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A man who was allegedly behind the deadly attack at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg was known to law enforcement and the counterterrorism authorities for years, German media outlets reported on Monday. The suspect identified as Saudi national Taleb al Abdulmohsen also underwent several threat assessments by the police, including just weeks before the attack, a regional interior minister has revealed.

Abdulmohsen first entered the security services’ crosshairs as early as in 2015, ZDF TV reported, citing a statement by Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Interior Ministry. At the time, local security officials reported him to the Joint Counter-Terrorism Center as a person who could potentially carry out a violent attack over threats to a regional medical association and a local welfare office.

In September 2023, a female informant also warned the police in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt about Abdulmohsen’s potentially violent intentions, calling the situation “very urgent,” according to broadcaster MDR. The police reportedly did not take any action at the time.

Saxony-Anhalt Interior Minister Tamara Zieschang told regional lawmakers on Monday that the police conducted a threat assessment of Abdulmohsen on two occasions, in 2023 and 2024. They also conducted two “potential security threat interviews” with the man in September 2023 and October 2024 – just weeks before the Christmas market attack.

The measure is used by the German authorities to inform potential perpetrators that the police are monitoring them, to deter them from committing criminal acts. According to Zieschang, the investigation into Abdulmohsen was opened over a post he made on X in December 2023. The proceedings were discontinued after the police failed to find him on several occasions.

The minister refused to make the content of his messages public. Magdeburg Police Chief Tom-Oliver Langhans confirmed that there was a criminal complaint against the suspect in the past, as well as an attempt by the police to assess the threat he posed, but did not provide further details.

Last Friday, Abdulmohsen allegedly drove his car into a crowd at the Magdeburg Christmas market, killing at least five people, including a nine-year-old boy, and injuring 200 others. He was arrested at the scene and identified as the primary suspect in the attack.

According to dpa news agency, Saudi Arabia warned the German authorities about the man around a year ago, but the nature of the warning was not immediately known.

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https://www.rt.com/news/609899-police-monitor-market-attack-suspect/

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It was supposed to be a triumph of modern engineering. The Olmsted Locks and Dam—situated on the Ohio River, an artery of American commerce—was designed to fix the aging infrastructure of Locks 52 and 53. These two rusting, Depression-era relics were falling apart, threatening to grind shipping traffic to a halt on one of the busiest waterways in the country. The Olmsted project would replace them with something better, bigger, and undeniably impressive.

How impressive? For starters, Olmsted is one of the largest and most complex inland water navigation projects in the world. Think of it as the Amazon Prime of river systems—efficient, high-tech, and responsible for keeping everything moving. The system of locks and dams on the Ohio River controls water levels for barge traffic, ensuring that goods—grain, coal, steel, and more—can move efficiently from the Midwest to the rest of the globe.

And move they did. Until the farmers got in the way.

Or rather, until the government got in their way. You see, when you’re holding back that much water, you better know where it’s going to end up. Spoiler alert—they didn’t. Instead, 70,000 acres of farmland—some of the most productive in the country—disappeared under water. Livelihoods were destroyed, 454 farmers lost their land, and the folks who feed you were left holding the bag for one of the most expensive infrastructure projects in U.S. history.

The farmers didn’t ask for this. They didn’t sign up for their fields to become an unintentional reservoir for one of the world’s largest locks and lakes. Yet here they are, mired in bureaucratic limbo, waiting for justice from a government that would rather stonewall than admit, “Oops, we broke your life.”

Why? Because the numbers are big. Really big. If the government acknowledges its colossal mistake, it’ll cost them more than just money—it’ll cost them credibility. And let’s be real: credibility is the one thing Washington pretends to still have. So instead of stepping up, they punted the problem to the Department of Justice. You know, the same DOJ that’s great at prosecuting random nobodies but apparently breaks into a sweat when it comes to helping the actual victims of government incompetence.

Here’s the thing: government isn’t inherently evil. Most of the time, it’s just wrong—wrong in its priorities, wrong in its assumptions, wrong in its execution. But when it refuses to fix what it’s broken? That’s when wrong turns into evil. That’s what these farmers are up against: a system that knows it’s failed but doesn’t have the guts to make it right.

Speaking of guts, where are the voices standing up for these farmers? This is the region J.D. Vance wrote about in Hillbilly Elegy. The Ohio Valley, stretching from Ohio into Kentucky, is the very heartland he claimed to champion. These are his people—the folks who feel the brunt of government neglect. They’re the backbone of this country, and their suffering is the story he used to launch his political career.

And now he’s in the position to finally help these farmers that have been forgotten for years.

And let’s not forget Vice President Kamala Harris, who likes to point out her own roots in this region. She grew up in Ohio, and her family has connections to Kentucky. The plight of these farmers is a direct link to the very places our leaders hail from. Yet the silence on their behalf is deafening.

Speaking of fiscal responsibility, have you checked the national debt lately? We’re $30 trillion in the hole, and adding another trillion every couple of weeks, give or take. And yet, somehow, we always find money to send abroad. Billions to Ukraine, where farmers are understandably fighting to rebuild their lives and fields. That’s fine—great, even. But what about the people here? The ones who feed our country? What is the premise of “America First” if the farmers who feed Europe flourish, while the ones who feed America drown? Literally.

The Olmsted project is an awesome display of what America can do when it sets its mind to something massive. We’re talking about a feat of engineering so advanced it’s like the Apple iPhone of locks and dams. But the same ingenuity that built the thing disappears the second there’s a human cost. And make no mistake: there is a human cost.

America loves its farmers in speeches. Politicians love to pose in front of tractors and slap farmers on the back at county fairs. But when the floodwaters rise—literally—they’re left to fend for themselves. The government could fix this. It could settle, compensate these people, and move on. But instead, it’s choosing to fight, because it’s easier to bury a few farmers in legal red tape than to admit, “Yeah, we wrecked your life.”

This isn’t just a Midwest problem. This is a national disgrace. These farmers didn’t just lose their land—they lost their futures. They’re the reason you have food on your table. And yet, instead of helping them, the government has left them in the lurch.

If you want to know where America’s priorities lie, just follow the money. We’re sending billions overseas while ignoring the people who are literally keeping us fed. A bailout for Wall Street, silence for the people who grow your wheat. This isn’t about being anti-aid or anti-government—it’s about being pro-accountability. If we can find the funds to rebuild other nations, surely we can scrape together the decency to help the people who feed our own.

The Olmsted Dam is a marvel of human achievement, but the story of the farmers it ruined is a marvel of human failure. And until the government steps up to make it right, every time you bite into a slice of bread or a burger bun, remember this: someone paid a hell of a price for it, and it wasn’t the DOJ.

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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/12/when-government-flooded-americas-breadbasket-walked-away/

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The U.S. government spent millions of dollars on experiments torturing cats, compliments of the U.S. taxpayers.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) highlighted over $1 trillion in government waste in this year’s Festivus report, but there seems to be a few that involve our feline friends, uncovered by the White Coat Waste Project.

According to the report, the Department of Defense (DOD) spent $10,851,439 on what it describes as an “Orwellian Cat Experiment.” The experiment was completed under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at the University of Pittsburgh.

White Coat Waste Project 🥼🗑️ @WhiteCoatWaste

In this year's #Festivus airing of grievances, Sen. Rand Paul features CAT-astrophic gov waste exposed by WCW 🧵

🦠$2M Fauci-funded COVID experiment on cats 🙀$10M to shove marbles up cats’ butts for constipation tests (DOD) 🤢$1.5M to spin cats for motion sickness tests (NIH)

The experiment involved slicing the back of male cats, exposing their spinal cords. Researchers then used electrodes which “fired off electric shocks while the incision was still open to make cats have an erection.”

It gets worse, as researchers continued to torture cats, shocking them up to ten minutes at a time and severing their spinal cords:

But the horror doesn’t end there. These cats were then subjected to even more electric shocks, sometimes for up to 10 minutes at a time, before having their spinal cords severed to paralyze their lower bodies. And just for good measure, the shocks continued for another 10 minutes. All this, in the name of “science.”

In another shocking DARPA-funded experiment, researchers “attached electrodes to cats’ spinal cords and inserted condom- balloons into their colons and marbles into their rectums.”

“The objective? To force these poor animals to defecate the marbles via electric shock,” the report found. One cat was shocked for 11 minutes:

Your hard-earned money, nearly $11 million of it, was spent on experiments that would be more at home in a dystopian novel than the real world. It’s a grim reminder that, when left unchecked, government spending can drift into realms that defy common sense.

White Coat Waste Project 🥼🗑️ · Dec 23, 2024 @WhiteCoatWaste · Follow Replying to @WhiteCoatWaste Fauci didn't just torture beagles!

Sen. Paul's report includes WCW’s exposé of ongoing Fauci-funded experiments where cats are infected with COVID, observed as they suffer & are then killed.

This has cost taxpayers over $2M from the NIH and USDA 💸

White Coat Waste Project 🥼🗑️ @WhiteCoatWaste

Sen. Paul also takes aim at a $10M+ DOD project WCW exposed that entails electro-shocking cats to give them erections & shoving marbles up their butts & for constipation experiments.

Are ya kitten me?

The report would not be complete without highlighting cruel experiments at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), formally led by Dr. Anthony Fauci –.and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which spent $2.24 million on experiments.

The NIAID and the USDA have given Cornell University $2.24 million to “study whether felines can contract and transmit COVID-19.” This experiment, again, involved taking healthy cats, injecting them with the illness and watching them suffer, ultimately killing them:

Some were killed as early as two days after being infected. Some weren’t even infected with COVID-19 since they were the “control” group, yet they were still killed. Throughout the experiment, the cats were completely isolated in cages.

