[Hot Air] It started way back in 1958 when the state decided to build a freeway that would run directly between Long Beach in south LA County up to the Pasadena area in north LA County. Most of the freeway was built in the mid-1960s but there was a section just about four miles long that never got completed. It was the northernmost section that would connect the freeway (now called the I-710) to an east-west freeway called the 210 freeway.
Because the state planned to complete the freeway eventually, it started buying up property it would need to build it. But resistance to the construction continued and about 8 years ago the state finally conceded that it would never happen. This created an unusual situation where CALTRANS, the state's transportation agency, owned about 400 homes for which it was the landlord. For many years CALTRANS was renting out the homes at relatively discounted rates, but some homes remained empty and boarded up as the state considered selling them off.
And that's where things got interesting. In March 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, a group of activists calling themselves Reclaiming Our Homes started moving into the empty homes claiming them for themselves.
The surprising part is that Chenguang Gong is free on a $1.75 million bond after stealing trade secret technology designed to detect nuclear missile launches.
NEW: 17-year-old girl says father r<>ped her, took her to Mexico for abortion, then left dead baby in Walmart bathroom
The girl told investigators that Martinez, her father, began “touching her inappropriately” when she was 15 years old and forced her to have s*x with him
[Federalist] The leading official who presided over the U.S. Naval Academy’s use of racist affirmative action admissions policies is being replaced, the Pentagon announced on Friday.
According to a Defense Department press release, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael J. Borgschulte has been nominated to replace Navy Vice Adm. Yvette Davids as the superintendent of the renowned military school. Davids — who was nominated to her now-former position by President Joe Biden — has since been reassigned to be the deputy chief of Naval Operations for Operations, Plans, Strategy, and Warfighting Development.
If confirmed by the Senate, Borgschulte will become the "first Marine to head the academic institution in its 180-year history," according to the left-wing Military.com.
The Pentagon’s move to replace Davids as the Navy school’s superintendent comes amid the Trump administration’s efforts to restore meritocracy and lethality to the military.
[ZERO] It might be the most prominent cultural theme of 2025 - Progressive Black Americans with a victim complex relocating overseas. They think they're escaping oppression only to discover that most of the world has zero tolerance for them and that the US is a far better place than they initially thought.
Francine Villa left the US for Russia in 2020, declaring America "discriminatory" and asserting that she feels much safer in her new home. In a 2020 documentary called "Black in the USSR" produced by Russia Today, Villa criticized the racial evils of America and praised Russia as a "safe place for her to walk the streets".
The expat is not a stranger to the East; her great-grandfather moved from Virginia to work as an agriculturist in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and her family has lived in Russia ever since. She was born there, but at a young age, her mother moved her to the United States.
Five years after moving back, Villa is ready to leave. She took to Instagram this week, bloody and battered and calling for help after an argument with her Russian neighbors ended in a beating. Villa claims her young child who was present was also injured during the altercation.
Her post is interlaced with clips of the incident, though, she has suspiciously avoided posting the entire unedited video.
Continued on Page 47
#7
The young woman's grandfather worked with the Bolsheviks in the 1930s, so despite what you may think about Russians now, and despite all the braying Russian jackasses wishing a return of what Russian conservatives call the "Red Ghost", no one wants those guys back in power.
I s'pect she shot her mouth off about that and reaped a beating. Sorry she had to endure a beating for that, but that's Russia Today.
Taiwan continues its annual Han Kuang military exercises, focusing on defending offshore islands, integrating new U.S.-made systems, and preparing civilian infrastructure for conflict. The drills underscore the Lai administration’s efforts to strengthen Taiwan’s defenses against… pic.twitter.com/k3bXJvtGzZ
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The largest oil and gas deposit in the last ten years has been discovered in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Poland. This was reported on Monday, July 21, by the Polish TV channel TVP 3, citing the Canadian company Central European Petroleum.
"This is one of the largest discoveries of its kind in Europe in the last decade," the publication says.
According to the author of the article, the deposit discovered near the city of Szczecin in the Baltic Sea contains 22 million tons of crude oil and 5 billion cubic meters of commercial-quality gas, and the total amount of energy resources in the area could be more than 33 million tons of oil and 27 billion cubic meters of gas.
Poland's chief geologist Krzysztof Galosz noted that the discovered deposit could significantly impact the republic's energy security and reduce its dependence on external suppliers. How exciting! Continued on Page 47
But a nightmare Secretary Kennedy recognizes and is already working to fix. More winning.
