[NYPOST] Louisiana authorities on Monday charged a second suspect with murder in the death of a television news hound who had traveled to New Orleans to cover the Super Bowl.
Adan Manzano, a 27-year-old news hound and anchor for Telemundo based in Kansas City, Missouri, was found dead Feb. 5 in his hotel room in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner. A woman seen on security video leaving Manzano's room was later charged with second-degree murder and with stealing his credit cards and cellphone.
Kenner police announced Monday that an accomplice, 34-year-old Rickey White, has also been charged with second-degree murder. White was arrested in Florida in March on robbery and fraud charges related to Manzano's death, then extradited to Louisiana.
[NYPOST] A Uber passenger was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the 2022 killing of driver, 38-year-old mother Christina Spicuzza.
The family of Spicuzza said they ''showed mercy'' on her killer by requesting he not be given the death penalty for the senseless slaying.
Calvin Crew, 25, was sentenced to life without parole at the Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh for the murder of the mother-of-four, CBS News reported.
Spicuzza's family read impact statements to the court despite the killer not being in attendance for his sentencing.
''You should have the death penalty, but we showed mercy,'' Spicuzza's mother, Cindy Spicuzza, said.
''You executed her. No mercy, no remorse. It was abhorrent. It was murder.''
[News9] OKLAHOMA CITY - Nine people are injured following a shooting Monday night in northwest Oklahoma City, according to police.
According to the Oklahoma City Police Department, the shooting happened near Northwest 10 Street and North Harvey Avenue.
Investigators say they believe at least two people were firing shots, which appeared to originate from outside a nearby establishment.
Seven people were hit by gunfire, and another two were injured by flying glass.
Four of the victims hit by gunfire have "serious injuries," according to OCPD, however, all nine are expected to survive.
Police have not released any suspect information at this time. there have been no arrests at this time.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol helped OCPD respond to this shooting.
OCPD says the investigation is still in its early stages.
[Breitbart] Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard visited U.S. Army troops at Camp MacKall, a training facility, and Fort Bragg in North Carolina on Friday.
During her visit, Gabbard discussed with warfighters and U.S. military intelligence leaders the best way to integrate intelligence with the military’s operations in an effort to keep Americans safe, secure, and free.
Gabbard also took part in an early morning workout with "50 of America’s best Special Forces warfighters," Olivia Coleman, the press secretary for Gabbard, revealed in a post on X.
A photo of the workout on a white board revealed that Gabbard and Special Forces warfighters did sandbag burpees, sandbag squats, kettle bell swings, alternate lunges, flutter kicks, planks, and kettle bell Russian twists, among other things.
#2
Even if you're not computer savvy backup is trivially easy nowadays.
For a basic backup of irreplaceable data like personal photos, videos and document you just need to connect an external drive and copy your data to the new device that will show up.
This might take hours but the computer will complete the backup / copy without human attention.
This is true for all non-ancient operating systems and computer hardware.
There's no encryption but the data is stored on external hard drives that aren't connected to anything in storage. Security is physical control over the drives.
Copying personal and irreplaceable data on external storage is easy and will drastically reduce the impact of any computer mishap.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Daniil Moskovsky
[REGNUM] The global IT labor market is changing under the influence of the accelerated implementation of artificial intelligence. The statistics are frightening: since January, over 52,000 IT specialists have lost their jobs, and the April wave of layoffs alone took away 23,000 jobs. According to the WSJ, in February 2025, 152,000 IT specialists were looking for work - two months earlier, in December, there were 98,000.
Managers, engineers, testers, juniors and content managers are becoming victims of optimization - mainly in American and European companies. Tech giants - Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Tesla - are no exception: they are also conducting significant staff reductions. McKinsey analysts predict that in a year, artificial intelligence may displace up to a third of specialists from the IT sector.
However, the CEO of Anthropic Dario Amodei is much more generous in his forecasts, he predicts the complete disappearance of the programmer profession in a year. According to him, very soon, in a few months, artificial intelligence will write 90% of the program code.
What about Russia?
NO INITIATIVE, NO CREATIVITY
Sergey Markov, director of artificial intelligence technology development at Russia’s largest bank, believes that those specialists whose work is strictly tied to specific technologies and programming languages are most vulnerable to AI.
— Contrary to stereotypes, the development of AI technologies does not affect newcomers more. Motivated newcomers are able to quickly master new technologies. The more vulnerable category is rather mid-level specialists who lack the ability or motivation to develop further, — notes Markov.
