The Sudanese army and paramilitary forces traded fire Monday across the Nile River in the capital Khartoum, witnesses said, in the eighth months of a war rights groups say has been rife with atrocities.

Artillery and rocket fire criss-crossed over the river between "the army in Omdurman, on the west bank, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Khartoum North on the east bank," a witness told AFP.

The fighting was corroborated by other residents, including local activists who say the shelling landing in civilian homes has killed dozens in recent weeks.

via Bloomberg:

After years of inflation, US consumers are shouldering a burden unlike anything seen in decades — even as the pace of price increases has slowed.

President Joe Biden directly targeted Republican frontrunner Donald Trump at a campaign event Tuesday, treating him as the de facto nominee and warning of the consequences for voters if his political rival is returned to the White House.

“Donald Trump and extreme MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy,” Biden said at a fundraiser in Colorado. “The choice facing us could not be more stark.”

Biden repeatedly assailed Trump over a number of policies, including his calls to repeal Obamacare and his support for abortion restrictions — as well as his political rhetoric.

“If Trump gets his way, it’s all gone,” Biden said about the health care benefits from Obamacare, seizing on Trump’s threat to undo the Affordable Care Act, as the law is formally known.

Biden noted Republicans had repeatedly failed to repeal it when they controlled both chambers of Congress and said Trump’s actions would throw 40 million Americans off health coverage they obtained under the law. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that military commanders and the political arena are not in the same space, demonstrating that his power is under threat, and not by Moscow, but from within his own ranks. This issue is only amplified by the fact that Zelensky’s Western partners have slowly begun abandoning him, especially since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.

Ukraine’s commander-in-chief of the General Staff, Valeriy Zaluzhny, has no war plan for 2024 and, therefore, must resign, said Verkhovna Rada deputy Maryana Bezuglaya, deputy head of the National Security Committee of the Verkhovna Rada. According to her, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces could not provide a plan for 2024, stating only that the army should be replenished with at least 20,000 recruits per month, an impossible number.

“The current situation is that if the military leadership fails to present any ideas for 2024, and all its mobilisation proposals boil down to the fact that it is more people without the slightest proposal for change in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, then such leadership must leave,” Bezuglaya said.

Her comments were preceded by statements Zelensky gave British tabloid The Sun on November 20, warning for Zaluzhny to stay out of politics.

The Defense Department has ordered an additional aircraft carrier strike group, air defenses, fighter jets and hundreds of troops to the Middle East since the surprise terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, in an effort to prevent the conflict from spiraling into a regional war.

The problem: Congressional dysfunction means the Pentagon has no money to pay for the buildup.

The military, like the rest of the federal government, is operating under a temporary funding measure that freezes spending at the previous year’s levels. And because the Middle East troop movements weren’t planned, the Pentagon has had to pull money from existing operations and maintenance accounts, DOD spokesperson Chris Sherwood said. President Joe Biden signed the stopgap measure this month to keep the government open until lawmakers can agree on a full-year spending bill.

Woke books that were bought for huge advances by 'inexperienced' editors have flopped commercially, insiders say.

'Ideological fanatics' allowing their politics to dictate professional decisions have seen profits slump, according to industry experts.

Among the works responsible for huge losses is the once hotly anticipated memoir by the actor Eliot Page about his journey transitioning. 'Pageboy' sold for a $3 million advance but has sold just 68,000 copies.

Industry standards suggest for publishers, paying roughly $7 per book sold is considered a good deal, according to insiders talking to The Free Press.

The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas could be extended until Sunday morning, but only if Hamas released all women and children held hostage in Gaza, Israeli negotiators have reportedly said.

The temporary truce, which both sides initially agreed would last four days but was then lengthened by a further two, is due to end on Wednesday - with a group of ten hostages expected to be freed today.

Israeli authorities estimate that around 100 women and children were among the 240 people abducted by Hamas terrorists as they stormed kibbutzim in southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, on October 7. 

Sixty hostages have so far been released by the group in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, while Israel and Hamas continue to observe a pause in fighting.

Joe Biden told 813,000 more Americans that he has wiped their student loan debt on Tuesday, meaning the president has forgiven a total of $127 billion for 3.5 million borrowers.

The former students will soon receive an email from Biden notifying them that their debt has been forgiven - despite the fact that his plan to cancel $400 billion in debt was rejected by the Supreme Court in June. 

The email - making clear that the help has come from Biden - read: 'Congratulations — your student loan has been forgiven because of actions my administration took to make sure you receive the relief you earned and deserve.' 

Biden's headstrong push for the relief program coincides with the looming 2024 election and desire to get young voters on board. 

Former chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential campaign Matthew Dowd said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” that former President Donald Trump will be criminally convicted in at least one of his cases before the Republican National Convention.

