Research journals have withdrawn well over 300 articles on COVID-19 due to compromised ethical standards and concerns about the publications’ scientific validity.

Retraction Watch has provided a running list of withdrawn papers on COVID-19 ranging from “Acute kidney injury associated with COVID-19” to “Can Your AI Differentiate Cats from COVID-19?”

A total of 330 research papers have currently been retracted.

During the pandemic, researchers have compromised on ethical standards and tried to either get more publications approved or to take shortcuts around ethics, senior researcher Gunnveig Grødeland at the Institute of Immunology at the University of Oslo says, after going through the list of articles that have been withdrawn, and the reasons for some of them.

As Memorial Day weekend begins the transition to summer-time fun, many Americans are making plans to spend time on the nation’s beautiful beaches.

Many of those beaches are along the East Coast. However, back in 1995, the New York Times ran a story with “experts” genuinely concerned those beaches would be gone in 25 years.

The Biden administration’s attempt to thaw U.S.-Chinese relations has hit a significant snag.

The Chinese government said Monday that it has declined a U.S. request for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Li Shangfu, after Beijing had said several times that no meeting will be forthcoming as long as Li remains under U.S. sanctions. 

There have been no direct communications between top military officials from the two governments for the last six months, and the hoped-for meeting on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore was supposed to be the way to begin repairing ties. Contrary to President Biden’s statement in Japan last week that U.S.-Chinese ties would begin improving “very shortly,” the two sides seem as far apart as ever. 

Recently, officials in the fascistic, openly Jewish supremacist, Israeli government attacked famed rockstar Roger Waters’ performance in Berlin. Israel’s anti-Palestinian agents in many countries amplified the embarrassing frenzy, which claimed Waters was anti-Jewish for posting Anne Frank’s name on a big screen alongside murdered Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Even if Waters’ show had simply contrasted the two names it wouldn’t have been untoward but in fact the names of about a dozen individuals killed by security forces, such as George Floyd in the US, flashed on the screen during the performance. 

The second element in their cynical frenzy was complaining that Waters dressed in fascist, SS-like, attire. But Waters has been doing variations of this anti-fascist, anti-Nazi, skit for four decades, as the photo above demonstrates. 

Finally, some claimed the performance included a pig with a Star of David at the show, which was an outright fabrication.

North Korea has informed Japan of its plan to launch a satellite in the coming days, which could be an attempt to put its first military reconnaissance satellite into orbit.

Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada has ordered Japan's Self-Defense Force to shoot down the satellite or debris if any enters Japanese territory. The launch window is from May 31 to June 11, and the launch may affect waters in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and east of the Philippines' Luzon Island.

To launch a satellite into space, North Korea must use long-range missile technology banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions. Its past launches of Earth observation satellites were seen as disguised missile tests. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the launch would violate U.N. resolutions and was a "threat to the peace and safety of Japan, the region, and the international community."

Kohl's, the department store chain, has come under fire from shoppers after it began selling LGBTQ clothing for infants and young children.

The merchandise, including a "Baby Sonoma Community Pride Bodysuit set" and other items such as towels, bibs, candles, shorts, and pillows, was posted on various social media accounts to celebrate Pride Month. However, the display has been criticized, with some shoppers calling for a boycott of the company.

The Twitter account "End Wokeness" initially highlighted the Pride display and associated products, posting pictures of several items alongside the caption, "Looks like Kohl's didn't learn a thing from Bud Lite and Target."

On a recent appearance on Fox & Friends on Memorial Day, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis underscored the urgency of revitalizing the morale of the U.S. military, expressing concerns over the impact of certain ideologies and policies he characterizes as leftist on the institution.

A potential 2024 presidential candidate, DeSantis elaborated on his plans to address these issues should he secure a win in the race to the White House.

DeSantis stated his concern about the current military state, claiming a divergence from the organization he had served in. "The military I see is different from the military I served in," he articulated. A former Navy lieutenant, DeSantis expressed disquiet over the emphasis on political ideologies, gender pronouns, diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, suggesting that such focus might cause decreased recruitment and lowered morale.

Israeli settlers on Monday relocated a Jewish religious school originally established on private Palestinian land in the illegal outpost of Homesh to nearby state-owned land.

Settlers have long campaigned for a yeshiva to be established in the area, and the latest move is part of an incremental effort by the government to legalise the Homesh settlement, built deep inside the occupied West Bank.

