Gold Plunges Nearly 5% as Dollar Surges, Traders Cash Out After Record High

/0 Comments/in , /by

Gold prices sank Tuesday in their steepest one-day drop in years, sliding almost 5% as a surging US dollar and heavy profit-taking halted the precious metal’s record-setting run above $4,300 an ounce.

As of noon Tuesday, gold futures were trading at $4,143.90 per troy ounce, down $215.50, or 4.94%.

The decline followed Monday’s close at $4,359.40, when the metal hit a fresh all-time high.

The selloff marks gold’s sharpest single-session decline since April 2013 and its first meaningful correction after a monthslong rally fueled by safe-haven buying and expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts.

Prices opened at $4,371, climbed briefly to a high of $4,393.60 — and then slid steadily through morning trading to a low of $4,090 before stabilizing. (Read more from “Gold Plunges Nearly 5% as Dollar Surges, Traders Cash Out After Record High” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Speaker Johnson Makes Pledge For Epstein Files Release

/0 Comments/in , /by

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday he won’t block a floor vote on a resolution to release records tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s records if it garners enough signatures.

The petition could hit that threshold once Democratic Arizona Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva is sworn in, though Johnson has delayed her seating by tying it to Senate action on House-passed government funding bills.

“If it reaches 218 signatures, it comes to the floor,” Johnson told Politico. He emphasized he would not block the bill, adding, “No, we’re not — that’s how it works: if you get the signatures, it goes to a vote.” . . .

Republican leaders have worked to keep the measure off the floor, arguing at a Tuesday press conference that the House Oversight Committee’s ongoing Epstein probe is already turning up new evidence.

“The bipartisan House Oversight Committee is already accomplishing what the discharge petition, that gambit, sought and much more,” Johnson said at the press conference. He added that all “credible information” uncovered in the panel’s months-long investigation would eventually be released to the public. (Read more from “Speaker Johnson Makes Pledge For Epstein Files Release” HERE)

Family of Congressional Aide Who Lit Herself on Fire Speaks Out About Claims They Were Having an Affair

/0 Comments/in , , /by

The grieving mom of a congressional aide who died after setting herself on fire last month denied claims her daughter was having an affair with her married boss, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas).

Regina Santos-Aviles’s mother, Nora Gonzales, shot down a Daily Mail report on Monday that Santos-Aviles had separated from her husband and had an affair with Gonzales before her death at her Uvalde, Texas, home on Sept. 13.

“I don’t think it has any merit,” Nora Gonzales told The Post, adding that the claims are “completely false.”

Nora Gonzales said she believes the report was “completely false.”

Nora found her daughter badly burned after Santos-Aviles doused herself in gasoline before igniting in the backyard of her home, according to cops and surveillance footage.

Santos-Aviles begged her for water and was later rushed to a nearby hospital, where she died. Nora told The Post she is unsure why her daughter doused herself in gasoline. (Read more from “Family of Congressional Aide Who Lit Herself on Fire Speaks Out About Claims They Were Having an Affair” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Report: Transgender Americans to ‘Flee the Country’ as Trump Declared ‘Most Anti-LGBTQ+ President in History’

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Transgender Americans are preparing to leave the United States of America, believing that President Donald Trump is the “most anti-LGBTQ+ president in history.”

Vox reported that during Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, the rhetoric against “radical gender ideology” and “transgender insanity” grew “more hostile.”

The outlet noted, “A frequently-run Trump television ad claimed that ‘Kamala is for they/them. Trump is for you.’ And as his second term has progressed, Trump’s attacks on transgender rights have become increasingly virulent.”

Katie Sosin, who reports on LGBTQ+ issues for The 19th, spoke to Vox about the Trump administration’s policies:

Trump is generally viewed as the most anti-LGBTQ+ president in history, and a lot of that has to do with his approach to transgender rights. When he first got into office in 2017, there were still some questions about how he was going to approach LGBTQ+ issues, and he made a number of anti-trans moves in his first term. But this time, he really campaigned on anti-trans issues, and he’s made them a staple of his administration.
…

We have him limiting health care access specifically for trans youth and revoking federal funding for medical providers that offer it. We have the reinstatement of the transgender military ban. And then, denying transgender people passports.

(Read more from “Report: Transgender Americans to ‘Flee the Country’ as Trump Declared ‘Most Anti-LGBTQ+ President in History’” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Trump Threatens Hamas if Gaza Ceasefire Collapses as JD Vance to Visit Israel

/2 Comments/in , /by

As it was announced that Vice President JD Vance would visit Israel, President Donald Trump once again warned Hamas, saying the U.S.-brokered Gaza truce must hold, and issued another blunt warning to the terrorist group.

During a White House meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday, Trump warned, “We’re going to eradicate them. If we have to, they’ll be eradicated. And they know that,” he told reporters, and stressed the deal’s broad backing — “59 countries that agreed to the deal” — while insisting the ceasefire remains in place and warning that any further violence would be met with decisive action.

While details of Vance’s trip to Israel have yet to be announced, Washington’s diplomacy is extending beyond Jerusalem, as U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were expected to travel to Egypt from Israel for talks with Hamas representatives, underscoring a push to move from preserving the ceasefire toward negotiating the more fraught next phase.

At Monday’s meeting with the Australian pm, Trump was asked by a reporter whether the U.S. would put boots on the ground, Trump said his administration does not plan to deploy troops and that other countries — and Israel itself — could act if needed.

