PM Anthony Albanese stated during a press conference: “Social media platforms have a responsibility to make sure that misinformation [doesn’t get] out there…

“Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?” Musk posted in response, also writing that “if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?”

… Without using natural proteins, the Freeman Lab built cells with functional cytoskeletons that can change shape and react to their surroundings. To do this, they used a new programmable peptide-DNA technology that directs peptides, the building blocks of proteins, and repurposed genetic material to work together to form a cytoskeleton.

The announcement marks an end to long, painful battle with Republicans in Congress over urgently needed assistance for Ukraine.

“We rose to the moment. we came together. and we got it done,” Biden said at White House event to announce the signing. “Now we need to move fast, and we are,”

But significant damage has been done to the Biden administration’s effort to help Ukraine repel Russia’s brutal invasion during the funding impasse that dates back to August, when the Democratic president made his first emergency spending request for Ukraine aid. Even with a burst of new weapons and ammunition, it is unlikely Ukraine will immediately recover after months of setbacks.

Excerpt from lidblog.com Biden has placed a serious economic burden on every American with the soar prices due to Bidenflation and gas prices have been particularly bad under the destruction of Bidenomics, with prices soaring higher than in the last seven years… From January 2021 to this month, electricity prices rose from $0.14 per kilowatt-hour to $0.17 — a 28% boost, according to the report. And gasoline prices, while down from their 2022 peak, are still 52.1% higher today than when Biden took the White House, Fox Business reported. Biden is killing us. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston  

Excerpt from humanevents.com The Prime Minister of Australia declared during a press conference on Wednesday that social media platforms have “a responsibility” to remove memes of him from the internet. PM Anthony Albanese stated during a press conference: “Social media platforms have a responsibility to make sure that misinformation [doesn’t get] out there… “Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?” Musk posted in response, also writing that “if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?”  

Excerpt from legalinsurrection.com Columbia President Nemak Shafik set a midnight deadline to clear out the anti-Israel encampment that shut down the school to virtual or hybrid classes. Then Shafik extended the clearing out to 8 AM. Now? 48-hour extension for negotiations. What a coward. Message from Columbia President Shafik early this morning announcing a 48-hour extension for negotiations with protestors: https://t.co/PnUDvTfHZ6 pic.twitter.com/Ae9I0K7cLn — Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) April 24, 2024  

Excerpt from abcnews.go.com WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s prosecutor general told the parliament on Wednesday that powerful Pegasus spyware was used against hundreds of people during the former government in Poland, among them elected officials. Adam Bodnar told lawmakers that he found the scale of the surveillance “shocking and depressing.” “It is sad for me that even in this room I am speaking to people who were victims of this system,” Bodnar told the Sejm, the lower house of parliament.

Excerpt from freebeacon.com House lawmakers called on the IRS to investigate U.S.-based anti-Israel activist groups that have financial links to China, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon on Wednesday. Members of the House Ways and Means Committee said they are concerned that “foreign adversaries are taking advantage of loopholes to impact American political activity with little-to-no transparency.” The letter follows reports connecting the Chinese government to a network of U.S.-based nonprofit groups. The People’s Forum, a group that helped organize anti-Israel walkouts in New York City public schools, is bankrolled by Chinese propagandist and tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, the New York Times reported last year. The organization encouraged student protesters to shout anti-Semitic chants, such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan that calls for the elimination of the Jewish state. “Not only do these activities raise serious national security concerns, but they also raise questions about whether organizations like this receive foreign funding from America’s adversaries and whether the Internal Revenue Service (‘IRS’) is conducting oversight of entities like these,” wrote the lawmakers in a letter to IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel.

Excerpt from thenationalpulse.com President Joe Biden appeared to bless abortions with the sign of the Cross, as well as mock the Bible in Florida on Tuesday. Christians expressed outrage after the incidents and questioned Biden’s claimed Catholic faith. While Biden was being introduced to campaign volunteers in Tampa, Florida Democratic Party chairwoman Nikki Fried began discussing state abortion policy. Biden crossed himself ostentatiously during the remarks. “His gesture openly mocks the Christian belief in the sanctity of life. There is no divine support for destroying the lives of innocent children, and he should know better,” said Brian Burch, President of CatholicVote, of the incident. At a ‘Restore Roe’ rally the same day, the Democrat also mocked Lee Greenwood’s Trump-endorsed ‘God Bless the USA’ series of Bibles… “[Trump] said there has to be punishment for women exercising their reproductive freedom… maybe it’s coming from that Bible he’s trying to sell. I almost wanted to buy one just to see what the hell is in it,” Biden jeered.  

UNC-Chapel Hill researchers, led by Ronit Freeman, claim to have developed a process to create cells by manipulating DNA and proteins that look and act like living cells from the human body. The breakthrough has ramifications in multiple medical disciplines, including regenerative medicine. Freeman exclaimed, “With this discovery, we can think of engineering fabrics or tissues that can be sensitive to changes in their environment and behave in dynamic ways… DNA does not normally appear in a cytoskeleton. We reprogrammed sequences of DNA so that it acts as an architectural material, binding the peptides together. Once this programmed material was placed in a droplet of water, the structures took shape.” Excerpt from www.sciencedaily.com In a new study published in Nature Chemistry, UNC-Chapel Hill researcher Ronit Freeman and her colleagues describe the steps they took to manipulate DNA and proteins — essential building blocks of life — to create cells that look and act like cells from the body. This accomplishment, a first in the field, has implications for efforts in regenerative medicine, drug delivery systems, and diagnostic tools. … Without using natural proteins, the Freeman Lab built cells with functional cytoskeletons that can change shape and react to their surroundings. To do this, they used a new programmable peptide-DNA technology that directs peptides, the building blocks of proteins, and repurposed genetic material to work together to form a cytoskeleton.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, has suspended his duties for further notice while he ponders whether or not he will continue to serve in office. The move comes after it was announced by a Spanish court they would be launching a corruption investigation into his wife, Begona Gomez. The PM is already facing a slim majority coalition government with a member, the Catalan faction, that is not very popular with other members of his faction. He posted on X, “I need to pause and think. I urgently need an answer to the question of whether it is worthwhile (…) whether I should continue to lead the government or renounce this honour,” Excerpt from timesofindia.indiatimes.com MADRID: Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday he will suspend public duties until next week to decide whether he wants to continue leading the government after a court launched a probe of his wife. “I need to pause and think,” Sanchez in a letter shared on his X account. “I urgently need an answer to the question of whether it is worthwhile (…) whether I should continue to lead the government or renounce this honour,” he wrote. He said he would appear before the media on Monday to announce his decision.

An unnamed Washington D.C. police officer was disciplined for violating the rules of conduct for undercover work. The officer allegedly participated with other officers in instigating the crowds on January 6, 2021, at the White House, even chanting at one point “Whose house? Our house?” So far, DC police have only admitted to having 12 officers planted among the crowd. The details of the discipline or the officer were not forthcoming. A spokesperson stated, “In this specific case, the summary incorrectly characterized the allegations. We are unable to provide additional details regarding the discipline served, than what is listed in the document, due to employee privacy laws.” Excerpt from conservativeroof.com A police officer in Washington faced disciplinary action after violating rules guiding the conduct of undercover law enforcement, according to Washington’s police department. The investigator “was disciplined for violating general orders relating to undercover operations” during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a spokesperson with the Metropolitan Police Department revealed.  

The Federal Reserve appears to have hit a negative mark in its available capital after suffering a loss of $164 billion, leaving it $121 billion in the hole. The Fed has been suffering capital loss due to having interest rate risk losses that began in 2022. Excerpt from www.nysun.com Hold up your hand if you think that the aggregate losses of an organization are an asset of that organization. No hands at all? Absolutely right. Losses are not an asset. That’s accounting 101. Yet the greatest central bank in the world, the Federal Reserve, insists on claiming that its continuing losses, which have accumulated to the staggering sum of $164 billion, are an accounting asset. The Fed seeks to palm off this accounting entry as a “Deferred Asset.” Why does the Fed do this, which perhaps makes it look tricky instead of majestic? Because it does not want to report that it has lost all its $43 billion in capital and now has negative capital. The inevitable arithmetic is plain: start with the Fed’s $43 billion in capital, lose $164 billion, and the capital has inescapably become negative $121 billion. The Fed is not pleased with this answer. In addition to its “Deferred Asset” gambit, it frequently and publicly asserts that negative capital does not matter if you are a money-printing central bank. The idea seems to be that a central bank can always print up more money. The Fed further declares that it is not in business to maximize profits. Even were all this true, it fails to change the correct capital number: negative $121 billion… The Fed ran an exceptionally risky balance sheet with little capital. The key vulnerability was and is interest rate risk, the same risk that caused the failure of the savings and loans in the 1980s. The Fed’s capital was a mere 0.5 percent of its total assets. When the Fed incurred big interest rate risk losses starting in 2022, it rapidly lost all its capital because it had so little capital to begin with.    

According to Capt. Thomas Wheatley, an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a 2020 Equal Opportunity law empowers the military to court martial soldiers that refuse to use the preferred pronouns of other soldiers. Wheatley is warning Congress to fix the problem before it begins to be exploited (if it hasn’t been already). He said the military “is right to want to protect the rights and welfare of its transgender service members. But it owes the same protection to those who share a different perspective on the issue, especially when that perspective is a deep-seated expression of personal conscience.” Excerpt from lidblog.com According to a review of the Biden Pentagon’s rules, it appears that soldiers could find themselves arrested and punished if they refuse to use a transgender or otherwise mentally confused soldier’s fake “pronouns.”… Per the Daily Caller: A 2020 Equal Opportunity law opened the door for commanders to subject someone who refuses to affirm a transgender servicemember’s so-called gender identity to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) for charges related to harassment, Capt. Thomas Wheatley, an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Such a move would likely infringe on a servicemember’s constitutional rights to uphold their conscience, but it might not prevent leaders from employing more subtle ways of disciplining service members.

President Joe Biden signed a bill that passed the Johnson House and DNC Senate that both bans TikTok and provides $95 million military funding for Ukraine and Israel. Biden said of the signing, “We rose to the moment. we came together. and we got it done. Now we need to move fast, and we are.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel (R-KY) was not kind to his fellow Republicans in the House, saying, “Make no mistake: Delay in providing Ukraine the weapons to defend itself has strained the prospects of defeating Russian aggression. Dithering and hesitation have compounded the challenges we face.” Excerpt from www.breitbart.com WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed into law Wednesday a $95 billion war aid measure that includes aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that also includes a provision that would force social media site TikTok to be sold or be banned in U.S. The announcement marks an end to long, painful battle with Republicans in Congress over urgently needed assistance for Ukraine. “We rose to the moment. we came together. and we got it done,” Biden said at White House event to announce the signing. “Now we need to move fast, and we are,” But significant damage has been done to the Biden administration’s effort to help Ukraine repel Russia’s brutal invasion during the funding impasse that dates back to August, when the Democratic president made his first emergency spending request for Ukraine aid. Even with a burst of new weapons and ammunition, it is unlikely Ukraine will immediately recover after months of setbacks.

