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Today's Headlines
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Page 3: Non-WoT
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 2: WoT Background
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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7 17:16 Lord Garth [145]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Special Forces raid on 'narco tanker' that could expose the Irish gangsters behind the largest drug smuggling cartel in the world
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] An undercover operation by American agents that successfully infiltrated a global drugs trafficking ring run by the Kinahan cartel has been revealed for the first time - days after eight gangsters who were caught in a Special Forces raid on a 'narco-tanker' in the Irish Sea were jailed.

In a dramatic operation akin to something from a movie, operatives from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) penetrated the gang's vast international network.

The high-stakes mission, revealed for the first time in newly unsealed federal court records, exposed how the bloodthirsty group was expanding its empire globally in a bid to rival the likes of Mexico's fearsome Sinaloa Cartel.

Gangsters from the Irish narcotic empire - which has links to mainland Britain - are accused of trafficking methamphetamine and fentanyl precursor chemicals worldwide.

The discovery by the DEA will undoubtedly worry drugs barons within the group, with the authority's investigation now exposing the cartel's move towards smuggling synthetic drugs - a shift from its traditional cocaine trafficking operation.

News of the dramatic operation by American agents comes after eight men from the Kinahan cartel were jailed earlier this month for their part in trying to smuggle 2.2 tonnes of cocaine, worth £132million ($178million) into the country.

The vast haul was found after special forces soldiers from the Irish Army Range Wing fast-roped from a helicopter onto the Panamanian cargo ship, MV Matthew, in September 2023.

The bust was hailed the biggest-ever cocaine seizure in Irish waters and exposed how the Kinahans were linked to the Iran-backed terror group, Hezbollah.
They’ve been embedded with the Mexican cartels at the American border and south in cocaine country for decades, as I recall...
Details of the American mission combined with the Irish special forces raid, are raising fresh questions about just how powerful the Kinahan cartel is in the global drugs trade - and how far their reach now extends across the globe.

Founded in the late 1990s in Dublin, the narcotics ring is led by 'Dapper Don' Christy Kinahan, a former street dealer-turned-international cocaine trafficker.

The cartel is notorious for its brutal tactics, having been accused of a number of gangland hits against rivals.

Now based in Dubai, Kinahan and his sons Daniel and Christopher Jr are the subjects of international sanctions, with a $5million bounty from the US authorities hanging over their heads.

Now, new details have emerged revealing how DEA agents had infiltrated the Kinahans more than a year before the mega drugs bust in September 2023.

The operation began in the Turkish city of Ankara, in June 2022, when the authority's office there recruited a confidential informant, codenamed 'Queen', to penetrate the gang's trafficking operation, reports The Times.

The insider gained the trust of Opinder Singh Sian, a Canadian national accused of holding a top position in the network, who was arrested in Nevada last month.
Singh is a Sikh name, right?
It's alleged Sian told undercover agents he was linked to the Kinahan cartel, the Italian mafia and a major Turkish trafficker wanted since 2019.
An ambitious man..
The Kinahans are known to have strong links to Turkey, with the gang having substantial investments in the country. Kinahan's cartel also supplies drugs to Australia.

Under the guidance of DEA handlers, Queen introduced Sian to an undercover agent posing as a relative, who claimed to have the ability to shift vast quantities of drugs via the Port of Long Beach, one of America's busiest container ports.

According to US documents, the three met in March 2023 at a restaurant in Manhattan Beach, California, to set up a new trafficking deal smuggling methamphetamine to Australia, where prices can exceed $200,000 per kilo.

Over the summer of 2023, Sian worked with a team of undercover agents to set up a staged shipment of meth via a safehouse in Pomona, east of Los Angeles.

DEA agents then staged a fake handover, seizing the real drugs for analysis before replacing them with decoy packages.

Meanwhile, when the ship arrived in Australia, police there used a GPS-tracked container to trace the trail to a suspected drugs den in Sydney.

Court documents also show how Sian had used encrypted apps such as Threema to communicate with Queen and other suspected traffickers.

And further investigation uncovered plans by the Kinahans to allegedly smuggle fentanyl precursor chemicals from China into the United States via Canada, with Queen reportedly meeting two Canadian collaborators of Sian who were aiding the narcotics expansion.

The extensive undercover operation provides fresh insight into how the Kinahans have linked up with other key figures in the criminal underworld to try and gain a foothold in the international drugs trade, shifting drugs through global ports.

