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A federal court has invalidated a Biden-era rule that expanded federal anti-discrimination law to cover “gender identity,” a move that would have required hospitals and Medicaid programs to fund and perform sex-change procedures.

U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. in Mississippi ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) exceeded its authority by redefining “sex discrimination” under Title IX and the Affordable Care Act.

His decision, granting summary judgment to 15 states, stated that neither the agency nor the court could expand the statutory meaning of “sex” without congressional authorization.

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US modular nuclear technology pioneer, NANO Nuclear Energy, is hosting a milestone ceremony today at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to mark progress on the research and prototype development of its KRONOS MMR Energy System, a micro nuclear reactor. The ceremony is being live streamed on the company’s website….

Cue crazy leftist environmentalists to try to shut it down by suing and holding protests, as they traditionally do for anything that smacks of nuclear power.

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A Tasmanian scientist has claimed he knows the location of the missing Malaysian plane MH370.

In 2014, Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 vanished from radar after departing from Kuala Lumpur. Among the 239 passengers on board the craft, the majority, 153 were Chinese, six were Australians, and three were Americans. One of the Americans included Philip Wood, an IBM executive, according to the BBC. Also on the plane were 20 staff members from the U.S. technology company Freescale Semiconductors; 12 were Malaysian, and eight were Chinese.

But now, Tasmanian researcher Vincent Lyne has said he may know their location.

Scientific American.

The persistence of memory is crucial to our sense of identity, and without it, there would be no learning, for us or any other animal. It’s little wonder, then, that some researchers have called how the brain stores memories the most fundamental question in neuroscience.

A milestone in the effort to answer this question came in the early 1970s, with the discovery of a phenomenon called long-term potentiation, or LTP. Scientists found that electrically stimulating a synapse that connects two neurons causes a long-lasting increase in how well that connection transmits signals. Scientists say simply that the “synaptic strength” has increased. This is widely believed to be the process underlying memory. Networks of neural connections of varying strengths are thought to be what memories are made of.

In the search for molecules that enable LTP, two main contenders emerged. One, called PKMzeta (protein kinase Mzeta), made a big splash when a 2006 study showed that blocking it erased memories for places in rats. If obstructing a molecule erases memories, researchers reasoned, that event must be essential to the process the brain uses to maintain memories. A flurry of research into the so-called memory molecule followed, and numerous experiments appeared to show that it was necessary and sufficient for maintaining numerous types of memory.

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“Hair cortisol offers a non-invasive, easy-to-collect biomarker that could one day be used to screen children and track whether treatments or support programs are helping to reduce stress,” study co-author Mark Ferro, a professor in the University of Waterloo’s School of Public Health Sciences, said in a press statement.

An estimated 40 percent of children in Canada live with chronic physical illnesses (CPI)—a number that has been increasing over the past decades.

As George Citroner details below for The Epoch Times, those with higher cortisol levels are more likely to develop mental health problems at rates ranging from 20 percent to 50 percent, significantly higher than the prevalence in healthy children, researchers noted.

These conditions can lead to lower quality of life, suicidal thoughts, and greater use of health care services.

Read it.

The National Guard will remain in the nation’s capital indefinitely — possibly through the summer of 2026 — according to a recent court filing.

The filing, submitted Friday by District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb, said internal documents show National Guard officials are planning for a “long-term persistent presence,” potentially lasting through the nation’s semiquincentennial celebration next summer.

News of the filing came after a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled Monday to allow the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon.

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Using observations from a NASA suborbital rocket, an international team of scientists has, for the first time, successfully measured a planet-wide electric field thought to be as fundamental to Earth as its gravity and magnetic fields. Known as the ambipolar electric field, scientists first hypothesized over 60 years ago that it drove how our planet’s atmosphere can escape above Earth’s North and South Poles. Measurements from the rocket, NASA’s Endurance mission, have confirmed the existence of the ambipolar field and quantified its strength, revealing its role in driving atmospheric escape and shaping our ionosphere — a layer of the upper atmosphere — more broadly.

Understanding the complex movements and evolution of our planet’s atmosphere provides clues not only to the history of Earth but also gives us insight into the mysteries of other planets and determining which ones might be hospitable to life. The paper was published Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in the journal Nature.

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Good. I’m hoping they get around to Clapper soon.

