News Clips

[nivek]

Dishonest, California's government likely did cheat to get the big tax revenue from these lottery winnings...I play this lottery sometimes but never again...

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'Powerball is rigged': Losing lottery players question how California has claimed the four biggest ever jackpots - despite odds of winning at 1 in 290million​

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[nivek]

FDA approves $12,000 cancer treatment that uses SOUND waves to disintegrate tumors - as a painless alternative to radiation and chemotherapy​

A promising cancer treatment that blasts tumors using soundwaves has been approved in the US.

A machine that uses histotripsy, a technique that uses sound waves to break down tumors, has been approved to treat liver tumors by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

It uses targeted sound waves - like an ultrasound machine - to form microbubbles within the tumor.

The forces generated as the bubbles expand and collapse rapidly cause the cancerous mass to break apart, destroying tumor cells and leaving the debris to be eliminated by the immune system.

The approval of the treatment means patients may be able to get treatment for liver cancer without the side effects of radiation or chemotherapy.

(More on the link)

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[nivek]

I wonder how many illegal aliens got across the border without getting caught?...There's no way to track those numbers...

Migrant encounters at the US southern border hit all-time high of 269,735 in September, as fiscal year finishes with record 2.48M interceptions​

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[nivek]

600,000 migrants have AVOIDED capture and gotten into the U.S. this year: Biden's Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reveals​

View: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1719632633150177704


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[pigfarmer]

Illinois city tickets reporter for asking too many questions, in latest First Amendment dustup

I see this sort of thing as a natural and likely unanticipated result of the media control that has been exerted over us in the past several years, specifically as a reaction to Trump. We elect the first black president and did that open the flood gates of milk and honey? Nope. We elect Old Joe because Ultra-MAGA lunatics have our Democracy at stake and look what's happening to our First Amendment rights, at the same time antisemitism is exploding all over our streets. If all those asylum seeker migrants were Jews you think we'd let them in? Uh huh. Are we REALLY 'used to it on a national scale?' I'm sure as hell not.

BTW - some of the crap DT has said about his intentions are really nuts but I have no idea whether to believe anything I hear anymore. When the ACLU stepped up to protect his right to free speech I almost burst a gasket laughing.

Illinois city tickets reporter for asking too many questions, in latest First Amendment dustup

Illinois city tickets reporter for asking too many questions, in latest First Amendment dustup​

FILE -Illinois Speaker of the House Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, left, speaks with Illinois Rep. Thaddeus Jones, D-Calumet, right, while on the House floor after adjoining veto session, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013 in Springfield Ill. Officials in a suburban Chicago community have issued municipal citations to a Hank Sanders, a local news reporter for what they say are persistent contacts with city officials for comment on treacherous fall flooding. Sanders continued to call and email city employees, drawing complaints including from Mayor Thaddeus Jones, who is also a Democratic state representative. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman, File)
BY JOHN O’CONNOR
Updated 5:50 PM EDT, November 3, 2023

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) —
Officials in a suburban Chicago community have issued municipal citations to a local news reporter for what they say were persistent contacts with city officials seeking comment on treacherous fall flooding.
The tickets from Calumet City, a city of 35,000 located 24 miles (39 kilometers) south of Chicago, allege “interference/hampering of city employees” by Hank Sanders, a reporter for the Daily Southtown, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday.

It’s the latest of several recent First Amendment dust-ups involving city officials and news outlets around the country, following this week’s arrest of a small-town Alabama newspaper publisher and reporter after reporting on a grand jury investigation of a school district, and the August police raid of a newspaper and its publisher’s home in Kansas tied to an apparent dispute a restaurant owner had with the paper.

Big city mayors get audience with administration officials to pitch a request for help with migrants
Sanders reported in an Oct. 20 story that consultants told Calumet City administrators the city’s stormwater infrastructure was in poor condition before flooding wrought by record September rains. Officials say Sanders continued to call and email city employees, drawing complaints including from Mayor Thaddeus Jones, who is also a Democratic state representative.

The Tribune, which shares an owner with the Daily Southtown, reported that Sanders was told to channel requests for information through Jones’ spokesperson, Sean Howard, but according to one citation sent 14 emails to the city during a nine-day period in October asking questions about flooding.Mitch Pugh, executive editor of the Chicago Tribune, said one reason Sanders continued asking questions was for a follow-up flooding story that has yet to be published.While the citations are not of “the same degree and magnitude” as the other recent incidents, Pugh said, “it seems to be on the same through line of a real lack of understanding of what the First Amendment protects, what a journalist’s job is, what our role is.”

