World, US, Culture, Market, and Sci-Tech News Aggregation from MSM and Independent News
News Source
EXCERPT:
That old saw about politicians eventually getting around to taxing the air we breathe hasn’t quite come true in Illinois — yet. First, Illinois Democrats have to figure out how to tax social media.
Judging by this first effort, we can relax because if Democrats in the Land of Lincoln don’t understand what social media is and how to figure out how to tax it, our air is safe.
“A nearly $56 billion state spending plan is headed to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk after the Democratic-controlled Illinois legislature approved it in the early-morning hours of another overtime spring session,” the Chicago Tribune‘s Dan Petrella noted last week. “The biggest source of new revenue is a new per-user tax on large social media companies.”
News Source
EXCERPT:
Hey y’all, welcome back to Unfit to Print.
Today we’re covering the Belfast riots, our exclusive on a Trump admin official’s pithy response to the Washington Post, and a telling poll about Dem support for sex changes.
THE MIGRANT CRIME HOSTAGE STATEMENT
There is a strange little ritual that now follows certain crimes.
News Source
EXCERPT:
Police blasted water cannons Wednesday at protesters in Northern Ireland who set small fires and hurled bricks, rocks and bottles at them during a second night of violence over a brutal stabbing on a Belfast street.
Demonstrators wearing masks tore bricks from the walls outside homes and smashed sidewalks with sledgehammers to toss at riot police. In one place, the unruly crowd used sections of a dismantled picket fence to take cover on the street.
The clashes with police came several hours after a 30-year-old man from Sudan appeared in a Belfast court charged with attempted murder in a stabbing attack that left a man seriously injured and triggered anti-immigrant violence.
Iran Announces Closure Of Hormuz After US Attacks– www.ndtv.com
News Source
EXCERPT:
The United States launched a new wave of attacks against Iran on Wednesday, with President Donald Trump vowing to “hit them hard” after accusing Tehran’s negotiators of “playing us for suckers”.
The Khatam al-Anbiya command said Thursday, “any vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz will be targeted” adding that the strait is now “completely closed to all types of vessel”, according to the Tasnim news agency.
News Source
EXCERPT:
Artificial intelligence systems can write essays, answer questions, and solve complex problems. But new research suggests they may struggle with something humans do every day: staying focused on the task at hand when distractions get in the way.
Researchers led by Suketu Patel put several leading AI models through a well-known psychology experiment called the Stroop task. The results revealed a significant difference between how AI systems process information and how the human brain manages attention.
News Source
EXCERPT:
China has become the first country in the world to operate an underwater data center, or UDC, powered by wind. Located off the coast of Shanghai, the complex represents a significant advance in the country’s strategy to secure energy supplies in the face of the accelerated growth of artificial intelligence, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and reduce the environmental impact of its technology infrastructure.
The initiative is the result of a collaboration between private company HiCloud Technology and state-owned China Communications Construction, which involved an investment of 1.6 billion yuan, equivalent to about $236 million.
With an initial capacity of 24 megawatts, the facility is submerged at a depth of 10 meters in the Lin-gang Special Zone, within the China Pilot Free Trade Zone in Shanghai. This location allows seawater to be used as a natural cooling system, reducing the proportion of energy used to cool the infrastructure to less than 10 percent.
News Source
EXCERPT:
Washington — President Trump on Wednesday applauded the latest inflation spike, saying the numbers are “great” and “I love the inflation” because the U.S. “taking out” what he called “millions” of barrels of Iranian oil in the dead of night. The president added that he’s “just announcing today for the first time” that the U.S. is seizing Iranian oil.
Once the conflict is over, Mr. Trump said oil prices and inflation will drop rapidly. A reporter asked the president in the Oval Office Wednesday if he’s concerned that the Consumer Price Index rose at an annual rate of 4.2%, up from 3.8% in the prior month and marking the highest level since April 2023. The new inflation numbers were released earlier Wednesday.
