World, US, Culture, Market, and Sci-Tech News Aggregation from MSM and Independent News
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This may be one of the more baffling and frightening stories you will hear about something happening at an airport and/or during air travel. Late Friday night, as the flight crew of a commerial airplane was beginning its takeoff at a major U.S. airport, the combination of what came to pass could only be described as chaotic. Luckily, almost everyone involved got through it unscathed, with just minor injuries. One man who made a careless choice was not so fortunate.
As I mentioned, the Frontier Airlines plane was gaining speed and preparing to leave the ground at Denver International Airport (DIA) when, unbelievably, they reported to the tower their plane had just hit “somebody” – that is, a person:
One person was struck and killed by a Frontier Airlines plane two minutes after jumping a perimeter fence and crossing a runway at Denver International Airport late Friday, the airport said.
The pedestrian, who has not been identified, is not believed to be an airport employee, the airport said in a statement.
Flight 4345, an Airbus A321, was departing from Denver en route to Los Angeles and carried 224 passengers and seven crew members, Frontier Airlines said in a statement. It was scheduled to depart at 10:39 p.m. local time.
As the plane was departing, “the aircraft reportedly struck a pedestrian on the runway during takeoff,” the airline said.
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Fulton County, Georgia — the epicenter of so many lingering questions about the 2020 presidential election — has a new problem on its hands. On May 4, 2026, the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections filed a 27-page motion to quash in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia asking a federal judge to quash a grand jury subpoena demanding the personal identifying information of thousands of county election workers and volunteers who helped administer the November 2020 General Election.
The original subpoena was issued under seal on April 17, 2026, by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of North Carolina under U.S. Attorney Dan Bishop. It was served on the board around April 20 and required production of records by May 5. It seeks names, positions/functions, residential addresses, email addresses, and personal telephone numbers for essentially the entire 2020 Fulton election workforce.
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Iran has hanged an alleged US spy who Tehran accused of collaborating with the CIA. Erfan Shakourzadeh, 29, was hanged after being accused of espionage and collaboration with the US and Israel, according to Iranian state news.
It comes as Iran rejected the US plan to end the war, with Iranian media describing the deal as equivalent to “Tehran’s submission to Trump’s excessive demands”. A 29‑year‑old student from Tehran’s Iran University of Science and Technology, was executed after Iran’s judiciary accused him of assisting the CIA and Mossad—charges he firmly denied in a final message shared by human rights groups.
Arrested in February 2025 and accused of collaborating with hostile governments, he was reportedly subjected to nine months of severe physical and psychological torture in solitary confinement as authorities sought forced confessions. Please confirm details with a trusted news source.
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Hopes for a peace deal with Iran waned on Sunday, raising the risk that the global energy crisis will drag on and leaving the U.S. to weigh military operations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones industrial average fell 200 points, or 0.40%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.33%, and Nasdaq futures lost 0.28%.
U.S. oil futures rose 2.7% to $97.97 a barrel, while Brent crude climbed 2.7% to $104.01. Gold fell 0.76% to $4,695 per ounce.
The U.S. dollar was up 0.2% against the euro and up 0.14% against the yen. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was steady at 4.36%.
On Sunday, Iran responded to the U.S. ceasefire offer, saying talks must focus on permanently ending the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon.
Sources also told the Wall Street Journal that Iran proposed gradually reopening the strait as the U.S. lifts its naval blockade.
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Housing will be based on students’ biological sex to adhere to federal guidance issued by President Donald Trump, UNC spokeswoman Christy Jackson told the Charlotte Observer.
“Executive Order 14168 directed federal agencies, including the Department of Education, to interpret sex-based laws based on biological sex rather than gender identity,” Jackson told the newspaper. “As a recipient of federal funds, UNC Charlotte must comply with applicable Title IX directives.”
The order states in p
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In today’s issue: Democrats are still in the driver’s seat toward winning back control of the House, despite suffering a major blow in Virginia on Friday and at least three GOP-controlled Southern states scrambling to redraw their midterm maps. The Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the results of the state’s redistricting referendum from last month invalidated a new congressional map that Democrats viewed as key to countering Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting efforts. …
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US President Donald Trump said the ceasefire with Iran was still in place despite an Iranian attack on three American destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz that fanned fears Friday that the truce was faltering. The US military said it carried out strikes on Iranian military targets in response, although Tehran charged that it was Washington that had initiated the exchange of fire.
The latest violence threatens to unravel a fragile truce in effect since April 8 that brought an end to weeks of US-Israeli attacks on the Islamic republic, which has retaliated with strikes across the Middle East and by blocking the strait, a vital route for oil and gas shipments.
