A former economic adviser to former President Donald Trump said Monday that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) prevented several efforts to purchase Silicon Valley Bank.

Federal regulators shut down Silicon Valley Bank Friday after its stock price collapsed and customers began a bank run following the financial institution’s disclosure of a $1.8 billion loss on asset sales due to high interest rates, CNBC reported. The FDIC also shut down Signature Bank Sunday, citing “systemic risk,” CNBC reported separately.

“I have heard it from people I have a great deal of faith in that were very close to the situation that there were buyers who were willing to step in and buy the bank and that the radicals at the FDIC basically weren’t going to allow that to happen,” Kevin Hassett, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow. “I even heard again someone told me this directly that was close to the situation, that the Biden administration had a whitelist of companies were allowed to buy the failed bank and companies that weren’t.”

At the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, I researched on the Internet and found that the mortality rate following infection with the coronavirus was around 2%. In comparison, sarcoidosis is an inflammatory disease, and the most important interstitial lung disease in Western Europe is described as having a mortality rate of just under 5%.

Have you ever heard anything in the media about sarcoidosis, which has a much higher mortality rate than COVID-19?

In addition, in medical school, I was given a different definition of the term “pandemic than we used today. In the period that followed, I observed the events very closely.”

I’ve been working in pathology for 25 years. For the last 19 years, I was mainly involved in the diagnosis of breast specimens. Almost eight years ago, I got the opportunity to work in breast cancer research at Lund University. Here I have reevaluated 1,500 breast cancer cases according to currently valid guidelines.

With this experience, I know approximately the distribution of average age, tumor size, and degree of malignancy that I can expect in the daily input material of breast cancer.

The Islamic Republic of Iran may soon drop the U.S. dollar in trading with Africa.

Iranian Vice President for Economic Affairs Mohsen Rezaee put forward the possibility during a March 6 conference that touched on scientific and economic cooperation between the Islamic republic and West Africa. Highlighting the importance of multilateral cooperation, he remarked that Tehran could give a boost to many advanced industries in West Africa.

Rezaee even went as far as suggesting the creation of a joint bank, adding that settlements in local currencies would facilitate trade.

Several banks in the Cuban capital city of Havana started accepting Mir payment system cards, according to a TASS reporter.

ATMs now display the logo of the Russian payment system and provide an option to withdraw funds from cards, issued by Russian banks. The money is provided in Cuban pesos. The approximate ruble to Cuban peso exchange rate is about 1 to 1.5, not counting operation fee.

China's third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, has made smooth progress in mooring trials ahead of its expected maiden voyage later this year, analysts said on Monday, after the latest reports showed the ship has seemingly already tested its auxiliary power systems.

The report by China Central Television (CCTV) on Monday featured an interview with Captain Zhang Chuanqian, head of an undisclosed department on the Fujian.

"As sailors on China's first aircraft carrier that is equipped with electromagnetic catapults and arresting devices, we aim at realizing the centennial goal of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), as we are comprehensively enhancing our training and combat preparedness, so we are ready at all times to fight and win," Zhang said.

Australia is "planting a time bomb" for its own peace and that of the region, and it would bear the cost of the "expensive mistake" of following the US, Chinese experts warned, as the AUKUS leaders of the US, UK and Australia are expected to meet in San Diego, California and announce a mega nuclear submarine deal to arm Australia.

The three-way pact is back in focus after the US picked up the clique confrontation approach against China. AUKUS, launched in September 2021 after Australia scrapped a deal with France, was aimed at strengthening defense cooperation among the Anglo-Saxon brothers and counter China, including offering Australia US nuclear powered submarine technology. 

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are expected to further enrich AUKUS with a new nuclear submarine agreement during their meeting in California on Monday (US time), according to media reports. 

China's scientific research ship Tansuo-1 carrying manned submersible Fendouzhe (Striver) has finished the first international, large-scale and systematic manned deep-diving survey in the Kermadec Trench area of the southwest Pacific Ocean.

The research ship returned to the city of Sanya, South China's Hainan Province on Saturday, to a welcoming and boisterous crowd. 

The vessel had traveled for 157 days starting from October, and sailed more than 22,000 nautical miles around Oceania, reported the Xinhua News Agency citing the Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

A World Economic Forum insider has been caught boasting that the Silicon Valley Bank crash was an orchestrated plot that went to plan perfectly – and the crash will have a domino effect on the banking industry, leading to a global financial meltdown.

It’s been a crazy few days for the banking industry. Specifically, for Silicon Valley Bank and its shareholders, as it went from supposedly stable and solvent, to closed down by the regulators — in the space of just over 24 hours.

And it appears the domino effect has begun already, with Signature Bank in New York closed by regulators citing “systemic risk.”

