The Islamic Republic of Iran was behind a series of terrorist attacks on commercial cargo ships in the Red Sea on Sunday, the U.S. Military said in a statement.

 Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said that criticisms of Hamas should be “balanced” with criticisms of Israel during a Sunday morning appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” and anchor Dana Bash quickly made it clear that she was not having any of that.

 The “democracy is on the ballot” line is a weak argument to use against former President Donald Trump, according to a former top GOP official who served in his administration.

In an astonishing move, the Lincoln council has axed the UK's oldest Christmas market, a local economic powerhouse at £15 million. Meanwhile, Lincoln's Mayor conveniently enjoys the festivities in Germany, raising eyebrows.

A recent court filing has made an explosive claim that at least two of the 9/11 hijackers were recruited into a joint CIA-Saudi intelligence operation that was covered up at the highest levels.

A relationship between Alec Station, a CIA unit tasked with monitoring Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his associates, and two 9/11 hijackers leading up to the attacks has been called into question by a newly-released court filing, which also suggests that there was a cover-up at the highest levels of the FBI regarding the matter, according to The Gray Zone.

SpyTalk has obtained a 21-page declaration by Don Canestraro, a lead investigator for the Office of Military Commissions responsible for overseeing the cases of 9/11 defendants. The filing summarizes classified government discovery disclosures and private interviews conducted by Canestraro with anonymous high-ranking officials from the CIA and FBI.

The interviewed agents, who led Operation Encore, the Bureau's discontinued, extensive investigation into the Saudi government's ties to the 9/11 attack, shared their insights with Canestraro, the site notes.

Pfizer and its partner BioNTech could be open to lawsuits for including a DNA sequence in their COVID-19 vaccine.

The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, known as the PREP Act, largely shields COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers from lawsuits, but companies can be sued for "willful misconduct," which includes acts taken "intentionally to achieve a wrongful purpose."

"I think what we have here is willful misconduct," Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, told The Epoch Times.

The Pfizer-BioNTech, in testing by outside scientists, was discovered to contain a Simian Virus 40 (SV40) DNA sequence despite the public never being told about the sequence.

Regulators in Canada and Europe have since acknowledged that the companies did not highlight the sequence and that they should have, although regulatory submissions did show the full DNA sequence of the vaccine plasmid.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has refused to disclose whether the companies highlighted the sequence.

During Thursday night's debate between Gavin Newsom (D) and Ron DeSantis (R), the Florida governor busted out the San Francisco 'poop map' created by OpenTheBooks.

The map, created in 2019, plotted nearly 120,000 case reports of human feces on the streets of San Francisco between 2011 and 2019 using the city's open records portal and 311 call information posted by city officials.

The problem is so bad that San Francisco has been employing so-called 'poop patrollers' making upwards of $185,000 per annum to clean up their mess. (And of course, the guy in charge of it was arrested on felony fraud charges and sentenced to seven years in prison).

Be careful what you wish for, as the looming rate cut anticipated at the Fed's March 20th meeting might not bring the desired outcome. History suggests that the first cut often aligns with a market decline, typically indicative of a slowing economy or crisis.

On the same day as Biden Administration ‘climate czar’ John Kerry warned of out of control global warming at the UN climate conference in Dubai, the entirety of Europe is experiencing an unprecedented deep freeze.

Kerry called on the world to “judge with our own eyes what science is telling us” and warned that the arctic, the antarctic and the permafrost are in danger of melting.

Israel has informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza's border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the enclave after war ends, Egyptian and regional sources told Reuters.

According to three regional sources, Israel related its plans to its neighbours Egypt and Jordan, along with the United Arab Emirates, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020.

They also said that Saudi Arabia, which does not have ties with Israel and which halted a US-mediated normalisation process after the Gaza war flared on October 7, had been informed.

The sources did not say how the information reached Riyadh, which officially does not have direct communication channels with Israel.

A doctor who worked at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza during the Israeli siege and bombardment of the complex has described how Israeli troops used them as “hostages” as they invaded the hospital, and later detained the head of the hospital, along with more than 20 other medical personnel from Gaza, in what one Palestinian medic called a “war on hospitals”.

