Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

Rape allegation against ex-Barclays CEO Jes Staley was raised in US Epstein investigation

US prosecutors reviewed allegations of rape and bodily harm against the former Barclays boss and former JP Morgan banker Jes Staley, according to newly unsealed files linked to the child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Multiple documents in the Epstein files cite serious allegations of sexual misconduct against Staley, including that he forced a woman to touch his genitals during a massage before raping her, and left “bloody marks” on the arms of a woman he called “tinkerbell”.

The bulk of the allegations are revealed in what appears to be a confidential 86-page internal memo produced by prosecutors and addressed to Geoffrey S Berman, then US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. The memo, titled “Investigation into Potential Co-Conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein” and dated 19 December 2019, summarised interviews with victims, witnesses and subjects of its investigation.

There is no evidence that prosecutors decided to pursue the allegations. Staley, who has previously denied any wrongdoing, did not respond to requests for comment made over several months, either directly or via his lawyers. He has never been charged with a crime related to the allegations.

During a UK court hearing in 2025, Staley admitted to having sex with a member of Epstein’s staff in New York, but agreed with a lawyer during cross-examination that he would describe the intercourse as “consensual”.

The memo refers to one woman’s recollection of events that allegedly occurred “in or around 2011 or 2012”. It says: “Epstein instructed [redacted] to provide a massage to Jes Staley in Epstein’s New York residence. [Redacted] attempted to give him an ordinary massage, but he forced [redacted] to touch his genitals and then raped [redacted].

“Afterwards, [redacted] complained to Epstein, who said he left it to [redacted] and Staley to decide whether to engage in sex. After this incident, [redacted] began to distance herself from Epstein.”

This allegation was included in a section labelled: “Interviews of Victims Who Were Abused As Adults”.

Keep reading

Mounds of Snow and Trash Are Just the Opening Act of Mamdani’s Collectivist New York

Images out of New York City this week have gone viral, and they are doing more to project the city’s future than any campaign speech ever could.

They show piles of trash sitting curbside and piles of snow still frozen nearly two weeks after a storm. They show a city struggling with completing tasks that should be routine.

This is what New Yorkers are seeing as Mayor Zohran Mamdani begins to warm his seat in City Hall.

According to WABC-TV in New York, sanitation crews fell behind after heavy snow and deep cold slowed cleanup efforts across the city. Trash piled up in multiple neighborhoods.

The mayor defended the city’s botched response as New Yorkers complained about living in a landfill.

I am not from New York, I do not want to visit New York, and I am well aware that New York City has dealt with snowstorms and sanitation problems long before Mamdani arrived.

I also cannot say with certainty that this entire situation is his fault. It might be, it might not be.

What I can say with certainty is that this will not be the last time New Yorkers complain about a problem that could have been avoided.

It will not be the last time residents are told to lower their expectations and accept dysfunction.

The problem is not the snow, but the city’s Marxist leadership.

Communist and socialist systems tend to fail pretty quickly for many reasons, but one stands above the rest.

These systems do not value or reward competence. They value and reward loyalty and ideology.

Keep reading

New York Budget Bill Proposes Mandatory File-Scanning Tech and In-Person Sales for 3D Printers

New York’s latest budget proposal would place new obligations on manufacturers of 3D printers and other digital fabrication equipment, tying the operation of these tools to mandatory software controls.

The 2026–2027 executive budget bill, S.9005/A.10005, directs that devices sold in the state include “blocking technology” capable of scanning every design file and stopping production when a “firearms blueprint detection algorithm” flags a file as a potential gun or gun component.

The bill, similar to the ones we recently reported on in Washington state, treats file scanning as a workable technical safeguard, even though digital design files only describe shapes.

Many ordinary objects share the same geometric traits as regulated firearm parts. Pipes, housings, brackets, mounts, and mechanical connectors all overlap with components that appear in firearms.

Software that evaluates geometry alone cannot reliably separate lawful designs from prohibited ones. Such systems inevitably interrupt legitimate work while offering little resistance to deliberate misuse.

Although public discussion often centers on consumer 3D printers, the statutory language reaches much further.

The definitions extend to any machine capable of making three-dimensional changes to an object from a digital design using subtractive manufacturing. That scope covers equipment found in repair businesses and small manufacturing firms throughout the state.

Keep reading

Leaked US Air Force drone footage shows UFOs in airspace over Middle East

Two leaked videos recorded by the US military purportedly show UFOs operating in the Middle East.

