Russian ships move from Syria base amid
doubts over future
Posted By: sunset, 12/11/2024 5:27:24 PM
Russian naval vessels appear to have temporarily left their main port in Syria, satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify show, amid continuing uncertainty about Moscow's military future in the country after the fall of its ally, Bashar al-Assad. Images taken by Maxar on 10 December show some ships have left Tartous naval base since Sunday and are currently sitting offshore in the Mediterranean Sea. Meanwhile, other photos taken on the same day show activity continuing at Russia's main airbase in Syria, Hmeimim, with jets clearly visible on the tarmac.
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Russian naval vessels appear to have temporarily left their main port in Syria, satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify show, amid continuing uncertainty about Moscow's military future in the country after the fall of its ally, Bashar al-Assad.
Images taken by Maxar on 10 December show some ships have left Tartous naval base since Sunday and are currently sitting offshore in the Mediterranean Sea.
Meanwhile, other photos taken on the same day show activity continuing at Russia's main airbase in Syria, Hmeimim, with jets clearly visible on the tarmac.
The Supreme Court on Monday morning declined to take up several hot-button issues, including a challenge by parents to a school district’s plan to provide support for transgender and non-binary students, a dispute over the admissions policy used during the 2021-22 school year for three of Boston’s elite public high schools, and the case of a Hawaii man prosecuted for carrying a handgun without a license.
Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the decisions not to grant review in both of the school cases.
Syrian rebels fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad have entered Damascus as they capped a stunning advance across the country.
Residents of the capital have reported sounds of gunfire and explosions, with the insurgents announcing they had also liberated the Saydnaya military prison north of capital.
On Saturday evening local time, opposition forces took the central city of Homs, Syria's third largest, as government forces abandoned it. The city stands at an important intersection between Damascus, the capital, and Syria's coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus - the Syrian leader´s base of support and home to a Russian strategic naval base.
Coldplay has released a video for their recent song, “All My Love,” starring 98-year-old actor Dick Van Dyke. The special, extended “Directors’ Cut” edition of the clip, co-directed by Spike Jonze and Mary Wigmore, arrives ahead of the official music video, set for release on Dec. 13, Van Dyke’s 99th birthday.
The video was filmed at Van Dyke’s Malibu home and features the actor, known for his roles in classic movies Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, ruminating about age, family, and love.
UnitedHealthcare's disturbing track record of rejecting claims has come under the spotlight after the insurance giant's CEO was shot dead in what is believed to have been a targeted attack in the heart of Manhattan. Brian Thompson, 50, was gunned down around 6:45am on Wednesday outside a Hilton Hotel in Midtown. The masked attacker remains on the loose and has not yet been identified. Their motive for the shooting has not been disclosed.
UnitedHealthcare was being probed by the Department of Justice for alleged antitrust violations, while its parent company, UnitedHealthcare Group (UHG), has come under fire from angry patients who claim the insurer refused to cover their care.
A Delaware judge ruled on Monday that Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab CEO Elon Musk still is not entitled to receive a $56 billion compensation package despite shareholders of the electric vehicle company voting in June to reinstate it.
The ruling by the judge, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Court of Chancery, follows her January decision that called the pay package excessive and rescinded it, surprising investors, and cast uncertainty over Musk's future at the world's most valuable carmaker. In a post on X after the decision, Musk said that "shareholders should control company votes, not judges."
President-elect Trump tapped his daughter Tiffany Trump's father-in-law, Lebanese-American businessman Dr. Massad Boulos, to join his Cabinet as senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.
"I am proud to announce that Massad Boulos will serve as Senior Advisor to the President on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs," the president-elect wrote on TRUTHSocial. "Massad is an accomplished lawyer and a highly respected leader in the business world, with extensive experience on the International scene. He has been a longtime proponent of Republican and Conservative values, an asset to my Campaign, and was instrumental in building tremendous new coalitions with the Arab American Community.
President-elect Donald Trump appointed two of his in-laws to prominent diplomatic roles that could shape his foreign policy in his second term.