In his opinion, in the context of rapid development of AI, the main competitor of such mid-level specialists is becoming a novice developer who uses AI tools in his work.
Alexander Moiseev, chief developer of Russia's largest telecommunications company, is in no hurry to admire the advantages of AI:
— AI is not independent, not proactive, and is not very creative when solving problems that do not have a standard solution. It always solves problems head-on, and even if there is a simple way to get around the difficulties, AI does not see it. In addition, modern neural networks have a limited amount of information that they can work with simultaneously, and some IT specialties require long-term immersion in the project (from a year). In such cases, AI will hardly replace a person.
According to him, in terms of “human intelligence,” AI is at the level of a novice specialist.
— However, when solving standard problems that have a known optimal solution algorithm, even if it is complex (requiring a senior level to write), AI writes easily and very quickly. What would take an experienced developer 8-12 hours, can be done in an hour with the help of AI, — explains Moiseyev. — But does this reduce the need for human developers? No. It simply increases efficiency, and a competitive advantage is achieved by reducing the time and cost of development.
Victoria German, a former mentor at the School of IT Professions, was left with rather sad impressions about the pedagogical potential of AI.
Soon after she joined the company, she said, management began implementing AI to check simple homework assignments and tested an AI tutor to answer students' questions.
— Previously, a mentor was paid a fixed amount for a day of duty. After the introduction of AI, the payment changed, as a result, my income fell by about three times, — Victoria explains.
It's not just this that's offensive. The quality of the AI's work turned out to be a complete failure:
— Students were often irritated by its unclear or incomplete answers. The AI also incorrectly checked homework. And I, as a mentor, had to deal with dissatisfied students whose work was done correctly, but rejected by the system.
PASTURE OF IMPOSTORS
Sergei Markov emphasizes that news about layoffs creates a distorted picture:
— The biggest problem with this news is that you are only told about layoffs, but not about new jobs. The unemployment rate in the tech sector is now lower than it was in 2020.
In his opinion, the current situation on the labor market is mainly a correction after the COVID-19 pandemic, when technology companies were actively hiring new employees.
— AI has nothing to do with it. In the long term, the development of AI technologies will most likely lead to an increase in the number of people employed in the industry, — Markov asserts. — If the development of automation technologies were a “zero-sum game,” we would now have one programmer left in the world who would do all the work. But it is obvious that we have found ourselves in a world where there is not one, not a hundred, or even a hundred thousand programmers, but many more, — he continues.
The transformation of the labor market under the influence of AI, of course, also has negative sides.
— The Jacquard loom during the industrial revolution devalued the skills of many weavers. Many modern AI technologies do approximately the same. Therefore, we will constantly face a situation where the market needs workers with a different set of knowledge and skills than most specialists, — notes Sergey Markov.
In his opinion, this is a rather expensive undertaking:
— The question arises, from whose pocket will retraining or social support be paid for people whose qualifications do not meet the new market requirements? These questions are very important, they cannot be ignored. On the other hand, a lot has changed in the industry over the past few years. Therefore, IT specialists have always lived in a reality where they constantly needed to learn and master new technologies.
Alexander Moiseyev draws attention to another problem, which, in his opinion, is much more serious. According to him, there are thousands of people on the market who have no real experience, but who willingly respond to job postings. They come there with fictitious resumes, taking up time and effort from companies. As a result, hiring slows down, and so does problem solving. Moiseyev calls such would-be job seekers "not-quite-specialists."
According to him, companies that try to hire specialists “as optimally as possible” are especially susceptible to this problem – finding those who ask for a salary below the market, but look competent.
— In such companies, pseudo-specialists sometimes even reach management positions, after which they themselves are responsible for hiring. And this leads to disastrous results.
Interestingly, AI helps impostors in some cases:
“Such employees are hired using AI, and as a result, management doesn’t even realize that people have just recently completed courses,” adds Moiseyev.
WE ARE ADAPTING
Sergey Markov believes that AI does not destroy jobs, but changes the requirements for skills and creates new professional niches.
— The development of AI increases the requirements for flexibility of thinking. In a rapidly developing world, the ability to adapt is most in demand, — he notes.
Among the new professions that are emerging thanks to the development of AI, Markov names developers of systems that combine several AIs and trainers for training AI systems. In his opinion, specialists in the application of generative AI and specialists in protecting the rights of citizens when interacting with AI services will be in demand.
