Trump admin acts after massive fraud uncovered at agency Dems tried to shield
Following the uncovering of a massive bribery scandal at USAID, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is ordering a full audit of all government contracting officers who have exercised grant-awarding authority under the agency’s business development program over the last 15 years.
In a letter obtained by Fox News Digital, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said the scale of the USAID fraud is a “damning reflection of systemic failures in oversight and accountability.” She further said that the fraud “was not an isolated incident.”
In response, Loeffler instructed Associate Administrator Tre Pennie, who oversees government contracts awarded by SBA, to “act decisively” to crack down on any potential similar abuses in the agency.
Loeffler instructed Pennie to immediately initiate a full-scale audit of the agency’s awarding officers back to 2010.
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“The role of federal government contracting officers is not ceremonial or self-dealing; rather, it is a position of immense authority and fiduciary responsibility,” said Loeffler. “The contracting process must be transparent and built on merit, not personal gain.”
This comes after USAID, an agency tasked with administering civilian foreign aid, was essentially dismantled by the DOGE waste, fraud and abuse cuts made under Elon Musk and President Donald Trump. The move was met with massive protests from Democrats who claimed that cutting USAID would impoverish and harm recipients across the globe.
Despite claims of how much good the agency was doing, it was recently discovered that an influential contracting officer at USAID named Roderick Watson was able to carry out a massive, long-term bribery scheme dating all the way back to 2013.
Watson, 57, pleaded guilty to “bribery of a public official,” according to a DOJ press release.
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According to the DOJ, Watson sold his influence starting in 2013, with contractors Walter Barnes, owner of Vistant, and Darryl Britt, owner of Apprio, funneling payoffs through subcontractor Paul Young to hide their tracks.
A DOJ press release said that Britt and Barnes “regularly funneled bribes to Watson, including cash, laptops, thousands of dollars in tickets to a suite at an NBA game, a country club wedding, downpayments on two residential mortgages, cellular phones, and jobs for relatives. The bribes were also often concealed through electronic bank transfers falsely listing Watson on payroll, incorporated shell companies, and false invoices.”
The statement said that Watson is alleged to have received bribes “valued at more than approximately $1 million as part of the scheme.”
Vistant was awarded in November 2023, as part of a joint venture, a contract worth up to $800 million with one of the focuses of that contract being to address “a variety of issues affecting the root causes of irregular migration from Central America to the United States,” an issue that President Joe Biden tasked then-Vice President Kamala Harris with during his presidency.
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Several days later, that contract was canceled after USAID published a notice that said Vistant was excluded from government contracting due to “evidence of conduct of a lack of business honesty or integrity.”
The joint venture then successfully sued the government over being put on that exclusion list and was re-awarded the contract and given a $10,000 payment in August 2024.
In her letter, Loeffler said the USAID scandal “represents a collapse in the very safeguards that are supposed to protect American taxpayer dollars and ensure fair access for legitimate small businesses.”
She slammed the Biden administration for awarding the $800 million contract to Vistant despite the business being labeled by USAID as lacking “honesty and integrity.”
“The fact that a federal official was able to act as the linchpin of a persistent, large-scale fraud operation speaks to a failure in internal controls and a breakdown in the contracting environment that demands immediate correction,” said Loeffler.
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She said that SBA plays a “critical role” in federal contracting and “will no longer stand by while abuses are perpetrated at the expense of taxpayers and deserving small businesses.”
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Loeffler said the agency’s audit will begin with high-dollar and limited competition contracts within SBA’s 8(a) business development program. The findings will be referred to the U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the DOJ.
Any officials or businesses found in violation of the SBA’s ethical standards or who have committed criminal misconduct will be referred to the appropriate authorities and SBA will assist the DOJ in recovering misappropriated funds, Loeffler said.
“We will not allow public trust to be quietly eroded by backdoor deals and unchecked discretion,” said Loeffler.
“We owe it to America’s small businesses to get this right,” she went on. “Your office has the authority, and now the mandate, to act decisively.”
