News And Current Events

Wild tweet.

Bro was definitely satisfied with this and couldn't help himself.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The International Organization for Migration on Sunday increased its estimate of the death toll from a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea to more than 670 as emergency responders and traumatized relatives gave up hope that any survivors will now be found.

Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the U.N. migration agency’s mission in the South Pacific island nation, said the revised death toll was based on calculations by Yambali village and Enga provincial officials that more than 150 homes had been buried by Friday’s landslide. The previous estimate had been 60 homes.

“They are estimating that more than 670 people (are) under the soil at the moment,” Aktoprak told The Associated Press.

Local officials had initially put the death toll on Friday at 100 or more. Only five bodies and a leg of a sixth victim had been recovered by Sunday, when an excavator donated by a local builder became the first piece of mechanical earth-moving equipment to join the recovery effort.

https://veteran.com/national-moment-remembrance/

Americans observe the National Moment of Remembrance at 3 p.m. every Memorial Day (the last Monday in May). It is intended to help Americans spend a brief, but significant time remembering the sacrifices of those who died as a result of military service.

At 3 p.m. local time on the last Monday in May, Americans are asked to stop for 60 seconds or one full minute to remember those who have died in service to their country.

While participation is voluntary, the VA fact sheet suggests a variety of ways in which you can observe the moment. These include pausing for a simple moment of silence. listening to “Taps” or attending an organized group setting. If you are driving a vehicle, the VA suggests turning on your headlights in observance of the moment.

In the ongoing seven-phase parliamentary election to determine whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will get a third term, India’s 970 million voters include over 48,000 transgender people.

And of the 8,039 candidates nationwide – a four-fold rise from 1,874 in the 1952 election, India’s first – three candidates are transgender; a fourth dropped out. And a fifth is hoping to sit in the state assembly of Andhra Pradesh in south India, for which voting was on May 13.

India has long had a tolerance for transgender persons, however this has nothing to do with the Western LGBTQ+ movement – indeed, Indians are merely trying to overcome the colonial-era laws that tried to stamp out its own ancient traditions on the 'third gender'.

The transgender community comprises Hijras, eunuchs, Kothis, Aravanis, Jogappas, Shiv-Shakthis, and more. Evidence for the existence of third-gender people can be found in Hindu holy texts like the Ramayana and Mahabharata.

In Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, and further back in Vedic culture, three genders were recognized. The Vedas (1500 BCE to 500 BCE) describe individuals as one of three categories according to one’s nature (‘prakrti’). These are also spelled out in the Kama Sutra (c. 4th century AD) and elsewhere as pums-prakrtistri-prakrti (female nature), and tritiya-prakrti (third-nature).

Various texts suggest that ‘third sex’ individuals were known in pre-modern India and included male-bodied or female-bodied people as well as intersexual. Third sex is also discussed in ancient Hindu law, medicine, linguistics, and astrology.

South Korea is considering paying parents 100 million won (£59,000) in cash for each baby born in a bid to boost the country’s diminishing birth rate.

The South Korean government’s Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission is holding a public survey to gauge the opinion of the people before it can be implemented.

The survey that began on 17 April will ask four questions to understand if they believe it is acceptable to spend 22 trillion won (£12.9bn) annually on the programme and if a financial incentive would motivate couples in the country to have children.

This amount accounts for approximately half of the current national budget allocated to initiatives addressing low birth rates, which totals 48tn won (£28bn) annually.

“Through this survey, we plan to re-evaluate the country’s birth promotion policies to determine whether direct financial subsidies could be an effective solution,” the commission said in a statement.

DUBLIN — Ireland will officially recognize Palestine as a state in a move expected to be coordinated with at least two other European governments, an Irish official told POLITICO.

The move is expected to be announced at an 8 a.m. press conference Wednesday led by the leaders of Ireland’s three-party government: Prime Minister Simon Harris, Foreign Minister Micheál Martin and Environment Minister Eamon Ryan.

The Irish official — who spoke to POLITICO on condition he wasn’t identified because the purpose of Wednesday’s press conference wasn’t officially revealed in advance — said Ireland planned to coordinate its announcement in tandem with similar moves in two other European capitals Wednesday morning. The official declined to identify either of them.

"They can fire any weapons from their territory at ours. This is the biggest advantage that Russia has. We can’t do anything to their systems, which are located on the territory of Russia, with Western weapons,” he explained.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited Kiev earlier this week, said Washington has “not encouraged or enabled strikes outside of Ukraine, but ultimately Ukraine has to make decisions for itself about how it’s going to conduct this war.”

However, on Thursday Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh clarified that Washington’s position that Kiev should not target Russia with US-supplied weapons remains unchanged. Such arms can only be used to “take back Ukrainian sovereign territory,” Singh stressed.

