Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks

Disgraced ex-Congressman Weiner receives campaign donation from unexpected New Yorker in new race

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 10:14:07 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

FIRST ON FOX: Former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner received surprising donations to his campaign for City Council of New York City from ex-wife Huma Abedin and her sister, Heba Abedin, despite his ex-wife saying in 2021 that Weiner's sex scandals "almost killed her."

Huma Abedin donated $175 to Weiner's campaign March 13, and her sister, Heba Abedin, donated $150 Dec. 29, 2024, a Fox News Digital review of New York City campaign finance reports revealed.

Weiner launched his latest campaign for NYC City Council, a position he held from 1992 to 1998 before controversy derailed his political career, in December 2024. Weiner was elected to represent New York's 9th Congressional District in 1998 and resigned in 2011 after he posted a photo of himself in his underwear on social media.

The incident was followed by years of sexual scandals, and Weiner was charged with transferring obscene material to a minor in May 2017 after sexting a 15-year-old girl. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

FORMER DEMOCRATIC REP. ANTHONY WEINER, CONVICTED OF ILLICIT CONTACT WITH MINOR, FILES TO RUN FOR NYC COUNCIL

Former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, right, received donations to his campaign for City Council of New York City from ex-wife Huma Abedin and her sister, Heba Abedin, according to campaign finance reports. (Getty)

Huma Abedin, the longtime Hillary Clinton aide, told CBS "Sunday Morning" in 2021 that anger over her husband's sex scandals almost killed her.

ANTHONY WEINER SPOTTED DINING WITH ESTRANGED WIFE HUMA ABEDIN

"I can't live in that space anymore. I tried that. It almost killed me," Abedin told Norah O'Donnell.

Abedin said she filed for divorce on the same day Weiner pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison. The former couple, who co-parent their son, were spotted in 2023 attending the Inner Circle charity show at Ziegfeld Theater in Midtown Manhattan.

President Joe Biden, right, presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, to Alex Soros on behalf of his father, George Soros, in the East Room of the White House Jan. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

By July 2024, Abedin announced on social media she was engaged to Alex Soros, chairman of Open Society Foundations and son of billionaire megadonor George Soros. They are expected to get married this summer.

After resigning from Congress in 2011, Weiner continued sexting under the pseudonym "Carlos Danger." The main recipient, Sydney Leathers, who was 22 at the time, claimed the former lawmaker referred to himself as "an argumentative, perpetually horny middle-aged man."

Anthony Weiner, a former Democratic congressman, leaves federal court in New York Sept. 25, 2017, after being sentenced to 21 months for sexting with a 15-year-old girl. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

Weiner attempted his first political comeback in 2013 with a mayoral run, but his reputation was damaged by new revelations of explicit photos Weiner had sent under the pseudonym. Weiner was caught in another sexting scandal in 2016, which led to his indictment. In one image Weiner sent, he was lying in bed with his young son.

More claims surfaced that year that Weiner had sexted a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina, and his laptop was seized. Investigators found emails relevant to Clinton's classified documents scandal that dominated the 2016 election.

Weiner later checked himself into rehab for sex addiction. In 2017, his federal indictment ruined another bid for mayor. He was released in 2019 and was ordered to register as a sex offender.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Abedin and Weiner did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment by the deadline of this article.

Fox News Digital's Michael Dorgan and Charles Creitz contributed to this report.

Deirdre Heavey is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

The mysterious novelist who foresaw Putin’s Russia – and then came to symbolise its moral decay

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 15:52:29 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from The Guardian.

Fiction has a habit of coming to life in Russia. On the evening of 2 April 2023, the military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky appeared at an event in St Petersburg organised by Cyber Front Z, a group of semi-professional keyboard warriors who boost Kremlin war propaganda online. With more than half a million followers, Tatarsky was a mid-tier celebrity on Telegram, the social media app that has become a hub of Russian news and political debate.

As guests mingled, a young woman with long, salon-waved blond hair approached Tatarsky. She presented him with an unusual gift: a gold-painted statue of himself. About two minutes later, the statue exploded, killing Tatarsky and injuring 42 people. The blond woman – 26-year-old St Petersburg native Darya Trepova – was arrested the next day. She said she had believed the statue contained a listening device, not a bomb, and that she had acted on orders from a man in Ukraine she knew only as “Gestalt”.

Trepova was an unlikely killer. A vegan feminist who had dropped out of medical school and worked at a vintage clothing store, she had been arrested at an anti-war protest in February 2022 and held for 10 days. Not only was there nothing to suggest that she would carry out an assassination, Tatarsky was an odd target, a bellicose social media influencer without real power. Trepova was sentenced to 27 years in prison for her crime.

Absurd yet disturbing, memorable yet baffling, the incident seemed straight out of a story by Victor Olegovich Pelevin, one of Russia’s most famous living writers. In at least one respect, the connection between fiction and reality was direct: “Vladlen Tatarsky” was not the military blogger’s real name, but a nom de plume inspired by the hero of Pelevin’s 1999 novel Generation P. The notoriously reclusive Pelevin did not comment on Tatarsky’s assassination – he hasn’t communicated with the press since 2010 – but his most recent novel, Cool, published in late 2024, closed the circle of reference. The novel featured a perverse caricature of Darya Trepova as Darya Troedyrkina, a castrating feminist tasked with assassinating a male dictator. Her last name means “three holes”.

Once the brightest star of Russia’s post-Soviet literary scene, Pelevin has retreated into an ideological hall of mirrors, writing elaborate satires of gender and authoritarianism while avoiding direct engagement with Russian politics. The real-life Trepova, however misguided, was motivated by her indignation at Russia’s war; Pelevin made her into an anti-feminist joke. At a time when many of his literary peers have fled Russia for political reasons, Pelevin’s descent from dazzling young writer to misogynist crank mirrors the decline of mainstream Russian culture in a new era of authoritarian censorship.

Pelevin started publishing fiction just as Soviet censorship was crumbling thanks to Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, or openness. He soon became famous for edgy, hallucinogenic stories that could never have been published under the old Soviet system. By the time Generation P came out, he was already acclaimed not only in Russia, but in the US and throughout Europe. With its puns, postmodern games, and vigorous mixture of high and low culture, his work chimed with larger trends in global literature. The Times Literary Supplement described him as “a Russian David Foster Wallace, Will Self, Haruki Murakami”. According to Time, he was the “psychedelic Nabokov of the cyber age”.

More than this, Pelevin’s writing seemed to provide an ever more accurate guide to the new workings of Russian power. Generation P imagines advertising, television and politics as the key tools that corrupt, secretive interests use to create a false reality. The novel’s hero, Vavilen Tatarsky, is an aspiring poet whose literary ambitions are scrambled by the Soviet collapse. In the free-for-all of newly capitalist Russia, Tatarsky goes into advertising, “translating” American slogans into Russian ones. (“Gucci for Men: Be a European, smell better.”) In typical Pelevinian fashion, this over-the-top satire of an already-over-the-top reality soon transmogrifies into an occult, psychedelic fantasy. High on mushrooms, Vavilen discovers that the Russian government is a virtual reality scripted by writers, acting in service of the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. Vavilen gets a job scripting Russia’s simulacrum of democracy. Soon he’s writing lines for Yeltsin and for the oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who treats Russia as his own private Monopoly board. The novel remains one of the best literary snapshots of the precarious, delirious, grimly hilarious mood of 1990s Moscow. Published in the US as Homo Zapiens and in the UK as Babylon, it has sold more than 3.5m copies worldwide.

Pelevin has long been lauded as a kind of soothsayer who predicted Russia’s post-truth, neo-imperial present. Fans believe that his novels foretold the rise of Putinist coercive political spectacle and the descent of post-Soviet Russia into a sham democracy (Generation P); Russia’s engineering of a 2014 rebellion in eastern Ukraine and its full-scale invasion in 2022 (in S.N.U.F.F., published in 2011); and even the rise of Chat GPT (in iPhuck 10, from 2017). Pelevin’s avid readers include the notorious Vladislav Surkov, who worked as a leading Kremlin spin doctor from 1999 until 2014. Like the assassinated military blogger, Surkov is a Pelevin fan who resembles a character from a Pelevin novel: a would-be writer turned ad man turned political puppet master, who helped fashion Russia’s descent into ultra-cynical, media-driven virtual politics in the 2010s.

Pelevin’s oracular quality has been heightened by his total absence from public life. Even when someone announced his death online in 2016, he did not come forward to offer a correction. This erstwhile prophet is so elusive that rumours have swirled that he has been replaced by a neural network or a team of ghostwriters. As his fellow writer Dmitry Bykov once put it: “No one knows where Pelevin lives – because Pelevin lives on the astral plane.” His only communications are through his annual novels. In Russia, a new one appears every fall amid a flurry of press.

Over the past decade, many of Pelevin’s peers have left Russia out of fear or disgust at intensifying censorship, political repression and the assault on Ukraine. They have been declared foreign agents, put on wanted lists, arrested in absentia, stripped of publishing contracts, rejected by booksellers. Bykov suffered an apparent poisoning in 2019, which bore similarities to the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. He now lives in the US, and booksellers in Russia are reluctant to sell his work.

Pelevin, on the other hand, has managed to escape government censure, and his books continue to sell well. His place of residence is a closely guarded secret – even the continent is uncertain – but there is no reason to believe that he left Russia out of fear for his own safety. His precise position on the political spectrum is also something of a mystery. But his failure to choose a side on the war in Ukraine has earned him the antipathy, even contempt, of anti-war Russian writers and critics. In the view of one Russian literary critic, Pelevin has become a pro-Putin writer whose popular fiction is a “horrible cocktail of postmodernism and fascism” that recruits supporters for the regime. But Pelevin’s work also includes mockery of Russian ultranationalist philosophy and a clear hatred for authoritarianism. Rather than actively supporting Putin, he advocates a philosophy of all-encompassing cynicism that invalidates any hope of political change. This, it seems, is part of the reason he continues to be so popular in his homeland.

Pelevin’s Russian editor and agent are under strict orders not to comment on any aspect of his personal life. Fans debate whether he lives in Berlin or London, Thailand, Korea or Japan. He has never had any social media presence. Since the early 1990s, he has hidden behind his trademark sunglasses; even when he was included in a New Yorker portrait of the six best young novelists in 1998, he refused to remove them for a photo by Richard Avedon. He has not allowed himself to be photographed in public since 2001 and has not given an interview to a journalist since 2010.

The basic facts of Pelevin’s early years are a matter of public record, at least. As a young child, he lived in a communal apartment in central Moscow, sharing a single room with his parents, before the family moved to their own apartment in a newly built high-rise complex on the outskirts of the city. He had an exceptional memory, but he was not a particularly good student. He trained as an engineer and worked for a while servicing trams. A friend and former colleague once recalled how he and Pelevin spent their spare time making fake Japanese figurines, “ageing” them with acid and selling them on the street.

Pelevin had become fascinated with Buddhism when he was a boy, studying it through Soviet atheism textbooks. As a young man, he worked part-time for a journal of esoterica called Nauka i Religiya (Science and Religion), where he published an article on how to decipher runes. His first short story appeared in a 1989 issue of the journal that also included Stalin’s horoscope and an article about the abominable snowman. His first story collection, The Blue Lantern, published in 1991, won an important prize in Russia’s newly established ecosystem of western-style literary competitions.

