Kate Moss passed out at a Diddler party.

Techno Viking spotted in the wild.

US Marine Lance Corporal William “Kyle” Carpenter, the man who threw himself in front of a grenade in Afghanistan to protect his best friend

Calcium carbide lamp used for miners to light their way inside mines!

Toronto police open hate crime investigation after Jewish girls’ school hit with gunfire in 2nd incident this year

Police in Toronto, Canada, are opening a hate crime investigation after shots were fired overnight into the window of a Jewish girls’ elementary school – the second time this year the school was targeted by gunfire, officials said.

The incident occurred around 4 a.m. Saturday at the Bais Chaya Mushka Girls Elementary School on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and the holiest day of the year in Judaism, Toronto Police Service Inspector Paul Krawczyk said at a news conference.

No arrests have been made and police are not releasing information about suspects at this time, Krawczyk said. The investigation into the incident will be led by the agency’s Gun and Gang Task Force with assistance from its hate crime unit, he added.

There were no injuries or reports of gunshots heard, and the building was empty because the school is currently closed for the Jewish High Holidays, Krawczyk said. In a news release, police said the suspect or suspects were in a motor vehicle when they discharged a firearm at the school. Evidence of gunfire was located at the scene, the release said.

The same school was also hit with gunfire in a similar incident in May, Krawczyk said.

“I appreciate the significant trauma that this can cause those in the Jewish community,” he said. “While we can’t say whether these incidents are connected at this time, it’s certainly a key aspect of our investigation.”

Krawczyk said officials would consider releasing video camera footage from the incident, which will be examined as part of the investigation. The agency has increased police presence in Jewish neighborhoods in recent weeks and will also do so at the school as the investigation unfolds, Krawczyk said.

“We’re asking anyone who is in the area or who could have dash cam footage or other CCTV footage to please step forward and provide us with that evidence. Your help is vital to the work we do and to find those responsible,” he said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released a statement on the shooting, saying: “I’m very disturbed to hear that last night, as families marked Yom Kippur, there were shots fired at a Jewish school in Toronto.”

“As we wait for more details, my heart goes out to the students, staff, and parents who must be terrified and hurting today,” Trudeau said on X. “Antisemitism is a disgusting and dangerous form of hate — and we won’t let it stand.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/toronto-police-open-hate-crime-213201478.html

MS-13 Leader Faces Trial for Gruesome Virginia Murders, Including Waitress Execution

An MS-13 leader, Elmer Alas Candray, is on trial in Virginia for his involvement in six brutal murders, including the execution of a 19-year-old waitress shot 16 times, leaving her unrecognizable. Candray, a 27-year-old Salvadoran native, rose through the violent gang’s ranks, orchestrating killings in Virginia and Massachusetts between 2018 and 2022. He faces charges of murder, racketeering, and firearms violations in a case that could lead to a life sentence if convicted.

Federal prosecutors detailed the gruesome murders in Alexandria court, where five of Candray’s former gang members, who have already pleaded guilty, are set to testify against him. One of the victims, 24-year-old Jose Guillen Mejia, was killed for being in the wrong place—drinking in woods the gang considered their territory. Candray’s crew also murdered 27-year-old Rene Pineda Sanchez, who was beaten so severely that his skull was crushed. The violence escalated further when Candray and others decapitated a fellow gang member, Francisco Avelar Rivera, in 2022 after accusing him of inflating his rank.

Candray has also been linked to the killing of rival gang member Santos Antonio Trejo Lemus in 2021 and the murder of Kevin Abarca-Choto in 2018 over unpaid debts. The case highlights the gang’s notorious brutality, often relying on guns and machetes to carry out their attacks.

https://lottwire.com/ms-13-leader-faces-trial-for-gruesome-virginia-murders-including-waitress-execution/

Kamala does her best to describe space.

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1845993275368308893

Meet Anne Kelly Skinner, a man pretending to be a woman, who was awarded a Guinness World Record for being the fastest FEMALE marathon roller skater.

Now men are taking women's world records away. When will it end?

https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1845952825341452513

Boeing to axe a tenth of its workers as strike continues

Boeing will axe its workforce by a tenth - cutting 17,000 jobs - and delay production as the aeroplane maker deals with issues across its business.

Chief executive Kelly Ortberg said in an email to staff that "executives, managers, and employees'" jobs are all at risk.

The business also warned of losses in its weapons and military equipment manufacturing arm, and pushed back the delivery date of its 777X plane.

The news comes as the business grapples with staff striking and mounting concerns around the quality of its planes.

Mr Ortberg said in the email that the company will reduce its headcount "over the coming months".

