Authored by Chris Summers via The Epoch Times,
The Swedish government has announced plans to reduce the age of criminal responsibility to 14 after dropping plans to lock up violent offenders as young as 13 in special prison units.
Authored by Cynthia Cai via The Epoch Times,
Authorities announced dozens of arrests, drug and firearm seizures, and thousands of dollars in cash confiscated in a large-scale operation targeting gangs in California's Central Valley.
The multi-agency effort, dubbed Operation Hands Down, served 43 search warrants at various locations throughout the San Joaquin Valley, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) stated in a June 10 press release.
More than 500 law enforcement members joined the operation, leading to 69 arrests and the confiscation of 73 guns, 55 pounds of methamphetamine, 3 pounds of cocaine, a small amount of powdered fentanyl, and nearly $165,000.
"This marked the culmination of a two-month undercover operation focusing on Mexican Mafia and Sureño gang members committing various crimes," the CDCR stated.
The arrests are expected to lower the amount of gang violence seen across the Central Valley, the department added.
Among those arrested was Stefan Coronado from Stockton, California, who was identified as a secretary for the Mexican Mafia, Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni said during a press conference.
Coronado allegedly oversaw criminal street gang activity within the Fresno County Jail from around 2023 to early 2026, including collecting taxes from inmates, facilitating communications between gang members, and acting as a Mexican mafia representative to influence the Sureño gang.
Police also arrested Eduardo Roberto Garcia, a suspect believed to be a high-ranking and influential Sureño gang member associated with the Mexican Mafia, who is now facing murder charges, Zanoni said.
Zanoni said Garcia is also being charged with assault in a previous case in which he allegedly attacked a female bartender in the city of Sanger and rendered her unconscious. The incident was captured on surveillance camera, according to Zanoni.
"It highlights the violent nature of Garcia and his gang activities," said Zanoni. "The investigation significantly disrupted organized Sureño criminal street gang activity throughout Central California while exposing the continued influence of the Mexican Mafia over both street-level criminal operations and violence occurring within our custodial facilities."
Additionally, eight Sureño gang members currently being held in the Fresno County Jail have been charged with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and gang enhancements for their alleged involvement in two separate stabbing attacks inside the facility, he said.
The operation also helped law enforcement uncover evidence related to previous cases in the Central Valley region, including a gang-related shooting, robberies, and a 2023 murder case.
During the operation, police detectives found gang members as young as 14 years old involved in illegal firearms sales across multiple counties.
"If you engage in violent criminal gang activity in California, we will come for you, and we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law," said Attorney General Rob Bonta at the press conference.
Bonta thanked federal and local law enforcement partners for collaborating on the operation.
The Fresno District Attorney's office stated that 15 cases have been filed so far in connection with the operation, involving suspects ranging in age from 15 to 42.
The charges include murder, attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, drug and firearm trafficking, illegal firearms possession, and sex offenses, according to Assistant District Attorney Steve Wright.
All suspects arrested as a result of Operation Hands Down are expected to appear in court as prosecutors proceed with their cases while their criminal charges are under review.
"This activity reached well beyond Fresno County and was a significant threat to all our communities," said Siddhartha Patel, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Sacramento Field Office. "This is a united effort, all of us. Today's announcement demonstrates the impact we can have when we work together."
Patel encouraged anyone who has information regarding gang activity to contact the FBI by visiting tips.fbi.gov or calling 1-800-225-5324.
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,
Then-National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins, around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, acknowledged that he secretly assisted with a paper stating the virus that causes COVID-19 "is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus," according to a newly released missive.
"This is work that Tony, Jeremy, Larry, and I helped with, but are appropriately not mentioned explicitly in the paper," Collins said in the March 6, 2020, email to NIH officials, which was released by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on June 11.
Tony refers to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime head of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases through late 2022. Jeremy refers to Jeremy Farrar, at the time the director of the Wellcome Trust. Larry refers to Dr. Lawrence Tabak, an NIH official.
Collins noted the conclusion that stated, "The analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered." SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
The first COVID-19 cases appeared in Wuhan, China, in 2019, near a laboratory that was conducting enhanced experiments on coronaviruses funded by the NIH.