Anchor Joy Reid said, “How bad is it going to get next year, in your view? I think it’s going to be rough, but Matthew, how bad do you think it’s going to get?”

Dowd said, “Awful. I don’t think we have ever seen this kind of convergence between a former president running for office again in the midst of multiple trials held simultaneously while he wins primaries and caucuses. The people running against him, Nikki Haley and whatever, I think what’s going to end up happening is he’s going to have momentum. He’ll win Iowa, win New Hampshire, win South Carolina, and he’ll basically all but be the nominee, and basically be there, and then he’s going to get convicted before he goes to the RNC Convention in July. So he’ll be the nominee, but be a convicted nominee in the midst of this, and then we’ll be headed to a general election with the nominee of a major political party convicted, at least in one court, if not in two different courts in this time.”

A trio of Republican lawmakers fined by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) over their refusal to wear masks petitioned the Supreme Court Tuesday to hear their lawsuit after losing in a lower court.

Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Ralph Norman (R-SC) argue that the $500 fine imposed on them violated the Constitution’s 27th Amendment — which prohibits compensation changes for members of Congress from taking effect until after the next election cycle.

“The attorneys in our lawsuit against Speaker Pelosi just filed a Petition for Cert at the Supreme Court,” Massie wrote on X. “Pelosi imposed salary reductions on me, [Greene], and [Norman]  for our refusal to wear a mask in 2021. At issue: is the 27th amdt. to the Constitution even enforceable?”

One thing these people have is money, isn’t it?

And this is how they operate: they basically buy up pro Israel politicians using legal bribery.

A veteran US peace campaigner has told of the latest attempt by citizens to break the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip.

The four-day ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement, brokered by Qatar, was extended for two more days on Monday.

The death toll in the tiny Palestinian enclave after almost two months of Israeli bombing and ground incursions has reached 16,000, according to the Palestinian Authority, with 35,000 wounded and 6,000 still missing under the rubble. Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants have been subjected to a total siege by Israel, which has cut off supplies of electricity, running water, food, fuel and medicine.

Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin told Sputnik that media reports of a flotilla of 1,000 small craft heading from Turkiye to Gaza were exaggerated.

Russia has issued a warning as the Israel-Hamas truce in Gaza nears its end. Moscow said that Syria is on the brink of being drawn into the conflict. Russia has also been alarmed by the sharp escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The warning comes after a recent military confrontation between Israel and Syria when the IDF launched back-to-back airstrikes. However, Syrian air defences destroyed most of the missiles fired by Israel, as per local authorities.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar described Europe as “paradise” and his country as “one of the best parts of paradise,” urging citizens not not to link immigration with crime during a speech in parliament on Tuesday. 

The PM’s comment came as Ireland continues to reel from the anti-immigrant riots that swept Dublin on Thursday night, after a man of Algerian descent allegedly stabbed three young children and their caregiver before he was subdued by bystanders. 

Because “Europe is paradise and Ireland is one of the best parts of paradise, thousands will come here and we just need to manage that as best we can,” Varadkar said, insisting that migrants were no more likely to commit crimes than anyone else and it was “totally wrong” to think otherwise.

Meanwhile, the advocacy group Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a lawsuit against Joe Biden, accusing the US president of “failure to prevent genocide” of Palestinians.

Labor attorney and human rights activist Dan Kovalik joined Sputnik’s Political Misfits crew Tuesday to discuss the ongoing crisis in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip.

As a fragile ceasefire of hostilities continues, Washington has reportedly been working behind the scenes to secure the release of captives and facilitate negotiations in Qatar. Increasingly, one Biden administration figure has been playing a key role in US statecraft.

“The irony of ironies is that [William] Burns, who’s the head of the CIA, actually has much more of a diplomatic temperament than [Antony] Blinken does,” said Kovalik, claiming that Biden’s Secretary of State has taken a backseat in secret negotiations regarding the Palestine-Israel conflict.

“Blinken’s a neocon. And in terms of what’s happening in Ukraine and in what’s happening in Gaza, he’s extreme, and has really tended to do things to increase the chance for conflict rather than the opposite.”

Australia's prime minister has given a national apology to survivors of the thalidomide scandal and their families.

It comes over 60 years after the morning sickness drug started causing birth defects in babies globally.

"This apology takes in one of the darkest chapters in Australia's medical history," Anthony Albanese told parliament on Wednesday.

It is the first time the government has acknowledged its role in the tragedy.

"To the survivors - we apologise for the pain thalidomide has inflicted on each and every one of you each and every day. We are sorry. We are more sorry than we can say," Mr Albanese said, addressing a crowd of survivors and their families in the chamber.

