Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows was swatted on Friday night at her home. Police confirmed the Friday swatting on Saturday, saying that a man had called and claimed that he'd broken into the Bellows home. Bellows and her family were not home at the time.

This comes after Bellows unilatteraly removed Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot, claiming that he had committed insurrection against the US government while he was president and that this disqualified him. Trump has not been charged with the crime of insurrection in any of the four criminal cases against him.

Some officials in her state have called for her impeachment over the disqualification.

The only difference between the Nazi fuhrer and Israeli's PM is the Western support the latter enjoys, the Turkish leader says

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is no different from Adolf Hitler, Türkiye's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said, condemning Israel's campaign in Gaza.

Erdogan fired the new diplomatic broadside at Netanyahu on Wednesday when he delivered an opening speech at an award ceremony in Ankara. West Jerusalem now has "Nazi camps" of its own to hold Palestinians in, the president stated, implying the campaign in Gaza was as bad - or even worse - than the Holocaust committed by Nazi Germany.

"We've seen the Nazi camps of Israel. How does this happen? They used to speak ill about Hitler, but how are you any different than Hitler?" Erdogan stated.

They are going to make us miss Hitler. Is what this Netanyahu is doing any less than what Hitler did? It is not.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was denied United States Secret Service (USSS) protection for the third time, according to a letter obtained by Deseret News.

Kennedy's campaign confirmed Friday the credibility of the letter which allegedly showed Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had signed off on rejecting Kennedy's request, according to the outlet.

Within the letter, Mayorkas allegedly stated that "based on the facts" as well as the recommendation from the advisory committee, Kennedy was "not warranted" the protection from the USSS.

"I have consulted with an advisory committee composed of the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the Senate Majority Leader, the Senate Minority Leader, and the Senate Sergeant at Arms," Mayorkas reportedly wrote, according to Deseret News.

A federal appeals court on Thursday denied President Trump's motion seeking to delay the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial set for January 15, 2024, in Manhattan.

Trump's attorney asked the appeals court to give the former president 90 days to stay the trial and give him the option to take the fight to the US Supreme Court.

"The requested stays are necessary and appropriate to give President Trump an opportunity to fully litigate his entitlement to present an immunity defense in the underlying proceedings, including pursuing the appeal in the Supreme Court if necessary," Trump's lawyer Alina Habba wrote, according to ABC News.

Venezuela's escalation of its claim to Guyana's Essequibo region has thrown the Caribbean region into a state of flux, with many observers talking of the potential for a war between the two nations that could escalate with the potential involvement of the US, UK and Brazil. The geopolitical implications, from an energy security perspective, of the fate of billions of barrels of oil reserves cannot be understated. Understanding the roots of this crisis is paramount in finding a potential solution. Some observers point to history, others to domestic Venezuelan politics. A third factor — the world's transition away from a US-led order — should also be included.

As if from nowhere, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro recently resurrected a centuries-old dispute with neighboring Guyana over ownership of the Essequibo region, a 159,500 square kilometer territory rich in oil and minerals that has been governed by Guyana since 1864, when it was a British colony. On Dec. 3, the Venezuelan government conducted a nationwide referendum where Venezuelans were asked whether to support incorporating Essequibo as a Venezuelan state, grant citizenship to its residents and reject the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the dispute. This referendum came on the heels of weeks of campaigning by Maduro, who suddenly decided to make the Essequibo dispute a major domestic political issue and, by extension, an international crisis. The Venezuelan government claims that more than 10.5 million citizens, representing just over half of the 20.6 million eligible voters, participated in the election, and that 98% of those who participated voted in favor of the resolution.

There is significant enthusiasm for a new transport link between Russia and India, Moscow's top diplomat has said...

A decline in Western economic clout means it is natural for emerging economic powers to develop new trade infrastructure to meet their growing needs, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

The diplomat was speaking in Moscow on Wednesday at a joint press conference with his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. Among the topics the pair discussed earlier in the day was the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a freight project set to link Russia and India.

When asked by a journalist whether the INSTC would get a "second wind" after Jaishankar's visit, Lavrov said it doesn't need one.

"This project was met with much enthusiasm in all nations, on which its implementation depends. And it will certainly be implemented in the near future."

Jaishankar said the INSTC is not only for India's benefit, stressing:

"I think it is in the interest of the global economy that this corridor progresses. We will certainly give it the highest priority."

The proposed route combines rail, road, and sea transport and connects Russia and India via Iran and Azerbaijan, serving as an alternative to the Suez Canal. More than a dozen nations that stand to benefit from the INSTC are stakeholders in the project.

