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DOJ Can Provide Biden’s Conversations With Ghostwriter To Heritage Foundation, Judge Says

DOJ Can Provide Biden’s Conversations With Ghostwriter To Heritage Foundation, Judge Says

Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge on Friday rejected former President Joe Biden’s bid to prevent the conservative Heritage Foundation from receiving redacted transcripts and recordings of conversations he had with a ghostwriter for his 2017 memoir.

Former President Joe Biden speaks in Chicago on April 15, 2025. Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo

Although District Judge Dabney Friedrich delayed her own decision by three weeks later on Friday to allow for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on the matter, she said her order will remain in place because of the recording and transcripts’ significant public interest.

This case involves an unusually strong public interest in the release of law enforcement materials to outweigh the privacy interests protected by [the Freedom of Information Act’s] exemptions,” the judge said.

The Epoch Times attempted to reach out to Biden for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

The Heritage Foundation’s lawsuit originated in 2024. The group sought the transcripts and recordings from conversations the former president had with his ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, to produce his memoir, “Promise Me Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.”

In January 2023, then-Attorney General Merrick Garland launched a probe into Biden’s alleged keeping of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania and at his private residence in Wilmington, Delaware.

Garland appointed former Special Counsel Robert Hur to investigate and potentially prosecute any federal crimes that arose – none did.

In Hur’s February 2024 final report, he noted Biden’s “diminished faculties and faulty memory” during an interview and in Biden’s 2016 and 2017 recordings with Zwonitzer.

The former special counsel declined to prosecute Biden for his retention of classified documents because “the evidence [was] not sufficient to convict” and because “it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict [Biden] – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

Hur continued in his report, referring to some of Biden’s recorded conversations with Zwonitzer as “painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries.”

The Heritage Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all records that Hur relied on for his final report.

Under Biden, the Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to release the records, citing national security, privacy, and other FOIA exemptions.

The Heritage Foundation brought its FOIA lawsuit against the Biden DOJ in March 2024. In the two years since, legal proceedings have developed slowly.

The court stayed proceedings in September 2025 – now with the DOJ under President Donald Trump – after the agency said it would review the documents it was withholding.

In a May 8 filing, the DOJ said it “intends to disclose the written transcript and audio recordings at issue in this matter” to Congress, with redactions, but Biden moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent their release, which the federal judge denied on Friday.

Friedrich found in her decision that “in all, Biden is not likely to succeed” in his claims that his privacy interests outweigh the “significant public interest in the disclosure of the redacted Zwonitzer Materials.”

“Biden offers little in the way of specific details about the types of harm he foresees, especially in light of related information already in the public domain,” Friedrich wrote.

Friedrich further said that the ghostwriter records must be provided to the Heritage Foundation.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals could make its decision on this case in the coming weeks while Friedrich’s order is paused.

Biden has previously pushed back against claims that his cognitive abilities declined during his presidency.

“They are wrong, there is nothing to sustain that,” the former president said during a May 2025 interview with ABC’s “The View.”

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/20/2026 – 15:10

CIA Official Confirms Agency Flip-Flopped Over COVID-19 Origins Over Five-Day Period

CIA Official Confirms Agency Flip-Flopped Over COVID-19 Origins Over Five-Day Period

Over the span of five days in 2021, the CIA abruptly changed its opinion on the origins of COVID-19 from a laboratory to neutral, a newly released document confirms. 

The seal of the Central Intelligence Agency at the entrance of the agency headquarters in McLean, Va., on Sept. 24, 2022. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Originally, CIA analysts concluded that COVID-19 likely came from a high-level laboratory in Wuhan, China located near where the first cases were detected in late 2019, senior CIA officer James Erdman III told lawmakers in May. Over the span of five days in 2021, however, Edman says the agency changed its stance to ‘neutral.’ 

Then in September of 2024 during a private briefing between intelligence officials and members of Congress, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) inquired as to how the agency came to the conclusion that lab-origin vs. natural origin were about equal, according to yesterday’s document release by outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard. 

In response, an unnamed CIA employee told Wenstrup that “he made the call to stop the shift to lab because [redacted] had come in the day before they were ready to publish which made them back off the call,” according to a summary of the briefing compiled by an intelligence official. 

As the Epoch Times notes further, officials said in a declassified assessment based on information through August 2021 that only one agency – which was not the CIA, based on details since made public – favored a lab origin for COVID-19.

