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President Donald Trump confirmed late Thursday he was appointing Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia after pulling his controversial nomination of Ed Martin to hold that role permanently.

“Jeanine is incredibly well qualified for this position, and is considered one of the Top District Attorneys in the History of the State of New York, Trump said on Truth Social.

“She is in a class by herself. Congratulations Jeanine!”

NBC News reported earlier Trump was strongly considering Pirro for the position, which oversees criminal prosecutions and civil cases in Washington, D.C., a federal district.

Pirro is the former district attorney for Westchester County, New York.

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President Donald Trump’s executive order strengthening restrictions on gain-of-function research is a sensible step in his administration’s crusade for sanity. Signed Monday evening, the order seeks to clamp down on the risky research that modifies pathogens or toxins to enhance their ability to cause disease or spread more easily, which most authorities believe caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

A White House fact sheet claims the new order “empowers American research agencies to identify and end federal funding of other biological research that could pose a threat to American public health, public safety, or national security.”

This is a broader clampdown on gain-of-function research than was enacted by former President Barack Obama. Late in his second term, Obama announced a funding pause for some gain-of-function experiments on certain pathogens, including influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses. But enforcement was limited, and the federal government continued to fund other gain-of-function research, including experiments at the Wuhan Institute for Virology with grants from Anthony Fauci and the National Institutes of Health.

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The 28 most populous U.S. cities are all settling to one degree or other, according to a study in Nature Cities. The phenomenon isn’t limited to coastal urban areas but includes population centers in the country’s interior as well. Rates differ from city to city — even area to area within some municipalities — but the general phenomenon is consistent.

Authors suspect that draining the groundwater upon which the cities sit is a major contributor. If that practice continues — not just in the U.S. but around the world — it could put lives at risk.

“As cities continue to grow, we will see more cities expand into subsiding regions,” Leonard Ohenhen, a research fellow at the Columbia Climate School and an author of the paper, said in a press release. “Over time, this subsidence can produce stresses on infrastructure that will go past their safety limit.”

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Last year, companies began to pull back from promoting their Diversity Equity Inclusion efforts and social justice activists blamed the incoming Trump administration. It has been a violation of federal law to discriminate for 60 years so to moderates it seemed odd to add a layer of discrimination in hiring, even one deemed positive. And they never considered it may have instead been done at all due to pressure from the previous administration.The backlash was entirely predictable, but in both cases it was on the fringes. For no benefit, corporate CEOs were ignoring the ‘stay out of it unless your customers are dominated by it’ mantra.

In the 1930s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer(MGM) studio head Louis B. Mayer was asked why he was not capitalizing on the horror movie craze, “Frankenstein”, etc. that had made Universal so much money. He replied, ‘Why sell two tickets when I can sell four?’ In their case he meant family movies rather than just those for adults but if your product is for both Republicans and Democrats, cheese or booze, it is wise to alienate neither by telling the world you support Hamas terrorists or DOGE or anything else.

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More than 50 years after its launch, a Soviet spacecraft called Kosmos 482 is about to come crashing back to Earth. It was originally intended to land on the surface of Venus, but it started to fall apart in low Earth orbit and never made it beyond there. After decades of circling our planet in an oval-shaped orbit, it’s finally about to hurtle back to the ground.

Kosmos 482 launched in 1972, but because of secrecy during the cold war period, little is known about its structure or its exact mission. We only know it was headed for Venus because of other Soviet missions that were focused on our neighbouring world at the time and because the spacecraft appeared to attempt to launch on a trajectory there before it went to pieces. It isn’t clear what exactly caused the spacecraft failure, but three of the four fragments fell in New Zealand shortly after the launch.

 

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New Delhi — A deadly terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir’s picturesque Pahalgam area in April has brought India and Pakistan once again to the brink of war. The nuclear armed South Asian neighbors have attacked each other this week with missiles and drones in a sudden flare-up of a decades-old feud that’s being watched with concern by leaders around the world.

The bitter rivals have fought three wars over Kashmir in the past, and once again they’re warning each other against any moves that could escalate the tension — and vowing to respond in kind to any such moves with tough military action.

After a week of intense clashes, air raid sirens blared in a couple Indian cities near the Pakistani border on Friday and authorities asked people to remain indoors. Officials said a woman was killed and four men injured in alleged Pakistani cross-border fire in the Kashmiri town of Uri, while all major airports and the capital city of Delhi were on high alert, with some schools shut and major landmarks evacuated.

