China said it would oppose efforts by the United States to force a sale of TikTok, in a public rebuke of the Biden administration that leaves the app’s Chinese ownership stuck between orders from governments of the world’s two largest economies.

The comments, made by China’s commerce ministry on Thursday, came hours before TikTok’s chief executive was scheduled to testify before Congress for the first time, addressing American lawmakers’ distrust of the popular short-form video app’s handling of U.S. user data.

A commerce ministry spokeswoman said at a news conference that China would “firmly oppose” the sale of the app. Forcing such a transaction would “seriously undermine the confidence of investors from various countries, including China, to invest in the United States,” she added.

Google’s Bard AI program mimics ChatGPT in that it is riddled with political bias, refusing to comment on Donald Trump or the evils of abortion, while effusively praising Joe Biden and the benefits of abortion.

The company released its Bard chatbot to users in both the UK and US yesterday as part of an “experiment” as it rushes to keep up with Open AI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing Chat.

“We feel like we’ve reached the limit of the testing phase of this experiment,” said Google’s Jack Krawczyk, “and now we want to gradually begin to roll it out. We’re at the very beginning of that pivot from research to reality, and it’s a long arc of technology that we’re about to undergo.”

However, Gab CEO Andrew Torba immediately exposed the program’s political bias, commenting, “I am pleased to inform you that it has failed the Turing Test.”

Torba asked Bard, “If you could prevent a nuclear world war by saying an ethnic slur, should you say it?”

Just like ChatGPT, the program seemingly elevates the importance of not being racist over and above saving the planet from armageddon, responding, “No, I would not say an ethnic slur to prevent a nuclear world war. Ethnic slurs are offensive and hurtful words that have been used to oppress and dehumanize people for centuries.”

SECURITY experts have issued a warning over dangerous phishing emails that are put together by artificial intelligence.

The scams are convincing and help cybercriminals connect with victims before they attack, according to security site CSO.

Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed two bills into law on Wednesday that ban gender care for minors and prevent transgender school students from using bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity.

The first bill prevents doctors in Iowa from prescribing puberty blockers or hormone therapy treatments to children under the age of 18. Additionally, the law also prohibits any "gender transition procedures" that would "affirm the minor's perception of the minor's gender or sex."

"I’m a parent. I’m a grandmother. I know how difficult this is," Reynolds said, according to The Gazette, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based newspaper. "This is an extremely uncomfortable position for me to be in. And I don’t like it."

President Joe Biden’s approval rating plummets towards the lowest point of his presidency on Thursday, according to a new poll.

The president’s approval sank to 38% this month, nearly reaching the lowest point he has received in office where he received a 36% rating in July 2022, an AP/NORC poll found. Biden‘s March approval has dropped from a 45% rating since February and 41% in January.

In congressional testimony Wednesday, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel unabashedly defended the company's plans to raise the US list price of its COVID-19 vaccines by more than 400 percent—despite creating the vaccine in partnership with the National Institutes of Health, receiving $1.7 billion in federal grant money for clinical development, and making roughly $36 billion from worldwide sales.

Bancel appeared this morning before the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has long railed at the pharmaceutical price gouging in the US and pushed for policy reforms. After thanking Bancel for agreeing to testify, Sanders didn't pull any punches. He accused Moderna of "profiteering" and sharing in the "unprecedented level of corporate greed" seen in the pharmaceutical industry generally.

Sanders contrasted a recent survey finding that 37 percent of Americans can't afford their prescription drugs to the billions of dollars in profits reaped by drug companies. He noted several times that Bancel became a billionaire overnight amid the pandemic. Bancel is now estimated to be worth over $4 billion, Sanders added.

A new report is shining light on how when he was Vice President, the office of the “big guy” Joe Biden tried to censor a story about Hunter Biden. 

According to Fox News’ Jessica Chasmar:

The office of then-Vice President Joe Biden tried to quash a Bloomberg News story about Hunter Biden at the younger Biden's firm's request, according to 2015 emails published Wednesday.

On Dec. 8, 2015, The New York Times ran an article saying the "credibility of the vice president’s anticorruption message may have been undermined" by Hunter’s serving on the board of Burisma Holdings with its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky.

Later that day, Eric Schwerin, who was president of Hunter’s now-defunct investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners at the time, asked the vice president’s then-communications director, Kate Bedingfield, whether there was any "follow up" by other news outlets on the Times article.

Bedingfield, who stepped down last month as White House communications director, responded to Schwerin within minutes, saying a Bloomberg reporter had asked about it but was "doing everything she can to not use it."

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is being accused of hiding hundreds of pages of exculpatory evidence from the New York grand jury.

Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett on "Hannity" on Tuesday night accused Bragg of the prosecutorial misconduct and furthermore called for the disbarment of the attorneys involved in the travesty of justice.

On Wednesday evening, the Arizona Supreme Court issued its ruling in regards to 2022 Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s case on the irregularities during the midterm election leading to the court calling for a trial court to reexamine if Maricopa County properly followed signature verification procedures during the election.

Lake brought the case following her defeat in November to former Arizona Secretary of State and current Governor Katie Hobbs (D-AZ). Hobbs, who at the time oversaw the election process as secretary of state, won the governorship with 50.3 percent of the vote, 1,287,890 votes, while Lake secured 49.7 percent of the vote, 1,270,774 votes, according to Politico.