Earlier this month, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron insisted Ukraine has the “right” to use UK-supplied weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia, if it decides to do so. Moscow reacted to the statement by warning that if such an attack were to take place it could target British military facilities “on the territory of Ukraine and beyond” in response.

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Kiev has urged Washington to provide intelligence on targets on Russian soil amid setbacks in Donbass and Kharkov Region. According to the NYT, US officials are currently reviewing those requests, despite previously turning them down.

Zelensky said Kiev now finds itself in a “nonsensical situation” due to the stance of the West, which “is afraid that Russia will lose the war. And it does not want Ukraine to lose it.”

“Ukraine’s final victory will lead to Russia’s defeat. And the final victory of Russia will lead to Ukraine’s defeat,” he added.

The Ukrainian authorities “want the war to end with a fair peace for us. Of course, the West wants the war to end. Period. As soon as possible. And, for them, this is a fair peace,” the president stated.

While Qatari, Egyptian and US middlemen have for months been trying to get the two belligerents to agree to a ceasefire, so far these efforts have apparently been fruitless.

In its report on Friday, [Israeli broadcaster] Kan alleged that the negotiations “are not taking place at the moment” since “Egypt and Qatar have adopted the position of Hamas.” According to the media outlet, the mediators suggested sealing a ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages.

Kan quoted its anonymous sources as saying that there is a “large” divergence of opinion between the Palestinian militant group and Israel, especially over how each would define the “end of the war.” Another major bone of contention, the broadcaster claimed, was Israel’s refusal to unconditionally release incarcerated Hamas militants at the group’s request.

On Saturday, Israel’s Haaretz, citing an unnamed foreign source familiar with the talks, also reported that the negotiations “are currently at an impasse, and there is no progress.”

n an investigative report, the Washington Post found that last month a group of billionaires and business leaders secretly urged New York City’s mayor to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University.

The Washington Post obtained communications showing that on April 26, business figures such as Daniel Lubetzky, Daniel Loeb, Len Blavatnik, and Joseph Sitt held a Zoom call with Mayor Eric Adams. This call occurred about a week after police were first sent to Columbia’s campus. Some participants discussed political donations to Adams and exerting pressure on Columbia’s leadership to allow police intervention.

One group member told The Post he donated the maximum legal limit of $2,100 to Adams that month. Some members also offered to fund private investigators to assist the police, an offer reportedly accepted by Adams. However, City Hall stated that the NYPD has not used private investigators for this purpose.

American citizens appear to be among a group detained in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for their alleged involvement in a failed coup attempt, authorities in the African nation said Sunday.

The arrests were made after a deadly shootout near a government official’s home in the capital Kinshasa, which killed three people. Congolese army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Sylvain Ekenge said the coup, which was enacted by both Congolese and foreigners, had been quickly thwarted by national security forces.

The U.S. ambassador to the country, Lucy Tamlyn, said on X that she had been informed of the alleged involvement of American citizens and said the embassy was cooperating with the Congolese government.

“I am shocked by the events of this morning and very concerned by reports of American citizens allegedly involved,” she wrote in French. “We will cooperate with DRC authorities to the fullest extent as they investigate these criminal acts and hold accountable any U.S. citizen involved.”

Footage of two men under arrest quickly made the rounds on social media. One of the men in the video was identified as the American son of the coup’s Congolese ringleader, Christian Malanga. Also in circulation were pictures of a U.S. passport apparently belonging to Benjamin Zalman-Polun, a 36-year-old born in Maryland. Zalman-Polun is reportedly a cannabis entrepreneur who has been linked to the suspected leader Malanga. Malanga is the founder of a political organization for Congolese people in the U.S., and he posted a livestream Sunday afternoon that appeared to show him leading the charge.

The coup reportedly began around 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning near the residence of Vital Kamerhe, who is running to be speaker of the national legislature. The attackers were met with gunfire, an exchange that killed a coup member and two police officers, a spokesman for Kamerhe wrote on X.

The attackers then moved on to the presidential palace, Congolese media said, which is just a mile away. But they were arrested by security forces there, and the coup was shut down. Ekenge, the Congolese army spokesman, told the Associated Press that the likely ringleader Malanga had been killed during the clash.

The target of the coup was believed to be President Felix Tshisekedi, who won a second term in a chaotic December vote. Tshisekedi was unharmed, and multiple U.S. news outlets characterized the plot as a poorly organized scheme that relied on amateur tactics.

The former top Democrat on the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee badly botched elementary lunar facts while speaking during the gathering at Booker T. Washington High School in Houston.

“You’ve heard the word ‘full moon.’ Sometimes you need to take the opportunity just to come out and see a full moon is that complete rounded circle, which is made up mostly of gases,” Jackson Lee, 74, told teenage pupils who gathered on a sports field ahead of the rare celestial event.