The radar footage, generated by Reaper drones flown by the Air Force more than 13 years ago, was released recently by reporters and prominent UFO researchers George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell.

The US Department of War and the intelligence community officially designated the flying objects to be Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), the government’s new term for UFOs.

Three lights or orbs in a triangle formation were seen moving in over the Persian Gulf on Aug. 23, 2012, one video released on Jan. 30 showed.

The objects demonstrate abrupt changes of direction and the thermographic Forward Looking Infrared Radar (FLIR) detected no heat or other signatures that mark traditional propulsion systems, according to the Knapp and Corbell report in Weaponized.

Keep reading

Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Shockingly Extensive Gaming History

Buried in the Department of Justice’s three-million-page Epstein document dump is an unexpected subplot: Jeffrey Epstein was a gamer.

Not a casual one, either. The files — released Jan. 30 as part of a sprawling DOJ disclosure — paint a portrait of a convicted sex offender who maintained an active presence across multiple gaming platforms for years, who corresponded with some of the video game industry’s most powerful executives about monetizing children, and whose username is now at the center of a viral conspiracy theory alleging he’s still alive and playing Fortnite from Israel.

The saga begins with Xbox Live.

Documents show Epstein received a “Welcome to Xbox Live” email on Oct. 31, 2012. He had been a registered sex offender since 2008, and Microsoft had joined New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s “Operation: Game Over” initiative to purge sex offenders from online gaming platforms six months earlier, in April 2012.

Despite that, Epstein’s account remained active for roughly 14 months.

On Dec. 19, 2013, Microsoft finally pulled the plug. An automated enforcement email sent to Epstein’s “jeevacation@gmail.com” address cited “harassment, threats, and/or abuse of other players,” describing the conduct as “severe, repeated, and/or excessive.” A follow-up email the same day provided the real explanation: “This action is based on the New York Attorney General’s partnership with Microsoft and other online gaming companies to remove New York registered sex offenders from online gaming services to minimize the risk to others, particularly children.”

Keep reading

Arkansas Supreme Court Ruling Could Let Lawmakers Roll Back Medical Marijuana Access

Emily Williams struggled to find medication that alleviated chemotherapy side effects like nausea and loss of appetite following her 2010 cancer diagnosis. Eventually, she tried marijuana and it provided relief.

“I was just grateful,” she said. “I just felt grateful.”

The experience prompted the Fayetteville retiree to advocate for a citizen-led constitutional amendment voters approved in 2016 to create Arkansas’ medical marijuana program.

That program has since grown into a billion-dollar industry, with more than 115,000 patients using marijuana to treat conditions from Crohn’s disease to post-traumatic stress disorder. But an obscure legal fight over who can change citizen-led amendments to Arkansas’ Constitution casts uncertainty on the program’s future.

The court ruling is part of a nationwide battle playing out in states like Missouri and Nebraska over citizen-led ballot measures. Arkansas is one of 24 states that allows citizens to propose state laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Since the state’s first dispensary opened in 2019, thousands of Arkansans have accessed the program, including Christopher Duffy, a 35-year-old Fayetteville resident who said medical marijuana helped his anxiety and sobriety. Duffy said he’d remain committed to sobriety if marijuana becomes less accessible, but he worries about others.

“I’m lucky to have such a support system where were things to get tough or I started struggling, I could reach out,” he said. “There are those that don’t have that and I fear for them.”

Williams, 69, is afraid of losing access to medical marijuana, which she uses to manage ongoing complications from her illness.

“If I am not able to use this, my life would be completely, negatively impacted,” she said.

These concerns were sparked by the Arkansas Supreme Court upending 74 years of precedent in December with a ruling that declared lawmakers can amend citizen-led constitutional amendments with a two-thirds vote — 67 votes in the House and 24 votes in the Senate.

Keep reading

Ilhan Omar’s hubby’s elusive winery under scrutiny from feds — and it violates Islamic law

Besides scrutiny from the feds, Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband’s winery could land the embattled power couple in hot water with imams too.

Political consultant Tim Mynett converted to Islam to marry Omar, a practicing Muslim — but selling booze is strictly banned in Islamic law, which considers anything to do with alcohol sinful — or “haram.”

“I assure you that they got married in accordance with Islam and the law, and Ilhan’s husband converted to Islam,” a spokesperson for Omar’s office told BBC Somalia at the time of the 2020 wedding.

