention of fulfilling — mass immigration to Britain has continued to rise, with a record 1.4 million foreigners being allowed into the country over the past two years, alone.

Quote:12 people were injured, including a mother and her children, in a chemical attack in London on January 31st, prompting a major manhunt for primary suspect Abdul Shokoor Ezedi, an Afghan migrant “Christian convert” later portrayed as a “good Muslim” who may have gamed the migration system by claiming a change of faith. Police released details of their search for Ezedi slowly, stating first he’d been last seen at a north London railway station, then days later saying he’d been seen in East London, and then later still revealing he’d walked past the front door of Britain’s international spy agency headquarters before vanishing nearby.

The fact it had taken so long to get to this point, despite London being one of the most heavily surveilled cities on earth, raised questions of its own. Yet by this point the fact the injured Ezedi had vanished so close to the River Thames saw police move to the theory he had drowned himself. Searching the river turned up two “unexpected” bodies reasonably quickly last week, but Ezedi continued to elude the authorities.

Now police say they “strongly believe” they have found Ezedi in the Thames. Making a formal identification is difficult, they say, because the amount of time the body has spent in the water means visual or fingerprint checking is not possible, but they intend to attempt DNA testing and dental records with the Coroner’s office. Commander Jon Savell said on Tuesday Ezedi had been identified based on the “distinctive clothing” he had been wearing at the time of presumed death.

Quote:Prince William, the heir to the British throne, called Tuesday for an end to fighting in the Gaza Strip as soon as possible.

William stopped short of calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza as the House of Commons prepares for a vote on that issue on Wednesday. The message, written in white on a black background, was placed under William’s cypher on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Sometimes it is only when faced with the sheer scale of human suffering that the importance of permanent peace is brought home,´´ William said.

William used careful language focused on universal humanity rather than taking sides. Britain’s Foreign Office was briefed on the statement and his engagements.

His statement also noted the “terrible human cost” since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel and the “desperate need for increased humanitarian support for Gaza.” The U.N. is warning of growing malnourishment in parts of Gaza as little aid is allowed into the territory.

The prince plans to meet with aid workers active in the region and, separately, join a discussion at a synagogue with young people of different faiths who are fighting antisemitism.

William made the monarchy’s first official trip to Israel and the Occupied West Bank in 2018. The trip, made on behalf of the government, included separate talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Quote:The American man accused of attacking two female U.S. tourists in Germany in 2023 admitted to the rape and murder charges stemming from the incident, a Daily Mail report revealed.

It was June 14, 2023, when 31-year-old Troy Bohling allegedly assaulted Eva Liu, 21, and Kelsey Chang, 22, on a hiking path near Germany’s Neuschwanstein Castle, leading to Liu’s death.

The two young tourists were vacationing in Europe together after graduating from the University of Illinois, only to find themselves at the bottom of a 165-foot tall slope after being sexually assaulted and shoved over the edge by a strange man who had lured them off the trail.

Though he was not named in German media due to the country’s privacy laws, it has been reported in international news that Bohling also admitted to charges of attempted murder and possession of child pornography on Monday as his trial begins.

According to the Daily Mail, the perp “attacked Liu first, attempting to undress and rape her before pushing her companion off of a slope.”

Chang was flung off the cliff when she tried to help her friend, sustaining a head injury and other bruises.

“The suspect, from Lincoln Park, Michigan, then allegedly strangled Liu until she was unconscious and raped her, prosecutors said, before pushing her down the slope as well,” the outlet reported.

The two women were later found by mountain rescue workers, who discovered that Chang was able to walk, but Liu had to be rushed to the hospital via helicopter. She died that night as a result of her injuries.

Quote:A group of North Koreans sent to work in a Chinese seafood factory last month rioted and occupied the building to protest unpaid wages, Japanese media revealed Sunday. During the protest, they took a factory official hostage and beat a representative of the owning company to death.

The story was broken by Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, which spoke to a source in North Korea about the January 11-14 incident. The source described it as the first large uprising by dissatisfied North Korean workers sold as virtual slaves to foreign companies, and also a warning sign for the regime in Pyongyang that its younger subjects are growing harder to control.

The Chinese factory was variously described as manufacturing apparel, processing seafood, and even – according to Radio Free Asia (RFA) – producing medicine. The facility is located in the Chinese city of Helong, in a development zone that runs along the border with North Korea.

About two thousand North Korean workers were shipped to the factory under a contract with the North Korean Defense Ministry, which wanted its indentured servants to earn Chinese currency that could be brought back to Pyongyang.