UPDATE: John Brennan Hit With Criminal Referral Over Steele Dossier Lies

UPDATE: House Judiciary Refers Former CIA Director John Brennan to DOJ for Criminal Prosecution

Read it.

During the 2018-2019 government shutdown (the longest federal shutdown in US history lasting 35 days), Donald Trump’s first term administration was ill prepared for the tactics used by the establishment media, Democrats and even saboteurs within his own cabinet. The narrative spin was highly effective in painting Trump as the villain, subverting his efforts to achieve lasting security at the southern border.

The 2018 shutdown hinged largely on the fight between Republicans and Democrats over funding for a border wall that would ensure far lower illegal immigration numbers well after Trump left office. The construction cost of $5.7 billion seems like a pittance compared to the projected cost of $350 billion to deport alien migrants over four years.

Currently, the US is enjoying the lowest immigration numbers in over 60 years as border encounters plummet, but this is largely contingent on Trump’s presence in the White House and cuts to subsides for illegals. His original wall proposal remains a necessary measure to help prevent future mass migrations.

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On October 19th, Sunday, Bolivians elected centre-right senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira as their new president, ending two decades of Socialist rule that left the South American nation deep in economic crisis.

With 97.8% of ballots counted, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said Paz had 54.6% of the vote.

The result sparked celebrations across La Paz, where crowds gathered with fireworks and music. “We came to celebrate the victory with great hope of a new direction for Bolivia,” said Julio Andrey, a 40-year-old lawyer.

Paz, 58, the son of a former president, has pledged what he calls “capitalism for all”—a mix of decentralization, lower taxes, fiscal discipline and continued social spending. In his victory speech, he declared that Bolivia was “reclaiming its place on the international stage.”

Paz also said he had received a congratulatory message from U.S. president Donald Trump, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Washington “stands ready to partner with Bolivia on shared priorities.” Rubio added that “after two decades of mismanagement, President-elect Paz’s election marks a transformative opportunity for both nations.”

Under former Socialist president Evo Morales, Bolivia nationalized industries, broke ties with Washington and aligned with other leftist governments. Paz’s victory marks a sharp political and economic turn for the country.

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revolutionary bionic microchip is restoring sight to people who have lost their vision due to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) — marking what experts call a “new era” in artificial vision.

According to The Telegraph, more than 80% of patients fitted with the tiny, wireless chip saw major improvements in their vision during a global clinical trial led by Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London.

Read it.

Every new discovery in space begins as a mystery. Some mysteries might take longer than others to understand, and some of the most fantastic remain a secret for many years. Some mysteries will remain so long after humanity has disappeared. Here are just a handful of the mysteries discovered by NASA.

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Nobel Prize winner María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader, might have beaten out President Donald Trump for the coveted award, but she says she is on the same team as Trump in striking at the corruption, repression, and persecution under dictator Nicolás Maduro.

“President Trump has made decisions regarding the dismantling of a narcoterrorist structure and I want to insist on this, it was Maduro who declared the war on us,” Machado told NBC News, from her undisclosed hideout, where she has been for 14 months fearing Maduro’s reprisal.

“If Maduro will stop this war by moving out and facilitating a transition to democracy. We do need the help of other countries and the leadership of President Trump to stop this war, because it is about saving millions of lives.”

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he planned Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Washington, which will be built by Energy Northwest with funding from Amazon, will deploy 12 small modular reactors, Amazon said in a Thursday release.

The “modular nature” of the plant means that three 320-MW sections will together comprise a 960-MW plant within the space of a few city blocks, in contrast to “traditional nuclear power facilities whose single GW plant can take up more than a square mile of land,” Amazon said.

The SMRs will be supplied by X-energy, which received $500 million in Series C funding from Amazon last year, using X-energy’s advanced nuclear reactor design. The Cascade facility will be built outside Richland, Washington, near Energy Northwest’s Columbia Generating Station.

Richland is in Benton county, on the Red side of the Blue state.

Read it.

President Trump confirmed a “very productive” phone call with Russian President Putin on Thursday, according to a post on Truth Social. The two leaders are now expected to meet in the near term in Budapest, Hungary, with discussions centered on potential pathways to end the war in Ukraine.

