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Judge STRIPS NYC of Control Over Rikers Island — Cites ‘Unprecedented’ Violence and Mismanagement

A federal judge has stripped the city of control over its notorious Rikers Island jail complex, citing “unprecedented” levels of violence, systemic mismanagement, and a blatant disregard for court orders.

In a scathing 77-page ruling released Tuesday, Chief U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain officially stripped New York City and its Department of Correction (DOC) of full control over Rikers Island, citing a decade of failure to protect inmates from “grave and immediate” harm, including unconstitutional levels of violence, abuse, and systemic mismanagement.

The ruling, issued in the landmark Nunez v. City of New York case, appoints an independent “Nunez Remediation Manager” to take control over key safety and use-of-force functions at Rikers.

The decision comes after Judge Swain previously found the City in civil contempt of 18 separate provisions of the Consent Judgment and multiple court orders dating back to 2015.

The DOC was cited for repeated failures to address excessive use of force, violent incidents, inadequate staff supervision, and failure to protect incarcerated youth.

Despite nearly a decade of oversight by a federal Monitor and more than 700 expert recommendations, the court concluded that the City had failed to make meaningful progress.

“Nine years have passed since the parties first agreed that the perilous conditions in the Rikers Island jails were unconstitutional; that the level of unconstitutional danger has not improved for the people who live and work in the jails is both alarming and unacceptable,” Swain wrote.

In a last-ditch effort to avoid a receivership, the City proposed giving current DOC Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie enhanced authority as a so-called “Compliance Director.”

But the judge rejected this as insufficient, noting that while Maginley-Liddie had shown early promise, the City had already proven incapable of reform on its own.

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Zuckerberg’s free speech charade

Mark Zuckerberg wants America to believe he has had a “Road to Damascus” conversion on free speech. Since President Trump’s return to office in January, Mr. Zuckerberg has positioned himself as a champion of the First Amendment, condemning “cancel culture” and claiming that Meta platforms now welcome diverse political viewpoints, all while ignoring the obvious subtext that his platforms are hostile to conservative speech.

It is his recent aggressive actions to silence a whistleblower that expose the deep hypocrisy of his recent and convenient conversion to a supposed free expression champion.

By now, most of the world has heard of Sarah Wynn-Williams’ bombshell book, “Careless People,” which reveals shocking details about Mr. Zuckerberg’s yearslong crusade to enter the Chinese market by creating sophisticated censorship tools for the Chinese Communist Party to use on Facebook, all the while playing innocent to the American public. According to Ms. Wynn-Williams’ account, Mr. Zuckerberg was willing to compromise every personal and political principle belonging to American citizens, including the security of American users, to gain access to the profit margins that Chinese consumers would bring to Facebook’s revenue streams.

Most disturbing is what, according to Ms. Wynn-Williams’ Senate testimony, Mr. Zuckerberg traded away to build his $18 billion business in China. America is in an artificial intelligence war with China, and it is winner-take-all. Yet Ms. Wynn-Williams’ revelations show that, for years, Mr. Zuckerberg has been transferring the technological expertise he and his company have to the Chinese Communist Party. Detailed briefings on data centers, facial recognition and, of course, artificial intelligence — all mission-critical to our country’s future.

Rather than address these serious allegations, Mr. Zuckerberg has hidden behind lawyers, invoking arbitration clauses and gag orders to silence Ms. Wynn-Williams, who, it must be said, clearly has a steel spine that Mr. Zuckerberg can only dream of. The irony couldn’t be more stark: While publicly posturing as a free speech advocate to curry favor with the Trump administration, he uses legal maneuvers to suppress whistleblowers from warning the public and lawmakers of these critical truths about his company.

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EPA chief Lee Zeldin to kill car feature ‘everyone hates’

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin hinted Monday that he’s preparing to roll back one car feature that every driver “hates.”

“Start/stop technology: where your car dies at every red light so companies get a climate participation trophy,” Zeldin tweeted Monday in a post that has since racked up more than 8 million views.

“EPA approved it, and everyone hates it, so we’re fixing it.”

The feature kills internal combustion engines at red lights and has been touted by proponents for being able to conserve fuel and cut down on pollution.

Critics have questioned whether the feature can wear down the car’s battery or engine more quickly.

The “off-cycle CO2 reducing” tech has its origins in a federal rule proposed under President Barack Obama in 2012 — but didn’t take effect until new fuel economy standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions five years later.

Between 2012 and 2021, the number of vehicles produced with a stop-start feature due to the carbon credits surged from 1% to 45%.

Up to 65% of vehicles had the technology included in new models by 2023.