Following weeks of intense bombardment of the largest medical complex in the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli military approved an evacuation request for the staff and patients to the southern enclave, submitted in coordination with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations.

When a UN-led convoy of ambulances arrived at a checkpoint set up by Israeli forces on the road connecting the northern Gaza Strip to southern areas, they were stopped, searched, and interrogated for seven hours, before the head of al-Shifa medical complex, Dr Mohammed Abu Silmiya, was detained along with around five other doctors.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned Saturday that Israel's aim of eliminating Hamas risked unleashing a decade of war.

"I think we're at a point where the Israeli authorities are going to have to define their objective and desired end state more precisely," Macron said at a press conference on the sidelines of the UN's COP28 climate talks in Dubai.

Israel began its indiscriminate bombing of the besieged Gaza Strip on October 7, killing more than 15,000 Palestinians amid a complete siege of the territory, which has deprived 2.3 million people of food, water and fuel.

Israel has also gone on to target hospitals, schools, refugee camps and more, amid accusations of carrying out war crimes by several rights groups and nations.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court rounded off a historic first visit to Israel and Ramallah by posting video and written messages on Sunday, saying that a probe by the court into possible crimes by Hamas militants and Israeli forces “is a priority for my office.”

In a video message from Ramallah, where he met with top Palestinian leaders, Prosecutor Karim Khan said the investigation that was launched in 2021 is “moving forward at pace, with rigor, with determination and with an insistence that we act not on emotion but on solid evidence.”

There have been widespread claims of breaches of international law by Hamas and Israeli forces since war erupted after the deadly Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and other militants that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel. Around 240 people were taken hostage.

Israeli officials were displeased when Mohammed Nazal, an 18-year-old Palestinian, described his ordeal in Israeli prisons after being released as part of a truce agreement with Hamas last week.

The teenager from the town of Qabatiya in the occupied West Bank told Arab and Western media how he was beaten and denied medical assistance, but this was refuted by Israeli authorities who tried to paint him as a liar.

His testimonies and medical records have now been verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency, Sanad, providing further evidence of the brutal mistreatment Palestinians suffer in Israeli prisons that has only exacerbated since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has described Israeli airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip as a “Nazi practice”.

“They claim this is not Nazi-like; killing 5,300 Palestinian boys and girls is a Nazi practice, despite the West’s reluctance to acknowledge this truth,” Petro wrote on the social media platform X. 

The tweet was accompanied by footage of the areas subjected to Israeli bombardment in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.

About two weeks into a major offensive against Myanmar’s military-run government by an alliance of three well-armed militias of ethnic minorities, an army captain, fighting in a jungle area near the northeastern border with China, lamented that he’d never seen such intense action.

His commander in Myanmar’s 99th Light Infantry Division had been killed in fighting in Shan state the week before and the 35-year-old career soldier said army outposts were in disarray and being hit from all sides.

“I have never faced these kinds of battles before,” the combat veteran told The Associated Press by phone. “This fighting in Shan is unprecedented.” Eight days later the captain was dead himself, killed defending an outpost and hastily buried near where he fell, according to his family.

Muslim American leaders in several pivotal states pledged on Saturday to rally their communities against President Joe Biden’s bid for re-election due to his steadfast backing of Israel’s war in Gaza.

The #AbandonBiden campaign began when Minnesota Muslim Americans demanded Biden call for a ceasefire by October 31, and has spread to Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida.

Four international activists have been detained and held incommunicado for over 27 hours following a pro-Palestine protest outside the Egyptian foreign ministry in Cairo on Thursday, according to activists familiar with the case.

The group included John Parker, a candidate for California's 27th congressional district, along with Australian, Argentinian and French activists.

They staged a rally on Thursday outside the foreign ministry to demand security clearance for the Global Conscience Convoy - a humanitarian convoy into Gaza planned by Egypt’s Journalist Syndicate to deliver badly needed aid to the besieged enclave.

They have not been heard from since they were escorted into the building at 12:30pm on Thursday, according to Egyptian activists familiar with the matter.

