[FoxNews] Damon Marsalis Gaines, 38, is on administrative leave, the FAA said
A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employee working at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) outside of Washington, D.C. was recently charged over a workplace altercation, authorities said.
Upper Marlboro, Maryland, resident Damon Marsalis Gaines, 38, was charged with assault and battery in relation to the incident. POLITICO reported that the suspect works in controller operations.
I have no idea what that means.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) confirmed the developments to Fox News Digital, explaining that the incident transpired in a control tower on Thursday.
The FAA also confirmed the incident to Fox News Digital.
"The employee is on administrative leave while we investigate the matter," an FAA spokesperson said.
It's unclear what sparked the scuffle.
The incident is one of many newsworthy stories involving DCA air traffic control recently. The airport has faced scrutiny after an American Airlines plane and an Army helicopter collided on Jan. 29, killing 67 people.
[YouTube] Sep 5, 2018
During a hearing with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Rep. Billy Long, R-Missouri, drowned out a protester by making an impromptu auction call. He received a round of applause after the protester was removed.
[NYPOST] Rescue workers saved a 63-year-old woman from the rubble of a building in Myanmar's capital on Tuesday, but hope was fading of finding many more survivors of the violent mostly peaceful earthquake that killed more than 2,700 people, compounding a humanitarian crisis caused by a civil war.
The fire department in Naypyitaw said the woman was pulled from the rubble 91 hours after being buried when the building collapsed in the 7.7-magnitude earthquake that hit midday Friday.
Experts say the likelihood of finding survivors drops dramatically after 72 hours.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2025 12:38 ||
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Link ||
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[FoxNews] Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo ordering the military to adopt the same standards for both men and women serving in combat roles on Sunday.
Hegseth highlighted the memo in a video filmed as he returned from a trip to Japan on Sunday, saying that the U.S. military's standards had flagged under the previous administration.
"For far too long, we allowed standards to slip, and different standards for men and women in combat arms MOS's and jobs. That's not acceptable," Hegseth said.
"We need to have the same standards – male or female – in our combat roles to ensure our men and women who are under our leaders and in those formations have the best possible leaders and the highest possible standards that are not based at all on your sex," he continued.
The memo, released by the Pentagon Monday, said "As the nature of warfare evolves and the demands on our Service members grow more complex, it is imperative that we assess and refine the physical fitness standards that enable our readiness and lethality.
"I am directing the Secretaries of the Military Departments to develop comprehensive plans to distinguish combat arms occupations from non-combat arms occupations," Hegseth wrote in the document. "This effort will ensure that our standards are clear, mission-focused, and reflective of the unique physical demands placed on our Service members in various roles.
"Additionally, for certain combat arms roles, it is essential to identify which positions require heightened entry-level and sustained physical fitness. These roles, which are critical to our military’s mission success, demand exceptional physical capabilities, and the standards for them must reflect that rigor," the memo continues.
"All entry-level and sustained physical fitness requirements within combat arms positions must be sex-neutral, based solely on the operational demands of the occupation and the readiness needed to confront any adversary. In establishing those standards, the Secretaries of the Military Departments may not establish standards that would result in any existing Service member being held to a lower standard," it also said.
The new memo comes after Hegseth ordered a review of military fitness and grooming standards earlier this month. Hegseth has vowed to bring back tougher standards while reversing "woke" policies that don't align with restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding the military and reestablishing deterrence.
"Our standards will be high, uncompromising, and clear," he said in a Jan. 25 memo to service members. "The strength of our military is our unity and our shared purpose."
#2
There are no front lines. There were no mechanics or clerks during the Battle of the Bulge in Dec '44 or Tet in Jan '68. Everyone was an infantryman.
#3
Here's an idea, why doesn't Hegseth authorize the creation on a Woman's Army Corps? A pilot program which could be expanded to other services if successful. Distinctive standards, uniforms, training, etc.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/01/2025 8:15 Comments ||
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#5
"The battle is not always to the strong nor the race to the swift, but it is a good way to bet."
We have seen this over and over again:
Profession X is "male-dominated"!
OK, we'll hire girls. But we are not lowering the standards.
Women are being excluded because of the so-called "standards".
OK, OK, we'll lower the standards.
#6
#3 Better would be a Army Auxiliary Corps for men and women. I had a short stint as a APO officer overseas and got several paratroopers who had one too many jumps. Good workers, got to stay in from the weather and got to go home to momma every night. Better than the school trained personnel. Some people just get busted up but still have the esprit to be there and the ability to do jobs that are available.
