Author: Charlie Duncan

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, addressed what he called the “recent regional developments” in a public speech, breaking his silence on the collapse of Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria. Khamenei pointed fingers at the United States and Israel, declaring, “There is no doubt that what happened in Syria was orchestrated in American and Israeli command rooms.” However, contrary to Khamenei’s claims, global intelligence agencies – including Israeli organizations like the General Intelligence Directorate and Mossad – were reportedly caught off guard by the rebels’ rapid success and Assad’s downfall. Turkey, Tehran and Moscow were equally blindsided by the speed…

Microsoft is unbundling its Teams messaging app from Microsoft 365 and Office 365. On Monday, the company said that Teams will no longer be included in its productivity suite and will instead sell the messaging platform on its own for $5.25 per user per month. Microsoft will also now offer Office without Teams for between $7.75 and $54.75 per user per month. Microsoft Teams is the tech giant’s answer to popular Salesforce-owned platform Slack. Used widely around the world, Teams lets users send messages, share files, and hold video conference calls. Microsoft used to offer its business customers Skype for Business for…

Several thousand people gathered on Parliament Hill in the Canadian capital on Monday, demonstrating in solidarity with Israel and calling for an end to anti-Semitic violence. Dozens of buses were chartered to Ottawa from Montreal and Toronto, home to large Jewish communities. “It’s so important that diverse parts of our country come together and stand up for the Jewish people… and stand together against hatred of Jews,” Sara Lefton of United Jewish Appeal, one of the groups sponsoring the rally, told AFP. Israel has been at war with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip since the Palestinian Islamist movement launched…

Proposed high-speed rail lines in the western United States moved a step closer to reality Tuesday with the announcement of $6 billion in government grants. The cash will come from President Joe Biden’s signature infrastructure bill aimed at revamping the country’s creaking railways, roads and bridges, and is part of a plan to double the number of people taking the train by 2040. Half of the cash will go towards the construction of a high-speed line spanning 218 miles (350 kilometers) between Las Vegas and downtown Los Angeles, slashing the current five-hour car journey time to two-hours and 40 minutes.…

Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue has turned down $320 million in federal money aimed at reducing tailpipe emissions, arguing federal transportation officials are overstepping their authority in the program. Perdue on Nov. 13 notified U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg the state will not participate in the federal Carbon Reduction Program, a five-year, $6.4 billion effort focused on emissions that contribute to global warming. The program was authorized in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion federal law intended to rebuild and invest in the nation’s transportation system. Perdue wrote that “nothing within the (law) explicitly…

Elon Musk’s social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, filed a lawsuit against liberal advocacy group Media Matters for America on Monday, saying it manufactured a report to show advertisers’ posts alongside neo-Nazi and white nationalist posts in order to “drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp.” Advertisers have been fleeing X over concerns about their ads showing up next to pro-Nazi content — and hate speech on the site in general — while billionaire owner Musk has inflamed tensions with his own posts endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory. IBM, NBCUniversal and its parent company Comcast said last week that they stopped advertising on…

Controversial U.S. Rep. George Santos of New York was expelled from Congress last Friday after the House Ethics Committee found substantial evidence he used campaign finance funds on personal ventures such as spa days, shopping sprees, and even an OnlyFans subscription. Despite a bipartisan vote of 311-114 choosing to oust the embattled congressman, two Mississippi representatives chose to vote against the measure to remove Santos – even though the charge to do so was led by Mississippian and House Ethics Chair Rep. Michael Guest. Rep. Trent Kelly, who represents District 1, explained on Wednesday’s episode of The Gallo Show that while he thought Santos…

SAN FRANCISCO – The Biden administration has vowed to continue negotiating an ambitious Asia trade deal, but election-year pressures and resistance to tough commitments from some countries make a deal unlikely, trade experts and business groups say. The Biden administration had emphasized finishing key chapters of its Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) initiative trade “pillar” in time for this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, aiming to offer the region an alternative to China’s growing trade clout. That effort failed after some countries, including Vietnam and Indonesia, declined to commit to strong labor and environmental standards with binding enforcement provisions. The…

Frankfurt (3/12 – 12) The relatively rapid cohesion of disparate nations, historically competitive or even at war with one another, into the European Union came about in part because of the ongoing threat from the Soviet Union. The specter of a tank invasion from Warsaw Pact nations, today forgotten, was such a reality that the German government kept a major portion of its gold bullion across the Atlantic. The USSR, an ally in World War II after being double-crossed by Hitler – remember the “Non-Aggression Pact signed in Moscow by von Ribbentrop and Molotov – was soon appraised as a…

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Tuesday a wave of new proposed policies demonstrating his administration’s solidarity with Israel amid its war against Hamas terrorists. DeSantis made the announcement during a news conference at the Shul of Bal Harbour synagogue in Florida. He connected Iran to the violence perpetrated by Hamas this weekend and urged President Biden’s administration to take more drastic action. “When Iran gets more money, they are not using it to make life better for the people of Iran,” DeSantis said. “What they use it for is to fund terrorism throughout the Middle East and throughout the world.…