US-Russia Alaska Summit Perfect Kabuki Theater

The recent Alaska Summit between the oligarchic leaders of the US and Russia went perfectly well for Vladimir Putin and terrible for Donald Trump (AKA Dummkopf Trumpf). This summit lasted three hours and no peace deal was made. This meeting was just an excuse to let the former KGB officer finally give his instructions directly to Trumpf in person. For Vladimir Putin, he flagrantly flaunted the ICC international arrest warrant against him by traveling to the US and his team presented their demands from the Trumpf junta to lift economic sanctions against Russia. Putin came home victorious from this tete-a-tete.

The entire year of Trumpf sending special envoys to Moscow was all kabuki theater to buy time for Russia in its brutal campaign against Ukraine. And for Trumpf, the summit was a disaster because it exposed other issues that Followers of the Watch were already aware of, namely that Trumpf is a Kremlin asset.

Dummkopf Trumpf Too Unhealthy and Feeble for US Presidency

The US President (79) was unable to walk a straight line along the red carpet, while his counterpart strode confidently towards his asset. When they shook hands, Trumpf immediately placed his hand below Putin’s, a clear sign of submission to a superior.

Dotard Trumpf Without Makeup and Hairpiece

Dummkopf Trumpf is terrified that he may suffer from dementia that afflicted his father before he died.

Trumpf’s inability to walk a straight line may be a sign of ataxia and his forward-leaning posture and body tics are serious signs of poor health. The geriatric oligarch is also suffering from chronic venous insufficiency which causes his ankles to swell up.

Yet somehow, this decrepit dotard amazingly won his sixth senior golf championship of the season a few weeks ago,

Sources:

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/why-one-expert-says-trumps-forward-leaning-posture-and-body-tics-are-cause-for-serious-concern

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/4-things-to-know-about-trumps-diagnosis-of-chronic-venous-insufficiency

https://golfweek.usatoday.com/story/sports/2025/08/05/donald-trump-golf-tournament-championship/85516763007/

VPOTUS JD Vance and First Lady Usha Vance

What are these two thinking about?

Trumpf’s swollen ankles further immobilize the geriatric suffering from morbid obesity. In 2024 Republicans blasted “Sleepy Joe” Biden as too old to run for President.

Poor OPSEC Continues Under Amateur Trumpf Junta

Papers with US State Department markings, found Friday morning in the business center of an Alaskan hotel, revealed previously undisclosed and potentially sensitive details about the 15 Aug meetings between Dummkopf Trumpf and ICC-indicted war criminal Vladimir V. Putin in Anchorage.

Eight pages, that appear to have been produced by US staff and left behind accidentally, shared precise locations and meeting times of the summit and phone numbers of US government employees.

At around 9 a.m. on Friday, three guests at Hotel Captain Cook, a four-star hotel located 20 minutes from the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage where leaders from the U.S. and Russia convened, found the documents left behind in one of the hotel’s public printers.

Jon Michaels, a professor of law at UCLA who lectures about national security, said that the documents found in the printer of the Alaskan hotel reveal a lapse in professional judgment in preparation for a high-stakes meeting.

“It strikes me as further evidence of the sloppiness and the incompetence of the administration,” said Michaels. “You just don’t leave things in printers. It’s that simple.”

The printed papers are the latest example of a series of security breaches by officials of the Trump administration. Earlier this week, members of a law enforcement group chat that included members of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) added a random person to a conversation about an ongoing search for a convicted attempted murderer. In March, US national security leaders accidentally included a journalist in a group chat about impending military strikes in Yemen.

Source:

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/16/nx-s1-5504196/trump-putin-summit-documents-left-behind

Israeli Chief of Cyber Security Arrested for Soliciting Sex with Child Released by Las Vegas Police

Alleged pedophile Tom Alexandrovich (Undated photo from social media)

A top cybersecurity official for the Israeli government was arrested in Nevada during an undercover operation targeting child sex predators. Tom Alexandrovich (38) was apprehended and faced felony charges of “Luring a Child with Computer for Sex Act.” Tom Alexandrovich is the Executive Director of the Israel Cyber Directorate, a government agency that operates under the office of PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Alexandrovich was in Las Vegas to attend this year’s “Black Hat Briefings,” an annual gathering of cybersecurity professionals. The pedophile posted a photo of himself at the conference on LinkedIn before the account was deleted. Netanyahu’s office issued a statement and denied that the employee in question was arrested at all: “A state employee who traveled to the US for professional matters was questioned by American authorities during his stay. The employee, who does not hold a diplomatic visa, was not arrested and returned to Israel as scheduled.”

Endnote: An Israeli news outlet exposed an IDF unit created to falsely link innocent journalists to resistance cells in Gaza, legitimizing their assassinations. Link: https://www.972mag.com/israel-gaza-journalists-hamas-hasbara/

Sources:

https://www.lvmpd.com/Home/Components/News/News/2182/263

https://www.mediaite.com/crime/israeli-official-arrested-in-nevada-child-sex-operation-is-released-and-back-in-israel/

US State Department Halts Humanitarian Visas for Palestinian Children from Gaza Crippled and Maimed by Israeli Forces

An injured Gazan teenager arrives at Washington Dulles International Airport on 9 Aug as part of a humanitarian evacuation by Heal Palestine (Photo: Mehmet Eser / Zuma Press / Shutterstock)

One day after notorious Islamophobe Laura Loomer posted videos on social media of children from Gaza arriving in the US for medical treatment and questioning how they got visas, the State Department said it was halting all visitor visas for people from Gaza pending a review. The vastly underqualified USSECSTATE Marco Rubio, a vapid empty suit, said the action came after “outreach from multiple congressional offices asking questions about it.” Loomer called the medical treatment of crippled and maimed children from Gaza a “national security threat.” She asked who signed off on the visas and demanded the person be fired. Loomer tagged Rubio, Dummkopf Trumpf, JD Vance, GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Sources:

Trump administration halts visas for people from Gaza

Palestinians in Gaza Strip Getting Sick Drinking Filthy Water

Link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/aug/15/heat-thirst-driving-families-gaza-drink-water-makes-sick/

Since 7 Oct 2023, the IDF’s Nakba has created an army of Palestinian orphans and amputees in the Gaza Strip. Islamophobe Laura Loomer’s visceral hatred of Palestinians and Muslims is unlimited. She is completely devoid of compassion and the perfect vanguard for AIPAC; a lying, smearing, and distorting vicious harridan who Karma will one day attend to, like ICC-indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu.

Endnote: The comically inept and amateurish Marco Rubio recently initiated a “Meritorious Service Increase” (MSI) program at the State Department offering monetary bonuses to diplomats who demonstrate fidelity to him. Link: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/exclusive-rubio-offers-ass-kissing

“Hear ye! Hear ye! Know all men by these presents– Greeting! Forthwith Laura Loomer’s membership in the human race is hereby forever revoked. Bear ye well these facts in mind and through your efforts help spread the glad tidings!”

Watch the US Police State in Brutal Action; Foreigners Should Avoid America At All Costs

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announces that 1.6 million illegal immigrants left the US. Link: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/08/14/secretary-noem-announces-16-million-illegal-aliens-have-left-us

This comes from the heartless harridan who admitted to killing her own puppy for disobedience and living rent-free in the home of the US Coast Guard Commandant who was evicted with three hours notice. Meanwhile the Trumpf junta prepares to move homeless people out of Washington DC and “fight lawlessness” with armed Army National Guardsmen.

Links:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-administration-evicts-former-coast-guard-linda-fagan-3-hours-rcna190820

https://meidasnews.com/news/kristi-noem-living-rent-free-in-coast-guard-commandants-home

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/west-virginia-to-deploy-hundreds-of-national-guard-troops-to-d-c/

1) California man who was believed to have been running from a raid by ICE agents died after being hit by a car on a freeway. Police had been called after there were reports of activity by ICE agents at a Home Depot. During the raid, one man ran from the parking lot of the hardware store, a place where day laborers commonly gather looking for casual work, and onto a busy freeway during rush hour. The 40-year-old unidentified man was taken to a hospital where the man died from his injuries a few hours later. Link: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/man-dies-fleeing-ice-raid-in-california-officials/

2) A Nicaraguan man escaped an ICE team surrounding his car in California. Roberto Reyes ran back to his home and barricaded himself in with his family. Watch the Brownshirt kick at his door and then taunt the poor guy by jangling his house and truck keys in front of a Ring camera. Link: https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/07/us/video/nicaraguan-migrant-ice-escape-home-barricade-vrtc

3) ICE thugs deploy taser against helpless deliveryman in Washington DC: Link: Tasered DC Victim.

4) ICE goons detains seven-year-old NYC girl and sends her and mother to Texas gulag; brother to NJ concentration camp. Link: Seven Year Old NYC Victim.

5) ICE Brownshirts open fire on family in truck in San Bernardino: Link: Attempted Murder in California.

Assistant US Attorney in Washington DC Arrested for Throwing Subway Sandwich at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officer

Sean Charles Dunn throwing his sandwich at a fascist police officer. (Photo: Social media)

On 10 Aug at 2306 hours on a Washington DC street in the NW, Department of Justice trial attorney Sean Charles Dunn allegedly pointed his finger at a CBP agent on duty and began shouting at him: “F*** you! You f***ing fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” The defendant then threw his Subway sandwich at the CBP agent which struck him on the chest. The trial attorney attempted to flee on foot but was apprehended. While being processed, Dunn confessed: “I did it. I threw a sandwich.” Dunn was charged with violation of 18 U.S.C. 111(a)(1) (Assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and employees of the US) and was then immediately fired by USAG Pam Bondi.

There is no information about the injuries sustained by the tactically armored, heavily-armed CBP agent after the Subway sandwich hit his Kevlar chest protector. There is also no information as to what kind of sandwich the defendant was enjoying before hurling it at the praetorian. 18 U.S.C. 111(a)(1) was the same statute applied to many of the dangerous white supremacist seditionists who stormed the US Capitol on 6 Jan 2021. 

Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71101293/1/1/united-states-v-dunn/

A criminal complaint is merely an accusation. Mr. Dunn is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. And in that court of law, Mr. Dunn will be immediately recognized by many of the court personnel, including the presiding judge.

“Your Honor, look at the dangerous weapon the defendant hurled at the CBP officer!”

This farcical prosecution in Washington DC is similar to this incident earlier this year.

Emily Gabriella Sommer (32) was arrested in connection with an 8 May incident during which she allegedly spit on former US Attorney Edward R. Martin Jr. Sommer is charged with one count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding a government official. On 8 May then-Interim US Attorney Martin was conducting an on-camera interview on the street in front of his office. During the interview Sommer approached Martin and stated words to the effect of, “Who in the f– are you?” Martin turned to face Sommer. Sommer then said, “Are you Ed Martin? You are. Ed Martin.” Sommer lunged at Martin and spit on his shoulder. Sommer then walked away and yelled, “You are a disgusting man. F— you, Ed Martin. My name is Emily Gabriella Sommer, and you are served.” US Marshals located Sommer and placed her under arrest on 22 May.

A complaint is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

USMS criminal complaint: Link One 

Edward R. Martin Jr is a supporter of the insurgents who attacked the Nation’s capitol on 6 Jan 2021 and is himself under investigation by the DC Bar: Link Two

The situation will only get worse in the US as the Trumpf junta removed the age requirements to join ICE, an organization that is now more powerful than the FBI because of its size and its power to detain individuals without an arrest warrant, something FBI agents cannot do. The US co-hosts the 2026 FIFA tournament with Canada and Mexico, as well as the 2028 Summer Olympiad in Los Angeles. Coriolanus would be thunderstruck if foreigners visited the US for these spectacles under the fascist Trump junta.

Link: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/08/06/secretary-noem-unveils-no-age-limit-patriotic-americans-join-ice-law-enforcement

Who Foisted America Onto The Wrong Side of History?

The 21st-century Axis of Evil

Russian Armored Vehicle Hoisted US Flag During Attack

Promising “absured levels of manliness,” the Russian Orthodox Church has been growing in the US. Father Moses McPherson’s congregation has tripled in size in 18 months, and he has a big following online. As you read previously here on Coriolanus, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), is a nefarious intelligence extension of the Kremlin and an influence-peddling agency, spreading agitprop in the West. (Photo: BBC)

Links: BBC.com; .US ROCOR Parishes List; https://www.global-influence-ops.com/gior-analysis-the-russian-orthodox-church-putin-weaponizes-religion/

IDF Soldiers in Gaza Seen Wearing US Flags on Uniforms

AIPAC Democrats and the abominable ICC-indicted war criminal Vladimir Putin:

AIPAC Democrats and the equally abhorrent ICC-indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu:

The Big Loser in the US: The hardworking non-Islamophobic peace-loving American taxpayer.

Several Associates of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell Died Under Mysterious Circumstances

Followers of the Watch, even a broke clock is correct twice a day. The National Enquirer, a conspiracy peddling tabloid that was both friend and foe of Dummkopf Trumpf, collated the names of nearly two dozen associates of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell who have died in the past six years. Take this with a grain of salt, but remember, where there is smoke, there is fire. The entire article is linked below.

FTA:

Jeffrey Epstein’s mysterious death occurred six years ago this month — but the National Enquirer has discovered 22 people in the sketchy billionaire’s orbit have also died under murky circumstances, fueling fears of a cover-up by powerful figures seeking to erase potential witnesses.

From the predator’s alleged victims to house managers, lawyers, accountants, investigative journalists, and pimps, the list of unexplained fatalities traces a dark money trail that leads straight to Epstein’s inner circle.

“There were a lot of people entrapped and entangled through Epstein’s web, and many of those people are gone now — dead,” private investigator Ed Opperman tells the Enquirer. “They are all connected through a money trail.”

The late oligarch Steven Hoffenberg. (Photo: Getty Images)

Financier Steven Hoffenberg allegedly confessed in a final account before his death to that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted pedophile’s now-imprisoned recruiting madam, were “taping” honey-trap videos of sleazy VIPs with underage girls for a cabal of deep-state blackmailing power brokers.

“This puts a lot of high-powered people in very dangerous situations,” says the gumshoe and podcaster, who was once approached to “dig up dirt” on an Epstein victim and Hoffenberg.

Hoffenberg, the former Towers Financial CEO and Epstein associate — who died in 2022 at 77 after serving 18 years for a $475 million Ponzi scheme — cooperated with the FBI and spoke out about his former protégé’s alleged connections to Israel’s national intelligence agency Mossad.”

The sex trafficking blackmailer is now in a less restrictive federal prison in Texas outside Austin that has a work-release program. The Mexican border is a few hour drive from this facility. Your humble author assesses one of two fates for the notorious Ghislaine Maxwell.

Or

Source:

https://nationalenquirer.com/more-than-two-dozen-people-linked-to-jeffrey-epstein-have-died-under-mysterious-circumstances/

Dangerous Pathogens, Parasites, and Poisons Assailing America

Global warming is fostering the spread of dangerous pathogens in North America. For now they won’t overtake these three leading causes of mortality in the US.

Missouri Man Afflicted with Rare Brain-Eating Amoeba

Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (MSHSS) informs that a resident has been infected with Naegleria fowleri. Naegleria fowleri is a microscopic single-celled free-living ameba that can cause a rare life-threatening infection of the brain called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). The patient is in an ICU. The ameba is commonly found in warm freshwater such as lakes, rivers, and ponds; however, PAM is extremely rare. Since 1962, only 154 known cases have been identified in the US. The only other case identified among a Missouri resident occurred in 1987, and currently, no additional suspected cases of PAM are being investigated in Missouri. The source of the patient’s exposure is being investigated by public health officials. Local and out-of-state activity are being considered. Recreational water users should assume that Naegleria fowleri is present in warm freshwater across the US; however, infection remains rare.

Although a rare occurrence, people become infected by Naegleria fowleri when water containing the ameba enters the body through the nose from freshwater sources. The Naegleria fowleri ameba then travels up the nose to the brain where it destroys the brain tissue. This infection cannot be spread from one person to another, and it cannot be contracted by swallowing contaminated water. A 12-year-old boy in South Carolina died of PAM earlier this summer.

Earlier this year the Florida Department of Health (“D’Oh!) reported 17 cases (five deaths) of flesh-eating bacteria infections (which enters the body through open cuts or wounds, unlike the brain-eating ameba which enters through the mouth or nostrils).

To cool off during heat waves, people enjoy pools, lakes, beaches, and rivers, not knowing that there is an increase of bacteria or other pathogens thriving in the water. Good thing summer is coming to an end soon.

Links:

https://health.mo.gov/news/newsitem/uuid/ea19a071-5c03-495c-9b62-69db69078d4e/missouri-dhss-confirms-case-of-rare-brain-infection

https://www.qcnews.com/news/u-s/south-carolina/family-of-sc-teen-who-died-from-brain-eating-amoeba-at-lake-say-he-didnt-give-up/

https://www.floridahealth.gov/diseases-and-conditions/vibrio-infections/vibrio-vulnificus/index.html

Wyoming: Potential Rabies Exposure from Hundreds from Bats

A small colony of big-eared bats, one of the 18 species found in Wyoming. (Photo: National Park Service)

Health officials are working to alert hundreds of people in 38 states and seven countries who may have been exposed to rabies in bat-infested cabins in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park over the past few months. None of the bats found in some of the eight linked cabins at Jackson Lake Lodge had tested positive for rabies. The other bats weren’t killed but were shooed out through cabin doors and windows.

Health officials deemed it better safe than sorry to alert everybody that they might have been exposed by being bitten or scratched. When people are sleeping, a bat bite or scratch can go unseen and unnoticed. Bats are an inadvertent but frequent vector of the rabies virus and other pathogens. Once symptoms occur, muscle aches, vomiting, or itching, rabies is almost always fatal in humans. The cash-strapped CDC is contacting the foreign visitors.

Last year a child in Ontario, Canada died from rabies after being exposed to a bat in their bedroom. The family woke up with a bat in their bedroom, but the parents did not see signs of a bite or scratches on their child and did not get a rabies vaccine. This death was the first domestically-acquired case of human rabies in Ontario since 1967.

Bats are misunderstood creatures that are vital to our eco-system and shouldn’t be harmed. One of their natural predators is the owl.

Links:

https://winnipegsun.com/pmn/hundreds-may-have-been-exposed-to-rabies-at-bat-infested-cabins-at-grand-teton-national-park

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgxjnldqvdo

https://www.fws.gov/story/bats-are-one-most-important-misunderstood-animals

California: Wild Pigs With ‘Neon Blue’ Insides Trigger Health Warnings

A wild pig with blue innards discovered in 2015. (GlendilTEK/imgur)

Wild pigs in the Monterey County area were exposed to pesticide bait containing the anticoagulant rodenticide diphacinone, according to findings by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW) Wildlife Health Lab (WHL) and the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory in Davis.

Novelist John Steinbeck hailed from Monterey County, CA.

In March, a wildlife trapper reported multiple observations of blue muscle or fat found in wild pigs. The blue tissue can be a sign of rodenticide bait ingestion. CDFW’s WHL investigated, finding the anticoagulant rodenticide diphacinone in the stomach and liver contents of one of the wild pigs that was recovered with blue tissues.

Wildlife can be inadvertently exposed to rodenticides either by eating rodenticide bait or by eating other animals that have ingested rodenticides. Rodenticide baits often contain dye to identify them as a poison. Blue-colored muscle or fat may be a sign that game meat has been contaminated by rodenticides, although this blue discoloration may not always be present. CDFW urges hunters to always use caution when harvesting game animals and be aware of potential risks.

Blue rodenticide bait. (Photo: CDFW)

Source:

https://wildlife.ca.gov/News/Archive/poison-detection-in-wild-pigs-brings-attention-to-pesticide-exposure-in-hunter-harvested-wildlife

Disfiguring Viruses Infecting Squirrels, Rabbits

Grey squirrel mottled with hairless tumors.

Grotesque squirrels covered in oozing sores have been spotted invading backyards in the US and Canada. Hairless tumors develop from their heads and eyes to their legs, feet, and genitals. First thought to be squirrel pox, the illness is more likely to be squirrel fibromatosis. Homeowners who put bird feeders in their yards may be unintentionally causing the virus to spread to more squirrels throughout North America.

Eastern Cottontail rabbit beginning to grow black tentacles out of its head. (Photo: Getty Images)

A bizarre virus is turning ordinary rabbits in the US into grotesque, horned creatures with black, tentacle-like growths sprouting from their faces. The mutated rabbits have been spotted multiple times in Fort Collins, CO and are infected by the cottontail papilloma virus (CRPV). Also known as Shope papilloma virus, this pathogen causes tumors to grow on or near the animal’s head. CRPV is spread by mosquitoes.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) has urged anyone who sees infected rabbits to stay away and not touch them. CPW does not believe the virus can leap to other species, such as humans or pets, but is still urging the public to avoid the rabbits and not attempt to help them.

Rabbit’s head fully covered with the black tentacles (Photo: Reddit)

These poor creatures represent the “canary in the coalmine” for the rest of us.

