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Invasive Asian needle ants with potentially deadly sting spreading across multiple states

Asian needle ants that carry a potentially fatal sting have spread across multiple states, with experts warning people to be cautious when spending time outdoors.

The invasive species has been found in more than a dozen states from Washington to Florida, but is expanding more rapidly in the southeastern United States.

Entomologists at the University of Georgia are tracking these ants and have warned that their stings could be deadly.

People who have strong reactions to stings from insects like bees, wasps or yellowjackets should be especially careful, experts said. If you suffer from anaphylaxis, you should be especially vigilant and carry an EpiPen.

The insect has been in the U.S. since at least the 1930s, but only recently has started to disrupt local ecosystems by competing with other ant species that are important to the ecology of that area.

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Notorious ‘LAScanner,’ Who Doxxed ICE Officers and Released Live Information of ICE Operations, Is a Felon and Stalker Who Was Ordered by a Court This Year to NOT USE Surveillance Equipment and Radio Scanners

LA Scanner on X made headlines this week after the account started publishing the location of ICE raids in Los Angeles and doxxed ICE agents in the area.

It was then revealed that far-left activist Jack Quillin was the man behind the “LA Scanner” on X account.

According to Amuse on X, Quillin who runs the LA Scanner account “doxxed federal agents and directed protesters to federal buildings before and during the riots. As a result, both the agents and the buildings were repeatedly attacked. Last night he began to realize that he was putting lives in danger stating, “I genuinely hope this doesn’t end in anyone losing their life” after posting the address of a federal agent. When he provided a list of federal offices in the LA area to protesters he made sure to remind them to remain peaceful. Quillin’s operation, NightSunTV, LLC, collected the names, addresses, photos of federal officials going as far as to build an interactive map that provided a real-time view of their locations throughout the LA area.”

Quillin was reportedly running his operation from Texas.

It now appears that Quillin was illegally operating his online operation and likely broke his court-ordered stipulations defined in his docket earlier this year, just five months ago.

Earlier this year, in January, Jack Quillin was ordered by a court not to use or have access to surveillance equipment or radio scanners.

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Leading rabbi accused of sexually assaulting young girls

Several young women accuse a leading rabbi of repeatedly sexually assaulting them and others in interviews with Channel 12.

The women describe how Rabbi Haim Yosef Abergel, A prominent Sephardic rabbi from the southern city of Netivot, repeatedly molested them in recent years, with some of them as young as 12 when the assaults started.

The young women describe how aides to the rabbi tried to silence them and their families with threats and bribes.

One of the women, who spoke on camera but was not identified, filed a complaint with police this morning. Channel 12 says police are likely to launch a formal investigation.

A lawyer for Abergel denied the accusations, calling them completely false and a blood libel.

Abergel made headlines recently with reports he was planning on establishing a new Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party to compete with Shas.

Abergel is the son of the late Rabbi Yoram Abergel, a popular rabbi who himself split with Shas in 2015. In 2013, the senior Abergel was arrested on suspicion of extortion in connection with threats against a mayoral candidate in Netivot, but the charges were dropped for lack of evidence.

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Dead Body Found in L.A. Riot Zone

Those “mostly peaceful” leftist protests in Los Angeles are not only violent, but they also have reportedly turned deadly.

Close to businesses looted in downtown L.A. by the radical leftist protesters whom Democrat California officials and media are defending, a dead body was found. Details have yet to be released, but the corpse was found in the midst of an area that was trashed by the anti-ICE, anti-Trump rioters.

The shocking story about the dead body comes after Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom sued Trump and the Department of Defense for taking over and sending in the California National Guard to deal with the increasingly violent and dangerous riots in the Los Angeles area. Newsom, who has broken multiple federal laws, arrogantly challenged the administration to arrest him.

Now it appears the riots might have cost at least one person‘s life. KTLA5 L.A. reported on the few details released and explained that the investigation into the cause of death is ongoing:

Police were called to the area of West 3rd Street and Broadway shortly after 1:30 a.m., where they found the unresponsive man, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed to KTLA.

Video showed investigators at the scene standing next to the man, who was lying on his back wearing a red sweatshirt.

The intersection where the body was found included a T-Mobile store that the insane rioters looted. 

