Green energy research project faces hefty fine after turbine kills ‘national treasure’
EXCLUSIVE: The University of Minnesota is facing a proposed penalty of over $14,000 after it was discovered that a green energy initiative funded by a grant from the Obama administration was responsible for the gruesome death of an American bald eagle.
The incident occurred at the University of Minnesota’s Eolos Wind Energy Research Field Station in Dakota County, Minnesota.
Photos obtained by Fox News Digital show the moment a University of Minnesota wind turbine struck the bald eagle, dismembering it into three pieces and leaving a bloodied carcass on the floor below.
A violation notice says the university violated the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act by killing the eagles without what is called an “incidental take permit.” As such, the university is facing a proposed civil penalty of $14,536 for illegally killing what one Department of the Interior official called a “national treasure.”
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According to a Department of the Interior violation notice reviewed by Fox News Digital, the university was aware that bird collisions were a danger and was in the process of testing its collision detection sensors when the incident occurred.
The eagle’s remains were discovered in pieces. The lower torso and tail were found by technicians first, while the head and wings were not found until over a month later.
Following the incident, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent the university a letter, urging the institution to reassess the turbine’s danger to eagles and to consider applying for a long-term permit for incidental take of eagles. However, the January notice of violation issued by the DOI does not indicate that the university has since obtained any such permit.
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The Minnesota turbine is a part of the university’s Eolos Wind Energy Research Consortium, a wind-energy research collaboration. The construction of the turbine was funded by a $7.9 million grant from the Obama Department of Energy awarded in 2010, according to local outlet the Minnesota Daily.
One of former President Barack Obama’s first major legislative achievements was the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which according to a report by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, appropriated an “unprecedented $90 billion to ‘lay the foundation for a clean energy economy of the future,’ of which the U.S. Department of Energy received $35.2 billion.”
The Minnesota incident is not the only such killing to have occurred in recent years.
In November, Fox News Digital reported on FWS proposing hefty fines on renewable energy company Ørsted Onshore North America for two bald eagle kills by wind turbines in Nebraska and Illinois. In January, FWS issued notice of finalized fines of a total of $32,340 for the two eagles killed by Ørsted turbines.
TRUMP ADMIN PAUSING ALL OFF SHORE WIND PROJECT CONSTRUCTION DUE TO NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS
U.S. Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum has previously criticized solar and wind projects, saying they are “destabilizing our grid and driving up prices.”
“When you think about the green new scam, it was pro-China, and it’s anti-American, and it’s also unaffordable and unreliable,” Burgum said on Jesse Watters Primetime in June.
Matthew Middleton, a spokesperson for DOI, commented on the killings, telling Fox News Digital that under President Donald Trump and Secretary Doug Burgum, the department “is enforcing the law to protect these iconic birds and demand accountability from an industry that has jeopardized these protected species.”
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“America’s bald eagles are a national treasure, not collateral damage for costly wind experiments,” said Middleton, adding, “Wind companies will no longer get a free pass as this administration safeguards bald eagles and advances energy policies that prioritize affordability and strengthen America’s economy.”
A spokesperson for the University of Minnesota confirmed to Fox News Digital that the university had received DOI’s notice and said it is “currently under review.”
Ørsted did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Iran seizes 2 oil tankers in Persian Gulf before planned US-Iran talks in Oman
Iran seized two foreign oil tankers in the Persian Gulf Thursday, accusing them of smuggling fuel and detaining 15 foreign crew members ahead of high-stakes U.S.–Iran talks Friday in Oman.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) navy said it intercepted the two ships near Farsi Island, claiming they were carrying about 1 million liters of smuggled fuel, Reuters reported.
The crews, made up of 15 foreign nationals, were taken into custody and referred to Iran’s judicial authorities, according to Iranian state media.
US POSITIONS AIRCRAFT CARRIERS, STRIKE PLATFORMS ACROSS MIDDLE EAST AS IRAN TALKS SHIFT TO OMAN
The IRGC alleged the vessels were part of an organized fuel-smuggling network that had been operating in the region for several months.