Sources:

Terrifying ‘zombie squirrels’ with oozing flesh pods on their bodies invade US backyards | Daily Mail Online

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/colorado-rabbits-develop-tentacle-growths-144616885.html

Las Vegas: Mosquito Infestation Causing Alarm

Mosquitoes typically prefer more tropical, humid conditions, but these biting machines have exploded in number throughout the Las Vegas Valley in recent years because of a host of changes. A mix of urban development, climate change, insecticide resistance and genetic adaptations are creating a more hospitable environment for the insects in southern Nevada.

Las Vegas is hardly alone in its battle against the pesky insects. Warmer temperatures and shifting weather patterns are expanding the geographic range in which mosquitoes live and breed. In many ways, what’s happening here is playing out across the desert Southwest and beyond.

The mosquitoes have brought with them not only the nuisance of bug bites, but also the major threat of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and West Nile virus to Las Vegas and the rest of Clark County.

The species that have taken hold in Clark County include Culex mosquitoes, which can carry West Nile virus, and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the primary spreaders of dengue. What’s more, Messenger and her colleagues at UNLV have found that mosquitoes in Las Vegas are becoming resistant to insecticides, a major public health risk in a city built on tourism.

“It is a little bit of a ticking time bomb,” Messenger said.

She has for some time been concerned about how vulnerable Las Vegas is to mosquito-borne diseases. In particular, dengue has been surging in North America and South America, with more than 13 million cases recorded across the continents in 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“In Vegas, we have more than 48 million visitors coming through our doors every year from all over the planet,” Messenger said. “It just takes a couple of mosquito bites to start local transmission.”

Last year, there were 26 reported cases of West Nile virus in humans in Las Vegas, trailing the city’s largest outbreak of 43 cases in 2019. Yet, in 2024, scientists still found a record number of mosquitoes that tested positive for the virus in and around the city, which suggests the risk of exposure was concerning.

Mosquitos are mankind’s acme predator, killing between 725,000 and 1,000,000 people a year. Dragonflies and spiders are the natural enemies of the mosquito and should be left alone. Nevertheless, between Dummkopf Trumpf’s idiotic tariffs and obnoxious behavior, international tourism has been collapsing in Las Vegas. This mosquito plague could be just another nail in the coffin for Sin City.

Texas Prepares for Massive Invasion of Screwworm Fly

A helpless victim of the screwworm fly larvae.

ArsTechnica reports:

Texas is gearing up for war as a savage, flesh-eating fly appears poised for a US invasion and is expanding its range of victims.

On Friday, the Texas Department of Agriculture announced the debut of TDA Swormlure, a synthetic bait designed to attract the flies with a scent that mimics open flesh wounds, which are critical to the lifecycle of the fly, called the New World Screwworm. The parasite exploits any open wound or orifice on a wide range of warm-blooded animals to feed its ravenous spawn. Female flies lay hundreds of eggs in even the tiniest abrasion. From there, screw-shaped larvae—which give the flies their name—emerge to literally twist and bore into their victim, eating them alive and causing a putrid, life-threatening lesion.

Tip of a screwworm larvae (Photo: CSIRO)

The new lure for the flies is just one of several defense efforts in Texas, which stands to suffer heavy livestock losses from an invasion. Screwworms are a ferocious foe to many animals, but are particularly devastating to farm animals.

“When it comes to safeguarding Texas’ $15 billion cattle industry, we need to focus on action rather than words. That’s why I instructed my Biosecurity team to develop an effective screwworm lure,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said.

But cattle industry losses aren’t the only grave risk from the vicious parasites. In Colombia, endemic screwworms have apparently grown bolder in their taste for flesh. This week, biologists and researchers reported in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases that the worms caused life-threatening infections in two wild mountain tapirs, an endangered species that lives in a protected area of the Central Andes. While there had been anecdotal reports of screwworm infestations in mountain tapirs, they were not previously considered a threat to the herbivorous mammals. The authors noted that it’s unclear why the fly has suddenly emerged in mountain tapirs, which resemble wild pigs with trunks, but climate change and livestock movements could be causing the flies to expand their appetites.

Tuberculosis Spreading in Trumpf Junta’s ICE Gulags

Overcrowding at the US border patrol station in McAllen, TX, on 10 June. The team who visited the center in Clint found children did not have adequate access to drinking water or food. Photo: Handout / Getty Images

The World Health Organization says tuberculosis kills 1.5 million people each year, even though it’s both preventable and curable.

ICE detainees have tested positive for tuberculosis at the Anchorage Correctional Complex in Alaska and Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California. One immigrant died days after a diagnosis of the disease in the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, an ICE death notice shows. Detainees may have been exposed at the Denver Contract Detention Facility in Aurora, according to a lawsuit. And in Washington state, several possible cases of tuberculosis in the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma were reported this month to state authorities, and one man was hospitalized for it.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have previously downplayed the presence of tuberculosis, including responding to questions about the cases in Tacoma by saying, “This false claim needs to stop.”

The cruelty of the Trumpf junta and their kapos is simply bottomless. These ICE gulags are nothing but concentration camps for vulnerable migrants. No doubt UN, ICRC (Red Cross), or ICC investigators would gather evidence of crimes against humanity being perpetrated by America’s Sturmabteilung if they were permitted access to these crammed torture chambers. Other diseases will probably spread amongst the prisoners too. Their deaths will be attributed as “NIH”: No Humans Involved.

Source: https://prospect.org/health/2025-08-18-tuberculosis-spawning-in-crowded-dirty-ice-detention-centers/

Can Dotard Trumpf and His Amateur Junta of Mountebanks, Quacks, Frauds, and Sycophants Deal With All of These Pathogenic Problems Plaguing the US?

Copyright John Bazemore / Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved.

Sources:

Las Vegas’ growing mosquito problem is ‘a ticking time bomb’

www.gavi.org

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

www.cnn.com

www.nature.com

www.worldmosquitoprogram.org

https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/08/texas-prepares-for-war-as-invasion-of-flesh-eating-flies-appears-imminent/

World Ablaze: Infernos Raging in Canada, Europe

Map: FIRMS/USFS/NASA

Canada is going through its second-worst burn on record and the blazes are occurring not in the west, but in the bone-dry prairie provinces and the Atlantic region. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes due to the wildfires. Saskatchewan and Manitoba have been the worst hit, covering more than 60% of the area burned in Canada. The fires have seized strained resources in Atlantic Canada, where officials in Newfoundland and Labrador are struggling to battle out-of-control blazes.

Firefighters in Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Turkiye continue to battle wildfires that have raged on for weeks. Hot and dry conditions are expected to persist, challenging efforts to contain the blazes. Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Albania have requested help from the EU’s firefighting force to deal with forest fires. The force has already been activated as many times this year as the entirety of last year’s fire season. In April 2025, Israel suffered its largest wildfire ever.

Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. The EU monitoring agency says that 2024 was the hottest year on record both globally and in Europe, which experienced its second-highest number of “heat stress” days. Sea temperatures are also rising globally, particularly in the Mediterranean Sea, debilitating marine life and impacting livelihoods. Moreover, warmer ocean waters increase the potency of hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons.

Global Climate Change Deniers Should be Penalized for Their Willful Ignorance

Sources:

Canada Ablaze 

European Inferno

Naughty Kitten Steals Patient Golden Retriever’s Toy

UK Intelligence Services Expose and Sanction Russian Spy Ring

From left to right, top row: Nikolay Korchagin; Aleksey Lukashev; Aleksandr Osadchuk; and Artem Malyshev. Bottom row: Vladislav Borokov; Yevgeniy Serebriakov; Anatoliy Kovalev; and Ivan Yermakov.

A string of Russian spies and their units have been exposed by Britain’s security services over their years-long campaign of cyber hacking, arson, and sabotage.

Spies who targeted the daughter of the former double agent Sergei Skripal, five years before both were nearly killed in the Salisbury novichok incident, are among 18 Russian military intelligence officers who have been sanctioned.

Others have been unmasked for a “sustained campaign of malicious cyber activity”, covert bombings and arson attacks in Britain and Europe, in an effort to destabilise the West and try to derail support for Ukraine.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said: “GRU spies are running a campaign to destabilise Europe, undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and threaten the safety of British citizens.” He added that Russia had also targeted media outlets, telecommunications providers, energy infrastructure and political and democratic institutions.

This month three men were convicted over an arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked business in London, which police said was carried out at the behest of the Wagner mercenary group.

Other sanctioned individuals include Aleksandr Vladimirovich Osadchuk, a GRU colonel accused by the FBI of masterminding cyber-operations, including targeting the 2016 US presidential election.

Aleksey Lukashev (L) and Ivan Yermakov (R).

Russia will continue its vigorous espionage and sabotage campaign against the West in an effort to derail support for Ukraine during its desperate struggle to defeat them. While the Trumpf junta has naturally de-prioritized counterintelligence operations against the Kremlin, Canada, NATO, and EU intelligence agencies have increased their efforts. The UK is lucky to have an incredibly talented and experienced new Director-General of MI6, Blaise Florence Metreweli CMG and MI5 Director-General Sir Kenneth Douglas McCallum KCB, unlike the US national security team purposefully saddled by inexperienced nincompoops and sycophants Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe,
Kashyap Pramod Patel, and Pete Hegseth.  

Director-General of MI6, Blaise Florence Metreweli CMG

Sir Kenneth Douglas McCallum KCB 

Sources:

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/uk-sanctions-russian-spies-over-malicious-activity-nsv65xgwh

Archived link: UK sanctions Russian spies over ‘malicious activity’

Colombia: Russian Spy Arrested

Colombian police arrest Jesús Ramos Santos, a 21-year-old suspected of espionage and planning a terrorist attack in Lithuania on behalf of Russia. (Source: X)

Colombian authorities have detained 21-year-old Jesús Ramos Santos, wanted by Lithuania on charges of espionage and alleged involvement in a terrorist plot linked to Russia’s war against Ukraine. He was arrested in the city of Barranquilla, the Colombian National Police confirmed.

Lithuanian prosecutors allege that Ramos Santos was spying on UAB TVC Solutions, a Lithuanian company involved in supplying drones to Ukraine as part of its defense against Russia’s full-scale invasion. He is also suspected of planning a terrorist act in the city of Šiauliai, where a key NATO air base is located.

The arrest operation took place on 6 July:

“This individual created a group whose aim was to carry out terrorist acts in Europe through arson and was engaged in espionage targeting a company supplying drones to Ukraine,” said Colombia’s National Police Director, Carlos Fernando Triana Beltrán.

He confirmed that Ramos Santos is subject to extradition.

Although initially reported as a Colombian citizen, investigative outlet Agentstvo revealed that Ramos Santos grew up in St. Petersburg and holds Russian citizenship. His mother confirmed that he had traveled to Lithuania in September 2024—the timeframe during which Lithuanian authorities believe he conducted espionage activities on behalf of Russian interests.

As noted previously on Coriolanus, Colombia’s security services are manned by a body of experienced professionals, having dealt with the FARC, ELN, and drug cartels. Colombian military veterans have joined Ukraine’s Foreign Legion, and sadly some of them have joined Mexico’s drug cartels. Russia’s espionage network is deeply entwined in Mexico and South America. Brazil was used as a ‘passport factory’ by Russian intelligence and their operatives have enjoyed a wide degree of latitude in Mexico which does not prioritize them as an espionage threat the way the US used to and the way Canada still does.

Sources:

👀 Kremlin espionage reaches Latin America: 21-year-old Russian hacker arrested in Colombia over drone sabotage plot | Newsinterpretation

Russia used Brazil as base to create ‘spy factory’ that was used in missions to United States, Europe and Middle East

Back to the Cold War: Russia uses Mexico as a hub for spying on the U.S.

Spain Awards Wiretap Contract to Chinese Company Huawei

In 2021 the Canadian RCMP arrested Huawei Executive Meng Wanzhou on charges of fraud and circumnavigating sanctions on Iran. (Photo: CBS News)

The Spanish government is using Huawei to manage and store judicially authorized wiretaps in the country used by both law enforcement and intelligence services, despite concerns about how the Chinese government could compel Huawei to assist Beijing with its own intelligence activities.

The Ministry of the Interior officially awarded Huawei a €12.3 million ($14.3 million) contract following a standard public procurement process, as first reported by Spanish digital newspaper The Objective. Huawei had already been contracted to provide technical support to SITEL (Sistema Integrado de Interceptación Legal de las Telecomunicaciones), Spain’s integrated system for intercepting telecommunications.

While the contract for storing wiretaps requires Huawei to comply with cybersecurity guidelines set by the Spain’s National Cryptologic Center. There is “growing unrest” in the National Police and Guardia Civil over the Chinese company’s involvement with sensitive systems.

Concerns about Huawei have seen the company restricted from 5G networks across the EU, as well as varying levels of bans in networks of NATO allies such as the US and UK.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been among the EU’s most supportive leaders regarding Huawei, and has pushed back against the bloc’s efforts to restrict it from 5G networks. Huawei has opened research facilities in Madrid and is a major employer as a technology contractor for a number of public administrations.

Natasha Buckley, a researcher at RUSI and lecturer in cybersecurity at Cranfield University, stated that Spain’s approach to the company stood in stark contrast to that of other NATO allies and many EU member states.

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei) and a number of non-US affiliates have been placed on the Entity List,  in order to further address the continuing threat to US national security and foreign policy interests posed by Huawei and its non-US affiliates.

This is a remarkably poor decision by the Spanish government. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) uses the ‘thousand grains of sand’ approach to collecting tiny bits of intelligence to construct a rich mosaic for decision-makers in Beijing. China has successfully welded their tremendous industrial capacity with their national security strategy.   There is a wide body of evidence incriminating Huawei as an extension of Chinese intelligence. Using hidden cookies and backdoor codes, the MSS can penetrate Western cyber-infrastructure to collect information as well as be able to shut down civilian or military electronic devices linked in by the “IOT” (AKA the “Internet of Things”).  

China has built a capable large army of cyber operators.

Links:

Spain awards Huawei contracts to manage intelligence agency wiretaps | The Record from Recorded Future News

Security, complexity and Huawei; protecting the UK’s… – NCSC.GOV.UK

U.S. Restrictions on Huawei Technologies: National Security, Foreign Policy, and Economic Interests | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

Federal Register :: Addition of Huawei Non-U.S. Affiliates to the Entity List, the Removal of Temporary General License, and Amendments to General Prohibition Three (Foreign-Produced Direct Product Rule)

Office of Public Affairs | Chinese Telecommunications Conglomerate Huawei and Subsidiaries Charged in Racketeering Conspiracy and Conspiracy to Steal Trade Secrets | United States Department of Justice

The United States Further Restricts Huawei Access to U.S. Technology – United States Department of State

Extradition case of Meng Wanzhou – Wikipedia

huawei-zte investigative report (final).pdf

Donald Trumpf’s Sep 2025 UK Visit Timed So He Can’t Address Parliament

The blimp was an eye-catching part of the protests against Trumpf’s state visit in 2019. (Getty Images)

In mid-September, US President Donald Trumpf will be visiting the UK and meeting with British officials. But one thing he won’t be doing on his trip is addressing Parliament.

“The date of the US president’s trip is being deliberately timed for mid-September when there is a parliamentary recess, handing the UK an excuse for not offering the speech. Mr. Trumpf is also expected not to visit Buckingham Palace or enjoy a ceremonial carriage ride down the Mall in London — features of many past state visits from world leaders.”

Earlier this year, Trumpf met with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during his visit to the US. The Labor government under Starmer have concerns that Labor MPs could protest a joint address to Parliament, possibly by staying away en masse, causing potential embarrassment to Mr. Trumpf.

“It means the US president will not achieve something enjoyed by his predecessors Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama,” the Telegraph reporters note. “The lack of an address to Parliament risks a backlash from Mr. Trumpf, who British officials privately acknowledge is sensitive to perceived slights.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, they observe, addressed the UK Parliament when he was in London in early July.

“British officials involved in the state visit planning are keenly aware of the US president’s desire to beat his presidential predecessors in the scale and opulence of the events,” according to Riley-Smith and Furness. “There are discussions about how to outdo his first state visit in 2019.”

The reporters add, “Mr. Trumpf will become the first elected leader in modern times to enjoy two UK state visits — a fact he has been sharing privately with friends.”

Samaritans Visited Trumpf’s Scotland Golf Resort Earlier This Year

Drone footage shows Trump’s Turnberry resort clubhouse splattered with red paint. Two volunteers were reportedly charged for voicing their disapproval against Dummkopf Trumpf’s. (Images: Hassan Ghani via Reuters)

“There, there Mr. President. You’ll get to address Parliament another time.

Source:

‘Potential embarrassment’: Trump’s UK visit ‘deliberately timed’ to not offer him a speech – Alternet.org

56 Years Ago Today on 20 July 1969: “One Small Step for [a Man], One Giant Leap for Mankind.”

US Astronaut Neil Armstrong about to step on the Moon. (Photo: NASA)

The US flag is wired to give the appearance of fluttering on the airless Moon (Photo: NASA)

Left to right: Neil ArmstrongMichael CollinsBuzz Aldrin

Some Historical Background You May Be Unaware Of

P-51C Mustang fighter flown by the Tuskegee Airmen. (Photo: USAF)

President John F. Kennedy, a World War Two veteran, wanted to link America’s space race with the growing civil rights movement. To that end, President Kennedy instructed NASA to recruit and train qualified pilots from the minority community to become astronauts. African-American pilots had served with great distinction in the Second World War. During the Second World War, the Tuskegee Airmen purposefully painted the tails of their fighter aircraft red to show the Nazis who they were and they were unafraid. African-American pilots also served their country valiantly during the Korean War, like this aviator below.

Jesse L. Brown the first African-American naval officer killed in the Korean War, and a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross.

This Man Should Have Been America’s First Black Astronaut

USAF Captain Ed Dwight, Jr. (Photo: USAF)

In 1961, at the direction of President John F. Kennedy, USAF Captain Ed Dwight, Junior became the first African-American to enter the USAF training program from which NASA selected astronauts. Although he completed training at the Aerospace Research Pilot School in 1963 and advanced to the second round of the program, he was controversially not selected for the Astronaut Corps.

Look at the camaraderie evident between these astronaut trainees. (Photo: USAF)

The man responsible for Captain Dwight’s disqualification was none other than USAF Chuck Yeager, the man who first broke the sound barrier on 14 Oct 1947. A racist from West Virginia, General Yeager covertly countermanded JFK’s desire to see black astronauts in the space program, particularly Captain Ed Dwight.

“Yeager instructed staff and participants at the school that “Washington is trying to cram the nigger down our throats. [President] Kennedy is using this to make ‘racial equality,’ so do not speak to him, do not socialize with him, do not drink with him, do not invite him over to your house, and in six months he’ll be gone.” In his autobiography, Dwight details how Yeager’s leadership led to discriminatory treatment throughout his training at Edwards Air Force Base.”

Link: Chuck Yeager – Wikipedia

You will never read or watch Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff the same way ever again.

Despite racist Chuck Yeager, USAF Captain Ed Dwight made it into space at age 90 on a Blue Origin private space launch last year.

Ed Dwight, America’s first Black astronaut candidate, is shown exiting Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on 19 May 2024. Dwight was among six passengers that launched atop the company’s suborbital rocket. (Photo: Blue Origin / Felix Kunze)

Just One More Thing…

American aerospace engineer John Houbolt as he stands at a chalkboard in July 1962 showing his lunar orbit rendezvous plan for landing astronauts on the moon. (Photo: NASA / LARC /Bob Nye /PhotoQuest /Getty Images

In April 1961, President John F. Kennedy had energized America’s space program by pledging to send “a man to the moon and [return] him safely to the Earth” before the end of the 1960s and he wanted to merge that with the civil rights movement as you just read. Safely returning an astronaut from the moon was the more difficult part of the equation as there are no rockets or launchpads on the moon.

The Pilgrim Project

The One-Way Space Man crew capsule. (Image credit: Bell Aerosystems)

To ensure the US would send a man to the Moon before the USSR, NASA established the Pilgrim Program. This was a one-way mission for one or two astronauts selected for this perilous journey. NASA was to pre-launch containers filled with oxygen tanks, water, food, and supplies ahead of the astronauts for them to survive on the Moon until NASA would be able to recover them at a future date. In this way, America would beat Russia to the Moon.

Source: https://www.wired.com/2012/04/one-way-space-man-1962/

Archived link: https://archive.ph/KalEw

Countdown is a 1968 American science fiction movie directed by Robert Altman and based on the 1964 novel The Pilgrim Project by Hank Searls.

Tiny Kitten Wanders Up to Woman On Her Way To Work In Mexico

“Unspeakable Suffering”: Israeli Military Kills Nine Children from Same Family

Pediatrician Dr. Alaa al-Najjar (38) left her ten children at home last Friday when she went to work in the emergency room at the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza.

Hours later, the bodies of seven children – most of them badly burned – arrived at the hospital. They were Dr. Najjar’s own children, killed in an IDF airstrike on her family’s home. The bodies of her two other children, a seven-month-old and a two-year-old, were trapped under the rubble. Only one of her ten children – critically injured – survived. Dr. Najjar’s husband, himself a doctor, was also critically injured in the strike.

Hamdi al-Najjar is in critical condition in Nasser hospital where relatives try and comfort him. (Photo: Getty Images)

Dr al-Najjar is facing “unspeakable suffering,” colleague Dr Angelova-Chee ruefully said.