North Korean slave workers typically earn a very meager salary, which they are not paid until they return to North Korea. The money they earn is held by the Communist tyranny, which keeps most of it for “expenses” and “contributions” to the motherland.

Quote:Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered a speech at the Munich Security Conference this weekend partially focused on discouraging Western businesses from seeking to invest elsewhere to avoid funding China’s extensive list of ongoing human rights atrocities, warning that divesting from China would be “a historical mistake.”

Wang attended the conference, meant primarily to discuss wars and threats of conflict erupting in hotspots around the world, shortly after the publication of a bombshell report in Germany implicating the automaker Volkswagen yet again in profiting from slavery in China. This time, the German newspaper Handelsblatt and human rights researcher Adrian Zenz revealed evidence, including photos of the apparent slaves, indicating that a test track built in occupied East Turkistan by Voklwagen and the Chinese car company SAIC was the product of Uyghur slavery.

Volkswagen responded to the report by stating that it would finally reconsider business operations in the Uyghur heartland in light of the new evidence. Shortly after the publication of the Handelsblatt reported, Volkswagen issued a statement saying “various scenarios are currently being examined intensively” regarding “the future direction of the [joint venture with SAIC]’s business activities in Xinjiang.
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Volkswagen is far from the only company implicated in Chinese slave labor. In 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) published its landmark report Uyghurs for Sale that found evidence of 83 global household-name companies using Chinese supplier factories that benefitted from Uyghurs slavery. In addition to Volkswagen, companies such as Apple, Nintendo, and BMW appeared on that list.

More recently, on Wednesday, the Financial Times reported, citing anonymous sources, that American customs officials had impounded thousands of vehicles tied to a Volkswagen parent group using Chinese suppliers.

Quote:The Houthis said on Monday they “targeted two American ships in the Gulf of Aden” with further attacks.

Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said in a televised address on Monday that the Rubymar took “catastrophic damages” from missile impacts and “came to a complete halt.”

“As a result of the extensive damage the ship suffered, it is now at risk of potential sinking in the Gulf of Aden,” Saree claimed.

“During the operation, we made sure that the ship’s crew exited safely,” he added, without providing any evidence that the Houthis took steps to ensure the crew’s safety.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed two anti-ship ballistic missiles fired from Yemen on Monday morning targeted the Rubymar. One of the missiles hit the ship and inflicted significant damage.

“The ship issued a distress call, and a coalition warship, along with another merchant vessel, responded to the call to assist the crew of the MV Rubymar. The crew was transported to a nearby port by the merchant vessel,” CENTCOM reported.

The BBC reported on Monday that the crew of the Rubymar had to abandon ship because it was taking on water, and the vessel is now abandoned in the Gulf of Aden near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The company that owns MV Rubymar said the Houthi missile struck the ship’s engine room.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) service said the ship is “at anchor,” and “military authorities remain on scene to provide assistance.”

Quote:Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told European Union (EU) foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday that Iran continues enriching uranium to much higher levels than needed for any commercial application.

According to Grossi, Iran’s uranium enrichment has slowed down slightly since the end of 2023, but Iranian centrifuges are still producing about seven kilograms of 60 percent pure uranium per month.

Sixty percent purity is far higher than required for any peaceful application but is just below the threshold of “weapons grade.” No other country on Earth has produced 60 percent pure uranium for any purpose other than developing nuclear weapons.

The IAEA said Iran produced about three kilograms of 60 percent uranium between June and November 2023 but then surged to nine kilograms for the last few months of 2023 — right about the time Iran kicked out a third of the IAEA’s inspectors.

Grossi was furious when Iranians “de-designated” his agency’s most experienced inspectors. He described it as an unprecedented and poorly explained action that dealt a “very serious blow” to the IAEA’s ability to conduct meaningful inspections.

One of the IAEA’s most experienced inspectors, in January 2023, detected a major spike in enrichment purity that Iranians did not properly report — a spike that took some of Iran’s uranium to a record high of 83.7 percent. Iran “de-designated” the Russian inspector who noticed that spike shortly before it kicked out the others in November.

Grossi complained in January 2024 that Iran was holding the IAEA “hostage” to its political disputes with the United States and other Western countries.

Quote:The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, Esmail Qaani, told Iran’s terrorist proxies in Iraq to pause attacks on American troops, Reuters revealed in a report citing anonymous sources on Sunday.

The extensive list of unnamed sources – “three Iranian officials, a senior Iraqi security official, three Iraqi Shi’ite politicians, four sources in Iran-backed Iraqi armed groups and four Iraq-focused diplomats” – all corroborated the claim that Qaani made a brief visit to Baghdad to discuss the escalating number of attacks by Iranian proxy forces in Iraq in late January and warned the leaders of several of these organizations that they should “lie low” to avoid a massive American military attack that may pose an existential threat to the groups.

