Tag: technology

Retired Air Force General Who Led U.S. Military Research Lab That Develops Directed Energy Technology Goes Missing in New Mexico

A retired U.S. Air Force general was reported missing in New Mexico on Friday.

Retired Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, who previously commanded the Phillips Research Site at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, has been reported missing after being last seen on Friday at 11 a.m.

The Phillips Research Site at Kirtland Air Force Base is notable for its research into advanced space and directed-energy weapons technology.

The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, which is leading the search for McCasland, has issued a Silver Alert for his disappearance.

Per The New York Post:

A retired U.S. Air Force general was reported missing in New Mexico, with authorities warning that medical concerns have heightened fears for his safety.

Retired Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, 68, was last seen around 11 a.m. Friday near Quail Run Court NE in Albuquerque, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office said.

Officials said they do not know what McCasland was wearing or in which direction he may have traveled. The sheriff’s office has issued a Silver Alert. “Due to his medical issues, law enforcement is concerned for his safety,” the sheriff’s office said.

McCasland was a longtime leader at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico and previously commanded Kirtland’s Phillips Research Site and Air Force Research Laboratory.

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US Embassy in Saudi Arabia hit in suspected Iranian drone attack: reports

The US Embassy in Saudi Arabia’s capital city of Riyadh was damaged in a suspected Iranian drone attack Monday night.

The embassy was hit by two drones, “resulting in a limited fire and minor material damage to the building,” a spokesperson for the Saudi defense ministry wrote on X.

A loud blast was heard, and a small fire was seen at the embassy,  Reuters reported. 

“The U.S. Mission to Saudi Arabia has issued a shelter in place notification for Jeddah, Riyadh and Dhahran and are limiting non-essential travel to any military installations in the region,” a “security alert” posted by the Riyadh embassy on X read.

“We recommend American citizens in the Kingdom to shelter in place immediately.”

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FTC Says Companies Can Collect Kids’ Personal Data, As Long As It’s Called “Age Verification”

The FTC just told companies they can collect children’s personal data without parental consent, as long as it’s for “age verification.”

That’s the practical effect of a policy statement the agency issued this week. Under COPPA, websites collecting data on kids under 13 generally need verifiable parental consent first. The FTC’s new statement carves out an exception: gather whatever personal information you need to verify someone’s age, and the Commission won’t come after you for it.

The agency calls this child protection. The infrastructure it’s enabling looks different.

Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said “Age verification technologies are some of the most child-protective technologies to emerge in decades,” and framed the announcement as a tool for parents.

What the statement actually does is green-light personal data collection from minors, on the theory that knowing someone’s age requires knowing who they are first.

The exemption is conditional. To avoid enforcement, sites must delete age verification data “promptly” after use, restrict third-party sharing to vendors with adequate security assurances, post clear notices about what they’re collecting, and use methods likely to produce “reasonably accurate” results. These requirements are unverifiable by the people whose data gets collected, and enforced by an agency that just announced it won’t enforce.

COPPA supposedly exists precisely because children’s personal data is sensitive and companies can’t be trusted to protect it without legal pressure.

The FTC’s new exemption uses that same sensitive data as the price of admission for age verification, then steps back from enforcement. The agency is weakening the law’s protections in order to expand the infrastructure that the law was supposedly designed to regulate.

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‘My own employees … had downloaded software on my phone’: Kristi Noem claims Elon Musk helped expose spyware inside DHS

Though the Department of Homeland Security has achieved some success in deporting illegal aliens, it has always been met with resistance — both on the street and in the department itself.

In an interview with podcaster Patrick Bet-David this week, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem revealed the depth of some of the problems her department has been facing and the people who have helped her fight the alleged corruption.

“You wouldn’t even believe what I’ve found since I’ve been in this department,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said on the “PBD Podcast” this week.

“I just found the other day a whole room on this campus that was a secret SCIF — secure facility — that had files nobody knew existed. So we just happened to have an employee walk by a door and wonder what it was and started asking questions. We went in there. There was individuals working there that had secret files that nobody knew about on some of these most controversial topics.”

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Building Our Enemy: China Still Gobbling Up High-end Chips and Chip Forges

News flash to politicians and media: China is preparing for war. All-out kinetic, military war. The communist regime has already been engaged in what it calls “Unrestricted Warfare” — economic, social, and political offensives, espionage, propaganda, technological theft, cyberattacks, disinformation, critical infrastructure attacks, and more — in other words, all-out asymmetric warfare against the United States and the West. A bipartisan group of congressmen has sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick a letter urging the Trump administration to close critical gaps in U.S. export controls over semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) and more vigorously engage our allies to adopt similar restrictions on those technologies that threaten their and our security. That would seem to be a no-brainer since China’s phenomenal military expansion has been (and continues to be) built with U.S. technology.

China’s Massive Military Buildup

Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are dead serious. China’s September 3, 2025 “Victory Day” military parade in Tiananmen Square was the largest military display in CCP history and showcased a broad array of new advanced weapons systems: ICBMs, hypersonic anti-ship missiles, satellite hunter missiles, fighter jets, fourth-generation battle tanks, stealth attack drones, underwater attack drones, robotic wolves, and much more. (See full video of the parade here.)

It is no secret that Xi Jinping and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have been on a rapid, massive armament modernization and buildup for more than a decade. This has been especially notable regarding China’s navy, which now, in terms of quantity, is the largest in the world. (In 2024, the U.S. Department of Defense reported that China’s naval fleet numbered 332 vessels, compared to America’s 291). All of these advances are dependent on research and development (R&D), technology, materials, processes, education, and training provided by, or aided by, U.S. corporations and the U.S. government.