“You get used to it a little bit on the national scale, but now we’re seeing it in very small municipalities with mayors, and that’s a disturbing trend and we need to call it out when we see it,” Pugh told The Associated Press. “A public official ought to know better than to basically use a police force to try to intimidate a reporter who’s just doing his job.”

The news media’s freedom from government meddling or intervention is protected by the First Amendment.
Phone and text messages seeking comment were left for Jones. Howard referred questions to city attorney Patrick Walsh, saying it is a legal matter. A message was also left for Walsh. Don Craven, president, CEO and general counsel of the Illinois Press Association, criticized the citations and said the media play a fundamental role in the functioning of democracy. “We’re talking about a reporter who is doing his job,” Craven said, “and instead of saying ‘We’re working on the problem,’ the city’s response is, blame the reporter.”

 

[nivek]

We elect Old Joe because Ultra-MAGA lunatics have our Democracy at stake and look what's happening to our First Amendment rights, at the same time antisemitism is exploding all over our streets.

BTW - some of the crap DT has said about his intentions are really nuts but I have no idea whether to believe anything I hear anymore. When the ACLU stepped up to protect his right to free speech I almost burst a gasket laughing.

As much as I dislike Trump, in his term as president he did far less damage to this country and its reputation than Biden has done...I don't want to see either one of them elected in the coming presidential election...However if I had no other choice than to pick from one of those two scrubs I would rather have a president that has a mug shot than a creepy old man who puts his hands on children and whispers sweet nothings...The latter has about ruined America's standing and reputation in the world whilst the former at the very least does put his country first...I'm sick of billions of dollars going to foreign interests whilst our cities are in decay and Americans are in need...I'm also sick of the invasion happening down south by the millions with a president unwilling to stop it...

Sorry, rant over...

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[pigfarmer]

As much as I dislike Trump, in his term as president he did far less damage to this country and its reputation than Biden has done...I don't want to see either one of them elected in the coming presidential election...However if I had no other choice than to pick from one of those two scrubs I would rather have a president that has a mug shot than a creepy old man who puts his hands on children and whispers sweet nothings...The latter has about ruined America's standing and reputation in the world whilst the former at the very least does put his country first...I'm sick of billions going to foreign interests whilst our cities are in decay and Americans are in need...I'm also sick of the invasion happening down south by the millions with a president unwilling to stop it...

Sorry, rant over...

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not a rant to me, a statement of reality

 

[nivek]

Some good points brought out in this Telegraph article...

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We are witnessing the fall of the American empire​

Why have the October 7 attacks triggered a culture war in the West? Because parts of our Left are anti-Semitic and the Right is calling them out? Absolutely. But this is also psychological displacement: we’re so shocked by the murder of Israelis, distressed by the bombings in Gaza and, unable to comprehend an intractable problem, that we withdraw into the familiar language of domestic politics.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a pro-Israeli Republican, put a resolution to Congress to censure Rashida Tlaib, a pro-Palestinian Democrat, as an anti-Semite. Had it passed, which it didn’t, Democrats were ready to put a counter-motion calling Greene a racist.

This is schoolyard stuff, and while antiwar activists occupy the congressional Cannon House Office Building (300 arrested), and sociopath Brian Mast tells the House there are few “innocent Palestinian civilians” (even kids can be terrorists in their own cute way), it’s left to creaky Joe Biden to manage the Middle East from his basement. And he, with curiously little fanfare, has called for a pause in Israel’s military campaign.

Is this carefully thought-through policy or an old man pulling a random idea out of his hat because he was heckled at a fundraiser? Who knows. But it brings America in line with European opinion and sheds light on the backroom conditions of US support for Israel. The Times of Israel reports (as spotted by Sumantra Maitra of The American Conservative) that Washington ordered officials to permit humanitarian aid in to Gaza: “The Americans insisted,” said the defence minister, “and we are not in a place where we can refuse them. We rely on them for planes and military equipment.”

Biden is under pressure to get Palestinian-Americans out of the blockade and to ensure that Israeli-Americans aren’t killed in the crossfire, but his staff are also weighing up what happens next. Israelis blame Bibi for the security lapses that led to Oct 7, so the administration is worried that it’s dealing with a lame duck prime minister who is – in an unexpected twist – one of the more moderate voices within his government. America and Britain both want to revive the old two state formula, but they can’t rely on Israeli conservatives to play ball. In recent days, Israeli ministers have argued over withholding tax revenue to the West Bank, to the alarm of the US.

