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Europe Spent More on Russian Fuel in 2024 than Ukraine Aid

The European Union (EU) has been talking very tough about its unwavering and unlimited support for Ukraine since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous visit to the White House, but data published by an independent research organization shows the EU spent more on Russian oil and gas in 2024 than it spent on Ukraine.

The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a group opposed to burning fossil fuels, calculated that European nations spent $23 billion buying Russian fuel in 2024, compared to $19.6 billion in foreign aid provided to Ukraine.

EU spending on Russian fuel was down six percent from the previous year, but this was largely due to falling prices, since the volume of Russian product imported by the EU was only down by one percent.

CREA also found Russian oil sales to China, India, and Turkey booming, although its total fossil fuel revenue of $254 billion was down three percent from 2023. Russia’s “shadow fleet” of some 558 tankers moved 167 million metric tons of oil in defiance of price caps.

“Despite a host of sanctions, Russian revenues in the third year have dropped by a mere 8% compared to the year prior to the invasion of Ukraine,” the report noted. Furthermore, the effect of sanctions appears to be diminishing, largely due to Russia’s skill at using its shadow fleet to evade price restrictions.

CREA recommended “tighter sanctions” against Russia that could “slash Kremlin revenues” by up to 20 percent – but those sanctions would require the EU to break its addiction to Russian fuel. European purchases have declined greatly since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, but Europe still provides roughly a quarter of Russia’s fossil fuel export revenue.

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Judge blocks Trump’s order to end funding for hospitals providing youth gender-affirming care

Afederal judge in Baltimore on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order that pulled funding for hospitals and healthcare providers that do not stop providing gender-affirming treatments to people under the age of 19.

Trump signed the executive order in January, which threatened to withhold federal funding for hospitals and other healthcare providers nationwide that do not stop providing the gender-affirming care, which includes puberty blockers and hormone treatments.

Judge Brendan Hurson granted a preliminary injunction against the order on Tuesday, which will impact hospitals and healthcare providers nationwide. A previous order by a different judge only impacted four states, per the New York Times.

The case stems from a group of six transgender people between the ages of 12 and 18, and their parents and advocacy groups, who claimed that their access to treatment was threatened by two of Trump’s orders.

The second executive order directed federal agencies to ensure that grant funding for research does not support “gender ideology.” Trump’s administration has also stated the federal government would only recognize two genders.

“The Court cannot fathom discrimination more direct than the plain pronouncement of a policy resting on the premise that the group to which the policy is directed does not exist,” Hurson wrote in his order.

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Report: ICE Detains Venezuelan Colonel Accused of Torturing Dissidents

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained Rafael Jose Quero Silva, a Venezuelan ex-military official living in the U.S. accused of repressing and torturing students protesting against socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, El Nuevo Herald reported on Sunday.

Quero Silva, a former colonel in Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) and commander of GNB’s Detachment 47, was reportedly under FBI investigation on accusations of committing human rights violations against Venezuelan dissidents protesting the Maduro regime in the Venezuelan state of Lara between 2013 and 2017.

At the time of writing, ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System listed Quero Silva as in custody at ICE’s Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, Florida.

“Two victims reported him to the FBI. I also denounced him, I spoke with FBI agents and they were investigating him,” José Antonio Colina, a retired Venezuelan serviceman and political exile, told El Nuevo Herald, a Florida-based Spanish-language newspaper, on Sunday.

Colina, who leads a group known as Venezuelans Persecuted Politically in Exile (VEPPEX), said that Quero Silva moved to America with his wife and children and that “presumptively” his father-in-law also resides in the U.S. through an “investor’s visa.”

Colina further asserted that Quero Silva was subject to immigration proceedings. He added that he thought it was “pathetic” that an alleged human rights violator would “hide” in the United States after supporting the Venezuelan socialist regime.

Quero Silva moved to the U.S. and requested political asylum alongside his family at some point in 2017, Voice of America (VOA) reported on Monday citing Venezuelan news outlets. Venezuelan politicians and representatives of civil rights organizations accused Quero Silva repressing and torturing dissidents in the Venezuelan state of Lara during two waves of protests between 2013 and 2014.

Venezuela underwent a period of protests in mid-2013 after late dictator Hugo Chávez died from an undisclosed type of cancer in March 2013. Chávez’s death automatically prompted a snap election in April 2013 that current dictator Nicolás Maduro “won” by a roughly 1.5-percent vote difference. Prior to his death, Chávez appointed Maduro as his vice president in late 2012. This effectively allowed Maduro to assume the interim presidency of Venezuela from the moment of his predecessor’s death.

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Arizona Lawmakers Approve Psychedelics Bills To Create Psilocybin Advisory Board And Fund Ibogaine Research

Arizona lawmakers have approved two different bills focused on psychedelic therapy.

Senate passed a bill to create an advisory board tasked with studying the science of psilocybin, as well as state and federal policies surrounding the psychedelic, while the House separately approved a measure to fund clinical trials on ibogaine.

The Senate legislation from Sen. T. J. Shope (R) cleared the chamber in a 23-4 vote on Tuesday after it was significantly amended in committee, with members removing central provisions to establish licensed psilocybin service centers for adults seeking mental health treatment.

On the House side, the body advanced the ibogaine research legislation, sponsored by Rep. Justin Wilmeth (R), in a 36-22 vote on Monday, sending it to the Senate. It would provide funding for the state Department of Health Services (DHS) to “conduct a certified clinical research study on the use of ibogaine for the treatment of neurological diseases.”