Qaani’s alleged visit follows the killing of three Americans on the Jordanian-Syrian border, announced by President Joe Biden on January 28. The “Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” a coalition of anti-American terrorist groups in Iraq largely believed to be allied to Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack. Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iran proxy terrorist organization in Iraq widely considered to be part of the “Islamic Resistance,” issued threats to apply “more pressure” to the U.S. presence in the Middle East in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

The Pentagon has confirmed more than 165 attacks on American troops and assets in the Middle East since October 7, when Iran-linked jihadists with the Hamas terrorist organization invaded Israel and engaged in a mass murder, kidnapping, gang rape, and torture spree against multiple residential communities. Hamas terrorists killed an estimated 1,200 people and abducted over 200. Neighboring Muslim states responded to the attack by condemning Israel and amplifying Hamas’s demand for the creation of a “Palestinian” state carved out of Israel.

Defense Department authorities have not documented an attack on Americans since February 4, however – a bizarre halt that Reuters claims is a result of a direct order from Qaani.

Ten of the anonymous sources speaking to Reuters said that Qaani told the leaders of Iran’s terrorist proxies in Iraq that “drawing American blood risked a heavy U.S. response.” Qaani’s visit was reportedly furtive and brief because the IRGC terror chief feared being killed in an American strike. He refused to leave Baghdad’s airport.

Quote:The government of Israel declared Brazil’s far-left President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva persona non grata on Monday in response to comments in which Lula compared Israel’s self-defense operations against Hamas to the Holocaust.

The designation, as per International law, bans Lula from entering Israel.

Lula, who is currently on an official tour of Africa that began last week, repeatedly condemned Israel during his visits to Egypt and Ethiopia. He particularly disparaged Israel for attempting to protect itself from the jihadist terrorist organization Hamas, responsible for the October 7 attack on Israeli civilians that killed an estimated 1,200 people.

During a press conference following his participation at the 37 African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Lula compared Israel’s actions to that of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler.

Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) published photographs Sunday of medicines that were meant to be delivered to Israeli hostages under a January deal with Qatar, but were instead found unopened during a raid at the Nasser Hospital at Khan Yunis.

As Breitbart News reported last week, the IDF entered Nasser Hospital, after advance notice to hospital staff and specialized training to soldiers, taking care not to disrupt the care of patients as Israel searched for Hamas terrorists, hostages, and weapons.

The IDF has conducted dozens of arrests in the hospital, including of Hamas terrorists who were posing as medical staff.

In a statement Sunday, the IDF said:

So far, hundreds of terrorists and other terror suspects who were hiding in the hospital, some of whom had posed as medical staff, have been apprehended. Included among those apprehended are terrorists who participated in the October 7th Massacre, those with connections to the hostages, as well as significant Hamas operatives. The apprehended terrorists and suspects were transferred to undergo further investigations by security forces.

In the hospital, the soldiers located large quantities of weapons, some of which were found hidden in a vehicle used by Hamas terrorists to carry out the October 7th Massacre. In addition, a vehicle belonging to Kibbutz Nir Oz, which was likely stolen, was found in the area of the hospital.

As part of IDF activity in the hospital, boxes of medicine were found with the names of Israeli hostages on them. The packages of medicine that were found were sealed and had not been transferred to the hostages.

Quote:Russia’s main security agency arrested a dual citizen of Russia and the United States alleging she committed high treason for donating funds to an appeal aiding Ukraine.

The Federal Security Service (F.S.B.) identified the detainee as a 33-year-old woman who lives in Los Angeles, the New York Times reports.

The F.S.B. said in a statement that she had raised money for a Ukrainian organization that bought weapons and other equipment for Ukraine’s military.

The Russian news outlet Media Zona identified her as Ksenia Karelina. She is reportedly 33-years-old and a resident of Los Angeles.

Perviy Otdel, a group of Russian lawyers who specialize in cases involving accusations of treason and other politically charged allegations, said that the woman had been accused of treason for sending just over $50 to Razom for Ukraine, a New York-based nonprofit organization that sends assistance to the country.

Meanwhile the F.S.B. said the detained woman had been arrested in the city of Yekaterinburg in central Russia. She was reportedly in the country visiting her parents.

RIA Novosti, a Russian state news agency, published a video it alleged showed the woman, wearing a white hat that covered her eyes, being handcuffed and escorted by masked security service officers.

If convicted, she could face up to 20 years in prison.