Trump’s latest threat to supply Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles may have been a key driver prompting Moscow’s sudden willingness to engage in talks at the highest level. While full details of the call remain undisclosed, the tone shift signals possible upcoming breakthroughs in negotiations to end the three-year war in Eastern Europe, which has resulted in some casualty figures on both sides at 1.4 million, according to a recent New York Times report, citing U.S. and British government estimates, among other sources.

What comes out of Budapest remains to be seen. But already, Russian sovereign wealth fund head Kirill Dmitriev is posting on X about Elon Musk’s Boring Company potentially building a 70-mile undersea rail tunnel linking Russia and Alaska through the Bering Strait – a proposed $65 billion megaproject.

Read it.

such as cocaine into the United States from Central and South America.

The operation aims to stop drug trafficking and human smuggling by cartels and criminal organizations.

The Coast Guard has seized an average of about 1,600 pounds of cocaine every day since starting the operation, prohibiting about 34 vessels from reaching the United States and apprehending 86 suspected drug traffickers.

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China’s major expansion control measures on its rare earth minerals appear to be backfiring, as on Thursday Japanese Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato called for the Group of Seven nations to “unite and respond” to China’s actions from last week. This after the Trump administration slammed the “global power grab” efforts by China as it seeks to have a “chokehold on the world of rare earth and rare earth materials.”

Germany’s finance minister has as a result signaled that a coordinated response from the bloc is likely coming, and Australia’s Prime Minister is expected to hammer out an agreement on critical mineral supply chains during an upcoming trip to Washington. China’s ‘retaliation’ is fast alienating those Beijing thought it could rally to its corner after Trump first unveiled steep tariffs, marking a sharp reversal from the global mood of six months ago.

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Kitchen sponges — a network of soft polymeric rods — can act as memory devices, an experiment has shown. The memory can also be erased and rewritten, potentially helping mimic the architecture and functioning of the human brain, allowing memory storage and computation in the same location.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

That may explain why my head is full of useless trivia.

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As soaring demand for electric power threatens to rapidly overtake America’s supply, the US Army on Tuesday announced a plan to install nuclear microreactors at bases across the country. “What resilience means to us is that we have power, no matter what, 24-7,” said principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army Jeff Waksman after the program was unveiled at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting Warriors Corner panel.

Pursuant to what has been christened the “Janus Program,” the Pentagon is charged with bringing the first reactor online no later than September 30, 2028, and is currently identifying the first nine posts that will receive two reactors each. Those reactors will generate less than 20 megawatts of power, according to the Wall Street Journal. That’s comparable to the demands of a single, small town. In addition to preserving the installations ability to function in the face of overwhelmed grids, the reactors will also serve as a safeguard against cyberattacks and weather catastrophes. The program is empowered by Executive Order 14299, “Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security,” which was signed by President Trump in May.

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A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., could decide as soon as Wednesday whether to indict John Bolton, who served as national security adviser in the first Trump administration, over allegations that he shared highly sensitive classified materials through a private email server.

Department of Justice officials told The New York Post that they expect an indictment either Wednesday or Thursday, with one describing the case against Bolton, 76, as “airtight.”

The grand jury proceedings follow FBI raids in August at Bolton’s suburban Maryland home and D.C. office, where agents searched for evidence tied to the alleged theft of “highly sensitive national security” information.

Let’s go on a RINO hunt!

Read it.

Or maybe not.

• Minoxidil, the active medical ingredient in products like Rogaine, is a well-known treatment for hair loss, but has poor water solubility and skin permeability.
• A new study combines minoxidil with a microneedle that uses stevioside, a naturally occurring sweetener from the Stevia plant.
• Tested on mouse models, scientists found that seviosides increased the absorption of minoxidil, which helped boost the medicine’s overall effectiveness.

Sounds like a lot of effort to me. My native indolence would prefer to be bald.

Gallup.

Imagine that.

Read it.

Princeton University announced this week that it will be reinstating the requirement for undergraduate applicants to submit standardized test scores in the 2027–28 admissions cycle. It is only the latest reversal for an ill-conceived and poorly supported movement to achieve greater equity and diversity by eliminating standardized testing in higher education.

Read it.

Your daily hot cocoa might do more than warm you up – it could also prevent heart disease and the inflammation that drives it, according to a recent study.