Excerpt from USA Today Officials said Maxwell Azzarello from St. Augustine, Florida, walked into the park across from the courthouse, threw the pamphlets down and set himself ablaze…Shortly before 11 p.m., hospital staff pronounced him dead, police Detective Sophia Mason told USA TODAY…’ “The pamphlets seem to be propaganda-based, almost like a conspiracy theory type of pamphlet, some information in regards to Ponzi schemes, and the fact that some of our local educational institutes are fronts for the Mob, so a little bit of conspiracy theory going on there,” Kenny said… “To my friends and family, witnesses and first responders, I deeply apologize for inflicting this pain upon you,” the post reads. “But I assure you it is a drop in the bucket compared to what our government intends to inflict.”  

Excerpt from www.realclearpolitics.com California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna told ABC’s “This Week” that he and “a few progressive Democrats” would vote to keep Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson in power through the end of this year if GOP hardliners like Marjorie Taylor Greene try to force him from power. “I would actually vote to table any motion to vacate him,” Khanna said. “I’m a progressive Democrat and I think you would have a few progressive Democrats doing that. And I disagree with Speaker Johnson on many issues and have been very critical of him. But he did the right thing here and he deserves to keep his job until the end of his term.” JON KARL: After a busy and dramatic day on Capitol Hill, I’m joined now by Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. Congressman Khanna, does Speaker Johnson deserve credit for how this played out? REP. RO KHANNA: He does. Look, we came into Congress together and he always cared about civility. He actually led the civility pledge. We had one issue, which was give individual votes. Don’t lump things together. And I give him credit for doing this. I would actually vote to table any motion to vacate him. You know, Congressman McCaul quoted Churchill. One of the things Churchill said is that America always exhausted every wrong option until doing the right thing. And this shows that American democracy still is very strong. KARL: OK, you just said something significant. You said you would oppose the tabled – the motion to vacate. In other words, you will protect Speaker Johnson’s job if Marjorie Taylor Greene and the others go through with their threat to try to remove him? KHANNA: I would, though the end of the term. I expect Speaker Pelosi — Speaker Jeffries will be there in 2025. But look, I’m a progressive Democrat and I think you would have a few progressive Democrats doing that. And I disagree with Speaker Johnson on many issues and have been very critical of him. But he did the right thing here and he deserves to keep his job until the end of his term. KARL: Now, would you and fellow Democrats that will protect him at this moment ask him anything in return? I mean do we effectively have – you heard me ask Congressman McCaul, a coalition government in the House? KHANNA: I’ll leave the negotiations to Speaker Jeffries. But I don’t think everything in politics needs to be transactional. I think here you have Speaker Johnson, who not only put this up for a vote, but he also separated the bills, which I thought was courageous. He let people vote their conscience on Taiwan, on the offensive aid to Israel, on – on Ukraine. And I give him credit for that. Excerpt from www.axios.com Weeks of threats to oust Johnson over Ukraine aid fizzled Saturday when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene left town without pulling the trigger. Why it matters: Greene is still talking the talk, but momentum for an ouster effort against Speaker Mike Johnson that seemed certain now has no timeline and no new endorsers. Greene said she will “go home and hear from their constituents” before making her decision following weeks of threats to force a vote to oust him. “He needs to do the right thing and resign … If he doesn’t do so, he will be vacated,” Greene said Sunday on Fox News. “When John Boehner was replaced, it wasn’t by a motion to vacate on the floor” but rather his pre-announced resignation, said Rep. Thomas Massie, who joined Greene on the motion to vacate.    

Excerpt from www.reuters.com Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu’s party earned a landslide victory in parliamentary elections, local media reported on Monday, a result set to move the Indian Ocean archipelago closer to China and away from traditional partner India. Muizzu’s People’s National Congress (PNC) won 71 of the 93 seats available on Sunday, preliminary results from the Maldives Elections Commission and media projections showed. The PNC together with its coalition parties holds 75 seats in total while the main opposition Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) dwindled to only 12 seats from 65 previously. Jubilant voters celebrated with party poppers and cut cakes in their constituencies. Official PNC celebrations were due to start in the evening with a rally in Male. Both Beijing and New Delhi have wooed the Maldives as they vie for influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Excerpt from www.cbc.ca Elon Musk lashed out at Australia’s prime minister on Tuesday after a court ordered his social media company X to take down footage of an alleged terrorist attack in Sydney, and said the ruling meant any country could control “the entire internet.” At a hearing overnight, Australia’s Federal Court ordered X, formerly called Twitter, to temporarily hide posts showing video of the incident earlier this month, in which a teenager was charged with terrorism for knifing an Assyrian priest and others. X said it had already blocked the posts from Australian users, but Australia’s e-safety commissioner had said the content should be taken down since it showed explicit violence. “Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?” Musk wrote in a post, referring to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. … “if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire internet?”  

Excerpt from www.nextgov.com The Department of Health and Human Services released a final rule on the data privacy provisions for reproductive health care information deemed individually identifiable on Monday, finalizing the initiative to further protect this information in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturn of the 1973 landmark court decision in Roe v. Wade. HHS first took steps to codify the safeguarding of protected health indicators — or PHI — at the digital level in 2023 with a proposed rule. Today’s final rule will extend the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 Privacy Rule to protect patient confidentiality and access to reproductive data unless authorized in select cases. … Under the rule, PHI disclosures to law enforcement will only be permitted in response to legal authorities, namely administrative subpoenas or summons, a civil summons, a civil or an authorized investigative demand or other legal processes. … The rule is expressly designed to put some checks on the ability of law enforcement officials in states that restrict or ban abortion to obtain health records on residents who may have obtained abortions or covered reproductive care in other states. “This does not foreclose the ability of state officials to investigate the circumstances surrounding the provision of…reproductive health care, including through the collection of information from sources that are not regulated under HIPAA, to determine whether a health care provider or other person may have acted unlawfully,” the rule states. “Rather, this final rule prohibits the use or disclosure of PHI when it is being used to investigate or impose liability on a person for the mere act of seeking, obtaining, providing, or facilitating lawful reproductive health care, or to identify any person to initiate such activities.”

Go to Article Excerpt from financialpost.com The Hungarian government signaled backing for a reported sponsorship deal between Russia’s Gazprom PJSC and the country’s top soccer team, an agreement that would spotlight Budapest’s efforts to maintain ties with Moscow… Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, which is nearly alone among European Union member states in maintaining ties with Russia, responded by saying it embraced fresh investment in the country. “The more international companies that invest in Hungarian sports the better,” the Foreign Ministry in Budapest said in a statement to Bloomberg. Ferencvaros, which has an insurmountable lead in the home stretch of the Hungarian football championships, is on track to win its sixth straight and 35th overall national football title. … Hungary last year secured a deal with Gazprom to expand gas flows from Russia even as many of its EU peers moved to reduce or eliminate their dependence on Moscow for energy.  

Excerpt from lidblog.com Biden has placed a serious economic burden on every American with the soar prices due to Bidenflation and gas prices have been particularly bad under the destruction of Bidenomics, with prices soaring higher than in the last seven years… From January 2021 to this month, electricity prices rose from $0.14 per kilowatt-hour to $0.17 — a 28% boost, according to the report. And gasoline prices, while down from their 2022 peak, are still 52.1% higher today than when Biden took the White House, Fox Business reported. Biden is killing us. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston  

Excerpt from humanevents.com The Prime Minister of Australia declared during a press conference on Wednesday that social media platforms have “a responsibility” to remove memes of him from the internet. PM Anthony Albanese stated during a press conference: “Social media platforms have a responsibility to make sure that misinformation [doesn’t get] out there… “Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?” Musk posted in response, also writing that “if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?”  

Excerpt from legalinsurrection.com Columbia President Nemak Shafik set a midnight deadline to clear out the anti-Israel encampment that shut down the school to virtual or hybrid classes. Then Shafik extended the clearing out to 8 AM. Now? 48-hour extension for negotiations. What a coward. Message from Columbia President Shafik early this morning announcing a 48-hour extension for negotiations with protestors: https://t.co/PnUDvTfHZ6 pic.twitter.com/Ae9I0K7cLn — Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) April 24, 2024  

Excerpt from abcnews.go.com WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s prosecutor general told the parliament on Wednesday that powerful Pegasus spyware was used against hundreds of people during the former government in Poland, among them elected officials. Adam Bodnar told lawmakers that he found the scale of the surveillance “shocking and depressing.” “It is sad for me that even in this room I am speaking to people who were victims of this system,” Bodnar told the Sejm, the lower house of parliament.

Excerpt from freebeacon.com House lawmakers called on the IRS to investigate U.S.-based anti-Israel activist groups that have financial links to China, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon on Wednesday. Members of the House Ways and Means Committee said they are concerned that “foreign adversaries are taking advantage of loopholes to impact American political activity with little-to-no transparency.” The letter follows reports connecting the Chinese government to a network of U.S.-based nonprofit groups. The People’s Forum, a group that helped organize anti-Israel walkouts in New York City public schools, is bankrolled by Chinese propagandist and tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, the New York Times reported last year. The organization encouraged student protesters to shout anti-Semitic chants, such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan that calls for the elimination of the Jewish state. “Not only do these activities raise serious national security concerns, but they also raise questions about whether organizations like this receive foreign funding from America’s adversaries and whether the Internal Revenue Service (‘IRS’) is conducting oversight of entities like these,” wrote the lawmakers in a letter to IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel.

Excerpt from thenationalpulse.com President Joe Biden appeared to bless abortions with the sign of the Cross, as well as mock the Bible in Florida on Tuesday. Christians expressed outrage after the incidents and questioned Biden’s claimed Catholic faith. While Biden was being introduced to campaign volunteers in Tampa, Florida Democratic Party chairwoman Nikki Fried began discussing state abortion policy. Biden crossed himself ostentatiously during the remarks. “His gesture openly mocks the Christian belief in the sanctity of life. There is no divine support for destroying the lives of innocent children, and he should know better,” said Brian Burch, President of CatholicVote, of the incident. At a ‘Restore Roe’ rally the same day, the Democrat also mocked Lee Greenwood’s Trump-endorsed ‘God Bless the USA’ series of Bibles… “[Trump] said there has to be punishment for women exercising their reproductive freedom… maybe it’s coming from that Bible he’s trying to sell. I almost wanted to buy one just to see what the hell is in it,” Biden jeered.  