Iranian officials said the ships were identified through intelligence monitoring and seized during coordinated naval operations in the Persian Gulf, a vital artery for global energy markets.
According to The Jerusalem Post, Iranian authorities framed the operation as a significant blow to illegal fuel trafficking, though they did not immediately disclose the vessels’ nationalities or destinations.
US MILITARY WARNS IRAN IT WILL NOT TOLERATE ANY ‘UNSAFE’ ACTIONS AHEAD OF LIVE-FIRE DRILLS IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ
The seizures come as Iranian rhetoric toward the U.S. has grown hostile.
Ezzatollah Zarghami, a former Iranian minister and ex–state broadcaster chief, issued a warning, threatening violence in the Strait of Hormuz, through which around one-fifth of the world’s oil and petroleum product consumption passes.
“I am sure that the Strait of Hormuz will be the place of massacre and hell for the U.S.,” Zarghami said Thursday.
“Iran will show that the Strait of Hormuz has historically belonged to Iran. The only thing the Americans can think of is playing with their vessels and moving them from one place to another.”
IRANIAN MEDIA CLAIMS DRONE SHOT DOWN BY US WAS CONDUCTING SURVEILLANCE IN A ‘ROUTINE AND LAWFUL MISSION’
Zarghami later repeated the threat, calling the Strait a potential “killing field” for American forces and signaling Iran’s willingness to escalate amid mounting regional pressure.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are scheduled to meet Iranian officials in Oman Friday.
The pair are traveling from Abu Dhabi after two days of talks related to Russia and Ukraine.
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Thursday that Friday’s talks were still on, stating “diplomacy is always [Trump’s] first option.”
Harris mocked for ‘cringe’ social media rebrand attempt after failed White House bid
Former Vice President Kamala Harris received widespread mockery online on Thursday after re-launching her campaign account as a “Gen-Z led progressive content hub.”
In the months after her defeat in the 2024 presidential election, there has been a great deal of debate over what Harris’ future political aspirations might be.
Her decision not to run for California governor was seen as a sign she plans to run for the 2028 election cycle.
The account, now dubbed “HQ” and “@headquarters_67,” a possible reference to the 6-7 meme, shared a video with the caption, “Welcome to Headquarters, the new Gen-Z led progressive content hub.” Fox News Digital reached out to her office to ask whether this indeed was the intent, and has not received immediate reply.
KAMALA HARRIS SAYS SHE HASN’T DECIDED ON 2028 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN AMID REPORT SHE’S ‘STEPPING TOWARD’ RUN
The video featured Harris being asked, “Madam Vice President, what’s going on with KamalaHQ?”
“Well, I’m so glad you asked. I have good news,” Harris replies. “So, Kamala HQ is turning into ‘Headquarters,’ and it’s where you can go online to get basically the latest of what’s going on, and also to meet and revisit with some of our great courageous leaders, be they elected leaders, community leaders, civic leaders, faith leaders, young leaders. I’m really excited about it. So stay engaged and I’ll see you out there. Thank you.”
In response to this video and the preview video shared the previous day, many popular conservative commentators mocked the rollout as a poorly planned maneuver or argued that Harris herself would not be viable.
DEMOCRATIC HEAVYWEIGHTS HARRIS, NEWSOM TURN HEADS, FUEL 2028 SPECULATION
“On behalf of every Republican in the country: run, Kamala, run!” the Republican Jewish Coalition wrote.
“I am a moderate Democrat voter in a swing state. Everyone in my community is asking for Kamala Harris to run again,” commentator Comfortably Smug wrote, making a similar joke that Harris being the nominee would be a boon for Republicans.
GOP advisor Nathan Brand argued that both Republicans and Democrats can agree Harris’ time has passed, but suggested that news has not reached her staff.
Social media strategist Greg Price responded with a famous gif from Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants” where a fish bystander yells, “How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man?”
Others responded to the purported 6-7 meme reference.
“6 7.. Do you get it!” conservative commentator Stephen L. Miller joked.
“Haven’t been this disappointed since Beyonce didn’t perform,” Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr joked.
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Journalist Chris Rufo wrote, “My children have informed me that ‘67’ is already old, tired, and cringe, so once again, Kamala is coming up short.”