Read it.

Gray hair often shows up before anything else about you feels older. Your hair keeps growing just fine, but the color fades thanks to the cells in the hair follicles.

That switch doesn’t happen because your whole body suddenly “gets old.” It starts inside each follicle, where pigment stem cells are supposed to leave their safe zone, catch a cue, and become the color-making melanocytes that dye each new strand.

When those cells, known as melanocyte stem cells (McSCs) stop moving on schedule, the color step gets skipped – even though the hair still grows.

Read it.

Citizenship by investment programs give wealthy individuals the chance to secure a second passport by making significant financial contributions. The requirements vary by country, but these programs typically seek investments in businesses, development funds, or direct donations.

In return, obtaining a second passport offers benefits like visa-free travel, tax advantages, or a backup plan in the event of political or economic turmoil.

In this visualization, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu breaks down the required contributions across 13 countries offering citizenship by investment, showing how much applicants need to spend to qualify.

Go Where You’re Treated Best.

The Telegraph (UK).

It was the sort of dramatic moment on which Donald Trump thrives.

The US president was presiding over a meeting about Antifa violence in Left-wing cities, cameras trained on his every move, when Marco Rubio, his secretary of state, passed him a note.

“I was just given a note by the secretary of state,” announced the president, hushing his audience, “saying that we’re very close to a deal in the Middle East, and they’re going to need me pretty quickly”.

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It’s the largest block of confirmations yet, with 107 Trump nominees set to fill their roles despite being blocked for several months by Senate Democrats. The confirmations mark a sudden but welcome change in the long term standoff that whittled down the remaining pending nominees on the Senate’s calendar to double digits.

Democrats have made clear from day one of Donald Trump’s second term that they intend to impede or sabotage every single policy initiative and every single cabinet nomination no matter how reasonable.

“Before Senate Democrats shut down the federal government, they shut down the Senate floor – freezing the confirmation process. For months, their blockade created a growing backlog of qualified, bipartisan nominees. Tonight, Senate Republicans confirmed 107 of those qualified nominees and ended the Democrats’ confirmation blockade,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in a statement.

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Publix, one of Florida’s largest grocery chains, now allows customers to openly carry guns in its stores after a recent state court ruling.

Florida’s open-carry restrictions were lifted on Sept. 25 after the 1st District Court of Appeal struck down the state’s long-standing ban, ruling it unconstitutional.

The decision allows adults to openly carry guns in public while giving private businesses the option to prohibit open carry on their property.

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A newly developed biomaterial might be able to treat crippling arthritis by prompting the growth of new cartilage, a new animal study suggests.

The bioactive material looks like rubbery goo, but it’s actually a complex biological stew designed to mimic natural cartilage in the body, researchers said.

The biomaterial successfully regenerated high-quality cartilage in the knee joints of sheep within six months.

Read it.

Gee, I wonder how that happened?

Read it.

Good luck with that.

Back ASAP.

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Geothermal power is a very underutilized source of power in the United States, but it offers incredible potential. Texas-based Fervo Energy is an expert in the field building the largest geothermal power development in the United States in southwest Utah. The project calls for 125 wells to tap into the Earth’s underground heat reserves.

In a victory for the development, one of the nation’s largest utility companies, Southern California Edison, has agreed to purchase electricity from the development. The 15-year agreement will power the equivalent of 350,000 and begin when the development’s first part is operational in 2026.

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The Trump White House is poised to dramatically reduce the number of refugees that will be accepted into the United States over the next fiscal year — with the ceiling falling a whopping 94% from the limit set by the Biden administration, according to a New York Times report.

Citing “people familiar with the matter,” the Times says a maximum of just 7,500 refugees would be admitted over the coming year, a tiny fraction of the 125,000 limit set by the Biden administration last year. Most of those slots would be reserved for white Afrikaners fleeing South Africa and its murderous violence against white people and the looming threat of uncompensated land confiscation. Afrikaners now represent less than 5 percent of South Africa’s population.

The pending reduction and prioritization of white refugees elicited condemnation from promoters of mass immigration. “Such a low refugee ceiling would break America’s promise to people who played by the rules,” Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) president Mark Hetfield, told the Times. “Trump isn’t just putting the Afrikaners to the front of the line, he is kicking years-long-waiting refugees out of the line.” HIAS has itself been hammered by Trump policies, slashing its staff by more than half after the new administration slashed funding for refugee programs.

