Message from @Hercules
Discord ID: 425825617213259776
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<:gayfrogs:319792618576019466> **Stephen Hawking pictured on Jeffrey Epstein's 'sex slave' Caribbean island**
<http://archive.is/YZmF3>
A new picture shows Stephen Hawkingamong the guests at a barbecue during a conference sponsored by Epstein.
The March 2006 photograph, taken before Epstein was charged for unlawful sex with a minor, shows professor Hawking on the billionaire's private Caribbean island, Little St James, dubbed "the Island of Sin".
Hawking, currently the subject of Oscar-nominated film The Theory of Everything, also took a boat trip and a submarine tour, paid for by Epstein.
The trip was part of a science conference on neighbouring island St Thomas, which was paid for by Epstein, 61, and which 20 other internationally renowned scientists attended.
10-10
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🇺🇸 **Vanessa Trump files for divorce from Donald Trump Jr.**
<https://archive.fo/qcgoS>
Vanessa Trump filed for divorce against her husband Donald Trump Jr. late Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The president’s daughter-in-law filed for an uncontested proceeding, meaning she’s not expecting a legal battle over custody of the couple’s five children or their assets.
They were married in 2005.
Page Six first reported that they were struggling with marital problems related to Don Jr.’s travels and controversial tweets.
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🇺🇸 **Undocumented immigrant appointed to state post in California**
<https://archive.fo/Yw7av>
The Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday appointed the first undocumented resident to a statewide post, according to Senate President pro Tem Kevin de León's office.
Lizbeth Mateo, a 33-year-old attorney and immigrant rights activist, will serve on the California Student Opportunity and Access Program Project Grant Advisory Committee. The committee advises the California Student Aid Commission on efforts to increase college access for California students from low-income or underserved communities.
"While Donald Trump fixates on walls, California will continue to concentrate on opportunities," de León said in a news release. "Ms. Mateo is a courageous, determined and intelligent young woman who at great personal risk has dedicated herself to fight for those seeking their rightful place in this country." In a statement, Mateo said she welcomed the opportunity. “While undocumented students have become more visible in our state, they remain underrepresented in places where decisions that affect them are being made," she said.
According to de León's office, Mateo graduated from Santa Clara University law School in 2016 and passed the California bar last year.
She was born in Oaxaca, Mexico and came to the United States with her parents when she was 14, according to de León's office.
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<:shiiiiit:348458410217308170> **Chicago students trash Walmart during walkout over gun violence**
<https://archive.fo/rKtgK>
Chicago police are trying to identify the dozens of students from Simeon Career Academy who they say took part in a vandalism spree while they were supposed to be protesting guns.
Shoppers and store employees were stunned by the destruction Wednesday morning at the Walmart in Chatham Market on the South Side.
Chicago police say it started when students at neighboring Simeon Career Academy were allowed to leave the school for 17 minutes to take part in the nationwide walkout to protest guns.
Police say between 40 and 60 of those students crossed the street and trashed parts of the store, knocking over product displays, yanking items off shelves, breaking packages and stealing small items like chips and candy.
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<:trump:284711336934375425> **FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe fired less than 48 hours before retirement day**
<https://archive.fo/sl2mK>
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired Friday evening, less than 48 hours before he planned to formally retire and collect a full pension.
Officials at the FBI recommended that he be fired before he had planned to retire on Sunday, his 50th birthday.
In a lengthy statement, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General provided its report on "allegations of misconduct" by McCabe to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility "after an extensive and fair investigation."
It is unclear now what part of his pension he will receive.
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🇺🇸 **Oakland mayor consulted with illegal-immigration activists before tipping off ICE raid**
<https://archive.fo/RzhK9>
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who sparked national outrage when she undermined a federal immigration raid last month, worked with illegal-immigration activists before she warned the public about the raid-- a move that ICE said led to hundreds of illegals evading detention.
Schaaf took to Twitter to warn the public about the raid, and has stood by her decision despite a number of hardened criminals being caught -- and ICE officials warning that potentially hundreds of other criminals escaped as a consequence of the tipoff.