In his early, now classic, short stories and novellas, Pelevin drew on the Russian literary canon, the dismal humour of the late-Soviet period and its violent, sequinned aftermath, to create existential comedies that shocked and delighted his readers. The documentary Restless Garden, made by the Russian-American director Victor Ginzburg in August 1991, is a surreal snapshot of the world that shaped Pelevin’s early work. In the film, the beautiful bohemians of Moscow have gathered in Gorky Park to perform an “erotic art ritual”, complete with torch dances and wheels of fire. They are protesting Soviet repression – but in a matter of days there will be no Soviet government at all. The performance is a cross between a Duran Duran video and a Babylonian fertility ritual. A former ballerina turned stripper dances in a dovecote. The vodka-swigging Night Wolves, a gang of bikers who would later become avid supporters of Putin, serve as security. Impossibly beautiful women dance in mermaid tails, twirling around a man sporting a phallus made from a plastic funnel.

While Ginzburg was filming this scene, Pelevin was most likely at his parents’ apartment, finishing his novella Omon Ra. Completed just days before the coup that precipitated the USSR’s final collapse, Omon Ra presents a grotesque alternative vision of the country’s space programme, which is still remembered as one of its proudest achievements. In Pelevin’s version, the cosmonauts had their legs cut off so that they could fit into the clapped-out Soviet spacecrafts. Like Laika the space dog, they were sent to die because the USSR didn’t have the technology to bring them back. Or perhaps, the novel suggests, they never went to space at all, and the whole “space programme” was a hoax, a vibrating box filmed in the Moscow metro system.

Nearly everyone, in Russia and abroad, took Omon Ra to be satire. And they loved it. In the US, Spin magazine named it the novel of the year. But Pelevin explicitly rejected the label of satirist. In an interview, he explained that Omon Ra was in fact “a novel about coming of age in a world that is absurd and scary. My part of the scary world was Russia.” His novels were getting at something more universal than mere mockery of the Soviet Union. In his laconic 1993 novella The Yellow Arrow, passengers live on a train that is hurtling inexorably toward a broken bridge. When someone dies, the body is heaved out the window. Life on the train certainly resembles Russian society in the early 1990s, with its grotesque corruption, widespread drunkenness, bandit-entrepreneurs, underground artists and interest in the occult. But a Buddhist interpretation is equally apt. Pelevin was telling his readers that those in search of freedom must find a way to exit the moving vehicle – if not through death, then perhaps via meditative transcendence, or literature itself. “The evil magic of any totalitarian regime is based on its presumed capability to embrace and explain all the phenomena,” he once told an interviewer. “So if there’s a book that takes you out of this totality of things explained and understood, it liberates you.”

Even after these early successes, Pelevin continued to live at his parents’ apartment, spending hours alone in his bedroom with his PC and PlayStation and little more than a mattress on the floor. (One of his early stories melds the computer game Prince of Persia with Soviet central planning.) Meanwhile, the world outside his bedroom was falling apart. Thanks to economic shock therapy, privatisation and hyperinflation, along with the near collapse of the state, Russia in the 1990s was such a violent, crime-ridden place that people were afraid to answer their own front doors. In the mid-90s, Pelevin sent a letter to Barbara Epler, his editor at the independent American publishing house New Directions. “I think you can use express mail to send the contract,” he wrote. “The only problem with it is that they deliver it at your place, and no sane person in Moscow opens the door at the ring. But if I know that something is going to arrive, I’ll take the risk.” Epler has a vivid memory of asking him, during his visit to New York, what elderly Russians were doing now that their pensions were worthless. “They die,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes.

“I feel disgusted by everything about my country,” Pelevin told the New York Times in 2000. “In the Soviet times you could escape from the evil of the state by withdrawing into the private spaces of your own head; but now the evil seems to be diffused everywhere.”

Even before he stopped giving interviews, Pelevin was unusually hard to pin down. Was he sinister or generous? Charming or boorish? How did he want readers to interpret his works? A 1996 interview with Clark Blaise, the director of the University of Iowa’s prestigious International Writing Program, is the only available video of Pelevin speaking. He wears sunglasses throughout. His voice is soft, almost soothing, and he has a winning, ironic laugh. He speaks English with the fluency and occasional mispronunciations (“paradigm” with a hard g) of a voracious reader. Throughout the interview, he resists literary and political labels, and all metaphorical readings. Of his forthcoming novel, The Life of Insects, Pelevin says, smiling: “It’s about insects, Clark.” Novels, he argues, are not a good way to learn about a country. If you want to learn about Russia, why not read a news article instead? Here is his trademark perversity; in 1996, many of his foreign readers were attracted to his work precisely because it provided a portal into post-Soviet life that was more vivid and more perceptive than anything they could read in a newspaper.

At the time, Pelevin was helping to remake the Russian publishing industry, which was facing a crisis. This was a country whose greatest export was often said to be literature, where writers gave their names to thousands of streets, institutions and towns. But the collapse of the Soviet Union had destroyed the structures that had shaped Soviet and dissident literature for decades. Publishers were struggling to stay afloat. Detective novels, romance fiction and sensational nonfiction swept the market. One of the bestselling books of 1994 was a sequel to Gone With the Wind, written by “Julia Hillpatrick” – who was, in fact, a group of men employed by a Minsk publishing house.

Pelevin, who straddled the realms of high literature and pulp fiction, was one of the only serious writers who sold well in this venal new marketplace. His first long novel, 1996’s Chapaev and Void (published in the US as Buddha’s Little Finger and in the UK as The Clay Machine-Gun) has been called the first post-Soviet Russian literary bestseller. In the late 90s, one Russian publication declared Pelevin the most fashionable writer in the country. Russian Playboy called him a “wizard”. The glamorous editor of Russian Vogue, Aliona Doletskaya, arranged for Pelevin to meet her and a Vogue journalist, Karina Dobrotvorskaya, at a Moscow sushi restaurant in 1999. When he arrived, two hours late, he began knocking back sake. In her article about the meeting, Dobrotvorskaya observed that he seemed to be playing a character. He spoke in the slang of Russian hoodlums, laughed long and loud at his own jokes, hooted with delight when he heard or pronounced a pleasing turn of phrase, and made extremely vulgar jokes about “thoroughly banging” women. When she took out a recorder, he expressed disappointment at the fact that an attractive interviewer only wanted to dine with him in order to record his bon mots. Later he suggested that if he sounded smart enough, she’d take off her clothes.

This was not how the intelligentsia expected a great Russian writer to behave. In her account of the lunch, Dobrotvorskaya used a clever selection of interspersed quotes from Pelevin’s work to indicate her mounting impatience with his juvenile and sexist behaviour. The article was accompanied by a candid photo that remains the most unflattering image of Pelevin in circulation. His face puffy and belligerent, the famous writer looks like a drunk, ageing hooligan. He later claimed to the New York Times that Doletskaya had tricked him into the interview, recording him with a hidden microphone. But he is known for misleading journalists, especially foreign ones.

In her article, Dobrotvorskaya made it clear that she was considering throwing a drink in Pelevin’s face. But she admitted that she was impressed by his bizarre, energetic mixture of the language of Russian classics, advertising slogans and thieves’ slang – the same kind of slang that Putin would later use in interviews. Pelevin was, in the words of the scholar Bradley A Gorski, “too irreverent to be a literary author, but too smart to be a pulp author”. Pelevin was a master of having it both ways and, for a while at least, this slipperiness was an asset rather than a liability.

“Victor Olegovich has established his own brand so well that he should be a case study in textbooks on branding and ads,” one of Pelevin’s former editors once told a Russian journalist. “He’s the one no one sees, but everyone talks about.” When Gillian Redfearn, an editor at the UK sci-fi publisher Gollancz, edited Pelevin in the early 2010s, all communication occurred through a go-between. This intermediary told Redfearn there would be no question of an author photo. Gollancz published two of Pelevin’s novels, and then, “as mysteriously as he came into our list, he vanished again,” Redfearn told me.

In a 2013 Russian television documentary about Pelevin, those who knew him in his youth describe his physical appearance as if they are helping to solve a world-historical mystery. Even his height, the shape of his eyes, his physical bearing are objects of fascination. He is big, with beautiful hands and an enigmatic smile. He doesn’t look wes

Russia and Iran: The Limits of Strategic Partnership in the Face of Conflict - Robert Lansing Institute

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 13:40:48 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from Robert Lansing Institute.

While Russia and Iran have deepened cooperation in recent years—especially through military-technical exchanges and shared opposition to Western influence—the Kremlin has signaled that it would not be obligated to support Iran militarily in the event of an external assault, despite the Strategic Partnership Agreement signed in 2021. This stance reflects a careful Russian balancing act and raises questions about the credibility of its strategic commitments, the fragility of bilateral trust, and the limits of Moscow’s great-power ambitions.

Russia often prefers non-binding or vague commitments in its bilateral agreements. The strategic partnership with Iran contains no mutual defense clause, unlike NATO’s Article 5. This gives the Kremlin maximum flexibility to avoid entanglement in direct military conflicts that do not serve its core interests.

Russia is deeply stretched militarily due to its ongoing war in Ukraine and other global operations. A direct confrontation with the U.S. or Israel over Iran would be strategically disastrous, opening another front that Russia cannot afford.

Despite tensions, Russia maintains a delicate but functional relationship with Israel, especially over Syrian airspace deconfliction. A full military commitment to Iran could fracture this balance and alienate wealthy Gulf partners like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with whom Russia coordinates within OPEC+ and broader energy diplomacy.

Implications for Russia’s Reputation as a Security Partner

1. Erosion of Trust

Russia’s reluctance to offer Iran concrete military backing may undermine perceptions of Moscow as a reliable strategic partner, especially for countries facing Western military pressure.

2. Pattern of One-Sided Alliances

Other states—such as Armenia, Serbia, or Central Asian republics—may interpret Russia’s stance as a warning: even strong rhetoric and partnership agreements don’t guarantee military protection. This can lead to diplomatic hedging or movement toward other security guarantors (e.g., China, Turkey, or even NATO).

3. Damage to Multilateral Initiatives

Iran may rethink its engagement with Russia in multilateral formats such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) or BRICS, where Tehran has sought deeper alignment. The lack of military assurances could reduce Moscow’s appeal as a pillar of alternative international order.

Impact on Bilateral Relations with Iran

1. Growing Asymmetry

The Russia-Iran relationship is becoming increasingly asymmetric: Iran provides drones and military tech for use in Ukraine, while Russia offers little concrete protection. This breeds resentment and could limit Iranian cooperation over time.

2. Strategic Recalibration in Tehran

Iran may seek to diversify its partnerships, increasing outreach to China or accelerating its domestic military build-up. It may also question the sincerity of Russia’s anti-Western stance if Moscow continues to maintain equivocal relations with Israel or Arab rivals.

3. Tactical vs. Strategic Alliance

Russia and Iran may remain tactical partners—cooperating in Syria or against Western sanctions—but will struggle to build a deep strategic alliance without mutual defense assurances.

Consequences for Russia’s Broader Diplomacy

1. Weakening Soft Power in the Global South

Many non-Western states view Russia as a counterweight to Western hegemony. If Russia is seen as unwilling to “walk the walk” when allies are threatened, it undermines that narrative.

2. Credibility Gap in Security Promises

If Moscow’s strategic partnerships don’t include clear commitments or response plans, countries facing security threats may turn toward China’s rising defense networks or Western security umbrellas for protection. Russia’s refusal to commit to Iran’s defense in a future war exposes the limits of its power projection and the transactional nature of its alliances. While pragmatism may protect short-term interests, the long-term consequence is a reduction in diplomatic trust, a decline in influence among vulnerable partners, and the reinforcement of Russia’s image as a selective and self-interested power, rather than a dependable global actor.