It's unclear whether this undercover operation provided intelligence which ultimately led to the huge bust on the drugs container ship in September 2023.

As previously reported, the gang's plans were dealt a major blow when its £132million haul of cocaine was seized by the Irish authorities.

An elite strike force from the Irish Defence Force roped in from helicopters in gale-force winds while the container ship's crew desperately attempted to evade them. Dramatic footage of the raid showed how Irish troops were in 'hot pursuit' of the criminals, which included warning shots fired by the Naval Service before army rangers stormed the ship.

The Panama-flagged MV Matthew entered Irish territorial waters on September 23, 2023, having set off from Curacao, an island off the coast of Venezuela. But unbeknown to the crew, suspicions about its activities had been relayed to An Garda Siochana - Ireland's national police organisation -which ordered teams from its drugs and organised crime bureau to monitor the ship.

As part of the mission, the FV Castlemore fishing trawler, which had been purchased by two men with funding from an organised crime group, was also tracked. The two men on the FV Castlemore were communicating with criminal cells in Dubai and beyond about the MV Matthew 'mothership'.

The trawler engaged in a number of failed attempts to receive clandestine transfers of the cocaine from the MV Matthew.

During what would be its final attempt, the Irish Coast Guard engaged with the vessel to warn it of dangerous conditions and inquire about its lack of movement.

The FV Castlemore later put out a distress call to the Coast Guard after running aground on a sandbank off the Wexford coast.

The crew were rescued by Coast Guard helicopter and taken to the naval vessel, the LE WB Yeats - essentially inadvertently handing themselves in for arrest.

When the mothership became aware of the distress call, a change of plan was ordered.

Voice messages from an individual in Dubai, identified as 'Captain Noah' and who gardai believe remains in the Middle East, show the crew on the MV Matthew were instructed to load all cocaine into a lifeboat for a rendezvous with a different vessel - which would not occur due to the interception by Irish authorities.

The MV Matthew repeatedly ignored instructions from Revenue and the Naval Service's LE WB Yeats.

Text messages and voice notes show panicked communications within the criminal network, including the incorrect belief that the ship would not be boarded if it headed further into international waters.

While trying to evade the naval service, the LE WB Yeats entered a 'hot pursuit' and - acting as a warship - fired warning shots in the vicinity of the MV Matthew.

The captain of the MV Matthew communicated that it was a commercial vessel and was not in jurisdiction covered by the Irish navy: 'Irish warship, please do not fire at us.'

He added: 'Can you advise if you are in hot pursuit of us?'
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Skidmark || 07/14/2025 08:01 || Comments || Link || [51 views] Top|| File under: Narcos

#1  I guess I shouldn't be surprised Drug Lords have sanctuary in Dubai.

"Now based in Dubai, Kinahan and his sons Daniel and Christopher Jr are the subjects of international sanctions, with a $5million bounty from the US authorities hanging over their heads."
Posted by: mossomo || 07/14/2025 12:39 Comments || Top||


Multiple victims after shooting at Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

Two women killed in Kentucky church shooting after trooper shot; suspect killed, police say

[WISHtv] Two women died Sunday at a church in Lexington, Kentucky, in a shooting rampage that began when a state trooper was wounded after making a traffic stop, police said. The suspect in both shootings was also killed.

The suspect carjacked a vehicle after the traffic stop near Lexington’s airport and fled to Richmond Road Baptist Church, where he opened fire, city Police Chief Lawrence Weathers said. Killed in the shootings at the church were a 72-year-old woman and a 32-year-old woman, the local coroner said.

Two other people were wounded at the church and taken to a local hospital, the police chief said. One victim sustained critical injuries and the other was in stable condition, Weathers said.

The suspect was shot by police and died at the scene, he said. The suspect was not immediately identified pending notification of family, he said.

“Preliminary information indicates that the suspect may have had a connection to the individuals at the church,” the police chief said at a news conference.

The trooper stopped the vehicle after receiving a “license plate reader alert” and was shot about 11:30 a.m., Weathers said. The trooper was in stable condition, he said.

Police tracked the carjacked vehicle to the Baptist church, the police chief said. The church is about 16 miles 26 kilometers) from where the trooper was shot.

The shootings remain under investigation, Weathers said.

Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said the church is home to a small, tight-knit congregation.
WXYZ adds:
Authorities say the shooter had a lengthy criminal history.

Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred || 07/14/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [100 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Move to war on terror background?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/14/2025 12:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Very interesting, Procopius2k, thank you for finding that. It sounds like he might be a poseur, looking to shock, or Antifa or Antifa-adjacent rather than a true convert to Islam. But Antifa is also Page 1, so as soon as we have something more solid we’ll know definitively where it should be filed.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/14/2025 13:18 Comments || Top||




'I set they house on fire'
[X]
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred || 07/14/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [131 views] Top|| File under:

#1 

I am sure it means nothing.
But it seems a lot of these violent, perverted nut jobs tend to be LSD voters.
Posted by: NN2N1 || 07/14/2025 5:40 Comments || Top||

#2  ...yes, but asylums will allow the usual suspect vote harvesters to get their ballots signed in one place.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/14/2025 16:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Austin neighborhood in Chicago, west side, adjacent Oak Park suburb. Not Austin, TX.
Posted by: Bobby || 07/14/2025 16:31 Comments || Top||


-Obits-
The family has announced passing of the former president, Muhammadu Buhari
[X]

Muhammadu Buhari, who took power in Nigeria by both coup and ballot box, dead at 82

[CBC] Former military ruler who became a 'converted democrat' fought endemic corruption

Former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari, who led Africa's most populous country from 2015-23 and was the first Nigerian leader to oust an incumbent through the ballot box, died in London on Sunday, a presidential spokesperson said.

"President Buhari died today in London at about 4:30 p.m., following a prolonged illness," President Bola Tinubu's spokesperson said in a post on social media platform X.

Buhari, 82, who first led the country as a military ruler after a coup in the 1980s, earned a devoted following for his brand of anti-corruption conviction politics.

He referred to himself as a "converted democrat" and swapped his military uniform for kaftans and prayer caps.

"I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody," was a constant refrain Buhari told supporters and critics alike.

Buhari defeated Goodluck Jonathan
... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau.Other than that he's pretty useless as the Boko Haram debacle shows...
, who served as president from 2010-15, in what was judged to be Nigeria's fairest election to date. Many hoped the retired major-general would crack down on gangs, just as he had as the country's military head of state.

Instead, violence that had mostly been confined to the northeast spread. That left swaths of Nigeria outside the control of its stretched security forces as button men in the northwest, armed separatists and gangs in the southeast roamed unchecked.

Much of Buhari's appeal lay in the anti-corruption ethos that was a central plank of his agenda both as a military and civilian ruler. He said endemic corruption in Nigeria's political culture was holding people back.

But Buhari quickly disappointed after his 2015 win.

He took six months to name his cabinet. During that time, the oil-dependent economy was hobbled by low crude prices, prompting people to call him "Baba Go Slow."

His second victory in 2019 came despite his initial term being blighted by Nigeria's first recession in a generation, murderous Moslem attacks on oilfields and repeated hospital stays.

Born on Dec. 17, 1942, in Daura, in the northwestern state of Katsina, Buhari enrolled in the army at 19. He would eventually rise to the rank of major-general.

He seized power in 1983 as a military ruler, promising to revitalize a mismanaged country. Buhari took a tough line on everything from the conditions sought by the International Monetary Fund to unruliness in bus lineups.

In 1984, his administration attempted to kidnap a former minister and vocal critic living in Britannia. The plot failed when London airport officials opened the crate containing the kidnapped politician.

Buhari's first stint in power was short-lived. He was removed after only 18 months by another military officer, Ibrahim Babangida.

He spent much of the following 30 years in fringe political parties and trying to run for president until his eventual victory over Jonathan in 2015.

Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred || 07/14/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [46 views] Top|| File under:


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Europe Sounds Alarm as Birth Rates Plunge Among Covid-Vaxxed
[SlayNews] Alarming official data in Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
has revealed that a devastating drop in birth rates is only impacting women who received Covid mRNA "vaccines."

A growing body of data is fueling alarm after researchers uncovered a steep and unexplained drop in birth rates across Europe.

The evidence reveals a powerful direct correlation between the rollout of Covid injections and severely declining fertility.

In the Czech Republic, birth rates began plunging sharply in January 2022.

By the end of the year, it became undeniable: the country’s total fertility rate (TFR) had collapsed.

Worryingly, the data shows that birth rates continued plummeting through 2024.

And it wasn’t just in the Czech Republic.

Similar patterns were observed in the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden, all countries that had aggressively promoted mass Covid "vaccination" campaigns.