Moreover, the longer the bombings continue, the more radicalised Islamic opinion becomes and the more likely a regional war seems – at a time when America is already overstretched in Ukraine (more on that, below). Biden insists that America can run two wars at once; Janet Yellen says the money is there. This is boomer delusion. Yes, they are the generation that protested Vietnam – but they also grew up in the shadow of VE Day and the moon landings, and share that Kennedy-esque conviction that so long as any cause is just enough, they must and can support it. The good guys always win in the end, right?

Alas, America in 2023 is not America in 1960, and likely does not have the material and moral resources to wage multiple wars across different continents. Never mind failing to learn from history: Biden led a humiliating retreat from Afghanistan just two years ago, yet policymakers are already back to fancying their odds against another Islamist army.

Ukraine and Israel threaten to become “no exit” wars: Israel, because no one knows what to do with the Gazan population; Ukraine, because the West’s line is that we fight for as long as Ukraine wants to, but Zelensky is determined to get all his land back against an enemy that has dug in and refuses to surrender. Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on Foreign Relations notes that Ukraine has “deeply stressed US and Western stocks of certain critical types of ammunition and weapons”, and that the US has been forced to delay weapons deliveries to Taiwan while Kyiv is rationing shells on the battlefield. “The Biden administration decided to ship morally questionable cluster munitions to Ukraine, largely because it lacked sufficient supplies of other types of artillery shell.”

It is true that some weaponry sent to Israel will be different from that sent to Ukraine, but what happens, while the US is arming two allies, if China takes this moment to attack Taiwan?

Ukraine has become a bottomless pit – and US politicians might start cutting off funds. The new Republican leadership on the Hill is unfriendly; with Mike Pence out of the presidential race, Nikki Haley is the only serious candidate we might call hawkish. The fate of Pax America thus rests in the trembling hands of Joe Biden, who has worsened his country’s position by being a terrible, awful, preposterous president. There are parallels with his border policy: initially liberal, it encouraged mass migration – forcing him to u-turn violently, even to rebuild that infamous wall. Likewise, Biden’s initial attempts to negotiate with Iran, or to get out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible, gave the impression that America’s new strategic posture was “dumb and vulnerable” – and now that killers are pressing their advantage, he must govern once more with an iron fist.

In short, the situation is dangerous because America has both lost authority – it is not seen as decisive and willing to commit – at the same time as it has failed to be ruthless about what conflicts it can and cannot afford to wage. This is end of empire stuff. We have a nation trying to protect several frontiers – Europe, Middle East, East Asia – while burdened with massive debt, and weakened internally by the culture wars I mentioned at the top. In that sense, the congressional pantomime matters after all. The gradual loss of confidence in the US machine, worsened by partisanship and dragged to the level of satire by the woowoo academic elite, leaves one wondering if America’s political class is inching closer to giving up and letting the world run itself.

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[pigfarmer]

Hmmm. One of the reasons the Roman Republic was strong was that it's leadership attained that level through ruthless ability and the power only lasted just so long. Confidence in the US machine started eroding in Vietnam after 1970 and nothing we've done since has regained that, yet we've had repeated similar failures to learn the lesson and haven't.

I happen to be reading this right now and while some things related to human nature never change, and hindsight might be seeing the grass as a little too green I wish we could get back a tiny fraction of the professional competence in government we sadly gave up in favor of identity politics.

 

[michael59]

Hawley Exposes Biden HHS Officer For Facilitating Largest Child Trafficking Ring In U.S. History​

View: https://youtu.be/HZDebmlu6Nk?si=EUs9sFvbeVLf8n1a

 

[pigfarmer]

Right now I can't find the mention of the weird shopping baskets in Queens but today is the NYC Marathon. I hope this isn't going to be the Boston Marathon on a larger scale.

 

[pigfarmer]

‘Holy Grail of shipwrecks’ to be exhumed off Colombia with $20B sunken treasure

‘Holy Grail of shipwrecks’ to be exhumed off Colombia with $20B sunken treasure​

By
Allie Griffin
Published Nov. 5, 2023, 11:41 p.m. ET

The San Jose shipwreck is believed to have a treasure of gold, silver and emeralds worth as much as $20 billion.Presidencia de la República - Colombia

Colombia is hoping to expedite its mission to recover a three-century-old sunken treasure worth as much as $20 billion as the ownership of the fortune lies in legal limbo amid an ongoing court battle.
President Gustavo Petro ordered his administration to exhume the “holy grail of shipwrecks” — the Spanish galleon San José — from the floor of the Caribbean Sea as soon as possible, the country’s minister of culture told Bloomberg last week.
Petro wants to bring the 62-gun, three-masted ship to the surface before his term is up in 2026 and has requested a public-private partnership be formed to see it through, Minister of Culture Juan David Correa told the outlet Wednesday.
“This is one of the priorities for the Petro administration,” he said. “The president has told us to pick up the pace.”

