Medicaid withholding additional $91M in funding for Minnesota pending outcomes of numerous fraud investigations

In his latest action targeting Minnesota fraud, Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said his agency would delay paying $91 million in Medicaid claims to the state. "This is about protecting patients and respecting taxpayers," Oz said in a video posted April 30 on X, announcing the decision. The money being withheld includes "$76 million tied to 14 service categories highly vulnerable to fraud," Oz wrote on X. The remaining deferred payments — $14 million — could potentially have been directed "towards illegal immigrants who weren't supposed to be getting this coverage," he stated in the video. The most recent amounts are on top of an initial $259 million the agency halted in February amid the North Star State's ongoing fraud scandals.

Ukrainian commander reveals drone defense hit-rate

Most of Kiev's 300 anti-drone units have not registered a single kill, according to the man responsible for their deployment. More than half of Ukraine's drone-interceptor crews haven't been able to take down a single Russian UAV over an entire year, a senior Ukrainian air force commander has revealed. The disclosure comes amid Kiev's push to market its anti-drone expertise to Gulf nations and the US in its war against Iran. In an interview with Ukrainskaya Pravda published on Wednesday, Colonel Pavel Elizarov, deputy commander of Ukraine's Air Force, stated that of the 300 interceptor crews under his command, 66 shot down more than 10 Russian Geran drones while 170 failed to hit a single one. In one region, 24 out of 28 crews recorded zero eliminations over the same period, he said.

Most advanced US warship retreats as war on Iran challenges American Navy

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest and most expensive aircraft carrier ever built by the United States, has been forced to withdraw from West Asia after 309 days of continuous deployment in support of the unprovoked US terrorist war against Iran. The $13 billion leviathan is returning to Norfolk, Virginia, in a state of significant mechanical degradation, a humiliating retreat that exposes the fragility of the American war machine. The Ford's departure, expected around mid-May 2026, leaves the US naval presence diminished at a critical moment. While two other carriers — the USS George H.W. Bush and the USS Abraham Lincoln — remain to enforce the illegal US blockade targeting Iranian oil shipments, the loss of the Ford reduces "immediate strike capabilities" precisely as diplomatic efforts between Washington and Tehran have completely stalled.

BEST OF THE WEB: The UFO Question: Demons and High Strangeness

Demons Out! When I was a young boy, my family often enjoyed watching and laughing at televangelists — especially Ernest Angley, who would regularly cast out demons for us on TV. Suffice to say, demons were considered a humorous component to my slight evangelical upbringing, not something to be considered seriously. Chevy Chase captured the zaniness perfectly in Fletch Lives-The Preacher J.D. Vance-Aliens are Demons Tucker, too Turns out, lots of quite well-known people, and several commenters on The Unz Review believe these UFOs are demons. I would like to take a stab at seriously looking at this possibility. There is a version of the UAP problem that is safe to discuss in polite company. It involves military pilots seeing objects that outperform known aerospace technology, radar systems confirming what the pilots saw, and a government that has spent decades lying about its level of interest in the subject. This version has congressional hearings, credentialed witnesses, and the...

The diplomatic impasse between the United States and Iran and Russia's growing role

US-Iran negotiations collapse amid rising tensions and mistrust, particularly over the Strait of Hormuz, pushing Iran ever closer to Russia despite internal pressures. Leveraging its balanced relations with all key actors, Russia emerges as the most credible mediator and offers a backchannel for dialogue. Introduction Isaac Goldberg once noted, "Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way." And Russia is, no doubt, a master of it. Whether it's Europe or the Middle East, Russia has always outsmarted the US, both on the battlefield and at the table. This time, once again, Russia has emerged as a credible intermediary, chased by both the Americans and Iranians. Since the inception of the US-Iran war in late February 2026, the hostilities have neither ended nor cooled down. A couple of rounds of talks occurred in Islamabad in the last few weeks, but all in vain. The first one failed due to the maximalist demands of the US, while the second one was cancelled by...