On Saturday, he nominated Charles Kushner, the father-in-law of Ivanka Trump, as U.S. ambassador to France. Meanwhile, Massad Boulos, the Lebanese-American father-in-law of Tiffany Trump, was appointed as senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs. Boulos will join a Middle East team with ardent supporters of Israel — real estate developer Steve Witkoff, who was appointed as special envoy to the region, and Mike Huckabee, an evangelical hardliner and Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel.
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has issued a trigger warning for the new blockbuster Wicked, citing concerns over discrimination against a "green-skinned woman" and persecuted "talking animals".
The new movie musical, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, has received the warning despite the green-skinned character being central to its plot.
California’s AG Asks Residents to Snitch
on Stores That Don’t Comply With Gender-Neutral
Toy Law 10 replies
on Stores That Don’t Comply With Gender-Neutral
Toy Law 10 replies
California has many problems facing its residents, including earthquakes, wildfires, and housing crises. People are dealing with heightened crime rates in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Homelessness has become a near-epidemic in the Golden State. So, Californians should be comforted to know that Attorney General Rob Bonta is focused on making sure stores that sell children’s products are including gender-neutral sections for their customers. Bonta's the press release urges residents to snitch on retailers that fail to comply with a new state law requiring them to provide gender-neutral sections for toys and childcare products
Rumble is suing California for allegedly forcing the social media platform to alter its own speech and censor its users’ speech, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by The Daily Wire. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Sacramento Division. Rumble is challenging California’s latest laws punishing speakers for certain political commentary, which California Governor Gavin Newsom has framed as measures that will combat the “harmful use of deepfakes in political ads and other content.”
The owner of an oil field in Los Angeles County is suing the state of California over a law that will require it to stop production and plug its wells or face costly fines. Inglewood Oil Field owner Sentinel Peak argues in the lawsuit, filed this week, that the law, which was signed in September by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is unconstitutional. Attorneys for Sentinel Peak argue that the law “represents an illegal attempt to coerce an individual company to stop operation of its legal business,” according to court documents. They allege that mandatory fines, in particular, violate federal and state laws forbidding excessive fines.
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Bill Clinton: I’m Open to Discussing
Preemptive Pardon for Hillary Before Trump
Takes Office 36 replies
Preemptive Pardon for Hillary Before Trump
Takes Office 36 replies
Former President Bill Clinton said Wednesday on ABC’s “The View” that he was open to discussing a potential preemptive pardon for his wife Hillary Clinton with President Joe Biden.
Co-host Sunny Hostin said, “Do you think it would be wise of President Biden to preemptively pardon any potential targets? What about your wife, Hillary Clinton? She apparently is on Kash Patel’s list.” Clinton said, “They’ve got a problem with her because first, she didn’t do anything wrong. Second, she followed the rules exactly as they were written. Third, Trump’s State Department — Trump’s State Department — found — remember how the emails were such a big issue in 2016?
Climate scientists recently discovered that they’ve been underestimating the impact of a particular organic compound in the atmosphere, and the oversight’s significance is so profound that it’s left existing climate models completely obsolete. As Jo Nova writes, “This is so big, it may change the sacred ‘climate sensitivity’ of the whole Earth”.
Isoprene is what’s known as a volatile organic compound, or a VOC, and “has a recognized role in protecting plants against many abiotic stresses” like “heat stress…drought…[and] oxidative stress” with trees being the greatest emitters. (When the chemical isoprene interacts with other compounds in the atmosphere, the products are a number of secondary organic aerosols.)
This is my final column for The New York Times, where I began publishing my opinions in January 2000. I’m retiring from The Times, not the world, so I’ll still be expressing my views in other places. But this does seem like a good occasion to reflect on what has changed over these past 25 years.
What strikes me, looking back, is how optimistic many people, both here and in much of the Western world, were back then and the extent to which that optimism has been replaced by anger and resentment. And I’m not just talking about members of the working class who feel betrayed by elites;
Mark Zuckerberg's Meta has donated a staggering $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump's inaugural fund.
The deal was reportedly agreed last month when the Facebook boss had a surprise dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, which has become the hub for his fledgling administration.
The meeting did caused shock after Trump's angry stance against Facebook and claims that Zuckerberg should be in prison. However, it seems the pair have put their differences aside as the Meta CEO has promised a large paycheck, according to the Wall Street Journal. t's also claimed Zuckerberg gave a demonstration on the company's latest invention, Ray Ban Smart Glasses, then gave them as a gift to Trump.
