Lately headlines have been filled with developments of the United States targeting Venezuelan-linked tankers, or sanctioning Russia’s so-called Shadow Fleet, or else intercepts of Iranian oil shipments on the high seas. Such country names on the receiving end of Washington’s punitive measures have become commonplace, but it is surprising to see the EU country of Spain pop up as potentially next on the target list. Sanctions on Spanish-flagged vessels?

The US is actually mulling it, based on Madrid having blocked vessels carrying weapons bound for Israel since last year, even including refusals for American ships to dock.

Maritime monitoring source Freight Waves reported of several incidents last year, “Spain refused docking privileges at APM terminals in Algeciras, Spain in November 2024 to three U.S. flagged vessels operating under the MSP: Maersk Denver, Maersk Nysted, and Maersk Seletar.”

The Federal Maritime Commission conducted a formal investigation and this month confirmed the anti-US and anti-Israel actions by the Spanish government did take place, in line with Spain’s recent boycotting of Israel (specifically arms and military equipment) policy due to the Gaza war.

Spain has made clear it has recently codified a “multi-faceted policy” to ban ships and aircraft carrying weapons headed for Israel or tankers carrying fuel for use by the Israeli military from using Spanish ports or even flying in its airspace.

The US Federal Maritime Commission within the last days issued a statement confirming that it is considering “remedies the commission can implement to adjust or meet unfavorable conditions to shipping in the foreign trade of the United States include adopting regulations restricting voyages to or from US ports, imposing per voyage fees, limiting amounts or types of cargo, or taking ‘any other action the commission finds necessary and appropriate to adjust or meet any condition unfavorable to shipping the foreign trade of the United States’.”

There has long existed routine coordination between Spanish and American military officials, however, the relationship is becoming increasingly tense, given port blockage issue reflects a serious political divergence amid the ongoing war in Gaza.

The Rota base, near Cádiz on the Atlantic coast, is under Spanish control but heavily utilized by American forces. Also, the Morón air base, which is near Seville, is a key hub for US military operations, with American forces long operating with a broad degree of freedom there.

Madrid has defended its decision as rooted in Spain’s sovereignty and terms outlined in a 1988 bilateral defense agreement, amid the past couple years of European scrutiny of Israeli military action against Palestinians, especially in war-ravaged Gaza.

Authored by Chris Morrison via DailySceptic.org,

In a couple of weeks’ time, the Met Office is likely to announce another ‘hottest year evah’ in the UK. The message will be broadcast faithfully by trusted messengers in mainstream media, keen to prop up the fading Net Zero fantasy, but greeted with howls of derision across social media. Eye-opening investigative research over the last two years has revealed a national temperature network mainly composed of ‘junk’ inappropriate sites and massive data inventions across over 100 non-existent stations.

Now the British Government has stepped in with the suggestion that questioning the Met Office’s shoddy measuring systems “weakens trust in science”. Misinformation is said to have proliferated on “conspiracy networks”.

Step forward Lord Patrick Vallance, the former Government Chief Scientific Adviser at the heart of the Covid lockdown panic but now an unelected Science Minister in the Labour Administration.

“There has been a growing online narrative in some online and social media spaces attempting to undermine Met Office observations and data,” he observes.

Vallance’s conspiracy claims echo similar comments made earlier in the year by the Met Office. The investigative efforts of a small number of people were said by the state meteorologist to be an “attempt to undermine decades of robust science around the world ‘s changing climate”.

Only in the world inhabited by Vallance and the Met Office can a conspiracy be whipped up when rigorous examination and questioning is applied to scientific data.

From Covid to climate, it seems the scientific process is a closed book to state scientists following the settled political narrative. One of the ‘conspirators’ is citizen sleuth Ray Sanders, who has undertaken a forensic examination of nearly 400 individual Met Office recording stations. Commenting on the official ministerial response, he observed that not one word constituted a scientific approach. “It is a political monologue of the lowest order,” he opined.

Regular co-conspiratorial readers will of course be aware of the reporting problems at the Met Office.

Over the last 18 months, the percentage of sites in junk CIMO Classes 4 and 5 with ‘uncertainties’ due to nearby unnatural obstacles of 2°C and 5°C respectively has climbed from 77.9% to over 80%. In that period, the number of pristine Class 1 sites capable of measuring an uncorrupted ambient air temperature over a large surrounding area has fallen from 24 to just 19. Ray Sanders has catalogued most of the unsuitable sites producing measurements taken by airport runways, in walled gardens, near main roads and in the middle of solar farms. Daily high unnatural heat spikes, amplified by the recent introduction of more accurate electronic devices, are an obvious unaddressed problem, but they are often fed into the official statistics. One such 60-second spike in July 2022 pushed the temperature at RAF Coningsby up to 40.3°C, a declared national record that is widely publicised.