Quote:Deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, who was also formerly the Prime Minister and President of Russia in service to Vladimir Putin, has threatened Western capitals with the “entire strategic arsenal” of Russian nuclear weapons. Medvedev, for whom absolutely no slight is too small to necessitate a nuclear response, was speaking of Ukraine’s hope to retake its U.N.-recognised national territory which in some cases have been occupied by Russia for very close to ten years.

Russia has amended its constitution and now considers those areas — Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia — to be full parts of the Russian Republic. Attempting to push the borders back to where they were before will invite a massive retaliation, Medvedev said in his latest threat on Sunday, making clear he sees the Western states aiding Ukraine with arms as legitimate targets.

He said: “Attempts to return Russia to the borders of 1991 will lead to only one thing. To a global war with Western countries using the entire strategic arsenal of our state. In Kiev, Berlin, London, Washington.”

Claiming “beautiful historical places” would be destroyed by Russia’s nuclear weapons, Medvedev suggested it would be better for the forces trying to roll back Russia’s war against Ukraine should stand down “before it’s too late”. Further discussing the consequences of Western-backed Ukraine taking back its legal territory, Medvedev spoke of how losing its newly conquered territory again could push Russia into civil war.

Quote:Russian officials are reportedly refusing to release the body of opposition leader Alexei Navalny to his family after his sudden death in an Arctic prison camp on February 16.

Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on Sunday it is “obvious that they are lying and doing everything they can to avoid handing over the body.”

Yarmysh said 47-year-old Navalny was “murdered” at the prison, but officials insisted “no crime had been found” during their preliminary investigation of his death.

When Navalny’s mother went to the prison on Saturday, she was told her son died from “sudden death syndrome” and his body had already been sent to Salekhard, the city nearest to the harsh and remote prison camp. Navalny’s mother and his lawyers proceeded to Salekhard, only to be told the morgue was not open for business and had not received Navalny’s body.

According to Yarmysh, a few hours after enduring that runaround, Navalny’s family and lawyers were informed his body was being held by the authorities pending a full investigation into his death, which will supposedly be concluded sometime next week.

Yarmysh said officials were clearly “driving us around in circles and covering their tracks” by refusing to hand over the body.

Navalny’s wife Yulia released a nine-minute video message over the weekend in which she raged against Russian strongman Vladimir Putin for killing her husband and depriving their two children of a father.

Quote:A Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine, taking his Cold War-era helicopter with him, was the victim of a shooting attack last week, Ukrainian media says.

A man was found shot dead in a parking garage in Villajoyos, Alicante, Spain last week. Although Spanish authorities haven’t released the name of the deceased, Ukrainian media now says the remains are of Captain Maksim Kuzminov, a Russian military pilot who defected with his helicopter to Ukraine last year.

Ukrainian Pravda cited a source in the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine directorate which “confirmed” the death of the defector, and who said after his crossing to the West Kuzminov had moved to Spain, presumably using the half-million dollar reward paid to him by the Ukrainian government for defecting.

Spanish newspaper El Pais reports Kuzminov’s body was found “riddled with bullets” and that he had also been run over by his attackers. A getaway car was later found burnt out.

The paper also notes Kuzminov was carrying false papers, suggesting he may have been living under an assumed identity, given previous threats to kill him, and that the Alicante neighbourhood where he lived was popular with Ukrainian and Russian expatriates.

Russia had already ordered the liquidation of their “traitor” last year, and said in a response to the news of his demise today that Kuzminov had already died morally at the point at which he decided to flee to the West, calling it a “dirty and terrible crime”. Russia further alleged that Kuzminov may have been killed by Ukraine themselves, to “eliminate… an inconvenient witness”.

Quote:Russia has invited over a dozen Palestinian factions to Moscow at the end of February for a summit aimed at producing a unified front as Hamas struggles to survive in the face of an Israeli counteroffensive following the October 7 terror attack.

The Jerusalem Post reported Monday:

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said over the weekend that Russia had invited Palestinian factions to meet in Moscow, according to Al-Ain media in the UAE. Russia’s state news TASS said it could take place from February 29 to March 2. The invitation is the latest Russian move to try to increase its influence in the wake of the October 7 attack on Israel. Moscow hosted a Hamas delegation in October and Hamas has sought to do outreach to Moscow.
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According to Russian state media TASS, Moscow has invited up to 14 Palestinian groups to attend. These include those that are members of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Moscow has reached out to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
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Hamas has done outreach to Russia in the wake of the October 7 attack. Moscow has also not condemned the massacre and it appears Moscow saw October 7 as a welcome distraction from the war in Ukraine. The war in Gaza has required similar types of 155mm shells the Ukrainians use, and the focus on Gaza means that Russia has been able to slowly build up its forces in Donetsk, possibly for a spring offensive. Ukraine had to withdraw from a key town near Donetsk over the weekend, and reports say the Ukrainians are outnumbered and outgunned on the front.