Markov describes how AI is transforming existing areas of the IT market:
— Software development will increasingly use automated assistants that suggest code and solutions. The role of AI in software testing will grow, which means that testers will need to be able to configure and use such systems, and test more complex and specific scenarios. There will be a growing need for people who can check and refine materials prepared by artificial intelligence. This is how the shift from creating a large volume of text to its careful verification and improvement occurs.
Sergei Markov believes that the main condition for adaptation to the new reality is the ability to master new technologies:
— The main part of an individual strategy should be systematic work on mastering new things. Perhaps these are personal projects related to AI technologies, reading literature, getting acquainted with thematic podcasts, but the most important thing is creating your own experience.
Alexander Moiseev emphasizes the importance of honestly presenting one’s qualifications on the labor market:
— Now companies are starting to request extracts from work records on “Gosuslugi”, give technical assignments, check the real experience of applicants. And this really threatens thousands of IT specialists, who a year and a half ago were employees of completely different specialties.
But despite local layoffs, experts agree that a massive increase in unemployment in the IT industry should not be expected.
— All areas of the IT market will be affected by changes. There will be practically no “quiet corners” left in the sphere. But in the long term, the number of people employed in the IT industry will grow, — promises Sergey Markov.
#2
This software empowers business users to build, manage, and use data-driven applications
I'm old enough that I recall when this was supposedly, the benefit of COBOL Programmers would not be needed any more. Users could do it themselves.
Yes that was circa 1968. After 30+ years in all stages of IT I have one question for the AI freaks and Geeks. Why does AI choose to do anything? Does a person have to ask all the questions?
[BILD via eugyppius] From today, ALL migrants will be prevented from crossing Germany’s land borders illegally — even if they claim asylum. Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (54, CSU) has given the order ...
At midday, Dobrindt gave instructions to the Federal Police to tighten border controls and increase pushbacks in the event of illegal entry ...
Dobrindt has also revoked a verbal instruction to the Federal Police issued by former Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (71, CDU) in 2015. According to this order ... "Third-country nationals without documents legitimising residence and with a request for asylum must be allowed entry."
Dobrindt has put a stop to this.
For ten years, anybody at all could enter Germany. All he had to do was claim asylum at our borders, and if he was smart, he would also make himself almost impossible to deport by destroying his identification documents. Migrants could do this even though none of them had any right to asylum in Germany. Asylum, after all, has to be claimed in the first EU country asylees reach. Merkel set aside this so-called "Dublin rule" in 2015, to reduce pressure on EU border states like Greece and Italy, but her act opened the generous German social welfare state to the entire developing world, serving only to pull more migrants into Europe generally.
As BILD notes, these policies have been in place for 3,533 days. Probably more than 3 million migrants — the vast majority of them would-be asylees — have come to the Federal Republic on the strength of them. Our politicians told us for years that nothing could be done about this, and now Dobrindt has done something. He has done something really big.
The Union parties, after all, are not doing this out of a newfound love for border security. They’re desperate to stop the bleeding of their own support to Alternative für Deutschland. This is, in its own way, a direct attack on the AfD – and a far more serious one than any new spy agency classification.
[GEO.TV] Germany's conservative leader Friedrich Merz won on Tuesday a nail-biter second vote in parliament to become chancellor after he lost the first round in a stunning early setback.
Merz, 69, scored an absolute majority of 325 against 289 in the secret vote in the lower house of parliament.
He takes over at the helm of a coalition between his CDU/CSU alliance and the centre-left Social Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... (SPD) of the outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was set to appoint him as post-war Germany's 10th chancellor later Tuesday, along with his cabinet, before Merz is due to visit Gay Paree and then Warsaw on Wednesday.
His victory caps a long ambition to lead Europe's biggest economy, which was first foiled decades ago by party rival Angela Merkel ...former chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom. Now they make faces at her for inundating the country with Moslem colonists... who went on to serve as chancellor for 16 years.
Merz's eventual victory on Tuesday was bittersweet as the initial defeat — the first such outcome in Germany's post-war history — pointed to rumblings of discontent within his uneasy coalition.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/07/2025 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[195 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
As a chancellor he cannot realistically be removed from office before the end of the electoral term.
If he's smart he will seek maximal confrontation woth the social democrats and end the coalition soon, forming a minority government.
He isn't smart though,
After the election in February Merz announced he would invite Netanyahu to Germany in spite of the ICC.
In an interview yesterday he was asked explictly if the invitation stands. He avoided answering the question directly, instead he declared that "we have the greatest concern about Israel."
He a man who will sometimes say the right thing, but who will also spinelessly renege in the face of even the slightest criticism from the left.