Meanwhile, temperature databases are awash with non-existent stations and invented data. Explanations that the ‘estimates’ are taken from ‘well-correlated neighbouring stations’ might be more convincing if those stations could be identified. Freedom of Information (FOI) efforts by Ray Sanders seeking such details have been dismissed as “vexatious” and “not in the public interest”. The picture has emerged of a very rough-and-ready network, suitable for specific local temperature reporting at places such as airports, but unconvincing in promoting widespread average temperatures down to one hundredth of a degree centigrade.

The Vallance explanations are contained in a letter written to the Conservative MP Sir Julian Lewis following concerns raised by Derek Tripp, a local councillor in his constituency. He notes that in September, the Met Office decided to remove estimated data from three non-existent stations on its historic temperature database.

“They recognised that confusion could be caused when there appears to be a continued flow of data on this website from stations that have closed,” he said.

In fact the confusion was caused by the Daily Sceptic seeking FOI details in November of well-correlated neighbouring stations responsible for data at one of the stations, namely Lowestoft. The well-correlated explanation is often used by the Met Office and formed the basis of an earlier ‘fact check’ by Science Feedback that seems to have relied exclusively on text provided by the Met Office. Sanders had earlier determined that there were no such stations within a reasonable distance of Lowestoft. The Met Office admitted under FOI that it did not use such stations but rather made estimates using its HADUK-Grid. This was little more than passing the buck since HADUK-Grid inputs temperature information from nearby stations, none of which it seems can ever be identified.

Vallance went on to note that the historic dataset was for “general interest only and is not intended for climate monitoring purposes”.

Curiously, Vallance failed to point out that this was a very recent explanation since it only appeared on the Met Office historic page after the Daily Sceptic submitted its FOI.

On the 80% junk nature of the Met Office’s temperature sites, Vallance rushes to the aid of the party.

“It is misleading and inappropriate to interpret the CIMO classifications in isolation to question the quality of the Met Office’s observing network or the integrity of the UK’s climate record,” he states.

What pompous piffle.

In-house activists have been allowed to leverage the reputation of the Met Office to produce a flood of dubious measurements and statistics designed to create mass climate psychosis with the aim of promoting a hard-Left Net Zero agenda. The World Meteorological Organisation could not be clearer in stating that a CIMO Class 1 location can be considered as a “reference” site giving a true air temperature over a wide surrounding area. “A Class 5 site is a site where nearby obstacles create an inappropriate environment for a meteorological measurement that is intended to be representative of a wide area,” it notes. A site with a poor class number can still be valuable for a specified application, it adds.

In other words, a Class 5 is useful for giving jet pilots a vital runway temperature, but less so for telling us that the annual temperature in the UK was 0.06°C cooler in 2023 than the ‘record’ year of 2022.

Vallance also claims that the Met Office “follows a structured, requirements-driven process to identify and establish new land observing stations”. It is reasonable to ask what “requirements-driven” process is being used by the Met Office, given that a large majority of sites started over the last 30, 10 and five years are to be found in the junk 4 and 5 Classes.

Even worse, the Daily Sceptic has disclosed using FOI information that 20 new sites have opened since April 2024, and of the 17 that have received CIMO classifications, a frankly incredible 64.7% started life in the Class 4 and 5 junk lane.

And they say we are the conspiracy nuts.

There are over 8,500 potentially polluting wrecks (PPWs) across the world’s ocean. These shipwrecks may hold as much as 20.4 million metric tons of oil and toxic substances, according to estimates.

This graphic, produced by Visual Capitalist’s Cody Good in partnership with Lloyd’s Register Foundation, shows the global density of World War II wrecks. It uses data from Paul Heersink’s Sunken Ships of the Second World War database and oil estimates from Michel et al., 2005, presented at the International Oil Spill Conference.

Where Toxic Shipwrecks Are Found

World War II battles sank over 75% of PPWs, concentrating most in regions such as the South Pacific (32% of PPWs, 25% of oil) and the North Atlantic (25% of PPWs, 38% of oil).

Here is a table that shows the concentration of PPWs by ocean region and their estimated oil content:

These wrecks remain under the ownership of the original flag states, who have no legal obligation to intervene. As a result, proactive international cooperation is urgently required.

The Environmental Threat

Many PPWs lie in the waters of small island states reliant on fishing and tourism. Even minor oil spills in sensitive marine areas can be devastating.

Here is a table showing the top 10 countries with the most PPWs located in their exclusive economic zones (EEZs), ranked by GDP:

Source: Shipwreck locations – Paul Heersink, 2025; EEZ file – Flanders Marine Institute, 2023

Because these nations often lack the resources to respond, they remain especially vulnerable to emerging threats.

The Malta Manifesto: Charting a Path Forward

The Malta Manifesto, launched by Project Tangaroa, calls for a global framework to address the PPW threat. It outlines key actions, from identifying high-risk wrecks to supporting coastal nations with limited capacity.