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Far Left Arizona Gov Katie Hobbs Vetoes Bill Requiring Public Schools to Include Instruction on the Gulf of America

Democrat Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed a Republican bill on Tuesday that would require public high schools to adhere to President Trump’s “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” executive order by including geography and instruction on the Gulf of America.

HB 2700 would add geography education in the State Board of Education’s high school social studies academic standards and require academic standards for geography to include instruction on the Gulf of America.

The far-left Democrat Governor doesn’t want students to have a comprehensive education on geography and current events, though.

Hobbs provided no reason for her veto in a letter to Arizona House Speaker Steve Montenegro, but did take a personal jab at Republicans in the state legislature for what she perceives as a refusal to “work together.”

Hobbs sent the following letter to Montenegro on Tuesday:

Speaker Montenegro,

Today, I vetoed House Bill 2700. Arizonans want us to work together to lower costs, secure the border, create jobs, and protect publie education. Instead of joining with me to do that, this Legislature has chosen to attempt to dictate how teachers refer to geographic features. I encourage you to refocus your time and energy on solving real problems for Arizonans.

In total, Hobbs reportedly vetoed 48 bills on Monday and Tuesday, and she is now five vetoes short of setting a new record.

It can be recalled that Hobbs broke the record for the most bills vetoed in a single session of the state legislature during her first year in office in 2023. Leftwing outlets dubbed her the “Veto Queen,” celebrating her stand against Republicans who represent a majority of Arizona. This is her only accomplishment as governor.

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Man burns 100 library books; residents donate 1,000 more to local libraries

In Beachwood, the community is rallying together after a man reportedly burned 100 books from the local library — and filmed himself doing it.

For Kate Anderson Foley, books are more than just words on a page.

“These are our words, these are our lived experiences,” said Foley.

As the author of a children’s book about a young girl named Ida finding her voice in a world filled with hate, Foley has experienced that power firsthand.

“She comes to the realization there are many people like her, like us, that are gathered here to be able to say, let’s stand up and speak out,” said Foley.

What angers her most is when those pages are destroyed.

“It’s hurtful, no doubt about it,” said Foley.

On Monday, members of an Interfaith Group Against Hate (IGAH) gathered outside Fairmount Presbyterian Church to stand united against hate. This comes after reports that a man checked out 100 books related to race, religion, and LGBTQ+ topics from the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Beachwood — then burned them in a video posted to social media.

On April 22, the man checked out 50 books from the library relating to those topics and posted a photo of a car trunk full of books with a caption relating to “cleansing” the libraries, Beachwood Police said.

The books in the trunk of the car in the photo appeared to match the topics of books checked out by the man and had Cuyahoga County Public Library stickers on them.

The library was tipped off to the photo, and when he returned to pick up 50 more books, he said his son was a part of the LGBTQ+ community and he was trying to learn more, police said.

When a video of the man burning the books surfaced on social media, the library was tipped off once again. In the video, the books appeared to match the theme and titles of the books listed above. The video shows one book with a Cuyahoga County Public Library sticker on it, and matches one of the specific books checked out by the man.

“It was a man’s voice and image and foreboding tones describing the need to cleanse the community of the library of the books that he was setting a fire,” said Robert Nosanchuk, the Senior Rabbi at Congregation Mishkan Or.

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One Side Routinely Uses Human Shields in Gaza—But Not the Side That’s Usually Blamed

Since the earliest days of the post–October 7 US/Israeli genocide in Gaza, corporate media outlets have claimed that Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields. Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention characterizes the practice thusly:

The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations.

In other words, when civilians are used to shield military targets, attacking those targets can be legal under international law, but the attacker, as Al Jazeera (11/13/23) noted, still has to adhere to

the principles of distinction and proportionality: An army has the duty to target only the enemy, even if this means facing greater risks to minimize civilian casualties; and to weigh the military value of each attack against the civilian casualties that are likely to result from it.

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Israel’s Crimes on the West Bank

In 1948, the newly proclaimed Israeli government seized 78 percent of Palestinian land and expelled more than half of the population (750,00 people) from their villages and towns.

This act disregarded United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947), which called for the termination of the colonial British Mandate and the partition of Palestine into a Palestinian and a Jewish state. This process came to be known as the Nakba (Catastrophe).

The Palestinians gathered in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the neighbouring Arab states in the hope that they would soon be able to return to their homes. Indeed, U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 (1948) noted that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid.”

Nothing of the sort ever happened — Palestinians are still waiting for that “earliest practicable date.”

In September 1948, Palestinians hastily organised the All-Palestine Government in Gaza, a largely nominal attempt to exercise sovereignty over their stolen lands. Many of its officials, including Prime Minister Ahmed Hilmi Pasha Abd al-Baqi (1882–1963) and Foreign Minister Jamal al-Husseini (1894–1982), came from elite Palestinian families, their political vision shaped by the distress of their great ruin.

