[FoxNews] Suspect intended to detonate a chlorine bomb before opening fire on moviegoers, according to federal agents
The FBI and law enforcement officials in Columbia County, Oregon, arrested a teenager late last month who was allegedly planning to carry out a mass shooting involving explosives at a Washington state shopping mall.
In a news release Thursday, the FBI said the teen, whose name was not released, was arrested May 22 by deputies with the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office.
The FBI learned of "detailed and imminent" attack plans after they were reported to the agency just two days before the juvenile’s arrest.
After learning about the alleged planned attack, the FBI said it began working with its partners to identify the mastermind behind the threat. On May 20, the Columbia County teenager was identified as a suspect.
According to the FBI, the teenager shared nihilistic violent extremist ideology,
as well as the plans, in online chats.
The teenager was placed under court-authorized surveillance out of caution for the public, and, on May 22, a federal search warrant was executed, leading to the teen’s arrest.
The FBI said the suspect demonstrated the intention and means to carry out a plan that included details like the map of the Three Rivers Mall in Kelso, located more than two hours south of Seattle, and a route to follow.
"This plot was as serious as it gets," FBI Portland Special Agent in Charge Doug Olson said. "We, along with our partners, moved swiftly to interrupt this violent plan and to protect our community."
While the FBI made initial contact with the teenager, the local sheriff’s office made the arrest on state charges.
The Columbia County District Attorney’s office is prosecuting the case.
The FBI said it encourages the public to report suspicious behavior to law enforcement, adding that parents are also encouraged to engage in open dialog with their children about their online activity.
The suspect, whose identity has not been disclosed due to their age, allegedly planned to detonate a chlorine bomb to create chaos and panic before shooting fleeing patrons exiting a movie theater, the FBI Portland Field Office said in a statement.
According to FBI research of past violent actors, nihilistic ideation refers to a “preoccupation with themes of violence, hopelessness, despair, pessimism, hatred, isolation, loneliness, or an ‘end-of-the-world’ philosophy,” said retired senior FBI profiler Dr. Mary Ellen O’Toole. “Nihilistic ideation is a very pessimistic view of the world.”
The FBI said the plan included details on the use of an improvised explosive device, a specific route through the mall, and a sequence of actions culminating in the suspect’s planned suicide at the mall.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Skidmark ||
06/06/2025 05:42 ||
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You mean the FBI is actually doing their job now?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/06/2025 12:06 Comments ||
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#2
^He probably posted his detailed plans on his social media site.
[FoxNews] ICE officials intercept thousands of kilos of drug-making chemicals in latest Chinese infiltration attempt
Mexican drug cartels are getting help from the Chinese to build their drug empire that feeds off American consumers.
Border patrol officials intercepted 50,000 kilos of precursor chemicals this week used in the process of manufacturing methamphetamines, sent from China and intended for members of the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. In addition to providing the cartels with the chemicals needed to make illicit drugs, Chinese entities are also one of the foremost actors in helping them launder their proceeds, according to the Treasury Department.
"For far too long, the Mexican drug cartels have raked in billions of dollars at the expense of our local communities leaving nothing but addiction, death and despair in their wake," said Chad Plantz, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge in Houston. "This initiative provides HSI with a game-changing method to stay one step ahead of the cartels by disrupting the flow of chemicals that they depend on to produce illicit narcotics."
The seizure was part of an ongoing initiative launched in 2019 to identify suspicious shipments of precursor chemicals from China, India and other countries that are destined for Mexican drug cartels. Since the initiative was established, officials have interdicted more than 1,700,000 kilograms of chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamines and fentanyl, including a seizure this past March of 44,000 kilograms of precursor chemicals at the Port of Houston, destined for the Sinaloa Cartel.
Immigration officials' bust comes amid news of a spate of other incidents involving Chinese nationals or individuals working for China who have engaged in espionage efforts, ranging from agroterroism and selling military secrets, to infiltrating U.S. universities and utilizing American-based products to sow political divisions online.
In the latest incident, two Chinese nationals were charged with allegedly smuggling a "dangerous biological pathogen" into the U.S. to study at a University of Michigan laboratory. This happened amid controversy over the Trump administration's effort to intensify visa scrutiny for Chinese nationals trying to enter the United States.