Strategic Ambiguity: Russia’s Reluctance to Defend Iran and the Limits of Its Global Commitments

Introduction The strategic relationship between Russia and Iran has drawn considerable international attention in recent years. Both countries have found common ground in opposing Western dominance, particularly U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and Eurasia. However, Russia’s refusal to provide a concrete military guarantee to Iran in the event of an external assault—despite the 2021 Strategic Partnership Agreement—exposes the asymmetry and limits of this alliance. This paper examines why the Kremlin has taken this position, what it signals about Russia’s credibility as a strategic partner, and how it will impact both the bilateral relationship with Iran and Russia’s broader diplomatic posture.

I. Russia’s Strategic Ambiguity: A Calculated Choice

1. Non-Binding Nature of the Strategic Partnership Agreement Unlike formal military alliances, such as NATO or the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Russia-Iran Strategic Partnership Agreement lacks enforceable defense clauses. This is a deliberate feature of Russian foreign policy, designed to preserve flexibility and avoid entanglement in conflicts that could escalate beyond Moscow’s control or interests.

2. Avoiding Strategic Overextension Russia is already heavily engaged in Ukraine, managing its military presence in Syria, and maintaining influence across Africa and Central Asia. Committing to Iran’s defense would risk overextending Russian military capabilities and provoke direct confrontation with the United States, Israel, or their allies. The Kremlin prefers to retain maneuverability rather than becoming entangled in another high-stakes theater.

3. Balancing Regional Relationships Russia has cultivated a complex network of relationships in the Middle East, including with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Taking a firm pro-Iranian military stance could jeopardize these ties, particularly given Israel’s opposition to Iranian entrenchment in Syria and its ongoing military operations against Iranian-backed forces.

II. Implications for Russia’s Reputation and Global Commitments

1. Perceived Unreliability Russia’s unwillingness to defend a key partner like Iran raises doubts among other allies and partners regarding the reliability of Russian security guarantees. Countries that have previously relied on Moscow for support—such as Armenia or Belarus—may now question the depth of Russia’s commitments.

2. Shift Toward Transactional Diplomacy The Kremlin’s position underscores a broader shift toward transactional diplomacy: engaging in partnerships for immediate strategic benefit without long-term security commitments. This approach undermines the trust necessary for sustained alliances and can erode Moscow’s influence in regions where competitors like China are offering more concrete alternatives.

3. Challenges to Russia’s Soft Power in the Global South Many states in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia view Russia as a counterweight to Western interventionism. However, if Russia is perceived as unreliable or self-serving, its soft power appeal will wane. This could lead to a strategic realignment toward other powers or multilateral institutions.

III. Effects on Russia-Iran Bilateral Relations

1. Rising Iranian Frustration Iran, which has supplied Russia with military drones and technology during the Ukraine conflict, may view Russia’s reluctance to commit as a betrayal. Tehran may begin to reassess the balance of the relationship, seeking more leverage or reducing cooperation in areas like Syria or arms sales.

2. Asymmetric Partnership and Strategic Drift The imbalance in the relationship—with Iran providing more tangible support to Russia than it receives in return—could lead to a gradual drift. Iran may pivot more toward China or attempt to assert greater autonomy in regional affairs, reducing Russian influence.

3. Tactical Cooperation Without Strategic Depth Despite tensions, Russia and Iran are likely to maintain tactical cooperation in Syria, energy coordination, and circumvention of sanctions. However, the absence of mutual defense commitments limits the depth and resilience of their alliance.

IV. Broader Consequences for Regional and Global Politics

1. Decline in Russian Mediation Credibility Russia’s role as a mediator in Middle Eastern conflicts depends on its perceived neutrality and reliability. Its unwillingness to support Iran militarily could diminish its clout in future negotiations or multilateral efforts.

2. Incentive for Alternative Alliances Iran and other nations may increasingly look to China, regional organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), or even new blocs for security and economic cooperation. This could reduce Russia’s influence in institutions where it once played a leading role.3. Strategic Vacuum and Greater Instability By not offering a firm commitment, Russia risks creating a strategic vacuum in the event of a major crisis involving Iran. This could lead to greater instability in the Persian Gulf, heighten sectarian tensions, and draw in other global powers with unpredictable outcomes.

Kash Patel's surprising appointment of a top J6 inquisitor to head DC FBI office

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 11:46:59 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from Blaze Media.

The surprise appointment of a hard-line critic of Jan. 6 protesters to lead the FBI’s Washington Field Office has set the conservative political world ablaze and put new FBI Director Kash Patel in the line of fire from a vocal group of President Donald J. Trump supporters.

News first broke April 4 in the New York Times that Steven J. Jensen was named assistant director in charge of the most powerful of the FBI’s 56 field offices. Conservative critics and pundits who were expecting to see the FBI gutted and reformed under President Trump took the news of Jensen’s appointment hard.

Jensen 'built the construct for the January 6 witch hunt.'

After the Times published an article about Jensen’s appointment, the Gateway Pundit called it “fake news.” On April 6, Blaze News confirmed Jensen’s appointment to the key FBI job. Debate raged on social media on whether Jensen’s appointment was real and why the FBI had not made a formal announcement of the promotion. Such major appointments are typically announced via a news release.

Sign up for the Blaze newsletter

By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and agree to receive content that may sometimes include advertisements. You may opt out at any time.

“He was a key figure in this domestic terror push against January Sixers, according to testimony before the House,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. “He treated them all as terrorists and was one of the key instigators in pushing the narrative within the bureaucracy that these folks needed to be jailed and ferreted out.”

The FBI’s National Press Office declined to comment on Jensen’s appointment and referred Blaze News to the homepage for the Washington Field Office, where Jensen is now listed as the assistant director in charge.

Jensen was associated with some of the worst rights abuses at the FBI, according to Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project.

“Steve Jensen should not have a job at the FBI,” Howell told Blaze News. “He was on the bleeding edge of some of the worst abuses at the FBI. The coordinated pushback on those calling him out is unfortunate, but it’s already had to backtrack on key points.

“For instance, first it was that Jensen was not promoted,” Howell said. “That turned out to be unequivocally false. Now we’re at the stage of people pretending it’s a good thing that he was promoted.”

George Hill, retired FBI national security intelligence supervisor, called Jensen the “Tomás de Torquemada of the J6 round-up of ‘domestic terrorists.’” Torquemada was the first grand inquisitor of Spain in the 15th century.

In testimony before Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, Hill said he took part in regular phone conferences led by Jensen and former FBI Assistant Director Steven D’Antuono.

New FBI Director Kash Patel. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“So you know, this is a conversation that took place almost two years ago,” Hill said in a private transcribed interview. “But the Philadelphia office said, ‘Well, there’s no evidence of any kind of, you know, violent leanings or insurrectionist leanings,’ to which Steve Jensen said, ‘You know, I don’t give a blank, they’re godd***ed terrorists and we’re going to round them all up.’”

Hill said as chief of the Domestic Terrorism Operations Section at FBI headquarters, Jensen hosted regular conference calls that began two days after the Jan. 6 protests.

“This conference call, everybody could dial into it,” Hill said on the April 7 episode of "The Kyle Seraphin Show." “So this is going into all the fusion centers where you have chiefs of police dialing in. You have members of the state police usually up to the rank of colonel participating, and all these people have direct access to people on the governors’ staff, the mayors’ staff.

“So this information, this narrative of how our country almost fell, was going into the executive mansions of every state in the country and every mayor’s residence throughout the country on a twice-daily basis,” Hill said.

Jensen “built the construct for the January 6 witch hunt,” Hill said. “After January 6, he had a ready-made buffet of never-ending domestic terrorists to go after, and he went at them very aggressively.”

'It’s absolutely indefensible.'

Hill was the subject of blowback on X over his testimony, which he said was never called into question prior to news about Jensen surfacing on April 4.

“That my name is about to get dragged is a diversion from the facts that are already in evidence that are unassailable, that Steven Jensen was the organizer of the entire J6 roundup, from the identification of subjects through the prosecution,” Hill said.

Text of an email circulated on X April 6 by Blaze News confirmed the appointment of Jensen as head of the Washington Field Office. The March 28 email said Jensen would assume the role on March 31.

“While this came rather unexpectedly as I recently was asked to serve as the acting Operations Director for the National Security Branch, I firmly believe in the philosophy of servant leadership and service over self,” Jensen wrote in a statement released by Phillip Bates, acting assistant director in charge of the Mission Support Division at WFO. “They are the driving forces of who I am and how I lead, and I am renewing my commitment to these principles as I transition into this new leadership role at WFO.”

Jensen has been with the FBI for 19 years, most recently as special agent in charge of the FBI’s field office in Columbia, S.C. He was chief of the Domestic Terrorism Operations Section at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., from April 2020 through October 2021 and had a key role in the investigation of the Jan. 6 protests at the U.S. Capitol.

The news of Jensen’s elevation to run the Washington Field Office thundered across conservative social media.

“I’m going to call out any fraud who tries to suck up to Kash by defending the Steve Jensen promotion,” former Jan. 6 defendant William Pope wrote on X. “The man hunted down J6ers, destroyed American families, and labeled us terrorists. It’s absolutely indefensible.”

Pope added: “Jensen gets the gold mine. J6ers get the shaft,” and said, “You can’t drain the swamp by promoting the swamp.”

Members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation SWAT team patrol the Longworth House Office Building on Jan. 6, 2021.Photo by Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Howell said that U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the powerful House Committee on the Judiciary, was behind the pressure to name Jensen to the FBI post. Jordan denied the assertion through an unnamed spokesman, according to journalist Breanna Morello.

Former FBI Special Agent Steve Friend, who was suspended without pay after raising concerns about the level of FBI force used to round up even misdemeanor Jan. 6 suspects, called Jensen’s appointment “disappointing.”

“Steven Jensen exposed himself as partisan when he weaponized the FBI to persecute Americans over January 6,” Friend told Blaze News.

Former Jan. 6 defendant Jennifer Heinl protested Jensen’s promotion, recounting how the FBI “completely destroyed my life.”

“I’m one of the so-called terrorists that he didn’t give a damn about,” she wrote on X. “A mom from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with no criminal background who was let in the open doors on the Senate side by Capitol officers. For 45 minutes, I walked around calling family members to let them know I was OK. Yeah, I was such a danger that you waited months to come get me and then after that completely destroyed my life.”

Fitton said he’s troubled at the lack of discussion so far about reforming the FBI and Department of Justice.

“For all I know, he’s a good guy and we’re all misinterpreting it,” Fitton said, “but what I am not seeing out of the FBI yet and what I’m not seeing out of the Justice Department yet is a radical remaking or even talking about it that we’ve seen with USAID, that we’ve seen with the Department of Education. There’s nothing the FBI is doing that another federal agency or local or state law enforcement can’t do.”

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, apparently responding to growing impatience for change but without directly referencing the controversy, asked for continued forbearance as the process unfolds.

"When you see something happen, and the entire story isn’t public, and the underlying facts aren’t all public, it may appear counterintuitive to our reform agenda. I promise you, it’s not an accident," he posted to X on Sunday evening.

"I realize asking you to 'trust me' is a waste of time. Watch what happens, continue to demand results, be cautious of narrative 'traps,' let time put the puzzle pieces together, and what we’re doing will make sense. I see and hear you and your feedback."

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include a statement from FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Book Review: 'Make Sure You Die Screaming' is an absurd road trip novel for modern times

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 09:50:16 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em on a multi-day, drunk-driving road trip in middle-class middle of America to find their missing father with a garbage goth girl named Yivi whom they met two weeks ago in an Airbnb basement.

That seems to be the mantra for “Make Sure You Die Screaming,” Zee Carlstrom’s debut novel from Flatiron Books. The first-person narration follows no-name Gunderson, nonbinary queer person, at what surely must be their rock-bottom. They stole their ex-boyfriend Clinton’s car to drive from Chicago to Arkansas. Also the protagonist has killed their best friend, lost their job, and took an oath of radical honesty.

