Quote:Police in Uvalde, Texas, sparked intense outrage 10 months ago when it was revealed they allowed a school shooter to roam free for more than an hour, killing 21 young kids and teachers along the way.

Now, those officers are facing renewed criticism after it was learned that two Nashville cops took just 14 minutes to take down mass shooter Audrey Hale in the halls of The Covenant School on Monday.

Nashville officers Rex Englebert and Michael Collazo have been hailed heroes after haunting bodycam footage showed them running towards a hail of gunfire and immediately killing the 28-year-old shooter with a slew of precision shots.

Their response is a “glaring” difference to that of their law enforcement colleagues over in Uvalde, retired NYPD sergeant Joseph Giacalone told The Post on Tuesday.

Giacalone praised the quick-thinking Nashville cops for acting with “zero hesitation.”
...
“The longer you wait the more you hesitate or think about these things. It’s paralysis by analysis and that didn’t happen.”

Giacalone added: “You think about what’s going on with the heart rate and all the other things that go along with this. They did a great job.”
...
“In Uvalde the shooter had an AR-15 and dozens of armed cops waited outside for almost an hour while wounded children bled out In Nashville the shooter had an AR-15 and 5 cops rushed in and took them out in minutes Nashville PD just set the standard for the entire country,” Rogan O’Handley tweeted.

Quote:Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, bribed Chinese government officials with $40 million in cryptocurrency, the Department of Justice alleged in a new 13-count indictment.

Federal prosecutors stated that accounts belonging to Bankman-Fried and others “directed and caused the transfer” of at least $40 million in crypto “intended for the benefit of one or more Chinese government officials in order to influence and induce them” to unfreeze some of the accounts.

In November 2021, accounts for Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, were frozen by Chinese authorities.

The Chinese government has been cracking down on cryptocurrency since 2017, banning digital currencies in September 2021.

Bankman-Fried and his colleagues employed “numerous” legal and personal methods to unfreeze the accounts that contained approximately $1 billion worth of crypto, according to prosecutors.

“After months of failed attempts to unfreeze the accounts, Samuel Bankman-Fried discussed with others and ultimately agreed to and directed a multimillion-dollar bribe to seek to unfreeze the accounts,” prosecutors wrote in the indictment.

Once the funds were released, the money was utilized to fund his hedge fund’s loss-generating trades.

Bankman-Fried is accused of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, an anti-bribery statute.

A letter to the federal district court judge managing the case confirmed that a grand jury returned the indictment on March 27.

Quote:Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried said they reached an agreement with U.S. prosecutors on Monday on revised bail conditions, after a judge raised the prospect of sending the indicted FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder to jail pending trial.

Under some of the proposed new conditions, Bankman-Fried would have a new phone with no internet capability and a basic laptop with limited functions, but be forbidden from using other electronic communication devices.

The laptop will have monitoring software to track user activity and Bankman-Fried won’t have administrative access to prevent tampering with the restrictions. Additionally, the new phone’s communication functions will be limited to text messages and voice calls, with all other messaging applications prohibited.

In Monday’s letter, Bankman-Fried’s parents agreed to restrict his access to their devices, while also signing sworn affidavits to not bring prohibited electronic devices into their home.

If there’s reasonable suspicion of a violation, Bankman-Fried must submit his devices for a search, the letter added.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is overseeing Bankman-Fried’s case, would need to approve the new terms before they go into effect.

Quote:The study published on Tuesday by AidData, a research lab at William & Mary, a public university in Virginia, notes the significant scale of China’s cross-border rescue lending: it says that China’s $240 billion bailout is more than 20 percent of total International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending over the past decade, with an accelerating trend—$185 billion, or nearly 80 percent, of the total $240 billion was extended during the recent five years between 2016 and 2021.

Yet, China’s lending is opaque, more expensive at an average 5 percent interest rate versus IMF’s 2 percent, and is offered almost exclusively to BRI countries.

BRI, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) multibillion-dollar global infrastructure development strategy, has long been criticized for saddling host countries with debt, ignoring the local environmental impact, and exporting Chinese labor, therefore not creating local jobs. Moreover, when the host countries couldn’t repay BRI loans, the CCP seized assets that expanded its strategic and military reach.

Hence, BRI is also known as “debt-trap diplomacy.” An example is Sri Lanka, an island country in South Asia. In December 2017, the government gave the CCP a 99-year lease of its Hambantota Port—located near busy Indian Ocean shipping routes—and 15,000 acres of land around it after defaulting on a $1 billion BRI loan.

According to the authors of the study, the CCP does not bail out all distressed BRI borrowers. Instead, it tends to offer low-income debtors debt restructuring plans but no new money. Meantime, middle-income debtors, such as Argentina, Pakistan, Egypt, Ukraine, and Venezuela, received new money. For example, Argentina received the most at about $112 billion.

The report’s authors also raised an issue regarding China’s central bank using its global swap lines for debt servicing. They noted that the CCP’s swap line rescue loan operations “complicated the challenge of monitoring debt vulnerabilities in the developing world.”

About 70 percent of the $240 billion bailout was conducted through the global swap line of China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). Such swap lines are set up to improve the liquidity conditions of central banks.

Quote:A Senate Republican revealed during a March 28 hearing that an internal Department of Justice (DOJ) memo dissuaded U.S. Marshals from arresting protestors in violation of laws against picketing the homes of judges.

The materials revealed during the hearing show that U.S. Marshals were explicitly directed not to arrest protestors at the homes of Supreme Court (SCOTUS) justices.

“People want justice to be blind,” said freshman Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who unveiled the findings during a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Attorney General Merrick Garland appeared before the panel to testify on the DOJ side of President Joe Biden’s proposed budget.

Section 1507 of U.S. Code prohibits the picketing of Supreme Court (SCOTUS) justices or other federal judges to change the outcome of a legal case. But when protestors demonstrated at the homes of conservative justices to protest their leaked abortion decision in June 2022, U.S. Marshals made few arrests in connection to the statute.

This, Britt revealed, was not a mistake. Rather, she showed that a DOJ memo had directly dissuaded agents from making arrests on the basis of Section 1507, instructing them to arrest protestors only as a “last resort” to protect the justices.
...
“U.S. Marshals have the authority to arrest anyone under that statute or any other federal statute,” Garland said. “The attorney general does not make the decision to arrest. The Marshals on the scene—they do make the decision of whether to arrest.”

But newly uncovered materials used to train Marshals to protect the homes of SCOTUS justices show that they were “actively discouraged” from making arrests on grounds of this statute, Britt said.

“Those materials show that the Marshals likely didn’t make any arrests because they were actively discouraged from doing so,” Britt said.

The training materials told the Marshals “to avoid, unless absolutely necessary, any criminal enforcement action involving the protestors.”

Marshals were also told, “Making arrests and initiating prosecutions is not the goal of the [Marshal Service] presence at SCOTUS residences.”

“The ‘not’ is actually italicized and underlined,” Britt noted.

Quote:U.S. special counsel John Durham is poised to finish his report soon, Attorney General Merrick Garland said on March 28.

Garland, testifying before a U.S. Senate committee, was asked about how Democrat lawyer Michael Sussmann had a badge that let him access the FBI’s headquarters. Sussmann used the the badge to gain entry on Sept. 19, 2016, when he handed over unsupported allegations against then-presidential candidate Donald Trump to an FBI lawyer.

“He was with the private law firm purpose Perkins Coie, which is the main counsel for the national Democratic Party. He had a special badge to get him into the … FBI building. Why did he have that special badge?” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) asked.

“I’m afraid I also don’t know anything about this. I assume from the reference that this is something that Mr. Durham was investigating as part of his investigation,” Garland said.

“No, I don’t think he investigated the badge,” Kennedy said.

“I know he was investigating Mr. Sussmann. I think this goes back to 2020. I don’t know the answer to that,” Garland said.

Kennedy asked Garland to find out the answer for him, noting that he tried getting it from FBI Director Christopher Wray during questioning in 2020 but that Sussmann’s trial was in process at the time. Sussmann, prosecuted by Durham’s team, was acquitted by a jury in Washington.

“The trial is over. I’d like to know why Mr. Sussmann, a private citizen, had a special badge to get into the FBI in the Department of Justice, and if there are other people out there who have special badges,” Kennedy said.

“On the particular question about Sussman, I think we’re going to have to wait until Mr. Durham finishes his report, which should be relatively soon,” Garland replied.
...
“On the more general question, I can certainly ask my team to look into how lawyers have special badges.”
...
Durham has only prosecuted three people. Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who doctored an email to state that a one-time Trump campaign associate was not a CIA asset when the associate actually was, pleaded guilty and received probation. Sussmann was acquitted by a jury, as was Igor Danchenko, a Russian national who was the primary subsource for the Trump dossier compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele for Hillary Clinton and other Democrats.

Barr, who has defended the probe, said he was disappointed by the acquittals but optimistic about the upcoming report.

Quote:Migrant encounters along the U.S.-Mexico border have soared to record highs since Mayorkas was sworn in as DHS Secretary in February 2021. The number rose to 250,000 last December and was reported at 155,000 in February.

CBP seized a record-high 2,900 pounds of fentanyl along the southern border last November. Three years ago, border agents were claiming around 380 pounds of fentanyl every month.

During the first week of Operation Blue Lotus, there were 16 federal arrests, two state arrests, and 18 seizures that prevented more than 900 pounds of fentanyl from crossing into the United States, DHS reported.
...
Mayorkas said that the reduced numbers in February show that Biden’s regulations are working.

Overall, border patrol agents have encountered more than 4.8 million migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border since Mayorkas took office.

Border authorities reported 11 terror watchlist encounters on the southern border between 2017 and 2020. Last year, they said the figure escalated to 98.

“You want to fix this, Mr. Secretary? Go back to Trump policies. Just reimpose everything Donald Trump did to secure the border and your problem will dramatically be improved,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
...
Most of the fentanyl that is detected enters the United States through border crossings and is not brought in between the ports of entry, Mayorkas stated.