Meloni's revolt: Italy suspends Israel Defense Pact as Trump turns on Rome

On 14 April 2026, Giorgia Meloni delivered a decision that instantly disrupted the post-Cold War assumption of automatic alignment within the Western security architecture. A Sovereign Break in the Western Security Chain The Italian prime minister announced the suspension of the automatic renewal mechanism of the Italy-Israel defense memorandum — signed in 2003 and ratified by Israel in 2005-2006 — a framework covering military technology exchange, equipment cooperation, and defense industry procurement. The move was not symbolic. It was structural. It halted a system that had renewed itself every five years without friction for over two decades — a mechanism that embodied the very logic of unquestioned alignment. In Rome, the decision was framed as a matter of national interest and strategic reassessment. In Tel Aviv and Washington, it was read for what it was: a rupture in the chain of automatic Western cohesion. This was not a policy adjustment. It was an assertion of...

Settler pogroms in Palestine are part of Israel's policy

Armed colonists burn, beat, and kill with near-total impunity - because their violence serves a larger system of land theft and expulsion Almost daily, there are updates on brutal attacks by armed Israeli settlers - really, colonists - against Palestinians. They shoot or ferociously beat - sometimes to the point of murder - Palestinian civilians, male and female, young and old, including entire families. These attacks have been occurring for decades. I've written about them many times, including what I saw in different regions of the West Bank during my eight months there in 2007. Back then, the violence was already horrific. Now, the attacks are exponentially more frequent. The end goal is clear - drive the Palestinians permanently off their own land. While many rightly note the increase of such attacks since 2023, and even more so following the Israeli-US attack on Iran, the drastic increase in colonist attacks began in 2021 and has continued to increase up to the present.

SCOTUS issues redistricting ruling that could impact midterms

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that a Louisiana congressional district's boundaries relied too much on race, in a redistricting case that could impact which party controls Congress in the years ahead. The district is represented by Rep. Cleo Fields, a Democrat. During arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts said the district was drawn like a "snake," as it stretches more than 200 miles. The ruling will affect how all state legislatures can draw their district maps. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion for the court's majority: "In sum, because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justified the State's use of race in creating SB8. That map is an unconstitutional gerrymander, and its use would violate the plaintiffs' constitutional rights." - SB8: State's name for the new map Liberal groups have warned that the case, Louisiana v. Callais, could net Republicans up to 19 new seats in the U.S. House of...

13-year-old boy finds ancient Greek bronze coin in a Berlin field

Minted in Troy in the third century B.C.E., the object might have been buried as a gift to the dead. Archaeologists don't know exactly how it ended up in modern-day Germany When a 13-year-old schoolboy discovered a small coin in a field on the outskirts of Berlin, he knew that he'd stumbled onto something special. But it wasn't until scholars analyzed the object that they realized its true significance. Minted in the third century B.C.E. in the city of Troy, located in what is now western Turkey, the bronze coin is the first ancient Greek artifact ever unearthed in the German capital. The teenager showed his find to researchers during a November 2025 visit to Petri Berlin, an interactive archaeology lab built atop the foundations of a medieval-era Latin school. "Nobody knew exactly what it was because it was so small," Jens Henker, an archaeologist with the Berlin Heritage Authority, tells Smithsonian magazine. "That it was something old was clear."

In first, Hezbollah FPV drone destroys Israeli armored vehicle, injures 12 soldiers in western Galilee

The operation marked the first time a Hezbollah fiber-optic FPV drone has reached the western Galilee Hezbollah attacked the Israeli army with a fiber-optic drone in the Galilee on 30 April, injuring at least a dozen soldiers and destroying a military vehicle. Israeli Army Radio reported that 12 soldiers were injured when the drone struck a military position in the Shomera settlement. Two soldiers were "moderately" injured while 10 sustained minor wounds, Army Radio added, also revealing that other soldiers may be transferred to the hospital later for anxiety and ringing in the ears. The drone directly struck an Israeli army vehicle in Shomera. Israel's Channel 15 reported that it was likely a fiber-optic guided FPV drone.