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FDA Greenlights Merck’s RSV Shot for Newborns — Clinical Trials Showed 11.71% Rate of Serious Adverse Events, Including Death

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday approved Merck’s new monoclonal antibody shot, which the company said is designed to protect newborns and infants against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

The antibody shot, clesrovimab, will be marketed as Enflonsia and launched this coming RSV season to challenge Sanofi and AstraZeneca’s blockbuster Beyfortus shot.

Beyfortus, first approved in 2023, generated $1.8 billion in sales last year, FiercePharma reported.

PR Newswire projected that the global RSV vaccine and antibody market would reach $13.59 billion by 2030.

Merck said its monoclonal antibody has about the same efficacy rate as Beyfortus. In clinical trials, the shot reduced RSV-related hospitalization by 84.3% compared to placebo, and the incidence of RSV that needed to be medically attended by 60.5% versus placebo, through age 5 months in the clinical trials.

The company also said in a press release that the drug’s safety profile was “generally comparable” to placebo. The most common adverse reactions were injection-site erythema or swelling, and a rash 14 days after the dose, all of which were more common in the vaccine group.

However, the clinical trial results posted on the government website ClinicalTrials.gov included other serious neurological adverse reactions that Dr. Peter Selley, a U.K. general practitioner who has closely followed the development of the drugs for RSV, called “concerning.”

These included febrile convulsions, seizures, facial paralysis and brain injury at about three times the rate in the vaccine group (25 of 2,409) as the placebo group (4 of 1,202).

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Union Chiefs, Jayapal, Pledge ‘Solidarity’ with Illegals, not Americans

Progressive union leaders are ditching ordinary Americans as they embrace illegal migrants in Los Angeles, just eight months after voters elected a president who declared his solidarity with ordinary Americans.

“In the labor movement, we were built on this word, and that word is ‘Solidarity,’” union leader Liz Shuler announced Monday at a raucous rally on Capitol Hill, adding:

Solidarity is what our brother David Huerta was showing up for last Friday, when he stood up for [illegal] immigrant workers in his community [Los Angeles] and when he was legally exercising his constitutional rights … That’s why I’m here, bringing the voices of 15 million working people in the AFL-CIO standing strong together to … end these unjust ICE raids right now! Ahora! [Today]

The arrested migrants “are our neighbors, our co-workers, these are people who are looking for a better life and are contributing to our economy,” Shuler told HuffPost.

But Americans’ wages are forced down when migrants can cross the border into Americans’ workplaces, just as strike breakers cross a picket line by striking workers at a workplace.

David Huerta is the head of the SEIU-United Service Workers West, which includes many illegal migrants. He was arrested during Friday’s chaotic blockade of a federal building in Los Angeles and faces several years in jail. He said in a Friday statement:

Hard-working people, and members of our family and our community, are being treated like criminals. We all collectively have to object to this madness because this is not justice. This is injustice.

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Israel confirms it is arming Hamas rivals in operation opposition calls ‘complete madness’

Israel is arming local militias in Gaza in an effort to counter Hamas in the besieged enclave, officials say, as opposition politicians warned that the move endangers national security.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the covert enterprise on Thursday, calling it “a good thing.” In a video posted on social media, Netanyahu said Israel had “activated clans in Gaza which oppose Hamas,” and that it was done “under the advice of security elements.”

Former defense minister and Netanyahu rival Avigdor Liberman divulged the move on Israel’s Ch. 12 News on Wednesday, saying that Israel was distributing rifles to extremist groups in Gaza and describing the operation as “complete madness.”

“We’re talking about the equivalent of ISIS in Gaza,” Liberman said one day later on Israel’s Army Radio, adding that Israel is providing weapons to “crime families in Gaza on Netanyahu’s orders.”

“No one can guarantee that these weapons will not be directed towards Israel,” he said, a warning echoed by one of the officials who spoke with CNN. After Liberman’s revelation, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement saying, “Israel is acting to defeat Hamas in various ways upon the recommendation of the heads of the security establishment.”

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FBI: Hundreds of Alleged Child Predators Arrested in Texas

A monthlong investigation in Texas snared 244 alleged online child-sex predators, the FBI and other agencies announced at a June 10 news conference in Dallas.

“We’re taking them off the street and not stopping,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote in a social media post.

