As tech luminaries like Elon Musk issue solemn warnings about artificial intelligence’s threat of “civilizational destruction,” the U.S. military is using it for a decidedly more mundane purpose: understanding its sprawling $816.7 billion budget and figuring out its own policies.

Thanks to its bloat and political wrangling, the annual Department of Defense budget legislation includes hundreds of revisions and limitations telling the Pentagon what it can and cannot do. To make sense of all those provisions, the Pentagon created an AI program, codenamed GAMECHANGER. 

“In my comptroller role, I am, of course, the most excited about applying GAMECHANGER to gain better visibility and understanding across our various budget exhibits,” said Gregory Little, the deputy comptroller of the Pentagon, shortly after the program’s creation last year. 

Charlotte Beattie couldn’t say when she began to suspect that her boyfriend had committed the murder that sent his own son to death row. It probably crossed her mind almost 20 years ago, when an Oklahoma City police detective showed up to ask about Anthony Sanchez, who had been charged with killing a young woman found at a nearby lake. Jewell “Juli” Busken, a 21-year-old ballet student at the University of Oklahoma, was raped and murdered just before Christmas in 1996. The case remained cold until 2004, when Sanchez’s DNA was linked to the crime. But when the homicide detective showed Beattie a forensic artist’s sketch of the supposed killer, it didn’t look like Sanchez, she recalled. It looked more like his father, Glen.

Webmaster addition: So, the much vaunted DNA tests can throw a false positive! That will hopefully trigger retrials of wrongfully convicted people!

A F-35 jet could have crashed on Sunday due to poor weather in South Carolina, new audio suggests - as questions mount as to why the disastrous training exercise was allowed to proceed.

The F-35B Lightning II which the unnamed Marine pilot was flying is believed to be at risk of malfunctions if it flies in thunderstorms, according to a Forbes investigation in November.

Its sister jet, the F-35A, is more severely affected and cannot fly within 25 miles of lightning.

The issue lies within the F-35's OBIGGS (Onboard Inert Gas Generation) system, which pumps nitrogen-enriched air into its fuel tanks to inert them, preventing the aircraft from exploding if it is struck by lightning.

'F-35B and C variants have some of the same OBIGGS issues as the F-35A, but have been able to alleviate operational impacts,' said Chief Petty Officer Matthew Olay, spokesman for the F-35 Joint Program Office, in an email to Forbes last year.

Audio from Sunday's crash shows the pilot telling emergency responders, after ejecting, that he 'lost it in the weather'.

Webmaster addition: It's been known for a long time the F-35 has to avoid lightning! And it cost how much?

The Biden administration will once again offer free at-home Covid tests to all US families starting next week.

Each household will be entitled to request four rapid tests by mail starting September 25 by going to the covid.gov website.

The program, which will cost $600 million, is aimed at combating a winter surge of Covid cases, amid the spread of the Eris and BA.2.86 variants.  

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra said: 'We will once again begin our program to provide Americans with an opportunity to request tests.'

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in New York Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said "ties between the two countries were improving".

After more than a decade of tensions, relations have improved with recent high-level visits, including that of Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Ankara last year.

In Tuesday's meeting at Turkish House on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly, "the two leaders decided to continue advancing bilateral relations in trade, economic matters and energy," Netanyahu's office said, and extended reciprocal invitations for visits "soon."

Nearly a week after a cease-fire agreement between warring factions in Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp brought a fragile peace, hundreds of displaced residents see no immediate prospects of return.

Some have lost their houses, while others do not trust that the calm will hold. For many, it’s not the first time they have been forced to flee their homes.

Among them is Munira Abu Aamsha, 63, who left the camp near the city of Sidon in southern Lebanon with her family, ducking from alleyway to alleyway under a rain of bullets.

She has been sleeping for the past 10 days with her daughters and grandchildren in a classroom converted into a dormitory at a vocational training center run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, in the nearby town of Sebline.