The IDF said aircraft had “struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure adjacent to IDF troops in the area of Khan Yunis” and was reviewing the claim civilians had been killed.

By their own admission, the IDF struck “suspects” without positive identification. The only due process Palestinians receive from the IDF is death from a safe distance with US-provided munitions.

Top genocide scholars from several countries are unanimous that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.  Sadistically aiding and abetting these atrocities is the US government. In March 2025, USSECSTATE Marco Rubio signed a declaration to use emergency authorities to expedite the delivery of approximately four billion dollars of American taxpayer funds in military assistance to Israel.

Adam (11) on the left is the only surviving child in the family. He is pictured here with his sisters Sidra and Rival (R) who were both killed in the Israeli air strike. (Photo: al-Najjar family)

The Palestinian death toll from the Israeli onslaught since October 2023 has risen to 53,939 fatalities, with an additional 122,797 people wounded or maimed. The majority of the victims are women and children. Frustration with American and European complicity in the ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank have led to attacks against Israeli targets by angry volunteers in various locations, as you will read later.

South Africa and other countries leveled charges of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague. An international arrest warrant issued by the ICC for crimes against humanity remains active for Benjamin Netanyahu.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/24/middleeast/gaza-doctor-children-bodies-hospital-intl

https://www.icc-cpi.int/defendant/netanyahu

https://www.state.gov/military-assistance-to-israel/

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/top-genocide-scholars-unanimous-israel-committing-genocide-gaza-investigation-finds

https://www.icj-cij.org/index.php/home

Mexico: 700 Animals Rescued from Drug Cartel Violence

Elephants, lions, and tigers await relocation from Ostok Sanctuary amid cartel violence near Culiacán. (Photo: Felix Marquez)

A Mexican wildlife sanctuary has evacuated hundreds of exotic animals to escape cartel violence near Culiacn, Sinaloa, marking one of the largest animal relocations in the country’s history. 700 animals including elephants, tigers, and lions, were transported from Ostok Sanctuary 140 miles to a new refuge in Mazatln after months of armed attacks, threats, and supply shortages. A 15-truck convoy, escorted by National Guard personnel, accompanied zoo veterinary technicians and wildlife management specialists. Ostok Sanctuary is located 25 km north of the capital of Culiacn, a city that rival factions of the Sinaloa Cartel have turned into a battlefield for territorial control, following last summer’s arrest and extradition to the US of cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.

The American demand for illegal drugs continue making trafficking a lucrative business for the Mexican cartels. At least 70% of recovered weapons in Mexico originated in the US, called the “Iron River” by Mexicans. This month drug cartel assassins ambushed three security consultants who worked with the USG.  Good for these poor innocent animals rescued from the cruelties of man.

Sources:

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/mexican-security-consultant-worked-us-state-department-killed-121915953

Moldova Extradites White Supremacist Terrorist to US

Michail Chkhikvishvili (Photo: Justice Department)

Georgian national Michail Chkhikvishvili (21) AKA “Commander Butcher” was extradited to the US from Moldova. Chkhikvishvili was arrested in connection with planning a mass casualty attack in NYC. Chkhikvishvili is a leader of the Maniac Murder Cult. This defendant allegedly planned to poison Jewish children and carry out mass murder in NYC. Via the internet he incited bombings, arsons, and violence against racial and religious minorities, driven by a hateful Neo-Nazi ideology. Michail Chkhikvishvili faces 50 years in prison if convicted on four counts of terrorism-related charges.  

Chkhikvishvili wanted the planned attack to be a “bigger action than Breivik,” referring to Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian Neo‑Nazi who killed 77 people in a bombing and mass shooting in Norway in 2011. Meanwhile, Chkhikvishvili told others of his plan and claimed to have previously committed other hate crimes while living in Brooklyn in 2022.  Chkhikvishvili boasted to others that he was “glad I have murdered,” and that he would “murder more” but “make others murder first.”

Some of the 77 innocent victims of Anders Behring Breivik.

This maniac may have already murdered someone, which authorities will investigate. This is a thoroughly dangerous and revolting lunatic who should be separated from society quickly and for a long time.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Sources:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/georgian-national-extradited-moldova-face-charges-soliciting-hate-crimes-and-planning

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/media/1401446/dl?inline

Mental Illness Increasing in US

Feliz Enrique was indicted with assault in the first degree and other crimes. The defendant allegedly approached a nine-year-old girl as she was playing on a Queens street and forcefully struck the child with his hand on 10 May. Video surveillance film above shows Enrique winding up (left) and then pummeling the defenseless child with hurricane force (right). When a nearby, off-duty NYPD Sergeant intervened with bystanders to apprehend him following the incident, Enrique allegedly bit off the top segment of the officer’s right index finger.

The girl was treated at a local hospital and sustained bruising to her arm and back, bleeding to her lip and arm, loose teeth, as well as substantial pain. The injured NYPD officer was also treated at a local hospital and sustained bite marks to his hand and leg, and abrasions to his arm and leg. Physicians were unable to reattach the officer’s fingertip.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Florida: Miscreant Sentenced One Month for Killing Defenseless Dolphins

Zackery Brandon Barfield (31) of Panama City, FL was sentenced to 30 days imprisonment, a $51,000 fine, and one-year supervised release for poisoning and shooting dolphins. Barfield grew frustrated with dolphins eating red snapper from the lines of his charter fishing clients. He began placing methomyl inside baitfish to poison the dolphins that surfaced near his boat. Methomyl is a highly toxic pesticide that acts on the nervous system of humans, mammals, and other animals. Barfield recognized methomyl’s toxicity and impact on the environment but continued to feed poisoned baitfish to the dolphins for months. Barfield also used a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot the defenseless dolphins that surfaced near his vessel, killing one immediately.

On other occasions, Barfield shot, but did not immediately kill, dolphins near his vessel. On one trip the maniac shot an innocent dolphin while two elementary-aged children were on board, and another with more than a dozen fisherman on board.

Dolphins have highly developed language abilities and can learn complicated tricks. Coriolanus and his wife safely swam with the dolphins in the Caribbean. Dolphins have served the US and Russian navies and some believe they can even sense cancer tumors. A marine biologist said: “They have culture, they use tools, they have complex societies. These animals are very much like us because of their social complexities, their behavior, their level of self-awareness.” Some researchers have argued that dolphins should be afforded the same human rights as people.

Zackery Brandon Barfield shot and poisoned these defenseless, intelligent mammals, as if the earth’s waters and her sea life aren’t threatened enough with toxic algae, oil spills, pollution, and dangerous chemicals. One month is far too short a sentence for this miscreant. And yes, you guessed correctly; this gun-loving maniac is a registered Republican.

Nihilist Dies in Suicide Attack Against California Fertility Clinic

Guy Edward Bartkus, who is thought to have died in the blast, left behind writings which suggest he disapproved of people being brought into the world against their will.

Bartkus detonated explosives outside the clinic on Saturday morning and tried to livestream the attack. Four other people were injured in the explosion and have been released from hospital. None of the wounded are staff or patients at the clinic.

Sources:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndfl/pr/panama-city-commercial-fisherman-sentenced-killing-dolphins-gulf-america

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/just-how-intelligent-are-dolphins

https://voterrecords.com/voter/7476799/zachary-barfield

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/florida-fisherman-convicted-killing-dolphins

usafacts.org

www.cdc.gov

usnewsper.com 

www.vox.com

nchstats.com

www.va.gov

https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-zizians-and-the-rationalist-death

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-common-is-mental-illness/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c787j90wp6po

Russia-Ukraine Update

The US National Security Agency (NSA) reports that hackers working for Russian military intelligence (GRU) are targeting Western technology and logistics companies involved in shipping assistance to Ukraine, including US ports, airports, and rail systems. The hackers are trying to obtain details about the type of assistance entering Ukraine and sought access to internet-connected cameras near Ukrainian border crossings, amongst other probes. The full unclassified report is linked at bottom.

“Mum, I’ve been exchanged, I’m home!” (Image: President Volodomir Zelensky via Telegram)

Russian forces executed two Ukrainian POWs near Udachne in Donetsk Oblast. Nevertheless, Ukraine and Russia conducted the largest POW exchange of the war: 270 soldiers and 120 civilians returned to Kiev. Polish fighter jets intercepted a Russian Su-24 bomber in international airspace over the Baltic Sea. The incident marks the latest in a series of Russian provocations near NATO territory.

Pro-Kremlin Ukrainian Politician Shot Dead in Spain

Andriy Portnov in happier times.

Unknown assailants permanently removed a US-sanctioned pro-Kremlin politician from the chessboard in an affluent neighborhood in Madrid, Spain. Andriy Portnov (51) had just dropped his children off at the school in the Pozuelo de Alarcón area of the city and was walking to his car in the school parking area. At least one unidentified attacker fired several shots at the quisling before fleeing into a wooded area in a nearby public park. Portnov had been an MP and deputy head in the administration of Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president ousted in 2014 after months of protests. The ripesuck reportedly made a fortune collecting bribes as a “fixer” in Ukraine’s judicial system which led to his sanctioning by the Biden administration.

The government of Ukraine investigated Portnov for his involvement in Russia’s annexation of Crimea and other crimes, but there is no record that any official charges were pressed against this quisling. Unclear is how much of Ukraine’s wealth Portnov siphoned off from the Ukrainian treasury or how much he amassed collecting bribes. Whatever the amounts were, his wealth didn’t save him from a hail of bullets by unknown assassins.

The Ukrainian espionage and counterintelligence services are first rate, but no one has claimed credit for this assassination and there are no suspects yet. Russian organized crime or the FSB is as good a suspect as the Ukrainian special services in the dark world of Russian oligarchs.

Appalling Russian Military Losses Continue

International arrest warrants issued by the ICC for war crimes remain active for Russia President Vladimir Putin and Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu. 

An indictment is merely an accusation. Both defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Sources:

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/05/23/7513766/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx277jklkyzo

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0523

Former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Made False Bomb Threat to Bring Attention to Gaza Genocide

Los Angeles Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Brian K. Williams. (Photo: Public domain)

Former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Brian K. Williams (61) was charged with threatening to bomb Los Angeles City Hall last year in a single-count information. Williams agreed to plead guilty to the felony charge, which carries a statutory maximum sentence of ten years in federal prison. Williams used the Google Voice application on his personal cellphone to place a call to his city-issued cellphone and then falsely reported:

“Bomb threat: I received phone call on my city cell at 10:48 am this morning. The male caller stated that he was tired of the city support of Israel, and he has decided to place a bomb in City Hall. It might be in the rotunda.’ 

In fact, Williams received no such call and had made the bomb threat himself. At no time did Williams intend to carry out the threat.

Frustrated with unqualified US support for Israel and the genocide in Gaza which has killed over 53,939 Palestinians, wounding or maiming 122,797, Deputy Mayor Williams seemed to think the publicity from his bomb threat would bring attention to this grave injustice. Of the billions of dollars the US sends to Israel every year, the State of California contributes a total of $609,845,124, the most out of any other state.

Here’s Why

Palestinian children being mourned.

This support for Israel cost the Democratic Party the presidential election on 5 Nov 2024.

An indictment is merely an accusation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Sources:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/former-los-angeles-deputy-mayor-public-safety-agrees-plead-guilty-threatening-bomb-la

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/21/politics/individuals-connected-to-israeli-embassy-shot-in-dc-sources-says

Argentina: Nazi War Criminals Allegedly Paid $200M in Bribes to Perón Govt

President Juan Domingo Perón and wife Eva Duarte.

Recently declassified files suggest that Nazi war criminals may have paid $200 million in gold bribes to Argentine authorities to secure refuge in the country after World War II.

The files indicate German submarines transported the gold to Argentina’s southern coast, where it was delivered to Eva Duarte, wife of then-President Juan Domingo Perón. The money was reportedly later handled by German bankers Richard von Frente, Ricardo Stauch, and Rodolf Freude.

The released material includes 1,850 documents compiled into seven files dating from 1950 to 1980. The records confirm that Third Reich fugitives arrived in Argentina beginning in 1945 with the protection of Peron, and that their arrival was not isolated but part of a larger effort.

Nazi ideology had gained notable support in Argentina as early as the 1930s. On 10 April 1938, nearly 10,000 people attended a rally organized by the German embassy at Luna Park stadium in Buenos Aires.

Otto Skorzeny was Der Fuhrer’s favorite commando. In 1943, he rescued Benito Mussolini from prison in a daring raid using gliders. Skorzeny, an avid fencer, was proud of the scar on the left side of his face. Undated image from the public domain,

Infamous Waffen-SS commando Otto Skorzeny, once described by SHAEF Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower as “the most dangerous man in Europe,” wended his way to Argentina after WWII and served as a bodyguard to Eva Perón, who he allegedly had an affair with. Skorzeny eventually moved to Ireland in June 1957 and then to Madrid, Spain, where he would die at age 67 in 1975.

You may never watch Evita again the same way again.

Sources:

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/05/23/paraguay-argentina-nazi-leaders-bribes/6981748030375/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6345751/How-Hitlers-favourite-Nazi-commando-saved-Mussolini-fortress-farmer-Ireland.html

Pride of Kittens Attack German Shepherd

“This is America”

Followers of the Watch: The vignettes below will inform you of the real state and nature of America.

Two Mass Shooting Survivors Speak

Ms Stephanie Horowitz survived two mass shootings, the 2018 massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School by Nikolas Cruz and the recent Florida State University attack when Phoenix Ikner killed two students and wounded six.  

Jackie Matthews

Jackie Matthews survived the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 26 people in Newtown, CT, and she survived the 13 Feb 2023 attack at Michigan State University which killed three students.

“I am 21 years old, and this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through. The fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through is incomprehensible.”

In a now-deleted clip, Ms. Mathews detailed how she suffered a post-traumatic stress disorder fracture in her back because of what happened in 2012, something that still affects her to this day.

Only America can claim the ignimonious achievement of people surviving multiple mass shootings.

Mass Shooter Kills 22 Reportedly for Dotard Trumpf

Mass murderer Patrick Crusius was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing 22 people at a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas. His defense attorney Joe Spencer testified:

“While Patrick claimed in his manifesto that his views predated the then-president (Donald Trumpf) and that political figures were not to blame, he also explicitly stated the attack was a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas, echoing the language used by political figures. Indeed, Patrick believed he was acting at the direction of the president at the time, seeing it as his duty to stop the invasion because that’s what he believed [Trumpf] was telling him.”

Florida Killer Phoenix Ikner Trumpf Supporter

Nikolas Cruz, the 2018 Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School murderer is a Trumpf supporter as well. He wore his bright red MAGA hat to a funeral.

Nikolas Cruz mugshot.

Nikolas Cruz in his Trumpf MAGA hat practicing how to shoot and kill. (Montage: Public domain)

Lunatic Sets Fire to Pennsylvania Governor’s Mansion

Cody Balmer (38) is charged with attempted murder, aggravated arson, burglary, terrorism, and related offenses for allegedly setting fire to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s (D-PA) governor’s mansion on 13 Apr 2025. (Photo: Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office)

Cody Balmer allegedly set fire to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s mansion out of hatred for him. The damage was extensive and luckily no one was injured in the inferno. How this maniac was able to penetrate the defenses of the governor’s mansion is unclear. In 2024 Gov. Shapiro was on Kamala Harris’ short-list for VPOTUS candidate and he may run himself in 2028.

Inside the governor’s mansion after the fire. (Photo: Pennsylvania State Police)

Police State Under Trumpf Worsens

German teens Charlotte Pohl and Maria Lepere (Photo Credits: X/ @MarioNawfal)

Two teenage girls from Germany were detained, arrested, and deported at an airport in Hawaii after immigration officials said it was suspicious they had not booked a hotel room. But despite having ESTA travel authorization, immigration officials accused them of attempting to enter the US. to work illegally, and they were placed in handcuffs and taken to a nearby detention center they later learned was a deportation facility. Upon arrival, they were subjected to full-body scans, strip searches, and forced to wear green prison jumpsuits. They were then placed in a holding facility with serious criminals, including an alleged murderer who had been locked up for 18 years, and were forced to spend the night in a freezing cold double cell.

Migrant Children in Immigration Court Without Lawyers

(Imagery: ABC News)

“The reason we’re here is because the government of the United States wants you to leave the United States,” Judge Ubaid ul-Haq, presiding from a courtroom on Varick Street, told a group of about a dozen children on a recent morning on Webex. “It’s my job to figure out if you have to leave,” ul-Haq continued. “It’s also my job to figure out if you should stay.” The parties included a 7-year-old boy, wearing a shirt emblazoned with a pizza cartoon, who spun a toy windmill while the judge spoke. There was an 8-year-old girl and her 4-year-old sister, in a tie-dye shirt, who squeezed a pink plushy toy and stuffed it into her sleeve. None of the children were accompanied by parents or attorneys, only shelter workers who helped them log on to the hearing.

The Trumpf junta has been firing immigration judges and legal resources are limited to represent immigrants in court, let alone helpless children.

‘The cruelty is apparent

Canadian Border Agents Fail Family of Four Fleeing America

A family of four from El Salvador crossed the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls to Canada fleeing the ICE raids and sudden deportations sweeping the US. But the CBSA focused on small discrepancies in their paperwork and rejected them, even though they qualified for entry under exception and have a brother who is a Canadian citizen. When the four were disappointingly driven back to the US border, CBP detained them. They have been in custody two weeks now.

Aracely sits with her two daughters, aged four and 14. The three were detained with Aracely’s common-law husband in a holding cell for two weeks at the US port of entry in Niagara Falls, NY, after Canadian border guards turned them away. CBC News is not showing the family’s faces or revealing their full names for safety reasons. (Image: Ousama Farag / CBC)

Canada turns away most asylum seekers who attempt to enter from the US at land border crossings, but there are exceptions to this rule, which this family met. I hope those CBSA officers are happy with themselves knowing that these four vulnerable people, including two girls (4 and 14), will eventually be deported to rightwing-led, impoverished, and gang-infested El Salvador.

(Photo: Al Drago, NYT)

In 2022, 48,000 Americans were killed by gun violence. 2025 or 2026 could be the year the US reaches 50,000 deaths in one year. Now the state is inflicting violence on its people with mass deportations and flagrant violations of due process. Trumpf is inspiring political violence across the US, from mass shootings to arson to vandalizing Felon Musk’s hideous Tesla vehicles. There is a reason why America ranked 24th on the World Happiness Report (below Israel and Mexico) and Dotard Trumpf was recently ranked the worst president of all time. Followers of the Watch, you will see more violence, police brutality, and economic chaos over the next four years as Trumpf shrinks the social safety net, hate radio continues spewing xenophobic lies, and mental illness continues unchecked in the US.

Sources:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2025/03/19/world-happiness-report-2025/82551709007/

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/photos-arson-fire-damages-pennsylvania-governors-residence/4159709/

https://www.unilad.com/news/sandy-hook-michigan-shooting-survivor-604402-20230215

https://www.latestly.com/socially/world/vacation-gone-wrong-2-german-teens-strip-searched-jailed-and-deported-from-us-after-cbp-finds-incomplete-hawaii-travel-plans-suspicious-6797703.html

India: 26 Killed in Terror Attack During VPOTUS JD Vance Trip

At least 26 people have been killed and 36 wounded in Indian-controlled Kashmir in the north after gunmen opened fire at a beauty spot near the resort town of Pahalgam, nicknamed ‘Mini Switzerland.’ Authorities blamed it on the resistance fighting Indian rule which deploys 500,000 soldiers in Kashmir. The attack seemed to have been timed to coincide with JD Vance’s four-day tour of India and PM Nahendra Modi’s visit to Saudi Arabia. Delhi has swiftly taken a series of retaliatory steps: closing the main border crossing, suspending a critical water-sharing treaty, and expelling diplomats.

The massive Indian security force presence in Jammu and Kashmir (500,000 personnel) use shotgun pellets to purposely blind Muslim protestors like Manzoor Ah-Dar below:

Manzoor Ah-Dar poses for a portrait in Rahmoo, Kashmir. Manzoor was injured in both eyes by metal pellets when Indian forces raided the village. (Bernat Armangue/AP)

PM Narendra Modi can blame Pakistan for supporting their fellow Muslims oppressed in Jammu and Kashmir, but poverty and Hindu-supremacist Delhi’s repression of the ‘Other’ is the root cause of unhappiness and strife in India.

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwynx7kgyqvo

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9vyzzyjzlo

 https://www.independent.co.uk

Trumpf Strips Visa for Colombia President Gustavo Petro

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, claimed that the US has withdrawn his visa and that he can no longer enter the country. (Credit: Presidency of Colombia / Flickr)

Dotard Trumpf petulantly stripped Colombia President Gustavo Petro’s visa, preventing him from attending imminent meetings of the IMF and IBRD in the US. The major international snub comes after Trumpf threatened ‘decisive retaliatory measures’ over Colombia’s Jan 2025 refusal to let two US military flights full of deportees land. In a cabinet meeting, President Petro let slip that his nickname for Dotard Trumpf is ‘Donald Duck’ and he took this idiotic snub with aplomb.