Palantir executive predicts AI becoming ‘massively meritocratic force’ in workplace
Shyam Sankar, the chief technology officer and executive vice president of Palantir Technologies, told Fox News Digital that artificial intelligence will be a “massively meritocratic force” within the workplace and offered advice to corporate leaders on how to best position their companies and employees for success.
As AI adoption becomes an increasingly essential part of staying ahead of the curve across industries, many executives feel growing pressure to keep pace with other corporations already leveraging the technology. Sankar explained how business leaders facing that pressure can use AI-driven disruptions of typical workflows to their advantage.
“The most important advice I’d have for corporate leaders is to recognize that AI is going to be a massively meritocratic force. It’s going to upset your existing organizational structure,” he told Fox News Digital.
PALANTIR’S SHYAM SANKAR: US MUST USE AI AS ‘SLINGSHOT’ AGAINST CHINA OR FACE ECONOMIC DEFEAT
“You need to be highly attuned to looking at the pockets of emergent talent… the talent’s always been there, but because of AI, it’s so clear that they’re having an impact. And in the spirit of that meritocracy, reorganize your company around the emerging talent pockets, lean into that disruption,” Sankar added.
Addressing fears of doomsday scenarios in which AI replaces traditional labor and leads to mass job losses, the Palantir CTO said anxiety over technological advancements is nothing new and dates back as far as the 16th century.
“Well, of course, if we look through history, every time we have a new, profound technology, there is an incredible amount of fear,” Sankar explained. “You can go back to Elizabeth I, who refused to grant a patent on a sewing machine because she thought it might lead to mass unemployment. What you really see is that we’re listening to the wrong people. Every time you have one of these revolutions — whether it’s the telescope, or the microscope, or the power loom — it’s very tempting to listen to the inventors of the technology.”
PALANTIR’S SHYAM SANKAR: AMERICANS ARE ‘BEING LIED TO’ ABOUT AI JOB DISPLACEMENT FEARS
But it is not the inventors who decide the impact of the technologies, he said. It’s the people who wield the technology.
“Galileo did not invent the telescope,” Sankar noted. “He used the telescope to discover planetary motion. Similarly, we are listening to the inventors of AI, when we should be listening to the people who are not invited to give op-eds, who are not asked to write essays. The frontline workers in America whose jobs are being transformed for the better with AI. How do they feel? Are they optimistic? Are they not? How do they think about their children’s future in a country powered by AI? And I think you would find a very different narrative.”
In his Monday op-ed with Fox News digital titled “The American people are being lied to about AI,” Sankar pushed back on some of the fears and misconceptions surrounding the technology and its potential impact. He asserted that the “utopians and the doomers commit the same error” when it comes to AI: “They neglect human agency.”
KYRSTEN SINEMA WARNS US ADVERSARY WILL PROGRAM AI WITH ‘CHINESE VALUES’ IF AMERICA FALLS BEHIND IN TECH RACE
“AI is not a divinity. It cannot snap its fingers and eliminate jobs; people will use AI to cut jobs or create them. AI cannot decide to oppress us; people will build AI tools that either enforce privacy and civil liberties or erode them. AI did not choose to write poems or generate pornography; people chose to build cheap consumer goods rather than genuine tools of productivity,” he wrote. “These are choices you and I must make every day.”
Later on in the op-ed, the Palantir CTO detailed his view on how AI should be implemented in order to maximize efficiency for both businesses and the frontline workers who carry out its day-to-day operations.
“AI should eliminate bureaucracy, not add to it. No new compliance theater. No ‘AI governance’ committees designed to slow things down and centralize power in ‘managers.’ AI should empower the American worker to move faster, not slow him down,” Sankar argued. “Every layer of process that stands between the frontline worker and their ability to do their job is deadweight to be destroyed.”
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Women’s sports activists react after boxer Imane Khelif makes comment about biological sex
Boxer Imane Khelif admitted to having the SRY gene, located on the Y chromosome, which is found in biological males, and undergoing hormone treatments to lower testosterone levels ahead of the 2024 Olympics in an interview with the French sports publication L’Equipe
Khelif has denied being transgender.