The tanker at the center of the latest dispute between the United States and Iran, the Suez Rajan, quietly slipped away from the U.S. earlier this week using a new identity, the St Nikolas. The ship became the center of attention in what the U.S. Department of Justice highlighted as the first-ever criminal resolution involving a company that violated sanctions by facilitating the illicit sale and transport of Iranian oil.

The Suez Rajan, a 12-year-old crude oil tanker, had become tangled in the mysterious web of Iranian dealings in the efforts to avoid U.S. and international sanctions on the oil trade. At the time, the vessel was owned by an affiliate of U.S. investment firm Oaktree Capital Management, Fleetscape which had financed the vessel for its operator Empire Navigation of Greece. In February 2022, the U.S. Justice Department contends Empire received $1.2 million for the charter of the Suez Rajan (158,500 dwt), a tanker registered in the Marshall Islands. 

Court documents show the steps taken, with the Suez Rajan, which was empty at the time, instructed to make a ship-to-ship transfer receiving a small amount of crude from one tanker, the CS Brillance (300,000 dwt tanker registered in Panama). A few days later, another Greek tanker, the Virgo (305,700 dwt) arrived and made a second transfer to the Suez Rajan, although the captain was instructed to show a single transfer from the first vessel in the logs. The U.S. successfully argued the captain and chief officer working for Empire falsified the records of the oil transfer in the logs of the Suez Rajan to conceal the fact the vessel loaded a sanctioned cargo of Iranian crude from the Virgo. 

The United Nations said Wednesday it has documented more than 1,600 cases of human rights violations committed by authorities in Afghanistan during arrests and detentions of people, and urged the Taliban government to stop torture and protect the rights of detainees.

Nearly 50% of the violations consisted of “torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said.

The report by the mission’s Human Rights Service covered 19 months — from January 2022 until the end of July 2023 — with cases documented across 29 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. It said 11% of the cases involved women.

It said the torture aimed at extracting confessions and other information included beatings, suffocation, suspension from the ceiling and electric shocks. Cases that were not considered sufficiently credible and reliable were not included in the report, it said.

Just over ten years ago, Lord Justice Leveson proposed tougher legislation of newspapers amidst general horror that journalists had hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Millie Dowler.

His proposals were greeted with fury.

In the Daily Mail Richard Littlejohn said they meant the “suppression of free speech.” This was, added Littlejohn, the “classic hallmark of a fascist regime.”

Mike Harris for the Daily Telegraph warned that “three centuries of press freedom will be consigned to the dustbin of history, with investigative journalism almost impossible and shackles imposed on our much-loved local press”.

Every title from the Murdoch press, Associated Newspapers and the Telegraph – the hegemonic groups which account for approximately 75% of mainstream newspaper readership – denounced the Leveson reforms.

Meanwhile they united to launch a concerted campaign – the so called free speech network – to block them.

The Estonian army will soon stand up a unit solely dedicated to loitering munitions, drawing on lessons from the Ukrainian war, the battery’s prospective commander told Defense One.Estonian Land Forces Maj. Andrei Šlabovitš said he believed it would be the first unit of its kind in NATO, whose members have been watching the Ukrainian military’s extensive use of these one-way attack drones.

“Estonia is probably correct in saying they are the first to deploy loitering munitions,” said Larry Dickerson of Forecast International, a defense data and consulting firm owned by Defense One parent company GovExec.

“Others are also thinking about wider use of loitering munitions and how to best integrate them with their militaries,” Dickerson said. “The market is changing due to the press coverage loitering munitions are getting from the Russo-Ukrainian War.”

The U.S. Army is currently testing loitering munitions for use in infantry brigade combat teams, after first fielding them with Army Special Forces.  