Colombia’s Former Colonial Masters Shoot and Burn Trumpf in Effigy

(Public domain photo)

An effigy of Dotard Trumpf was marched through the streets before being shot and burned as part of Easter Sunday celebrations in Spain. Every Easter, locals in the town of Coripe, Seville, string up a Judas’ figure representing a public figure whose actions are deemed to be morally reprehensible’. Video shows the Trumpf doll, sporting a dark navy suit, red tie, and unmistakable shock of blonde hair, leading a town parade at gunpoint before being hung from a tree in the town square and shot at with rifles from close range. The burning of Judas’ effigies is a common ritual amongst Christian communities as part of traditional Easter celebrations.

Coriolanus regrets missing this worthy auto-da-fe.

Sources:

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-effigy-shot-burned-123840954.html

https://colombiaone.com/2025/04/22/colombia-petro-us-visa-trump-donald-duck/

Karma for Puppy-Killing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, infamously known for admitting in her autobiography that she killed her 14-month-old rambunctious puppy, fell victim to a thief while eating dinner at a downtown Washington, DC, restaurant Sunday night. Noem, who was asked about the theft at the White House Easter Egg Roll, acknowledged the incident and said the matter has not been resolved. The Secret Service, which provides security for Noem, reviewed security camera footage at the restaurant and saw an unknown white male wearing a medical mask steal her bag and leave the restaurant, a law enforcement source said. The thief got away with Noem’s driver’s license, medication, apartment keys, passport, DHS access badge, makeup bag, blank checks, and about $3,000 in cash.

Shooting a defenseless, harmless puppy is not only a disqualification from becoming Secretary of Homeland Security, but a disqualification from the human race. The US Senate confirmed her appointment as Secretary with a 59-34 vote. Astonishing.

Coriolanus was intensely curious regarding the contents of Secretary Noem’s stolen handbag. Why she was dining with her passport (official or diplomatic) and blank checks in Washington DC is mystery to your author. One question arose is what medications Secretary Noem is taking and for what condition. Her predilection to animal cruelty and mass deportations of vulnerable people provide a clue.

Having her makeup kit makes sense to maintain Noem’s disguise as a human being.

As Governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem was banned from indigenous lands by the local tribes. At the border in Derby Line, Vermont, Noem taunted Canadians with shouts of “51st state!” and she shamelessly flaunted herself and her jewelry in front of male convicts in a notorious El Salvador prison for a tawdry photo opportunity.

Secretary Noem in a pathetic photo-op in El Salvador on 26 Mar 2025 (Photo: Reuters)

The irony is rich. For a few hours on Sunday, the manifestly under-qualified Secretary Kristi Noem was “undocumented” like the people she has been persecuting. And this architect of fear for millions of vulnerable people was in a frenzied panic in a tony Washington DC bistro like her victims.

Karma, where would we be without you?

Sources:

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s bag, including $3,000 in cash, is stolen from DC restaurant | CNN Politics

https://apnews.com/article/south-dakota-indian-reservation-bans-governor-noem-b55339eb624a119bc571c8b4dab848f4

Trumpf Junta Targets Anti-Christian Bias While Israel Persecutes Christians

In a statement marking Easter before the death of Pope Francis I, Marco Rubio called for “all nations to respect the right of Christians to declare Christ is King. Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the king of kings and lord of all nations,” Rubio posted on ‘X’. Rubio’s implication is that Christian freedom of worship is under threat.

The Trumpf junta has ordered State Department employees to report on any instances of coworkers displaying “anti-Christian bias” as part of its effort to implement a sweeping new executive order on supporting employees of Christian faith working in the federal government. Marco Rubio, the most under-qualified person to ever lead the State Department, also asked staffers via official cable to report any perceived discriminatory actions taken against Christians or employees advocating on their behalf between Jan 2021 and Jan 2025.

Moreover, US Attorney-General Pam Bondi announced she is establishing a task force to combat anti-Christian bias in the US.

The Stench of Republican Hypocrisy is Stifling

White supremacist MAGA acolyte Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) from Georgia posted this vile message after Pope Francis I died.

US Attorney-General Pam Bondi did not condemn this anti-Christian message from MTG and worse, SECSTATE Marco Rubio conveniently ignores the fact that for decades Palestinian Christians have been attacked by both Israeli civilians and the IDF.

Theodosios (Atallah Hanna), the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia, delivers a speech during a demonstration in Beit Jala in the West Bank 17 May \2021 to express solidarity with Gaza and Sheikh Jarah. (Photo: Hazem Bader / AFP via Getty Images)

You can watch the videos here:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/20/palestinians-in-gaza-west-bank-mark-sorrowful-easter-amid-israeli-attacks

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-04-15/ty-article/israeli-police-violently-detain-several-holy-fire-worshipers/00000187-8563-dc6c-a5ff-ef7373080000

To Trumpf’s vicious sycophantic lapdogs in the junta, they are each awarded this:

Other Oddities From Israel

IDF destroying Indonesian hospital in Gaza (Image: Planet Labs)

ICC-indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: public domain)

The availability of high resolution satellite imagery of the Israeli Death Forces (IDF) will irritate Benjamin Netanyahu no end and make concealing their war crimes more difficult.

Swimmer Killed After Rare Shark Attack

A swimmer was killed following an extremely rare shark attack off the coast of Israel about 25 miles north of Tel Aviv. Sharks are known to gather there where warm water is discharged by a local power plant, and especially at this time of year, but they are usually harmless. There have been no recorded fatal shark attacks in waters off Israel since the country was founded in 1948. Below Israelis admire a shark in the same area in 2021.

(Photo: AFP)

Pre-attack video of the shark captured here:

If the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip can’t enjoy the Mediterranean Sea, this seems fitting that Likudniks shouldn’t enjoy their much cleaner beaches to the north.

Sources:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-health-officials-hold-urgent-meeting-as-1st-monkeypox-case-confirmed-in-israel/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-rubio-state-department-anti-christian-bias-biden/

https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/hkbugnh1xg

https://www.timesofisrael.com/man-dies-after-contracting-brain-eating-amoeba-in-israels-2nd-ever-recorded-case/

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/247686/gazas-only-catholic-priest-calls-israel-gaza-violence-extremely-serious

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c793rygrpjqo

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2025/04/22/marjorie-taylor-greenes-viral-controversial-post-after-pope-francis-death-marjorie-taylor-greene/83207982007/

19 Richest American Households Made One Trillion Dollars Last Year

“The wealthiest have gotten richer, and control a record share of America’s wealth. New data suggest $1 trillion of wealth was created for the 19 richest American households alone in 2024. That is more than the value of Switzerland’s entire economy.”

GOP Tax Cuts Will Cull Thousands of Poor Americans

To pay for the oligarch’s unneeded tax cuts, congressional Republicans in both chambers passed a resolution to cut at least $880 billion from the budget through 2034. Because Medicaid accounts for approximately 93% of non-Medicare funding, the program is expected to absorb the overwhelming share of these reductions. The cuts to Medicaid would result in widespread coverage losses, which could lead to 15,400 deaths due to work reporting requirements or roughly 34,200 deaths from reduced federal funding each year. 

The oligarchs have been greedily amassing their pelf for centuries. Just imagine how much more fabulously wealthy the billionaires will be next year after Trumpf’s horrendous tax cuts take effect. And how many poor Americans will have died because of inadequate medical funding. The GOP and American billionaires are aiding and abetting what Friedrich Engels described as “social murder.”

Sources:

https://www.wsj.com/economy/1-trillion-richest-families-wealth-increase-bc13874a?mod=hp_lead_pos7

Rescue Pit Bull Finds Best Friend in Donkey

Secretary Noem, are you watching this?

Followers of the Watch, Coriolanus is doing his utmost to keep up with the sinister machinations of the Trumpf junta, including their blatant stock manipulations with tariff threats and massive cryptocurrency grifting, all while keeping an eye on global intelligence and national security issues.

Trumpf’s Reign of Terror Reaches New Horrific Lows

Followers of the Watch, there is much to cover and little time, so let’s get started right away. Simply put, within two short months Dotard Trumpf has turned America into a Rogue State and an International Pariah. So, which despicable act to begin with?

Trumpf Rejects Mexico’s Request for Water in Tijuana

The US has refused a request by Mexico for water, alleging shortfalls in sharing by its southern neighbor. This was the first time that the US had rejected a request by Mexico for special delivery of water, which would have gone to the border city of Tijuana.

“Mexico’s continued shortfalls in its water deliveries under the 1944 water-sharing treaty are decimating American agriculture – particularly farmers in the Rio Grande valley,” the State Department’s alleged.

The 1944 treaty, which governs water allocation from the Rio Grande and Colorado River, has come under growing strain in recent years due to the pressures of the climate crisis and the burgeoning populations and agriculture in parched areas.

Trumpf Expels South Africa’s Ambassador to US

South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool on left.

Describing him as a “race-baiting politician,” USSECSTATE Marco Rubio expelled South Africa’s ambassador to Washington. In a post on X, Rubio accused Ebrahim Rasool of hating the US and President Donald Trumpf, and said the ambassador was “no longer welcome in our great country.” The rare move by the US marks the latest development in rising tensions between the two countries. Pretoria may reciprocate. The manifestly underqualified Marco Rubio is America’s top diplomat.

DHS Revokes Legal Status of 532,000 Haitians and Latin Americans

The Department of Homeland Security said that it will revoke legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, setting them up for potential deportation in April. These refugees came to the US legally, playing by the rules, doing everything that was required of them by the Federal Government.

The order applies to about 532,000 people from the four countries who came to the US since Oct 2022. They arrived with financial sponsors and were given two-year permits to live and work in the US. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said they will lose their legal status on 24 Apr, or 30 days after the publication of the notice in the Federal Register.

This is the same Kristi Noem who proudly admitted in her autobiography to killing an undisciplined puppy. This psychopath is prohibited from entering indigenous reservations in her home state of South Dakota.

Trumpf Planning Another Travel Ban

Trumpf is considering a new travel ban that could affect citizens from up to 43 countries, meant to address “national security and public safety threats.” Citizens from the 11 countries in the “red” category would be entirely barred from entering the US. These countries include Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. Countries in the “orange” category would affect immigrant, tourist and student visas, with some exception. The list consists of Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Turkmenistan.

ICE and DHS have been detaining pro-Palestinian college students on visas who demonstrated in 2024 or express anti-Israeli sentiments, in violation of the US Constitution guaranteeing free speech.

Trumpf needn’t be concerned about issuing a travel ban. An exodus of both people and capital from the US is taking place. Besides, refugees leaving these places to escape political violence can easily be killed in the firearm death epidemic plaguing the US, so why would they come to America?

Foreigners, Tourists Terrified of US Police State

Despite being lawful permanent residents of the US, legal immigrants with green cards are starting to panic about being kicked out of the country by the Trumpf administration. “If I were not a citizen, I would think long and hard before I traveled. And that includes green card holders,” said immigration attorney David Leopold. Germany issued a travel advisory to its citizens traveling to US to make sure their paperwork is in order. A handful of Germans have already been detained by ICE, in addition to some Canadians. International travel agents have been urging their clients to avoid the US. Canadians have begun their boycott of American products and travel to the US. Canadian tourist spending in the US totaled $20.5 billion in 2024; a 10% drop risks $2.1 billion and 140,000 jobs.

Grandparents and Orange County ex-residents Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez (Photo: Social media)

Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez came to the US from Colombia without authorization some 35 years ago, raised three daughters and now have a new grandson. The couple was deported to Colombia earlier this week after living in California and paying taxes for 35 years, living the so-called “American dream.” This punishment is the equivalent of firing a cannonball at a housefly.

Trumpf Rescinds Security Clearances of Prominent Democrats

Trumpf speaking to reporters at the White House in Washington, DC, on 21 Mar. (Photo: Bryan Dozier / /Middle East Images /AFP / Getty)

Trumpf rescinded the security clearances of Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, several members of the Biden administration, and other prominent Democrats. Trumpf had already revoked Joe Biden’s security clearance. Previous victims of Godzilla’s rampage: Antony Blinken, Adam Kinzinger, LTC Alexander Vindman (Ret), NYAG Letitia James, NY DA Alvin Bragg, Gen Mark Milley, Jake Sullivan, Elizabeth Cheney, Fiona Hill, Lisa Monaco, former US Ambassador to the Czech Republic Norman Eisen, and attorney Mark Zaid. Trumpf also revoked the USSS protective detail for Hunter and Ashley Biden, Joe’s surviving adult children.

Trumpf’s vindictiveness impairs these people to work again in the USG as contractors, employees, or political figures. Removing the USSS detail from Biden’s adult children may imperil them from lunatics because of all the hatred Republicans generated against the Bidens these past several years.

Trumpf, to please his white supremacist Republican followers and himself, is bleaching the US of people of color. At the same time, America’s Godzilla is recklessly damaging America’s economy and reputation, something that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to see. Trumpf is maliciously killing two birds with one stone.

Citations:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/20/tijuana-mexico-water-trump

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/california/2025/03/08/army-corps-knew-trumps-california-water-release-order-was-a-waste/82055516007/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crmj8ky3rvno

https://apnews.com/article/immigration-humanitarian-parole-china-haiti-nicaragua-venezuela-c10f422939934cf8d1cf8a6f4dfc4610

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/22/us/green-card-visa-holders-deportation-fears-cec

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/03/19/Germany-foreign-ministry-travel/9601742398245/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-revokes-security-clearances-of-kamala-harris-hillary-clinton-and-other-prominent-dems/

https://apnews.com/article/hunter-biden-trump-secret-service-ashley-50eba3fcd1ef9d2580fb4bc464d229f6

https://www.salon.com/2025/03/22/a-pivot-moment-some-travel-agents-are-now-urging-their-clients-to-avoid-the-united-states/

Trumpf Debases US With $5m “Gold” Immigration Cards for Oligarchs

Arch-goniff and billionaire Howard Lutnick, Trumpf’s Commerce Secretary, announced that he secured $5 billion in a single day by selling 1,000 immigration gold cards, each valued at $5 million. Lutnick said that with a market of 37 million potential buyers, Trumpf is confident they can generate at least $5 trillion by selling one million of these exclusive cards.

Billionaire Howard Lutnick claimed that “real Americans” like his 94-year-old mother-in-law won’t complain if they miss a social security check one month because of clerical error.

Citations:

https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/commerce-secretary-howard-lutnick-says-us-sells-1000-gold-cards-in-a-day-raising-5-billion/3784494/

 corporate-prosecution-registry.com

Jessica Aber (43) Who Investigated Russian Criminals Found Dead in Virginia

Former US Attorney Jessica Aber (43) was found dead at her Virginia residence Saturday morning. Police responded to a call about an “unresponsive woman” and have launched an investigation. Aber, who resigned in January after serving since 2021, was hailed as an “irreplaceable” leader and prosecutor. The cause of death is yet to be determined by the chief medical examiner. Authorities have not revealed any signs of foul play but continue to examine the circumstances surrounding her sudden passing.

Citation:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/former-us-attorney-jessica-aber-found-dead-virginia/story?id=120064277

INTERPOL Solves Spanish Cold Case

INTERPOL informs:

“A woman who died in unexplained circumstances in Spain has been identified as 33-year-old Ainoha Izaga Ibieta Lima, from Paraguay. This was the first successful trans-continental identification made as part of INTERPOL’s Identify Me program.

The international cold case campaign, coordinated by INTERPOL with six European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain), aims to seek the public’s help in identifying 46 women whose bodies were found in Europe over recent decades.

One of those cases, submitted by Spanish authorities, related to an unidentified female discovered in the province of Girona, Spain, on 6 Aug 2018. The woman was found hanging in a poultry shed attached to a farmhouse. She was not carrying any identity papers and no one in the area knew who she was, or how she got there. The victim had a tattoo on her left forearm of the word ‘success’ in Hebrew. Despite extensive investigations by local police, the woman was never identified.

A breakthrough came in March 2025 when Paraguayan authorities matched fingerprints uploaded by Spain to INTERPOL’s Black Notice against their own national databases, as part of the Identify Me initiative.

The first round of Identify Me, launched in 2023, also yielded noteworthy results, with the identification of Rita Roberts, a British woman who was found murdered in Antwerp in 1992. The family of Rita Roberts contacted the appeal hotline after they recognized their relative’s tattoo from news coverage of the campaign.

Identify Me is the first time INTERPOL has released public extracts from Black Notices, which are used to seek information internationally on unidentified bodies and to determine the circumstances surrounding a death. Black Notices can include information on the location where the body was found, biometric information (DNA, fingerprints, facial images), dental charts, physical descriptions of the body or clothing and any other details relevant to identifying the deceased.”

Now that Spanish and Paraguayan police have brought closure to Ms. Lima’s family, they now have a better chance of discovering whether she committed suicide or was murdered.

Citation:

https://www.interpol.int/News-and-Events/News/2025/Spanish-cold-case-resolved-through-international-public-appeal

Russia Targets Odessa During Czech President’s Visit

Czech President Petr Pavel (L), Ukraine Deputy PM Okeksii Kuleba (R) (Photo: Social media)

Russia launched three waves of Shahed-type drones on Odessa during a visit to the city by Czech President Petr Pavel on 20 Mar. Three people were injured during the attack and civilian infrastructure was damaged. Last year Putin launched a missile strike on Odessa which landed danger-close to visiting Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

“The entire civilized world should see Russia’s crimes against Ukraine,” Ukraine Deputy PM Okeksii Kuleba said.

A UN report recently condemned Russian’s actions against the children of Ukraine:

“Between 24 Feb 2022 and 31 Dec 2024, 669 children were killed and 1,833 injured, many as a result of the extensive use of explosive weapons in populated areas. Of these, 521 were killed and 1,529 injured in territory controlled by Ukraine, and 148 were killed and 304 injured in currently occupied territory. The actual numbers are likely much higher. As of Dec 2024, an estimated 737,000 children had been internally displaced by the hostilities. A further 1.7 million were refugees, many of them separated from a parent, usually their father.” 

An international arrest warrant remains active for Russian President Vladimir Putin (and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu), despite Trumpf’s sanctions against the ICC.

Citations:

https://kyivindependent.com/russia-hits-odesa-with-drones-during-visit-of-czech-president-petr-pavel/

 www.dailymail.co.uk

https://www.unognewsroom.org/story/en/2591/un-report-details-devastating-impact-of-hostilities-on-children-in-ukraine

67,042 Afrikaners Interested in Trumpf Re-Settlement Plan

Afrikaners outside US Mission in South Africa. (Photo: Social media)

The US Embassy in South Africa received a list of 67,042 Afrikaners interested in refugee status under Trump’s plan to relocate them in the US. The list was given to the embassy by the South African Chamber of Commerce in the US, which said it became a point of contact for white South Africans asking about the program announced by the Trumpf administration last month. The chamber said the list does not constitute official applications.

South Africa has the second highest rate of gun ownership in Africa, so these Afrikaners will fit in perfectly with America. Red States like Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, or Texas will be perfect for them.

Citations:

https://apnews.com/article/trump-white-refugee-afrikaner-south-africa-0fbca411470d3b439886cabc12c7600d

za.usembassy.gov

Senior FBI Agent Arrested for Disclosing Confidential Records

Senior FBI SA Jonathan Buma (Undated photo from public domain)

A senior FBI agent has been charged with unlawfully taking and disclosing classified FBI files. Johnathan Buma, who specialized in national security and terror cases, has been released on $100,000 bond, with orders to appear in court in Los Angeles. Buma was arrested as he boarded an international flight at JFK airport in NY. He allegedly printed of caches of FBI records from an internal agency network. Nearly 130 files might have been compromised. A Trumpf critic, Buma previously testified to Congress about the political investigations (witch hunts) against Hunter Biden, as well as Russian oligarchs (see bottom link).

Citations:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/longtime-fbi-agent-charged-disclosing-classified-records/

www.documentcloud.org

US Warzone: Three Dead, 15 Wounded in New Mexico Mass Shooting

Three suspects, including two 17-year-old boys, have been arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder stemming from a mass shooting that left three teenagers dead and 15 other people injured at an unsanctioned car show at a park in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

In an average year, 507 people die and 821 are wounded by guns in New Mexico, which has the 9th-highest rate of gun violence in the US. The attack sounded like a warzone firefight:

US Army medic readying life-saving plasma.

Citations:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/new-mexico-police-investigating-mass-shooting-las-cruces/story?id=120052341

Black Bear Gently Closes Door With Mouth

Apparently these two know each other pretty well. This took place on 7 Mar 2025 in Bergenfield, NJ.

Russian Soldiers Glorify Murdering Unarmed Ukrainian Prisoners

Warning: Some Followers of the Watch may find the photos and video disturbing.

The Russians were eager to have the slaughter recorded. (Credit: East2West)

Russian soldiers filmed themselves shooting dead six Ukrainian prisoners of war in cold blood, audaciously proud of committing war crimes. Kiev has launched a criminal investigation and reported the sickening killings to the UN and Red Cross, insisting Russia cannot be allowed to brazenly flout the laws of war.

The Russian soldiers filmed themselves committing the illegal massacres of unarmed Ukrainians in the occupied Donetsk region. The POWs are seen lying face down on the ground in a wooded area next to a temporary hut. The Russians shoot at a drone flying overhead so it doesn’t film the heinous crimes they are about to commit.