By recognizing that even a single leak in the wrong location can have far-reaching impacts, the Manifesto pushes for equitable, science-based solutions to this overlooked legacy of conflict.

Read the Malta Manifesto here…

Authored by Alex Kimani via OilPrice.com,

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (NYSE:DJT) have surged nearly 70% after the company agreed to merge with fusion startup TAE Technologies in a $6 billion deal. Under the terms of the deal, shareholders of each company will own roughly half of the combined entity on a fully diluted equity basis. Trump Media, majority owned by U.S. President Donald Trump, will now become the holding company for TAE Power Solutions and TAE Life Sciences alongside current holdings Truth Social, Truth+ and Truth.Fi. 

Founded in 1998, TAE Technologies aims to deploy commercial, utility-scale fusion energy. The company plans to commence construction of its first fusion power plant in 2026, expected to generate 350-500 MWe.

TAE Technologies has raised more than $1.3 billion thanks to backing by high-profile investors, including Google, Chevron Technology Ventures, Goldman Sachs, and Sumitomo Corporation of America. The company plans to employ neutral particle beams and magnets in its fusion reactors instead of standard lasers.

Widely regarded as the Holy Grail of low-carbon electricity, nuclear fusion works by ‘smashing’ together hydrogen atoms to create helium and release energy through the famous E=MC2 mass-energy equivalence. Fusion is the process by which stars, including our own sun, generate vast amounts of energy in their cores. 

Nuclear fusion is able to generate four times as much energy as nuclear fission from the same mass of fuel. Fusion reactors are highly regarded not only because of their massive power output but also because they produce much less radioactive waste and cannot melt down, unlike fission reactors, where uncontrolled chain reactions can be catastrophic. 

Nuclear fission is a process where a nucleus (usually of a heavy atom like uranium) splits into two smaller nuclei, releasing a large amount of energy and additional neutrons. These released neutrons can then induce further fission events, leading to a chain reaction.

After a long period of stagnation, nuclear fusion is hot again thanks to the ongoing global nuclear renaissance amid surging energy demand. Back in August, Sam Altman-backed Helion Energy began construction of its first commercial nuclear fusion plant in Chelan County, Washington. Helion’s project has already undergone rigorous environmental assessments as part of the Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) process by the State of Washington. 

Two years ago, Microsoft Inc. (NASDAQ:MSFT) signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Helion Energy to buy electricity from the nuclear fusion startup beginning in 2028. Constellation Energy (NASDAQ:CEG) was appointed as the marketer for the zero-carbon electricity Helion plans to generate at its Orion plant.

Helion has scored some important fusion milestones, with its Trenta prototype the first private reactor to achieve nuclear fusion on a commercial scale. Trenta–Helion’s sixth fusion prototype–has been able to achieve a critical fuel temperature of 180 million degrees Fahrenheit, widely considered a benchmark for commercial fusion viability. 

Testing of the prototype began in 2019 and concluded in January 2023, during which the facility completed nearly 10,000 high-power pulses and operated under vacuum for 16 months. Trenta uses a pulsed magneto-inertial fusion (MIF) approach to generate fusion energy. It accelerates two Field Reversed Configurations (FRCs) of plasma to collide, compressing them to fusion temperatures and directly recapturing the released energy as electricity, bypassing the traditional steam turbine cycle.

China Enters Fusion Race

That said, China has entered the fusion race with a bang. Whereas the U.S. was among the world’s first countries to bet big on this futuristic gambit, China’s foray came much later. China has been making rapid progress over the past decade, and now owns more fusion patents than any country according to industry data published by Nikkei. Further, China is building projects at record speed. 

China’s private fusion energy company, Energy Singularity, has achieved several significant breakthroughs in developing high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tokamak devices aimed at accelerating the commercialization of fusion energy. In June 2024, the company’s HH70 device successfully achieved its “first plasma,” making it the first and only operational full high-temperature superconducting tokamak built by a commercial company globally. The HH70 device was designed and constructed in under two years, a world record for the fastest development and construction of a superconducting tokamak.

In early 2025, Energy Singularity’s large-bore D-shaped HTS magnet, named “Jingtian” generated a world-record magnetic field of 21.7 tesla in a test. This surpassed the previous record held by a U.S. company/MIT collaboration and is a critical step for developing smaller, more cost-effective fusion reactors.The company is now developing its next-generation device, the HH170, which is planned for completion by 2027 and aims to achieve a tenfold energy gain (Q>10), a crucial milestone for commercial viability.

Interestingly, just like it did with AI models, China is pulling off impressive fusion milestones with much less. To wit, Energy Singularity has so far received just $112 million in private investment, significantly less than U.S. fusion startups. For some context, Charles Seife, director of the Arthur L. Carter Institute of Journalism at New York University, estimates that France-based International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project costs have surpassed €20 billion ($21.8 billion), more than four times the original budget of €5 billion (then $5.5 billion) and nearly a decade late from its 2016 delivery date.

