The western Pacific nation of Palau has urged the United States military to build bases on its territory - in the heart of a region where Washington is pushing back against growing Chinese influence.

US defense secretary Mark Esper visited the island nation last week as part of a Pacific tour, accusing Beijing of a "malign influence" and "ongoing destabilising activities" across the region.

Palau's president Tommy Remengesau Jr later revealed he had told Esper the US military was welcome to build facilities in his country, an archipelago about 1500km east of the Philippines.

In a letter apparently hand-delivered to the defence secretary, Remengesau urged the US to commit to military infrastructure on its islands.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has said it is "common sense to move in the direction of digital IDs" as part of efforts to fight coronavirus.

Mr Blair said there should be a record kept by the government of those vaccinated against the virus.

The government recently set out plans to change laws to enable the use of digital identity across the UK.

As prime minister, Mr Blair launched a compulsory ID card scheme, but it was scrapped by the coalition government.

In 2017, the Gateway Pundit exclusively reported that a Secret Service agent was suspended for a week in 2009 for shoving then-Vice President Joe Biden after he cupped his girlfriend's breast while the couple was taking a photo with him.

The situation got so heated, a source who was a Secret Service agent at the time told TGP, that others had to step in to prevent the agent from hitting the then-Vice President.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the agent asserted that, "we had to cancel the VP Christmas get together at the Vice President's house because Biden would grope all of our wives and girlfriend's asses." The annual party was for agents and Navy personnel who were tasked with protecting the Biden family.

Protesters have assembled at the home of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, stringing up blow-dryers and curlers from a tree while demanding salons reopen after the lawmaker was caught flouting Covid-19 rules for a hair appointment.

A crowd was seen outside Pelosi's San Francisco home on Thursday, protesting after the Democrat was spotted getting her hair done at a salon shuttered under coronavirus restrictions earlier this week.

Videos shared on social media showed demonstrators - described by a local reporter as "angry salon customers" - hanging blow-dryers and hair curlers from a tree near Pelosi's home, as well as a number of impromptu speeches delivered by protesters, who blasted the Speaker's Monday salon visit as hypocritical and demanded she "get back to work."

The bizarre events surrounding Alexey Navalny, who lies stricken in a coma in Berlin, will bring forth more Cold War-style calls to isolate Russia, at the cost of further consolidating relations between Moscow and Beijing.

Ever since the man - always wrongly billed as "the Russian Opposition leader," when in fact he polls 2% of the vote, and the actual opposition leader is a Communist who still has mass support - took ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow, the securocratic lobby in western countries has been primed.

Today, with the statement from the German government that Navalny is yet another victim of 'Novichok'-class chemical agents, active measures are already underway.

Part 3 of an ongoing documentary series - 'Pedgogate 2020', created and published by 'Mouthy Buddha' - was released on August 24th. We're publishing it here along with Part 1 (released April 14th this year) and Part 2 (released on June 1st).

So-called investigative reporting on 'pedophilia in high places' rarely meets the threshold of 'reasonable speculation' - whatever about generating reliable and factual information. However, we find this particular series useful because the creator is cautious about his claims, aware that this avenue of research is a veritable 'hall of mirrors', and is proactively reporting his more solid findings to law enforcement.

We did some investigation into 'Pizzagate' when it surfaced in 2016, and while we could not establish anything conclusive, we're satisfied that there is substance to the core premise that certain disturbing characters in the Washington DC area can and do call on 'friends in very high places'.

Furthermore, the general claim that politicians and other VIPs from among 'the elites' are themselves sometimes pedophiles, pederasts, and serial child sex abusers is well-established by the historical context of criminal investigations (and, occasionally, successful prosecutions) into child sex crimes in a whole host of countries going back decades.

The ambiguous nature of these 'networks' - part-informal, part-organized - makes proving or at least reasonably suggesting criminality difficult at best. They are at once both 'hidden in plain sight' and 'plausibly deniable', helped by the apparent but recurring impression that the long arm of the law invariably falls on their side.

The content in these videos is not graphic, but the subject matter is nevertheless distressing, so steel yourself before viewing. Finally, take the content creator's advice and DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SEARCH FOR TERMS he looked into. You may only end up incriminating yourself.

Part 1

President Donald Trump seemed to suggest that North Carolina residents should attempt to vote twice in order to ensure the integrity of the state's absentee ballot system.

The White House now says the president was not specifically urging North Carolina voters to break election law.

White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere told Daily Caller this morning:

"No one has fought harder for an election system that is fair and free from fraud and abuse than President Trump. This idea that he is encouraging people to vote twice is yet another example of the media taking him out of context and ignoring the facts."

A second White House official not cleared to address the issue further told Daily Caller that

"we have been hearing for months by Democrats and the media that our system is perfect and can handle this mass mail-in vote concept."

"All the President is saying is that if you get your ballot — solicited or unsolicited — by mail, fill it out, and mail it back in but on election day go verify that it has been received and counted. If it has not then you should be able to vote in person."

The president echoed this line in a series of tweets Thursday morning:

The federal government's pandemic response is expected to push the national debt past the size of the entire US economy.

According to The Wall Street Journal, U.S. government debt will surpass

"the size of the economy in the government's 2021 fiscal year, a milestone not hit since World War II that has been brought into reach by a giant fiscal response to the coronavirus pandemic."

• "The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that federal debt held by the public is projected to reach or exceed 100% of U.S. gross domestic product" the report continued, "the broadest measure of U.S. economic output, in the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1."
• However, the significant upswing in borrowing has not yet generated "angst among investors or hampering the U.S.'s ability to borrow more," the Journal reported.

Investors have gobbled up U.S. Treasury assets, drawn to their relative safety. Moreover, interest rates are expected to remain low, suggesting the government still has plenty of room to borrow.

At a press conference earlier this week that included President Trump's new coronavirus adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that his state will "never do any of these lockdowns again" - a lead other states could follow after months of peddling 'pandemic' fear:

Gov. DeSantis has been advocating for a "full spectrum" approach in dealing with the crisis while being hit hard by critics for appearing to side with Trump too much.

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program that collected data on Americans' telephone calls was illegal and possibly unconstitutional.

A three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the program, which was revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden and officially ended in 2015, violated U.S. surveillance laws and potentially the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

Despite their conclusion about the surveillance program, the judges upheld the convictions of four Somali immigrants who brought a legal challenge against it on appeal. Wednesday's ruling came seven years after the four were convicted in 2013 of sending money to the terrorist group al-Shabaab.

Snowden, who was cited repeatedly in the court's decision, revealed the surveillance program's existence just months after their trial in 2013. Under the program, the NSA collects and analyzes bulk data provided by telecommunications companies.

That information included details on Americans' phone calls — such as the numbers they were calling and the duration of calls — but not the content. Congress passed a law ending the program in 2015.