"It is Oakland’s legal right to be a sanctuary city and we have not broken any laws," Schaaf said in a statement last month. "We believe our community is safer when families stay together."
KPIX5 reports that Schaaf was in touch with Centro Legal de la Raza just hours before the announcement, giving her information on what employers should do in the case of an ICE raid.
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🇺🇸 **Communist militia leader arrested on weapons charges**
<https://archive.fo/9WOV8>
We have reported extensively on the violent communist militia group, Red Guards Austin. This far-left extremist group openly praises a dictator who butchered millions of people, openly advocates for armed “revolutionary violence”, and is actively recruiting students via their campus organizing arm, Revolutionary Student Front.
In a statement from the Red Guards Austin, they claim that one of their organizers was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm on Friday, March 9th: *“Dallas [not his legal name] and a friend headed to the bail bond office to meet the further requirements of his bail. Immediately upon exiting the car, they were surrounded by undercover cops and federal agents. Dallas was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm as a felon”*
Towards the end of their statement they make it clear that they are ready to die in order to institute an authoritarian communist government: *They cannot break the will of the movement guided by the sharpest weapon the proletariat has ever wielded: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism. Though we have many lessons to learn from our errors, and though it grieves us unspeakably that someone we treasure has fallen into the hands of the enemy, we have never been embarrassed by our work and our struggle, and we never will be. We will uphold, defend, and apply Maoism until our deaths.*
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🇷🇺 **Vladimir Putin decisively re-elected as Russian president – preliminary results **
<http://archive.fo/gVLwx>
Incumbent Russian leader Vladimir Putin is set to secure a resounding victory in the Russian presidential election, according to partial results made public by the electoral commission. Vladimir Putin is now leading with over 76 percent of the vote, well above the simple majority needed to avoid a run-off.
First-time Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin is running second with little over 12 percent, while veteran nationalist politician (((Vladimir Zhirinovsky))), who first ran against Boris Yeltsin in 1991, rounds out the top three with about six percent.
Shortly after the first results were announced, Vladimir Putin addressed his supporters at a massive anniversary rally in Moscow’s Red Square, marking Crimea's reunification with Russia, and talked to reporters in his election campaign HQ. He thanked his backers and answered questions on the hottest political issues.
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**Pokemon GO Makes People More Violent? Washington Man Allegedly Assaults Other Players After Losing Gym.**
**http://archive.is/mlsBv**
According to Washington State TV station KATU News, three men were sitting on a park bench in the Burnt Bridge Creek Trail in Vancouver when a stranger pulled up and threatened them with a tire iron.
"He comes out of nowhere, yelling, 'Which one of you is Andy?' with a tire iron in his hand," said Andrew Otton. Otton's username on Pokémon GO is AndySamberg, and so he realized that the man was looking for him. According to Otton, he took control of a gym without realizing that another player had just claimed it.
"Hey, did you just take this gym from me? That's pretty messed up, man," the man very angrily said, according to Otton.
The incident allegedly did not just end with raised voices. According to Grayson Hagstrom, one of the people with Otton at the time, the man punched his friend several times. Hagstrom then got behind the angry man and started choking him to make him stop.
"I figured if he didn't have consciousness, he wouldn't be that tough."
It is unclear how the confrontation ended, but Otton and Hagstrom got the man's license plate and shared it on social media. Other people then revealed that this was not the first time that the man went on a Pokémon GO-related rampage.
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<:shiiiiit:348458410217308170> **D.C. lawmaker says recent snowfall caused by ‘Rothschilds controlling the climate’**
<https://archive.fo/9tlF6>
A D.C. lawmaker responded to a brief snowfall Friday by publishing a video in which he espoused a conspiracy theory that Jewish financiers control the weather.
D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr., D-Ward 8, posted the video to his official Facebook page at 7:21 a.m. as snow flurries were hitting the nation's capital. The video, shot through the windshield of a car driving west on Interstate 695 through downtown Washington, shows snowy skies while White narrates.