An earlier version of Shope’s Senate psilocybin bill moved through both chambers last year with the regulated access components intact, but it was vetoed by the Democratic governor, who argued that “we do not yet have the evidence needed to support widespread clinical expansion.”

However, the year before, Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) signed into law budget legislation that included provisions to fund research into the medical potential of psilocybin mushrooms for a variety of conditions.

The new Senate-passed bill hopes to leverage some of those appropriated $5 million to create an Arizona Psilocybin Advisory Board, comprised of up to 12 members appointed by the governor and legislative leaders.

Representatives of the attorney general’s office and DHS, as well as military veterans, first responders, scientists with experience with psilocybin and physicians would be among the members.

Under the bill, the board would need to be selected by December 31, 2025, and they’d need to hold their first meeting by March 1, 2026.

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Minnesota’s COVID Snitch Line Exposed: Hundreds Turned in Neighbors for Going Outside!

In March 2020, the State of Minnesota opened a hotline for residents to report violations to Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, social distancing guidelines and lockdown directives.

Through a Freedom of Information Act request, Infowars has exclusively obtained over 950 emails and phone calls that were sent in to Minnesota’s violation tip line, showing busybody residents reporting others for using city parks, attending drive-thru church services, and indeed for merely walking on the sidewalk.

The emails illustrate how the fear instilled by the media and corporate establishment resulted in neighbors turning against one another, eagerly buying in hook, line and sinker to the largest psy-op campaign ever waged on humanity.

Below are just a few emails we’ve reviewed that show the extent to which many went along with Gov. Walz’s request.

Beware: These people live among you.

In one of the more incredible emails, a woman reported her own 18-year-old brother for “going back and forth…between houses.”

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Humans in Africa’s wet tropical forests 150 thousand years ago

Humans emerged across Africa shortly before 300 thousand years ago (ka)1,2,3. Although this pan-African evolutionary process implicates diverse environments in the human story, the role of tropical forests remains poorly understood. Here we report a clear association between late Middle Pleistocene material culture and a wet tropical forest in southern Côte d’Ivoire, a region of present-day rainforest. Twinned optically stimulated luminescence and electron spin resonance dating methods constrain the onset of human occupations at Bété I to around 150 ka, linking them with Homo sapiens. Plant wax biomarker, stable isotope, phytolith and pollen analyses of associated sediments all point to a wet forest environment. The results represent the oldest yet known clear association between humans and this habitat type. The secure attribution of stone tool assemblages with the wet forest environment demonstrates that Africa’s forests were not a major ecological barrier for H. sapiens as early as around 150 ka.

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Hours After Trump Paused All Arms To Ukraine, Zelensky Reportedly To Sign Minerals Deal Under ‘Trump’s Strong Leadership’

Is President Trump going to announce ‘mission accomplished’ on the Ukraine minerals deal during tonight’s speech before a joint session of Congress? A breaking Reuters headline strongly suggests this is the case:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and Ukraine plan to sign the much-debated minerals deal following a disastrous Oval Office meeting Friday in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was dismissed from the building, four people familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump has told his advisers that he wants to announce the agreement in his address to Congress Tuesday evening, three of the sources said, cautioning that the deal had yet to be signed and the situation could change.

But as we’ve seen in the last several days since Friday, a lot can happen in one afternoon. Zelensky gave an ‘almost apology’ on Tuesday (below), but not quite what the administration seems to be asking for.

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Hoping to revive mammoths, scientists create ‘woolly mice’

Scientists have genetically engineered mice with some key characteristics of an extinct animal that was far larger — the woolly mammoth.

This “woolly mouse” marks an important step toward achieving the researchers’ ultimate goal — bringing a woolly mammoth-like creature back from extinction, they say.

“For us, it’s an incredibly big deal,” says Beth Shapiro, chief science officer at Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas company trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth and other extinct species.

The company announced the creation of the woolly mice Tuesday in a news release and posted a scientific paper online detailing the achievement. Scientists implanted genetically modified embryos in female lab mice that gave birth to the first of the woolly pups in October.

“This is really validation that what we have in mind for our longer-term de-extinction project is really going to work,” Shapiro told NPR in an interview. The company says reviving extinct species like the mammoth, the dodo and others could help repair ecosystems. Critics, however, question whether de-extinction would be safe for the animals or environment.

Shapiro and her colleagues started by trying to identify the genes responsible for making mammoths distinctive. They compared ancient samples of genetic material from mammoths with genetic sequences of African and Asian elephants, the mammoth’s closest living relative.

These included long, woolly hair and a way of metabolizing fat that helped the animals survive well in the cold.

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Computer with 800,000 human neurons launches for $35,000

Australian company Cortical Labs launched the world’s first commercial biological computer made from human brain cells fused with silicon hardware.

As reported in New Atlas, the CL1 uses 800,000 lab-grown human neurons on electrode arrays to create dynamic neural networks that learn and adapt more quickly than traditional AI while using far less power. A full rack of CL1 units consumes only 850-1,000 watts, a fraction of what traditional AI requires.

Cortical Labs said in their launch statement, “Synthetic Biological Intelligence (SBI) is inherently more natural than AI, as it utilizes the same biological material – neurons – that underpin intelligence in living organisms.”

Each unit houses living brain tissue in what the team describes as a “body in a box … it has pumps to keep everything circulating, gas mixing, and of course temperature control,”explains Chief Scientific Officer Brett Kagan.

The system can be purchased for US$35,000 or accessed remotely through cloud-based “Wetware-as-a-Service.” Potential applications include drug discovery and robotic intelligence development.

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