"Next week, your leadership team will share more tailored information about what this means for your organization," he said, adding that it will not proceed with the next cycle of furloughs.

"The state of our business and our future recovery require tough actions," said Mr Ortberg.

As well as cutting jobs, the company also is delaying production of its 777X due to "the challenges we have faced in development, as well as from the flight test pause and ongoing work stoppage", a possible reference to the ongoing strike that has been going on for several weeks.

"We have notified customers that we now expect first delivery in 2026," he said.

A month-long union strike at Boeing has grown contentious, as approximately 33,000 workers sought a better pay package.

Talks appeared to fall apart this week, and the union's lead negotiator, John Holden, told Reuters, "We're in this for the long haul and our members understand that."

The global credit ratings agency S&P has put Boeing on CreditWatch, a sign that they could downgrade the aeroplane manufacturer's rating if the strike drags out.

The company was already under congressional scrutiny after a January incident, during which a defect caused a panel to blow out on a Boeing 737-MAX jet shortly after takeoff.

No-one was injured, and Boeing’s then-chief executive Dave Calhoun said the company was "acknowledging our mistake".

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boeing-axe-10-staff-slow-211751959.html

USC to host 'Demonic' drag show called 'Drag Me to Hell'

One of the nation’s top universities in Los Angeles will be hosting a drag show later this month, which the organizers are calling “demonic.”

Scheduled for Oct. 29 at the University of Southern California (USC), the event is titled, “Drag Me to Hell: Demonic Drag Performances and Costume Contest.”

“Drag Me to Hell is a one-of-a-kind Halloween event inspired by queer pioneers in 1930s–60s Los Angeles who found refuge in science-fiction fandom and the occult underground,” the description page says.

The event is featuring multiple “demonic drag performances” led by professional drag queens.

One such performer, Vander Von Odd, is described as a “trans femme drag queen, filmmaker, and creature actor based out of Los Angeles.” Von Odd is also the “Season One winner of the drag competition show The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula, and frequently travels the country performing in her distinct aesthetic of sinister glamor.”

Another performer, Miss Toto, is “an international DJ and drag sensation, public speaker, and producer,” and has raised $50,000 for the “BLM movement,” according to the USC web page.

Specimen Scythe, a “non-binary drag artist” who uses “they/them/it” pronouns, specializes in “horror-themed drag, exploring the bizarre and the beautiful in their fearsome ensembles.” The performer is also a tattoo artist “who provides gender-affirming body modification.”

USC’s “Visions and Voices” department is organizing the event. According to the university, “USC Visions and Voices is a university-wide arts and humanities initiative that features a spectacular array of interdiciplinary [sic] events.”

Campus Reform has reported on many other colleges and universities holding on-campus drag shows this semester.

California State at Monterey Bay is sponsoring a drag show celebrating witches on Oct. 11, called “Werk Witch Drag Show.”

“Celebrate the beautiful hxstory [sic] of drag culture with our Werk Witch Drag show,” a description page says.

Last month, Central Washington University hosted its tenth annual drag show, featuring professional drag queens “Aquasha DeLusty” and “Edacious March.”

Also in September, Florida State University’s Pride Student Union helped organize a “cowboy themed drag show.”

Similarly, Purdue University offered a drag show as the first event of “Pride Week” for freshman and returning students this semester.

Campus Reform has contacted the University of Southern California for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

https://www.campusreform.org/article/usc-host-demonic-drag-show-called-drag-hell/26524

FOX NEWS CHANNEL’S BRET BAIER TO CONDUCT INTERVIEW WITH VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS ON SPECIAL REPORT THIS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16TH

NEW YORK — October 14, 2024 — FOX News Channel’s (FNC) chief political anchor Bret Baier will conduct an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Wednesday, October 16th. This week’s appearance marks her first formal sit-down interview on the network ever and will air during Special Report with Bret Baier at 6 PM/ET on October 16th. Baier will be anchoring Special Report from Pennsylvania that evening.

FNC’s chief political anchor and anchor and executive editor of cable news’ most-watched newscast Special Report with Bret Baier (weekdays, 6- 7PM/ET), is home to the largest and most politically diverse audience in cable news, averaging 2.3 million viewers and 233,000 in A25-54 with more Democrats and Independents tuning in to Baier than any show in its timeslot. Additionally, FOX News outrates CNN and MSNBC in every swing state, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. This election cycle, Baier created the popular Common Ground segment which features political leaders from across the aisle discussing the issues of the day with the goal of finding middle ground. He is also host of FOX News Audio’s “The Bret Baier Podcast” which includes Common Ground and The All-Star Panel.

