Beijing has let small shipments of Nvidia's H200 chips enter mainland China in a bid to help its artificial intelligence (AI) companies compete with US rivals, the Financial Times reported, citing two people with knowledge of the matter.
ByteDance and Tencent received about 10,000 H200 processors each in recent weeks, the report said, adding that some other Chinese tech firms could soon be approved for batches of similar size.
Iran is considering expanding its military targets to Europe if Washington escalates the current conflict, the Financial Times reported, citing people close to the regime.
Military planners have reportedly evaluated options that include striking United States assets in south-eastern European countries like Bulgaria and Cyprus, and also considered cutting subsea fiber-optic cables in the Strait of Hormuz.
These heightened threats emerged as diplomatic negotiations remain at a standstill. US President Donald Trump previously instructed his negotiating team not to engage in any further discussions with Tehran until Iranian officials are ready to conclude a final deal.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Iran-said-to-weigh-strikes-on-US-targets-in-Europe/66944928
Hakeem Jeffries has developed a habit of saying out loud what his party once preferred to keep vague.
Speaking at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Atlanta, the House minority leader told the audience that Democrats see "[a] variety of different options that are on the table, and I think we can't foreclose on any single one of them" when it comes to the Supreme Court. The options under discussion include adding justices and imposing 18-year term limits on the ones already seated. The man floating them runs the House Democratic caucus and stands one election away from the speaker's gavel.
Jeffries also described the Court, in the same appearance, as "a subsidiary of the MAGA Republican Party."
For years, Democrats have been more cautious about openly discussing expanding the Supreme Court, but now they're not even hiding their intentions. Speaking at the National Urban League Conference in Nashville earlier this month, former Vice President Kamala Harris endorsed expanding the court to thirteen justices.
"We need to revisit the point of expanding the court to 13 justices like we have 13 District Courts," she said.
There are 94 federal district courts. There are 13 circuit courts. If the number of justices is supposed to match the number of lower courts, Harris picked the wrong number - or the wrong argument.
NBC's Kristen Welker put the question to Jeffries on Meet the Press on Sunday, noting Harris's comments on the issue. Jeffries declined to say yes, and he declined to say no. "What I support is dramatic reform, and what that looks like, to begin with, is making sure that the Supreme Court actually has an ethical code of conduct so that they're not able to simply conduct themselves in ways that are inconsistent with the notion in this country that no one is above the law," he said.
Then he named names. "We've seen right-wing justices like Thomas and Alito engage in behavior that is ethically questionable at best," Jeffries said. "That has to change, because the American people should have confidence in the highest court in the land." The ethics talk served as the on-ramp. He went on to describe reforms needed to deliver a court "functioning like a separate and coequal branch of government," and pointed to the Callais decision, where, according to Jeffries, "the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in ways that do the bidding of extreme MAGA Republicans who turned around in the deep south and unleashed these Jim Crow-like tactics, yes, I have a problem with that. It's inconsistent with the law and with the Constitution."
The same Court has ruled against Trump on birthright citizenship and on his tariff agenda, and he has won a lopsided share of the cases he has brought before it. Jeffries has not explained how a subsidiary rules against its parent.
What will those "reforms" look like? Jeffries wouldn't say, but told Welker, "Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, and other Judiciary Committee Dems are going to take the lead on what dramatic reform of the Supreme Court looks like," Jeffries said. A caucus assigns committee leads for legislation it intends to write, and such legislation exists to change who wins cases.
A group of Senate Democrats introduced a bill last month establishing 18-year terms and creating a Supreme Court appointment every two years.
The math, of course, is a problem for this. Any such bill needs 60 votes in the Senate, and, as president, Trump can still veto anything the Democrats might pass. Democrats understand both facts, which makes the quieter half of Jeffries' message worth a closer read. He endorsed major changes to Senate rules so a bare majority can pass legislation, and he invoked the last attempt, when Democrats held Congress and the White House under Joe Biden, and tried to nuke the filibuster for their election reform bills. The only thing that stopped that from happening was Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who refused to go along with the scheme, but neither is in the Senate anymore, and the party is much more unified today.
This is why Trump, who has seen the same math, has been warned that a Democratic majority will kill the filibuster to remake the court as a left-wing institution, and has urged Republicans to beat them to the punch, nuke the filibuster and help accelerate his agenda while they can. Trump has separately demanded that Jeffries apologize for calling the Court illegitimate.
Jeffries' comments make clear that Democrats have no qualms about gutting longstanding institutions to make them work more for their party and its agenda, which means what's at stake in the upcoming midterms and the 2028 election is bigger than just who controls Congress or the White House, it might very well change how our government works.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/jeffries-drops-mask-signals-democrats-are-coming-court
An obvious pattern is emerging. Multiple Democrat officials have been arrested and charged with fraud or related federal crimes over the past two years and the trend seems to be growing. Democrat politicians and DNC members are over-represented when it comes to fraud and it's starting to look like the entire party has been pilfering the cookie jar for quite some time.