Two Ukrainians kneel just before they are shot in the back. (Credit: East2West)

Three of the other prisoners lay on their fronts in the dirt and watched their friends murdered. (Credit: East2West)

Another soldier is forced to his feet and made to walk away with his hands up before being sprayed with bullets. (Credit: East2West)

Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets sent his findings to the UN and International Committee of the Red Cross:

“The Russian army has never been famous for its dignified treatment of prisoners of war, and here it once again demonstrates its helplessness and criminality. The lack of responsibility has turned the crime into a systematic one. We cannot turn a blind eye to this. Ukraine needs justice and responsibility for those who commit crimes and do not adhere to any norms.”

These are not the first war crimes Russian soldiers and Wagnerites have committed against Ukrainians. The ICC indicted and issued an international arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, but this is symbolic. Mongolia, an ICC signatory, did not arrest Putin when he visited Ulan Bator in late 2024. Donald Trump has signaled that he will be sanctioning the ICC to pressure them to remove the indictments against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin. After any future ceasefire is reached, there will be a new level of ethnic animus between Russians and Ukrainians following all of this bloodshed thanks to PIFWC Vladimir Putin and his willing accomplices.

Sources:

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3951841-russians-likely-execute-six-other-ukrainian-pows-ombudsman.html

https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-soliders-shot-disarmed-ukrainian-pows-filmed-execution/

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/401849

https://www.icc-cpi.int/defendant/netanyahu

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin-and

Israeli Cabinet Ministers Already Pushing to Continue Waging More War

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu– dubbed “Israel’s curse”– is facing pressure from within his cabinet. Hard-line coalition partners have threatened to topple the government if he does not resume Israel’s war in Gaza when a six-week ceasefire with Hamas expires. That could leave Netanyahu torn between his erstwhile allies at home and Donald Trump who says he wants to end the region’s wars. The “crime minister” is facing a nettlesome corruption trial that ensnared his wife Sara, an international arrest warrant for war crimes issued by the ICC, and a potential 9/11 Commission-style inquiry into his handling of the 7 Oct 2023 surprise attack by armed Palestinian groups. Those guerillas seized hostages in order to conduct a prisoner swap which has been taking place since the ceasefire.

Rightwing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said:

“If, God forbid, the war is not resumed, I will bring the government down.”

Mr. Smotrich, when one belligerent doesn’t have F16s, air-defense weapons, tanks, satellites, or world-class hospitals while the other side does, it’s not called war, it’s called ethnic cleansing. So the horrific Nakba wasn’t really about releasing the Israeli hostages, was it?

In addition, Bezalel Smotrich stated that Israel should occupy Gaza and “encourage” half of the Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinians to emigrate within two years. He would like the same in the West Bank.

Along that vein, the IDF has been conducting “counter terrorism operations” and Settlers are going on rampages against Palestinian homeowners and farmers in the West Bank. Israeli forces have killed 34 people, including six children so far this year. This is not new. Abuse against Palestinians in the West Bank has been going on for decades, regardless of whether there was a Democrat or Republican in the White House.

Do you wonder if this poor guy who had the temerity to throw stones at his oppressors is alive today? (Photo: 7 Oct 2015, Ramallah / AFP / ABBAS MOMANI)

So, where should these Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank go? Will they go to Jordan– which already hosts 2.2 million Palestinian refugees? Islamophobic America? And will they be compensated for their lost, destroyed, or seized homes?

White supremacist Christian Republicans certainly don’t want Muslims in the US and Trump is closing the door on non-white immigration. Would Democrats have accepted them? There are Democrats that blame the tiny 1.34% Muslim-American population for supposedly not supporting Kamala in 2024. (Even though Trump won only 21% of the Arab vote, Kamala 20%, and Stein 59%). Arab-Americans have become convenient scapegoats among some Democrats for Kamala Harris’ loss and what friends do Palestinians have in the Middle East?

Adjusting for inflation, US aid to Israel from 1951 to 2022 totaled $317.9 billion, making it the largest recipient of American foreign aid since World War II.

Hasn’t the hardworking American taxpayer– who doesn’t have universal healthcare like his Israeli counterpart– had enough of this fraud, waste, and abuse from his so-called ally?

Sources:

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-military-aid-does-the-us-give-to-israel/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-says-half-of-gazans-can-be-encouraged-to-leave-within-two-years/

https://www.aljazeera.com/

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-trump-ceasefire-gaza-f27c1dbbfba4bf268f5368aaceb47e29

https://www.newarab.com/analysis/how-smotrichs-west-bank-plan-actualises-second-nakba

Mexican Border States Prepare Migrant Shelters as Trump Begins Deportation Campaign

Workers begin the installation of a temporary shelter for possible deportees from the US in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Wednesday, 22 Jan 2025. (AP Photo / Christian Chavez)

Mexico raised sprawling tents on the US border Wednesday as it braced for President Donald Trump to fulfill his pledge to carry out mass deportations. In an empty lot tight against the border with El Paso, Texas, cranes lifted metal frames for tent shelters in Ciudad Juárez.

Enrique Serrano, an official in Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juárez is located, said the tents erected for Mexican deportees were just the initial phase of a potential larger operation, and something authorities would scale up if the number of migrants gathering on the border continued to mount. He suggested migrants from other countries expelled from the US would be relocated to Mexico City or southern regions of Mexico as they’ve done previously.

Nogales, Mexico — across from Nogales, Arizona — announced that it would build shelters on soccer fields and in a gymnasium. The border cities of Matamoros and Piedras Negras have launched similar efforts.

At a border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico, on Tuesday night, one man shouted to journalists that he was being deported in a group that was arrested that morning in farm fields near Denver. Another man said he was in a group that had been brought from Oregon. Everyone carried their belongings in a small orange bag.

As previously posted here on Coriolanus, the Mexican government began a program of intercepting and resettling migrants throughout their country before they could arrive at the US border. These refugees are escaping poverty, misery, violence, and the effects of global climate change.

Newly-elected Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum, as a thoughtful, compassionate leader, was prepared for the Fuhrer and his cruelties. She had a plan ready: “México te abraza.”

President Sheinbaum’s “México te abraza,” or “Mexico embraces you” program includes welfare support for deportees, registration with the Mexican Social Security Institute, and transport so that returning migrants “can reach their places of origin.” (Photo: Moisés Pablo / Cuartoscuro)

At Trump’s inaugural convocation on 20 Jan 2025, the Episcopalian Bishop of Washington, the Right Reverend Mariann Budde, issued a scathing sermon about mercy and compassion to the oligarchal Trump Crime Family (TCF). Like hostages with no chance of escape, the TCF was forced to remain in their pews and listen to her, so they sat dumbfounded and squirmed. Look at Trump’s posture and the First Lady’s icy-cold expression. Priceless.

Sources:

https://apnews.com/article/mexico-us-trump-border-migrants-f3e5daf10f550e871bfe98b29950bc6a

https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-01-14/mexico-has-a-plan-sheinbaum-addresses-uncertainty-a-week-before-trump-returns-to-the-white-house.html

Space Chorus Detected from Unexpected Source

Bursts of electromagnetic radiation that share similarities with birdsong have long been observed close to Earth. A detection farther out in space confirms a key part of the theory of their origin, but also poses questions.

Chorus waves play a leading role in the formation of aurora borealis. (Photo: OWEN HUMPHERYS – PA IMAGES)

From Nature:

“In the 1960s, scientists at the Halley Research Station in Antarctica began hearing mysterious waves originating over the Earth’s equator. Their radio receivers were picking up intense bursts of electrons shaking the magnetosphere, the layer created by Earth’s magnetic field that protects life from space radiation. When these signals were converted into sound, they produced a whistling sound that could be mistaken for the chirping of birds at dawn.”

Different types of plasma waves triggered by various mechanisms, occupy different regions of space around Earth. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith

“Later, it was discovered that this chorus is also heard on Saturn and Jupiter, and it was thought that it was governed by the magnetic field generated by the planets between their poles. The origin of this spatial trill is usually found close to them, in the case of Earth less than 51,000 kilometers (31,690 miles) above its surface. Now, a team has published a study in the journal Nature, the results of which suggest that it can also be located much further away, in deep space.”

“For more than 70 years, scientists have believed that chorus waves can only be generated in regions close to planets where a dipolar magnetic field is present, which has been proposed as the key factor controlling the generation and propagation of chorus waves,” explains Chengming Liu, a researcher at the School of Earth and Space Sciences at Beihang University in Beijing, China, and one of the leaders of the study. “In our paper, we present an unexpected observation of chorus waves far from Earth, where a dipolar magnetic field is absent, and reveal a fundamental mechanism for chorus wave generation, which can operate anywhere in space.”

“The discovery is of scientific interest, but also of practical interest. Chorus waves can cause radiation that is dangerous for astronauts or satellites, and knowing in detail how they are produced would allow us to predict their occurrence and apply protective measures. “Chorus waves are some of the most intense waves in space. They can accelerate electrons to ultra-high energies and therefore cause radiation that affects humans and electromagnetic devices on spacecraft,” explains Liu. “Just as we worry about rain and wind on the Earth’s surface, we should worry about weather in space,” he points out.”

These are Juno Waves recorded from the Planet Jupiter:

Sources:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04211-6

https//www.nasa.gov

‘Dignity for All’: Idaho Bill Proposes Firing Squad as State’s Primary Execution Method

Firing squad executing a prisoner, circa 1890. (Vintage Images / Getty Images)

Eleven months after Idaho failed to execute a prisoner for the first time ever using lethal injection, Republican lawmakers have their targets set on using a firing squad as the state’s primary execution method. State Rep. Bruce Skaug (R-Nampa) introduced the bill which would make Idaho the only US state to give preference to a firing squad. Skaug sponsored a bill that became law in 2023 that added back the firing squad as a backup method of execution in the state, but only when lethal injection is not possible because of a lack of execution drugs.

Humanitarian and all-round good guy State Rep. Bruce Skaug (R-Nampa) who heinously introduced the firing squad bill. (Undated photo via the public domain).

The Idaho Department of Correction has since had more consistent access to pentobarbital, the state’s preferred chemical for lethal injections. The state prison system most recently bought a batch of the drugs in Oct 2024, court records showed. But nearly two years later — and after state prison officials failed to find a suitable vein for an IV in the body of 73-year-old death row prisoner Thomas Creech — Skaug now hopes to ensure that prisoners on Idaho’s nine-member death row are shot to death. Lethal injection would become the state’s backup method. In South Carolina any of the 30 death row inmates may request firing squad if lethal injection is unavailable.

Idaho’s death row at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution near Kuna houses male prisoners sentenced to death. Female death row inmates are housed at the Women’s Correctional Center in Pocatello. (Photo: Idaho Department of Correction)

Remarkable, the day after Bishop Mariann Budde chastises President Trump to have more compassion and show mercy, this avuncular-looking miscreant wants to enshrine capital punishment rather than ban it. This Kentucky Fried Chicken Colonel Sanders doppelganger– Bruce Skaug– is my candidate for Worst Person of the World.

What would Kentucky-bred Colonel Sanders say about his evil twin in Idaho?

Sources:

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/northwest/idaho/article298915055.html

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/south-carolina-firing-squad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_death_row_inmates_in_the_United_States

Spain: Increased Cases of Hepatitis A in 2024

Spain is facing a worrying situation: 894 confirmed cases of hepatitis A mark the largest increase in cases in a decade. This unexpected viral outbreak raises questions about current public health measures. The highest number of cases occurred in Andalusia, Madrid, and Catalonia.

Map courtesy of worldatlas.com.

Below are the regions with the highest number of reported cases:

  • Andalusia: 166 cases
  • Madrid: 161 cases
  • Catalonia: 114 cases
  • Balearic Islands: High infection rate
  • Basque Country and Canary Islands: Notable increase

The high rate of infection in these areas underscores the need to strengthen preventive and control measures. The hepatitis A virus is spread mainly by fecal-oral transmission, which highlights the need to maintain high standards of personal and collective hygiene.

How many times have you seen someone exit the water closet without their hands? Coriolanus witnessed this too many times. On one occasion in a large metropolitan shopping mall, your author witnessed one such miscreant walk out of the thunder closet, pull up his pants, and exit the latrine without washing his hands. Coriolanus followed the neanderthal who went behind the counter of a bagel shop to resume work! Your humble author alerted two nearby constables who merely shrugged their shoulders and replied that no crime was committed (other than potentially spreading hepatitis A or other awful diseases to the public). That baker should have been beaten in place, then court-martialed.

Source:

Spain registers a large increase in cases of hepatitis A

Wagner Group Accused of Plotting Attacks on Chevron’s African Pipelines, Cooperating with Al Qaeda

The Kremlin’s new Afrika Korps. Wagnerites have been implicated in committing war crimes in Africa.

The Wagner Group has been accused of plotting attacks against Western infrastructure in Africa, including the US oil company Chevron’s pipelines, according to the leaked correspondence of Prigozhin’s Concord Group obtained by Ukraine’s Channel 24. Another accusation is that Wagner mercenaries have allegedly cooperated with terrorists, including Al Qaeda, in Africa. The obtained emails also shed light on a scandal involving food poisoning allegedly caused by the Concord Group.

The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify the information.

In March 2021, Igor Smirnov wrote an email to Prigozhin’s Concord Group, saying that retired Russian officers were expected to take part in attacks on foreign infrastructure facilities in West Africa.

Smirnov, allegedly a former Russian intelligence officer who allegedly worked for oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was attempting to frame or warn the group. He claimed that “a group of Russians is contacting many armed groups in West Africa, including Ansaru, an Al Qaeda affiliate in Nigeria.”

“In exchange for attacks on Western oil companies, jihadists are helping to arm militants in the Niger Delta under a direct agreement with the Russians,” Smirnov said. “After the first attacks on Western companies, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb will take responsibility for that.”

Apart from military activities, the correspondence covers Concord Group’s food procurement schemes. In 2019, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s team exposed Concord Group’s low-quality food deliveries to schools and kindergartens in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which resulted in the poisoning of hundreds of children.

Amid the scandal, many parents sent emails to Concord Group and demanded compensation.

In response to the accusations, in August 2019, Prigozhin accused Navalny and his associate Lyubov Sobol of orchestrating the poisoning, according to the leaked correspondence. He claimed that Navalny and Sobol “extorted 300 million rubles ($3 million) to avoid stirring up a scandal regarding the children.”

These accusations fit the modus operandi of the Kremlin and the Wagner Group. Create chaos, then arrive with a solution (Wagnerites). 127 confirmed cases of food poisoning were blamed on Yevgeny Prigozhin who had to pay compensation and poor Alexei Navalny died later in a Siberian gulag. Prigozhin himself would die in a mysterious aviation disaster after an explosive detonated while his plane was in mid-flight. This coincidence occurred after his failed coup d’etat against Vladimir Putin.

Sources:

https://kyivindependent.com/prigozhins-wagner-group-accused-of-plotting-attacks-on-chevron-cooperating-with-al-qaeda-leaked-emails-show/

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/11/01/putins-chef-ordered-to-pay-for-mass-child-poisonings-a68014

Roadrunner Brings His Rescuer Gifts Every Day

Canada: Indian Home Minister Amit Shah Behind Anti-Sikh Campaign

(Undated photo of Amit Shah: PTI)

Canadian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison told Parliament that Indian Home Minister Amit Shah ordered a campaign of violence, intimidation and intelligence-gathering targeting Sikh separatists inside Canada. Morrison did not elaborate on how Canada knew of Shah’s alleged involvement.

PM Justin Trudeau said a year ago that Canada had credible evidence agents of the Indian government were involved in the murder of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia in June 2023. Canadian authorities have repeatedly said they have shared evidence of that with Indian authorities.

Indian government officials have repeatedly denied Canada has provided evidence and have called the allegations absurd. India’s embassy in Ottawa didn’t immediately respond to messages for a request for comment on the allegation against Shah.

On 14 Oct, Canada expelled the Indian high commissioner and five other diplomats, alleging they were persons of interest in multiple cases of coercion, intimidation and violence aimed at quieting a campaign for an independent Sikh state known as Khalistan.

Canada is not the only country that has accused Indian officials of plotting an assassination on foreign soil. The FBI announced criminal charges in mid-October against an Indian government employee in connection with an alleged foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in NYC.

Vikash Yadav, who authorities say directed the NYC plot from India, faces murder-for-hire charges in a planned killing that prosecutors have previously said was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the US and Canada.

Nathalie Drouin, Trudeau’s national security adviser, said Canada has evidence the Indian government first gathered information on Indian nationals and Canadian citizens in Canada through diplomatic channels and proxies.

She said the information was then passed to the government in New Delhi, which allegedly works with a criminal network affiliated with Lawrence Bishnoi.

Bishnoi is currently in prison in India, but Drouin said his vast criminal network has been linked to homicides, assassination plots, coercion and other violent crimes in Canada.

Before the RCMP went public with allegations that Indian diplomats were persons of interest in criminal investigations, Drouin said there was an effort to work with the Indian government to ensure accountability, but it became evident the Indian government would not cooperate with Canada

The RCMP took the extraordinary step of talking publicly about ongoing investigations because of threats to public safety. The Indian government denies the allegations and has expelled six Canadian diplomats in return.

Hardeep Nijjar Singh (45) was fatally shot in his pickup truck after he left the Sikh temple he led in Surrey, BC. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland. Four Indian nationals living in Canada were charged with Niijar’s murder and are awaiting trial.

Where Khalistan would be were it a country. Approximately 21,000,000 Sikhs live in India, the majority in Punjab State (16,000,000); 16,000 Sikhs reside in Pakistan; nearly 772,000 Sikhs call Canada their home.

There are probably less than 100 Sikhs remaining in Afghanistan. (Photo: Andrew Scheer)

The idea of creating an independent Sikh homeland (Khalistan) has existed for decades. When India became independent, Hindus had a homeland (India) and Muslims carved out a homeland (West and East Pakistan), but Sikhs were left out.  The chances of achieving an independent Sikh state are as remote as an independent Kurdistan emerging in the Middle East. But brutal Indian repression of Sikhs will fill the ranks of their many pro-secession organizations.

India Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1983.

At the height of Sikh extremism in the 1980s, on 31 Oct 1984 (today), Indira Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi by her two personal security guards Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, both Sikhs, in retaliation for Operation Blue Star. And in June 1985, Canada suffered its worst terrorist incident when Sikh terrorists bombed Air India Flight 182 killing 268 Canadians, 27 Brits, and 22 Indians.

As previously posted here on Coriolanus, we see the murderous regime of Indian PM Nahendra Modi at work. He is following the playbook of any rightwing despot, like Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, North Korean supremo Kim Jong-Un, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping: eliminate enemies of the state. But as GOP Presidential candidate NYS Governor Thomas E. Dewey said in 1948: “You can’t shoot an idea with a gun.”

Baltej Singh Dhillon made history as the first turbaned Sikh officer in the RCMP. (Undated photo).

Sources:

Canada alleges Indian Home Minister Amit Shah ordered campaign targeting Sikh separatists – ABC News (go.com)

Statement by the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs on the RCMP’s findings regarding criminal activity in Canada with connections to agents of the Government of India – Canada.ca

China Declares Success: Youngest Astronauts Reach Space

Taikonauts (L-R) Wang Haoze, Song Lingdong and Cai Xuzhe before the launch (Photo: EFE)

A Chinese spacecraft with a three-person crew, including the country’s first female space engineer, has docked after a journey of more than six hours.

The crew will use the homegrown space station as a base for six months to conduct experiments and carry out spacewalks as Beijing gathers experience and intelligence for its eventual mission to put someone on the Moon by 2030.

Beijing declared the launch of Shenzhou-19 a “complete success” – it is one of 100 launches China has planned in a record year of space exploration as it tries to outdo its rival, the US.

The BBC was given rare access to the Jiuquan Satellite launch center in Gansu and we were just over a kilometer away when the spacecraft blasted off.

Flames shot out of the rocket launcher as it took to the skies, lighting up the Gobi Desert with a deafening roar.

Hundreds of people lined the streets, waving and cheering the names of the taikonauts, China’s word for astronauts, as they were sent off.

At the Tiangong space station, the Shenzhou-19 crew met with three other astronauts who are manning the Shenzhou-18 and will return to Earth on 4 Nov.

Just two years ago, President Xi Jinping declared that “to explore the vast cosmos, develop the space industry and build China into a space power is our eternal dream.”

But some in Washington see the country’s ambition and fast-paced progress as a real threat.

Earlier this year, NASA chief Bill Nelson said the US and China were “in effect, in a race” to return to the Moon, where he fears Beijing wants to stake territorial claims.

D/NASA told Congress that he believed Beijing’s civilian space program is camouflaging a military program.

This Chinese space plane can reportedly travel at hypersonic speed.

While the US wasted trillions of dollars and American military lives in the beginning of the 21st century waging two wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, China quietly and steadily used their immense resources wisely to begin their conquest of space. Meanwhile, NASA has contracted out a large portion of its space program to zillionarie megalomaniac Elon Musk, a man in secret contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin. To read more of this South African’s nefarious activities, please see previous posts from Coriolanus.

Source:

China declares success as its youngest astronauts reach space (bbc.com)

Over Hatred, Three Youngsters Flush Their Lives Away; Two in US, One in UK

As China is sending their youth into the cosmos, the US and UK sent three youngsters into the dumpster.