Since joining FNC in 1998 as an Atlanta-based reporter, Baier has played an integral role in coverage of every major political event. Most recently, Baier co-led the network’s special Democracy 2024 coverage of the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention, among numerous political events which have consistently ranked number one in all of television, outpacing cable news and broadcast coverage. During recent cycles, Baier has moderated Republican presidential primary debates and town halls with candidates across the political spectrum, including former President Donald Trump as well as then-candidates former Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders, former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and former mayor Michael Bloomberg. Baier has also interviewed world leaders, including Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed bi Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, then-President Barack Obama, then-President George W. Bush, then-Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, among other international newsmakers. A six-time New York Times bestselling author, Baier is the recipient of the 2024 Horatio Alger award and the 2017 Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism.

FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service and has been the number one network in basic cable for the last eight years and the most-watched television news channel for more than 22 consecutive years, currently attracting nearly 50% of the cable news viewing audience according to Nielsen Media Research. Notably, Nielsen/MRI Fusion has consistently shown FNC to be the network of choice for more Democrat and Independent viewers, with the most politically diverse audience in cable news. Additionally, a 2023 New York Times/Siena College poll found FNC as the leading single source of news for voters across the country. Owned by Fox Corporation, FNC is available in nearly 70 million homes and dominates the cable news landscape, routinely notching the top 10 programs in the genre.

https://press.foxnews.com/2024/10/fox-news-channels-bret-baier-to-conduct-interview-with-vice-president-kamala-harris-on-special-report-this-wednesday-october-16th

Massive Early Voting Turnout Surge Shatters Records Across Wyoming

More than three weeks still remain before the Nov. 5 general election, but records are already being shattered for early voting turnout around Wyoming.

Laramie County announced that turnout on Day On of early voting in Laramie County on Tuesday set a record, as 754 ballots were cast. According to Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee, the previous first-day record, set in 2020, was 313.

By Friday afternoon, the early voting line at the Laramie County Clerk’s Office was out the door. Lee told Cowboy State Daily that 2,672 ballots had been cast for the first week so far, also a record.

“This is good. There’s a lot of interest in this election for sure,” she said.

None of these totals include absentee ballots and only represent in-person early voting.

In Laramie County, 438 absentee ballots and 48 ballots sent to residents stationed overseas were returned as of Friday afternoon, slightly higher numbers from what was seen in 2020. That’s significant, considering a whopping 13,025 absentee ballots were sent out for the 2020 election, mostly as result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Platte County Clerk Malcolm Ervin said similar records were likely broken in his county for the first week of early voting.

As of Friday, Platte had 552 early ballots recorded. This compares to the roughly 2,000 ballots that were cast in his county through the entire 45-day early voting period in 2020.

Ervin said his staff anticipated a heavy early voting turnout this year because of changes in law that just went into effect, reducing the early voting period from 45 to 28 days for most voters.

Fremont County Clerk Julie Freese said she wasn’t sure if any records had been broken in her county, but early voting participation has been “steady” in her central Wyoming county, with 301 casting an early ballot so far.

Republicans and former President Donald Trump have made a concerted effort to promote early voting in this year’s election, even though Trump himself has also criticized it. Democrats have historically had success in encouraging early voting, which has helped them bank votes ahead of Election Day.

Earlier this week, U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman put out a video on social media reminding the voters that the polls are open and that “we need to take our country back.”

‘Get ’R Done’

State Rep. Clarence Styvar, R-Cheyenne, was one of the early voters Friday afternoon waiting to cast an early vote. When asked why he chose to vote early rather than vote on Election Day, Styvar responded to, “get ’r done.”

The overwhelming sentiment among people Cowboy State Daily spoke with was similar to Styvar, expressing a desire to get voting out of the way and done when they had free time to do it.

Michelle Blake said avoiding long lines on Election Day was a factor in her consideration to vote early.

“I don’t want to have to wait in the line too long,” she said.

One of these people was Cody Fife, who was voting in his first Wyoming election after moving to the Cowboy State from Alaska.

Fife said he hadn’t even planned to vote when he left the house that day, but realized the convenience of casting his vote early when stopping by the courthouse to register his vehicle in Wyoming.

When asked if he was knowledgeable about the candidates running, Fife responded that he’s “just as much as anyone else.”

Presidential elections tend to draw much larger turnout than non-presidential elections. The high-stakes race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will likely be no different, with people from both parties seeing the result in fatalistic terms for the country.