UNC-Chapel Hill researchers, led by Ronit Freeman, claim to have developed a process to create cells by manipulating DNA and proteins that look and act like living cells from the human body. The breakthrough has ramifications in multiple medical disciplines, including regenerative medicine. Freeman exclaimed, “With this discovery, we can think of engineering fabrics or tissues that can be sensitive to changes in their environment and behave in dynamic ways… DNA does not normally appear in a cytoskeleton. We reprogrammed sequences of DNA so that it acts as an architectural material, binding the peptides together. Once this programmed material was placed in a droplet of water, the structures took shape.” Excerpt from www.sciencedaily.com In a new study published in Nature Chemistry, UNC-Chapel Hill researcher Ronit Freeman and her colleagues describe the steps they took to manipulate DNA and proteins — essential building blocks of life — to create cells that look and act like cells from the body. This accomplishment, a first in the field, has implications for efforts in regenerative medicine, drug delivery systems, and diagnostic tools. … Without using natural proteins, the Freeman Lab built cells with functional cytoskeletons that can change shape and react to their surroundings. To do this, they used a new programmable peptide-DNA technology that directs peptides, the building blocks of proteins, and repurposed genetic material to work together to form a cytoskeleton.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, has suspended his duties for further notice while he ponders whether or not he will continue to serve in office. The move comes after it was announced by a Spanish court they would be launching a corruption investigation into his wife, Begona Gomez. The PM is already facing a slim majority coalition government with a member, the Catalan faction, that is not very popular with other members of his faction. He posted on X, “I need to pause and think. I urgently need an answer to the question of whether it is worthwhile (…) whether I should continue to lead the government or renounce this honour,” Excerpt from timesofindia.indiatimes.com MADRID: Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday he will suspend public duties until next week to decide whether he wants to continue leading the government after a court launched a probe of his wife. “I need to pause and think,” Sanchez in a letter shared on his X account. “I urgently need an answer to the question of whether it is worthwhile (…) whether I should continue to lead the government or renounce this honour,” he wrote. He said he would appear before the media on Monday to announce his decision.

An unnamed Washington D.C. police officer was disciplined for violating the rules of conduct for undercover work. The officer allegedly participated with other officers in instigating the crowds on January 6, 2021, at the White House, even chanting at one point “Whose house? Our house?” So far, DC police have only admitted to having 12 officers planted among the crowd. The details of the discipline or the officer were not forthcoming. A spokesperson stated, “In this specific case, the summary incorrectly characterized the allegations. We are unable to provide additional details regarding the discipline served, than what is listed in the document, due to employee privacy laws.” Excerpt from conservativeroof.com A police officer in Washington faced disciplinary action after violating rules guiding the conduct of undercover law enforcement, according to Washington’s police department. The investigator “was disciplined for violating general orders relating to undercover operations” during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a spokesperson with the Metropolitan Police Department revealed.  

The Federal Reserve appears to have hit a negative mark in its available capital after suffering a loss of $164 billion, leaving it $121 billion in the hole. The Fed has been suffering capital loss due to having interest rate risk losses that began in 2022. Excerpt from www.nysun.com Hold up your hand if you think that the aggregate losses of an organization are an asset of that organization. No hands at all? Absolutely right. Losses are not an asset. That’s accounting 101. Yet the greatest central bank in the world, the Federal Reserve, insists on claiming that its continuing losses, which have accumulated to the staggering sum of $164 billion, are an accounting asset. The Fed seeks to palm off this accounting entry as a “Deferred Asset.” Why does the Fed do this, which perhaps makes it look tricky instead of majestic? Because it does not want to report that it has lost all its $43 billion in capital and now has negative capital. The inevitable arithmetic is plain: start with the Fed’s $43 billion in capital, lose $164 billion, and the capital has inescapably become negative $121 billion. The Fed is not pleased with this answer. In addition to its “Deferred Asset” gambit, it frequently and publicly asserts that negative capital does not matter if you are a money-printing central bank. The idea seems to be that a central bank can always print up more money. The Fed further declares that it is not in business to maximize profits. Even were all this true, it fails to change the correct capital number: negative $121 billion… The Fed ran an exceptionally risky balance sheet with little capital. The key vulnerability was and is interest rate risk, the same risk that caused the failure of the savings and loans in the 1980s. The Fed’s capital was a mere 0.5 percent of its total assets. When the Fed incurred big interest rate risk losses starting in 2022, it rapidly lost all its capital because it had so little capital to begin with.    

According to Capt. Thomas Wheatley, an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a 2020 Equal Opportunity law empowers the military to court martial soldiers that refuse to use the preferred pronouns of other soldiers. Wheatley is warning Congress to fix the problem before it begins to be exploited (if it hasn’t been already). He said the military “is right to want to protect the rights and welfare of its transgender service members. But it owes the same protection to those who share a different perspective on the issue, especially when that perspective is a deep-seated expression of personal conscience.” Excerpt from lidblog.com According to a review of the Biden Pentagon’s rules, it appears that soldiers could find themselves arrested and punished if they refuse to use a transgender or otherwise mentally confused soldier’s fake “pronouns.”… Per the Daily Caller: A 2020 Equal Opportunity law opened the door for commanders to subject someone who refuses to affirm a transgender servicemember’s so-called gender identity to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) for charges related to harassment, Capt. Thomas Wheatley, an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Such a move would likely infringe on a servicemember’s constitutional rights to uphold their conscience, but it might not prevent leaders from employing more subtle ways of disciplining service members.

President Joe Biden signed a bill that passed the Johnson House and DNC Senate that both bans TikTok and provides $95 million military funding for Ukraine and Israel. Biden said of the signing, “We rose to the moment. we came together. and we got it done. Now we need to move fast, and we are.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel (R-KY) was not kind to his fellow Republicans in the House, saying, “Make no mistake: Delay in providing Ukraine the weapons to defend itself has strained the prospects of defeating Russian aggression. Dithering and hesitation have compounded the challenges we face.” Excerpt from www.breitbart.com WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed into law Wednesday a $95 billion war aid measure that includes aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that also includes a provision that would force social media site TikTok to be sold or be banned in U.S. The announcement marks an end to long, painful battle with Republicans in Congress over urgently needed assistance for Ukraine. “We rose to the moment. we came together. and we got it done,” Biden said at White House event to announce the signing. “Now we need to move fast, and we are,” But significant damage has been done to the Biden administration’s effort to help Ukraine repel Russia’s brutal invasion during the funding impasse that dates back to August, when the Democratic president made his first emergency spending request for Ukraine aid. Even with a burst of new weapons and ammunition, it is unlikely Ukraine will immediately recover after months of setbacks.

Excerpt from USA Today Officials said Maxwell Azzarello from St. Augustine, Florida, walked into the park across from the courthouse, threw the pamphlets down and set himself ablaze…Shortly before 11 p.m., hospital staff pronounced him dead, police Detective Sophia Mason told USA TODAY…’ “The pamphlets seem to be propaganda-based, almost like a conspiracy theory type of pamphlet, some information in regards to Ponzi schemes, and the fact that some of our local educational institutes are fronts for the Mob, so a little bit of conspiracy theory going on there,” Kenny said… “To my friends and family, witnesses and first responders, I deeply apologize for inflicting this pain upon you,” the post reads. “But I assure you it is a drop in the bucket compared to what our government intends to inflict.”  

Excerpt from www.realclearpolitics.com California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna told ABC’s “This Week” that he and “a few progressive Democrats” would vote to keep Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson in power through the end of this year if GOP hardliners like Marjorie Taylor Greene try to force him from power. “I would actually vote to table any motion to vacate him,” Khanna said. “I’m a progressive Democrat and I think you would have a few progressive Democrats doing that. And I disagree with Speaker Johnson on many issues and have been very critical of him. But he did the right thing here and he deserves to keep his job until the end of his term.” JON KARL: After a busy and dramatic day on Capitol Hill, I’m joined now by Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. Congressman Khanna, does Speaker Johnson deserve credit for how this played out? REP. RO KHANNA: He does. Look, we came into Congress together and he always cared about civility. He actually led the civility pledge. We had one issue, which was give individual votes. Don’t lump things together. And I give him credit for doing this. I would actually vote to table any motion to vacate him. You know, Congressman McCaul quoted Churchill. One of the things Churchill said is that America always exhausted every wrong option until doing the right thing. And this shows that American democracy still is very strong. KARL: OK, you just said something significant. You said you would oppose the tabled – the motion to vacate. In other words, you will protect Speaker Johnson’s job if Marjorie Taylor Greene and the others go through with their threat to try to remove him? KHANNA: I would, though the end of the term. I expect Speaker Pelosi — Speaker Jeffries will be there in 2025. But look, I’m a progressive Democrat and I think you would have a few progressive Democrats doing that. And I disagree with Speaker Johnson on many issues and have been very critical of him. But he did the right thing here and he deserves to keep his job until the end of his term. KARL: Now, would you and fellow Democrats that will protect him at this moment ask him anything in return? I mean do we effectively have – you heard me ask Congressman McCaul, a coalition government in the House? KHANNA: I’ll leave the negotiations to Speaker Jeffries. But I don’t think everything in politics needs to be transactional. I think here you have Speaker Johnson, who not only put this up for a vote, but he also separated the bills, which I thought was courageous. He let people vote their conscience on Taiwan, on the offensive aid to Israel, on – on Ukraine. And I give him credit for that. Excerpt from www.axios.com Weeks of threats to oust Johnson over Ukraine aid fizzled Saturday when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene left town without pulling the trigger. Why it matters: Greene is still talking the talk, but momentum for an ouster effort against Speaker Mike Johnson that seemed certain now has no timeline and no new endorsers. Greene said she will “go home and hear from their constituents” before making her decision following weeks of threats to force a vote to oust him. “He needs to do the right thing and resign … If he doesn’t do so, he will be vacated,” Greene said Sunday on Fox News. “When John Boehner was replaced, it wasn’t by a motion to vacate on the floor” but rather his pre-announced resignation, said Rep. Thomas Massie, who joined Greene on the motion to vacate.    

