Via Remix News,

Much of the German national media is in an uproar after Chancellor Friedrich Merz connected problems with Germany’s “cityscape” and immigration.

At a press conference in Potsdam, Merz spoke about migration policy and his party’s strategy against the Alternative for Germany (AfD), stating they are “very far along” in confronting the AfD on the issue.

However, then the remark came that has the left attacking him.

“But of course we still have this problem in the cityscape and that is why the Federal Minister of the Interior is now making deportations possible on a very large scale,” said Merz.

The pro-migration left jumped on the comment, calling him a racist.

Green Party leader Felix Banaszak considers Friedrich Merz to be “dangerous“ and “unworthy of a chancellor.”

The Green Party MEP Erik Marquardt stated that “the chancellor should apologize for this racist derailment.”

He added that “calling people of different skin colors a ‘problem in the cityscape’ is simply racism. The fact that such a statement simply slips out of his mouth makes it clear.“

Former Bundestag Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt, also with the Greens, only wrote on X: “Cityscape. I just can’t believe it.“

Green Party politician Andreas Audretsch wrote on X: “Friedrich Merz didn’t understand anything.” In a video, he stated that “Mr. Merz, you got stuck in another time.“

The Alternative for Germany (AfD), also a bitter rival of the CDU, comes at the issue from the totally opposite angle, blaming Merz for failing to fix the issues his party is largely responsible for. AfD politician Jörg Baumann stated, “Did Merz mean ‘this problem in the cityscape’”?

Meinte Merz etwa “dieses Problem im Stadtbild”?#Merz #DeshalbAfD #Remigration pic.twitter.com/JAjDtBPzRz

— Jörg Baumann MdL (@BaumannMdL) October 15, 2025

In a subsequent post, he said he was not writing to support Merz, and that he was in fact working to actively remove Merz from power.

Merz’s statement is being defended by some in his party as well as the news outlet Welt, which is considered close to the CDU.

“Anyone who considers this sentence from the chancellor to be an inadmissible exaggeration should take a walk through Duisburg, where the post office in the White Giant’s high-rise development temporarily stopped delivering parcels – for security reasons. Because the authorities do too little to combat crime and violence between different ethnic groups, some residents have decided to arm themselves. The Green Party leader Banaszak, who himself comes from Duisburg, apparently has the talent to close his eyes to these undesirable developments,” wrote Welt columnist Jan Philipp Burgard.

He continued, writing that “public order is not as eroded everywhere as in Duisburg, but all over Germany people are discussing changing the image of their city at the dining table, conference table or regulars’ table. Some seasoned men avoid walking home from the pub. Some women no longer go jogging in the park. According to the opinion research institute Ipsos, concerns about immigration will arise for the twelfth time in a row in September 2025 at the top of the ‘worry barometer.’”

The Ipsos poll not only shows that immigration is Germany’s top concern, but a large majority of Germans view Islam as a security threat. In another poll, a strong majority said there are too many Middle Eastern migrants in Germany. In that same poll, nearly half of respondents agreed with the statement: “I believe that Europeans are gradually being replaced by immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.”

PM Viktor Orbán: 🇭🇺🇩🇪 “Now, Germany is no longer Germany. It’s a colorful, changed multicultural world, where migrants coming in are no longer guests in this country… They are not here as guests of the native Germans, but in their own right. It is now their country, too.” pic.twitter.com/yjjArFvYNA

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) June 25, 2024

Already in 2023, 64 percent of respondents said they want the country to take fewer migrants. The same poll showed that the same number, 64 percent, said that Germany faces more disadvantages than advantages when it comes to immigration.

A poll from last year found that 72 percent of respondents say it is right to carry out asylum procedures outside the EU’s external borders, while only 16 percent say the measure is wrong. The poll also showed that Germans are not only against illegal immigration, but want lower levels of all immigration, including legal immigrants. The poll shows 69 percent of respondents would like (rather) less migration to Germany, while only 11 percent would like (rather) more migration.

In other words, Merz’s “cityscape” comments are not far off the mark from what a majority of Germans think on the issue.