#2
I don’t recall — did he ever promise that PM Netanyahu would be guaranteed protection from ICC or Interpol arrest while in Germany? Because if he did not, his invitation to Bibi is a threat.
#3
@2
In March he did promise to defy the ICC arrest warrant.
In a tv interview yesterday he was asked directly if his promise still stands and answered evasively.
Since he made the initial promise after the election I suspect he had to make additional concessions to the leftists (Social Democrats, Greens, Communist Party of East Germany) to secure his election to the office of chancellor, one of these concessions being a tough stance on Israel.
#5
The new German Minister of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt (CSU, my party) has just ordered to stop all illegal migrants at the border including those who ask for asylum.
Let's see how this works out. Trump already knows that the courts will interfere.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
05/07/2025 11:28 Comments ||
Top||
#6
I have no idea if prayers work, European Conservative, but I’m praying hard that Germany wins this one.
#8
@tw
Inofficially we're getting positive responses from other European nations. Officially they might be protesting, but they now are free to do the same thing. If migrants can't get to Germany anymore, they will think twice before setting out and getting up stranded in some Greek or Italian camps.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
05/07/2025 17:16 Comments ||
Top||
#11
" The new German Minister of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt (CSU, my party) has just ordered to stop all illegal migrants at the border including those who ask for asylum."
Funny how that happens as the AfD has at least tied the CDU/CSU in approval ratings (some say the AfD has surpassed the CDU/CSU).
Yes, I'm glad the closed the borders to illegals/asylum seekers, but the motives are suspect.
BTW, doesn't Friedrich Merz kind of remind one of Geo. H. W. Bush with his "read my lips" boast?
Note that the reference to a cook in a government post is a reference to Lenin's saying that he wanted the Soviet government to be simple enough, even a cook could operate it. by Gregor Spitzen
[REGNUM] A week ago, German politicians from the CDU/CSU presented their ministers for the new cabinet, and on May 5, their coalition partners followed suit. And now the list of candidates for the new federal cabinet has been finalized.
The SPD's agreed candidates included more women than men, and the party replaced all of its previous cabinet members, with the exception of Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. The CDU/CSU candidates also had some surprises.
WAITED FOR IT. FEDERAL CHANCELLOR FRIEDRICH MERZ (CDU)
A fairly elderly chancellor, 69 years old (the tenth oldest of all members of the German Bundestag of the current convocation), who has been “walking towards success” for a long time. He had it all in his biography: a parliamentary mandate, lost elections, leaving politics for business, and returning.
There was also a loss in the party elections for the post of head of the CDU to Angela Merkel's failed successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer... And now, finally, at the age of seventy, Merz is ready to receive the highest administrative post in Germany.
On May 6, the Bundestag voted to approve it on the second attempt, and analysts are inclined to think that the deputies' main motivation was to "get on their nerves."
In fact, the appointment to the post of head of government of a person who has not previously been a federal minister, nor a minister-president of a federal state, nor even a mayor of one of the cities, raises many legitimate questions.
And the main one is: how can someone who does not have any relevant experience in the field of public administration rule a huge country?
Moreover, the new chancellor faces many domestic and foreign policy challenges.
The country's economy is sinking into the depths of recession, the pace of its deindustrialization continues to skyrocket, and the migration problem remains far from a constructive solution.
And to top it all off, there is an armed conflict raging on the EU's borders, in which Germany has chosen a side. It has already cost it €45 billion in war money, with no end in sight.
To top it all off, Merz begins his term with a very negative background: political opponents and many voters accuse him of deceiving the electorate during the election campaign.
Just two weeks before the Bundestag elections, he adhered to the principles of strict budgetary austerity, but as soon as he won, he abruptly changed his position by 180°, intending to increase the national debt by as much as €800 billion.
THE LOSER'S REWARD: FINANCE MINISTER AND VICE CHANCELLOR LARS KLINGBEIL (SPD)
The SPD leader, who led his 150-year-old party to its worst ever election result of 16.4%, was rewarded with a nomination for the post of vice-chancellor and finance minister.
Klingbeil, 47, is considered a charismatic leader, but his main weakness is exactly the same as that of his formal boss Merz: a lack of experience in public administration.
With all due respect to Klingbeil's achievements as the chief party apparatchik of the Social Democrats, one cannot go far on the experience of behind-the-scenes party struggle alone. He will have to gain experience on the job.
Considering that he will be entrusted with an extremely important direction - managing the finances of the largest economy in the European Union, such an appointment cannot but cause concern among Germans. Especially since the Social Democrats have always been famous for their unbridled social spending, which Germany now simply cannot afford.