"Man, it just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man. Y'all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation," he says. "And D.C. keep talking about, 'We a resilient city.' And that's a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful."
However, about four hours after The Washington Post published this story online Sunday, White sent a statement of apology via text message.
"I work hard everyday to combat racism and prejudices of all kinds. I want to apologize to the Jewish Community and anyone I have offended," he said. "The Jewish community have been allies with me in my journey to help people. I did not intend to be anti-Semitic, and I see I should not have said that after learning from my colleagues."
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<:shiiiiit:348458410217308170> **7 killed, 13 wounded in weekend shootings across Chicago**
<https://archive.fo/JWJBh>
Seven people were killed and at least 13 others were wounded in shootings across Chicago between 4:30 p.m. Friday and 10:30 p.m. Sunday.
In the last fatal shooting, a 36-year-old man was shot and killed Sunday night on the Near North Side. The man was sitting in his parked car about 8:45 p.m. in the 500 block of West Division Street when a group of five armed people approached him and fired shots, according to Chicago Police. He was shot in the back and taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
On Saturday night, a man was killed and another was grazed by a bullet as they were driving in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side. The men, ages 27 and 32, were traveling south in a Chevrolet Equinox at 10:33 p.m. in the 4900 block of South Ashland when two males got out of a dark-colored SUV and opened fire, authorities said. The older man, Terrell L. Jones, suffered multiple gunshot wounds to his body, while the younger man was grazed in the right hand.
At least 11 other people were wounded in shootings over the weekend.
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🇫 **Count Dankula, memelord who made video of him teaching his pug the roman salute, convicted guilty for hate crime**
https://twitter.com/CountDankulaTV/status/976082047172259841?s=20
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** <:laff:387622602111320065> BITCOIN BLOCK CHAIN BEING USED BY PEDOPHILES TO STORE IMAGES OF CHILD PORN**
http://archive.is/AFhYP#selection-1643.0-1655.273
German researchers have discovered unknown persons are using bitcoin’s blockchain to store and link to child abuse imagery, potentially putting the cryptocurrency in jeopardy.
The blockchain is the open-source, distributed ledger that records every bitcoin transaction, but can also store small bits of non-financial data. This data is typically notes about the trade of bitcoin, recording what it was for or other metadata. But it can also be used to store links and files.
Researchers from the RWTH Aachen University, Germany found that around 1,600 files were currently stored in bitcoin’s blockchain. Of the files least eight were of sexual content, including one thought to be an image of child abuse and two that contain 274 links to child abuse content, 142 of which link to dark web services.
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🇺🇸 **YouTube Bans Firearms Demo Videos, Entering the Gun Control Debate**
<https://archive.fo/aOZpy>
YouTube, a popular media site for firearms enthusiasts, this week quietly introduced tighter restrictions on videos involving weapons, becoming the latest battleground in the U.S. gun-control debate.
YouTube will ban videos that promote or link to websites selling firearms and accessories, including bump stocks, which allow a semi-automatic rifle to fire faster. Additionally, YouTube said it will prohibit videos with instructions on how to assemble firearms. The video site, owned by Alphabet Inc.’s Google, has faced intense criticism for hosting videos about guns, bombs and other deadly weapons.
For many gun-rights supporters, YouTube has been a haven. A current search on the site for “how to build a gun” yields 25 million results, though that includes items such as toys. At least one producer of gun videos saw its page suspended on Tuesday. Another channel opted to move its videos to an adult-content site, saying that will offer more freedom than YouTube.
“We routinely make updates and adjustments to our enforcement guidelines across all of our policies,” a YouTube spokeswoman said in a statement. “While we’ve long prohibited the sale of firearms, we recently notified creators of updates we will be making around content promoting the sale or manufacture of firearms and their accessories.”
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🇺🇸 **Biden says he would 'beat the hell' out of Trump if in high school**
<https://archive.fo/y3Klw>
Former Vice President Joe Biden said he would "beat the hell out of" President Donald Trump if they were in high school over his crude comments about women.