Last month, an expansive investigation by a group of Stanford students detailed how there is a culture of students and faculty at their school doing work for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The report highlighted how some students want to work with the Chinese government, such as through sharing intellectual property or aligning their research priorities with Chinese interests, while others are sometimes coerced into doing work for the CCP, particularly if they have family back in Beijing.
Meanwhile, just this week, reports of Chinese efforts to steal U.S. state secrets or sow political divisions have surfaced.
On Friday, the Department of Justice indicted two Chinese nationals and a lawful permanent resident for conspiring to traffic sensitive American military technology to the CCP.
Over the weekend, a British businessman was arrested for attempting to smuggle sensitive U.S. military components to China.
American artifical intelligence company OpenAI this week also shutdown a Chinese-linked influence operation that was utilizing its ChatGPT product to generate social media posts and sow political division related to U.S. politics online.
"The new visa policy is long overdue," Congresswoman Michele Steel said. "After four years of willful ignorance – or gross incompetence – under the Biden administration, President Trump has wasted no time in directing his administration to take the decisive, necessary action to finally thwart the pervasive and growing threat of Chinese communist espionage."
[Breitbart] The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down a legal standard that had made it harder for white, male, or heterosexual employees to bring workplace discrimination claims, marking a landmark decision that threatens to undercut the legal foundation of many diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) hiring practices.
The high court struck down a legal test created and employed by certain lower courts since the 1980s called the “background circumstances rule” which requires a heightened evidentiary standard for members of so-called “majority groups” in discrimination cases. In an opinion penned by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the Supreme Court decided that the background circumstances rule is incompatible with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which bars employers from intentionally discriminating against employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
“As a textual matter, Title VII’s disparate-treatment provision draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs,” Jackson wrote. “Rather, the provision makes it unlawful ‘to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.’ The law’s focus on individuals rather than groups is anything but academic.”
“By establishing the same protections for every ‘individual’ — without regard to that individual’s membership in a minority or majority group — Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone,” she continued. “Our precedents reinforce that understanding of the statute.”
The case surrounds Marlean Ames, a heterosexual woman who had worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services since 2004 and was originally hired to work as an executive secretary. Ames was eventually promoted to program administrator and applied for a management position in 2019. Ultimately, the agency hired a different candidate, a lesbian woman, to fill the role. A few days later, Ames was demoted back to her secretarial role with a significant pay cut, and the agency hired a gay man to fill her administrator position.
Ames subsequently filed a lawsuit against the agency until Title VII, alleging that she was denied the management promotion and demoted because of her sexual orientation.
A district court sided with the Ohio Department of Youth Services, concluding that Ames failed to provide evidence of “background circumstances” that she was being discriminated against as a member of a “majority group” — a heterosexual. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision.
Conservative-leaning Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, admonishing lower court judges who essentially legislate from the bench.
“I write separately to highlight the problems that arise when judges create atextual legal rules and frameworks. Judge-made doctrines have a tendency to distort the underlying statutory text, impose unnecessary burdens on litigants, and cause confusion for courts. The ‘background circumstances’ rule — correctly rejected by the Court today — is one example of this phenomenon,” Thomas wrote.
“The ‘background circumstances’ rule plainly contravenes that statutory command by imposing a higher burden on some individuals based solely on their membership in a particular demographic group. This rule is a product of improper judicial lawmaking,” he added.
Thomas asserted that courts who have employed the background circumstances rule have “offered no guidance on how to decide whether a particular person is a member of the ‘majority.”‘
“Instead, judges have been left to their own devices to make these challenging determinations. Most courts appear to have sidestepped these difficulties by abandoning the search for neutral principles and instead assuming that the ‘background circumstances’ rule applies only to white and male plaintiffs,” he observed.
Thomas additionally said the high court should consider scrapping the broader legal test from which the background circumstances rule is derived, called the McDonnell Douglas framework. The Supreme Court established the three-pronged test in 1973 for workplace discrimination claims that rest on circumstantial evidence.
“The Court today assumes without deciding that the McDonnell Douglas framework is an appropriate tool for making that determination. But, the judge-made McDonnell Douglas framework has no basis in the text of Title VII. And, as I have previously explained, lower courts’ extension of this doctrine into the summary-judgment context has caused significant confusion and troubling outcomes on the ground,” Thomas wrote.