[NYPost] China has held up the $23 billion sale of dozens of ports worldwide — including two key ports in the Panama Canal — to a group led by US investing giant BlackRock after President Trump expressed concern about Beijing’s sway over the strategic shipping lanes.
On March 4, CK Hutchison, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate controlled by 96-year-old billionaire Li Ka-shing, announced plans to sell 43 port facilities globally — including critical ports at both ends of the Panama Canal and near the Suez Canal — for approximately $22.8 billion.
But China’s State Administration for Market Regulation unexpectedly initiated an investigation on Friday into potential violations of Chinese anti-monopoly laws, effectively stalling the deal.
China President Xi Jinping is reportedly “angry” over CK Hutchison’s plans to sell its Panama Canal port operations — particularly because the company did not consult Beijing beforehand, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Whoops! It’s important to acknowledge your master — masters tend to become miffed when not.
The deal — spearheaded by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, a longtime Trump confidante — called for an agreement to be signed by April 2, though it now is likely that the Wednesday deadline will be missed.
The Post has sought comment from BlackRock and the White House.
Insiders say Chinese leadership had hoped to leverage the port issue in its talks with the Trump administration, only to be caught off guard by the deal’s sudden progress.
Trump hailed the development as a strategic win over China — casting Panama as a key battleground in the broader US-China struggle for global influence.
In response, an op-ed published in the pro-Beijing newspaper Ta Kung Pao condemned the sale as a “betrayal of all Chinese people.”
The timing of the deal’s announcement, coming just before the start of the “two sessions,” China’s most significant annual political and economic gathering, only deepened the offense for Xi and the Chinese Communist Party.
The Panama Canal — used extensively by both the US and China — has reemerged as a flashpoint in global politics after President Trump renewed his pledge to assert American dominance over the waterway.
Beijing’s move to influence the affairs of CK Hutchison reinforced concerns among global observers about China’s diminishing distinction between private and public sectors as well as its aggressive encroachment into Hong Kong’s affairs.
Trump has claimed that the canal is controlled by China and operated by its military.
In reality, CK Hutchison, the company at the heart of the port sale, is headquartered in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous region historically afforded a high degree of operational independence from Beijing.
The dispute over the canal’s ports arises at a sensitive moment as China faces ongoing tensions from a US trade war.
This week, Trump is expected to announce a new round of so-called “reciprocal tariffs.”
#2
Just remember, none of this is important, you jingoist.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/01/2025 11:55 Comments ||
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#3
In reality, CK Hutchison, the company at the heart of the port sale, is headquartered in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous region historically afforded a high degree of operational independence from Beijing.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Hooters — known for its scantily-clad waitresses — filed for bankruptcy on Monday night.
It is the latest American restaurant chain facing financial problems. But despite the filing, and $376 million of debt, the 42-year-old brand insists it's not going anywhere.
The US arm of the chain is restructuring through Chapter 11. As part of the restructuring, Hooters plans to sell more than 100 company-owned restaurants to two franchise groups that currently operate locations in Tampa, Florida, and Chicago.
Together, these groups already manage about one-third of the franchised Hooters locations in the US, the company said.
Founded in 1983, Hooters became famous for its chicken wings and its servers' uniform of orange shorts and low-cut tank tops.
The buyer group is backed by some of Hooters' original founders, and it pledged to take Hooters 'back to its roots.'
'With over 30 years of hands-on experience across the Hooters ecosystem, we have a profound understanding of our customers and what it takes to not only meet, but consistently exceed their expectations,' said Neil Kiefer, a member of the buyer group and the current CEO of the original Hooters´ location in Clearwater, Florida.
Hooters said it expects to complete the deal and emerge from bankruptcy in three to four months.
It is not clear if any other restaurants will shut. Hooters currently directly owns and operates 151 locations, with another 154 restaurants operated by franchisees, primarily in the United States.
Like other struggling chains such as Red Lobster - which filed for bankruptcy in the summer - Hooters is blaming the rising cost of rent and food and customers eating out less.
Hooters shuttered around 40 'underperforming' restaurants in June, including locations Florida, Kentucky, Rhode Island, Texas and Virginia as it bid to cut costs. A bankruptcy would likely lead to more closures of the 300 remaining locations.
[Econ Times] Billionaire Elon Musk has claimed that his crew in DOGE would be looking into members of Congress whose wealth had increased significantly even though they get relatively modest paychecks, reported Daily Mail. The world's richest man revealed this during a town hall in Wisconsin on Sunday, where he also awarded two $1 million cash awards and made headlines over his clever jabs at a protester among his audience, as per the report.