Helsinki hurt itself when it abandoned decades of neutrality and allowed US troops on Finish soil, a senior Russian diplomat has argued...

Finland's geographic location would make it Russia's first target in a hypothetical war with NATO, so Helsinki had undermined its own safety by joining the US-led military bloc, senior Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov has argued.

The Nordic nation applied for accession after the conflict in Ukraine erupted last year, claiming that it needs mutual defense protection to deter a possible Russian attack. The move shattered the neighboring countries' legacy of over 70 years of neutrality, which Finland maintained throughout the Cold War era, despite being a Western-friendly neighbor of the USSR.

Ulyanov, who represents Moscow at several Vienna-based international organizations, told RIA Novosti that he didn't see Finland benefiting from NATO membership.

"Suddenly it became part of the alliance neighboring us. But if, God forbid, some escalation happens, Finland will be the first to suffer," he suggested, while stressing that such an outcome is highly undesirable for Russia.

Finland joined NATO in April and went further this month, when it signed a bilateral security agreement with the US. Among other things, the treaty grants American troops access to military bases on Finnish soil. Ulyanov called it "a serious challenge" for Russia.

Speech given on the German peace manifestation in Cologne, 26 November 2023

(29 December 2023) Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, on 6 March this year, the British Secretary of State Annabel Goldie declared that the Challenger 2 tanks announced by the British government would also be delivered to Ukraine including uranium shells. What does that mean?

Well - uranium weapons are made from depleted uranium 238, which is a waste product of the nuclear industry.

DU - highly toxic and expensive to store

If one tonne of natural uranium is used to produce fuel rods for nuclear power plants, around 7-8 tonnes of depleted uranium is also produced. Although it is only weakly radioactive as alpha emitters, it is highly toxic and must therefore be disposed of and guarded accordingly, which costs money - a lot of money.

Radioactive depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years - that's how old our solar system is - which means we'll have this stuff forever and there are now around 1.4 million tonnes of it worldwide, with more being produced every day. This heavy metal is almost twice as heavy as lead and so the question soon arose: how can we get rid of this dangerous stuff?

Standing inside a rustic barn a short drive from the state capital, Henry McMaster shocked many South Carolina Republicans seven years ago by backing Donald Trump for president.

Then the lieutenant governor, McMaster became the first statewide-elected official in the country to endorse Trump in 2016. The event was in Lexington County, the adopted political home of then-Gov. Nikki Haley, who had repeatedly criticized Trump and endorsed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

Trump would win the 2016 primary in South Carolina and eventually the presidency. After campaigning against him, Haley would accept his nomination as United Nations ambassador, making McMaster governor.

One major theme of Homer's Iliad - which somehow seems as fresh and as vivid today as when first written - is its description of how even the greatest of states in Western civilization fail to reclaim what they lose. "Attempts to repair one loss lead only to more losses", Emily Wilson writes in her introduction to the Iliad (2023). "Loss can never be recouped."

As Wilson sets out her story, one cannot escape the analogy to today - to a Biden seeking to recoup the American 'reputation' (Kleos in Greek). In the case of leaders of the ancient world too, the goal of achieving undying kleos runs through the poem.

Today, we might refer to it as one's 'legacy'. In the Iliad it is definitional and gives mortal leaders the chance to live on after death with honour and glory. For Team Biden, Ukraine was supposed to be their Troy. Russia, like Hector, was tricked into a fight and (and as Team Biden had hoped) is killed under Troy's walls.

But in today's world, it didn't work out that way. And now the U.S. faces the humiliation of a clear Russian victory in Ukraine, and a collective Russian leadership that says it intends to retrieve all lands and cities that were culturally Russian. Western Ukraine, they say, can go 'wherever it likes'.

The military facts on the ground are relentless and cannot be undone. But the White House hopes to keep a morsel of kleos by simply having Ukrainian forces ceasing to fight, falling back onto defensive lines - yet never saying 'defeat'. The kinetic component to the conflict barely would 'tick over' at low revs. And, as Gideon Rachman has written in the Financial Times, to "flip the narrative to one of [repeatedly insisting] that Putin has failed". The aim being that Washington quietly can 'steal away'.

Well, there are two big problems: First, Russia doesn't agree; it doesn't agree at all. And secondly, Zelensky and his associates were grievously tricked. Not in this case, by the goddess Athena, but by the mortal Messrs Johnson and Blinken.