Kentanji Brown Jackson may not know what a woman is, but she knows what it is to go to bed one night as just an ordinary Supreme Court justice and to wake up the next day as a Broadway star. Yup, she’s hitting the Great White Way (or, maybe, in her case, the Great Black Way) to fulfill a childhood dream: taking a turn in a Broadway musical.
Interestingly, the particular musical she’s chosen, “& Juliet,” is a tawdry pro-transgender show. I think we can now guess how Jackson will vote on Tennessee’s “no ‘gender-affirming’ care on minors” law.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren outrageously sympathized with the killer of former UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — and others who cheered the murderer on — claiming “people can only be pushed so far,” before condemning the violence. “The visceral response from people across the country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system,” Warren (D-Mass.) told the Huffington Post in an interview. “Violence is never the answer, but people can only be pushed so far.” In a subsequent statement, the Massachusetts senator added: “Violence is
During remarks at an Equal Voice Foundation event this week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chastised Americans for electing President-elect Donald Trump ratheTrudeau lamented the fact that they had two opportunities to do so—in 2016 with Hillary Clinton and in 2024 with Kamala Harris—but voted instead for Trump both times.
"No, it shouldn't be that way. It wasn't supposed to be that way. We were supposed to be on a steady, if difficult sometimes, march towards progress. And yet, just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first womanr than the country's "first woman president."
MONROE, Mich. — In a packed union hall outside Detroit, a worker shifts the conversation from policy to the personal, quizzing Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on his knowledge of Michigan, the state he only recently started calling home. “Mayor Pete — Secretary Pete, I apologize,” one auto worker yelled from the crowd. “Now that you’re a Michigander, who do the Lions play Sunday?” (Snip) Though Buttigieg has publicly and privately stated that he won’t make any decisions about his future until after the Biden administration ends on Jan. 20, he has already fielded calls from Michigan Democrats urging him to
Christopher Wray Is Reportedly Preparing
a Nasty Surprise for Donald Trump and
Kash Patel 24 replies
a Nasty Surprise for Donald Trump and
Kash Patel 24 replies
The good news first: As RedState has been reporting, Christopher Wray is on his way out as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). President-elect Donald Trump called it a "great day for America as it will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice" and promised his new administration "will now restore the rule of law for all Americans."
Trump also signaled his support for Kash Patel, his nominee to succeed Wray as FBI director.
"We want our FBI back, and that will now happen," Trump wrote, as he ended his post, adding: "I look forward to Kash Patel’s confirmation,
The mysterious drones that have been tormenting New Jersey residents for weeks could be part of a top-secret government program, security experts told The Post Tuesday — as lawmakers push for answers over the troubling sightings.
The feds have been mum about the daily drone activity in Morris, Passaic, Bergen and Hunterdon counties and beyond since the gizmos were first spotted on Nov. 18.
But several experts said the US government might be behind the unsettling flights — which could be part of a super-secret military program meant to test new hardware before it hits the battlefield.
There are certain behaviors we should not tolerate from government officials, elected, appointed, or hired. We shouldn't tolerate any kind of criminal activity or graft. And we shouldn't tolerate petulant displays of childish pique.
That last bit is precisely what we saw during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Tuesday when Postmaster General Louis DeJoy threw a tantrum (Snip) DeJoy told McCormick, “You’re talking to yourself” before covering his ears.
What is this guy, 12 years old? I wouldn't have put up with this from my kids when they were three. Why should we put up with this from the United States Postmaster?
When does Barack Obama ask Susan Rice to petition Joe Biden for a presidential pardon for himself? With the pardon frenzy buzzing around the Biden camp, a trial balloon for an Obama pardon has already begun drifting toward the Oval Office.
Biden will be well advised to limit his pardons to members of his own family. In his NBC News Meet the Press interview on Sunday, December 8, Trump explained that he had no intention of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Joe Biden, despite Biden’s enthusiasm to raid Mar-a-Lago under the authority of Jack Smith, the special prosecutor the Biden administration appointed in an attempt to convict and incarcerate Trump