Musk, who is estimated to be worth $343 billion, has been a longtime critic of what he sees as the fiscal success of professional politicians, as per Daily Mail. While giving his speech, he expressed his doubts about how some lawmakers have accumulated enormous wealth when they had been receiving average congressional wages, reported Daily Mail.
He said, "A lot of strangely wealthy members of Congress, where I just can't, I'm trying to connect the dots of how they became rich," quoted Daily Mail. Musk also asked "How'd they get $20 million if they're earning $200,000 a year? Nobody can explain that.," as quoted in the report. He then went on to say, "We're gonna try to figure it out, and certainly stop it from happening," quoted Daily Mail.
Congress Members to Be Investigated
According to Daily Mail, Musk, who heads DOGE, has specifically taken aim at Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren, whose cumulative net worth is reportedly estimated to be $439 million, as per a social media X post.
Schumer is worth about $2.3 million, while Warren's tax returns indicate she is worth $9 million, as per a 2023 public disclosure, reported Daily Mail.
Musk concludes: "Biden was not asleep at the switch. This was a massive large-scale program to import as many illegals as possible, to ultimately change the voting map of the United States, disenfranchise the American people and make it a permanent deep blue one party state…"
Musk has also revealed Democrats' nefarious funneling of money from the federal government and into thousands of liberal NGOs, which receive little oversight and which often serve the party instead of the country.
#4
“Show me a man that gets rich by being a politician, and I'll show you a crook.” ― Harry Truman
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/01/2025 11:36 Comments ||
Top||
#5
^#2, just remember, the Great Replacement story is just a conspiracy theory.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/01/2025 11:47 Comments ||
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#6
Fascinating read.
She calls herself a MAGA liberal, Besoeker, and just was hired as a columnist for Bari Weiss’s Free Press — after several years of placing the occasional piece. Announcement today.
[WND] Billionaire entrepreneur and Trump advisor Elon Musk dropped a bombshell this weekend during a fiery 100-minute town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he campaigned for conservative judge Brad Schimel in the state's upcoming Supreme Court election on Tuesday.
Joined by Antonio Gracias, a private equity titan and a key member of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team tasked with rooting out waste in the federal government, Musk unveiled a shocking chart: a dramatic spike in Social Security Numbers issued to non-citizens, soaring from 270,000 in 2021 to a mind-blowing 2.1 million in 2024.
That's almost 5 million non-citizens now embedded in the system—collecting benefits, draining taxpayer dollars, and, most alarmingly, infiltrating the voter rolls.
[ArsTechnica] FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado.
Indiana University quietly removes profile of tenured professor and refuses to say why.
A prominent computer scientist who has spent 20 years publishing academic papers on cryptography, privacy, and cybersecurity has gone incommunicado, had his professor profile, email account, and phone number removed by his employer, Indiana University, and had his homes raided by the FBI. No one knows why.
Xiaofeng Wang has a long list of prestigious titles. He was the associate dean for research at Indiana University's Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, a fellow at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a tenured professor at Indiana University at Bloomington. According to his employer, he has served as principal investigator on research projects totaling nearly $23 million over his 21 years there.
He has also co-authored scores of academic papers on a diverse range of research fields, including cryptography, systems security, and data privacy, including the protection of human genomic data. I have personally spoken to him on three occasions for articles here, here, and here.
“NONE OF THIS IS IN ANY WAY NORMAL”
In recent weeks, Wang's email account, phone number, and profile page at the Luddy School were quietly erased by his employer. Over the same time, Indiana University also removed a profile for his wife, Nianli Ma, who was listed as a Lead Systems Analyst and Programmer at the university's Library Technologies division.
As reported by the Bloomingtonian and later the Herald-Times in Bloomington, a small fleet of unmarked cars driven by government agents descended on the Bloomington home of Wang and Ma on Friday. They spent most of the day going in and out of the house and occasionally transferred boxes from their vehicles. TV station WTHR, meanwhile, reported that a second home owned by Wang and Ma and located in Carmel, Indiana, was also searched. The station said that both a resident and an attorney for the resident were on scene during at least part of the search.
Attempts to locate Wang and Ma have so far been unsuccessful. An Indiana University spokesman didn't answer emailed questions asking if the couple was still employed by the university and why their profile pages, email addresses, and phone numbers had been removed. The spokesman provided the contact information for a spokeswoman at the FBI's field office in Indianapolis. In an email, the spokeswoman wrote: "The FBI conducted court authorized law enforcement activity at homes in Bloomington and Carmel Friday. We have no further comment at this time."