Larger Trends

When it comes to absentee voting, which involves the county mailing a ballot out to voters who make a request for one and then those voters returning the ballot in-person or by mail, Murray said she doesn’t trust the process.

“I’d rather do in-person voting because of how the election went four years ago,” she said.

Andrea Aguiar feels differently, confidently voting by absentee ballot in the past. On Friday, she was casting her vote in person with her daughter in tow.

“Just to beat the crowd and make sure it’s done with,” Aguiar explained of why she came early. “Also, in case I get sick on Election Day.”

Aguiar and others expressed surprise by how many people were voting early.

All three clerks believe there has been slowly growing popularity for early voting over the last few election cycles. Although there was a major spike in 2020, Ervin pointed out that his county’s early voting numbers are on pace to beat what it saw in 2016.

“Some people are realizing that if life happens, something might happen on Election Day that makes them not able to vote,” Freese said. “Others don’t want to have to wait in the lines.”

Lee also believes the public has become more confident in early and absentee voting than in the past.

“Trust has increased,” she said. “As people become more familiar with it they realize it is a convenience for them. They’re assured their vote is cast and counted. It makes them confident.”

Freese doesn’t think confidence in these mechanisms of voting has increased and pointed out that there is still a solid cohort of voters who adamantly only vote on Election Day.

“We like giving a lot of options to make sure people feel confident in their vote,” she said.

Although none of these three county clerks promote voting early instead of voting on Election Day, Ervin and Lee admitted that the more people that do, the easier it makes work for their election staff on Nov. 5.

“It takes the burden off the vote centers,” Lee said.

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/10/11/massive-early-voting-turnout-surge-shatters-records-across-wyoming/

Las Vegas Review-Journal endorses Donald Trump for president

The hurricane of history charts a chaotic course. The gales of recent months have left political norms strewn across the landscape. The turbulence has rattled both major parties and left many voters unsettled and apprehensive.

Former President Donald Trump has run his campaign under the specter of various criminal charges, some of which were certainly prosecutorial overreach brought to cripple him politically. He is appealing a guilty verdict in a New York case involving real estate valuations and has a reasonable chance of prevailing. Mr. Trump has also been the victim of two unsuccessful assassination attempts in the past 14 weeks, one at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the other at a Florida golf course.

In the meantime, Democrats were thrown into turmoil — at least temporarily — after President Joe Biden’s dismal and sad debate performance in late June. The nationally televised fiasco provided obvious evidence of Mr. Biden’s decline, making it impossible for his party to continue to feed Americans the unadulterated nonsense that the enfeebled president remained “sharp as a tack.” Within a month, Democratic power brokers maneuvered to defenestrate Mr. Biden and anoint his vice president, Kamala Harris, as their new nominee.

Thus began one of the more cynical and ambitious rehabilitation efforts in the history of modern politics. A vapid, unpopular vice president in an unpopular administration who flamed out spectacularly in her 2020 run for the Oval Office was within weeks recast as a purveyor of “joy” and an amalgamation of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Mahatma Gandhi.

Ms. Harris next began disavowing a host of her previous policy positions. A San Francisco leftist who sympathized with the defund-police movement, raised the prospect of dismantling Immigration and Customs Enforcement and supported sanctuary cities now passes herself off as a tough-on-crime border hawk. A progressive once named the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate and who favored abolishing the filibuster, packing the Supreme Court and limiting political speech now shape-shifts into a defender of “democracy” and the nation’s institutions. A key component in an administration that openly sought to put fossil fuel providers out of business now claims to be a proponent of fracking. A candidate who cast the tie-breaking vote for the spending package that lit the fuse to rampant inflation, devastating American families, now claims to represent the interests of the middle class. A politician who says she would have done nothing differently over the past four years wants voters to believe she is an agent for “change.”

To advance the swindle, Ms. Harris carefully avoids any unscripted interviews unless a friendly questioner tosses the softballs slowly enough for her to make contact.

We are under no illusions about Donald Trump. His behavior in response to the Jan. 6 mayhem was disappointing and indefensible — although the constitutional guardrails held firm. His penchant for dwelling on past grievances isn’t helpful. His insistence that every election he loses is “rigged” is petulant and fatuous.

But Mr. Trump has a four-year record as president for undecided voters to consider. Let’s note that the Earth didn’t stop spinning while he occupied the Oval Office. Instead, his presidency was marked by relative global stability and a strong American economy. Inflation was an afterthought. With the help of Congress, he lowered federal income taxes for the vast majority of Americans and made inroads at attacking the thicket of federal red tape that cost taxpayers billions every year while dragging down economic growth. Mr. Trump appointed scores of federal judges who respect the Constitution’s limits on government power. He tightened our southern border, pressured our allies to bear more of the financial burden for their own defense and proved a staunch ally to Israel. When the pandemic hit, he paved the way for the rapid development of vaccines.