There is one more highlighted in the waste report, as well. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) spent $1,513,299 on a study that involved training female kittens to submit and then torturing them by strapping them to a spinning and tilting hydraulic table. The goal was to cause motion sickness. Bright lights were shined in their eyes, and they received an injection of copper sulfate to make them puke.

“According to the NIH, the purpose of these experiments is to study how different species, such as cats and monkeys, respond to motion sickness,” the report wrote, asserting that the American people would surely reject this reasoning as legitimate justification for torture.

White Coat Waste Project 🥼🗑️ @WhiteCoatWaste

If that spending didn't make you sick, this might:

Sen. Paul's report includes WCW's exposé of a $1.5M NIH project that makes cats nauseous by shocking them & spinning them 100s of times for motion sickness tests. Some cats have holes drilled into their skulls to restrain them.

Read the entire waste report here.

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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/12/23/orwellian-rand-paul-festivus-report-shows-feds-spent-millions-torturing-cats/

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The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has spent more than a decade preparing to carry out an operation that resulted in pager and walkie-talkie explosions across Lebanon in September, CBS reported over the weekend, after interviewing two recently retired senior agents who allegedly spearheaded the effort.

Mossad first started to work with walkie-talkies, according to CBS sources. The intelligence agency designed a battery for them that had an explosive device within it and later infiltrated the supply chain through a string of shell companies to hide its traces.

“We create a pretend world. We are a global production company: We write the screenplay, we’re the directors, we’re the producers, we’re the main actors,” one of the former agents said. Eventually, the Israeli operatives reportedly managed to sell over 16,000 of the exploding walkie-talkies to the Lebanon-based militant group, Hezbollah, according to the report.

The Israeli intelligence services did not stop at that and aimed for the devices the Hezbollah members would have on them “at all times” next, CBS said. That is how pagers came into play in 2022.

According to the two former agents, the agency had run numerous tests to determine the exact amount of explosives needed to injure a pager owner, with almost no collateral damage.

The devices designed by Mossad reportedly had no intelligence capabilities and could not be used for tracking or surveillance. “There’s almost no way how to tap it,” one of the former operatives said, adding that the pagers were essentially just small bombs.

Mossad found out that Hezbollah was buying such devices from a Taiwan-based company, Gold Apollo. It then set up more shell companies, including one in Hungary, to dupe Gold Apollo into cooperation, without sharing any of its plans with the Taiwan-based company. The spy agency fully manufactured the pagers that were then sold through its licensed partnership with Gold Apollo.

The intelligence service even hired the company’s saleswoman dealing with Hezbollah to promote their product. It also went on a massive fake ad campaign on YouTube and elsewhere on the net that even included fake online testimonials supposedly verifying their pagers’ quality.

“When [Hezbollah] are buying from us, they have zero clue that they are buying from the Mossad. We make like the ‘Truman Show,’ everything is controlled by us behind the scene,” one of the former agents said. By September 2024, the Lebanon-based movement had about 5,000 pagers on their hands, according to CBS.

All those efforts were aimed at just crippling and scaring their foes, the former agents admitted. “We want them to feel vulnerable, which they are,” a former Mossad operative said. Another one said that the intelligence agency wanted people caught up in that plot to literally serve as a living warning to Israel’s adversaries.

“Those people without hands and eyes are living proof, walking in Lebanon, of ‘don't mess with us’,” he told CBS. The September 17 attacks killed at least 42 people, including 12 civilians – and injured over 3,500, including women and children. West Jerusalem had denied any involvement in those incidents for months until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed responsibility for the attacks in mid-November.

The scheme drew international condemnation, with UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk labeling it a “shocking” and “unacceptable” act that violates human rights laws. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the UN General Assembly in September branded it a “glaring example of terrorist methods.”

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https://www.rt.com/news/609844-mossad-exploding-pagers-attack-details/

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A letter signed by nearly 100 “national security professionals” against Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence contains smears rather than facts, according to a closer review by Breitbart News.

The letter was published earlier this month by Foreign Policy 4 America, a left-of-center, Soros-funded organization founded in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to InfluenceWatch.org.

The letter, signed by a number of former Obama and Clinton administration officials and partisan retired military officers, claimed that following Gabbard’s trip to Syria in 2017, she “aligned” herself with Russian and Syrian officials.

It said, “She publicly cast doubt on U.S. intelligence reports and overwhelming public reporting that Assad carried out chemical weapons attacks against Syrian civilians, giving credence to the debunked conspiracy that the attack was staged by agents of the United Kingdom.”

Rather, after her trip to Syria, Gabbard did not say she did not believe Assad carried out the attacks. She said it was “irrelevant” what anyone believed, but that she wanted “evidence and facts.”

She said in an April 7, 2017, interview on CNN:

What I believe, what you believe or others believe, is irrelevant. What matters here is the evidence and the facts. If President Assad is found to be responsible after an independent investigation for these horrific chemical weapons attacks, I’ll be the first one to denounce him, to call him a war criminal and to call for his prosecution the International Criminal Court make sure that those consequences are there.

She added, “…all I’m saying is that we have an executive branch of government and a legislative branch of government, and we need to see the evidence. Congress and the American people need to see and analyze this evidence and then make a decision based on that, whether or not an authorization of U.S. military force is necessary, and what I’m telling you is that that hasn’t happened. I have not seen that independent investigation occur, and that proof presented showing exactly what happened. And there are a number of theories that are out there on exactly what occurred that day.”

The letter cites as an example of her casting doubt on whether Assad carried out the attacks was a statement on her website that did not absolve Assad, but rather, said, “There is evidence that both the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad as well as the armed opposition groups aligned against him have used chemical weapons (CW) during the Syrian war.”

The letter also states that Gabbard “released a video insinuating that U.S.-funded labs in Ukraine were developing biological weapons and that Ukraine’s engagement with NATO posed a threat to Russian sovereignty, both arguments initially used by Russia to justify its illegal invasion of Ukraine.”

Gabbard in the video did not say U.S.-funded labs in Ukraine were developing biological weapons, she said, “According to the US government, these bio-labs are conducting research on the use of pathogens” — a statement that was supported by then-Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland.

Nuland told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March 2022, “Ukraine has biological research facilities, which, in fact, we are now quite concerned…Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of. So we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach.”

Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 @TulsiGabbard

There are 25+ US-funded biolabs in Ukraine which if breached would release & spread deadly pathogens to US/world. We must take action now to prevent disaster. US/Russia/Ukraine/NATO/UN/EU must implement a ceasefire now around these labs until they’re secured & pathogens destroyed.

In addition, a recent Wall Street Journal article admits that the U.S. was funding the bio-labs. It said: “U.S. funding of Ukrainian biological labs has focused on efforts to improve security and prevent the escape of pathogens.”

Furthermore, a March 20, 2022 Wall Street Journal article also confirmed that the U.S.-funded labs were working with “dangerous biological materials”:

On his first official visit abroad, the new senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, was taken to a facility in Ukraine where the U.S. helped scientists working with dangerous biological materials. But rather than produce biological weapons, U.S. officials in that ramshackle building were trying to prevent lethal pathogens from falling into the hands of terrorists.

“I removed a tray of glass vials containing Bacillus anthracis, which is the bacterium that causes the anthrax,” recalls Andrew Weber, the Pentagon official who was in charge of the U.S.-funded program that worked with the Ukrainian government. Mr. Weber said he showed the tray “to a very concerned-looking young senator.” The letter also states, “Her sympathy for dictators like Vladimir Putin and Assad raises questions about her judgment and fitness,” but fails to mention that Gabbard has called Assad a “brutal dictator”

Gabbard has also criticized Putin multiple times as well.

On April 3, 2022, she posted:

President Putin, not only is your brutal attack on Ukraine reprehensible, it has been a huge geopolitical error which has already cost Russia dearly. Those costs will get higher every day you remain in Ukraine. So it is in the best interest of the Russian people and the people of Ukraine, that you pull your forces out now. It is still not too late to salvage the kinship felt between the Russian and Ukrainian people, as expressed in this video clip from a Ukrainian soldier.

Gabbard later posted on X on February 25, 2022:

On a visit to Ukraine, I met a number of everyday Ukrainians who have become good friends over the years. Some are stuck in Kyiv, others trying to get to the Poland border. They’re scared & worried for their families. Please join me in praying for their safety and the safety of all Ukrainians. Please join me in calling on US, Russian, and Ukrainian leaders to SERIOUSLY negotiate an end to this war (not just political posturing); and call on Putin to end his crackdown on anti-war Russian protestors.

It also claimed that Gabbard would be the “least experienced Director of National Intelligence since the position was created.”

“Prior directors had executive branch experience working on intelligence matters or served on a congressional intelligence committee. Most have also had significant management experience,” it said.

However, as retired three-star Air Force General Dan Leaf recently pointed out in an op-ed, the current DNI, Avril Haines, had a background in physics and law, not intelligence.

Leaf wrote in the Washington Times: “Those who decry Ms. Gabbard’s qualifications for the role must think that the current director’s background — degrees in physics and law, an inside-the-Beltway existence since 2003 — outweigh Ms. Gabbard’s military service, including combat deployments and time on the House Armed Services Committee. Perhaps Director Avril Haines has a long list of accomplishments that Americans don’t know about.”

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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/12/23/letter-signed-by-national-security-professionals-against-tulsi-gabbard-includes-unfounded-smears/

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President Joe Biden has acted 28 days before he leaves office to commute the sentences of 37 of 40 individuals on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment.