A ground stop temporarily halted planes at New York's LaGuardia Airport as a winter storm threatened to wreak havoc in the Northeast and could dump up to three inches of heavy, wet snow in the Big Apple.

Flight cancelations, delays, school closings, and power outages were already affecting upstate New York, northern New Jersey and northeastern Pennsylvania.

LaGuardia Airport issued a ground stop Tuesday morning that is causing ongoing delays. Flights have resumed, but are averaging delays of about two hours.

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After New York state regulators shut down Signature Bank Sunday, a series of woke videos produced by the company has gone viral, with critics noting it’s no wonder the bank went under if this was what they were concentrating on.

Grit Capital founder Genevieve Roch-Decter shared the videos, asking “Is it surprising that Signature Bank failed?”

“Their executive team spent millions of dollars to produce music videos & TV shows about themselves,” she continued, adding “Try not to cringe as you watch this.”

Roch-Decter also noted that a source from inside the bank told her the management were like something out of the TV show The Office:

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Chair Rep. Richard Hudson pledges to go "on offense" in next year’s elections to expand the GOP’s razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives.

"We’re on offense. We’re not going to protect our majority. We’re going to grow our majority. I think this list is very realistic and I think we’ve got some real opportunities to pick up seats," Hudson told Fox News in an exclusive interview on Monday.

The list the six-term Republican from North Carolina referred to includes 37 target Democratic held seats that the House GOP re-election committee’s going to aim to flip from blue to red in 2024, in hopes of expanding their current extremely fragile four-seat majority. The list includes two open Democratic seats currently held by Reps. Katie Porter of California and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who are running for the Senate rather than re-election in the House next year.

Orange, Deutsche Telekom and BT are among the EU organizations that spoke out at MWC 2023, looking for changes from the American companies that make up the bulk of their traffic, CNBC reported.

In particular, telecoms want Google, Netflix, Meta, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft – which together generate nearly half of today’s internet traffic – to pitch in on maintenance for networks that deliver their content. These “fair share” fees would go toward keeping infrastructure running well and rolling out next-generation networks. Some fees would support physical infrastructure, such as new cables and antennas, as well as increased network speeds.

Several telecoms have suggested network fees as a solution; this would essentially be a “tax” to help with network maintenance. However, opposing U.S. tech firms say this would trickle down to have negative effects on consumers. BT also suggested to CNBC a “two-sided model” in which the content provider pays the network operator in roughly the same way consumers do.

The Hiatus campaign primarily targets DrayTek Vigor router models 2960 and 3900, which run an i386 architecture. These routers are mostly used by medium-size companies, as the router capabilities support a few hundred of employees’ VPN connections.

The researchers also found other malicious binaries targeting MIPS and ARM-based architectures.

The initial compromise vector stays unknown, yet once the attackers get access to the targeted routers, they drop a bash script. When that bash script is executed, it downloads two additional files: the HiatusRAT malware and a variant of the legitimate tcpdump tool, which enables network packet capture.

Once those files are run, the attackers are in control of the router and may download files or run arbitrary commands, intercept the network traffic from the infected device or use the router as a SOCKS5 proxy device, which can be used for further compromises or for targeting other companies.

Britain on Monday detailed plans to bolster military and security spending to confront the "epoch-defining challenge" posed by China while also countering Russia, as London updated its strategic foreign and defence policy.

In a "refresh" of the so-called Integrated Review, the UK government identified "the threat posed by Russia to European security" as the most pressing short- to medium-term priority.

But the 63-page report -- compiled after months of work across government -- also labelled China a "systemic challenge with implications for almost every area of government policy".

"We cannot be blind to the increasingly aggressive military and economic behaviour of the Chinese Communist Party," Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said, as he unveiled the updated review to parliament.

It doesn’t matter who says something; they’ve done something offensive. They are a source of controversy in schools, politics, and books that our children read. One newspaper used the pronouns zi and zir referencing a trans person. You won’t believe what readers have to say about it. For the unversed, ze and zir are gender-neutral pronouns that anyone can use.

According to The Blaze, “The Washington Post, in a Friday profile about a fired transgender diversity officer at New College of Florida, used “zir” as a pronoun about the fired diversity officer — Yoleidy Rosario-Hernandez — and also noted that Rosario-Hernandez ‘uses ze/zir pronouns.’”

The Washington Post continued to refer to Rosario-Hernandez as ze or zir throughout the article. For example, the Post said, “The dismissal of Yoleidy Rosario-Hernandez, who uses ze/zir pronouns, comes on the heels of a vote by college trustees to eliminate New College’s Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence.”

 Lunchables will soon become part of school lunch programs across the country.

Kraft Heinz said two new varieties will be in school cafeterias this fall – turkey and cheddar cracker stackers and extra cheesy pizza.