Excerpt from www.reuters.com Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu’s party earned a landslide victory in parliamentary elections, local media reported on Monday, a result set to move the Indian Ocean archipelago closer to China and away from traditional partner India. Muizzu’s People’s National Congress (PNC) won 71 of the 93 seats available on Sunday, preliminary results from the Maldives Elections Commission and media projections showed. The PNC together with its coalition parties holds 75 seats in total while the main opposition Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) dwindled to only 12 seats from 65 previously. Jubilant voters celebrated with party poppers and cut cakes in their constituencies. Official PNC celebrations were due to start in the evening with a rally in Male. Both Beijing and New Delhi have wooed the Maldives as they vie for influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Excerpt from www.cbc.ca Elon Musk lashed out at Australia’s prime minister on Tuesday after a court ordered his social media company X to take down footage of an alleged terrorist attack in Sydney, and said the ruling meant any country could control “the entire internet.” At a hearing overnight, Australia’s Federal Court ordered X, formerly called Twitter, to temporarily hide posts showing video of the incident earlier this month, in which a teenager was charged with terrorism for knifing an Assyrian priest and others. X said it had already blocked the posts from Australian users, but Australia’s e-safety commissioner had said the content should be taken down since it showed explicit violence. “Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?” Musk wrote in a post, referring to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. … “if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire internet?”  

Excerpt from www.nextgov.com The Department of Health and Human Services released a final rule on the data privacy provisions for reproductive health care information deemed individually identifiable on Monday, finalizing the initiative to further protect this information in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturn of the 1973 landmark court decision in Roe v. Wade. HHS first took steps to codify the safeguarding of protected health indicators — or PHI — at the digital level in 2023 with a proposed rule. Today’s final rule will extend the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 Privacy Rule to protect patient confidentiality and access to reproductive data unless authorized in select cases. … Under the rule, PHI disclosures to law enforcement will only be permitted in response to legal authorities, namely administrative subpoenas or summons, a civil summons, a civil or an authorized investigative demand or other legal processes. … The rule is expressly designed to put some checks on the ability of law enforcement officials in states that restrict or ban abortion to obtain health records on residents who may have obtained abortions or covered reproductive care in other states. “This does not foreclose the ability of state officials to investigate the circumstances surrounding the provision of…reproductive health care, including through the collection of information from sources that are not regulated under HIPAA, to determine whether a health care provider or other person may have acted unlawfully,” the rule states. “Rather, this final rule prohibits the use or disclosure of PHI when it is being used to investigate or impose liability on a person for the mere act of seeking, obtaining, providing, or facilitating lawful reproductive health care, or to identify any person to initiate such activities.”

Go to Article Excerpt from financialpost.com The Hungarian government signaled backing for a reported sponsorship deal between Russia’s Gazprom PJSC and the country’s top soccer team, an agreement that would spotlight Budapest’s efforts to maintain ties with Moscow… Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, which is nearly alone among European Union member states in maintaining ties with Russia, responded by saying it embraced fresh investment in the country. “The more international companies that invest in Hungarian sports the better,” the Foreign Ministry in Budapest said in a statement to Bloomberg. Ferencvaros, which has an insurmountable lead in the home stretch of the Hungarian football championships, is on track to win its sixth straight and 35th overall national football title. … Hungary last year secured a deal with Gazprom to expand gas flows from Russia even as many of its EU peers moved to reduce or eliminate their dependence on Moscow for energy.  

Excerpt from lidblog.com Biden has placed a serious economic burden on every American with the soar prices due to Bidenflation and gas prices have been particularly bad under the destruction of Bidenomics, with prices soaring higher than in the last seven years… From January 2021 to this month, electricity prices rose from $0.14 per kilowatt-hour to $0.17 — a 28% boost, according to the report. And gasoline prices, while down from their 2022 peak, are still 52.1% higher today than when Biden took the White House, Fox Business reported. Biden is killing us. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston  

Excerpt from humanevents.com The Prime Minister of Australia declared during a press conference on Wednesday that social media platforms have “a responsibility” to remove memes of him from the internet. PM Anthony Albanese stated during a press conference: “Social media platforms have a responsibility to make sure that misinformation [doesn’t get] out there… “Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?” Musk posted in response, also writing that “if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?”  

Excerpt from legalinsurrection.com Columbia President Nemak Shafik set a midnight deadline to clear out the anti-Israel encampment that shut down the school to virtual or hybrid classes. Then Shafik extended the clearing out to 8 AM. Now? 48-hour extension for negotiations. What a coward. Message from Columbia President Shafik early this morning announcing a 48-hour extension for negotiations with protestors: https://t.co/PnUDvTfHZ6 pic.twitter.com/Ae9I0K7cLn — Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) April 24, 2024  

Excerpt from abcnews.go.com WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s prosecutor general told the parliament on Wednesday that powerful Pegasus spyware was used against hundreds of people during the former government in Poland, among them elected officials. Adam Bodnar told lawmakers that he found the scale of the surveillance “shocking and depressing.” “It is sad for me that even in this room I am speaking to people who were victims of this system,” Bodnar told the Sejm, the lower house of parliament.

Excerpt from freebeacon.com House lawmakers called on the IRS to investigate U.S.-based anti-Israel activist groups that have financial links to China, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon on Wednesday. Members of the House Ways and Means Committee said they are concerned that “foreign adversaries are taking advantage of loopholes to impact American political activity with little-to-no transparency.” The letter follows reports connecting the Chinese government to a network of U.S.-based nonprofit groups. The People’s Forum, a group that helped organize anti-Israel walkouts in New York City public schools, is bankrolled by Chinese propagandist and tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, the New York Times reported last year. The organization encouraged student protesters to shout anti-Semitic chants, such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan that calls for the elimination of the Jewish state. “Not only do these activities raise serious national security concerns, but they also raise questions about whether organizations like this receive foreign funding from America’s adversaries and whether the Internal Revenue Service (‘IRS’) is conducting oversight of entities like these,” wrote the lawmakers in a letter to IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel.

Excerpt from thenationalpulse.com President Joe Biden appeared to bless abortions with the sign of the Cross, as well as mock the Bible in Florida on Tuesday. Christians expressed outrage after the incidents and questioned Biden’s claimed Catholic faith. While Biden was being introduced to campaign volunteers in Tampa, Florida Democratic Party chairwoman Nikki Fried began discussing state abortion policy. Biden crossed himself ostentatiously during the remarks. “His gesture openly mocks the Christian belief in the sanctity of life. There is no divine support for destroying the lives of innocent children, and he should know better,” said Brian Burch, President of CatholicVote, of the incident. At a ‘Restore Roe’ rally the same day, the Democrat also mocked Lee Greenwood’s Trump-endorsed ‘God Bless the USA’ series of Bibles… “[Trump] said there has to be punishment for women exercising their reproductive freedom… maybe it’s coming from that Bible he’s trying to sell. I almost wanted to buy one just to see what the hell is in it,” Biden jeered.  

UNC-Chapel Hill researchers, led by Ronit Freeman, claim to have developed a process to create cells by manipulating DNA and proteins that look and act like living cells from the human body. The breakthrough has ramifications in multiple medical disciplines, including regenerative medicine. Freeman exclaimed, “With this discovery, we can think of engineering fabrics or tissues that can be sensitive to changes in their environment and behave in dynamic ways… DNA does not normally appear in a cytoskeleton. We reprogrammed sequences of DNA so that it acts as an architectural material, binding the peptides together. Once this programmed material was placed in a droplet of water, the structures took shape.” Excerpt from www.sciencedaily.com In a new study published in Nature Chemistry, UNC-Chapel Hill researcher Ronit Freeman and her colleagues describe the steps they took to manipulate DNA and proteins — essential building blocks of life — to create cells that look and act like cells from the body. This accomplishment, a first in the field, has implications for efforts in regenerative medicine, drug delivery systems, and diagnostic tools. … Without using natural proteins, the Freeman Lab built cells with functional cytoskeletons that can change shape and react to their surroundings. To do this, they used a new programmable peptide-DNA technology that directs peptides, the building blocks of proteins, and repurposed genetic material to work together to form a cytoskeleton.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, has suspended his duties for further notice while he ponders whether or not he will continue to serve in office. The move comes after it was announced by a Spanish court they would be launching a corruption investigation into his wife, Begona Gomez. The PM is already facing a slim majority coalition government with a member, the Catalan faction, that is not very popular with other members of his faction. He posted on X, “I need to pause and think. I urgently need an answer to the question of whether it is worthwhile (…) whether I should continue to lead the government or renounce this honour,” Excerpt from timesofindia.indiatimes.com MADRID: Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday he will suspend public duties until next week to decide whether he wants to continue leading the government after a court launched a probe of his wife. “I need to pause and think,” Sanchez in a letter shared on his X account. “I urgently need an answer to the question of whether it is worthwhile (…) whether I should continue to lead the government or renounce this honour,” he wrote. He said he would appear before the media on Monday to announce his decision.

An unnamed Washington D.C. police officer was disciplined for violating the rules of conduct for undercover work. The officer allegedly participated with other officers in instigating the crowds on January 6, 2021, at the White House, even chanting at one point “Whose house? Our house?” So far, DC police have only admitted to having 12 officers planted among the crowd. The details of the discipline or the officer were not forthcoming. A spokesperson stated, “In this specific case, the summary incorrectly characterized the allegations. We are unable to provide additional details regarding the discipline served, than what is listed in the document, due to employee privacy laws.” Excerpt from conservativeroof.com A police officer in Washington faced disciplinary action after violating rules guiding the conduct of undercover law enforcement, according to Washington’s police department. The investigator “was disciplined for violating general orders relating to undercover operations” during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a spokesperson with the Metropolitan Police Department revealed.  

The Federal Reserve appears to have hit a negative mark in its available capital after suffering a loss of $164 billion, leaving it $121 billion in the hole. The Fed has been suffering capital loss due to having interest rate risk losses that began in 2022. Excerpt from www.nysun.com Hold up your hand if you think that the aggregate losses of an organization are an asset of that organization. No hands at all? Absolutely right. Losses are not an asset. That’s accounting 101. Yet the greatest central bank in the world, the Federal Reserve, insists on claiming that its continuing losses, which have accumulated to the staggering sum of $164 billion, are an accounting asset. The Fed seeks to palm off this accounting entry as a “Deferred Asset.” Why does the Fed do this, which perhaps makes it look tricky instead of majestic? Because it does not want to report that it has lost all its $43 billion in capital and now has negative capital. The inevitable arithmetic is plain: start with the Fed’s $43 billion in capital, lose $164 billion, and the capital has inescapably become negative $121 billion. The Fed is not pleased with this answer. In addition to its “Deferred Asset” gambit, it frequently and publicly asserts that negative capital does not matter if you are a money-printing central bank. The idea seems to be that a central bank can always print up more money. The Fed further declares that it is not in business to maximize profits. Even were all this true, it fails to change the correct capital number: negative $121 billion… The Fed ran an exceptionally risky balance sheet with little capital. The key vulnerability was and is interest rate risk, the same risk that caused the failure of the savings and loans in the 1980s. The Fed’s capital was a mere 0.5 percent of its total assets. When the Fed incurred big interest rate risk losses starting in 2022, it rapidly lost all its capital because it had so little capital to begin with.    

According to Capt. Thomas Wheatley, an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a 2020 Equal Opportunity law empowers the military to court martial soldiers that refuse to use the preferred pronouns of other soldiers. Wheatley is warning Congress to fix the problem before it begins to be exploited (if it hasn’t been already). He said the military “is right to want to protect the rights and welfare of its transgender service members. But it owes the same protection to those who share a different perspective on the issue, especially when that perspective is a deep-seated expression of personal conscience.” Excerpt from lidblog.com According to a review of the Biden Pentagon’s rules, it appears that soldiers could find themselves arrested and punished if they refuse to use a transgender or otherwise mentally confused soldier’s fake “pronouns.”… Per the Daily Caller: A 2020 Equal Opportunity law opened the door for commanders to subject someone who refuses to affirm a transgender servicemember’s so-called gender identity to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) for charges related to harassment, Capt. Thomas Wheatley, an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Such a move would likely infringe on a servicemember’s constitutional rights to uphold their conscience, but it might not prevent leaders from employing more subtle ways of disciplining service members.

President Joe Biden signed a bill that passed the Johnson House and DNC Senate that both bans TikTok and provides $95 million military funding for Ukraine and Israel. Biden said of the signing, “We rose to the moment. we came together. and we got it done. Now we need to move fast, and we are.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel (R-KY) was not kind to his fellow Republicans in the House, saying, “Make no mistake: Delay in providing Ukraine the weapons to defend itself has strained the prospects of defeating Russian aggression. Dithering and hesitation have compounded the challenges we face.” Excerpt from www.breitbart.com WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed into law Wednesday a $95 billion war aid measure that includes aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that also includes a provision that would force social media site TikTok to be sold or be banned in U.S. The announcement marks an end to long, painful battle with Republicans in Congress over urgently needed assistance for Ukraine. “We rose to the moment. we came together. and we got it done,” Biden said at White House event to announce the signing. “Now we need to move fast, and we are,” But significant damage has been done to the Biden administration’s effort to help Ukraine repel Russia’s brutal invasion during the funding impasse that dates back to August, when the Democratic president made his first emergency spending request for Ukraine aid. Even with a burst of new weapons and ammunition, it is unlikely Ukraine will immediately recover after months of setbacks.

Excerpt from USA Today Officials said Maxwell Azzarello from St. Augustine, Florida, walked into the park across from the courthouse, threw the pamphlets down and set himself ablaze…Shortly before 11 p.m., hospital staff pronounced him dead, police Detective Sophia Mason told USA TODAY…’ “The pamphlets seem to be propaganda-based, almost like a conspiracy theory type of pamphlet, some information in regards to Ponzi schemes, and the fact that some of our local educational institutes are fronts for the Mob, so a little bit of conspiracy theory going on there,” Kenny said… “To my friends and family, witnesses and first responders, I deeply apologize for inflicting this pain upon you,” the post reads. “But I assure you it is a drop in the bucket compared to what our government intends to inflict.”  

Excerpt from www.realclearpolitics.com California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna told ABC’s “This Week” that he and “a few progressive Democrats” would vote to keep Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson in power through the end of this year if GOP hardliners like Marjorie Taylor Greene try to force him from power. “I would actually vote to table any motion to vacate him,” Khanna said. “I’m a progressive Democrat and I think you would have a few progressive Democrats doing that. And I disagree with Speaker Johnson on many issues and have been very critical of him. But he did the right thing here and he deserves to keep his job until the end of his term.” JON KARL: After a busy and dramatic day on Capitol Hill, I’m joined now by Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. Congressman Khanna, does Speaker Johnson deserve credit for how this played out? REP. RO KHANNA: He does. Look, we came into Congress together and he always cared about civility. He actually led the civility pledge. We had one issue, which was give individual votes. Don’t lump things together. And I give him credit for doing this. I would actually vote to table any motion to vacate him. You know, Congressman McCaul quoted Churchill. One of the things Churchill said is that America always exhausted every wrong option until doing the right thing. And this shows that American democracy still is very strong. KARL: OK, you just said something significant. You said you would oppose the tabled – the motion to vacate. In other words, you will protect Speaker Johnson’s job if Marjorie Taylor Greene and the others go through with their threat to try to remove him? KHANNA: I would, though the end of the term. I expect Speaker Pelosi — Speaker Jeffries will be there in 2025. But look, I’m a progressive Democrat and I think you would have a few progressive Democrats doing that. And I disagree with Speaker Johnson on many issues and have been very critical of him. But he did the right thing here and he deserves to keep his job until the end of his term. KARL: Now, would you and fellow Democrats that will protect him at this moment ask him anything in return? I mean do we effectively have – you heard me ask Congressman McCaul, a coalition government in the House? KHANNA: I’ll leave the negotiations to Speaker Jeffries. But I don’t think everything in politics needs to be transactional. I think here you have Speaker Johnson, who not only put this up for a vote, but he also separated the bills, which I thought was courageous. He let people vote their conscience on Taiwan, on the offensive aid to Israel, on – on Ukraine. And I give him credit for that. Excerpt from www.axios.com Weeks of threats to oust Johnson over Ukraine aid fizzled Saturday when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene left town without pulling the trigger. Why it matters: Greene is still talking the talk, but momentum for an ouster effort against Speaker Mike Johnson that seemed certain now has no timeline and no new endorsers. Greene said she will “go home and hear from their constituents” before making her decision following weeks of threats to force a vote to oust him. “He needs to do the right thing and resign … If he doesn’t do so, he will be vacated,” Greene said Sunday on Fox News. “When John Boehner was replaced, it wasn’t by a motion to vacate on the floor” but rather his pre-announced resignation, said Rep. Thomas Massie, who joined Greene on the motion to vacate.    

Excerpt from www.reuters.com Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu’s party earned a landslide victory in parliamentary elections, local media reported on Monday, a result set to move the Indian Ocean archipelago closer to China and away from traditional partner India. Muizzu’s People’s National Congress (PNC) won 71 of the 93 seats available on Sunday, preliminary results from the Maldives Elections Commission and media projections showed. The PNC together with its coalition parties holds 75 seats in total while the main opposition Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) dwindled to only 12 seats from 65 previously. Jubilant voters celebrated with party poppers and cut cakes in their constituencies. Official PNC celebrations were due to start in the evening with a rally in Male. Both Beijing and New Delhi have wooed the Maldives as they vie for influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Excerpt from www.cbc.ca Elon Musk lashed out at Australia’s prime minister on Tuesday after a court ordered his social media company X to take down footage of an alleged terrorist attack in Sydney, and said the ruling meant any country could control “the entire internet.” At a hearing overnight, Australia’s Federal Court ordered X, formerly called Twitter, to temporarily hide posts showing video of the incident earlier this month, in which a teenager was charged with terrorism for knifing an Assyrian priest and others. X said it had already blocked the posts from Australian users, but Australia’s e-safety commissioner had said the content should be taken down since it showed explicit violence. “Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?” Musk wrote in a post, referring to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. … “if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire internet?”  

Excerpt from www.nextgov.com The Department of Health and Human Services released a final rule on the data privacy provisions for reproductive health care information deemed individually identifiable on Monday, finalizing the initiative to further protect this information in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturn of the 1973 landmark court decision in Roe v. Wade. HHS first took steps to codify the safeguarding of protected health indicators — or PHI — at the digital level in 2023 with a proposed rule. Today’s final rule will extend the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 Privacy Rule to protect patient confidentiality and access to reproductive data unless authorized in select cases. … Under the rule, PHI disclosures to law enforcement will only be permitted in response to legal authorities, namely administrative subpoenas or summons, a civil summons, a civil or an authorized investigative demand or other legal processes. … The rule is expressly designed to put some checks on the ability of law enforcement officials in states that restrict or ban abortion to obtain health records on residents who may have obtained abortions or covered reproductive care in other states. “This does not foreclose the ability of state officials to investigate the circumstances surrounding the provision of…reproductive health care, including through the collection of information from sources that are not regulated under HIPAA, to determine whether a health care provider or other person may have acted unlawfully,” the rule states. “Rather, this final rule prohibits the use or disclosure of PHI when it is being used to investigate or impose liability on a person for the mere act of seeking, obtaining, providing, or facilitating lawful reproductive health care, or to identify any person to initiate such activities.”

Go to Article Excerpt from financialpost.com The Hungarian government signaled backing for a reported sponsorship deal between Russia’s Gazprom PJSC and the country’s top soccer team, an agreement that would spotlight Budapest’s efforts to maintain ties with Moscow… Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, which is nearly alone among European Union member states in maintaining ties with Russia, responded by saying it embraced fresh investment in the country. “The more international companies that invest in Hungarian sports the better,” the Foreign Ministry in Budapest said in a statement to Bloomberg. Ferencvaros, which has an insurmountable lead in the home stretch of the Hungarian football championships, is on track to win its sixth straight and 35th overall national football title. … Hungary last year secured a deal with Gazprom to expand gas flows from Russia even as many of its EU peers moved to reduce or eliminate their dependence on Moscow for energy.  

Excerpt from lidblog.com Biden has placed a serious economic burden on every American with the soar prices due to Bidenflation and gas prices have been particularly bad under the destruction of Bidenomics, with prices soaring higher than in the last seven years… From January 2021 to this month, electricity prices rose from $0.14 per kilowatt-hour to $0.17 — a 28% boost, according to the report. And gasoline prices, while down from their 2022 peak, are still 52.1% higher today than when Biden took the White House, Fox Business reported. Biden is killing us. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston  

Excerpt from humanevents.com The Prime Minister of Australia declared during a press conference on Wednesday that social media platforms have “a responsibility” to remove memes of him from the internet. PM Anthony Albanese stated during a press conference: “Social media platforms have a responsibility to make sure that misinformation [doesn’t get] out there… “Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?” Musk posted in response, also writing that “if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?”  

Excerpt from legalinsurrection.com Columbia President Nemak Shafik set a midnight deadline to clear out the anti-Israel encampment that shut down the school to virtual or hybrid classes. Then Shafik extended the clearing out to 8 AM. Now? 48-hour extension for negotiations. What a coward. Message from Columbia President Shafik early this morning announcing a 48-hour extension for negotiations with protestors: https://t.co/PnUDvTfHZ6 pic.twitter.com/Ae9I0K7cLn — Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) April 24, 2024  

Excerpt from abcnews.go.com WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s prosecutor general told the parliament on Wednesday that powerful Pegasus spyware was used against hundreds of people during the former government in Poland, among them elected officials. Adam Bodnar told lawmakers that he found the scale of the surveillance “shocking and depressing.” “It is sad for me that even in this room I am speaking to people who were victims of this system,” Bodnar told the Sejm, the lower house of parliament.