Russia appears to be reprising the role that the Soviet Union played during the Cold War, when it provided arms, funding, and ideological support to anti-Israel terrorist groups, including the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and to Arab states.

Anti-Israel sentiment appears to go hand-in-hand with pro-Russia sentiment among developing nations. Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula, compared Israel’s response to Hamas to the Holocaust — then defended Russia over the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Likewise, South Africa, which has led the charge against Israel at the International Court of Justice, has also taken a pro-Russia stance in the Ukraine war, refusing to condemn the Russian occupation of Ukrainian lands.

Quote:Estonia´s domestic security agency said on Tuesday that it had apprehended 10 people suspected of sabotage and of spreading fear and creating tension within the Baltic country in a coordinated “hybrid operation” by Russia´s special services.

Among the suspects – detained between December and February – are individuals believed to have broken the car windows of Interior Minister Lauri Läänemets and a local journalist in December, the Estonian Internal Security Service said.

“The information currently collected in criminal proceedings indicate that the Russian special service had coordinated a hybrid operation against the security of the Republic of Estonia, involving the suspects that have been detained,” it said. “To the knowledge of the Estonian Internal Security Service, its aim was to spread fear and create tension in Estonian society.”

Estonia´s relations to neighboring Russia have remained icy ever since its independence in 1991. As a legacy of the Soviet Union, the country of 1.3 million, which is now a member of NATO and the European Union, has a sizable ethnic Russian minority.

According to State Prosecutor Triinu Olev, the suspects have been detained pending the results of an investigation into criminal proceedings.

Quote:A South African member of Parliament, Ahmed Munzoor Shaik Emam of the National Freedom Party, delivered a speech on February 14 in which he warned Jews there would be a “bloodbath” if the “Zionists” tried to make Cape Town a “Jewish state.”

The speech, uploaded to the South African Parliament’s Youtube channel, was reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), and has since gone viral internationally.

The speech was part of the annual debate on the president’s “State of the Nation” address. Many members of Parliament wore kaffiyehs in solidarity with the Palestinians.

MEMRI noted: “South African MP Ahmed Munzoor Shaik Emam of the National Freedom Party said in a February 14, 2024 parliamentary debate, which was uploaded to the parliament’s official YouTube channel, that if the [opposition] Democratic Alliance hands over the city of Cape Town ‘to the Zionists, the city of Cape Town will be a bloodbath.’ He added: ‘We will not allow you to make this a Jewish state!'”

Cape Town is already governed by the Democratic Alliance.

The city has a large Muslim minority, which is generally peaceful, though it also includes extremist groups.

South Africa has experienced a surge in antisemitism since the Hamas terror attack on October 7 in Israel. Moreover, South Africa has led the charge against Israel on the international stage, accusing Israel of “genocide” at the International Court of Justice.

Emam’s speech has gone viral partly for that reason: while South Africa accuses Israel of “genocide,” a member of Parliament is threatening genocide against Jews.

Quote:Residents of Ethiopia’s Amhara region told the UK Guardian on Monday that government troops went door-to-door in the town of Merawi in January and murdered dozens of civilians to root out an insurgent militia.

One eyewitness reported seeing “at least 34 bodies” lying in the street after the massacre, some with “their faces completely blown out.”

The Guardian pointed out that its scoop was difficult to compile because the Ethiopian central government has banned reporters from traveling to Amhara and cut the entire region off from the Internet. The Guardian’s sources spoke by telephone and insisted on anonymity, fearing for their safety.

Several brutal civil wars have wrecked Ethiopia over the past few years. The prominent headline-grabbing conflict was the rebellion of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a Marxist militia and political party that controlled much of Ethiopia’s government before the election of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in April 2018.

Abiy is a member of the Oromo tribe, another of Ethiopia’s many feuding ethnic factions, and his aggressive reform agenda purged Tigrayans from many positions of power. Tensions escalated steadily and boiled over into violence in 2020.

The Tigrayan civil war was incredibly brutal, with atrocities reported on all sides. The TPLF came close to winning at one point, threatening to attack the capital of Addis Ababa. Abiy, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiation peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea, took to the battlefield as a belligerent war leader and called on his contacts in Eritrea for help, which they were only too happy to provide, as they shared a deep mutual loathing with the Tigrayans.

Quote:A lawsuit filed by two of Epstein’s accusers said that Epstein would give his abuse victims car services and cell phones to track their every move, find “dirt” on them, and offer hundreds of dollars in “hush money” to silence them.