New terrorism threat targeting American food supply emerges after COVID disaster: expert
In light of the arrests of two Chinese nationals who are accused of smuggling a crop-killing fungus across the border, one expert warns that agroterrorism from foreign adversaries could cause a “severe disruption” to the United States.
“Agroterrorism is any attempt to bring items into the United States intentionally that would impact our food supply,” Kristofor Healey told Fox News Digital. “So this would be biological organisms like we saw in this case in Michigan. A specific lab-grown organism that is intended to attack items that are key to our agricultural survival as a nation.”
Healey worked for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for 15 years, first in an immigration enforcement role and then in counter-corruption operations. Now, he is a private investigator and expert witness.
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“Obviously, we’re an agricultural-based economy in many ways, so anything that’s attacking our wheat, our barley, the basic standard of what goes into so many of our food products that’s being introduced intentionally, that’s being introduced by a foreign threat to cause disruption,” Healey said. “It’s the same as any sort of other type of terrorism that’s attacking a civilian population. It’s just attacking it from that agricultural standpoint.”
Chinese nationals Yunqing Jian, 33, and her boyfriend Zunyong Liu, 34, were arrested earlier this month by the FBI for allegedly smuggling Fusarium graminearum into the U.S. and studying it in labs over a two-year period. Jian was a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan whose research was funded in part by the People’s Republic of China.
Fusarium graminearum is a toxic fungus that causes a crop-killing “head blight,” a disease of wheat, barley, maize and rice that “is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year,” according to the Department of Justice.
It is also toxic to humans and can cause vomiting, liver damage and “reproductive defects in humans and livestock.”
“I don’t think Americans really understand or really recognize the threat that the [Chinese Communist Party] actually holds, and how much our economy is built into the CCP-run economy,” said Healey.
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He said that if a major event, like a war over Taiwan, were to occur, the United States would not be prepared for the wrath that China could unleash on America’s crops and other critical infrastructure.
“[Agriculture] is a very vulnerable part of our nation’s infrastructure if you have individuals who are coming into this country, as was the case in Michigan, who are coming to study, who have a lab background, who have a background in this sort of development of these sort of organisms, studying or working with these sorts of organisms,” Healey said. “If they have ill-intent, that’s the sort of thing that could cause severe disruption to our food safety, that could cause severe destruction to… what essentially goes into keeping America running.”
Healey also noted that while the United States focuses a great deal of time on keeping out dangerous people or items like bombs and weaponry, it should be paying more attention to agricultural and biological terror threats, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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“I would suggest that is something we need to be thinking about a lot more, because we just came off, five years ago, the entire world being shut down by what now appears to be a biological item that leaked from a laboratory and then infected millions of people and killed millions of people around the globe,” he said.
Healey warned that Americans should be prepared in the event of such an attack.
“You don’t have to be a prepper and build a silo in Nebraska and bury all your food supplies and wait for the end of the road, but you do have to be thinking a little bit down the road,” he said. “Be prepared in the sense that you’re the kind of person who’s looking down the road. Not 24 hours in the future, but looking weeks and sometimes months in the future and preparing accordingly.”
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Jian and Liu have been charged with conspiracy, smuggling goods into the U.S., false statements and visa fraud. They remain in federal custody.
Mayoral candidate’s $100B NYC housing plan has developers seeing red
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is rattling real estate developers and landlords over his sweeping proposal to tackle the city’s housing crisis. The Queens assemblyman wants to build 200,000 new publicly-subsidized affordable homes and immediately freeze rents for the city’s 2.4 million stabilized tenants.
“You don’t build housing by attacking the people who build it,” Jared Epstein, president of Aurora Capital Associates, told FOX Business. “I’m a developer. And by attacking me, my company, our peers, it’s not effective.”
Mamdani ran a campaign focused on making one of the country’s most expensive places to live more attainable for average residents. His proposals call for multi-year rent freezes and massive investment in public housing. Critics argue his proposals could worsen existing problems in the rental market, including Epstein.
“A rent freeze is a housing freeze, plain and simple,” he argued.
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Many landlords say thousands of rent-stabilized units are already sitting vacant due to costly repairs they can’t afford without being able to raise the rent. A rent freeze would only make that situation worse.