Last week, Border Patrol chief agent in Tucson, Arizona, John Modlin told Congress that the migrants are used by cartels to distract agents.

Mayorkas told lawmakers that he did not know that cartels use illegal immigrants to cross into the United States from Mexico and sneak in contraband.

Quote:[Senator John] Cornyn told Mayorkas that during testimony to Congress earlier this month Attorney General Merrick Garland acknowledged the cartels’ strategy.

“You have no idea how many of those people were carrying fentanyl or other drugs with them, do you?” Cornyn demanded.

“Senator, the expert view that I received is that approximately 90 percent of the fentanyl…” Mayorkas responded.

“That’s a totally made-up number, Mr. Secretary. You know it. That’s a totally made-up number,” Cornyn proclaimed.
...
“I have unflinching confidence in the integrity of my conduct,” Mayorkas declared.

“You said we do have operational control of the border in 2022,” Cornyn pointed out. “You said the border is not, in fact, open. And then I think I heard you say here that no administration has ever had operational control of the border. Isn’t that what you said?”

“No. That is not what I said,” Mayorkas replied.

Quote:The Chinese Communist Party’s forced organ harvesting has appalled Washington and united lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.

As a bill seeking to end the atrocity continues to advance—having passed the House by a vote of 413-2—members of Congress cheered the development and reaffirmed their determination to hold the regime accountable.

“Forced organ harvesting is cruel and immoral, often targeting ethnic and religious minorities and some of the most vulnerable groups in the world,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who co-leads the Senate version of the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act.

As a co-chair of the Senate Human Rights Caucus, he expressed pride in seeing the bill pass the House and getting “closer to empowering the Biden administration to take action against those who practice this despicable crime.”
...
Newly passed through the House, the bill is the first of its kind in the United States to combat the bloody act through legislative tools, a feat lauded by human rights groups.

Quote:Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies announced on Wednesday she will no longer handle the prosecution of Alec Baldwin for the fatal October 2021 shooting on the “Rust” movie set.

The decision comes two weeks after New Mexico state Rep. Andrea Reeb, the special prosecutor in the “Rust” case, resigned on the premise that she didn’t want questions over her dual roles as a lawmaker and prosecutor to “cloud the real issue at hand.”

In their place, attorneys Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis will take over as special prosecutors on the case against “Rust” actor Alec Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who are accused of involuntary manslaughter in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
...
“Carmack-Altwies will continue her record of prosecuting drunken drivers, collaborating with local law enforcement, increasing diversion efforts and securing convictions against the most dangerous and prolific offenders.”

The appointment of Morrissey and Lewis comes a day after Carmack-Altwies was denied her request to select a new special prosecutor alongside an assistant district attorney from her office to prosecute the “Rust” case. Judge Mary Marlowe Summer ruled that the DA’s office had to choose to either prosecute the case itself or recuse itself entirely and select a special prosecutor as a replacement.

The appointment of Morrissey and Lewis also comes a day after Carmack-Altwies was denied her request to bring in an outside lawyer to fill the position left vacant by Reeb.

Quote:According to DHS, there have been 4.7 million “encounters” with illegal immigrants reported at the nation’s southern border since the Biden administration assumed office in January 2021.
...
An estimated 1.3 million “got-aways” have eluded border agents and escaped into the country—a figure many say is underestimated by up to 20 percent.

As a result critics, which include the entire Republican Congressional contingent as well as some Democrats, say there were more than 1,100 attacks on U.S. Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents while the flow of fentanyl remains unabated across the southern border, contributing to more than 75,000 poisoning deaths attributed to the drug in 2022.

“Mr. Secretary, you are failing at doing your job. These numbers speak for themselves,” Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Minn.) said.

“The policies of this administration have directly contributed to this failure. In my mind, it is very clear this has been a complete failure in you doing your job and we need new leadership.

“What will it take for you to resign and step down from this … because I see this as a complete failure. What will it take?” Hinson asked.

Mayorkas didn’t directly respond to Hinson’s query during his two-and-a-half-hour March 29 hearing before the House Appropriation Committee’s Homeland Security Subcommittee.

Quote:Four Democrat lawmakers have reintroduced the Gun Violence Prevention Research Act, which would provide $50 million annually for the next five years to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to further research and prevention efforts to address the gun violence epidemic in the United States.

Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Representatives Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich), Mark Takano (D-Calif.), and Marilyn Strickland (D-Wash.) announced the reintroduction of the bill on March 29, just days after the Nashville school shooting.
...
“My legislation would bolster gun violence prevention research with the help of our nation’s top medical, scientific, and public health researchers so that we can chart a path out of this public health crisis and save lives.”

The bill builds on existing efforts to secure $100 million for federal gun violence prevention research between fiscal years 2020 and 2023, which included funding for more than 20 individual research projects studying gun violence prevention.

The legislation aims to expand research on the unique harms posed to young people, mitigate gun violence in high-risk communities, and prevent firearm suicides among military service members and veterans, among other efforts.

Open Editorial

Why ain't I surprised by this?  
Sadly, the Babylon Bee's sketch where you could see a DA and a judge condemning a rifle for harming people looks quite realistic nowadays.

Even if you ban guns, there are  knives criminals can still use. And guess what? That's exactly what's happening in the UK every so often. Some radical Muslim shows up suddenly, thinking everybody is an infidel, and goes on a rampage and tries to stabs as many people as he can. This has also happened in France and Spain. So nope, the ban won't solve your issues. The main reason is that movements like the woke culture are violent and rebellious in nature, confusing, and can make people get totally crazy out of the blue. The governments don't care about such stuff, they simply believe that they can talk it out at one of their community buildings they promote and that's it.

What those people badly need is a really large dose of reality to wake up, and that includes facing serious consequences like getting life sentences as well. Oh and go arrest all those illegal immigrants at once, too!

Quote:Former President Donald Trump praised the grand jury impaneled in the Manhattan district attorney’s inquiry targeting him amid reports that he may be indicted soon.

“I have gained such respect for this grand jury, & perhaps even the grand jury system as a whole,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“The evidence is so overwhelming in my favor, & so ridiculously bad for the highly partisan & hateful district attorney, that the grand jury is saying, hold on, we are not a rubber stamp, which most grand juries are branded as being, we are not going to vote against a preponderance of evidence or against large numbers of legal scholars all saying there is no case here. Drop this sick witch hunt, now,” he continued to say.

The former president did not elaborate. It’s not clear if Trump was reacting to leaked information that was published by media outlets or if he had insider information.

Anonymously sourced reports that emerged Wednesday claimed the grand jury would take a break for a month. A report from Politico that cited “a person familiar with the proceedings” said that evidence in the case won’t be heard by the grand jury due to a “scheduling hiatus.”

Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump, told The Epoch Times via email Wednesday that the DA’s office is “bringing repeat witnesses in and it appears the grand jury is not having it. It is not normal to take a three week break when you are up against a statute of limitations.”
...
A Trump-associated lawyer, Robert Costello, told Newsmax on Tuesday that he believes former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified before the grand jury. Reports claimed that Pecker met with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen in August 2015 to suppress stories about alleged affairs.

Quote:Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen arrived in New York on Wednesday for a stopover amid threats from China that there would be retaliation if she met with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Tsai is en route to Central America, where she will meet with leaders of Guatemala and Belize, two of the few countries that recognize Taiwan diplomatically.

She will stay in New York until Saturday and will also visit Los Angeles on her return from Central America. Tsai is expected to meet McCarthy in California, although this is not officially confirmed.

Meanwhile, one of Tsai's most prominent domestic opponents, former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, embarked on a trip to China on Wednesday, the first such visit by a former Taiwanese leader.

Beijing has warned against any meeting between Tsai and McCarthy and vowed to take "resolute measures to fight back" if it goes ahead.

Xu Xueyuan, the charge d'affaires at the Chinese embassy in Washington, said she had spoken directly to US officials numerous times and warned them that Tsai's trip would violate China's core interests.

Quote:Almost all planes, trains and buses in Germany were at a standstill on Monday after a nationwide 24-hour strike began at midnight.
...
Two major unions are deadlocked in negotiations with public sector employers in several transport sectors — including rail, local public transport, and airport ground staff — and organized the strike to coincide with the start of a third round of talks.

Frank Werneke, head of the Verdi union that represents around 2.5 million public sector employees, spoke of the biggest strike in decades.

The German rail network was similarly paralyzed. The EVG union said more than 30,000 railway workers have joined the strike.

Cargo transport on both the rail network and at the country's ports has also been hit as dock workers join those on strike.

Last week, national rail operator Deutsche Bahn took the unusual step of calling off all long-distance rail services in the country scheduled for Monday.

Often Deutsche Bahn tries to prioritize these services, several of which also cross international borders. Comparable past strikes in Germany had had a more pronounced impact on local services.

Quote:Total public debt is up in Germany, reaching a new record of over €28,000 per person. Much of the debt on the national level is connected special COVID and energy funds from the last years.

Germany's total public debt reached €2.37 trillion (roughly $2.6 trillion) at the end of 2022 — a new record high — Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on Wednesday.

The level of debt corresponded to a 2% — or €46.1 billion — rise from the end of 2021, when the coronavirus pandemic was still in full swing.

According to Destatis, the national public debt has reached the equivellent of €28,155 per person in Germany.

Federal debt was up 4.6%, or €71.9 billion, to a total of €1.62 trillion.

"This is above all due to the continued high funding needs in light of the pandemic over the past years and the current energy crisis," the statistical agency said.

The rate of increase was also reduced in 2022 compared to 2021 and 2020, amid the most pronounced COVID-related disruptions.
...
Much of the increase in borrowing in recent years was to fill up a special coronavirus fund which was then extended to act as an energy fund as the energy crisis hit following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The coronavirus special fund had amounted to debts of €52.4 billion by the end of 2022, at the same time debts in the energy fund exceeded €30 million for the first time.