"When a guy who ended up becoming our national leader said, 'I can grab a woman anywhere and she likes it' and then said, 'I made a mistake,'" Biden said Tuesday of Trump, according to video of the remarks posted on Facebook by the University of Miami College Democrats.
"They asked me would I like to debate this gentleman, and I said no. I said, 'If we were in high school, I'd take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him,'" said Biden, getting laughter and applause from the crowd at the University of Miami.
Biden was referencing the "Access Hollywood" video that surfaced in 2016 in which Trump was heard making lewd comments about women. Trump issued an apology, calling his comments "locker room talk."
Biden said Tuesday, "I've been in a lot of locker rooms my whole life. I'm a pretty damn good athlete."
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🇺🇸 **Restrict gun sales, Citigroup tells its business partners**
<https://archive.fo/gUSDV>
Citigroup is imposing restrictions on firearm sales by its business partners, becoming the first major U.S. bank to take a financial stand in the growing national debate over gun control.
The New York-based bank on Thursday said it is requiring its partners to bar firearm sales to customers under age 21, as well as those who have not passed a background check.
The bank is also barring clients from selling high-capacity ammunition magazines and so-called bump stocks that enable more rapid firing.
The policy will apply company-wide to Citigroup's small business, commercial, and institutional clients that borrow funds, use banking services or raise capital through the bank.
Citigroup also is requiring similar compliance from business partners that issue co-brand or private label credit cards through the bank.
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<:thinkkike:361809126436634634> **FEDS: Man Attacked Jewish Man Who Wasn’t Actually Jewish**
<https://archive.fo/qP3QY>
An Ohio man has been indicted by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Ohio on a charge of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
According to the indictment, on or about Feb. 4, 2017, outside of a restaurant located in Cincinnati, Ohio, Izmir Koch, 32, willfully caused bodily injury to a person because of that person’s perceived religion. The indictment alleges that Koch hit and kicked an individual (Victim-1), after Victim-1 represented that he was Jewish. Victim-1 is alleged to have suffered bodily injury as a result of the assault, including a fractured orbital floor.
The victim stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and meet a friend. Koch yelled out asking if anyone was Jewish, the indictment says, and the victim responded he was.
Koch punched him in the head and continued to hit and kick him while he was on the ground, the indictment says. The victim suffered bruised ribs and a fractured eye socket.
As it turned out, the victim wasn’t even really Jewish, U.S. Attorney Benjamin Glassman said.
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🇺🇸 **Paul Nehlen goes full-on 14/88; drops redpills on the JQ, Assad and white genocide in South Africa** <:swattie:348458410288873474>
https://youtu.be/1rCM-2401ko
The absolute madman!
🇺🇸 ⚠ **Trump signs $1.3 trillion spending bill into law despite being 'unhappy' about it**
<https://archive.fo/Vfd7q>
An "unhappy" President Donald Trump signed the $1.3 trillion spending bill into law Friday, his second about-face in 24 hours on the measure to keep the government open.
The president said he approved the legislation to fund the government through September for national security reasons, as it authorizes a major increase in military spending that he supports. But he stressed that he did so reluctantly.
Trump highlighted the portions of the bill he supports: the nearly $80 billion increase in defense spending, a $1.6 billion boost to border security funding and a cash injection to fight the opioid epidemic. The border money will go mostly toward surveillance technology and fencing similar to structures that already exist on the southern border. The amount of funding came in far below what the president wanted.
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🇺🇸 **President Trump signs omnibus spending bill, putting the CLOUD Act on the books in big shift for cloud data**
<https://archive.fo/5m690>
Congress tacked the CLOUD Act onto the massive spending bill Wednesday night ahead of voting on the bill Thursday, and it became official Friday morning. The CLOUD Act clarifies how the U.S. government can access data of U.S. citizens needed for law enforcement investigations that is stored on cloud servers outside the country, which was the issue in a Supreme Court case between the Department of Justice and Microsoft earlier this year.