Following the 1949 Armistice Agreements — signed between Israel and its neighbouring states Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria after the 1948 war — most of the territory that was not occupied by Israel came under the control of Jordan and Egypt. Jordan controlled what is now the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip was administered by Egypt.

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Georgia governor signs law banning funding for gender transitions in prison

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation banning the use of taxpayer funds for gender “transition” procedures for prison inmates, declaring it a “common-sense step.”

Senate Bill 185 states that “no state funds or resources shall be used” for “(s)ex reassignment surgeries or any other surgical procedures that are performed for the purpose of altering primary or secondary sexual characteristics; (h)ormone replacement therapies; and (c)osmetic procedures or prosthetics intended to alter the appearance of primary or secondary sexual characteristics.”

Exceptions would be made for “medical conditions where such treatments are considered medically necessary” unrelated to gender dysphoria or sex reassignment; rare cases of “medically verifiable disorder of sex development, including individuals born with ambiguous genitalia or chromosomal abnormalities resulting in ambiguity regarding the individual’s biological sex”; “partial androgen insensitivity syndrome”; or weaning off hormone replacement therapies that were underway before incarceration.

“Taxpayer dollars should not be used for procedures like this, and this legislation codifies that common-sense step,” Kemp declared just before signing the bill at a public event, WMAZ reported.

“A budget is a reflection of our priorities, and by voting red, we are signaling that our priorities lean more toward paying for sex reassignment surgeries than budget dollars for teachers, pre-K students and for law enforcement, which is why in my mind SB 185 is a common-sense piece of legislation for our constituents,” Republican state Rep. Scott Hilton said last month in the floor debate over the bill, WABE added.

In recent years, there has been growing concern around the world over placing men who claim to be women in female prison populations that has proved to be a means of both securing lighter treatment during incarceration and gaining easy access to women to prey upon. Transgender status also has the potential to be exploited to avoid incarceration entirely in some cases, as seen in Wales when a man who identified as a woman received a suspended sentence keeping him out of prison despite physically assaulting two partners within days of each other on the grounds that he would be “vulnerable” behind bars.

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Trump could recognize Palestine – media

US President Donald Trump could formally recognize the state of Palestine at the upcoming Gulf-US summit in Saudi Arabia, the news outlet Media Line has reported, citing unnamed diplomatic sources.

Palestine is recognized as a sovereign nation by 147 countries, including Russia and most nations in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. However, most Western European countries, Israel, and the US do not officially consider it a sovereign state. Many nations have called for its recognition as the only way to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, which escalated in 2023 when Israel launched a military operation in Gaza following a surprise Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 Israelis and saw 250 taken hostage.

“President Donald Trump will issue a declaration regarding the State of Palestine and American recognition of it, and that there will be the establishment of a Palestinian state without the presence of Hamas,” a Gulf diplomatic source, who declined to be named or disclose his position, told the outlet. The source also added that the announcement “will be the most important declaration that will change the balance of power in the Middle East.”

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Hungarian PM Orbán: Ukraine’s EU Membership Would Mean War in Europe

Hungary is standing its ground as the European Union’s globalist ‘leaders’ push forward with plans to fast-track Ukraine’s membership.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, perhaps President Trump’s closest allies in Europe, and key figures in the Hungarian government have issued their clearest and most urgent warning yet: admitting a war-torn Ukraine into the EU isn’t just reckless—it’s a one-way ticket to economic ruin, societal upheaval, and potentially full-blown war on European soil.

Hungary’s position isn’t new, but the stakes have never been higher. Prime Minister Orbán told public radio last Friday that Ukraine’s accession would amount to “economic suicide” for Europe. Speaking bluntly, he said the EU’s liberal leadership—led by corrupt, unelected Brussels bureaucrats like Ursula von der Leyen—is hurtling toward a catastrophe without consulting the people of Europe.

“As a neighboring country, we believe that if Ukraine is admitted to the European Union, it will mean war,” Orbán declared earlier this week at a conference of EU parliamentary speakers in Budapest. He reminded attendees that the EU has never accepted a country at war—and for good reason.

Hungary rejects Brussels’ obsession with endless military aid, calling instead for peace and realism. “The longer the war lasts, the more lives will be lost,” Orbán emphasized.

The prime minister’s sentiment was echoed by Máté Kocsis, leader of the Fidesz faction in Hungary’s National Assembly. “This will be an irreversible decision,” he said, adding: “One that will shape the fate of Hungarians for the next 100 to 150 years.”

Kocsis made it clear that Ukraine, as a country without a functioning democratic process, cannot be a legitimate candidate. “The minimum condition for accession talks is a democratic election,” he said. That requires peace—not more war.

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