Quote:A grand jury in New York City has voted to indict former President Donald Trump.
...
A spokesperson for the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said it is now coordinating with Trump’s attorneys his “surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment.”

The indictment currently remains under seal.
...
“President Donald J. Trump is a victim of a corrupt and distorted version of the American justice system and history,” Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump, said in a statement. “He will be vindicated.”

The vote on the indictment came after weekslong proceedings where the grand jury heard testimony from former Trump associates, including Cohen and Cohen’s former attorney Robert Costello.

While the indictment remains sealed, it’s believed the case heavily relies on Cohen’s testimony. Cohen pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance laws in 2018 by arranging payments to Daniels and another woman who claimed to have had an affair with Trump. In his plea agreement, the attorney claimed to have done so at Trump’s direction and that he was reimbursed by the Trump Organization through routine legal expenses, despite his earlier claims that he paid the money out of his own pocket.

Trump, the leading announced candidate for the 2024 presidential election, has denied any wrongdoing, saying that he’s a victim of extortion.
...
The former president also wrote on Truth Social that “they know that I cannot get a fair trial in New York.”

Quote:A bevy of Republican lawmakers responded to the news of former President Donald Trump’s indictment, largely offering support for the former party leader following news that he is the first former president to be indicted after leaving office.

Republicans and Trump have characterized the prosecution by the Manhattan district attorney’s office as a partisan witch hunt.
...
Cohen claims that he was directed to make the payment by Trump and was later reimbursed by the Trump organization under routine legal expenses. Trump has denied all wrongdoing in the matter.

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) described the indictment as a “dark day for America.”

“The unprecedented election interference from corrupt socialist District Attorney Alvin Bragg is a political witch-hunt and a dark day for America,” she said in a statement. “The radical Far Left will stop at nothing to persecute Joe Biden’s chief political opponent ahead of the 2024 presidential election to suppress the will and voice of the American people.”

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) on Twitter called the indictment a “sham” and “one of the clearest examples of extremist Democrats weaponizing government to attack their political opponents.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a longtime Trump ally, said the former president “is innocent and the only one standing in the way of these modern day tyrants, just like our founding fathers did, to protect each of us from evil.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said the indictment was not about the law, but “raw power.”

Quote:Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) blasted the indictment of former President Donald Trump.
...
In a Twitter post, in addition to slamming the indictment, DeSantis, who is expected to announce his candidacy for the White House soon, said Florida will not help extradite Trump to New York. However, extradition is out of the governor’s control.

“The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head.

“It is un-American.

“The Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney [Alvin Bragg] has consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal misconduct. Yet, now he is stretching the law to target a political opponent.

“Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda.”

However, as Trump defense attorney Joe Tacopina told CNN, the former president is expected to go to New York early next week.

Quote:Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz harshly criticized the indictment of former President Donald Trump, describing it as an extreme case of prosecutorial misconduct.

“In 60 years of practice, this is the worst case of prosecutorial abuse I have ever seen,” Dershowitz told The Epoch Times on March 30. “What’s really unprecedented is not the indictment of a past president, but the indictment of a potential future president who was running against the head of the party of the man who indicted him.”

“It’s very dangerous—it means that district attorneys can indict their own political enemies,” the scholar said. “It really endangers the rule of law for all Americans. Today, it’s Trump; tomorrow, it’s a Democrat. The day after tomorrow, it’s your uncle Charlie, or your niece, or your nephew.”
...
While no charges have been announced, Dershowitz said Bragg likely relied on elevating a charge of falsifying business records involving the payment to Daniels—a misdemeanor—to a felony by tying it to a federal charge of campaign finance violation.

“In order to turn the state statute into a felony, you have to borrow a federal statute,” Dershowitz told The Epoch Times in an interview earlier in March. He said that this combining of laws “seems to raise real serious legal questions.”

“Nobody should ever be arrested based on made-up laws or combining a federal and state statute,” Dershowitz told The Epoch Times in an interview on March 18. “I taught criminal law for 50 years at Harvard, and the one rule was, no creativity is permitted by prosecutors. The law has to be clear.”

“In Bragg’s case, what they’re trying to do is add one and one, and come up with 11. No rational person would look at these two statutes and say that Trump violated them,” Dershowitz said. “Thomas Jefferson once put it very nicely: For a criminal statute to be constitutional, the average person has to be able to understand it if he reads it while running.”

The case pursued by Bragg, a Democrat, is politically motivated, Dershowitz says.
...
“It’s not a righteous prosecution. It’s not a just prosecution. And I think every libertarian, whether you’re conservative, or liberal, should be opposed to it,” he said. “There seem to be two systems of justice in America—one for the rest of us, and the other for Trump—and that’s the thesis of my book, ‘Get Trump.’ There is a special system of targeted injustice against Trump, and this is coming from a liberal Democrat who voted against him twice.

Dershowitz dismissed the idea that these cases would exert a material impact on Trump’s candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.

“He’s not going to get prison. Nonetheless, he can run as a convicted defendant,” Dershowitz said, referring to the 2024 election. “He can run from prison.”

Quote:A lawyer for the United States government told Quebec’s highest court today that the country should be immune from prosecution for the infamous brainwashing experiments at McGill University from the 1940s to the 1960s.

The U.S. government says it cannot be sued for the project known as MK-ULTRA—allegedly funded by the Canadian government and the CIA—because foreign states had absolute immunity from lawsuits in Canada during that period.

The court case stems from a class-action lawsuit filed against McGill University, Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital and the Canadian and U.S. governments after Montrealers were allegedly given experimental drugs, rounds of electroshocks, and deprived of sleep for weeks.

Last August, the Quebec Superior Court granted a request from the United States government to be dismissed from the case, and survivors and their families appealed that decision.

Class-action lawyer Jeff Orenstein says he believes Canada’s 1982 State Immunity Act, which outlines how foreign states can be sued in the country, is retroactive and can apply in this case.

The class action alleges that the government of Canada funded psychiatric treatments by Dr. Ewen Cameron at the Allan Memorial Institute between 1948 and 1964 that were allegedly part of the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program of covert mind-control.

Quote:The Biden administration has condemned the detention of a Wall Street Journal reporter by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).

National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on March 30 that the targeting of American citizens by the Russian government is unacceptable and that the United States strongly condemns the detention of reporter Evan Gershkovich.

Kirby went on to say that President Joe Biden has been briefed on the situation and has spoken with Gershkovich’s family and employer. He also told reporters that the U.S. embassy in Moscow is seeking consular access to the detainee.

The FSB, the main internal security and counterintelligence organization that succeeded the Soviet-era KGB, said on March 29 that it had detained the journalist stationed in Moscow, in the city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains, around 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) east of Moscow.

Kirby also said the United States government continues to condemn the Russian government’s targeting and repression of journalists and American citizens.
...
State Department Spokesperson Vedant Patel said during a March 30 press briefing that the U.S. Embassy has requested notification of arrest. He said it will likely be several days before they receive access to the journalist to offer consular services, but they will not speculate about or preview actions their department might take.

The spokesperson declined to speculate about whether they believe the journalist will be used in a prisoner swap but said the department is working “around the clock,” to try to gain access to and offer consular services to Gershkovich.

Russia’s security service announced the journalist’s apprehension, saying in a statement translated by state-run TASS that it had “thwarted the illegal activities of Evan Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen born in 1991, a correspondent of the Moscow bureau of the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal, who is suspected of spying in the interests of the American government.

Quote:Former President Donald Trump’s first hearing will take place on April 4, a court spokesperson confirmed on Friday.

Trump is set to appear at 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday before New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, the spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.

The hearing will be open to members of the public and the press on a first come, first serve basis, the spokesperson said. The hearing will not be livestreamed.

The courthouse is located in lower Manhattan.

Trump has been indicted by a grand jury for reasons that are under seal. Trump is the first former president to face criminal charges in the history of the United States.

A spokesperson for the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, said in a statement that it is now coordinating with Trump’s attorneys his “surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment.” Bragg had been probing a payment by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to adult performer Stormy Daniels, who has alleged Trump had an affair with her. Trump has denied the claim. Cohen has said he spoke to the grand jury.

Merchan on Thursday signed an order authorizing Bragg to disclose the indictment’s existence, in part because the indictment “would be in the public interest” and such an order is “an appropriate exercise of this Court’s discretion,” the judge said.

Trump’s attorney, Joseph Tacopina, previously said his legal team was working out the details of the former president’s first court appearance in the case.
...
Trump said in a statement that Merchan “HATES ME” and that the judge “railroaded” Weisselberg.

“He strong armed Allen, which a judge is not allowed to do, & treated my companies, which didn’t ‘plead,’ VICIOUSLY,” the former president wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

Weisselberg was hit with 15 felony charges, including tax fraud. He pleaded guilty and testified against the Trump Organization and another Trump company.

Weisselberg received five months in prison but Merchan warned him that he could face additional jail time if he did not adhere to the plea agreement, CNN reported. Additionally, Merchan said during the sentencing hearing that he would have sentenced Weisselberg to “a much greater sentence” if he had not previously agreed on the prison term.

Quote:George Soros said he neither knows Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg nor did he contribute to his election campaign, with the billionaire financier responding to a question as to what he thought about the “Soros-funded DA” label often slapped on Bragg by his critics.

Soros told Semafor that he did not contribute any money to Bragg’s election campaign and doesn’t know him, while responding to a question about his thoughts on supporters of former president Donald Trump linking Soros to Trump’s unprecedented indictment.

“I think some on the right would rather focus on far-fetched conspiracy theories than on the serious charges against the former president,” Soros replied.

The billionaire financier has contributed significantly to the Color of Change PAC, which endorsed Bragg in his campaign for Manhattan district attorney in 2021 and which pledged more than $1 million on an independent expenditure campaign to support Bragg.