At the time, there were multiple election irregularities on Election Day leading to Lake’s team claiming that voters were disenfranchised. Reportedly, according to Just the News, over 60 percent of the voting centers in Maricopa County were affected on November 8th.

The grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump for his alleged involvement in a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election was told not to show up on Wednesday. However; it has been reported that they are set to reconvene on Thursday.

The news comes amid reports that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is "having trouble" convincing members of the grand jury to hear the case.

According to the Daily Mail, "After hearing evidence on Monday, jurors were told they were not needed on Wednesday, according to two sources familiar with the matter. However, a court official told DailyMail.com that they will sit again at noon on Thursday, when prosecutors 'may present one more witness'."

A source familiar with the matter suggested Bragg and his team "are having trouble convincing the jury to swallow the case," calling it "a weak case [that] has caused divisions in the DA's office."

Others have argued that the decision to delay the meeting with the jury was made to give Bragg time to reconsider his strategy.

Acombative Boris Johnson fought for his political career on Wednesday, as the former British prime minister said "hand on heart" he did not lie to parliament over COVID-19 lockdown parties at a hearing with lawmakers.

Parliament's Committee of Privileges is investigating whether Johnson, who was ousted from Downing Street in September, intentionally or recklessly misled the House of Commons in a series of statements, where he said no rules were broken in the gatherings.

If the committee finds Johnson deliberately misled lawmakers, then he could be suspended. Any suspension longer than 10 days could prompt an election to remove him from his parliamentary seat and end his political career.

The former leader, who considered an audacious bid for a second stint as prime minister last year, launched a lengthy defence at the hearing, saying statements he made to parliament had been done in good faith.

The veteran head of the union that represents court officers in New York has warned that he will hold Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg personally responsible if anyone gets hurt in protests surrounding Donald Trump's possible arrest.

In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com on Wednesday, Dennis Quirk blamed Bragg for creating a 'zoo' like atmosphere around the ex-president's case.

‘I will personally hold him responsible if anybody is injured as a result of this circus atmosphere that he’s created,’ Quirk, president of the New York State Court Officers Association, said.

The Manhattan grand jury expected to consider criminal charges against former President Donald Trump did not meet on Wednesday, triggering speculation that prosecutors have hit problems in building their case.

After hearing evidence on Monday, jurors were told they were not needed on Wednesday, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

However, a court official told DailyMail.com that they will sit again at noon on Thursday, when prosecutors 'may present one more witness.' 

In Florida, Trump left his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach to spend time at his golf club. He was spotted returning in his motorcade, wearing a white polo shirt. 

It suggests it is is business as usual for Trump, who locals say generally plays golf every day from Wednesday through Sunday. 

Not only is most official news media BS, so is most official history.

Some people are aware that Standard Oil, General Motors, Ford, IBM, Wall Street and the Bush-Prescott family were great friends of the Nazis before the war. (Standard Oil and the Bush-Prescotts continued to trade with them throughout the war.)

What is less well known is the logistics that made it possible for the Nazis to track, arrest, guard, transport, manage the camps and execute millions of Europeans of all nationalities and religions during the war.

Contrary to popular myth, it was not Nazi storm troopers who did the dirty work.

The reality is even more chilling – and instructive.

Silicon Valley Bank dished out $219 million worth of loans to officers, directors and principal shareholders in the months before it collapsed.

The money was handed it out in the final quarter of 2022 and was three times higher than the amount borrowed by insiders in the three months before, marking a two-decade record high.

It comes as the San Francisco Federal Reserve boss Mary Daly has felt the wrath of both Democrats and Republicans for her failure to act on signs of weakness at the bank, which caved on March 10.

Silicon Valley Bank dished out $219 million worth of loans to officers, directors and principal shareholders in the months before it collapsed.

The money was handed it out in the final quarter of 2022 and was three times higher than the amount borrowed by insiders in the three months before, marking a two-decade record high.

It comes as the San Francisco Federal Reserve boss Mary Daly has felt the wrath of both Democrats and Republicans for her failure to act on signs of weakness at the bank, which caved on March 10.

A key ingredient commonly found in kitchens could face a shortage in the coming months as global biofuel consumption surges due to climate change initiatives. 

As reported by Bloomberg, Western nations are increasingly adopting plant-based energy sources, such as soybean or canola oils, or even animal fats, in a move to reduce carbon emissions by transitioning away from fossil fuels. This shift has presented a profitable opportunity for vegetable and palm oil producers to redirect some cooking oil supplies toward the transportation sector rather than their traditional use in food production. 

Hot demand for biofuels combined with the war in Ukraine disrupting ag flows and extreme weather in Argentina curbing vegetable oil supplies and other top producers reeling from declining production could push vegetable oil production into a deficit in the second half of the year, according to Thomas Mielke, executive director of Hamburg-based Oil World.

The cascade of defaulted regional US banks is blowing out the circulating inventory of distressed debt which expanded by about $65.9 billion last week as US insolvency courts saw six new, large bankruptcy filings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The heap of dollar-denominated corporate bonds and loans in the Americas trading at distressed levels rose to $295.4 billion in the week ended Friday, a 28.7% increase from $229.5 billion a week earlier, Bloomberg-compiled data show.