THEY WILL SQUEEZE AND CUT. FOREIGN MINISTER JOHANN WADEPHUL (CDU)
He is one of the politicians in the CDU/CSU who advocates a rethinking of the situation with the Alternative for Germany, a very popular party that is now considered extremist.
In April, he advocated giving members of the pariah party important committee posts "as long as they have not attracted negative attention in the past." This position is controversial even within his own party, and Wadephul is disliked by opponents in other mainstream parties and some supporters.
For many years, he was responsible for foreign affairs, defense and the Council of Europe as deputy leader of the parliamentary group. Yes, this is partly relevant experience for the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but experience in the legislative and executive spheres are still slightly different concepts.
The powers of the Foreign Ministry and its head in the current cabinet will be limited: Friedrich Merz intends to create a National Security Council in his own office.
The Council will focus many foreign policy processes on the figure of the Chancellor, leaving the relevant minister out of work in many important areas.
Naturally, Wadephul is not thrilled by the potential second role, especially since the head of the Foreign Ministry has always been considered the third person in the government after the chancellor and vice chancellor.
However, the new minister has his predecessor Annalena Baerbock to thank for this, who constantly tried to show independence in office and ignored the position of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. So Merz simply wisely wants to protect himself from such surprises.
Russian readers will probably remember Johann Wadephul from the prank by Vovan and Lexus, where the future minister showed off his foreign policy revelations and undisguised Russophobia.
YOU WON'T ENVY HIM. INTERIOR MINISTER ALEXANDER DOBRINDT (CSU)
One can only sympathize with Alexander Dobrindt, the 54-year-old head of the CSU parliamentary group, since there is hardly a more thankless job in the current cabinet than the post of interior minister.
Germany is currently facing a huge problem of uncontrolled migration and sky-high crime rates; especially many offenders with a migration background. It is clear that the time has come to take painful but necessary decisions in this direction.
However, Dobrindt's hands will be tied by the coalition agreement: the Social Democrats, famous for their overly humane attitude towards migration issues, will simply not allow him to take tough measures.
So Dobrindt will have to become a master of compromise, trying to please both his party mates and coalition partners in the dangerous parliamentary business. And compromise is a situation where everyone leaves the negotiating table dissatisfied.
Dobrindt is another person in the cabinet who has made an exclusively party career. However, he has one undoubted advantage - he is not Nancy Feather (the outgoing Interior Minister), about whose professional suitability there were huge questions.
FALLEN UNDER THE SPELL OF THE GRAVEDIGGER. MINISTER OF ECONOMICS KATERINA REICHE (CDU)
The 51-year-old chemist was a member of the Bundestag from 1998 to 2015, also serving as state secretary at the Environment Ministry and the Transport Ministry.
She then moved into business, first as Managing Director of the Association of Municipal Enterprises and, since 2019, as a manager in the energy sector, heading up energy giant E.ON's subsidiary Westenergie.
This appointment raises legitimate questions in terms of conflicts of interest and suspicions of what is loosely called “lobbying” in the US.
However, Reiche has no shortage of professionalism: former employees describe their boss as a tough and effective professional who achieved her position thanks to her personal abilities, and not distribution according to gender quotas.
There is only one fact that does not speak in Reiche's favor - promiscuity in personal relationships. Literally a week ago, she announced her relationship with Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg.
This blue-blooded former defense minister in the Merkel government (the prefix "zu" in German-speaking countries means belonging to a princely family) became famous for being one of the army's gravediggers and greatly contributed to its transformation from a somewhat combat-ready force into a ceremonial facade.
The former minister is also widely known for having been caught plagiarizing his doctoral dissertation and being forced to resign in disgrace.
Now Guttenberg is back in Germany after a long life as a sinecure in the United States. He is now doing what he loved to do when he was in charge of the Defense Ministry: posing for TV cameras and dispensing advice of immeasurable intellectual depth.
POPULAR FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON. DEFENSE MINISTER BORIS PISTORIUS (SPD)
Germany's most popular politician, 65-year-old Pistorius, is expected to retain his post as head of the military department.
True, it is not entirely clear for what merits he has been invested with such high confidence. With his arrival, the Bundeswehr has become only slightly more combat-ready than under his trio of predecessors, and among combat officers there is undisguised skepticism towards Pistorius.
However, he, like Interior Minister Dobrindt, has one undoubted and extremely important advantage: he is not Christina Lambrecht, not Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, not Ursula von der Leyen, and not even the above-mentioned Guttenberg. And therefore, in contrast to these individuals who once headed the ministry, he looks more dignified.