What sets the Czech data apart is that it now includes an unprecedented official breakdown of births by the mother’s "vaccination" status.

Released only after repeated Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and political pressure, the data provides the clearest view yet into what happened.

According to the figures, women who had received at least one Covid "vaccine" dose prior to giving birth conceived about one-third fewer children than would be expected based on their share of the population.

Unvaccinated women, by contrast, conceived at rates consistent with pre-pandemic trends.

The trend coincided almost precisely with the timeline of mass Covid vaccination campaigns.

Despite claims that the drop in fertility was due to demographics, the TFR, a measure that corrects for age and population, dropped sharply only after widespread "vaccine" rollout.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/14/2025 07:19 || Comments || Link || [35 views] Top|| File under:


Confirmed: CEO of Weather Modification Company Reveals Cloud Seeding Operations Were Conducted in Texas Two Days Before Deadly Flood
[DefconNews] Perhaps not Weather Warfare but cloud seeding nonetheless.

The CEO of a weather modification technology company has confirmed cloud seeding operations took place in Texas just two days before the deadly central Texas flood occurred. NBC News reported that Augustus Doricko, the CEO of Rainmaker, a weather modification company, said planes had released silver iodide in the atmosphere in Texas two days prior to the fatal floods that have claimed over 100 lives.

But claims that did not cause the Texas floods.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: NN2N1 || 07/14/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [188 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Stock doubled 7/11
0.1650
+0.0890
+(117.11%)
Posted by: Skidmark || 07/14/2025 7:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Discovery is going to be interesting.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/14/2025 7:26 Comments || Top||

#3  It is past time to find a suitable dog, give him a bad name, and then hang him.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 07/14/2025 9:07 Comments || Top||

#4  TV station weather professional explained the unusual, for July, flow of tropical moisture into the Hill Country. He didn't mention cloud seeding. But he didn't know. Could be a contributing factor.
Posted by: Bobby || 07/14/2025 9:15 Comments || Top||

#5  20 minutes of cloud seeding in the general vicinity of Kerr county two days before the flood

given the antecedent conditions before the flood had 1.5" of precipitable water over a hundred thousand square miles and the flood was related to a mesoscale convective system that was over ten thousand square miles in diameter

I think we are talking about a 5 digits to the right of the decimal point effect and I'm not even sure it would have increased precip on the day of the flood, it might have decreased it by having some rain two days before the flood
Posted by: Lord Garth || 07/14/2025 9:45 Comments || Top||

#6  Listen, people, cloud seeding does not linger. When it works it is immediate. Don't become a fool, then you become a tool for fearmongers.
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 07/14/2025 10:26 Comments || Top||

#7  That's why I said discovery is going to be interesting. You can bet ambulance chasers are already completing their radio and TV ads. As we all have seen, such lawyers are not concerned about real science, just attorney fees.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/14/2025 14:09 Comments || Top||


Typhoon Nari originates in the Pacific Ocean and threatens Japan and the Kuril Islands
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Typhoon Nari, the fifth this season, formed in the Ogasawara archipelago, about a thousand kilometers south of Honshu Island. This was reported on July 13 by the Japan Meteorological Administration.

As experts specified, the typhoon will move north for several days, and then change direction and turn northeast. On July 14, it will pass to the east of the Boso Peninsula in close proximity to Tokyo, and then affect the prefectures in the north and northeast of Honshu Island - Ibaraki, Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori.

Further, according to forecasts, on July 15 the typhoon may affect Hokkaido, as well as the Russian Kuril Islands. Wind speed at the epicenter of "Nari" reaches 18 meters per second with gusts up to 25 meters per second.

Earlier, Regnum news agency reported that more than 2,000 houses in Lgov, Kursk, were left without electricity due to the hurricane. In addition, due to the bad weather, 20 houses had their roofs damaged, two industrial buildings and two cars were damaged, and 12 trees fell due to the wind.

On July 9, at the height of abnormal heat in the central regions of the country, a powerful hurricane swept through several regions of Russia. Thus, in Yaroslavl, a child was seriously injured when he was crushed by a lamppost. In the Moscow region, a tree torn out by the wind flattened a car with people inside, as a result of which a 12-year-old girl was injured.