That said, Energy Singularity is not the only fusion startup that’s pursuing small reactor designs. Deven, Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems is collaborating with MIT to build its small fusion reactor. 

The company has achieved major breakthroughs in fusion energy by developing world-record High-Temperature Superconducting (HTS) magnets, enabling smaller, more powerful tokamaks like their SPARC device, which aims to be the first to produce net energy. They’ve secured massive funding (around $3 billion), validated their magnet technology with the U.S. DOE, and demonstrated key magnet performance milestones. CFS is now building its SPARC reactor to prove net-energy fusion, paving the way for its first commercial power plant, ARC.

Outside of local reporting in Seattle, corporate media outlets at the national level have entirely ignored the brutal attack on a 75-year-old woman by a repeat offender. The silence is telling and underscores how progressive criminal justice reforms continue to backfire spectacularly, enabling a revolving-door chaotic environment that releases serial offenders back onto the streets with nation-killing consequences.

That’s correct. There has been no coverage in the mainstream press. The reason is very simple: corporate media outlets no longer function as independent news organizations, but as public-relations arms that filter stories based on narrative control rather than public importance. 

0 AP stories on Jeanette Marken
0 PBS stories on Jeanette Marken
0 NYT stories on Jeanette Marken
0 NPR stories on Jeanette Marken
0 WSJ stories on Jeanette Marken
0 BBC stories on Jeanette Marken
0 CNN stories on Jeanette Marken
0 WAPO stories on… pic.twitter.com/KogLaTWrWd

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 21, 2025

KOMO News released new surveillance video showing a horrific and random attack outside the King County Courthouse in downtown Seattle earlier this month.

75 year old Jeanette Marken was victim of an unprovoked attack by REPEAT violent offender Fale Vaigalepa Pea.

She lost an eye and broke her nose and cheekbone.

Fale has a long violent record of stabbings to drugs.

Judges kept releasing him to terrorize others.

This must stop! pic.twitter.com/vBFJu8BdWu

— C3 (@C_3C_3) December 22, 2025

According to charging documents, 42-year-old Fale Vaigalepa Pea used a wooden stick with a protruding screw to strike 75-year-old Jeanette Marken in the face.

BREAKING: Violent repeat offender who was known to police just randomly slashed a 75-year-old woman in the face in Seattle and permanently blinded her pic.twitter.com/fXH2bXpsMc

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 21, 2025

KOMO said court records show Pea has been known to law enforcement for years and has a long history of violent behavior.

In 2011, Pea stabbed two people at a party in SeaTac, including one victim who was stabbed eight times. He was later convicted by a jury and sentenced to 18 months of community custody. Since then, he has been charged in multiple assault cases, including one in 2020, four in 2023, and another in 2024.

This year alone, Pea has been booked into the King County Jail eight times. Despite repeated arrests for assault, indecent exposure, drug offenses, property destruction, unlawful use of weapons, and malicious mischief, none of those arrests this year resulted in charges before the random attack on the 75-year-old woman.

Pea now faces a first-degree assault charge and is scheduled for a competency hearing later this month. Prosecutors argue that his actions and criminal history show he’s a danger to the community.

What’s most shocking is that body camera footage from officers at the scene described Pea as a “regular” and noted, “He’s notorious for random assaults on Third.”

Elon Musk commented on the shocking video on X, saying, “This keeps happening to innocent people.”

Unacceptable… Judges must be held accountable! pic.twitter.com/HIDONCoF0R

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) November 26, 2025

Musk is likely referring to the fatal stabbing in Charlotte of a Ukrainian refugee by yet another serial offender released onto the street by progressive judges.

Judges must be held accountable https://t.co/bgDbt5rbH0

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2025

It’s time to hold left-wing politicians, judges, and anyone in between accountable for allowing repeat criminals back onto the streets, slaying the innocent.

This is why we need to Nayib Bukele America’s judicial system.

“We had to remove corrupt judges and corrupt attorneys and prosecutors!”pic.twitter.com/jxs5lJHV41

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 22, 2025

In the meantime, continue to avoid crime-ridden, Democrat-run cities and stay vigilant. None of this chaos should be happening, yet it has been allowed through nation-killing policies pushed by Democrats who follow a globalist framework aimed at undermining America from within.

Authored byh Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Instacart said it is ending a pricing experiment that allowed different customers to see different prices for identical grocery items after consumer advocates said the practice could inflate grocery bills at a time when households are already struggling with high food costs.

In a blog post published on Dec. 22, the company said it would immediately halt all “item price tests” conducted on its platform, acknowledging that the practice fell short of customer expectations at a time when inflation-weary households remain sensitive to grocery bills.

“Our customers have high expectations for Instacart. And for some, we fell short of those expectations,” the company said.

“At a time when families are working exceptionally hard to stretch every grocery dollar, those tests raised concerns, leaving some people questioning the prices they see on Instacart. That’s not okay—especially for a company built on trust, transparency, and affordability.”