In the latest incident, Lawrence, MA Mayor Brian DePeña faces federal charges for allegedly using Covid-19 relief money meant for his tire business to fund his political campaign and pay personal debts, according to court documents. His charges include: Wire fraud; aiding and abetting, and unlawful monetary transactions; aiding and abetting.
Records indicate that an arrest warrant was issued Thursday. City Council President Jeovanny Rodriguez confirmed DePeña was arrested Friday. Neighbors described FBI agents shouting through a bullhorn outside the mayor's home early in the morning and using a battering ram to force open his door.
This incident has developed right as another official, Former New Mexico Democrat House leader Sheryl Williams Stapleton, has just been convicted of 31 felony charges for diverting millions of dollars of school funds to her friend’s company while receiving kickbacks.
After the exposure of migrant fraud in Wisconsin and California linked to Democrat and left-wing NGO operations, it surprises no one that politics is one big criminal enterprise, for Democrats in particular. Republican officials are not free from such charges; a handful of mostly low profile cases have occurred since 2024. That said, when Democrats go for fraud, they go big, and many of these cases involve the misappropriation of covid relief funds.
In other words, the pandemic was a money-making bonanza for Dems, and a lot of this money was used to pay for campaign operations.
U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (Democrat, Florida) was arrested in November of last year and charged with 15 federal counts, including theft of government funds related to allegedly stealing approximately $5 million in FEMA disaster relief for the Covid crisis.
Prosecutors say the money had been overpaid to her family’s health-care company (Trinity Healthcare Services), which held a contract to register people for Covid-19 vaccinations. Within two months of receiving the funds, more than $100,000 was allegedly spent on personal items, including a diamond ring for the congresswoman. She also allegedly pumped millions into her own campaign operations.
It's not unfair to suggest that Democrats may have believed they were going to retain political power for years to come (many Americans view the covid event as an engineered coup). Unfortunately for them, the Biden regime did not stay in office or destroy conservative opposition, so now they are under a microscope. And, under the light of scrutiny, the ugly deeds of 2021-2024 are being exposed.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/why-are-so-many-democrats-being-arrested-fraud-charges
Derek Chauvin's legal team filed a new court petition Tuesday morning seeking to dismiss the charges against the former Minneapolis police officer and vacate his convictions, arguing that the case that sent him to prison for the death of George Floyd rested on a foundation that never had legal standing to begin with.
Attorney Greg Joseph submitted the 31-page filing in Hennepin County, alleging that Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and the Hennepin County Attorney's Office engaged in unlawful and fraudulent conduct when they brought the case against Chauvin. The central claim is procedural: a grand jury never reviewed the state’s evidence, and, under Minnesota law, Joseph argues that this omission means the state never lawfully brought the charges in the first place.
“Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter Cahill presided over a year-long due process violation by failing to convene a grand jury to consider the State’s evidence at any point between the moment he was assigned to the case, and the verdict,” the filing reads. “He lacked jurisdiction over the charges, as this Court does, because they were never lawfully brought.”
Joseph told Alpha News reporter Liz Collin the conduct amounted to a serious breach.
"What was done here is shocking," Joseph said. "It's inexcusable."
The petition places much of the blame on the trial court itself. It states that Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter Cahill presided over what it calls a year-long due process violation "by failing to convene a grand jury to consider the State's evidence at any point between the moment he was assigned to the case, and the verdict." The filing goes further, arguing Cahill "lacked jurisdiction over the charges, as this Court does, because they were never lawfully brought."
That argument extends up the chain of command. Joseph contends Walz's decision to hand the prosecution to Ellison was itself an unlawful appointment, and that Ellison used authority he never had to add a second-degree murder charge to the complaint against Chauvin. Hennepin County prosecutor Amy Sweasy withdrew from the case against the officers involved and, according to court documents cited in the filing, disagreed with the decision to pile on additional charges.
Part of the reason for this is that the case unfolded amid extraordinary political pressure. Minneapolis erupted into riots for days after video of Floyd's detainment and death went viral. Elected officials rushed to condemn Chauvin, and activists made clear that anything short of a murder conviction would be treated as a miscarriage of justice.
Joseph's petition suggests that pressure extended into the charging decision itself, with Walz and Ellison escalating the case to a murder charge that Hennepin County's own prosecutor did not support.
According to the petition, “Because Hennepin County's unlawful charges against Mr. Chauvin were not severe enough for the mob, Walz referred the case to Keith Ellison, who signed and e-filed a second unfounded complaint against Derek Chauvin that included the murder charge it wanted."
Chauvin is serving two concurrent sentences, 22.5 years on the state second-degree murder conviction and 21 years on federal civil rights charges tied to Floyd's death. Joseph's petition argues the entire proceeding is unreviewable on its own terms. "It is impossible to assess the trial errors in State v. Chauvin because the entire trial was a fraud; it was based on unfounded charges that were never properly before the Court."
Joseph acknowledged the due process argument is a late addition to years of post-conviction efforts. "In a very short period of time there were very fundamental and basic violations of due process," he told Collin. "And those aren't necessarily things that defense attorneys normally look for."