A QUIET, SPENDTHRIFT WOMAN. MINISTER OF LABOUR AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS BÄRBEL BAs (SPD)
Bass was out of the public eye for a long time, although she served as secretary of the SPD parliamentary group for many years. She then became known as a good parliamentary chairwoman.
However, it is not entirely clear what to expect from another candidate with no executive experience in such a position.
The SPD's special interest has always been social issues. Together with her fellow party member, Finance Minister Klingbeil, Bass is quite capable of emptying the state coffers to solve social issues.
High social spending is not always a bad thing. Voters only want these actions to actually benefit Germany and ensure the fundamental interests of the people.
PRO. JUSTICE MINISTER STEFANIE HUBIG (SPD)
Hubig, 56, was a judge before entering politics, meaning she meets the basic requirements for the post of federal justice minister.
Prior to her appointment, she had worked in senior positions in the justice sector at both the regional and federal levels.
She is perhaps one of the few candidates for minister who came to politics from the professional sphere, where she made a successful career, not limiting herself to experience in the apparatus struggle in her party.
SUPER PRO. DIGITAL MINISTER CARSTEN WILDBERGER (CDU)
Wildberger came to politics from science and "the market." The 55-year-old minister is a doctor of physical sciences in the field of solid state physics.
He first worked as a management consultant, then as a manager of telecommunications companies, in between as a board member of an energy giant, and finally became the head of the Media Markt-Saturn chain of stores, Europe's largest retailer of electronics and household appliances.
A cabinet member who is truly “self-made” and knows what it is like to work “on the ground,” unlike some of the Berlin celestials.
"EIFFEL TOWER" WITH 500 BILLION. TRANSPORT MINISTER PATRICK SCHNYDER (CDU)
From 2009 to 2021, 57-year-old Schnyder was a member of the parliamentary committee on transport and digital infrastructure. He also has experience as a mayor: from 1999 to 2009, he headed the municipality of Arzfeld in the Eifel district of Bitburg-Prüm in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
In his new post, Schnyder will play a key role in implementing the country's massive infrastructure fund. Much of the €500 billion special fund is likely to be spent on upgrading the country's dilapidated bridges and rail network.
Previous governments did not invest in them, preferring to spend money on social projects such as providing the multi-million army of refugees with the generous benefits of the German social system and financing the notorious “green transition”.
However, Schnider is notable not only for his professional abilities. He is taller than his bosses Friedrich Merz (1.98 m) and Lars Klingbeil (1.96 m), as well as Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder (1.94 m), as he is 2.02 meters tall.
Considering that the politician hails from the Eifel region, it was only natural that he would be nicknamed the Eiffel Tower in the corridors of the Bundestag.
OUT OF PLACE. ENVIRONMENT MINISTER CARSTEN SCHNEIDER (SPD)
Schneider, 49, has been a member of the Bundestag since 1998. Starting out as a banker at the Volksbank Erfurt, he was a spokesman for the parliamentary group on budget policy.
He then became its first parliamentary director, and later a minister of state under the chancellor and representative of the federal government in East Germany.
A professional financier like Schneider would have been more appropriate for the all-important post of finance minister than a party apparatchik like Lars Klingbeil. However, it is hardly surprising that in modern Germany, political expediency is often preferred over professional skills when making an appointment.
HAS A MORAL COMPASS. MINISTER FOR FAMILY AFFAIRS AND EDUCATION KARIN PRIEN (CDU)
Prien was born in 1965 in Amsterdam, where her Jewish maternal grandparents fled the Nazis in the 1930s. The family later moved to Germany. Prien joined the CDU in 1981.
36 years later, she became the education minister of Schleswig-Holstein and became famous for speaking out against the "gender" changes, which outraged her coalition partners in the Green Party.
Prien is an experienced lawyer and has worked as an independent attorney for a long time. She has been a member of the Federal Executive Committee of the CDU since 2021 and is also the chairwoman of the CDU Jewish Forum.
Many voters believe that Prien was not afraid to speak out against the notorious "gender agenda", although she knew that she would be attacked. Therefore, they believe that this candidate is a very worthy lady with a clearly functioning moral compass. Exactly what the modern German family and the education sector of the FRG need.