An updated assessment released in mid-2023 states that the CIA was unable to determine the origin of COVID-19 because both the lab and natural origin theories “rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting.”

The CIA said in 2025 that a lab origin for COVID-19 was “more likely.” The Trump administration maintains that COVID-19 came from the lab in China.

More on Changes

A whistleblower in 2023 told members of Congress that the CIA team tasked with analyzing the origins of COVID-19 favored a lab origin, but that after the team was paid, it changed its position.

The CIA at the time denied paying analysts to reach specific conclusions.

Erdman, the senior CIA official, told a Senate panel in May that he was on a team investigating how intelligence agencies handled the COVID-19 pandemic and that the CIA declined to provide documents the team had requested that may have shed light on the change.

Erdman said that the team found the shift happened after Dr. Anthony Fauci, at the time the head of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases – which provided funding for the lab in Wuhan – briefed intelligence officials and suggested to officials that they talk to specific scientists, including researchers who wrote a paper with which Fauci and the institute’s head secretly assisted.

The paper, called “Proximal Origin,” purported to rule out a laboratory origin.

Wenstrup also asked intelligence officials in the 2024 briefing about a white paper that National Center for Medical Intelligence analysts compiled as a rebuttal to the “Proximal Origin.” The authors of the white paper felt their conclusions were ignored by intelligence officials, they informed Wenstrup.

A representative for the center was not prepared for the questioning, “which annoyed Wenstrup,” according to the briefing summary.

Fauci Briefed Intelligence Officials

Fauci briefed intelligence officials on June 4, 2021, and promoted the idea that COVID-19 had a natural origin, according to another briefing summary released by Gabbard.

Fauci “recommended that [intelligence officials] take a look at Tulane’s paper on two lineages from two separate markets,” the summary states. “To Dr. Fauci, this paper’s findings were a clear indication of natural origins of COVID-19.”

Fauci also “reminded the group that even for SARS, it took 12 years to make the link to a bat even though it only took 4 months to identify the natural reservoir” and that “we still haven’t identified source/origin of Ebola,” which is believed to have a natural origin, according to the summary.

Fauci, who has not responded to requests for comment, told lawmakers during a hearing in 2024 that he did not talk about viral research related to COVID-19 with intelligence officials.

“After the investigations began about COVID, I was briefed by intelligence agencies about possibilities of there being activities going on in different laboratories,” he said.

In another readout of the 2021 briefing, Fauci was said to have suggested intelligence officials connect with three scientists whose names were redacted.

“All three … have advocated for features of the virus that they judge to be consistent with a natural origin,” the readout states.

An email disclosed that one of the scientists was Kristian Andersen, a Scripps Research researcher who coauthored the “Proximal Origin.”

Andersen said in private messages with coauthors that COVID-19 may have been engineered before the paper was published. He has said that further analysis of the virus altered his and others’ views.

Dr. Fauci was the behind-the-scenes adviser who, alongside his hand-picked so-called experts, pushed the intelligence community to endorse a natural animal origin to hide his dangerous gain-of-function research that he funded using taxpayer dollars,” Gabbard said in a video statement posted to X on June 18.

“All of this in a deliberate attempt to cover up the truth and shift the blame and attention away from Fauci’s own actions.”

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/20/2026 – 14:35

Swalwell Ordered By FEC To Return Campaign Contributions

Swalwell Ordered By FEC To Return Campaign Contributions

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

Former California congressman Eric Swalwell was ordered by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) June 15 to return all donations received during his bid for governor before dropping out of the race.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) during a news conference on the introduction of the Protection from Abusive Passengers Act at the U.S. Capitol Building, in Washington on April 6, 2022. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The agency charged with enforcing federal campaign finance laws threatened Swalwell with an audit or enforcement action if he fails to give back $30,075 in contributions that 16 donors made to his campaign committee, according to a letter sent to the former candidate.

Failure to comply with the provisions of the Act may also result in an enforcement action against the committee.

In the letter, FEC Senior Campaign Finance Analyst Mary Seiler also stated Swalwell would not be eligible to request a time extension to give the money back.

According to the letter, the FEC requires candidates to return contributions to the donors if they drop out of a race. Swalwell did return some of the donations, but not all of them, according to the agency.

General election contributions can’t be used to pay off primary debts or other obligations, the FEC noted.

All refunds were required to be made by July 20. If not, the commission may take further legal action in the case, the FEC said.

