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Saudi Arabia Bombs Yemeni Port, Claims Attack Targeted Weapons Bound for UAE-Backed Forces

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday bombed the southern Yemeni port city of Mukalla, claiming to target a weapons shipment bound for the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), which has taken territory from Saudi-backed forces in recent weeks. It’s unclear at this point if there were any casualties in the strikes.

Riyadh said it targeted an arms shipment after ships from the UAE arrived at the port. “The ships’ crew had disabled tracking devices aboard the vessels, and unloaded a large amount of weapons and combat vehicles in support of the Southern Transitional Council’s forces,” the Saudi military said in a statement, according to The Associated Press.

“Considering that the aforementioned weapons constitute an imminent threat, and an escalation that threatens peace and stability, the Coalition Air Force has conducted this morning a limited airstrike that targeted weapons and military vehicles offloaded from the two vessels in Mukalla,” the statement added.

The UAE’s Foreign Ministry denied the Saudi claims but said that it had shipped vehicles to its own forces in Yemen and that Riyadh was aware of the shipment. “The ministry confirms that the shipment concerned did not include any weapons, and that the vehicles unloaded were not intended for any Yemeni party, but were shipped for use by UAE forces operating in Yemen,” the ministry said.

The UAE’s Defense Ministry later announced that it was pulling troops out of Yemen. “The Ministry of Defense announces the termination of the remaining counterterrorism teams in Yemen,” the ministry said, according to The Cradle, adding that the move came “of its own volition, ensuring the safety of its personnel, and in coordination with relevant partners.”

The Saudi strikes demonstrate fractures among the Gulf powers and the anti-Houthi coalition in Yemen, which formed the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) back in 2022 when the Saudis gave up on their goal of re-installing former Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi in Sanaa, which has been under Houthi control since 2014.

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Marijuana Users Are Being Unjustly Jailed For Allegedly Driving Under The Influence, Government-Funded Study Shows

Laws aimed at preventing marijuana-impaired driving in almost 20 states are causing innocent people who show no signs of impairment to be criminalized and imprisoned for allegedly operating vehicles while under the influence, a new government-funded study shows.

Lawmakers and regulators aiming to reduce drug-impaired driving have long sought to apply a familiar strategy from alcohol enforcement: setting a numerical limit of THC in the bloodstream beyond which a driver is presumed to be impaired, commonly referred to as a “per se” amount.

But the new study suggests that approach may be badly misaligned with the science related to impairment from cannabis, the components and metabolites of which can remain in the body day or weeks after use—when impairment is no longer an issue.

“Many regular users of cannabis exceed zero tolerance and per se THC cutpoint concentrations days after their last use, risking legal consequences despite no evidence of impairment,” the study, which was published in the scientific journal Clinical Chemistry and partially funded by the National Institutes of Health and the State of California, found.

The findings echo earlier research showing weak or inconsistent links between THC blood levels and crash risk. Large epidemiological studies have found that while marijuana use may slightly increase collision risk, the effect is far smaller than that of alcohol use.

“One of the primary problems with using THC concentrations in per se legislation is that the pharmacokinetics of THC are much different from ethanol,” the researchers wrote.

The authors noted that alcohol generally cannot be detected 1 to 2 days after last ingestion, whereas THC can be measured up to 30 days after last use because of its lipophilic nature.

To generate the data, researchers studied 190 heavy consumers who were instructed to abstain for 48 hours. Following that several day period, the participants’ blood THC concentrations were measured both before and after cannabis consumption to establish baselines. They were also observed using a driving simulator.

“Current cannabis blood concentrations used to identify impaired drivers could land innocent people in jail,” the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine, which publishes the journal that the study appeared in, said in a press release.

“Cannabis blood limit laws lack scientific credibility and are not an accurate determinant of when drivers should face criminal charges or not.”

The authors of the study concluded that “more work needs to be done to address how to best identify drivers who are under the influence of cannabis and are unsafe to drive.”

“Despite evidence showing no correlation between the detection of THC in the blood and driving impairment, 6 states in the United States have per se laws using 2 or 5 ng/mL of THC as the cut-off point for driving under the influence of cannabis, while 12 have a zero-tolerance law,” the journal’s press release says.

The authors, affiliated with the University of California, San Diego and the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research cautioned that additional research is needed, saying “at present, the best protocol is a combination of observations in the field and toxicology testing.”

A separate study last year found “no support that marijuana legalization increased tolerant behaviors and attitudes toward driving after marijuana use.” Authored by researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Ohio State University, the study used data from a national traffic safety survey.

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Mystery as couple die during vacation to paradise Caribbean island – with family saying their deaths were not murder or suicide

A Canadian couple was mysteriously found dead while vacationing in a Caribbean paradise island for the holidays, according to a devastated family member.