It was Mynett’s California-based wine company eStCru, together with his other allegedly shady business ventures, that helped propel the couple’s worth to up to $30 million and attracted a probe by the House Oversight Committee and the Department of Justice.

Omar claimed the wine biz was worth between $1 million and $5 million in her May 2025 financial disclosure, which covered the 2024 calendar year.

But by that point, the venture had gone belly-up for more than a year, adding to the mystery of why she would have placed such a high value on it in the first place.

“We’re not experts in Islamic law — but we’re pretty sure scamming the American people for a living violates every religion,” slammed Republican National Committee Press Secretary Kiersten Pels.

Keep reading

UFO intel documents stolen out of Russia reveal decade-long probes into alien encounters, abductions

Landmark UFO documents smuggled out of Russia 30 years ago — and just publicly revealed — show the Soviets investigated thousands of reports of extraterrestrial craft and encounters with aliens.

Legendary reporter George Knapp, 73, quietly released on Jan. 16 documents he smuggled out of Russia in 1993 under the nose of the KGB after the fall of the USSR in 1991.

The translated documents reveal the shocking extent to which the USSR and the post-Soviet Russian Federation probed the persistent phenomenon — despite the communist government officially deeming UFOs a concoction of war-mongering “American imperialists” in 1953.

The USSR commissioned several studies of UFOs beginning with the “Network-AN” program in 1979, continuing with “Galaxy-MD” from 1981-1985, “Pluton 7” in 1989 and 1990, and the continuing “Thread 3” program.

Keep reading

Researchers ‘surprised’ by the brain benefits of cannabis usage in adults over 40

Pass the pot to Grandma — her brain might thank you.

A new study is challenging long-held assumptions about cannabis, finding that middle-aged and older adults who use the drug may actually see some brain and cognitive benefits.

The twist comes as cannabis use is climbing among older Americans. Research shows that nearly 1 in 5 people ages 50 to 64 reported using marijuana in the past year, along with 5.9% of those 65 and older.

That’s notable because research on cannabis and the brain has historically zeroed in on adolescents, not aging adults.

“More older adults are using cannabis. It’s more widely available and is being used for different reasons than in younger folks — such as for sleep and chronic pain,” Dr. Anika Guha, a clinical psychologist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and lead author of the study, said in a statement.

“Plus, people are living longer. We have to ask, ‘What are the long-term effects of cannabis use as we continue to age?’”

To dig deeper, Guha and her colleagues analyzed data from 26,362 adults ages 40 to 77, with an average age of 55, all living in the UK.

Participants answered detailed questions about their cannabis use, underwent MRI scans to assess their brain structure and completed a series of cognitive tests.

The researchers zeroed in on brain regions packed with CB1 — a cannabinoid receptor they theorized would be especially affected by cannabis.

One key focus was the hippocampus, which contains a high concentration of these receptors and plays a critical role in memory as we age. It’s also a brain region closely linked to dementia.

Keep reading

12,000-Year-Old Discovery in an Oregon Cave Reveals First Evidence of a “Complex” Ancient American Technology

Two small pieces of animal hide recovered from an ancient dwelling place within a cave in Oregon could represent the earliest known evidence of sewing among America’s early inhabitants.

The remarkably well-preserved artifacts include portions of hide stitched together with handwoven cord and believed to have been crafted more than 12,000 years ago.

If confirmed, this possible evidence of sewn materials could offer archaeologists a rare look at the emergence of complex technologies employed by America’s early inhabitants to ward off the extreme temperatures that still prevailed during the final years of the last Ice Age.

A Discovery at Cougar Mountain Cave

The discoveries were made within Cougar Mountain Cave, an ancient rock shelter in Oregon’s Great Basin. This vast region is best known for its arid landscape and sagebrush valleys, which lie between isolated mountains that have helped craft the very unique ecosystems that were home to significant prehistoric human activity.

An international research team, led by Richard Rosencrance of the University of Nevada and Katelyn McDonough of the University of Oregon, reported their discovery of what appears to be cordage, bone needles, and wooden artifacts alongside remnants of botanical materials in a recent paper featured in Science Advances.

The discovery of artifacts made from such materials that date to this early period of North American occupation is extremely rare, since they are highly perishable, leaving many questions about what kinds of garments and cordage were employed by some of the earliest arrivals in the New World.

Keep reading