The New York Post continued:

The details were laid bare in the new civil suit — filed in Manhattan federal court — that alleges the “complex, sophisticated sex-trafficking venture” Epstein was able to operate for years wouldn’t have been possible without two of the disgraced financier’s closest advisers: personal lawyer Darren Indyke and accountant Richard Kahn.

Epstein accuser Danielle Bensky and another woman, identified only as Jane Doe 3, filed a complaint against the two men on Friday, alleging they helped build the “complex financial infrastructure” that Epstein relied on to sexually abuse hundreds of teens and young women.

The lawsuit reportedly does not address what happened to the surveillance footage, or if Epstein kept footage of these activities inside the New York mansion.
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The two women said that Indyke and Kahn were “well aware” of Epstein’s abuses and they “knowingly and intentionally benefitted” from the operation.

“Knowing that they would earn millions of dollars in exchange for facilitating Epstein’s sex abuse and trafficking, Indyke and Kahn chose money and power over following the law,” the lawsuit reads.

Quote:The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied on February 20 a request to rehear en banc a September 2023 three-judge panel ruling that found California’s ban on gun advertisements in junior sports magazines “likely unconstitutional.”

The three-judge panel decision, handed down on September 13, 2023, found no evidence that barring advertisements in the magazines would reduce gun violence among youth.

Judge Kenneth Lee, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote the panel’s majority opinion, noting that the panel’s first conclusion was “that because California permits minors under supervision to possess and use firearms for hunting and other lawful activities, [the Marketing Firearms to Minors Law] facially regulates speech that concerns lawful activity and is not misleading.”
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Lee stressed, “California cannot straitjacket the First Amendment by, on the one hand, allowing minors to possess and use firearms and then, on the other hand, banning truthful advertisements about that lawful use of firearms.”

The three-judge panel heard the case on appeal after a district court refused to issue a preliminary injunction against the marketing ban. The three-judge panel reversed the district court’s refusal of a preliminary injunction and remanded the case “for further proceedings consistent with [the panel’s opinion].”

On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit denied a request to step in and rehear the case en banc, which means the three-judge panel’s decision stands as the case will be re-examined by the district court.

Quote:Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) has been criticized by conservatives for opposing measures that would crack down on illegal immigration as the Keystone State experiences a “surge” of illegal immigrant crime.

Sean Parnell, a conservative who previously ran for Senate, shared a news report about how illegal alien gangs are stealing “large quantities of merchandise” from across the state.

Parnell noted that Casey in 2021 opposed a measure ensuring that illegal alien criminals would not be granted amnesty.

He wrote, “Worth pointing out: As illegal immigrant crime surges in Pennsylvania, our radical leftwing Senator Bob Casey voted against an amendment in 2021 to prevent illegals who have been charged with a crime from being granted amnesty.”

“Reminder: Senator Bob Casey of PA stood by Biden as he reversed Trump’s immigration policies and opened our border up to an invasion of illegal immigrants. Had Bob Casey actually done his job and fought to keep our border secure, crimes like this wouldn’t be happening,” Andrew Surabian, a former Trump White House staffer, wrote.

Indeed, Casey voted 2021 in lockstep with Senate Democrats to oppose an amendment offered by Sen. Chuck Grassley.

The amendment’s statement of purpose reads, “To establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to prohibiting illegal aliens with criminal records from receiving conditional or lawful permanent resident status in the United States.”

Quote:Roxbury’s Melnea A. Cass Recreational Community Center, which was once a meeting place for Little League ball players, volleyball games, and other sports and community events, has now been dedicated to rows of cots for illegal border crossers, CBS, WBZ-TV Boston reported.

WBZ interviewed pre-teen Jeremiah Rodriguez who showed up at the community center on Feb. 17 under the mistaken impression that his community baseball team was using the facility for batting practice. He was devastated to find out his community center was now closed to him.

“We usually practice. They were closed,” young Jeremiah told the outlet.

Jeremiah’s dad, Yrbin Rodriguez, added, “It’s hard. I didn’t know the immigrants inside. It’s okay to help, I don’t think that’s the place to do it because kids and families go and enjoy.”

But thanks to Biden and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, the chiefly black community has lost the facility that was once the center of the community. Roxbury is nearly 57 percent black, almost 30 percent Latino, and only six percent white, in a neighborhood that has a median income far under Boston as a whole ($30,654 for Roxbury, $52,433 for Boston overall), according to city of Boston data.

Quote:New York Attorney General Letitia James is prepared to seize former President Donald Trump’s assets if he is unable to find cash to cover a $354 million fine in his civil fraud case, she said Tuesday in an interview with ABC News.

