The United States on Monday approved another $100 million in military aid to Ukraine as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited, despite an impasse in Congress in approving wider funding.

"I announced today another $100 million drawdown using presidential drawdown authority to provide additional artillery munitions, additional interceptors for air defense and a number of anti-tank weapons as well," Austin told reporters in Kyiv.

"So you know, our support continues," said Austin, who promised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of US support for the "long haul."

Israeli intelligence received a detailed report on an impending assault by Hamas shortly before the Palestinian militant group’s actual attack on October 7, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing persons familiar with the matter.

The warning, compiled by border sentries, – “many of them female soldiers,” the FT was told– arrived through secure communication lines to the highest-ranking intelligence officer in the southern command a few weeks before the attack, sources said, without identifying the senior security official.

The report contained “specific warnings” on the looming assault, namely Hamas’ plans to breach the border at multiple points, enter Israeli territory and seize local settlements, a person with direct knowledge of its contents told FT.

Join us on a breathtaking exploration of China's monumental mega-projects that redefine innovation and push the boundaries of what's possible! From towering dams taller than skyscrapers to colossal railway bridges spanning thousands of kilometers, these feats of engineering and architecture will leave you in awe. Discover the awe-inspiring Bahen Hydropower Plant, the world's largest Viaduct, architectural wonders like the Guangzhou Opera House, and the transformative Three Gorges Hydroelectric Power Station. Witness China's groundbreaking landscape-altering venture, reshaping mountains to create new cities! Don't miss this eye-opening journey through China's most daring projects, redefining the future with every colossal endeavor.

The US and its allies will continue backing Israel's war on Gaza after a brief truce. But as the case for 'genocide' grows stronger, the new multipolar powers will have to confront the old hegemons and their Rules-Based Chaos.

While the world cries “Israeli genocide,” the Biden White House is gushing over the upcoming Gaza truce it helped broker, as though it's actually “on the verge” of its “biggest diplomatic victory.” 

Behind the self-congratulatory narratives, the US administration is not remotely “wary about Netanyahu’s endgame,” it fully endorses it - genocide included - as agreed at the White House less than three weeks before Al-Aqsa Flood, in a 20 September meeting between Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe “The Mummy” Biden’s handlers.

With an eye on the Ukraine war, Dmitry Medvedev, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation’s Security Council, held a meeting at the Federal Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the “Rudnevo” industrial park to discuss the increase in production of drones that could be used in the so-called ‘special military operation zone.’

The high priests of academic and “official” history love a good villain for two reasons:  First, because good official villains make the struggles and accomplishments of good official heroes even more awe-inspiring.  And, second, because nothing teaches (or propagandizes) the masses more thoroughly than the social or political lessons inherent in the documented rise and fall of the world’s most despicable inhabitants.

We get shivers of fear and excitement when we discuss the evils and the follies of ancient monsters like Nero, Attila the Hun, Caligula, etc, or more modern monsters, like Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Goebbels, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and so on.  We take solace in the idea that “we are nothing like them”, and our nation has “moved beyond” such animalistic behavior.

But even more fascinating popcorn-style history is found not in the destruction of tyrants, but the destruction of empires.

Former harbormaster of Oakland Brock De Lappe doesn't like to use the word "piracy" to describe waterborne crime on the Oakland/Alameda Estuary.

"People have this romantic view of pirates—Johnny Depp; Pirates of the Caribbean—argh! Avast ye, matey!" said Mr. De Lappe, a marine consultant who was also Alameda's harbormaster before his retirement.

The reality is anything but romantic. The so-called pirates are nothing like the "Real Oakland Raiders," as one newspaper headline put it.

"These people are just common criminals," living on illegal "anchor-off" vessels committing robberies within the San Francisco Bay, he said. Anchor-offs, or anchor outs, are boats that are illegally anchored without a permit.

This past summer, a spree of robberies plagued the 800-foot-wide estuary involving stolen motor boats that were used to prey on larger vessels and marinas.