Earlier this year, Israeli lawmakers approved a controversial piece of legislation that would allow four abandoned Jewish settlements in the West Bank - Homesh, Sa-Nur, Ganim and Kadim - to be re-established after they were dismantled in 2005. 

Monday's steps to tentatively re-establish the settlement was made with the approval of Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and was given the green light by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan was re-elected for a third presidential term on Sunday, prompting his supporters to take to the streets in jubilation.

With his win secure, Erdogan addressed some of the things he plans to do in the near future. Yet, amid the celebrations, he nonetheless faces significant challenges, including: addressing the economic crisis, finding solutions for the refugee crisis, and securing victory in the upcoming municipal elections in 10 months' time.

That's just on the domestic front. As for foreign policy, Turkey's western allies are urging Erdogan to ratify Sweden's Nato membership before a summit in Vilnius on 11 July, an issue linked to Turkey's need for F-16 warplanes.

A flare-up between the regional government in Kurdistan and Baghdad has added risk for the resumption of oil flows from the northern Iraqi region.

Rudaw reports that the spike in tension followed amendments in relation to Kurdistan that the Iraq government had made to the federal budget last week. The Kurdish government slammed the changes as unconstitutional.

The dispute will delay the approval of the budget and may destroy the delicate balance that Baghdad and Erbil achieved in the wake of the oil export halt from Kurdistan that prompted the shut-in of thousands of barrels in output.

“Jumping on understandings and agreements and trying to violate the constitutional rights of the Kurdistan Region is completely contrary to national responsibility and it won’t yield anything other than disappointment and complicating the political stability of the country. It will harm the whole of Iraq,” Kurdistan’s president, Nechirvan Barzani said in a statement.

Denmark plans to increase its spending on military aid to Ukraine by 17.9 billion crowns ($2.59 billion) over this year and next, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday, winning thanks for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Denmark, with a population of less than 6 million, in March established a $1 billion fund for military, civilian and business aid to Ukraine in 2023.

Frederiksen, seen as a possible contender to become new NATO chief, on Monday told Danish public radio the government planned to add another 7.5 billion crowns to the fund this year, and 10.4 billion next year.

"This major contribution will further strengthen the combat capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the short and medium term," Zelenskiy said in a tweet. "Our strength is in unity!"

Several explosions have rocked the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, according to officials, in the 15th Russian air attack on the city this month and the second overnight attack in a row.

“A missile shot down near Kyiv,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging channel in the early hours of Monday. “Air defence working!”

He added that blasts were heard in several districts of the city, including Kyiv’s historic neighbourhood of Podil, where falling debris damaged the roof of a house.

According to preliminary information from the mayor and the city’s military administration, there were no casualties in the overnight attacks.

Massive amounts of seaweed is washing ashore along the beaches of South Florida which could be carrying flesh-eating pathogens.

Known as Sargassum, once the seaweed washes ashore, it is a nuisance as the thick, brown algae carpets beaches, releasing a pungent smell as it decays and entangles humans and animals who step into it.

For hotels and resorts, clearing the stuff off beaches can amount to a round-the-clock operation.

But the seaweed also interacts with plastic debris and Vibrio bacteria in the ocean creating what scientists call a 'pathogen storm' that can pose risks to beachgoers.

The biggest Vibrio bacteria threat is a condition called 'leaky gut syndrome.'

Moscow was attacked this morning by suspected Ukrainian kamikaze drones just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed yet another volley of strikes on Kyiv.

Several buildings were damaged in wealthy suburbs of Moscow, including the elite district of Rublyovka to the south-west of the capital. 

One drone exploded into a mushroom cloud near the village of Usovo, which is just down the road from Putin's official Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside of the capital. 

'[Putin's residence] would be in earshot of the explosion,' one local said.

In the city, explosive drones struck blocks of flats in Leninsky Prospekt and Profsoyuznaya Street about six miles from the centre of Moscow, reportedly wounding several residents and damaging the buildings.

China has declined a request from the United States for a meeting between their defense chiefs in a new sign of strain between the powers.

The meeting was intended to take place at an annual security forum in Singapore this weekend before China refused the request, saying the U.S. was 'well aware' of the reasons behind the lack of military communication.

'Overnight, the PRC informed the U.S. that they have declined our early May invitation for Secretary (Lloyd) Austin to meet with PRC Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu in Singapore,' the Pentagon said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal, referring to China by the initials of its official name, the People's Republic of China.