KNOWS ALL ABOUT CABBAGE AND SAUSAGES. HOUSING AND CONSTRUCTION MINISTER VERENA HUBERTZ (SPD)
The 37-year-old cabinet candidate rose to fame in 2014 when she founded Kitchen Stories, an app that shows people how to cook simply and enjoyably. It was in the kitchen that she perhaps found her true calling: in 2017, she received a visit from Tim Cook himself.
That’s Apple CEO Tim Cook. Not long thereafter she sold her company to Bosch Appliances.
The candidate, now 37, first entered the Bundestag in 2021. She was a member of the committees on housing, urban development and construction, as well as tourism and business. Quite a rapid career for a lady who is relatively young in the world of politics.
SCREAMING IN THE STANDS. RESEARCH AND SPACE MINISTER DOROTHEA BAER (CSU)
With a short break, she has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2002, that is, for almost 23 years. This is quite remarkable, considering that she is only 47 years old. In other words, Frau Baer has worked in the Bundestag almost her entire life, without having spent a single day in a “normal” job.
Baer made her parliamentary career thoughtfully and unhurriedly, gradually rising up the hierarchical ladder of parliamentary committees.
From 2018 to 2021, she was Minister of State to the Federal Chancellor and Federal Government Commissioner for Digitalization. Most recently, she was responsible for family, senior citizens, women, youth, culture and media issues in the CDU/CSU.
Also noteworthy is the fact that Dorothea Bär is an active football fan and functionary, being a member of the administrative advisory board of the football club Bayern.
THE GREY MOUSE OF POLITICS. HEALTH MINISTER NINA WARKEN (CDU)
45-year-old lawyer Warken has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2013. She has served on several parliamentary committees, but she has not yet been remembered for anything particularly outstanding in the Bundestag.
However, this candidate is against lowering the voting age to 16, which already speaks of her as a relatively reasonable politician.
PROFESSIONAL CALF KILLER. AGRICULTURE MINISTER ALOIS RAINER (CSU)
Perhaps the most ideal candidate, brilliantly suited to his purpose, is the only member of the future cabinet who holds a certificate as a professional butcher.
More than 20 years ago, Rainer and his colleague formed a veal sausage 825 meters long – at that time the longest in the world. So German farmers respectfully look at the politician as “one of their own.”
THE BOXER WHO OUTSMARTED HER ELDERS. MINISTER OF ECONOMIC COOPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT RIM ALABALI-RADOVAN (SPD)
Alabali-Radovan, 35, has made a meteoric rise in the Social Democratic Party. Having only joined at the beginning of 2021, she was appointed Minister of State for Migration, Refugees and Integration in December.
In 2022, she also took over the newly created position of Federal Commissioner for Combating Racism. Quite a lot of positions with relatively little public visibility.
The new candidate for minister with a migration background is also famous for being a bit of a boxer, albeit at an amateur level. In any case, Alabali-Radovan knows how to stand up for herself.
Previously, this ministerial post was tipped for the seasoned SPD party functionary and one of the party leaders, Saskia Esken. However, in the party corridors, it was apparently decided that it was necessary to make way for the young. Esken, however, did not understand this argument and was very upset.
THE FOX IN THE HENHOUSE. MINISTER FOR CULTURE AND THE MEDIA WOLFRAM WEIMER (CDU)
The decision to nominate Weimer came as a big surprise. The 60-year-old ministerial candidate is the publisher of the Weimer Media Group, which publishes Business Punk, The European and Wirtschaftskurier.
Before that, he was editor-in-chief of Die Welt and then founder and editor-in-chief of Cicero magazine.
This decision was widely criticized by cultural professionals, with many accusations that it was unacceptable to "let the fox into the henhouse" when appointing someone to such a responsible post.
In any case, Weimer is already the second candidate for the Merz government whose appointment raises questions in terms of conflict of interest.
THE TSAR'S CHAMBERLAIN. CHANCELLERY MINISTER THORSTEN FREY (CDU)
Frey is one candidate who has actual government experience, although not at the federal or state level. He was Lord Mayor of Donaueschingen from 2004 to 2013.
Since the end of 2021, the 51-year-old MP has been the first parliamentary secretary of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag and has therefore always been on the side of Friedrich Merz.
His appointment to the ministerial position closest to the Chancellor shows who will be the main one with “access to the body” of the Federal Chancellor and who will provide the bulk of the administrative work in the government.
NOT A MINISTER, BUT ALSO A RUSSOPHOBE. GOVERNMENT PRESS SECRETARY STEFAN CORNELIUS
And another important point: the new press secretary of the government will be the former political editor of the influential newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, Stefan Cornelius a journalist known for his extreme Russophobia.