Contrast that with the four years of the Harris-Biden administration. International chaos abounds as White House efforts at appeasement diplomacy embolden our enemies across the globe. Two major wars rage. The debt has ballooned to $35 trillion. Inflation hit 9 percent, the highest rate in four decades, in large part because Democrats can’t temper their insatiable desire to spend other people’s money. Prices for staples remain stubbornly elevated. Housing costs have soared, including in Las Vegas. High interest rates make it more difficult for new homebuyers and burden families carrying credit card and other debt. If this weren’t destructive enough, Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden turned a blind eye to the border for three years, releasing millions of illegal crossers into the country and causing mayors in blue cities to cry uncle.

Yet Ms. Harris assures Americans she wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Indeed, a Harris presidency, depending upon who controls Congress, will set course for a predictable trajectory. Two-trillion-dollar annual deficits, higher taxes, burdensome regulations, additional subsidies for a variety of favored special-interests, student loan forgiveness, dithering on the border and the continued march toward cementing a culture of dependency that celebrates a reliance on Washington from cradle to grave while undermining personal responsibility and individual agency.

In contrast, Mr. Trump’s instincts on the economy — tariffs aside — reflect the importance of fostering the conditions in which Americans can prosper and improve their fortunes through their own individual initiative. He has a track record of working to secure the border. His position on abortion — that he would veto a federal ban and that the matter should be left up to the states — is more mainstream than Ms. Harris’ belief that the procedure should be legal till the moment of birth. We believe Mr. Trump is also better prepared to handle the myriad foreign policy challenges that will confront the next president.

Many voters are dissatisfied with the choice before them in November. They have a point. But when we weigh the policy results of Mr. Trump’s four years in office against those of Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden, the contrast becomes difficult to ignore. Donald Trump is the better choice.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/rj-endorses/las-vegas-review-journal-endorses-donald-trump-for-president-3188637/

Chris Rufo — Kamala plagiarized ‘entire sections’ of her book

Kamala Harris has become famous, in part, for her unique rhetorical style. She switches freely between various accents and peppers her speeches with catchphrases: pondering falling “out of a coconut tree,” discussing “the significance of the passage of time,” and moving the nation toward “what can be, unburdened by what has been.”

To her supporters, the vice president’s rhetorical flourishes represent the values of compassion and optimism. To her detractors, her reliance on platitudes and tautologies demonstrates her unfitness for the presidency.

But, as we have discovered in this exclusive report, another element appears to exist within Kamala Harris’s rhetorical universe: plagiarism.

At the beginning of Harris’s political career, in the run-up to her campaign to serve as California’s attorney general, she and co-author Joan O’C Hamilton published a small volume, entitled Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. The book helped to establish her credibility on criminal-justice issues.

However, according to Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world, Harris’s book contains more than a dozen “vicious plagiarism fragments.” Some of the passages he highlighted appear to contain minor transgressions—reproducing small sections of text; insufficient paraphrasing—but others seem to reflect more serious infractions, similar in severity to those found in Harvard president Claudine Gay’s doctoral thesis. (Harris did not respond to a request for comment.)

Let’s consider a selection of these excerpts from Harris’s book, beginning with one in which Harris discusses high school graduation rates. Here, she lifted verbatim language from an uncited NBC News report, with the duplicated material marked in italics:

In Detroit’s public schools, only 25 percent of the students who enrolled in grade nine graduated from high school, while 30.5 percent graduated in Indianapolis public schools and 34 percent received diplomas in the Cleveland Municipal City School District. Overall, about 70 percent of the U.S. students graduate from public and private schools on time with a regular diploma, and about 1.2 million students drop out annually. Only about half of the students served by public school systems in the nation’s largest cities receive diplomas.

There’s more. In another section of the book, Harris, without proper attribution, reproduced extensive sections from a John Jay College of Criminal Justice press release. She and her co-author passed off the language as their own, copying multiple paragraphs virtually verbatim. Here is the excerpt, with the airlifted material in italics and abbreviations, such as percentages and state names, treated as verbatim substitutions:

High Point had its first face-to-face meeting with drug dealers, from the city’s West End neighborhood, on May 18, 2004. The drug market shut down immediately and permanently, with a sustained 35 percent reduction in violent crime. High Point repeated the strategy in three additional markets over the next three years. There is virtually no remaining public drug dealing in the city, and serious crime has fallen 20 percent citywide.