The decision means that if two customers shop for the same items, at the same time, from the same store location on Instacart, they will now see the same prices, the company said.

Instacart said retailers will continue to control pricing on the platform, including whether online prices differ from in-store prices or vary by store location. But the company said it will no longer support item-level price testing tools that result in different prices for the same product at the same store.

Consumer Groups Flagged Pricing Risks

The pricing experiments drew public scrutiny earlier this month after a report by Consumer Reports, along with progressive advocacy groups Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union, found that many Instacart shoppers were shown multiple prices for identical items.

The groups conducted four identical Instacart shopping sessions with 437 volunteers across four states, comparing prices for the same 18 to 20 products purchased at the same time. A fifth group purchased the same items in physical stores for comparison.

The analysis found that roughly three-quarters of items were offered at different prices across shoppers, with markups ranging from a few cents to as much as $2.56 per item. In one September test, total cart prices for the same groceries ranged from $114.34 to $123.93, with just 8 percent of shoppers receiving the lowest total.

In one example cited by Groundwork Collaborative, shoppers ordering a dozen Lucerne eggs from a Safeway store in Washington were shown one of five prices—$3.99, $4.28, $4.59, $4.69, or $4.79—despite ordering at the same time from the same store.

“At a time when food price inflation outpaces overall inflation, and Americans report that the price of groceries is their number one cost concern, pricing experiments used by companies like Instacart are making the situation worse,” Groundwork Collaborative wrote.

Consumer Reports cited customer feedback describing the practice as deceptive, saying shoppers were unknowingly subjected to pricing experiments that left them questioning whether they were being overcharged.

“Instacart shoppers we spoke to say they were unaware that they were participants in active Instacart pricing experiments and view the practice as manipulative and unfair,” Consumer Reports wrote.

The company’s variable pricing experiments also drew scrutiny from lawmakers. On Dec. 11, Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), ranking member of the House Committee on Agriculture, sent a letter to Instacart citing the consumer group findings and requesting detailed answers about the company’s pricing practices.

“I am writing to express my deep concern with Instacart’s use of sensitive personal information to inflate grocery bills for families based on their financial situation,” Craig wrote. “The practice of charging my neighbors different prices for the same groceries at the same store is unacceptable, especially when families are being squeezed from all sides.”

Instacart said in its Dec. 22 blog post that the pricing tests, conducted using software from Eversight, were randomized and not based on personal data, shopping history, demographics, or real-time supply and demand.

“These tests were not dynamic pricing or surveillance pricing,” Instacart said, adding that prices were not tailored to individual users.

Earlier this month, Instacart confirmed it had been offering the Eversight pricing tools to a limited number of retail partners since 2023, saying the short-term tests were designed to help retailers understand category-level price sensitivity and were not designed to increase the average markup set by a retail partner.

FTC Settlement Adds to Scrutiny

Instacart’s decision to end the pricing tests comes just days after the company agreed to pay $60 million in consumer refunds to settle a lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

In a Dec. 18 announcement, the FTC said the settlement resolved allegations that Instacart engaged in deceptive practices, including misleading advertising about free delivery, charging undisclosed service fees, and enrolling consumers in paid subscriptions without clear consent.

“Instacart misled consumers by advertising free delivery services—and then charging consumers to have groceries delivered,” Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement.

The FTC alleged that Instacart advertised “free delivery” on first orders but then charged mandatory service fees that could add up to 15 percent of an order, without clearly disclosing the costs. The agency also accused the company of falsely advertising a “100 percent satisfaction guarantee” while making refunds difficult to obtain.

Under the proposed order, Instacart must stop the alleged practices, clearly disclose fees and subscription terms, and obtain express informed consent from consumers. The company has denied wrongdoing but said the settlement allows it to move forward.

In a statement to The Epoch Times, an Instacart spokesperson said the company’s pricing, marketing, and fee policies are transparent and comply with the law.

“We flatly deny any allegations of wrongdoing by the Federal Trade Commission, and we stand firmly behind the integrity and transparency of our programs,” the statement reads.

Looking ahead, Instacart said it will focus on encouraging more retailers to move toward in-store and online price parity, while clearly displaying each retailer’s pricing policy on its platform.

“Trust is earned through clarity and consistency,” the company said. “Customers should never have to second-guess the prices they’re seeing.”

Mary Prenon contributed to this report.

Malicious actors are impersonating government officials to secure sensitive information and steal funds, the FBI said in an alert on Dec. 19.

“Activity dating back to 2023 reveals malicious actors have impersonated senior U.S. state government, White House, and Cabinet-level officials, as well as members of Congress to target individuals, including officials’ family members and personal acquaintances,” the alert said.

“If you receive a message claiming to be from a current or former senior U.S. official, do not assume it is authentic.”

As Naveen Athrappully reports for The Epoch Times, the threat actors have sent text messages and artificial intelligence-generated voice messages as part of their impersonation campaigns.

