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WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced a barrage of questions Thursday about President Biden’s decision to release notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout as part of a prisoner swap for basketball star Brittney Griner — while leaving fellow Americans Paul Whelan and Marc Fogel behind. “It was either Brittney or no one at all and we’re not going to apologize for that,” Jean-Pierre said at her regular press briefing. Jean-Pierre added that the Kremlin was “not willing to negotiate in good faith” to release Whelan, who Russia convicted of spying, and side-stepped questions about Fogel — who, like...

(Reuters) - Globally, people are experiencing inflation at levels not seen for decades as prices surge for essentials like food, heating, transport and accommodation. And though a peak could be in sight, the effects may yet get worse. How did we get here? In two words: pandemic and war. A long and comfortable period of scant inflation and low interest rates ended abruptly after COVID-19 struck, as governments and central banks kept locked-down businesses and households afloat with trillions of dollars of support. That lifeline kept workers from joining dole queues, businesses from going broke and house prices from crashing....

A heartless Florida man allegedly broke into a home, grabbed a bite, stole a hat – and killed the family puppy with a machete. Alexander Hernandez-Delgado, 25, has been charged with aggravated cruelty to animals with a weapon and armed burglary in the break-in at the Dover home on Wheeler Road on Thursday. He allegedly entered the premises through an unlocked living room door, the Tampa Bay Times reported, citing the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. The apparently ravenous intruder helped himself to the family’s food at about 7 p.m. and proceeded to throw their belongings around the home, authorities said....

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol will release its list of criminal referrals alongside its final report on Dec. 21, the panel’s chair told reporters Thursday. “We will make that announcement on the 21st when we release the report,” said Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). The panel is meeting this Sunday to hash out what referrals it may make to the Department of Justice (DOJ), where the ultimate decision rests over whether to pursue any charges for the activity related to the effort to block the transfer of power. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told reporters...

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden on Wednesday renewed vows to secure a new ban on assault weapons in the United States as he turns up heat on lawmakers to pass legislation before his party loses control of Congress next month. Lawmakers have shown little inclination to outlaw assault weapons since a ban on high-capacity firearms expired in 2004, but Biden is hoping to seize on outrage about the regularity of shootings to lead to greater pressure on them to change their mind. "We did it before," Biden said of the ban at a vigil for victims of...

Sabotage of infrastructure that serves human communities is always wrong. When two power substations in North Carolina were reportedly taken down by gunfire in an apparent “criminal act,” the establishment media went to work condemning that act. The gunfire caused “damage that could take days to repair and leaving tens of thousands of people without electricity,” reported the Associated Press, and most establishment media outlets echoed the sentiment. Yet the Associated Press had no condemnation for Joe Biden shutting down oil pipelines and drilling permits that ultimately provide energy resources for hundreds of millions of Americans. Similarly, there is no...

At the end of November Member of Parliament and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch met in London with Ukrainian officials to agree on a “ground-breaking digital trade deal” called the Digital Trade Agreement (“DTA”). As an example of the “need” for the digital trade deal the UK government website specifies: There is a critical need for people to be able to use digital solutions to prove they are who they say they are, despite the loss of critical documentation or displacement across borders. The agreement provides a framework for the UK and Ukraine to cooperate to promote compatibility between their respective...

A little more than a week ago, International Crimes Investigative Committee (“ICIC”), hosted by Dr. Reiner Fuellmich and Dr Mike Yeadon, held a discussion with four experts on nanotechnology and self-assembling structures in mRNA injections. The panel of experts comprised Dr. David Nixon, Dr. Ana Maria Mihalcea, Karen Kingston and Shimon Yanowitz. Yesterday, ICIC Dr. Fuellmich hosted a second discussion, following on from the first, to discuss with Holger Reißner and Klaus Retzlaff what the observed phenomena and structures in the blood of people who have had an mRNA injection are all about. As most will now be aware, there...

New York City Mayor Eric Adams was fined in May 2022, it was recently revealed, after health inspectors found “fresh rat droppings” at his Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York, townhouse earlier this year. Boston.com reports that Adams was issued a $300 fine after ignoring a summons and is now fighting the fine in administrative court. Adams allegedly told a hearing officer that he has spent approximately $7,000 in attempting to fight off the rodents, even using a trap he promoted in 2019 that lures rats in with food before incapacitating them with a deadly solution. At the time, Adams called it a...

An Outlaws Motorcycle Club member who was arrested during Biketoberfest when his motorcycle ran out of gas as deputies said he tried to flee from traffic stops is in more trouble. He was recently accused of grinding down identification numbers on the motorcycle’s engine and transmission, according to the Flagler County Sheriff's Office. Robert Patrick Wilson, a 31-year-old Ocala resident and Outlaws member, was charged with two felony counts of possession of a vehicle with altered vehicle identification numbers, according to a press release Wednesday from the sheriff’s office. Wilson has been locked up at the Flagler County jail since...