The Telegraph (UK).

The IDF, which has made plain its opposition to the complete takeover of Gaza for some time, ordered an immediate halt to offensive operations in Gaza City after Mr Trump’s order.

Hostage negotiators, including Mr Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, have also been dispatched to talks that could start as soon as Sunday, most likely in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Although incredibly fragile, it would appear that there is enough momentum for a deal to be struck in the next week to 10 days, with both sides gaining clear benefits from seeing it through.

And Trump just keeps on winning.

Check it out.

$912 energy independence without red tape.
Backup (and savings) with self-install solar & batteries. Works with condos, rooftops, balconies or yards.

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Yesterday, two members of the New York State (NYS) Senate introduced Senate Bill 8518 (S8518), which imposes excise taxes on digital asset mining using the proof-of-work consensus mechanism, making it even more difficult than it already is for bitcoin miners to operate in the state.

Politicians’ motto; If it moves, tax it. If it doesn’t move, kick it until in moves, then tax it.

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Republicans and Democrats offer competing claims about whether people who entered the country unlawfully are benefiting from Medicaid.

“The law prohibits undocumented immigrants from getting payments from Medicare, Medicaid, or the ACA. There’s no money, not a penny of federal dollars that are going there,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Sept. 30.

Yet Republicans say millions of people who entered the country illegally do receive federal health benefits.

“By some estimates, 20 million illegal aliens came [here] from every country, all around the world,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters on Oct. 2, referring to the years of the Biden administration.

“[Democrats] gave them all this parole status so that they could get enrolled onto taxpayer benefits.”

New Atlas.

Nautical disruptor Sharrow Marine has been hard at work fast-expanding its lineup of innovative twisted-loop propellers, releasing tweaked models for new applications while also ramping up overall production. A year ago, that work saw it launch the MX-A propeller for smaller outboards, effectively cutting pricing by more than half compared to previous launches. Now it’s doing it again with the AX, smashing downward through the four-figure floor for the first time with a propeller designed for even smaller outboards and kicker motors. Buyers seeking to put the company’s striking, efficiency-boosting loop-blades to work can now do so for well under $1K.

Officially introduced on Tuesday, the all-new Sharrow AX propeller follows the MX-A in using a lightweight aluminum construction that delivers corrosion-resistant performance without the expense of stainless steel. Unlike with the MX-A. The AX slides below the targeted 40-hp+ market of the MX-A and is designed specifically for small outboards ranging between 6 and 30 hp.

“With the launch of the Sharrow AX, we’re proud to introduce our technology to the small-engine market,” said founder and CEO Greg Sharrow. “Whether used as a primary prop on a small outboard or as an auxiliary kicker for trolling, the AX offers smoother handling, quieter operation and unmatched fuel efficiency.”

Toroidal propellers represent the first significant advance in propeller design since the discovery of the cavitation problem in 1885. Go to YouTube and search for ‘toroidal propeller’ and be prepared to be amazed.

The Times (UK).

It was the moment of truth. On Friday Rachel Reeves was handed a double-sided sheet of A3 containing the Treasury’s assessment of the first official forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Like her predecessors the chancellor’s instinct will have been to turn the page and look for the figure on the very bottom right-hand corner — the number that will ultimately determine the fate of her budget and potentially the entire government.

That figure is known as the “fiscal headroom” — effectively the amount of money the government has left after its tax and spending plans are taken into account. And Reeves is heading for negative territory. Economists believe that to make the numbers add up she will have to find as much as £30 billion, precipitating the need for huge tax rises in the budget.

This is what happens in a country that still has some contact with fiscal responsibility. In the U.S., of course, we just print more money and pretend it doesn’t matter.

The Times (UK).

There’s no time of year sadder than the political perineum. The Labour Party conference, like Christmas, has been and gone. The Conservative Party conference, like the always underwhelming New Year’s Eve, is yet to arrive. What are we meant to do with ourselves? There’s no Quality Street lying about, no darts on the telly either.