In the scheme, criminals contact a target by impersonating a U.S. official and briefly engage in conversation on a topic the target is well-versed in, the agency said. They then request that the communication be taken to an encrypted mobile messaging application. In most cases, the initial contact is made via SMS, and the conversation is then moved to an app such as Telegram, WhatsApp, or Signal.

Once this communication channel is set up, they inquire about events such as bilateral relations, current affairs, and trade and security policy negotiations, according to the FBI.

The malicious actor then suggests setting up a meeting between the target and the U.S. president or other high-ranking officials. They also lie that the target is being considered for nomination to the board of directors of a company.

According to the FBI, targets have been asked to take certain actions, including providing an authentication code allowing the fraudsters to sync their device with the contact list on the target’s phone, supplying personally identifiable information and copies of personal documents, and wiring funds to a financial institution located abroad under false pretenses.

The Dec. 19 alert is an update to an earlier alert issued by the FBI on May 15, which warned that once a target is lured into a messaging platform, he or she may be presented with malware or hyperlinks designed to steal log-in information, such as user names and passwords.

The malicious actors may use voice phishing tactics, which involve audio generated by artificial intelligence to impersonate public figures or personal relations to boost the believability of the scheme.

In the latest alert, the FBI issued guidance to help identify suspicious messages. It advised people to verify the identity of the person contacting them and to listen closely to the tone and word choice during a call or voice message to assess whether it is AI-generated.

It asked people to refrain from sharing sensitive information with those they have only met online or by phone and to not send money or assets to such individuals.

According to the 2024 report from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, there were 17,367 government impersonation complaints filed last year, more than the 11,554 complaints filed in 2022.

Meanwhile, losses from such complaints jumped from roughly $240 million to more than $405 million during this period.

People aged 30–39 filed the highest number of government impersonation complaints in 2024, followed closely by those in the 40–49 age group.

AI Impersonation, Social Security Warning

In September, the FBI and the American Bankers Association warned that AI-backed deepfake impersonation scams were getting harder to detect.

“Imposter scams in particular are on the rise. … Criminals are using deepfakes, or media that is generated or manipulated by AI, to gain your trust and scam you out of your hard-earned money,” the agency said.

Deepfake content can include altered audio, video, or images. The scammers can impersonate public figures, such as celebrities or the target’s family and friends, the FBI said.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) also issued a warning in November about a new government scam targeting Social Security recipients via fake emails, texts, or letters.

The scam involves criminals threatening beneficiaries that their Social Security numbers will be suspended within 24 hours and that their cases will be referred for criminal prosecution, urging them to contact the OIG using the provided number.

When victims call the number, the scammer impersonates an SSA employee and requests the target’s personal information.

“Scammers continue to exploit fear and confusion by using official-looking letters and real SSA employee names to threaten you and convince you they’re legitimate so that you will respond and provide them with your personal information and money,” acting Inspector General Michelle L. Anderson said.

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Fighter jets intercepted a civilian aircraft that violated restricted airspace over President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, on Dec. 21, military officials said.

The aircraft entered restricted airspace at about 9:20 a.m., prompting an F-16 fighter jet to conduct what is called a “headbutt maneuver,” in which the jet flies directly in front of a civilian plane to get the pilot’s attention, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a news release.

NORAD, which oversees the airspace of the United States and Canada, did not specify the type of aircraft involved or its point of origin or destination.

Temporary flight restrictions went into effect at 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 19 ahead of Trump’s arrival in Palm Beach later that night for his annual Christmas and New Year’s visit to Mar-a-Lago. The restrictions, issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), are set to remain in place until 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 4, 2026.

Under the restrictions, most flights are prohibited within a 10-nautical-mile radius, or about 12 miles, around Mar-a-Lago. A larger outer ring extending to 30 nautical miles, or roughly 35 miles, allows more limited aircraft movement, according to the FAA.

When an aircraft violates the restricted airspace, air traffic controllers would try to contact the pilot and instruct them to exit the area. If the pilot does not respond, NORAD may dispatch fighter jets to intercept the aircraft. Intercepting pilots may fly alongside the plane, tip their wings, release flares, or perform other maneuvers to attract the pilot’s attention.

Pilots who violate temporary flight restrictions may face penalties ranging from warnings and fines to suspension or revocation of their pilot certificates, the FAA said.

Since Trump was elected to a second term, he has made multiple weekend visits to Palm Beach County, triggering flight restrictions each time he is in town.

In early March, less than two months into Trump’s second presidency, NORAD said it had already intercepted 20 civilian aircraft for violating temporary flight restrictions near his Palm Beach residence.

A more recent incident occurred on Nov. 30 during the Thanksgiving weekend, when NORAD dispatched F-16s after a civilian aircraft entered restricted airspace. In that case, fighter jets released flares before escorting the plane out of the restricted zone, officials said.