“In an appropriate case, this Court should consider whether the McDonnell Douglas framework is an appropriate tool to evaluate Title VII claims at summary judgment,” he continued.
The Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of Ames’s discrimination claims, instead remanding the case for further litigation in a lower court.
The Supreme Court’s ruling comes as the Trump administration hacks away at the roots of DEI in the federal government and corporate America — standards which have resulted in hiring based on racial and sexual-orientation quotas, trainings, policies, and initiatives espousing the supposed pervasiveness of white supremacy in all of America’s institutions, and the overall demonization of white, heterosexual individuals.
[BBC] Eighty years ago on 6 June, D-Day, the largest land, air and naval operation in history was unleashed to fight the Nazis – led by a group of British troops who crash-landed in Normandy in six flimsy gliders. In 1984, the man who led this mission gave an extraordinary account to the BBC.
D-Day was a marvel of planning; it involved the simultaneous landing of tens of thousands of Allied troops on five separate beaches in Nazi-occupied northern France. The British and Canadians would land on three beaches in Normandy, codenamed Sword, Juno and Gold. The Americans were to capture Omaha and Utah beaches.
Major John Howard and his company's part in this elaborate plan required perfect navigation, great daring and complete surprise. Their mission was to capture two bridges intact – Bénouville Bridge, later known as Pegasus Bridge, over the Caen canal, and Ranville Bridge, later renamed Horsa Bridge, over the adjacent River Orne. Because these road bridges were the only way across the parallel water obstacles, capturing them would mean they could stop German reinforcements from reaching the beaches where the Allied armies would land later that day.
Preparation for this audacious glider mission was intense. Thousands of aerial photographs were taken of the bridges and their defences mapped in detail. The British even created a model of the area which was modified to match each day's aerial photograph. When the Germans cut down trees, the model-makers did the same. The idea of using gliders was that troops and heavier weapons could be landed in the same place behind enemy lines, without the need for parachutes. Because of the need to conserve metal supplies during wartime, the gliders were made mostly of spruce and plywood. They were tricky to operate, and liable to break apart upon landing.
Continued on Page 47
#1
My first reaction to this was "Why is the BBC running an article about this? Doesn't everyone already know about Pegasus Bridge?" And then it occurred to me that not many people under the age of 40 could pick Pegasus Bridge out of a lineup. Good post, Skid.
Posted by: Matt ||
06/06/2025 12:08 Comments ||
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[HackRead] Hackers have leaked what they claim is AT&T’s database which was reportedly stolen by the ShinyHunters group in April 2024 after they exploited major security flaws in the Snowflake cloud data platform. But is this really the Snowflake-linked data? We took a closer look.
As seen by the Hackread.com research team, the data was first posted on a well-known Russian cybercrime forum on May 15, 2025. It was re-uploaded on the same forum on June 3, 2025, after which it began circulating among other hackers and forums.
Full names Date of birth
Phone numbers
Email addresses
Physical addresses
44 Million Social Security Numbers (SSN) (43,989,219 in total)
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 139,000 in May, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment continued to trend up in health care, leisure and hospitality, and social assistance. Federal government continued to lose jobs.
======================== The decline in Federal Govt employment Jan-May 2025 comes to about 59k which is a pretty large decrease. Hourly earnings increased about the same rate as prices. An increase in short term unemployment was balanced by a decrease in long term unemployment. The increases in previously reported March and April 2025 employment were adjusted downward. Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
06/06/2025 11:45 ||
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[BBC] Tucked deep in Donald Trump's sprawling "One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act" is a clause that could quietly take billions from money sent abroad.
It proposes a 3.5% tax on remittances sent abroad by foreign workers, including green card holders and temporary visa workers such as those on H-1B visas. For India - the world's top remittance recipient - the implications are serious, say experts. Other major recipients include Mexico, China, the Philippines, France, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
In 2023, Indians abroad sent home $119bn (£88bn) - enough to finance half of India's goods trade deficit and outpace foreign direct investment, according to a paper by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) economists. Of this, the largest share came from the US. For millions of migrants, that includes the money wired to cover a parent's medicine, a nephew's tuition or a mortgage back home.
