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Republican Senator Thom Tillis said on Sunday he believes White House adviser Stephen Miller “should go” and that his role in the Trump administration has been a “big problem”.

The senior senator representing North Carolina, when asked on CNN’s State of the Union if he thinks Miller should go, during a conversation about the administration’s immigration crackdown, responded to host Jake Tapper stating “Oh, of course I do.”

“He is not worried about substance. He’s more worried about form, but I also think that he has an outsized influence over the operations of the cabinet. And I believe we’ve got qualified cabinet members there that sometimes are doing less than what they want to, because of his direction and his outsized influence. He’s a big problem in this administration. He has been from the beginning,” said Tillis.

Oh look far right terrorists

The US military said it killed six men on Sunday in a strike on an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Eastern Pacific as part of the Trump administration’s campaign against alleged traffickers.

Sunday’s attack brought the death toll to at least 157 people since the administration began targeting “narco-terrorists” in small vessels in September.

As with most of the military’s statements on the more than 40 known strikes in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, US Southern Command said it targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs. It posted a video on X that showed a small boat being blown up as it floated on the water.

Donald Trump threatened on Sunday to withhold his signature from all bills until Congress passes a GOP-led voting bill that implements voter restrictions ahead of the November midterms.

“I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION – GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL,” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.

The bill, called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act, requires individuals to show citizenship documents to register to vote and strict forms of photo ID to cast a ballot. If passed, the legislation would also administer criminal penalties for election officials who register anyone lacking the required documents.

As my colleague Ari Berman wrote in February, the bill would potentially block tens of millions of Americans from voting. Nine percent of American citizens, or approximately 21 million people, don’t have ready access to citizenship documents. The bill may impact millions of US citizens in other ways: tens of millions of women who took their partner’s last name, for example, may not have a birth certificate that matches their legal name could find it more difficult to register.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/33702

The Trump administration is bypassing Congress to arm Israel with more than 20,000 bombs by declaring the war with Iran an “emergency” as US-Israeli strikes continue to pound the Islamic Republic. The State Department said in a statement on Friday that it had approved a “Foreign Military Sale” to arm Israel with 12,000 BLU-110A/B general-purpose, […]

From News From Antiwar.com via This RSS Feed.

Travel at major U.S. airports turned into a nightmare Sunday, with up to three-hour security wait times and a shortage of TSA workers at the start of spring break travel amid the partial government shutdown.

Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Lauren Bis said travelers are facing missed flights and massive delays. She blamed the chaos on congressional Democrats' refusal to fund DHS, which led to the partial shutdown.

The 21-year-old man shot dead after entering Mar-a-Lago with a shotgun and gas canister on Sunday was an “outspoken” Christian, a strong Trump supporter, and obsessed with the cover-up of the Epstein files, according to people who knew him.

Outrage is mounting in Georgia and across the United States as the federal government moves to dramatically expand Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention capacity as part of an escalating war on immigrants. In rural Social Circle, Georgia, local officials revealed that ICE intends to purchase a 1.2 million-square-foot warehouse and convert it into a massive detention complex capable of holding up to 10,000 people, a scale of incarceration not seen in the United States since the mass imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

An anti-Islam protest organized by right-wing influencer and pardoned January 6 rioter Jake Lang drew roughly 20 participants, while a counter-protest called “Drive the Nazis Out of New York” peaked at about 125 people

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The two groups were separated into designated protest areas by NYPD officers, but tensions escalated shortly before noon. At around 12:15 p.m., a protester associated with Lang’s group used pepper spray against counterprotesters

About 20 minutes later, an 18-year-old counterprotester “lit and threw an ignited device toward the protest area,” which landed on a crosswalk

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The man then ran southbound to retrieve a second device from a 19-year-old man before lighting it and starting to run, Tisch said. He dropped the second device on a street, and officers secured the area, taking both men into custody.

The current Pentagon press corps is made up of mostly conservative outlets that agreed to the policy

A policy limiting journalists' access to the Pentagon is depriving Americans of vital information about U.S. military operations while the country is at war, a New York Times attorney argued Friday while urging a judge to block the new rules.

“It's more important than ever for the public to know as much as they can,” Times attorney Theodore Boutrous told U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman.

Friedman didn't immediately rule on whether to order the Pentagon to reinstate press credentials for reporters who walked out of the building last October rather than agree to the new rules.

But the judge's remarks during the first hearing for the newspaper's lawsuit against the Defense Department suggested he was skeptical of key arguments in the government's defense of the policy.

The story about a tourist in central China reportedly discovering gold while slaughtering a duck has attracted widespread attention on social media amid soaring gold prices.

In February, the man from Longhui County in Hunan Province said he found several gold particles inside a duck's stomach.

After conducting a burning test, the particles were believed to be genuine gold, weighing about 10 grams and valued at nearly 12,000 yuan (US$1,800), Chinese media outlet Xinwenfang reported.

The tourist said the ducks were raised free-range near Chenshui River that was once known for gold mining, suggesting the birds may have swallowed mud containing small gold particles, the South China Morning Post reported.

Chenshui River used to be a site where gold was discovered. From the 1970s to the 1990s, the river sparked a local gold rush until the government later banned private gold mining.