AP reports a long list of convicted offenders will be spared after they were sentenced for a range of criminal acts including the slayings of police and military officers, people on federal land and those involved in deadly bank robberies or drug deals, as well as the killings of guards or prisoners in federal facilities.

“I’ve dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system,” Biden said in a statement confirming the commutations.

“Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole. These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”

The three inmates who will remain on federal death row include Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who helped carry out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and Dylann Roof, who in 2015 shot and killed nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina.

Robert Bowers, who killed 11 Jewish worshippers during a 2018 mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, will also remain on death row.

Biden took a political jab at President-elect Donald Trump while making his announcement, saying, “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”

For his part, AP notes Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has spoken frequently of expanding executions.

In a speech announcing his 2024 campaign, Trump called for those “caught selling drugs to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts.”

He later promised to execute drug and human smugglers while during his first term as president, Trump also advocated for the death penalty for drug dealers.

As Breitbart News previously reported, at the beginning of December, Pope Francis called for people to pray “for those on death row in the United States,” and that the inmates’ “sentences may be commuted.”

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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/12/23/biden-commutes-sentences-of-32-death-row-inmates/

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President Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 of 40 federal inmates on death row on Monday — including cold-blooded murderers who had killed entire families, and predators who had slaughtered innocent children.

For example, Ricardo Sanchez, Jr., and Daniel Troya had been convicted for the brutal murder of an entire family. As Palm Beach, Florida, CBS affiliate 12 News recalled, the two “shot and killed a mother, father, and their two young children”:

The murders occurred early in the morning of October 13, 2006, when the pair stopped the family’s Jeep Cherokee along the Turnpike, outside of Fort Pierce.

Each family member – Jose Luis Escobedo, Luis Damian Escobedo, Luis Julian Escobedo, and Yessica Guerro Escobedo – was shot and left their bodies there. Sanchez and Troya drove off in both their Dodge Ram van and the Escobedo’s black Jeep Cherokee.

The Palm Beach Post added:

In 2009, Daniel “Homer” Troya and Ricardo “Ricky” Sanchez, Jr. were convicted of carjacking resulting in death and other felonies for their roles in the 2006 deaths of Jose “Lou” Escobedo, his wife Yessica, and their two young sons aged 4 and 3. Their bodies were found riddled with bullets off the side of Florida’s Turnpike in Port St. Lucie.

Federal prosecutors said that their drug trafficking boss, Danny Varela, ordered the hit to wipe out a large drug debt and to steal 15 kilos of cocaine Escobedo, who was the group’s cocaine smuggler, had with him at the time. Sanchez and Troya followed the Escobedos north to the Daytona Beach area where Jose made the drug pickup, and then killed them on the Turnpike, prosecutors said.

Another death row prisoner, Thomas Sanders, had been convicted in 2014 for kidnapping an murdering a 12-year-old girl. The FBI recalled his crimes in a press release at the time of his sentencing:

Sanders met Suellen Roberts, 31, in the summer of 2010 when Roberts rented a storage unit at a warehouse in Las Vegas where Sanders worked. Roberts and Sanders began dating, and approximately two months later Roberts agreed that she and her 12-year-old daughter, Lexis, would go on a trip with Sanders over the Labor Day weekend to a wildlife park near the Grand Canyon. As they were returning to Nevada after three days of traveling, Sanders pulled off Interstate 40 in a remote location in the Arizona desert and shot Suellen Roberts in the head and forced Lexis Roberts into the car, keeping her captive.

Sanders drove several days across the country before he murdered Lexis Roberts in a wooded area in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana. Evidence at trial established that Sanders shot Lexis Roberts four times, cut her throat and left her body in the woods, where a hunter found her body on Oct. 8, 2010.

…

At trial, the jury heard a recorded confession in which Sanders admitted killing the mother and daughter.

Another murderer whose sentence Biden commuted was Philadelphia drug kingpin Kaboni Savage. The local Philadelphia NBC affiliate recalled that Savage “was convicted of murdering 12 people, which included a family of six killed in a brutal firebombing.”

It added:

The family Savage firebombed in 2004 belonged to Eugene Coleman, his former confident turned FBI informant. In retaliation, Savage killed Coleman’s mother plus his cousin, his infant son and three other children. Coleman was in prison at the time.

Although Savage was also incarcerated at the time of the firebombing, he orchestrated the attack through phone calls and prison visits and communicated with other inmates through prison plumbing pipes.

The only three federal inmates still on death row are Dylan Roof, who murdered nine black parishoners in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; Robert Bowers, who murdered eleven Jews in the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in 2018; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two Islamic terrorist brothers behind the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.

A full list of the 40 federal inmates (now 37) formerly on death row can be found here.

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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/12/23/biden-spares-murderers-who-killed-entire-families-including-children-infants/

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The Associated Press

Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk’s X, which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner’s support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta’s Threads and its algorithms.

The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter, championed by its former CEO Jack Dorsey. Its decentralized approach to social networking was eventually intended to replace Twitter’s core mechanic. That’s unlikely now that the two companies have parted ways. But Bluesky’s growth trajectory — with a user base that has more than doubled since October — could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms.

But with growth comes growing pains. It’s not just human users who’ve been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division or direct users to junk websites.

The skyrocketing user base — now surpassing 25 million — is the biggest test yet for a relatively young platform that has branded itself as a social media alternative free of the problems plaguing its competitors. According to research firm Similarweb, Bluesky added 7.6 million monthly active app users on iOS and Android in November, an increase of 295.4% since October. It also saw 56.2 million desktop and mobile web visits, in the same period, up 189% from October.

Besides the U.S. elections, Bluesky also got a boost when X was briefly banned in Brazil.

“They got this spike in attention, they’ve crossed the threshold where it is now worth it for people to flood the platform with spam,” said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University and a member of Issue One’s Council for Responsible Social Media. “But they don’t have the cash flow, they don’t have the established team that a larger platform would, so they have to do it all very, very quickly.”

To manage growth for its tiny staff, Bluesky started as an invitation-only space until it opened to the public in February. That period gave the site time to build out moderation tools and other distinctive features to attract new users, such as “starter packs” that provide lists of topically curated feeds. Meta recently announced that it is testing a similar feature.

Compared to the bigger players like Meta’s platforms or X, Bluesky has a “quite different” value system, said Claire Wardle, a professor at Cornell University and an expert in misinformation. This includes giving users more control over their experience.

“The first generation of social media platforms connected the world, but ended up consolidating power in the hands of a few corporations and their leaders,” Bluesky said on its blog in March. “Our online experience doesn’t have to depend on billionaires unilaterally making decisions over what we see. On an open social network like Bluesky, you can shape your experience for yourself.”

Because of this mindset, Bluesky has achieved a scrappy underdog status that has attracted users who’ve grown tired of the big players.

“People had this idea that it was going to be a different type of social network,” Wardle said. “But the truth is, when you get lots of people in a place and there are eyeballs, it means that it’s in other people’s interests to use bots to create, you know, information that aligns with their perspective.”

Little data has emerged to help quantify the rise in impersonator accounts, artificial intelligence-fueled networks and other potentially harmful content on Bluesky. But in recent weeks, users have begun reporting large numbers of apparent AI bots following them, posting plagiarized articles or making seemingly automated divisive comments in replies.

Lion Cassens, a Bluesky user and doctoral candidate in the Netherlands, found one such network by accident — a group of German-language accounts with similar bios and AI-generated profile pictures posting in replies to three German newspapers.

“I noticed some weird replies under a news post by the German newspaper ‘Die Ziet,’” he said in an email to The Associated Press. “I have a lot of trust in the moderation mechanism on Bluesky, especially compared to Twitter since the layoffs and due to Musk’s more radical stance on freedom of speech. But AI bots are a big challenge, as they will only improve. I hope social media can keep up with that.”

Cassens said the bots’ messages have been relatively innocuous so far, but he was concerned about how they could be repurposed in the future to mislead.

There are also signs that foreign disinformation narratives have made their way to Bluesky. The disinformation research group Alethea pointed to one low-traction post sharing a false claim about ABC News that had circulated on Russian Telegram channels.

Copycat accounts are another challenge. In late November, Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the Security, Trust and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech, found that of the top 100 most followed named individuals on Bluesky, 44% had at least one duplicate account posing as them. Two weeks later, Mantzarlis said Bluesky had removed around two-thirds of the duplicate accounts he’d initially detected — a sign the site was aware of the issue and attempting to address it.

Bluesky posted earlier this month that it had quadrupled its moderation team to keep up with its growing user base. The company also announced it had introduced a new system to detect impersonation and was working to improve its Community Guidelines to provide more detail on what’s allowed. Because of the way the site is built, users also have the option to subscribe to third-party “Labelers” that outsource content moderation by tagging accounts with warnings and context.

The company didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

Even as its challenges aren’t yet at the scale other platforms face, Bluesky is at a “crossroads,” said Edward Perez, a board member at the nonpartisan nonprofit OSET Institute, who previously led Twitter’s civic integrity team.

“Whether BlueSky likes it or not, it is being pulled into the real world,” Perez said, noting that it needs to quickly prioritize threats and work to mitigate them if it hopes to continue to grow.

That said, disinformation and bots won’t be Bluesky’s only challenges in the months and years to come. As a text-based social network, its entire premise is falling out of favor with younger generations. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that only 17% of American teenagers used X, for instance, down from 23% in 2022. For teens and young adults, TikTok, Instagram and other visual-focused platforms are the places to be.

Political polarization is also going against Bluesky ever reaching the size of TikTok, Instagram or even X.

