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President Trump took a victory lap late Saturday after a prominent international climate change panel backed off using some of the most aggressive doomsday estimates after determining that they were not the most plausible outcomes. The United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had quietly adjusted its modeling framework of a 4–5°C warming by 2100 last month. That framework had underpinned a myriad of other analyses predicting terrifying consequences for greenhouse gas emissions. “GOOD RIDDANCE! After 15 years of Dumocrats promising that ‘Climate Change’ is going to destroy the Planet, the United Nations TOP Climate Committee just admitted that...

Key FactsNew York lawmakers are planning the tax, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the state budget negotiations who noted the proposal would be levied at 1% of the buying price and be paid by buyers. The legislators are also considering expanding the tax to $1 million or more cash purchases in the state that would incorporate the suburbs and upstate New York, Bloomberg added. The tax in New York City alone could generate up to $160 million, according to the unnamed sources Bloomberg cited. A spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., told Bloomberg she “announced a general agreement...

A former Black Lives Matter activist-turned-conservative influencer blasted the social justice organization as a “scam” — and insisted that Democrats are the party of “racism and violence.” Xaviaer DuRousseau, 29, revealed that he did a complete 180 from his liberal upbringing during the 2020 George Floyd riots as he realized that the movement was a money grab and that he was indoctrinated. “Once I started looking at the conservative side of the argument, I started realizing, oh, wait, socialism has literally never worked. BLM has always been a scam, and the Democratic Party has always been the party of racism...

The Minnesota House fraud prevention and oversight committee released its final report following a two-year investigation into the state’s fraud crisis, concluding this week that Gov. Tim Walz’s (D-MN) administration allowed fraud to persist by protecting Somali fraudsters from state regulators out of concerns for cultural sensitivity, even accusing rank-and-file investigators of racially profiling suspected scammers. According to the committee’s 84-page report on “Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Minnesota,” adopted Wednesday, when government employees flagged suspicious billing patterns to their supervisors, officials in the Walz administration ignored, demoted, and retaliated against the whistleblowers, at times accusing them of being “xenophobic”...

Ireland has a unique relationship to climate change. The country has always relied on its pastoral landscapes for its national character, but the escalating climate crisis threatens this tradition because of rising temperatures and sea levels, and deforestation. Given Irish literature’s continued interest in nature, contemporary Irish poets are tackling these issues in their writing. Poetry plays a special role in times of mass environmental decline. As a literary genre that relies on flexible, open-ended and even conflicting language to address complicated issues, poetry is especially well-suited to address the complex entanglement of local and global concerns, human and nonhuman...

He’s being placeholder-ed in an awkward position. Mayor Zohran Mamdani could be forced to release his executive budget Tuesday with “placeholder” estimates on key sources of revenue, after he tried to rely on dysfunction-riddled Albany to reach a deal on its own spending plan and bail out the Big Apple, insiders revealed. The potential fill-in-the-blanks city budget plan is exactly what Mamdani tried to avert when he delayed its release from May 1 in hopes that Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers would reach a deal on its own long-delayed budget and give the city a windfall of new tax...

Gavin Newsom hasn’t launched his rumored White House bid, but already has one deep-pocketed Hollywood billionaire fully in his corner. Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings is all in on Newsom for president in 2028 — gushing over the publicity-loving California governor as a Democrat who can unify the flailing party and beat a Republican successor to President Donald Trump. “Gavin is the candidate who can motivate both the left and the center,” Hastings told the LA Times. The comments come as Newsom not-so-subtly lays the groundwork for a presidential bid — raising millions through a national committee, Campaign for Democracy, and...

We reported on former President Barack Obama's effort this week to pump up his presidential center, which is finally opening in June.(snip) I can't imagine there would be a lot of ordinary folks beating down the doors to visit. As we've noted, the main building is not exactly a beacon of attractiveness. It's just flat-out ugly. They're even selling a pin that's supposed to look like the building, and the pin is similarly ugly. Plus, you have to shell out $30 for the pin, which is just a gray blob of clay. One of the funniest was this necklace, which...

The Trump administration’s cancellation of more than $100 million in humanities grants to scholars, writers, research groups and other organizations was unconstitutional, and the Department of Government Efficiency had no authority to end the funding, a federal judge in New York ruled on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan sided with The Authors Guild, several other groups and several people who had their grants canceled and sued DOGE and the National Endowment for the Humanities. McMahon permanently barred the administration from terminating the grants and criticized DOGE’s use of artificial intelligence in nixing the funding. Government lawyers had...

The neighborhood where NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is planning to build a government owned grocery store already has almost 50 markets within walking distance, raising further questions about his far left pipe dreams. Is the new store even necessary? Mamdani probably does not care about that. This is merely a campaign promise and he likely sees it as something on which he has to deliver. What is often not discussed is the competition this government owned store is going to create for all of these other privately owned stores. Ask any business owner, and they will tell you it is...