News Source
EXCERPT:
A preprint describing genetically edited human embryos is raising concerns among scientists that the U.S. is becoming more accepting of using gene editing to enhance embryos.
“The cat’s out of the bag,” says Alexis Komor, deputy director of the Sanford Stem Cell Innovation Center at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the new finding.
A team of researchers, led by senior author and Columbia University cell biology researcher Dieter Egli, used base editing—a form of gene editing that involves small cuts to a single strand of DNA—to edit two genomic sites in human zygotes, or embryos at the single-cell stage, that correspond to PCSK9, a gene that regulates cholesterol, and HBG1 and HBG2, two genes that are responsible for the fetal form of the oxygen-carrying protein hemoglobin. The genes were chosen because they were well-studied, not for potential therapeutic purposes, the investigators wrote in the preprint. The experiment was first reported by the New York Times.
News Source
EXCERPT:
David Flippo, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who earned President Donald Trump’s support, won the GOP primary to replace retiring Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei.
The race in Nevada’s 2nd District was a proxy war between Trump and prominent state Republicans, many of whom backed former state Sen. James Settelmeyer, including Amodei and GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo. Flippo ended up emerging victorious on Wednesday from a crowded, 13-person Republican field.
The victory continues Trump’s 2026 hot streak in GOP primary endorsements, marred only by a hiccup in last week’s Iowa gubernatorial primary. Trump backed Flippo in a Truth Social post in late May, less than two weeks before Election Day.
Flippo campaigned as a hardliner on immigration and transgender issues, and he slammed Settelmeyer as a “woke liberal” in ads. But Settelmeyer’s opponents took issue with Flippo, a longtime Las Vegas resident who only recently purchased property in Reno, attempting to run the state’s lone safely Republican district.
News Source
EXCERPT:
There can be only one reason not to count votes on a single election day: fraud. Allowing votes to be accepted and “counted” for days, or, as in California, months after election day, enables one essential Democrat cheating tactic: Democrats get to know the total of Republican votes, so they know how many Democrat votes they’ll have to manufacture to win.
This is compounded by ballot harvesting, ballot drop boxes, and mail-in ballots sent to everyone, including the dead, illegal aliens, and people who haven’t lived in the state for years. Accepting those ballots prior to election day allows Democrats not only to accept and count illegal ballots, but to suppress Republican ballots. Ballots destroyed and never counted can’t be discovered in audits, which they violently resist. Add in allowing anyone to register to vote with just about anything with someone’s name on it, and you have an anti-Republican—as in our constitutional republic—single-party state.
News Source
EXCERPT:
There are moments in history when a nation reveals what it truly believes about human dignity.
Right now, in the United States, unborn children are legally torn apart limb by limb in the womb through procedures sanitized by clinical language and hidden behind political slogans. Tiny arms are ripped from sockets. Legs are severed. Organs are crushed. Skull fragments are extracted piece by piece. This is not a scene from a horror film. It is happening in abortion facilities across America under the protection of the law.
That is why the Dismemberment Abortion Ban Act of 2026 matters. Introduced in late April by Florida Rep. Kat Cammack and Missouri Rep. Bob Onder in the House, alongside South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds and Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in the Senate, the bill would prohibit one of the most barbaric abortion procedures still practiced in modern medicine.
News Source
EXCERPT:
Iran says it has launched a missile attack at an airbase in Jordan hosting US forces, after also targeting Kuwait and Bahrain. The Revolutionary Guards said missiles have targeted the Muwaffaq Salti airbase, which is known to host US F-35 fighter jets and other aircraft.
Neither Jordan nor the US has acknowledged any attack, but if confirmed it would likely be the first time that Iran has targeted Jordan since the start of the ceasefire in April.
The US strikes on Iran followed the downing of a US Apache helicopter over the strait of Hormuz, from which two crew members were rescued in a stable condition. In a post on social media Trump said the US “must” respond to the helicopter crash.