As Remix News reported, foreigners made up a record share of violent criminal offenders last year, according to crime data. Germans are feeling less and less safe.

Jan Philipp Burgard writes for Welt: “There are still around 220,000 people who live illegally in Germany and would have to be deported – the result of a historic loss of control that began 10 years ago and whose collateral damage is obvious. Foreigners in Germany are more than twice as involved in violent crime as Germans. Perpetrators from Muslim countries from Algeria to Afghanistan are particularly well represented in crime statistics.”

However, even deporting 220,000 illegal migrants is not necessarily going to seriously change the ongoing demographic transformation of Germany at a time when schools are in shambles, the German economy continues to teeter, and crime continues to soar. In addition, German citizens with a migration background are often the very children in classes causing serious problems, and they are often the suspects in serious crime case. This group cannot just be “deported away,” yet finding solutions to these difficult problems remains no easy task.

Merz, like Macron, may be throwing “red meat” to the right with such proclamations. His CDU is now losing out to the AfD in all major polls, which means he has to present a tough face on the issue of immigration — an issue that is not going away, regardless of how much the left screams “racism.”

Read more here…

Authored by Antonio Graceffo via The Epoch Times,

After 12 years, Beijing’s four major defenses against the Belt and Road “debt trap” argument are dispelled.

The 12th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (also called One Belt, One Road) was last month. Amid ongoing accusations that it is a debt trap, the Lowy Institute think tank reported that 75 developing nations now face severe debt crises driven by massive repayments to China. Developing countries are expected to pay Beijing a record $35 billion this year, $22 billion of which will come from the world’s poorest nations, forcing deep cuts to health, education, and essential services.

Launched in 2013, the BRI financed large-scale infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa, and Latin America through state-backed loans, making China the world’s largest bilateral creditor. Over the program’s first decade, roughly 80 percent of lending from the Chinese regime went to nations already in or near default. As these debts mature, repayment pressures are straining public finances and reinforcing the charge that Beijing deliberately created a global debt trap.

In its defense, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) advances four flawed arguments to deny that the BRI is a debt trap: first, that many developing countries owe more to Western lenders; second, that U.S. interest rate hikes caused their debt problems; third, that currency depreciation and a slowing global economy are to blame; and fourth, that China rarely seizes assets from countries unable to repay. Each of these claims collapses under scrutiny.

The CCP’s first defense—that many Belt and Road countries owe more to Western or international lenders than to China—is mathematically true in some cases but deeply misleading. While Chinese loans may represent less than half of a country’s total debt, these nations already had extremely low credit ratings and were considered too risky for traditional lenders. Western institutions stopped lending to avoid pushing them into default. China, however, stepped in and issued the very loans that tipped them over the edge. In many cases, Beijing became the lender of last resort because responsible lenders had walked away.

The second argument—that rising U.S. interest rates caused the debt crisis—is equally flawed. Fluctuating rates are a well-known risk built into every sovereign credit assessment. Countries that continue to borrow heavily despite poor ratings do so knowing refinancing will become more expensive when global rates rise. Responsible lenders account for that risk and withdraw when borrowers approach unsustainable levels of debt. China ignores those warnings, continuing to lend, ensuring that default becomes inevitable.

The third claim—blaming the crisis on currency depreciation and a slowing global economy—also collapses under scrutiny. Economic downturns and exchange-rate fluctuations are foreseeable risks that must be weighed before taking on debt. Many Belt and Road countries have weak, partially convertible currencies, but must repay their loans in U.S. dollars. As the dollar strengthens, debt service costs rise, draining national reserves and deepening economic distress. This is not the fault of the West, nor the result of U.S. monetary policy designed to harm others. The CCP’s reasoning is illogical, especially since most Belt and Road loans are themselves denominated in dollars.

The fourth argument used by the CCP against the “debt trap” accusation is that it rarely seizes assets from countries that cannot repay; instead, it claims to provide “debt relief” through refinancing or extending loans. In practice, this approach only deepens dependency. Beijing typically grants short-term restructuring, such as maturity extensions or grace periods, to low-income nations without reducing principal or easing interest rates.

