The recent Ebola outbreak in Africa has received a lot of media attention in recent weeks, but there is a potentially deadlier pandemic sweeping across Africa: cholera.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials have confirmed 115 deaths out of 598 confirmed cases of Ebola outside the U.S. since the outbreak started in early May. In comparison, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has reported 3,596 new cholera cases and 176 deaths in Africa since the end of April.  The reason cholera is underreported is that the disease has affected Africa and parts of Asia for centuries.  Cholera is one of the world’s deadliest diseases and has swept the globe with seven pandemics since its discovery, according to the World Health Organization. The current outbreak has lasted for 65 years since starting in Southern Asia and has since gone worldwide. “Researchers estimate that there are 1.3 to 4.0 million cases and 21,000 to 143,000 deaths from cholera worldwide each year,” the WHO reported. The symptoms of cholera can be even more painful and more quickly lead to death than Ebola symptoms. Cholera is a disease that triggers rapid, uncontrollable diarrhea that can cause severe dehydration, internal organ failure, and death of infected patients within hours if left untreated. Ebola, on the other hand, causes internal bleeding. It can take between 2 and 21 days for an infected person to begin showing symptoms, and symptoms can continue for weeks. Though Ebola does have a higher fatality rate than cholera, studies show that treatment in the United States can significantly lower the chance of death. “Death rates [for Ebola] drop sharply with intensive supportive care, the kind that keeps patients hydrated and their blood pressure and oxygen stable,” UC Berkeley Public Health reported. “During the 2014 West Africa outbreak, mortality ran 40 to 70 percent across affected countries; for the small number of patients evacuated to Europe and the U.S., it was closer to 20 percent.” Ebola, unlike other viruses such as COVID-19, is not airborne but spreads through contact with a contaminated person’s bodily fluids. In Africa, the disease has spread rapidly due in part to local burial customs that dictate that a whole tribe should bury the dead. Cholera spreads through contaminated water. Thus, while Ebola spreads from person to person, entire villages can contract cholera at the same time due to using a single source of contaminated water. Cholera has also been increasing in Africa in recent years. Conflicts in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, along with earthquakes and natural disasters, have harmed the water infrastructure in Africa, causing more people to resort to cholera-infested sources. “Reported cholera cases rose by 5% and deaths by 50% in 2024 compared to 2023, with more than 6000 people dying from a disease that is both preventable and treatable,” the WHO stated. “Conflict, climate change, population displacement, and long-term deficiencies in water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure continue to fuel the rise of cholera.”

A leftist group has been fundraising to provide commissary funds to the so-called “hunger striking” detainees at ICE’s Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey, a Daily Wire investigation has found. Democratic lawmakers have decried the conditions inside the Newark facility, that include claims of worms in the food, as the reason for the purported hunger strike. Meanwhile, sales from the detention center’s commissary store have surged 161%, jumping from $11,498 on May 26 to $30,013 on June 1, according to internal data recently obtained by The Daily Wire. State inspectors visited the facility last week, reporting that the “overall sanitation and physical condition of the production kitchen and warehousing areas” was “satisfactory” and “free from signs of rodent or vermin activity,” NJ.com reported. The New Jersey-based SOMA Mutual Aid Collective, a coalition comprised of SOMA Action, SOMA Justice, and SOMA Shares, has raised more than $50,000 through its “Commissary and Communication Fund” during the supposed hunger strike. The coalition, which says it’s run by volunteers, raised roughly $68,000 as of the end of May and has now raised more than $120,000 to provide funds for detainees’ commissary accounts, according to The Internet Archive. “Right now, over 1,000 people are detained at Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark, NJ — our friends, neighbors, and community members who have been taken by ICE and face deportation. In detention, men and women often purchase their own toiletries due to the poor quality of what they are given, along with staples like rice, noodles and sausage to make up for the frequent inedible food served,” the fundraiser website states. “The SOMA Mutual Aid Collective is working with other organizations on the ground at Delaney Hall to help fund commissary and communication accounts to those who need — and we urgently need your support. We are trying to keep up with every request for commissary account funding at Delaney Hall as well as those who have been sent to other facilities throughout the country — and that list continues to grow,” it adds. SOMA Justice was founded by Rutgers University professor Khadijah Costley White, who authored “The Branding of Right-Wing Activism: The News Media and the Tea Party.” The group says it seeks to fight “racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and other ideologies of power and oppression.” (Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images) The