Excerpt from freebeacon.com House lawmakers called on the IRS to investigate U.S.-based anti-Israel activist groups that have financial links to China, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon on Wednesday. Members of the House Ways and Means Committee said they are concerned that “foreign adversaries are taking advantage of loopholes to impact American political activity with little-to-no transparency.” The letter follows reports connecting the Chinese government to a network of U.S.-based nonprofit groups. The People’s Forum, a group that helped organize anti-Israel walkouts in New York City public schools, is bankrolled by Chinese propagandist and tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, the New York Times reported last year. The organization encouraged student protesters to shout anti-Semitic chants, such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan that calls for the elimination of the Jewish state. “Not only do these activities raise serious national security concerns, but they also raise questions about whether organizations like this receive foreign funding from America’s adversaries and whether the Internal Revenue Service (‘IRS’) is conducting oversight of entities like these,” wrote the lawmakers in a letter to IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel.

Excerpt from thenationalpulse.com President Joe Biden appeared to bless abortions with the sign of the Cross, as well as mock the Bible in Florida on Tuesday. Christians expressed outrage after the incidents and questioned Biden’s claimed Catholic faith. While Biden was being introduced to campaign volunteers in Tampa, Florida Democratic Party chairwoman Nikki Fried began discussing state abortion policy. Biden crossed himself ostentatiously during the remarks. “His gesture openly mocks the Christian belief in the sanctity of life. There is no divine support for destroying the lives of innocent children, and he should know better,” said Brian Burch, President of CatholicVote, of the incident. At a ‘Restore Roe’ rally the same day, the Democrat also mocked Lee Greenwood’s Trump-endorsed ‘God Bless the USA’ series of Bibles… “[Trump] said there has to be punishment for women exercising their reproductive freedom… maybe it’s coming from that Bible he’s trying to sell. I almost wanted to buy one just to see what the hell is in it,” Biden jeered.  

UNC-Chapel Hill researchers, led by Ronit Freeman, claim to have developed a process to create cells by manipulating DNA and proteins that look and act like living cells from the human body. The breakthrough has ramifications in multiple medical disciplines, including regenerative medicine. Freeman exclaimed, “With this discovery, we can think of engineering fabrics or tissues that can be sensitive to changes in their environment and behave in dynamic ways… DNA does not normally appear in a cytoskeleton. We reprogrammed sequences of DNA so that it acts as an architectural material, binding the peptides together. Once this programmed material was placed in a droplet of water, the structures took shape.” Excerpt from www.sciencedaily.com In a new study published in Nature Chemistry, UNC-Chapel Hill researcher Ronit Freeman and her colleagues describe the steps they took to manipulate DNA and proteins — essential building blocks of life — to create cells that look and act like cells from the body. This accomplishment, a first in the field, has implications for efforts in regenerative medicine, drug delivery systems, and diagnostic tools. … Without using natural proteins, the Freeman Lab built cells with functional cytoskeletons that can change shape and react to their surroundings. To do this, they used a new programmable peptide-DNA technology that directs peptides, the building blocks of proteins, and repurposed genetic material to work together to form a cytoskeleton.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, has suspended his duties for further notice while he ponders whether or not he will continue to serve in office. The move comes after it was announced by a Spanish court they would be launching a corruption investigation into his wife, Begona Gomez. The PM is already facing a slim majority coalition government with a member, the Catalan faction, that is not very popular with other members of his faction. He posted on X, “I need to pause and think. I urgently need an answer to the question of whether it is worthwhile (…) whether I should continue to lead the government or renounce this honour,” Excerpt from timesofindia.indiatimes.com MADRID: Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday he will suspend public duties until next week to decide whether he wants to continue leading the government after a court launched a probe of his wife. “I need to pause and think,” Sanchez in a letter shared on his X account. “I urgently need an answer to the question of whether it is worthwhile (…) whether I should continue to lead the government or renounce this honour,” he wrote. He said he would appear before the media on Monday to announce his decision.

An unnamed Washington D.C. police officer was disciplined for violating the rules of conduct for undercover work. The officer allegedly participated with other officers in instigating the crowds on January 6, 2021, at the White House, even chanting at one point “Whose house? Our house?” So far, DC police have only admitted to having 12 officers planted among the crowd. The details of the discipline or the officer were not forthcoming. A spokesperson stated, “In this specific case, the summary incorrectly characterized the allegations. We are unable to provide additional details regarding the discipline served, than what is listed in the document, due to employee privacy laws.” Excerpt from conservativeroof.com A police officer in Washington faced disciplinary action after violating rules guiding the conduct of undercover law enforcement, according to Washington’s police department. The investigator “was disciplined for violating general orders relating to undercover operations” during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a spokesperson with the Metropolitan Police Department revealed.  

The Federal Reserve appears to have hit a negative mark in its available capital after suffering a loss of $164 billion, leaving it $121 billion in the hole. The Fed has been suffering capital loss due to having interest rate risk losses that began in 2022. Excerpt from www.nysun.com Hold up your hand if you think that the aggregate losses of an organization are an asset of that organization. No hands at all? Absolutely right. Losses are not an asset. That’s accounting 101. Yet the greatest central bank in the world, the Federal Reserve, insists on claiming that its continuing losses, which have accumulated to the staggering sum of $164 billion, are an accounting asset. The Fed seeks to palm off this accounting entry as a “Deferred Asset.” Why does the Fed do this, which perhaps makes it look tricky instead of majestic? Because it does not want to report that it has lost all its $43 billion in capital and now has negative capital. The inevitable arithmetic is plain: start with the Fed’s $43 billion in capital, lose $164 billion, and the capital has inescapably become negative $121 billion. The Fed is not pleased with this answer. In addition to its “Deferred Asset” gambit, it frequently and publicly asserts that negative capital does not matter if you are a money-printing central bank. The idea seems to be that a central bank can always print up more money. The Fed further declares that it is not in business to maximize profits. Even were all this true, it fails to change the correct capital number: negative $121 billion… The Fed ran an exceptionally risky balance sheet with little capital. The key vulnerability was and is interest rate risk, the same risk that caused the failure of the savings and loans in the 1980s. The Fed’s capital was a mere 0.5 percent of its total assets. When the Fed incurred big interest rate risk losses starting in 2022, it rapidly lost all its capital because it had so little capital to begin with.    

According to Capt. Thomas Wheatley, an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a 2020 Equal Opportunity law empowers the military to court martial soldiers that refuse to use the preferred pronouns of other soldiers. Wheatley is warning Congress to fix the problem before it begins to be exploited (if it hasn’t been already). He said the military “is right to want to protect the rights and welfare of its transgender service members. But it owes the same protection to those who share a different perspective on the issue, especially when that perspective is a deep-seated expression of personal conscience.” Excerpt from lidblog.com According to a review of the Biden Pentagon’s rules, it appears that soldiers could find themselves arrested and punished if they refuse to use a transgender or otherwise mentally confused soldier’s fake “pronouns.”… Per the Daily Caller: A 2020 Equal Opportunity law opened the door for commanders to subject someone who refuses to affirm a transgender servicemember’s so-called gender identity to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) for charges related to harassment, Capt. Thomas Wheatley, an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Such a move would likely infringe on a servicemember’s constitutional rights to uphold their conscience, but it might not prevent leaders from employing more subtle ways of disciplining service members.

President Joe Biden signed a bill that passed the Johnson House and DNC Senate that both bans TikTok and provides $95 million military funding for Ukraine and Israel. Biden said of the signing, “We rose to the moment. we came together. and we got it done. Now we need to move fast, and we are.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel (R-KY) was not kind to his fellow Republicans in the House, saying, “Make no mistake: Delay in providing Ukraine the weapons to defend itself has strained the prospects of defeating Russian aggression. Dithering and hesitation have compounded the challenges we face.” Excerpt from www.breitbart.com WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed into law Wednesday a $95 billion war aid measure that includes aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that also includes a provision that would force social media site TikTok to be sold or be banned in U.S. The announcement marks an end to long, painful battle with Republicans in Congress over urgently needed assistance for Ukraine. “We rose to the moment. we came together. and we got it done,” Biden said at White House event to announce the signing. “Now we need to move fast, and we are,” But significant damage has been done to the Biden administration’s effort to help Ukraine repel Russia’s brutal invasion during the funding impasse that dates back to August, when the Democratic president made his first emergency spending request for Ukraine aid. Even with a burst of new weapons and ammunition, it is unlikely Ukraine will immediately recover after months of setbacks.

Excerpt from USA Today Officials said Maxwell Azzarello from St. Augustine, Florida, walked into the park across from the courthouse, threw the pamphlets down and set himself ablaze…Shortly before 11 p.m., hospital staff pronounced him dead, police Detective Sophia Mason told USA TODAY…’ “The pamphlets seem to be propaganda-based, almost like a conspiracy theory type of pamphlet, some information in regards to Ponzi schemes, and the fact that some of our local educational institutes are fronts for the Mob, so a little bit of conspiracy theory going on there,” Kenny said… “To my friends and family, witnesses and first responders, I deeply apologize for inflicting this pain upon you,” the post reads. “But I assure you it is a drop in the bucket compared to what our government intends to inflict.”  

Excerpt from www.realclearpolitics.com California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna told ABC’s “This Week” that he and “a few progressive Democrats” would vote to keep Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson in power through the end of this year if GOP hardliners like Marjorie Taylor Greene try to force him from power. “I would actually vote to table any motion to vacate him,” Khanna said. “I’m a progressive Democrat and I think you would have a few progressive Democrats doing that. And I disagree with Speaker Johnson on many issues and have been very critical of him. But he did the right thing here and he deserves to keep his job until the end of his term.” JON KARL: After a busy and dramatic day on Capitol Hill, I’m joined now by Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. Congressman Khanna, does Speaker Johnson deserve credit for how this played out? REP. RO KHANNA: He does. Look, we came into Congress together and he always cared about civility. He actually led the civility pledge. We had one issue, which was give individual votes. Don’t lump things together. And I give him credit for doing this. I would actually vote to table any motion to vacate him. You know, Congressman McCaul quoted Churchill. One of the things Churchill said is that America always exhausted every wrong option until doing the right thing. And this shows that American democracy still is very strong. KARL: OK, you just said something significant. You said you would oppose the tabled – the motion to vacate. In other words, you will protect Speaker Johnson’s job if Marjorie Taylor Greene and the others go through with their threat to try to remove him? KHANNA: I would, though the end of the term. I expect Speaker Pelosi — Speaker Jeffries will be there in 2025. But look, I’m a progressive Democrat and I think you would have a few progressive Democrats doing that. And I disagree with Speaker Johnson on many issues and have been very critical of him. But he did the right thing here and he deserves to keep his job until the end of his term. KARL: Now, would you and fellow Democrats that will protect him at this moment ask him anything in return? I mean do we effectively have – you heard me ask Congressman McCaul, a coalition government in the House? KHANNA: I’ll leave the negotiations to Speaker Jeffries. But I don’t think everything in politics needs to be transactional. I think here you have Speaker Johnson, who not only put this up for a vote, but he also separated the bills, which I thought was courageous. He let people vote their conscience on Taiwan, on the offensive aid to Israel, on – on Ukraine. And I give him credit for that. Excerpt from www.axios.com Weeks of threats to oust Johnson over Ukraine aid fizzled Saturday when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene left town without pulling the trigger. Why it matters: Greene is still talking the talk, but momentum for an ouster effort against Speaker Mike Johnson that seemed certain now has no timeline and no new endorsers. Greene said she will “go home and hear from their constituents” before making her decision following weeks of threats to force a vote to oust him. “He needs to do the right thing and resign … If he doesn’t do so, he will be vacated,” Greene said Sunday on Fox News. “When John Boehner was replaced, it wasn’t by a motion to vacate on the floor” but rather his pre-announced resignation, said Rep. Thomas Massie, who joined Greene on the motion to vacate.    

