Former Employee Of Two Leading Global Financial Institutions And His Associate Plead Guilty To Insider Trading
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-employee-two-leading-global-financial-institutions-and-his-associate-plead
Howard County Man Sentenced to Two Years in Federal Prison for Threatening an LGBTQI+ Advocacy Group
https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/howard-county-man-sentenced-two-years-federal-prison-threatening-lgbtqi-advocacy-group
Five Individuals Indicted for Long-Running Pump-and-Dump Schemes
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/five-individuals-indicted-long-running-pump-and-dump-schemes
Eleven Members and Associates of Marion Gardens Jersey City Gang Indicted for Racketeering for Roles in Three Murders, Drug Trafficking Activities, and Other Crimes
https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/eleven-members-and-associates-marion-gardens-jersey-city-gang-indicted-racketeering
Honduran National Sentenced for Being and Illegal Alien in Possession of a Firearm
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edla/pr/honduran-national-sentenced-being-and-illegal-alien-possession-firearm
Former NOPD Sergeant Charged with Wire Fraud for Double Billing and Billing for Time Not Worked
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edla/pr/former-nopd-sergeant-charged-wire-fraud-double-billing-and-billing-time-not-worked
Correction
Gaza War Expands As US, UK Warplanes Bomb Houthi Strongholds In Yemen
Update(1840): Reuters and VOA are reporting that US and UK warplanes have begin striking Houthi targets in Yemen, in what marks the first major regional expanse of the Gaza war.
The Telegraph has also reported British fighters and ships are participating in the military action against the Houthis. There are incoming reports of large airstrikes in major Yemeni cities.
One Mideast correspondent remarks that "we have gone from US prioritizing an end to war in Yemen to US getting involved against rebels in control of Yemen. Regional ramifications of both Yemen and Gaza wars on full display, with heavy toll on trade, maritime navigation."
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/houthis-vow-expanded-attacks-us-navy-bigger-tuesdays-barrage
State of Texas Seizes Property in Eagle Pass Under Governor Abbott’s Emergency Powers Amid Biden Border Crisis
The Texas Department of Public Safety notified Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas on Wednesday that Shelby Park was being taken over by an emergency order by Republican Governor Greg Abbott.
The park covers 47 acres and is right next to a portion of the Rio Grande River. This will give DPS officers control over the area to help stop illegals from crossing into the U.S. The take over is for an indefinite period of time with DPS having total control of the area.
“All access to the property is limited to state authority only. Border Patrol will be permitted to enter the property to remove their equipment and supplies—Agents will not have access to the area unless there is a medical emergency.” – NewsNation reporter Ali Brady said.
The Texas Tribune reported:
The Texas Department of Public Safety has closed and taken over a park in Eagle Pass on the banks of the Rio Grande against the wishes of city officials, Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas said Thursday.
In a video posted on Facebook, Salinas said he received a call from DPS officials on Wednesday to let him know that Gov. Greg Abbott had signed an emergency declaration and that officers would take “full control” of 47-acre Shelby Park indefinitely.
“That is not a decision that we agreed to. This is not something that we wanted. This is not something that we asked for as a city,” Salinas said in the video.
Salinas said he was told that the reason for the operation is to prevent immigrants from illegally crossing the Rio Grande into Texas.
“I am told that the state plans to start arresting all who cross for criminal trespass—This is not under the new illegal entry law #SB4– They have been arresting for criminal trespass for months.” Ali Bradley said.
The invasion at the southern border has been estimated at about 11 million illegals since crooked Joe Biden was installed in January 2021.
Eagle Pass has been one of the worst areas along the southern border for illegal aliens to enter the United States. TGP reported in November of 2023 that women and children were being pulled out of the water.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/01/new-state-texas-seizes-property-eagle-pass-under/
China urges U.S. to stop interfering in elections in Taiwan region
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Thursday said that the elections in the Taiwan region are purely China’s internal affairs, which brook no external interference, and China urges the U.S. side to stop interfering in elections in the Taiwan region in any form.
