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With Hungary’s Orbán Gone, Europe May Escalate in Ukraine, Triggering a War Without U.S. Backing

Viktor Orbán’s concession on Sunday following Hungary’s parliamentary election removes the most consistent single-state obstacle to EU consensus on Ukraine, and in doing so raises the probability of European escalation in a conflict the continent lacks the military capacity to sustain without American backing.

Orbán conceded defeat after early results showed the opposition Tisza party on course for a two-thirds majority, with Tisza projected to win 135 of 199 seats and Fidesz taking 57. Voter turnout surpassed 77%, the highest since the fall of communism in 1989. Tisza’s leader, Péter Magyar, a former Fidesz insider who founded the party two years ago, will become prime minister.

joint EU summit communiqués on Ukraine carried an asterisk noting the position “was firmly supported by 26 heads of state or government” rather than all 27, because Orbán refused to sign any statement backing Kyiv. He vetoed a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine, tying the bloc to a dispute over a damaged pipeline carrying Russian oil. He also blocked a 6.6 billion euro lethal aid package from the EU’s European Peace Facility, satellite image sharing with Ukraine, and EU accession talks for Kyiv.

Magyar stated Monday that Hungary would maintain its opt-out from participating in the €90 billion (approximately $100 billion) loan financially but would not veto it, allowing the EU to proceed. His personal reservations about weapons transfers and Ukraine’s EU accession bid are structurally irrelevant. Measures requiring unanimity were blocked by Orbán. Magyar will not block them. The brake is gone.

The significance of Orbán’s removal is that, without a veto blocking consensus, the EU is more likely to agree on additional weapons, money, and equipment transfers to Ukraine. That trajectory increases the probability of a Russian reaction. The question is whether European leaders have accurately calculated the risk.

European behavior suggests they have not. Countries that genuinely believe they must confront a nuclear-armed adversary, the world’s number-two military power, alone would be pushing for negotiations, not escalation.

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Can cannabis save us from the apocalypse caused by antibiotics?

The world is on the brink of a new pandemic. This time, it won’t be caused by a new virus, but by an incurable infection. By 2050 , drug-resistant infections are projected to kill up to 10 million people annually, surpassing cancer deaths and exceeding the capacity of healthcare systems designed to combat infectious diseases. Pathogenic microorganisms have evolved like seasoned strategists, rewriting their genes to survive and evade drugs that were once easily effective.

For many years, antibiotics have been prescribed as a miracle drug for a wide range of ailments, from sore throats to runny noses. In agriculture, they are used mixed into animal feed to promote livestock growth and increase survival rates in overcrowded farm environments.

Doctors in the hospital wards are beginning to notice something disturbing. Infections that used to clear up in a few days are now lingering, and patients are being readmitted with the same symptoms as before, but the same treatments are no longer effective. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is spreading throughout the hospital and thriving in places where disinfectants are ineffective.

Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CREs) emerged in intensive care units (ICUs) and earned the nickname “nightmare bacteria” due to their ability to resist almost every antibiotic recorded.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa has corroded ventilators and surgical instruments, and drug-resistant tuberculosis has reappeared like a ghost from medical history, becoming more difficult to treat than ever before. Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) have emerged in intensive care units , defeating one of our most powerful antibiotics and turning routine infections into medical crises.

As the world faces the problem of antibiotic resistance, researchers are increasingly exploring the potential antimicrobial properties of plant-derived compounds. However, many of these plants remain heavily regulated, limiting research, clinical trials, and public access. Hemp is a prime example. Cannabinoids found in hemp have shown antimicrobial activity against certain bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms in laboratory studies.

Most of the findings described below are from laboratory (in vitro) or early preclinical studies. While these results are promising, they do not represent established treatments in humans. Clinical trials are needed to determine safety, dosage, and actual efficacy.

Cannabinoids as antibacterial agents

Cannabinoids can be described as nature’s quiet chemists. These plant-derived molecules, found in hemp and other hemp plants (including the lesser-known Trema micrantha ), are structurally different from conventional antibiotics, and this difference is significant. Instead of following the same biochemical mechanisms as common pharmaceuticals, cannabinoids interact with microorganisms in novel ways that science is only just beginning to understand.

We’ll take a closer look at cannabinoids that have been most frequently reported to have antibacterial properties and explain why they are attracting increasing attention in modern research .

CBDa and CBD

Cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabidiolic acid (CBDa) have been demonstrated to exhibit antibacterial activity in laboratory studies. Antibacterial assays using resistant strains of Acinetobacter baumannii with CBD suggest that CBD may disrupt bacterial membrane integrity under controlled conditions. Acinetobacter baumannii is a Gram-negative bacterium, well-known as a causative agent of hospital-acquired infections, and is also notorious for its multidrug resistance.

The same researchers observed that CBD synergistically interacts with gentamicin, meropenem, and colistin, lowering the concentrations needed to inhibit bacterial growth in vitro. While this may sound like a major breakthrough, further research is needed into the potential drug interactions and how they might affect users.

Another study revealed that CBDa inhibits biofilm formation in E. coli ATCC . Biofilms play a crucial role in bacterial antibiotic resistance. A biofilm is a structured bacterial community enclosed in the extracellular matrix, produced by bacteria themselves, protecting cells from environmental stress, immune responses, and antimicrobial agents.

Biofilms not only increase survival rates in harsh environments but also promote the transmission of resistance genes, making infection treatment difficult and increasing the risk of chronic and recurrent infections. The anti-biofilm effect of CBD has also been reported against MRSA and Candida albicans, a fungus that produces biofilms . In laboratory studies examining bacterial biofilms, CBD showed activity equivalent to or greater than certain antibiotics under specific experimental conditions . These findings were obtained in vitro and have not been validated in human clinical settings.

CBD and CBDa restrict intermicrobial communication that modulates resistance strategies and toxin release. This is known as quorum sensing . By disrupting these communication networks, CBD weakens the collective strength of bacterial colonies. Several studies have suggested synergistic effects between CBD and certain antibiotics, suggesting that CBD may enhance the effectiveness of conventional drugs by weakening microbial defenses. This could have significant implications for future research on difficult-to-treat infections, although clinical application has not yet been proven.

Early studies have investigated the potential activity of CBD against certain parasites, such as Echinococcus granulosus and Leishmania species.

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Pre-Teen Terrorists: FBI’s New Target

The FBI has designated an online group, many of its members adolescents or children younger than 13, as an “extremist” threat.

Called “764,” the FBI has labeled the group “Nihilistic Violent Extremists,” a new classification for domestic terrorists created by the Bureau last year, as I first reported.

Publicly, the FBI casts these investigations as a crusade to protect the children from predatory adults. What they rarely mention is that many of the suspects are children themselves. To obscure this ugly reality, law enforcement portrays itself as merely focused on social media and gaming platforms — ones that just so happen to be popular among children, like Roblox.

The focus on child gamers is so great that law enforcement are privately employing Gen Z slang like “clout chasing” and “aura farming” in its intelligence reporting (see below).

Because minors’ identities are not disclosed in court records, we have no idea how many children the FBI is investigating. (The Bureau has not responded to my request for comment at the time of this writing.)

One rare acknowledgement of the presence of children in these groups came from the FBI’s Boston Field Office, which in February issued a statement referring to 764’s “juvenile predators”; another FBI public service announcement described a similar group’s (“The Com”) members as “between 11 and 25 years old.”

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Nuclear Myths Continue To Fuel Neocon Fantasies

In a recent televised rant on the Fox News Channel, the neoconservative publicist Mark Levin made the eye-opening claim that the current US-Israeli War on Iran is “every bit as important as World War Two.” Still more, according to Levin, the specter of an Iranian nuclear weapon (for which there is approximately zero evidence), requires us, as good citizens to rally around the President and the military. Not surprisingly, Levin also noted that President Truman’s decision to use atomic weapons against Japan saved “a million men” by forestalling a US invasion of the Japanese Home Islands (the inference being: Trump should do likewise). Truman’s decision to incinerate Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs remains a topic (among a number of others) with which we Americans largely deal in the counterfeit currency of myths.

Despite the conclusions of the US Bombing Survey, that “certainly prior to December 1, 1945, and in all probability prior to November 1, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated,” few myths are as entrenched in the psyche of America’a media and political elites as the claim that Truman’s decision (invariably valorized as “brave”) to incinerate a quarter of a million civilians – mainly women, children, and elderly – in Hiroshima and Nagasaki won the war in the Pacific.

