World, US, Culture, Market, and Sci-Tech News Aggregation from MSM and Independent News
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A federal court is trying to pull a judicial mulligan after the Supreme Court gave Alabama another shot at using its GOP-backed congressional map.
The Supreme Court threw out a lower-court order barring Alabama from using the congressional map the state adopted in 2023 and sent the dispute back to the lower court for another look. But a three-judge federal panel again blocked Alabama from using that map for the 2026 midterms.
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There is a chance this will not pass. The left does not want to let go of this.
Wisconsin voters to decide constitutional amendment banning DEI discrimination
A Wisconsin ballot initiative this fall would amend the state constitution to ban discriminatory Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives at government entities, including public universities.
Under Assembly Joint Resolution 102, government entities would be prohibited from “discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, public education, public contracting, or public administration.”
Before Wisconsin legislators can send a resolution to voters, the resolution must receive approval in two legislative years. Lawmakers first approved the proposed amendment during the 2023–24 session, then gave it second approval this January, sending it to voters this fall.
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Supporters of the measure have reached the number of necessary signatures, putting it one step closer to being on the November ballot.
A petition initiative in Oregon that supporters are seeking to have put on the November ballot would make it illegal to kill or injure animals in the state, a move that opponents say would effectively ban hunting and fishing in the state.
The proposed initiative, called the People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions (PEACE) Act, makes it a crime of animal abuse in the first degree if the person “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly” causes the death of an animal. The initiative also includes a provision extending sexual abuse of animals to include artificial insemination used on farm animals.
Per KATU2, supporters of the measure have reached the number of necessary signatures, putting it one step closer to being on the November ballot. The Secretary of State’s Office now has to verify the signatures.
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China now requires people working in AI at private firms to secure travel approval before leaving the country. According to Bloomberg, the restrictions apply to individuals working in state-owned firms, startup founders, and those employed by private companies, as the central government considers them important strategic assets. China has already been limiting international travel for key individuals such as senior researchers at public educational institutions, nuclear scientists, and even top executives of government-owned companies, but extending the restriction to private firms and individuals is an uncommon move, even for Beijing.
There’s no official guidance yet on which roles, expertise, or seniority will be included in the travel ban. However, Bloomberg sources say that the individuals added to the list were assessed based on their impact on China’s AI ambitions, not just where they work or their position within their company. This move is an expansion of a former government directive wherein some AI engineers had mandatory reporting of any overseas travel plan, although they were still free to go abroad as needed.
This shows that Beijing considers AI as a strategic advantage and that the people leading the industry are considered crucial for the country’s advancement. This news comes months after Meta’s surprise purchase of Manus AI, which China wants to unwind to prevent the U.S. from acquiring Chinese AI talent and intellectual property. Although the two aren’t directly related, the report says that the new policy is designed to protect against the leaking of key technologies, such as the one being developed by the Chinese startup that moved to Singapore.
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Millions of AI agents and tools around the world have been imperiled by a critical vulnerability that can allow hackers to breach the servers running them and make off with sensitive data and credentials to third-party accounts, a security researcher is warning.
The vulnerability is present in Starlette, an open source framework that its developer says receives 325 million downloads per week. Thousands of other open source projects are also vulnerable because they require Starlette to work. The framework is an implementation of the ASGI (asynchronous server gateway interface), which allows large numbers of requests to be efficiently processed simultaneously. Starlette is the base of FastAPI and other widely used frameworks for building services in Python apps, as well as many others.
ASGI, and by extension Starlette, have access to servers running the MCP (model context protocol), which allows AI agents from major providers to access external sources, including user data bases, email and calendar accounts, and all manner of other resources. To connect with these external systems, MCP servers store credentials for each one, making them especially valuable storehouses for attackers to breach.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-48710 and under the name BadHost, is trivial to exploit and works against most systems that aren’t behind a properly configured firewall. Besides FastAPI, other widely used packages—including vLLM, and LiteLLM—are also affected. BadHost affects Starlette versions prior to 1.0.1, which was released Friday.