The San Jose galleon sank in a battle against British ships on June 8, 1708.Wikipedia

But mystery surrounds the ownership of the massive trove of gold, silver and emeralds estimated to be worth anywhere between $4 billion and $20 billion, according to a lawsuit.
The crux of the issue appears to revolve around who is believed to have found it.
The San José galleon — with 600 crew members onboard — sunk some 2,000 feet on June 8, 1708, during a battle against the British in the War of the Spanish Succession. It remained a thing of legend for years as its exact location was unknown.
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The wreck was found and photographed some 2,000 feet underwater in 2015.Presidencia de la República – Colombia
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The wreck has become known as the “holy grail of shipwrecks” due to its massive treasure.Presidencia de la República – Colombia
Then in 1981, the US company Glocca Morra claimed it discovered the lost treasure and turned over its coordinated to Colombia with the promise it would receive half the fortune when recovered.
Years later, in 2015, Colombia’s then-President Juan Manuel Santos said the country’s navy found the San José wreck at a different location on the sea floor.
Colombia has never released the coordinates of the ship’s final resting place, but Glocca Morra — now called Sea Search Armada — believes the country found part of the same debris field in 2015 that it first discovered 34 years earlier.
The company is suing the Colombian government for half the treasure, or $10 billion, according to its estimate, under the US-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, according to Bloomberg.
What do you think? Post a comment.
Correa, meanwhile, told the outlet that the government’s researchers visited the coordinates shared by Sea Search Armada and “concluded that there is no shipwreck there.”

 

[pigfarmer]

Dear Letitia James:

Just saw you on TV and wanted to drop you a quick note. Do not walk away from the camera and up the steps in that striped pantsuit. The camera does not love you.

Thanks
Pigfarmer

PS - it's the only thing I've ever seen that makes Hillary look hot.

 

[nivek]

Michigan town votes out its ENTIRE local government and changes the town hall LOCKS over its support for a $2.3B China-linked battery plant in the area​

The entire local government of a small Michigan township was removed by voters this week, in a recall election over their support of a Chinese-affiliated company's plans to build a electric vehicle battery plant. Tuesday's recall election in Green Charter Township followed backlash over plans announced a year ago for Gotion to open a $2.3 billion EV plant there, which is expected to create 2,350 jobs. Hours after the vote, the town's new leaders wasted no time, changing the locks (left) on the township's main government building, according to NewNation.

(More on the link)

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[wwkirk]

North Korea having a hard time?

North Korea closing embassies around the world amid suspected financial crisis​

North Korea has already ended diplomatic missions at embassies in Uganda, Spain, Angola, Hong Kong and more

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf2xmSkHCOI

 

[nivek]

Identical twin sisters are reunited for the first time in years to celebrate their 100th birthday - with one saying she doesn't feel any different from when she was 50!​

Anne Brown and Florence Boycott saw each other for the first time in years for a party on Thursday at Mrs Boycott's care home in Barnsley - the South Yorkshire town where they have both lived all their lives. The women were surrounded by their friends and five generations of their family as they celebrated at The Firs residential home. Mrs Brown said: 'It doesn't feel any different from when I was 50.' She also remembered how even their father could not tell the difference between them when they were children. Mrs Brown said: 'They couldn't tell us apart. My dad was hopeless. He could not tell us one from the other. We were very close. We were always together, never one without the other.'

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[nivek]

94-year-old veteran thrown out of senior housing to make room for illegal immigrants​

Frank Tammaro, a 94-year-old Army veteran, loved the senior center he'd called home for five years until he was told to find somewhere new to live.

"I felt horrible," Tammaro told Fox News. "It's no joke getting thrown out of a house."

Months later, after two moves and an injury that put him in the hospital, the senior was living with his daughter when he learned migrants were moving into his old residence, free of charge.

A lifelong New Yorker, Tammaro says he grew up in the "slums" of the Lower East Side during the ‘30s and ’40s.

"I do get upset when I see them handing out all this money and all these things, and I'm paying taxes and getting kicked out," he said. "I've never got anything from the city. Or the state."

Tammaro planned to live out his years at the Island Shores Senior Residence when notices went up in September 2022 informing residents the facility was shutting down and they needed to pack up and leave by March. Many of the 53 seniors living there, including Tammaro, ignored the letters for months until it was brought to their attention that they only had weeks to find somewhere else to live.

"It was scary," Tammaro recalled. "Very scary. Especially when I don't get around like I used to. I didn't know where I was going."