Allowing China to Leapfrog Us

In response to the Chinese buildup, President Donald Trump has called for an enormous military budget of $1.5 trillion for 2027, an increase of 50 percent over the $1 trillion 2025 budget. That includes a huge shipbuilding program and the launch of his “Golden Dome” missile defense system.

But if we continue providing Beijing with the cutting-edge technology that allows China to leapfrog over our latest weapons systems, we are trapping ourselves on a deadly treadmill that guarantees we will bankrupt America while giving the CCP eventual military dominance and global hegemony. We could spend $2 trillion, $3 trillion, or $4 trillion on new razzle-dazzle weapons systems, all to no avail if we then turn around and provide China with the technology to defeat those systems, as we have been doing for years. In 2021, TNA published a three-part article series on America’s suicidal technology transfers to China: China’s Tech War, China’s Chip Foundries Still Dependent on Foreign Tech Transfers, and China’s Brain: Made in USA. The evidence is crystal clear: Without the continuous treasonous transfers of American technology and know-how, Xi Jinping’s jaw-dropping hi-tech weapons systems would not exist. But the madness and treason continue.

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President Trump Directs Every Federal Agency to Cease Use of Anthropic After AI Company Refuses to Comply with Pentagon’s Demands

President Trump on Friday ordered every federal agency to cease use of Anthropic AI after the company refused to comply with the Pentagon’s demands.

“THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS! That decision belongs to YOUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our Military,” Trump said.

“The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution. Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY,” Trump said.

“Therefore, I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again! There will be a Six Month phase out period for Agencies like the Department of War who are using Anthropic’s products, at various levels. Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow,” Trump added.

“WE will decide the fate of our Country — NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump added.

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Epstein ALIVE? Conspiracy Theories Surge Over Fortnite Logs And ‘Fake’ Prison Pics

The Jeffrey Epstein scandal just keeps expanding and evolving. Recent document dumps have reignited wild theories that the convicted sex trafficker didn’t kill himself—or perhaps didn’t die at all. 

With rampant speculation that both Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were intelligence assets, controlled by a “supra government” above elected officials, many are arguing nothing in their case is beyond the realms of possibility.

As we previously highlighted, Epstein has an extensive gaming history, where his “littlestjeff1” Fortnite username sparked claims of post-death logins from Israel, amplifying the alive-and-kicking narrative. 

As we reported, Epic Games debunked the original account as a hoax rename, but the gaming angle persists as a gateway for deeper conspiracies.

Ben Swann highlighted this in a recent X video, diving into “a shocking theory based on Fortnite activity linked to him.” 

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Former Polish intel chiefs charged over ‘Israeli spyware’ use

The former directors of Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) and the Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW) have been charged for allegedly using Pegasus spyware, the national prosecutor’s office has announced.

After Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government took over in late 2023, it launched multiple inquiries into the alleged use of the controversial software developed by the Israeli-based NSO Group. The new authorities have claimed the program was widely used by the former Law and Justice (PiS) government to spy on opposition politicians. Former officials, however, have insisted the accusations are politically motivated.

The head of the ABW, Piotr Pogonowski, and the ex-chief of the SKW, Maciej Materka, are both now facing accusations of breaching their official duties, the prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday. The charges, which carry a penalty of up to three years behind bars, are related to the alleged use of Pegasus without proper clearance and “without checking whether this system meets the requirements of information protection,” the prosecution said. Both former officials have denied any wrongdoing and refused to testify, it noted.

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Germany Approves Major Package of Attack Drones for the Bundeswehr, With a Half a Billion Euro Initial Purchase

Kamikaze drones are the name of the game.

Today, news has arisen that the German armed forces will purchase a large number of attack drones, and the unusual aspect is that these drones are NOT meant to be sent to Kyiv’s regime, but rather to be destined for units of the Bundeswehr, instead.

DPA International reported:

“The German parliament’s budgetary committee has approved an initial €540 million ($640 million) for the purchase of kamikaze drones from German manufacturers Helsing and Stark Defense, dpa learnt on Wednesday.

The committee also set a limit of €1 billion and instructed the Defense Ministry to report back on the purchases before parliament grants approval for further purchases.”

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Sam Altman Fumes That It Takes Longer to Train a Human Than an AI, Plus They Eat All That Wasteful Food

AI leaders insist they’ve got humanity’s best interests in mind. If we’re to take them at their word, then we must say: they have a really unfortunate habit of sounding like they have nothing but contempt for the human race.

The latest case in point: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s tone-deaf comments at an event hosted by The Indian Express — made fresh off his skin-crawlingly awkward refusal to join hands with Anthropic’s Dario Amodei on stage with other industry titans — in which he attempted to downplay critiques of AI’s environmental impact. 

For starters, he called it “unfair” to compare the energy costs of training an AI model “to how much it costs a human to do one inference query.” That’s because, as Altman explains, “it also takes a lot of energy to train a human.”

“It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart,” Altman continued. “And not only that, it took the very widespread evolution of the 100 billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to figure out science and whatever, to produce you.”

Measured that way, “probably AI has already caught up on an energy efficiency basis” to humans, Altman said.

Altman also fumed against claims about AI’s water consumption.

“Water is totally fake,” he began, almost taunting quote-miners. “It used to be true, we used to do evaporative cooling in data centers.” 

“But now that we don’t do that,” Altman said, you still see claims like “‘don’t use ChatGPT, it’s 17 gallons of water for each query,’ or whatever.” 

“This is completely untrue and totally insane,” he asserted. “No connection to reality.”

No one can deny that humans are costly to bring up in our industrialized age. We should be doing everything realistically possible to bring down our CO2 emissions and stop eating so much meat — but we aren’t, for a number of dispiriting systemic reasons we won’t get into today.

Regardless, at least those costs are going towards keeping human civilization ticking. All the water in agriculture will keep someone fed, and the fossil fuels we burn will keep someone warm. 

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