Citizen Free Press
@CitizenFreePress
Coast Guard helicopter takes down a drug smuggling boat 80 miles off Colombia and seizes over 6,000 pounds of cocaine worth $45.8 million.
A warning shot was fired but ignored so Coast Guard blasted the boat’s engine.
https://truthsocial.com/@CitizenFreePress/posts/116580805608812281
Harvey Weinstein’s third Manhattan sex crimes trial ruled mistrial as jury deadlocks
The mistrial marks the second time a jury failed to reach a verdict on a rape charge tied to a former aspiring actor.
The judge in former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s third New York sex crimes case declared a mistrial Friday after the jury said it was deadlocked on a verdict.
In a note to Judge Curtis Farber, the jury said it could not reach a unanimous decision on the question of whether Weinstein raped former aspiring actor Jessica Mann in a Manhattan hotel in 2013.
The mistrial comes nearly a year after a different New York jury failed to reach a verdict on a charge tied to Mann’s allegations, which she recounted in wrenching detail on the witness stand.
“I see no reason to go any further,” Farber said. The panel had deliberated for approximately nine hours over three days.
Weinstein had pleaded not guilty to the charge of rape in the third degree. He has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex. He remains behind bars because of other sex crimes convictions in New York and Los Angeles.
In a statement, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said his office would “consider our next steps in consultation with Ms. Mann.”
“While we are disappointed that the proceedings ended with a mistrial, we deeply respect the jury system and sincerely thank all of the jurors for their time and dedication,” Bragg said.
In a separate statement, Mann said she believes the mistrial “doesn’t in any way detract from the truth I told and the violent crimes Harvey Weinstein committed upon me and so many others.”
“I chose to testify in three trials because I am telling the truth,” Mann said in part.
Marc Agnifilo, one of Weinstein’s defense attorneys, told reporters the final juror tally was 9-3 in favor of acquitting his client. He said he would encourage prosecutors not to try the case again.
“I’m very grateful for a jury of New Yorkers for listening to the evidence so closely,” Agnifilo said. “We felt like we made our points. We feel like the jury heard our points.”
Josh Hadar, one of the jurors, said some members of the panel raised concerns about Mann’s credibility.
“I think the general consensus is that … there was a lot of contradictions in her statements,” Hadar said in an interview outside the courthouse.
Hadar, 57, a visual artist and sculptor, said the jury “tried really hard” to reach a unanimous decision. “Everyone was very mindful and respectful and listened,” he said. “It was just one of those things where it was a tough decision all the way around.”
Weinstein was first convicted in early 2020 of third-degree rape involving Mann, but a New York state appeals court overturned the conviction in 2024, ruling that the judge had improperly allowed testimony about allegations not directly tied to the case.
The second trial took place last year. It ended with the jury convicting Weinstein of first-degree criminal sexual act for forcibly performing oral sex on former “Project Runway” production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006.
Weinstein was acquitted on a second first-degree criminal sexual act charge stemming from a similar allegation by former model Kaja Sokola.
NBC News legal analyst Danny Cevallos said he was not surprised the jury was deadlocked again. Cevallos said some people on the panel may have been “predisposed to disbelieve” Mann’s claims partly because she continued to correspond with Weinstein years after the alleged rape. Prosecutors argued that such behavior is common among sexual assault victims.
In recent years, Weinstein’s health has visibly declined and he has faced various medical issues, including a diagnosis of bone marrow cancer in 2024.
Weinstein was once a Hollywood kingmaker. Miramax, the distribution company he co-founded with his brother, released seminal independent films like “Clerks” and “Pulp Fiction.” He won an Oscar as a producer of “Shakespeare in Love.” In the 2010s, the Weinsteins’ second distribution label scored back-to-back best picture wins for “The King’s Speech” and “The Artist.”
But his reign came to an abrupt halt in 2017 after The New York Times and The New Yorker published exposés detailing his alleged pattern of sexual harassment and assault. The first wave of accusations against him in 2017 fueled the #MeToo movement, a reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful people in elite professions.
In all, nearly 100 women have accused Weinstein of sexual assault or harassment. He has denied all allegations against him.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jury-deadlocked-harvey-weinsteins-third-manhattan-sex-crimes-trial-rcna345327
Long Island Rail Road, America’s largest commuter railroad, is on strike
Transit workers for the Long Island Rail Road, the nation’s largest commuter railroad, are on strike, potentially stranding hundreds of thousands of weekday passengers in the New York City area.
