‘All Signs’ Pointing to ‘Major Escalation’ on World Stage just Ahead of Midterms: Expert

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Foreign policy expert Trita Parsi issued a dire warning Sunday that “all signs” were pointing to a “major escalation” in the U.S. war against Iran, one that “may very well” occur next month.

“All signs point to a major escalation between the US, Iran and Israel. And it may very well be initiated by Tehran itself a week or two before the midterm elections,” Parsi wrote Sunday in a statement published on social media. “Iran’s pattern of behavior suggests preparation for that war, including how they are clearing the path for even more effective strikes against Israel.”

The U.S. war against Iran has seen few direct exchanges of fire since July, a trend that was broken last week after Iran responded to a wave of U.S. strikes by attacking U.S. allies Jordan and Bahrain. On Saturday, the United States struck three Iranian oil tankers, an attack that Iran’s parliament speaker vowed Sunday to answer with a “more intense and more painful response,” CBS News reported.

And yet, Iran’s response to U.S. attacks, as previously noted by Parsi, has been comparatively reserved, suggesting Tehran may be waiting for a more “optimal moment to strike back.” That moment, Parsi previously theorized, could be “two or three weeks before the congressional elections, maximizing the political damage to Trump.”

Should a “major escalation” in war occur, Parsi also warned that it was likely Israel would play a larger direct role in the conflict.

(Read more from “‘All Signs’ Pointing to ‘Major Escalation’ on World Stage just Ahead of Midterms: Expert” HERE)

Survey Spells Bad News For Anti-Gunners

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Americans own tens of millions of modern semiautomatic firearms that are the subject of a pending Supreme Court case, a Georgetown University professor estimated in a study released in August.

The study, which came five years after an initial effort in 2021, includes new data on the popularity of modern semiautomatic firearms that could influence Viramontes v. Cook County, a lawsuit seeking to invalidate a local ban on so-called “assault weapons” first passed by the Illinois county in 2006. The data suggests these modern firearms could be found to be “in common use,” making them protected under the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment precedents in Heller and Bruen.

William English, an assistant professor of strategy, economics, ethics, and public policy at Georgetown University, surveyed 51,398 U.S. residents aged 18 and older for the study, identifying 16,688 gun owners who provided detailed responses about firearm ownership and use, including the use of firearms for self-defense. English estimated that at least 88 million Americans own over 460 million firearms, including 60 million modern semiautomatic rifles and 539 million detachable magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

“In general, firearms ownership continued to diversify, both with regard to minorities and women in particular,” English told the Daily Caller News Foundation when reached for comment.

In May, Virginia Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed a ban on modern semiautomatic firearms, which drew immediate legal challenges from pro-Second Amendment organizations. Prior to the law taking effect, purchasers raced to buy the banned firearms. (Read more from “Survey Spells Bad News For Anti-Gunners” HERE)

Chilling Video Shows Crocodile Chomp Handler’s Legs as He Desperately Fights for Life: ‘He Couldn’t Scream’

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Harrowing video shows a crocodile handler desperately clinging to the side of a pool as the hulking predator grabs onto his legs and drags him into the water.

The worker was trying to feed the croc a chicken inside an enclosure at Adventure Park in Papua New Guinea’s capital city, Port Moresby, on Saturday afternoon when he was attacked.

He was rushed to the hospital after being trapped in the beast’s jaws for over an hour but died from his injuries on Sunday morning, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

“He brought the chicken to the fence and the crocodile attacked the person and tried to bring him into the pool,” eyewitness Gibson John said, according to the outlet.

“He was in severe pain but he couldn’t scream. He couldn’t speak properly at that time. It was the pain I could see from his eyes.

“The only thing I could hear him say was, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’” (Read more from “Chilling Video Shows Crocodile Chomp Handler’s Legs as He Desperately Fights for Life: ‘He Couldn’t Scream’” HERE)

Photo credit: Chaicks Marn / Facebook

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)

Photo credit: Flickr

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)

Photo credit: Flickr

At the FBI, a History of Hiring Prostitutes, Bestiality may no Longer be a Barrier to Being Hired

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The FBI previously refused to hire job applicants if they admitted to hiring sex workers or stealing from an employer — or engaging in acts of bestiality.