Collins was responding to an email from Kristian Andersen, one of the authors of the paper, which was titled "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2." Andersen and other scientists said in the paper, published on March 17, 2020, in Nature Medicine, that they analyzed data and concluded that it came from nature.
To date, no natural source has been identified for the virus. The Trump administration maintains the virus came from the Wuhan lab.
The paper did not mention any contributions from Collins, Fauci, Tabak, or Farrar, who made at least one critical change to the document, according to emails released by lawmakers in 2023. It thanked American virologist Michael Farzan "for discussions" and the Wellcome Trust "for support." Nature did not return a request for comment by the time of publication. Collins did not respond to a request for comment.
Collins told lawmakers in 2024 that his role "was for information, not for me to edit," that he never edited or suggested edits to the paper, and that, to his knowledge, neither did Fauci or Farrar. He also said he is not a virology expert.
Britain’s minister for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn, delivers a warning to those who complain on social media about their stabbing or beheading. Minister Benn notes the danger created by people online sharing information from Belfast after two days of civic unrest in the city following a migrant stabbing and slicing a local resident.
The need for control is always a reaction to fear. Apparently, the government of Great Britain is very fearful.
“Social media companies have a very heavy responsibility. It’s why we’re going to bring forward new powers next week to make it clear that social media companies need to take down illegal content, particularly when we are facing circumstances such as the ones we’ve seen in Northern Ireland over the last two days”
The order comes after the Justice Department charged Guerrero Flores last year with ordering, directing, and facilitating acts of terrorism and violence in the United States and acting in concert with Cartel de Los Soles.
Gabbard's declassified revelation that U.S. has funded 120 bio-labs in 30 countries puts a definitive end to a years-long campaign to diminish the threat of an accidental release of pathogens from one of those locations, especially in war-torn Ukraine.
Back in 2022, then-former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard got blistered for raising concerns that the United States might be funding bio-research labs with dangerous pathogens in foreign countries like war-torn Ukraine.
Republican Mitt Romney – like Gabbard a former presidential candidate – accused her of spreading "treasonous lies" and "Russian propaganda," and many in the news media joined the chorus in a concerted effort to diminish the threat that U.S. tax dollars could one day lead to an accidental virus outbreak from one of those foreign labs.
Four years later, Gabbard turned the tables in epic fashion.
In one of her final acts as the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, she declassified evidence Friday showing that America did, in fact, fund a whopping 120 bio-labs in 30 foreign countries, and that some of those labs had handled dangerous pathogens or were engaged in virus-enhancing techniques known as gain-of-function research.
And yes, Ukraine was one of the locations with multiple labs.
"Despite the obvious potential for catastrophic global impact research on dangerous pathogens in bio-labs can have, politicians, so-called health professionals like Dr. [Anthony] Fauci, and entities within the Biden administration's national security team lied to the American people about the existence of U.S.-funded and supported bio-labs, and threatened those who attempted to expose the truth," Gabbard declared in a video released on her social media account.
The release of the declassified memos and video statement was more than just a retort to Romney: it was a rebuke to the journalism profession and its pack mentality coverage.
Numerous legacy media outlets, including The New York Times, long claimed that conservatives were pushing conspiracy theories relating to the funding of biological laboratories in other countries.
Some got the basic facts wrong. Others changed the argument, suggesting there was no reason for concern because tax dollars weren't going to bioweapon labs.
And nearly all missed or distorted Gabbard's factually driven point: whether for peaceful research or heinous weaponry, a biological lab with dangerous pathogens in a foreign country struck by terrorists or war, like Ukraine, posed an avoidable risk.
The documents released by Gabbard show that the labs in Ukraine were working with “Especially Dangerous Pathogens,” including some stored from the Soviet Era, including bacteria such as Anthrax, tuberculosis, SARS, Ebola, the plague, and others.
The labs were ostensibly for veterinary research, but documents released by Gabbard suggested that although one “facility had updated some areas with modern equipment and infrastructure, [The Institute of Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine] IECVM as recently as 2019, had at least some biosafety and biosecurity deficiencies—most notably in rooms handling contagious Brucella bacteria” which may result in life-threatening results.
If Russia gets to one of these labs, its research status won't matter, as the dangerous pathogens within could be used as biological weapons. The Wuhan Institute of Virology was researching coronaviruses and receiving U.S. funding at the exact time and place where the COVID pandemic began.