Xinhua said that Spokesperson Mao Ning made the remarks at a daily press briefing when answering a relevant query.
Mao said there is only one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. China firmly opposes the United States having any form of official contact with the Taiwan region.
The United States needs to earnestly abide by the one-China principle and stipulations of the three China-U.S. joint communiques, prudently and properly handle Taiwan-related issues, stop official contact with the Taiwan region, and stop sending wrong signals to “Taiwan independence” separatist forces, she said.
The United States must not interfere in the elections in the Taiwan region in any form, or do anything harmful to China-U.S. relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, she said.
The Taiwan question is China’s internal affairs. Elections in the Taiwan region are purely China’s internal affairs that brook no external interference, said Mao, noting that China deplores and strongly opposes the U.S.’ unwarranted comments on Taiwan’s elections.
https://sana.sy/en/?p=323439
Israel Alarmed At 'Terrifying' Number Of Troops Wounded Since Start Of Gaza War
Over 6,000 members of the Israeli security establishment – including the army and the police – have been injured since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon, the Jerusalem Post reports Thursday, citing defense ministry figures.
"The numbers coming out are terrifying," the Israeli outlet wrote. Out of the 6,000 who have been wounded, more than 2,000 are permanently disabled, the report highlights.
"Nothing prepared the medical establishment for the onslaught of injuries resulting from the war over the last three months," the report says.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel’s Health Ministry warned the Knesset, only a month into the war, that Tel Aviv was not prepared to handle the massive number of injuries.
The Defense Ministry has said it works at "full capacity" to assist many wounded. Israel’s health sector is facing "chronic shortages," which continue to worsen, according to the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies.
"I have never seen a scope like this and an intensity like this," Edan Kleiman, head of the Israeli NGO Disabled Veterans Organization, said recently. Kleiman added that the number will jump to 20,000 once those with PTSD are included in the toll.
Three months since the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the Israeli army continues to face fierce resistance from Hamas’ Qassam Brigades and other groups in Gaza, falling into daily ambushes.
The Qassam Brigades said on Monday that they killed multiple Israeli soldiers in central Gaza’s Bureij Camp that day, indicating that they were killed while attempting to free a captive held by Hamas. The army claimed the deaths resulted from an accidental explosion aimed at destroying an underground Hamas facility.
Tel Aviv claims that the number of dead soldiers since the ground war was expanded on 27 October stands at 186. However, the number is expected to be much higher – as Israel is known to hide its losses through strict censorship laws imposed on what is reported in the media.
Hebrew media reported last month that the official number of wounded soldiers provided by Tel Aviv is only half of the actual toll, according to hospital records.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/israel-alarmed-terrifying-number-troops-wounded-start-gaza-war
Kind of funny how the genocide trial starts then
the DS UK and US branches expand the war the
same day by bombing Yemen
Twitterfag go here for the best updates on yemen - I have no access
https://twitter.com/hashtag/Syria?f=live
kek
delta
US, UK begin bombing Yemen – Houthis
There were reports of explosions in Sanaa and Hodeidah on Friday
The US and the UK have launched an attack on Yemen, striking the cities of Sanaa and Hodeidah, Houthi spokesman Abdulsalam Jahaf said early on Friday.
Washington and London have not made any official announcements as of yet. However, multiple British and American outlets reported that an attack was “imminent” on Thursday evening, citing anonymous sources inside the White House and 10 Downing Street.
“Now America, Britain, and Israel are launching raids on Hodeidah, Sanaa, Dhamar, and Saada,” Jahaf said on X (formerly Twitter). “We will discipline them, God willing.”
There were at least three explosions in Sanaa, Reuters reported citing local witnesses.
Officially known as Ansar Allah (‘Supporters of God’), the Houthis declared solidarity with Gaza in late October, reacting to Israel’s offensive against the Palestinian enclave. They have since carried out over 20 attacks on various shipping vessels in the Red Sea, a major trade route connecting Europe and Asia via the Suez Canal. Major shipping companies have responded by rerouting their ships around Africa, driving up prices and insurance costs.