The FBI Dallas office’s special agent in charge, R. Joseph Rothrock, told reporters that a common goal united more than 70 federal, state, and local agencies: “to rescue children from abuse and exploitation.”

This marks the second month in a row that the FBI has announced large-scale arrests of alleged online predators. Such cases are considered high priority for President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, Patel said last month, as he announced that 205 suspects were arrested in a nationwide sweep called Operation Restore Justice.

The Texas-based investigation, dubbed Operation Soteria Shield, “rescued 109 children” and gathered “terabytes of illicit data,” the FBI said, adding that electronic devices are being further analyzed. The new evidence could lead to additional arrests or identifying victims.

Officials did not disclose details of the charges. However, at the news conference, they displayed names and photographs of the defendants. Silhouettes served as placeholders for 22 suspects for whom photographs were unavailable; some were juveniles and at least one remained unnamed pending arrest.

The effort demonstrates the agency’s commitment “to relentlessly pursue those who prey on children and to ensure that survivors are no longer silenced or hiding in the shadows,” FBI Dallas said.

It welcomed remarks from Texas police chiefs whose departments participated in the operation.

Dallas Police Chief Daniel C. Comeaux said the operation, which began in April, marshaled “a massive team effort.” His department serves as the lead agency for the North Texas Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Wylie Police Chief Anthony Henderson said: “The trauma inflicted by these crimes runs deep, affecting not only the victims, but also their families and entire communities.”

“With every arrest made and every child protected, the operation moves us closer to a safer community,” Henderson said.

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US Army rolls out $13M smart rifle scopes that auto-target and take down enemy drones in combat

The US Army is giving its soldiers a high-tech edge in the fight against drones, and it’s called SMASH.

During a live-fire training exercise on June 6 in Germany, a soldier with the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment used the SMASH 2000L smart scope mounted on an M4A1 rifle to target drones in the sky.

The demo was part of Project Flytrap, a multinational training event.

The SMASH 2000L, made by Israeli company Smart Shooter Ltd., is no ordinary sight.

It uses cameras, sensors, and artificial intelligence to track targets and decides the perfect time to fire, according to reporting from Army Recognition.

Once a drone is locked in, the system controls the trigger and only fires when a hit is guaranteed.

In May, the Army awarded Smart Shooter a $13 million contract to begin delivering these scopes to troops under its Transformation In Contact (TIC 2.0) program.

The goal is to quickly get new, useful tech into soldiers’ hands.

The smart scope weighs about 2.5 pounds and fits onto standard-issue rifles.

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NATO Chief: Russia Could Be Ready to Fight the West in Five Years

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned that Russia could launch an attack on the bloc within five years. He called on members to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP.

Speaking at the British Chatham House think tank, Rutte told the audience, “Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years. Five years. Let’s not kid ourselves, we are all on the Eastern flank now.” He continued, “There is no longer East or West – there is just NATO.”

Rutte argued that to combat the supposed threat from Russia, NATO states must boost military spending to 5% of their GDP, adding “3.5% will be invested in our core military requirements. While the rest will go towards defence and security-related investments, including infrastructure and building industrial capacity.” He went on to say that “5% is not some figure plucked from the air, it is grounded in hard facts.”

President Donald Trump has also called for NATO to increase its minimum defense spending level to 5% of GDP. The current requirement is 2%, and only 23 of 32 members meet that threshold.

Spain and Italy will hit the minimum level for the first time this year, while Canada is not expected to spend more than 2% of its GDP on defense until 2027.

US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker restated that demand last week. “We are currently negotiating within the North Atlantic Council the timelines and what’s included in the 5%, both from a core defense standpoint and also defense-related and security-related spending,” he said Wednesday. He added that member states must rapidly ramp up spending to reach that goal.

According to NATO statistics, in 2024, only Poland spent over 4% of GDP on its military. Four countries, including the US, spend over 3% on defense. For the US, this would mean spending $1.45 trillion annually on the war budget. 

“But let me be clear on this, we cannot have another Wales pledge style where a lot of allies don’t meet their commitments until year 10 or year 11,” he said. “We are asking all allies to increase their budgets as far as they can and as quickly as they can, understanding that this is not the United States setting this timeline, it is our adversaries.”

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