Excerpt from www.reuters.com Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu’s party earned a landslide victory in parliamentary elections, local media reported on Monday, a result set to move the Indian Ocean archipelago closer to China and away from traditional partner India. Muizzu’s People’s National Congress (PNC) won 71 of the 93 seats available on Sunday, preliminary results from the Maldives Elections Commission and media projections showed. The PNC together with its coalition parties holds 75 seats in total while the main opposition Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) dwindled to only 12 seats from 65 previously. Jubilant voters celebrated with party poppers and cut cakes in their constituencies. Official PNC celebrations were due to start in the evening with a rally in Male. Both Beijing and New Delhi have wooed the Maldives as they vie for influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Excerpt from www.cbc.ca Elon Musk lashed out at Australia’s prime minister on Tuesday after a court ordered his social media company X to take down footage of an alleged terrorist attack in Sydney, and said the ruling meant any country could control “the entire internet.” At a hearing overnight, Australia’s Federal Court ordered X, formerly called Twitter, to temporarily hide posts showing video of the incident earlier this month, in which a teenager was charged with terrorism for knifing an Assyrian priest and others. X said it had already blocked the posts from Australian users, but Australia’s e-safety commissioner had said the content should be taken down since it showed explicit violence. “Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?” Musk wrote in a post, referring to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. … “if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire internet?”  

Excerpt from www.nextgov.com The Department of Health and Human Services released a final rule on the data privacy provisions for reproductive health care information deemed individually identifiable on Monday, finalizing the initiative to further protect this information in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturn of the 1973 landmark court decision in Roe v. Wade. HHS first took steps to codify the safeguarding of protected health indicators — or PHI — at the digital level in 2023 with a proposed rule. Today’s final rule will extend the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 Privacy Rule to protect patient confidentiality and access to reproductive data unless authorized in select cases. … Under the rule, PHI disclosures to law enforcement will only be permitted in response to legal authorities, namely administrative subpoenas or summons, a civil summons, a civil or an authorized investigative demand or other legal processes. … The rule is expressly designed to put some checks on the ability of law enforcement officials in states that restrict or ban abortion to obtain health records on residents who may have obtained abortions or covered reproductive care in other states. “This does not foreclose the ability of state officials to investigate the circumstances surrounding the provision of…reproductive health care, including through the collection of information from sources that are not regulated under HIPAA, to determine whether a health care provider or other person may have acted unlawfully,” the rule states. “Rather, this final rule prohibits the use or disclosure of PHI when it is being used to investigate or impose liability on a person for the mere act of seeking, obtaining, providing, or facilitating lawful reproductive health care, or to identify any person to initiate such activities.”

Go to Article Excerpt from financialpost.com The Hungarian government signaled backing for a reported sponsorship deal between Russia’s Gazprom PJSC and the country’s top soccer team, an agreement that would spotlight Budapest’s efforts to maintain ties with Moscow… Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, which is nearly alone among European Union member states in maintaining ties with Russia, responded by saying it embraced fresh investment in the country. “The more international companies that invest in Hungarian sports the better,” the Foreign Ministry in Budapest said in a statement to Bloomberg. Ferencvaros, which has an insurmountable lead in the home stretch of the Hungarian football championships, is on track to win its sixth straight and 35th overall national football title. … Hungary last year secured a deal with Gazprom to expand gas flows from Russia even as many of its EU peers moved to reduce or eliminate their dependence on Moscow for energy.  

Excerpt from lidblog.com Biden has placed a serious economic burden on every American with the soar prices due to Bidenflation and gas prices have been particularly bad under the destruction of Bidenomics, with prices soaring higher than in the last seven years… From January 2021 to this month, electricity prices rose from $0.14 per kilowatt-hour to $0.17 — a 28% boost, according to the report. And gasoline prices, while down from their 2022 peak, are still 52.1% higher today than when Biden took the White House, Fox Business reported. Biden is killing us. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston  

Excerpt from humanevents.com The Prime Minister of Australia declared during a press conference on Wednesday that social media platforms have “a responsibility” to remove memes of him from the internet. PM Anthony Albanese stated during a press conference: “Social media platforms have a responsibility to make sure that misinformation [doesn’t get] out there… “Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?” Musk posted in response, also writing that “if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?”  

Excerpt from legalinsurrection.com Columbia President Nemak Shafik set a midnight deadline to clear out the anti-Israel encampment that shut down the school to virtual or hybrid classes. Then Shafik extended the clearing out to 8 AM. Now? 48-hour extension for negotiations. What a coward. Message from Columbia President Shafik early this morning announcing a 48-hour extension for negotiations with protestors: https://t.co/PnUDvTfHZ6 pic.twitter.com/Ae9I0K7cLn — Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) April 24, 2024  

Excerpt from abcnews.go.com WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s prosecutor general told the parliament on Wednesday that powerful Pegasus spyware was used against hundreds of people during the former government in Poland, among them elected officials. Adam Bodnar told lawmakers that he found the scale of the surveillance “shocking and depressing.” “It is sad for me that even in this room I am speaking to people who were victims of this system,” Bodnar told the Sejm, the lower house of parliament.

Excerpt from freebeacon.com House lawmakers called on the IRS to investigate U.S.-based anti-Israel activist groups that have financial links to China, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon on Wednesday. Members of the House Ways and Means Committee said they are concerned that “foreign adversaries are taking advantage of loopholes to impact American political activity with little-to-no transparency.” The letter follows reports connecting the Chinese government to a network of U.S.-based nonprofit groups. The People’s Forum, a group that helped organize anti-Israel walkouts in New York City public schools, is bankrolled by Chinese propagandist and tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, the New York Times reported last year. The organization encouraged student protesters to shout anti-Semitic chants, such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan that calls for the elimination of the Jewish state. “Not only do these activities raise serious national security concerns, but they also raise questions about whether organizations like this receive foreign funding from America’s adversaries and whether the Internal Revenue Service (‘IRS’) is conducting oversight of entities like these,” wrote the lawmakers in a letter to IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel.

Excerpt from thenationalpulse.com President Joe Biden appeared to bless abortions with the sign of the Cross, as well as mock the Bible in Florida on Tuesday. Christians expressed outrage after the incidents and questioned Biden’s claimed Catholic faith. While Biden was being introduced to campaign volunteers in Tampa, Florida Democratic Party chairwoman Nikki Fried began discussing state abortion policy. Biden crossed himself ostentatiously during the remarks. “His gesture openly mocks the Christian belief in the sanctity of life. There is no divine support for destroying the lives of innocent children, and he should know better,” said Brian Burch, President of CatholicVote, of the incident. At a ‘Restore Roe’ rally the same day, the Democrat also mocked Lee Greenwood’s Trump-endorsed ‘God Bless the USA’ series of Bibles… “[Trump] said there has to be punishment for women exercising their reproductive freedom… maybe it’s coming from that Bible he’s trying to sell. I almost wanted to buy one just to see what the hell is in it,” Biden jeered.  

UNC-Chapel Hill researchers, led by Ronit Freeman, claim to have developed a process to create cells by manipulating DNA and proteins that look and act like living cells from the human body. The breakthrough has ramifications in multiple medical disciplines, including regenerative medicine. Freeman exclaimed, “With this discovery, we can think of engineering fabrics or tissues that can be sensitive to changes in their environment and behave in dynamic ways… DNA does not normally appear in a cytoskeleton. We reprogrammed sequences of DNA so that it acts as an architectural material, binding the peptides together. Once this programmed material was placed in a droplet of water, the structures took shape.” Excerpt from www.sciencedaily.com In a new study published in Nature Chemistry, UNC-Chapel Hill researcher Ronit Freeman and her colleagues describe the steps they took to manipulate DNA and proteins — essential building blocks of life — to create cells that look and act like cells from the body. This accomplishment, a first in the field, has implications for efforts in regenerative medicine, drug delivery systems, and diagnostic tools. … Without using natural proteins, the Freeman Lab built cells with functional cytoskeletons that can change shape and react to their surroundings. To do this, they used a new programmable peptide-DNA technology that directs peptides, the building blocks of proteins, and repurposed genetic material to work together to form a cytoskeleton.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, has suspended his duties for further notice while he ponders whether or not he will continue to serve in office. The move comes after it was announced by a Spanish court they would be launching a corruption investigation into his wife, Begona Gomez. The PM is already facing a slim majority coalition government with a member, the Catalan faction, that is not very popular with other members of his faction. He posted on X, “I need to pause and think. I urgently need an answer to the question of whether it is worthwhile (…) whether I should continue to lead the government or renounce this honour,” Excerpt from timesofindia.indiatimes.com MADRID: Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday he will suspend public duties until next week to decide whether he wants to continue leading the government after a court launched a probe of his wife. “I need to pause and think,” Sanchez in a letter shared on his X account. “I urgently need an answer to the question of whether it is worthwhile (…) whether I should continue to lead the government or renounce this honour,” he wrote. He said he would appear before the media on Monday to announce his decision.

An unnamed Washington D.C. police officer was disciplined for violating the rules of conduct for undercover work. The officer allegedly participated with other officers in instigating the crowds on January 6, 2021, at the White House, even chanting at one point “Whose house? Our house?” So far, DC police have only admitted to having 12 officers planted among the crowd. The details of the discipline or the officer were not forthcoming. A spokesperson stated, “In this specific case, the summary incorrectly characterized the allegations. We are unable to provide additional details regarding the discipline served, than what is listed in the document, due to employee privacy laws.” Excerpt from conservativeroof.com A police officer in Washington faced disciplinary action after violating rules guiding the conduct of undercover law enforcement, according to Washington’s police department. The investigator “was disciplined for violating general orders relating to undercover operations” during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a spokesperson with the Metropolitan Police Department revealed.  