Swalwell and his attorney, Sara Azari, didn’t return requests for comment about the FEC’s demands.

Swalwell dropped out of the governor’s race in April after multiple women stepped forward with sexual assault allegations, which he has denied. He also faced a U.S. House of Representatives ethics investigation over the accusations and a call from his party to resign.

The former congressman and candidate continues to face criminal and ethical investigations over the allegations.

His official state campaign finance disclosure information shows Swalwell collected donations from individuals and organizations until the day he resigned April 13. The last-minute donors included the United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council Candidate PAC, California Dairies, real estate developer Jeff Worthe, and Greater Anesthesia Service and PAC – each of which gave him $39,200.

The last contribution made to Swalwell’s campaign was nearly $460,000 on April 18 in “unitemized contributions,” according to the state. The report doesn’t specify who gave Swalwell the large donation or where it came from.

The California Secretary of State’s office didn’t immediately return a request for information about the contribution.

Swalwell’s campaign finance report filed with the state shows he used campaign funds in the final weeks to pay his attorney Azari at least $313,000 and the Democratic political media firm KMM Strategies more than $600,000.

Filling Swalwell’s Seat

Democratic state Sen. Aisha Wahab, a progressive from Hayward, California, advanced June 16 in a special general election to fill Swalwell’s vacant U.S. House seat.

Swalwell resigned from Congress in April, a day after ending his campaign for governor.

Wahab will move on to the Aug. 18 runoff to determine who will fill the remainder of Swalwell’s term through January.

Democrat Melissa Hernandez, a transit director and former mayor of Dublin, California, was in second place June 19 but votes were still being counted.

The district includes East Bay cities of Fremont, Hayward, and Livermore, which heavily favors Democrats.

A regular primary was held June 2 to elect a new Congress member for the district to a full term. Wahab and Hernandez were the top two vote-getters.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/20/2026 – 14:00

Russian Oil Refinery Over 1,200 Miles From Ukraine Attacked In Another War First

Russian Oil Refinery Over 1,200 Miles From Ukraine Attacked In Another War First

After this week’s devasting Ukrainian drone attacks on a Moscow refinery which sent massive plumes of black smoke across the capital city skyline, it has become obvious that the Zelensky’s government believes its last major card to play is escalation of its UAV attacks deep inside Russian territory.

This is once again on display as on Saturday Ukraine launched a drone attack targeting an oil refinery in Russia’s Tyumen region for the first time since the the war. Significantly, Tyumen region is located some 2,000 kilometers (or 1,240 miles) from the front line in Ukraine.

Regional Governor Alexander Moor confirmed this first such attack on this region since the war’s start. Moor claimed that Russian air defenses successfully defended against the attack on the the Tyumen oil refinery, one of Russia’s largest. “An attack by unmanned aerial vehicles on the Tyumen refinery has been repelled. Emergency services specialists are working at the site where debris fell,” he stated. “According to preliminary information, the plant was not damaged and employees have been evacuated,” Moor announced on Telegram.

However, unverified but widely circulating footage and photographs suggest otherwise

Reuters, reporting on the attack, writes that “The Tyumen refinery, one of the country’s ​most modern ​and ⁠complex, has a nominal capacity of around 8 million ​metric tons per year.”

“It ​processes ⁠roughly 6 million tons of crude annually, producing about 0.5 million ⁠tons ​of gasoline and 2.5 ​million tons of diesel, according to industry estimates,” the report also notes.

Ukrainian media, and some Russian Telegram channels are asserting that the refinery did suffer a hit:

“Thick smoke is visible above the Tyumen Oil Refinery – the former Antipinsky Oil Refinery – in Tyumen,” reports the ASTRA Telegram channel, citing its analysis data, adding: “Earlier, the governor reported repelling a UAV attack on this plant and the absence of damage to the enterprise.”

The fact that “thick smoke is visible above the Tyumen Oil Refinery in Tyumen,” as stated, was established by an ASTRA OSINT analyst from a witness video.

“At the same time, local residents reported hearing at least two explosions in the Antipino microdistrict, where the Tyumen Oil Refinery is located, and also saw at least 10 fire trucks heading towards the plant,” ASTRA points out.

This past Thursday saw what many are calling most brazen offensive of the war to date, after 200 Ukrainian suicide drones swarmed Gazprom’s Moscow Refinery, inflicting heavy damage.