A blunt levy on remittances could skim billions from migrant workers, many of whom already pay taxes in America. The likely result? A rise in informal, untraceable cash transfers and a dent in India's most stable source of external financing.
India has remained the top recipient of remittances since 2008, with its share rising from 11% in 2001 to 14% in 2024, according to World Bank. India’s central bank says that remittances are expected to stay strong, reaching an estimated $160bn by 2029. The country's remittances have consistently hovered around 3% of GDP since 2000.
India's international migrant population grew from 6.6 million in 1990 to 18.5 million in 2024, with its global share rising from 4.3% to over 6%. While the Gulf still hosts nearly half of all Indian migrants, skilled migration to advanced economies - especially the US - has increased significantly, driven by India's global IT footprint.
The US remains the top source of remittances worldwide, with its share rising from 23.4% in 2020–21 to nearly 28% in 2023–24, driven by a strong post-pandemic job recovery and a 6.3% rise in foreign-born workers in 2022. Notably, 78% of Indian migrants in the US work in high-earning sectors such as management, business, science, and the arts.
Remittance costs - driven by fees and currency conversion - have long been a global policy concern due to their impact on families. While global averages of the costs remain above targets, India stands out as one of the most affordable destinations, reflecting the rise of digital channels and heightened market competition.
AFP via Getty Image A worker holding US dollar (R) and Indian rupee currency notes poses for a photograph at a money exchange outlet in New Delhi on April 3, 2025. US President Donald Trump ignited a potentially ruinous global trade war on April 2 as he slapped 10 percent tariffs on imports from around the world and harsh extra levies on key trading partners. (Photo by Arun SANKAR / AFP) (Photo by ARUN SANKAR/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty Image
India topped the global remittance charts with $129bn sent home in 2024
A 10-15% drop in remittances could cost India $12-18bn a year, tightening dollar supply and putting pressure on the rupee, according to Ajay Srivastava of Delhi-based think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI). He reckons the central bank may have to step in more often to stabilise the currency.
The bigger blow would land on households in states such as Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where remittances fund essentials like education, healthcare and housing. The tax could "hit household consumption hard" even as the Indian economy grapples with global uncertainty and inflation, Mr Srivastava says in a note.
The remittance tax could squeeze Indian household budgets, dampen consumption and investment, and undermine one of India's steadiest sources of foreign exchange, warns a brief by the Delhi-based Centre for WTO Studies. Maharashtra, followed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu, continues to be among the dominant recipient states.
Remittances in India are largely used for household consumption, savings and investment in assets like housing, gold and small businesses. according to a policy brief by the think tank's Pritam Banerjee, Saptarshee Mandal and Divyansh Dua.
A drop in inflows could shrink domestic savings and reduce investment in both financial and physical assets. When remittance inflows decline, households are likely to "prioritise consumption needs (e.g. food, healthcare, and education) over savings and investment", the brief says.
A study by Center for Global Development, a Washington-based think tank, suggests the proposed tax could sharply cut formal transfers, with Mexico facing the biggest hit - over $2.6bn annually. Other major losers include India, China, Vietnam and several Latin American nations like Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador.
To be sure, there's still some confusion surrounding the tax, and final approval is pending Senate action and the President's signature.
"The tax applies to all non-citizens and even embassy and UN/World Bank staff. But those who pay taxes can claim a tax credit. Thus, the remittance tax would apply only to those migrants who do not pay taxes. That would mostly include unauthorised migrants (and diplomats)," Dilip Ratha, the World Bank lead economist for migration and remittances, told the BBC.
Dr Ratha wrote in a note on LinkedIn that migrants would try to cut remittance costs by turning to informal methods - hand-carrying cash, sending money through friends, couriers, bus drivers or airline staff, arranging local currency payouts via friends in the US, or using hawala, hundi and cryptocurrencies.
"Will the proposed tax deter unauthorised immigration to the US? Will it encourage unauthorised migrants to return home?" wonders Dr Ratha.
Not quite, he says. A minimum wage job in the US earns over $24,000 a year - roughly four to 30 times more than in many developing countries. Migrants typically send home between $1,800 and $48,000 annually, estimates Dr Ratha.
