News of the World

[kyonides]

Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch Spoke with Zelensky
Weeks Before Tucker Carlson Was Fired

Fox Corporation Chair and News Corp Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch held a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky just weeks before Tucker Carlson was fired, where they discussed the Ukraine War and the anniversary of the deaths of Fox News journalists in Ukraine last March, according to a report Monday.

Semafor reported that the call was similar to one Zelensky had with his son, Executive Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Fox Corporation Lachlan Murdoch on March 15, which Zelensky had disclosed during a national broadcast.

The conversations came just weeks before they fired Carlson, who was the network’s most outspoken critic of the billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars that have gone to support Ukraine.

The report said, “Senior Ukrainian officials had made their objections to Carlson’s coverage known to Fox executives, but Zelenskyy did not raise it on the calls with the Murdochs, according to one person familiar with the details of the calls.”

Carlson has previously called Zelensky a “dictator,” according to the report.

The Washington Post reported that the elder Murdoch “was disturbed by Carlson’s stance on Ukraine.” A graphic on Carlson’s show had referred to Zelensky as a “Ukrainian pimp,” the paper said.

Well, if Zelensky doesn't respect his people's right to free speech, he gotta be a dictator, right?

GOP House Permits IRS Agent to Discuss Hunter Biden Probe,
Protecting Whistleblower from Reprisal

The House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) has permitted an IRS agent to inform Congress about alleged political interference by the Justice Department in the Hunter Biden tax probe.

The Ways and Means Committee has authorized two lawyers for the IRS whistleblower to collect information about what their client witnessed at the IRS regarding Hunter’s tax probe.

Specifically, the IRS agent claims two Biden administration political appointees within the DOJ are working to block charges against Hunter for tax violations despite recommendations. In addition, the IRS agent believes Attorney General Merrick Garland refused to name a special counsel in the probe to provide a degree of separation between the probe and President Joe Biden.
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Hunter has been under investigation by the DOJ for tax fraud, money laundering, and violation of lobbying laws as far back as May 2019.

The IRS agent’s claims appeared to have caused Hunter’s lawyers to meet with the U.S. prosecutor David Weiss and one Justice Department official last week. It is unknown what was discussed in the meeting. Hunter’s lawyers refused to speak with CNN upon leaving the DOJ.
Federal prosecutors, led by Weiss, reportedly considered charging Hunter over a year ago for three tax crimes and one gun crime.

Judge Orders Hunter Biden to Answer Questions
About Financials, Sit for Interview Under Oath

Hunter Biden was ordered to answer questions about his financials and sit for an interview under oath in a child support case against his daughter’s mother, an Arkansas County judge ruled Monday.
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The judge also ordered Hunter to sit for an interview in mid-June under oath. In addition, a trial is scheduled for July to determine if Hunter’s child support payments will be adjusted, as he requested in 2022.

According to CNN, Hunter is paying $20,000 per month, a calculation based on his income.

The legal dilemma could produce information about how much Hunter Biden earned from his interest in BHR Partners, a Chinese state-backed investment fund founded just days after Hunter and President Joe Biden visited China in 2013. Hunter held a ten percent stake in BHR Partners through an entity called Skaneateles LLC.

Hunter Biden allegedly gave up his interest, estimated to be worth between $420,000 and $20 million, after pressure increased to divest from BHR Partners resulting from a conflict of interest when Joe Biden became president.

Documents obtained Friday by Breitbart News revealed Skaneateles LLC is controlled by Kevin Morris, Hunter’s top attorney, who also paid Hunter’s IRS debts.

It is unclear how Morris gained control of the entity.

Longtime Maryland Democrat Sen. Ben Cardin
Will Not Seek Reelection in 2024

“It’s time,” Cardin told the Baltimore Sun in an interview before his official announcement. “I always knew this election cycle would be the one I would be thinking about not running again, so it’s not something that hit me by surprise.”

“I enjoy life. There are other things I can do,” he added while alluding to the possibility of being a professor or a teacher after he retires from the Senate.

The 79-year-old Democrat senator, who turns 80 in October, will serve the rest of his term which ends January 2o25. He and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) are the state’s longest-serving elected officials after starting their careers in politics in 1967.

San Francisco Whole Foods Made 568 Emergency Calls Before Closing

Over 13 months, the recently shuttered Whole Foods in Democrat-run San Francisco made 568 emergency calls, reports the far-left New York Times.
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Last month, Breitbart News reported on the closing of this Whole Foods store only a year or so after it opened. We knew then that the Democrat-run city’s ongoing collapse was the cause. San Francisco’s elected Democrats have allowed violent crime, property crime, drug addiction, and vagrancy to destroy the City by the Bay. Also chasing away retailers is the Democrat party’s decision to all but legalize shoplifting. If that’s not bad enough, on top of the massive shoplifting losses, an overall sense of lawlessness attracts the worst kind of people.
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This Whole Foods, a “giant flagship store,” was, according to the Times, “supposed to cater to tech workers and other professionals, part of a long-term redevelopment plan downtown.” Then the reality of life in a Democrat-run city hit the store, and the location “fell victim to a grinding decline in the city’s center that began with the pandemic and could continue for years as companies vacate offices because of remote work.”