The bodies of Alain Noël, 56, and Christine Sauvé, 55, were discovered inside their rented vacation home in Villa Riva, Dominican Republic, on the night of December 25, Gilles Sauvé Jr., Christine’s brother, wrote in a heartbreaking Facebook post. 

The husband and wife, who share two children together, traveled from their home in Gatineau, a city in Quebec, to the popular Caribbean hotspot. 

It is unclear when they arrived there and when they were due to return home, but according to Gilles, his sister and brother-in-law died in their sleep. 

‘It is with great sadness that I announce the deaths of my sister Christine Sauvé and my brother-in-law Alain Noël, occurred in their sleep, on the night of December 25th to 26th,’ he wrote in a Facebook post alongside a selfie of the pair. 

Their cause of death is unknown, but Gilles believes ‘there was absolutely no suicide or murder’, he told CTV News. 

‘They were a very respected family, very close-knit, a really good family. They were loved by everyone and were planning to retire in the Dominican Republic with their new house,’ Gilles added. 

He told the outlet his family has to wait 10 to 30 days to receive autopsy results and to have their bodies returned to Quebec. 

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14-year-old Texas girl disappears, becoming third missing Bexar County teen in just a week

A 14-year-old Texas girl vanished from her home on Monday — just days after missing teen Camila Mendoza Olmos disappeared near her home in the same city.

Sofia Gabriela Peters-Cobos, 14, hasn’t been seen since Monday evening when she left her home on Landon Ridge and Potranco Road in San Antonio around 7 p.m., the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office said.

She is the third Bexar County teen reported missing within a week.

On Christmas Eve, Olmos, 19, disappeared while taking an early morning walk. She was last seen close to her San Antonio home around 7 a.m.

A day later, on Christmas Day, the sheriff’s office also asked the public for help locating 17-year-old Angelique Johnson, who was last seen on Potranco Road.

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Hardworking boy, 17, died mysteriously while working at Nebraska hog farm owned by governor and run by his daughter… then officials frustrated his mom’s efforts to find out why

A teenager in Nebraska died under mysterious circumstances while working at a hog farm founded by the state’s governor and run by his daughter, with officials accused of neglecting a thorough investigation for his grieving mother.

Zach Panther, 17, was found dead six weeks after starting a job at Beaver Valley Pork farms in St. Edward, Nebraska – a tiny town with about 700 residents roughly two hours west of Omaha – last April 1.

The teen had been sealing cracks in a barn with chemical-laden spray foam before his supervisor found him on the floor, according to The New York Times.

Panther’s death was not seen by any other farm employees, and there were no signs of foul play.

Beaver Valley Pork is one of the hog operations linked to Pillen Family Farms, a family business that has owned or operated more than 100 farms across Nebraska.

The company was founded by state governor Jim Pillen in 1993. His daughter Sarah has been the co-chief executive of the business since January 2020, per her public LinkedIn profile.

Investigations by government agencies couldn’t determine how the 17-year-old died and were allegedly slowed down by mistakes and poor information sharing.

‘My son is dead,’ Justy Riggs-Panther, Zach’s mom, told the outlet. ‘There ought to be answers.’

After her son’s death, the sheriff and deputies from the Boone County Sheriff’s Office only allegedly examined the room where he died, and not much else.

The Nebraska farm allegedly blocked timely testing from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), while a recommended blood test for spray foam chemicals was also disrupted when the lab accidentally destroyed the usable sample.

Sarah Pillen, the co-CEO of Pillen Family Farms, said the company had ‘fully cooperated’ with the investigation into Zach’s death.

She told OSHA of Zach’s death when it happened, which was marked down in the call log by an agency employee with notes including ‘had been foaming’, ‘insulation’, ‘head injury’ and ‘poss[ible] medical episode.’

‘While we share the frustration that some of the issues which led to his passing remain unanswered, we understand those investigations have been closed, and there have been no safety violations attributable to the workplace,’ she told The New York Times.

However, Sarah Pillen was accused of refusing entry to an OSHA industrial hygienist who came to inspect the farm.

‘We simply requested that OSHA follow our established biosecurity protocols,’ she said.

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Heiress sparks new turn in Somali fraud scandal by speculating link to MURDER of Minnesota Democrat lawmaker

A Minnesota state senator has slammed actress and socialite Sara Foster after she linked the murder of Democrat lawmaker Melissa Hortman to the erupting Somali fraud probe. 

Hortman and her husband Mark were fatally shot in their Brooklyn Park home by suspect Vance Luther Boelter earlier this year.

Boelter allegedly planned to target 45 liberal lawmakers and abortion providers, according to police.