Soros spokesperson Michael Vachon told CNN recently that while Soros and Democracy PAC—a PAC to which Soros has donated money—jointly contributed $4 million to the Color of Change PAC, Vachon insisted, however, that none of those funds were earmarked for Bragg’s campaign and that “there has been no contact between the two.”

In his remarks to Semafor, Soros pointed to an op-ed he had written explaining why he’s donated to “reform-minded prosecutors” and why he has “no intention of stopping.”
...
“The Manhattan district attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor, and so he, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety,” DeSantis said Monday.
...
DeSantis warned further that other “Soros-funded prosecutors” might carry out “a high-profile politicized prosecution, and that’s bad.”

Open Editorial Part 1

 Oh but that creepy guy NEVER contributed to Bragg's campaign at all...
Even a staffer has to correct his master's declaration by providing us even more scandalous information than Soros did.
 Seriously guys, that NY DA is bragging about his illegal ability to prosecute a former US President by pressing charges that depend on alleged misdemeanors that he wants to turn into actual felonies against what the state and federal laws actually allows a state DA to do. In fact, why didn't that cowardly DA Garland try to prosecute Trump himself? He would have been allowed to do so IF he'd ever proved that the alleged felony hasn't prescribed already and had enough evidence that doesn't contradict itself like Stormy Daniel's affidavit claiming she never got intimate with Trump.

Keep in mind that Trump would need a Secret Service detail to be deployed in New York city even before he arrives there. And that would not exempt them from protecting him even if he were in jail. Yet, that chipmunk Alvin wanted Trump to pay him a visit later today. This move definitely shows his total lack of concern for the defendant's security. He simply wants to finish this step in the criminal process at once without paying attention to how he does it. Well, he's simply following his master Soros' orders after all.

DeSantis is now speaking against Soros not just because he knows how that old man funds radios in Florida to indoctrinate people but also due to the serious suspicion that his bought district attorneys across the country will go after any other Republican, himself included. As long as Soros keeps funding them, this can only get worse and worse every day that passes.

What people should immediately understand about this case is that right here and right now they're instaurating a communist regime in the US by judiciary force so to say. Forget about the rule of law, it is becoming the rule of the mobsters aka ochlocracy or mobocracy. If you say something "wrong" in public or online, you'll simply go to jail. It doesn't need to be a real crime, being or sounding politically incorrect is enough reason to put you behind bars. And if for any reason you think this can't ever happen in this world, just think twice.

Really, this whole crappy situation sounds more like a Babylon Bee article that was supposed to be a mere satyre instead of a prediction.

Quote:Jim O’Neill, a former chief economist at Goldman Sachs, suggested that the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) bloc should expand its presence and enhance the alliance’s work to threaten the greenback hegemony in global financial markets.

Writing in a March 26 paper in the Global Policy Journal, O’Neill championed adding new members to the group to bolster its objectives if these countries meet the initial criteria of maintaining large populations and have promising economies.

“The U.S. dollar plays a far too dominant role in global finance,” O’Neill wrote. “Whenever the Federal Reserve Board has embarked on periods of monetary tightening, or the opposite, loosening, the consequences on the value of the dollar and the knock-on effects have been dramatic.”

If the BRICS pact grows, it could facilitate the emergence of a multi-currency global financial system, he added.
...
Russia’s Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Alexander Babakov championed the proposal of the BRICS partnership producing its own currency.
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South Africa will host the 15th annual BRICS Summit from Aug. 22–24.

Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed in an address to BRICS Business Forum participants that “creating the international reserve currency based on the basket of currencies of our countries is under review.”
...
In the meantime, BRICS members are not waiting for a currency basket to compete against the dollar. Over the last year, many cases have occurred of China, Russia, and other partners engaging in cross-country trade settled in yuan, rubles, and other national currencies.

In May 2014, China and Russia fired the opening salvo in the de-dollarization initiative, signing the Agreement on Cooperation that would undercut the dollar’s position on top of the currency mountain.

But while this has been a decade-long affair, the de-dollarization efforts have accelerated since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Open Editorial Part 2

You know what, he deserves to be treated as an actual traitor, or foreign agent depending on his nationality, for such declarations.  And why do they dare to make such statements? Because they clearly know that the US is weak and chaotic nowadays.

Quote:The White House was not tipped off about the indictment against former President Donald Trump, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on March 31.

“All of us, including the president, found out about the news yesterday just like every other American through the news reports,” Jean-Pierre told reporters.

White House chief of staff Jeffrey Zients alerted President Joe Biden to the situation after perusing reports, Jean-Pierre said.

Biden, a Democrat, “was not given a heads-up,” she said.

She was speaking en route to Jackson, Mississippi. Biden was scheduled to tour areas struck by tornadoes in the state last week.
...
Jean-Pierre declined to comment on the indictment.

“We’re not going to comment on an ongoing case,” she said.

Asked if he had a reaction to the indictment before he departed Washington, Biden said, “No.”

He also declined to say whether he was concerned the indictment will further divide the country or whether he was worried about possible protests.

“I’m not going to talk about Trump’s indictment,” he said, adding later, “I have no comment at all on Trump.”

Quote:California Gov. Gavin Newsom is on the campaign trail, aiming to turn traditionally red states into opportunities for the Democratic Party, with the help of $10 million in funding from his war chest and a newly launched Campaign for Democracy political action committee.

Announced March 30, the cross-country effort will put Newsom and his blueprint for the nation on the national radar as the 2024 campaign is starting to kick into gear. While speculation grows that he is a possible contender for the presidency, Newsom is adamant that he has no interest at this time. The governor will be termed out of office after 2026.

In comments to a host of publications over the past year, Newsom has repeatedly said, “it’s not the moment” for him, it’s “not gonna happen,” and he has “sub-zero interest,” but that hasn’t stopped rumors from circulating that the Golden State governor is positioning himself for a national campaign.
...
The Campaign for Democracy’s messaging is focused on targeting Republican leadership and questioning the party’s legitimacy and capacity to serve.
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The statement is placed under a section titled Existential Threats, featuring photos of former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

“Authoritarian leaders are so hell-bent on gaining power and keeping it that they’re directly attacking our freedoms in state after state,” Newsom said in a quote on the site.

Meanwhile, critics say Newsom’s extensive use of emergency powers during the pandemic and history of issuing record numbers of executive orders have been a major concern for California.

Quote:Italy’s government approved a bill on Tuesday banning the production and use of lab-manufactured food and animal feed, as the nation attempts to preserve Italian food heritage and steer away from synthetic choices.

“A battle of civilizations. In defense of citizens’ health, of our production model, of our quality, of our culture, simply our food sovereignty,” said Italian minister of agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida in a tweet Wednesday, adding: “Italy is the first nation in the world to say no to synthetic foods.” There will be fines up to €60,000 ($65,144) for failure to comply. If the parliament passes the proposal, food produced from cell cultures or tissues derived from vertebrate animals will not be allowed in the country.

“Laboratory products in our opinion do not guarantee quality, well-being and the protection of our culture, our tradition,” said Lollobrigida, a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party, at a press conference on March 28.

Prime Minister Meloni had changed the name last year of the ministry of agriculture to the ministry of agriculture and food sovereignty, and Lollobrigida is an outspoken critic of the European Union’s food programs.

The agricultural lobby Coldiretti backed the latest move to ban synthetic foods and claimed that the bill was necessary to protect the local industry from multinational companies. Along with fines, the proposal seeks to shut down producers who violate the law and restrict them from obtaining public funding for up to three years.

Quote:The man who served as operations director for the Oath Keepers on Jan. 6 in Washington D.C. will not be retried on the one felony count on which the jury in his criminal case could not reach a verdict, his attorney said on March 31.

On March 20, Michael Greene, 39, of Indianapolis, was found not guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent members of Congress from discharging their duties, and tampering with documents and proceedings—all felony charges.

In the third Oath Keepers trial that ended on March 20, the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on Greene for the charge of obstruction of an official proceeding. Jurors did find Greene guilty of the misdemeanor count of entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds.

“Complete victory,” wrote William Shipley, one of Greene’s attorneys, on social media.

Greene was asked by Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III to serve as operations director for Oath Keepers security duties in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, after the original director became ill. Greene is not a member of Oath Keepers but is Rhodes’ close friend.

Quote:The Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern Railway over the pollution caused in East Palestine, Ohio, by the Feb. 3 derailment of a train carrying hazardous materials.

The complaint filed March 31 in the Northern District of Ohio, seeks to hold Norfolk Southern accountable for “unlawfully polluting the nation’s waterways” and to ensure that the company foots the bill for the cleanup.

“When a Norfolk Southern train derailed last month in East Palestine, Ohio, it released toxins into the air, soil, and water, endangering the health and safety of people in surrounding communities,” Attorney General Merrick Garland noted in a statement. “With this complaint, the Justice Department and the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] are acting to pursue justice for the residents of East Palestine and ensure that Norfolk Southern carries the financial burden for the harm it has caused and continues to inflict on the community.”

One of the chemicals that spilled from the derailed train was vinyl chloride, a highly toxic and flammable gas used in the production of plastic. To prevent an explosion, Norfolk Southern chose to conduct a controlled burn of the chemical, releasing it into the air in a thick black cloud that hovered over the area for days.

The effects of the chemicals could also be seen in local waterways, including the Ohio River—a major drinking water source for more than 5 million people—where state officials observed a “plume” of chemicals traveling downstream.

The DOJ’s lawsuit follows the EPA’s issuance of an administrative order on Feb. 21 requiring Norfolk Southern to identify and clean up the soil and water resources contaminated by the chemical spill and pay for the agency’s response costs relating to the order.

Quote:The man known as the QAnon Shaman, who pleaded guilty to breaching the U.S. Capitol, has been released from prison early after Fox News aired footage of him being escorted by police officers inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Jacob Chansley, 35, was moved to a halfway house in Phoenix on March 28, a U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email. He had been serving a 41-month sentence, handed down in November 2021, in federal prison after pleading guilty to one count of obstructing an official proceeding.