“Bluesky is not trying to be all things to all people,” Wardle said, adding that, likely, the days of a Facebook or Instagram emerging where they’re “trying to keep everybody happy” are over. Social platforms are increasingly splintered along political lines and when they aren’t — see Meta’s platforms — the companies behind them are actively working to de-emphasize political content and news.

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. 🤣

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https://www.breitbart.com/news/bluesky-finds-with-growth-comes-growing-pains-and-bots/

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The Associated Press

Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk’s X, which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner’s support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta’s Threads and its algorithms.

The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter, championed by its former CEO Jack Dorsey. Its decentralized approach to social networking was eventually intended to replace Twitter’s core mechanic. That’s unlikely now that the two companies have parted ways. But Bluesky’s growth trajectory — with a user base that has more than doubled since October — could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms.

But with growth comes growing pains. It’s not just human users who’ve been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division or direct users to junk websites.

The skyrocketing user base — now surpassing 25 million — is the biggest test yet for a relatively young platform that has branded itself as a social media alternative free of the problems plaguing its competitors. According to research firm Similarweb, Bluesky added 7.6 million monthly active app users on iOS and Android in November, an increase of 295.4% since October. It also saw 56.2 million desktop and mobile web visits, in the same period, up 189% from October.

Besides the U.S. elections, Bluesky also got a boost when X was briefly banned in Brazil.

“They got this spike in attention, they’ve crossed the threshold where it is now worth it for people to flood the platform with spam,” said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University and a member of Issue One’s Council for Responsible Social Media. “But they don’t have the cash flow, they don’t have the established team that a larger platform would, so they have to do it all very, very quickly.”

To manage growth for its tiny staff, Bluesky started as an invitation-only space until it opened to the public in February. That period gave the site time to build out moderation tools and other distinctive features to attract new users, such as “starter packs” that provide lists of topically curated feeds. Meta recently announced that it is testing a similar feature.

Compared to the bigger players like Meta’s platforms or X, Bluesky has a “quite different” value system, said Claire Wardle, a professor at Cornell University and an expert in misinformation. This includes giving users more control over their experience.

“The first generation of social media platforms connected the world, but ended up consolidating power in the hands of a few corporations and their leaders,” Bluesky said on its blog in March. “Our online experience doesn’t have to depend on billionaires unilaterally making decisions over what we see. On an open social network like Bluesky, you can shape your experience for yourself.”

Because of this mindset, Bluesky has achieved a scrappy underdog status that has attracted users who’ve grown tired of the big players.

“People had this idea that it was going to be a different type of social network,” Wardle said. “But the truth is, when you get lots of people in a place and there are eyeballs, it means that it’s in other people’s interests to use bots to create, you know, information that aligns with their perspective.”

Little data has emerged to help quantify the rise in impersonator accounts, artificial intelligence-fueled networks and other potentially harmful content on Bluesky. But in recent weeks, users have begun reporting large numbers of apparent AI bots following them, posting plagiarized articles or making seemingly automated divisive comments in replies.

Lion Cassens, a Bluesky user and doctoral candidate in the Netherlands, found one such network by accident — a group of German-language accounts with similar bios and AI-generated profile pictures posting in replies to three German newspapers.

“I noticed some weird replies under a news post by the German newspaper ‘Die Ziet,’” he said in an email to The Associated Press. “I have a lot of trust in the moderation mechanism on Bluesky, especially compared to Twitter since the layoffs and due to Musk’s more radical stance on freedom of speech. But AI bots are a big challenge, as they will only improve. I hope social media can keep up with that.”

Cassens said the bots’ messages have been relatively innocuous so far, but he was concerned about how they could be repurposed in the future to mislead.

There are also signs that foreign disinformation narratives have made their way to Bluesky. The disinformation research group Alethea pointed to one low-traction post sharing a false claim about ABC News that had circulated on Russian Telegram channels.

Copycat accounts are another challenge. In late November, Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the Security, Trust and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech, found that of the top 100 most followed named individuals on Bluesky, 44% had at least one duplicate account posing as them. Two weeks later, Mantzarlis said Bluesky had removed around two-thirds of the duplicate accounts he’d initially detected — a sign the site was aware of the issue and attempting to address it.

Bluesky posted earlier this month that it had quadrupled its moderation team to keep up with its growing user base. The company also announced it had introduced a new system to detect impersonation and was working to improve its Community Guidelines to provide more detail on what’s allowed. Because of the way the site is built, users also have the option to subscribe to third-party “Labelers” that outsource content moderation by tagging accounts with warnings and context.

The company didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

Even as its challenges aren’t yet at the scale other platforms face, Bluesky is at a “crossroads,” said Edward Perez, a board member at the nonpartisan nonprofit OSET Institute, who previously led Twitter’s civic integrity team.

“Whether BlueSky likes it or not, it is being pulled into the real world,” Perez said, noting that it needs to quickly prioritize threats and work to mitigate them if it hopes to continue to grow.

That said, disinformation and bots won’t be Bluesky’s only challenges in the months and years to come. As a text-based social network, its entire premise is falling out of favor with younger generations. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that only 17% of American teenagers used X, for instance, down from 23% in 2022. For teens and young adults, TikTok, Instagram and other visual-focused platforms are the places to be.

Political polarization is also going against Bluesky ever reaching the size of TikTok, Instagram or even X.

“Bluesky is not trying to be all things to all people,” Wardle said, adding that, likely, the days of a Facebook or Instagram emerging where they’re “trying to keep everybody happy” are over. Social platforms are increasingly splintered along political lines and when they aren’t — see Meta’s platforms — the companies behind them are actively working to de-emphasize political content and news.

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. 🤣

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California Democrats have written to outgoing Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to ask for more than half a billion dollars in funding for an ailing high-speed rail project that President-elect Donald Trump defunded in 2019.

As Breitbart News reported, Trump withheld $1 billion in funding from the project after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) canceled the original project. Newsom had explained to the state legislature that the original plan for a Los Angeles-to-San Francisco “bullet” train “would cost too much and, respectfully, would take too long.” Trump then demanded the state refund the money federal taxpayers had given it — applying the same rules that hold in the private sector.

Newsom resisted, and when President Joe Biden was elected, he restored the funding. Biden also added federal funding to a different high-speed rail project — a Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas train that shows more commercial promise and was originally started by private investors. Trump is unlikely to stop the latter project — but he is unlikely to support the former, which now only plans to connect stations in the interior regions of California.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday:

Democratic Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff joined Reps. Pete Aguilar, D-San Bernardino; Jim Costa, D-Fresno; and Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, on Friday in calling for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to approve $536 million for the project. In a letter addressed to Buttigieg, they called the project “essential.”

The money would fund design work on the first two segments of the project from Bakersfield to Palmdale (Los Angeles County) and from Gilroy to a junction point in the Central Valley south of Chowchilla (Madera County). Specifically, the money would fund the designing of tunnels through the Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California and through the Pacheco Pass in Northern California.

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California voters initially approved $10 billion in bond funding for the project in 2008. At the time, it was projected to cost $33 billion and be completed by 2020. Sixteen years later, the project has blown past both of those estimates. Its projected costs have soared to between $89 billion and $128 billion. Even under the rosiest projections, no segments will be completed and ready for riders until 2030 at the earliest.

The request for money for high-speed rail is just one last-minute request California Democrats have sent to the White House. Last week, the Biden administration approved Newsom’s plan to eliminate sales of gas-powered cars by 2035 — despite the fact that sales of electric vehicles, even in California, are far too slow to meet the target. President-elect Trump is expected to repeal that policy as soon as he takes office, along with other federal electric vehicle mandates.

Trump has chosen former Republican congressman Sean Duffy to be his nominee for Secretary of Transportation, continuing a tradition of nominating officials from the Midwest, historically the country’s transportation hub.

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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/12/22/california-democrats-ask-buttigieg-for-half-a-billion-dollars-for-high-speed-rail-before-trump/

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The transition team of US President-elect Donald Trump hopes to pull the country out of the World Health Organization (WHO) the first day of the new administration, thus cutting one of the agency’s major cash flows, the Financial Times (FT) has reported, citing health experts.

Members of Trump’s team told the experts that they intend to announce a withdrawal from the global health body on inauguration day, January 20, the FT wrote on Sunday. Some in the team reportedly want the US to stay in the WHO but push to reform it. However, another group, which hopes to cut ties, is reportedly winning the argument.

The transition team wants Trump to withdraw from the WHO on the first day because of the “symbolism” of reversing Joe Biden’s own inauguration-day move, FT wrote, citing Ashish Jha, former White House Covid response coordinator to the US President.

On January 20, 2021, Biden restarted relations with the UN body, after his then-predecessor Trump initiated a withdrawal process in line with his criticism of the WHO’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

”America is going to leave a huge vacuum in global health financing and leadership. I see no one that is going to fill the breach,” Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health at Georgetown Law told FT. The plan to withdraw “on day one” would be “catastrophic”, he added.

The WHO is a UN body that acts as a coordinating authority on international health issues. The agency gets its funding from dues-paying member states as well as voluntary contributions. The US has been one of the organization’s largest donors for decades, and, according to its data, is currently the second-largest contributor among its member states.

In 2020, Trump accused the WHO of being under China’s control amid the coronavirus pandemic. The president claimed that Beijing had pressured the organization to “mislead the world” about the virus and pledged to direct US funds to other global public health charities instead.

Under a 1948 Congressional resolution, the US can withdraw from the WHO but must give a year's notice and should pay outstanding fees. The Trump team, however, did not comment directly on the potential withdrawal, noted FT.