Mamdani’s campaign website acknowledges the steep $100 billion price tag his plans would cost the city over 10 years. To pay for the projects, he’s proposed steeper taxes on wealthy New Yorkers making over a million dollars, and a higher corporate tax rate.
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Despite the backlash from the real estate industry, Mamdani is finding strong support among progressive and younger voters frustrated by rising costs. According to Realtor.com, the median rent in New York City has reached $3,397, a nearly $200 increase since 2024.
Tenant advocates say landlords can absorb the tax hikes and rent controls.
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“Landlord’s profits are up 12% in just the last year alone, while one in four New Yorkers are struggling to afford the basics,” said Cea Weaver, director of the New York State Tenant Bloc.
“A modest increase in taxes is not going to drive New Yorker’s corporations out of the city.”
Harris campaign accused of lying about interview set-up by comedian podcast host
Comedian and podcast host Andrew Schulz accused the Harris campaign of “blatantly” lying about his team not reaching out to them during the election on Saturday.
In an interview with the New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast, Schulz described his efforts to reach out to Democrats like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to appear on his “Flagrant” podcast during the 2024 election.
He claimed the Democrats not only rejected him but accused his team of being “podcast bros” who were “sexist, bigoted and racist.”
Schulz said he tried to set up an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris as well, but her campaign “blatantly lie[d]” and said he did not reach out.
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“It’s wild to blatantly lie when not only did I reach out — Charlamagne, who’s working with them, reached out,” Schulz said. “Mark Cuban, who’s a surrogate, reached out, and we reached out, and they blatantly lie.
“Then when people write articles about it, they’ll say, ‘Andrew says he reached out to Kamala, but we reached out to the Kamala people, and they said that never happened.’ So what is the reader supposed to interpret that as?”
He added, “I think it’s an indictment on me, because it’s almost like calling me a liar.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Harris, Charlamagne and Cuban for comment.
Schulz acknowledged that he has since spoken to progressive figures like Buttigieg and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. He believed the reason was that prior to the election, Democrats felt that they didn’t need to go on podcasts like his to reach voters.
Schulz and his “Flagrant” podcast interviewed President Donald Trump during his campaign in October. He said after the interview he felt Trump went from having “no chance” of winning the presidency again to “winning by a landslide.”
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Also on The Times podcast, Schulz described himself as a lifelong Democrat who voted for Trump.
“[M]y vote was more like I voted against a Democratic institution that I feel was stripping the democratic process from its constituents. I didn’t like the way things were going, and Kamala was saying, Yeah, we’re going to keep doing that,” he said.
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Trump neutralized Iran, but one dangerous Middle East threat still looms
The world is a safer place because of the destruction of Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities thanks to the bold and effective actions of the U.S. military and the Trump administration. This decisive action follows the Israelis’ resolute response to the Iranian-backed October 7th sneak attack on its defenseless civilians. Over the last 21 months, the Israelis have degraded Iran’s military capabilities and decapitated their fanatical leadership. While these actions have crippled Iran’s conventional weapons, they have dramatically increased the risk of Iranian terror proxy attacks against U.S. citizens across the globe.
The greatest risk is presented by the Iranian-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah, which is responsible for the death of more Americans than any other terrorist organization. Since the late ’70s Hezbollah has maintained a well-documented presence in the U.S., mainly for terror fundraising, but these so-called sleeper units can instantly morph into violent and lethal operational cells.
An example of Hezbollah’s enduring presence in the U.S. was the prosecution of a Hezbollah cell in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This case marked a significant chapter in the efforts to combat transnational terrorism on American soil. The investigation, which lasted four years, uncovered a network of criminals and criminal acts supporting international terrorism, demonstrating the global reach of Hezbollah and its strategic presence in American cities.
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Hezbollah members from the Charlotte cell were arrested, tried and convicted in a federal court in Charlotte, North Carolina. The case brought against the cell included copyright, cigarette tax and counterfeit violations, as well as bank scams, bribery, credit card fraud, identity theft, immigration fraud, money laundering and tax evasion, and “material support to a terrorist organization.” Federal courts estimate the cell collected a total of $8 million, funneled through some 500 different bank accounts.