[Regnum] The number of organ transplants that put living donors at risk has increased in American hospitals. This was reported on July 20 by The New York Times (NYT).
"Across the United States, people faced hasty or premature attempts at organ harvesting. Some choked, cried, or showed other signs of life," the article noted.
According to the publication, hospitals are responsible for patients until the moment of death, and some of them allow organ procurement organizations to influence treatment decisions.
According to the report, workers in several states saw coordinators convincing hospital doctors to prescribe drugs to speed up the death of potential donors.
I checked the internet. Two from the Department of Health and Human Services to give us perspective, the first from yesterday, the second dated 15. January, 2025 to give us an idea of trends before President Trump took over:
Secretary Kennedy Threatens Closure of Deficient Organ Procurement Organization
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the leadership of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. today announced a major initiative to begin reforming the organ transplant system following an investigation by its Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) that revealed disturbing practices by a major organ procurement organization.
“Our findings show that hospitals allowed the organ procurement process to begin when patients showed signs of life, and this is horrifying,” Secretary Kennedy said. “The organ procurement organizations that coordinate access to transplants will be held accountable. The entire system must be fixed to ensure that every potential donor’s life is treated with the sanctity it deserves.”
HRSA directed the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) to reopen a disturbing case involving potentially preventable harm to a neurologically injured patient by the federally-funded organ procurement organization (OPO) serving Kentucky, southwest Ohio, and part of West Virginia. Under the Biden administration, the OPTN’s Membership and Professional Standards Committee closed the same case without action.
Under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HRSA demanded a thorough, independent review of the OPO’s conduct and the treatment of vulnerable patients under its care. HRSA’s independent investigation revealed clear negligence after the previous OPTN Board of Directors claimed to find no major concerns in their internal review.
HRSA examined 351 cases where organ donation was authorized, but ultimately not completed. It found:
103 cases (29.3%) showed concerning features, including 73 patients with neurological signs incompatible with organ donation.
At least 28 patients may not have been deceased at the time organ procurement was initiated—raising serious ethical and legal questions.
Evidence pointed to poor neurologic assessments, lack of coordination with medical teams, questionable consent practices, and misclassification of causes of death, particularly in overdose cases.
Vulnerabilities were highest in smaller and rural hospitals, indicating systemic gaps in oversight and accountability. In response to these findings, HRSA has mandated strict corrective actions for the OPO, and system-level changes to safeguard potential organ donors nationally. The OPO must conduct a full root cause analysis of its failure to follow internal protocols—including noncompliance with the five-minute observation rule after the patient’s death—and develop clear, enforceable policies to define donor eligibility criteria. Additionally, it must adopt a formal procedure allowing any staff member to halt a donation process if patient safety concerns arise.
Secretary Kennedy will decertify the OPO if it fails to comply with these corrective action requirements [PDF].
HRSA also took action to make sure that patients across the country will be safer when donating organs by directing the OPTN to improve safeguards and monitoring at the national level. Under HRSA’s directive, data about any safety-related stoppages of organ donation called for by families, hospitals, or OPO staff must be reported to regulators, and the OPTN must update policies to strengthen organ procurement safety and provide accurate, complete information about the donation process to families and hospitals.
These findings from HHS confirm what the Trump administration has long warned: entrenched bureaucracies, outdated systems, and reckless disregard for human life have failed to protect our most vulnerable citizens. Under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HHS is restoring integrity and transparency to organ procurement and transplant policy by putting patients’ lives first. These reforms are essential to restoring trust, ensuring informed consent, and protecting the rights and dignity of prospective donors and their families.
HHS recognizes House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie’s (KY-02) bipartisan work to improve the organ transplant system and looks forward to working with him and other issue-area champions in Congress to deliver reforms.
More organ transplants occurred in the United States in 2024 than ever before, according to preliminary data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN).
The 48,149 transplants represent an increase of 3.3 percent compared to the 2023 total and 23.3 percent over the past five years. These life-saving procedures were made possible by the generous contributions of 16,988 deceased donors and 7,030 living donors.
“We are gratified that we are able to save and extend more lives each year through organ donation and transplantation,” said Richard Formica, M.D., president of the OPTN Board of Directors. “Yet many more people await the opportunity for a transplant. We must continue to grow and expand our capacity to ensure we are doing as many transplants as possible with the gifts entrusted to us.”