Continued on Page 47
Posted by: badanov || 07/14/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [43 views] Top|| File under:


Heavy rainfall results in severe flooding in Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh province, India
[X]
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred || 07/14/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [40 views] Top|| File under:


Firefighters Battle Massive Wildfire as Rare Firenado Erupts
[X]
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred || 07/14/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [64 views] Top|| File under:


Lampasas River Has Risen 33 Feet In Just Four Hours
[X]
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred || 07/14/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [103 views] Top|| File under:

#1  San Saba River is also over the highways.
Posted by: Glenmore || 07/14/2025 8:38 Comments || Top||


Britain
Tower of Babel: Nearly Two Million Non-Native English Speaking Students in England Schools
[Breitbrt] A report has found that almost two million students do not speak English as their native language in England as a result of the mass migration agenda imposed upon the country by the Westminster establishment.

Freedom of Information requests from the Daily Mail have revealed that in 2,039 schools in England, English is not the first language for the majority of students.

In total, the report found that 1.8 million students are non-native English speakers, or around one in five pupils in the country.

Zeroing in, at the Kobi Nazrul primary school in the Tower Hamlets borough of London, 92 per cent of students speak Bengali as their native tongue, while none were recorded as speaking English at home as their first language.

In a quarter of the 25,000 primary and secondary schools in England, white British students are now a minority in their classrooms.
Another example highlighted was the Pentland Infant Kirklees school in Dewsbury, where the vast majority of students had an Indian language as their mother tongue, with 36 per cent speaking Gujarati and 45 per cent speaking Panjabi.

The number of students without English as their first language has increased significantly over the past decade, during which successive governments have undertaken record levels of immigration.

According to the report, there are now 700,000 more non-native English speaking students compared to ten years ago.

Responding to the figures, Robert Bates of the Centre of Migration Control said that it is a “great shame that we have reached this point, and it is evidence of successive Governments failing to properly address assimilation issues”.

“Multi-language classrooms are hugely problematic. They inevitably sap the precious time of teachers who are forced to devote additional attention to those with a weaker grasp of the language at the expense of those who only speak English,” he said.

Migration Watch UK chairman Alp Mehmet added: “English is the glue that brings and holds us together as a country and helps new arrivals to blend in.

“If teachers have to focus their attention on children who struggle to speak English because the language spoken at home is different, the time devoted to other pupils is bound to diminish.”

The report comes amid increasing discussion surrounding the demographic makeup of the country, with a report last month from Professor Matt Goodwin warning that if current trends continue, white Britons will become a minority in their own country by 2063.

The artificial change of the population due to mass migration would become even more stark by the end of the century, the report found, predicting that just 22.7 per cent of the UK would be white British by 2100.

The demographic changes are already well underway in many schools across England, with a report last month finding that in a quarter of the 25,000 primary and secondary schools in England, white British students are now a minority in their classrooms.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Skidmark || 07/14/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [101 views] Top|| File under: Migrants/Illegal Immigrants



#3 

Well, at least the EU serves as a clear example of what OPEN BORDERS, and the mixing of Polar Opposite cultures and practices, does to a civilized society
Posted by: NN2N1 || 07/14/2025 5:44 Comments || Top||

#4  So sort of like LA.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/14/2025 7:32 Comments || Top||

#5  ^ sort like NYC also.

I will never understand how any Minority Group or Christian can Vote Democrat.

Given everything the Democrat party and its members have historically done to Jews, US-Indians, Chinese and Blacks especially. The adoption of Perversion and more.

Hell, they even assassinate their own political leadership (JFK, RFK, MLK ...) and openly grow rich off them also.
Posted by: NN2N1 || 07/14/2025 7:44 Comments || Top||


Down Under
Australia Hosts Largest-Ever Military Exercise as China Watches
[Breitbart] The largest-ever war-fighting drills in Australia, Exercise Talisman Sabre, are underway and expected to attract the attention of Chinese spy ships.

Talisman Sabre began in 2005 as a biennial joint exercise between the United States and Australia.

This year, more than 35,000 military personnel from 19 nations, including Canada, Fiji, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Tonga, and the United Kingdom, will take part over three weeks, Australia´s defense department said Sunday.

Malaysia and Vietnam are also attending as observers.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Skidmark || 07/14/2025 09:00 || Comments || Link || [26 views] Top|| File under: Commies


The Grand Turk
British tourists including women being beaten and stamped on by bouncers at a restaurant in Turkey in row over bill
Shocking footage has emerged showing British tourists including women being beaten and stamped on by bouncers at a restaurant in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
after an argument broke out over the bill.

Video shows the group being kicked and punched by male employees of Mad Boys eatery on a street in Marmaris, Turkey on June 2.