Mohamad Youssef Hammoud, the cell’s leader, was sentenced to 155 years in federal prison. Hammoud’s older brother, Shawqi Youssef, (a.k.a. “Bassem”), and “right-hand man,” received a prison sentence of 70 years. Overall, 26 people were indicted in the operation. Similar cases were later uncovered across the US.
If anyone doubts the commitment of Iran and Hezbollah to killing Americans wherever they can find them, consider the following:
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- In April 1983, a suicide bomber in a pickup truck loaded with explosives rammed into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Sixty-three people were killed, including 17 Americans, eight of whom were employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, including chief Middle East analyst Robert C. Ames and station chief Kenneth Haas.
- In October 1983, 241 U.S. Marines were killed in a cowardly attack of the Marine Barracks in Beirut.
- On June 25, 1996, 19 U.S. Air Force members were killed when a truck bomb exploded outside the Khobar Towers. A U.S. court found the Iranian government responsible for the attack, committed by Saudi members of Hezbollah. The court ordered Iran to pay $254 million to victims of the attack.
- In June 1985, TWA flight 847 flying from Athens, Greece, was hijacked by Hezbollah operatives. U.S. Navy Diver Robert Stetham was brutally murdered and dumped on the tarmac.
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- CIA Station chief William Buckley was kidnapped and tortured for 14 months before his body was found in 1985.
- During the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, Iran/Hezbollah provided improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that targeted U.S. troops, killing over 600 Americans.
- Former FBI Agent Robert Levinson, a father of six, was kidnapped in 2007 while on a business trip in Iran. He was held captive for 18 years. He was declared dead in 2020.
- In January 2024, Hezbollah drones killed three and injured over 40 other American servicemen in Jordan.
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- In 2017, two Hezbollah operatives were arrested while surveiling potential targets in New York City.
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A June 2022 study by the George Washington University program on extremism identified 128 individual examples of Hezbollah activity in the US. According to the study: “The majority of cases involved small, centralized hubs of Hezbollah operatives who engage in illegal activities in conjunction with wider criminal enterprises to create an array of networks across America.”
The misguided prioritization of the FBI during the Biden administration on “white supremacist” organizations diverted precious resources away from the greatest threat in its mission portfolio. As a result, the intelligence community is playing catch-up in a no-fail responsibility: to prevent harm to American citizens and interests at the hands of small cells or fanatical single operatives heeding the call from their Iranian masters to activate.
It is an absolute certainty that the Biden administration’s reckless open-border policies created an unprecedented opportunity for a host of additional international terror cells and individual fanatics to infiltrate into the U.S.
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The previous administration threw the door open to terrorists and criminals of every description. Border Czar Tom Homan reported that Biden’s policies resulted in the capture and release of over 1,272 Iranian nationals who have melted into this country unvetted and unmonitored. In addition, there were over 2 million “got-aways.”
In April 1983, a suicide bomber in a pickup truck loaded with explosives rammed into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.
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Now that Iran’s military capabilities have been greatly diminished, Hezbollah will revert to its origins as the most prolific and capable terrorist organization in the world. Other terror groups will do the same. The FBI, law enforcement and the intelligence community must be in hyperdrive to address what Homan has described as “the biggest national security vulnerability.”
Prevention of terrorist attacks in the homeland in the post-Biden era presents the greatest challenge since 9-11 and no resource should be spared in supporting this mission.
Obama warns parents they will experience ‘pain’ if they raise their kids ‘right’
Former first lady Michelle Obama urged parents to get “tougher” on their kids’ social media use during the Wednesday episode of her podcast, “IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson.”
Obama spoke with social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt about his 2024 book, “The Anxious Generation,” in which Haidt argues that extensive social media and smartphone use have harmful effects on children’s brains and well-being. Kids who grew up with a “phone-based childhood” are more likely to encounter anxiety, depression and other mental health issues, he says.