Those San Francisco merchants trying to hold out told the Times they worry “about a domino effect of commercial failures if office workers are permanently absent for about half of the week, while people using drugs, going through mental crises or living on the street remain more visible than ever.”

Sudan Crisis: Chaos as Thousands Flee to Port, Evacuations Suspended

The BBC reported “chaos” at Port Sudan, even hours after midnight on Sunday, as thousands of foreigners and Sudanese frantically tried to get out of the country before vicious warfare between rival junta factions resumed in earnest.
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About 3,000 Yemeni students have been living at the port for weeks, hoping for a spot on Saudi Arabian ships that have agreed to rescue a modest number of them.

The Saudis are nervous about taking on large numbers of Yemenis because they have been fighting against the Iran-backed Houthi insurgents who overthrew Yemen’s internationally-recognized government in 2014.
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Sudanese citizens are also having great difficulty escaping from the country, as each of the warring junta factions — the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the brutal RSF militia led by his former coup partner, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo — is supported by competing foreign powers.
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Sudanese doctors reported at least 74 casualties over the weekend. One Sudanese doctor told foreign media that RSF fighters are abducting medical personnel and forcing them to care for injured militia fighters.

The United Nations on Monday expected over 800,000 people to flee the country and warned of an unprecedented humanitarian disaster as food, medicine, fuel, and power were cut off from much of the population.
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After two weeks of intense criticism and desperate pleas from family members, the Biden administration finally arranged an evacuation for American private citizens on Saturday, ferrying about 300 people by bus to Port Sudan under heavy air cover by drones. No U.S. officials were on the ground for the evacuation operation.

‘Old Man with No Future’: Kim Jong-un’s Sister
Mocks Biden’s ‘Senility’ in Nuclear Rant

Kim Yo-jong’s statement, published through the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), was meant as a response to conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s visit to the United States last week. Yoon and Biden, whose policies have often been at odds since the conservative president took office in 2022, published a landmark agreement branded the “Washington Declaration,” which resulted in Biden agreeing to send a nuclear submarine to South Korea in exchange for Yoon abandoning his public stance of potentially developing a South Korean nuclear weapons program.
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In a KCNA commentary on Saturday, Kim finally responded to the Washington Declaration and Yoon’s warm reception in the United States by predicting that Biden will not be able to finish his first presidential term. The promises in the Declaration, she asserted, “provides us [North Korea] with an environment in which we are compelled to take more decisive action in order to deal with the new security environment.”
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“Look, a nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies or partisans — partners — is unacceptable and will result in the end of whatever regime, were it to take such an action,” Biden said on Wednesday.

“Another thing that we cannot let pass nor overlook is the fact that the chief executive of the enemy state officially and personally used the word ‘the end of regime’ under the eyes of the world,” Kim Yo-jong noted. “Would we simply regard it as the man’s senility?”

...she continued, concluding that Pyongyang would only develop its nuclear weapons in “proportion” to the alleged threats from Seoul and Washington.

May Day protests: Labor rights demonstrations across Europe

With May 1 marking International Workers' Day, many feeling the effects of rising inflation took to the streets of European countries to make their voices heard.

In Germany

Hundreds of May Day rallies organized by labor unions and leftist groups have taken place across Germany.

German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) said 288,000 people took part in the 398 events.

The head of Germany's industrial union IG Metall, Jörg Hofmann, strongly defended the rights of trade unions to strike.
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There have been numerous strikes this year by public service workers and transport staff over pay and working conditions.

The nationwide industrial action impacted health care, air, road and rail transport, postal and municipal cleaning services, among other sectors.

In France

Hundreds of thousands of people massed in cities around France to vent their anger against President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform.

Protests took a violent turn as the day progressed, with protesters and security forces clashing.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters that at least 108 police were wounded, with 291 detained across the country.

Protesters threw projectiles at police and broke windows of business buildings, including banks and estate agents in Paris, the French AFP news agency reported. Security forces used tear gas and water cannons in return.

In Italy

Italy's right-wing government used May Day to approve measures aimed, it said, to boost employment and pay rates by cutting aid to the poor. The move came amid opposition anger over welfare cuts and loosening rules on short-term employment contracts lasting between 12 and 24 months.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni rolled back anti-poverty subsidies introduced four years ago.

Meloni said "citizens' income" benefits would be replaced by a more limited "inclusion cheque" for qualifying households.
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In the northern city of Turin, anti-government protesters marched with a puppet of Meloni holding up her arm in a fascist salute.

In Spain

More than 70 marches were organized by the country's unions, which warned of "social conflict" if salaries did not rise in line with inflation.

A government scheme to reduce the work week to four days was praised.

The Illustrious College of Lawyers of Madrid pushed for changes to historic laws requiring them to be on call 365 days of the year.