The strike by the five unions representing 3,500 workers, the first at the railroad since 1994, has brought all train traffic to a halt. The unions failed to reach a deal with railroad management on wages and work rules on Friday.
The unions are seeking the first raise for their members since 2022, a period that saw some of the highest cost-of-living increases in decades in one of the nation’s most expensive markets. There have been no reports of new talks between the two sides as of late Saturday morning.
Its fare revenue brought in $636 million last year, or about $2 million per weekday that it stands to lose during the strike. Even the customers with monthly passes will have a prorated share of those fares refunded.
Unions on strike represent engineers, signalmen and machinists. The conductors are not on strike but they are union members and honoring the picket lines. The five unions had been seeking raises in the 4% to 5% range.
“The (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) and Gov. Hochul determined that they would rather create frustration and gridlock for thousands of commuters, spend millions on buses during a strike and lose millions in lost revenue rather than settle a contract meant to keep pace with the rising cost of living,” said Nick Peluso, national vice president of the Transportation Communications Union, one of the unions now on strike.
While the strike started at 12:01 a.m. ET on Saturday, it will be most severely felt on Monday when nearly 300,000 commuters make their way in and out of the city. The MTA, which operates the railroad, said Friday afternoon that the limited bus service it will offer can accommodate only about 13,000 riders in the morning and another 13,000 in the evening.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued a statement Saturday condemning the strike as “reckless” and argued union demands threaten to make fares too high for riders.
“Commuters are dealing with unnecessary dysfunction and thousands of union LIRR workers are forced to go without a paycheck because of the decisions made by a small group of union leaders,” Hochul said, urging the unions and MTA to “return to the table and bargain non-stop until a deal is reached.”
Lieber, of the MTA, said his agency could not agree to the unions’ wage demands.
“We cannot responsibly make a deal that implodes MTA’s budget,” said Lieber. “We refuse to make a deal that puts it on riders and taxpayers to fund outsized wage increases — far beyond what anyone else at the MTA is getting — and for folks who are already the highest-paid railroad workers in the country.”
Railroads operate under a different labor law than most businesses in the country, one that makes it more difficult for unions to go on strike. But the barriers in the law to limit strikes — mediation, cooling-off periods and government panels considering bargaining positions — have all been cleared by the unions. And there is little left that could get the workers back on the job other than a labor deal acceptable to rank-and-file members.
Congress can intervene to broker a deal, as it did in December 2022, when it prevented a national freight railroad strike because it posed a threat to the national economy.
But the nation’s largest commuter railroad doesn’t pose the same risk to the economy as the freight railroads. And Congress didn’t act in 2025 when the engineers’ union at New Jersey Transit, which had 100,000 daily commuters, went on strike for three days.
Hochul, who is up for reelection this November, also targeted the Trump administration, perhaps raising the stakes of the strike on a national scale.
She called the disruption Long Islanders face, “the direct result of reckless actions by the Trump Administration to cut mediation short and push these negotiations toward a strike.”
“For weeks, the MTA has attempted to negotiate in good faith and put multiple fair offers on the table that included meaningful wage increases, but you cannot make a deal if one side refuses to engage in good faith,” Hochul said.
President Donald Trump responded with a post on Truth Social.
“Failed New York State Governor Kathy Hochul, a Dumacrat, just blamed ME for her Long Island Railroad STRIKE, when she knows, full well, that I have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT - never even heard about it until this morning. She just blurted out, ‘it’s President Trump’s fault.’ No, Kathy, it’s your fault, and now looking over the facts, you should not have allowed this to happen. If you can’t solve it, let me know, and I’ll show you how to properly get things done,” Trump posted.
https://lite.cnn.com/2026/05/16/business/long-island-rail-road-strike
Michigan Man Arrested and Charged with Attempting to Attack Military Base on Behalf of ISIS
A Melvindale man – and former member of the Michigan Army National Guard – was arrested today after he attempted to carry out a plan to conduct a mass-shooting at a U.S. military base in Warren, Michigan, on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a foreign terrorist organization.
Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said, 19, is charged in a criminal complaint with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and distributing information related to a destructive device.
“This defendant is charged with planning a deadly attack on a U.S. military base here at home for ISIS,” said Sue J. Bai, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “Thanks to the tireless efforts of law enforcement, we foiled the attack before lives were lost. We will not hesitate to bring the full force of the Department to find and prosecute those who seek to harm our men and women in the military and to protect all Americans.”