During the hour-long discussion, Haidt talked about how social media rewires the brain by stimulating the release of the “reward” brain chemical, dopamine, which fuels an addiction to social media.
Obama said that parents need to realize that making tough parenting decisions on things like social media will lead to long-term benefits for their child, even though giving in to their kids’ wants, or their own social media fixation, may be tempting in the moment.
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“Parents suffer from this dopamine thing too when it comes to parenting. Because we want instant reward response from our children. We don’t want to wait. We don’t want to do the longer-haul thing. You know, a lot of times we have to ask ourselves, ‘Are we doing this for our kids, or are we doing this for us?’ Because we have the screen too,” she said.
“And we’re being trained on that instant gratification. Maybe the 90-minute story is a problem for us, because we can’t sit still. The bottom line is that we’ve got to get tougher. We’ve got to get more resilient for our kids. Because I know time and time again that a lot of parents do what’s easy for them, you know, and not necessarily what’s best for the kid,” she continued.
Obama told parents there would be “parental pain” that comes with this tough-love approach.
“We have to become a little more resilient as parents. We have to become tougher for the sake of our kids… It’s not fun. All of it is going to be really, really hard, physically, emotionally, one of the toughest things you do,” she warned.
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“You will be disappointing them, and scaring them and making them hurt and arguing with them and doing all the things that you don’t want to do with your best friends. But in the end, as parents, we are responsible for securing the safety and the health of the children we bring into this world. And that means, once we know that something isn’t good for them… we’ve got to do the hard thing, we’ve got to take the substance from the addict,” she said.
“And it’s not going to be fun,” she added.
Obama also told parents they shouldn’t try to be “friends” with their kids.
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Bezos’ $500M yacht proposal leads to lavish Italian wedding with A-list guests
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez’s relationship has brought them to say “I do” in a lavish wedding in Venice, Italy.
The couple’s three-day wedding extravaganza will be both Bezos and Sánchez’s second marriage. They debuted their engagement in 2023.
There are about 200 guests reportedly expected to attend the wedding, with stars like Orlando Bloom, Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey and Leonardo DiCaprio already making appearances. Ivanka Trump, her husband and kids were spotted at the Marco Polo Airport earlier this week.
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On Thursday, celebrities such as Bloom, Tom Brady, Kardashian, DiCaprio, Kylie Jenner and others were seen boarding water taxis at various luxurious hotels in Venice ahead of the couple’s extravagant wedding celebrations.
According to People, the couple hosted a welcome party for their guests in a closed cloister adjacent to the Madonna dell’Orto church Thursday night.
Sánchez wore a golden, satin dress, a look from Schiaparelli’s Spring-Summer 2025 Haute Couture collection, according to the outlet.
Guests reportedly arrived in a convoy of about 30 boats. According to the outlet, guests will be eating pizza prepared on site by a famous Neapolitan chef.
Throughout the day, baskets of white and purple flowers were brought in to decorate the venue, along with a piano, People reported.
Bezos and Sánchez reportedly met in the mid-2010s.
In 2018, Bezos hired Sánchez’s company, Black Ops Aviation, to film a promo for his rocket company, Blue Origin, according to Yahoo News. The couple didn’t go public with their relationship until 2019, once Sanchez separated from husband and Hollywood agent Patrick Whitesell and Bezos finalized his divorce from MacKenzie Scott.
Bezos proposed to Sánchez while aboard his $500 million yacht, Koru, in May 2023, she revealed to Vogue in November of that year. During her interview with the outlet, Lauren revealed the billionaire hid her engagement ring under her pillow, and she found it while getting ready for bed.
“When he opened the box, I think I blacked out a bit,” she told Vogue.
W Magazine reported that Sanchez’s 30-carat pink diamond engagement ring is estimated to be worth between $3 million and $5 million. The outlet reported that Sanchez had two engagement parties, one in Beverly Hills and another in Positano, Italy.
During an interview with Extra in September, Sánchez beamed with excitement about marrying the “man of her dreams.”
“You know what I’m most excited about? I get to marry the man of my dreams.”
