Family of Marine Killed During Afghanistan Withdrawal Stunned to Learn Snipers Could Have Taken Out Suicide Bomber

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A Marine sniper’s testimony that he had an opportunity to take out the Abbey Gate suicide bomber during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan came as a surprise to family and advocates of one of the service members killed in the attack, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) conducted an investigation into the events leading up to the suicide bombing on August 26, 2021 that killed 13 U.S. military personnel aiding the evacuation of Afghan allies after the Taliban captured Kabul. Family of the deceased received in-person briefings a short while before CENTCOM made public the unclassified version of the final report, but one family member and two advocates said the briefers never provided any indication that the Marine snipers had a missed chance to engage the bomber.

“They said nobody knew where he was at that time or what he looked like at that time,” Shana Chappell, the mother of 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, who died in the blast, told the DCNF.

“What [the sniper] had said I had already known about, because other Marines had talked about it before the investigation had even happened,” she added. “There was just a lot of stuff that didn’t add up that I had been told by the Marines that were there, and none of it was mentioned in the report that was given to us.”

The investigation concluded a lone suicide bomber managed to bypass Taliban checkpoints at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, detonating an explosive vest that also contained ball bearings at 5:36 p.m, according to the report. ISIS later claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed up to 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. servicemembers, as well as wounding dozens more. (Read more from “Family of Marine Killed During Afghanistan Withdrawal Stunned to Learn Snipers Could Have Taken Out Suicide Bomber” HERE)

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Study: Beethoven Hair Auctioned for Thousands May Not All Be His

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Hair samples believed to be from Ludwig van Beethoven that were auctioned for high prices might not actually be his, according to DNA testing.

Locks of the composer’s hair that were apparently kept as remembrances at the time of his death in 1827 have been sold for a total of almost $140,000 over the past three decades, Business Insider reported Sunday.

Genetic testing on several hair samples believed to be the composer’s showed that at least one high profile clipping may not have belonged to him.

The information came as part of a study into his life and health issues published Wednesday in Current Biology, titled “Genomic analyses of hair from Ludwig van Beethoven.”

(Read more from “Study: Beethoven Hair Auctioned for Thousands May Not All Be His” HERE)

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State Issues Hotline to Report Abuse of Transgender Surgeries on Minors

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Missouri attorney general Andrew Bailey is taking extensive measures to protect children from the radical Left’s agenda.

Last week, Bailey issued an emergency hotline website so that people can report cases of affirmative care on minors.

It’s about protecting children for me,” Bailey told Fox News Digital. “We’ve got to inject some sanity into this conversation. Gender is an objective reality defined by biology, in the same way, that gravity is an objective reality. It is unhealthy to deny objective reality.”

According to the regulation, the state has seen a massive increase in transgender surgeries despite preliminary studies showing its long-term side effects, both mentally and physically, on a child.

“Skyrocketing number of gender transition interventions despite rising concerns in the medical community that these procedures are experimental and lack clinical evidence of safety or success,” the press release read. (Read more from “State Issues Hotline to Report Abuse of Transgender Surgeries on Minors” HERE)

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Indictment Backfire: Poll Shows Majority of Americans Think Charges Will either Help Trump or Have No Effect

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New polling suggests that a majority of Americans believe a looming indictment of former President Donald Trump from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will backfire and either not hurt him or actually help him in his quest to retake the White House.

The results of the poll, conducted by Convention of States Action in conjunction with the Trafalgar Group, were obtained by Breitbart News exclusively ahead of their public release. These results appear to be the first polling numbers conducted fully after Trump announced last weekend that he expected to be charged imminently, and show the solid majorities of Americans believe the indictment will not hurt Trump at all.

A whopping 74 percent of Americans believe that an indictment of Trump either helps him or will have no effect on his presidential campaign — 37.5 percent said it will not affect him and 36.8 percent said it will help him. Only 25.7 percent of voters surveyed think it will hurt his presidential campaign.

“It’s obvious to the majority of Americans that former President Trump is being hounded by a politically motivated witch hunt designed to discredit him in order to render him a permanent pariah in American politics,” Mark Meckler, the president of Convention of States, said. “This tactic has never worked, and these early numbers already reveal it’s going to backfire. Voters either think his indictment and arrest will either have absolutely no impact on his 2024 bid, or that it will even boost his campaign.”

Broken down by political party of respondents shows a pretty consistent view across the board among Democrats, independents, and Republicans — though among Republicans those who think it will help Trump jumps up into a clear majority. (Read more from “Indictment Backfire: Poll Shows Majority of Americans Think Charges Will either Help Trump or Have No Effect” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

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Mom Says YouTube Video With Beloved Kids’ Character Took Turn: ‘Gonna Kill the Lot of You’

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Hannah Bishop, a mom in Tennessee, found her two-year-old son watching a scary parody of “Thomas the Tank Engine” on YouTube Kids. Instead of singing his happy song, the character’s face turned dark and aggressive. In the video, Thomas, the usually friendly blue train, threatened, “I’m gonna kill the lot of you.”

As noted in the British Daily Mail, Bishop expressed concern that this type of content could get past Youtube’s content moderation policies and be accessible on its platform for children.

“I don’t even have words for this,” Bishop wrote in a Tik-Tok post. “Needless to say, we are looking for a different subscription for Brody to watch,” she continued.

In the comments section of Bishop’s post, various other parents sounded off about inappropriate content being available on Youtube Kids. “YouTube Kids gives me the creeps so, so bad. I got rid of it within a week of putting it on kids iPad,” said one.