NORAD advised pilots to carefully review all Notices to Airmen and temporary flight restrictions before they take off.

“NORAD employs a layered defense network of radars, satellites, and fighter aircraft to identify aircraft and determine the appropriate response,” officials said in the Dec. 21 statement.

“The identification and monitoring of aircraft demonstrates how NORAD executes its aerospace warning and aerospace control missions for the United States and Canada.”

Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,

A federal judge has allowed most claims in a senior Secret Service agent’s lawsuit alleging a hostile workplace, retaliation, and discrimination to move forward despite Department of Homeland Security opposition, according to court documents.  

Rashid Ellis, a 14-year veteran of the agency with expertise in drone systems, sued DHS, which oversees the Secret Service, three months before the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt against Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Ellis’ lawsuit accuses agency leaders of dismissing complaints, elevating problematic colleagues to oversight positions, and punishing him for advocating for advancements in drone technology and racial unity within the agency.

The claims of retaliation, discrimination, and hostile work environment took place when Alejandro Mayorkas was DHS secretary and Kimberly Cheatle ran the Secret Service. Cheatle was forced to resign after severe criticism of her testimony to Congress about the Butler failures.

Even though Ellis’ former agency is now led by Trump-appointed Secretary Kristi Noem and Secret Service Director Sean Curran, so far there has been no effort to settle the case out of court.

Ruling Preserves Ellis’ Core Allegations

U.S. District Judge Emmit Sullivan ruled in late September that most of the claims in Ellis’ lawsuit could proceed. The decision, which RealClearPolitics is first to report, rejects the government’s motion to dismiss the case, clearing the path for legal discovery into allegations of systemic leadership failings, which Ellis argues enabled bias, stifled innovation, and endangered the agency’s mission.

A graduate of The Citadel who was consistently awarded “exceeds expectations” ratings in his performance reviews, Ellis served on former President Joe Biden’s protective detail, the elite Counter Assault Team, and as an instructor at the Secret Service’s James J. Rowley Training Center on counter-surveillance and the use of drones. His role as the Secret Service point person for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers’ Association, a lobbying entity that offers legal services, retirement benefits, and other support, amplified his advocacy for racial equality. Ellis argues it also made him a target for Secret Service leadership.

Multiple Secret Service shortcomings were evident in Butler on the day Trump was nearly killed, including the failure to detect the shooter’s drone in the air over the rally site. On the one-year anniversary of the Butler assassination attempt, the Secret Service announced reforms, including the creation of an Aviation and Airspace Security division “dedicated to maintaining the agency’s critical aerial monitoring capabilities.”

Ellis’ lawsuit detailing his experiences with Cheatle at the helm, which RCP reported on last year, reads like a case study of the agency leaders’ long-running tendency to engage in petty squabbles, favoritism, and retaliation instead of keeping its focus on the big picture – its mission of protecting presidents, vice presidents, Cabinet members, and former presidents.

In a detailed 63-page opinion, Sullivan determined that Ellis had sufficiently alleged civil rights violations.

The judge was unpersuaded by DHS attorneys’ arguments, including that Ellis didn’t truly suffer any adverse action because he never lost his salary and that he didn’t exhaust administrative remedies on his charges before filing suit.

DHS attorneys also argued that federal employees are held to a higher standard than those in the private sector when it comes to experiencing adverse actions. Sullivan dismissed this last argument as one that has repeatedly failed in previous court decisions.

“As discussed below,” the judge wrote, “this theory has been rejected by every judge on this court to have considered it.”

Ellis’ attorney, David Blum of Alan Lescht & Associates, P.C., told RCP: “We look forward to litigating the merits of this case.”

The Secret Service has declined comment on Ellis’ case and ignored several separate questions about the agency’s history of resisting efforts to implement an extensive aerial drone program and the readiness level of that program. Prior to the assassination attempts, the Secret Service had an aerial drone program, but it was limited in scope, sources told RCP.

“As a matter of longstanding policy, the U.S. Secret Service does not comment on pending or proposed litigation,” a spokesperson told RCP last year. The agency did not respond to a request for comment on Sullivan’s ruling.

The lawsuit depicts a corrosive Secret Service culture in which leaders engage in intimidation, and supervisors ignore harassment reports, neglect investigations, and retaliate if personnel complain of mistreatment.

Ellis argues that Cheatle, then serving as the head of the Secret Service’s Office of Protective Operations, backed by human resource managers and other bureaucrats, blocked and retaliated against him for trying to transfer jobs to work full-time on a special drone project he was developing, according to three sources in the Secret Service community.

Some of these agency officials, Ellis asserts, also retaliated against him for lodging complaints about personal and inaccurate attacks based on his perceived religion.

Cheatle and a group of senior Secret Service officials went to great lengths to prevent Ellis from serving in a key role in the Airspace Security Branch of the Secret Service’s Special Operations Division, which oversees the drone program, according to court records Ellis filed last year.