James told ABC News, “If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets.”

Trump was fined $354.8 million plus approximately $100 million in pre-judgment interest on Friday after Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron ruled the former president had inflated his net worth in order get more favorable loan terms.

Trump has said he will appeal the ruling. Still, he will have to pay the fine as a bond to New York State before he can appeal.

When asked about Trump’s defense that the banks were paid back for all loans and there were no victims in the case, James responded “financial frauds are not victimless crimes,” but did not name any victims and instead said the fraud was “massive.”

Quote:The Associated Press (AP) noted that D’Arcy used a news release to indicate that New York’s “legislative environment” is concerning to the firearm industry as a whole.

The pending closure of Remington’s Ilion, New York, plant — launched in 1828 — marks the end of generations of New Yorkers working for the American gun maker.

Jim Conover began working at the Ilion plant in 1964 and continued to work for Remington for four decades. He commented on the pending closure, saying, “When Remington leaves, it’s not going to be like a facility leaving, it’s going to be like part of your family has moved off.”

On December 1, 2023, Breitbart News reported that Remington was closing the Ilion plant and the anticipated date of closure is early March 2024.
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In addition to all the regulations and taxes in New York, the state has so much gun control that Mike Bloomberg-affiliated Everytown for Gun Safety ranks it the No. 2 state in the Union for gun control laws.

Quote:“Adams’ change of heart came during a surprise appearance at a St. Nicholas House Resident Association meeting packed with dozens of residents furious over the city’s plan for a building development on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd once marketed as upscale housing,” reported the New York Post.

“The 35-story building was quietly slated to become a homeless shelter that could potentially house migrants — a plan that was only revealed to the community this week when some neighborhood residents saw workers bringing bed frames and mattresses inside,” it added.

Adams finally turned his plan around last Thursday night after public pressure.

“I told the team, ‘Find out what’s going on here. We’re not moving folks into a brand new building when you have long-term needs in a community. That’s not gonna happen,’” Adams said. “You will not have migrants and asylum seekers in that property.”

The site will instead house New York families dealing with homelessness.

Quote:The number of New York City police officers getting injured by perps has skyrocketed in recent years, with the 2023 numbers totaling a whopping 5,363 cops hurt on the job.

In the final quarter of the year alone, 1,286 officers were injured in struggles with suspects, according to NYPD data obtained by the New York Post.

The annual statistics ranked the following precincts as the most dangerous for cops to work in:

The Bronx’s 40th Precinct – 135 cops injured
Brooklyn’s 75th Precinct – 129
The Bronx’s 46th Precinct (128), 44th Precinct (126), and 47th Precinct (117)
According to one law enforcement insider: “No real surprises here – all very busy commands where perps are emboldened to fight.”

The number of NYPD officers hurt by suspects increased by 20 percent in 2022, with 4,724 uniformed officers suffering injuries. This figure was up from 3,933 in 2021.

The total amount of anti-cop attacks resulting in injuries in 2023 was 13 percent higher than in the year before.

Crime experts told the Post that the emboldened perps are a result of protests, illegal migrants, anti-cop rhetoric, and soft-on-crime policies like bail reform.

Quote:The Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) found cages in tunnels underneath Khan Yunis in which hostages had recently been held, but found no hostages there.

The Post noted:

With the IDF completing its operational takeover of Khan Yunis, sources have confirmed that the IDF found no hostages there, though it did find multiple multi-million shekel special tunnels with cages where hostages had been held.
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As early as December, top sources started to argue that Hamas was already moving some hostages from Khan Yunis to Rafah.
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It seems that since December, more, or even all, of the remaining hostages in Khan Yunis were moved to Rafah, hiding among around 1.5 million Palestinian civilians.

The daring hostage rescue carried out by the IDF last week took place in Rafah, freeing two Israeli hostages from a civilian home.

President Joe Biden and other world leaders have warned Israel not to go into Rafah, despite the likely presence of the hostages, and despite the fact that the last four Hamas battalions (out of twenty-four) are thought to be hiding there.

Quote:Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira accused the Israeli government on Tuesday of “lying” about recent public comments in which far-left President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva compared Israel’s self-defense operations against Hamas to the Holocaust.

Lula compared Israel’s actions against Hamas to those of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler in remarks given on Sunday during a press conference following his participation at the 37 African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.

“What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has no parallel in other historical moments. In fact, it did exist when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” Lula said.
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Israeli Foreign Minister Katz addressed Lula on social media on Wednesday in a public letter written in Portuguese in which he stated that “millions of Jews around the world are waiting” for his apology.