So yes, if you were immediately skeptical about this fun, road trip adventure novel due to the clear lack of morals, you’d be right to hesitate. But it’s not all drunken rages and horrible decisions in a misguided attempt to punch back at late-stage capitalism.

The protagonist, while an exceptionally unlikable character at their worst — disrespecting everyone like it’s going out of fashion, in the name of honesty — is also full of heart. Sometimes a nasty, festering, raw-emotions heart; a self-destructive time bomb that is sure to embed shrapnel in those unfortunate people who dare to hang around. Still, Carlstrom manages to shine the light back on the protagonist’s humanity and salvage reader sympathy when it matters most.

And I must admit, I deeply related with the frequent use of the word “y’all” and the main character’s “ironic fashion mullet.”

The breezy narration contrasts delightfully with the heavy topics laden like buckshot throughout the book, set in the post-truth Now, and Carlstrom’s unique voice is a breath of fresh air with just the right mix of humor and resigned cynicism with a dash of hope.

“Make Sure You Die Screaming” is exceptionally well timed for the increasingly strange world we find ourselves in.

Carlstrom’s debut has almost everything: comedy, action, adventure, philosophical musings, banter, alcoholism, crimes, weird cult-y things, and even some modicum of closure. And while the ending is abrupt, it’s also comforting, as well as oddly convincing given the sheer absurdity that precedes it.

___

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

Azerbaijan: Arbitrary arrest of Bashir Suleymanli and Mammad Alpay

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 11:28:57 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from Fédération internationale pour les droits humains.

Elon Musk may step back from government role after turbulent run at DOGE

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 02:28:39 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

DOGE’s days appear to be numbered.

Elon Musk recently suggested that he will be done with his work in the near future. President Donald Trump told reporters this week that “at some point, he’s going to be going back” to running his companies. As far as the Department of Government Efficiency, Trump said “it will end”.

All of that talk was before Musk faced a setback Tuesday in Wisconsin, where voters rejected his choice for a state Supreme Court candidate despite more than $21 million in personal donations and his campaign appearance over the weekend. There are more problems for the billionaire entrepreneur at Tesla, his electric automaker, which saw a 13 percent drop in sales in the first three months of the year.

Now, Trump has told members of his Cabinet and other close contacts that Musk will soon step back from his government role, Politico reported on Wednesday, citing three people close to Trump.

A White House source told Reuters that Musk's investors want him to return to his companies, that his work with DOGE would be done within 130 days, and that he had communicated that to the president multiple times.

Musk was not leaving before his DOGE work was done "and no one is pushing him out", the source added.

The White House has not disclosed any clear timeline for closing down DOGE, and the government cost-cutting organisation was never supposed to become a permanent fixture in Washington. But it could be reaching a conclusion faster than anticipated. DOGE was originally intended to operate until July 4, 2026.

Now there are signs that it already is winding down. DOGE employees have been shifted to various federal agencies, which are supposed to take the lead on cutting costs. Government-wide layoffs are underway to accomplish some of the goals laid out by Musk and Trump.

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement.

One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.

“We think probably over the next two or three months, we’ll be pretty much satisfied with the people that are working hard and want to be members of the administration,” Trump said last week.

The potential end of DOGE does not mean Trump will stop shaking up Washington. But it appears the administration’s efforts will be entering a new phase that is less focused on Musk, whose chainsaw-wielding work as a presidential adviser made him a political lightning rod.

DOGE was initially envisioned as an independent advisory panel, with Musk sharing leadership with Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur. Ramaswamy dropped out and is running for Ohio governor, and DOGE became part of the government. It was stocked with Musk's allies, who were dispatched throughout the bureaucracy to cancel contracts, access sensitive data and push for cuts.

Musk presumably has a ticking clock on his tenure. He was hired as a special government employee, which means he can only work 130 days in a 365-day time period.

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement.

One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.

“I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame,” Musk told Bret Baier of Fox News on March 27. So far DOGE is well short of that target, according to its own calculations, which have been criticized as inflated and inaccurate.

Musk did not commit to leaving the administration by any particular date, and it is unclear how the administration is tracking Musk’s time. On May 30, it will be 130 days since Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

Trump told reporters on Monday in the Oval Office that “I’d keep him as long as I could keep him” and “he’s a very talented guy”.

The Republican president was known for explosive breakups with top advisers during his first term, but anyone hoping for such a split with Musk has been disappointed.

“I think he’s amazing, but I also think he’s got a big company to run,” Trump said. “And so, at some point, he’s going to be going back.”

Asked if DOGE would continue without Musk, Trump demurred. He said Cabinet officials have worked closely with Musk and may keep some of the DOGE people at their agencies.

“But at a certain point I think it will end,” Trump said.

Musk's poll numbers lag behind Trump's, which Democrats believe they were able to use to their advantage in Wisconsin.

Susan Crawford defeated Brad Schimel, who Musk supported, and ensured the state Supreme Court's liberal majority.

In the closing days of that campaign, Musk described the race as “important for the future of civilisation”. He struck a different tone afterward.

“I expected to lose, but there is value to losing a piece for a positional gain,” Musk wrote on X at 3:13am.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and Reuters)

'Game Changer' In Ukraine War, ATACMS Era Coming To An End As U.S Army To Get Next-Gen Precision Strike Missiles

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 13:31:12 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from EURASIAN TIMES.

Lockheed Martin has secured a contract worth up to US$4.94 billion from the U.S. Army to produce Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), which are set to replace the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

The missiles, designed to be compatible with the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), a truck-mounted rocket artillery system, and the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), are poised to enhance the U.S. military’s long-range precision strike capabilities while offering allies a powerful tool for deterrence and defense.

“Lockheed Martin is committed to delivering this deterrent capability in support of the Army’s vision for a lethal and resilient force,” said Carolyn Orzechowski, vice president of precision fire launchers and missiles at Lockheed Martin.

“Our team remains focused on advancing the production at speed and scale, ensuring the warfighter receives this critical capability to maintain peace through strength.”

The PrSM, with a range exceeding 499 kilometers, features an open systems architecture allowing incremental upgrades, including longer-range variants and diverse explosive payloads.

Structured as an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract, this agreement provides the Army with flexibility in ordering units as battlefield needs evolve.

The announcement comes amid a shifting global security landscape, where long-range precision munitions have become pivotal in modern warfare.

To understand the significance of the PrSM, it’s worth examining the legacy of its predecessor, the ATACMS, particularly its role in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, and how the PrSM is set to build on that foundation to reshape battlefield dynamics.

The ATACMS, first introduced in the 1990s, has been a cornerstone of U.S. long-range precision strike capabilities.

With a range of up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) and compatibility with both HIMARS and MLRS platforms, it provided the U.S. Army with a reliable means to strike high-value targets deep behind enemy lines. However, it wasn’t until its deployment in Ukraine in 2023 that the ATACMS truly demonstrated its transformative potential in a contemporary conflict.

For months, Ukraine lobbied the United States to supply ATACMS to counter Russia’s invasion, which began in February 2022.

The Biden administration initially hesitated, citing concerns over escalation and the strain on U.S. stockpiles. However, by October 2023, the U.S. relented, delivering a limited number of ATACMS to Ukraine. The impact was immediate and profound.

On October 17, 2023, Ukrainian forces used ATACMS to strike two Russian airfields in occupied territory, reportedly destroying multiple helicopters, an air control tower, and ammunition depots. This attack disrupted Russia’s air operations and showcased the missile’s ability to penetrate deep into contested zones.

1st Big Warship Since USSR’s Fall, Russia Is Building A Gigantic Vessel That Could Replace Moskova: Reports

The ATACMS’ success in Ukraine stemmed from several key attributes. Its GPS-guided precision allowed Ukrainian forces to target critical infrastructure with minimal collateral damage, while its 300-kilometer range enabled strikes beyond the reach of most Russian counter-battery systems.

The missile’s compatibility with the HIMARS platform—a lightweight, mobile launcher already in Ukraine’s arsenal—further amplified its effectiveness. HIMARS, with its ability to “shoot and scoot,” could fire an ATACMS and relocate before Russian forces could respond, frustrating Moscow’s attempts to neutralize the threat.

The ATACMS created a strategic headache for the Russian military. It forced a reevaluation of defensive postures, removing high-value assets like airfields, command centers, and logistics hubs from the front lines.

However, the ATACMS was not without limitations. Its single-missile pod configuration limited the volume of fire from each launcher, and its 300-kilometer range, while impressive, was insufficient to reach some of Russia’s deepest strategic targets, such as military bases in Crimea or beyond.

Moreover, the aging design—some missiles in the U.S. inventory date back over 30 years—raised questions about reliability and sustainability in prolonged conflicts. These shortcomings highlighted the need for a next-generation system, paving the way for the PrSM.

Iran’s “Futuristic Weapon” Rattles Pentagon! Has It Leapfrogged China, Russia & The US In Plasma Tech?

The PrSM: Building On The ATACMS Foundation

The Precision Strike Missile represents a leap forward from the ATACMS, addressing its predecessor’s limitations while introducing new capabilities tailored to modern warfare.

With a range exceeding 499 kilometers, the PrSM’s reach is greater than the ATACMS’, allowing it to strike targets deeper in enemy territory. Its thinner, sleeker design enables two missiles to fit in a single HIMARS or MLRS pod, doubling the firepower per launch compared to the ATACMS’ one-missile configuration.

The Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) program originated from the Long-Range Precision Fires (LRPF) initiative. In 2016, Raytheon Technologies proposed a new replacement for the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

That same year, the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) within the U.S. Department of Defense approved the LRPF missile’s Milestone A test and evaluation master plan. The program advanced to the Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction (TMRR) phase in March 2017.

It’s F-35 vs Eurofighter ‘Showdown’ In The UK As Critics Argue U.S. Jets Could Hurt Typhoon, 6th-Gen GCAP

Under the TMRR phase, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon were awarded contracts to develop prototypes and conduct flight tests. The program was renamed PrSM to eliminate confusion while forming the Army’s Long-Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team (LRPF CFT).

Raytheon introduced its DeepStrike missile as a next-generation solution and carried out a static test of its rocket motor in April 2019, followed by an advanced warhead test in May 2019. However, due to technical difficulties during component testing, Raytheon was unable to conduct flight tests and withdrew from the PrSM competition.

In August 2021, the Australian Defence Forces and the U.S. Army signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate on developing precision missile capabilities. Australia contributed US$51.48 million to the US$667.04 million PrSM program.

A New Era Of Deterrence and Dominance

The PrSM’s introduction will have far-reaching implications for U.S. and allied forces, particularly in contested regions like Eastern Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and the Middle East. In the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the PrSM can amplify Ukraine’s ability to disrupt Russian operations.

A 499-kilometer range could bring key Russian bases in Crimea and western Russia within reach, forcing Moscow to disperse its forces further and expend resources on additional air defenses. The doubled loadout would have allowed Ukrainian HIMARS units to deliver more devastating salvos, overwhelming Russian countermeasures and increasing the likelihood of mission success.

Against a peer adversary like Russia, the PrSM’s extended range and precision could shift the balance in a NATO-Russia confrontation.

Taiwan Gets Its 1st F-16 Viper From The U.S.; Does It Stand A Chance Against J-20 Mighty Dragons?

By putting Russian assets at greater risk, it strengthens deterrence, discouraging aggression along NATO’s eastern flank. The missile’s compatibility with HIMARS and MLRS systems already fielded by allies like Poland, Romania, and the UK enhances coalition interoperability, enabling unified responses to threats.