First, the UK.

Axel Muganwa Rudakubana (18) and his three child victims.

A teenager accused of killing three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class for young children in the United Kingdom has been charged with possessing an al Qaeda training manual and ricin poison.

Axel Muganwa Rudakubana (18) already faces three murder charges, ten counts of attempted murder and one count of knife possession. The new charges were filed under the UK’s Terrorism Act.

The poison and PDF study, “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The al Qaeda Training Manual,” were found during a search of Rudakubana’s home. 

Tests later confirmed the substance found was ricin. The risk of exposure to the public was low said the UK Health Security Agency and there was no evidence that any victims, first responders, or members of the public were exposed to ricin.

Rudakubana allegedly committed the 29 July stabbing spree that killed three girls — Alice Dasilva Aguiar (9), Elsie Dot Stancombe (7), and Bebe King (6) – and injured several others, in Southport, a town north of Liverpool. Merseyside Police did not declare the events a terror incident because no motive has been determined, authorities said during a news conference in Liverpool. 

(Map: Courtesy of getthedata.com)

His victims: (L-R) Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar were killed during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event. The teen suspect faces numerous charges related to the slaying.  (Photos: Merseyside Police)

Rudakubana‘s attacks sparked widespread protests and riots across the country amid inaccurate reports the suspect was an asylum seeker. A police van burns as an unruly crowd clashed with police 30 Jul 2024, in Southport, northwest England, near where three girls were stabbed to death in a dance class. (Richard McCarthy/PA via AP)

Rudakubana was born in England to Rwandan parents. Despite being a minor at the time of the stabbings, a judge lifted restrictions that prevented the reporting of his name. 

Rudakubana, obviously in need of intensive psychiatric care, killed three innocent children who had just barely begun their lives. Too bad UK authorities weren’t able to intervene before his stabbing spree and indoctrination into al-Qaida. Now he has caused irreparable harm to three families forced to bury their daughters. His actions also led to riots, arson, and looting against innocent immigrants in the UK.    

Now, the US.

Neptune Beach Florida Police arrested braces-wearing Caleb James Williams (18) who was wielding a machete with an 18-inch blade outside a polling station in Florida as part of a mob of teenagers accused of intimidating Democratic supporters. The US election is mere days away.

Williams was arrested on charges of aggravated assault for allegedly brandishing his weapon at two unidentified women, ages 71 and 54, and improper exhibition of a weapon.

We cannot see acme-prone 18-year-old Caleb James Williams braces as he is not smiling in his mugshot. (Neptune Beach Florida Police Dept)

While his high school classmates are enjoying Florida State University, Caleb will be enjoying Florida State Penitentiary in a few months.

In NYC, a 23-year-old woman was indicted on hate crime and assault charges for pepper spraying a 45-year-old Uber driver in an anti-Muslim attack in NYC. As the Uber driver approached a red light, he began praying in Arabic. Jennifer Guilbeault lunged forward toward the driver’s seat, holding a can of pepper spray. The idiot sprayed Shohel Mahmoud in the face, causing burning, redness and pain.

Jennifer Guilbeault pepper spraying Shohel Mahmoud (Image: Social media)

Thousands of young people drown every year trying get to the US, Australia, Canada, or the EU for a chance at a better life; some just want to live one more day. Those young migrants would have loved to have just one-tenth of the breaks privileged Caleb and Jennifer had growing up in the US.

In 2023, at least 8,565 people died on migration routes worldwide according to the IOM. Undated photo of unfortunate refugees courtesy of the Vatican News Service.

The charges against Caleb James Williams and Jennifer Guilbeault are merely allegations and both defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

All three of these youngsters (between 18 and 23) have flushed away their lives over hatred, stupidity, and/or mental illness. Muganwa Rudakubana will most likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. But Caleb James Williams and Jennifer Guilbeault will one day be released from prison, assuming the two will be convicted and imprisoned for their felonies. But police records, like the internet, are forever, GOP VPOTUS candidate JD Vance is finding out now. Who would ever hire, date, matriculate into higher education, or marry Jennifer and Caleb?  

Sources:

UK teen charged in stabbing found with al Qaeda material, poison, police say | Fox News

Teen Accused in U.K. Taylor Swift Dance Class Stabbing Charged With Terror Offenses – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Florida Teen Wielded Machete Outside Polling Station (politicalwire.com)

https://manhattanda.org/d-a-bragg-announces-hate-crimes-indictment-of-woman-for-pepper-spraying-uber-driver-on-the-upper-east-side/

America’s Defense Contractors Failing Basic Cybersecurity Which China is Exploiting

A new report from Merrill Research states that only four percent of defense contractors are fully prepared to meet the DoD minimum cybersecurity requirements known as the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC). These requirements represent basic cyber hygiene, not cutting-edge tools — yet the vast majority of contractors fail to meet even these minimum standards.

The US faces an unprecedented and persistent cyber threat, particularly from China. Recently, hackers linked to Beijing breached several US internet service providers in an attack dubbed Salt Typhoon. This latest intrusion is part of a broader wave of sophisticated cyber campaigns orchestrated by China, including Volt Typhoon and Flax Typhoon, which have penetrated critical sectors ranging from energy to telecommunications.

D/FBI Christopher Wray bluntly stated, “China’s hacking program is larger than that of every other major nation, combined.”

The gap between what Americans believe about the security of our defense contractors and the grim reality exposed by the Merrill report should alarm everyone.

The CMMC is the digital equivalent of locking your doors at night. Multi-factor authentication and patch management are fundamental requirements, yet the Merrill report shows that only 21% of defense contractors use multi-factor authentication, which most civilians need to log into their social media accounts, and a dismal 15% have implemented patch management, which ensures that software vulnerabilities are regularly updated.

The disconnect between belief and reality is stark. While 75% of contractors believe they are compliant, their reported cybersecurity readiness tells a different story. The average Supplier Performance Risk System score across surveyed contractors is a staggering -12, far below the required 110 to meet CMMC standards. This isn’t just a compliance failure; it’s a national security crisis.

If these contractors — many of them responsible for safeguarding classified data and developing our military’s most advanced technology — are this unprepared, what does that say about the rest of the US critical infrastructure? 

The defense industrial base is one of 16 critical infrastructure sectors in the US, alongside other essential industries like energy, healthcare, and financial services. These sectors are integral to the functioning of our nation.

The Salt Typhoon, Volt Typhoon, and Flax Typhoon attacks highlight just how deeply Chinese cyber operatives are infiltrating that critical infrastructure. According to the USIC, China’s ultimate goal is to disrupt America’s ability to respond to military crises, particularly in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. Chinese hackers could paralyze our power grids, disrupt water systems, or compromise defense communications.

Contractors that remain non-compliant could be shut out from future DoD contracts and subject to False Claims Act penalties if they had previously attested to being compliant. Now that the DOD has aligned contractor profit incentives with national security interests, there may be fewer breaches like Salt Typhoon. 

The Chinese government has demonstrated its intent and capability to exploit any weaknesses in America’s critical infrastructure and contractors must recognize that cybersecurity is more than just a regulatory box to check.

As we read above, China is making tremendous strides into space thanks to Research and Development (R & D), but also thanks to espionage, hacking, and intellectual property theft.

Sources:

info.cybersheath.com/eBook-Third-Annual-Merrill-Research-Report-op-ed?utm_source=media_outlet_NextGov_FCW&utm_medium=article_op-ed&utm_campaign=merrill_research_report

America’s defense contractors are failing basic cybersecurity and China is exploiting it – Nextgov/FCW

Spain Battles Deadliest Flooding Disaster in Decades as Death Toll Rises

Spain deployed more than 1,000 troops to help with rescue efforts but many crews remain cut-off from towns by flooded roads and downed communication and power lines.

Spain is enduring its worst flooding disaster in decades with at least 95 people dead and dozens more missing after huge rains swept the eastern province of Valenica and beyond.

Torrential rain triggered flash floods which swept away bridges and buildings and forced people to climb onto roofs or cling to trees to survive.

President Pedro Sánchez has declared three days of national mourning as the wild conditions continue, restricting some rescue efforts.

The death toll is feared to climb as “many people are still missing.”

The churning floodwaters swept away hundreds of cars in Valencia. Guillermo Serrano Pérez (21) said the water had rushed down a highway “like a tsunami” forcing him and his parents to abandon their car and climb onto a bridge to survive. (Photo: AP)

In his national address, President Sanchez urged citizens to remain vigilant and pledged a full recovery, telling victims: “The whole of Spain weeps with you… we won’t abandon you”.

His government is yet to make an explicit link between the “unprecedented” extreme weather and climate change but scientists tell the BBC it is clear that global temperature rise made the downpours worse.

One of the first-hit towns near Valencia, Chiva, reported one year’s worth of rainfall in just a period of eight hours according to national weather agency Aemet.

As Spanish army and emergency crews rushed to carry out rescues on Wednesday morning- including winching people to safety from balconies and car rooftops- survivors in Valencia recounted the horror of the floods on Tuesday night.

Sudden surges turned streets and roads into rivers- catching many motorists unaware.

Source:

Scores dead after torrential rain in Spain’s Valencia region (bbc.com)

Oregon: First Case of Avian Flu Found in Pig

A severe form of bird flu has been detected for the first time in a pig on a small unidentified farm in Crook County in central Oregon.

The same strain – highly pathogenic avian influenza – has turned up in backyard and commercial flocks across the US. Hundreds of cows have also been infected, along with some people who worked around the infected animals.

Two of the latest cases of human infection were announced last week in Washington state. The CDC confirmed that two people working in a commercial egg farm in Franklin County in south-central Washington were infected.

But this is the first time the virus has crossed over to pigs. The National Veterinary Services Laboratories confirmed the presence of the strain in one of five pigs on the farm. Results on the other four pigs are pending. The testing can take a little while because the CDC analyzes the DNA of the virus.

The farm also has backyard birds that became infected. State and national officials humanely euthanized all 70 of the birds and the five pigs to prevent further spread of the disease. None of the meat entered the food supply chain – it is not a commercial farm – and it was not intended for retail.

The discovery of the virus in pigs potentially could be a concern in Iowa, the top pork-producing state in the country. But Chris Rademache, a clinical professor in the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine, was not worried by the Oregon case.

“This is a very unique case,” Rademache said.

Rademache said the situation in Oregon involved a backyard pig, not intended for consumption, which was in close contact with poultry and domestic waterfowl, which is “a very different situation” than a hog farming operation.

He said pork producers are aware of the need to separate poultry and hogs, and they “do a good job” of that. Additionally, Rademache said the state has a “robust” monitoring and testing program to catch any sort of outbreak.

“Pork continues to be safe to eat,” Rademache said.

Oregonians raise about 3,000 pigs every year and at least one just became infected with bird flu. (Photo courtesy of Oregon Department of Agriculture)

The property was quarantined and state officials are conducting surveillance at the site. The agriculture department also has provided the owners with protective gear to avoid further infection, and officials are educating and monitoring the exposed individuals.

State officials didn’t say how many people might have been exposed. Many people develop mild respiratory symptoms, including a runny nose, sore throat and cough. People can also get conjunctivitis – or “pink eye.” Some people who’ve been infected have become severely ill and have required hospitalization.

The current strain of the virus that’s circulating in the US and worldwide is endemic in wild birds, causing outbreaks in poultry, wild mammals, including seals and sea lions, along with domestic animals and dairy cows. Avian flu has been confirmed in dairy cattle in 14 states, including California and Idaho. Oregon has not had any cases in dairy cattle. The number of cases of human infections is relatively low.

Food safety officials recommend properly cooking meat and eggs to kill the virus along with other harmful bugs like E. coli, which can be deadly. The CDC also recommends pasteurizing milk and dairy products to kill pathogens. Check the USDA website for food safety tips.

State officials expect the measures taken at the farm will end the outbreak, but they advised others to take precautions to prevent their animals from becoming infected.

Source:

First case of bird flu in pig discovered on small Oregon farm (yahoo.com)

Kazakh Experts Sound Alarm Over Mysterious Mass Deaths of Caspian Seals

The Caspian Sea, bordered by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan, is rich in oil and gas reserves.

The unexplained deaths of scores of Caspian seals in Kazakhstan’s Manghystau region is raising alarm bells among local authorities and scientists.

As of 29 Oct 289 seal carcasses had been found along the coastline over the previous five days, prompting urgent monitoring efforts by the Interregional Fishery Inspection of the Ural-Caspian Basin and experts from the Institute of Hydrobiology and Ecology.

Seal researcher Asel Baimuqanova said some of the dead seals showed signs of trauma. Although the exact cause of death remains unclear, Baimuqanova noted that several seals were pregnant, adding urgency to the investigation.

(Undated photo: RFE/RL)

Caspian seals are the only marine mammals in the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland body of water. Once numbering over a million in the early 20th century, their population has now dwindled to an estimated 70,000 due to overhunting and pollution.

Since late September, dedicated scientific teams have conducted daily inspections along the Tupqaraghan Peninsula’s western coast to investigate the unexplained surge in mortality rates.

The discovery of the dead seals follows a similar event in April, when 27 seal carcasses were found in the area, which was attributed to storm-related beaching. Authorities suspect those seals may have died at sea before washing ashore.

Pollution from hydrocarbon extraction and declining water levels have been threatening both local species and the sea’s ecological future, according to experts.

Animal die-offs sometimes remain a mystery to researchers, whether it’s a flock of birds found dead or whales beaching themselves. Pesticides and poisons have been attributed to some bird die-offs and sonar interference may contribute to whale beachings. Necropsies will reveal whether poisons, pollution, or pathogens killed these poor creatures.

Source:

Kazakh Experts Sound Alarm Over Mysterious Mass Deaths Of Caspian Seals (rferl.org)

Beautiful Black Halloween Cat Has Most Unique Orange Eyes

After Killing Palestinian Resistance Leader, IDF Continues Special Military Operation in Gaza

Palestinian children line up for food in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, 17 Oct 2024. A UN-backed assessment has found some 345,000 Gazans face “catastrophic” levels of hunger this winter.

Israel conducted raids on Gaza on Friday, pressing its yearlong war to crush the Palestinians after killing resistance leader Yahya Sinwar. Like Osama bin-Laden who should have faced justice in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) for the 9/11 attacks on the US, Sinwar too was killed without judicial process.  

According to Gaza’s civil defense agency, rescuers recovered the bodies of three Palestinian children from the rubble of their home in the north of the territory after it was hit at dawn. The IDF is pressing its operation in Jabalia, where air and drone strikes killed at least 14 people on Thursday.

With the civilian toll in Gaza mounting, Israel has faced criticism over its conduct of the war, including from the US. Israel’s Nakba campaign and free the hostages seized by Palestinian fighters has killed 42,438 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, women, and children. Several more nations have cut diplomatic ties with Jerusalem and an American journalist suggested Israel be expelled from the UN because of its brutal pogrom against the Palestinians and for declaring UNGA Secretary-General António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres persona non grata.

These Israelis joyously celebrate the news of the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar at a southern kibbutz, 17 Oct 2024. Note the elation on the faces of the celebrants, unaware of twice-GOP Presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey’s famous words, “You can’t shoot an idea with a gun,” as if the IDF killing of one man erases Palestinian nationalism. Urbane Israelis in Ramat Aviv or Haifa wonder how much taxes these kibbutzers pay or whether they ever served in the IDF like them (Photo: AP)

Sources:

Israel conducts raids on Gaza after killing Hamas chief Sinwar (voanews.com)

Moldovan Police Arrest ‘Provocateurs’ Trained in Russia, Balkans

Moldova has a population of 3,599,528 people comprised of these ethnic groups: Moldovan 75.1%, Romanian 7%, Ukrainian 6.6%, Gagauz 4.6%, Russian 4.1%, Bulgarian 1.9%, other 0.8% (2014 est.), GDP per capita: $15,700 (2023 est.) Map and information: CIA.

Moldovan authorities exposed a network of more than 100 people trained in Russia and the Balkans to provoke post-election unrest. Four suspects were arrested and placed in pretrial custody for 30 days following extensive searches by police and Moldova’s Intelligence and Security Service (SIS).

Pro-Western President Maia Sandu is running for a second term on 20 Oct in an election that takes place simultaneously with a referendum to decide whether Moldovans want their impoverished country of 2.5 million people to pursue integration into the EU.

The pro-Kremlin network was financed by Russia-friendly fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor, who is wanted in Moldova for his involvement in the theft of some $1 billion from the impoverished ex-Soviet republic’s banking system about a decade ago.

Authorities released hidden-camera videos purporting to depict training sessions in Russia, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In one video, young people standing on a stage in what appears to be a training hall mock a protest and chant slogans such as “Our language is Russian,” “No dual citizenship,” and “We don’t want to be in Europe.” Another video purportedly shows a training camp said to be in the Balkans where young men are appear to be learning how to make explosives and pilot drones.

The investigators said the approximately 100 young people who took part in the alleged training were around 20 years old. They started traveling to Russia in June and some of them underwent additional training at camps in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina belonging to Russian mercenary groups Ferma and Wagner. Among the coordinators of the action is Konstantin Potyomkin, who has ties with the notorious Wagner group. SIS chief Alexandru Musteata said Moldovan authorities “have the situation under control,” and the degree of risk regarding possible destabilization is now “low.”

Under Sandu’s government, Moldova secured EU candidate status in 2022 and opened accession talks with the bloc earlier this year after siding with Ukraine following Russia’s unprovoked invasion, in a radical U-turn toward the West and away from Moscow’s decades-long influence.

The two polls are seen as crucial for the future of the former Soviet republic and come amid a hybrid campaign of disinformation employed by Russia to scare Moldovans away from the EU and keep them in Moscow’s orbit.

Moldovan and several Western governments have warned that Russia and Shor plan to organize mass unrest if the elections and the referendum will have results contrary to the Kremlin’s liking. Russia’s eventual goal is to bring in a pro-Moscow government in Chisinau, which seems to be thwarted for now.

Sources:

Moldovan Police Arrest ‘Provocateurs’ Trained In Russia, Balkans (rferl.org)

Russia Pressures Central Asian Prisoners to Fight in Ukraine as ‘Expendable Force’

The Sakharovo migration center in Moscow (Photo: AP)

A 24-year-old migrant worker from Kyrgyzstan, Eleman enlisted in the military at a Russian prison in 2023 with the promise of parole, big money, and Russian citizenship in return for six months of combat in Ukraine. In jail for drug trafficking, he was sent to the front line after just a few days of training.

Eleman was forced to remain on the battlefield even after his contract had ended despite being wounded. His father said:


“If you’re alive and can shoot, it’s enough for them to send you to the combat zone.”


Eleman was finally discharged from the military earlier this year after he sustained even more severe injuries that left him disabled.  Eleman is one of thousands of inmates in Russia who were recruited to fight in Ukraine as Moscow struggles to replenish its depleting forces while trying to avoid another unpopular mobilization.

Russia’s Defense Ministry began enlisting inmates in early 2023, taking over from the notorious Wagner mercenary group that started the prisoner-recruitment scheme in July 2022 — five months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Wagner had enlisted nearly 50,000 prisoners — 20 percent of whom were killed in Ukraine — as of May 2023, according to the group’s founder, Evgeniy Prigozhin. Prigozhin fell out of favor with the Kremlin before dying in a suspicious plane crash in Aug 2023.

The Defense Ministry has expanded the practice of recruiting inmates to the extent that dozens of penal colonies in Russia were emptied and closed. Pretrial-detention facilities and immigration-detention centers — which hold hundreds of migrant workers mainly from Central Asian countries have become recruitment hubs. Russian officials have made prison conditions unbearably harsh and inhumane in an effort to pressure inmates into joining the military.

“They keep you in a cold cell, you sleep on the floor with just a pillow underneath you holding plastic bottles filled with hot water to keep warm,” is how one Kyrgyz inmate described his bleak life in a prison in central Russia.

The father of another Kyrgyz inmate incarcerated in the Sverdlovsk region said his son told him that prisoners “had to drink their own urine after being kept in isolation for days without food or water.”

Once recruited into the military, the convicts are treated as an expendable force, with little consideration for their lives and are often thrown onto the front line with just a few days of military training.

Kyrgyzstan says some 1,500 Kyrgyz nationals are serving time in Russian prisons, most of them accused of drug trafficking. The number of Tajik inmates and detainees in Russia was estimated at about 10,000 before the Ukraine invasion. The exact number of Central Asian prisoners in Russia is unknown. Nor is it clear how many Central Asian inmates were recruited to war from Russian prisons.


Kyrgyzstan has repatriated about 100 of its nationals from Russian prisons to serve the remainder of their sentences in Kyrgyzstan. About 500 other such requests by Bishkek have been rejected by Russian authorities.

This cynical Kremlin strategy provides the Russian military with cannon-fodder for the front line against Ukraine while simultaneously depopulating itself of minorities (non-Slavic Muslims). Over a century ago, rumors spread that an abnormally high amount of the Czar’s casualties in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) also came from minority groups, particularly at Port Arthur. But this is strictly anecdotal. And note North Korea sent troops to fight against Russia. ROK CIA (NIS) reported that 1,500 SOF personnel are being readied for combat in an unspecified location in Russia.     