Well, while we wait, here’s a fun little game. What we do know is that this next week, like the next four years, will be defined by how the two main parties go about trying to free themselves from the terrible jaws of Nigel Farage. Reform UK began party conference season miles ahead in the polls. They will almost certainly end it still miles ahead in the polls. Can they be beaten? There is plenty of evidence to suggest they can. But how might each party go about doing it?

Some polling and research done recently by Best for Britain suggests that Reform voters are not the monolithic, immigrant hotel protesting, flag to lamppost-tying homogenous mass they are sometimes considered to be. They divide into five distinct tribes. Some, for example, are so busy worrying about the NHS that they don’t even have time to paint their local roundabout with a cross of St George. The backbench Labour MP and occasional era-defining note-leaver Liam Byrne has also assigned each tribe their own bespoke cocktail of grievance, made from varying quantities of different grievances such as anger, pessimism and a sense of unfairness.

So how might Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch go about luring these angry tribes people back where they belong? And how might they be getting it wrong?

Watch it.

Nick Norwitz (PhD, MD) does a deep dive on a new study on the oldest verifiable human woman.

He also relates this to what individuals can do to take advantage of what this study discovered.

Read it.

Value wars between Amazon and Walmart to attract cash-strapped consumers are heating up late in the year. Amazon announced on Wednesday morning the launch of a new private-label line called “Amazon Grocery,” which spans more than 1,000 products and is largely priced under $5. The timing couldn’t be better, as our attention has shifted to a storm brewing in the low-income consumer world.

Amazon Grocery will be a direct competitor to Walmart, Aldi, and other value grocery chains, offering affordable private-label goods amid ongoing value wars (read report). The new line will feature dairy, fresh produce, meat, snacks, and pantry staples priced under $5, an easy hook for low-income consumers. Another selling point: more than 1,000 items can be delivered straight to consumers’ doors, saving them the time and hassle of driving to the supermarket and pushing a cart down the aisles.

“The extensive selection includes everything from milk and olive oil to fresh produce, meat and seafood, with most products priced under $5, offering exceptional value to customers,” Amazon wrote in a press release.

“With Amazon Grocery, we’re simplifying how customers discover and shop our extensive private label food selection while maintaining the quality and value our customers expect and deserve,” Jason Buechel, Vice President of Amazon Worldwide Grocery Stores and Chief Executive Officer at Whole Foods Market, wrote in a press release.

I am a big fan of Amazon Fresh. I look forward to this new product line.

Newsbusters.

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger denounced the online encyclopedia for its rampant bias, and among other things, an effective media blacklist, which MRC exposed earlier this year.

In an interview posted on Sept. 29, independent journalist Tucker Carlson interviewed Sanger on how Wikipedia has become “the most comprehensive propaganda op in human history.” During the interview, Carlson took issue with an ill-defined attack on him on his Wikipedia page, to which Sanger explained exactly why prominent figures who have spoken out against the left’s narratives remain undefended from vicious smears on their Wikipedia pages.

Jonathan Turley.

Just The News is reporting that “Person 3” in the Comey indictment is not former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe but rather Columbia Professor Daniel Richman. According to the outlet, Richman is the former FBI employee in the indictment who allegedly leaked information about “Person 1,” who is believed to be Hillary Clinton. The report continues the long uncertainty over Richman’s role in these controversies. Richman has described himself as a friend, an FBI special employee, and the lawyer representing Comey at different times. He has also been a columnist and commentator, including for the site Lawfare run by Comey’s friend Ben Wittes. What Richman was doing at any given time remains strikingly uncertain. Professor Richman is not himself charged with any crime.

…

At various points in the investigation, Richman alludes to being Comey’s lawyer, as well as a former aide and a friend. Comey used Richman as a conduit to the press and admitted that he was the means by which Comey leaked the contents of a memo that Comey improperly removed from the FBI after being fired.

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In this age of modern warfare, the U.K. might already be at war with Russia, according to the former head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency.

Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, who led MI5 from 2002 to 2007, told the Lord Speaker’s Corner podcast that Russia’s escalating hybrid warfare tactics indicate a sustained campaign of hostility against Britain and its allies, The Times U.K. reported Monday.

“Fiona Hill may be right in saying we’re already at war with Russia,” Manningham-Buller said, referencing the prominent foreign policy expert and Vladimir Putin biographer who was key in testifying against President Donald Trump in the first impeachment.