TRANSPLANT TRENDS
A total of 41,119 transplants were made possible through deceased organ donation in 2024. This is the first year the threshold of 40,000 deceased donor transplants was surpassed, which represents an increase of 3.6 percent over 2023. Deceased donor transplants have set new annual records each of the past 12 years.
Living donors enabled an additional 7,030 transplants. This was the second highest annual total, surpassed only in 2019.
DECEASED DONATION TRENDS
A total of 16,988 people were deceased donors in 2024, providing one or more organs for transplantation.
A major increase has occurred in donors who are pronounced dead after the total cessation of heartbeat and respiration (commonly called donation after circulatory death, or DCD). In particular, recent clinical practices have made it more clinically feasible for DCD organs to function well in lung and liver transplant recipients. In 2024, there were 7,280 DCD donors, an increase of 23.5 percent over 2023.
Conversely, the 9,706 donors who encountered brain death (total cessation of brain function) represented a decrease of seven percent compared to 2023. This is the first decrease in brain death donors since a steady rise began in 2013.
The proportion of deceased donors aged 50 and older continues to grow relative to donors of younger age. In 2024, there were 8,191 donors in this age range, accounting for 48.2 percent of the entire donor population.
In 2024, the number of donors who died from drug intoxication reversed an upward trend seen over several years, declining to 2,066, a 23.9 percent decrease compared to 2023 and the lowest annual total since 2021.
LIVING DONOR TRENDS
A total of 7,030 people became living donors in 2024, donating either a whole kidney, a segment of their liver, or a uterus.
While the most common age range of living donors remains 35 to 49, there are increasing numbers of donors aged 50 and older.
Most notable is the increase in living donors aged 65 and older. In 2024, there were 476 such donors, an increase of 14.2 percent over 2023 and more than double the annual total each year up through 2016.
[IsraelTimes] US Ambassador Huckabee says Israel will ‘completely restore the long-standing process’; last week, he threatened to declare Israel no longer welcomes Christians
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee said Monday that a solution had been reached on the issue of visas for visiting Christian groups, after a furious letter from him leaked to the press last week.
Leaked? And who would be so malicious?
In the letter, Huckabee threatened to declare that Israel no longer welcomes Christians, over what he said was Jerusalem’s failure since January to approve tourist visas for evangelical missions, after launching investigations into several Christian groups at the start of 2025.
On Monday, Huckabee posted on X: "I am delighted to report that the issue has been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction and the strong support that Israel enjoys from American evangelicals will continue.
"I’m convinced the Interior Minister was not fully aware of the change being imposed and I’m grateful he has personally intervened to completely restore the long-standing process," he continued.
"Attorney Calev Myers, an Israeli attorney who represents some 150 Christian groups in Israel, was instrumental in outlining the request and the Prime Minister’s Office was supportive and involved in the resolution, along with the Minister of the Interior," Huckabee said.
The Prime Minister’s Office has been silent regarding the visa affair.
Prior to Huckabee’s announcement, Myers told The Times of Israel that a solution had been reached, and credited "the hard work and fruitful cooperation between the US ambassador, the Ministry of Interior, and the Prime Minister’s Office."
"The Evangelical Christian organizations active in Israel, which represent the vast majority of Zionists in the world today, will receive all of the visas they need through a streamlined and efficient application process," Myers said.
The US ambassador fired off a seething letter to Interior Minister Moshe Arbel last Wednesday, in which he asserted that at the start of 2025, the Interior Ministry launched investigations into several evangelical Christian organizations with long ties to Israel, including the Baptist Conference in Israel and the Christian Missionary Alliance.
In the letter, Huckabee informed Arbel that these organizations were required to complete lengthy questionnaires and that they had still not received new visas for religious leaders to travel to Israel, despite submitting their applications at the beginning of the year.
Copies of Huckabee’s letter were also sent to Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana.
The private exchange that quickly turned public was followed by an apparent Israeli strike on Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... ’s sole Catholic church on Thursday that killed three people and injured several, according to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, drawing international condemnation and expression of "deep sorrow" from Israel. The military said the church was struck by accident, and that it was investigating what happened, and Netanyahu’s office issued a statement expressing regret.
Earlier last week week, Huckabee weighed in on unchecked settler violence in the West Bank for the first time, calling on the Israeli government to investigate the "terrorist killing" of a 20-year-old Paleostinian-American in the village of Sinjil last week.