As much as $16 trillion has been spent worldwide to defeat global warming. It could have been twice that and it would never be enough because the climate hustlers need to keep the dollars rolling in to line their own pockets. Now we finally have an Environmental Protection Agency chief who’s exposing the racket. Testifying last week before a Senate committee, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told lawmakers that the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion stash that was created through the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, is a con. His office found that money that was supposed to have...

AB 1608 would rename and expand the powers of the High-Speed Rail Authority’s Inspector General while creating broad exemptions to withhold records California’s high-speed rail project, originally pitched to voters as a $33.5 billion endeavor under Proposition 1A in 2008, has spiraled into a staggering taxpayer nightmare with estimates now exploding as high as $231 billion — a more than 700% increase. Against this backdrop of relentless cost overruns, Assembly Democrats are advancing legislation critics say is explicitly designed to conceal the extent of the waste and shield the failing project from public accountability. AB 1608, authored by Assemblywoman Lori...

Britain ​is set to enter talks to join the European Union's 78 billion ‌pound loan ($106 billion) to Ukraine, the government said on Sunday, in a further sign of deepening European defence ties under rising U.S. pressure. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected on Monday to tell ​a summit in Armenia's capital Yerevan of the European Political Community - a discussion ​forum set up after Russia's invasion in 2022 - that Britain wants ⁠to work with the EU to support Ukraine in getting vital military equipment, his ​office said.

California’s High-Speed Rail boondoggle is now estimated to cost taxpayers $231 billion, up from its original $33.5 billion price tag in 2008 when voters passed Proposition 1A. “Our country has never seen a fiscal disaster of this magnitude,” California Rep. Kevin Kiley said on X Monday. Voters were deceived by the original ballot summary and language in Proposition 1A from 2008, but the state’s lawmakers seem to find that fact inconvenient. And, the entire project is lacking in private, public and debt funding to complete even the most minor operating segment – nearly 20 years later. “If it is built,...

Nothing about California's high speed rail is moving fast, except the price. Just a few weeks ago, the estimated price of the long-delayed project was said to be $126 billion. This figure wasn't hidden in a spreadsheet somewhere, it was stated on a national news program. This week, we're hearing a new number and it's more than a $100 billion higher.California’s long-delayed high-speed rail project is now facing renewed scrutiny after state leaders revealed a dramatically higher price tag, now estimated at roughly $231 billion, nearly seven times the original $33 billion projection approved by voters in 2008.The revised figures...

Europe must have its own defense system against ballistic weapons, and Ukraine is already ‌holding talks with several countries on its creation, ‌Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday. Defense against ballistic missiles is one of ​Ukraine's biggest challenges in the war with Russia, since only certain types of missiles used by the American Patriot system are capable of intercepting Russian ballistic missiles. Russia uses ballistic missiles to ‌attack Ukraine's energy ⁠infrastructure, destroying thermal power generation and electricity transmission systems. "I believe, and my idea is that we ⁠should have a European anti-ballistic missile defense system. We are in talks...

California's delayed, over-budget high-speed train from Los Angeles to San Francisco is running fast in only one direction: Rising costs to even get rolling, which are now estimated to be $126 billion. "Today, we estimate with the right optimization just over $125 billion," California High Speed Rail Authority board member Anthony Williams told CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday. "I think $126 billion is the current estimate for that." Snip "We’re now in 2026: There are no trains; there’s no track laid; it was a complete bait and switch," Rep. Vince Fong, R-Calif., told "60 Minutes," saying the project "needs to...

Gavin Newsom’s transport secretary has admitted criticism of California’s high-speed rail is justified — as estimates of the project show it will be a struggle to be completed. Officials now say it will cost an eye-watering $126 billion to finish the line from Los Angeles to San Francisco — which is more money than Amtrak has ever received from the federal government since it was established in 1971, a damning 60 Minutes report revealed. That’s and a huge uptick when compared to the $33 billion voters were told the rail would cost when it was announced way back in 2008....

My jaw dropped watching this Reporter Matt Seedorff asks Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass about the homeless numbers, he says people don’t trust the data because they can see the growing number of encampments in LA She literally says not to trust what you’re seeing, trust her Reporter “There's just overall a lack of trust with these numbers. It's not what people see” Mayor Karen Bass “I will tell you something. It is absolutely what you see”

Two corrupt town workers in posh East Hampton accepted thousands of dollars in cash bribes from contractors in exchange for near-instant under-the-table building permits, according to prosecutors. Town Building Inspector Ryan Benitez, 37, and his senior office assistant, Evelyn Calderon, 46, pocketed more than $16,000 from four unnamed contractors so that the builders could sidestep the months-long approval process and have their permits and certificates of occupancy secretly fast-tracked, Suffolk County prosecutors claimed. The pair of government employees would sometimes jump into action within minutes of getting a request — and cut down the typical months-long process to mere hours...