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On this date in 1942, 200-plus Australian and Dutch prisoners captured after the Battle of Ambon earlier that same year were summarily executed near Laha Airfield on present-day Maluku, Indonesia. It was the last and the largest of a series of POW executions in the days following the February 3 conclusion of the battle; collectively, they’re known as the Laha Massacre.* The individual incidents, timelines, and body counts of the several incidents are reported with a good deal of variance and conflation in the sites describing these horrible days, but the evening of February 20 as the consummating atrocity appears...

A Harvard professor published a study that found no evidence of racial bias in police shootings – then "all hell broke loose," and he needed police protection. In 2016, Harvard Economics Professor Roland Fryer published a study to explore racial differences in the use of force by police. The study examined racial differences in non-lethal uses of force, such as "putting hands on civilians (which includes slapping or grabbing) or pushing individuals into a wall or onto the ground." The study found that Hispanics are more than 50% more likely to have an interaction with police that involves any use...

Likely based on the attention given to its control of proxy voting, BlackRock has unveiled what it calls “a new proxy voting opportunity in iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV).” The multinational investment giant notes that this particular product is its largest and among the most widely held exchange-traded fund. While giving individual investors a say in the votes related to their holdings is a good thing, this new scheme on closer inspection appears to be a way for BlackRock to push climate and social-related policies while making it seem like clients voted for them. Very sneaky. Following U.N. guidance...

When a Chinese rocket malfunctioned shortly after launch in April 2020, destroying Indonesia's US$220 million (S$296 million) Nusantara-2 satellite, it was a blow to the archipelago's efforts to strengthen its communication networks. But it presented an opportunity for one man. Elon Musk — the owner of SpaceX, the world's most successful rocket launcher — seized on the failure to prevail over state-owned China Great Wall Industry Corp (CGWIC) as Jakarta's company of choice for putting satellites into space. The Chinese contractor had courted Indonesia — Southeast Asia's largest economy and a key space growth market — with cheap financing, promises...

The world just experienced its hottest January on record, continuing a run of exceptional heat fuelled by climate change, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Thursday (Feb 8). Last month surpassed the previous warmest January, which occurred in 2020, in C3S's records going back to 1950. The exceptional month came after 2023 ranked as the planet's hottest year in global records going back to 1850, as human-caused climate change and the El Nino weather phenomenon, which warms the surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, pushed temperatures higher.

Dutch motorist Tim Hansenn was fined 380 euros for using his phone while driving. But there was one problem: He wasn't using his phone at all. In an interview with Belgian news outlet HLN last week, as well as in a blog post on his company's website, Hansenn explained how he was the inadvertent victim of faulty artificial intelligence-powered smart cameras that work to spot drivers using their phones. Hansenn, who works with AI as part of his job with the firm Nippur, found the photo taken by the smart cameras. In it, he was clearly scratching his head with...

If you can't handle spice, you might want to skip this new coffee craze in China. A coffee shop in China has a bizarre beverage on its menu — chilli coffee. Jiangxi's Spicy Chilli Latte, a spice-infused coffee, was launched by Jingshi Coffee, a coffee chain in Jiangxi province, eastern China last December, South China Morning Post reported. A clip posted by Chinese video platform Pear Video on Weibo, showed a Jingshi Coffee employee adding sliced peppers and some hot pepper powder in a cup of iced latte before serving it. According to local media, the popular beverage costs about...

THE DEATH of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s foremost opposition leader, in a Siberian gulag on February 16th would by itself have served as a shock to Europe. But for leaders gathered at the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of defence and security bigwigs, Mr Navalny’s demise was just one of several ominous developments for the continent. On February 17th Ukraine’s army, starved of American ammunition by Congress’s failure to pass a supplemental aid bill, was forced to withdraw from the eastern town of Avdiivka. That handed Vladimir Putin his first military victory in almost a year.The deadlock in Congress reflects...

A Massachusetts charter school ended a girls’ varsity basketball game at halftime on February 8 after multiple players were injured by a trans-identified male on the opposing team. The coach of the Collegiate Charter School of Lowell Girls’ Basketball Team made the decision to end the game against KIPP Academy "after watching a third player injured in the game," a press release from the school states. "The bench was already depleted going into the game with the 12-player roster having four players unable to play. When the coach saw three more girls go down in the first half leaving him...

— Americans consume too much vitamin B3, researchers suggestNiacin metabolism was associated with incident major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) and may be linked to the pathogenesis of heart disease via inflammatory pathways, researchers said. In a metabolomics study of stable cardiovascular patients, two terminal metabolites of niacin -- N1-methyl-2-pyridone-5-carboxamide (2PY) and N1-methyl-4-pyridone-3-carboxamide (4PY) -- were associated with an up to twofold increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) independent of traditional risk factors, reported Stanley Hazen, MD, PhD, of Cleveland Clinic, and colleagues. Moreover, both metabolites have genetic links to vascular inflammation, they noted in Nature Medicineopens in a new tab...