The PrSM’s anti-ship variant adds another dimension. In a maritime conflict, such as a potential clash in the South China Sea, it could target enemy vessels from land-based launchers, complicating an adversary’s naval strategy. This capability aligns with the U.S. military’s Joint All-Domain Operations concept, integrating land, sea, and air forces to dominate contested spaces.

Challenges & Considerations

Despite its promise, the PrSM faces challenges. Scaling production to meet demand—reflected in the US$4.94 billion IDIQ contract—will test Lockheed Martin’s supply chain, especially amid global shortages of critical components like semiconductors.

The transition from ATACMS to PrSM also requires training and logistical adjustments for U.S. and allied forces, a process that could take years. Moreover, the missile’s cost—estimated at US$3.5 million per unit—may limit procurement numbers, particularly for smaller allies.

On the battlefield, adversaries like Russia and China are unlikely to stand still. Both nations are developing hypersonic weapons and advanced air defenses, which could challenge the PrSM’s effectiveness. Countering these systems will require ongoing investment in electronic warfare and seeker technology to ensure the missile remains viable.

The PrSM builds on the ATACMS’ legacy as a game changer, offering greater range, firepower, and adaptability. Its deployment will enhance U.S. and allied deterrence, providing a credible counter to peer adversaries while supporting partners in active conflicts.

Via: ET News Desk
Mail us at: editor (at) <a href="http://eurasiantimes.com" rel="nofollow">eurasiantimes.com</a>

Sean 'Diddy' Combs charged with five new criminal counts weeks before sex trafficking trial

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 11:30:21 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from Entertainment – Metro.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has been charged with a new federal indictment weeks before his trial is due to start.

The US rapper was hit with five new criminal counts, including racketeering and sex trafficking, according to court records.

Previous accusations include sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution.

He was already charged with three criminal counts, which he denies, and earlier this month pleaded not guilty to new indictments.

Combs’ trial is set for May 5 in Manhattan and is currently behind bars, having been taken into custody in September 2024.

If found guilty, the mandatory minimum sentence he could face for the charges is 15 years, with a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Since his arrest, Combs has been denied bail multiple times after the US Magistrate Judge Robyn F Tarnofsky said she had ‘very significant concerns’.

When he put in his ‘not guilty’ plea, his legal team are said to have offered a $50million (£37.8million) package to secure his release on bail.

The judge, according to AP, voiced concerns over his alleged substance abuse and ‘what appears to be anger issues.’

Alternatives to denying him bail were considered but she didn’t think they were sufficient because many of the allegations happened behind closed doors.

An estimated 60 civil lawsuits have also been filed against Combs, including a $10million (£7.85million) lawsuit after allegedly dangling a woman from a 17th-floor balcony.

One case, filed in January by an anonymous woman, claimed she was lured into his car after babysitting and assaulted by Combs.

The alleged victim said she went into his car ‘after much cajoling’, where two of his associates were also sat, and was given a drink to ‘calm her down’ — rapidly becoming groggy.

She claims Combs then sexually assaulted her before the two other men dropped her home.

Another case was put forward by an unnamed man who claimed Combs sexually assaulted him at a hotel in New York in 2005, when he was aged just 10, during an ‘audition’.

A different lawsuit from October 2024, via CNN, alleges that ‘Combs asked Plaintiff hypothetical questions about handling situations involving sexual pressure’, during a one-on-one interview on the first day of reality show Making the Band.

Another report stated that five civil lawsuits were filed at once, including a claim that he raped and drugged one female plaintiff when she was 13 years old.

One woman has come forward alleging that he violently raped her in 2001, alongside his head of security, Joseph Sherman.

She said after being invited to meet Combs, while dating one of his employees, she was given a drink ‘likely laced with a drug’ and lost consciousness.

Waving her anonymity, Thalia Graves claimed that she later woke up restrained, when they sexually abused and violated her, ‘mercilessly raping her anally and vaginally’.

Other accusations stem from his so-called ‘Freak-Off’ parties, with documents and videos reportedly seen by the New York Post said to show Combs held at least three of these raucous sex parties.

The federal indictment was unsealed and includes allegations that Combs coerced multiple alleged victims into sex acts, known as ‘freak offs’.

He allegedly organised and directed the ‘freak offs’, and is accused of ‘directing, masturbating during, and often electronically recording’ them.

Over 100 people are said to be planning to sue Combs in allegations from unnamed accusers who were as young as 9 at the time.

The timeline of accusations against the rapper is extensive, with previous allegations and court cases stretching back to the 90s.

Combs has denied all allegations against him.

Got a story?

If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us <a href="mailto:celebtips@metro.co.uk">celebtips@metro.co.uk</a>, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.

MORE: Katy Perry’s blasted by major actress over ‘gluttonous and pointless’ all-female space mission

MORE: Tom Hanks’ daughter reveals childhood of ‘violence and deprivation’ by her mother in shocking tell-all

MORE: Tom Cruise leads moment of silence for Val Kilmer after Top Gun co-star’s death

Declassified: Trump To Release FBI’s Russia Probe Documents | CNN Politics

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 09:43:23 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

CNN —

President Donald Trump on Tuesday declassified a host of materials from the FBI’s 2016 investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia, the latest instance of Trump using the power of his office to relitigate his past political grievances.

In signing the executive action, Trump completed a process he started during the final days of his first term, when he ordered a full declassification of the FBI’s Russia investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane.

That effort led to a behind the scenes scramble as Republican aides and Trump officials worked to collect and redact a binder filled with highly classified material. Trump officially declassified the material on January 19, 2021, during his last full day in office, but the documents were never made public. An unredacted copy of the binder ended up mysteriously disappearing, as CNN first reported in 2023.

Among the binder’s contents were reams of information about the Russia investigation, including highly sensitive raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents that informed the US government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election. That material is likely to be redacted in the documents that are being released publicly.

It also included classified information about the FBI’s problematic foreign intelligence surveillance warrants on a Trump campaign adviser from 2017; interview notes with infamous dossier author Christopher Steele, and internal FBI and DOJ text messages and emails, among other documents.

Trump noted in his memorandum that material the FBI proposed for redactions in January 2021 should remain classified, as well as “materials that must be protected from disclosure pursuant to orders of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”

“At my direction, the Department of Justice has already started the process in order to release materials related to the FBI’s infamous Crossfire Hurricane investigation, an example of weaponized government against President Trump at its worst that must never be allowed to happen again,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

Tuesday’s order is one of several ways Trump went after the Russia investigation since returning to office, as part of his broader crackdown on his perceived political enemies and those who have investigated him over the past eight years. Trump also signed an executive order Tuesday today directing agencies to suspend the security clearances and access to federal buildings of lawyers from the firm Jenner & Block.

The law firm previously employed former prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who led the successful prosecution of Trump’s 2016 campaign leader Paul Manafort as one of the top prosecutors in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Trump’s allies have pushed for the release of the binder since his election, including his FBI Director, Kash Patel.

“Put out the documents. Put out the evidence. We only have gotten halfway down the Russiagate hole,” Patel said on Fox News in November, before he was tapped to lead the FBI. “The people need to know that their FBI is restored by knowing full well what they did to unlawfully surveil them.”

The FBI in 2023 released some redacted documents from the Crossfire Hurricane investigation in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. But John Solomon – a conservative journalist Trump tapped as his representative to the Archives to try to obtain the documents in 2022 – said the disclosures were insufficient, according to a lawsuit Solomon had previously filed to try to obtain the binder documents from the Biden administration.

CNN’s Evan Perez contributed to this report.

CIA lays off some recently hired officers as Trump shakes up intelligence community

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 09:32:51 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Central Intelligence Agency will fire an unreleased number of junior officers as President Donald Trump’s efforts to downsize and reshape the federal government reverberate through America’s intelligence community.

The agency will review personnel hired within the past two years, an agency spokesperson said Thursday, and those officers with behavioral issues or who are deemed a poor fit for intelligence work will be laid off. The spokesperson said not everyone proves to be able to handle the pressures of the job.

The cuts are part of sweeping staffing reductions at agencies across the federal government made by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk. Some agencies, like the U.S. Agency for International Development, have been largely dismantled. While intelligence agencies have been spared the deepest cuts, they haven’t been immune.

In February the CIA offered buyouts to some employees. The typically secretive agency has not said how many employees accepted the offer.

Trump’s recently confirmed CIA Director John Ratcliffe has promised to overhaul the agency and return its focus to human-gathered intelligence.

The CIA and other Western spy agencies have played a key role in supplying information to Ukraine about Russian war plans and capabilities. Ratcliffe said this week that intelligence sharing with Ukraine has been suspended, but characterized the interruption as potentially temporary.

Trump Tells Inner Circle That Musk Will Leave Soon

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 13:57:46 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Elon Musk (left) shakes hands with President Donald Trump at the finals for the NCAA wrestling championship in Philadelphia on March 22, 2025. | Matt Rourke/AP

Rachael Bade is POLITICO's Capitol bureau chief and senior Washington columnist. She is a former co-author of POLITICO Playbook and co-author of "Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump." Her reported column, Corridors, illuminates how power pulses through Washington, from Capitol Hill to the White House and beyond.

President Donald Trump has told his inner circle, including members of his Cabinet, that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his current role as governing partner, ubiquitous cheerleader and Washington hatchet man.

The president remains pleased with Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency initiative but both men have decided in recent days that it will soon be time for Musk to return to his businesses and take on a supporting role, according to three Trump insiders who were granted anonymity to describe the evolving relationship.

Musk’s looming exit comes as some Trump administration insiders and many outside allies have become frustrated with his unpredictability and increasingly view the billionaire as a political liability, a dynamic that was thrown into stark relief Tuesday when a conservative judge Musk vocally supported lost his bid for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat by 10 points.

It also represents a shift in the Trump-Musk relationship from a month ago, when White House officials and allies were predicting Musk was “here to stay” and that Trump would find a way to blow past the 130-day time limit.

One senior administration official said Musk is likely to retain an informal role as an adviser and continue to be an occasional face around the White House grounds. Another cautioned that anyone who thinks Musk is going to disappear entirely from Trump’s orbit is “fooling themselves.”

The transition, the insiders said, is likely to correspond to the end of Musk’s time as a “special government employee,” a special status that temporarily exempts him from some ethics and conflict-of-interest rules. That 130-day period is expected to expire in late May or early June.

Musk’s defenders inside the administration believe that the time will soon be right for a transition, given their view that there’s only so much more he can cut from government agencies without shaving too close to the bone.

But many other Trump allies say he’s an unpredictable, unmanageable force who has had issues communicating his plans with Cabinet secretaries and through the White House chain of command led by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, frequently sending them into a frenzy with unexpected and off-message comments on X, his social-media platform — including sharing unvetted and uncoordinated plans to gut federal agencies.

That’s to say nothing of their concerns about Musk as a political liability who has served as a rallying point for fractured Democrats. In Wisconsin, Musk’s opponents seized on his millions of dollars of spending in the judicial race, with some openly calling it a referendum on the polarizing mogul.

Publicly, Trump has shown nothing but admiration for Musk, who spent millions to help elect him. He often touts the waste, fraud, and abuse DOGE claims to have identified, hailing Musk’s work as revolutionary.

But my colleague Sophia Cai reports that Trump is increasingly mindful of next year’s midterms and making sure he doesn’t jeopardize his House majority. He’s kept a careful eye on the town hall outrage over DOGE, even as Republicans have chalked those scenes up to coordinated liberal stagecraft.

Also telling, Cai notes: His discussions about next steps for Musk came just days before he grew so worried about the GOP’s narrow House margin that he withdrew New York Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be ambassador to the UN.