"We’re here to stab white people," attackers who killed a 16 year-old boy at a village party in France last weekend were heard to say. Why did international media fail to report on the racist terror incident?

All 44,000 hours of footage from January 6th has been publicly released by House Speaker Mike Johnson.

In the raw data, regular mask-wearers had a 74-75% higher risk of testing positive for Covid.

While White Americans are only 54% of their nation’s population, Whites constitute 80% (nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/clr/public-school-teachers) of all qualified teachers.

Hundreds of thousands of American teachers have resigned since 2020.
As of 2023 44% of American school districts lack sufficient numbers of teachers (www.lawdistrict.com/articles/teacher-resignation-crisis), and this trend only continues to worsen.

The video below shows the how’s and why’s San Francisco is the way it is now. I know it’s a little long but well worth the watch.

It’s shows the high rent prices and the exodus of the tech field. There’s also the homeless aspect and drug use. It touches on China and cartels slinging Fentanyl.

Turkish forces conducted on Friday evening airstrikes against 17 targets of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in a cross-border operation in northern Iraq, said the Defense Ministry.

In a statement, the ministry said the operation was carried out in the Metina, Hakurk, Gara, and Qandil regions, hitting 19 caves, caches and shelters believed to house senior PKK members.

It added that "many terrorists were neutralized," without giving the exact number.

Turkish authorities often use the term "neutralize" in their statements to imply that the alleged "terrorists" have either surrendered, been killed, or been captured.

In the latest issue to fracture the party, Democrats are feuding with each other over whether conditions should be placed on Israel when President Joe Biden's $14.3 billion aid request comes before lawmakers in the coming weeks.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a progressive independent who caucuses with Democrats, has been active over the past week spouting demands to be placed on Israel in order to approve the aid package. Sanders wrote of six demands by which Israel must abide in a New York Times op-ed on Wednesday, including a "significant pause" in military action.

"The United States must make clear that while we are friends of Israel, there are conditions to that friendship and that we cannot be complicit in actions that violate international law and our own sense of decency," Sanders wrote.

The Nantucket Christmas tree lighting that President Joe Biden was attending Friday evening with his family was interrupted by 'Free Palestine' protesters.

The president, first lady Jill Biden and their children and grandchildren were gathered alongside the tree in Nantucket's town square as the town crier led the countdown to get the tree illuminated. 

But after that went off without a hitch - after technical difficulties last year - fewer than 10 protesters at the front of the crowd unveiled 'free Palestine' and 'end apartheid' signs, directly in the president's line of sight.

'Biden, Biden you can't hide. We charge you with genocide,' they chanted. 

Police raids targeting reporters working for Indian news portal NewsClick resulted in the seizure of around 250 electronic devices — including phones, hard disks and laptops — and even the passports of over 90 journalists whose homes were searched during the October operation.

None of the journalists whose devices were seized by the New Delhi police were given their devices' hash values, the digital equivalent of a fingerprint that changes if a device's contents have been tampered with, as required.

Some reporters said that no paperwork documenting the seizures was provided.

Total domestic US banks saw inflows last week on a SA and NSA basis...

Source: Bloomberg

But, while large banks saw $16.5BN (SA) in deposit inflow, small banks suffered another weekly deposit outflow (of $3.3BN SA) last week...

Source: Bloomberg

Three debates for next year’s presidential general election are set to be held in college towns in Texas, Virginia and Utah between Sept. 16 and Oct. 9 — though it remains to be seen whether either party’s candidate will actually participate.

The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates announced Monday that presidential candidates will first be scheduled to meet Sept. 16 at Texas State University in San Marcos, south of Austin. The vice presidential debate is scheduled nine days later at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.

Presidential debates planned for Virginia State University in Petersburg on Oct. 1, and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Oct. 9, round out the schedule, less than a month before Election Day on Nov. 5.