The exact number of people affected in Australia remains unknown, but more than 140 survivors have registered for a financial support programme since 2020.

In 2019, a report found that 20% of Australia's thalidomide cases could have been avoided if leaders had acted sooner.

Webmaster addition: A reminder that the Medical Industrial Complex can and does make huge mistakes!

Intelligence officials and scientific experts have spoken out about the “orchestrated effort” to push the narrative that COVID-19 had natural origins, despite evidence showing the virus “most likely” leaked out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

In the new Sky News Australia documentary, “What Really Happened in Wuhan, the Next Chapter”, Sharri Markson reveals explosive new evidence about the origins of the pandemic that brought the world to a standstill in 2020.

Speaking to officials from multiple US intelligence agencies as well as senior public health scientists involved in behind-the-scenes discussions, Sharri reveals how the lab-leak theory was intentionally suppressed, with a whistleblower claiming CIA analysts who favoured the lab leak theory were even bribed to change their position in order to take the focus off China and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“The most likely origin of COVID-19, of the Wuhan virus… was a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” former United States Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe told Sharri.

Day 3 Convective Outlook
NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK
0225 AM CST Tue Nov 28 2023

Valid 301200Z – 011200Z

Looks like wall street investors are selling off their houses for cheap. Might be a good idea to buy for a family.

New York lost a staggering $4.4 billion last year to theft and Hochul vetoed a proposal last week designed to put a stop to the losses. New York retailers are up in arms after Hochul tanked the proposal that would have created a 15-member task force of appointed experts to tackle organized retail crime.

According to Breitbart, the Retail Council of New York State has called upon the governor to address the situation but was met with the veto instead. A council representative said there is a “need for immediate action and an effective, collaborative response to this problem,” but Hochul has not acted on their behalf on this issue.

“Stores that invest in New York communities lose $4.4 billion to retail theft, and this illegal activity certainly has community safety implications,” the council said in a statement last week.

It’s no secret that the Biden administration appears to be doing nothing about the border crisis. Governors of border states have repeatedly requested aid from the White House to address the millions that are jumping the border.

According to reports, they have received none.

That has forced states like Texas to take drastic measures to protect their residents. The Texas National Guard has even been enlisted to prevent border jumpers from invading. Now, migrants are finding a new, dangerous method for entering the country.

From Fox News:
A train seen in Mexico headed toward the U.S. border had what appeared to be hundreds of migrants riding on top as record numbers of people trying to enter the United States continues.

DHS head Mayorkas claimed the estimated 12 million illegal aliens in America have “been contributing so fundamentally to our country’s well-being.” He said this while demanding Congress “fix” the country’s immigration system.

“Fix” could only mean changing laws to allow millions more into the country. Mayorkas repeated a claim pushed by many Democrats, that illegal immigrants are “frontline workers.” Democrats have long said America needs these undocumented workers to do the jobs Americans “refuse” to do.

What is more often true is that companies prefer to hire illegal immigrants, because they can pay them well below what American workers demand.

Soon after terror group Hamas murdered 1,200 helpless Israeli citizens, progressives around the world spoke out. But they did not condemn the evil acts of October 7th.

Instead, many progressive Democrats sided with anti-Israel groups, blaming Israel for the horrific actions of terrorists.

Since then, far-left Democrats have called on President Biden to withdraw support for Israel. Now, an entire city council just voted in support of a move that could empower Hamas. And they refused to do this one thing.

From Breitbart:
The Oakland City Council adopted a resolution Monday night demanding a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas — while rejecting amendments condemning Hamas for terrorism against civilians…

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Tuesday that a consensus among NATO countries persists that it is impossible for Ukraine to join the alliance now, but it may be possible in the future if conditions are met and the allies agree.

"There is agreement at least that Ukraine's accession to NATO is impossible for now," Szijjarto told journalists after the end of the first day of NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.

"A consensus formula has been formed that it [the accession] would be possible if the conditions are met and the allies agree. These are the two conditions now, there are no changes here. There was no breakdown of the agreement that Ukraine's accession to NATO is unimaginable in current conditions."

The volume of drugs smuggled from Ukraine to Russia over the past several years is enough to poison the population of an entire city.

"Drone" (mephedrone) and "flakka"(alpha-Pyrrolidinopentiophenone, a.k.a. alpha-PVP) started pouring into Russia eight years ago following the Maidan coup in Ukraine. Synthetic drugs became as prolific as heroin was in the 1990s.

One of the groups which started trafficking drugs from Ukraine in 2014 and mostly consisted of Ukrainians was the KhimProm Group. It would smuggle up to half a tonne of synthetic drugs per week, thus starting a war to destroy Russia from within, with the actors’ origins tracing back to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).