Trump had already started easing the glide path starting more than a week before the election — including at a March 24 Cabinet meeting where he told attendees that Musk would be transitioning out of the administration, according to one of the insiders, who did not attend the meeting but was briefed on the comments. A senior administration official confirmed Trump discussed Musk’s transition at the meeting.

Soon after, Trump invited reporters and cameras in for the tail end of the meeting, where he lavished praise on Musk, who attended the meeting wearing a red MAGA hat. Cabinet secretaries — many of whom had clashed with Musk just weeks before over Musk’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach to cutting their departments — in turn jumped in to hail his bureaucracy-slashing campaign.

“Elon, I want to thank you — I know you’ve been through a lot,” Trump said, mentioning death threats and the spate of vandalism directed at the cars built by Musk’s Tesla before calling him “a patriot” and “a friend of mine.”

Both men subsequently hinted publicly at a transition. When Fox News’ Bret Baier asked Musk on Thursday whether he’d be ready to leave when his special government employee status expires, he essentially declared mission accomplished: “I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by $1 trillion within that time frame.”

On Monday night, Trump told reporters that “at some point Elon’s gonna want to go back to his company,” adding: “He wants to. I’d keep him as long as I could keep him.”

“As the President said, this White House would love to keep Elon around for as long as possible,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said Tuesday as election results from Wisconsin rolled in. “Elon has been instrumental in executing the President’s agenda, and will continue this good work until the President says otherwise.”

After this story was first published Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt referred to it as “garbage” in a social media post but did not dispute the reporting. She confirmed that “Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete.”

But many close to Trump are relieved that Musk is expected to soon move on from his central role at Trump’s side and that the litany of DOGE surprises — which have ranged from a weekend email blast demanding federal workers list their work output to accidental cuts to Ebola prevention programs — might finally be coming to a close.

The precise reasons for the expected split are not entirely clear, even to those close to the two men. But three Trump insiders said administration officials continue to chafe at Musk’s lack of communication with senior staff and the Cabinet — an issue they’ve struggled with since January and have tried with mixed success to address with Musk himself.

To wit: Trump’s announcement at the Cabinet meeting came three days after the New York Times scooped that the Pentagon had planned to brief Musk on classified war plans regarding China — a major potential conflict of interest given Musk’s business dealings there. While the Pentagon and the White House publicly dismissed the story as fake news, the headline caught both Trump and Wiles by surprise, leaving them scrambling to find out what was happening.

Trump publicly downplayed the situation but also took the opportunity to draw new boundaries around Musk. “You wouldn’t show it to a businessman,” he told reporters about the war plans, suggesting Musk could be “susceptible” given his business interests.

“People were so pissed about it, because it’s fucking insane,” said one person close to the White House familiar with what happened.

Several longtime Trump advisers told me that the president has been smart to keep Musk around — precisely because he has acted as a lightning rod for Trump critics. Musk, they argue, has been a political heat shield for the president, proudly owning the most controversial aspects of his agenda, such as his gutting of the federal workforce), taking the arrows that would otherwise wound Trump himself.

“Let someone else scoop up the dog shit — the DOGE shit in this case,” as one longtime adviser told me.

But others said Musk can’t play that role indefinitely — especially if his antics are blowing back on the president directly.

“Elon’s taking a lot of bullets for Trump — a lot — and Trump knows that and sees that,” said another longtime Trump ally. “But if it starts to rub off on him, that’s when the honeymoon ends…. That’s starting to happen.”

The internal frustrations with Musk started well before Trump’s victory in November. In the weeks leading up to the election, some Trump allies complained to me that Musk was spending too much time hanging around Mar-a-Lago, trying to ingratiate himself with the president.

Those people were skeptical at the time that Musk would enter the administration, arguing that there was no way he would want to take a pause from his businesses to focus on the tedious work of governing. Some privately held out hope that when Trump moved back into the White House, Musk — who had essentially been living at Trump’s Florida resort — would no longer have as much access to their principal.

That didn’t happen, of course. Trump — who admires Musk’s self-made wealth and youth — ensured Musk was given open access to the West Wing and an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the White House.

One concerned member of Trump’s campaign’s team told me early on that the president didn’t realize that by keeping Musk so close, he was both empowering the tech mogul and potentially undercutting himself. Musk, the person warned, was unpredictable and rash — and it would only be a matter of time before things went sour.

It didn’t take long for that prediction to come true.

First, Musk single-handedly blew up Speaker Mike Johnson’s pre-Christmas spending deal with Democrats, leaving Republicans scrambling to avert a shutdown. Trump hadn’t asked him to intervene, people close to the president said; Musk did it on his own. But due to his proximity to the president, conservatives on Capitol Hill took Musk’s word as gospel.

A few weeks later, when Trump announced a $500 billion artificial intelligence venture, Musk couldn’t help but knock the competitor at the center of the deal, longtime Silicon Valley rival Sam Altman. People familiar with the matter told me at the time that White House aides were furious that Musk had undercut Trump’s announcement.

Despite those hiccups, Trump continued to defend and relish his relationship with the world’s richest man, who seemed to appear beside him more frequently than even his own vice president.

As his second term got underway, Trump made sure he had Musk’s back: When Republican lawmakers started to complain about Musk privately, insisting he show a softer touch as he laid off thousands of federal workers, Trump instead told Musk to get “more aggressive” with his DOGE cuts. When Cabinet secretaries privately fumed about the “five things” email — which Musk ordered sent out to employees without giving the secretaries a heads up — Trump once again defended him.

Problems began to fester, however, both publicly and internally.

Just as Democrats ramped up their messaging on GOP threat to entitlement programs, Musk appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and called Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time” — a comment that flew in the face of Trump’s crystal-clear vows never to cut benefits. Musk also ginned up the MAGA online faithful after judges blocked his DOGE cuts, pushing for Trump to ignore the courts even as the White House was trying to rebut predictions of a constitutional crisis and vowing Trump would never ignore such an order.

Both of those episodes, I’m told, prompted senior White House officials to speak directly to Musk, who quickly got on message. But many Trump allies continue to believe Musk simply has a hard time understanding how to be a team player. He isn’t vicious or mean-spirited, they say — he’s been willing, in fact, to admit to mistakes both privately and publicly and try to correct them — but he has been hard to wrangle despite Trump, Wiles and others impressing on him the need to coordinate.

“There’s a lack of an understanding about communications and why it’s important, that you massage things, that you talk about things, that you qualify things — they just don’t do it,” said one of the aforementioned allies.

“They think he’s a genius, but he’s a one-man wrecking ball,” added one longtime top Trump adviser.

The tensions came to a head about a month ago, when Trump told secretaries during a March 6 Cabinet meeting that they were in charge of making cuts at their agencies — not Musk. When Trump went further at last week’s Cabinet meeting, confirming the impending end of Musk’s full-time White House role, some of the secretaries were relieved, according to people familiar with their thinking.

But Trump’s praise was genuine, they said. Despite their rollercoaster of a relationship, insiders insist that the president will always have a special place for Musk in his heart, if not his administration.

US State Department issues first comment under Trump administration about Georgia

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 10:42:25 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from [Untitled].

Rely on OC Media? We rely on you too.

Amidst the current global turmoil, small news outlets like ours could be the first to close. Help us get off grants and become the first reader-funded news site in the Caucasus, and keep telling the stories that matter.

Become a member

The US State Department has made its first comment on Georgia under the new administration of US President Donald Trump, maintaining the previous administration’s critical tone towards the Georgian government.

On Wednesday, <a href="http://www.globalnews.ge" rel="nofollow">www.globalnews.ge</a> published the US State Department’s written response ‘regarding the United States’ position on the current situation in Georgia’.

‘We continue to evaluate our approach to Georgia to advance American interests’, the response read.

‘The United States has made clear the steps Georgia’s government can take to demonstrate it is serious about improving its relationship with the United States. Regarding continuing anti-democratic actions taken by the Georgian Dream government — as Vice President [JD] Vance said in Munich, you cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail, nor can you win one by disregarding your basic electorate on questions like who gets to be a part of our shared society’.

‘The United States has been a partner to Georgia and the Georgian people for 33 years, and a strong supporter of Georgia’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity throughout that time’.

The US State Department’s comments were made after a <a href="http://www.globalnews.ge" rel="nofollow">www.globalnews.ge</a> journalist questioned US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce about US–Georgia relations during a recent press briefing.

‘Have you had any communication with the ruling party in Georgia? If so, could you share what type of communication exists between you? The situation in Georgia is very difficult, the Georgian people and the international community do not recognise the election results. Peaceful protesters have been arrested as well as an independent journalist [media manager Mzia Amaghlobeli] who is currently in jail. Given these circumstances, what is your perspective on the situation in Georgia?’, the journalist asked.

While the statement has not appeared in any official statement from the State Department or on its website, IPN reported that the US Embassy in Georgia had confirmed its authenticity.

Since Trump’s election, there has been considerable speculation on what position his administration will take regarding Georgia and its current political crisis.

The crisis originated after the October 2024 parliamentary elections gave the ruling Georgian Dream party a large majority, with 54% of the vote.

It then deepened when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced in late November that the government was halting Georgia’s EU bid until 2028, sparking daily mass protests during which more than 400 demonstrators have been reported to have been detained thus far.

At the time, then-US State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller stated that the US had suspended its strategic partnership with Georgia.

In December, the US sanctioned the billionaire founder and honorary chair of Georgian Dream, Bidzina Ivanishvili, for ‘undermining the democratic and Euro-Atlantic future of Georgia for the benefit of the Russian Federation’.

Georgian Dream officials were quick to criticise the decision.

Following the election, Georgian Dream officials changed tactics, making a concerted effort to court the Trump administration while often appearing to copy Trump’s rhetoric when describing domestic issues

The diplomatic freeze that began under former US President Joe Biden ended in March 2025, when the US Ambassador to Georgia Robin Dunigan met with Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili.

The Georgian government’s cautious rhetoric

Following the October 2024 parliamentary elections — where it secured a fourth consecutive victory, despite the results not being recognised by the local opposition and civil society — Georgian Dream repeatedly stated that it looked forward to resetting relations with the US.

The rhetoric of Georgian Dream, its satellites, and mouthpieces was built on the premise that the new US administration would begin a fight against the ‘deep state’ and the ‘global war party’ , while simultaneously improving relations between Georgia and the US.

Georgian Dream officials have routinely referenced the threat of the global war party and deep state, two nebulous terms for shadowy forces the ruling party claims have been trying to pull Georgia into war and overthrow the government.

But recently their rhetoric has changed.

Since late December, senior Georgian Dream officials have begun making cautious statements that not everything was as clear-cut regarding future Georgia–US relations.

Parliamentary majority leader Mamuka Mdinaradze claimed in December that Georgia should not place ‘too much hope’ on Trump’s second term.

‘We should neither be hopeless nor place undue hope in the period after 20 January [Trump’s inauguration day]’, he said.

Mdinaradze claimed ‘Trump’s two main promises’ suited Georgia, including his promises regarding ‘ending the war [in Ukraine]’ and ‘defeating the deep state’.

‘The positioning of our country will depend on the events after 20 January, to what extent Donald Trump will be able to fulfill his promises’, Mdinaradze said.

On Wednesday, Luka Ekhvaia, advisor to Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili on international relations, stated in a podcast by the Georgian Public Broadcaster that the rhetoric of Georgian Dream representatives shows that the party is willing to continue the US’s critical policy towards them.

On Thursday, Georgian Dream’s mouthpiece Zaza Shatirishvili wrote in a letter published by local pro-government media that Georgian Dream team is changing its rhetoric regarding the US. Previously, party members and their satellites said that Trump would defeat the deep state, but now they also consider the US president to be its tool.