12 cases examined, Pfizer developing a new drug to treat the Alopecia it caused

Secret Pakistan arms sales to the U.S. helped to facilitate a controversial bailout from the International Monetary Fund earlier this year, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement, with confirmation from internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arms sales were made for the purpose of supplying the Ukrainian military — marking Pakistani involvement in a conflict it had faced U.S. pressure to take sides on.

The revelation is a window into the kind of behind-the-scenes maneuvering between financial and political elites that rarely is exposed to the public, even as the public pays the price. Harsh structural policy reforms demanded by the IMF as terms for its recent bailout kicked off an ongoing round of protests in the country. Major strikes have taken place throughout Pakistan in recent weeks in response to the measures.

The protests are the latest chapter in a year-and-a-half-long political crisis roiling the country. In April 2022, the Pakistani military, with the encouragement of the U.S., helped organize a no-confidence vote to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan. Ahead of the ouster, State Department diplomats privately expressed anger to their Pakistani counterparts over what they called Pakistan’s “aggressively neutral” stance on the Ukraine war under Khan. They warned of dire consequences if Khan remained in power and promised “all would be forgiven” if he were removed.

Since Khan’s ouster, Pakistan has emerged as a useful supporter of the U.S. and its allies in the war, assistance that has now been repaid with an IMF loan. The emergency loan allowed the new Pakistani government to put off a looming economic catastrophe and indefinitely postpone elections — time it used to launch a nationwide crackdown on civil society and jail Khan.

“Pakistani democracy may ultimately be a casualty of Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” Arif Rafiq, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute and specialist on Pakistan, told The Intercept.

No one seems to know. Readers who follow developments in China closely, know that relations between the two superpowers have grown increasingly strained in the last few years. But while the US has taken a more hostile approach to China, no one seems to know why. Was there something in particular that China did that angered Washington leading to the imposition of economic sanctions, technology blockades and military provocations in the Taiwan Strait?

No, there’s no indication that China did anything. What changed was Washington’s approach to China. And—as you’ll see—Washington’s approach changed very quickly and very dramatically. China went from friend to foe almost overnight.

Here’s why.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US maintained a policy of engagement with China that accelerated its development and transformed the country into the main engine of global growth. In December, 2001, China was granted “most-favored-nation”(MFN) status which was followed shortly after by its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). These developments allowed China to access western markets which turned China into a manufacturing center for US multinationals like Nike, Apple and Dell. China’s opening also triggered a surge of foreign investment which pumped up growth while strengthening its financial assets and bond market. In short, US policy laid the groundwork for the “Chinese miracle” which set the stage for a great power conflict with the US.

No other country in the world is more responsible for China’s meteoric rise than the United States. Now, however, the foreign policy establishment has decided that it doesn’t like its own creation. It doesn’t like the fact that China took advantage of the opportunities it was given to transform itself into a peer competitor of the United States. It doesn’t like the fact that China’s economy is growing more than twice as fast as America’s and is set to surpass the US within the decade. It doesn’t like the fact that China is building a 21st century, state-of-the-art infrastructure grid that will economically integrate a large part of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia into the world’s biggest free trade zone. It doesn’t like the fact that China’s expansive economic/political strategy will inevitably replace the “rules-based international order” with a Chinese-led system in which the renminbi is the world’s reserve currency and China’s financial markets are the largest and most liquid in the world. America’s foreign policy establishment is not happy about any of these developments especially since it is largely responsible for all of them.

“The war in Ukraine has driven an increase in sales across the portfolio for sure,” says Matthew Bragoni, a representative of Ensign-Bickford Aerospace and Defense (EBAD).

Bragoni, a US army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is standing by his company’s stall in London at the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI). This biannual arms fair is the jewel in the crown of the global weapons industry.

“Everyone’s well aware that the US military has been donating [to Ukraine] a lot of product that was in stock,” he observes. “And so we’re seeing the second order effect where these purchases – as the US emptied out their inventory – they’re re-buying”.

EBAD is based in the US state of Connecticut. Bragoni is the director of their group which is focused on delivering products to “warfighters around the world”. These range from missile parts down to explosives for clearing minefields, which are now being sent to Ukraine – “something we’re very proud of”, Bragoni notes.

Not so long ago, following French President Emmanuel Macron’s Beijing visit, many in the U.S. reacted to his expressed desire to avoid confrontation with China with indignation, labeling the leader a fool and a puppet.

Evidently, the backlash didn’t phase Macron. He doubled-down, saying that “being an ally does not mean being a vassal… [or] mean that we don’t have the right to think for ourselves.” When it comes to responding to fluctuating China-U.S. tensions, Macron believes that for Europe no response is the best response.

And as much as some Americans might wish he was wrong, he is not. 

Macron is not witless. He is making a case that prioritizes his country’s tangible interests, not the U.S.’s. These include focusing on his region, avoiding conflict with a major global power, and remaining a relevant actor in world affairs. 

Critics like The Spectator World’s John Pietro may label Macron’s call for European strategic autonomy “fantastical” and “unpopular,” but reality is not on their side. 

In fact, Macron’s view is very popular. According to the European Council on Foreign Relations, close to three-quarters of Europeans believe that the Continent should pursue increased independence vis-à-vis American military power. Additionally, the report shows that majorities in all surveyed countries believe that Europe should remain neutral in any conflict between China and the U.S. over Taiwan. 

“The Pfizer vaccine is contaminated with plasmid DNA, it’s not just mRNA…I’m kind of alarmed about the possible consequences of this…It could be causing some of the rare, but serious, side effects like death from cardiac arrest…

This DNA can and likely will integrate into the genomic DNA of cells that got transfected with the vaccine mix…It’s different from RNA because it can be permanent…

It could cause theoretically…a sustained autoimmune attack towards that tissue.

It’s also a very real theoretical risk of future cancer in some people.

There’s probably about 200 billion pieces of this plasmid DNA in each dose of the vaccine…This is a bad idea.”

Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, made a visit to Northern Arizona University on Tuesday as part of the organization's efforts to establish 1,600 high school and college chapters across the United States.

However, his presence on campus was met with hostility from triggered leftists and trans activists who hurled slurs and screamed at the conservative celebrity.

Amidst the chaos, Kirk remained undeterred and considered the event a success, bringing Turning Point USA one step closer to achieving their ambitious goals. He stated, "The trans mafia showed up in force at NAU. We didn't let them win. Another big day for TPUSA as we march to our ambitious goals for 1,600 high school and college chapters across America." Kirk later shared footage that revealed his supporters outnumbered his detractors.

Elon Musk’s start-up, Neuralink, announced that they have begun recruiting individuals for its first human trial to test out the company’s very own brain chip implant.

On Tuesday, the tech mogul’s brain implant company reportedly received approval from an independent review board to start recruiting volunteers for its first clinical trial that “would help people with paralysis, to communicate using their thoughts.”

Neuralink is a company that works on developing a brain-computer interference (BCI) that can reportedly collect and analyze brain signals. 

Musk reportedly also stated that the company would create a comprehensive brain computer to assist humans in keeping up with artificial intelligence (AI). 

In May, Neuralink received approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its first human clinical trial, a significant step after previous delays and setbacks.

At the time, Neuralink described the FDA approval as “an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people.”

Fox Business host Larry Kudlow agreed with Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow’s recent editorial about his forthcoming book Breaking Biden arguing that Republicans need to “reset” their narrative about President Joe Biden to focus on his corruption and policy failures rather than his age and gaffes.

United States Magistrate Judge from the District of Delaware, Christopher Burke, has declared that Hunter Biden, 53, must not receive “special treatment” regarding his request to appear virtually for his first court hearing on federal gun charges.

Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, was charged by Special Counsel David Weiss with making an untrue statement during his purchase of a firearm and making a false statement regarding information required to be kept by a federal licensed gun dealer. He was additionally charged with one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. 

On Tuesday, Hunter’s lawyers explained to the court that he will not be pleading guilty, while asking for his first court appearance to take place virtually. This was something that Weiss’ team was opposed to in a filing on Wednesday.

For more than three decades [since 1991], the United States of America and the United Kingdom have been waging continuous wars on Iraq to occupy this oil rich country.

The armed forces of those two countries attacked civilians with different kinds of conventional, non-conventional, and banned weapons such as cluster bombs ammunitions, napalm bombs, white phosphorous weapons and depleted Uranium weapons.

Depleted Uranium (DU) is a radioactive and chemically toxic heavy metal. If ingested, inhaled, or it enters the human body through wounds or skin, it remains there for decades.

Within the human body the (DU) particles would be a continuous source for emitting alpha particles. With its toxic effects, published research & epidemiological studies have proved that it causes serious health damages to the human body. Some of the damage to the human body is to lymph tissue, kidneys, developing fetuses, neurological system, the bones, lung fibrosis, and an increase in the risk of many types of cancer and malignancies.

Hundreds of tons of (DU) expenditure have been fired & exploded on Iraqi highly populated areas like Basrah, Baghdad, Nasriya, Dewania, Samawa, and other cities.

Exploration programs and site measurements by Iraqi and non-Iraqi researchers all proved the existence of (DU) related contamination over most Iraqi territories.

Esteemed cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough unleashed an array of truth bombs during his presentation to the European Parliament on September 13, 2023, in a session specifically focused on the World Health Organization and the global management of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In his 1923 book The Goose-Step, renowned muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair examined the consequences of plutocratic capitalist control of American colleges and universities, writing that “our educational system is not a public service, but an instrument of special privilege; its purpose is not to further the welfare of mankind, but merely to keep America capitalist.”

If Sinclair were alive today, he would likely be horrified though not surprised by the appointment of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to a professorship at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and Presidential Fellow at Columbia World Projects (CWP).

Clinton is offering a class at the school this fall, with Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo, called “Inside the Situation Room.” It will have students “examine decision-making in a variety of historical and contemporary contexts, from the search for Osama bin Laden, to the ‘red line’ in Syria, to negotiating with Iran,” according to a press release from the University.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley apparently hasn't checked a poll lately because she recently sided with CEOs over UAW workers regarding an automaker strike. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.

Some Democrats are panicking that Donald Trump is "outmaneuvering" President Joe Biden, according to a new report.

On Monday, the New York Times reported that Trump will skip the second Republican primary debate on Sept. 27 to visit Detroit, where he will meet with auto union workers. The decision was made just days after the United Auto Workers went on strike.

Trump's decision to skip the debate and engage with union workers, according to the Times, shows that his campaign is looking past the Republican primary and focusing its efforts on campaigning against Biden. And unfortunately for the president, that's also exactly how some Democrats understand it, Politico reported.

"Trump scooped us. Now if we announce we're going, it looks like we're just going because of Trump," a Democratic strategist told Politico. "We waited too long. That's the challenge."

At a House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources hearing on the Biden administration's "mismanagement of the federal onshore oil and gas program," Ocasio-Cortez claimed that nearly one-quarter of U.S. "carbon pollution" comes from oil and gas drilling on federal lands.

"As it stands, nearly a quarter of the United States' current carbon pollution comes from fossil fuel production on federal lands and waters," she claimed.

But according to Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, the New York Democrat is wrong.

Not only did Sgamma open her testimony by calling out Ocasio-Cortez for her "complete falsehood," but with data in hand, Sgamma corrected the record.

"I just want to start off by correcting something the ranking member said in her opening statement. She claimed that oil and gas production on federal lands is responsible for about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions," Sgamma said.

"That's based on a misreading of a USGS study of greenhouse gas emissions," she explained. "And if you actually look at the numbers, production on federal lands and waters accounts for 0.6% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — not 'nearly a quarter.' Even the Interior Department stopped using that number after I simply pointed out the numbers from the USGS report."