These are different than those found in grocery stores. The company said they have improved nutrition that meets federal guidelines for the National School Lunch Program.

The rollout comes as school nutrition guidelines are becoming stricter.

Webmaster addition: Gotta get them little kiddies into eating junk food (heavily processed and loaded with chemicals) as early as possible!

Acommunity college in California fired its director of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) after determining that the individual in question was not sufficiently far-left enough.

The Daily Caller reports that DeAnza College fired Tabia Lee on March 6th after she allegedly questioned certain tenets of the college’s “anti-racism” efforts and policies.

“I noticed that there was a lot of resistance to my even asking questions about anti-racism policy efforts and language,” said Lee after her firing. “I purely wanted to know what folks meant when they were using those terms, and I encountered a lot of hostility.”

Lee further claimed that her colleagues expected her to believe certain things due to being African-American, and that she faced hostility when she did not support every belief that they told her to.

“They said they wanted a black person to do this job,” Lee added. “Apparently, I am the wrong kind of black.”

In the aftermath of the catastrophic collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), new details have emerged revealing just how much the bank continued to double down on far-left “diversity” policies despite previously suffering losses to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

As reported by Just The News, the transcript of an investors’ call that took place last July shows that some major investors were beginning to voice their concerns about the bank prioritizing politics over investors’ returns. While representatives from SVB used the call to boast about the company’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) measures as well as its commitment to gay pride, J.P. Morgan official Steve Alexopoulos demanded answers on one particularly devastating quarter’s losses.

“So if we look at the $137 million of investment losses, which are detailed on Page 7, that declines a bit more than we’ve seen in other periods, right, is over 8%, typically you’re like 2% to 3%,” Alexopolous said. “Can you walk us through the three buckets, so we can understand that a bit better?”

In response to Alexopoulos’ concerns, SVB’s President and CEO Greg Becker, simply said “I believe and I certainly hope we’ve kind of gotten down to the floor. No guarantees, but this is just a flavor for how we’ve approached the securities portfolio.”

President Joe Biden on Monday vowed to enact rules to prevent banks from collapsing after inflation, fueled by the Biden administration’s energy policies, caused increased interest rates meant to tamp down Biden’s soaring price hikes.

One day after taking credit for inventing a new mechanism intended to provide liquidity “to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors,” Biden promised new rules to prevent the bank failures.

“I will ask Congress and banking regulators to strengthen the rules for banks to make it less likely that this kind of bank failure happens again,” Biden’s Twitter account posted. “We must protect American jobs and small businesses.”

Webmaster addition: Actually Joe, your job was to prevent the collapse in the first place.

Law enforcement has launched a manhunt for Roy McGrath, the ex-chief of staff to former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, after he failed to appear in federal court Monday for the start of his criminal trial on fraud and theft charges.

Sheriff’s deputies checked his home Monday morning in Naples, Florida, but McGrath wasn’t there, a spokeswoman said. A judge issued a warrant for his arrest, and the U.S. Marshals Service is calling him a fugitive.

The area around McGrath’s Raffia Preserve home in Naples is quiet, a gated community off a main road that features new-build strip malls with restaurants such as Five Guys and Dunkin’ Donuts. Inside the community, the exterior of McGrath’s house was quiet, with no police presence.

China used green lasers fired from satellites to gather intelligence for a surprise hypersonic missile attack on Hawaii, it has been warned. According to a report from TheSun, The satellite was recorded flashing lasers for a fraction of a second by a live stream camera attached to a telescope on top of a mountain on one of the islands.

Initially, the lights were thought to come from a NASA satellite before it was finally established it was a Chinese pollution monitoring satellite the Daqi-1.

But questions immediately began to be raised about why the Chinese would feel it necessary to monitor pollution in Hawaii, given the large US military presence there.

And it comes just weeks after China flew a giant balloon over the US – which was widely understood to be a spy tool even as Beijing claimed it was a civilian weather airship.

Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii remains vital for the United States military and the presence of the satellite comes amid increased tensions between the US and China.

Webmaster addition: I doubt this story. If China wanted a detailed topological map of Hawaii they can simply download one from the US Geological survey. And it's hardly a secret where Pearl Harbor is located. Even assuming that the US and Russian GPS systems are knocked out in the opening of war, a nuclear-tipped hypersonic missile can get "close enough" using inertial guidance to score a hit.

President Joe Biden said on Monday that swift action to protect deposits of two closed banks was meant to assure Americans that the U.S. banking system remained strong and head off fears that it is the beginning of other failures of financial institutions.

"Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe. Your deposits will be there when you need them," Biden told reporters Monday morning from the Roosevelt Room of the White House, before heading to California.

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