The clip begins with a heated verbal exchange, but the situation soon escalates into a violent mostly peaceful brawl.

Two of the tourists fall to the ground, where the assault continues, with staff members repeatedly kicking them as they lie on the pavement. One employee even leaps out of a window to join in the brawl.

A brash young boy from the tourist group is seen squaring up to an employee - shadow boxing and preparing to defend himself. Bystanders can be heard screaming as the chaos unfolds.

Police were called to the scene, but since neither party filed a complaint at the time, the matter was temporarily closed.

But once footage of the fight was posted online, it fired up the rubes and public backlash.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Skidmark || 07/14/2025 08:39 || Comments || Link || [43 views] Top|| File under: Mob Rule

#1  First mistake: Eating at a place named 'Mad Boys'.
Posted by: ed in texas || 07/14/2025 13:46 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Lost Byzantine city of Tarais from Justinian's time found in Jordan
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Archaeologists have found the lost Byzantine city of Tarais in Jordan. This was reported by the Gephyra magazine.

The search began in 2021. Archaeologists decided to look for lost cities using a mosaic map made 1,500 years ago, during the time of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian (527–565 AD). It shows 157 sites that were part of the Holy Land of Jordan. This tiled artwork is the oldest map available today that shows all the cities. Most of them have yet to be found by scientists, the publication notes.

The discovery was made by Associate Professor of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the Jordanian University of Muta Musallam R. al-Rawahneh. Fieldwork took place near the modern city of El-Iraq on the southeastern shore of the Dead Sea.

Scientists have been finding clues pointing to the existence of Tarais in this region for many years. Thus, the remains of mosaic floors, glassware and various tools were found, which, according to researchers, testified to the existence of an ancient city here.

Scientists were convinced that the recently discovered object was indeed Tarais because everything matched the image of the lost city on the famous Madaba mosaic map. The gates, ruins, and even the towers matched. Religious finds also confirmed this. Archaeologists found details reminiscent of a Byzantine basilica - a building stretched to one side, with an open central room. The team contacted Spanish and French researchers to continue their research.

The excavations brought new surprises – Greek and Latin funerary inscriptions. They confirmed the theological nature of the site, as the finds proved that a Christian community had once flourished in the region.

"The significant position of Tarais on the Madaba map and the discovery of the basilica suggest that it was not just an agricultural village but also a sacred site and a resting place for merchants," al-Rawahneh said.

The lost city of Tarais was once not only religious, but also economically prosperous. This is evidenced by olive presses, windmills and grape-pressing equipment found by archaeologists, the authors of the article noted.

As reported by the Regnum news agency, in early July archaeologists found well-preserved tombs from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods in southern Egypt. The rock-cut tombs were found in a cemetery near the Aga Khan Mausoleum on the western shore of Aswan. Scientists discovered well-preserved hieroglyphic inscriptions there.


Continued on Page 47
Posted by: badanov || 07/14/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [81 views] Top|| File under:




Science & Technology
NIH Director Bhattacharya warns U.S. taxpayers are funding science journals compromised by China
[JustTheNews] Publisher behind 'Proximal Origin' paper that dismissed lab leak, covertly shaped by Collins and Fauci, reportedly flush with Chinese money. "What exact service is being provided" for massive publishing fees, Bhattacharya wonders.

The National Institutes of Health isn't just concerned about how much taxpayers are spending to read scientific and medical journals where the published research has already been funded by taxpayers. It wants to know more about publishers' possible ties to hostile powers.

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya announced a cap starting this fall on how much journals can charge "NIH-supported scientists to make their research findings publicly accessible" and told investigative journalist Paul Thacker the fees prop up Germany-based publisher Springer Nature, which has a "tremendous investment and interest in the Chinese scientific establishment."

The 3,000-journal publishing behemoth declined to confirm to Fox News last month the Trump administration terminated one contract and didn't renew three others, claiming there was "no material change" to its "global business."

One of its journals is Nature Medicine, which published the "Proximal Origin" paper dismissing a COVID-19 lab leak from China after forcing the coauthors to completely rule out the plausibility of a leak as a condition of publishing it.

The paper was covertly shaped by Bhattacharya predecessor Francis Collins and then-National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, who funded the research that may have unleashed the pandemic with U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Then-interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin sought information from Nature Medicine this spring, suggesting it committed a quid pro quo with Collins and Fauci, who soon after gave coauthor Kristian Andersen federal grants, by leaving their names off "Proximal Origin."

