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Pollution from Musk’s unpermitted xAI power project hits hardest in Black communities

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has installed 59 natural gas turbines for its Colossus 2 data center project in Tennessee without securing federal clean air permits, according to communications between regulators and xAI representatives.

Potential emissions from the turbines are far beyond the threshold that would require a federal permit, and would be released near predominantly Black communities already estimated to be suffering disproportionately high rates of lung disease, according to a Reuters analysis based on government data and information in the correspondence with regulators.

The findings, which have not been previously reported, reflect how exploding electricity demand from AI data centers is driving companies to build off-grid power plants at a pace outstripping environmental oversight, with potentially big risks to public health.

The number of unpermitted turbines identified by Reuters is about double what xAI has publicly acknowledged. The company previously said it was running 27 unpermitted turbines for Colossus 2 as of January and has argued the permits are not required. At least 57 of the 59 turbines are located in Mississippi, just over the state line from Tennessee where the data center is located.

The xAI turbines are among scores of off-grid power plants for data centers proposed or under construction around the country. Local authorities often fast-track approvals in just weeks or months, without the years of environmental studies and public hearings typically required for such power generation projects that connect to the grid, Reuters has reported.

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A Budget of the Pentagon, By the Congress, and For the War Profiteers

The first sentence of Thomas Paine’s classic 1776 essay, Common Sense, urged the American people to challenge the legitimacy of the English Crown, something that had never been challenged before. He wrote:

“Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them a great favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”

Two hundred and fifty years later, time and reason strongly suggest that the U.S. “defense” budget is out of control, unsustainable and absent of accountability.

Only the American people can rein it in.

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A Kiss in Indonesia and Its Aftermath Reveal the Heart and Soul of Islam

A kiss is still a kiss, as the old song goes, but in Indonesia’s Aceh province, it’s going to cost you. Not in terms of money, but in terms of the skin off your back. A young couple in Aceh just found that out after they shared a kiss on a TikTok stream, and found themselves hauled before a Sharia court and charged with violating the rules of modesty and the proper decorum that is to be maintained between an unmarried man and woman.

For that, they were each sentenced to 21 lashes, and the sentence was recently carried out before a gaping crowd of righteously indignant Sharia-adherent Muslims who know now never, ever to livestream a kiss. And so once again we see the true heart and soul of Islam: terror. While Muslim and non-Muslim Islamic apologists in the West continue to insist that the true Islam is benign and cuddly, and that terrorism is only a tiny minority of extremists’ “hijacking” of the religion, in reality, terror is at the very center of Islam. This latest caning in Aceh shows that anew.

The South China Morning Post reported Friday that “as each blow landed on their backs, the unnamed man, 22, and woman, 25, visibly grimaced. The woman later burst into tears, wailing in pain as the public punishment continued.” The Post noted that video of the canings had kicked up the usual firestorm: “It was far from the first such case to gain international attention and the response has become familiar: footage spreads online, rights groups condemn the punishment as inhumane and Aceh’s status as the Muslim-majority country’s sole sharia-enforcing province is thrust back into the spotlight.”

Yes indeed: “In a statement issued the same day as the flogging, Amnesty International said all forms of corporal punishment constituted torture or other ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment,’ while its co-regional director, Montse Ferrer, called the caning of the couple ‘a horrifying act of discrimination.’”

In Aceh, however, they simply don’t care: “Nurjani, a 62-year-old housewife in Banda Aceh, said she supported caning because it ‘was about religion’ and in line with sharia law.” She explained: “If you do not do anything wrong, then there is nothing to fear. I support caning and I believe that if you lead your life in the right way and walk the right path, no one will question you.” Another Aceh resident, Muhammad Nasir, agreed, saying: “If someone is caned, it will be a lesson for them so that they do not do the same thing again. It has a physical element to it, but it is mostly social and designed to make the person ashamed of their crimes.”

Yes, and more than just ashamed: terrified. The caning is designed to make people afraid to violate Allah’s law again. People who have been caned in Indonesia have ended up collapsing and being hospitalized. If you don’t want to end up permanently injured, or at very least to suffer agonizing pain in front of a crowd that has gathered to watch you suffer, then don’t kiss a girl on TikTok.

This has nothing to do with virtue, the idea of choosing to do what is good because it is good. This is all about fear from the beginning to the end. The Qur’an tells Muslims to “strike terror in the enemies of Allah” (8:60), and lest any of Allah’s obedient slaves are tempted to violate his law and thus become his enemies as well, they get terrorized, too.

Muslim women live in terror of Muslim men, who have Allah’s standing permission to beat them if they “fear disobedience” from them (Qur’an 4:34). In an Islamic state, Non-Muslims, both women and men, live in fear of Muslims, for their lives could be taken in an instant simply for a false charge of blasphemy, and even in the best of times, they have to live in subjugation and degradation, always subjected to discrimination and harassment at the hands of the Muslims.