In November, Trump nominated long-time vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy to become US Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). RFK Jr. was among the vocal critics of the WHO-recommended Covid-19 response measures imposed by governments around the world, namely strict lockdowns and the introduction of rapidly developed vaccines.

Kennedy’s nomination has yet to be approved by the Senate.

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https://www.rt.com/news/609763-us-quit-who-trump-inauguration/

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Dozens of people took to streets in the Italian city of Genoa to pay tribute to Russian General Igor Kirillov and to condemn the EU and NATO for backing Kiev during the conflict with Russia. Kirillov was killed in a Ukrainian terrorist attack earlier this week.

Kirillov, who headed Russia’s Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Protection Forces, and his aide, Lieutenant Colonel Ilya Polikarpov, were assassinated by an improvised explosive device planted on an electric scooter parked outside a residential building in Moscow on Tuesday morning.

The next day, a man from Uzbekistan was arrested for allegedly carrying out the attack. According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the suspect admitted that he had been recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services to kill the general in exchange for a $100,000 reward and an exit route to a European country.

Footage made during the rally in Genoa captured the demonstrators tossing EU and NATO flags on the pavement and trampling on them.

They displayed banners declaring, among other things, that Italy is grateful to Kirillov for his service and remembers the Russian general, who became “a victim of terrorism by Ukraine and NATO.”

Many also carried the Italian and Russian national flags. A replica of the Victory Banner, which is a symbol of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany during the Second World War, was also seen on display.

During his tenure, Kirillov had frequently accused the US of conducting secretive biological research under the guise of humanitarian aid and military cooperation in Ukraine and other countries. He also blamed Kiev for using banned chemical weapons on the battlefield amid the conflict with Moscow.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin described Kirillov’s killing as a terrorist attack perpetrated through “publicly dangerous” means.

“The regime in Kiev has repeatedly committed such crimes – terrorist attacks against many citizens of Russia,” Putin said, adding that “we have never heard condemnation of such terrorist attacks” in the West.

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https://www.rt.com/news/609767-italy-kirillov-nato-eu/

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Did you know that the omnibus CR funding bill that GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson put forward would have enshrined a number of aspects of the WHO Treaty into law in America?

Did you know it expanded COVID lockdown law to other diseases? Did you know it reiterated and strengthened laws that provide legal immunity for vaccine manufacturers?

I’m guessing you didn’t because almost no one did but all these things are true and Congressional leadership seems hell bent on bringing it back. While a full evaluation of everything this nightmare does let me offer a few examples of the shadiness as a means of explanation.

Hundreds of pages of this continuing resolution spending bill were dedicated to health policy. Why? The purpose of the bill is to keep the government funded – temporarily – until an actual budget could be passed (I know – ha ha).

Regardless of the likelihood of Congress doing their job and passing a budget, the Republican led House ought to want to pass something minimalistic so that the next Congress and incoming Trump administration can fight for their agenda more fully. Instead, we have major critical provisions everywhere.

While the focus here is on the corrupt health policies included in the bill, it should be noted that there is also a related provision of the bill that would have supported the State Department Global Engagement Center (GEC).

The GEC worked with numerous NGOs from other nations to promote censorship during COVID and, in light of the major focus on health policy in this bill, it appears that the continued support for the GEC is likely to be based on a desire to continue to censor information on health.

That censorship has been incredibly severe and it seems like this provision is timed to provide legal cover for censorship activities related to the upcoming plandemics that Peter Hotez referenced recently in an interview.

In the shadow of this nightmarish backdrop – Congress drops this bill. The bill was written in a way designed to hide its true purpose. This is particularly true in terms of its expansion of COVID lockdown laws. For example, here is a portion of page 724 of the bill:

See link.

Lines 9-15 really look innocuous and make almost no sense… at least until you look at what they mean in context. These lines reference other law and changes a few words so let’s look at what they change. Here’s the law as it is written today:

See link.

As you can see the law that is being changed is in reference to creating a “National Health Security Strategy” and a “public health workforce.” This section of law was created specifically to put people in place to deal the “COVID emergency”.

The new bill changes about 7 words but completely changes the law. With the changes, the newly updated law would read:

(3) PUBLIC HEALTH WORKFORCE

The National Health Security Strategy shall include a national strategy for establishing, maintaining, and sustaining an effective and prepared public health workforce, including defining the functions, capabilities, and gaps in such workforce (including gaps in the environmental health and animal health workforces, as applicable), describing the status of such workforce, identifying strategies to recruit, retain, and protect such workforce from workplace exposures during public health emergencies, and identifying current capabilities to meet the requirements of section 300hh-2 of this title.

This means that instead of letting an old COVID policy expire, we are now creating and funding a permanent “public health workforce” to deal with “public health emergencies.” We were told repeatedly that COVID was a once in a century plandemic so why do we need a permanent workforce to deal with this sort of thing?

A similar example can be found on pages 740 and 741. Here we see 42 USC 247d-7e being amended in a way that makes very little sense.

See link.

Here’s the original section of law:

See link.

The new section would read like this:

See link.

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(D) Supporting innovation

To carry out the purpose described in paragraph (2)(D), the Secretary may award contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements, or enter into other transactions, such as prize payments, to promote—

(i) innovation in technologies that may assist countermeasure and product advanced research and development, including to improve manufacturing capacities and capabilities for medical countermeasures;

(ii) research on and development of research tools and other devices and technologies; and

(iii) research and development of medical countermeasures for priority virus families that have significant potential to cause a pandemic, including such countermeasures that take either pathogen-specific or pathogen-agnostic approaches, and platform technologies to improve the development and manufacture of such medical countermeasures; and”;

(iv) research to promote strategic initiatives, such as rapid diagnostics, broad spectrum antimicrobials, vaccine-manufacturing technologies, dose-sparing technologies, efficacy-increasing technologies, platform technologies, technologies to administer countermeasures, and technologies to improve storage and transportation of countermeasures.

This addition of section iii is significant. While a bit vague, the section appears to authorize research very broadly. It could also easily be read to allow gain of function work on about any virus family out there as long as it was being done to “create a cure.”

The language about pathogen specific or agnostic approaches allows for additional research on platforms/gene therapies – like mRNA, DNA, etc. It also broadly authorizes research into “platform technologies” that may include transhumanist concepts such as nano-tech. None of this is required under the law but the Secretary may offer such awards.

This might all be fine with Bobby Kennedy at the helm but if we have another crooked clown at HHS like we have now you can bet that the loosely written nature of this section would be leveraged.

In my mind, before such broad discretion is provided to the executive branch to basically research anything and everything, using any means necessary to find cures to any potential disease perhaps we ought to consider the ethical failures of the last 4 years.

Why would Congress authorize the Secretary to fund risky research in a CR funding bill? This was clearly meant to be unnoticed.

Ultimately this bill was a disaster and appears to have been shelved. That said, the fact that Mike Johnson would put forth a bill that does so much damage to our freedom should be terrifying.

This bill would open the door to the WHO treaty being implemented in the next emergency, limit Kennedy’s ability to deal with many issues related to healthcare, and expand COVID lockdown powers.

If they tried to sneak it through once they will try again and we MUST remain vigilant.

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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/12/tom-renz-omnibus-cr-funding-bill-who-treaty/

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The US has revealed that it has more than doubled its military presence in Syria, with a Pentagon spokesman saying that he “just recently learned” there were in fact roughly 2,000 American forces deployed in the country, rather than 900 troops as previously reported.

For years, the Pentagon had maintained that “about 900” US troops were stationed in the country, and officials continued to repeat this figure even after the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad on December 8.

However, during a press conference on Thursday, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said that “we recently learned that those numbers [are] higher.”

“Given the difference in what we’ve been briefing and what the actual number is, I just felt that it was important to get you that information,” Ryder said, citing diplomatic and operational security sensitivities as part of the reason for the delay in disclosure.

The Pentagon spokesman explained that the additional troops had been in Syria “at a minimum, months” on a rotational basis, which has been “going on for a while.”

He insisted that the increase was not related to the recent events and that the timing was merely a coincidence.

“As I understand it and as it was explained to me, these additional forces are considered temporary rotational forces that deploy to meet shifting mission requirements, whereas the core 900 deployers are on longer-term deployments,” Ryder said.

The US military has been active in Syria since as early as 2014, ostensibly to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS) terrorists, and has flown countless airstrikes against select militant groups and, at times, Syrian government forces.

Under President Barack Obama, Washington doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to an array of jihadist rebel factions seeking to overthrow Assad, although the effort later fizzled following Russian and Iranian military involvement at the request of Damascus.

In 2019, President Donald Trump ordered all US troops to withdraw, but Pentagon officials pushed back, and he backtracked later that year, saying: “We’re keeping the oil… We left troops behind only for the oil.”

Since then, the US has kept some 900 troops scattered across several bases. Syrian officials have repeatedly accused the Pentagon of “stealing” the country’s oil reserves from provinces in the northeast, where American forces have been embedded with Kurdish militia groups.

Earlier this month, Syrian opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadists launched a surprise offensive across the country, capturing Damascus and forcing Assad to resign as president and seek asylum in Russia.

On Friday, Washington sent a delegation to Damascus for the first time since 2012, and announced it will no longer offer a $10 million bounty for the HTS leader.

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https://www.rt.com/news/609720-pentagon-reveals-syria-troops/

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Ukrainian saboteurs have been apprehended in Slovakia while in possession of maps outlining the country’s gas infrastructure. He cited Russian intelligence services and did not provide details. Slovakia has yet to confirm the arrest.