(More on the link)

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[nivek]

Thousands of Christmas fans dressed as St. Nick take to the streets of New York City for SantaCon - as police brace for booze-fueled anarchy​

The crowds kicked off at 10am on Saturday morning from bars and clubs in midtown Manhattan and are expected to finish at 8pm in the East Village. Ahead of the expected blowout, New York City's transit police announced a city-wide ban on alcohol on subway platforms and trains, attempting to limit those who may have had too many spiked eggnogs. Passengers heading into Manhattan from New Jersey and suburbs in New York are prohibited from drinking alcohol from 4am Saturday through Saturday noon."



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[wwkirk]

More info on the accused leaker and his group.

Jack Teixeira & 'Thug Shaker Central': 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Jack Teixeira is a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman who is the leader of a “small online gaming chat group” where U.S. classified documents were leaked, according to the New York Times.

heavy.com

Some of you are veterans. Did you have a security clearance?

Air Force disciplines 15 members over Jack Teixeira's alleged leak of classified national security documents​

The Department of the Air Force released its report on Monday on the results of an Air Force Inspector General (IG) investigation that found individuals in Teixeira’s unit, the 102nd Intelligence Wing, Otis Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts, "failed to take proper action after becoming aware of his intelligence-seeking activities."

However, the IG investigation did not find evidence that members of Teixeira’s supervisory chain were aware of his alleged unauthorized disclosures. Beginning on Sept. 7, Air National Guard leaders "initiated disciplinary and other administrative actions against 15 individuals, ranging in rank from E-5 to O-6, for dereliction in the performance of duties," the Air Force said.

 

[nivek]

In 50 years, half of Koreans are expected to be 65 or older​

After hitting its peak in 2020, the South Korean population is forecast to drop to 36 million in 50 years. Chronically low birth rates are expected to drop the total fertility rate to below the previously inconceivable threshold of 0.7 births per woman by next year. In 50 years, those 65 and older are expected to comprise half of Korea’s population. A grim forecast for Korea, some have likened this coupling of plummeting fertility and an aging society to the Black Death, while others are calling it a “mass suicide.”

According to a report on population trends published by Statistics Korea on Thursday, South Korea’s population came to 51.67 million in 2022, which slightly increased to 51.71 million in 2023. However, by 2072, it’s expected to drop to 36.22 million. This would mean a 30% decrease (15.45 million people) in just 50 years.

South Korea’s population peaked in 2020 at 51.84 million people. This means we’ve already passed the critical “death cross,” the point where deaths start outnumbering births. Statistics Korea points to an influx of foreign residents to explain this year’s slight population jump from last year. The population is expected to increase slightly until 2024 before falling again in 2025.

Low birth rates are causing the nation’s population to decrease at a continually accelerating rate. The total population is expected to fall below 50 million in 2041 and below 40 million by 2065. South Korea’s total fertility rate (the number of children that one woman is expected to have in her entire lifetime) fell from 0.78 in 2022 to 0.72 this year, and is expected to fall to 0.68 in 2024. It’s expected to plummet to 0.65 by 2025 before rising to 1.08 in 2050.

Just two years ago, Statistics Korea predicted that South Korea’s total fertility rate would be 1.21 in 2050. A significant downward adjustment in just two years reflects the severity of declining birth rates. When accounting for the gender ratio and infant mortality rates, the total fertility rate needs to be at least 2.1 to maintain the current population. “A total fertility rate of 1.08 is the lowest in the world,” said Lim Young-il, director of Statistics Korea’s vital statistics division. “This is significantly lower than 1.3, which is the OECD’s standard for an ultra-low fertility rate,” Lim said.

South Korea’s population pyramid, a graphical illustration of a population’s distribution according to age groups and sex, shows that the current bulk of the nation’s population falls in the 30-50 age group. However, this cohort is expected to be eventually replaced by people aged 60 and above, resulting in an inverse pyramid. The working-age population, people aged 15 to 64, was 36.74 million in 2022, but is expected to diminish to 29.55 million by 2039 and plummet to 16.58 million by 2072.

Conversely, the proportion of people aged 65 and above is expected to increase from 17.4% in 2022 to 47.7% in 2072. This means nearly half of the population will be nearing or past retirement age. The dependency ratio, which measures the number of people outside the working-age population per 100 working-age people, is expected to skyrocket from 40.6 in 2022 to 118.5 in 2072. While the median age is expected to be 49.7 in 2030, by 2072, it’ll have skyrocketed to 63.4.

Such estimates were drawn according to the available data for recorded fertility rates, life expectancy, and the influx of foreign residents, and represent the most likely scenarios. Statistics Korea forecast that the population will fall to around 30.17 million in 2072 and to 10.85 million in 2122.

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