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Robert Francis Prevost, now known as Pope Leo XIV, made history on Thursday, May 8, when he was elected as the first American Pope. The Chicago native, who has spent many years serving as a missionary in Peru, took to the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and addressed the cheering crowd, speaking in Spanish and Italian.

On Friday morning, Pope Leo spoke once more when he presided over his first mass as Pontiff.

Dressed in a white robe with a gold border and a tall white miter, and holding a gold crucifix, Pope Leo delivered his first homily during which he spoke in his native English, as well as Latin and Italian, to the cardinals who elected him just a day before.

Leo referred to being appointed Pope as both a cross and a blessing, and spoke of the responsibility he and the cardinals have to spread Christianity in a world that sometimes mocks faith.

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Abortionist Christine Henneberg revealed in her 2022 memoir that Planned Parenthood trained her to send women with uterine perforations home without treatment, instead of to the hospital.

A uterine perforation occurs when an abortionist pokes a hole through the uterine wall. Medic-Journal calls a uterine perforation a “formidable complication” that can cause “life-threatening bleeding, peritonitis, [and] loss of reproductive function.”

Medic-Journal gives the symptoms of a uterine perforation as “intense pain in the lower abdomen and signs of intra-abdominal bleeding: bloody discharge from the vagina, weakness, dizziness, tachycardia.”

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Catholics in Virginia on Thursday celebrated the historic announcement of the first American pope in the history of the church. Diocese of Richmond Bishop Barry C. Knestout said he rejoiced at the selection of Cardinal Robert Prevost.

“Along with the faithful of the Diocese of Richmond, I rejoice in thanksgiving at the announcement of our new pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope to be elected,” Knestout said in a statement. “Like many, my initial reaction was one of joyful astonishment when I heard the cardinal protodeacon announce that Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a Chicago native, was elected as the 267th pope to lead our Church.”

Prevost, 69, who took the name Pope Leo XIV, was born in Chicago and spent much of his career ministering in Peru.

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An Asian American coalition has filed a federal civil rights complaint against Yale University alleging discrimination using racial proxies during the 2023-2024 admission cycle.

The complaint, filed on April 22 by the Asian American Coalition for Education to the Office for Civil Rights under the U.S. Department of Education, alleges that Yale discriminated against Asian American applicants in its admissions process.

“Compelling evidence indicated that Yale University may have unlawfully employed race proxies to circumvent the Supreme Court’s SFFA rulings,” AACE President Yukong Zhao told The College Fix in a recent email.

In the complaint, the coalition asked the federal government to suspend funding to the university if Yale does not comply with the law and remove all race-based admission preferences and practices.

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China said Friday sales to the United States slumped last month while its total exports topped forecasts, as Beijing fought a gruelling trade war with its superpower rival.

Trade between the world’s two largest economies has nearly skidded to a halt since US President Donald Trump imposed various rounds of levies on China that began as retaliation for Beijing’s alleged role in a devastating fentanyl crisis.

Tariffs on many Chinese products now reach as high as 145 percent — with cumulative duties on some goods soaring to a staggering 245 percent.

Beijing has responded with 125 percent tariffs on imports of US goods, along with other measures targeting American firms.

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US President Donald Trump has foregone the condition originally set in negotiations with Saudi Arabia, and is prepared to discuss cooperation on a Saudi civilian nuclear project even without normalization of the country’s relations with Israel, according to a report by Reuters today.

The previous US president, Joe Biden, made expansion of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi recognition of Israel a condition for nuclear cooperation.

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The Trump administration is considering cutting the steep 145% tariff on Chinese imports by more than half, possibly as early as next week, as US and Chinese officials gear up for high-level trade talks in Switzerland,

The New York Post

reported, citing sources close to the negotiations.US officials are reportedly weighing a reduction of the levy to somewhere between 50% and 54%, a move aimed at easing tensions as trade negotiations unfold.

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Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday was set to vote on ratifying a resources deal with the United States that Kyiv hopes will pave the way to further military support.The deal, signed last week in Washington, will see Washington and Kyiv jointly develop Ukraine’s natural resources and minerals.Securing a fresh agreement was seen as a diplomatic success for Kyiv, coming after a White House clash between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy that derailed an original deal that was ready to be signed.”We hope we will successfully complete the ratification today,”

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German Chancellor Freidrich Merz has told President Trump and the United States to “stay out” of his country’s politics.