The claim that Truman’s decision saved countless American lives has grown to proportions that would have surprised, if not shocked, Truman’s own military high command. President George H.W. Bush, himself a veteran of the Pacific campaign, claimed that the atomic bombs saved the lives of half-a-million US servicemen.

The record, however, rebuts the myth.

Truman’s military advisers disagreed with Truman. Five-star Navy Admiral William Leahy, who served as Roosevelt and Truman’s chief of staff, felt that the bombs were “of no material assistance in our war against Japan.” The Japanese, said Leahy, “were already defeated and ready to surrender.” Leahy believed Truman’s decision to use nuclear weapons had “adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.” Likewise, Admiral William F. Halsey, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, noted that, “the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers throughout Russia long before” Truman decided to drop the bombs. Two weeks after the nuclear attacks, General Curtis LeMay publicly criticized the decision, saying, “The war would have been over in two weeks. . . . The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”

The myth that the bombs “saved” a million US servicemen who would have otherwise perished in the invasion of the Home Islands came from the pen and imagination of the man who would become among the most infamous strategists and apologists for the War in Vietnam, McGeorge Bundy.

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Staggering 8-figure sum NYC taxpayers will pay to fund Mamdani’s first city-owned grocery revealed

Zo’s cheap groceries will cost taxpayers a pretty penny.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first-unveiled city-owned grocery store will cost a staggering $30 million to build from the ground up at East Harlem’s longstanding La Marqueta, officials confirmed – as local grocers worried it’d gobble up their business.

The new grocery at the longstanding city-owned La Marqueta marketplace will run with a yet-to-be-picked operator reaping the benefits of a rent- and tax-free deal, City Hall officials told The Post on Monday.

Mamdani envisions that the low-cost deal — which he anounced during a Sunday celebration of his first 100 days in office -– will allow the grocery’s operator to pass on savings to hardscrabble New Yorkers reeling from foodstuff sticker shock, but neighboring grocer Abdul Shaher had doubts about its efficiency based on the exorbitant $30 million upfront cost.

“How can they manage something like that? A small supermarket?” said Shaher, who owns and manages Healthy Choice near La Marqueta, laughing with disbelief.

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YouTube Removes Pro-Iran Channel Producing Anti-Trump Videos

Google, the owners of YouTube, has removed a channel on the platform belonging to a pro-Iran group producing Lego-themed videos mocking Donald Trump.

“Upon review, we’ve terminated the channel for violating our Spam, deceptive practices and scams policies,” a YouTube spokesperson told Middle East Eye. “YouTube doesn’t allow spam, scams, or other deceptive practices that take advantage of the YouTube community.”

Explosive Media’s content largely consists of animations ridiculing the US war effort against Iran and poking fun at the US president.

YouTube did not specify how the channel had violated its policies, but the company has previously been described as being “aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps”.

One of the group’s videos depicts Trump hurling a chair at US military figures, while Iranian generals press a red button with the label “Back to the Stone Age,” referencing a threat made by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Another depicts Trump with a flaming bottom, holding a sign that reads: “VICTORY! I am a loser.”

A number of videos reference Shia Islamic mythology, including depictions of Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who is a key symbol of resistance and spiritual leadership for Shia Muslims.

Writing on X, Explosive Media hit out at Google for suspending its channel, saying it had been done because its content was “violent”. It wrote: “Seriously! Are our LEGO-style animations actually violent?”

Explosive Media, known in Persian as Akhbar Enfejari, has denied it is backed by the Iranian government and its videos have reached millions of viewers across a range of social media platforms.

Its most recent video prior to being suspended appeared to show Trump carrying out the war in Iran to distract from the Epstein files and at Israel’s behest.

It also implied that Epstein and his associates had engaged in cannibalism, for which there is no evidence. An earlier video referenced other victims of US violence through history, including Native Americans, the Vietnamese and the children of Gaza, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It also quoted Malcolm X.

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Biden FDA Knew About COVID Vaccine Stroke Risk And Kept Americans In The Dark

Senate investigators spent months reviewing roughly 2,000 pages of federal records. What they found is damning. FDA and CDC officials under the Biden administration identified a significant stroke risk tied to Pfizer’s COVID-19 bivalent booster in seniors – and never breathed a word to the public.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent a formal letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laying out the evidence. He wasn’t speculating. He was citing the government’s own files.