SOMA umbrella asks contributors to “make a recurring donation of $55/month and help someone detained afford basic food and necessities they are being denied.” The beneficiaries of the funds, it says, are “immigrants whose lives have been upended by the current mass detention and deportation drive.” The donations also help pay for detainees to make calls to family members, lawyers, and friends, according to the fundraiser website. Any “excess” funds raised will help pay for legal aid and bonds to free illegal immigrants from ICE detention. View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Pax Christi New Jersey (@paxchristinj) Activist groups, like SOMA “are a cash cow for detainees,” former ICE New York Field Office Deputy Director Scott Mechkowski told The Daily Wire. “Shut off the free money and watch how fast they’re back in line for their trays,” he said. Protestors have demonstrated outside Delaney Hall for weeks, advocating for the facility’s closure. Some demonstrators have clashed with authorities outside the facility, resulting in dozens of arrests. Democratic New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill said Monday that she “finally” toured the detention center “after being denied access for weeks,” but complained that her visit “was a closely controlled and limited tour of the facility.” “That is unacceptable,” she wrote on X. “I was not allowed to meet or speak directly with the detainees, which continues to raise serious questions about the real conditions of the facility and the treatment of those held there. I will continue to push to speak with the detainees directly. They deserve to be heard and the public deserves answers.” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin responded to Sherrill, saying he “personally granted” her access to Delaney Hall “as an act of good faith— despite you having exactly ZERO federal oversight authority.” “Of course, you’re still trying to turn Delaney Hall into a political football for the radical left. You were told BEFORE you went in you would not have the ability to speak to detainees. This is a federal facility, Governor. You are NOT federally elected,” he said. Mullin also suggested that Sherrill “spend more time” at state-run prisons, where he said the problems are worse. “Delaney Hall has 2x more medical personnel per detainee than NJ state prison, and at least 2x as much square footage. Detainees are also 2x more likely to die in NJ state custody,” he said. Gus Wilson contributed to this report.

Yesterday morning, whilst making their customary cups of tea, Brits checking their phones were confronted by a scene in Belfast, Northern Ireland, that could only be described as medieval. Footage emerged of a Sudanese man shouting incoherently whilst straddling the chest of a second man, whom he was in the process of decapitating. The victim, Stephen Ogilvy, is now blind in the one eye he did not lose in this attack and remains in critical condition in the hospital. I’m almost relieved that such a sight is still shocking to both me and the public; there have been an increasing number of random acts of extreme violence across the United Kingdom in recent years, many linked to migrants or, more scarily, their children. The reason that this video, beyond its shocking barbarity, has elicited such a strong reaction is that it comes on the heels of another brutal murder. Days ago, footage was released of 18-year-old Henry Nowak being stabbed in cold blood by Vickrum Digwa. We are sadly getting used to suffering Islamist violence in Britain, but this was an attack by a Sikh born in Britain, using ceremonial knives that have legal exemptions in legislation to ban the possession of many offensive weapons. Sikhs have generally been regarded as some of the best-integrated groups, but Digwa’s mother hid the knives and lied to the police. After murdering Nowak, Digwa complained to police arriving on the scene that he was the victim — of racism. When Nowak told police he had been stabbed, the cold, dead voice of the modern bureaucratic state drawled from the copper’s mouth: “I don’t think you have mate.” Henry Nowak was then handcuffed. He then bled to death at the scene. The bodycam image of his ghostly white hand, drained of blood, as it was handcuffed by plastic-gloved police, haunts me still. This attack has led to interventions by U.S. Vice President JD Vance, and Elon Musk. Contrasts have been drawn, in both England and America, between this murder and the behavior of the police with the death of George Floyd. The latter was a truly global event; in Britain, hordes of progressives protested outside No. 10 Downing Street. Like their U.S. counterparts, they screamed “Hands up, don’t shoot!” at largely unarmed police. At least one policeman was induced by the braying mob to “take the knee” right outside the gates to the prime minister’s home. Nowak’s chilling murder saw no such public outcry, until, perhaps, last night, when the broader, broiling social tensions across the U.K. erupted in the streets of Belfast following the latest violent attack. HMOs (Houses of Multiple Occupation – residential properties where growing numbers of asylum seekers are housed among residents) were set alight by balaclava-wearing gangs, as were cars and buses. Unforgivable as any kind of street violence is, it is the biggest outbreak yet of a sense of frustration amongst the native population of Britain at what has come to be called “two-tier justice” or “two-tier policing.” This is the growing sense that asylum seekers, immigrants (including/especially illegal ones), and even