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A Romanian national pleaded guilty on Monday to charges related to his role in a “swatting” ring that targeted dozens of public officials, including a former US president. Going by the aliases “Plank,” “Jonah” and “Cypher,” 26-year-old Thomasz Szabo took part in a years-long conspiracy to place bogus 911 calls, claiming emergencies were taking place at the homes of top government officials, and make bomb threats against government buildings and houses of worship, according to Justice Department. Szabo and a co-conspirator, 21-year-old Serbian national Nemanja Radovanovic, allegedly targeted about 100 people, including members of Congress, governors, cabinet-level executive branch officials...

Last week I wrote about the concerns of a pair of North Korea analysts that something had changed in the tone of the rhetoric emanating from Kim Jong Un. Of course North Korea has a long history of belligerent talk and threats against the US but something about this seemed different and more urgent. Kim said he was giving up on reunification with South Korea. Instead, South Korea would now be considered the North’s top enemy.But it’s more than just empty rhetoric. Sometime over the past few days Kim ordered a monument meant to symbolize hope for reunification torn down.Kim...

The second to worst worst thing that can happen to a civil society is civil war. The only thing worse than that is what Venezuela is living with right now, a dictatorship in which there is no hope of democratic change or equal justice. In Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela his voice is the only one that matters. It has been that way since he took over as the hand-picked successor to communist blowhard Hugo Chavez in 2013. Since then, opposition figures have tried everything to get a fair chance at defeating Maduro at the ballot box and at every turn they...

Yesterday, we noted a hawkish Joe Scarborough calling for an aggressive response against Iran for the drone attack that killed three US soldiers and killed dozens of others in Jordan. Jen Palmieri, Obama's former Communications Director and another Morning Joe regular gave away the game, putting things in bald political terms. Scarborough asked, "What's the administration's problem with going in and taking out some of their oil infrastructure?"Responded Palmieri: "Higher gas prices."Scarborough: "I don't care. Dead Americans." Palmieri: "Anytime you're doing anything that's going to mess with oil markets, higher gas prices are -- can be an existential threat to...

Two people are dead and at least 35 others were affected after a chemical leak involving hydrogen sulfide occurred at a PEMEX facility in Deer Park, officials said on Thursday. The extent of injuries is unknown due to officials not being able to make entry into the affected unit, officials said. Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton gave reassurance to community members that there was not a chemical leak in the surrounding area, despite the smell of hydrogen sulfide seeping out into the air. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said the scene remains preliminary and fluid, but noted the "situation seems...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Francis tells Communists: ‘Don’t back down, don’t give up’‘Imagine he had said that [don't give up] to the Traditional Catholics,’ said John-Henry Westen.Pope Francis meeting with the Marxist group, January 10, 2024Hosting a Marxist-Christian dialogue group at the Vatican on Wednesday, Pope Francis urged them to “be open, in dialogue, to new ways,” while avoiding reiterating the Church’s consistent condemnation of Marxism. Shortly before his weekly general audience on January 10, Pope Francis received a small delegation from the DIALOP group. DIALOP, according to its own description, is a “project of dialogue between Socialists/Marxists and Christians, involving...

Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina was released from Kremlin custody in a prisoner swap with the United States on Thursday morning. Karelina was freed in exchange for German-Russian Arthur Petrov at a swap in Abu Dhabi, the Wall Street Journal reported. “American Ksenia Karelina is on a plane back home to the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. “She was wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year and President Trump secured her release. @POTUS will continue to work for the release of ALL Americans,” he added. The dual-citizen spa worker was accused of treason against the Russian government...

A U.S. official confirmed to Fox News the drone from an Iranian proxy that killed 3 American servicememebers in Jordan and injured others got past the air defenses for Tower 22 because it was mistaken for a U.S. drone expected to return to the base at the same time. The Wall Street Journal initially reported on this development on Monday. A U.S. official confirmed the information to Fox News.

For Elon Musk, giving sight to the blind isn't just a first century phenomenon. The Tesla and X CEO brain implant venture, Neuralink, filed trademark applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on March 3 for "Telepathy," "Telekinesis," and "Blindsight," hinting at a future where human thought could transcend traditional communication and control. The company, co-founded by Musk in 2016, is developing a brain-computer interface (BCI), a system that decodes neural signals to operate external devices. Musk has touted telepathy as Neuralink’s first product, designed to empower people with paralysis to "control a computer or phone just...

Polls aren’t the only thing burning the commander in chief. President Biden was spotted red-faced in the US Virgin Islands on Tuesday as he prepared to head back to the White House after a seven-day vacation in St. Croix. The 81-year-old president’s striking new sunburn was on full display as he shook hands on the tarmac of Henry E. Rohlsen Airport in Christiansted, St. Croix, before boarding Air Force One with first lady Jill Biden. The sun’s rays apparently battered Biden, who was beet red from his forehead down to his neck – exposed by the deep-V of his unbuttoned...