The U.S. military has confirmed that it will permanently end live-fire training in Makua Valley on Oahu, a major win for Native Hawaiian groups and environmentalists after decades of activism.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth filed a statement with federal court in Hawaii on Friday affirming the military’s new stance that it would “no longer need to conduct live-fire training at (Makua Military Reservation), now or in the future,” Hawaii News Now reported.

Tension is running high as Venezuela prepares to hold a referendum Sunday on whether it is the rightful owner of the oil-rich Essequibo region, which makes up more than two-thirds of neighboring Guyana.

The Brazilian defense ministry "has been following the situation. Defense operations have been intensified in the country's northern border region, leading to a larger military presence," it said in a statement sent to AFP.

The UN's top court, the International Court of Justice, ordered Venezuela Friday to refrain from any action that would "modify the situation that currently prevails in the territory in dispute."

Guyana had asked the ICJ to call a halt to the referendum, saying it poses an "existential" threat to the country.

Guyana, which gained independence from Britain in 1966, has administered Essequibo for more than a century.

Students at a London university are demanding that they be allowed to return to classes, after they were suspended following Palestine solidarity action held before and after the 7 October attack.

The School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) suspended four students and three alumni last month for "violating health and safety protocols" following two pro-Palestine rallies held on 29 September and 9 October. 

The students and alumni, some of whom are members of Soas's Palestine Society committee, took part in two rallies, one on 29 September during the students union fresher's fayre and another outside the main entrance to the university on 9 October, shortly after Israel began bombing Gaza following the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas.

An internal report by the university, seen by Middle East Eye, alleges that the students moved towards the entrance and attempted to occupy a staircase at one of the rallies. It reports that a fire alarm was activated shortly afterwards.

Hundreds gathered in downtown Los Angeles Saturday to call for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and advocate for the safety of affected children, Anadolu reports.

As part of the demonstration, organized in part by the Palestinian Youth Movement, marchers started at LA City Hall and proceeded to the Federal Building.

According to the Los Angeles Daily News, several hundred protesters gathered for the demonstration, with speeches delivered before the march began.

As of Saturday evening, the Los Angeles Police Department reported no arrests or detentions related to the protest, said the daily.

The march came a day after relatives of Israeli hostages arrived in Los Angeles to share their stories and call for the release of hostages held in Gaza by Palestinian Hamas.

The White House budget chief warned the US Congress on Monday that failure to agree fresh funds for Ukraine by the end of the year would “kneecap” Kyiv on the battlefield.
 

US Central Command provided a detailed summary of the four maritime attacks carried out by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, targeting commercial vessels on Sunday:

Today, there were four attacks against three separate commercial vessels operating in international waters in the southern Red Sea. These three vessels are connected to 14 separate nations. The Arleigh-Burke Class destroyer USS CARNEY responded to the distress calls from the ships and provided assistance.

At approximately 9:15 a.m. Sanaa time, the CARNEY detected an anti-ship ballistic missile attack fired from Houthi controlled areas of Yemen toward the M/V UNITY EXPLORER, impacting in the vicinity of the vessel. UNITY EXPLORER is a Bahamas flagged, U.K. owned and operated, bulk cargo ship crewed by sailors from two nations. The CARNEY was conducting a patrol in the Red Sea and detected the attack on the UNITY EXPLORER.

At approximately 12 p.m., and while in international waters, CARNEY engaged and shot down a UAV launched from Houthi controlled areas in Yemen. The drone was headed toward CARNEY although its specific target is not clear. We cannot assess at this time whether the Carney was a target of the UAVs. There was no damage to the U.S. vessel or injuries to personnel.

Help I’m being pressured by Zionists on Twitter, they want to cover up crimes.
It started with the Twitter files. It was clear the Zionist preferred the woke left over conservatives.

They say the ADL is leftist. The ADL's role is to create a pro censorship environment for Zionists.

The kosher sandwich only allows two political powers. The identitarian left makes racism a cardinal sin.

This is good for Zionist because based on accusation alone they can cancel whoever they want.

They can also force migration and equity hires by claiming that opposition to it is racist.

Jewish groups are flooding traditionally white areas with non white migrants. No one likes this, but it generates sympathy for Israel.

Have seen several posts giving advice as to what to grow, and I thought them to be unrealistic. Here is what you need to grow in the event things become “unpleasant”.