On Tuesday, the US Central Command announced that its ships and airplanes shot down more than 20 missiles and drones launched at vessels in the Red Sea.
“We cannot have a situation where a major sea route, a major ability to move goods around the world is being cut off by terrorists and thugs and we therefore must act,” British Defense Secretary Grant Schapps said after the incident.
Jahaf responded to threats from Washington and London by declaring on X that the Houthis will “respond to any American aggression,” and make the US “kneel and burn its battleships and all its bases and everyone who co-operates with it, no matter what the cost.”
“The world must prepare to hear America's defeat, and I say it with all pride: We will tread on America with our feet, and whoever does not know us, the battlefields will know about our strength and strength,” Jahaf had said.
Between 2015 and 2023, the Houthis had fought to a standstill a regional coalition led by Saudi Arabia that sought to restore the previous Yemeni government to power. The US had backed the Saudis with intelligence and military supplies.
https://www.rt.com/news/590481-us-uk-begin-strikes-yemen/
China Says It Cracked Apple's AirDrop Encryption To Track Senders
Chinese authorities have claimed that they can identify individuals who use Apple’s wireless file-sharing tool to spread content that Beijing considers “inappropriate.”
Experts had managed to identify the phone number and email address of an AirDrop sending device using logs found on the receiving device, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice said in an article published on Jan. 8. That allows local police to find “several suspects” who use the iPhone feature to transmit files containing what authorities have referred to as “inappropriate remarks,” according to the agency.
AirDrop, designed to function over short distances, was created as a program reliant on direct connections between phones. By forming a local network of devices without relying on the internet to communicate, AirDrop makes it hard for authorities to regulate “through conventional network monitoring methods,” according to the article.
The file-sharing feature, which is available on iPhones and other Apple devices, has been a critical tool for protesters in both mainland China and Hong Kong to evade censorship and maintain communication. Users can’t review the transmission history, and the recipient’s device may only show the user-defined name of the sender.
The Beijing judicial agency stated in the article that experts extracted AirDrop’s encrypted records by analyzing the iPhone’s logs. They praised experts from Beijing Wangshendongjian Technology Co. Ltd., a local forensic appraisal institute, for assisting authorities to “break through technical difficulties of tracing anonymous AirDrops.”
The Epoch Times contacted Apple for comment but didn’t receive a response by press time.
iPhone Censorship
AirDrop was used widely as a communication tool during Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests in 2019. Demonstrators deployed the program to bypass China’s so-called Great Firewall, delivering crucial messages to the public and ensuring ongoing communication among themselves.
In late 2022, after protests against Beijing’s draconian COVID-19 measures erupted in Shanghai and other major Chinese cities, Apple restricted the sharing feature in the mainland following reports that young demonstrators used the AirDrop function to share images and slogans denouncing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leader, Xi Jinping.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/china-says-it-cracked-apples-airdrop-encryption-track-senders
If This Was Not Recorded Nobody Would Believe!
https://youtu.be/0or-RacPDiM
China’s ban on rare earth minerals export rattles the world tech industry
China has just expanded its already tight restrictions on the export of technology related to refining rare earth minerals, which includes the production of rare earth magnets used in electric motors and generators as well as in the automotive industry and consumer electronics such as cell phones.
The communist nation, which controls 90 percent of the refined rare earth metal market, completely banned the rare earth extraction and separation technology. According to freelance writer and communications consultant Kurt Cobb, this recent move is part of a broader trade war between the United States and China over the exchange of technology.
President Xi Jinping's commerce ministry sought public opinion last December on the potential move to add the technology to prepare samarium-cobalt magnets, neodymium-iron-boron magnets and cerium magnets to its "Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited and Restricted from Export." In the list it also banned technology to make rare-earth calcium oxyborate and production technology for rare earth metals, adding them to a previous ban on the production of rare earth alloy materials.