The United Arab Emirates said Friday that its air defences were “engaging missile and drone attacks originating from Iran”.
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The government of Bahrain announced Saturday that security authorities arrested 41 individuals allegedly tied to a network linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), marking one of the kingdom’s largest recent crackdowns on suspected Iranian influence operations.
According to a statement from Bahrain’s Interior Ministry, the detainees were identified as central members of the organization’s “main structure” operating inside the country.
Authorities said the arrests followed intelligence operations and investigations conducted alongside public prosecutors into alleged espionage activities involving foreign entities and support for Iranian aggression.
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Charged with federal crimes for allegedly making false statements to banks and making wire transfers in the names of companies that didn’t exist, the Southern Poverty Law Center hired Hunter Biden’s lawyer (among many others) and signaled an Orange Man Bad defense: Mean Donald Trump is having us prosecuted as a partisan attack, because we’re politically left and he’s politically right.
Previewing the strategy with an opening salvo on April 28, the SPLC’s small army of lawyers filed a 27-page brief (and do remember that page count) demanding that the courts protect their client against the DOJ’s cruel public lies on scary Fox News. The SPLC posted the whole brief on its website, and you can read it here. It claims that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has falsely claimed that the SPLC never told law enforcement about things learned from its informant program, when they actually did. Screenshot of the opening statement, after a long table of contents and table of authorities that took up five whole pages:
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A school district in Virginia is using a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) filter on its use of generative AI (GenAI) in schools to inject a race-focused lens into teacher and administrative decision-making.
According to documents obtained by Defending Education, Albemarle County Public Schools (ACPS), a far-left school district surrounding Charlottesville, and which includes Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, has built its GenAI policy based around its “anti-racism” policy, which is inherently discriminatory against white students in favor of other races.
“While schools should engage in good judgement and do their due diligence when it comes to Artificial Intelligence integration, the fact that the district is vetting AI based on its compliance with diversity, equity, and inclusion should be concerning for parents,” Rhyen Staley, Director of Research at Defending Education, told The Federalist. “By only allowing the use of AI and information sources that reflect a leftwing political bias, district administrators are setting a precedent that is harmful to the learning process and neutrality of schools.”
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CHONGQING, China — Three years ago, in the idyllic town of Woodside south of San Francisco, the United States and China held their first high-level talks on the dangers posed by artificial intelligence. President Xi Jinping and his longtime foreign minister appeared serious in their conviction that a channel should be a established between Beijing and Washington — a red phone for AI in case of emergencies.
They authorized a diplomatic effort that would begin in 2024 in Switzerland, only months before the U.S. presidential election. A large U.S. delegation arrived with high hopes that were abruptly dashed, according to four sources who attended the talks. The Chinese contingent dismissed American concerns over runaway AI as academic, almost theoretical, quickly turning the conversation to export controls seen in Beijing as yet another U.S. effort to hold China back.
“They naturally view any American diplomatic initiative involving limitations or restrictions of one flavor or another on a capability as being a trap,” Jake Sullivan, U.S. national security advisor under President Biden, said in an interview.
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In Iowa, Republicans face a potential bruising that could leave the red state looking pretty purple after November.
Once a bellwether, Iowa has jagged to the right recently. In 2024, Donald Trump won it by over 13 percentage points, making for the state’s largest margin of victory in a presidential election since 1972. And two years before that, in 2022, it reelected Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds by over 18 points.
In a normal election year, a Democrat would likely have little chance of winning the keys to Terrace Hill, the governor’s official residence. But with Trump’s war of choice in the Middle East and domestic prices climbing, this isn’t shaping up to be a normal election year. In fact, Iowa’s governor race may prove to be something of a bellwether for state executives across the nation.
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Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has been issuing increasingly vitriolic solo dissents directed at the majority on the Supreme Court. The issue is not so much her simplistic and ideologically driven substance, but that she insults her colleagues.
We have covered multiple prior instances:
Her most recent outburst came in the Louisiana redistricting case, where she lashed out after all the other Justices granted a request to expedite entry of judgment in light of the election calendar. She was so over the top that a rebuke was issued from Justice Alito, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch. We covered it in Alito Obliterates Jackson’s Dissent: ‘Groundless and Utterly Irresponsible’.
I had a chance to discuss KBJ’s tactics on the Tony Katz show (transcript excerpt, may contain transcription errors, lightl
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May Day demonstrations have spread across the United States, increasingly serving as vehicles for hostility toward American institutions and values. Those who celebrate these demonstrations should confront the lived reality of people from former communist countries—individuals who were not free participants but were forced each May 1, like prodded cattle, to march with their children in orchestrated displays of loyalty to party power. Refusal was not dissent; it was a punishable offense that could cost one’s livelihood, freedom, or even life.
Last week, the sign outside the Victims of Communism (“VOC”) Museum in Washington, D.C., was vandalized by a radical mob celebrating May Day and embracing communist ideology—an incident documented by the VOC Memorial Foundation, which shared photographic evidence on its official social media channels. This act was disgraceful—but not surprising. The VOC LinkedIn announcement states: “The VOC Museum teaches the violent truth about communism. That’s why we are never surprised when Marxists threaten us and vandalize our schoolhouse—they want to stop our mission.”
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A recent incident at Johns Hopkins University, in which students coordinated via social media to erase pro-life chalk messages across campus, has renewed questions about whether the university’s commitment to free expression reflects the realities of its campus culture.
Members of Johns Hopkins Voice for Life wrote phrases such as “We are the pro-life generation,” “Dear lawmakers, protect the most vulnerable,” and “Women’s rights begin in the womb,” alongside drawings of a fetus and links to pregnancy-resource websites at multiple designated locations across campus.
Within two hours, almost all the messages had been washed away or scribbled over.
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A postseason track meet in California began Saturday with a “Save Girls’ Sports” rally, taking place outside of the gates. Unfortunately, the event concluded in the same fashion that we’ve seen before, with a transgender athlete absolutely dominating the competition in multiple jumping events. The situation only adds fuel to the fire of the concern regarding protection for girls and women in female sports.
A lot of attention was drawn to the Yorba Linda-based CIF Southern Section Division 3 preliminaries prior to competition beginning as a result of protestors going against the California policy of permitting trans athletes to participate in female sports.
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WASHINGTON — As Kamala Harris eyes a possible 2028 presidential bid, there is little outward enthusiasm among her biggest 2024 backers to fund a repeat performance, adding to uncertainty about the former vice president’s prospects in what is sure to be a crowded primary field.
The Times reached out to more than two dozen top donors to the biggest pro-Harris super PAC in 2024. Several of them said they do not plan to support her should she choose to run, or declined to talk about her. Others did not respond.
“I don’t think it’s a helpful narrative [for 2028] to start with the 2024 hangover,” said one fundraiser for Harris’ 2024 campaign, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “There is an enormous appetite for new blood — something fresh, something that really represents the future, not the past.”
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Last week, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced it had gathered more than 1.5 million signatures—nearly double what it needed—to put a sweeping new wealth tax on California’s November ballot. The initiative is called the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act.
The name is designed to make you stop reading. Don’t.
SEIU has spent months positioning itself as the champion of nurses, teachers and caregivers. What it has actually done is run a $24 million campaign to put a measure on the ballot that could eventually be used to tax virtually any Californian who owns assets—with no return trip to the ballot box required.
AI is quietly denying more insurance claims Digital Journal
from news.google.com
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South Carolina is the latest state that has moved to cancel their primary election, even though people are already voting:
South Carolina Republicans took the first step Friday to cancel the state’s June primary election — to give more time to potentially pass a new gerrymandered congressional map — as absentee voting is already underway.
A South Carolina House subcommittee voted 3-2 along party lines to advance a bill that would move the state’s June 9 primary election to August 11, with the expectation that the legislature would redraw the state’s congressional map to dismantle its lone Democratic district, represented by longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn.
The vote came after the committee heard hours of public testimony urging lawmakers to reject pressure to delay the state’s primaries and draw new congressional maps. In all, 23 South Carolina residents testified against redistricting and moving the state’s primaries. No one spoke in support of either measure.
More than 6,000 absentee ballots have already been sent out to military and overseas voters for the June primary — more than 200 of those ballots have since been returned, according to the South Carolina Election Commission (SCEC). Should the legislature approve the measure to delay the state’s primary, those ballots will be disqualified.
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The Trump administration has made artificial intelligence a centerpiece of its economic agenda, promising to retrain a workforce it says must be ready to compete in an AI-driven future. One early piece of that effort: a free text-message course from the Department of Labor (DOL) and private partner Arist called, “Make America AI-Ready”, is a useful start on the journey to AI literacy for all Americans. This seven-day long, 10-minute-per day course which frames itself as “your AI 101” is accessible, technically informative, and engaging (see below for the full contents). Here we analyze its strengths, lay out a few weaknesses we think should be addressed in the current version, and elaborate some stretch goals for an “AI 201” course that would build upon the original.