The release comes after Fox News’ Tucker Carlson broadcast never-before-seen footage that showed U.S. Capitol Police officers walking around inside the Capitol with Chansley.
...
While Chansley was expecting to serve nearly his full sentence in prison, Shipley noted that federal inmates can get early release for good behavior and participation in various programs.

“I didn’t do anything extraordinary—this was always the schedule, I just understood it and could explain it to him,” Shipley said.
...
Before the First Step Act, enacted by former President Donald Trump, federal inmates could earn up to 54 days of good conduct time for each year of their sentence served. Under the law, inmates can now earn up to 54 days of good conduct time for each year of their imposed sentence.

Shipley said in another post that the videos played on Fox “DID NOT play a role” in Chansley’s release.

The final months of the sentence were always going to be served at a halfway house, Shipley said. He also reiterated that his client received time off for completing bureau programs, in addition to the credit for being on good behavior.
...
Shipley recently told The Epoch Times that he intends to file a motion to vacate Chansley’s conviction.

The motion involves federal code that states a “prisoner in custody under sentence of a court established by Act of Congress claiming the right to be released upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

Quote:The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sent 18 aircraft and four naval vessels toward Taiwan on Saturday, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said, as Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen visited the island’s Central American allies.

Taiwan’s military detected the Chinese aircraft and naval vessels at around 6 a.m. (local time), with 10 aircraft spotted crossing the Taiwan Strait median line, the ministry said in a statement posted on Twitter.

Taiwan responded by deploying aircraft, navy vessels, and land-based missile systems to monitor the Chinese military’s activities.

This came after Beijing threatened retaliation if Tsai meets with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) during her 10-day trip to Guatemala and Belize—two of the 13 nations that have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan—which began on March 29.

Tsai arrived in Guatemala on Friday and met with her counterpart, Alejandro Giammattei. The two nations signed a “basic cooperation agreement” after the leaders’ meeting, according to Tsai’s Office.

The Taiwanese leader is expected to visit Belize afterward and make stopovers in Los Angeles on her way back.
...
However, China’s charge d’affaires Xu Xueyuan said the CCP views her transit as a disguise for Tsai’s intention to advocate Taiwan’s independence and warned that it could lead to “serious confrontation in the U.S.-China relationship.”
...
U.S. National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said the transit was in line with policy and the history of trilateral relations between the United States, China, and Taiwan.

Quote:Japan will impose export restrictions on 23 semiconductor manufacturing equipment, the government said on Friday, amid an ongoing spat between the United States and China over chip technology.

The export control measures will take effect in July and cover equipment for cleaning, checkups, and lithography—a key technology in manufacturing advanced semiconductors—according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).
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Japan said that 42 countries, including the United States and Taiwan, will continue receiving the equipment under a simplified export measure. But China was not among them and will be subject to stricter controls.

The new regulation will affect equipment manufactured by 10 Japanese companies, including Tokyo Electron Ltd. However, Nishimura said he expected minimal impact on local companies as the rules only target “extremely advanced” technology.
...
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning criticized Japan’s move, saying that “weaponizing trade and tech issues and destabilizing the global industrial and supply chains benefit no one and will eventually backfire.”

The move came ahead of Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi’s visit to Beijing this weekend for talks with his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang, the first such visit by a Japanese foreign minister in three years.

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the two leaders will have “in-depth exchanges of views on bilateral relations and international and regional issues of shared interest.”
...
Japan once dominated chip production but has seen its market share slip to about 10 percent. Still, it remains a major supplier of chipmaking machines and semiconductor materials.

Japan’s export controls will be seen as a major win for the United States, which in October imposed sweeping restrictions on access to chipmaking technology to slow China’s technological and military advances.

Quote:The United States has decided to extend the deployment of the George H.W. Bush carrier strike group to provide options to policymakers after last week’s deadly attacks in Syria by Iran-backed forces, U.S. military officials said on Friday.

The decision likely means the Bush strike group and its more than 5,000 U.S. forces, which are now in the European Command operational area, will not be returning to home port in the United States on schedule.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesperson Colonel Joe Buccino confirmed the carrier group’s extension, which was first reported by Reuters.
...
Buccino also noted a scheduled, expedited deployment of a squadron of A-10 attack aircraft to the region.

News of the deployment came a day after the Pentagon doubled its tally of the number of American troops wounded in last week’s attacks in Syria to 12, following the diagnosis of six U.S. military personnel with traumatic brain injuries.

The attacks also killed an American contractor and injured another.
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The White House said on Monday that the incidents would not trigger a U.S. pullback from the nearly eight-year-old U.S. deployment to Syria, where American troops and local Kurdish-led partners are battling the remnants of Islamic State.

Quote:The United Nations’ top court on Thursday rejected Tehran’s legal bid to free up some $2 billion in Iranian central bank assets frozen by U.S. authorities to be paid in compensation to victims of a 1983 bombing in Lebanon and other attacks linked to Iran.

In a 10-5 majority ruling, the International Court of Justice said it did not have jurisdiction to rule on the Iranian claim linked to the central Markazi Bank.

The world court’s vice-president, Kirill Gevorgian, said the majority “upholds the objection to jurisdiction raised by the United States of America relating to the claims of the Islamic Republic of Iran” related to the bank.

In a complex, 67-page judgment, the world court also found that some other U.S. moves to seize assets of Iran and Iranians in the United States breached a 1955 treaty between the countries and said they should negotiate compensation. If they fail to reach a number, they will have to return to the Hague-based court for a ruling.

But the largest part of the case focused on Bank Markazi, and its frozen assets of $1.75 billion in bonds, plus accumulated interest, that are held in a Citibank account in New York. The court said that it did not have jurisdiction based on the 1955 Treaty of Amity because the protections it offers do not extend to central banks.

Both countries largely voiced satisfaction at Thursday’s decision.

In Washington, Deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said that while the U.S. was disappointed with some aspects of the ruling it was pleased on the whole.
...
An Iranian foreign ministry statement lauded the decision as “an indication of the strength and reliability of (Iran’s) demand,” the official IRNA news agency reported on Thursday.

It said Tehran would use “all diplomatic, legal and judiciary means” to pursue its demands.
...
The court’s judgments are final and legally binding.

Quote:The Iranian navy said it identified and warned off a U.S. reconnaissance plane near the Gulf of Oman on Sunday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

"After the warning, the plane was prevented from entering the country's skies without authorization," said the report, identifying the plane as a U.S. Navy EP-3E.

While the opening line of the Tasnim report said the aircraft had crossed into Iranian airspace, the same report also said the aircraft had not entered Iranian skies and had left after the warning.
...
Iran has had similar confrontations with U.S. forces in the past. In 2019, Iran shot down a U.S. drone which it said was flying over southern Iran.
...
Iran has previously acknowledged sending drones to Russia but said they were sent before the invasion. Moscow has denied its forces used Iranian drones in Ukraine.

Quote:Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ oil producers on Sunday announced further oil output cuts of around 1.16 million barrels per day, in a surprise move that analysts said would cause an immediate rise in prices and the United States called inadvisable.

The pledges bring the total volume of cuts by OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries with Russia and other allies, to 3.66 million bpd according to Reuters calculations, equal to 3.7% of global demand.

Sunday's development comes a day before a virtual meeting of an OPEC+ ministerial panel, which includes Saudi Arabia and Russia, and which had been expected to stick to 2 million bpd of cuts already in place until the end of 2023.

Oil prices last month fell towards $70 a barrel, the lowest in 15 months, on concern that a global banking crisis would hit demand. Still, further action by OPEC+ to support the market was not expected after sources downplayed this prospect and crude recovered towards $80.

The latest reductions could lift oil prices by $10 per barrel, the head of investment firm Pickering Energy Partners said on Sunday, while oil broker PVM said it expected an immediate jump once trading starts after the weekend.

Quote:McDonald's Corp is temporarily closing its U.S. offices this week as it prepares to inform corporate employees about layoffs undertaken by the fast food giant as part of a broader company restructuring, the Wall Street Journal reported.

McDonald's said in an internal email last week to U.S. employees and some international staff that they should work from home from Monday through Wednesday, so it can deliver staffing decisions virtually, the report said.
...
The burger corporation did not disclose how many employees it is planning to lay off during the company's restructuring.

In January, CEO Chris Kempczinski warned employees that "difficult discussions and decisions" are on the horizon.

Kempczinski made the revelation in a message to global employees announcing the company's updated business strategy, Accelerating the Arches 2.0, which includes a reshuffling and possibly cutting positions as a way for the company to become more efficient and innovative and to trim costs.

Quote:Three Alabama men allegedly orchestrated a multimillion-dollar accounting fraud scheme at a defense contractor that builds ships for the Navy, federal prosecutors said.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday that the men were indicted for allegedly conspiring to mislead shareholders and the investing public about Mobile, Alabama-based, shipbuilder Austal USA’s financial condition from around 2013 through at least July 2016.

According to the DOJ and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), former Austal USA President Craig Perciavalle, current director of financial analysis Joseph Runkel and former director of the firm’s Littoral Combat Ships program, William Adams, sought to artificially reduce cost estimates for Navy shipbuilding projects by tens of millions of dollars.

The trio allegedly knew Austal USA’s costs were rising and higher than planned but directed others to lower the cost estimates to meet the defense contractor’s revenue budget and financial projections.

Investigators said they suppressed an accounting metric known as "estimate at completion" in relation to several Navy littoral combat ships (LCS), which resulted in a false overstatement of the company’s reported earnings in public financial statements.

The DOJ claimed that they did this in part to maintain and increase the share price of the company’s stock, and when the higher costs were eventually disclosed, the stock price fell significantly and Austal USA’s parent company, Austal Limited, wrote down more than $100 million.

