President Trump announced this week that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “Energy Ceasefire,” where both sides would refrain from targeting any energy-related infrastructure, but it wasn’t what you think. It ended up being a one-sided deal meant to protect Russia’s oil refineries from Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks. Ukraine has no similar facilities that need protection, only electrical generation plants, which had already been targeted relentlessly by Putin. Putin didn’t have to try very hard to bribe Trump into pushing this ceasefire on Ukraine. He promised to ship 300,000 TONS (not barrels) of diesel fuel to the US and European markets, plus another 500,000 tons next month. As I’ll explain this week, this was all a fraud because Putin doesn’t have any diesel to spare. The one-sided ceasefire ended yesterday when Putin continued attacking Ukraine’s power grid, and Ukraine attacked Russian refineries again. Zelensky has complained that during the recent attacks they have not received the normal US intelligence including advanced warning of incoming ballistic missile and drone attacks, and that their military’s Starlink connection had been slowed down so much that they could not use it to direct their drones effectively. To receive a free, one-time sample of the Brief, along with options on how to subscribe, click on Request a sample on the left.
Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced in the Oval Office on Oct. 20 that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is deferring an additional $1.2 billion in Medicaid funding from California over concerns of widespread fraud in its state healthcare programs.
El-Sayed "has people from overseas that donate to him," Beckwith said. Asked whether that was allowed, he acknowledged it wasn't.
Wedgewood Polling said it engaged in an experiment to see how easy it is for a fabricated polling firm to gain traction and be taken seriously.
The president's eldest son has repeatedly voiced his opposition to the nearly eight-month conflict behind closed doors, despite carefully avoiding any public criticism of his father. Two anonymous sources who reportedly spoke directly with Trump Jr. said the MAGA leader has repeatedly questioned the military campaign, a position in line with his longstanding opposition to U.S. involvement in foreign wars.
The lesson to learn from France right now is that assimilation doesn’t happen by accident.
People familiar with the years-long criminal probe said the feds have made use of whistleblowers, government records and now obtained DNA in an effort to substantiate decade-old allegations that Omar — and possibly members of her family like her father — defrauded immigration authorities.
It also found that Brown had been making inappropriate comments, including racial insults; claiming without proof that orders were being entered in cases she oversaw without her permission; making racial insults to judges and court staffers; and “sending copious and bizarre emails to court staff and judges, including emails in the middle of the night, and copying and/or blind copying others who have no reason to be copied on such emails.”
The FBI and state officials launched an operation in New York City on Oct. 20 to crack down on Medicaid fraud.
France tallies 2,397 arrests and nearly 1,000 injured officers after Saturday’s violence, as looting flares again in Paris and politicians trade blame.
Federal agents arrested more than two dozen foreign nationals across California on Monday, for fraudulently registering and voting in U.S. elections. Specifically, the 28 suspects are being charged with a combination of illegal voting, making a false claim of U.S. citizenship in order to vote, and “knowingly depriving the residents of California of a fair and impartial election process,” Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter announced at a news conference in Los Angeles.
Drones have also persisted on the capital, with nearly 100 Ukrainian UAVs having been shot down between Thursday night and Friday, local authorities reported. But Ukraine is also getting pummeled, with whole regions without electricity in a northwest region of the country. A recent Russian assault on the eastern city of Kharkiv killed three people and injured five.
It was expected to take effect soon, as part of a big Washington ramping up of pressure to further strangle the Russian economy and thus starve Putin's war machine. Trump has informed Congress that he must waive the new sanctions package because it is in the US national interest, at a moment he's desperately trying to get diesel prices under control amid both the Iran war and Ukraine's attacks on Russian oil refineries.
Rather than designing separate vehicles for every environment, researchers are experimenting with interchangeable modules that could allow a single platform to perform multiple roles. The proposed vehicles would also incorporate drones to help clear obstacles and potentially accelerate amphibious landings.
Starshield is the military version of Starlink, which offers satellite internet connectivity for consumer and commercial use. The temporary disruptions to Ukraine's Starshield access, which were reported on Oct. 14, come amid increased tension between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Adding more confusion to this whole scenario, around midday on Friday, President Trump told a gaggle of reporters that he "didn't know who gave the order on Starshield," to slow it down, claiming further that "it wasn't us."