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The West Won’t Punish the Settlements. Its Two-State Solution Was Always a Sham

If I asked you to cut off your arm, would you do it?

What if I pointed out that that your arm regularly punched a neighbor in the face so violently that it broke their nose and teeth, and left them unconscious? Would you cut your arm off then?

I’m guessing the answer to both questions is a firm, “No.”

Which is exactly why the European Union, Britain and the United States have precisely no intention of severing their support for Israel’s illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, however violent the Jewish colonizers who live on stolen Palestinian land prove to be.

For decades, settler militias – backed by Israeli soldiers – have beaten up Palestinians, shot them, poisoned their wells, chopped down their olive groves, torched their homes, all in an attempt to ethnically cleanse them from their historic homeland.

The relentless expansion of these illegal settlements has left any hope of a two-state solution in tatters. The West Bank is now an archipelago of Palestinian villages and towns isolated from one another by marauding violent settlers, apartheid roads only for Jews, steel and concrete barriers, and army checkpoints.

All of this has happened in full view of western states over many decades. The International Court of Justice, the world’s highest court, ruled back in 2004 – nearly a quarter of a century ago – that these Jewish settlements violated international law and needed to be dismantled.

It reiterated that demand in a decision two years ago in which it identified Israel as an apartheid state ruling over Palestinians. It warned states to “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assists in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory”.

And yet the West has done nothing meaningful year after year as the settlements have stolen more land from Palestinians, made their lives there ever more miserable, and trashed any chance of the West’s supposed ambition of two states living alongside each other.

Remember this when Israel’s apologists tell you to wait for the same court’s definitive ruling – in a year or two, or maybe three – on what it deemed in early 2024 to be a “plausible” genocide in Gaza, just three months into Israel’s mass slaughter there.

Not only will any such ruling be far too late to make any difference to the victims of the genocide, but the US, Britain and Europe will do precisely no more to punish Israel for this crime of crimes – one we can see for ourselves without an ICJ ruling – than they have done in punishing Israel for the settlements.

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Federal Judge Makes Unprecedented Move In Maduro Torture Case

Well, here’s something that doesn’t happen too often.  

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles in Miami awarded $314 million in damages to three U.S. citizens who were imprisoned and tortured by Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela before being freed in a 2023 prisoner swap.

The three men were Jerrel Kenemore, a Texas computer scientist who’d moved to neighboring Colombia to be with a woman he met. He was kidnapped by paramilitaries in 2022 while visiting a grocery store near the Venezuela-Colombia border and held for over 600 days before being charged with “espionage” and “counterintelligence activities.” He claims he was beaten, held in harsh conditions, and degraded constantly. 

Edgar Jose Marval was detained for just over 120 days, but allegedly suffered the most abuse. He was beaten repeatedly until his back was broken, had his genitals electrocuted, and was tortured psychologically with made-up threats to his children. Jason Saad, the third hostage, was detained for 560 days and was subjected to similar treatment, but we don’t have quite as many details on him.   

If you’ll remember, Joe Biden handed Alex Saab — Maduro’s bagman — over in exchange for these Americans. While I’m glad they did make it back to the United States safely, I’d like to remind everyone that Donald Trump brought every single remaining U.S. hostage back home from Venezuela about a year ago, with the help of El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and made no concessions to Maduro. As a matter of fact, six months later, he scooped him up and put him in jail. But I digress. 

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Texas Teens Charged with Tossing High School Swimmer’s Clothes and Phone After Fatal Jump from Railway Bridge

Two teenagers in Texas have been arrested and charged with tossing the clothes and deleting cell phone evidence after the accidental drowning death of their friend and swim team member.

18-year-old Daniel Erving and two of his friends jumped from a railway bridge into Lake Ray Hubbard in the eastern suburbs of Dallas.

Only Erving did not survive the jump. His body was discovered three days later and ruled an accidental death by the coroner.

Erving’s two friends, 19-year-old Lucas Roper and a 17-year-old juvenile suspect, have been charged with tampering with physical evidence after failing to report Erving’s death and disposing of his clothes and cell phone.

Tampering with physical evidence is a third-degree felony in Texas.

An arrest affidavit reviewed by ABC News claims that after Erving drowned, Roper and the juvenile fled the scene. In addition, Roper is accused of throwing Erving’s clothing into some trees near the bridge.

At Roper’s insistence, the juvenile threw Erving’s cellphone from their vehicle.

The affidavit states that Roper deleted messages from his deceased friend’s phone because he “was aware that there would be an investigation into Daniel Erving’s death and he did not want to get into trouble.”

Detectives report that when interviewed, Roper admitted to panicking after Erving’s death.

In addition to being a member of the swim team, Erving was also an honor roll student.

The case remains under investigation.