Instead, the agency wanted to send him to the vice presidential detail to help provide security for Kamala Harris, her husband, and their extended family, and wouldn’t budge when he appealed the decision – even though the agency had formally listed the airspace position as “hard-to-staff.”

Ellis, who is black but eschews racial divisions, referring to himself as “American,” filed suit against DHS in April 2024 and amended the complaint in late July to outline a pattern of harassment. The lawsuit accuses agency officials of orchestrating an elaborate scheme, beginning in 2021, to undermine his career in retaliation for his efforts to transfer to an Airspace position. Ellis wanted the position so he could play a direct role in establishing and implementing “a special project involving drones,” according to the lawsuit.

Ellis’ lawsuit alleges that those who conspired against him include Cheatle; then-human resources head Susan Yarwood; Elizabeth Lewis, Yarwood’s then-deputy; then-Technical Services Division Assistant Director Darren Giacolleto; then-Human Resources supervisors Danielle Watson and Thomas Hamman; and others.

Specific Leadership Failures

Incidents of harassment Ellis endured include:

• A fellow agent, whom the lawsuit identifies as Michael Hackney, allegedly used a training exercise to physically attack him and pulled a live weapon on him as a joke while he was working a protection detail. Ellis reported the incident to his superior, who took no action, telling him, “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze,” according to the lawsuit. Two years later, Hackney allegedly aggressively drove his SUV toward Ellis and his pregnant wife and one-year-old son as though he was going to run them over.
• Another agent, who Ellis says witnessed the aggressive driving threat, warned him not to report Hackney because “that’s how some people joke.”
• Ellis, a Christian, believes his complaints about Hackney, whom he said also misidentified him as Muslim and called him a “terrorist” based on his Islamic-sounding first name, contributed to his failure to land bids for two hard-to-staff positions in the agency’s Airspace branch, even though he argues he was eligible for both positions.

The lawsuit further alleges:

• A senior official acknowledged agency-wide racism and backed Ellis’ 2021 drone position bid, calling him the “number one selection,” but failed to counter Human Resources’ disqualification. Lewis and Yarwood deemed him ineligible despite his qualifications and the endorsement.
• After Ellis appealed that decision, Danielle Watson twisted his frustrated comment about the process “driving him to drink” into cynical claims that he admitted to abusing alcohol. Yarwood, after consulting Lewis, directed Watson to draft a memorandum falsely alleging Ellis admitted to drinking, family disputes, and related issues – proven false by video evidence. The agency then placed Ellis on administrative leave and forced him to surrender his gear while recommending a nine-month sobriety program. Those decisions were overturned shortly afterward, but nonetheless damaged Ellis’ reputation.
• Cheatle supported the phony alcoholism narrative, recommending administrative leave and the sobriety program, and allegedly provided misleading statements in an affidavit about the sources of information that informed her decisions.
• Giacoletto denied Ellis’ appeal the day the agency imposed the administrative leave and was involved in the initial disqualification.

A supervisor warned Ellis of “a lot of trouble” for pursuing grievances, while others told him that the real source of his troubles with the agency was his pro-drone advocacy.

These incidents, Ellis claims, reflect a Secret Service pattern of weaponizing human resources processes against those who complain of mistreatment, a similar refrain among numerous former agents and the lawyers who have represented them.

Connections to Broader Secret Service Challenges

Despite new leadership, the Secret Service has experienced a string of continued lapses and embarrassing incidents. As RCP first reported, two female officers were involved in a physical fight outside former President Obama’s D.C. residence; Secret Service officers also missed a Glock while screening bags at Trump’s Virginia golf course; a Uniformed Division officer fell asleep on the job and left his fully automatic rifle unattended while protecting the United Nations General Assembly in New York; and an agent openly celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination in a Facebook post. Trump’s detail also allowed protesters at a D.C. restaurant to get close to Trump and several of his top Cabinet members and taunt them.

Ellis’ lawsuit alleges that his blocked transfer to a leadership position in the drone program quite possibly hindered advancements that might have prevented the 2024 Trump assassination attempts. A Senate report on the Butler failures faulted Secret Service leaders for denying counter-drone requests and technical failures. Then-Acting Director Ronald Rowe admitted to lapses during congressional testimony last year.

Ellis himself ties the Butler failures to Cheatle and prior leaders’ DEI priorities, arguing they favored quotas over merit, eroding standards and morale and agent retention. As the discovery process proceeds, the case may force DHS to address these leadership decisions.

“The relentless push by Secret Service leadership to meet diversity quotas has compromised our ability to meet our protectees’ needs,” Ellis said in a video posted on the Independent Women’s Forum website. IWF is a nonprofit conservative advocacy organization.

Despite efforts to dismantle DEI under the current administration, Ellis cautions that it will take years for the agency to recover.

“If we do not clean out the rot, our people – and our protectees – will pay the price,” he warned.