Quote:Japan has begun purchasing Russian crude oil above the $60-a-barrel cap, breaking with Western allies thanks to an exception authorized by the United States.

As many European nations weaned themselves off Russian oil in response to the invasion of Ukraine, Japan stepped up its purchase of Russian natural gas.

Japan has almost none of its own fossil fuels, heavily relying on imports for much of its energy needs. Some analysts believe this dependency heavily influenced Japan’s hesitancy to fully back Ukraine against Russia. To date, Japan is the only Group of Seven members not to have supplied Ukraine with lethal weapons.

Despite the concession, Russian natural-gas imports to Japan are relatively small, accounting for around one-tenth of Japan’s supply and a fraction of Russia’s output, the Wall Journal reports. Most of what Russia exports to Japan comes from the Sakhalin-2 project in Russia’s Far East.
...
The nations granted an exception to the $60-a-barrel cap through September for oil purchased by Japan. And in the first two months of this year, Japan bought around 748,000 barrels of Russian oil for approximately $70 a barrel.

Quote:"Rust" assistant director Dave Halls was sentenced Friday after pleading no contest to negligent/unsafe handling of a firearm that led to the on-set October 2021 fatal shooting of the film's cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins.

Halls entered a plea of no contest to the misdemeanor charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer accepted the plea. The prosecution requested a suspended sentence, which is a conviction.

Halls' attorney Lisa Torraco argued his sentence should be deferred. Torraco explained that Halls did not have control over how individual people handled safety on the set.
...
Sommer was not convinced and gave him a suspended sentence. The assistant director will not serve jail time and instead was given six months of unsupervised probation.

Halls' probation includes testifying truthfully at any trials or hearings, a $500 fine, participation in a firearms safety course with proof of completion within 60 days of his plea, no alcohol, 24 hours of community service and no contact with any potential witnesses or co-defendants.

Quote:An Italian food historian has made the bold claim that pizza is more of an American dish than an Italian one.

Alberto Grandi, a food historian who teaches at the University of Parma, claims that pizza, carbonara and Parmesan (which is commonly produced in Wisconsin) are truly American foods.

"Italian cuisine really is more American than it is Italian," Grandi said in an interview with the Financial Times on March 23.

Grandi, who identifies as a Marxist, said that pizza was only found in a few Southern Italian cities before World War II.

According to Grandi, Italian-American soldiers in Sicily during WWII were shocked that there were no pizzerias around. Carbonara was also reportedly first made for American soldiers with egg and bacon rations.
...
Grandi posited that Italians have mythologized their cuisine to the point of inaccuracy.

"When a community finds itself deprived of its sense of identity, because of whatever historical shock or fracture with its past, it invents traditions to act as founding myths," he explained.

Shortly after Grandi's interview, Italy’s ministers of Culture and Agriculture applied to have Italian cuisine entered into candidacy for a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Quote:At least 25 cars derailed from a train in Montana on Sunday, spilling their contents onto the ground and into a nearby body of water.

First responders say there is no threat to the public, but there has yet to be confirmation about what the affected containers were carrying. Montana Rail Link, which owns the railroad, is aware of the situation, but the company that owns the train has yet to be identified, according to NBC Montana.

The Sanders County Sheriff's Office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Fox News Digital.
...
The Montana crash comes less than a week after 70-car train hauling hazardous materials derailed in North Dakota.

In that incident, a Canadian Pacific train derailed around 11:15 p.m. roughly a mile southeast of Wyndmere in Richland County, the company said in a statement. No injuries were reported. Officials said 31 of the 70 cars derailed, some carrying hazardous materials, and crews identified a leak of liquid asphalt. No fires were caused by the derailment.

Quote:While leaders of the European Union are wary of the threat posed by communist China, Europe as a whole doesn’t advocate the wholesale decoupling of Sino–European relations often encouraged by U.S. lawmakers, according to Reinhard Butikofer, a member of the European Parliament.

Butikofer said most Europeans favored “de-risking,” referencing a term popularized by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Such a strategy would encourage more serious screening of Chinese investment in Europe without cutting the regime off completely and would seek to open up Europe to more trade and diplomacy with middle powers who don’t want to get caught in the growing enmity between China and the United States.
...
“The concept is not to decouple. The concept is to keep developing the relationship but to make sure we are not on the losing side.”
...
Butikofer said the communist regime in Beijing would continue to “try to drive a wedge” between the EU and the United States but that both major powers would need to do more to not draw Europe into their rivalry and to recognize the EU as a power in its own right.

There are more than two powers whose futures are at stake, he said.
...
Butikofer’s comments come on the eve of an April 4 visit to Beijing by von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Colleen Cottle, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, said Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping would likely use the event to further grow his image as a key international decision-maker and to push the EU and the United States apart.

Quote:New Zealand is moving toward closer ties with NATO after the New Zealand (NZ) Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nanaia Mahuta, announced she would be attending a session of the NATO Foreign Ministers Meeting in Brussels.

NZ has a long-standing partnership of 25 years with NATO and has supported various NATO-led efforts, including in Afghanistan, between 2001-2021.

“NATO is a long-standing and like-minded partner for Aotearoa, New Zealand. It is valuable to join a session of this meeting in person, to express our ongoing condemnation of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine one year on, and as NATO and New Zealand work to renew our formal partnership this year,” Mahuta said.

“It is important that we continue to engage with our close partners to address shared security challenges, many of which are global in nature with wide-ranging implications, including in the Pacific.
...
The trip comes just 13 days after NATO military officials visited Australia and New Zealand from March 20-24.

Quote:Japan’s foreign minister said Sunday that he had lodged a protest with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regarding the detention of a Japanese employee in China last month, calling for his immediate release.

Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi expressed Japan’s “strict stance” on the employee’s detention during a bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang, in Beijing.

Hayashi said that Japan’s consulate has been unable to make direct contact with the employee since his arrest last month.

“We would ask [the Chinese authorities] for the earliest release of the person and allow us to meet and have direct contact with him,” Hayashi told reporters.

Hayashi also urged the CCP to provide transparency in the judicial process related to the employee’s detention, and ensure a safe and fair business environment for Japanese firms in China.

Qin Gang said that Beijing would handle the case “in accordance with the law,” according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

The unidentified Japanese national is a senior worker at the Japanese pharmaceutical firm Astellas Pharma Inc., Japan’s Kyodo News reported. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the man is suspected of engaging in espionage activities in China.

Quote:Chinese Premier Li Qiang reiterated the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) new “reform and opening-up” policy at last week’s Boao Forum, although observers say that, even with the change in tone, the CCP’s fundamental policy and economic situation won’t change significantly as long as the Party is around.

“No matter what happens in the world, we will always adhere to reform and opening up,” Li stated in his keynote speech on March 30 at the annual meeting of Asia’s top leaders.

He also stated that new measures will be introduced to expand access, optimize the business environment, and guarantee project implementation so that all countries in the world can share the “dividend” of China’s development.

The top leaders of the CCP had recently repeated the same rhetoric, promising foreign investors that China would adhere to an opening-up policy and will further reduce tariffs. However, in practice, Beijing has continued to clamp down heavily on foreign companies’ operation in China.

The regime suspended Deloitte’s Beijing branch for three months in mid March and imposed huge fines. Then, in late March, it raided a U.S. investigation firm in Shanghai and detained five employees, also detaining an employee in a Japanese firm’s Beijing office.

Quote:On March 29, Brazil’s government announced it would start using local currency and China’s yuan for financial transactions between the two nations.

While pragmatic on the surface, some say the move indicates China’s push to end the U.S. dollar’s dominance, particularly in the Americas.

The decision occurred in lockstep with Beijing’s increased demand for commodities from the South American nation. China’s corn and soybean requirements are driving Brazil to record export volumes in 2023.

It’s a combination effect that supply chain and financial insiders say could have serious economic consequences for the United States.

“Countries such as Brazil and China are keen to reduce their reliance on U.S. dollars for trade and, if this trend is sustained, it could lead to a depreciation in the value of the U.S. dollar as a result of lower demand for it,” analyst Alex King told The Epoch Times.

King is the founder of Generation Money and the former vice president of finance in trade and working capital at Barclays Bank. He says “de-dollarization” is a theme of increasing relevance globally.

This is reflected in a sharp drop in foreign exchange reserves held in U.S. dollars, especially in Latin America. In recent months, Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia have struggled with depleted U.S. dollar reserves.
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Price hikes on Brazilian imports to the United States could add up quickly. Agricultural imports alone total more than $3 billion annually, making Brazil the eighth-largest supplier of these commodities.

Talk of ending dependency on the dollar for trade isn’t new, but the movement gained traction over the past year because of inflation and depleted U.S. foreign currency reserves. The push to end “dollarization” is especially prevalent among Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, which compose the trade bloc known as BRICS.
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In January, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—popularly known as Lula—announced a joint initiative with Argentina to establish a common trade currency for the two nations.

Both nations are suffering drastically depleted U.S. dollar reserves and local currency devaluation.
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China has quietly led and supported the regional shift away from U.S. dollar transactions for eight years. In 2015, Beijing established a bank in Chile to boost yuan reserves and create a path for distribution and use throughout the region.

This year, China’s central bank signed a memorandum to establish a similar arrangement and a yuan clearing facility in Brazil to boost the currency’s viability.

Beijing has also positioned itself as the dominant trade partner and money lender in the region, giving the nation influence over the terms of its agreements. Venezuelan media outlet teleSUR claims that China has been negotiating agreements in yuan throughout Latin America since 2021.
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Alpeter is the founder of Izba and Capabl and has spent years in the realm of supply chain management and logistics. He said the U.S. dollar being used as the world’s reserve currency is like a “super weapon.” Though it may not be for much longer.

He says a multinational desertion of the U.S. dollar would result in a sudden surplus of available currency. This could make the U.S. dollar “next to worthless and our debt undesirable.”

The economic effects of too much currency in circulation are well-documented in other countries. It fueled hyperinflation in Venezuela and Argentina for years.