Springer Nature also publishes Scientific American and Nature, which both endorsed Democrat Joe Biden for president in 2020. The former tried to quash the Chinese lab-leak theory as "xenophobia."

ESTIMATED $2.5 BILLION IN OPEN-ACCESS FEES IN 2023
Bhattacharya's announcement Tuesday, two months after rushing a new policy to immediately make public NIH-funded research, said major publishers charge up to $13,000 per article for "immediate open access" on top of subscription fees, apparently referring to Nature's "gold open access" option.

He said "one publishing group reportedly" got more than $2 million from NIH subscriptions, not including "tens of millions more through exclusive article processing charges." A Canadian study estimated the six largest publishers charged more than $2.5 billion in open-access fees in 2023, nearly triple the spending from 2019.

Bhattacharya said he once pulled his own "self-funded" paper from a journal after realizing it charged an "exorbitant" publishing fee.

"Big publishers – Springer Nature, Elsevier – have effective monopoly power" over scientific publishing, and it's "crazy" to charge so much for just "putting it out there on the internet" when most journals don't pay scientific reviewers and pay their editors "very little," Bhattacharya told Thacker. "So what exact service is being provided?"

The new cap will keep publication fees "reasonable across the research ecosystem," NIH said. Asked for a more specific figure, Bhattacharya told Just the News "we're still working that out … No firm number yet."

'ESSENTIALLY TAKING THE CHINESE AT THEIR WORD'
Bhattacharya called out Springer Nature as tainted by Chinese government influence when Thacker asked how "Proximal Origin" had still not been corrected to note the participation of Fauci, Collins and World Health Organization chief scientist Jeremy Farrar, who convened the authors and made a key change to the paper.

"Essentially taking the Chinese at their word," the paper was published "very early in the pandemic and somehow concluded on the basis of very, very flimsy if any evidence" that SARS-CoV-2 must have come from a wet market, he said.

Thacker noted 2017 reporting by the Financial Times that Springer Nature blocked at least a thousand academic articles in China mentioning "sensitive" subjects to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, and 2021 Unherd reporting that Chinese institutions paid Springer Nature an estimated $10 million in sponsorship agreements the previous year.

HHS sources told Thacker, a former Senate pharmaceutical corruption investigator, the agency is looking at CCP influence on U.S. science agencies and universities as well, he said.

"I don't want to paint with too broad a brush" about scientists in China and Chinese scientists in the U.S., Bhattacharya said. "But we are in a competition with the Chinese establishment for the preeminent position of biomedical sciences in the 21st century" and "have to think carefully and strategically about our links with the Chinese government."

The NIH director declined to comment on "any ongoing investigations" when Thacker noted in his reporting last month that the Justice Department is investigating a federal grant to a viral "spillover" research program that includes "Proximal Origin" coauthor Andersen.

'WE NEED A PROFESSIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT INVESTIGATION'
Andersen was "in the process of fleeing" the U.S. amid the DOJ investigation, and Norwegian molecular biologist Sigrid Bratlie claimed "several sources" told her that University of Oslo scientists were trying to recruit Andersen, according to Thacker.

A public records production to public health watchdog U.S. Right to Know revealed that Andersen was one of the scientists cited in an unclassified State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research report, obtained by Thacker, that came out a week after "Proximal Origin."

Those scientists gave a briefing to the department that claimed "available genomic evidence" shows SARS-CoV-2 "probably emerged naturally in an animal," the unclassified report said.

A Dec. 4, 2020, email from State official David Feith, whom President Trump fired this April, relayed that Andersen sai in the briefing his initial doubts about SARS-CoV-2 being fully natural were "put to rest by more detailed analysis," which contradicted what Andersen told his coauthors a month after the briefing.

While Andersen, who claims to hold dual Danish and U.S. citizenship, told the San Diego Union-Tribune he has "considered leaving the United States" following NIH's ban on foreign subawards and NIAID cutting the spigot to his spillover research as "unsafe for Americans," he denied he had accepted a post at the University of Oslo.

“Did we have a foreign national parading into the intel agencies and convincing senior officials to not look into a matter?” an unnamed State official told Thacker. "That’s a counter-intelligence matter. We need a professional law enforcement investigation."
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Skidmark || 07/14/2025 09:29 || Comments || Link || [24 views] Top|| File under: Commies



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