On Saturday, Huckabee visited the Christian Paleostinian town of Taybeh in the West Bank, which has been the scene of several attacks by settlers in recent weeks.
Continued on Page 47
Text taken from the Telegram channel of fifthrepublic
[ColonelCassad] The "state" in the state of Novaya_Caledonia remains part of France with the rights of a "state within a state", with a flag, a parliament and a separate nationality. And ordinary French people will pay. As we said, the economic consequences of the disturbances of 2024 estimated at 2 billion euros, will take a long time to sort out.
Nickel mining has essentially stopped on the island, and the local economy has almost completely gone bankrupt. And only France can pour money. Therefore, a miracle happened, the Kaldos - descendants of French colonists and business owners in New Caledonia, and the Kanaks - descendants of autochthons - signed a "historical deal" after 10 days of the "last chance summit" in the Paris suburb of Bouchival.
What's in it? [Text of the deal] New Caledonia will be an "integrated state in France", and this will be written in the French constitution. (if the majority in the Parliament finds this to be the case, which is unknown )
The state can be recognized separately from France by international bodies and the UN. There will be a Caledonian nationality, and the inhabitants of New Caledonia will have two of them - French and Caledonian.
For France, which has been centralized since the French Revolution of 1789, this is truly... a revolution. There will be no more dates for referendums on independence, etc., but the parliament of New Caledonia can change the status of the territory.
Electoral lists, which have been blocked since the end of the 1990s in order to prevent "immigrants" from the French capital from voting and further marginalize the Kanaks, will be opened - yes, the reform of electoral lists, which sparked protests, has quietly returned - but its opponents are no longer important, including because quite a lot of ethnic French left the island after disturbances and business losses.
Local elections, which were supposed to be held in the fall, have been postponed to the spring of 2026. French aid remains - it is expected that the French state will pay for the reconstruction of New Caledonia - that is, in the conditions of a huge external debt and a lack of funds (for the budget adjustment they are looking for 40-50 billion euros), they will save on ordinary French people to rebuild what the Kanaks broke during the protests in the spring and summer of 2024. Also, France will pay for the restoration of nickel mining in northern New Caledonia (stopped after the riots), although it was known to be unprofitable even before the riots.
But they prevented (for a time?) the sunset of part of the former colonial empire (New Caledonia was colonized at the same time as Algeria - in the middle of the 19th century), and one can continue to dream about the preservation of the former greatness. As long as the Corsicans, Martinique, Basques and other small nations of France have not asked for the same as in New Caledonia (spoiler = they will be refused, info hundred)
Resources in New Caledonia will no longer be pumped out - they are far from France itself, and even from other markets sales (China, Southeast Asia), there are cheaper, bigger and faster alternatives. There is almost no industry on the island, as a matter of fact, nobody needs forest, nickel and other charms. China has found an alternative, and for the French industry they will buy in New Caledonia on the other side of the globe at a high cost, even if it is their own.
In the course of the transaction, the Kaldoshes received the restoration of their business at the expense of the French, and the Kanaks received state-funded and free positions. Apart from France, no one would pay for this holiday of life.
France itself receives the opening of electoral lists blocked since 1997 on the island, which fueled internal turmoil and was a flagrant violation of the overall French electoral system, including in other overseas territories. One less problem.
Also, France maintains and consolidates its presence in the region, the possibility of bases, fishing, exploration of resources in the sea. Well, an observation post in the event of a conflict between the United States and China.
Therefore, a grant was issued in the form of a "state within a state" and a separate nationality.
But, by analogy with the history of the decolonization of Africa, when almost all of the former colonies were transferred to the French Union in 1960 before they were released to free navigation, New Caledonia retains the opportunity after the deal to achieve independence in a shorter time, without attracting the attention of the health workers of the descendants of the colonists if:
- France does not want to be drawn into the conflict between the United States and China by its presence in the region (that is why they pushed New Caledonia into independence, but failed 3 referendums).
- the resources of the island will turn out to be unnecessary, and the costs for their exploitation are impractical.
- France will not be able to afford the preservation of New Caledonia
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[ZERO] It might be the most prominent cultural theme of 2025 - Progressive Black Americans with a victim complex relocating overseas. They think they're escaping oppression only to discover that most of the world has zero tolerance for them and that the US is a far better place than they initially thought. 
