Aggregator

California man accused of killing ex-wife and new boyfriend in driveway makes bold move in chilling body-cam video

NY Post
3 months 2 weeks ago
Body-camera footage captures the quiet arrest of a 43-year-old Reedley man accused of gunning down his ex-wife and her new partner in a shocking Central California double homicide. Authorities say Miguel Angel Saldana Garcia was taken into custody after officers found him casually walking down the street. Video captured the arrest shortly after 5 p.m.,...
Daniel Farr

DOJ Settles Surveillance Abuse Lawsuit With Former Trump Campaign Adviser Carter Page

Zero Rss
3 months 2 weeks ago
DOJ Settles Surveillance Abuse Lawsuit With Former Trump Campaign Adviser Carter Page

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Justice told the U.S. Supreme Court on April 22 that it has settled a lawsuit filed by former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page over alleged surveillance abuses.

Page had served as a foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

He sued several top federal law enforcement officials, alleging his constitutional rights were violated through illegal surveillance carried out under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as part of an investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The settlement moots, or makes legally irrelevant, Page’s lawsuit against the federal government, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in a new brief filed with the nation’s highest court.

Page had filed a petition with the Supreme Court in December 2025 to appeal a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruling that affirmed dismissal of the lawsuit by a lower court.

The appeals court ruled that he had waited too long to initiate his lawsuit.

Page is a longtime contributor to the United States’ national security efforts as an “operational contact” of the Central Intelligence Agency. Despite his years of service, he was a target in the FBI’s investigation known as Operation Crossfire Hurricane that probed suspected Russian influence on Trump’s 2016 campaign. He has denied having any improper ties to Russia and was not charged with wrongdoing, according to the petition.

“Through deliberate lies and incomplete factual assertions, the FBI convinced the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that there was probable cause to believe that Dr. Page was an intermediary between Russia and Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign’s chair,” he said in the petition.

The FBI filed for four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants to surveil Page and the court granted all four. Before the final renewal application was filed, two members of the operation conspired to leak information from the secret FBI surveillance of Page to the media to damage his public image and the Trump campaign. Anonymously sourced media reports falsely insinuated that Page was an agent of Russia, according to the petition.

Because Page knew he wasn’t a Russian agent, he inferred from the media reports that he had been unlawfully surveilled and shared his belief with Congress and the public, according to his petition. However, foreign intelligence investigations are carried out in secret, so his suspicions could not be verified no matter what steps he took.

In late 2019, the Office of the Inspector General published a report spelling out “the FBI’s repeated and thorough surveillance abuses against Dr. Page,” stating that the first warrant application contained “seven significant inaccuracies and omissions.” The FBI also excluded information exonerating Page from warrant applications, including statements by Page “that were inconsistent with its theory” that “Page was an agent of Russia.” The office also “identified 10 additional significant errors in the renewal applications,” the petition said.

A Justice Department spokesperson commented on the settlement.

“No American should ever face covert and unlawful surveillance based on their political views,” the spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

“The investigation into Carter Page—a man never charged with a single crime—relied on inherently flawed and uncorroborated information, proving it was a political sham from the get-go. The targeting of American citizens for political purposes constitutes a severe violation of civil liberties,” the spokesperson continued.

“This Department of Justice is committed to dismantling the weaponization of government and today’s settlement represents one of many initiatives to provide justice to those abused by rogue actors.”

The Epoch Times reached out for comment to Page’s attorney, Gene Schaerr of Schaerr Jaffe in Washington. No reply was received by publication time.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/23/2026 - 21:10
Tyler Durden

Iran Announces First Hormuz Toll Fees Successfully Transferred To Central Bank

Zero Rss
3 months 2 weeks ago
Iran Announces First Hormuz Toll Fees Successfully Transferred To Central Bank

President Trump has repeatedly said that Iran "better not" collect tolls from ships seeking to traverse the Hormuz Strait waterway, as both warring sides have initiated their own rival blockades of different sectors of the strait.

Just last week, Trump had flatly rejected the possibility of Tehran imposing fees - reportedly $2 million or perhaps even more - when a reporter asked about the prospect of restrictions or tolls managed by Iran for strait passage. "Nope. No way. No. Nope," Trump had responded. He said there can't be tolls along with restrictions, suggesting that a future system could perhaps be worked out, even of some kind of toll-sharing scheme. "No, they’re not going to be tolls."

The Central Bank of Iran. Source: Iran International

Earlier this month the president had even stated of tolls, "We're thinking of doing it as a joint venture" - in reference to Washington and Tehran, which of course raised eyebrows. "It’s a way of securing it — also securing it from lots of other people. It’s a beautiful thing."