Source:

Russia Pressures Central Asian Prisoners To Fight In Ukraine As ‘Expendable Force’ (rferl.org)

US Treasury Sanctions Chinese Drone Makers

The Garpiya has been deployed by Russia in its brutal war against Ukraine, destroying critical infrastructure and causing mass casualties.

The US imposed sanctions on two Chinese companies and an affiliated Russian company involved in making and shipping drones that Russia has used in its full-scale war in Ukraine.

The two Chinese companies designated by the US Treasury Department are Xiamen Limbach Aircraft Engine Company, and the Redlepus Vector Industry Shenzhen.

Xiamen Limbach Aircraft Engine Company makes an engine that powers Russia’s Garpiya series long-range unmanned aerial vehicles. Redlepus Vector Industry Shenzhen is involved in shipping the attack drones.

A Russian national and company affiliated with the two Chinese companies were also designated in the sanctions: Artem Yamshchikov and TSK Vektor.

These are the first US sanctions imposed on Chinese entities that produce complete weapons systems in partnership with Russian firms. Previously imposed sanctions on Chinese entities have targeted those that provided components critical to Russia’s military-industrial base.

The drone was designed and developed by China-based experts and is produced at factories within China in collaboration with Russian defense firms before they are transferred to Russia for use against Ukraine, according to the department.

The sanctions freeze any assets held by the individuals and companies in US jurisdiction and bar US persons from conducting business with them.

Sources:

Treasury Targets Actors Involved in Drone Production for Russia’s War Against Ukraine | U.S. Department of the Treasury

Chinese Drone Companies Targeted By Latest U.S. Sanctions (rferl.org)

Justice Department Announces Charges Against Indian Government Employee in Connection with Foiled Plot to Assassinate US Citizen in NYC

Vikash Yadav from the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) allegedly orchestrated a failed bid to kill him. RAW is the Indian government’s equivalent of CIA. Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.

The Justice Department filed charges against Vikash Yadav (39) in connection to a foiled assassination plot of a US citizen in NYC. Yadav’s alleged co-conspirator, Nikhil Gupta (53) was previously charged and extradited to the US; Yadav remains at large.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun (above) is a Sikh dissident in NYC. He is reportedly a citizen of Canada as well.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is a vocal critic of the Indian government and leads a US-based organization that advocates for the secession of Punjab, a state in northern India that is home to a large population of Sikhs, an ethnoreligious minority group in India. The victim has publicly called for some or all of Punjab to secede from India and establish a Sikh sovereign state called Khalistan, and the Indian government has banned the victim and his separatist organization from India.

Vikash Yadav is a citizen and resident of India, and he directed the plot to assassinate the victim from India. His accomplice Gupta recruited a hit-man, who was in reality a confidential source (CS) of the DEA. Gupta specifically instructed his assassin not to commit the murder around the time of the Indian Prime Minister’s official state visit to the US on or about 20 Jun 2023. On or about 18 June 2023, approximately two days before the Indian PM Narendra Modi’s state visit to the US, masked gunmen murdered Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia, Canada. Nijjar was an associate of the victim, and, like the victim, was a leader of the Sikh separatist movement and an outspoken critic of the Indian government.

Yadav and Gupta of India have been charged with several felonies and face possibly up to 40 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the US Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

The Canadian government recently expelled several Indian diplomats in connection with the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The Sikhs are an integral part of Canadian society and they were outraged by this brazen assassination. For several years, the right-wing government of Narendra Modi has been making life difficult for non-Hindus in India, as well as abroad. The US must tread carefully as India is seen as an ally against a growing Chinese military. Washington also doesn’t want Delhi to increase its support or trade with Russia.

Sources:

Office of Public Affairs | Justice Department Announces Charges Against Indian Government Employee in Connection with Foiled Plot to Assassinate U.S. Citizen in New York City | United States Department of Justice

dl (justice.gov)

RAW officer Vikram Yadav ‘hired hit team’ to kill Pannun: Washington Post – Hindustan Times

Statement by the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs on the RCMP’s findings regarding criminal activity in Canada with connections to agents of the Government of India – Canada.ca

Texas Fanatic Sentenced to Prison for Assaulting Law Enforcement During 6 Jan Attack on US Capitol

This lunatic shouted “Fuck you” at police officers all day and impeded the progress of a medical team that was trying to aid a rioter that was shot. (Photo: FBI)

Dana Jean Bell (66) of Princeton, TX was sentenced to 17 months in prison, 36 months of supervised release, and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution by US District Judge Timothy J. Kelly for her atrocious and felonious conduct on 6 Jan 2021. Her actions led to the eventual suicide of a police officer.

When the Trump-supporting mob began assaulting officers with pepper spray and ripping at least one police riot shield out of an officer’s hands, Bell made her way to the front of the rabble.  As the rioters inside the building forced the East Rotunda doors open, Bell reached out and grabbed the doors from the outside, disregarding that a USCP officer was pinned behind the doors.

After a rioter was shot in the Capitol, Bell refused orders to clear the way for a medical team, shouting “Don’t fuckin’ touch me!”  She told multiple officers to “get a real job” and that “no one support y’all, nobody!” This included Officer Jeffrey Smith, who tragically took his own life following severe personal injuries sustained in the line of duty on 6 Jan. As she was forced down the hallway, Bell also shoved her elbow multiple times into one officer’s chest.

When Bell finally exited the Capitol, she also assaulted two journalists. The FBI arrested the maniac on 7 Dec 2023 in Texas.

(Photos: FBI)

Erin Smith, whose husband Jeff Smith suffered a traumatic brain injury and a fracture while repelling the rioters, spoke at the sentencing hearing.

“Because of Dana Bell, (my husband) didn’t get the chance to keep serving as a police officer,” Smith said. “At 35, instead of becoming a mother, I became a widow.”

The presiding judge, a Republican and Donald Trump appointee, sentenced this maniac too lightly despite all the evidence he was presented. Although this was Dana Bell’s first offense, the US Sentencing Guidelines probably allows for upward departure in cases like this where significant harm arose subsequent to the instant offense. Here, a man received TBI and then committed suicide.

In the 45 months since 6 Jan 2021, more than 1,532 suspects have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to attacking the US Capitol, including more than 571 seditionists charged with feloniously assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The FBI investigation remains ongoing.

Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.

Sources:

District of Columbia | Texas Woman Sentenced to Prison for Assaulting Law Enforcement During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach | United States Department of Justice

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/erin-smith-january-6-widow-jeff-smith-testifies-sentencing-dana-bell/

Flesh-Eating Bacteria Infections Increase in Florida After Hurricanes Helene, Milton

Flesh-eating bacteria cases (necrotizing fasciitis) have surged in the last few weeks since Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton swept through, according to data from the Florida Department of Health (FDOH). Vibrio vulnificus, a naturally occurring but potentially fatal bacterial infection, thrives in warm floodwaters when hurricanes and tropical storms push brackish water along the coast and into rivers and canals, filling them and low-lying areas with rainwater, pollutants, sewage, and debris.

In southwest Florida, four new cases in Lee County and one in Collier County have been reported — an “unusual increase” due to the recent hurricanes. In 2022, Lee and Collier counties also experienced a spike in cases due to the impacts of Hurricane Ian. There have been 37 cases and four deaths reported statewide since mid-Sep 2024, with 13 cases and one death in Pinellas County. The 2024 total of Vibrio vulnificus in Florida is 70 confirmed cases and 11 deaths. In 2023, there were 46 cases all year, and 11 deaths.

If Vibrio vulnificus bacteria infects a person, such as by floodwaters coming in contact with a cut or other open wound, it can cause the skin and soft tissue around the wound to quickly break down. Treatment may require limb amputation to stop the rapid flesh deterioration, and the infection can be fatal.

Nationwide, vibriosis from Vibrio vulnificus and other Vibrio bacteria causes an estimated 80,000 illnesses and 100 deaths every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). About 52,000 of these illnesses are believed to come from eating contaminated food, but the bacteria are also often found in flood waters, something Florida has seen a lot of lately.

Sources:

Vibrio vulnificus | Florida Department of Health (floridahealth.gov)

About Necrotizing Fasciitis | Group A Strep | CDC

Christopher Columbus Wasn’t a Christian from Italy, But Instead A Sephardic Jew From Spain, New Study Alleges

Posthumous painting completed circa 1519

In 1492, Christopher Columbus embarked on a voyage that would change the course of history. While his disputed discovery of the New World is well-known, the mysteries surrounding both his final resting place and his origins have puzzled historians for centuries.

After his death in 1506, Columbus’ remains were reburied several times across different countries over the course of hundreds of years, sparking debates over whether his declared final resting place at Seville Cathedral in Spain was actually legitimate.

Now, thanks to groundbreaking DNA research, the question of his burial site has reportedly been solved. Furthermore, surprising details about his origins have come to light, with scientists claiming that he was born in Spain, not Italy, and that he was of Sephardic Jewish descent.

An illustration of Christopher Columbus’ death on 20 May 1506.

At 54 years old, famous explorer Christopher Columbus passed away in Valladolid, Spain in 1506. In the 14 years leading up to his death, Columbus had suffered from bouts of gout and arthritis. His health continued to deteriorate, and he was often bedridden for months at a time.

Upon his death, Columbus was buried at the Chapel of Wonders at the Convent of St. Francis in Valladolid. Then, he was moved at the request of his son to the monastery of La Cartuja in Seville. Then, in 1536, both Columbus’ remains and those of his son were moved to a church in Colonial Santo Domingo, now the Dominican Republic. In his will, Columbus requested to be buried there.

However, when France took control of the island in 1793, Columbus’ remains were interred in Havana, Cuba. They remained there until Spain’s defeat in the Spanish-American War and the relinquishing of Cuba in 1898. From there, Columbus’ remains were moved to the Seville Cathedral.

Christopher Columbus’ tomb at the Seville Cathedral. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Evidently, the frequent shuffling of Christopher Columbus’ remains raised concerns among historians. An initial observation of the remains at Seville Cathedral revealed discrepancies with known information about Columbus’ age at death and general stature. Additionally, Dominican Republic authorities claimed that Columbus’ remains never left the island.

For years, people questioned whether Seville Cathedral really held the remains of Christopher Columbus, prompting Spanish scientists to tackle the mystery for themselves.

Beginning with the collection of DNA from the remains in the Seville Cathedral in 2003, scientists have just now received the answers they were looking for.

RTVE: Samples of Christopher Columbus’ bones that were tested by scientists.

In 2003, historians Marcial Castro and José Antonio Lorente opened the tomb of Columbus at Seville Cathedral and collected DNA evidence from bone fragments.

The DNA sample was then compared to the DNA of Columbus’ son Hernando, who is also buried at the cathedral. At the time, the results came back as a match, but there was still a large margin of error. Technology at the time simply could not confirm conclusively that the remains belonged to Christopher Columbus.

Then, in 2020, Spanish broadcaster RTVE began production of a documentary to not only discover the true location of Columbus’ burial site but also shed light on his mysterious origins. Led by Lorente, an expert forensic scientist, the documentary crew explored these historical mysteries.

The investigation involved comparing the 2003 DNA sample to remains from many of Columbus’ reported relatives. To increase the validity of the DNA testing, the research team had separate laboratories from Spain, the US, Mexico, and Italy test the items and come to their own conclusions.

“The process was carried out independently, with no communication between the clinics, ensuring the objectivity of the data,” Lorente told El País.

Ultimately, the labs confirmed that the remains at Seville Cathedral were indeed those of Christopher Columbus.

“Today it has been possible to verify it with new technologies, so that the previous partial theory that the remains of Seville belong to Christopher Columbus has been definitively confirmed,” Lorente told Reuters.

“The process was carried out independently, with no communication between the clinics, ensuring the objectivity of the data,” Lorente told El País.

Ultimately, the labs confirmed that the remains at Seville Cathedral were indeed those of Christopher Columbus.

“Today it has been possible to verify it with new technologies, so that the previous partial theory that the remains of Seville belong to Christopher Columbus has been definitively confirmed,” Lorente told Reuters.

Christopher Columbus Painting

The 1856 painting Inspiration of Christopher Columbus. (Wikimedia Commons)

As for Christopher Columbus’ true origins, the investigation revealed that Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe, likely Spain.

“We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient. We have DNA from Hernando Colón, his son,” Lorente said in the documentary. “And both in the Y chromosome (male) and in the mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the mother) of Hernando there are traits compatible with Jewish origin.”

However, some scientists have begun to cast doubt on these claims, with further debate likely to come when the new results are soon published in a peer-reviewed journal.

If the DNA testing confirms that Christopher Columbus was indeed a Sephardic Jew and not an Italian Catholic, what new name will the US-based Catholic Knights of Columbus choose?

Source:

Where Was Christopher Columbus Born? New Study Says Spain (allthatsinteresting.com)

Unpopularity of Putin’s War on Ukraine Growing in Russia

A child protester outside the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow on 22 Sep with a sign reading: “Return my dad. I’ve been waiting two years.” (Image: RFE/RL Current Time)

A group of wives, mothers, and children of mobilized Russian soldiers deployed in their country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine protested outside the Defense Ministry in Moscow, with an unspecified number of detentions reported. The protest in the Russian capital on 21 Sep coincided with the date two years ago when Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on a partial mobilization. The group reportedly was demanding a meeting with Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, as well as a demobilization. At one point, the protesters, numbering about two dozen, were confronted by a group hurling abuse and trying to disperse them. There is no information available yet as to what punishments these loved ones of mobilized Russian soldiers will receive.

More evidence of the growing unpopularity of the Russian invasion comes from lowered interest in a pro-war singer’s concerts. At least two cities in Russia canceled Shaman’s performances of his “Victory” tour due to low ticket sales.

Pro-Kremlin Singer Yaroslav Dronov (AKA Shaman). Photo: Pelagia Tikhonova / Moskva News Agency

Last month Shaman kicked off his 100-city tour in Red Square with plans to perform in Ukrainian cities occupied since Russia’s invasion. The singer said he aims to “program” his audience to think about Russia’s victory over Ukraine, more than two and a half years into the war.

However, his scheduled performances in Nizhny Tagil on 24 Sep and Magnitogorsk on 3 Oct were cancelled. The independent investigative outlet Agentstvo reported that only half of the tickets had been sold for the Nizhny Tagil show, and there was “not much hype” surrounding the Magnitogorsk event.

Earlier this month, authorities in the Stavropol region canceled another of Shaman’s shows and required him to refund 15 million rubles to the regional government.

Agentstvo also noted that Shaman’s concerts in the cities of Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, and Tver are at risk of being canceled due to poor ticket sales. TV ratings for Shaman’s performances have reportedly been lower than other popular programs.

As casualties mount on the frontline and successful Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s infrastructure increase like the spectacular strike shown below, more people will grow disillusioned and discontent with Vladimir Putin. Unfortunately, the Russian masses will be basically powerless to overthrow the regime because of the dense internal security apparatus the Kremlin controls.

2,000 tons of ammo, including North Korean-made rounds, were destroyed in this recent attack that registered as small earthquakes and also drew the attention of NASA’s fire-spotting satellites. There was no information as to Russian casualties caused by Ukraine’s new jet-powered Palianytsia cruise missile.

Sources:

Mothers, Wives, Children Of Russian Soldiers Protest, Demand Demobilization (rferl.org)

Russian Cities Cancel Pro-War Singer Shaman’s Shows Amid Low Ticket Sales – Agentstvo – The Moscow Times

Ukrainian Drones Just Blew Up 2,000 Tons Of Ammo in Southern Russia (forbes.com)

France Deploys Notorious Anti-Riot Police Unit to Martinique

Martinique has a land area of 436 sq mi and a population of nearly 350,000. Map: Brittanica.com

France deployed a contingent of special anti-riot police that’s been banned for 65 years to the French Caribbean island of Martinique, where protesters have gathered despite the government barring demonstrations in parts of the island. The local government issued a curfew after violent protests broke out last week over the high cost of living. Six police officers and one civilian were wounded. Police launched tear gas and several stores were looted.

But the curfew was met by defiance by many on the island, with massive peaceful protests breaking out Saturday night. Videos from local media show crowds of thousands peacefully walking along highways overnight banging on drums and waving flags.

As protests continued without violence, a contingency of French anti-riot police arrived on the island and checked into a hotel in Fort-de-France. The size of the force was not disclosed.

French riot police in action in 2018. Photo: Stephane Mahe/Reuters

The elite riot police, known as the Companies for Republican Security, were banned in the French territory following bloody riots in Dec 1959 for allegedly using disproportionate force against protesters, ending in the deaths of a number of young demonstrators. The force is rarely deployed in French territories in the Caribbean but was called on during riots and strikes in Guadeloupe in 2009.

Martinique’s leaders requested the forces amid the recent protests. Beatrice Bellay, a representative of the socialist party blasted the move, saying: “Martinique is not in a civil war, it is a social war. This measure … only serves to aggravate tensions and distract attention from the legitimate demands of the people of Martinique.”

A man holds a flare during an anti-government protest in Fort-De-France, Martinique in 2021. 5,000 to 15,000 residents of Martinique demonstrated in protest on 27 March 2021, denouncing the possible statute of limitations on a complaint filed by civil parties for the use of chlordecone in causing life endangering illnesses. Photo: Reuters

Martinique is burdened with a chronic high rate of unemployment, as well as rising costs of imported food and other basic necessities. Banana is the foremost plantation crop grown in Martinique and the widespread use of carcinogenic chlordecone for five decades to control banana pests gave rise to an ecological disaster and an angry population. Although this practice had stopped in 2003, the recalcitrant dangerous pesticide remained largely in the soil.

Until all soil has all been successfully de-contaminated, use of the land for any new agricultural activities is unsafe; people have been warned to refrain from eating self-produced vegetables. The challenge to create meaningful employment in Martinique under these social-economic and environmental constraints is thus formidable.

Sources:

Long-forbidden French anti-riot force sent to Martinique as thousands defy bans on protests (voanews.com)

Intractable Social-Economic Problems of Martinique (openedition.org)

Former CIA Officer Sentenced to 30 Years for Sexually Assaulting Scores of Women

Undated photo of Brian Jeffrey Raymond courtesy of the FBI.

Brian Jeffrey Raymond (48) of La Mesa, CA, a former CIA officer who drugged and sexually assaulted dozens of women, was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Raymond was also ordered to serve a lifetime of supervised release and to pay $260,000 in restitution to the victims. After his release from prison at the age of 78, Raymond will be required to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).

This miscreant drugged more than two dozen women and performed nonconsensual sexual acts or made sexual contact with at least ten women. Raymond also photographed and recorded videos of victims without their consent while they were drugged or otherwise incapacitated. He had previously worked for the CIA for over 20 years.

Raymond would lure women he met on dating apps back to his government-leased apartment, later drugging and assaulting them.

The assaults date back to 2006 and took place in multiple countries, including Mexico and Peru. An investigation of Raymond began in May 2020 when police in Mexico City responded to a naked woman screaming for help on the balcony of Raymond’s residence. She said that Raymond had raped her and accused him of drugging her when the two had drinks at his apartment. Police then searched Raymond’s devices as apart of the investigation. They discovered several explicit videos and images showing Raymond sexually assaulting numerous women.

Several of the women spoke in court about the trauma caused by Raymond’s actions. Many did not realize they had been assaulted until they were approached by police and shown images or videos taken by Raymond.

“My body looks like a corpse on his bed,” said one woman of the photos. “Now I have these nightmares of seeing myself dead.”

Another woman testified in court: “Was I raped? Was I sexually assaulted. I will never know, and that haunts me too.”

Raymond’s sentencing comes as the CIA faces intense scrutiny over its handling of sexual misconduct cases. A 648-page internal watchdog report revealed that the agency routinely failed to address such incidents. More than two dozen women reported that they had experienced sexually assault or unwanted contact, later facing retaliation after they reported it to the CIA.

CIA personnel undergo extensive background investigations and must undergo routine polygraph examinations during their careers. How this sexual predator operated in the USIC for 14 years without getting caught is remarkable. Moreover, Raymond presents a dilemma for CIA. Foreign intelligence agencies may start putting clues together and uncover CIA sources in countries Raymond operated in.

From a counterintelligence perspective, Raymond holds a treasure trove of US secrets in his head. His incarceration in the BOP must take that into account. Lastly, Brian Jeffrey Raymond cost the American taxpayer a small fortune with all the expensive training he received and living overseas in government-paid housing and expense accounts.

Sources:

Former CIA officer sentenced to 30 years for sexually assaulting scores of women | CIA | The Guardian

As the CIA promises to stop sexual misconduct in its ranks, new cases of workplace assault emerge | PBS News

Whooping Cough (Pertussis) Spreading in US and Canada

Undated image courtesy of USATODAY.

The CDC reports that whooping cough (pertussis) is spreading in the US. In 2020, the US had about 6,000 cases of pertussis, roughly 2,000 cases in 2021, 3,000 cases in 2022 and about 5,000 last year. Now the US has seen 14,569 cases this year, compared with 2,844 at the same time last year, according to the CDC’s Nationally Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System.

In Canada, more than 12,000 cases of whooping cough, or the 100-day cough, have been reported to date in 2024, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). That’s far higher than the roughly 500 to 4,500 nationwide infections typically reported each year. 