“How dare you compare Israel to Hitler?” Katz asked Lula.
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Brazilian Foreign Minister Vieira, in remarks given to Reuters and Bloomberg on Tuesday evening on the sidelines of an upcoming G20 meeting of foreign ministers, lashed out at the Israeli government and Foreign Minister Katz for his public letter addressing Lula. Vieira claimed Israel’s response to Lula’s comments as “unacceptable” and “untruthful.”

“For a foreign ministry to address a head of state from a friendly country in this way is unusual and revolting,” Vieira told reporters.

“The words from Netanyahu’s government are unacceptable in their form, and deceiving in their content,” he continued. “They’re putting up a smoke screen to hide the real problem which is the ongoing massacre in Gaza.”

With regards to Katz’s public request for an apology, Vieira said that there is no reason for the Brazilian President to apologize.

Quote:Haitian Judge Walther Wesser Voltaire on Monday issued 122 pages of indictments against dozens of people allegedly involved in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

One of the indictments was against Moise’s widow Martine, who the judge accused of conspiring with former Prime Minister Claude Joseph to kill her husband and take his place as president.

Jovenel Moise was murdered in his home on July 7, 2021, by a squad of gunmen, four of whom were killed in a subsequent gun battle with police. Martine Moise was home at the time and was shot in the arm and thigh during the attack.

“I still don’t believe that my husband has gone like this before my eyes without saying a last word to me. This pain will never pass,” she said from her hospital bed in Miami a few days after the assassination.

“You have to be a notorious criminal without guts to assassinate a president like Jovenel Moïse with impunity without giving him the chance to speak. You knew who the president was fighting against,” she said to the killers in an audio statement released from the hospital.

Dozens of arrests were made in connection with the assassination of President Moise. Haitian officials said the killing was an elaborate plot hatched by the conspirators during meetings in Florida and the Dominican Republic.

In February 2023, U.S. federal agents arrested four suspects in South Florida accused of playing major roles in the Moise murder plot, including the owner of a security firm in the Miami area.

Quote:Lavrov made a one-day stop in Venezuela as part of a broader Latin America tour that began in Cuba on Monday. In Caracas, he met with socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, and Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil.

“We put special focus to increasing trade and economic relations. There are numerous opportunities here. The high-level intergovernmental trade and economic commission between Russia and Venezuela plays a critical role in our opinion,” Lavrov said at a press conference following his meeting with Gil.

“Peaceful use of nuclear energy, which we also discussed today, looks promising,” he continued. “We decided to accelerate and expand our cooperation in all these areas.”

Lavrov asserted that Russia is ready to “share the experience” it has accumulated in recent years with the Maduro regime in the energy sector to help contribute to national economic stability and strengthen the two rogue nations’ technical autonomy.

“Venezuela is one of Russia’s most reliable and closest friends, not only in Latin America but in the world,” Lavrov proclaimed after meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart, stressing that Russia is “very grateful” for Venezuela’s interest in helping the development of relations between Moscow and various Latin American regional organizations.

During his joint press briefing with the Russian foreign minister, Gil described both countries as “victims in the international scenario of the illegal, irrational, and illegitimate” sanctions, which he claimed are “unilateral coercive measures.”

“None of the sanctions have been lifted against Venezuela,” Gil claimed — a false statement. In October, the Biden administration gifted a generous oil and gas sanctions relief package to the Maduro regime in exchange for vague promises of holding a “free and fair” presidential election sometime in 2024.

Quote:The Russian top diplomat is expected to be in Latin America for four days, traveling to Venezuela on Tuesday and Brazil later this week. During his one-day stay in Havana, Lavrov met with the communist Castro regime’s figurehead President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla.

“Cuba is our traditional partner, our most important ally in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Lavrov said during his meeting with Rodríguez Parrilla. “We are satisfied with the very constructive and intensive character of the Russian-Cuban political dialogue at all levels.”

Lavrov asserted that Cuba has experienced “illegal pressure” from the United States and its allied nations and called for an end to the “embargo” imposed on the rogue communist regime that has ruled Cuba for over six decades.

“The realities of a multi-polar world are provoking an aggressive reaction from the United States and other countries of the world minority which, by all means, want to preserve their domination, hegemony, and diktat,” Lavrov said. “The means used by representatives of the United States and other Western countries for this purpose do not include diplomacy, but blackmail, ultimatums, threats, the use of brute military force and sanctions.”

Lavrov also demanded that the United States remove Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism after it was included in January 2021 during the administration of former President Donald Trump. The Castro regime appears on the list as a result of its extensive ties to terrorist organizations around the world such as the Iran-backed Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Marxist guerrilla.