Speaking at his annual end-of-year press conference on Thursday, Putin said the Ukrainian saboteurs had engaged in terrorist activities within Russia and now they are doing it in European countries.

“They feed from Europe’s hand and try to carry out terrorist attacks there,” he said. “This is their choice, but ours is to focus on cooperation.” Russian intelligence would request information about the incident through established partner channels, Putin concluded.

It is possible that the Russian President was referring to a possible sabotage plot targeting the Russian Druzhba oil pipeline. The pipeline connects Russian and Kazakh oil suppliers to consumers in Europe, branching off into Belarus. The northern part reaches Poland and Germany, while the southern branch goes to Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.

According to the Hungarian Magyar Nemzet newspaper, national security authorities in Hungary started investigating a possible sabotage plot in early December. Hungary’s Anti-Terrorism Center was alerted by authorities in neighboring Slovakia that “an organized group” was operating in both countries carrying out a “field survey” in the vicinity of the pipeline. The activities could indicate “possible preparations for a terrorist attack” against the countries’ critical infrastructure, wrote the paper.

Back then Slovakian Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said the country had expelled two men suspected of monitoring energy infrastructure targets including along a major pipeline carrying gas from Ukraine. The men were deported to Ukraine and Hungary, he added.

Earlier in May the Washington Post reported that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky suggested that Kiev “should just blow up the [Druzhba] pipeline.” citing leaked Pentagon documents. Bloomberg also reported that the EU was considering restrictions on Russian oil imports through the pipeline by Germany and Poland.

The transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine, which facilitates the flow of Russian gas to the EU, is set to expire at the end of this year. This has raised concerns among countries like Slovakia that rely on this route for their gas supplies.

Earlier Friday Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico warned of a potential gas crisis if Ukraine does not extend the transit agreement. He has also indicated that Slovakia may consider reciprocal measures against Ukraine if the gas transit is halted.

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https://www.rt.com/news/609713-ukraine-sabotage-slovakia-gas/

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The conflict between Russia and Ukraine was instigated by the collective West, which has been seeking to drive a wedge between the two “brotherly countries,” Ethiopian MP Ashebir Woldegiorgis Gayo has told RT.

The legislator made the remarks while visiting the Saur-Grave memorial complex in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) on Wednesday, as part of a delegation of MPs from the Pan-African Parliament (PAP). The group has toured the republic over the past few days, meeting its leadership and assessing the situation on the ground.

The ongoing hostilities were instigated by the collective West, which has “always [been] creating problems between Russia and Ukraine,” Woldegiorgis said.

“So for us, as a part of the parliament, we are very firm in our position to stand by Russians and also to protect the people of this eastern region, and also to ask our Ukrainian friends to leave those Western countries who are creating more problems… Americans especially, the Biden administration,” he added.

Western meddling has long been a major problem not only for Russia, but also for Africa, the MP added. Africans are aware of this “big problem” and are seeking to get rid of the Western control, Woldegiorgis said.

“Russians are not coming to Africa to loot our resources, to enslave us. That’s why Sahel countries and others are going against Western countries. You know, if you go to Mali, all the gold mining belongs to France. If you go to Chad, same thing – everything belongs to them,” the MP stated.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/609702-ukraine-conflict-proxy-war/

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ROME — President Joe Biden has announced he will travel to Italy in January to meet with Pope Francis, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Italian President Sergio Mattarella.

The White House said Biden spoke with Pope Francis by phone on Thursday, during which he “graciously accepted His Holiness Pope Francis’s invitation to visit the Vatican next month.”

Pope Francis will receive Biden, only the second Catholic to serve as U.S. president, in the Vatican on January 10 to “discuss efforts to advance peace around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

“He will also meet with Italy’s leaders to highlight the strength of the U.S.-Italy relationship, thank Prime Minister Meloni for her strong leadership of the G7 over the past year, and discuss important challenges facing the world,” she added.

Despite his Catholic status, Biden has had a strained relationship with the Catholic hierarchy since his election in 2020, due to his rejection of key tenets of Catholic morality, namely through his active support for taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand and his advocacy for transgenderism.

Breitbart News @BreitbartNews · Biden said Pope Francis told him to keep receiving communion — even though he publicly supports killing unborn children through abortion.

Joe Biden: Pope Francis Told Me 'I Was a Good Catholic' and to 'Keep Receiving Communion' 10:10 AM · Oct 29, 2021

Catholic League President Bill Donohue has underscored the hostility Mr. Biden has displayed toward Catholic beliefs across a range of issues.

“Never before in American history has there been a president of the United States who has worked harder to oppose Catholic teachings on marriage, the family, abortion, school choice, conscience rights, and the wellbeing of children (e.g., transgenderism) than President Joe Biden,” Dr. Donohue stated in 2022.

The U.S. Bishops sharply criticized Biden for his transgender war on Catholic Charities as well as his support for the Equality Act, which “hinders quality health care, endangers the privacy and safety of women and girls, regulates free speech, severely undermines religious freedom, and threatens charitable nonprofits and the people they serve.”

In January, 2021, the U.S. Bishops’ Conference (USCCB) condemned Biden’s reinstatement of taxpayer-funded abortions around the world.

“It is grievous that one of President Biden’s first official acts actively promotes the destruction of human lives in developing nations,” declared Archbishop Joseph Naumann, chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop David Malloy, chairman of the Committee on International Justice and Peace in a statement.

“This Executive Order is antithetical to reason, violates human dignity, and is incompatible with Catholic teaching. We and our brother bishops strongly oppose this action,” the bishops stated.

As one of his first acts, Biden signed an executive order allowing U.S. taxpayer funds to be sent to organizations that both “promote and provide abortions in developing countries,” revoking the life-saving Mexico City policy, the Bishops noted.

The mainstream consistently presented President Biden as a “devout Catholic” who takes his faith seriously, despite his egregious actions to the contrary.

The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is an abominable crime and a sin so grave that the harshest punishment the Church imposes — automatic excommunication — is attached to it.

Breitbart News @BreitbartNews

WOKE POPE: The Vatican suggested Thursday that a Biden presidency might inject new life into the stagnant Paris Climate Accord.

Vatican Hopes Biden Presidency Will Inject New Life in Paris Climate Deal 1:48 PM · Dec 3, 2020

The Church also teaches that Catholic politicians have a “grave and clear obligation to oppose” any law that promotes abortion.

Throughout his tenure as president, Biden has promoted the abortion industry and fulfilled his campaign promise, cited in a Planned Parenthood ad, to do “everything in my power” to defend and expand abortion rights.

Even the liberal Washington, D.C., Cardinal Wilton Gregory acknowledged that Biden is a “cafeteria Catholic,’’ picking and choosing what doctrines he wants to believe in, citing the president’s support for “abortion rights” and transgender “visibility” as examples.

Biden’s upcoming trip to Italy, from January 9 to 12, will almost certainly be his last foreign trip as president before Donald Trump is sworn in on January 20.

For her part, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has made a point of publicizing her closeness to Donald Trump, as well as to Trump advisor Elon Musk.

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https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/12/20/joe-biden-travels-to-italy-to-meet-pope-francis-giorgia-meloni/

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A Pennsylvania veteran said he was “in shock” and “grateful” after winning a brand new roof from a local company that decided to give back to those who have given up so much for this country.

Tim Nicotra, a 22-year veteran who served in the U.S. Navy, the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, and the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, had been struggling to afford repairs for the leaking roof on his 1940s home for the past “several years,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

His wife, Jennifer Nicotra, was the one who convinced him to apply for the Roofs for the Red White and Blue campaign announced by Burns & Scalo Roofing in September.

After submitting the application on the final deadline date of October 31, the Nicotras were unsure if they would be the winners.

Burns & Scalo received ten applicants and narrowed them down to three finalists but eventually selected Nicotra, 53, after reading about how he enlisted straight out of high school, served on the USS Saratoga, worked on AH-1 Cobra helicopters, and served for another 16 years in the state’s Air National Guard until he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

For the past 17 years, the veteran has worked for the Catholic Cemeteries Association. He also had four children, two of which have since entered the U.S. military themselves.

Nicotra “almost didn’t answer his cell phone when it rang while he was out shopping with his wife and daughters,” the Post-Gazette reported.

Burns & Scalo Roofing vice president Adam Galis was on the other end of the line to tell him the good news.

“Tim, I’m calling because you entered our Roofs for the Red, White and Blue contest for veterans to receive a new roof. I want to tell you, you’ve won,” Galis said.

“You could’ve knocked me over with a feather,” Nicotra recalled. “I was in shock. This is the biggest and best thing that’s happened to us in quite a while.”

When he told Jennifer, he said that she “looked at me like I was telling her a joke she didn’t get.”

Galis said the company was joined by their material suppliers, who provided the supplies needed for the new roof worth about $25,000.

“It’s great to know that we made a difference in someone’s life who answered the call right out of high school,” he said, adding that he plans to donate a roof to another veteran next year.

“We were honored to have the opportunity to do it,” the vice president said.

Photos shared by the roofing company on social media show a happy Nicotra receiving his brand new roof:

Burns & Scalo Roofing

Last week, Burns & Scalo had the honor of installing a free roof replacement for a Navy Veteran as part of our new Roofs for the Red, White, & Blue Program.

Tim Nicotra applied to our program within the final hour of the application window, and we were immediately inspired by his story. A 22-year Navy veteran himself, Tim now has children following in his footsteps and joining the service.

"We were incredibly honored to give back to Tim since he has sacrificed so much to pr... See more

“The guys were great, so professional and courteous,” Nicotra said after the roof was installed in November. “It still hasn’t sunk in yet. And it’s amazing knowing I’m not going to hear, ‘Dad, there’s water coming from the ceiling.’”