But Foster, the 44-year-old daughter of Canadian record producer David Foster, took to X on Saturday to suggest Hortman’s death is linked to investigations into alleged fraud in the Somali community in Minnesota.

Scrutiny over the state’s spending intensified this week after a viral video emerged showing an apparently empty daycare in Hennepin County which has allegedly received $4 million in taxpayers’ money. 

‘So are we just planning on pretending like her murder isn’t connected to the multi billion fraud scandal just uncovered? Mmmmkay,’ Foster wrote.

Foster wrote the comment alongside a video showing Hortman weeping after she had cast the lone Democratic vote in favor of repealing eligibility for undocumented adults to access MinnesotaCare just days before she was killed. 

Foster’s remarks were panned by Republican State Senator Julia Coleman, who shut down the ‘conspiracy theory’, stating ‘the fraud had nothing to do with the assassinations’.

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The Architecture of Extermination: Why the Gaza Genocide Is Premeditated and Repeatable

Suppose we accept the fiction that none of us expected Israel to launch a full-scale genocide in Gaza – a premeditated campaign to erase the Strip and exterminate a significant portion of its inhabitants. Let us pretend that nearly eighty years of relentless massacres were not a prelude to this moment, and that Israel had never before sought the physical destruction of the Palestinian people as outlined by the 1948 Genocide Convention.

If we go so far as to accept the sterile, ahistoric claim that the Nakba of 1948 was “merely” ethnic cleansing rather than genocide – ignoring the mass graves and the forced erasure of a civilization – we are still left with a terrifying reality. Having witnessed the unmasked extermination that began on October 7, 2023, who can dare to argue that its perpetrators lack the intent to repeat it?

The question itself is an act of charity, as it assumes the genocide has actually stopped. In reality, the carnage has merely shifted tactics. Since the implementation of the fragile ceasefire on October 10, Israel has killed over 400 Palestinians and wounded hundreds more. Others have perished in the frozen mud of their tents. They include infants like eight-month-old Fahar Abu Jazar, who, like others, froze to death. These are not mere tragedies; they are the inevitable results of a calculated Israeli policy of destruction targeting the most vulnerable.

During this two-year campaign of extermination, more than 20,000 Palestinian children were murdered, accounting for a staggering 30% of the total victims. This blood-soaked tally ignores the thousands of souls entrapped beneath the concrete wasteland of Gaza, and those currently being consumed by the silent killers of famine and engineered epidemics.

The horrifying statistics aside, we bear witness to the final agonies of a people. We have watched their extermination in real-time, broadcast to every handheld screen on earth. No one can claim ignorance; no one can claim innocence. Even now, we watch as 1.3 million Palestinians endure a precarious existence in tents ravaged by winter floods. We share the screams of mothers, the hollowed-out faces of broken fathers, and the haunted stares of children, and yet, the world’s political and moral institutions remain paralyzed.

If Israel resumes the full, unrestrained intensity of this genocide, will we stop it? I fear the answer is no, because the world refuses to dismantle the circumstances that permitted this slaughter in the first place. Israeli officials never bothered to hide their intent. The systematic dehumanization of Palestinians was a primary export of Israeli media, even as Western corporate outlets worked tirelessly to sanitize this criminal discourse.

The record of intent is undeniable. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir openly championed the “encouragement of migration” and demanded that “not an ounce of humanitarian aid” reach Gaza. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich argued that the starvation of two million people could be “just and moral” in the pursuit of military aims. From the halls of the Knesset to the pop charts, the refrain was the same: “erase Gaza,” “leave no one there.” When military leaders refer to an entire population as “human animals,” they are not using metaphors; they are issuing a license for extermination.

This was preceded by the hermetic siege – a decades-long experiment in human misery that began in 2006. Despite every Palestinian plea for the world to break this death grip, the blockade was allowed to persist. This was followed by successive wars targeting a besieged, impoverished population under the banner of ‘security,’ always shielded by the Western mantra of Israel’s ‘right to defend itself.’

In the dominant Western narrative, the Palestinian is the eternal aggressor. They are the occupied, the besieged, the dispossessed, and the stateless; yet they are expected to die quietly in the world’s ‘largest open-air prison‘. Whether they utilized armed resistance, threw rocks at tanks, or marched unarmed toward snipers, they were branded ‘terrorists’ and ‘militants’ whose very existence was framed as a threat to their occupier.

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‘Policies are totally unclear’: Judge berates Trump admin over its sharing of Medicaid data with ICE, but allows certain information to be given

The Trump administration may soon share certain Medicaid information about suspected undocumented immigrants with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal judge ruled.

In a 7-page order issued on Monday, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria found that sharing “citizenship and immigration status, address, phone number, date of birth, and Medicaid ID” is “clearly authorized by law” and that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sufficiently explained to the court why they made the “abrupt departure from their past policies of not sharing or using Medicaid data for immigration enforcement purposes.”