Here is the latest:
The US launched multiple waves of strikes on Iran in response to a military helicopter crash off the strait of Hormuz that Donald Trump said Iran had downed. The Associated Press reported that the Apache helicopter that crashed went down after colliding with an Iranian drone, but it was not clear whether the collision was intentional.
US strikes were reported across Iran’s southern coast, on the strait of Hormuz. After more than three hours of military action, US central command (Centcom) said strikes were “completed”, adding that the US remained ready to defend against “unjustified Iranian aggression.”
Soon after, Iran launched retaliatory attacks against the US, according to the countries state media, which said American bases in the region and the US fifth fleet in Bahrain were targeted with drones. Kuwait and Bahrain issued air raid alerts and reported that air defences were active in repelling attacks. Iran also claimed it had targeted a US base in Jordan with long range missiles.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said no attack would go “unanswered”, soon after the US launched strikes on Iran. Posting an image of the strait of Hormuz with the label, “Forever Persian Gulf”, Araghchi says that “despite its defeats on the battlefield, the U.S. opted to test our determination.”
Five hours before the airstrikes, Trump had posted on social media that the US “must” respond to the helicopter crash, from which two crew members were rescued in stable condition. Before his social media post, however, Trump appeared to downplay the crash, telling the Wall Street Journal in a phone interview that it “wasn’t a big deal” and that “the pilot is fine.”
Iranian state media reported that no air military operations have taken place in the strait of Hormuz over the past 24 hours, according to Reuters.
Lebanon’s health ministry said 11 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the southern city of Tyre on Tuesday. The state-run National News Agency (NNA) had reported the first strike taking place not long before Israel’s military issued an evacuation warning for the entire city and surrounding areas ahead of strikes there.
News Source
EXCERPT:
Republican House lawmakers have introduced legislation to stop sexual predators from obtaining children through the use of surrogacy, after a homosexual registered sex offender purchased a baby boy in Pennsylvania.
Last year, LifeSiteNews covered the case of Brandon Mitchell, a Tier 1 sex offender in Pennsylvania, convicted of “sexual abuse of children” and “possession of child pornography.” A high school chemistry teacher at the time, Mitchell was arrested in 2016 for numerous “sexually explicit solicitations and conversations” with a 16-year-old student after he was found to have sent 20 explicit photos and a sexually explicit video of himself.
Despite this record, Mitchell and his “husband” Logan Riley shared a video of them celebrating holidays with the surrogate-born boy through the first year of his life.
Now, Rep. Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) has introduced HR 9131, the Protecting Kids From Creeps Act, which punishes surrogacy agencies that fail to conduct background checks on clients; and HR 9132, the Preventing International Surrogacy Exploitation Act, which forbids foreign nationals from using American-based surrogacy services.
“These bills put children first (which should always be the case, and some seem to be forgetting that), and help prevent predators / foreign actors from obtaining children in our Nation for personal gain, profit, or other nefarious reasons,” Perry declared.
News Source
EXCERPT:
After weeks in which President Donald Trump has expressed cautious optimism about peace talks with Iran, the United States retaliated against an Iranian downing of an American aircraft, raising questions about the administration’s Iran exit plan and how it will work with Congress going forward.
On Tuesday, the United States struck Iran in retaliation for the downing of an Army Apache helicopter. U.S. Central Command described the “self-defense strikes” as “a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression.”
Trump tied the strike into Iran’s hesitancy to accept American peace offers.
News Source
EXCERPT:
Congressional Republicans returned to the Capitol on Monday, and CNN’s Manu Raju has been tracking them down to ask if they have any proof to support Trump’s claim that the primary election in California was rigged.
When Raju asked the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson said:
I, look, I don’t… Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream, it is impossible to prove, but I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here, and that’s a concern. We need people to believe in the integrity of our election system. It is critical to maintain a constitutional republic. We’re gonna keep working to pass the Save America Act because it requires, as you know, proof of citizenship and a photo ID to vote.