**It also changes the way foreign governments request information from U.S. tech companies for similar investigations on their own citizens. The law calls for the executive branch of government to strike mutual legal-assistance treaties with foreign governments, who would then contact tech companies directly with their requests instead of routing through the DOJ.**Tech companies would be able to push back on those requests, but the CLOUD Act removes a layer of judicial review from the process, which critics feel gives too much power to the executive branch in terms of which countries get to be in our information-sharing club.
The bill enjoyed bipartisan support as well as widespread support from big tech companies, led by Microsoft, but privacy advocates are worried that some of the protections against signing treaties with countries with poor human-rights records are weak. Foreign governments will also be able to turn over data on U.S. citizens gathered in the course of investigating their own citizens to U.S. law enforcement without a warrant, according to the ACLU.
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🇺🇸 **BUMP STOCK BAN INCOMING**
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/977286489410240514
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<:kek:349274052919164929> **Marjory Stoneman Douglas will require students to carry only clear backpacks**
<https://archive.fo/yVwci>
When students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas return to class after spring break next week, they'll be required to carry clear backpacks.
The move is meant to ramp up security measures after last month's deadly shooting in Parkland, Florida, and a series of breaches since. "Clear backpacks are the only backpacks that will be permitted on campus," said Broward County School Superintendent Robert Runcie said in a letter sent to parents.
Tyra Hemans, 19, a senior, told CNN she supports parts of the new policy, such as the ID requirement. But she believes other security measures, such as forcing students to carry clear backpacks, don't adequately address the real problem with school safety, which she says is lax gun laws.
**"I'm not happy with it. Why are you punishing me for one person's actions?" she said.**
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🇺🇸 **Taylor Swift voices support for gun reform ahead of 'March for Our Lives'**
<https://archive.fo/I6gPb>
Taylor Swift voiced her support for Saturday's "March for Our Lives" in an Instagram post on Friday, and said that she made a donation to the campaign to "support gun reform."
"No one should have to go to school in fear of gun violence. Or to a nightclub. Or to a concert. Or to a movie theater. Or to their place of worship," the Grammy-winning pop star wrote. "I've made a donation to show my support for the students, for the March For Our Lives campaign, for everyone affected by these tragedies, and to support gun reform. I'm so moved by the Parkland High School students, faculty, by all families and friends of victims who have spoken out, trying to prevent this from happening again."
It is unclear whether Swift will participate in the march. A CNN request to her representatives was not immediately returned.
Thousands are expected to take to the streets of the nation's capital this weekend, including celebrities like George and Amal Clooney, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson, Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato.
Fall Out Boy and rapper G-Eazy are set to headline a concert Friday night in Washington, DC, that will benefit gun violence prevention groups ahead of the march
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🇺🇸 **Craigslist drops personal ads due to sex trafficking bill**
<https://archive.fo/hFYa7>
Craigslist has yanked its personal ads section in the wake of an anti-online sex trafficking bill that passed in Congress this week.
The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or FOSTA, makes websites criminally liable for content that its users post, including prostitution ads and sex-trafficking content.
Craigslist — whose personals include bawdy categories such as casual encounters — said it pulled ads because it wasn’t worth running afoul of the new law.
“Any tool or service can be misused,” the website said in a statement. “We can’t take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services, so we are regretfully taking craigslist personals offline. Hopefully we can bring them back some day.”
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🇺🇸 **Trump order would ban most transgender troops from serving**
<https://archive.fo/0AHau>
President Donald Trump is issuing an order to ban transgender people from serving in the military except under “limited circumstances,” following up on his calls to ban transgender individuals from serving.
The White House says retaining troops with a history or diagnosis of “gender dysphoria” — those who may require substantial medical treatment — “presents considerable risk to military effectiveness and lethality.”
Trump received recommendations from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in February for dealing with transgender individuals serving in the military.
Trump surprised the Pentagon’s leadership in a 2017 tweet when he declared he would reverse an Obama-era plan to allow transgender individuals to serve openly.