The agency had reasoned that President Donald Trump issued multiple executive orders demanding that agencies, among other things, carry out immigration laws and “secure our borders.”

Chhabria’s opinion is a victory for the administration to that end. Beginning on Jan. 6, DHS and HHS may share the data with ICE about suspected undocumented immigrants who receive public health insurance, opening up another avenue for immigration law enforcement officers to track down those they believe are here illegally. However, what data they can give is limited.

Chhabria, a Barack Obama appointee, was responding to a motion for a preliminary injunction filed by California Attorney General Rob Bonta on behalf of his state and 21 others, which sought to stop the sharing of additional information, which Chhabria granted.

Bonta and the other states filed a lawsuit on July 1, targeting HHS’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) handing over of “a trove of individuals’ protected health data” to other federal agencies, including DHS, “without their consent.” Chhabria proceeded to bar the administration from sharing Medicaid data “obtained from the plaintiff states for immigration enforcement purpose” while the case played out and the agencies explained their actions.

The judge determined the Trump administration may not share information beyond “basic biographical, location, and contact” because the federal government’s “new policies are totally unclear about what that information would be, why it would be needed for immigration enforcement purposes, and what the risks of sharing it with DHS would be.”

Such reasoning would rule out the government acting “arbitrarily” in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, the statute governing federal agencies’ behavior. And so while Chhabria opined in the recent order that DHS and HHS adequately explained their actions, allowing for the sharing of certain data, he also found that significant questions remain.

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US Reaches 30th Strike In Boat Bombing Campaign Ahead Of New Year

As the world gets ready to usher in a new year, the US military campaign against Venezuela has reached another grim milestone. American forces carried out their latest airstrike on a vessel accused of drug trafficking in Latin American waters on Monday.

The operation announced by US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) represents the 30th strike since the campaign began on September 2

The official US announcement indicated the boat was struck in the eastern Pacific Ocean – so the ‘other side’ opposite the Caribbean, which is certainly not the first in this area.

Officials claimed the strike resulted in the deaths of two individuals labeled as “narco-terrorists” – which has been used of the Trump administration to defend lethal actions at sea carried out without judicial proceedings, or so much as a warning.

Analysts have tallied that the number people killed by US military actions at sea connected to the Venezuela campaign has risen to 107 with this latest strike.

Meanwhile the NY Times has begun documenting the “Grim Evidence of Trump’s Airstrikes” which has “Washed Ashore a Colombian Peninsula”:

A thunderous boom rang out through the windless late-afternoon air. Seconds later, smoke began rising out of the sea as if the horizon were on fire.

Watching from the shore on Nov. 6, Erika Palacio Fernández whipped out her phone, she said, unwittingly recording the only verified and independent video known to date of the aftermath of an airstrike in the Trump administration’s campaign against what it calls “narco-terrorists.”

Two days later, on that same shore, a scorched 30-foot-long boat itself would wash up. Then, two mangled bodies. Then charred jerrycans, life jackets and dozens of packets that were observed by The New York Times and were similar to others that have been found after anti-narcotics operations in the region. Most packets were empty, though traces of a substance that looked and smelled like marijuana were found in the lining of a few.

A $30 million Reaper drone launched from a $1 billion navy frigate… all to take out a little wooden boat lined with marijuana packets?

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Biden-era rental assistance included payments to dead tenants and noncitizens, new HUD report reveals

A report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently revealed billions in taxpayer funds that went to “questionable” rental assistance recipients under former President Joe Biden.

The recipients included approximately 30,000 deceased tenants and thousands of potential non-citizens, according to a copy of HUD’s “Agency Financial Report” for fiscal year 2025 obtained by the New York Post.

HUD officials told the Post that a “large concentration” of the funds went to New York, California and Washington, D.C., with deceased recipients getting funds in all 50 states.

The department conducted an automation that compared a U.S. Treasury database to HUD’s records. The process uncovered 30,054 deceased tenants who were either actively enrolled in rental assistance programs or had received assistance after they passed, according to HUD’s report. The department found the possibly problematic payments through its own internal financial review and analytics, according to the report.

“A massive abuse of taxpayer dollars not only occurred under President Biden’s watch, but was effectively incentivized by his administration’s failure to implement strong financial controls resulting in billions worth of potential improper payments,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in a statement provided to the Post.

“HUD will continue investigating the shocking results and will take appropriate action to hold bad actors accountable,” he said. “Additionally, the Department is advancing efforts made under President Trump’s first administration to strengthen program integrity and ensure taxpayer-funded assistance serves the vulnerable communities it was intended for.”

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