A former intelligence officer with the U.S. Army was sentenced on Wednesday to seven years in prison for selling critical military documents to an individual believed to be tied to the Chinese government. Korbein Schultz, 25, pled guilty last year to conspiring to collect and transmit national defense information, unlawfully exporting controlled information to China, and accepting bribes in exchange for sensitive government information. The sale of the documents, which included information on American military technology, took place over a three-year period from May 2022 to March 2024, according to the Justice Department.  “This defendant swore an oath to defend the United States — instead, he betrayed it for a payout and put America’s military and service members at risk,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “The Justice Department remains vigilant against China’s efforts to target our military and will ensure that those who leak military secrets spend years behind bars.” He could have faced 65 years in prison if given the maximum on all counts. Schultz was paid $42,000 for sending the information to an unidentified foreign national living in Hong Kong believed to be connected to the Chinese government. The information that he provided included his unit’s operational order before it was deployed to Eastern Europe, information applying lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war to Taiwan, technical manuals for the Army’s HH-60 helicopter and F-22A fighter aircraft, manuals on Intercontinental Ballistic Missile systems, American intelligence on the Chinese military and the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, details on American military exercises in South Korea and the Philippines, and documents on American military satellites and missile defense systems. Schultz was first contacted to sell the secrets over a freelance web-based work platform by an individual pretending to work for a geopolitical consulting firm, according to the Justice Department. The department added that Schultz attempted to recruit a friend who worked for the Department of Defense’s Indo-Pacific Command to take part in the scheme as well. The FBI’s Nashville office led the investigation, with assistance from the Department of Defense and the Army Counterintelligence Command. “This sentencing is a stark warning to those who betray our country: you will pay a steep price for it,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “The People’s Republic of China is relentless in its efforts to steal our national defense information, and service members are a prime target. The FBI and our partners will continue to root out espionage and hold those accountable who abandon their obligation to safeguard defense information from hostile foreign governments.”

Comedian Rosie O’Donnell said she was “shocked” that Ellen DeGeneres moved out of the United States when Donald Trump was re-elected. O’Donnell defected to Europe for political reasons, but didn’t think DeGeneres would do the same. “I’ve never really known Ellen to say anything political in her life, so I was surprised to read that she left because of President Trump. Like, that shocked me, actually,” O’Donnell told US Weekly in a recently published interview. “I’ve been a political person my whole life, not better or worse, it’s just a different way to be in the world.” The “Ellen” show host and Portia de Rossi moved to the English countryside last year and have sold most of their properties in the U.S., according to People, but still have at least one home that requires them to retain a “chicken sitter.”  Meanwhile, O’Donnell has been posting updates on TikTok about her reasons for leaving, which mostly have to do with concerns regarding her transgender-identifying child. She and Trump also have an ongoing feud from years back. “I was very clear about the reason why I was leaving, and I don’t think it came as a surprise to anyone,” O’Donnell told the outlet about her move to Ireland. She also referenced a former feud with DeGeneres, saying, “We’re not really in each other’s worlds, and it’s been kind of awkward but you know what? I wish her the best. I wish that she has peace and love in her life and that she is OK.” “I don’t want to fight against another gay woman,” she added. “It’s not like we’re tenaciously opposed to each other. We’re just very different people. We have had some stuff in the past that we never resolved. And not in any way as, as partners or lovers or anything like that, just as friends and comedians, but I wish her the best. I seriously do.”  O’Donnell discussed what happened between them during an appearance on “Watch What Happens Live” in 2022. “We had a little bit of a weird thing,” the comedian said at the time. “Larry King was on with Ellen and he said ‘What ever happened to Rosie O’Donnell? Her show went down the tubes! She came out as a lesbian and disappeared!'” “And Ellen said, and I’m quoting, ‘I don’t know Rosie. We’re not friends,'” she continued. O’Donnell said in 2023 that DeGeneres apologized after it happened. She also noted how it hurt because they had known each other for “years” when DeGeneres claimed not to know her.  “She wrote, ‘I’m really sorry, and I don’t remember that.’ I guess she saw me talk about it on Andy Cohen’s show,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “I remembered it so well, I had T-shirts printed and I gave them to my staff that said ‘I don’t know Rosie. We’re not friends.”

'These regulatory costs drag down the economy'

'Why aren't we talking about gun violence?'

'It literally cost somebody's life'

'Contrary to military readiness'

The State Department's Michael Anton will reportedly lead a team of specialists

Throughout 2024, the city of Athens focused on expanding urban greenery in key areas in response to several sweltering summers in a row. Featuring the planting of the city’s first micro-forest, greening has occurred in six neighborhoods as well as on the famous Acropolis. The goal was to plant 5,000 trees and shrubs in the […] The post Sweltering Athens Finally Plants Thousands of Trees and Renovates Iconic Acropolis Hills with Greenery appeared first on Good News Network.