The filing arrives alongside a separate, ongoing push for clemency that has run through conservative media and social platforms for more than a year. Elon Musk shared a video on X last year calling on President Trump to pardon Chauvin. While Trump holds the power to pardon Chauvin's federal civil rights convictions, the state sentence, the longer of the two, sits outside his authority.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/derek-chauvin-seeks-dismiss-charges-death-george-floyd
An illegal immigrant found not guilty by reason of insanity in a 2019 killing managed to flee the United States on a one-way flight to his native Tajikistan while on an approved 48-hour pass from a state mental health facility.
Now a Soros-backed prosecutor is under fire for his pattern of pursuing insanity pleas for violent offenders who are illegal immigrants.
Steve Descano, commonwealth's attorney for Fairfax County, Va., speaks at an event at the Center for American Progress about Virginia’s newly elected progressive prosecutors. (Getty Images)
In 2022, a court committed Abdulloi Toshpulodzoda after finding him not guilty by reason of insanity in the 2019 killing of his landlord, Mohammad Hemmatian, in Vienna, Virginia. Officers who reached the scene found him covered in Hemmatian's blood. He told them, "I am guilty.” Investigators believed Islam-inspired attitudes drove the violence.
Toshpulodzoda left the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute (NVMHI) in Falls Church on July 6 under an unaccompanied 48-hour pass, a privilege allowed under Virginia law for certain committed patients. Instead of returning, boarded a Turkish Airlines flight at Washington’s Dulles International Airport to Istanbul, and continued to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, according to airline records attached to court filings.
The escape came mere days after a Fairfax County judge ruled that Toshpulodzoda still needed hospitalization. "On June 29, 2026, this Court found that the Acquittee remained mentally ill and in need of inpatient hospitalization," court documents state.
This was not the first time authorities let Toshpulodzoda move outside a locked ward without an escort. He traveled to Washington, D.C., in 2024 to obtain a passport, and the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, led by Steve Descano, supported the trip.
NVMHI placed Toshpulodzoda on escape status once he missed the deadline, revoked his pass, and issued a facility warrant. Virginia State Police, federal authorities, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection all received notice of the case, and CBP issued an alert in case he tries to reenter the country.
"Abdulloi Toshpulodzoda was found by clinicians to be insane at the time he killed Mohammad Hemmatian – a legal finding that means the Commonwealth would be unable to secure a conviction at trial,” the Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney's office said in a statement. The office said prosecutors have opposed his release at every annual review hearing, including in June, and that a bench warrant went out the moment they learned he had escaped custody, adding that he "will be arrested and brought to Virginia" if he reenters the country. The Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney's office, NVMHI, and Turkish Airlines did not respond to requests for comment.
Descano has been in office since 2020. His campaign received funding from left-wing megadonor George Soros. His office has pursued insanity agreements for 13 accused murderers claiming they were unfit for trial, and Descano himself has managed to survive two recall efforts over his criminal justice record.
Toshpulodzoda's case fits a pattern the group has flagged for years: violent defendants, including illegal immigrants, funneled toward insanity findings that keep them off the felony docket and, evidently, sometimes off the continent entirely. The group posted on social media Monday, "Across Virginia, ONLY 50 killers got insanity pleas nowhere else gave more than two." Virginians for Safe Communities said of Descano, "They aren't crazy, he's just lazy."
A spokesperson for Descano's office told the Washington Examiner that independent evaluators declared Toshpulodzoda mentally ill and left prosecutors no legal path to a conviction, an explanation the office has given in prior cases. "To be found legally insane, both a defense expert and a separate, independent expert for the prosecution evaluate the defendant," the spokesperson said. "If the Commonwealth's expert finds the defendant to be legally insane, there is functionally no way to get a conviction at trial." The spokesperson said a prosecutor's role narrows to annual review hearings once such a finding is entered, and noted that, in Toshpulodzoda’s case specifically, prosecutors repeatedly asked that he remain confined due to community safety concerns, including as recently as June.
Toshpulodzoda's disappearance is not an outlier for Descano's office. Seven months earlier, a Fairfax County court declared another accused killer, Joshua Danehower, legally insane under an agreement with Descano's team. Danehower fatally shot a charity CEO in his own home in 2022 after he grew obsessed with the CEO's wife and drafted written plans to break into the house, according to police.
Descano's poor prosecutorial discretion record has attracted the attention of the Justice Department, which announced an investigation in May into whether Descano gives "preferential treatment" to illegal immigrants in prosecutorial decisions.
South Korea's Korea Exchange (KRX) activated a sell-side sidecar after the benchmark Kospi fell more than 5%, temporarily suspending program trading for five minutes.
The mechanism is triggered when Kospi 200 futures decline at least 5% and remain at that level for one minute.
Kospi Composite Index traded 4.81% lower at 03:45 am CET.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/S.-Korea-briefly-halts-program-trading-as-Kospi-falls/66944535