The man said his discovery was not entirely unprecedented, noting that others had previously found small amounts of gold in ducks, although none had discovered as much as he did.

Some social media users have questioned the authenticity of the claim.

The Longhui County Natural Resources Bureau told Jiupai News that further verification by a professional institution would be required to confirm whether the particles are indeed gold.

Officials also noted that such findings are possible, adding that villagers recovered more than 10 grams of gold while washing sand in the same river last year.

The incident has gone viral on mainland social media, with the topic racking up over 10 million views.

"I need to know the exact location of this river within a day. I want to raise 1,000 ducks there," a netizen wrote.

"He is so lucky, especially as gold prices have been rising continuously," another added.

Gold prices in China currently range from 1,140 to 1,190 yuan per gram. Many families in the country are turning to gold as a form of financial security.
slaughtering a duck has attracted widespread attention on social media amid soaring gold prices. - VnExpress International

White House claims watchdogs perform ‘all required functions’, but number of deaths in custody at 20-year high

The Trump administration has so radically transformed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) independent watchdog teams that thousands of cases related to conditions in immigration detention, deaths in custody and officers’ use of force are not being investigated, according to court records reviewed by the Guardian.

Hundreds of pages of court filings in a key legal battle in federal court serve to contradict the Trump administration’s repeated claims that the DHS watchdogs are performing “all required functions”. The allegations of failings within the shrunken oversight offices at the DHS, tasked by Congress with investigating civil rights and related concerns, come as the department grapples with public criticism of killings by immigration agents, escalating arrest tactics and plans to increase immigrant detention.

The story about a tourist in central China reportedly discovering gold while slaughtering a duck has attracted widespread attention on social media amid soaring gold prices.

In February, the man from Longhui County in Hunan Province said he found several gold particles inside a duck's stomach.

After conducting a burning test, the particles were believed to be genuine gold, weighing about 10 grams and valued at nearly 12,000 yuan (US$1,800), Chinese media outlet Xinwenfang reported.

The tourist said the ducks were raised free-range near Chenshui River that was once known for gold mining, suggesting the birds may have swallowed mud containing small gold particles, the South China Morning Post reported.

Chenshui River used to be a site where gold was discovered. From the 1970s to the 1990s, the river sparked a local gold rush until the government later banned private gold mining.

The man said his discovery was not entirely unprecedented, noting that others had previously found small amounts of gold in ducks, although none had discovered as much as he did.

Some social media users have questioned the authenticity of the claim.

The Longhui County Natural Resources Bureau told Jiupai News that further verification by a professional institution would be required to confirm whether the particles are indeed gold.

Officials also noted that such findings are possible, adding that villagers recovered more than 10 grams of gold while washing sand in the same river last year.

The incident has gone viral on mainland social media, with the topic racking up over 10 million views.

"I need to know the exact location of this river within a day. I want to raise 1,000 ducks there," a netizen wrote.

"He is so lucky, especially as gold prices have been rising continuously," another added.

Gold prices in China currently range from 1,140 to 1,190 yuan per gram. Many families in the country are turning to gold as a form of financial security.
slaughtering a duck has attracted widespread attention on social media amid soaring gold prices. - VnExpress International

cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/technology/p/732769/oracle-layoffs-tech-giant-to-slash-30000-jobs-as-banks-pull-out-from-financing-ai-data-centr

Over the past few weeks, several US banks have pulled off from lending to Oracle for expanding its AI data centres, as per a report.

Angry local opposition has sprouted against dozens of the behemoth data centers amid fears of rising electricity costs and irreparable damage to their communities.

Opponents of transmission projects are similarly motivated: they say the lines are intruding on the sanctity of private land and threatening long-lasting harm to sensitive public lands, farms, property values and pristine waterways — all for electricity that they don't think benefits them.

Transmission projects have always faced challenges and yearslong permitting processes, and two decades of relatively flat power demand didn't inject much urgency.

But analysts say the grid remains inefficient, aging and, with demand spiking, on the verge of causing widespread blackouts on the coldest or hottest days. Utilities contend that any new transmission line — even those driven primarily by large customers, like data centers or industrial sites — benefits everyone by adding capacity to the grid.

Critics say brash, bombastic Fox News host out of his depth to guide US military through murky new Middle East conflict

Brash and bellicose, he sounded more like a cartoon bully than a sombre statesman. “Death and destruction from the sky all day long,” Pete Hegseth, wearing a red, white and and blue tie and pocket square, bragged to reporters at the Pentagon near Washington. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Hegseth, 45, a former Fox News TV host who now commands the world’s most powerful military, has this week become the face of Donald Trump’s war in Iran. That has set off for alarm bells for critics who warn that the Secretary of Defense – pointedly rebranded “Secretary of War” – has rapidly transformed the Pentagon into the staging ground for an ideological and religious crusade.

With machismo, Christian nationalism and callousness toward the lives of US troops, they say, Hegseth’s puerile displays on TV are aimed at sating Trump’s desire for a warmonger worthy of the manosphere. This was reinforced by a lurid social media video that intersperses clips from Hollywood blockbusters such as Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman and Top Gun with Hegseth and real kill-shot footage of the attacks in Iran.