Searches of federal court dockets turned up no documents related to Wang, Ma, or any searches of their residences. The FBI spokeswoman didn't answer questions seeking which US district court issued the warrant and when, and whether either Wang or Ma is being detained by authorities. Justice Department representatives didn't return an email seeking the same information. An email sent to a personal email address belonging to Wang went unanswered at the time this post went live. Their resident status (e.g. US citizens or green card holders) is currently unknown.
Fellow researchers took to social media over the weekend to register their concern over the series of events.
"None of this is in any way normal," Matthew Green, a professor specializing in cryptography at Johns Hopkins University, wrote on Mastodon. He continued: "Has anyone been in contact? I hear he’s been missing for two weeks and his students can’t reach him. How does this not get noticed for two weeks???"
In the same thread, Matt Blaze, a McDevitt professor of computer science and law at Georgetown University, said: "It's hard to imagine what reason there could be for the university to scrub its website as if he never worked there. And while there's a process for removing tenured faculty, it takes more than an afternoon to do it."
Local news outlets reported the agents spent several hours moving boxes in an out of the residences. WTHR provided the following details about the raid on the Carmel home:
Neighbors say the agents announced "FBI, come out!" over a megaphone.
A woman came out of the house holding a phone. A video from a neighbor shows an agent taking that phone from her. She was then questioned in the driveway before agents began searching the home, collecting evidence and taking photos.
A car was pulled out of the garage slightly to allow investigators to access the attic.
The woman left the house before 13News arrived. She returned just after noon accompanied by a lawyer. The group of ten or so investigators left a few minutes later.
The FBI would not say what they were looking for or who is under investigation. A bureau spokesperson issued a statement: “I can confirm we conducted court-authorized activity at the address in Carmel today. We have no further comment at this time.”
Investigators were at the house for about four hours before leaving with several boxes of evidence. 13News rang the doorbell when the agents were gone. A lawyer representing the family who answered the door told us they're not sure yet what the investigation is about.
Indiana University terminated professor Xiaofeng Wang on Friday, the same day that two of his homes were searched by the FBI, according to a document sent by the American Association of University Professors’ IU Bloomington chapter.
The document, IU Provost Rahul Shrivastav’s email informing Wang of his termination, said it was Shrivastav’s understanding that Wang had accepted a faculty position with a university in Singapore.
Odd that he hadn’t informed IU management…
Shrivastav said in the email that Wang would not be eligible to be hired again at IU.
The email also told Wang he needed to return all IU property to the IU Police Department as soon as possible. IUPD did not respond to a request for comment by publication.
The Indiana Daily Student reached out to IU to confirm the document’s veracity, to which a spokesperson responded that IU will not comment on the investigation.
"Indiana University was recently made aware of a federal investigation of an Indiana University faculty member," an IU spokesperson told the IDS on Monday. "At the direction of the FBI, Indiana University will not make any public comments regarding this investigation. In accordance with Indiana University practices, Indiana University will also not make any public comments regarding the status of this individual."
Wang had been a director at IU’s center for Security and Privacy in Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. The center's co-director, L. Jean Camp, confirmed details first reported by the South China Morning Post that Wang is still in the United States, and that to her knowledge he has not been charged with anything.
[FoxNews] The Department of Health and Human Services sent letters to several Planned Parenthood affiliates informing them funding had been withheld
President Donald Trump's administration told several Planned Parenthood affiliates on Monday that it was withholding funding due to possible violations of civil rights laws, according to reports.
Politico reported that tens of millions of dollars were being withheld from Planned Parenthood clinics that provide low-income Americans services like contraception, STI testing and other health services.
…but mostly abortions. As I recall, they outsource the other stuff.
On Monday, nine state affiliates of Planned Parenthood that receive money from the federal government through Title X, a family planning program, got notices saying their funding was being "temporarily withheld."
The publication said that the letter, which was provided by Planned Parenthood, pointed toward "possible violations" of Trump’s executive orders – like the banning of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs – and federal civil rights laws.
Another policy by Trump that the family planning program allegedly violated had to do with "taxpayer subsidization of open borders."
The Planned Parenthood chapters that received the letters were mostly in GOP-controlled states, the publication noted. The administration also pointed to evidence of violations by citing the mission statement from the clinic, as well as other documents that stress a "commitment to black communities."