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Brian Hooker’s paper showing vaccines increase mortality was REMOVED from preprints.org

They censored this paper as a danger to public safety. This means they know the paper is incorrect and can explain the observed data. But they are keeping their analysis a secret. From everyone, including the authors.

So Karl wrote the entire advisory board. Only ONE member bothered to respond with the reasoning. The rest ghosted him.

But the BIG problem is that the “reasoning” does not EXPLAIN what the study observed. At all. We are left clueless. If the vaccines didn’t increase the mortality, then what did? All we have is COMPLETE SILENCE.

In this article I’ll post what the Advisory Board member wrote and what I wrote back.

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Study: This Ancient Remedy May Outperform Modern Eye Drops

Long before artificial tears filled pharmacy shelves, people used honey to treat wounds, burns, and infections because of its strong antimicrobial and tissue-repair properties. Now, researchers in Madrid have brought that ancient remedy into modern ophthalmology, testing whether Manuka honey eye drops could outperform the standard treatment given to patients recovering from cataract surgery.1

Dry eye disease affects a large share of adults worldwide and an even greater proportion of older populations. Cataract surgery, despite its reputation for restoring crisp vision, frequently leaves patients with burning, gritty, watery eyes that struggle with reading, screens, and bright light. For a meaningful portion of patients, that discomfort lingers for months.

Standard care typically relies on lubricating drops, steroids, and anti-inflammatory medications. These add moisture but do little to repair the damaged ocular surface driving the irritation in the first place. That’s where Manuka honey appears to behave differently.

Rather than simply wetting the eye, it seems to address the underlying problem, calming inflammation, supporting tissue repair, and protecting vulnerable tissue from microbial stress all at once. The Spanish trial put that idea to a direct test, and the results were notable enough to help explain why this old folk remedy is suddenly drawing serious scientific attention.

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Transgender DSA Member and Former AZ Democratic Party Vice Chair Arrested After Allegedly Breaking into Home Wielding Knife and Duct Tape – Claims He Was Roleplaying

A former Arizona congressional candidate and ex-Democratic Party leader was arrested last week on charges of felony burglary at an ex-partner’s home. 

The suspect, Brianna Westbrook, has run for federal and state offices, including a failed 2018 bid for US Congress and losses in Democratic primaries for the Arizona State Senate and Arizona House of Representatives in 2018 and 2022.

According to ballotready.org, Westbrook’s professional experience includes serving as the Southwest Regional Co-Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America Immigrant Rights National Working Group from 2019 to the present, and a past stint as Arizona Democratic Party Vice Chair from 2019 to 2021.

Westbrook was reportedly arrested after a former partner told the police that Westbrook allegedly “pushed her way” into the victim’s home, while carrying a knife and duct tape, according to 12 News Phoenix.

Following a struggle inside the home, Westbrook reportedly threatened the victim and another individual inside the home before Westbrook reportedly “took off running,” according to records.

According to court documents, officers found “a knife, tape, and gloves” after conducting a search.

Westbrook, however, told police it was a “big misunderstanding” and that they were acting out a role-playing scene, which the victim has denied.

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REPORT: Russia Intercepts Western AI Drones Smuggled for Deep Strikes on Military Bases

Russian security forces have seized a cache of Western-manufactured, artificial intelligence-guided drones that were allegedly smuggled into the country for planned attacks on remote military aviation bases in the Ural Mountains and the Far East.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) announced Monday that operatives intercepted the hardware before it could reach the Shagol air base in the Chelyabinsk region and the Ukrainka air base in the Amur region. Several individuals involved in the transit operation have been detained.

Covert Smuggling Operation

According to the FSB, the drones first entered Russian territory using balloons and larger fixed-wing unmanned aircraft, landing in the Bryansk border region. Smugglers then concealed the devices inside specially modified trailers equipped with false bottoms, transporting them across the country disguised as shipments of household appliances, reported Sputnik.

AI-Guided Strike Capabilities

Russian authorities stated that the confiscated drones originated from the United States, Britain, Canada, and Sweden. Each unit was armed with more than one kilogram of explosives and featured advanced AI navigation systems engineered to evade Russian electronic warfare and signal-jamming networks.

Parallel to Ukrainian Tactics

The intercepted plot bears similarities to a 2025 Ukrainian operation known as “Spider’s Web,” in which trucks with retractable wooden roofs were used to transport and launch drones. That campaign reportedly damaged around 20 aircraft and successfully struck the Ukrainka base.

In recent months, Kyiv has intensified long-range strikes on Russian defense enterprises and energy infrastructure located deep inside the country. These attacks have taken major oil refineries offline, contributing to widespread fuel shortages.

Kremlin Accuses West of EscalationI

n response to the expanding reach of Ukrainian deep-strike operations, Moscow has sharpened its accusations against Western nations, claiming they are directly enabling the attacks.

Last week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declared that Western support for Ukraine had transformed Russia’s “special military operation” into a full-scale war.

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