Oil refinery in Tyumen, file image

But rather than back down in the face of Moscow’s new threats of “massive group strikes” on Ukraine, it seems Ukrainian forces are flexing with yet more attacks on Western Siberia. 

The Kremlin has long believed that Ukraine can’t accomplish such sophisticated long-distance strikes on its own, but that it has had significant targeting help from US and Western allied intelligence.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/20/2026 – 13:25

Trump Unveils New Air Force One Plane

Trump Unveils New Air Force One Plane

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump on June 19 unveiled the plane that will serve as the new Air Force One, a $400 million Boeing 747-8 luxury jet that was gifted to the United States by the Qatari government in 2025.

President Donald Trump delivers remarks after touring the newest aircraft in the presidential fleet at Andrews Air Force Base at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on June 19, 2026. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Trump stepped down from the plane inside a new hangar at Joint Base Andrews that was specially built for it. The plane is much larger than the previous jets that served as Air Force One, he said.

“The biggest difference is the difference in size, it’s like virtually double the size. And actually, on a runway, it looks even more so,” Trump said after shaking hands with Air Force officials.

Trump called the new plane “very unique.”

This is considered the world’s most luxurious plane. When it was built, it was built at a level that will probably never be seen again,” he said.

The aircraft will soon “commence its initial commissioning flights,” which will be the jet’s “final exam” before it’s ready to transport the president, the Air Force said in a press release on Friday.

“The safety and security of the commander in chief is our highest priority,” Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said in a statement.

“From the beginning, we meticulously evaluated every requirement to accelerate delivery while maintaining the high standards expected of the presidential mission.”

The Air Force said the plane was painted in red, white, and blue and has received its “final government modifications” ahead of its use by the president and his staff.

Despite the jet being a gift from the Qatari government, preparing pilots and crews for the new plane came with a few costs, according to the Air Force.

The Pentagon leased an Atlas Air 747-8 in October 2025 to begin training pilots, before ultimately buying a different 747-8 from Lufthansa as a “full-time training asset for the entire crew complement,” the Air Force said.

These efforts were undertaken to “neutralize potential technical hazards on the previously owned aircraft,” according to the military.

“Many thought it could not be done, but the United States Air Force was able to execute and provide a secure, reliable airborne command post on an accelerated timeline,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach said in a statement.

The new plane – which will serve as the temporary Air Force One while Boeing completes upgrades on two other jets – will replace a heavily modified Boeing 747-200B, one of three in the current fleet.

Some of the current fleet have been in service for more than 35 years.

Boeing’s new fleet has incurred significant delays. Initially slated for a 2024 delivery, the aircraft are now not expected to be flight-ready until 2028.

Jackson Richman contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/20/2026 – 12:50

Iran Media Says Hormuz ‘Closed’ Again, Citing Lebanon Violations, As Vance Expected In Switzerland For Talks

Iran Media Says Hormuz ‘Closed’ Again, Citing Lebanon Violations, As Vance Expected In Switzerland For Talks

Update(10:00ET): As has become the ‘norm’ after well over 100 days of war – which some pundits have been calling the “third Gulf war” – there are deeply conflicting headlines emerging Saturday. On the one hand, diplomacy based in Switzerland is said to be in motion, with a potential top level Trump delegation (led by Witkoff and to be joined later by Kushner reportedly/allegedly) – but fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in south Lebanon still rages, with the death toll climbing, and also with Hezbollah rockets still landing against IDF positions as well as in northern Israel.

Will the US and Iranian sides actually meet in Europe for the ‘technical’ side of further talks toward final peace? Saturday has seen reports of Iran having again ‘closed’ the Strait of Hormuz, citing Israeli aggression in Lebanon, after Tehran has insisted that the tenuous freshly signed MoU included a Lebanon ceasefire and peace. The latest newswires out of Iranian state media:

  • IRAN SAYS HORMUZ TO CLOSE, CITING CEASEFIRE VIOLATION: TASNIM
  • IRAN SAYS STRAIT OF HORMUZ HAS BEEN CLOSED: TASNIM
  • IRAN’S IRGC NAVY SAYS HORMUZ STRAIT CLOSED TO ALL VESSELS: FARS
  • *VESSELS WARNED TO AVOID STRAIT OF HORMUZ OVER SECURITY: FARS

Vance expected in Switzerland, reports Axios on Saturday:

And yet, some of the same state sources have been saying that an Iranian delegation will travel to Switzerland where it will seek to hold Washington to its commitments

“In Switzerland, we intend to press for the fulfilment of the other side’s commitments and clarify how they plan to act on their obligations,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, according to Fars, also as cited in Al Jazeera.