Experts told The Epoch Times that Beijing conducts most of its U.S. intelligence operations through people already living inside the country, relying on tasks that are largely lawful—making introductions, hosting events, logging attendee lists, or looking up individuals. These activities unfold across student clubs, hometown associations, campaign fundraisers, and university forums—the very institutions an open society intentionally keeps accessible. In Pauken’s case, his role was to identify individuals the Justice Department called “new recruitment targets” for his Chinese handlers.
Three children and one adult are dead following an active shooter situation at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon on Thursday afternoon. The suspected active shooter is also dead after an armed civilian chased the shooter into the school and killed him.
Prosecutors asked the court to order California to sequester suspicious ballots.
Among a cadre of Wall Street executives brought into the Pentagon during President Donald Trump’s second term, George K. Kollitides II has emerged as a powerbroker with a broad mandate to improve procurement of weapons and critical minerals. The longtime partner at the private equity firm Alvarez & Marsal Capital has framed his tour of duty in government as a service to the country. But the work he’s leading has also been a boon to his old friends in the private sector, government procurement records show.
The library’s director also explained that the original entry had not been supported by documentation. Omar has said she became a U.S. citizen in 2000 through her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, after her family arrived in the United States from Somalia in 1995. “I became a citizen actually before I turned 18,” Omar told the Intercept in September 2018. “My father became a citizen and so I got my citizenship through that process.” The one-year difference matters to that account. Someone born October 4, 1981, would have turned 18 in October 1999. Someone born October 4, 1982, would have remained 17 until October 2000.
In January, the New York Times reported that the Biden administration had begun an investigation into Omar’s finances after reports suggested she amassed a multimillion-dollar net worth since being elected to Congress.
That question takes us to one of America’s strangest gatherings: Burning Man. What began in 1986 as a small gathering around a wooden effigy on San Francisco’s Baker Beach has developed into a temporary city in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert attracting tens of thousands of people. Burning Man officially presents itself around principles such as radical inclusion, radical self-expression, communal effort, participation, and immediacy. Yet accounts from inside the event describe something far more spiritually significant than an unusual art festival. The environment includes psychedelic drugs, sexual experimentation, altered states of consciousness, New Age ideas, occult imagery, ritualistic activity, and the rejection of traditional moral boundaries. The worldview celebrated there should concern Christians because much of it represents the opposite of the biblical understanding of God, humanity, morality, sexuality, and truth.
Germany’s far-right party may drop one of its founding tenets to broaden its electoral appeal.
Senate Democrats announced the same day that they had recruited more than 100 staff observers to send to nine states.
The local outlet noted, "Ukraine relies on Starlink for several military applications including operating its mid-strike campaign in Russian-occupied Ukraine, as well as interceptor drones that defend against Russia's new jet-powered attack drones." "The consequences are already being felt in the field. Since the start of the day alone, a drone unit operating within the 7th Corps' area of responsibility in the Huliaipole sector has had to cancel a number of missions due to these connectivity issues," Ukraine's 7th Air Assault Corps told the outlet. Western media, such as the Financial Times, said Ukraine was "blindsided by Starlink restrictions and intelligence gaps during Russian attack."
Omar has said she derived citizenship through her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, when he naturalized in 2000, and the law then required the child to be under 18 when the parent naturalized. Born in 1981, she'd have been an adult all of 2000 - the year she says she became a citizen at 17, the NY Post reports. For her two years in the Minnesota House and more than four months into her congressional term, the state's Legislative Reference Library listed her birthday as Oct. 4, 1981, the same date carried by Wikipedia, the BBC and Congress's own Biographical Directory.
Strikes come as U.S. military is successfully shepherding more oil through the strait
The Kremlin on Wednesday indicated that work on the Trump-proposed energy truce with Ukraine is continuing, but in contradiction with recent Trump proclamations did not treat it as any kind of done deal currently in effect.
Almost 100% of the cases involved foreigners, especially from Syria
Gun Owners of America and members of Congress want gun transaction records destroyed to eliminate even the possibility of a registry.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Oct. 12 that he might meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his planned visit to Asia next month. Asked by a reporter whether he expects to meet Kim during the trip, Trump said: “I may. That will be exciting, won’t it? But I get along with him.”