“We all have different genetics, different hormone levels. I’m not transgender. My difference is natural. This is who I am. I haven’t done anything to change the way nature made me. That’s why I’m not afraid,” Khelif said.
I have taken hormone treatments to lower my testosterone levels for competitions.”
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Khelif committed to also taking a genetic sex test to compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, which will likely be required.
“For the next Games, if I have to take a test, I will. I have no problem with that,” Khelif said.
The Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) released a statement addressing Khelif’s admission.
“Algerian Olympic women’s gold medalist Imane Khelif has now confirmed he is male. With men no longer eligible for Olympic women’s boxing under World Boxing rules, Khelif reportedly plans to box professionally in Europe, though he inexplicably says he will still undergo sex screening for the LA 2028 Games in hopes of competing,” the statement said.
USOPC LEADERS ADDRESS PROTECTION OF WOMEN’S SPORTS, USE OF SEX TESTS AMID GLOBAL RESISTANCE TO TRANS ATHLETES
Khelif won a gold medal in women’s boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympics under heavy scrutiny from the International Boxing Association (IBA), which was derecognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2023 amid concerns about the organization’s governance, financial reliance on Russian state energy firm Gazprom and the integrity of the bouts.
Khelif was previously disqualified from the IBA for failing a gender eligibility test. IBA President Umar Kremlev claimed at the time that unpublished DNA test results showed Khelif had XY chromosomes.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) defended the results of the Paris Games, stating that Khelif and another boxer who faced gender eligibility concerns were the victims of a “sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA.”
World Boxing, the international governing body for the sport, announced a new policy in August that introduces mandatory sex testing to ensure only females compete in the women’s category. Khelif has appealed the new policy that will keep the athlete out of any competitions pending the results of genetic testing.
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Khelif did not compete in an international boxing tournament in the Netherlands last summer after failing to register in time before the applications closed.
President Donald Trump previously said there will be a “strong form of testing” when asked about potential genetic testing for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics at a news conference Aug. 5.
Prince William ‘disgusted’ as Ferguson’s Epstein emails about daughter surface: expert
Prince William’s reported “zero tolerance” for royal ties to Jeffrey Epstein is being tested once again after newly released emails involving Sarah Ferguson prompted experts to say the duchess is now “unfit for any royal proximity.”
An email where Ferguson made a crude comment about her then-19-year-old daughter surfaced in the latest batch of documents released by the Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ recently released more than 3 million Epstein records, including his personal emails. Inclusion in the files does not necessarily imply wrongdoing.
“This new revelation most certainly seals the end of any likelihood of any royal acceptance of either Sarah or Andrew,” Hilary Fordwich explained to Fox News Digital, claiming Prince William is “beyond disgusted.” “They are totally unfit for any royal proximity. Now Sarah can’t ever claim she was naïve, detached or unaware of reputational risk, it totally sinks her.”
In one email revealed — dated March 2010 — Epstein asked Ferguson about a trip to New York. Ferguson responded, “Not sure yet. Just waiting for Eugenie to come back from a shagging weekend!!”
SARAH FERGUSON’S CRUDE REMARK ABOUT THEN-TEENAGE PRINCESS EUGENIE REVEALED IN NEWLY UNSEALED EPSTEIN EMAILS
“What is really revolting about this new crude email revelation is how shockingly intimate Sarah’s familiarity with Epstein is,” Fordwich added. “It’s further concrete evidence that she was close enough to Epstein to share such lurid details regarding her own underage daughter in such a flippant, even jocular manner.”
Another email recently released by the DOJ shows Ferguson planning a lunch date with Epstein. “What address shall we come to. It will be myself, Beatrice and Eugenie,” she allegedly wrote in a 2009 email thread discussing lunch with the financier in Miami.
Fox News Digital reached out to Ferguson’s representative for comment.
“No one with good taste, morals or judgment would ever have engaged with Epstein,” Fordwich claimed. “This is definitely an entire arena that those with high standards wouldn’t ever touch, such as Prince William and Princess Catherine.”