Whooping cough starts with symptoms that look a lot like a regular cold: a runny nose, sneezing, a low-grade fever and a tickly cough. A week or two later, the infection moves into a new stage, leading to a violent full-body cough.

These coughing fits can be so severe that they cause patients to vomit or break ribs, and they’re often accompanied by a whooping sound as the person tries to catch their breath. Antibiotics can treat the infection, but only if it’s caught within the first few weeks, before the arrival of the exhausting, painful cough. Then, the only treatment is comfort care with plenty of rest and fluids while the infection runs its course.

Unvaccinated babies and adults are those at highest risk of severe infection and, rarely, death. But doctors have increasingly been seeing vaccinated people with infections, too.

Pertussis vaccination rates are high in the US – around 90% – and did not dip during the pandemic as they did in some other countries. Despite that, the upward trend in infections has continued.

The increase in cases is not fully understood. There’s evidence that it may be due to changes in the bacteria that causes the infection or changes in the vaccines.

Gavin and Tara Hills with their seven children were anti-vaxxers. (Social media).

The above family of anti-vaxxers from Ontario, Canada, changed their minds about vaccinations too late. Gavin Hills, his wife Tara, and their seven children are now in quarantine at their Kanata, Ont. home while the children are being treated for whooping cough.

The children, who are aged 10 months to 10 years, are “doing okay.” The irony of the timing is not lost on them, says Gavin Hills. While it’s frustrating to be quarantined, what’s more frustrating is knowing that the whole thing could have been avoided, Hills says. For six years, he and his wife were on the fence about vaccine safety, so they chose to hold off on vaccinating until they understood the issue better. But by then, it was too late and they caught pertussis.

Ottawa Public Health is treating them with antibiotics for the potentially serious illness and they should recover soon.

Sources:

About Whooping Cough Outbreaks | Whooping Cough | CDC

Whooping cough cases are soaring. Can infecting people help test a better vaccine? | CNN

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/whooping-cough-spike-1.7308407

Germany: Social Democrats Narrowly Defeat Far-Right in Brandenburg Elections

Map: Courtesy of freeworldmaps.net

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) party narrowly won an election in the eastern German state of Brandenburg. Three weeks after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party made gains in two other east German states, the SPD came out on top. 

According to final results, the SPD won 30.9% of the votes while the AfD came a close second with 29.2%. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a new leftist movement, came in third with 13.5% while the centre-right Christian Democrats took 12.1%. 

The SPD’s victory brought a reprieve to Scholz, whose three-party governing coalition has fared poorly in elections so far this year. Social Democrats have governed Brandenburg since 1990, and a loss there would have been a major setback for Scholz, who has his constituency in the state capital of Potsdam. 

Any political defeat of the right-wing in any country is a victory, no matter how big or small. Germany holds federal elections October 2025.

This is the enemy.

Source:

Social Democrats narrowly beat out far-right in Brandenburg elections | Euronews

Chinese Aircraft Carrier Comes Closer Than Ever to Japan

In 2012, Liaoning (16; Chinese: 辽宁舰; pinyinLiáoníng Jiàn) was the first aircraft carrier commissioned in China’s navy after extensive refurbishing. Total airpower: 40 fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft. (Image source: http://www.armyrecognition.com).

On 18 Sep, a Chinese aircraft carrier sailed closer to Japan than ever before, prompting Tokyo to express serious concerns to Beijing about China’s increasing military activity in the region.

The Chinese carrier Liaoning, accompanied by two destroyers, entered Japan’s “contiguous zone” – a section of sea beyond territorial waters where Japan still exercises some control. According to the Japanese Defense Ministry, the fleet passed between Japan’s Yonaguni and Iriomote Islands, east of Taiwan.

Chinese warships also sailed near the disputed Senkaku Islands, which are controlled by Japan but claimed by China, where they are known as the Diaoyu Islands.

Hiroshi Moriya, Japan’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, condemned the incident, calling it “absolutely unacceptable” for national and regional security. He emphasized that China has been ramping up military activity around Japan in recent years. The Japanese government conveyed its concerns to China through diplomatic channels.

Tensions between the two nations have escalated following other recent incidents. Last month, Japan reported that a Chinese reconnaissance aircraft entered its airspace, followed by a Chinese survey ship breaching Japanese territorial waters near Kagoshima Prefecture.

In response, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, Lin Jian, defended the activity of Chinese warships, stating it was following both Chinese domestic laws and international regulations.

Japan has strengthened its defenses in the southwestern region, including remote islands, viewing them as critical to its overall defense strategy. China now has two more aircraft carriers, including one entirely designed and built domestically.

China is increasingly flexing its growing military power. This summer, two Chinese aircraft accompanied Russian bombers near Alaska for the first time and a military hospital ship has been treating patients for free along Africa’s coast (see previous posting on Coriolanus). This naval incident occurred during the annual UN General Assembly in NYC, so Beijing may also be testing its diplomatic prowess. According to the Global Firepower Index (GFI), China is ranked third out of 145 militaries surveyed; Japan is ranked seventh; Taiwan is ranked 24th.

Sources:

Chinese aircraft carrier comes closer than ever to Japan (bignewsnetwork.com)

Global Firepower – 2024 World Military Strength Rankings

US, Canada Consumer Safety Alert: LUCID Platform Beds Sold by Walmart, Target, Amazon Recalled

Photo of the recalled Lucid Upholstered Square Tufted Platform Bed (Charcoal)

Nearly 137,000 beds sold by major retailers Walmart, Target, and Amazon have been recalled because the frames could collapse or break, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). 890 were sold in Canada. So far, there have been 245 reports of the beds breaking or collapsing, which caused at least 18 injuries including contusions.

The beds were manufactured in Malaysia and sold online through Amazon, Bed Bath & Beyond, Belk, Brookside, eBay, Home Depot, JCPenney, Lowes, Macy’s, Menards, Overstock, QVC, Sears, Target, Malouf VIP, Wayfair, and Walmart.

Customers should immediately stop using the recalled beds and contact Lucid for a free replacement bed frame.

Consumer Contact: Lucid toll-free at 888-910-0235 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET Monday through Thursday, or on Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET, by email at recall@lucidmattress.com.

Sources:

CVB Recalls LUCID Platform Beds with Upholstered Square Tufted Headboards Due to Fall and Injury Hazards | CPSC.gov

Upholstered Platform Bed (lucidmattress.com)

Nearly 137,000 beds sold by Target, Walmart recalled for collapsing (scrippsnews.com)

SAS Flight Diverted After Mouse Scurries Out of Passenger’s In-Flight Meal

Economy class cabin of an SAS A350 (Photo: SAS)

A Scandinavian Airlines flight traveling from Norway to Spain was forced to make an emergency landing in Copenhagen, Denmark after a mouse scurried out of a passenger’s in-flight meal. A passenger said the situation was surprisingly calm. Passengers were later flown to the Spanish city of Malaga on a different plane without further incidents.

The emergency landing was part of SAS company procedures as the mouse posed a safety risk on board. Rodents can chew through electrical wiring, making them strictly forbidden on most airlines.

Source:

Flight diverted after mouse scurries out of passenger’s in-flight meal (scrippsnews.com)

CENTCOM: US, Iraqi Security Forces Kill 15 ISIS Operatives; In Yemen, Two Shia Houthi Drones Destroyed

A UH-60 Black Hawk flies during a 2022 mission targeting ISIS. (MAJ Karl R. Cain II/ US Army)

CENTCOM forces and Iraqi Security Forces conducted a partnered raid in Western Iraq in the early hours of 29 Aug, resulting in the death of 15 ISIS operatives.  Seven US casualties were reported. The ISIS element was armed with numerous weapons, grenades, and explosive “suicide” belts.  There is no indication of civilian casualties or if any prisoners were taken for interrogation or prosecution. Iraqi Security Forces continue to further exploit the locations raided. CENTCOM also reported in the past 24 hours they destroyed two Iranian-backed Houthi uncrewed aerial vehicles in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen.

The Houthis are a Shia Muslim minority in Yemen, seen as heretical by the majority Sunnis Muslims on the Saudi Peninsula. After the Yemen government collapsed earlier this century, Saudi Arabia, led by the king and Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), supported the Yemeni Sunnis in the ensuing civil war. After the Yemeni Shias defeated and humiliated the Saudi Army in 2015, MBS instituted a Saudi air and naval blockade of Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen. This created an appalling humanitarian disaster of starvation and disease. The UN estimates 130,000 deaths from lack of food, health services, and infrastructure as of December 2020.

Hashem Mahmoud Atin, a 10-month-old displaced child suffering from acute malnutrition and who is unable to reach a hospital for treatment, is held by his mother at a refugee camp in Yemen. (2020 image: Sky News).

The famine and blockade propelled the beleaguered Shia Yemenis into the arms of Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, their fellow Shia co-religionists.  This is why we see Houthi drone counterattacks against Western maritime targets in the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden after Israel conducts an Extra-Judicial Killing (XJK) in Lebanon, Syria, or sovereign Iranian territory (via drone, missile, jet, or assassin). The Shia Houthis are simply supporting the two groups that are helping them to survive. This humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen can be laid squarely at the feet of the notorious MBS, who allegedly had a dissident journalist named Jamal Khashoggi literally butchered and dismembered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on 2 Oct 2018.

Sources:

CENTCOM Forces and Iraqi Security Forces conduct partnered raid in Western Iraq > U.S. Central Command > Press Release View

15 ISIS militants killed, 7 US troops injured during Iraq raid (airforcetimes.com)

Yemen in ‘a desperate situation’ as famine looms and hundreds of thousands face starvation | World News | Sky News

The Houthis: Who They Are and Why Conflict Exists (brookings.edu)

Famine in Yemen (2016–present) – Wikipedia

Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi – Wikipedia

Hundreds of Taiwanese Disappear in China Like a Black Hole Over Past Ten Years

Victims of enforced disappearance in China (L to R) rights attorney Gao Zhisheng, retired university professor Sun Wenguang, 2022 bridge banner protester Peng Lifa, and the 11th Panchen Lama.

More than 800 nationals of democratic Taiwan have “disappeared” over the past ten years in China, which has long used forced disappearances to silence and control its own dissidents and rights activists, rights groups. Figures compiled by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and several other non-government groups showed that 857 Taiwan nationals have been “forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily arrested” in China.

The victims include publisher Li Yanhe (pen name Fu Cha), detained in Shanghai since April 2023, democracy activist Lee Ming-cheh, who served a five-year jail term in Hunan province for “attempting to subvert state power,” and businessman Lee Meng-Chu, jailed for nearly two years for “espionage” after he snapped photos of People’s Armed Police personnel during the 2019 Hong Kong protests.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese lawmaker Hung Shen-han warned that it’s not only Taiwanese who are at risk of arbitrary arrest and “disappearance” in China. “Chinese citizens themselves face the same problem.”

Geng He, the US-based wife of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng said it has been seven years since he “disappeared” on 13 Aug 2017.

Disappeared Chinese rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng in an undated photo. (Weiquanwang)

Chinese authorities have also forcibly disappeared Uyghurs and Tibetans in the far-western part of mainland China. An estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims have been detained in Xinjiang under flimsy pretexts during mass incarcerations that began more than seven years ago in an effort by Chinese authorities in a massive Sinicization project.

Former Xinjiang University President Tashpolat Teyip, who himself vanished in 2017 amid rumors he had run afoul of China’s increasingly hardline policies in Xinjiang has had no news about his brother, Nury, who also fell victim to an enforced disappearance. Teyip, who now lives in the US state of Virginia, said he has lost faith in the UN and international human rights organizations which did little to help except release a statement.

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy highlighted a “disturbing trend” of underreporting of the number of Tibetans who are victims of enforced disappearances as China cracks down more heavily with restrictions and heightened surveillance in Tibet.  The rights group has documented more than 63 known cases of Tibetans subjected to enforced disappearance in Tibet over the past four years, but said the underreporting likely had to do with fear of reprisals. 

In February 2024, Tibetan performer  Gyegjom Dorjee (pictured below), who sang publicly about the exiled Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet and blasted Chinese leaders as “false,” was arrested in China’s Sichuan province.

In March, Chinese police arrested Pema, a Tibetan monk from Kirti Monastery, for staging a solo protest while holding a portrait of the Dalai Lama.  And on May 28, the Chinese authorities arrested Rabgang Tenzin who hoisted the Tibetan national flag in Tibet’s Chamdo prefecture as part of a consecration ceremony.  

The U.S. Congressional Executive Commission on China and the Tibetan government in exile urged Beijing to reveal the whereabouts of one of the highest Tibetan Buddhist leaders, the 11th Panchen Lama, or Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as one of the “most prominent enforced disappearance cases.” He was abducted by Chinese authorities in May 1995, just days after the Dalai Lama recognized the then six-year-old as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second-highest spiritual leader in the largest sect of Tibetan Buddhism. 

Source:

Hundreds of Taiwanese ‘disappear’ in China over past 10 years — Radio Free Asia (rfa.org)

Since Its War in Ukraine, Russia Relies More on “Bargain Basement” Spies

Pablo Gonzalez (second from left in back), a freelance journalist from Spain, listens to Russian President Vladimir Putin addressing him and other “swapped” Russian prisoners upon their arrival in Moscow on 1 Aug 2024. (Imagery: Radio Free Europe)

After Russia lost many of its valuable spy assets when dozens of diplomats were expelled from Western countries after the invasion of Ukraine, non-diplomatic civilian agents have now become essential. 90% of operations now carried out by these shadowy figures.

Many manage to avoid detection by working in innocuous jobs that allow them access to events and people of interest to Moscow. One purpose of these low-level spies is to exert influence on the Western world by infiltrating radical protest groups or opposition organizations.

A recent prisoner swap with Moscow included supposed art dealers and a Spanish-Russian freelance reporter Pablo Gonzalez, also known as Pavel Rubtsov.

On the surface, Pablo Gonzalez worked as a reporter for media outlets that included Deutsche Welle (DW) and the Voice of America (VOA), specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. But in reality, according to the head of the British MI6 secret service, Gonzalez was gathering information on Russian opposition groups and trying to destabilize Ukraine in the run up to Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Polish authorities detained Gonzalez in February 2022. Until 1 August, he was held in a high-security jail on charges of spying for Russia — allegations he had denied.

Media watchdogs condemned the conditions in which Poland held Gonzalez, but video footage of him being welcomed by Putin after the swap appeared to confirm his primary role was spy craft, not journalism.

Marc Marginedas, a correspondent for Spanish newspaper El Periodico, said despite the expulsions of Russian diplomats after the Ukraine invasion, the Russian intelligence service is like a small army. Staff in Russian embassies and state-run media organizations are probably forced to work in some kind of intelligence capacity. Marginedas agreed that “illegals” or “bargain basement” agents are now a mainstay of Moscow’s spying operation.

“Russia has invested heavily in ‘illegal’ agents who do not enjoy diplomatic protection,” he said. “Putin, by receiving those people with pomp at [Moscow’s] airport and promising them jobs and medals, was sending out the message to the future spies that the Russian state will not abandon its spies.”

Sources:

‘Renaissance of illegals’: Since its war in Ukraine, Russia is relying more on bargain basement spies (voanews.com)

Putin’s welcome ends speculation around true identity of Pablo Gonzalez

South Africans Flocking to Visiting Chinese Hospital Ship for Free Medical Care

The Peace Ark has a capacity to treat 700 patients each day and the service forms part of a joint exercise between the South African and Chinese armies. (Image: BBC)

As reported above, while undesirables are disappearing in China, Beijing is fostering goodwill in Africa with the Peace Ark, a 300-bed hospital that is docked in Capetown, South Africa. The military medical staff on board are providing free health care to needy South Africans.

Since the Peace Ark arrived last week, more than 2,000 South Africans have been treated on board – ranging from maternity check-ups and cataract surgeries to cupping therapy. Approximately 60 surgeries have been carried out so far, a tiny dent in the province’s waiting list of 80,000 patients.

The floating hospital leaves Cape Town for Angola before moving on to several other countries. The Peace Ark already visited the Seychelles, Tanzania, Madagascar, and Mozambique on this 10th excursion since being commissioned in 2008.

China enjoys a strong political partnership with South Africa, and this is Beijing’s latest show of soft power and a further step in China’s efforts to increase its influence on the African continent.

The 300-bed Peace Ark has a crew of 100, 20 intensive care beds, operating theatres, clinical departments, and a rescue helicopter.

Source:

Peace Ark: South Africans flock to Chinese hospital ship in Cape Town (bbc.com)

West Nile Virus Kills Two in New Jersey as US Death Toll Reaches Five; EEE Threatens New England

Two people have died in New Jersey after contracting West Nile virus — marking the fourth and fifth deaths in the US this year from the mosquito-borne disease. Little is known about the victims, beyond that they’ve been identified as “older adults.”

The deaths come on the heels of two virus-related fatalities in Wisconsin and one in Illinois. There have been a total of eight West Nile cases in New Jersey this year, leading to seven hospitalizations for encephalitis or meningitis. In 2023, 14 cases were reported in New Jersey and one death. NYC has reported six cases of West Nile and a total of 20 cases have been reported throughout NYS.

To the north as reported in a previous post, New England health authorities have been dealing with mosquitos carrying eastern equine encephalitis (EEE). Vermont’s health department is urging residents of several towns, including one bordering Quebec, to stay indoors from dusk to dawn to prevent the spread of a mosquito-borne illness.

Sources:

Department of Health | News | State Officials Urge Residents to Take Precautions Against Mosquito-Borne Illnesses (nj.gov)

West Nile kills 2 in NJ — 5 total dead across US (nypost.com)

Quebec towns near U.S. border alerted as Vermont faces mosquito-borne illness threat | CBC News

Jews and Arabs Hoped to Fill One Truck with Aid for Gaza Civilians. They filled 300.

Haviva Ner-David (R) with other Standing Together volunteers collecting humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza at Umm al-Fahem, a mostly Arab Israeli city in the Haifa district, 11 Aug 2024. (Photo: Faisel Mahagneh)

Standing Together, a joint Jewish-Arab Israeli national activist movement working for peace, equality and justice, had a plan to hire one big truck to go from one Arab town to another across Israel collecting donations of supplies. These would then be transported across the border and distributed to Gazan civilians through an international organization.

But already at the first site in northern Arab city of Sakhnin, it became clear more than one truck would be needed and volunteers filled three trucks. At Umm El Fahem, these volunteers collected 29 trucks full of aid. Donations included tuna fish, baby formula, bags of legumes and flour, as well as packages of diapers and menstrual pads. By the end of the humanitarian aid drive, which was extended a few extra days to include a couple more sites, Standing Together filled 300 trucks with supplies.

Before the war, back in January 2023, Standing Together organized the first mass demonstration against the government in Tel Aviv, drawing thousands of Arabs and Jews.

Humanitarian aid collected for civilians in Gaza at a warehouse in Umm al-Fahem, Israel, Aug. 11, 2024. (Jacob Ner-David)

Source:

Jews and Arabs hoped to fill a truck with aid for Gaza civilians. We ended up filling 300. – Jewish Telegraphic Agency (jta.org)

American Warzone: NFL Rookie Wounded During Robbery Attempt in San Francisco

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall during NFL football training camp in Santa Clara, Calif., Wednesday, 31 July 2024. Photo by: Jeff Chiu/AP

America’s two favorite pastimes, firearms and football, collided this weekend when 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall (23) was shot Saturday during an attempted robbery in central San Francisco.  Police said that Pearsall was injured while being robbed and so was the suspect. Both were taken to the hospital and Pearsall’s condition was reported as “good” by his teammate Deebo Samuel (posted on X).

In an average year, 3,299 people die and 9,787 are wounded by guns in California. The Golden State has the 32nd-highest rate of gun violence in the US. Per CBS News, California firearms licenses in 2021 numbered 406,360 and an estimated 28.3% of adults in California have guns in their homes. The number of illegal firearms in California is unknown.

Sources:

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall shot during attempted robbery (scrippsnews.com)

Gun-Violence-in-California-2024-05.pdf (everystat.org)

4. California – Gun map: Ownership by state – statistics and rates (cbsnews.com)

Baby Rhino’s First Video: Southern White Calf Born in Melbourne Zoo

The new rhino calf will be named by public vote in the coming weeks. His mother, Kipenzi, means “precious one” in Swahili. Imagery: Werribee Open Range Zoo

Kipenzi is an 11-year-old southern white rhino, one of the most numerous rhino subspecies. Her calf was born on 18 Aug, and unlike her first baby which she tragically rejected years ago, she has been an attentive mother this time around.

Sheltered from public view as the two bond, visitors will soon be able to see the new boy stomping about his enclosure. Dr. Mark Pilgrim, the zoo’s director, said that Kipenzi was “doing her best to shepherd it and keep it close to her, and making sure that it’s not wandering off too far. So she’s just doing the perfect thing we expect a mother rhino to do.”

Kipenzi herself was born at Werribee Zoo in 2013 to resident rhino Sisi, who also presented a danger to her calf as she would not let Kipenzi out of her sight, even just to walk alongside her to nurse.

Source:

Baby Rhino’s First Video: Adorable Footage of Southern White Calf Born in Aussie Zoo (goodnewsnetwork.org)