Former President Donald Trump slammed President Joe Biden’s Brittney Griner prisoner swap as “stupid” and “unpatriotic embarrassment.” Issuing the statement on Truth Social, Trump said the swap was a bad deal because Biden traded an ex-WNBA basketball star for notorious Russian arms dealers Viktor Bout, “one of the biggest arms dealers anywhere in the world.” Trump said the trade was especially grievous because Griner has been “openly” hateful towards her own nation.

The Canadian investor was grilled by CNBC’s “Squawk Box″ hosts over his failure to properly assess the risks associated with investing and promoting FTX. O’Leary said that he fell prey to “groupthink,” and that none of his investment partners had lost money. “Total deal was just under $15 million, all in,” O’Leary said. “I put about $9.7 million into crypto. I think that’s what I lost. I don’t know. It’s all at zero.”

President Joe Biden’s approval rating among independents is below 30 percent as he considers launching a reelection campaign in the coming weeks. Biden, who has said he has the “intention” to run for a second term, has a very low approval rating among independents, a key demographic in presidential elections. Just 28 percent of independents approve of Biden, while 61 percent disapprove, a Civiqs poll found Thursday.

Explanation: A camera on board the uncrewed Orion spacecraft captured this view on December 5 as Orion approached its return powered flyby of the Moon. Below one of Orion's extended solar arrays lies dark, smooth, terrain along the western edge of the Oceanus Procellarum. Prominent on the lunar nearside Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms, is the largest of the Moon's lava-flooded maria. The lunar terminator, shadow line between lunar night and day, runs along the left of the frame. The 41 kilometer diameter crater Marius is top center, with ray crater Kepler peeking in at the edge, just right...

A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll finds that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis now leads former President Donald Trump by 5 percentage points in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. Trump previously led DeSantis by double-digit margins among registered voters who describe themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents. Meanwhile, DeSantis is ahead by even more — a whopping 11 points — among Americans who say they voted in a 2016 Republican primary or caucus in their state. The poll of 1,635 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Dec. 1 to 5, is one of the first to confirm how far...

A corps of researchers looking into the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy say they have unearthed proof his alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was involved in an operation by the CIA mere months before the killing, reigniting questions about whether the Oswald truly was alone in his decision to kill the youngest man ever elected president. In a Tuesday press conference at the National Press Club, Jefferson Morley—a veteran of the D.C. press corps and a preeminent expert on JFK's assassination with the Mary Ferrell Foundation—told reporters that he and attorneys with the foundation obtained documentation relating to...

Bright cosmic fireballs and even "Earth grazers" are on the calendar for the next week or so. A Geminid meteor caught in its final, flaming moments. NASA The Geminid meteor shower, typically the strongest meteor shower of the year, is starting to intensify ahead of its peak next week, and it's already producing shooting stars and fireballs. The Geminids have technically been active for a few weeks, but the shower will begin to increase significantly this weekend when it may be come possible see around a dozen or more meteors per hour under ideal conditions, according to the American Meteor...

Jonathan Bennett leads The Holiday Sitter, Hallmark Channel's first Christmas romantic comedy that focuses on a queer love story. The actor previously co-starred in two Christmas House movies in 2020 and 2021 for the network, where he played one-half of a gay couple in love who were seeking to adopt a baby. But The Holiday Sitter, which Bennett executive produces, puts him firmly in the spotlight. "It means so many things, not just to me but to so many people to be in The Holiday Sitter, which is the first LGBTQ+-led rom-com for Hallmark Channel at Christmas," Bennett told ET's...

A growing number of Republican lawmakers are criticizing President Biden for freeing a Russian arms dealer to secure WNBA star Brittney Griner’s release, and for failing to free former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan in the deal. Biden on Thursday morning announced Griner was returning to the U.S. after she spent nearly 10 months in Russian custody, in exchange for the U.S. releasing infamous arms dealer Viktor Bout. The administration had also sought the release of Whelan, who was arrested in Russia in 2018 on spying charges that he vehemently denies, but Biden on Thursday said Moscow is “treating Paul’s case...

A new study by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) warned that one in five adults reported being exposed to white supremacist ideologies in online games in 2022, with Jewish gamers experiencing the most harassment. The ADL Center for Technology & Society called the results of the survey a “startling increase” from the 8 percent who reported exposure to extremism in 2021. The Hate and Harassment in Online Games survey also found that 15 percent of young people ages 10-17 reported being exposed to discussions of white supremacist ideologies in online games, including popular games such as Call of Duty, Fortnite, Grand...