The revelation won widespread praise for Gabbard.
"This is a historic declassification by DNI Gabbard. Ty! Another 'conspiracy theory' proved true," Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., tweeted out.
Dr. Robert Malone, one of the pioneers of the MRNA vaccine, cheered the revelation too.
"In March 0222 [sic], I wrote about the Ukraine biolabs- I was labeled as spreading misinformation by various news sources. Today, Tulsi Gabbard released the hard evidence that I had uncovered in 2022 - there were many, many biolabs in Ukraine," he wrote.
The bio-labs roller coaster of 2022 is another textbook case of a censorship campaign that tried to portray a legitimate debate as Russian propaganda, just like the Hunter Biden laptop of 2019.
In March 2022, the New York Times published two articles downplaying the idea that the U.S. was funding biological weapons labs in other countries, including Ukraine. “One of Russia’s most incendiary disinformation campaigns ramped up days ago, when its defense and foreign ministries issued statements falsely claiming that the Pentagon was financing biological weapons labs in Ukraine,” the Times began the March 10, 2022, article.
The story quoted then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki – now an MS NOW host – saying that Russia made “false claims” that could be a cover “for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them.”
Psaki went on to call the accusations “preposterous” and claimed that the U.S. “does not develop or possess such weapons anywhere.” The Times paraphrased Psaki as saying “Ukraine has no biological weapons labs” and stated that “Top American intelligence officials reiterated those points in a Senate hearing on Thursday.”
On March 11, 2022, the Times ran a second article on the bio-labs, stating: "There is no evidence to support the claims, which President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department have all unequivocally denied.”
In this article, the Times reported that Ukraine does have biological laboratories, and that the U.S. “has provided backing” to some of those labs, but insisted it was to “prevent the production of biological weapons.” (Emphasis original.)
In the press release revealing the U.S.’s funding of bio-labs, DNI said that many of the “U.S. government-funded bio-labs are currently or have previously engaged in research using hazardous and highly contagious pathogens, in some cases including dangerous Gain-of-Function research, with very little visibility or oversight.”
The Times followed up its March coverage with another article in September calling the bio-lab funding accusations “outlandish.”
“The United States and others have dismissed the accusations as preposterous, and Russia has offered no proof. Yet the claims continue to circulate. Backed at times by China’s diplomats and state media, they have ebbed and flowed in international news reports, fueling conspiracy theories that linger online,” the Times wrote.
NewsGuard, a left-wing “fact-checker” business entity claiming to be a “global leader in information reliability,” called the story “Russian disinformation” and accused Chinese state-run news organizations of spreading that disinformation. The Federal Trade Commission had at one point issued a civil investigative demand (CID) to probe NewsGuard, which was accused widely of publishing ratings that commission leadership and thousands of readers believed were biased against conservative outlets. NewsGuard sued the FTC in federal court and on April 17, the FTC withdrew the case.
NPR also ran a story titled, “How the false Russian biolab story came to circulate among the U.S. far right,” claiming, along with the Times, that then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson falsely made the claim about the bio-labs.
The Times and other outlets claimed that conservatives were misrepresenting what Biden administration officials said in congressional hearings and interviews, including an interview in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists with Dr. Robert Pope, former director of the Pentagon’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Pope said that none of the biological labs in Ukraine have “any of the sort of infrastructure for researching or producing biological weapons.”
Disgraced Democrat Hillary Clinton is continuing to perpetuate an old lie pushed by liberals to prevent election security.
“They’re trying to kick people off of voter rolls,” Clinton said of Republicans promoting basic election integrity measures. “They’re trying to demand…you know…forms of identification most real people don’t have, and most older people, and most rural people don’t have. They are certainly redistricting to make it difficult to elect black representatives or Latino representatives or Democrats. So, that means that we have to be even more intentional in showing up and voting.”
So most “real people” (whatever that means) don’t have a REAL ID driver’s license or a passport? Military IDs are also acceptable forms of identification as described by the SAVE Act, so are our service members also not “real people?” Approximately half of all Americans maintain a valid passport, but Clinton apparently doesn’t recognize these individuals as “real people.”
And what about rural folks? It’s the same line of reasoning that political-failure Kamala Harris used in an attempt to discredit election security measures, saying that it would be “almost impossible” for those who choose not to live in urban hellscapes to find a way to scan their ID to prove their identity. Somehow, the people who are generally the most self-sufficient in America are inexplicably incapable of accomplishing the most basic tasks.