Early floods devastate Habiganj haors in Bangladesh; Boro farmers staring at heavy losses

Early flooding has submerged vast swathes of Boro paddy fields across Habiganj's haor areas, leaving thousands of farmers in uncertainty at the peak of the harvesting season. According to Additional Deputy Director Deepak Kumar Biswas of Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in Habiganj, paddy on 3,360 hectares have gone under water as of noon today, affecting more than 1,500 farmers. An estimated 10,840 tonnes of ripe paddy have already been lost, he said. Of the total affected land, 1,207 hectares are in Ajmiriganj upazila, with the rest spread across haor areas in other upazilas. However, the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) could not provide a breakdown of the damage outside Ajmiriganj. Deepak added that nearly 49 percent of the ripe crop remains unharvested, warning that continued rainfall and rising water levels could significantly increase the losses.

Greece records coldest May Day in 70 years

This year's May Day has officially been recorded as the coldest in Greece in the last seventy years, as a sudden weather shift brought "winter" back to many parts of the country. A sharp drop in temperature, accompanied by strong northern winds and heavy rainfall, resulted in an unusual scene for the season. Mercury levels plunged significantly below the seasonal average for early May. Regional highlights In Northern and Central Greece, maximum temperatures struggled to exceed 12 - 14°C (53.5°F-57°F), while in mountainous regions, unexpected snowfall was reported at higher altitudes.

Heavy rainfall hits South China, causes flooding, residents evacuated - 10 inches of rain in 24 hours and 8 inches in just 3 (UPDATES)

A short-duration heavy rainfall hit Qinzhou, Qinzhou, South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, causing flash floods, and some schools announced class suspensions, local media reported. According to the local fire department, 25 fire trucks and 150 firefighters were dispatched, and 30 trapped people had been urgently evacuated and relocated as of 11 am.

The UAE power play

So MbZ - the sole owner of the UAE - decided to quit OPEC and OPEC+. Epstein Syndicate minions are billing it as a sophisticated New Energy Order play. Not really. At face value, the move is sound. The UAE spent a fortune boosting its production capacity to 5 million barrels of oil a day. Yet under OPEC+ rules, their quota was much lower, hovering around 3.4 million barrels a day. So they went all out for monetization. Now, in theory, they can sell as much as they want, and as much as demand from Asian customers such as China, Japan and India remains high. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand - the big OPEC power and one of the top two on OPEC+ alongside Russia - will be forced to keep its production low, so prices won't collapse. The Abu Dhabi-Riyadh relationship has become uncontrollably incandescent. After all they both compete for the same sources of foreign investment. Abu Dhabi calculated that the Iranian energy industry is in dire straits (it isn't: Tehran has a PhD on Resistance...

A mysterious 4000-year-old 'lost' writing system has finally been decoded, in a modern 'Rosetta Stone' breakthrough

An ancient Iranian mystery has finally been solved, according to a French archaeologist who reports successfully cracking the code to an enigmatic, undeciphered writing system. Known as Linear Elamite, the 4000-year-old script — once considered impossible to decode — has now been unlocked by François Desset, in an achievement that has drawn comparisons to Jean-François Champollion's famous deciphering of the enigmatic Rosetta Stone. Desset, a 43-year-old archaeological researcher based at the University of Liege in Belgium, says the remarkable ancient script is the only truly "local" writing system from the country's early history, which is currently embattled. Others that have been used there over the millennia — from cuneiform to the Arabic and Greek alphabets — all have Western origins. The Enigma of Linear Elamite Originally discovered more than a century ago during archaeological reconnaissance at the Iranian Susa site, Desset's first encounters with the ancient script...