Quote:Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has initiated an investigation into Disney’s eleventh-hour deal with its old governing district board, an arrangement that he says was an attempt to circumvent the new state-appointed board’s upcoming control.

DeSantis, on April 3, “formally” requested that his office’s chief inspector general, Melinda Miguel, open an investigation into the Reedy Creek Improvement District’s Board of Supervisors.

In a letter to Miguel, DeSantis asked that “a thorough review and investigation” look at a number of matters.

They include the district’s adherence to state laws and ethics requirements, the prior board’s qualifications and the legal validity of its actions, the involvement of Disney World’s “employees and agents” in the execution of those actions, any financial gain or benefit by Disney World from the board’s actions, and the district’s justification of that advantage.

He also asked that the investigation include all district communications related to the actions—including those with Disney—and all district communications related to the bill instituting the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District replacing the Reedy Creek government.
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Last week, the Walt Disney World Resort told The Epoch Times in an email, “All agreements signed between Disney and the district were appropriate and were discussed and approved in open, noticed public forums in compliance with Florida’s government in the sunshine law.”

That Disney’s actions—a transfer of most of the old board’s authority to Disney just before the new board took over, including 30-year control over all development rights—can be remedied by the legislature any time soon is doubtful.

Quote:Former President Donald Trump warned that the United States had sunk to the level of the “old Soviet Union” during a speech given from the ballroom of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach on April 4, hours after pleading not guilty to felony charges brought New York prosecutors.

“I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” Trump said.
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“The only crime that I’ve committed is to fiercely defend our nation,” he said.

Bragg’s 34-count indictment, made public at an arraignment on Tuesday, charges Trump with falsifying business records. Every count is a felony, carrying up to a four-year sentence.
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In his speech, Trump maintained his innocence, saying Bragg has “no case” against him.

“As it turns out, everyone who has looked at this case, including RINOs, and even hardcore Democrats, says there is no crime and it should never have been brought. Never have been brought.”

“It’s an insult to our country,” he added, “and the world is already laughing at us.”

He also alleged Bragg was a “criminal,” citing leaks of the indictment ahead of the arrangement.

“At a minimum, he should resign,” Trump said, drawing perhaps the loudest cheers during the former president’s 20-minute speech.
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Trump echoed this view, describing Bragg’s case, along with several other criminal and civil investigations against him, as “massive election interference at a scale never seen before in our country.”
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“From the beginning, the Democrats spied on my campaign,” he said.

He also referred to the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story prior to the 2020 presidential election, saying that it could have made a difference in that race.
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He also described the judge in his current case, Juan Merchan, as a “Trump-hating judge.” He noted that Merchan’s daughter worked on Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign.

Open Editorial

Well, he's sort of right when he says his opponents hate nationalism. I mean, they've been working really hard to destabilize the US like never before ever since the Great Depression. Trump did try negotiating a deal with China that the Chinese proved to be useless because they never reached the goals stated on it because they never intended to do so in the first place.

When he denounced China for it, many European countries started treating him like a lunatic. When Trump demanded Germany and other European countries to meet their NATO obligations, Germans hated him so much that never stopped criticizing him day and night. They got alarmed when he announced that he'd move some troops and weaponry to Poland. Of course, they didn't want to admit that Merkel kind of got along with Putin and the fact she defended the continual use of the NordStream pipelines.

And guess what? NATO had to station troops in Poland at the end of the day.  So why was Trump's plan so bad that Germany couldn't stand him anymore? Did they really had to get involved in the Ukraine War first to finally realize that the movilization was inevitable?

Was everything Trump did that great? No, not really. For instance, he never pardoned some of the January 6 protestors that hadn't commit any felony besides entering the Capitol that day. I gotta say that not all of them were arrested immediately, still, some of them had already appeared before a judge in the last days of his administration.

I disagree with the billions he spent trying to help people during the viral crisis, mainly because he never realized that some of them had already received money from their own state governments; especially the state of California that has spent billions and favored even petty criminals in the penitentiary system. As a consequence, some people simply refuse to find a new job because they're spending their lives at home, enjoying the benefits without working hard at all. Even in the East Coast you can find schools wasting money by paying raises to administrative staff and teachers that are underperforming, based on their own students' grades as proven by the corresponding US institutions.

At least he tried hard to get rid of "Fraudci" unlike Biden.

Quote:Former White House adviser John Bolton said the charges against former President Donald Trump were “even weaker than I thought” during an interview on Tuesday, coming after the Manhattan District Attorney’s office charged the former commander-in-chief with 34 counts of falsifying business records, as other critics of Trump claimed the case is a “disappointment.”

“Speaking as someone who very strongly does not want Donald Trump to get the Republican presidential nomination, I’m extraordinarily distressed by this document,” Bolton told CNN Tuesday. “I think this is even weaker than I feared it would be.”

Bolton, a graduate of Yale Law School, said he fears the case could “easily” get dismissed before it even makes it to a jury trial. Bolton served under both Trump and former President George W. Bush in different capacities.

“And I just what I understood the District Attorney to say that he thinks there’s a New York election law involved here. All I can say is the Federal Election Campaign Act [of 1971] absolutely preempts any state or local law to the contrary. How could it be otherwise? You’ve got one law governing corporate finance and a presidential election at the federal level. You’re gonna have 50 state laws interfering with it, so he’s just wrong on the applicability of the New York statute,” Bolton said Tuesday.

The unsealed indictment said that Trump allegedly devised a scheme with his lawyer and the parent company of the tabloid National Enquirer to suppress stories that could have damaged Trump before the election in 2016. The former president has pleaded not guilty and later said at his Mar-a-Lago residence that it’s a Democrat-led bid to politically harm him ahead of the 2024 election.

Quote:El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, criticized the indictment of former President Donald Trump, arguing that it would be hypocritical for the United States to promote democracy abroad at this time.

“Think what you want about former President Trump and the reasons he’s being indicted,” Bukele said in a Tuesday tweet.

“But just imagine if this happened in any other country, where a government arrested the main opposition candidate. The United States ability to use ‘democracy’ as foreign policy is gone.”
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Trump Jr. also shared a Breitbart article that the daughter of Judge Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing Trump’s case, had worked on the Biden–Harris campaign in 2019.

Daughter of Judge Juan Merchan Wrote:Donald has also painted himself into a corner when it comes to Michael Cohen’s testimony because the recording corroborates that intent. Plus, there are 34 counts altogether—this is deadly serious.

Quote:Malaysian financier Jho Low planned to donate up to $30 million to help former U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, according to actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

DiCaprio recounted a discussion he had with Low, whose given name is Low Taek Jho, while testifying during a federal trial in Washington.

“It was a casual conversation about what party he was in support of,” DiCaprio said, telling jurors that Low said he planned on giving “a significant donation” to the Democrat Party that was “somewhere to the tune of $20 to 30 million.”

“I basically said, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of money,'” DiCaprio added.

DiCaprio took the witness stand during the trial of Prakazrel “Pras” Michel of the Fugees hip-hop group, who, according to an indictment, conspired with Low to funnel money from the foreigner to Obama’s 2012 campaign.

Prosecutors say Michel received $21 million from Low and funneled the money to political committees through a series of straw donors, including various companies and people associated with the musician.

Low and Michel enacted the conspiracy “to gain access to, and influence with,” Obama, the U.S. Department of Justice has said. In one instance, an associate of Michel forwarded an email from Michel asking for financial contributions to Obama and told Low that funding would “guarantee you a maximum 15 minutes audience” with Obama.

Low’s father met and took pictures with Obama at one event in Washington but Low did not meet with the president, according to charging documents.

Michel also allegedly attempted to conceal the funding, which ran afoul of U.S. law that makes it illegal for foreigners to donate directly or indirectly to U.S. campaigns, and allegedly conspired with others to pressure the Trump administration to drop its probe of Low.

Michel has denied the allegations.

Quote:“It’s rapidly increasing not only its nuclear warheads, but also its delivery systems and improving their effectiveness.”

The China regime’s efforts to expand and enhance its nuclear arsenal have come under scrutiny since November of 2021, following the publication of a Pentagon report that warned the regime would likely have 1,000 nuclear weapons by 2030.

That report also stated that China will have at least 200 land-based nuclear missiles capable of hitting the United States by 2026.

Weitz said that the CCP refuses to engage in nonproliferation discussions, however, no matter how harsh the blowback from the United States and other powers throughout the world.
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To that end, the regime also appears particularly interested in fielding nuclear capabilities that can target the U.S. homeland and its forces in the Indo-Pacific.

Indeed, the regime now fields more long-range, nuclear-capable missile launchers than the United States, according to Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), who acknowledged in February that China leapfrogged the United States in the number of its active intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers.
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[Member of the Hudson Institute Richard] Weitz noted that the CCP is now working to counter international sanctions against Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs, despite previously supporting such actions. Likewise, he said, the CCP is obfuscating what attempts it is taking to prevent non-state actors from obtaining nuclear weapons.
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Chinese communist entities have also “exploited Iran’s alienation from the West to expand their ties with the Iranian government,” Weitz added, saying that the CCP is possibly assisting the regime’s nuclear program.

Quote:Iranian air-defense systems have thwarted a drone strike on a military facility in the central city of Isfahan, Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported on April 5.

According to Tasnim, the attack, which targeted the city’s Amir al-Momenin military complex, failed to cause any damage.

Speaking to reporters shortly afterward, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the incident was still “under investigation.”
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On April 3, Tehran vowed to take “decisive measures” to protect its assets and personnel deployed in Syria.

In a letter to the UN Security Council, Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s permanent UN envoy, said Iran would “take decisive measures to protect its forces, interests, and facilities from any threat or unlawful act perpetrated by the United States or others.”

He also stressed that Iranian forces in Syria were there at the latter’s invitation, and were therefore “totally legal.”

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On April 4, Tehran appointed an ambassador to the United Arab Emirates for the first time since 2016. 