“I can’t even express how grateful I am,” he added.

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https://www.breitbart.com/local/2024/12/19/pennsylvania-veteran-surprised-roof-donated-local-company/

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The United States Marine Corps’ (USMC) annual “Toys for Tots” drive has delivered nearly 25 million gifts to over 10 million underprivileged children across the country this year as Christmas approaches.

Retired USMC Lt. Gen. James B. Laster, the CEO of the Toys for Tots foundation, revealed the impressive numbers in a statement Tuesday after retailer Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Holdings announced that it had raised over $1.1 million for the gift-giving program.

“In 2024, the Marine Toys for Tots Program reached unprecedented milestones, delivering nearly 25 million toys, books, and gifts to over 10 million disadvantaged children across the Nation. Our mission is to ensure that every child feels a sense of hope for a brighter future, and we are deeply grateful for the unwavering support from Ollie’s,” Laster said.

“Ollie’s dedication to fundraising and toy collection in their stores makes it possible for us to reach even more children in need year after year, spreading optimism, happiness, and the magic of Christmas to millions of underprivileged children in communities across the Nation,” he added.

The donations from Ollie’s and the many other contributors reached children impacted by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, with a Cumberland County Salvation Army representative saying Toys for Tots filled 800 requests.

“They came in, they helped us with filling those 800 that hasn’t been turned in by last Tuesday or Wednesday,” Capt. Jamie Goldfarb of the Salvation Army of the Sandhills told WRAL.

In the interstate Texoma region of Texas and Oklahoma, over 37,000 toys, books, and puzzles will be distributed to children in need, according to KXII.

“Our mission specifically with Grayson and Fannin county is to reach back down and pull people up,” Texoma Toys for Tots local coordinator Taylor Price told the outlet.

In Philadelphia, a whopping 4,184 toys and 2,262 stocking stuffers were collected on Sunday alone, WPVI reported.

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https://www.breitbart.com/local/2024/12/19/marine-corps-toys-tots-drive-delivers-nearly-25-million-toys/

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BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) – An appeals court in Romania ruled Thursday that the human trafficking case against influencer Andrew Tate, his brother and two Romanian women cannot go to trial because of multiple legal and procedural irregularities on the part of the prosecutors.

The ruling comes two years after Andrew Tate, 38, and his brother Tristian Tate, 36, were arrested, along with the two women. The four are accused of human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women, and Andrew also faces an additional rape charge.

The decision by the Bucharest Court of Appeal is a huge setback for Romania´s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, but it does not mean the Tates and the two women walk free – the case has not been closed, and there is also a separate legal case against the brothers in Romania.

The court effectively returned case to the prosecutors, who can now bring forth new evidence to back up their charges, or amend and change the existing ones. In November, the same court gave prosecutors five days to amend their case file or withdraw it.

The request for the appeals court to review the case was made by Tate’s defense team. His spokesperson, Mateea Petrescu, said the court’s decision “confirms the lack of credible evidence or consistency in the accusations” by the prosecutors.

“The review revealed significant procedural flaws and raised serious concerns about the integrity of the investigative process, further undermining the credibility of the prosecution’s case,” she said.

Romanian prosecutors last year formally indicted the Tate brothers and the two Romanian women, and earlier this year, the Bucharest Tribunal ruled that a trial could start but did not set a date. All four deny the allegation against them.

After Thursday’s ruling, Andrew Tate said prosecutors “had years to build their case” and to “tear apart my life … and yet, they have nothing.”

“They threw me in jail, took my money, my cars, and every ounce of my freedom. They made me the biggest enemy on the streets, dragging my name through the dirt with accusations of the lowest, most vile deeds a man can be accused of,” he said.

“But I never broke,” he added.

In its November ruling, the appeals court ordered some evidence removed – including witness statements by two alleged victims and statements by the Tate brothers, deeming them inadmissible.

The same court also said it had identified multiple flaws in the prosecutors´ case, which had failed to adequately explain the charges against Andrew to one alleged female victim who is part of the case, and that the charges against the two female suspects were not properly presented.

Also, the indictment failed to specify the amounts related to the confiscation of assets in the case, it said.

The prosecutors did not immediately comment on Thursday’s decision.

Eugen Vidineac, one of the Tate brothers’ lawyers, said the decision was “a significant legal victory” that “rightly determined that there is insufficient basis to proceed with the case.”

“This decision is a testament to the strength of our legal system and the integrity of its judges,” Vidineac said. “Let this serve as a warning to those who seek to weaponize falsehoods: Andrew and Tristan Tate will not be silenced, and neither will the truth.”

Andrew Tate, who has amassed more than 10 million followers on the social media platform X, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors in Romania have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him.

Meanwhile, a British court ruled on Wednesday that in a separate case against the Tate brothers, police can seize more than 2.6 million pounds ($3.3 million) to cover years of unpaid taxes from the pair.

Andrew Tate accused the U.K. government of “outright theft” for freezing his accounts and said it was “a coordinated attack on anyone who dares to challenge the system.”

In August, Romania’s DIICOT launched a second case against the Tate brothers, investigating allegations of human trafficking, the trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, influencing statements and money laundering. They have also denied those charges.

In March, the Tate brothers appeared at the Bucharest Court of Appeal in a separate case after British authorities issued arrest warrants over allegations of sexual aggression in a U.K. case dating back to 2012-2015.

The appeals court granted the British request to extradite the Tates, but only after legal proceedings in Romania have concluded.

After the Tate brothers’ initial arrest in December 2022, they were held for three months in police detention before being moved to house arrest. They were later restricted to movement only in the Bucharest municipality and nearby Ilfov county, and then within Romania.

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https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/12/19/romanian-court-refuses-trial-against-andrew-tate-human-trafficking-case-over-irregularities-from-prosecutors/

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Russia’s human welfare watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, has said it is in touch with the health authorities in Uganda, after an outbreak of a new disease in the East African nation which causes shivering and walking difficulties among infected people.

A surveillance system is in place at Russian border checkpoints to identify people with symptoms of infection arriving from “epidemiologically unfavorable” countries, the department’s press service reported on Wednesday.

Last Friday, Ugandan outlet the Daily Monitor reported that a mysterious ‘dancing disease’ had infected around 300 people, mostly women and girls, in the southwestern Bundibugyo District, which borders the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The newspaper cited District Health Officer Kiyita Christopher as saying that no deaths have been recorded as a result of the ‘Dinga Dinga’ illness, which started spreading several months ago. According to Christopher, the disease is mostly self-healing, and in severe cases, doctors have successfully treated it with antibiotics.

Locals reportedly named the disease ‘Dinga Dinga’, meaning ‘shaking like dancing’, due to its symptoms, which include fever and uncontrollable body shaking.

An 18-year-old girl told the Daily Monitor that “she felt weak and paralyzed” after contracting the virus.

On Wednesday, Rospotrebnadzor said “there is no information about the disease on the official websites of the relevant departments of Uganda.”

“Rospotrebnadzor, within the framework of the current documents on cooperation with the Ministry of Health of Uganda, is in constant contact with partners to obtain confirmation of the outbreak of the disease. The situation is under control,” the agency stated.

In recent months, the landlocked country has expressed a growing interest in collaborating with Moscow in the health sector. In April, Ugandan Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja invited Russia to collaborate on pharmaceuticals, diagnostic equipment, and vaccines. According to TASS, she made the request at the first Russian-African International Conference on Combating Infectious Diseases in the African nation’s capital, Kampala.

During a high-level meeting on the sidelines of Russian Healthcare Week in Moscow earlier this month, Ugandan Health Ministry official Joseph Okware reportedly identified infectious diseases, emergency medical services, electronic medical records, and training of healthcare specialists as key areas where Russia can help Uganda.

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https://www.rt.com/africa/609544-uganda-dancing-illness-under-control-moscow/

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The British government has announced “the largest ever cash boost” to tackle soaring destitution in England, which Minister for Homelessness Rushanara Ali has admitted is “the worst housing crisis in living memory.”

Councils across the country will receive almost £1 billion ($1.27 billion) in new funding next year, it was revealed on Tuesday. The amount is equal to what councils spent on temporary accommodation for homeless families over the past year, recent figures show.

The funding aims to prevent “households becoming homeless in the first place,” according to a press release.

Earlier this month, housing charity Shelter reported that homelessness had risen by 14% in a year, with at least 354,000 people homeless in England, including 161,500 children.

The charity previously called on the government to “invest in genuinely affordable social homes” instead of “sinking billions into temporary solutions every year.”

The Labour government has said that “successive years of failure” to invest in prevention had resulted in a record number of households being homeless across England.

Ahead of the general election in July, which ended more than a decade of Conservative rule, The Guardian newspaper published an opinion piece identifying Tory policy decisions since 2010, such as repeated capping and freezing of local housing benefits, as a “direct cause” of soaring homelessness.

According to Shelter’s figures, the total cost of homelessness in England has doubled in the past five years, reaching £2.3 billion between April 2023 and March 2024. The figure includes £1 billion spent by councils on temporary accommodation for homeless families, and housing benefits.

Homelessness is a pressing issue in other parts of the UK. The government in Scotland declared a national housing emergency in May. In Wales, spending on temporary accommodation rose seven-fold between 2018 and 2022. In Northern Ireland, the number of placements in temporary accommodation has risen nearly four-fold since 2019.

A recent survey suggested that 57% of the British public do not believe the government will ever be able to eradicate “significant levels” of homelessness.