The Brief Damien McDaniel, 22, is charged in connection with 14 murders, including a firefighter and UPS worker. McDaniel also linked to two mass shootings in 2024, with 11 victims dead. Authorities have not disclosed a motive, and McDaniel is held without bond. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - An Alabama man has been charged in connection with 14 murders, including those of a firefighter and UPS worker. According to the Birmingham Police Department, 22-year-old Damien McDaniel was recently charged in connection to the murder of Birmingham firefighter Jordan Melton. Melton was shot and killed in July 2023 at a fire station. A...

A Los Angeles County teenager was sentenced to four years in prison Tuesday after admitting to making more than 375 "swatting calls" in which he made false reports of bomb and mass shooting threats at locations around the U.S. Alan W. Filion, an 18-year-old Lancaster resident, admitted in a plea agreement to carrying out calls targeting places such as high schools, colleges and universities, religious institutions and people such as government officials, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Federal prosecutors said he intended for the calls to result in major emergency responses by law enforcement. This led to some...

A yearlong outbreak of tuberculosis in the Kansas City, Kansas area has taken local experts aback, even if it does not appear to be the largest outbreak of the disease in U.S. history as a state health official claimed last week.“We would expect to see a handful of cases every year,” said Dr. Dana Hawkinson, an infectious disease doctor at the University of Kansas Health System. But the high case counts in this outbreak were a “stark warning," he said.The outbreak has killed two people since it started in January 2024, Kansas state health department spokeswoman Jill Bronaugh said. Health...

An Oxford University student killed himself after becoming a victim of “pervasive cancel culture” over an unproven allegation made by his ex, a UK court has heard. The body of 20-year-old Alexander Rogers was pulled from the River Thames on Jan. 15 — just days after his friends and classmates stopped speaking to him when his former partner aired the unknown allegation, This Is Oxfordshire reported. The unspecified allegation was not reported to authorities or the school, but resulted in Rogers being “ostracized” as part of a “pile-on” effect, a court hearing into his death was told. Dr. Dominique Thompson,...

A Houston college student sentenced for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 breach at the U.S. Capitol is one of the alleged victims of a FBI agent who was indicted for theft. Alexander Fan was sentenced to 12 months probation for trespassing during a sentencing hearing on Friday. His attorney, Mark Thering, said he pleaded guilty and expressed genuine remorse in a statement to the court. Fan's home was searched after his arrest in June 2023. Court records filed ahead of the hearing state, "the next day, Fan reported to the FBI that some items--including cash and silver bars--had...

Leftist billionaire and Democratic mega-donor George Soros has been leaning on the Democrat-controlled Federal Communications Commission for months in hopes of fast-tracking his group's acquisition of over 200 radio stations in over 40 markets — including stations that run shows from Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Erick Erickson, Sean Hannity, and Dana Loesch. On Wednesday, the FCC reportedly adopted an order to approve the purchase, meaning that in a matter of days, Soros will likely take control of communications to over 165 million Americans with the help of unvetted foreign investors whom Democrats have spared from the FCC's customary national security...

A teenager allegedly behind hundreds of swatting incidents pleaded guilty on Wednesday to four counts of making interstate threats. Prosecutors claimed that 18-year-old Alan Filion of Lancaster, California, made more than 375 swatting and threatening calls from 2022 through January 2024. Some of the calls included claims that he placed bombs at religious institutions, schools, and government buildings. He also threatened to detonate the bombs or carry out mass shootings, the Justice Department reported. The teenager was mostly underage at the time of the calls, but he faces up to five years for each of the four charges. “This prosecution...

The movie came out on January 25, 2024. There had been very little of the usual promotion. Lockshin’s name was omitted from posters. His name was absent from all marketing materials, such as they were. In any event, the movie was a sensation. The public went to see it, quickly making it the top-grossing Russian movie of all time, in the over-18 category.Furious, the state and its propagandists got to work. As Lockshin says, “a whole campaign” was launched against him and the movie. Propagandists called him a “criminal” and a “terrorist,” and demanded that the movie be pulled from...

The Biden-Harris administration is allegedly covering up an internal study conducted in 2023 that would have rendered its moratorium on natural gas projects unnecessary, according to leaders on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. The White House and the Department of Energy paused permitting for liquefied natural gas export projects in January—a policy critics said would cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs—to allow time for a federal study on those projects' environmental, economic, and national security impacts. That study, according to federal officials, wouldn't be completed until early 2025, effectively throwing the brakes...

In December 2023, for 17 continuous days, a fleet of drones appeared at night over Langley Air Force Base (AFB), Virginia and other facilities in the greater Virginia Beach area. This was reported at the time, but the story was fleeting. Two other events occurred in the area that are relevant to the story. In February 2023, a pair of F-22s from Langley shot down the Chinese spy balloon as it exited the United States over South Carolina into the Atlantic Ocean. In January 2024, a Chinese graduate student at the University of Minnesota, was arrested for flying a drone...