The Federal Reserve appears to have hit a negative mark in its available capital after suffering a loss of $164 billion, leaving it $121 billion in the hole. The Fed has been suffering capital loss due to having interest rate risk losses that began in 2022. Excerpt from www.nysun.com Hold up your hand if you think that the aggregate losses of an organization are an asset of that organization. No hands at all? Absolutely right. Losses are not an asset. That’s accounting 101. Yet the greatest central bank in the world, the Federal Reserve, insists on claiming that its continuing losses, which have accumulated to the staggering sum of $164 billion, are an accounting asset. The Fed seeks to palm off this accounting entry as a “Deferred Asset.” Why does the Fed do this, which perhaps makes it look tricky instead of majestic? Because it does not want to report that it has lost all its $43 billion in capital and now has negative capital. The inevitable arithmetic is plain: start with the Fed’s $43 billion in capital, lose $164 billion, and the capital has inescapably become negative $121 billion. The Fed is not pleased with this answer. In addition to its “Deferred Asset” gambit, it frequently and publicly asserts that negative capital does not matter if you are a money-printing central bank. The idea seems to be that a central bank can always print up more money. The Fed further declares that it is not in business to maximize profits. Even were all this true, it fails to change the correct capital number: negative $121 billion… The Fed ran an exceptionally risky balance sheet with little capital. The key vulnerability was and is interest rate risk, the same risk that caused the failure of the savings and loans in the 1980s. The Fed’s capital was a mere 0.5 percent of its total assets. When the Fed incurred big interest rate risk losses starting in 2022, it rapidly lost all its capital because it had so little capital to begin with.    

According to Capt. Thomas Wheatley, an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a 2020 Equal Opportunity law empowers the military to court martial soldiers that refuse to use the preferred pronouns of other soldiers. Wheatley is warning Congress to fix the problem before it begins to be exploited (if it hasn’t been already). He said the military “is right to want to protect the rights and welfare of its transgender service members. But it owes the same protection to those who share a different perspective on the issue, especially when that perspective is a deep-seated expression of personal conscience.” Excerpt from lidblog.com According to a review of the Biden Pentagon’s rules, it appears that soldiers could find themselves arrested and punished if they refuse to use a transgender or otherwise mentally confused soldier’s fake “pronouns.”… Per the Daily Caller: A 2020 Equal Opportunity law opened the door for commanders to subject someone who refuses to affirm a transgender servicemember’s so-called gender identity to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) for charges related to harassment, Capt. Thomas Wheatley, an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Such a move would likely infringe on a servicemember’s constitutional rights to uphold their conscience, but it might not prevent leaders from employing more subtle ways of disciplining service members.

President Joe Biden signed a bill that passed the Johnson House and DNC Senate that both bans TikTok and provides $95 million military funding for Ukraine and Israel. Biden said of the signing, “We rose to the moment. we came together. and we got it done. Now we need to move fast, and we are.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel (R-KY) was not kind to his fellow Republicans in the House, saying, “Make no mistake: Delay in providing Ukraine the weapons to defend itself has strained the prospects of defeating Russian aggression. Dithering and hesitation have compounded the challenges we face.” Excerpt from www.breitbart.com WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed into law Wednesday a $95 billion war aid measure that includes aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that also includes a provision that would force social media site TikTok to be sold or be banned in U.S. The announcement marks an end to long, painful battle with Republicans in Congress over urgently needed assistance for Ukraine. “We rose to the moment. we came together. and we got it done,” Biden said at White House event to announce the signing. “Now we need to move fast, and we are,” But significant damage has been done to the Biden administration’s effort to help Ukraine repel Russia’s brutal invasion during the funding impasse that dates back to August, when the Democratic president made his first emergency spending request for Ukraine aid. Even with a burst of new weapons and ammunition, it is unlikely Ukraine will immediately recover after months of setbacks.

Excerpt from USA Today Officials said Maxwell Azzarello from St. Augustine, Florida, walked into the park across from the courthouse, threw the pamphlets down and set himself ablaze…Shortly before 11 p.m., hospital staff pronounced him dead, police Detective Sophia Mason told USA TODAY…’ “The pamphlets seem to be propaganda-based, almost like a conspiracy theory type of pamphlet, some information in regards to Ponzi schemes, and the fact that some of our local educational institutes are fronts for the Mob, so a little bit of conspiracy theory going on there,” Kenny said… “To my friends and family, witnesses and first responders, I deeply apologize for inflicting this pain upon you,” the post reads. “But I assure you it is a drop in the bucket compared to what our government intends to inflict.”  

Excerpt from www.realclearpolitics.com California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna told ABC’s “This Week” that he and “a few progressive Democrats” would vote to keep Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson in power through the end of this year if GOP hardliners like Marjorie Taylor Greene try to force him from power. “I would actually vote to table any motion to vacate him,” Khanna said. “I’m a progressive Democrat and I think you would have a few progressive Democrats doing that. And I disagree with Speaker Johnson on many issues and have been very critical of him. But he did the right thing here and he deserves to keep his job until the end of his term.” JON KARL: After a busy and dramatic day on Capitol Hill, I’m joined now by Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. Congressman Khanna, does Speaker Johnson deserve credit for how this played out? REP. RO KHANNA: He does. Look, we came into Congress together and he always cared about civility. He actually led the civility pledge. We had one issue, which was give individual votes. Don’t lump things together. And I give him credit for doing this. I would actually vote to table any motion to vacate him. You know, Congressman McCaul quoted Churchill. One of the things Churchill said is that America always exhausted every wrong option until doing the right thing. And this shows that American democracy still is very strong. KARL: OK, you just said something significant. You said you would oppose the tabled – the motion to vacate. In other words, you will protect Speaker Johnson’s job if Marjorie Taylor Greene and the others go through with their threat to try to remove him? KHANNA: I would, though the end of the term. I expect Speaker Pelosi — Speaker Jeffries will be there in 2025. But look, I’m a progressive Democrat and I think you would have a few progressive Democrats doing that. And I disagree with Speaker Johnson on many issues and have been very critical of him. But he did the right thing here and he deserves to keep his job until the end of his term. KARL: Now, would you and fellow Democrats that will protect him at this moment ask him anything in return? I mean do we effectively have – you heard me ask Congressman McCaul, a coalition government in the House? KHANNA: I’ll leave the negotiations to Speaker Jeffries. But I don’t think everything in politics needs to be transactional. I think here you have Speaker Johnson, who not only put this up for a vote, but he also separated the bills, which I thought was courageous. He let people vote their conscience on Taiwan, on the offensive aid to Israel, on – on Ukraine. And I give him credit for that. Excerpt from www.axios.com Weeks of threats to oust Johnson over Ukraine aid fizzled Saturday when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene left town without pulling the trigger. Why it matters: Greene is still talking the talk, but momentum for an ouster effort against Speaker Mike Johnson that seemed certain now has no timeline and no new endorsers. Greene said she will “go home and hear from their constituents” before making her decision following weeks of threats to force a vote to oust him. “He needs to do the right thing and resign … If he doesn’t do so, he will be vacated,” Greene said Sunday on Fox News. “When John Boehner was replaced, it wasn’t by a motion to vacate on the floor” but rather his pre-announced resignation, said Rep. Thomas Massie, who joined Greene on the motion to vacate.    

Excerpt from www.reuters.com Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu’s party earned a landslide victory in parliamentary elections, local media reported on Monday, a result set to move the Indian Ocean archipelago closer to China and away from traditional partner India. Muizzu’s People’s National Congress (PNC) won 71 of the 93 seats available on Sunday, preliminary results from the Maldives Elections Commission and media projections showed. The PNC together with its coalition parties holds 75 seats in total while the main opposition Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) dwindled to only 12 seats from 65 previously. Jubilant voters celebrated with party poppers and cut cakes in their constituencies. Official PNC celebrations were due to start in the evening with a rally in Male. Both Beijing and New Delhi have wooed the Maldives as they vie for influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Excerpt from www.cbc.ca Elon Musk lashed out at Australia’s prime minister on Tuesday after a court ordered his social media company X to take down footage of an alleged terrorist attack in Sydney, and said the ruling meant any country could control “the entire internet.” At a hearing overnight, Australia’s Federal Court ordered X, formerly called Twitter, to temporarily hide posts showing video of the incident earlier this month, in which a teenager was charged with terrorism for knifing an Assyrian priest and others. X said it had already blocked the posts from Australian users, but Australia’s e-safety commissioner had said the content should be taken down since it showed explicit violence. “Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?” Musk wrote in a post, referring to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. … “if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire internet?”  

Excerpt from www.nextgov.com The Department of Health and Human Services released a final rule on the data privacy provisions for reproductive health care information deemed individually identifiable on Monday, finalizing the initiative to further protect this information in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturn of the 1973 landmark court decision in Roe v. Wade. HHS first took steps to codify the safeguarding of protected health indicators — or PHI — at the digital level in 2023 with a proposed rule. Today’s final rule will extend the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 Privacy Rule to protect patient confidentiality and access to reproductive data unless authorized in select cases. … Under the rule, PHI disclosures to law enforcement will only be permitted in response to legal authorities, namely administrative subpoenas or summons, a civil summons, a civil or an authorized investigative demand or other legal processes. … The rule is expressly designed to put some checks on the ability of law enforcement officials in states that restrict or ban abortion to obtain health records on residents who may have obtained abortions or covered reproductive care in other states. “This does not foreclose the ability of state officials to investigate the circumstances surrounding the provision of…reproductive health care, including through the collection of information from sources that are not regulated under HIPAA, to determine whether a health care provider or other person may have acted unlawfully,” the rule states. “Rather, this final rule prohibits the use or disclosure of PHI when it is being used to investigate or impose liability on a person for the mere act of seeking, obtaining, providing, or facilitating lawful reproductive health care, or to identify any person to initiate such activities.”

Go to Article Excerpt from financialpost.com The Hungarian government signaled backing for a reported sponsorship deal between Russia’s Gazprom PJSC and the country’s top soccer team, an agreement that would spotlight Budapest’s efforts to maintain ties with Moscow… Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, which is nearly alone among European Union member states in maintaining ties with Russia, responded by saying it embraced fresh investment in the country. “The more international companies that invest in Hungarian sports the better,” the Foreign Ministry in Budapest said in a statement to Bloomberg. Ferencvaros, which has an insurmountable lead in the home stretch of the Hungarian football championships, is on track to win its sixth straight and 35th overall national football title. … Hungary last year secured a deal with Gazprom to expand gas flows from Russia even as many of its EU peers moved to reduce or eliminate their dependence on Moscow for energy.