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https://www.rt.com/news/609543-uk-homelessness-new-funding/

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A major oil spill has contaminated a large stretch along the Black Sea coast in southern Russia’s Krasnodar Region after two tankers were severely damaged in a storm over the weekend. The vessels wrecked in the Kerch Strait between mainland Russia and Crimea.

Krasnodar Region Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Tuesday that fuel oil was found along the sandy coast between the cities of Temryuk and Anapa, popular tourist destinations, stretching for dozens of kilometers.

“This morning, while monitoring the shoreline, stains of fuel oil were discovered. Oil products washed ashore for tens of kilometers,” he said.

Two aging ships – the Volgoneft 212 and Volgoneft 239 – each reportedly carrying about 4,000 tons of mazut, a low-grade heavy fuel oil, ran aground in stormy weather and high winds in the Kerch Strait, the passage that connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov, on Sunday. Powerful waves struck the tankers several kilometers off the Black Sea coast.

Both tankers drifted with a total of 27 crew members on board before running aground, according to reports. One crew member died as a result of the incident.

Footage from the scene shows one of the ships which broke in half, with its bow completely destroyed. Traces of black liquid – fuel oil – were seen spreading in the sea.

Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said the clean-up operation stretched along 49km (30 miles) of shoreline, with around 4,000 volunteers involved in the operation.

A state of emergency has been declared at five settlements in Temryuk and Anapa districts due to spilled oil on the shoreline, according to the regional authorities.

Numerous videos posted online show a black, oil-like substance along the coast at Anapa, and tarry stains along a beach.

Kondratev said the oil spill is “removable,” expressing confidence that “there will be no threat to the 2025 resort season.”

Local birdlife has already suffered from the oil spill, with multiple videos showing birds covered in oil. Marine ecosystems are also likely to face severe consequences.

Natural Resources and Ecology Minister Aleksandr Kozlov said on Monday that some of the fuel oil may have sunk to the seabed due to the cold weather.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/609531-russia-black-sea-oil-spill/

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Attorney General Merrick Garland finds himself in the congressional crosshairs as Republicans on Capitol Hill intensify investigations into his Department of Justice’s alleged coverup of a solar energy scandal centered around a plant based in Nevada called Crescent Dunes.

“I am writing to express my concerns and seek clarification regarding the recent motion filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on November 6, 2024, to intervene and dismiss the False Claims Act (qui tam) lawsuit filed by CMB Export, LLC, against Tonopah Solar Energy, LLC, and its affiliates,” Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) wrote in a letter Tuesday to Garland. “This action raises significant questions about the decision-making process and rationale behind the DOJ’s intervention, particularly in light of the timeline and the lack of any clear justification for dismissing this case.”

Gooden’s inquiry, the second member of Congress to weigh in on this burgeoning scandal, was obtained exclusively by Breitbart News ahead of its public release. Rep. Carol Miller (R-WV) has already weighed in on the matter in previous reports and inquiries, so this represents an expansion of congressional interest in the case.

It comes after an exclusive Breitbart News investigation published in late November that revealed that in the immediate aftermath of President-elect Donald Trump—the former president of the United States—completing the greatest political comeback in the history of mankind when he defeated Democrat candidate Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election, the Justice Department moved the next day to withdraw support for a privately-funded lawsuit that aimed to recoup hundreds of millions of allegedly fraudulently obtained tax dollars from the Crescent Dunes solar project.

As Breitbart News reported at the time, an email sent less than an hour before the polls closed in the first states on election night on Nov. 5 showed the Justice Department changing course on this matter and withdrew support for a qui tam lawsuit it previously had green-lit. Then the next day in court Garland’s DOJ formally filed a motion to withdraw support for the suit brought by an EB-5 visa company that alleges it was screwed out of tens of millions of dollars as part of the larger Crescent Dunes boondoggle.

A qui tam lawsuit is when a private entity seeks to fund litigation to recoup alleged fraud on behalf of the taxpayers, and while it costs nothing to taxpayers to bring one, the DOJ has to signal approval for it to move forward. After years of dragging its feet on this, the Biden DOJ finally did just that midway through 2023, and by early 2024 the litigation was proceeding until this shocking reversal on election night.

The incoming Trump administration has made clear that the president-elect will be very focused on energy policy, and particularly on stopping questionable leftist so-called “renewable” energy boondoggles like wind and solar energy. This flies in the face of the policies of the outgoing president, Democrat Joe Biden, whose administration expanded Barack Obama-era efforts to use federal lands to push green energy projects like Crescent Dunes.

Crescent Dunes goes back to that Obama era, where it got its start, and purportedly uses a bunch of mirrors in the desert to reflect sunlight to heat molten salt in a giant tower. The problem with this plant, which went bankrupt and then eventually opened under new ownership but still only produces a fraction of the energy originally promised, is the technology has proven to be particularly faulty. In addition to wildlife concerns as birds have reportedly even caught fire mid-flight after getting caught in the reflected sunlight, there have been reports of workers being hospitalized after exposure to poisonous gases emitted from the tank.

In his letter, Gooden made clear to Garland that he sees this as even bigger than just the Crescent Dunes project but something that possibly affects all green energy-focused items from the left.

“The allegations in this case represent not just potential financial fraud but a breach of the public trust,” Gooden wrote. “The Crescent Dunes project, like other failed ‘green energy’ initiatives, has already cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, and the dismissal of this case raises serious concerns about the Department’s commitment to protecting public funds and prosecuting fraud.”

At issue with the lawsuit in question are hundreds of millions of dollars in Treasury Department grants issued at the very end of the Obama administration to Crescent Dunes, and whether those grants were fraudulent, as the plaintiffs of the qui tam suit allege.

“As you know, this qui tam lawsuit alleges serious fraud involving approximately $275 million in cash grants from the Department of Treasury under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” Gooden wrote to Garland. “Despite investing three and a half years in investigating this case, it is deeply troubling that the Department of Justice reversed its position shortly after the presidential election, claiming dismissal is in the public interest and citing undue burdens on federal agencies. This decision is perplexing, given that the government stands to lose nothing by allowing CMB Export, LLC, to proceed with the case.”

Gooden asks Garland six pressing questions on the case:

What specific facts or circumstances led the Department to determine that dismissing this case is “commensurate with the public interest”?

Given the significant taxpayer losses alleged in this case, how does the Department justify its claim that discovery and litigation obligations would impose “an undue burden” on the Treasury, Department of Energy, and DOJ?

Given that the Department of Energy (DOE) played a role in approving and facilitating the transactions under investigation, what safeguards were in place to ensure the DOJ’s decision-making process was free from undue influence or conflicts of interest?

Why did the DOJ wait until November 6, 2024—one day after the presidential election—to file its motion to dismiss after previously allowing the case to proceed in August 2023?

Was the timing of this motion influenced by political considerations, particularly the transition to a new administration?

How does the DOJ reconcile its decision to dismiss a case that seeks to recover taxpayer dollars with its responsibility to uphold accountability and transparency in cases of alleged fraud against the government?

Gooden also asked Garland to provide him with immediate access to all government documents on this front and advised the outgoing Attorney General to preserve all records of this matter.

“To ensure transparency and accountability are upheld in this case, I request immediate access to all records and communication in relation to the Crescent Dunes project and its subsequent dismissal,” Gooden wrote. “Please preserve all information relating to this process, including all documents, communications, and other information, including electronic information and metadata, that is or may be potentially responsive to a congressional inquiry, request, or investigation. For the purpose of this request, ‘preserve’ means securing and maintaining the integrity of all relevant documents, communications, and other information, including electronic information and metadata, by taking reasonable steps to prevent the partial or full destruction, alteration, testing, deletion, shredding, incineration, wiping, relocation, migration, theft, mutation, or negligent or reckless handling that could render the information incomplete or inaccessible. This includes preserving all compilations of documents that have already been gathered in response to requests, even if copies of individual documents may still exist elsewhere.”

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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/12/17/exclusive-merrick-garland-in-crosshairs-as-congressional-inquiry-into-crescent-dunes-solar-scandal-coverup-expands/

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A previously unidentified disease that has broken out in the southwestern Kwango province of the Democratic Republic of Congo is a severe form of malaria, the country’s Health Ministry has announced.

Earlier this month, the local authorities reported that the disease, which was not initially identified, had claimed 143 lives in November. Symptoms include fever, headache, cough, runny nose, and body aches.

“The mystery has finally been solved: it’s a case of severe malaria presenting as a respiratory illness,” the Health Ministry stated, noting that widespread malnutrition in the area had increased susceptibility to the disease. Since October, there have been 592 reported cases with a fatality rate of 6.2%, the statement said.

Most of the affected individuals are children. The outbreak is concentrated in nine of the 30 areas within the Panzi health zone, approximately 700km (435 miles) from Kinshasa, which complicated the investigation and response efforts.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has sent a team of experts to the Panzi region to assist in identifying the disease and managing the outbreak.

Last week, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed that ten initial samples from patients in the DRC affected by the mysterious illness had tested positive for malaria. However, he stressed that this finding did not rule out the presence of other diseases occurring simultaneously.

The provincial health minister, Apollinaire Yumba, told Reuters that malaria treatment provided by the WHO was being distributed across the primary hospital and healthcare facilities in the region.

Malaria, one of the deadliest infectious diseases globally, is transmitted by infected mosquitoes. It can take weeks to show symptoms and typically causes fever, vomiting, chills, and flu-like symptoms. While treatable, malaria remains a significant threat in developing countries, claiming approximately 600,000 lives annually, 93% of which are in Africa.

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https://www.rt.com/africa/609534-drc-discovers-cause-mystery-illness/

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