“Sarah was in debt due to her prolific spending, being greedy and, with dreadfully poor judgment, she turned to Epstein’s wealth for bailouts… as documented in her desperate pleas for more money despite his 2008 conviction,” the royal expert said. “To have planned lunches with her daughters with such a man after he was jailed for sex crimes is beyond ghastly.”
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According to the Daily Mail, Ferguson reached out to Epstein in 2011 after publicly denouncing their friendship during an interview with the Evening Standard.
Ferguson expressed her “deep regret” during the interview and promised to “have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again,” three years after he had been imprisoned for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
In an alleged email to Epstein following the interview, Ferguson referred to the disgraced sex offender as a “steadfast, generous and supreme friend.”
In a statement to The Guardian, a representative for Ferguson said she stood by her public condemnation of Epstein.
“Like many people, she was taken in by [Epstein’s] lies. As soon as she was aware of the extent of the allegations against him, she not only cut off contact but condemned him publicly, to the extent that he then threatened to sue her for defamation for associating him with pedophilia,” the statement read.
“She does not resile from anything she said then. This email was sent in the context of advice the duchess was given to try to assuage Epstein and his threats.”
While Ferguson may feel remorse, royal commentator Helena Chard noted the public response has been far more severe in light of her alleged correspondence with Epstein.
“Sarah may feel completely humiliated, and sorry for her contact with the disgraced financier Epstein for numerous reasons. However, the majority public are more than disappointed, they are appalled and surprised by her alleged disreputable behavior,” Chard told Fox News Digital.
“If the emails are to be believed, Sarah was regularly in contact with Epstein. It is disappointing to think she allegedly introduced her girls into her Epstein friendship. It almost indicates she felt that she was doing no wrong.”
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Royal commentator Meredith Constant predicted Princess Eugenie will continue to distance herself from her father, ex-Prince Andrew, after the latest emails came to light.
“Remember, Princess Eugenie is a patron of The Anti-Slavery Collective, which focuses on modern slavery, including sex trafficking,” Constant told Fox News Digital. “Being seen publicly or written about with her father would hurt her work and possibly her status as patron of the group.”
“Unlike her sister, we have seen Princess Beatrice with her father, and she invited him to her daughter’s baptism late last year,” she added. “It will be interesting to see how much longer she can straddle the line between supporting her father and staying within the royal fold.”
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Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s long-standing entanglement with controversy and Ferguson’s new emails have once again thrown the British royal family into uncomfortable focus.
These concerns are sharpened by the shadow of Epstein, whose connections to powerful figures continue to surface.
“Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson clearly used their public positions for private gain and have brought shame on to the royal family,” royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams told Fox News Digital. “They seem to have been extremely close to Epstein and there is more, according to biographer Andrew Lownie, much more, yet to come.”
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White House reveals Trump’s choice for Super Bowl halftime show amid Bad Bunny concerns
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed which Super Bowl halftime show President Donald Trump prefers to watch this Sunday.
Grammy Award winner Bad Bunny will be performing during the official Super Bowl halftime show in Santa Clara, California, for Sunday’s game.
However, concern among conservatives over Bad Bunny’s apparent “woke” values inspired Turning Point USA (TPUSA) to plan its own “All-American” halftime for Sunday headlined by country/rock artist Kid Rock.
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Leavitt suggested Trump would be tuning in to watch the TPUSA show.
“I think the president would much prefer a Kid Rock performance over Bad Bunny. I must say that,” Leavitt told reporters at Thursday’s White House press briefing.
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Leavitt also said the president is not picking a team to win Sunday’s game between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks. But she revealed her rooting interest.
“The president has wisely chosen not to make a prediction on Sunday night’s game, but as a native girl from New Hampshire, go Patriots,” Leavitt added.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell addressed questions about Bad Bunny possibly making a political statement during the Super Bowl halftime show during a news conference Monday.
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“Listen, Bad Bunny is, and I think that was demonstrated last night, one of the great artists in the world, and that’s one of the reasons we chose him,” Goodell said. “But the other reason is he understood the platform he was on, and this platform is used to unite people and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talents and to be able to use this moment to do that. And I think artists in the past have done that.