The Pentagon said it believed in open communication 'to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict.'

A marketing executive at Target also serves as the treasurer of a LGBT organization which receives millions of dollars from the retailer and advocates allowing trans and nonbinary school students to keep their gender identity secret from parents.

Carlos Saavedra, 43, is Target's vice president for brand management and also volunteers as a director at GLSEN, which supports LGBTQ youth in schools.

Details of Saavedra's role at GLSEN come as Target's donations to the organization were placed under the spotlight following a backlash to the retailer's Pride month range, which includes 'tuck-friendly' women's swimwear.

Target has reportedly donated $2.1 million to GLSEN, whose policies include ensuring school staff should 'ensure that all personally identifiable and medical information relating to transgender and nonbinary students is kept confidential'.

GLSEN's policy said this should include withholding the information from 'parents or guardians... unless the student has authorized such disclosure'. Critics say the policy 'violates [a parents'] right to parent their own children]'.

Wild video shows the moment a group of self-identified US Marines were savagely beaten by as many as 40 teenagers after the service members confronted them about their unruly behavior on a California beach.

The victims said they were simply walking along the beach in San Clemente, California, when they were attacked by the massive mob of teenagers about 10pm Friday night - the start of Memorial Day weekend. 

Frightening video posted online showed two victims curled up in the fetal position on the ground as the crowd continued to kick them, hurling profanities and racial slurs. A third marine was also attacked but not shown in the footage.

The men sustained minor injuries, and refused to be transported to a local hospital in the aftermath, Orange County Sheriff's deputies say.

US health bosses are calling for a deadly fungal outbreak linked to cut-price plastic surgeries in Mexico to be declared an international health emergency.

So far, two Texan patients have died from the fungal brain infection, which doctors believe was contracted from unsterilized equipment south of the border after they had the discounted plastic surgeries.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is monitoring the condition of 195 more people who were given epidural anesthesia (injection into the spine to numb part of the body) during plastic surgeries carried out since January.

But hundreds more may have been affected due to Mexico's booming medical tourism industry, which sees around 1.2million Americans travel south for affordable care each year, and an even greater number of international patients.

A necklace 'made from the tooth of a megalodon shark' has been revealed in new images from the wreckage of the Titanic. 

The stunning artefact was identified in footage taken last summer by Guernsey-based firm Magellan Ltd.

The footage was shot during efforts to capture the first digital scans of the shipwreck, which present it in detail - almost as if it's been retrieved from the water. 

Other objects surrounding the necklace have not been identified, although it appears to be near a collection of small ring-shaped beads. 

Magellan Ltd, which is working with Atlantic Productions on a documentary about last year's expedition, is prohibited from retrieving them from the sea floor, however.

Big Tech Communism has arrived in the United States, as the U.S. has now surpassed China and other communist countries to become the world leader in spying on its citizens.

It was announced this past week that Amazon Sidewalk has now joined the Helium Network allowing all Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which are currently in the homes of almost all Americans, to be connected into one large mesh network nationwide.

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) goals for the 4th Industrial Revolution and Great Reset where nobody will own anything and be confined into 15-minute “smart cities,” is clearly a modern day Big Tech version of communism, where the rights of the individual are sacrificed for the rights of the community.

This new system of surveillance, which is creating the ultimate police state, is well underway in the United States, which has, by far, the largest proportion of its population connected to the Internet, including cell phones, vehicles, cameras, and household appliances, than any other country in the world.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy hunkered down in a mostly desolate Capitol building on Monday to build support for his debt limit compromise, dogged by claims of promises he made to become speaker.

For days, the California Republican has said he could “get to yes” on House passage of a cross-party agreement to prevent the nation from defaulting on its $31.4 trillion in debt. Already, the task is appearing stickier than simply rounding up enough floor votes to pass the deal he struck over the weekend with President Joe Biden.

With a passage vote set for Wednesday, a few Republicans have suggested using the Rules Committee to block the 99-page package from making it to the floor. And Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) further hinted at that strategy Monday afternoon.

Conservative scholar and historian Victor Davis Hanson recently appeared on FOX News to talk about how the left is rapidly trying to change so many aspects of American life.

He suggested that the left is waging a ‘Maoist’ style of cultural revolution and that many Americans don’t understand this.