It also relies on “rescue lending” mechanisms, including bridge loans from state banks, currency swap drawdowns through the People’s Bank of China, and commodity prepayment arrangements. These measures do not solve underlying solvency problems but merely postpone default, keeping borrowers afloat long enough to protect China’s own financial system.

A major study by AidData, the World Bank, Harvard Kennedy School, and the Kiel Institute found that by the end of 2021, China had carried out 128 bailout operations totaling $240 billion across 22 countries, marking a clear shift from infrastructure financing to emergency rescue loans. In 2010, less than 5 percent of China’s overseas lending went to distressed borrowers; by 2022, that figure had soared to 60 percent.

These bailouts also expose Beijing’s hypocrisy: while the CCP accuses the West of predatory interest rates, the average Chinese rescue loan carries an interest rate of about 5 percent, more than double the IMF’s standard 2 percent. As of Oct. 1, 2025, despite higher U.S. interest rates, the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights lending rate stands at only 3.41 percent, still significantly lower than what China charges struggling nations for so-called relief.

The true scale of Belt and Road debt may be far worse than official data suggest. To shield its own banking system, the Chinese regime increasingly uses the People’s Bank of China’s global swap-line network, which has provided more than $170 billion in short-term liquidity to foreign central banks. These loans, often labeled as “temporary,” are routinely rolled over for years, allowing governments to conceal their true debt exposure since international reporting rules exclude short-term liabilities.

This practice has created vast “hidden debts,” estimated at roughly $385 billion by AidData in 2021, and the figure is likely far higher today, as more loans come due and few have been repaid in the intervening years.

The CCP’s opaque bailout strategy—designed to protect its lenders rather than assist struggling nations—ensures that the full weight of Belt and Road debt remains concealed from public view.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Cars are one of the most significant purchases people make, but unlike real estate, their value drops quickly.

To help you protect your investment, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu created this ranking highlighting the 13 cars with the best resale value in America, as of 2025.

This means that all of the models shown in this graphic are from the 2022 model year.

The data in this graphic was compiled by U.S. News, which analyzed pricing and resale trends across 2022 model-year vehicles. It measures the average value these cars lost from MSRP after three years, both as a percentage and in dollar terms.

Toyota is #1 in Value Retention

Toyota’s reputation for reliability and affordability continues to pay off in resale value.

The Corolla Cross leads the list, depreciating just 2.63% (-$662) after three years. Other Toyota models such as the 4Runner, C-HR, and Tacoma also perform exceptionally well in this regard.

Earlier this year, Toyota was ranked the fourth most reliable car brand in America, explaining its consistent demand in both the new and used markets.

Japanese Cars Generally Depreciate Slower

Beyond Toyota, other Japanese brands also fare well. Subaru’s Crosstrek comes in fourth with a depreciation rate of just 4.90%, perhaps due to its all-wheel-drive versatility.

Compact cars like the Honda Civic and Nissan Versa also appear in the top 10, offering a compelling mix of efficiency, practicality, and reliability.

The Mustang Endures

Among a sea of Japanese cars, the Ford Mustang stands out as the only American vehicle in this ranking.

With an average depreciation of 5.41%, the Mustang’s enduring design and heritage help it resist the sharp value declines typical of many U.S. models.

Another factor could be that the Mustang is the only gasoline-powered pony car still on sale today, with the Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challenger both recently ending production.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The Best Used EVs in 2025 on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

We’ve not seen days like these for gold and silver since the late 1970s. It is nothing short of spectacular for investors and hoarders of the tried and true metals. People who have kept the faith in the real are being rewarded. For everyone else, these are scary signs concerning what might be coming our way.

For thousands of years, these two metals have been the most valued in human experience. That’s why they became money, which is the good we acquire to buy other goods. Money becomes that because the market selects the good in question. It’s the most marketable commodity.

Gold and silver have always fit the description because they have uniform quality, have a high value per unit of weight, they are durable, and are highly divisible. So they became money in most places in the industrializing world.

I recently bought some old U.S. quarters and dimes, which were made of silver. The price is far above the stated value because the money was devalued, while the specie value kept rising. They are really wonderful to hold and own because they serve as a reminder of what sound money means. They also symbolize economic and financial independence.