The High Point Strategy has since been implemented in Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Raleigh, North Carolina; in Providence, Rhode Island; and in Rockford, Illinois. The U.S. Department of Justice is launching a national program to replicate the strategy in ten additional cities.

In a section about a New York court program, Harris stole long passages directly from Wikipedia—long considered an unreliable source. She not only assumes the online encyclopedia’s accuracy, but copies its language nearly verbatim, without citing the source. Here is Harris’s language, with duplicated material in italics, based on the page as it appeared in December 2008, before she published the book:

The Mid-town [sic] Community Court was established as a collaboration between the New York State Unified Court System and the Center for Court Innovation. The court works in partnership with local residents, businesses, and social service agencies to organize community service projects and provide on-site social services, including drug treatment, mental health counseling, and job training. What was innovative about Midtown Court was that it required low-level offenders to pay back the neighborhood through community service, while at the same time it offered them help with problems that often underlie criminal behavior.

To make matters worse, in duplicating Wikipedia’s language, Harris seems to have missed critical information and misstated a relevant detail. She claims, in prose identical to the online encyclopedia’s, that “illegal vending was down 24 percent” as a result of the court’s policies. Early in the paragraph, Harris cites the Bureau of Justice Assistance report to substantiate the figure. But she made a mistake: On Wikipedia, the “24 percent” figure was apparently tied to a different report, which found that “arrests for unlicensed vending,” rather than unlicensed vending as such, “fell by 24 percent” (emphasis mine). Her reliance on Wikipedia, an unreliable source, led to an unreliable conclusion.

While the BJA report was not the proper source for the “24 percent” claim, it did appear in the Wikipedia entry’s list of citations, and apparently was a fruitful resource for Harris and her coauthor, as they reproduced substantial portions of its sentences. Here is the passage in Harris’s book, with duplicated material from the BJA report noted in italics:

Take West Palm Beach, Florida. This residential neighborhood on the outskirts of downtown struggles with a high crime rate. Although West Palm Beach is less than one mile from Palm Beach, one of the most affluent cities in the country, more than a third of the town’s residents live in poverty, and unemployment is high. The community is full of deteriorated houses and businesses, vacant lots with discarded mattresses and piles of trash, and litter strewn throughout the streets, sidewalks, yards, and parks. At the time the community considered adding a court, no new business had opened in the area, and few new houses had been built in recent years.

Finally, when attempting to write a description of a nonprofit group, Harris simply lifted promotional language from an Urban Institute report, and failed to cite her source. Here is the current vice president, with the lifted language in italics:

Participants meet six days a week for twelve hours a day and take part in an intensive schedule that involves classes, group learning, and group counseling designed to help them take a hard look at the violence in their lives. When the men are released after serving their sentences, they continue a six-month substance-abuse program or continue in the Post Release Education Program. The men are also required to participate in community restoration activities to begin to make amends for the impact of violence on the community; RSVP conducts workshops and discussions at high schools and other public events to increase awareness about violent crime.

Taken in total, there is certainly a breach of standards here. Harris and her co-author duplicated long passages nearly verbatim without proper citation and without quotation marks, which is the textbook definition of plagiarism. They not only lifted material from sources without proper attribution, but in at least one case, relied on a low-quality source, which potentially undermined the accuracy of their conclusion.

Of course, Harris, like many other public figures, may have relied entirely on a ghostwriter to draft her book. But that is not exculpatory: Harris, at the end of the day, put her name on the cover.

On that point, one might recall the title of her book: Smart on Crime. There is nothing smart about plagiarism, which is the equivalent of an academic crime. The publisher, as well as the sitting vice president, should retract the plagiarized passages and issue a correction. There should be a single standard—and Kamala Harris is falling short.

https://christopherrufo.com/p/kamala-harriss-plagiarism-problem

Kamala Harris's Electric School Bus Program Granted $395k to a Chinese Manufacturer. Then Its Top Executive Sent Biden-Harris Scores of Campaign Cash.

Company documents indicate BYD Americas president Ke Li is a Chinese national with 'right of abode' in US

Vice President Kamala Harris's billion-dollar Clean School Bus program provided funding to Chinese EV manufacturer BYD Company's subsidiary in the United States, according to federal filings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. Months later, the subsidiary's top executive, a Chinese national, wired $50,000 in support of what is now Harris's presidential campaign.

BYD Americas was selected in late 2022 to receive $395,000 under the administration's Clean School Bus program, which was spearheaded by Harris and EPA administrator Michael Regan, EPA documents show. That funding was disbursed in May 2023, six months before Li's donations to the Biden-Harris campaign, according to the EPA.