“A single character injected into the HTTP Host header bypasses path-based authorization in Starlette, the routing core of FastAPI,” researchers from Secwest wrote. “Through FastAPI, this primitive (now tracked as CVE-2026-48710 and branded BadHost by the discoverers) reaches a large segment of the Python AI tooling ecosystem: vLLM (where the bug was discovered), LiteLLM, Text Generation Inference, most OpenAI-shim proxies, MCP servers, agent harnesses, eval dashboards, and model-management UIs.”
BadHost carries a severity rating of 7 out of 10. Secwest said the classification “materially understates” the threat it poses to people using other apps that depend on Starlette. X41 D-Sec, the security firm that discovered it, described it as having “critical severity.” X41 D-Sec partnered with fellow security firm Nemesis to create an online scanner that can check if a given server is vulnerable.
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Over the holiday weekend, New Jersey Democrat politicians gathered outside Newark’s Delaney Hall, which ICE has been using as a detention facility for over a decade. CNN showed video on Tuesday morning’s The Situation Room of several prominent Democrat politicians. Included in their highlight reel was New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, Senator Andy Kim, and Representative Robert Menendez, who spoke to cameras outside the facility amid swarms of protesters performing the modern Democrat’s favorite pastime as they clashed with officers and attempted to block vehicles coming in or out.
These particular protests were spurred by unsubstantiated “reports of rough conditions like rotten food and a hunger strike by detainees,” according to co-host Pamela Brown.
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An Ethiopian immigrant in Canada pleaded guilty to several “offences that included assaulting a teenager and smearing fecal matter over her face and mouth,” as well as “sexual assault, assault, and committing an indecent act,” according to the National Post. Because he has been unemployed for years, the judge deemed it an ‘undue hardship’ if he paid the fines imposed by law.
If you are surprised by this soft sentence, you are not paying attention. Clearly, the justice system for our northern neighbors is not what you would call “just.”
The crimes are worse than you could have ever imagined.
Per the National Post:
The judge waived the victim fine surcharge, noting that Zewdu has been unemployed for years and the fine “would be an undue hardship.” The surcharge is generally 15 per cent where a fine has been levied, or between $100 and $200 for each offence.
Court documents released this week outline the troubling nature of the offences. In one, which took place on June 27, 2025, a 17-year-old was walking in a residential area near a SkyTrain station when Zewdu approached her from behind and grabbed her.
“He then smeared fecal matter over her face and mouth while pushing and jamming feces into her face and mouth,” court records state. “Mr. Zewdu was laughing as he held out his phone, causing the victim to believe that Mr. Zewdu was recording the assault. A subsequent search of his phone showed that this was not the case.”
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Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei on Tuesday accused the US of committing a “despicable war crime” following a missile strike on a sports hall in Lamerd, Fars Province, that Tehran says killed 24 civilians, including teenage volleyball players and a two-year-old child, while injuring more than 130 people.
In a post on X, Baghaei said he was briefed by the Iranian member of Parliament for Mehr, Mousa Mousavi, about a ” devastating American missile strike” on a residential area and sports hall in the city of Lamerd.
“On the afternoon of Saturday, 9 Esfand 1404 (28 February 2026) the same day students at the Shajareh_Tayyibeh_School in Minab were massacred by Tomahawk missiles–a residential area in Lamerd, including a sports hall, was struck by U.S. Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM),” Baghaei said.
According to the Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, the strike “slaughtered 24 persons, including a 2-year-old girl, several teenage volleyball players”, while “more than 130 persons were injured, many of whom now face permanent disabilities.”
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged the three defendants with assault and intimidation by force.
The Minneapolis family members who have been federally indicted for an alleged attack on Turning Point USA “Frontlines” reporter Savanah Hernandez have been granted temporary restraining orders against the reporter, Hernandez announced on Tuesday.
All three defendants, Chris, DeYanna, and Paige Ostroushko, alleged to the court that they are the victims of “harassment” and “assault” from Hernandez, who was mob assaulted by the defendants while reporting outside the Whipple Federal Building in April. Hernandez, who sustained physical injuries and a concussion, said the Ostroushkos “extensively lied” about her, as well as the events that unfolded that day, in order to receive emergency restraining orders.
