The US has reached an agreement with Niger to withdraw its military forces from the African nation by September 15, according to the US Defense Department and the Nigerien Ministry of National Defense. The newly agreed deadline gives the US four months to drawdown fewer than 1,000 troops who remain in the country, as well as their equipment, which includes MQ-9 Reaper drones and other assets. But even as the deadline looms, US officials see potential for a relationship with...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is tee-ing up a second attempt at passing the bipartisan border bill — after Republicans blocked it earlier this year — a move that comes as the situation at the southern border remains top of mind for voters ahead of the November elections. Schumer announced on Sunday that the Senate will take up the bipartisan border deal as a standalone measure this week. The vote is all but certain to fail amid opposition on both sides of the aisle, but...

Morehouse College is praising its students and faculty after at least seven graduates and one faculty member sat with their backs turned to President Biden as he delivered his commencement address at the Atlanta school earlier Sunday. Morehouse said "peaceful assembly is core" to the school’s "social justice tradition," and its administration "fully supports and defends the right to peacefully protest and the expression of one’s views openly."  Given its most famous alumni...

Officials responsible for pushing forward Georgia’s Russian-style “foreign agents” law could face asset freezes and travel bans under a new bill to be presented to the U.S. Congress. A draft of the bill, seen by POLITICO, warns the governing Georgian Dream party has “increasingly and regrettably embraced a policy of accommodation with the Russian Federation” as part of an “increasingly illiberal turn.” The bill adds that Tbilisi “has openly attacked US and other western democracy promotion...

Ryanair (RYA.I), opens new tab CEO Michael O'Leary said on Monday that a "recessionary feel around Europe" could be a factor in slower-than-expected growth in airfares as the low-cost carrier posted record annual profits slightly ahead of expectations. O'Leary warned two weeks ago that summer fares would likely be lower than the 5% to 10% rise it expected as recently as late April. The airline said on Monday its fresh forecast of flat to modest year-on-year peak summer...

Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance lauded Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s crackdown on higher education and defended the controversial leader in Budapest amid bipartisan criticism in the US. “I don’t know everything he’s ever done,” Vance told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “On the university principle, the idea that taxpayers should have some influence in how their money is spent on these universities — it’s a totally reasonable thing. In February, Vance suggested Orban’s...

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In the past, popular content producers such as Joe Rogan have been maligned as being a gateway to such “rabbit hole” content. There was a lot of talk about the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA)while it was drafted and during the typical-of-the-bloc tortuous process of adoption, but now that it’s been here for a while, we’ve been getting a sense of how it is being put to use. Utilizing the European digital ID wallet to carry out age verification is just one of the fever pitch ideas here. And EU bureaucrats are trying to make sure that these controversial policies are presented as perfectly in line with how DSA was originally pitched. Related: The 2024 Digital ID and Online Age Verification Agenda The regulation was slammed by opponents as in reality a sweeping online censorship law hiding behind focused, and noble, declarations that its goal was to protect children’s well-being, fight disinformation, etc. The cold hard reality is that trying to (further) turn the screw – any which way they can – on platforms with the most reach and most influence ahead of an election is simply something that those in power, whether it’s the US or the EU, don’t seem to be able to resist.URGENT! Keep Alex Jones in the fight against the NWO! Please pray & contribute at DefendJones.com today! Here’s the European Commission (who’s current president is actively campaigning to get reappointed in the wake of next month’s European Parliament elections) opening an investigation into Meta on suspicion its flagship platforms, Facebook and Instagram, create “addictive behavior among children and damage mental health.” After all, exerting a bit more pressure on social media just before an election never hurt anybody. /s Thierry Breton, an EU commissioner who made a name for himself as a proponent of all sorts of online speech restrictions during the current, soon to expire European Commission mandate, reared his head again here: “We open formal proceedings against Meta. We are not convinced that it has done enough to comply with the DSA obligations to mitigate the risks of negative effects to the physical and mental health of young Europeans on its platforms Facebook and Instagram,” Breton said in a press release. And as the EU investigates “potential addictive impacts of the platforms (…) such as on unrealistic body image” – something not potential, but very concrete will also be under scrutiny: how effective Meta’s age verification tools are. The grounds for these suspicions lie in the (DSA). With this pro-censorship legislation, which was instituted last summer, even major tech firms can now be held liable for online malevolence from “misinformation” to shopping swindles, all the way to child endangerment. Even though pushing age verification pushes digital ID and affects everybody’s privacy on the internet, due to the nature of the technology necessary to achieve such a result – like providing your copies of government-issued identification documents – Breton made sure to appear this was purely a “think of the children” moment: “We are sparing no effort to protect our children,” Breton said. The investigation aims to substantiate the so-called “rabbit hole” effects that these platforms could have, in which they reportedly expose the youth to potentially damaging content about unrealistic physical appearances, amongst other things. The probe also aims to determine the levels of efficacy of Meta’s age-validation processes and child privacy safeguards. “We are sparing no effort to protect our children,” reinforced Breton. The “rabbit hole” narrative, which suggests that social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram can lead users down paths of addictive and potentially harmful content, brings to light significant questions, especially regarding how Meta is using algorithms to control what people see. While the European Commission’s investigation into Meta on the surface seeks to protect the mental health of minors, it also raises the problem of increased censorship on these platforms. If the commission substantiates the claims of the “rabbit hole” effect, it may prompt stringent regulatory measures aimed at curbing the exposure of harmful content to young users, but that could also bring about several behind-the-scenes algorithmic changes that suppress controversial content. In the past, popular content producers such as Joe Rogan, have been maligned as being a gateway to such “rabbit hole” content, and arguments similar to what the EU is making have been used to call for online censorship. Meta has firmly defended its position, with a spokesperson stating, “We want young people to have safe, age-appropriate experiences online and have spent a decade developing more than 50 tools and policies designed to protect them. This is a challenge the whole industry is facing, and we look forward to sharing details of our work with the European Commission.” WARNING — Viewer Discretion Advised — VIDEO: There Are Now More Slaves In Africa Than Ever Existed In The West