“ISIS is a brutal terrorist organization which seeks to kill Americans. Helping ISIS or any other terrorist organization prepare or carry out acts of violence is not only a reprehensible crime – it is a threat to our entire nation and way of life,” said U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. for the Eastern District of Michigan. “Our office will not tolerate such crimes or threats, and we will use the full weight of the law against anyone who engages in terrorism.”
“The defendant allegedly tried to carry out an attack on a military facility in support of ISIS, which was disrupted thanks to the good work of the FBI and our partners,” said Assistant Director Donald M. Holstead of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division. “The FBI is steadfast in our commitment to detect and stop terrorist plans aimed at the American homeland or at U.S. interests overseas.”
“The arrest of this former soldier is a sobering reminder of the importance of our counterintelligence efforts to identify and disrupt those who would seek to harm our nation,” said Brig. Gen. Rhett R. Cox, the commanding general of Army Counterintelligence Command. “I commend the tireless work of our special agents and FBI partners who worked together to investigate and apprehend this individual. We will continue to collaborate with our partners to prevent similar incidents in the future. We urge all soldiers to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity to their chain of command, as the safety and security of our Army and our nation depends on our collective efforts to prevent insider threats.”
According to the complaint, Said informed two undercover law enforcement officers of a plan he had devised and formulated to conduct a mass-shooting at the U.S. Army’s Tank-Automotive & Armaments Command (TACOM) facility at the Detroit Arsenal in Warren, Michigan. In April 2025, the two undercover officers indicated they intended to carry out Said’s plan at the direction of ISIS. In response, Said provided material assistance to the attack plan, including providing armor-piercing ammunition and magazines for the attack, flying his drone over TACOM to conduct operational reconnaissance, training the undercover employees on firearms and the construction of Molotov cocktails for use during the attack, and planning numerous details of the attack including how to enter TACOM and which building to target.
On May 13 – the scheduled day of the attack – Said was arrested after he traveled to an area near TACOM and launched his drone in support of the attack plan. He will make his initial court appearance today in the Eastern District of Michigan. The U.S. Attorney’s Office will be asking the court to hold Said in pretrial detention because of his danger to the community and the risk that he will flee.
Based on the charges in the complaint, Said faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each count if convicted.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Salzenstein for the Eastern District of Michigan and Trial Attorneys John Cella and Charles Kovats of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting the case.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/michigan-man-arrested-and-charged-attempting-attack-military-base-behalf-isis
Shocking Anti-Fauci Hearing Skipped by ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, PBS, WashPost, NY Times
On Wednesday, Josh Christenson at the New York Post (as well as conservative cable networks) reported on a hearing organized by Sen. Rand Paul featuring a CIA whistleblower.
A CIA whistleblower appeared publicly for the first time Wednesday to testify to a Senate panel that Dr. Anthony Fauci improperly “influenced” intelligence analyses about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic — to downplay findings that it most likely resulted from a laboratory accident in China.
Special operations officer James Erdman III delivered his testimony about the wide-ranging “cover-up” after being subpoenaed by the Senate Homeland Security Committee — and against his own agency’s wishes.
Fox's Jesse Watters proclaimed "Anthony Fauci is in big trouble. The little man in a lab coat got a lot wrong and never fessed up to any of it!" But there has been no story on this Senate hearing on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, or NPR. Not only that, you can’t find it on the websites of The New York Times or The Washington Post.
This underlines that they don’t want to revisit any angle of the Covid response that challenges the established St. Anthony Fauci narrative. PBS News Hour gushed over Fauci in a two-part interview in 2024, not to mention he starred in a fawning PBS American Masters documentary in 2023.
There was a minute and a half on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper, where the host threw a bone to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), as "Facts First" CNN labored to underline the lab-leak theory is still just one theory. MS NOW wouldn't be caught dead mentioning this news.
TAPPER: Let's turn to another subject I know you want to talk about. During a Senate hearing earlier today, you heard from a CIA whistleblower who accused intelligence officials and specifically Dr. Anthony Fauci of downplaying the possibility that the origins of COVID came from a Chinese lab. Dr. Fauci declined to comment when we reached out to him to respond to the hearing you held.
But I think it's fair to say that the most objective assessment of the situation is that there continue to be highly respected evolutionary biologists reporting in respected peer reviewed journals who suggest, though nothing is proven, that they continue to think it was a natural spillover from an animal reservoir. Now, I might disagree. You might disagree, but it seems like there's still lots of opinions but no definitive proof one way or the other. A CIA spokesperson called this hearing nothing more than dishonest political theater, and that the CIA had already assessed COVID-19 most likely originated from a lab leak. Efforts to undermine the conclusion are disingenuous. So this is Trump's CIA saying this. What was your reaction to that?