That, those are also 90%-plus issues in public opinion, and 70% of Democrats understand that’s, that’s necessary. We have to have free and fair elections-
Johnson seemed to be claiming that there is no proof that the California primary election was rigged because Democrats in the state are “diabolical.”
News Source
EXCERPT:
Social Security’s trustees said in their annual report released Tuesday that the New Deal program will be unable to pay out full benefits by the end of 2032—a quarter earlier than projected last year—in the absence of congressional action, a finding that advocates said underscores the destructive impact of President Donald Trump’s policy agenda and the need to make the rich finally pay their fair share into the system.
“This is the first Social Security trustees report that begins to take Donald Trump’s second term policies into account: A tax bill that largely benefited the wealthy, economy-wrecking tariffs, a needless war with Iran, and hostility to immigrants,” said Nancy Altman, the president of Social Security Works. “All of these have reduced the amount of money going into Social Security, weakening the system’s finances.”
News Source
EXCERPT:
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — A cholera outbreak in northeastern Nigeria has killed 74 people and infected more than 7,000 others since it started in early May, medical charity Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday.
The outbreak, reported in 14 of Borno state’s 27 local governments, is unfolding in communities with health systems made fragile by nearly two decades of violent extremism from the Boko Haram insurgent group.
The illness is endemic and seasonal in the country, where only 14% of Nigeria’s population of more than 200 million have access to safely managed drinking water supply services, according to government data from 2020.
News Source
EXCERPT:
The president said Iranian forces had shot down a U.S. Apache helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz and the United States “must, of necessity, respond to this attack.” There was no immediate comment from Tehran.
News Source
EXCERPT:
More than 1,200 emergency personnel, supported by international teams from Japan and Australia, were deployed across the disaster zone as search crews continued inspecting damaged buildings for possible survivors. Although only four people remained officially listed as missing, authorities said heavily damaged structures still required thorough examination.
General Santos, a city of more than 700,000 people, was among the worst affected areas. Collapsing buildings and falling debris caused at least 13 deaths, while thousands of homes, schools, hospitals and public facilities suffered damage. Initial assessments indicated that more than 3,100 houses had been destroyed and 145 public buildings affected, including 12 hospitals and 89 schools.
News Source
EXCERPT:
President Donald Trump’s explanation for the latest escalation “doesn’t make sense,” Larry Johnson has told RT
The US and Israel carried out their latest strikes on Iran and Lebanon in a deliberate effort to sabotage the ongoing peace talks, former CIA analyst Larry Johnson has told RT.
On Wednesday local time, the US struck Qeshm Island and targets in southern Iran in response to the crash of a US AH-64 Apache attack helicopter off the coast of Oman – an incident US President Donald Trump blamed on Iran. Tehran, however, has refused to confirm that it was responsible for the crash.
News Source
EXCERPT:
Taiwan may feel distant to most Europeans, but a Chinese takeover of the island would send shockwaves from Washington to Tokyo, Taiwan’s deputy foreign minister François Chih-chung Wu told Euronews Next.
“If China attacks Taiwan, France, Europe, the United States, and Japan will all be affected. Taiwan will be in a terrible situation — but so will you,” he warned.
The deputy minister pushed back on China’s claim over Taiwan as part of its territory since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. Beijing has never ruled out using force to bring the self-governing island under its control and refuses to recognise it as a sovereign state, insisting it be referred to internationally as “Chinese Taipei,” a designation that reflects China’s position that there is only “one China” and that Taiwan is part of it.
Taiwan itself officially goes by the Republic of China, a name dating back to the government that fled to the island after losing the civil war to Mao Zedong’s Communist forces.
Taiwan’s history is far more complex than the narrative that it has always been part of China, Wu said, with the island ruled by the Dutch, the Spanish, the Qing Empire and Japan at different times.