"We’ll be loading up with supplies of all kinds, and just ‘hangin’ around’ in order to make sure that everything goes well," Trump had later separately written on Truth Social. "I feel confident that it will."

But after all this, on Thursday Iran has publicly announced for the first time that initial toll payments have been successfully transferred to the state-operated Central Bank of Iran (CBI):

The Iranian authorities have received revenue from tolls for ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz for the first time, Parliament Deputy Speaker Hamid Reza Hajibabai said.

"The first revenue received from tolls in the Strait of Hormuz has been transferred to the Central Bank's account," the Fars news agency quoted him as saying.

A specific monetary amount was not given, but this week has seen reports that several Iranian tankers, with transponders off, have made it past the US Navy's blockade - which the Pentagon has denied. State media says:

IRAN RECEIVED HARD CURRENCY PAYMENT FOR HORMUZ TOLL: FARS

According to Drop Site News:

Iran formally codified the toll system in its “Strait of Hormuz Management Plan,” passed by parliament on March 30-31. The IRGC charges up to $2 million per vessel, with fees running approximately $1 per barrel of crude cargo — meaning a fully loaded supertanker could pay $2 million per transit.

🔺 Iran’s second deputy parliament speaker Hajibabaei announced Wednesday that the first revenues collected from Strait of Hormuz transit tolls have been deposited into the Central Bank of Iran, according to Mehr News Agency — marking the first public confirmation that Iran’s… pic.twitter.com/qURuWTpzbk

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) April 23, 2026

Also, the US side has said that dozens of international vessels have been approved for safe passage and have made it out. The US is halting and intercepting any vessel connected with Iranian ports, whether they be inbound or outbound, and especially if they are under sanction.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/23/2026 - 20:45
Tyler Durden

Judge Blocks Trump Admin's Move To Halt Wind, Solar Approvals

Zero Rss
3 months 2 weeks ago
Judge Blocks Trump Admin's Move To Halt Wind, Solar Approvals

Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to halt federal approvals for wind and solar projects.

Chief U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston issued a preliminary injunction on April 21, sought by a coalition of renewable energy groups.

The injunction blocks five specified agency action measures, including Interior review rules, a wildlife permitting ban, land-use limits, an Army Corps memo, and a legal opinion that had tightened permitting and slowed wind and solar approvals.

The judge said the plaintiffs were “likely to succeed on the merits of their claims” that the Interior Department and other agencies adopted policies that violate the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how U.S. agencies make and justify policy decisions.

Her ruling applies to members of the plaintiff organizations, which include RENEW Northeast and Alliance for Clean Energy New York.

“This is an undeniable victory for members of our coalition and the broader clean energy industry, as well as American households and businesses,” ​the groups said in a joint statement.

The Interior Department said in a statement that while it does not comment on litigation, “America sets the global standard for energy production.”

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump pledged to maximize U.S. oil and natural gas production and suspended offshore wind leases.

On April 20, Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to issue a series of memorandums focused on strengthening coal supply chains, ​natural gas transmission, and ​liquefied natural gas capacity.

The president also signed memos aimed at boosting domestic petroleum production, enhancing grid infrastructure, and expanding the deployment of “large-scale energy” and related infrastructure.

In a post on X, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said the memos would allow the Energy Department to use funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to strengthen the country’s “grid infrastructure and unleash reliable, affordable, secure energy.”

The Defense Production ​Act is ​a ⁠Cold War-era legislation that grants the president authority to expand and expedite the supply of materials from the domestic industrial base for national security purposes.

In April 2025, the Trump administration ordered a halt to the development of Norway-based company Equinor’s Empire Wind project, which the Biden administration approved in 2023. However, the stop-work order was lifted a month later, and construction was allowed to resume.

The Trump administration’s actions are a significant shift from the Biden administration’s effort to expand wind-power leasing, which aimed to build 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030 and another 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind power by 2035.

According to legal firm Latham & Watkins, Foreign Entity of Concern rules, strengthened by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, aim to block the Chinese regime’s influence in the solar and renewable energy supply chain by denying clean energy tax credits to projects that involve entities linked to the regime.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told the BBC in September 2025 that the Trump administration had “serious concerns” about Europe’s reliance on Chinese renewable technologies.

“It looks like the Chinese could control what’s going on with your energy system,” he said.

Wright also claimed in a Sept. 2, 2025, post on X, “Even if you wrapped the entire planet in a solar panel, you would only be producing 20 percent of global energy.”

“One of the biggest mistakes politicians can make is equating electricity with energy,” he added.

Trump, a vocal critic of wind energy, particularly in the UK, has described it as “the most expensive energy ever conceived.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/23/2026 - 20:20
Tyler Durden

zero rss