JOHNSON: Well, first of all, what we learned, we already knew or certainly suspected, but it just confirmed what we knew or suspected. You go back to the end of January, early February, when you see Fauci assembling this group of people who are probably still saying, well, this might have sprung from nature. They're all people he'd given millions and millions of dollars of grants to. And those are the same people he assembled in the center of the CIA.
NewsNation’s Marni Hughes offered a story on Thursday morning, also featuring the negative tweets from the CIA spokeswoman on the "dishonest political theater" allegation. Both sides are represented. Why can't the liberal broadcast networks do this much? Or the newspapers?
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2026/05/15/shocking-anti-fauci-hearing-skipped-abc-cbs-nbc-npr-pbs-washpost-ny
Military Diver Dies While Searching for Bodies of Missing People Who Died in Maldives Caves, Raising Death Toll to 6
The Maldives National Defence Force confirmed the death of a staff sergeant who had fallen ill during the rescue mission.
-A man died while searching for the four remaining bodies of the Italian divers who died in the Maldives cave-diving tragedy
-The Maldives National Defence Force confirmed the death of a staff sergeant who had fallen ill during the rescue mission
-The Associated Press identified him as Mohamed Mahudhee
The death toll of the scuba diving tragedy in the Maldives has risen to six.
Five Italian divers died “while attempting to explore caves at a depth” of 164 feet in Vaavu Atoll, about 40 miles from the capital, Malé, on Thursday, May 14, Italy's foreign ministry previously announced. Now, authorities reported another man has died during a rescue mission.
The Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) confirmed the death of a staff sergeant in a news release, penned in Divehi, on Saturday, May 16, and the Associated Press identified the sergeant as Mohamed Mahudhee.
He died while diving amid the search for the remaining four missing bodies, according to the MNDF. Officials had only recovered one body from an underwater cave, but they believe the four other bodies are there as well, per the BBC.
In an additional news release, the MNDF said that Mahudhee died “suddenly.” A funeral service for the staff sergeant will take place on Saturday, authorities said.
Mahudhee, a Coast Guard member and one of eight divers in the rescue mission, was hospitalized after falling ill during the search, The Sun reported. He died at the hospital, according to the British newspaper.
Inclement weather and rough seas have repeatedly gotten in the way of the search for the missing divers, according to the AP.
Maldives presidential spokesman Mohammed Hussain Shareef said that his death “goes to show the difficulty of the mission,” per the outlet.
Italy's foreign minister Antonio Tajani said that everything possible would be done to bring the victims of the scuba diving disaster home, according to the AP. He also offered condolences for Mahudhee in a statement obtained by The Sun.
“These painful days for Italy are even worse after news that a courageous serviceman … died following an attempt to reach the bodies of our countrymen,” said Tajani. “This tragedy has united Italy and the Maldives in our sorrow and respect for the victims.”
Monica Montefalcone and her daughter Giorgia Sommacal are two of the five individuals who embarked on the cave-diving trip in Vaavu Atoll but never resurfaced, according to multiple outlets, according to The University of Genoa, where Montefalcone worked as an associate professor.
Along with Montefalcone and her daughter, a biomedical engineering student, University of Genoa identified additional victims as research fellow Muriel Oddenino and recent graduate Federico Gualtieri.
The university said Montefalcone was in the Maldives for a research trip and that Oddenino was working with her, but that the diving trip was not a part of the "scientific mission," per The New York Times.
The fifth victim was identified by the AP and The Times as Gianluca Benedetti, a diving instructor.
https://people.com/military-diver-dies-while-searching-for-missing-bodies-in-maldives-diving-tragedy-11976977
Andy Ngo
@MrAndyNgo
Modena, Italy (May 16) — A suspect named Salim El Koudri has been arrested over a car ramming attack in Modena, Italy. Eight people have been injured, four seriously. One victim had both her legs crushed.
https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/2055733741893373979
Tudor Dixon
@TudorDixon
SHOCKING: Office of Refugee Resettlement-funded project manager openly admits the Biden Admin was sending unaccompanied children to live in U.S. factories and work as slave laborers to pay the cartels. Find out more on The Tudor Dixon Podcast.
https://x.com/tudordixon/status/2055281055016399250
Department of State
@StateDept
🚨SECRETARY RUBIO: The Cuban people should know there’s $100 million of food and medicine available for them right now and the only reason it’s not reaching them is because of the Cuban regime.
https://x.com/StateDept/status/2055078188821463458
Minnesota ‘Squad’ Rep. Ilhan Omar knew about $250M COVID meal fraud, scheme ‘mastermind’ claims in jailhouse interview
Aimee Bock, founder of nonprofit Feeding Our Future, was convicted in March 2025 of conspiracy, bribery and wire fraud for allegedly helping restaurant owners file fake or inflated claims during the pandemic to steal millions in child nutrition funds from the government.