Is her mind going?

A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi , the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray.

The likely crash came as Iran under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel last month and has enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.

Iran has also faced years of mass protests against its Shiite theocracy over an ailing economy and women’s rights — making the moment that much more sensitive for Tehran and the future of the country as the Israel-Hamas war inflames the wider Middle East.

Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province . State TV said what it called a “hard landing” happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Later, state TV put it farther east near the village of Uzi, but details remained contradictory.

Traveling with Raisi were Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran's East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. One local government official used the word “crash," but others referred to either a “hard landing” or an “incident.”

Neither IRNA nor state TV offered any information on Raisi’s condition in the hours afterward. However, hard-liners urged the public to pray for him. State TV aired images of hundreds of the faithful, some with their hands outstretched in supplication, praying at Imam Reza Shrine in the city of Mashhad, one of Shiite Islam's holiest sites, as well as in Qom and other locations across the country. State television's main channel aired the prayers nonstop.

In Tehran, a group of men kneeling on the side of the street clasped strands of prayer beads and watched a video of Raisi praying, some of them visibly weeping.

“If anything happens to him we’ll be heartbroken,” said one of the men, Mehdi Seyedi. ”May the prayers work and may he return to the arms of the nation safe and sound.”

I saw an "opportunistic" article posted online urging people to not drink raw milk as they might get bird flu from it... which I thought most people would shrug off as obvious propaganda against raw milk, but I saw it posted in earnest elsewhere so I decided to post this here

Raw milk has a lot of alleged health benefits; the author makes the ridiculous plea for "no one to drink raw milk for any reason"...

The problem with pasteurization, as with antibiotics, is the process also kills good nutrients like antibiotics kills good bacteria

So by drinking raw milk you can get the good nutrients without them being destroyed. I know of dairy farmers who would drink pretty much straight from the cow without getting sick. The milk tastes totally different (better, a lot of people think)

The elderly or children or sickly might avoid drinking raw milk, but otherwise it's a healthy consideration for a lot of people

Example pro-raw-milk article: https://www.rawmilkinstitute.org/updates/letter-to-medical-professionals-about-raw-milk

Numerous scientific studies have shown that raw milk is correlated with decreased rates of asthma, allergies, eczema, otitis, fever, and respiratory infections. Raw milk also aids in recovery from antibiotic use, and provides many gut-healthy probiotics and enzymes.

Here's the biased fearmongering article in contrast: https://gizmodo.com/raw-milk-sales-up-bird-flu-h5n1-tiktok-usda-cdc-fda-1851476916

I'm confused here because didn't they think cows were causing methane problems (separate issue?) and why don't cows help take CO2 out of air compared to bison? So could just having a lot more big animals (other animals mentioned in article I think?) help take CO2 out of the air, or is this kind of like the trillion trees project which was plants now being applied to animals... will it work? No? Thoughts on the situation?

Prominent Israeli academic Ilan Pappe said he was interrogated by the Department of Homeland Security after arriving in the US on Monday.

Arriving at Detroit airport, the academic - known for his stridently anti-Zionist views and research - said he was subjected to two hours of questioning.

Amongst the questions, he was asked whether he was a Hamas supporter and whether he regarded the Israeli assault on Gaza as a "genocide".

"The two man team were not abusive or rude, I should say, but their questions were really out of the world!" Pappe wrote on Facebook.

"They had long phone conversation with someone, (the Israelis?) and after copying everything on my phone allowed me to enter."

Pappe published the book 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine' in 2006.

Recent news shows that the French publisher that was printing it ceased printing the book despite a surge in sales.

A recent statement from Ilan Pappe:

I think what we are seeing now, what unfolds in front of our eyes, is a genocidal situation, by which people are targeted, whether they are children, babies, in hospital or in schools. And this is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing, of depopulation. The pretext for that kind of savagery is revenge for what the Hamas did on the 7th of October, but I think the real intention here is not just revenge but trying to exploit what happened on the 7th of October to create new realities in historical Palestine. You called it a new Nakba. I think that this is — the Nakba has never really ended for the Palestinians, so it’s a new horrific chapter in the ongoing Nakba that the Palestinians are suffering here. So, this is a really horrific situation that can only be stopped from the outside, because there is no motivation inside Israel to stop the operations, nor to care more about the lives of innocent people, despite what the Israeli army claims to do in the field itself.

Over at Democracy Now.

could be dangerous

also could be an "alleged election year hoax" that we press x to doubt about

zika virus

swine flu

monkeypox

Ukraine has pulled back its troops from several villages in the border region of Kharkiv following continued pressure from Russian forces.

Soldiers had come under heavy fire and moved to "more advantageous positions" in two areas of the north-eastern region, a military spokesman said.

Throughout the course of the two-year war, Ukraine has typically used this type of language to signify a retreat.