Additionally, the defendants petitioned the court to impose a gag order on Hernandez, attempting to prevent the reporter from posting about the attack on social media, according to court filings. Court documents also show that the Ostroushkos are trying to get Hernandez, as well as her family, banned from the vicinity of the ICE facility and the Minnesota county in which they live. Hernandez has not been charged with a crime and is the victim in this case, as evidenced by ample video footage and indictments.
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Republican Senators called it quits Thursday over a proposal to deliver restitution to the political victims of government weaponization, instead giving themselves paid vacation after balking at the idea that Americans deserve compensation for being targeted and mistreated by the federal government.
As many as 25 Republican senators reportedly balked at the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund designed to “to provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare” during a briefing by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
The fund would make restitution to people like pro-life Americans targeted for praying outside abortion facilities, individuals who were unfairly or excessively prosecuted for involvement in the Jan. 6 protest, and others targeted by the Biden administration. However, the fund is open to anyone who believes he was unfairly targeted by the government, and disbursement of monies will be decided on a case-by-case basis, according to Vice President J.D. Vance, who was asked about the fund earlier this week.
“The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” Blanche said of the fund in a press release.
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The sharper takes came from our own Rick Moran and HotAir columnist Ed Morrissey.
Every piece I’ve read, including Ed’s (which I’ll bounce off of here), circles the same two facts: The report remains unfinished, and Democrats seem about as eager to release it as a teenager is to hand over a phone during a police stop. Neither point is at all mysterious. They couldn’t bend the obvious conclusions into political cover, much less a political advantage, so now the report sits in bureaucratic purgatory while party operatives pray the news cycle develops ADHD and forgets the thing exists. Sadly and to a large part, it has, for the “reporters'” own politically motivated reasons.
Perhaps this is because they know the voting public, including members of their own party, have already come to their own less-than-complimentary conclusions.
As Ed says:
People can directly access the 192-page report, but it’s not easy to parse, thanks to the lack of effort in finishing the product. It’s unfinished in another sense, too: there is apparently no mention of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline or the effort to cover it up in the autopsy. The words “cognitive,” “dementia,” “senile,” and “mental” make no appearance in this document. The June 2024 debate barely gets a mention at all, and the report completely ignores its impact and what it revealed about Democrats’ attempts to sell a sick old man as “Sharp As A Tack”.
Ed quotes the report itself further to make his point:
Before the candidate switch, the pollsters never reviewed ad copy or content – and commented how they did not see ads until after they were airing, in some instances reading about the ads in the media. They also reported they had little insight into the data provided to leadership from the analytics team.
As the June 2024 debate neared, there were discussions about polling around the debate and after the convention. The polling team was informed the plan was for them to poll three times during the general election, and the post-convention polling would count as one of those three polling waves. They attributed this minimalist approach to research to members of the media team not believing polling data was essential to decision making.
The debate obviously changed many things. The dial-testing during the debate demonstrated the weakness of the President’s performance, and a post-debate survey was scrapped.
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Kerry Sheron, a 69-year-old Army veteran and owner of a residence in the San Diego area known locally as the “Trump House,” was critically injured in an assault near his home. His wife later told reporters that Sheron’s chances of recovery are slim to none.
Escondido police responded to reports of an assault in progress around 2:15 p.m. on Wednesday. Upon arrival, officers found Sheron suffering from severe injuries, while a utility worker who intervened kept the suspect restrained.
Sheron was transported to a trauma center, where he remained in critical condition in the ICU as of Thursday evening.
Sheron’s wife stated that her husband is not expected to survive the injuries. In a statement, she described his chances of recovering as having “no hope” following the assault, according to a report from the New York Post.
JUST IN: The wife of the elderly “Trump House” owner who was attacked in California says her husband is not expected to survive.
Maria Sheron says there is “no hope” for her husband, Kerry, who was brutally beaten outside his home.
Sheron, a 69-year-old Army veteran, is known… pic.twitter.com/TreeZEXVOX
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 21, 2026
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A bid to restore funding to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and border patrol has been derailed by rows over a $1bn proposal for security measures tied to Donald Trump’s White House ballroom and controversial plans to create a $1.8bn “anti-weaponization” fund.
