US Navy SEALS Spent Four Months Demining the Strait of Hormuz in Dangerous, Nighttime Mission

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The US Navy secretly carried out a dangerous, four-month mission to clear the Straight of Hormuz of Iranian mines using SEAL divers, drones and sonar technology, according to a new report.

The covert demining operations were carried out mostly at night, with the divers, armed with robot boats and special underwater crafts, taking the perilous journey to rid the critical oil pathway of explosives, The Financial Times reported.

The SEALS first located the bombs and cleared the area before undertaking the hardest challenge of the fraught and time-consuming mission.

“That is usually followed up by a navy diver who’s got to get in the water and approach the mine, and then put a charge on it and destroy it,” Bill Hamblet, a retired US Navy captain who often operated in the Gulf, told the FT.

The Navy also likely used robot drones to approach the mines and destroy them with explosives, which can be safer, but extremely time-consuming. (Read more from “US Navy SEALS Spent Four Months Demining the Strait of Hormuz in Dangerous, Nighttime Mission” HERE)

Canada Has Reopened Military Channel to Beijing After Eight Years, China’s Defense Ministry Announces

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Canada’s military reopened a formal channel to China’s People’s Liberation Army last Friday for the first time in eight years, and Canadians have learned of it only from Beijing.

China’s defence ministry says Canada and China revived their formal Defence Coordination Dialogue on September 4.

Canadians have learned of the meeting not from their own government, but from a terse statement issued by Beijing.

The fifth China-Canada Defence Coordination Dialogue was held in Canada, according to a two-paragraph notice posted at 10:19 p.m. Beijing time on September 5 on the English-language website of the Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China.

The ministry said the two sides discussed international and regional issues and expressed a willingness to strengthen “practical exchanges and cooperation” between their militaries. (Read more from “Canada Has Reopened Military Channel to Beijing After Eight Years, China’s Defense Ministry Announces” HERE)

Could The Trump Admin’s New Highway Power Plan Lower Your Electric Bill?

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The Department of Transportation wants to lease highway and railroad land to private companies for power lines — a plan it says could potentially save Americans on their electricity bills.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced America’s Great Corridors of Commerce (AGCC) on Aug. 26 in a press release as a way to speed up construction of transmission lines, fiber-optic cables, water lines and pipelines. The program would reduce infrastructure costs, place “downward pressure on residential user rates,” meaning lower electric bills for households, and generate lease revenue for transportation projects at no additional cost to taxpayers, DOT said in the release and in a request for information (RFI) published Aug. 18.

“By working with the private sector to combine our existing transportation network with transmission lines, fiber optic cables, and other critical infrastructure, we can make energy more affordable and fuel American industry for generations to come,” Duffy said in the press release.

A DOT official told the Daily Caller News Foundation that no corridors have been selected and that the department will run a competitive process to seek expressions of interest from state transportation departments and railroads. Savings would vary project by project, the official said, but clustering data centers and manufacturers along a single corridor would avoid piecemeal grid upgrades and protect “everyday ratepayers from the rate hikes typically needed to fund scattered upgrades,” meaning the cost of those grid upgrades would not be passed on to household electric bills.

The official also referred the DCNF to a Sept. 2 post on X in which Duffy wrote that the country has nearly 161,000 miles of highways and 140,000 miles of railroad track that have already gone through permitting. (Read more from “Could The Trump Admin’s New Highway Power Plan Lower Your Electric Bill?” HERE)

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Is This Herbal Product Fueling The US’ Next Big Addiction Crisis?

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As fewer Americans overdose from fentanyl, a new drug is taking the country by storm.

Kratom is an herbal substance derived from a plant found in Southeast Asia, Yale Medicine reported. While proponents have claimed kratom can bolster user’s moods and energy levels, experts warned the Daily Caller News Foundation that some kratom-related products can potentially lead to addiction, withdrawal symptoms and even overdose.

“It [kratom] is becoming more widespread both in reports of exposures and in sales,” Dr. Chris Holstege, a medical toxicologist at the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Medicine, told the DCNF. “During the past 11 years, U.S. poison centers received a total of 14,449 kratom exposure reports; the record high 3,434 reports in 2025 represent an increase of approximately 1,200% compared with the 258 reports in 2015. The number of calls in 2026 to U.S. poison centers have already surpassed the total number of exposures in 2025. This rapid increase in exposures is consistent with U.S. record kratom import volumes.”

“Kratom is an opioid and can have central nervous system depressive effects like other opioids, causing sedation, respiratory depression and death depending on the dose taken and depending on what other substances are taken with kratom,” Holstege continued. “Like other opioids, it can cause addiction to occur in those who use it chronically and there is a potential of withdrawal symptoms if chronic use is stopped.”

Kratom is currently legal in almost all U.S. states and is not federally regulated, per the University of Utah Health. Kratom also contains psychoactive compounds that interact with opioid receptors, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (Read more from “Is This Herbal Product Fueling The US’ Next Big Addiction Crisis?” HERE)

Urgent Recall of Halloween Candy Sold over Potentially Dangerous Ingredient

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A quirky Halloween candy has been urgently recalled over a potentially life-threatening ingredient that went unreported.

The FDA sent out a notice this week warning the public Halloween Chocolatey Eyeballs candy contains undeclared milk allergens.

Any person who consumes the product and is allergic to milk may not know they are at risk of a serious or life-threatening allergic reaction.

Milk allergies can have symptoms ranging from mild to severe and can include wheezing, vomiting, hives, digestive problems, and can cause anaphylaxis, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The candy is produced by Crystal Temptations of North Arlington, New Jersey, and has been distributed in California, Arizona, Texas, Virginia, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Indiana, Nevada, New Jersey, Connecticut, Ohio, and Wyoming. (Read more from “Urgent Recall of Halloween Candy Sold over Potentially Dangerous Ingredient” HERE)

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Ukraine Is Now A Landlocked Country

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Repeated attacks by the Russian military are hammering Ukrainian ports so hard that the nation has become effectively landlocked, according to military analysts.