Text to Speech
For those following NewsBusters’ coverage of the defamation cases brought against CNN (successful) and the Associated Press (on-going) by Navy veteran Zachary Young, one name should be familiar: Charles D. Tobin. A lawyer with Ballard Spahr, Tobin was part of the legal team that represented CNN and then the AP. As with the nature of defamation cases, both hinged on words and their interpretations. Tobin’s arguments before Florida’s First District Court of Appeal have repeatedly shown an aversion to holding the media to objective definitions.
In the CNN case, the phrase “black market” was one of the contentious points Young successfully argued were defamatory against him. In an unsuccessful April 2024 appeal to the 1st DCA to overturn a ruling allowing Young to seek punitive damages, Tobin argued that a subjective use of the phrase be adopted (emphasis added):
Here, we're on a question of actual malice, express malice, and outrageous conduct measured by objective standards. Under that criteria, your honor, regardless of what the meaning may be in the dictionary, which is an objective definition. What plaintiff needed to show is that subjectively CNN intended that meaning, otherwise there is no facts in the record to give rise to a reasonable jury question about actual [malice].
“So, these are lawyers and professional writers that, you know, are used to dealing with words and have dictionaries and know how precise – what words mean?” pressed Judge L. Clayton Roberts.
Judge Thomas D. Winokur drilled down on the dictionary definition of “black market.” Tobin suggested it was simply just a “poor choice of words”:
WINOKUR: I hate to keep harping on this, but none of those things describe what could be commonly referred to as “black market.” I see Judge Roberts's point that “black market” clearly implies dictionary definition or otherwise, an illegal exchange of goods.
TOBIN: Your honor.
WINOKUR: That has nothing to do with those other descriptions in the chyron.
TOBIN: If it was a poor choice of words, your honor, and at best, we argue that it was at best a poor choice of words, your honor. That may have an impact on the rest of this case below under negligent standard, actual malice.
Spencer Pratt, the registered Republican Los Angeles mayoral candidate who was heading for a runoff until loads of questionable ballots surfaced days after the election, says that the fire this week at his office was no accidentThe fire, which occurred at Pratt’s crystals company office in the Pacific Palisades on Thursday afternoon, is under investigation for “suspicious” circumstances, and Pratt himself certainly believes that it was the result of deliberate action:
The New York Post reported:
The Los Angeles mayoral candidate confirmed that the office, located inside the Highlands Circle complex at 1515 Palisades Dr., belonged to him.
The Los Angeles Fire Department’s Arson Unit was notified, and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Related: L.A. Homeless Say They Got $2-$5 to Vote for Bass, Describe Regular Vote Harvests
Pratt told the Post, “I want to be careful to not compromise an arson investigation, but this incident is very suspicious.” He added, “I will wait for the investigators to make public the details, but this was no accident, and the timing of this…on the heels of all of the contentious election tomfoolery of the last two weeks, it is very suspect, indeed.”
On Friday, Pratt released a video declaring that he would not accept the suspicious election results without putting in another fight. He announced that he had dirt on Democrat Mayor Karen Bass and socialist Councilwoman Nithya Raman so serious that he anticipated the FBI would be investigating them once he released it. “It's war. It's zero hour for Los Angeles,” he shouted.
And he ended his video with a statement that transitioned into a movie line: “Well, now we're flipping the script. I want all of you awake at night sweating and worried about 5:00 a.m. [men] in FBI blazers busting in the door, breaking open your office, because I assure you, they're coming. You think your election was gonna stop me? If you wanna stop me, ‘You’re gonna have to f*****g kill me!!’” Perhaps the video was partly defiant against whomever the arsonists were. But since it seems someone is out to hurt him, if not kill him, Pratt certainly needs to watch his back.
Under the rule of Bass and Raman and their fellow Dems, a massive fire that disastrous decision-makingfrom politicians fueled burned down a huge part of the city’s residential areas, while government corruption and misuse of taxpayer funds have gone completely out of control. “Weeds growing from every crack and crevice, graffiti over every square inch of public space, garbage, drugs, feces, burned up dogs, burned down pounds, abandoned storefronts,” as Pratt said.
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