His push for the ban has been blocked by several legal challenges, and the Pentagon began allowing transgender recruits to seek enlistment in January.
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🇺🇸 🇮🇷 **Nine Iranians Charged With Conducting Massive Cyber Theft Campaign on Behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps**
<https://archive.fo/b08rD>
An Indictment charging Gholamreza Rafatnejad, 38; Ehsan Mohammadi, 37; Abdollah Karima, aka Vahid Karima, 39; Mostafa Sadeghi, 28; Seyed Ali Mirkarimi, 34; Mohammed Reza Sabahi, 26; Roozbeh Sabahi, 24; Abuzar Gohari Moqadam, 37; and Sajjad Tahmasebi, 30, all citizens and residents of Iran, was unsealed today.
he defendants were each leaders, contractors, associates, hackers-for-hire or affiliates of the Mabna Institute, an Iran-based company that, since at least 2013, conducted a coordinated campaign of cyber intrusions into computer systems belonging to 144 U.S. universities, 176 universities across 21 foreign countries, 47 domestic and foreign private sector companies, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the State of Hawaii, the State of Indiana, the United Nations, and the United Nations Children’s Fund.
Through the defendants’ activities, the Mabna Institute stole more than 31 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property from universities, and email accounts of employees at private sector companies, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations.
The defendants conducted many of these intrusions on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s (Iran) Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), one of several entities within the government of Iran responsible for gathering intelligence, as well as other Iranian government and university clients.
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🇸🇦 **Saudi Arabia opens its airspace to Israel for first time ever as Air India flight bound for Tel Aviv ends a 70-year-old ban**
<https://archive.fo/oquWx>
Saudi Arabia opened its airspace for the first time to a commercial flight to Israel on Thursday with an Air India route flying non-stop between New Delhi and Tel Aviv - a sign of a behind-the-scenes improvement in ties between the Arab kingdom and the Jewish state.
The Air India 139 flight landed at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport after 7-1/2 hours and flew over Saudi for around three hours, marking a diplomatic shift for Riyadh that Israel says was fuelled by shared concern over Iranian influence in the region.
It comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described relations with the Arab world as the 'best ever', with common concerns over Iran drawing them closer together.
Riyadh, which does not recognise Israel, has not formally confirmed granting the Air India plane overflight rights. And while the move ended a 70-year-old ban on planes flying to or from Israel through Saudi airspace, there is as yet no indication that it will be applied for any Israeli airline.
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🇺🇸 **Trump: Border wall construction will start on Monday**
<https://archive.fo/UP0C7>
President Trump said Friday that construction of his promised border wall would start "immediately" after signing the omnibus spending bill, which included $1.6 billion in funding for the wall.
"We're going to be starting work literally on Monday," Trump said during an event Friday at the White House. "We have a lot of money coming to the border."
Although the White House requested $25 billion in funding for wall construction, lawmakers included just $1.6 billion in the final version of their omnibus. That money can only go to fencing, however, and cannot be used to build a concrete wall anywhere along the border.
"Not happy with $1.6 billion for the wall," Trump said. Still, Trump described the sum as an "initial down payment" on the wall that would allow his administration to begin building it right away. "This is short term funding, but it's immediate," Trump said.
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🇫 **Gun Maker Remington Seeks Bankruptcy Protection**
<https://archive.fo/3WJNI>
Firearms maker Remington Outdoor Co. sought bankruptcy protection Sunday, in the face of a heavy debt load, falling sales and lawsuits tied to Sandy Hook school shooting.
Remington filed for chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., with plans to hand over control of the company to its creditors—including Franklin Resources Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s asset-management division—in exchange for wiping much of its debt from its balance sheet.
The bankruptcy filing brings to an end private-equity backer Cerberus Capital Management LP’s investment in the gun business. The buyout firm acquired Bushmaster Firearms International in 2006, and in 2007 it paid $118 million for Remington and assumed $252 million of its debt. Cerberus later formed the Freedom Group Inc., a holding company comprised of Bushmaster, Remington and other firearms makers.
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