The Qing Dynasty administered part of Taiwan for more than a hundred years, but it was only between 1885 and 1894 that it attached any real importance to the island and established it as a province — a mere ten years of genuine strategic interest that challenges the current Chinese claims of continued sovereignty.
“China was not the only country there,” he said, arguing this history does not justify Beijing’s ambitions.
News Source
EXCERPT:
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) endorsed South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) in the Palmetto State’s GOP gubernatorial primary after she lost the initial primary Tuesday. “I want you to know that I’m going to endorse Alan Wilson for governor,” Mace told supporters after polls closed. “I want a law-and-order governor, and that law-and-order governor is going to…
News Source
EXCERPT:
Los Angeles’ hotel industry is losing jobs at its fastest pace in a decade outside of the pandemic, raising fresh concerns about the economic fallout from some of the most aggressive minimum wage mandates in the nation.
A new analysis of federal labor data found that Los Angeles County hotels and motels saw their workforce shrink by 1.7% in December 2025 compared to the same month a year earlier, as businesses grappled with rapidly rising labor costs imposed by city and county officials.
The decline comes as Los Angeles prepares to host a series of major international events, including the 2028 Summer Olympics, while hotel operators warn that mounting costs are threatening the industry’s ability to expand and meet future demand.
Wage Mandates Coincide with Sharp Employment Decline
According to an analysis by the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) of newly released U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the contraction represents the steepest year-over-year decline in Los Angeles County’s hotel industry in a decade, excluding pandemic-related disruptions.
The losses followed a series of government-mandated wage increases.
News Source
EXCERPT:
A Collin County, Texas, jury found Karmelo Anthony guilty of murder on Tuesday for the fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf during a high school track meet in Frisco in April 2025. The jury rejected Anthony’s claim that he acted in self-defense.
The jury returned the verdict after roughly three hours of deliberation. Reports indicate the jurors did not opt for a lesser manslaughter conviction.
The New York Post provided a brief recap of the events that led to Metcalf’s death:
The violent confrontation erupted in the bleachers of Kuykendall Stadium when Anthony refused to leave the tent reserved for the Memorial High School track team during a rain delay.
Anthony was repeatedly asked to leave the tent multiple times, and Metcalf began to argue with him.
The argument escalated further when Anthony said to Metcalf “touch me and see what happens,” while keeping his hand hidden in his backpack, implying that he had a weapon, according to FOX4.
Metcalf pushed him and Anthony fatally stabbed him in the chest with a knife.
Witnesses for the state testified that Anthony acted as the aggressor.
Anthony was caught on video stating, “I’m not alleged, I did it.”
“He put his hands on me.”
News Source
EXCERPT:
The buzziest bit of the new artificial-intelligence bill from Reps. Jay Obernolte, a California Republican, and Lori Trahan, a Massachusetts Democrat, is probably the section that would let Washington preempt state rules on AI development for three years. For me, the more interesting part is its bet on auditing as a middle path between Silicon Valley self-regulation and an FDA-style premarket approval regime for frontier models.
Earlier this year, several dozen AI policy folks signed onto a proposal, “Frontier AI Auditing: Toward Rigorous Third-Party Assessment of Safety and Security Practices at Leading AI Companies” that “outlines a vision for frontier AI auditing, which we define as rigorous third-party verification of frontier AI developers’ safety and security claims, and evaluation of their systems and practices against relevant standards, based on deep, secure access to non-public information.”
What does that mean? For starters, an audit is not a permission slip. Rather than making a company clear a government gate before shipping, as the FDA does with drugs, an independent reviewer with access to the confidential innards of an AI company would check the latest model against a set standard. Think of it as how an accountant signs off on a public company’s books. Private firms do the examining while a public body stays in the background. Maybe it sets the rules, accredits the examiners, and holds the enforcement hammer.