“You know what I’m most excited about? I get to marry the man of my dreams. I do. He’s amazing. I get to spend the rest of my life with him, and he loves my kids. And that is really what I am looking forward to,” she told the outlet at the time.
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Sánchez is a mother of three, sharing children with her ex-husband, Patrick, and her ex-boyfriend, NFL star Tony Gonzalez. Bezos has four children with Scott.
Sánchez told People in September what her ideal morning routine with her soon-to-be husband looks like.
“I love waking up. I make myself a cup of coffee. I make Jeff a cup of coffee, and we kind of have this magic moment where it’s just us talking.
“The kids haven’t woken up yet. And we don’t get on our phones. That’s one of the rules. He definitely made that rule,” she told the outlet with a laugh. “It wasn’t me. But the mornings are just us for as long as we can.”
She told People the previous month her favorite time with Bezos is their “TV time.”
“My favorite time is when the house is calm and quiet and Jeff and I are deciding what show we’re going to binge that night,” Sánchez told the outlet.
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“It takes a little bit of time to decide. You can imagine our tastes are a little different. But I love our TV time. We just have the best time.”
This has been a milestone year for the couple.
In January, Bezos and Sánchez sat in the front row at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The couple were seated next to Tesla founder Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
In April, Sánchez and her girl squad – Katy Perry, Gayle King, Kerianne Flynn, activist Amanda Nguyen and former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe – went to space on Bezos’ Blue Origin for the first all-female flight.
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In May, Sánchez held a star-studded bachelorette party in Paris. Dinner was hosted on Thursday, May 15, at the chic restaurant Lafayette’s. The intimate gathering of 13 women featured Hollywood A-listers, including Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Katy Perry and Eva Longoria.
“The atmosphere was very relaxed and very Parisian,” a source shared with People. “It was a pre-wedding all-girl party for 13.”
Sánchez shared moments from the celebration on Instagram, and she expressed gratitude to the women who came to celebrate her before she tied the knot with the Amazon founder.
“Forever starts with friendship, surrounded by the woman who’ve lifted me up, illuminated my path in dark times, and shaped my heart along the way,” her caption said.
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Bezos and Sanchez are expected to tie the knot as soon as Friday, June 27.
NASA’s Mars rover uncovers bizarre formations that have scientists puzzled
NASA’s Curiosity rover is getting a firsthand look at a region on Mars previously only seen from orbit that features a “boxwork” pattern, along with evidence of ancient waterways, including rivers, lakes and maybe an ocean.
New images and data from the Mars rover have already raised questions about how the red planet’s surface was changing billions of years ago. Scientists are still unable, though, to answer why the planet’s water eventually dried up and converted the surface into a chilly desert.
Curiosity rover is in an area called Gale Crater, and evidence has shown that when it was formed, water was percolating under the surface.
NASA said the rover had found evidence of groundwater in the crater when it encountered crisscrossing low ridges, some of which were only a few inches tall and were described by geologists as being arranged in a boxwork pattern.
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Beneath the ridges is bedrock scientists believe formed when groundwater trickled through the rock and left behind minerals that accumulated in the cracks and fissures. The minerals then hardened and became cement-like.
The formations were worn away after what NASA called “eons of sandblasting” from Martian wind, though the minerals remained and revealed a network of resistant ridges within.
Rover has already analyzed ridges that scientists say look more like a crumbling curb.
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But the patterns created over time stretch across miles of a layer on the 3-mile-tall Mount Sharp. The rover has been climbing the foothills of Mount Sharp since 2014, NASA said.
What scientists also find interesting about the boxwork patterns is they have not been found anywhere else on the mountain by orbiters overhead or Curiosity.
“A big mystery is why the ridges were hardened into these big patterns and why only here,” said Curiosity project scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “As we drive on, we’ll be studying the ridges and mineral cements to make sure our idea of how they formed is on target.”
NASA said the patterns are found in a part of Mount Sharp formed during various eras of the ancient Martian climate. So, as the rover ascends from the oldest layers to the youngest, it is essentially time traveling and searching for signs that water existed on Mars and which environments would have supported microbial life in the planet’s ancient times.