Per the same report Saturday mid-morning (US time): “The delegation will leave for Switzerland in a few minutes, Mehr news agency also reported. The spokesperson also said that if the US refuses to implement its commitments, Iran will respond with necessary measures.” So things remain very fluid, and could implode at any moment.

*  *  *

Since the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding was signed days ago it’s increasingly obvious there’s been a widening split between Washington and it’s closest Middle East ally Israel over the terms of the deal. The political interests between the Trump administration and Israel, which have been typically lock-step, have increasingly diverged on the question of the Iran peace and terms of reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Ground zero for this divergence has remained south Lebanon, where the overnight the death toll from fighting – and especially from Israeli air raids – have risen.

Lebanon’s civil defense agency has announced that Israeli attacks on the southern Nabatieh district have killed 16 people and wounded 12 others. The significant death toll comes a mere day after the latest Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire was announced.

Still, Al Jazeera is on Saturday confirming that “the wheels of diplomacy” appear to be “back in motion” after the delay to the technical talks from Friday. “Pakistan and Qatar – mediators – are holding a series of meetings in Switzerland, Iran and Egypt and according to Al Jazeera’s team on the ground,” the publication writes. Top American negotiators are reportedly on the way to Europe.

via Reuters

Iran too is optimistic, while calling out certain Israeli hardliner politicians for seeking to sabotage peace. State media is hitting this theme hard, and naturally Tehran is going to seek to drive a deep and permanent wedge between the Trump and Netanyahu administrations

Iran’s deputy foreign minister has said the Islamic Republic is “ready to move forward” on diplomacy with Washington, and the big elephant in the room is that “the United States must ensure Israel abides by the terms of the deal to end the war” – according to Al Jazeera.

As a reminder, President Trump appears in the mood to play nice with Iran while bringing the (very rare) pressure on Netanyahu. However, Trump himself is facing immense rising pressure from outraged pro-US hawks at home:

Donald ⁠Trump told NBC News ⁠in a phone ⁠interview that ​he spoke with Israel ⁠on Friday and asked them to ⁠agree to ​a ‌ceasefire ‌with Hezbollah.

“‘You just gotta calm down sometimes and use your head,’” Trump ‌was quoted as telling Israel.

Trump declined ​to specify ​whether ​he spoke ​with ‌Benjamin ​Netanyahu directly. A senior US official earlier confirmed the ceasefire to Reuters, though Israeli attacks continue across Lebanon.

One of the key elements of the MoU the hawks vehemently object to is the creation of a $300 billion reconstruction plan for Iran. But in terms of the main aspect which could derail ongoing negotiations altogether is that the US committed that it and its allies (read: Israel and the Lebanese government) will initiate the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” This is a major concession by the US to the Iranian side.

But Israel has much more than these things to complain about, as it continues to lose troops in recent Hezbollah attacks:

Israel immediately responded to that agreement by pounding Lebanon, killing at least 47 people on Friday, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. Four Israeli soldiers were also killed overnight [Friday] by the armed Lebanese group, Hezbollah, prompting Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to say that “all of Lebanon must burn”.

Vice President JD Vance’s own recent remarks putting these Israeli officials in their place has been unprecedented spectacle to behold. The “special relationship” remains tenuous, at least in terms of weighing the current heated rhetoric and atmosphere.

But again, Israel can point to Hezbollah aggression, with Times of Israel (TOI) reporting the latest figures as follows:

The Israeli military says it is striking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response to overnight projectile launches at troops in south Lebanon by the Iran-backed terror group, despite a ceasefire announced a day earlier.

“Overnight, the Hezbollah terrorist organization launched more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. Following the attacks, the IDF has been striking Hezbollah terrorist targets in southern Lebanon,” an Israeli military official said was cited in TOI as saying.

Meanwhile, CNN also confirms that diplomacy is in “motion”, writing: “US envoy Steve Witkoff is traveling to Switzerland for technical talks with Iran, a US official said, with President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also expected to join. Meanwhile, mediator Pakistan’s interior minister has arrived in Iran for talks with senior Iranian officials as part of efforts to encourage them to Switzerland.”

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/20/2026 – 10:00

Trump Mocks Italy’s Meloni Over Disputed G7 Photo: ‘She Wants To Be Friends Again, No Thanks!’

Trump Mocks Italy’s Meloni Over Disputed G7 Photo: ‘She Wants To Be Friends Again, No Thanks!’

President Trump has once again lashed out at Italy, as Washington and this ‘wayward’ NATO ally continue to clash on a range of issues from Iran to Israel to Ukraine..

It follows on the heels of the cancellation of the planned diplomatic visit by Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. President Trump on Saturday has newly taken to Truth Social to reiterate that PM Meloni “asked, over and over, for a picture with me during the G-7 meeting in France.”

He continued: “She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon (But so did NATO, for that matter!).”

According to more background:

Trump’s comments were aired Friday on the La7 network. A correspondent had asked the president about Ukraine, but Trump raised Meloni and made the claim about the photo. Trump said he was not obliged to take the picture with her but that he felt sorry for her and agreed, La7 said. The broadcaster put a dubbed version of the conversation online, but not the original English audio.

Meloni has very publicly rejected Trump’s version of events at the G7:

Clearly irked at President Donald Trump’s suggestion that she had had “begged” him for a photo at the Group of Seven summit earlier this week, the Italian prime minister said this was “totally fabricated.”

Bilateral defense agreements and NATO’s base sharing framework allows US access to key strategic hubs for US operations in the Mediterranean – however, Italian law and a historic treaty requires parliamentary approval for anything outside that scope. 

It was in late March that for the first time Italy’s defense ministry confirmed that “some US bombers” were denied landing at Sigonella – one of seven US navy bases in Italy.

Among the scenes at a G7 working lunch in France on June 16 was this…

Pool image via AP

Italy tried to frame the issue as merely bureaucratic and an issue of paperwork. Initial complaints were that the US didn’t follow required permission protocol, and requested landing only while in the air and already en route to Sicily.

Meloni’s office has all the while maintained it is “acting in full compliance with existing international agreements”  – while underscoring that each flight request must be “carefully examined on a case-by-case basis, as has always been the case in the past.”

But the truth also is that American hegemonic action in the Middle East, and the Iran conflict in particular, is deeply unpopular among the Italian population, which has long had a strongly anti-war bent especially among the youth. Meloni has tried to assure here electorate that she’s never “begged” for anything from Trump.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/20/2026 – 09:55

FBI Warns That Fake FIFA Website Being Used to Steal Personal Information

FBI Warns That Fake FIFA Website Being Used to Steal Personal Information

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The FBI on June 16 advised people to be wary of fraudulent websites that try to mimic World Cup or FIFA sites, as the agency warned that such websites have been used to steal personal information and sell counterfeit tickets.

In a public service announcement, the FBI stated that scammers and fraudsters have launched spoofing attempts designed to mimic FIFA’s official website as the World Cup games hosted in North America continue.

“Threat actors often create spoofed websites by slightly altering characteristics of legitimate website domains, with the purpose of gathering personally identifiable information entered by a user into the site, including name, home address, phone number, email address, and banking information,” the FBI statement reads.

The individuals behind such websites may be attempting to trick people into entering sensitive information that could be used to “create new accounts in a victim’s name and ultimately defraud the victim,” the FBI stated.

The federal law enforcement bureau noted that it has identified individuals who had attempted to collect personal information, sell counterfeit World Cup tickets or “hospitality products,” or engaged in other forms of malicious activity in connection with the scams.

The fraudulent website domains could include alternate spellings of words or use a different top-level domain, or TLD, referring to the final segment of the web address, such as .com, .gov, .org, and more, according to the notice.

Scammers may also create a deceptive version of a legitimate website, such as fifa.com, that tricks people into thinking they are going to the official website, it stated. Some include website domains that use alternate domain extensions such as “.blue,” “.beer,” “.city,” and more. Dozens of fraudulent domains were identified by the FBI that have been linked to the scheme, including fake domains related to FIFA jobs, merchandise, or tickets.

FBI officials advised people to first verify website URLs before they enter potentially sensitive or personally identifying information and to go to FIFA’s official website by typing the URL into their browser rather than relying on results produced by search engines, while also verifying that it reads fifa.com.

An Epoch Times review found that many of the websites listed by the FBI in the alert appeared to be down. However, the FBI stated that the “public should be aware that new websites will continue to appear.”

