A Democratic politician said the investigation into the State Department’s funding of censorship projects was an election season distraction aimed at benefiting Republicans. The House Committee on Small Business held a hearing Wednesday on the “Censorship Industrial Complex”, a reference to the US government’s funding of organisations which purport to fight disinformation, but which Republicans accuse of stifling conservative speech, including that of American journalists.

The Department of Homeland Security has identified over 400 migrants who were brought to the US from Central Asia and other places by an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network — and the whereabouts of more than 50 of them are unknown, according to an unsettling report. More than 150 of the migrants have been arrested, but the locations of another 50 remain unknown, three US officials told NBC News, adding that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking to arrest those involved on...

A federal judge in California awarded over $1 million to two child siblings who were held by Customs and Border Protection in 2019 even though they are U.S. citizens, court records show. Most of that amount went to the sister, then 9, who was held in custody for around 34 hours after she and her 14-year-old brother were stopped while they were using the San Ysidro border crossing from Mexico to California. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel on Friday awarded $1.1 million to the sister; $...

Here’s the latest news about a global outbreak of H5N1 bird flu that started in 2020, and recently spread among cattle in U.S. states and marine mammals across the world, which has health officials closely monitoring it and experts concerned the virus could mutate and eventually spread to humans, where it has proven rare but deadly. Finland said it plans to begin vaccinating vulnerable populations like farm workers against bird flu as early as next week using 10,000 vaccine series—...

A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a $30 billion antitrust settlement under which Visa and Mastercard agreed to limit fees they charge merchants that accept their credit and debit cards. U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of New York Margo Brodie in Brooklyn said she was unlikely to grant final approval to the settlement and therefore denied the request for preliminary approval made by a group of merchants made up primarily of small businesses.

Last November, just weeks into the war in Gaza, Amichai Chikli, a brash, 42-year-old Likud minister in the Israeli government, was called into the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to brief lawmakers on what could be done about rising anti-war protests from young people across the United States, especially at elite universities. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again now, that I think we should, especially in the United States, be on the offensive,” argued Chikli. Chikli has...

Since the founding of the Israeli state in 1948, “Haredi” (or “ultra-Orthodox”) men have been exempted from military service to study Torah instead. Haredi students and their families would be subsidized by the state. At Israel’s founding, Haredim made up less that 3 percent of the population. The military exemption was for just 400 exceptional students. In light of the devastation of centers of Jewish learning during the Holocaust, this was not an unreasonable proposition. Even by 1975,...

Bolivian President Luis Arce announced three new heads of the South American country's armed forces following an attempted coup in which military units used armored vehicles to ram into the doors of Bolivia's government palace before the army general allegedly responsible was arrested. The news of the new heads of the army, navy and air force came amid the roar of supporters. "The country is facing an attempted coup d’état. Here we are, firm in Casa Grande, to confront any coup...

The Biomedical State exists. Its players are part of a global public health regime. It is controlled by national governments, research institutes and domestic public health authorities but it will be publicly […]

by Jack Montgomery, The National Pulse: Illegal aliens and other “non-citizens” can receive voter registration forms without needing to show proof of citizenship in at least 49 states. They can use these forms to access welfare benefits and obtain driver’s licenses and mail-in ballots. Only Arizona has passed a law preventing this—but it applies only to state forms, not federal […]