He also points out that the left has destroyed multiple cultural institutions in the process and that they don’t care because the ends justify the means.

The Left’s tendency to redefine words to silence dissent is a clear tactic of totalitarianism, and conservatives need to fight back, a prominent conservative leader warns.

“They play with words. They played with the word ‘marriage.’ Now, they’re playing with the words ‘man’ and ‘woman,’” and that “ultimately leads to totalitarianism,” Michael Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association and currently legal counsel at the National Religious Broadcasters, told The Daily Signal. “The changing words, changing meanings, changing morality is a part of the totalitarian culture, because they have to rip everything down in order to build up the new country, the new agenda, the new culture that they want.”

Speaking at the National Religious Broadcasters convention on Tuesday, Farris warned that the Left’s vision is “a world without God” and “a world without freedom.”

This past weekend, beginning last Friday, Russia pulled another three thousand tanks from various storage depots and began loading them on trains.  Those trains are **NOT** all going toward Ukraine; they’re heading to Russia’s western Border areas.

A Russian drone attack overnight damaged some infrastructure in Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa, which is key for its grain exports, the Ukrainian military said on Monday.

"A fire broke out in the port infrastructure of Odesa as a result of the hit. It was quickly extinguished. Information on the extent of the damage is being updated," the military's southern command said on Facebook.

The military did not specify whether the damage at the port threatened grain exports. It is only through ports in the Odessa region that Ukraine can export grain and other food items as part of an initiative on grain.

The United Nations and Turkey brokered the Black Sea grain deal for an initial 120 days in July last year to help tackle a global food crisis that has been aggravated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, one of the world's leading grain exporters.

In the days after war erupted in Khartoum, Dr Abeer Abdullah rushed between rooms at Sudan’s largest orphanage, trying to care for hundreds of babies and toddlers as the fighting kept all but a handful of staff away. Children’s cries rang through the sprawling building as heavy gunfire rocked the surroundings, she said.

Then came waves of deaths. There were the infants housed on the upper floors of the state-run orphanage, known as Mygoma. Without enough staff to care for them, they succumbed to severe malnutrition and dehydration, the doctor said. And there were the already-fragile newborns in her medical clinic on the ground floor, some of whom died after developing high fever, she said.

“They needed to be fed every three hours. There was no one there,” said Abdullah, speaking by phone from the orphanage, the cries of wailing babies audible in the background. “We tried to give intravenous therapy but most of the time we couldn’t rescue the children.”

A gunfight broke out between Iranian border guards and Taliban fighters along the border between Iran and Afghanistan this weekend. Fighting killed three people in the biggest escalation between the two countries over water. And the Taliban brought out a big gun to help.  

Video posted to social media offered an up-close view of the skirmish, inside an unexpected place: an Humvee kitted out with an M240 machine gun. If that looks familiar it’s because those are some of the pieces of military equipment captured by the Taliban, now put into use for fighting other parties.

Two U.N. agencies warned Monday of rising food emergencies including starvation in Sudan due to the outbreak of war and in Haiti,Burkina Faso and Mali due to restricted movements of people and goods.

The four countries join Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen at the highest alert levels, with communities that are already facing or projected to face starvation or otherwise risk a slide “towards catastrophic conditions.”

The report by the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization calls for urgent attention to save both lives and jobs. Beyond the nine countries rating the highest level of concern, the agencies said 22 countries are identified as “hotspots” risking acute food insecurity.

Kazakhstan's state oil and gas firm KazMunayGas and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) are discussing the possible expansion of two oil pipelines, KazMunayGas officials have told Russian news agency Interfax.

The Kenkiyak-Atyrau and Kenkiyak-Kumkol oil pipelines could see their throughput raised, which could lift the volumes of Kazakhstan's crude oil exports to China.

The capacity of the Kenkiyak-Atyrau oil pipeline could be doubled to 12 million tons annually from 6 million tons, while the Kenkiyak-Kumkol pipeline capacity could be expanded to 15 million tons per year from 10 million tons annually at present.

Last year, 4.5 million tons of oil were pumped via the Kenkiyak-Atyrau pipeline, while 8.1 million tons were shipped via the Kenkiyak-Kumkol pipeline, KazMunayGas told Interfax.

Kenkiyak-Kumkol is the first section of the Kazakhstan-China Pipeline, which transports crude oil from West Kazakhstan and Aktobe oilfields.