Today, those acts, which are mostly illegal across the country, are no longer automatic deal breakers for applicants to the nation’s top law enforcement agency.

In June, the FBI quietly lowered some of the standards it uses when it conducts background checks on would-be federal agents and other personnel. According to multiple sources briefed on the matter, the FBI did so to facilitate hiring in some cases, even if candidates acknowledged they engaged in sexually deviant activities or stole from an employer.

The move comes as the FBI has lost scores of employees through firings, retirements and resignations since the start of the Trump administration.

Under specific circumstances, the FBI is willing to give candidates a pass on prostitution, as long as they have not hired sex workers three or more times, the sources told CBS News. And the hiring of the sex workers must not have taken place within the last 10 years, several of the sources added. (Read more from “At the FBI, a History of Hiring Prostitutes, Bestiality may no Longer be a Barrier to Being Hired” HERE)

Disheveled Milo Yiannopoulos Scowls in Mugshot as He’s Detained by ICE after ‘Overstaying His Welcome’

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Firebrand right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos looked miserable and disheveled with bags under his eyes in a mugshot taken after he was nabbed by ICE.

The former spokesman for Kanye West is being held in ICE custody in Alexandria, Louisiana, because he “chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a post Friday.

Yiannopoulos, 41, who is British, appeared unshaven and exhausted with messy hair in a mugshot posted by the agency.

The ex-Breitbart News editor entered the country legally through New York City in May 2019, according to officials, who said he skipped an immigration hearing after being issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge on July 22.

“Yiannopoulos legally entered the country on May 14, 2019, through New York City, New York. He chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws,” the agency wrote, adding that he was arrested Thursday.

DHS called him “an illegal alien from the United Kingdom,” and warned in the post that “being in detention is a choice” (Read more from “Disheveled Milo Yiannopoulos Scowls in Mugshot as He’s Detained by ICE after ‘Overstaying His Welcome’” HERE)

Two Employees Die Of ‘Airport Malaria,’ Officials Try To Calm Fears

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Mosquitoes carried into Germany from a malaria region have killed two workers at the country’s busiest airport.

Six Frankfurt Airport employees caught malaria on the job, according to German outlet Hessischer Rundfunk. The first of the two victims died in early July. The second death came in August. All four surviving patients have since left the hospital.

The airport operator, Fraport, identified the infections as airport malaria, CNN reported. The label covers the rare cases in which the disease spreads beyond the regions where it circulates, according to CNN, citing the Frankfurt health department. The cause of the first case emerged only after the patient had died.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) confirmed four infections in mid-July, with the patients falling ill between July 4 and July 6, according to its Epidemiological Bulletin. The count reached six by late August. Germany’s national public health agency assumes an infected Anopheles mosquito arrived by aircraft and passed on the infection, according to the bulletin.

The institute has urged physicians to consider airport malaria when patients present unexplained fever and report no recent travel abroad, according to the bulletin. That advice covers anyone working at or near airports served by intercontinental passenger and cargo flights, according to the RKI. (Read more from “Two Employees Die Of ‘Airport Malaria,’ Officials Try To Calm Fears” HERE)

Trump Releases His Ranking Of U.S. Presidents … And You’ll Never Guess Who’s At The Top

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President Donald Trump released his ranking of United States presidents on Thursday, with himself at the top of the list.

The president posted the graphic to Truth Social, referring to a CNN news segment reporting that a majority of Republicans admire Trump over leaders such as Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln. According to the poll, 53% of Republicans said they admire Trump most while 18% chose Reagan and just 8% favor Lincoln.

Trump place himself in a tier of his own labeled “The Greatest.”

Founding fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were ranked below Trump as “Great,” along with Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Andrew Jackson.

Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, John Adams and James K. Polk were all labeled “Near Great.”

One X user indicated that the image shared by Trump closely resembles a 1948 ranking of United States presidents according to 55 scholars posted in Life Magazine. If so, it would explain the absence of the majority of presidents from the second half of the 20th century, including Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and both Bushes.

(Read more from “Trump Releases His Ranking Of U.S. Presidents … And You’ll Never Guess Who’s At The Top” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr