Source: Fox News
“Southwest Airlines announced Thursday that the carrier is pulling out of several airports as it contends with financial fallout from Boeing delays. CEO Bob Jordan warned in Southwest’s latest earnings report that the carrier has intensified its network optimization efforts to address underperforming markets. As a result of these efforts, the Texas-based carrier is closing operations at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, the Bellingham International Airport in Washington, the Cozumel International Airport in Mexico and the Syracuse Hancock International Airport in New York. … Southwest is the latest carrier to face setbacks due to Boeing. In early March, United Airlines announced it was temporarily pausing pilot hiring due to new aircraft certification and manufacturing delays at Boeing. It also recently asked pilots to take unpaid time off as delays persist.” (04/25/24)
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/southwest-airlines-exits-multiple-airports-boeing-troubles-weigh
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Peter C Earle
“Zimbabwe’s historical relationship with money has been inundated with mistakes, recklessness, and hardship. During the peak of its 2008 hyperinflation, the nation experienced a catastrophic economic downturn, characterized by the issuance of billion- and trillion-dollar banknotes that were, despite their nominal enormity, virtually worthless. Recent economic challenges have revived painful memories of that era with the resurgence of inflation (currently at 55 percent), a return to the US dollar, euro, and South African Rand as de facto currencies, and the necessity of using large physical stacks of bills to purchase basic commodities like bread and eggs. On April 5, a new currency was announced.” (04/25/24)
https://www.aier.org/article/the-new-zimbabwean-zig-sixth-time-a-charm/
Source: Bitcoin.com
“Edward Snowden criticized the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for targeting app developers aimed at restoring financial privacy, responding to the arrest of the founders and CEO of cryptocurrency mixing service Samourai Wallet on charges related to money laundering and operating without a license. … The incident with Samourai Wallet, which allegedly facilitated over $2 billion in illegal transactions, has sparked debate about the balance between financial privacy and the prevention of illicit activities, aligning with Snowden’s and others’ views on the importance of making privacy a default feature in financial transactions.” (04/25/24)
https://news.bitcoin.com/edward-snowden-defends-crypto-privacy-criticizes-doj-for-samourai-wallet-arrests/
Source: The Intercept
“Biden’s Indifference to Palestinian Lives Is Sending the Middle East Into the Abyss.” (04/24/24)
https://theintercept.com/2024/04/24/intercepted-biden-israel-middle-east-war/
Source: Independent Institute
by Raymond J March
“The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability recently hosted Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf in a hearing to discuss the agency’s recent blemishes. The Committee’s website stated that ‘under the Biden Administration, the FDA has stumbled from crisis to crisis.’ The amount of ‘stumbling’ — even for a government agency — has been dumbfounding. … Despite these alarming failures, the FDA asked Congress for ‘more authority’ to address continuing prescription drug shortages and other pressing healthcare issues. It’s an audacious request. They’ll probably get it. They certainly have in the past.” (04/24/24)
https://blog.independent.org/2024/04/24/will-the-blundering-fda-receive-more-power
Source: New York Post
by Isaac Schorr
“Joe Biden has long attributed his decision to run for president to 2017’s tragic events in Charlottesville, Va., and President Donald Trump’s [alleged] response to them. ‘It was a wake-up call for us as a country — and for me, a call to action,’ said Biden in 2020, referring to Trump’s infamously inadequate [sic] statement following the neo-Nazi rally and murder of a counterprotester. Yet while the rest of the country stood aghast at the overt expressions of antisemitism on America’s elite campuses over the weekend, the president remained silent, delegating the task of reacting to a deputy press aide. When he finally did address them Monday at a reporter’s behest, this is all he mustered: ‘I condemn the antisemitic protests. That’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.'” (04/24/24)
https://nypost.com/2024/04/24/opinion/bidens-breathtaking-political-cynicism-laid-bare-in-his-both-sides-response-to-jew-hating-protests/
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“A Chinese student in the US has been sentenced to nine months in prison for stalking and threatening a female Chinese student who put up pro-democracy fliers on campus. The fliers, put up at the Berklee College of Music in Boston in late 2022, read: ‘We want freedom … We want democracy, we want to love, stand with Chinese people.’ In response, Xiaolei Wu said he would ‘chop [the woman’s] hands off’. A federal judge has ordered that the 26-year-old be deported after serving his sentence. ‘What Mr. Wu did in weaponising the authoritarian nature of the People’s Republic of China to threaten this woman is incredibly disturbing,’ said Jodi Cohen, who leads the FBI’s Boston Division that investigated the case. The pro-democracy fliers were put up in late October 2022 during a wave of activism among Chinese people abroad.” (04/25/24)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3gz61011ko
Source: The Tom Woods Show
“Left-Wing Brazil: A Warning to America.” (04/24/24)
https://tomwoods.com/ep-2482-left-wing-brazil-a-warning-to-america/
Source: Orange County Register
by John Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead
“‘Nothing is real,’ observed John Lennon, and that’s especially true of politics. Much like the fabricated universe in Peter Weir’s 1998 film The Truman Show, in which a man’s life is the basis for an elaborately staged television show aimed at selling products and procuring ratings, the political scene in the United States has devolved over the years into a carefully calibrated exercise in how to manipulate, polarize, propagandize and control a population. Take the media circus that is the Donald Trump hush money trial, which panders to the public’s voracious appetite for titillating, soap opera drama, keeping the citizenry distracted, diverted and divided. This is the magic of the reality TV programming that passes for politics today.” (04/24/24)
https://www.ocregister.com/2024/04/24/divide-and-conquer-the-governments-propaganda-of-fear-and-fake-news/
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Hamas released a hostage video on Wednesday showing a well-known Israeli-American man who was among scores of people abducted by the militants in the attack that ignited the war in Gaza. The video was the first sign of life of Hersh Goldberg-Polin since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, and its release ignited new protests in Jerusalem calling on the government to do more to secure the captives’ release. In the video, Goldberg-Polin accused Israel’s government of abandoning the people who are being held hostage by Hamas. He also claimed that some 70 captives have been killed in Israel’s bombing campaign. Goldberg-Polin was clearly speaking under duress, and the claim could not be independently verified. It was not clear when the video was made.” (04/25/24)
https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20240425-hamas-releases-video-of-israeli-american-hostage