The next day, it announced that Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian would meet his Saudi counterpart later this week in Beijing—the first such meeting in more than seven years.

Quote:Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson has proposed an $8.9 billion settlement to resolve thousands of lawsuits accusing the company of selling baby powder and other talc products that caused cancer.

The pharma firm shared details of the proposal in an April 4 statement announcing that it has re-filed its subsidiary LTL Management LLC for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a move it said could “equitably and efficiently resolve all claims arising from cosmetic talc litigation against the Company and its affiliates in North America.”

Johnson & Johnson created the LTL subsidiary in October to house its liabilities stemming from more than 40,000 lawsuits alleging the company’s baby powder and other talc products contained traces of asbestos, which has been blamed for causing ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, a deadly cancer that affects the lining of the lungs.

The LTL immediately filed for bankruptcy.

However, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia in January dismissed the bankruptcy, ruling that neither J&J nor the subsidiary had a legitimate need for bankruptcy protection because they were not in “financial distress.”

Quote:Finland joined NATO to become the alliance's 31st member on Tuesday, issuing a major rebuke to Moscow and doubling the border length Russia shares with the military alliance.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine spurned Finland to join the military alliance last year. Both Finland and Sweden filed to join NATO, though Sweden's process is still ongoing. NATO officials will raise Finland's flag between the French and Estonian flags in a ceremony later Tuesday.

NATO has said that it has no immediate intention to step up a military presence in Finland. Some members have deployed troops there for war games over the past year, however.

As with all NATO members, Finland will benefit from the collective security guarantee of Article 5: "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all."
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The NATO treaty requires that member countries unanimously approve any new additions to the alliance. Turkey was the sole country to formally oppose Findland and Sweden's entry, arguing that their policies supported certain Kurdish rebel groups that Turkey opposed.

Finnish and Swedish leaders negotiated with Turkish President Recep Erdogan for months, and they ultimately came to an agreement for Finland. Erdogan will formally approve Finland's entry on Tuesday, sharing the approval papers with Secretary of State Tony Blinken.

Sweden is next in line to join the alliance, but still faces opposition from Erdogan. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said during a news conference in Stockholm in March that it has been clear since NATO’s Madrid summit in June that Finland’s road into membership would likely be smoother than Sweden’s.

Quote:Finland's admission this month doubles the length of NATO's border with Russia and does so in a region with important Russian military outposts. Russian leaders have downplayed the significance of Finland joining NATO, but as the alliance gets closer and the Arctic becomes more accessible, Moscow is making moves that indicate growing concern about a part of its frontier that has long been calm.

The Grand Duchy of Finland was a part of the Russian Tsarist Empire from 1809 until 1917 but became an independent nation in the chaos of the Russian Revolution. Two decades later, Finland had perhaps its finest hour in the Winter War, in which the outnumbered and outgunned Finns held off a clumsy Red Army invasion before agreeing to terms with the Soviets.
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After World War II, the Kremlin could take comfort that at least its smaller neighbor had been "Finlandized," a somewhat uncomplimentary Cold War term referring to Helsinki's stance of strict neutrality in return for the Soviets not invading or interfering.
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So far, the Kremlin has downplayed Finland's NATO accession, perhaps out of caution or embarrassment, Gorenburg said. "What they've always said is, 'this is fine, we don't care. It's your decision. But if NATO infrastructure is developed or if the US or other NATO member states' forces are deployed to the new members, that will be a concern for us and we will react.'"

Moscow reiterated that message after Finland officially joined the alliance, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying, "Naturally, this forces us to take countermeasures to ensure our own tactical and strategic security."

So far, Moscow has announced plans to increase the size of its military, beef up its forces in northwestern Russia, and reestablish the Leningrad Military District, which covers part of that region, including the Kola Peninsula, and was merged with other districts in 2010.

Russia has long experience in Arctic operations and had developed specialized units and equipment for operations near Finland. Indeed, Russia has been building up Arctic bases and forces for years, a move that other countries, including the US and China, have followed, drawn by the prospect of more accessible Arctic resources and shipping routes.

In July 2022, however, Russia released a new maritime doctrine that raised the priority of the Arctic and pledged to protect those waters "by all means," Dwyer said during a Wilson Center event on February 9.
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Since 2013, Russia has built six bases, 14 airfields, and 16 deepwater ports in the high north, as well as 14 icebreakers, according to Adm. Daryl Caudle, head of US Fleet Forces Command. Russia's Arctic forces also field an array of powerful weapons, including submarine- and land-based cruise missiles and air-launched hypersonic weapons.

Quote:Canada’s policy toward autocratic foreign countries who broadcast propaganda should be consistent and apply to organs of the Chinese state, Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre says.

“We need a consistent policy for all dictatorships. We shouldn’t allow one rule for Russia and another completely for China,” Poilievre said in French on April 5 while visiting Thetford Mines, Quebec.

“We shouldn’t give licences to organs of foreign dictatorships in Canada.”

Poilievre was asked by a reporter about recent calls from sectors of the Chinese diaspora to ban media entities controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The Conservative leader said he wasn’t familiar with the specific Chinese entity mentioned by the reporter, China Central Television (CCTV), but that he would study the issue.

Canada took steps last year to ban media linked to the Kremlin following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leading to Chinese democracy advocates to request a similar approach be taken against the CCP.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) banned Russian state media RT ((formerly Russia Today) in March 2022 after receiving a referral from the Liberal government.

Quote:Virgin Orbit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after failing to get additional funding from its backers.

The Long Beach, California-based satellite launch company, founded and owned by Richard Branson, failed to secure long-term funding it needed to recover from a January rocket failure in the United Kingdom.

Branson had long had an ambition to become a key player in the rapidly growing market for commercial satellite launches.

The case, filed under 23-10405 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware to sell off its assets, came after the firm admitted last week that it would lay off roughly 85 percent of its workforce of 750.

“While we have taken great efforts to address our financial position and secure additional financing, we ultimately must do what is best for the business,” Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart said in a statement on April 4.

“We believe that the cutting-edge launch technology that this team has created will have wide appeal to buyers as we continue in the process to sell the company. At this stage, we believe that the Chapter 11 process represents the best path forward to identify and finalize an efficient and value-maximizing sale,” he added.

Quote:France has plunged into a serious crisis as dozens of trade unionists agitating against President Emmanuel Macron's pension overhaul on Thursday resorted to violent protests in Paris. They invaded investment firm BlackRock's office in central Paris. "Millions are protesting against the government. Now they have invaded and are occupying the office of BlackRock," Peter Imanuelsen, a Swedish journalist, said while sharing a video on Twitter.

Millions are protesting against the government.

Now they have invaded and are occupying the office of BlackRock.pic.twitter.com/RiCLi5AqWA

The union action in the historical Centorial building near Paris' Grand Boulevards area, targetted BlackRock because of its private pension fund activity, protester Françoise Onic told Reuters.
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CNN reported that about 100 people, including representatives of several labor unions, were on the ground floor of the building for about 10 minutes, chanting anti-reform slogans. BlackRock’s office is located on the third floor.

Jerome Schmitt, spokesman for the French union SUD said the meaning of this action was quite simple. "We went to the headquarters of BlackRock to tell them: the money of workers, for our pensions, they are taking it," he told CNN affiliate BFM-TV.

Quote:Top diplomats from Middle East rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia met in Beijing on Thursday, pledging to work together to bring "security and stability" to their turbulent region following a surprise China-brokered deal.

In a joint statement released after talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the two sides vowed to continue to work together to improve ties.

"The two sides emphasised the importance of following up on the implementation of the Beijing Agreement and its activation in a way that expands mutual trust and the fields of cooperation and helps create security, stability and prosperity in the region," said the statement.

Tehran and Riyadh announced a Beijing-brokered agreement in March to restore relations that had been severed seven years ago when protesters in Iran attacked Saudi diplomatic missions.

The ministers' visit to Beijing came as French President Emmanuel Macron and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen were also in the Chinese capital, seeking to make Europe's case in a meeting with Xi Jinping for bringing an end to the conflict in Ukraine.
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The two sides "negotiated and exchanged opinions with the emphasis on the official resumption of bilateral relations and the executive steps towards the reopening of the embassies and consulates of the two countries", Iran's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Saudi state TV channel Al Ekhbariya aired footage of the pair shaking hands in front of Saudi and Iranian flags and then talking and smiling.

In a readout from state broadcaster CCTV, Beijing hailed "the first official meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries in more than seven years" and Beijing's "active mediation" in the diplomacy.

Quote:A 25-year-old man burst into a preschool in southern Brazil and killed four children with a hatchet-like weapon Wednesday before turning himself in to police, an attack President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva condemned as "monstrous".

The attacker, who jumped a wall to get inside, also wounded four other children at the private preschool, known as the Good Shepherd Center, in the city of Blumenau, said police and government officials in Brazil's state of Santa Catarina.

He then rode a motorcycle to a state police station and handed himself in, police said.

Dozens of people gathered outside the preschool, whose external wall is covered in bright paintings of children and butterflies. Emergency workers and police had set up a security cordon, and were only allowing parents inside.
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Andre Nazario, whose wife works at the school, said she had described a horrific scene when he spoke with her.

"She said that after the guy left, she went to the playground and saw the (victims). She tried to do CPR on one of them, apparently, but it didn't work. She was in a state of shock," he told journalists.

The attacker mainly struck his victims in the head, emergency official Diogo de Souza Clarindo told journalists.

He killed three boys and one girl, who were between five and seven years old, Clarindo said.

The wounded children – two girls, both aged five, and two boys, ages three and five – were in stable condition, said the hospital treating them.

Authorities identified the attacker as Luiz Henrique de Lima, a Santa Catarina resident with at least four prior arrests, including for stabbing his step-father.

He acted alone, police chief Ulisses Gabriel told a news conference, ruling out a "coordinated" attack.