The country’s intelligence agency confirmed last week that it had classified the conservative Alternative for Germany party as a “proven right-wing extremist organization” because of their opposition to mass immigration and progressive ideology.

In a post on the X platform, Secretary of State Marco Rubio slammed German authorities for their continued crackdown against their political opposition.

He wrote:

Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise.

What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes.

Germany should reverse course.

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Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has declared Alternative for Germany (AfD) a “right-wing extremist group” and “opposed to the basic democratic order,” allowing the country’s intelligence apparatus to intensify surveillance efforts against the nation’s second-largest political party.

Late last week BfV delivered its 1,100-page report (which is not publicly available) to the Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser, who is leaving office after her party, the Social Democratic Party, finished third in Germany’s February elections.

Allegedly the report states, “Central to our assessment is the ethnically and ancestrally defined concept of the people that shapes the AfD, which devalues entire segments of the population in Germany and violates their human dignity.”

The report claims that AfD, which campaigned on immigration reform and the assimilation of Muslim migrants, seeks to exclude Muslims from society.

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Iran has been significantly expanding its covert nuclear weapons development since 2009, it has emerged. New intelligence uncovered by Iranian opposition group NCRI reveals that the regime’s Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND) is running a secret programme to boost nuclear warhead capability, including mounting them on ballistic missiles able to strike targets over 1,900 miles away. The revelations come as Tehran prepares for a fourth round of proposed nuclear talks with the US in Muscat next week, with experts predicting they may derail negotiations.

At the heart of this effort is the Ivanaki (Eyvanekey) facility, a sprawling 2,500-acre site in Semnan Province, northern Iran. Publicly, it is presented as a paint and chemical production site operated by Diba Energy Sina. In reality, it is used for the construction of nuclear weapon components.

Operational since around 2013, Ivanaki is one of several covert facilities established after Iran’s previous nuclear weapons programme, the Amad Plan, was exposed and halted in 2003.

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Despite warnings from European Union officials, Slovakia’s Moscow-friendly prime minister, Robert Fico, shook hands with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin before becoming the only EU leader to attend Russia’s 9 May parade of military forces waging war on Ukraine.

The Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, whose country aspires to join the 27-nation bloc, also accepted the Russian president’s invitation to attend the annual Victory Day celebrations marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war.

The pair were the only European leaders to travel to Moscow after strong injunctions from EU officials not to do so. On Thursday, the bloc’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said: “All those who truly support peace cannot stand side-by-side with Putin. Those who truly support peace should be in Ukraine tomorrow, not Moscow.”

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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised tests of short-range ballistic missile systems that simulated nuclear counterstrikes against U.S. and South Korean forces, state media said Friday, as the North continued to blame its rivals for escalating tensions through their joint military exercises.

The report came a day after South Korea’s military detected multiple launches from North Korea’s eastern coast and assessed that the tests could also be related to the country’s weapons exports to Russia during its war in Ukraine.

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It’s a bad day to be a Donald Trump nominee.

Just 24 hours after pulling his pick for surgeon general, the president has now announced he will drop Ed Martin’s nomination to serve as U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.—the latest collapse in an administration stacked with loyalists and controversy magnets.

“We have somebody else that we’ll be announcing over the next two days that will be great,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday.

Martin’s nomination had been on life support for days. On Tuesday, New Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis—a key GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee—came out against Martin, citing the nominee’s past defense of Jan. 6 insurrectionists. With Tillis out on Martin, that made a deadlocked 11-11 committee vote likely, with several other Republican senators still uncommitted.

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The Thursday three network morning shows of ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today, and CBS Mornings could not and therefore did not downplay the violence that occurred overnight at Columbia University as pro-Palestinian agitators occupied Butler Library during finals week. However, they did manage to sanitize the message used to justify that violence, as it was mostly claimed they simply want an end to the Gaza War.

Today anchor Savannah Guthrie introduced correspondent Sam Brock, “Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters taken into custody after they stormed a library at Columbia University and refused to leave for hours. NBC’s Sam Brock on the campus there for us. Sam, what’s the latest here?”