“HHS records show that as early as October 2022, federal health officials identified a potential connection between the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 bivalent booster and ischemic stroke for individuals over the age of 65,” Johnson wrote.

An ischemic stroke means a blockage of blood to the brain. Between November 2022 and March 2023, seven separate analyses of incoming data flagged the same stroke signal — specifically in adults over 65. CDC data cited by Johnson shows 226 stroke cases reported between August 2022 and February 2023, with additional cases surfacing throughout 2023 and 2024.

Despite the risk, the Biden administration issued no formal warnings. No Health Alert Network message. No changes to booster recommendations for seniors. Nothing.

Instead, in February 2023, HHS quietly hired a private contractor, Lukos LLC, to conduct a deeper internal investigation, dubbed “The Stroke Project.” Publicly, officials kept insisting the vaccines were safe.

“From the initial detection of the safety signal in late 2022 … health officials continued to say the vaccine was safe while simultaneously searching for evidence to support that assertion,” Johnson said.

It gets worse. Federal officials drafted a communications plan about the stroke risk that included a “Tough Questions and Answers” section prepared for President-ish Biden and his White House team. During final edits, the description of the stroke signal was quietly changed from “moderately elevated” to “slightly elevated.” Who made that change? Nobody knows. The language softened, the edit went unattributed, and the public remained in the dark.

The pattern is consistent. Senate investigators previously established that Biden officials also downplayed the risk of vaccine-induced myocarditis and kept that from the public. This wasn’t a one-time failure. It was a system.

Here’s what makes this cover-up even more infuriating. The Biden administration showed it was more than willing to pull the plug on a vaccine when it wanted to.

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INSANE: Pedophiles Allowed To Record BEDTIME STORIES For Children In Prison Podcast Studio

Pedophiles serving time in UK prisons are being permitted to record bedtime stories and podcasts for their child relatives using state-of-the-art facilities behind bars.

Yes, really. It sounds like something from Brass Eye, but it’s real.

Taxpayer-funded multimedia studios have been built in sex offender jails, with predators being given microphone time, while the same system hunts down and even imprisons citizens for tweeting about grooming gangs.

The revelation centres on HMP Whatton in Nottinghamshire – Europe’s largest prison for sex offenders – where around 70 per cent of the 836 inmates are convicted of sex crimes. The Category C facility boasts a “multimedia studio” that allows selected prisoners to produce content shared on the prison’s internal TV and radio channels.

As highlighted by the Daily Mail, the programme falls under the long-running Storybook Dads initiative. Prisoners who pass risk assessments can read stories that are recorded and sent as CDs to children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews to “strengthen family ties.” No direct contact with victims is permitted.

A spokesman for the victims’ charity Justice for Victims slammed the scheme: “Far too often, victims and their families feel let down by the justice system. This is just another example of offenders being given an easy ride. They are serving time for some of the most heinous crimes as sex offenders, they should not have access to what many would consider luxuries.”

“Of course it’s important that consideration is given to rehabilitation, but tax payers money should not be spent on making their time an enjoyable experience,” the spokesman added.

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Eric Swalwell to RESIGN from Congress after scathing sexual assault allegations as he admits ‘mistakes’

California Congressman Eric Swalwell has announced his intent to resign from Congress.

‘I am deeply sorry to my family, staff, and constituents for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past. I will fight the serious, false allegation made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make,’ Swalwell wrote in a statement released Monday afternoon.

‘I am aware of efforts to bring an immediate expulsion vote against me and other members. Expelling anyone in Congress without due process, within days of an allegation being made, is wrong. But it’s also wrong for my constituents to have me distracted from my duties. Therefore, I plan to resign my seat in Congress,’ he added.

‘I will work with my staff in the coming days to ensure they are able, in my absence, to serve the needs of the good people of the 14th congressional district,’ he concluded.

Swalwell was set to face a new fight on Capitol Hill after being slapped with a fresh investigation following bombshell ‘sexual misconduct’ allegations.

The Ethics Committee opened an investigation into the top Democrat earlier on Monday, and pledged to ‘gather additional information regarding the allegations that Representative Eric Swalwell violated the Code of Official Conduct.’

The complaint states the investigation covers ‘allegations that he may have engaged in sexual misconduct, including towards an employee working under his supervision.’

The Committee also added ‘that the mere fact that it is investigating these allegations, and publicly disclosing its review, does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred.’

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