Fox News Digital reached out to YouTube for comment. A spokesperson explained, “This video was found to be violative of our content policies and has been removed from the YouTube Kids app. We built YouTube Kids to create a safer environment for kids to explore their interests and curiosity. Videos available in the app are determined by a mix of algorithmic filtering, user input and human review.” (Read more from “Mom Says YouTube Video With Beloved Kids’ Character Took Turn: ‘Gonna Kill the Lot of You'” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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Iran Proxies Fire Missiles at US Base in Syria After Airstrikes Kill Eight Militants

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Iran-backed proxy groups fired missiles at a U.S. military base near Al-Omar oil field in Syria on Friday after the U.S. killed eight militants in retaliatory airstrikes.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby called the Friday missile attack ineffective. No U.S. injuries were reported, according to Reuters.

The attack came after the United States delivered airstrikes against what the U.S. military said were facilities belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The American airstrikes hit a munition warehouse, a control building, and an intelligence-collection site, killing eight militants, according to The New York Times.

U.S. forces suffered one casualty after a drone of “Iranian origin” struck a U.S. coalition base on Thursday afternoon. Five U.S. service members and another contractor were also injured in the attack.

The family of the dead contractor was notified Thursday night, Kirby said during a Friday morning appearance on CNN. The contractor was an American citizen. (Read more from “Iran Proxies Fire Missiles at US Base in Syria After Airstrikes Kill Eight Militants” HERE)

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China Threatens ‘Serious Consequences’ After US Warship Sails by Contested Paracel Islands

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China threatened the U.S. Navy on Friday with “serious consequences” after a warship passed through the South China Sea near the contested Paracel Islands.

For the second day in a row, Beijing accused the U.S. of violating the sovereignty and security of the island, which it currently occupies but which Taiwan and Vietnam also lay claim over.

The U.S. rejected China’s accusations and said its passage through the waters is permitted under international law and falls under a “freedom of navigation operation” – which challenges attempted restrictions by all three nations to enforce a policy of permission or advanced notice by any military vessel before it can pass by.

“Unlawful and sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas, including the freedoms of navigation and overflight, free trade and unimpeded commerce, and freedom of economic opportunity for South China Sea littoral nations,” spokesperson Lt. j.g. Luka Bakic for the U.S. 7th Fleet said in a statement.

“The United States challenges excessive maritime claims around the world regardless of the identity of the claimant,” he added. (Read more from “China Threatens ‘Serious Consequences’ After US Warship Sails by Contested Paracel Islands” HERE)

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Poll Inadvertently Finds Vast Majority of ‘Trans’ People Aren’t Really Transgender

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Most adults who identify as transgender don’t consistently identify as the opposite sex or present themselves as such, according to a Thursday poll from The Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation.

Only half of transgender adults actually present as the opposite sex all or even most of the time, according to the poll. Fewer than half identify as transgender women or men, as opposed to “nonbinary” or “gender non-conforming.”

Among transgender respondents, 40% identified as “trans, nonbinary” and 22% identified as “trans, gender non-conforming; only 22% identified as transgender women and 12% identified as transgender men, according to the poll. Nonbinary people feel that they do not fit into the category of male or female, and gender non-conforming people feel that they do not fit into conventional gender norms.

Few transgender respondents said they presented as the opposite sex all the time; three in 10 did, compared to 20% who presented as the opposite sex “most of the time,” 34% who did “some of the time” and 16% who “never” present as the opposite sex, the poll found.

(Read more from “Poll Inadvertently Finds Vast Majority of ‘Trans’ People Aren’t Really Transgender” HERE)

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Elon Musk Gets Into Heated Twitter Battle Over Who’s Role in Rules for the World

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Elon Musk and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), battled on Twitter over the potential dangers of a sweeping, legally binding global agreement under discussion to combat future pandemics.

“Countries should not cede authority to WHO,” Musk tweeted Thursday in response to a video of Australian Senator Malcolm Roberts criticizing the United Nations’ health agency and what both supporters and opponents informally call a “pandemic treaty” that has been in the works.

Ghebreyesus quickly responded to Musk, the billionaire owner of Twitter, rejecting the notion that a pandemic treaty would undermine national sovereignty and centralize too much power in the hands of the WHO, as critics allege.

“Countries aren’t ceding sovereignty to [the WHO],” tweeted Ghebreyesus. “The pandemic accord won’t change that. The accord will help countries better guard against pandemics. It will help us to better protect people regardless of whether they live in countries that are rich or poor.”

At the WHO’s weekly news conference later on Thursday, Ghebreyesus dismissed claims that the pandemic treaty would have countries cede power to the WHO as “quite simply false” and “fake news,” in an apparent reference to Musk’s comments. (Read more from “Elon Musk Gets Into Heated Twitter Battle Over Who’s Role in Rules for the World” HERE)

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Women’s Cycling Champ Quits After Loss to Male Rider; Another Trans Winner Days Later in NY Race

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A former women’s cycling champion angrily quit the sport after losing to a transgender rider — a decision followed just days later by another trans cyclist declaring she felt like a “superhero” for her women’s race win in New York.

Champion cyclocross rider Hannah Arensman bolstered her decision with a statement in a Supreme Court filing on the issue.

“I have decided to end my cycling career,” Arensman said last Wednesday.

She said in her last race, in the elite women’s division of the UCI Cyclocross National Championships in late December, she “came in 4th place, flanked on either side by male riders awarded 3rd and 5th places.”

“My sister and family sobbed as they watched a man finish in front of me, having witnessed several physical interactions with him throughout the race,” she wrote, in a statement also shared by the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS). (Read more from “Women’s Cycling Champ Quits After Loss to Male Rider; Another Trans Winner Days Later in NY Race” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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