“I think Bad Bunny understands that, and I think he’ll have a great performance.”
Former undercover operative exposes activists’ strategy for border confrontations
It appears that agitators are trying to spark confrontations with federal law enforcement that could lead to protesters being harmed, even killed, to spark outrage and support for their cause.
It’s a sick story. It sounds outrageous. But it’s true, and everything old is new again.
I saw it 40 years ago and testified about it to Congress. Today we are seeing again: Inserting American citizens into flash points as part of a political strategy to get people shot for the purpose of inflaming the public against a president and his policies.
The recent deaths of two Minneapolis protesters reminded me of what I had learned as a 24-year-old in the mid-1980s while infiltrating radical groups – much as people in their 20s are doing today.
JOURNALIST ATTACKED DURING MINNEAPOLIS BLOCKADE SAYS ANTI-ICE AGITATORS TRIED TO ‘DETER’ THE TRUTH
Revolutionaries and insurgents create or exploit flash points in anticipation of getting some of their followers killed. Journalist Cam Higby has reported on this in Minneapolis. They need martyrs to spark or fuel public anger.
Facing professionally organized provocations and stressors, it was inevitable that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents would plunge into circumstances that domestic extremists had created to provoke media outrage.
Revolutionaries call it “armed propaganda.”
DAVID MARCUS: ANTI-ICE AGITATORS ADOPT PALESTINIAN TACTICS, INCLUDING MARTYRDOM
After Portland, Ore., activist Benjamin Linder was killed in Nicaragua by U.S.-backed resistance fighters, or contras, against the Soviet-backed Sandinista regime in 1987, the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs held a hearing.
Linder was armed with an AK-47 at the time of his death. Sympathizers portrayed him as a peaceful humanitarian worker. I was called as a witness.
“For two years,” I testified, a group called Witness for Peace (WfP) had “anticipated the killing of an American citizen by the contras so that they could use his death for political propaganda. They wanted someone like Benjamin Linder to die.”
FOX NEWS DIGITAL ANALYSIS: HOW MINNEAPOLIS AGITATOR NETWORKS USE INSURGENCY TACTICS TO HINDER ICE
That was hard to say, not only because it sounded so outrageous, but because I was sitting with Linder’s parents in the congressional hearing room.
The Linders were lifetime radicals from Portland. They supported North Vietnam and the Vietcong against American troops. The mother was the local leader of a group that collaborated with Soviet active measures operations against the United States. They raised their son Benjamin to place himself in mortal danger.
Facing professionally organized provocations and stressors, it was inevitable that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents would plunge into circumstances that domestic extremists had created to provoke media outrage.
My impression was that they seemed less like grieving parents and more like mourners of a fallen comrade.
ANTI-ICE AGITATORS ARRESTED OUTSIDE MINNESOTA HOTEL AS POLICE DECLARE UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY: ‘NO LONGER PEACEFUL’
As college students and afterward, my friends and I had infiltrated and exposed groups across the country that supported the Central American communists. I also worked with the Nicaraguan resistance fighters against the Sandinistas.
At the hearing, I gave my eyewitness account, plus secondary reports, about how American militant leaders wanted U.S.-backed forces to kill some of their do-gooder allies.
Revolutionary insurgencies require martyrs to outrage and inspire.
DEPUTY AG DETAILS ‘MASSIVE UNDERGROUND FRAUD NETWORK’ ALLEGEDLY BEHIND MINNEAPOLIS ANTI-ICE PUSH
“It is obvious that Witness for Peace leaders are aware of the military role they are playing in Central America,” I testified.
“On one of my trips with the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) resistance in 1985, I asked several commanders and fighters if the presence of Americans was having any effect on their ability to fight the Sandinista army,” I said in my testimony. “The answer was positive: The FDN fighters were afraid of hurting any Americans working with the Sandinistas for fear of a backlash of public opinion in the United States.”
At a 1995 Witness for Peace meeting in Boulder, Colo., I learned that the group was planning to expand operations to El Salvador, only to abort three days later when its guerrilla friends murdered four off-duty U.S. Marines and two other Americans.