The US Senate will not pass the $70bn legislation ahead of a 1 June deadline set by the US president, Republican senators told reporters on Thursday, as lawmakers leave Washington for the Memorial Day recess.
It comes amid backlash from members of Trump’s own party against an attempt to latch funding for his ballroom project on to the immigration bill.
The plan prompted intense anxiety among congressional Republicans, who feared diverting taxpayer dollars toward Trump’s “East Wing modernization project” amid mounting cost of living concerns across the US would risk alienating voters ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Some Senate Republicans have also expressed concerns about a plan, announced on Monday, to create a secretive $1.776bn fund – which critics have argued is essentially a slush fund – to compensate Trump allies as part of an agreement in which the president and his sons dropped a $10bn long-shot lawsuit against the US Internal Revenue Service.
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In a sharp rebuttal to media speculation, the Trump administration has pushed back against claims that Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard was ousted from her position amid internal tensions.
The controversy erupted on May 22, following Gabbard’s announcement of her resignation, which she attributed entirely to a personal family crisis. Major outlets, including Reuters, highlighted both her stated reasons and anonymous sourcing suggesting deeper White House dissatisfaction.
The Reuters report detailed Gabbard’s resignation as Trump’s top intelligence official, noting her public explanation tied to her husband’s health. However, the article prominently featured an anonymous source familiar with the situation who asserted that “Gabbard had been forced out by the White House.”
The source claimed the administration had grown unhappy with Gabbard over several months, citing issues such as the activities of her Director’s Initiatives Group task force and perceived frictions on national security matters, including aspects of U.S. policy toward Iran.
Reuters noted that the White House initially did not respond to requests for comment on the forced-out narrative, fueling immediate online debate and criticism of media coverage.
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Cuba’s acquisition of more than 300 attack drones from Iran and Russia since 2023 underscores the regime’s deepening alignment with Washington’s adversaries. Cuban planners have reportedly discussed strikes against Guantanamo Bay, U.S. naval vessels, and even Key West, Florida. While these systems provide Havana with a limited harassment and asymmetric strike capability, they do nothing to narrow the overwhelming gap between Cuban and American military power.
Yet, Cuba poses a direct threat to American homeland security through migration waves, narcotics transshipment, espionage, and now drone threats. Over 600,000 Cubans have attempted or reached U.S. shores since 2021, surpassing the Mariel boatlift and the 1994 rafting crisis combined, straining resources and creating security vulnerabilities. Pentagon contingency planning intensified this month with the USS Nimitz carrier group deployed to the Caribbean, underscoring the urgency.
Cuba fields 50,000 active troops, 40,000 reserves, and approximately 1.1 million personnel in its Territorial Troops Militia. Its air force operates roughly 20 aircraft. The army possesses around 300 aging T-55 and T-62 tanks, Soviet-era artillery, and surface-to-air missile launchers upgraded by Belarus in 2025. Global Firepower ranks Cuba 65th globally, a position that conceals obsolescence and systemic decay.
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For days, officials in Garden Grove, California, have warned a chemical plant is “literally on the edge of exploding” as firefighters work to cool a tank filled with about 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate, a toxic chemical used in making plastics. Garden Grove is about 350 miles west of Phoenix and roughly 250 miles from Yuma.
Fire crews have been working through the weekend, using sprinklers and hose lines to cool the tank and reduce pressure. Officials said Sunday morning that an overnight operation provided new information that allowed them to adjust their strategy. Crews also identified what officials described as a potential crack that could relieve some of the pressure building inside the tank, but they said the situation still remains dangerous.
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Pope Leo XIV called Monday for robust regulation of artificial intelligence and for its developers to work for the common good rather than profit, issuing a sweeping manifesto on safeguarding humankind as the technology impacts everything from work to war.
“Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), Leo’s first encyclical, has been eagerly awaited ever since history’s first U.S.-born pope announced days after his election that he considered AI to be the biggest challenge facing humanity today.