‘The US is still the main instrument of the global war party. Accordingly, its collapse also means the collapse of the global war party. Against the background of serious problems facing the American economy and the dollar, the deep state desperately needs to strengthen the image of America. However, naturally, even under the conditions of rebranding, the wolf will not stop howling and the deep state will not stop implementing its militaristic and revolutionary plans’, he wrote.

‘In fact, Trump is just as forced to submit to the global war party and the “deep state” as Biden’.

Speaking to the media on Thursday, Georgian Dream General Secretary and Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze said that ‘we started talking about the deep state a little earlier, three years ago. Back then, no one dared to do so, and I must say, I expected that when the Trump administration came, it would thank the Georgian government for all this’.

‘Today, the situation is that Trump is fighting the deep state, and this is not something we invented. When we talked about it, we were laughed at, but when Trump became president, the whole world learned that there is a “deep state” — a shadowy force that rules the world’.

‘Today we are in a waiting mode, there is a certain vacuum’, he said.

‘Let’s wait, we support the new US administration in defeating the deep state and if this really happens, of course, the consequences will also affect Georgia’.

White House abruptly fires career Justice Department prosecutors in latest norm-shattering move

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 06:54:08 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

WASHINGTON (AP) — The recent firings of career Justice Department lawyers by the White House is a sign of President Donald Trump’s tightening grip over the law enforcement agency known for its long tradition of political independence.

On Friday, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles was fired without explanation in an terse email from the White House Presidential Personnel Office shortly after a right-wing activist posted about him on social media, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were concerned about potential retribution.

That followed the White House’s firing last week of a longtime career prosecutor who had been serving as acting U.S. attorney in Memphis, Tennessee.

The terminations marked an escalation of norm-shattering moves that have embroiled the Justice Department in turmoil and have raised alarm over a disregard for civil service protections for career lawyers and the erosion of the agency’s independence from the White House. That one of them was fired on the same day a conservative internet personality called for his removal adds to questions about how outside influences may be helping to shape government personnel decisions.

“The integrity of our legal system and the independence of DOJ requires that laws are enforced impartially, which cannot happen when the White House fires career prosecutors to advance a political agenda,” said Stacey Young, a former Justice Department lawyer and founder of Justice Connection, a network of department alumni that works to support employees.

The Trump loyalists installed to lead the Justice Department have fired employees who worked on the prosecutions against the president and demoted a slew of career supervisors in an effort to purge the agency of officials seen as insufficiently loyal. The latest firings of the U.S. attorney’s office employees, however, were carried out not by Justice Department leadership, but by the White House itself.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment Monday. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the White House “in coordination with” the Justice Department has dismissed more than 50 U.S. attorneys and deputies in recent weeks.

“The American people deserve a judicial branch full of honest arbiters of the law who want to protect democracy, not subvert it,” Leavitt said. The Justice Department is an executive branch agency.

Justice Department political appointees typically turn over with a new administration, but rank-and-file career prosecutors remain with the department across presidential administrations and have civil service protections designed to shield them from termination for political reasons. The breadth of terminations this year far outpaces the turnover typically seen inside the Justice Department.

Adam Schleifer, who was part of the corporate & securities fraud strike force at the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, received an email Friday morning saying he was being terminated “on behalf of President Donald J. Trump,” according to the person familiar with the matter. The email came exactly an hour after right-wing activist Laura Loomer called for him to be fired in a social media post that highlighted Schleifer’s past critical comments about Trump while Schleifer was running in a Democratic primary for a congressional seat in New York.

Loomer described Schleifer as a “Trump hater” and Biden administration “holdover.” Schleifer, however, re-joined the U.S. attorney’s office in California at the end of the first Trump administration after losing the primary to Mondaire Jones. At the time of his firing on Friday, Schleifer was prosecuting a fraud case against Andrew Wiederhorn, the former CEO of Fat Brands Inc., who donated during the presidential campaign to groups supporting Trump.

The email to Schleifer came from the White House Presidential Personnel Office, which recruits, screens and manages political appointees and has no role in the hiring or firing of career civil servants.

Meanwhile, Reagan Fondren, a longtime career prosecutor in Tennessee, was fired Thursday in a one-line email from the White House, she told The Daily Memphian. Fondren became acting U.S. attorney in the Western District of Tennessee in September after the Biden appointee stepped down. Fondren did not respond to a request for comment.

While it was expected that her position as acting U.S. attorney would be temporary, acting U.S. attorneys usually return to their old jobs when a new politically appointed leader has been chosen. She was not just removed as acting leader of the office but fired from the Justice Department entirely, the newspaper reported.

Shortly after the Trump administration took over in January, the Justice Department fired more than a dozen employees who worked on the criminal cases against Trump, which the department abandoned in light of his electoral victory. Days later, then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the firings of a group of prosecutors who were involved in the cases against the more than 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.

Leavitt is one of three administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First- and Fifth-amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

___

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

Justice Department Announces Launch of Joint Task Force October 7

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 19:03:24 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

The Justice Department today announced the leadership team and membership of Joint Task Force October 7 (JTF 10-7), an initiative that will seek justice for the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel and address the ongoing threat posed by Hamas and its affiliates.

“The barbaric Hamas terrorists will not win—and there will be consequences,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “As Attorney General, I have had the solemn honor of meeting with several families of U.S. citizens whose loved ones were kidnapped by Hamas on that dark day. This task force will strengthen the Department’s resolve to achieve justice for these families and their loved ones as we continue to fight antisemitism in all its forms.”

The Attorney General established JTF 10-7 on her first day in office, demonstrating the high priority the Justice Department is placing on honoring the memories of the approximately 1,200 people murdered by Hamas in the attack, including 47 U.S. citizens, and supporting the approximately 250 additional people that Hamas abducted, including 8 U.S. citizens.

JTF 10-7 will focus on targeting, charging, and securing for prosecution in the United States the direct perpetrators of the October 7 attack — the terrorists on the ground that day who murdered and kidnapped innocent civilians. JTF 10-7 will also assume responsibility for the pending charges against Hamas leadership relating to the October 7 attack and other acts of terrorism, and to bring those criminals to the United States to face justice for their reprehensible role in these atrocities. Finally, JTF 10-7 will investigate acts of terrorism and civil rights violations by individuals and entities providing support and financing to Hamas, related Iran proxies, and their affiliates, as well as acts of antisemitism by these groups.

“The victims of Hamas’s decades-long violent campaign of terrorism against Israel will always have the support of the U.S. government, and the Department will no longer permit illegal support of Hamas on our campuses and elsewhere in the homeland,” said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Antisemitic acts of terrorism – whether here or abroad – will never go unpunished. This task force represents our unyielding commitment to those who have suffered at the hands of these brutal terrorists.”

“The FBI is committed to establishing the Joint Task Force October 7 to continue the FBI’s investigative and victim assistance efforts related to the horrific acts of terror committed by Hamas,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “Working with our federal and international partners, this task force is a collaborative initiative between agencies, and together we will work to accomplish our vital counterterrorism mission.”

JTF 10-7 will be led by a senior counterterrorism prosecutor from the Justice Department’s National Security Division (NSD), a senior FBI Special Agent as the Task Force Commander, and an FBI Intelligence Analyst as Deputy Task Force Commander, all under the supervision of the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. JTF 10-7 will also include trial attorneys from NSD, the Civil Rights Division, the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, Assistant U.S. Attorneys from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, and other detailees, with additional dedicated support from the Department’s Office of International Affairs.

JTF 10-7 will be supported by dedicated FBI agents, analysts, forensic accountants, data scientists, and linguists who are mostly co-located in Virginia. These professionals will contribute to JTF 10‑7’s expertise in investigating and prosecuting domestic and extraterritorial terrorism cases, including terrorism-financing matters, and serve as points of contact with the FBI’s Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell and Victim Services Division.

The FBI will coordinate with other law enforcement and intelligence agencies on JTF 10-7 activities, as well as foreign counterparts through the FBI’s Legal Attaché office in Israel. FBI agents will be embedded with Israel’s National Bureau of Counter Terror Finance, which has already been a tremendous partner in the ongoing investigations.

These efforts will build on the Justice Department’s ongoing investigations into the perpetrators of these heinous acts and demonstrate the Department’s commitment to degrading and dismantling Hamas, holding Hamas supporters accountable, achieving justice for victims, and fighting terrorist-led antisemitism.

Wagner prepared Hamas for attack on Israel

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 13:50:32 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Some of the fighters of the Wagner private military company were preparing Hamas for an attack on Israel, the National Resistance Center (NRC) reported. Russians who left Belarus for African countries were involved in training and sharing combat experience with terrorists.

“The crucial areas of training of Hamas militants were assault exercises and the use of small unmanned aerial vehicles to drop explosive material. Only the Russians, among the allies of Hamas, have experience using drones with discharge mechanisms against enemy equipment. Wagner shared this with HAMAS militants during exercises in African countries,” the NRC said.

Earlier, British Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of the British contingent in Afghanistan, stated that Russia is using the attack by Hamas terrorists on Israel to divert the attention of the US from the war in Ukraine.

“Don’t imagine this is just an unprovoked, brutal attack by a bunch of terrorists from Gaza. It is much more than that. The hands that pushed these killers forward are in Moscow,” Kemp said.

The Ukrainian World Congress condemns the brutal and insidious attack by Hamas terrorist group on the Israeli people. The precisely planned and well-coordinated ruthless attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, indicates that Moscow and Tehran could have provided necessary training and instructions to the Hamas terrorists, the UWC emphasizes.

Cover: Mahmud Hams / AFP/Getty Images

Russian PsyOp proves the Kremlin’s involvement in the operation agaist Israel - Robert Lansing Institute

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 06:45:41 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from Robert Lansing Institute.

The forecasting about Russia’s misinformation campaign aimed at diverting attention to another ‘unsuitable’ target in matters of supplying weapons to Hamas militants for attacking Israel was confirmed.

On October 7, RLI warned that by using its warm relations with Hezbollah, Russia would send to the Gaza Strip a few units of weaponry captured on Ukraine’s battlefields – as evidence to back their claims.

The next day, October 8, Russian affiliated military intelligence-Telegram channels were actively spreading a fake story claiming that Israeli soldiers near Ashkelon had found a pickup truck with a Soviet-made RPG-7 anti-tank grenade. The weapon allegedly had markings of a ‘Ukrainian unit from Mukachevo, Zakarpattia region’.

As we know, this weapon belongs to the 128th mountain infantry brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. While studying the materials, we came to the conclusion that this is the part of the weapons (including Soviet RPG-7 and AGS-17 automatic grenade launchers) the mentioned unit lost in December 2022 near the village of Pidgorodne, one mile in the north- east of Bakhmut town. They left the weapon while withdrawing from its positions, which came under the control of the Wagner PMC militants.

In this way Ukrainian Soviet-type weapons were transported by the Wagner Group to Russian territory, then the ammunition was sent by Russian Aerospace Forces to the Khmeimim airbase, Syria, and further to the training bases of Hezbollah and Hamas fighters in the vicinity of Damascus. However, we found evidence of Hamas militants being armed with Russian export AK-103-2 assault rifles.

In 2019, we tracked illegal AK-103 rifles sales on the Iraqi market after the Assad regime government supplying the guns.

The AK-103 entered service in Russia in 1993, precluding its placement in Soviet-era warehouses. Thus, these facts confirm the Kremlin’s involvement in the preparation and organization of the Hamas operation against Israel. As far as we know the Wagner and Redut mercenaries trained Palestinians at the training bases in Syria. Since both Russian units are under the operational control of the Main Directorate of the General Staff (formerly the GRU), the transfer of captured weapons to the Middle East is part of Russians’ preparations of the special operations in the region and may indicate that the attack on Israel could have been planned in the spring-summer of 2023.