"A 3.5% tax is unlikely to deter these remittances. After all the main motivation for migration - migrants trying to cross oceans and rivers and mountains - is to send money home to help helpless family members."
[Breitbart] Hadn’t we just read that ChairmanXi Jinping has been reduced to the face of the enterprise rather than the man in charge? Continued on Page 47
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] US President Donald Trump has appointed Air Force Lieutenant General Alexus Grinkevich as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe and head of the US European Command, the Pentagon press service reports.
"Lieutenant General Alexus Grinkevich has been appointed Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Commander of the United States European Command," the statement said.
The Pentagon added that representatives of the member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance supported the appointment of Grinkevich. At the moment, he holds the post of director of operations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States Department of Defense. Grinkevich will replace the current head of the command, General Christopher Cavoli, who is due to retire in early July.
According to media reports, Grinkevich has earned the status of one of the most promising generals in the US at the Pentagon. In the past, he was a pilot of F-16 and F-22 fighters. Grinkevich also served for four years at the Central Command (CENTCOM) headquarters, helping to lead the US armed forces in the Middle East.
On May 3, the German magazine Der Spiegel wrote that Trump might not attend the NATO summit scheduled for June if the alliance member states do not increase defense spending from 2% to 5% of GDP per year. It was noted that Berlin had long disregarded the words of the new US Ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, about the demand by the head of the White House to increase military spending.
It doesn’t need to be over for Trump and Elon. Dominant men often develop deep friction when they disagree. Let me give you a powerful historical example of a similar situation:
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were close friends during the American Revolution and they worked on… pic.twitter.com/K8GJjMzwbQ
#2
You can also swap your depleted battery for a fresh one. Note - Sodium-ion batteries are also expected to reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing the metals used in lithium-ion cells, particularly cobalt and nickel – heavy metals that can negatively impact humans and nature.
A 2024 study concluded that sodium-ion batteries can help the world avoid excessive mining and possible depletion of critical raw materials, but that the production process generates similar volumes of greenhouse gas emissions to lithium-ion cells.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/06/2025 11:59 Comments ||
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#3
Sodium-Ion batteries (at the present stages anyway) only have about 70% of the capacity for energy storage as Lithium-Ion for similar size and weight cells.
Can't recharge them as often, either. Only about half of the L-Ion recharge cycles (again, for now).
They don't explode as easily though, which could be a boon based on the dodgy e-bike chargers they have in China.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/06/2025 17:28 Comments ||
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[FoxNews] NTSB report reveals plane involved in March incident at Denver airport had parts installed backwards and loose connections
The American Airlines flight that caught fire soon after taking off from Denver International Airport in March had several parts installed incorrectly and fuel leaks, according to a preliminary report released Thursday.
And why was that?
The Dallas-bound aircraft had one loose part inside the right engine installed in the wrong direction and fuel leaking from the fitting of another part that was also fastened incorrectly, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report.
Soon after the plane took off, the crew noticed issues with the right engine, the report said.
"The captain noted high engine vibration indications for the right engine," the report stated, while the crew discussed whether they needed to divert before contacting American Airlines dispatchers.
They landed safely, but soon after arriving at a gate, passengers and crew members noticed fire and smoke filling the cabin. Images and video showed passengers evacuating the aircraft and standing on the wings of the plane.
"One of the flight attendants tried calling the flight crew" while another "knocked on the cockpit door to alert the flight crew," the report said.
The NTSB report also showed streaks on the outside of the engine from the leaking fuel. The plane was towed to a hangar for examination.
"The captain noted high engine vibration indications for the right engine," the report stated, while the crew discussed whether they needed to divert before contacting American Airlines dispatchers.
They landed safely, but soon after arriving at a gate, passengers and crew members noticed fire and smoke filling the cabin. Images and video showed passengers evacuating the aircraft and standing on the wings of the plane.
"One of the flight attendants tried calling the flight crew" while another "knocked on the cockpit door to alert the flight crew," the report said.
The NTSB report also showed streaks on the outside of the engine from the leaking fuel. The plane was towed to a hangar for examination.
American Airlines said 172 passengers and six crew members were on board at the time of the incident.
The airplane had "substantial damage" while 12 passengers and the six crew members sustained minor injuries, according to the report.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