The company applied for federal funding to supply an electric bus to Princeton Joint Unified School District located in northern California.

It remains unclear whether the company is directly providing its buses to school districts that applied for program funding from the EPA. "We are currently not aware of other school districts that may be purchasing buses from this company under the Clean School Bus program," EPA spokesman Remmington Belford said in a statement to the Free Beacon.

BYD Americas's president, Ke Li, then donated $25,000 to the Biden Victory Fund (now the Harris Victory Fund), $18,400 to the Democratic National Committee, but earmarked for the Biden Victory Fund, and a maximum individual contribution of $6,600 to the Biden campaign (now the Harris campaign), according to FEC filings reviewed by the Free Beacon. Li made each contribution on the same day: Nov. 14, 2023. President Joe Biden's $96 million campaign war chest was transferred to Harris's campaign in July after Biden withdrew from the presidential race.

In BYD Company's most recent annual report, Li is identified as a Chinese national. Other company documents indicate she is a Chinese national with a "right of abode" in the United States. While federal law prohibits foreign nationals from making campaign donations, there is an exception for individuals with a green card.

Li's donations are evidence that Chinese electric vehicle industry officials support the Biden-Harris administration's agenda, even as the administration seeks to curb reliance on Chinese companies for green energy technologies. They also put a spotlight on the taxpayer funds the administration steered to BYD Americas as part of the push to rapidly scale up EV and electric bus production.

BYD is one of a handful of Chinese automakers that Congress began probing last month over potential espionage concerns. The company was also targeted by a provision in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which prohibits federal funding from being used to procure buses manufactured by a company that "is owned or controlled by, is a subsidiary of, or is otherwise related legally or financially to a corporation based in" China.

That provision—designed to block Chinese companies from benefiting both from subsidies awarded by the Chinese government and the U.S. government—applies, however, to programs administered by the Transportation Department. BYD Americas issued a press release last year publicly offering its products for the Clean School Bus program. "We are happy to help children across the U.S. breathe cleaner air," said Patrick Duan, the company's senior vice president.

BYD Americas didn't respond to a request for comment.

The Clean School Bus program was created three years ago as a provision of the 2021 infrastructure bill, which put aside $5 billion for the EPA to distribute in the form of rebates and grants over the course of five years. Since the initial announcement in 2022, when BYD was selected for funding, the EPA has selected hundreds of school districts to receive nearly $3 billion to deploy electric buses.

A recent report published by the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight subcommittee concluded the program was "overall a failure," in part because it serves as a subsidy for products with ties to China. The report also found the program is costly, vulnerable to fraud, and improperly pushes school districts to adopt inefficient technology.

BYD Americas operates a plant in Lancaster, California, where it assembles electric bus and coach models. Its parent company, BYD Company, operates dozens more plants worldwide, and it manufactures batteries and passenger EVs among other technologies. Although BYD Company doesn't export any passenger EVs to the United States, it is planning to open a plant in Mexico to supply EVs to the American market, Reuters reported in May.

In recent months, BYD Company has emerged as the world's largest manufacturer of EVs, surpassing Tesla, which held that title for years. The Chinese company delivered more than 500,000 battery-electric vehicles during the final quarter of 2023, more than the 484,000 sold by Tesla, marking the first time Tesla was dethroned as the top EV maker in the world, the Financial Times reported.

BYD's growing market share of the global EV market exemplifies China's continued dominance of both the EV industry and the green energy sector more broadly.

According to the International Energy Agency, for example, China produces about 75 percent of all lithium-ion batteries, a key component of EVs, worldwide. China also boasts 70 percent of production capacity for cathodes and 85 percent for anodes, two key parts of such batteries, the data showed.

"Just at a time when American producers have made our country energy independent in oil and natural gas, Biden/Harris are pursuing energy policies that would make us dependent on China," Kathleen Sgamma, the president of industry group the Western Energy Alliance, told the Free Beacon.

The Biden-Harris administration's "record of favoring technologies dependent on China that would be disastrous for the American worker, economy, and energy supply makes you wonder about their loyalties," she added.

The Harris campaign didn't respond to a request for comment.

https://freebeacon.com/elections/kamala-harriss-electric-school-bus-program-granted-395k-to-a-chinese-manufacturer-then-its-top-executive-sent-biden-harris-scores-of-campaign-cash/

'Lack of Legal Guardrails': Hundreds of Millions of US Research Dollars are Helping China's Military, House Report Finds

The American government is pumping hundreds of millions of federal research dollars into research projects that are spurring Chinese advancement in cutting-edge military technologies, including "hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, fourth generation nuclear weapons technology, and semiconductor technology," a new congressional report has found.