Moreover, we think that there is a high possibility that Russian PMCs could enter the arms market by supplying both captured and Russian Soviet-style weapons to paramilitary and terrorist groups in the Middle East and Africa.

Prior, we published a report on ties and supplies of Russian weapons to terrorist organizations in the Middle East; in particular, the weapons were used during attack an Israeli school bus.

It is unlikely that the Israeli Merkava battle tanks were destroyed by Palestinian operators launching civilian drones equipped with a combat element drop system. Such an accuracy proves a high-skilled training and practice of the drone operators.According to our estimates, the UAV operators were trained by Iranian or Russian specialists who have got their skills during the war against Ukraine.

Zourabichvili testifies in UK Parliament about the impact of ‘Russian disinformation’ on Georgia

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 05:30:05 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from [Untitled].

Rely on OC Media? We rely on you too.

Become a member

On Tuesday, Georgia’s fifth President Salome Zourabichvili provided evidence on ‘Russian disinformation’ during a Q&A hearing of the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. In her testimony, Zourabichvili emphasised that Georgia was at risk of becoming a grey zone, and that more actions need to be taken by the West to counter Russian influence and propaganda abroad.

The evidence hearing, titled ‘Disinformation diplomacy: How malign actors are seeking to undermine democracy’, focused largely on the political situation in Georgia, and what role Russia is playing in the country’s political and social affairs.

In her testimony, given virtually over Zoom, Zourabichvili highlighted that currently in Georgia, ‘every day brings new repressive laws’, citing the restrictive media and civil society legislation passed in parliament that same day, noting that ‘practically everybody is in one way or another under the repressive laws’.

Zourabichvili compared Georgian Dream’s recent actions to those of Russia’s in terms of its own suppression of civil society, with the difference being that in Georgia, the process ‘is going extremely fast’.

‘We do not have a justice system anymore in Georgia’, Zourabichvili said, after stating that out of 400 people detained as part of the ongoing protests, 50 still remain in prison. She also gave testimony related to the disappearances of civil society activists who ‘reappear in some police station’ and the treatment of prisoners in custody, including most recently of opposition politician Elene Khoshtaria, who accused police of assaulting her before stripping her naked. In all cases, Zourabichvili again noted the similarities to the ‘Russian method’.

However, Zourabichvili emphasised that a characteristic of Georgia’s civil society throughout the decades has been its resilience, and that there still exists a ‘very vivid’ Georgian civil society that is resisting the government oppression.

She also highlighted that a key difference between Georgia and Belarus, which British MPs used as a comparison case in their questioning, was that Georgia had long been ‘completely dependent on and also sustained by’ the EU and US, who reformed all government institutions and have now left the government isolated. Another difference she noted was that she remained in Georgia, unlike the Belarusian opposition leader in exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

However, while resistance continues, Zourabichvili stressed that Georgia is currently at risk of becoming a grey zone, where those sanctioned by Russia can find the freedom to operate.

Citing Georgia’s offshore law, which allows taxes and duties to be exempted on offshore assets being brought into the country, Zourabichvili claimed that any potentially sanctioned oligarch could make use of this loophole by becoming a Georgian citizen. In addition, she noted that Georgian citizens are not considered to be under sanctions by Georgian banks if proof has not been sustained by the Georgian courts, again creating the possibility for anyone friendly to the Georgian government to bypass Western sanctions if they are granted Georgian citizenship by the new president, Mikheil Kavelashvili.

In a separate discussion, after one MP asked whether the West had done enough to counter pro-Russian narratives in the past, Zourabichvili responded: ‘I think we have received no support’.

In her testimony, Zourabichvili took the West, including the UK, to task, making it clear that Georgia has long been a testing spot for Russia, whether in terms of actual military action, such as the 2008 August War, or disinformation campaigns and election interference. She claimed that what Russia learns from its experiences in Georgia, it then transfers into other conflicts, such as in Ukraine.

When asked about whether the UK should sanction the pro-government television station Imedi — often accused of being a Georgian Dream propaganda outlet, and which is owned and operated out of London — Zourabichvili told the MPs that ‘I think you know what you should do’, before going on to criticise the current sanctions policy.

According to her, while the current sanctions being enacted might please Georgia’s protesters, given their focus on punishment, they do not serve the ‘ultimate purpose’ of changing behaviour. Therefore, Zourabichvili pressed that sanctions should be linked in a ‘stick and carrot policy of conditionality’.

During her testimony, Zourabichvili also touched upon the 2024 parliamentary elections, which she claimed had been a ‘large, sophisticated, manipulation operation’ that was ‘inspired and supported by Russians and Russian methods’.

Towards the end of the session, the parliamentary committee was notified that the government had decided to put Russia on the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, meaning that ‘anyone working for the Russian state in the UK will need to declare what they are doing or risk jail’, a decision Zourabichvili welcomed.

‘I don’t know whether it will help us directly, but it is something very positive. The more people realise that something is happening, the sooner we will see a real strategy’, she said.

Opinion | Hillary Clinton: This Is Just Dumb

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 02:05:29 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Putin threatens striking Western air bases hosting Ukrainian F-16s

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 09:54:14 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Elon Musk's AI startup acquires X in deal that values social media platform at $33 billion

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 02:10:49 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Elon Musk said Friday that his artificial intelligence startup, xAI, had acquired his social media platform, X.

He said that the deal was an all-stock transaction that valued X at $33 billion.

"xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent," Musk wrote in a post on X.

The deal combines two of Musk's most high-profile companies, but because they are not publicly traded, no details about the deal were made public outside of Musk's post. It's unclear if the deal included any immediate windfall for Musk.

X recently raised $1 billion from investors, valuing it at $44 billion, according to Bloomberg. Musk took X (then Twitter) private in 2022 at nearly the same valuation. Musk was recently served with an SEC summons in the long-running lawsuit over Musk's alleged failure to disclose his ownership in Twitter before bidding to buy it entirely.

Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X, reposted Musk's message adding: "The future could not be brighter."

Musk launched xAI in 2023 and rolled out Grok, an AI-powered chatbot similar to those from OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and many other AI companies. Since then, Grok has been infused into X, with many users now often asking it to respond to posts and weigh in on arguments.

Musk has billed Grok as an anti-"woke" AI that is "truth-seeking," though it has been found to disagree with him on many issues.

"This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach," Must wrote. "The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge. This will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress."

Amid the broader boom in AI companies, Musk's xAI has found interest from investors. Major Wall Street firms Blackrock, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Sequoia Capital, and the top chip companies Nvidia and AMD invested in xAI in December. That funding took the AI company’s value to $45 billion. As recently as last month, reports said xAI was considering another fundraising round that would value the company at $75 billion.

The rush to develop — and invest in — advanced AI has included billions of dollars in plans to build out the computing power, electricity infrastructure and human capital necessary to develop increasingly powerful models capable of performing complex tasks. Money has poured into AI startups while tech giants including Google, Amazon and Meta have announced plans for significant spending on all things AI.

Meanwhile, both AI and Musk have grown more political. Musk has emerged as among the most high-profile of President Donald Trump's advisers, and Trump made AI a campaign issue, promising to rein in regulation. Just days into his second term, Trump signed an executive order aimed at undoing Biden administration efforts to put some safeguards on AI development while encouraging its growth.

Many AI and tech executives as well as technologists and industry watchdogs have warned about the implications of an all-out AI arms race, particularly as other countries including China are pushing to lead on the technology.

Jason Abbruzzese

Jason Abbruzzese is the assistant managing editor of tech and science for NBC News Digital.

Steve Kopack

Steve Kopack is a producer at NBC News covering business and the economy.

Ukraine claims to have fielded a drone-killing laser weapon

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 11:14:21 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Huntington Ingalls Industries, U.S. shipbuilder, to develop anti-drone laser weapon for Army

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 10:23:01 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

U.S. shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries announced this week that it will develop a new high-energy laser weapon for the Army to combat drones.

Huntington Ingalls said Monday that it will develop the weapons system for the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office. Its open architecture system will be capable of fixed-site defense and will easily integrate into Army vehicles, the company said.

“We are proud to provide a critical enabler for the Army, delivering an effective, interoperable, sustainable and scalable system that will meet force protection requirements and support U.S. strategic objectives,” said Grant Hagen, president of the Mission Technologies’ Warfare Systems division. “We look forward to collaborating with the RCCTO on this important effort that will protect the warfighter with an affordable counter-UAS solution.”

The company added that the open architecture design is perfectly in line with the goals of the Army.

“Aligned to the system’s Modular Open Systems Approach architecture, this data directly supports Army’s objectives for interoperability, affordability, scalability, supply chain resilience and rapid innovation,” a statement from Huntington Ingalls reads. “The weapon system will allow the Army to interchange subsystems and software as the weapon evolves to meet national security demands.”

Huntington Ingalls will develop a prototype laser system that can track and destroy unmanned aircraft. Before transitioning into low-rate initial production, the system will undergo field testing to determine its operational capabilities.

Huntington Ingalls’ new contract follows a solicitation last July in which RCCTO called on contractors to deliver white papers on systems that could defeat unmanned aircraft systems. The July solicitation asked specifically for fixed-site defense and rapid integration capabilities.

Kash Patel Reveals FBI's Top Priorities in First TV Interview As Director

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 10:19:30 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Israel Arrests Suspected Iranian Spy

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 08:32:06 -0400

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks

Disgraced ex-Congressman Weiner receives campaign donation from unexpected New Yorker in new race

The mysterious novelist who foresaw Putin’s Russia – and then came to symbolise its moral decay

Russia and Iran: The Limits of Strategic Partnership in the Face of Conflict - Robert Lansing Institute

Kash Patel's surprising appointment of a top J6 inquisitor to head DC FBI office

Sign up for the Blaze newsletter

Book Review: 'Make Sure You Die Screaming' is an absurd road trip novel for modern times

___

Azerbaijan: Arbitrary arrest of Bashir Suleymanli and Mammad Alpay

Elon Musk may step back from government role after turbulent run at DOGE

'Game Changer' In Ukraine War, ATACMS Era Coming To An End As U.S Army To Get Next-Gen Precision Strike Missiles

The PrSM: Building On The ATACMS Foundation

A New Era Of Deterrence and Dominance

Challenges & Considerations

Sean 'Diddy' Combs charged with five new criminal counts weeks before sex trafficking trial

Declassified: Trump To Release FBI’s Russia Probe Documents | CNN Politics

CIA lays off some recently hired officers as Trump shakes up intelligence community

Trump Tells Inner Circle That Musk Will Leave Soon

US State Department issues first comment under Trump administration about Georgia

Rely on OC Media? We rely on you too.

The Georgian government’s cautious rhetoric

White House abruptly fires career Justice Department prosecutors in latest norm-shattering move

___

Justice Department Announces Launch of Joint Task Force October 7

Wagner prepared Hamas for attack on Israel

Russian PsyOp proves the Kremlin’s involvement in the operation agaist Israel - Robert Lansing Institute

Zourabichvili testifies in UK Parliament about the impact of ‘Russian disinformation’ on Georgia

Rely on OC Media? We rely on you too.

Opinion | Hillary Clinton: This Is Just Dumb

Putin threatens striking Western air bases hosting Ukrainian F-16s

Elon Musk's AI startup acquires X in deal that values social media platform at $33 billion

Ukraine claims to have fielded a drone-killing laser weapon

Huntington Ingalls Industries, U.S. shipbuilder, to develop anti-drone laser weapon for Army

Kash Patel Reveals FBI's Top Priorities in First TV Interview As Director

Top stories

Israel Arrests Suspected Iranian Spy