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“The rover is currently exploring a layer with an abundance of salty minerals called magnesium sulfates, which form as water dries up,” NASA said. “Their presence here suggests this layer emerged as the climate became drier. “Remarkably, the boxwork patterns show that even in the midst of this drying, water was still present underground, creating changes seen today.”
Recent clues exposed on Mars may provide additional insight for scientists into why the boxwork patterns formed where they did.
The bedrock between the ridges has a lot of tiny fractures filled with white veins of calcium sulfate, which is a salty mineral left behind when groundwater trickles through cracks in rocks, NASA said. In the lower layers of the mountain, similar veins were plentiful, and one was even enriched with clays. But, until now, none of the veins had been spotted in the sulfate.
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“That’s really surprising,” said Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist Abigail Fraeman of JPL. “These calcium sulfate veins used to be everywhere, but they more or less disappeared as we climbed higher up Mount Sharp. The team is excited to figure out why they’ve returned now.”
The Curiosity rover was launched Nov. 26, 2011, and landed on Mars Aug. 5, 2012. Its mission was to find out whether Mars ever had the right environmental conditions to support life, and, early on, the rover discovered chemical and mineral evidence of habitable environments from the past.
Tick population explosion puts Americans at risk for more than just Lyme disease
Ticks are spreading outside their comfort zone – and into ours, according to experts.
As cooler regions experience milder winters, those areas are becoming more hospitable to many tick species, Bob Hottel, an entomologist with Orkin, the pest control company, told Fox News Digital. This is because ticks prefer warmer climates.
While the insects previously would go dormant in the cold — leaving them unable to travel very far — they’re now able to stay active longer, clinging to hosts that carry them outside their typical regions.
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In recent years, experts at Binghamton University Tick-borne Disease Center in New York have reported that tick-borne illnesses – typically confined to specific regions – are beginning to show up in other parts of the country.
“Deer ticks are active any time it’s over 39 degrees, so we have a lot longer active periods for ticks now, unfortunately,” Yetrib Hathout, professor of pharmaceutical sciences and director of the tick-born disease center, told Binghamton University previously.
The number of concerning tick species has risen from one to five in the last 15 years, according to experts at Ohio State University.
Given the spread of ticks, Ohio State University’s Buckeye Tick Test Lab is now identifying “the most dangerous ticks that spread diseases.”
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Hottel of Orkin said it’s important for people to stay vigilant as they’re frequently outdoors at this time of year.
He said people need to exercise caution regarding certain species, the bites they can deliver and the disease they can cause.
“Tick surveillance and tick screening are important.”
The blacklegged tick (or deer tick) is best known for transmitting Lyme disease, especially in the Northeast, Midwest, and Appalachian regions.
While many people are aware of Lyme disease carried by the deer tick, fewer are aware of other dangerous diseases such as alpha-gal syndrome, which is spread by the lone star tick; it can trigger an allergy to red meat.
The American dog tick, found mostly east of the Rockies, can spread Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, and even cause tick paralysis.
Its cousin, the Rocky Mountain wood tick, poses similar risks in high-elevation areas of the Rockies.
“Some of the pathogens that are only found in the South, like the Rickettsia species that causes spotted fever, are migrating up north,” according to Hathout.
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“That’s why tick surveillance and tick screening for other things are important. And I think it’s important to do it regularly.”
Hottel told Fox News Digital, “Awareness is the first step in protecting yourself from tick-borne illness.”
Among the precautionary steps to take, say experts: Wear long clothing, use tick repellents and check for ticks after outdoor activity.
Knowing which species to watch for can also help prevent serious tick-borne illness.
“Another reason for the spread of ticks is the expansion of human developments into wildlife habitats, which helps ticks more easily find human hosts,” said Hottel.
Ticks find their hosts by detecting animals’ breath and body odors, or by sensing body heat, moisture and vibrations, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
“Some species can even recognize a shadow,” the CDC site says.
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In addition, ticks pick a place to wait by identifying well-used paths.
Then they wait for a host, resting on the tips of grasses and shrubs.
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Ticks can’t fly or jump — but many tick species wait in this position known as “questing.”