sometimes ethnic minority Brits are treated more favorably by the modern state than anyone else. This is demonstrably true in at least some areas of modern life. The Sentencing Council, a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization that meddles in the length of criminal sentences, pushes judges to literally give more lenient sentences to non-white people. Coupled with this is the ongoing scandal known as the “small boats” crisis, which highlights a total failure of state capacity. Criminal gangs are brazenly smuggling illegal immigrants across the English Channel from French beaches in dinghies in broad daylight. Achieving what Napoleon, Hitler, and the Spanish Armada failed to do: over 200,000 mostly African and Middle Eastern young men have landed in Britain since 2018, according to the BBC. For context, this number is two and a half times larger than the entire regular British army. These men are rarely deported because of the European Convention on Human Rights, an international legal agreement (separate from the EU) that is overly protective of their rights. Rapists, murderers, and pedophiles have likewise avoided deportation under this foreign law. Last year, a small boat arrival prompted riots after a man sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl. The previous summer, the son of Rwandan refugees murdered three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class and was found with ISIS material at home. Mass riots were only prevented by the authorities in 2024 by imprisoning even those who tweeted about the incident the wrong way. Counter-protests by a Muslim militia in Birmingham were not just excused by this same condemnation; they were justified by a Labour Party minister as “Just being scared of the far-right backlash.” Four million new people entered Britain since 2020 in the so-called “Boriswave” despite Brexit being largely about limiting migration and its hero, Boris Johnson, promising to cut it. Along with economic decline and general woe, this old country feels like it’s coming apart at the seams. It’s no wonder that Nigel Farage, leader of the outsider party Reform UK, now tops the polls. But even a revolutionary new force may not be enough to prevent Britain from sliding into civic, religious, or even ethnic strife. I pray that I am wrong. *** James Price is a former Chief of Staff to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute. 

The Biden administration failed to properly check the caregivers of illegal immigrant children who crossed into the United States alone for criminal histories as it scrambled to handle the influx at the border, according to a new federal watchdog report. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) only conducted 176 of the 256 required visits between September 2021 and August 2024 to check conditions at unlicensed facilities in Texas and Florida, according to a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Inspector General’s report released Wednesday. Due to the oversight failures, “new staff may have had access to children before the care provider could verify that the staff member did not have a criminal history or a history indicating a risk to unaccompanied alien children.” “As a result, the health and safety of unaccompanied alien children may have been at risk,” the audit found. The Biden administration hastily used the unlicensed facilities, which didn’t meet the normal requirements, to handle the overwhelming flow of roughly half a million migrant children who arrived in the United States alone. When Border Patrol agents encounter unaccompanied migrant children at the border, they transfer them to the department’s ORR, which places them in shelters, foster care, or secure facilities. Some of those children eventually end up with sponsors in the United States, which include family members. ORR is required to check on the facilities during its first three months of taking in migrant children and on a quarterly basis thereafter, according to the report. There is also a requirement to conduct checks no less than once every two years. When conducting visits at the facility, ORR officials spend a week checking on conditions by reviewing case files and other documents, including staff files for background check information, and interviewing staff, children, and stakeholders. In some cases, ORR found that facilities failed to conduct or document some FBI fingerprint-based background checks or let them expire. They also discovered that the care providers didn’t conduct Child Protective Services (CPS) clearances or conducted them after employees were already hired. In March 2023, ORR officials inspected one of its largest care providers’ 17 facilities in Texas for the first time since it was delicensed in August 2021, according to the report. During the audit, the federal inspectors found that the provider failed to conduct FBI background checks and only ran names through state criminal databases of more than 3,000 employees since their delicensing. Four of the employees who failed risk evaluations were ultimately terminated, the report noted. ORR said monitoring visits were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when they stopped conducting in-person visits and ran checks virtually, and an “influx of unaccompanied alien children through the southern border.” The agency also said they didn’t have the resources or staffing to conduct timely checks “due to a hiring freeze and difficulty securing monitoring contractors.” The Biden administration has also received intense scrutiny of its vetting of the sponsors of some of the children, who were released from their care. An earlier government watchdog report found that the Biden administration lost track of roughly 320,000 unaccompanied migrant kids, some of whom ended up in the hands of traffickers, gang members, and predators.