President Donald Trump will sign a presidential memorandum Thursday launching an investigation into ActBlue for potentially illegal methods of fundraising for Democrats, The Daily Signal has learned. The memo directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate and take appropriate action concerning allegations regarding the use of online fundraising platforms to make “straw” or “dummy” contributions and to make foreign contributions to U.S. political candidates and committees. ActBlue is currently under congressional investigation for alleged laundering of foreign money.  Federal Election Commission records show that in recent elections, some elderly Americans made thousands of small donations to Democrat fundraising political committees through ActBlue, The Daily Signal previously reported. Individuals may have made numerous donations through ActBlue without their consent or knowledge that their names, addresses, and money were being used for these donations, Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., co-chair of the Election Integrity Caucus, told The Daily Signal.  The presidential memorandum notes that a congressional investigation revealed significant fraud schemes using ActBlue and, over a 30-day period during the 2024 election cycle, hundreds of ActBlue donations from foreign IP addresses using prepaid cards, despite it being illegal for foreign nationals to contribute to U.S. elections. ActBlue came under fire on Oct. 29 because of its donor-verification policies. In a letter that day to ActBlue, House Administration Committee Chairman Brian Steil, R-Wis., said foreign actors from Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and China could use the platform to launder illicit money for use in U.S. political campaigns.  The Democratic fundraising platform admitted in 2023 to Steil that it didn’t require contributors to use a card verification value, or CVV, to donate on its website with a credit card. Those security codes are meant to ensure that the person making a purchase physically possesses the credit card.  The memo instructs Bondi to report the results of the investigation to Trump through the Counsel to the President.  ActBlue may have raked in millions through fraudulent donations, according to the testimonies of elderly Americans who said federal election records do not reflect their giving, The Daily Signal has reported. Eighteen registered Democrats in Connecticut, all over the age of 70, appear to have donated $1.9 million to Democratic causes, including ActBlue, through hundreds of thousands of small donations from 2016 to 2024, according to a review of Federal Election Commission filings by Dominic Rapini, cybersecurity company CEO and a former Connecticut Republican candidate for office.  Curious about the donation patterns, Rapini tracked down some of the Connecticut residents and asked them if they really did make thousands of small donations, sometimes multiple in a day, through ActBlue. Several of the supposed donors told Rapini they did not make any of the reported donations, nor did they know anything about how their names were being used, Rapini told The Daily Signal. ActBlue did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment about the forthcoming investigation. ActBlue CEO and President Regina Wallace-Jones sent an email to Democrats on Wednesday warning about rumors of the executive order. “The current strategy of distraction and exhaustion is effective. We see this across the country and are not immune to this ourselves,” her email said, according to Punchbowl News. “The flow-on effect from the initial innuendo of the EO caused many in the ecosystem anxiety and distress.” The post Trump to Investigate Democrat Fundraising Platform Under Scrutiny for Alleged Money Laundering appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Some lawmakers are calling for President Donald Trump to help Israel strike Iran’s nuclear facilities even as foreign policy experts warn about the potential consequences of such an action.  “Ultimately, short of regime change or occupation, it’s pretty difficult to see how military strikes could destroy Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon,” Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at the British defense think tank Royal United Services Institute, told The Times of Israel.  Meanwhile, some lawmakers are proposing that now is the perfect time to strike the Iranian regime. “You’re never going to be able to negotiate with that kind of regime that has been destabilizing the region for decades already, and now we have an incredible window, I believe, to do that, to strike and destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities,” Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., told the Washington Free Beacon. Fetterman is not alone in his assessment. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has also expressed a desire to hit the Iranian regime. The comments from the Pennsylvania Democrat come as members of Trump’s foreign policy team, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Vice President JD Vance have reportedly expressed concerns about the potential fallout from a joint attack by Israel and the U.S.  According to a recent report, Israel has been planning for months to strike with the U.S. against Iran. The hope was that the attack would set back the Iranian nuclear program by about a year or possibly longer. The attack would have relied heavily on American support to be carried, out as well as to protect Israel from Iranian retaliation. But some experts have warned the attack could ultimately be counterproductive in the long run for restraining Iran’s nuclear capacity. “A strike by the United States could probably cause more damage than an Israeli strike, but in either case, you’re talking about buying time, and there’s a real risk that it drives Iran toward, rather than away from, a bomb,” explained Eric Brewer of the nonpartisan nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative.  Kelsey Davenport, the director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, cautioned that the attack could make Iran’s nuclear program even more difficult to target in the future. “What happens the day after? Iran responds to attacks on its nuclear program by hardening its facilities and expanding its program,” Davenport said.  Trump has made clear that he hopes to negotiate with Iran to prevent its development of a nuclear bomb, but did not rule out military action if the Iranian regime fails to provide meaningful checks on its nuclear program. “I think that Iran has a chance to have a great country and to live happily without death,” the president told reporters.   “That’s my first option. If there’s a second option, I think it would be very bad for Iran, and I think Iran is wanting to talk,” Trump added.  During his first term, the president pulled out of the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal that was widely criticized as capitulating to the regime of the ayatollahs. But Trump has been more reticent to enter the U.S. into conflicts it can’t confidently predict the outcome of.  James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has argued that Iran would remove international nuclear inspectors if it was attacked and move toward the completion of a bomb. “If you bomb Iran, Iran is going to almost certainly, in my judgment, chuck out international inspectors, make a dash for the bomb,” Acton told The Times of Israel. Editor’s note: This article has been updated since publication. The post Foreign Policy Experts Warn Against Attack on Iran’s Nuke Facilities appeared first on The Daily Signal.