“Exercise caution when clicking on advertisements. Before clicking on an advertisement, check the URL to make sure the site is authentic,” the notice reads. “Malicious advertisements may redirect users to a different website than indicated.”

The June 16 public service announcement did not say whether anyone was victimized by a FIFA website-related scam. But victims who believe that they were targeted in a scam should file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov, it states

Aside from combating fake websites, the FBI has also acted to keep drones away from World Cup games. Earlier this week, an illegal immigrant with a prior criminal history, including a cocaine-trafficking conviction, was arrested for flying a drone near a World Cup event in Atlanta, the FBI announced.

The World Cup lasts from June 11 until July 19, with matches being played across the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/20/2026 – 09:20

The World Cup’s Uneven Playing Field

The World Cup’s Uneven Playing Field

Due to its truly global footprint, the FIFA World Cup has always been a celebration of diversity, both on and off the pitch.

It brings together different cultures, different playing styles and different levels of skill, professionalism and financial muscle.

However, with the tournament now over a week old, it is clear that they are playing ‘football’ on an uneven playing field.

As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, while nations like France, Spain and England have assembled squads full of international superstars, other participants will field teams that are largely unknown to fans outside of the respective country.

According to estimates from Transfermarkt.com, there is a huge gulf in squad value between the nations traditionally challenging for the title and those happy to be part of the show.

Infographic: The World Cup's Uneven Playing Field | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

France’s star-studded squad is worth more than 70 times as the teams assembled by Qatar, Jordan and Iraq, the least valuable squads in the tournament.

This is a reflection of the balance of power in global football, which is concentrated in Europe’s top leagues…. and correlates very well with likelihood of success.

It is partly for this reason that surprises have become increasingly rare in the world’s biggest football competition, where it’s hard to imagine a fairy tale run of a smaller nation to the tournament’s final stages.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/20/2026 – 07:35

The Brits Should Declare Their Independence, Too

The Brits Should Declare Their Independence, Too

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

British tyranny is globalism, and globalism must be destroyed.

British tyranny is so repulsive that the British people owe it to themselves to overthrow their government masters.  It has been two-hundred-fifty years since America’s Declaration of Independence recognized the Crown system as a threat to Americans’ lives and liberties.  English-speaking peoples still suffering under the British yoke should follow suit.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a near-total ban on social media for children under sixteen years old.  Ten of the most popular social media platforms are now age-restricted, with the toxic-leftist Bluesky platform a notable exception.  The government claims to be “protecting children” from online harm.  That’s a lie.  If the British government cared about protecting British children, government ministers and police forces would not have covered up Islamic rape gangs targeting children for three-plus decades.  The British government would not censor online reporting of foreigners murdering young Brits.  The British government has systematically chosen to sacrifice the United Kingdom’s children.

This online “safety” measure must be understood, then, as a ruse meant to expand the government’s control over online information.  Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have similar surveillance systems in place — all ostensibly erected to “protect the children” but designed, in reality, to control the speech of citizens.  In these countries, the only way to communicate with other citizens on social media platforms is to prove your age by proving your identity.  Mandatory digital identification systems are disguised as child welfare checks.  The Brits and their Commonwealth vassals have built a surveillance system to monitor citizens’ thoughts, censor unapproved speech, and promote official propaganda.

Tyrant Starmer is pushing this online surveillance infrastructure while citizens in the U.K. are protesting and rioting against the British government’s murderous mass immigration policies — which have invited foreign rapists and killers to overrun the kingdom and slaughter citizens.

Third-world barbarism is exploding across Europe.  Official Eurostat numbers show that sexual violence offenses in the European Union have doubled over the last decade.  Rapes skyrocketed 150%.  Knife crimes and murders are off the charts.  Foreign nationals who have immigrated into Europe are responsible for roughly fifty percent of violent crime.

Just as the unelected European Commission ruling the continent continues to cover up immigrant crimes and censor citizens’ online discussion of these ongoing threats, the British government is more concerned about punishing native Brits for noticing that they are under attack than repelling violent invaders from Britain’s shores.  (If Keir Starmer had been in Winston Churchill’s shoes during the Nazi Blitz, the British government would have surely helped the Germans cover up the bombings while blaming all the destruction on British citizens!)