In the text, Leo denounced the “culture of power” driving the AI race, especially in developing ever more sophisticated methods of remote warfare. He declared that it was “not permissible” to entrust irreversible, lethal decisions to AI systems, setting up another flash point between the American pope and the Trump administration, which has worked aggressively to deregulate AI development.
“Artificial Intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion and death,″ the pope told a special Vatican presentation of the encyclical, one of the most authoritative types of teaching documents a pope can issue.
Experts in the tech industry, academia and Catholic morality said the document will likely become a benchmark in the debate over AI, a point of reference for policymakers, researchers and ordinary folk alike. It comes as the near-daily developments in the technology trigger concerns over AI replacing human jobs and even human intelligence.
Taylor Black, a Microsoft AI executive and director of Catholic University of America’s AI institute, said the document would prompt people “at the forefront of these tools” to ask questions such as “What does it mean to be human?”
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Mayor Brandon Johnson decried an early Sunday morning ‘unauthorized large gathering’ apparently involving teens that ended with a car veering into five Chicago police officers, injuring them, as they were dispersing the crowd on the Near West Side.
Police have not announced any charges Monday against the driver, 18, who was arrested.
“Unauthorized large gatherings can quickly become dangerous, and early this morning, after curfew hours, we saw that firsthand,” the mayor posted on X Sunday night.
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Somewhere between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, a giant metallic world drifts silently through deep space. Unlike ordinary rocky asteroids, 16 Psyche has captured global attention because scientists believe it may contain enormous quantities of valuable metals, including iron, nickel, platinum, and possibly more gold than has ever been mined on Earth. The asteroid’s estimated theoretical value has triggered headlines describing it as a “trillion-dollar asteroid” or even a “space treasure chest”. But for NASA, the real fascination is not simply wealth. Scientists believe Psyche could be the exposed core of an ancient lost planet, offering a rare glimpse into how worlds like Earth were formed billions of years ago.
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President Donald Trump said Thursday that China plans to pour “hundreds of billions of dollars” into American companies led by executives who joined him during high-level meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
Speaking during an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Trump said the executives accompanying him to China were there to secure economic opportunities that could ultimately bring jobs back to the United States.
“Those business people are here to make deals and to bring back jobs,” Trump said. “China’s going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars with those people that were in that room today.”
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In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity Thursday from Beijing, President Trump said that during their summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping assured him that China would not provide military equipment to Iran for its war in the Middle East.
Asked by Hannity how big of a discussion the two leaders had regarding China’s support for Iran, Mr. Trump responded, “We discussed it. When you say support, they’re [China] not fighting a war with us or anything.”
According to Mr. Trump, Xi told him that he’s “not going to give [Iran] military equipment. That’s a big statement. He said that today. That’s a big statement. He said that strongly.”
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JERUSALEM: Israeli authorities will take The New York Times to court over a piece it published denouncing alleged widespread sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar have ordered the “initiation of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times”, according to a joint statement issued by their offices.
It said the lawsuit was being pursued “following the publication by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times of one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press, which also received the backing of the newspaper”.
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Well, what do you know?
Yet another Democrat has just admitted to carrying out a major fraud scheme.
This time, it’s California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former Chief of Staff, Dana Williamson.
Last November, Williamson was charged alongside nearly two dozen other co-conspirators for partaking in a $225K plot to siphon funds from a dormant political campaign for Democrat Xavier Becerra.
On Thursday, she plead guilty to three felony charges in exchange for taking a plea deal.
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The United States is taking steps to pursue a federal indictment against Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old former president of Cuba and brother of the late Fidel Castro, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the situation.
The potential charges center on his alleged role in ordering the 1996 shootdown of two civilian aircraft operated by the Miami-based humanitarian group Brothers to the Rescue, according to a report from CBS News.
The 1996 incident occurred on February 24, when Cuban MiG fighter jets shot down two unarmed Cessna aircraft flying in international airspace north of Cuba. The planes were part of Brothers to the Rescue, a nonprofit organization that conducted search-and-rescue missions for Cuban rafters attempting to reach the United States and dropped leaflets over Cuba.