She spoke to The Post by video call this week from Sherburne County Jail, where she is awaiting sentencing.
“I struggle to believe that she wouldn’t have known,” Bock said of Omar.
Bock has consistently denied knowingly participating in the fraud and insisted she tried to warn state officials. Her group would review the reimbursement paperwork sent by the local restaurants supposed to provide meals, send them out and then distribute the federal funds to them.
“The notion that I’m personally responsible for all of it . . . is so frustrating. I’m the only white person out of 80 or 90 individuals [charged in the fraud]. I’m the only one that doesn’t speak the language,” she added.
Omar was instrumental in loosening the laws that set the stage for the scheme — first by introducing the MEALS Act to Congress in March 2020, which allowed the US Department of Agriculture to issue waivers of school-meal requirements during the pandemic.
The waivers dramatically eased oversight of the federal programs by allowing restaurants to participate without any of the usual site inspections.
Omar would personally step in whenever those waivers ran out, allowing the rampant fraud to continue, Bock alleged.
“There had been a couple times early on that there were some gaps – a waiver would be set to expire on maybe the 15th of a month, and then the renewal didn’t kick in until the 1st,” Bock claimed. “Because of course this was supposed to be a short-term thing . . . we were supposed to be home for two weeks.”
Omar has been under fire since her wealth mysteriously jumped from almost nothing to up to $30 million in 2024, a windfall she tried to chalk up to an accounting error.
The congresswoman’s name came up at least six times in emails and text messages presented as court exhibits in Bock’s 2025 federal trial.
According to Bock, 45, the six email exchanges with Omar were about help with the waivers, after Feeding Our Future reached out to the “Squad” rep’s office.
The waivers opened the floodgates for scores of Somali eateries to join in, like Safari, where Omar herself filmed a promotional video claiming “every day Safari provides 2,300 meals to children and their families” in May 2020. She also held her 2018 election night party there.
By that July, Safari claimed to be feeding 5,000 kids a day. Its co-owner, Salim Said, has been convicted of defrauding the government of $16 million – the highest sum in the scheme – and is awaiting sentencing.
“A lot of the sites were working directly with her, being that a lot of the operators were from the same Somali community,” Bock said of Somalia-born Omar.
“There were a lot of people that had been reaching out to her office and staff — and I presume her personally — to work through some of those gaps with the waivers.”
Minnesota has the highest Somali population — 108,000 people — of any state, and the majority reside in Omar’s fifth congressional district in Minneapolis.
Bock said she reported suspicious restaurants to Minnesota officials, who she said showed little interest in going after the Somali community. They were trying to woo back the ethnic enclave after its Muslim leaders, turned off by the left’s embrace of trans rights and abortion, started turning to the GOP.
“I have the emails that show that I told you, so you knew,” she said of the 2021 missives, reviewed by The Post, where she reported fraudulent businesses to the state’s Department of Education
“I struggle to believe that we notified them and they didn’t alert the governor – or our state or federal officials,” Bock added.
In one August 2021 email chain reviewed by The Post, Minnesota’s Department of Education’s Director of Nutrition Program Services writes to Bock that the department “takes no position if fraud has taken place” — after she reported St. Paul’s House of Refuge for claiming it was serving 21,000 meals a day.
House of Refuge’s owner has since been sentenced to three and a half years in prison for fraudulently obtaining $2.4 million in federal funds.
Omar — and fellow Democrats Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison — “played critical roles in creating and enabling” the fraud, concluded the state committee’s report this week.
Prosecutors are seeking a 100-year sentence for Bock. She’s hoping to get closer to time served and maintains the government used her as a scapegoat.
https://www.aol.com/news/minnesota-squad-rep-ilhan-omar-183359986.html
MAZE
@mazemoore
Guy McPherson (a climate change expert, scientist, and professor from the University of Arizona) says that there will not be any humans on the planet by 2026 due to the effects of climate change.
Trust the scientists. 😜🤣
https://x.com/mazemoore/status/2055376238345076837
Also his 2 children that worked at the twin towers never showed up that day either.
If they're going alternate universe route, why not actually do it properly?