However, at the same time he is a top-class professional, which means the public will have to miss the pearls of the previous press secretary Stefan Hebestreit.
“Radical Left Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser ignores Illegals committing Violent Crimes like Rape and Murder in his State and, instead, jailed Tina Peters, a 69-year-old Gold Star mother who worked to expose and document Democrat Election Fraud,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, calling her an “innocent Political Prisoner being horribly and unjustly punished in the form of Cruel and Unusual Punishment.”
[NYP] A government research lab that had been used to conduct "cruel" and deadly drug experiments on beagles for at least four decades has been shut down, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya revealed.
The NIH’s controversial in-house Clinical Center on its Bethesda, Md., campus had been accused of pushing pneumonia-causing bacteria into 2,000 beagles’ lungs, among other brutal experiments.
The closure of the notorious facility dovetails with a broader push by the Trump administration to phase out animal testing.
"We put forward a policy to replace animals and research with other technological advancements, AI and other tools that actually translate better to human health," Bhattacharya told "Fox & Friends Weekend" Saturday.
[Breitbart] During an interview aired on Tuesday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “The Record,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that the incident at Newark’s airport “could happen in other places around the infrastructure. So, we are going to build a brand new air traffic control system, that’s going to take anywhere from three to four years.” But they’re also working on fixing the lines in the Newark area “to make sure we can stand up the telecom to make sure it never goes down again. And so, this takes a little bit of time. I was told it’d be eight months on the new fiber side of the telecom. I think we can get it to this summer.”
Duffy said, “We saw what happened in Newark. That could happen in other places around the infrastructure. So, we are going to build a brand new air traffic control system, that’s going to take anywhere from three to four years. But, to your question, in the Philly TRACON, which controls Newark, we’re already up there. We had a primary line that went down, and the secondary line, the redundant line, it didn’t stand up. So, we’re working on fixing that and making sure both lines, the primary and the redundant line, are working. But at the same time, we’re laying new fiber in the Philly TRACON to make sure we can stand up the telecom to make sure it never goes down again. And so, this takes a little bit of time. I was told it’d be eight months on the new fiber side of the telecom. I think we can get it to this summer. And, again, we’re going to deal with what’s happening by trying to stand up more controllers in the Philly TRACON. We’re going to get airlines together to talk about how they can reduce capacity at Newark.”
He added that a complete rebuild of the air traffic control system is also dependent on congressional money, and “We’re going to ask the Congress for all the money up front. I’ll go back and testify. They can do oversight with me. But we’re going to get the money, and, again, build — we’re going to get new radars, new radios, sensors on tarmacs, new infrastructure around telecom, going from copper to fiber, all the things that make an air traffic control system great, we’re actually going to implement here, and the space is going to be safer. But, also, Greta, more planes are flying in the air. So, we can deploy some technology that can bring us more efficiency in the airspace, which is critical on the delay front. And, again, most people, they don’t want to know who the FAA administrator is. They don’t want to know who the DOT secretary is, because everything runs well. But when you have these kind of failures, we’ve got to come out and be very clear about what’s happened in the past and where Donald Trump and Sean Duffy are going to take us in the future with the help of the Congress. And by the way, it’s going to be bipartisan. Everyone agrees we have to do this.”
[FoxWeather] A decades-old Soviet spacecraft is expected to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere in the coming days, but it’s still a mystery as to where it will land if it survives its fiery descent.
According to NASA, the spacecraft, known as Kosmos 482, Cosmos482 or simply 05919, was a Venus-bound probe that launched atop a Russian Soyuz rocket on March 31, 1972.
NASA said that after it achieved an Earth parking orbit, it attempted to launch on a Venus trajectory but failed.
Kosmos 482 broke into four sections – two of which remained in Earth’s orbit for 48 hours, and two larger pieces that have been circling Earth ever since.
NASA said that it’s believed that a malfunction resulted in an engine burn that didn’t provide enough velocity, and that’s why it remains in an elliptical Earth orbit.
The 3MV planetary probe (short for 3rd generation Mars-Venus) is a designation for a common design used by early Soviet unmanned probes to Mars and Venus.
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.
[NYPOST] Louisiana authorities on Monday charged a second suspect with murder in the death of a television 
[NYPOST] A Uber passenger was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the 2022 killing of driver, 38-year-old mother Christina Spicuzza.
...every time you hear the phrase 
[FoxWeather] A decades-old Soviet spacecraft is expected to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere in the coming days, but it’s still a mystery as to where it will land if it survives its fiery descent.