The deputy director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Public Affairs, Amy Margolis, reportedly argued that those materials "paint a picture of Planned Parenthood" suggesting it is "engaged, across its affiliates, in widespread practices across hiring, operations, and patient treatment that unavoidably employ race in a negative manner."
The letter also accuses Planned Parenthood of encouraging illegal aliens to receive care.
Planned Parenthood has 10 days to respond to the letter and provide evidence it plans to comply with the president’s executive orders. Once provided, the administration will determine whether to suspend or terminate the grants.
Planned Parenthood and HHS did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the matter.
In a social media post, Planned Parenthood wrote, "When we say, ‘Care no matter what,’ we mean it. Planned Parenthood health centers’ doors are open to everyone. Period. We’ve fought to protect your care for decades and won’t stop now."
In another post, Planned Parenthood directed its supporters to its website to submit a letter to Congress regarding the funding.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A new device that 'reads' a person's mind can turn their thoughts into speech. Would it work on Jasmine Crockett (D-Stupid) whose speech has no thoughts?
A team of engineers from the University of California invented a breakthrough brain-computer interface (BCI) system with electrodes that get adhered to a person's scalp to measure brain activity and brainwaves.
The brainwaves are analyzed and then converted into audible speech by a computer, which then translates them to spoken words read aloud by AI.
The researchers believe the new technology could restore paralyzed people’s ability to communicate by converting the brain activity from the motor cortex into audible speech.
The motor cortex is instrumental in controlling speech, and signals are generated even when a person has lost the ability to speak.
Researchers employed advanced AI models to capture brain signals in that area and convert them to sound in about one second, allowing continuous speech output without delays.
They tested the BCI on a woman named Ann, who has severe paralysis and cannot speak. She had participated in a previous study by the same team, but their system at that time resulted in a lag-time of eight seconds.
Kaylo Littlejohn, a Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and co-leader of the study, said: ‘We wanted to see if we could generalize to the unseen words and really decode Ann’s patterns of speaking.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Five M-class flares were detected on the Sun on March 30 in the 4048 spot group. This was reported by the press service of the Institute of Applied Geophysics.
Scientists recorded the first flash lasting 33 minutes at 00:38 Moscow time. The second was detected at 02:00 Moscow time. Its duration was 38 minutes.
The remaining flashes were recorded by specialists at 04:48, 19:42 and 20:07 Moscow time.
All flares of this class cause small to moderate radio interference on the dayside of the Earth and can also trigger a solar radiation storm.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on March 11 at 15:04 Moscow time, in the X-ray range, scientists registered a solar flare of the penultimate M class in terms of power, lasting 3 minutes.
On March 5, scientists from the Institute of Applied Geophysics confirmed a powerful M-class solar flare that lasted for nine minutes.
At the end of February, the Sun ejected its largest plasma cloud since the beginning of the year. It occurred on the side opposite to Earth, and therefore did not pose a threat to the planet.
[FoxNews] A nuclear electromagnetic pulse strike could cripple the US, an expert warned
A Golden Dome, peddled by President Donald Trump during his campaign, is how the United States could protect itself from the "existential threat" that a nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strike presents, an expert says.
Historian William Forstchen, a New York Times bestselling author and an expert on EMPs, discussed with Fox News Digital how a Golden Dome can provide a safety net for the danger that an attack poses.
"The Israeli system has been very effective in protecting Israel against the aggression of Iran and others. It's called the Iron Dome, but that's a tactical defense system, meaning it shoots down missiles only a couple of miles up," he said.
"But if the U.S. had a Golden Dome, it would be a strategic defense system. It would take out systems, ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) that are launched at the United States and destroy them in space before they get to the United States."
While an EMP strike, at first glance, might appear to be more science fiction than fact, Forstchen said that the potential for such an attack was recognized decades ago.
"It's a no-brainer to me. We need a strategic defense system. It was proposed in the '80s, but the technology wasn't quite there that technology is now," he said. "It can be built. We have to defend the United States against an EMP attack, which could destroy us in a matter of minutes."
Forstchen, citing Congressional reports from 2002 and 2008, said that 80%-90% of Americans would be dead a year later if an EMP strike happened.
I probably would be — one of my key meds needs refrigeration. Also, survival in a Third World environment is a high-energy endeavour, not one of my options. So let’s use some of the savings from the DOGE government clean-up to do some long-overdue hardening.
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.
[WND] Billionaire entrepreneur and Trump advisor Elon Musk dropped a bombshell this weekend during a fiery 100-minute town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he campaigned for conservative judge Brad Schimel in the state's upcoming Supreme Court election on Tuesday.