“We don’t need to, because we have many countries, as you know, signed on to this deal,” he said. “We’ve had countries calling me when they saw some of the killing with Hamas, saying we’d love to go in and take care of the situation ourselves. In addition, you have Israel — they would go in, in two minutes. If I asked him to go in, I could tell him, go in and take care of it. But right now, we haven’t said that. We’re going to give it a little chance, and hopefully there will be a little less violence.” (Read more from “Trump Threatens Hamas if Gaza Ceasefire Collapses as JD Vance to Visit Israel” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

White House Agrees to Cancel Student Debt for Millions of Borrowers

/1 Comment/in , , /by

The Trump administration says it is cancelling student debt for millions of borrowers — a pivot from its previous moves to block some loan forgiveness plans.

In an agreement with the American Federation of Teachers, the White House will again start processing student loan forgiveness for eligible borrowers in two income-driven repayment plans – Income-Contingent Repayment and Pay as You Earn – until they expire.

President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” is slated to phase out those two programs by July 1, 2028. They have over 2.5 million enrollees total, a higher ed expert estimated.

“This is a tremendous win for borrowers. With today’s filing, borrowers can rest a little easier,” said Winston Berkman-Breen, legal director for Protect Borrowers, which acted as counsel for the teachers’ union.

“The US Department of Education has agreed to follow the law and deliver Congressionally mandated affordable payments and debt relief to hard-working public service workers across the country, and will do so under court supervision. We fully intend to hold them to their word.” (Read more from “White House Agrees to Cancel Student Debt for Millions of Borrowers” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Trump’s DHS Arrests More than 480,000 Illegals in 9 Months

/0 Comments/in , /by

President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has arrested nearly half a million illegal aliens in the last nine months, Secretary Kristi Noem revealed, with the majority having criminal charges or criminal convictions.

“Since January, the Department of Homeland Security has arrested over 480,000 criminal illegal aliens — 70 percent of those individuals have criminal charges against them or have been convicted of those criminal charges,” Noem said at a press conference in Sarasota, Florida, on Monday.

Noem said DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are “focused on the worst of the worst, bringing these individuals to justice.”

“We are not going to let these individuals terrorize our streets anymore and we’re not going to let them make victims out of families that live in this country,” Noem said, before highlighting several cases of recent arrests.

One such case is the arrest of Erick Carlos Artiles Ramos, an illegal alien from Cuba who was previously convicted of homicide, kidnapping, robbery, armed carjacking, and drunk driving. (Read more from “Trump’s DHS Arrests More than 480,000 Illegals in 9 Months” HERE)

The Alarming Reality Exposed by the Global Internet Meltdown… And Why Amazon’s Crash Is Only the Beginning

/0 Comments/in , , /by

. . .United Airlines and Delta found their passengers could not use online services. Commuters accustomed to scanning the New York Times’ morning newsletter went without. Snapchatters fell silent; Reddit forums were hushed.

One third of all online users worldwide interact with Amazon Web Services (AWS) daily, according to DeepField Networks: companies ranging from Venmo to Reddit to Ring all rely on AWS servers. And, on Monday morning, the system was down – crashing a significant portion of the internet.

The fact such an outage could happen at all is ‘surprising,’ said cybersecurity expert James Knight, senior principal at Digital Warfare, which helps companies identify and shore up online vulnerabilities. It is also a troubling indicator of a new brand of chaos from which none of us are immune.

Knight told the Daily Mail: ‘My first thought was wondering how it could occur. Apparently, some sort of database went down.

‘It’s surprising that one thing affected their network, because usually there’s backup, and redundant systems all running at the same time. One particular system going down is very, very surprising.’ (Read more from The Alarming Reality Exposed by the Global Internet Meltdown… And Why Amazon’s Crash Is Only the Beginning” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Thousands of Orthodox Jews Protest Around Israeli Consulate in NYC to Call for Change in Country’s Military Draft Rules

/1 Comment/in , /by

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews packed the streets and sidewalks for blocks around the Israeli Consulate in New York City on Sunday to protest issues including a potential end of an exemption for religious students from compulsory service in Israel’s military.

The protest at the consulate, a block from the United Nations campus in Manhattan, illustrated the complex relationship between Israel and segments of the large population of very religious Jews in New York and its suburbs.

The two influential, and often rival, grand rebbes of the Satmar community both called on adherents to participate in the demonstration.

The Central Rabbinical Congress of the U.S.A. and Canada, a consortium of Orthodox Jewish groups, said it helped organize the protest.

It comes after Israel’s Supreme Court last year ordered the government to begin drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men into the military. There had been a longstanding enlistment exemption — dating to the founding of Israel in 1948. (Read more from “Thousands of Orthodox Jews Protest Around Israeli Consulate in NYC to Call for Change in Country’s Military Draft Rules” HERE)

Photo credit: Screenshot via FNTV

Accountant Arrested After ‘Opening Fire on MAGA Supporter’ in Dispute Over Trump Sign… As Victim Recalls Bullets Whizzing Past His Head

/0 Comments/in , , /by

A 38-year-old accountant has been arrested after allegedly opening fire on a MAGA supporter who had a Trump flag in his yard.

Benjamin Michael Campbell is charged with firing shots at the home of Mark Thomas, 62, in Nantahala Gorge, North Carolina, on September 6.

Thomas, who owns a river rafting business in the picturesque area, caught the moment on camera the gunman was seen raising a pistol from the sunroof of his vehicle and firing several rounds.

Records seen by the Daily Mail indicate that Campbell is a married accountant living in Cobb County, Atlanta, which is around 160 miles south of Thomas’s home. It’s unclear what Campbell was doing in the rural area.

Thomas said that Campbell first caught his eye as he drove down his road at around 55 miles per hour before coming to a sudden, screeching halt. (Read more from “Accountant Arrested After ‘Opening Fire on MAGA Supporter’ in Dispute Over Trump Sign… As Victim Recalls Bullets Whizzing Past His Head” HERE)