Starmer’s government spies run a propaganda outfit that controls all public “narratives” regarding immigrant crime against native Brits.  The group of spies write and release misleading statements, presented as coming from the families of victims, that are designed to downplay rapes, murders, and other violent incidents.  While these spies use propaganda and censorship to cover up serious crimes committed by immigrants, they simultaneously engage in information warfare against British citizens by branding legitimate public concerns over safety as “disinformation,” “far-right racism,” “violence,” and “hate speech.”  This spy group in charge of monitoring and shaping the public’s thoughts has flagged “reading Shakespeare, Chaucer or Milton, or books documenting grooming gang scandals as potential indicators of far-Right susceptibility.”  The British spies — a veritable Gestapo fabricating public “truth” — plant media stories, steer online discussions, and deploy operatives to disrupt or direct public protests.

The British government claims the power to block “false information” that is “legal but harmful.”  On its website, the British government defines “extreme right-wing terrorist ideology” to include the belief that “‘Western culture’ is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups.”  British Technology Secretary Liz Kendall claims that it is “illegal” to promote “disorder” on social media.  Meanwhile, Starmer’s government tyrants are instructing journalists how to report immigrant attacks on British citizens.  These are the actions of dictators who do not care about “protecting the children.”

Surveying the daily violent crime by immigrants and the British government’s ongoing cover-ups, former Prime Minister Liz Truss says there is a government campaign to “undermine the family” and the “nation state.”  She says that forced diversity has corrupted the institutions and that government ministers suppress information and attack citizens while protecting barbarians.  She concludes that mass migration and government control over information are being used as weapons to destroy Western civilization.

For years, we Americans have watched the evils of globalism expand both at home and abroad in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most of continental Europe.  Branded by its international supporters as some kind of final, utopian stage of human governance, globalism is just another Frankensteinian beast — created from all the worst parts of Marxist-communism, Leninism, Maoism, fascism, Nazism, authoritarianism, oligarchy, corporatism, elitism, and central bank hegemony.  Globalism is totalitarianism.  Its god is government, although it has created special liturgical rituals regarding an imaginary “climate change” apocalypse meant to scare the world’s peasants into accepting the supremacy of government authority and bureaucrats’ (globalism’s “priests”) centralized power over all economic transactions.

Globalist governments seek total control over the people, and every policy that globalist governments shove down our throats is meant to advance this goal of total control.  COVID was not a health emergency.  It was a government excuse to roll out digital identifications, mandatory pharmaceutical injections, “vaccine” passports capable of monitoring real-time citizen movements, and online censorship.  It was a government program meant to condition citizens to accept that government bureaucrats should be empowered with limitless authorities — including the discretion to regulate church services, close and bankrupt businesses, lockdown citizens in their homes, separate family members from dying loved ones, and quarantine citizens for non-compliance.  The “global warming/cooling/climate change/extreme weather” hobgoblin is a government-designed scare tactic identical to the COVID “emergency.”  The only difference is that the “global warming” fearmongers have been telling us that we have twelve years left to live for the last century, while the COVID fearmongers told us that we had twelve days to live unless we complied.  Manufacturing compliance was and remains globalist governments’ only strategic objective.

Globalism’s ruling elites lust for wealth, power, and total control over the public.  Their lust will never be sated.  They wish for a small collection of government and economic masters to subjugate as much of the planet’s population as possible as serfs.  Globalism is a conquering empire.  Its oligarchy of central bank popes, chosen political governors, corporate monarchs, and techno-fascist-brownshirt-bureaucrats are modern-day slavers and colonizers.  Instead of putting us in chains and whipping us when we “misbehave,” they put us in a lifetime of debt and prosecute us for expressing opinions contrary to official government orthodoxy.

Do you believe that marriage is an institution recognizing the sacred union between one man and one woman?  Do you believe that men and women are biologically different?  Do you believe that mass immigration is a threat to national security?  Do you believe “multiculturalism” and forced “diversity” destroy excellence, discount merit, and weaken the naturally salubrious bonds of common cultural heritage?  Do you believe that every human has a God-given right to self-defense?  Do you believe that Christians should remain faithful to their beliefs in both their public and private lives?  If so, globalist governments see you as an “extremist,” “right-winger,” “religious fanatic,” “terrorist,” and “enemy of the State.”  Your thoughts will be condemned.  Your speech will be censored.  You will be fined and prosecuted.  You will go to prison for your beliefs.

The best way for Americans to fight encroaching globalism over here is to support British patriots in their fight against globalism over there.  As Benjamin Franklin persuasively argued, “We must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately.”

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/20/2026 – 07:00