Outgoing Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte is imploring Europeans to "stop whining" about Donald Trump and focus on supporting Ukraine. "We should stop moaning and whining and nagging about Trump," Rutte said during the Munich Security Conference, according to Reuters. He didn't say who he would prefer as president in 2024, but said, "It's up to the Americans. I'm not an American, I cannot vote in the U.S. We have to work with whoever is on the dance floor." While Rutte will be exiting his role as prime minister soon, he is the leading candidate to be the next secretary-general...

Lankford’s ‘compromise’ border bill legalizes the invasion... The legislation waters down existing immigration law and provides the president with toothless emergency powers, all while lavishing billions more tax dollars on Ukraine. You’ve got to hand it to Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Mitch McConnell’s other lieutenants in the Senate. They really did manage to solve the illegal immigration crisis. They’re simply going to make the invasion legal. In exchange for us agreeing to an endless flow of illegal immigrants across the southern border, Democrats will get another $60 billion for Ukraine. Some call that bipartisanship, but we call it disenfranchisement...

WHO director general Tedros Ghebreyesus traveled to Dubai last week to hype "Disease X," the yet-to-be-released sequel to COVID-19 that is supposed to scare nations around the world into embracing an internationally binding pandemic treaty. Although Ghebreyesus has fear-mongered about the hypothetical pestilence for several weeks, it appears he has finally let questions and concerns over his proposed remedies get under his skin. In his Feb. 12 address, entitled, "A Pact with the Future: Why the Pandemic Agreement Is Mission-Critical for Humanity," Ghebreyesus lashed out at critics who have suggested his proposed "collective action" amounts to an affront to national...

For the second time in a week, a plane from the Israeli flagship airline El Al was targeted by hostile elements trying to divert the aircraft from its planned course. The newest incident involved a plane traveling across airspace on Saturday night where the Iran-backed Houthis reside; Somalian sources insisted to the Israeli broadcaster Kann that a group in Somaliland that issued false instructions to the flight crew was responsible. Suggestions were made that the effort was an attempt to steer the plane toward dangerous areas. But the plane’s staff used other communication methods to avert any trouble, cross-referencing data...

The philanthropy network steering the wealth of Democratic megadonor George Soros awarded a paid fellowship to the leader of a law school’s anti-Israel office facing a Senate investigation for promoting terrorist sympathizers, records show. Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans this month requested Rutgers University by Feb. 20 turn over funding and budget information on its Center for Security, Race and Rights, which the lawmakers accused of spreading “vile antisemitic propaganda,” while its advisory board included Adeel Mangi, a judicial nominee for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Rutgers Law professor Sahar Aziz, who directs the center, pocketed $143,000 from the...

Angela Chao, CEO of Foremost Group and the sister-in-law of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, died after her car went into a pond on a private ranch about 40 miles west of Austin, Texas, authorities said Friday. Chao’s family on Wednesday announced she died in a car accident on Sunday, but did not disclose details of the incident at that time. On Friday, the Blanco County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that on Saturday, it “responded to a possible water rescue on a private ranch located in Blanco County, TX.” “On arrival Blanco County deputies along with Blanco County...

The Berger Action Fund, one arm of liberal Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss’ philanthropic empire, gave tens of millions to one of America’s most prolific Democrat-aligned dark money groups. The Berger Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, gave $35 million to the liberal dark money group Sixteen Thirty Fund in 2022, tax documents show. Sixteen Thirty Fund in 2022 poured tens of millions into Democrat-aligned PACs, groups supporting left-wing ballot measures and voter mobilization operations designed to increase turnout among Democrat-friendly demographics, according to tax forms. Wyss, a Swiss billionaire who made his fortune selling medical devices, had not disclosed publicly...

A plan by President Joe Biden, called an “extortion attempt,” would shield more criminal illegal aliens from deportation as data shows his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has drastically cut interior immigration enforcement.Biden’s White House is threatening to cut deportations of even the most violent illegal alien convicts unless Congress approves billions in funding that passes through DHS before getting handed to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) helping facilitate illegal immigration.RJ Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE), told Breitbart News that the threat from Biden is echoed by the establishment media with claims that DHS needs the billions...

Abraham Lincoln didn’t just free the slaves and preserve the Union. America’s 16th (and arguably greatest-ever) president also pardoned the current chief executive’s paternal great-great-grandfather after he was sentenced to hard labor at a military prison, newly unearthed documents show. President Biden’s ancestor, Moses Robinette, was put in the dock after he came to blows with one John Alexander, a fellow civilian employee of the Union Army, on March 21, 1864, according to records found by the Washington Post. Alexander, a brigade wagon master, was left bloodied by wounds that came from Robinette’s pocket knife and the presidential forebear was...