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is appearing before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday for a closed-door interview regarding his relationship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Gates will be one of the highest-profile witnesses yet in Congress’ ongoing investigation into Epstein’s network of wealthy and politically connected associates. Unlike several previous witnesses, Gates’ testimony will not be recorded on video. Instead, lawmakers are expected to release a transcript in the coming days, setting up what could be one of the most closely watched document releases of the committee’s months-long probe. “I’m glad to be here voluntarily to testify,” Gates told reporters as he arrived on Capitol Hill. “I hope my testimony is helpful to the hard work of the committee to find justice for the victims.” Gates published his opening statement to the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday morning, saying he supports “the release of all the Epstein files,” and that he hoped “the survivors of Epstein’s crimes can get the justice that they deserve.” Still, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) described Gates as “not as candid and forthcoming as he can be” and even a “little combative” after the initial hour of questioning, according to Forbes. The hearing follows months of scrutiny surrounding Gates’ relationship with Epstein, which began in 2011 — three years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution. The House Oversight Committee first requested Gates’ testimony in March. Chairman James Comer (R-KY) stated the committee believed the billionaire possessed information relevant to its investigation into Epstein and his associates. The date for the hearing was scheduled for Wednesday, June 10, as previously reported by The Daily Wire. Gates has long maintained that he was unaware of Epstein’s criminal conduct and has denied any involvement in wrongdoing. “While he never witnessed or participated in any of Epstein’s illegal conduct, he is looking forward to answering all the committee’s questions to support their important work,” a spokesman for Gates previously said. The billionaire’s ties to Epstein have generated controversy for years, particularly after documents released by the Justice Department revealed repeated communications involving Gates, Epstein, and several of Gates’ closest advisers. Earlier this year, Gates apologized to employees at the Gates Foundation for his association with Epstein and acknowledged that he had engaged in extramarital affairs, including relationships with a Russian bridge player and a Russian nuclear physicist. Documents released as part of the Epstein files included emails in which Epstein discussed Gates’ personal life and alleged sexual relationships with Russian women. One email, which appeared to be a draft resignation letter sent by Epstein to himself, referenced helping Gates obtain medication following encounters with “russian girls.” Another email alleged that Gates contracted a sexually transmitted disease and sought to secretly provide antibiotics to his then-wife, Melinda Gates. Gates has categorically denied those allegations. “These claims are absolutely absurd and completely false,” a spokesman for Gates said previously, arguing that Epstein sought to “entrap and defame” him after Gates cut off contact. Gates has also insisted that none of the women with whom he had affairs were connected to Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation. “I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” Gates told foundation employees earlier this year. “To be clear I never spent any time with victims, the women around [Epstein].” Still, lawmakers from both parties have signaled they want answers about why Gates maintained contact with Epstein years after his conviction and what exactly transpired during their relationship. Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) said ahead of the testimony that lawmakers are seeking “accountability for those in power and answers for survivors.” Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) similarly said he wanted to learn more about “what Gates knew of Epstein’s crimes, and the nature and extent of their relationship.” Wednesday’s appearance also drew attention because Gates sought advice from Jake Greenberg — the former chief investigations counsel for the House Oversight Committee — while preparing for the interview, according to the New York Times. Ethics experts told the Times that the arrangement could create the appearance of a revolving door between congressional investigators and high-profile witnesses, though no rules appear to have been violated. Gates joins a growing list of prominent figures questioned by the committee as part of its Epstein investigation, including former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Pam Bondi, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, retail billionaire Les Wexner, and convicted Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. With no video recording and no immediate public release of his testimony, attention is now turning to the transcript, which committee officials say will be released in the coming days and could provide the clearest account yet of Gates’ long-questioned relationship with Epstein.