U.S. troops in Syria detained a senior Islamic State leader earlier this week, and the military has since identified him as Hani Ahmed al Kurdi, known as Salim.
Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. mission to defeat ISIS, said in a statement on Thursday it was able to identify and capture Kurdi, whom they described as an “experienced bomb maker and operational facilitator who became one of the top leaders in the Syria branch of ISIS.”
Parallels have been drawn between the war in Ukraine and a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. While these situations differ in many respects, both countries exist outside of a collective security apparatus like NATO, and both face existential threats posed by much larger and hostile neighbors. Lacking nuclear weapons and outgunned in conventional terms, both the Ukrainian and Taiwanese militaries have little choice but to wage asymmetric warfare. Yet few people truly know, let alone understand, Taiwan’s current defense policy and the path forward.
… There are very few things Republicans and Democrats see eye-to-eye on these days so we should take note when there’s an emerging bipartisan consensus about Canada. When U.S. officials look at Canada through both red and blue lenses, three “Ds” pop out at them: dairy imports, digital taxes and defence spending.
These three “Ds” pose a particular risk to the Canada-U.S. relationship because, in each case, the White House and Congress believe Canada isn’t following through on commitments we’ve made to them. Whatever our own understanding of Canadian policies in these areas, to the Americans it looks like we’re going back on our word.
I blame Junior.
Mexico’s Pacific Coast has long been a popular vacation spot for Californians who could either drive or catch a low-cost flight to relax on the beach and escape the rat race.
And Tijuana remains a must-have destination to fill up on gasoline and purchase baby formula, prescription drugs, and other overpriced items back home.
Now, the occasional trip is becoming permanent for a good portion of the 360,000 who left the Golden State last year for more affordable living conditions, a Baja California realtor told CNBC.
Probably safer under the Cartels.
The US Navy has dismissed five commanding officers in less than one week due to “loss of confidence,” a strikingly short timeframe for such disciplinary action.
On Tuesday, the Navy announced it was relieving Cmdr. Peter Lesaca — of the destroyer USS Preble — of his duties “due to loss of confidence in his ability to command.”
“Navy commanding officers are held to high standards of personal and professional conduct,” the Navy said in a statement. “They are expected to uphold the highest standards of responsibility, reliability and leadership, and the Navy holds them accountable when they fall short of these standards.”
Tankers laden with Russian oil are arriving at U.S. ports thanks to a loophole, industry observers say.
A “significant” share of Russian crude oil is being re-exported through refineries in India to the U.S. and Europe, according to the report from Helsinki-based think tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
Since Russia’s invasion in late February, global oil prices have soared, giving refiners in India and other countries an added incentive to tap oil. Moscow is offering them at steep discounts of $30 to $35 a barrel, compared with Brent crude and other international oil now trading at about $120 per barrel.
Recently the Biden administration issued new answers for Americans invested in Chinese companies with direct ties to Beijing’s military. Previously, U.S. policy was that Americans were forbidden to invest in companies included in a “blacklist” of Chinese companies directly involved in China’s military, and in producing applications used by the Communist regime to oppress its own people and threaten its neighbors. The new “answers” amount to a wholesale abandonment of a policy Americans of all political stripes supported.
As the West endures another year of unrelenting drought worsened by climate change, the Colorado River’s reservoirs have declined so low that major water cuts will be necessary next year to reduce risks of supplies reaching perilously low levels, a top federal water official said Tuesday.
Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said during a Senate hearing in Washington that federal officials now believe protecting “critical levels” at the country’s largest reservoirs — Lake Mead and Lake Powell — will require much larger reductions in water deliveries.
One of Joe Biden’s senior advisors told a reporter this week that social media companies should be cracking down on and censoring anyone who speeds information critical of the administration’s so called ‘green energy transition’.
National climate advisor Gina McCarthy made the comments in an interview with a reporter for Axios, stating “Now it’s not so much denying the problem. What the [fossil fuel] industry is now doing is seeding doubt about the costs associated with [green energy] and whether they work or not.”
On June 6, President Joe Biden, declaring a national emergency, granted a 24-month tariff exemption for solar cells and modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
The biggest beneficiary of Biden’s move is none of those countries. It is China. The biggest victim is America.
Biden’s executive order essentially suspends a Commerce Department investigation, initiated by a California maker of solar panels, into blatant Chinese tariff evasion. Biden’s declaration of emergency does not formally end the investigation, but no tariffs during the 24-month period can be collected, even if Auxin Solar, the complainant, ultimately prevails.
State lawmakers in Ohio have managed to pull Canada into America’s heated culture wars, urging the U.S. government to put this country on a religious-freedom watchlist — largely because of pandemic-related restrictions.
Islamic terrorism against Christians abroad is a subject that leaves the Biden administration cold. In late 2021, President Joe Biden took anti-Christian Nigeria off the State Department list of countries hostile to religious freedom — a move that puzzled the U.S. government’s own Commission on International Religious Freedom, which noted the large number of “militant Islamists” in the country. Biden’s policy now looks even worse in light of the Islamic terrorist act on Pentecost Sunday in southwestern Nigeria that left over 80 people in a Catholic church dead.
You see them every day, the people who don’t call attention to themselves. They don’t preen or lend themselves to hysterics. They don’t scream or demand their enemies’ heads to be put on pikes.
And their numbers are growing.
Here’s what they really care about: Their families, their kids, and keeping their jobs.
Authorities arrested 31 members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front near an Idaho pride event Saturday after they were found packed into the back of a U-Haul truck with riot gear.
The men were standing inside the truck wearing khakis, navy blue shirts and beige hats with white balaclavas covering their faces when Coeur d’Alene police stopped the U-Haul and began arresting them on the side of the road.
“They came to riot downtown,” Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said at a news conference.
A bipartisan group of senators announced a deal on gun control legislation Sunday in the wake of recent mass shootings — though the compromise excludes President Joe Biden’s “assault weapons” ban and a raised minimum age for rifle purchases.