President Biden will announce a new weapons package for Ukraine when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits Washington on Thursday, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Sources told Reuters that the package will be worth $325 million and is expected to include the second tranche of widely-banned cluster bombs in the form of 155mm artillery shells. The US began providing Ukraine with cluster munitions in July despite their history of killing and maiming civilians.

The cluster munitions the US is providing Ukraine are packed with 72 submunitions, known as bomblets, that are scattered over a large area. Cluster bombs are so hazardous to civilians because many of the submunitions do not explode on impact, and can be found years or decades later.

Due to their indiscriminate nature, cluster bombs are banned by over 100 countries by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but the US, Ukraine, and Russia are not signatories to the treaty.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attacked the UN as an ineffective body unable to enforce its own principles. The Ukrainian leader called for Russia to lose its veto power on the Security Council (UNSC).

Speaking at a special session of the UNSC – the UN’s most powerful body – Zelensky said the organization had failed to uphold its values. “Ukrainian soldiers now are doing at the expense of their blood what the UN Security Council should do by its voting,” he argued. “They’re stopping aggression and upholding the principles of the UN Charter.”

He went on to call for Russia to be punished for invading Ukraine by removing Moscow’s veto power at the UNSC. “Humankind no longer pins its hopes on the UN when it comes to the defense of the sovereign border of nations.” Zelensky continued, “We should not wait for the aggression to be over. We need to act now. Our aspiration for peace should drive the reform.”

The Ukrainian leader added that removing Russia’s veto power was a “necessary step..because all efforts are vetoed by the aggressor.” The US, UK, France, China, and Russia are permanent members of the UNSC and can veto any resolution that comes to the floor of the body. 

The Ukrainian Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) claims a sabotage attack was carried out on a key Russian airbase just miles from Moscow. The HUR has not provided evidence any Russian planes were damaged or that the covert operation happened.

Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, posted details about the alleged covert bombing on Twitter. “Unidentified saboteurs blew up two airplanes and a helicopter in Moscow region on 18th September – Ukrainian Defense Intelligence. The sabotage reportedly took place at the Chkalovsky Air Base, where government planes, “doomsday” planes and reconnaissance aircraft are based,” he wrote. “Unidentified persons placed explosives on a closely guarded airfield and blew up AN-148 and IL-20 aircraft (both belonging to the 354th Special Operations Aviation Regiment), as well as a MI-28N helicopter, which had previously been actively engaged in shooting down attack drones.”

Ukrainska Pravda reported the HUR believes the damage to Russian aircraft will take time to repair. “The damage caused to the planes makes their rapid restoration improbable. A tail part of the helicopter was damaged by the explosion. Another AN-148 parked close to other ones was slightly damaged,” the HUR said. 

Ukrainian officials and intelligence provided satellite photographs that show Chkalovsky Air Base and the aircraft, but the satellite photos allegedly proving that the bombing took place are blurry and do not confirm the HUR assertions. 

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi used his time in front of the UN General Assembly to request President Joe Biden commit to a return to the 2015 nuclear deal or abandon the agreement. The Iranian leader stressed that Tehran believes Washington’s control over the global economy is faltering. 

Speaking in New York on Tuesday, Raisi urged Biden to show he would like to return to the Iran nuclear deal – or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement’s official name. The US should “demonstrate in a verifiable fashion” that it wants to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, he said. Adding, Washington must choose a path, “either JCPOA or not.”

Raisi explained Iran was in full compliance with the agreement when then-President Donald Trump exited the deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under the JCPOA. The UN’s nuclear watchdog – the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – confirmed that Iran was fully complying with the terms of the JCPOA. 

After Trump initiated an economic war on Tehran aimed at destroying the Iranian economy, the Islamic Republic started to walk back its commitments to the JCPOA, including caps on enrichment and inspections.