Ukrainian ports such as Odesa have long been the lifeline of the Ukrainian state; however, that time may be drawing to a close as Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports continue to escalate. The Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports include new jet-powered drones, cruise missiles and other ballistic missiles.

“Ukrainian political leadership is always motivated to escalate, despite the fact that they are destined to lose any sort of tit-for-tat, because Russia can almost always hurt Ukraine more than Ukraine can hurt Russia ” Peter Slezkine, senior fellow and director of the Russia Program at the Stimson Center, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Ukraine needs to show some kind of dynamism, to paint a picture of victory, to generate effective photos and video clips in order to maintain the interest of its external sponsors. So it’s constantly searching for some new way to inflict pain on Russia, knowing that Russia will then inflict more pain in the same area on Ukraine.”

The naval conflict in the Russo-Ukrainian war escalated sharply in July when Ukraine intensified strikes on Russian shipping in the Sea of Azov before expanding the campaign into the Black Sea.

Ukraine dramatically increased drone attacks against Russian shipping around Crimea in July, striking more than 180 vessels and other maritime targets over roughly three weeks as Kyiv opened a new front in the naval conflict, Reuters reported, citing anonymous sources in the Ukrainian military. (Read more from “Ukraine Is Now A Landlocked Country” HERE)

Mamdani Signs 9/11 Order Recognizing Day Of Remembrance, Then Hands Symbolic Pen To Al-Qaeda Lawyer

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New York City’s mayor turned a solemn 9/11 commemoration into a firestorm by steering the signing pen toward an aide who once defended an al-Qaeda operative.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani gathered administration officials at City Hall on Friday to sign two executive orders ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the New York Post. One order designates the date a citywide Day of Remembrance and Service, while the second strengthens the city’s emergency preparedness and continuity plans, VINnews reported.

Mamdani gave the ceremonial pen to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and quietly asked, “Can you pass this?” according to the Post. Tisch then handed it to chief counsel Ramzi Kassem, who had slipped into the press conference near its end, before she became the first official to leave the room.

Kassem previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi, who pleaded guilty to war-crime charges linked to al-Qaeda maritime plots, including the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker off Yemen, Fox News reported. Al-Darbi was held at Guantánamo Bay, and his sister married Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon and killed 184 people.

Relatives of those killed in the attacks condemned the gesture. “How can you defend a guy like that who wants to do Americans or any innocent person harm?” said Dennis Warchola, whose firefighter brother died in the North Tower, the Post reported. Joyce Cohen Day, whose mother died in the South Tower, told the Washington Times that Mamdani deliberately gave a pen “to an al Qaeda lawyer.” (Read more from “Mamdani Signs 9/11 Order Recognizing Day Of Remembrance, Then Hands Symbolic Pen To Al-Qaeda Lawyer” HERE)

Five People Killed, Others Injured After Amazon Cargo Jet Crashes at Miami International Airport

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An Amazon cargo jet crashed at Miami International Airport on Sunday, killing five people and injuring several more.

The crash occurred after the jet overshot the runway, according to reports. Video captured the harrowing aftermath:

According to NBC Miami:

A source with knowledge of the incident told NBC6 that the two pilots were taken to Jackson South, and the three others were taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital.

…

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that Air Flight 7598 overran the runway after landing at the airport around 2 p.m. ET on Sunday. The plane, a Boeing 767-300 cargo aircraft, departed from Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

(Read more from “Five People Killed, Others Injured After Amazon Cargo Jet Crashes at Miami International Airport” HERE)

Report: Trump Administration May Open Funds to Married Couples Who Choose to Have One Parent Stay at Home to Raise Children

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President Donald Trump’s administration is reportedly working toward opening federal funds to help married couples who lost income due to one parent staying at home to care for their children.

The policy would “promote a traditional view of families” and “pay parents to stay home and raise their children” by using money from a program that helps parents who work outside the home, the New York Times reported Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.

“The change would create the only federal subsidy to pay parents to stay home and raise their children, one of the most significant efforts to date by the Trump administration to harness federal funds to promote a traditional view of families,” the article read:

To do so, officials are seeking to use a Health and Human Services Department fund that was created in the 1990s to help low-income and working-class parents afford child care so they could work or go to school.

Under the draft new rule, parents who stay home with their children could benefit from the program, which typically provides about $9,000 per child each year, potentially reshaping which families get federal child care money.

(Read more from “Report: Trump Administration May Open Funds to Married Couples Who Choose to Have One Parent Stay at Home to Raise Children” HERE)

Pentagon Reportedly Escalates Hunt For Leakers By Ordering Polygraph Exams

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The Department of War is reportedly taking further actions to address sensitive operational leaks.

Federal investigators are requiring around 50 of roughly 2,000 members of the U.S. military’s Joint Staff to undergo polygraph exams following recent leaks to the press, The New York Times reported Friday.

“The Department does not comment on internal personnel or investigative matters but takes all leaks of classified national security information extremely seriously and investigates accordingly,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Securing classified information is critical to ensuring the security of the United States and of our troops deployed around the world.”

Among the recent leaks were allegations that the U.S. ran out of crucial munitions during the early months of the Iran War.

The Pentagon announced plans to buy almost 14,000 more Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) components. The move followed the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimating in July that the U.S. depleted approximately two-thirds of its pre-war Patriot and THAAD inventories during the Iran War. (Read more from “Pentagon Reportedly Escalates Hunt For Leakers By Ordering Polygraph Exams” HERE)