Used SpaceX rocket believed to be on a collision course with the moon

A discarded piece of a SpaceX rocket carelessly left adrift in space will likely crash into the moon this summer, a new report finds. The renegade rocket poses no risk to the moon or any working spacecraft, the report stresses. However, the collision — which is predicted to occur Aug. 5 on the border of the moon's near and far sides — may be of "minor scientific interest" if it creates a new crater that can later be studied. What's happening on the moon? The object in question is a 45-foot-tall (13.8 meters) upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket that launched in early 2025 and has been orbiting the Earth-moon system ever since. The rocket delivered two spacecraft to the moon — the Blue Ghost lander (developed by private company Firefly Aerospace), which successfully touched down on the moon in March 2025; and the Hakuto-R lander (developed by Japanese company ispace), which lost contact with Earth and crash-landed on the moon later that June.

Mysterious green glow seen in Hawaii sky likely rare atmospheric phenomenon

A mysterious green ripple in the sky over Hawaii has flummoxed the government and military, but a rare atmospheric phenomenon is likely the culprit. A strange green ripple was seen in the sky over Kailua-Kona in late April. A video showing a mysterious green glow in the sky during sunset above Hawaii this weekend has perplexed officials. KHON reports that the sight over Keahole Point on Saturday and Sunday flummoxed officials at the local Army base, Department of Transportation and Observatory. However, a rare low-light atmospheric phenomenon was the likely culprit.

Trump says 'very interesting' UFO files to be released soon

US President Donald Trump has said his administration will declassify and release government files on unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the near future, describing some of the material as "very interesting." The Pentagon has recently said it is reviewing and consolidating related records before any public release, citing security concerns. Trump signed an executive order in February instructing the Department of War to disclose "any and all information" related to UFOs and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). "I think we're going to be releasing as much as we can in the near future... some of it is going to be very interesting to people," Trump told reporters during a White House briefing late Wednesday, adding that public interest in the topic had built up "for a long time." "I interviewed some pilots - very solid people. And they said they saw things that you wouldn't believe," he said.

Why Woke AI is FAILING: Hallucinations, Bias, and the Coming Tech Market Crash

The AI Delusion: Why the $850 Billion Tech Bubble is About to BURST Artificial Intelligence was supposed to change everything—but is it actually just a confabulating, "woke" people-pleaser? Following a meeting with top analysts like Martin Armstrong and Matthew Ehret, Alex Krainer breaks down his own experiments with AI (like Claude and ChatGPT) and reveals the fatal flaws that Silicon Valley is trying to hide. ⚠️ The Dark Side of AI: Hallucinations & Bias From making up military news about the USS Porter sinking to failing basic tests of chronology and context, Large Language Models (LLMs) are suffering from what MIT calls "delusional spiraling." Worse still, major platforms are hardcoding political bias and "wokery" into their systems, leading to a massive feud between Anthropic and the Pentagon. When tech leaders like Sam Altman prioritize pleasing users over the actual truth, the entire foundation of the technology rots. 📉 The $850 Billion Market Bubble Big Tech has poured...

US ships thousands of tons of munitions and hardware to Israel

West Jerusalem must be prepared to resume attacks on Iran if necessary, Defense Minister Israel Katz has warned. The US has delivered 6,500 tons of munitions and equipment to Israel within 24 hours, West Jerusalem has said. The announcement coincided with media reports claiming that the head of US Central Command, Brad Cooper, has briefed US President Donald Trump on a plan for the potential renewal of military action against Iran in a bid to pressure it to consent to a more favorable peace deal. According to Fox News, what Cooper described as the "final blow" against Tehran could include a "short and powerful wave of strikes" targeting Iran's "remaining military assets, leadership and infrastructure." The ceasefire in the US-Israeli war against Iran was announced on April 8 after more than a month of fighting, but attempts by Washington and Tehran to reach a diplomatic settlement to the crisis have so far been in vain. The control of the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian nuclear...