It turns out that the world's richest 1 percent emit about the same amount of carbon as the world's poorest two-thirds, according to an analysis from the nonprofit Oxfam International.

This means that a small sliver of global elites, or 77 million people, have produced as much carbon as the 5 billion people that make up the bottom 66 percent by wealth, per the study.

On 22 November, 11 Members of the Estonian Parliament wrote a letter to the World Health Organisation (“WHO”) to reject the proposed international agreement on pandemic prevention preparedness and response – also known as the “Pandemic Treaty” or “Pandemic Accord”.

The driver of a Bentley that exploded on Rainbow Bridge earlier this week was 'alert and not impaired' as he desperately slammed on the brakes, according to an expert.

Vincent A. Ettari, a civil engineer, told The New York Times that he believes Kurt Villani was frantically slamming the brakes of his 2022 Flying Spur as it exploded on Wednesday.

Villani and his wife Monica, both 53, had been on their way to a KISS concert when the horror crash took place on Wednesday.

Vittari, who serves as an expert witness on road design in court cases, said that a dark vapor behind the car seen in surveillance footage suggests Villani was not impaired at the time and was aware of what was going on. 

Webmaster addition: This story keeps changing!

Seven banks filed to close 42 branches last week, leaving a growing number of Americans with limited access to basic financial services.

PNC Bank led the pack with 19 filings to the regulator between November 12 and November 18.

Of those closures, five are set to impact Pennsylvania. Four were registered in Illinois and three were in Texas, according to records published by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

During a SMER party conference, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico declared that his government will not sign the World Health Organisation’s Pandemic Treaty and SMER Members of Parliament will not ratify in parliament the Pandemic Treaty with the WHO because it is a project of greedy pharmaceutical companies.

Hazem al-Asad, a member of the Houthis’ political bureau, posted an image of an Israeli-owned ship alight on Saturday.

The ship, owned by an Israeli billionaire,  was targeted by a triangle-shaped, bomb-carrying Shahed-136 drone while in international waters in the Indian Ocean. 

A US Defence official said earlier today that it was attacked by an Iranian drone on Friday. 

On the morning of the second day of the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Israeli forces continued their weeks-long campaign of arresting Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

In several areas of the West Bank, including Qalqilya, Hebron, and near Jenin, Israel arrested several Palestinians, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

With the latest escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict showing no signs of abating, Tel Aviv has reportedly deployed an air defense laser weapon system to counter missile threats.

Israeli forces have successfully used a laser weapon system called the Iron Beam to intercept a rocket that was fired at Israel amid the ongoing fighting in the Gaza Strip sector, if the media reports that emerged this week are to be believed.

Made by Israeli defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, the Iron Beam is a high-power laser designed to intercept airborne targets at close range, with some outlets pointing out that the weapon was actually expected to be rolled out in 2025.

Israel has expressed anger with remarks by the prime ministers of Spain and Belgium, who demanded the regime stop its massacre of civilians holed up in the besieged Gaza Strip.

On Friday, Pedro Sanchez and his Belgian counterpart Alexander De Croo held a joint press conference at the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza. The two condemned the “indiscriminate” Israeli strikes on the Palestinians.

Sanchez said the situation in Gaza was “the worst humanitarian disaster in modern times.”

“What is happening is a disaster, and we have dealt with it effectively, managing to stop the firing, leading to the arrival of aid.”

Thousands of people rallied across the world on Friday to voice their unfaltering support for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, on the first day of a truce after some 50 days of brutal Israeli war on the besieged territory.

The Yemeni people thronged the streets in the capital Sana’a to express their solidarity with Gazans as they waved Palestinian flags and shouted pro-Palestine slogans.

“Our first and central cause is Palestine, and we will not give up standing for this cause,” protester Muhammad al-Theali said, AFP reported. 

“We are ready to offer financial, moral and psychological support - support with our funds, souls, sons, weapons to confront the enemy's arrogance, the American and Israeli arrogance against Muslim people."