"Due to a lack of legal guardrails around federally funded research, hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. federal research funding over the last decade have contributed to the PRC’s strategic goals by helping the PRC achieve advancements in dual use, critical, and emerging technologies," the House Select Committee on China wrote in a report published late last month.

The findings, compiled as part of a year-and-half-long investigation, show how major American universities are using federal funds to partner with Chinese institutions on a range of research projects that feed the communist nation's military. The bulk of this work is fueled by taxpayer grants from the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence community, providing "back-door access to the very foreign adversary nation whose aggression these capabilities are necessary to protect against," according to the committee.

While American funding for research projects that involve Chinese universities has long raised concerns in Congress, the extent to which the federal government funds such projects has remained opaque. The China committee’s investigation marks one of the most comprehensive reviews to date on how taxpayer funding from America’s defense establishment ultimately builds up Beijing, giving its military a critical edge as diplomatic relations between the United States and communist China deteriorate.

The committee discovered more than 8,800 Pentagon-funded research projects that were conducted alongside Chinese academics affiliated with the country’s state-controlled institutions. Another 185 projects were backed by funding from the U.S. intelligence community.

"The vast majority of these DOD-funded publications constitute advanced research related to dual-use, critical, and emerging technologies," according to the report. "These papers covered topics including hypersonics, directed energy, nuclear and high energy physics, and artificial intelligence and autonomy."

Pentagon-funded research publications engaged in at least 85 collaborations "with China’s primary nuclear weapons development complex," according to a study by the Navy Criminal Investigative Service that was reviewed as part of the investigation.

More than 2,000 Pentagon-funded research papers included Chinese coauthors found to be "directly affiliated with the PRC’s defense research and industrial base."

A sizable portion of these projects have "direct military applications," according to the report, including issues such as "high performance explosives, tracking of targets, and drone operation networks"—weapons that China "would use against the U.S. military in the event of a conflict."

Other collaborations included subjects like "cryptography, eavesdropping, hyperspectral imaging, lithium-ion batteries, aerodynamic angles of attack, electronic warfare, [and] cyber attack detection."

The committee probed three American universities that operate research institutions with Chinese counterparts: the University of California, Berkeley, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Pittsburgh.

While these partnerships outwardly function "under the guise of academic cooperation," they actually "conceal a sophisticated system for transferring critical U.S. technologies and expertise to the PRC, including to blacklisted entities linked to China’s defense and security apparatus."

Documents reviewed by the committee indicate that, through joint U.S.-CCP research collaborations, American academics are enabling "the transfer of expertise, applied research, and technologies related to dual-use, critical, and emerging technologies to the PRC." This is exacerbated by China’s strict control over its research institutions, rules that Americans must play by if they operate in the country.

American academics affiliated with Berkeley, Georgia Tech, and Pitt—including those who "conduct U.S. federally funded research"—routinely travel to China, where they "collaborate on research, advise PRC scholars, teach and train PRC graduate students." They also perform work with top Chinese companies that trade in "critical and emerging technologies with national security implications."

The Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, for instance, was found to host conferences on "sensitive technologies that convene PLA-linked entities, further solidifying the Institute’s role in the PRC’s system of military-civil fusion."

Several months into the House committee’s investigation, Georgia Tech notified investigators that it was ending its partnership with China’s Tianjin University, which is linked to the country’s military.

Berkeley also informed lawmakers shortly after the report’s publication that they had "started the process of relinquishing all ownership" over the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, the school’s joint research hub.

Top American colleges have raked in upwards of $426 million from China since 2011, money that is often obfuscated and not properly reported to the federal government.

Stanford University, for instance, took in $27 million from Chinese entities between 2021 and 2023. The University of Delaware, which houses the Biden Institute, has taken more than $6 million from the country since 2017.

The committee uncovered evidence that Berkeley and Georgia Tech violated the Higher Education Act by failing to report foreign funding from China, which typically results in harsh penalties.

"These undisclosed foreign gifts—likely hundreds of millions, if not billions in total—give PRC entities troubling influence without transparency and contribute to building the research relationships that pose risks to U.S. national security," according to the report.

These schools, however, did not face any federal scrutiny by the Biden-Harris administration, which "failed to open a single enforcement action" during its nearly four years in office.

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/lack-of-legal-guardrails-hundreds-of-millions-of-us-research-dollars-are-helping-chinas-military-house-report-finds/

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