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I testified that in a later New York meeting, we heard “that some of the group’s leaders privately expressed hope that some of their activists in Nicaragua would get shot by the resistance. If a Witness for Peace activist was killed, they reasoned, American public opinion would turn against the contras.”
The Boston Globe quoted another WfP activist, a lawyer from Bangor, Maine, as saying that “Some of us have got to die” at the hands of U.S.-backed forces. “If some of us die, we bring the cause home to our countrymen in a very personal way,” he said. “If that’s what it will take, that’s what it will take.”
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With Linder’s death, I told Congress, the American radicals “finally had a martyr. They got their televised interviews. They have their congressional hearing. They got their wish.”
Which brings us back to Minneapolis today. America must face the fact that organizers are out there to enrage, demoralize and manipulate us all. They don’t care about the human fallout.
New White House website cuts costs on major prescription medications
President Donald Trump unveiled TrumpRx.gov, a new government-backed website aimed at giving Americans access to discounted prescription drugs.
Speaking at the website launch Thursday evening at the White House, Trump argued that Americans have long paid far more for prescription drugs than consumers in other countries and called the price differences unprecedented.
“Americans have long been paying the highest drug prices anywhere in the world, while other countries often paid pennies on the dollar for the exact same drugs,” Trump said. “We were essentially subsidizing the entire world by hundreds of billions of dollars every year.”
He added that despite accounting for a small share of the global population, Americans bear a disproportionate share of drug costs.
FOX NEWS POLL: VOTERS SOUND ALARM ON HEALTHCARE COSTS
“The United States is just 4% of the world’s population and consumes only 13% of all prescription drugs,” he said before confirming new agreements would change that dynamic.
“Under the agreements my administration has negotiated, the United States will pay the lowest price paid by any other country,” he said. “We’re taking the lowest price anywhere in the world. That’s the price you’re going to be paying,” Trump added.
“They’re going way down for the United States — by differences of as much as 300, 400, 500, even 600%” Trump said. “In some cases, even more.”
Trump announced the website at a White House event alongside Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and National Design Studio Director Joe Gebbia, the Airbnb co-founder advising the administration on digital design and user experience.
The initiative follows agreements between the Trump administration and 16 of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies under so-called “most-favored-nation” pricing deals.
“All of these discounts and more will be available directly to consumers starting today at TrumpRx.gov,” Trump said, adding that 16 of the 17 largest pharmaceutical companies have signed on, with the remaining company expected to join.
HOUSE GOP SEEKS OFF-RAMP TO SKY-HIGH HEALTH INSURANCE COSTS FOR MILLIONS OF AMERICANS
In exchange for exemptions from U.S. tariffs, participating drugmakers agreed to lower prices for the federal Medicaid program and extend those reduced prices to cash-paying consumers through TrumpRx.
Among the participating companies are Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, which agreed to cut prices on popular GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.
The administration said the agreements are expected to reduce monthly costs for Americans to an average range of $149 to $350.
The administration highlighted price reductions across a range of medications, including inhalers, HIV treatments, diabetes drugs and IVF medications.
GOP UNVEILS PLAN FOR ‘TRUMP HEALTH FREEDOM ACCOUNTS’ TO REPLACE OBAMACARE SUBSIDIES WITH STATE WAIVERS
Trump cited reductions in weight-loss drugs and inhalers, as well as fertility treatments.
“Novo Nordisk will be slashing the price of Wegovy from more than $1,300 to $199,” Trump said. “AstraZeneca is slashing the price of a common inhaler from $458 to $51.”
“We’re also delivering historic discounts for couples struggling with infertility,” he added, saying manufacturers would dramatically cut the cost of commonly used IVF drugs, including Gonal-F.
The TrumpRx.gov displays discounted prescription drugs, showing users the percentage savings off the original price and generating a coupon for each medication.
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Consumers can print the coupon or save it to a mobile wallet and present it at participating pharmacies to receive the discount at checkout. For specialty drugs, the site directs users to mail-order pharmacies that can deliver medications directly to their homes.
According to administration officials, purchases made through the website will generally not count toward insurance deductibles.