Beijing is said to produce 60 percent of the ore, which means that the whole world is sending three-quarters of its ore to the country for processing, putting it in a commanding position to decide "who will get these metals and even whether the rest of the world gets any at all," the analyst said. When China unexpectedly and dramatically reduced its rare earth exports in 2010, prices went skyrocketing. For Cobb, the Chinese would want to monopolize the market and even though America has made efforts to incentivize domestic mining of critical minerals, challenges remain due to the East Asian country's market dominance. President Joe Biden's administration allocated a small amount of budget to roll out a modest program to incentivize U.S.-based mining of critical minerals such as lithium, nickel, graphite, cobalt and manganese. However, it seemed to have failed.
"A private attempt to revive a closed rare earth mine, the largest in the United States, resulted in a colossal financial loss for investors when rare earth prices plummeted after China resumed its previous level of exports following the reduction in 2010," Cobb wrote on his blogsite entry dated Dec. 24. "This shows how China can easily sabotage any attempts to challenge its dominance of the rare earth market."
He added that the only reasonable way to break the Chinese stranglehold on the rare earth market would be for governments to guarantee the price of rare earth mined by domestic companies as CCP and its rare earth industry have a close-tie relationship. "In a world where the consensus regarding the free exchange of goods is breaking down and geopolitical interests are coming to the fore, China seems to care far less about living up to free trade rules than protecting its perceived national interests," he said. "If other major trading countries and blocks start moving in the same direction, the easy availability of cheap goods and resources produced in faraway locales may become increasingly problematic."
http://www.stationgossip.com/2024/01/chinas-ban-on-rare-earth-minerals.html
Luke 21
The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times
5 Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 6 “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”
7 “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”
8 He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. 9 When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”
10 Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
12 “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. 13 And so you will bear testimony to me. 14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. 15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 Everyone will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 Stand firm, and you will win life.
20 “When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. 21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. 22 For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. 23 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. 24 They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
25 “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. 26 People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. 27 At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Australia drawn in to massive retaliatory strike
The US and Britain have launched massive retaliatory airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels with the help of several countries, including Australia, Joe Biden has announced.
The attacks have used warship-launched Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets, several US officials told The Associated Press.
The military targets included logistical hubs, air defence systems and weapons storage locations, they said.
"Today, at my direction, U.S. military forces – together with the United Kingdom and with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands – successfully conducted strikes against a number of targets in Yemen used by Houthi rebels to endanger freedom of navigation in one of the world's most vital waterways," US President Biden said.
"These strikes are in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea – including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history."
Associated Press journalists in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, heard four explosions early Friday local time (late Friday morning AEDT) but saw no sign of warplanes.
Two residents of Hodieda, Amin Ali Saleh and Hani Ahmed, said they heard five strong explosions. Hodieda lies on the Red Sea and is the largest port city controlled by the Houthis.
The strikes come after UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reportedly briefed his cabinet on possible British and US strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen amid fears of an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.
Sunak briefed his cabinet of ministers on imminent military intervention this evening, the Times in the UK reported.
The strikes marked the first US military response to what has been a persistent campaign of drone and missile attacks on commercial ships since the start of the Israel-Hamas. And the coordinated military assault comes just a week after the White House and a host of partner nations issued a final warning to the Houthis to cease the attacks or face potential military action.
The officials confirmed the strikes on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.
The warning appeared to have had at least some short-lived impact, as attacks stopped for several days.
On Tuesday, however, the Houthi rebels fired their largest-ever barrage of drones and missiles targeting shipping in the Red Sea, with US and British ships and American fighter jets responding by shooting down 18 drones, two cruise missiles and an anti-ship missile.
And on Thursday, the Houthis fired an anti-ship ballistic missile into the Gulf of Aden, which was seen by a commercial ship but did not hit the ship.
https://www.9news.com.au/world/us-uk-military-strikes-yemen-houthi-rebels/1e499cd5-5cfc-4d3d-813f-2ea2fc2aeab9