It’s been half a century since the age of fiat money dawned. The United States has tried an experiment to make due with a currency that has no underlying integrity. It’s just paper or just digits. This was supposed to be more modern. We turned our backs on the “barbarous relic,” as J.M. Keynes called gold.

The prediction made early in the fiat age was that these metals would fall in value to reflect their industrial uses.

The monetary premium would disappear because they would no longer be money. The intellectuals, not the relics, would be in charge now.

The very opposite happened.

Throughout the 1970s, both gold and silver boomed. It was a massive vote of confidence in the real and an insult to the new elites who promised a better system. It humiliated them.

We seemed to have embarked on another wave of the same. They are both soaring.

Source: Bloomberg

For all the world, this feels like a flight to the real. Central banks want gold and silver. Large investors. Heavily leveraged brokers. Huge institutions. Regular consumers. Everyone is grabbing as much of the stuff as possible right now.

Will there be a correction? Maybe. But this is truly worrisome. It reveals a lack of confidence in our fiat world.

The data right now seems to back up a genuine cause for worry. Inflation nearly disappeared completely once Trump took office. It happened without explanation. Maybe it was a reflection of optimism by business that they could eat more of the increased wholesale costs because big profits were headed their way.

While dramatic things are happening under Trump in many areas—immigration, trade, cuts in the power and reach of the civil service, the end of DEI, new liberties in speech, truth in public health—other realms have not been so great. Spending is out of control, still. The Fed has accelerated quantitative easing yet again. And the Trump administration is pushing for lower interest rates.

Meanwhile, inflation is no longer declining. It is increasing.

This is not a good trend. It is ominous for the Trump administration.

If there is one force in the world capable of wiping out all the good that has happened since January 2025, it is inflation. If people cannot pay their bills, all of politics becomes theater. People will blame Trump, rightly or wrongly. This will be on his watch.

There is this long history of governments being unaware of the inflation problem until it is too late. The Weimar central bank of 1920 had no idea that the complete destruction of the German currency was three years into the future. This is because central bankers always and everywhere are convinced that they have matters under control.

They do have things under control until they do not. This is the worry. The Fed right now needs to defy the Trump administration and keep rates high and money tight. They could in fact prompt a recession but this can be mitigated with deregulation and a lower tax burden.

What is not easily fixed is a second wave of inflation. This is precisely what the increase in precious metals prices portends. It is sending a grave signal that markets are unconvinced that the Trump administration has the fiscal and monetary situation under control. Truth is that it does not. The debt problem is getting worse, not better. The red ink seems to flow regardless of whatever DOGE has done and regardless of all the cuts in bureaucracy and agency costs.

Here is the root cause of the gold and silver boom. It represents a flight to safety in anticipation of some possible crisis in the future. But there are other matters too, such as an emerging regional bank crisis. There are lingering issues concerning commercial real estate yet resolved. No one knows for sure how firm or shaky the fiat financial system truly is.

A serious financial crisis could in fact be around the corner. Housing is out of control. Financial markets have gone absolutely bonkers over AI. The leverage in every sector is without precedent. It’s all rooted in a belief that a fiat world is practicable and possible. But is it really? Many people are starting to doubt it.

When you hold physical gold and silver, you feel it and know it. It is the real deal. No permissions. No governments. No authorities. No brokers. It’s secure value and nothing more. It represents independence and freedom.

Remember that we live in a time when trust is lost in nearly everything. It makes sense that this would extend to financial intermediaries too. No one is putting 100 percent of their net wealth into precious metals. Investing is all about hedging risk in many directions, involving many scenarios.

Apparently one of those scenarios that is being entertained among people with big money is the possibility of complete financial and monetary breakdown. The Trump administration needs to pay close attention to this and the signal it is sending. There are ways to fix this problem but it is going to require some very hard decisions.

The markets never tell the perfect truth but they are sending a message that deserves close attention. Gold and silver were supposed to be gone by now but here we are. They are back again and with ferocity.

Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times,

The world has now woken up to the consequences of China dominating global supply chains, said White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.

“That’s kind of the state of play,” he said at an Oct. 17 event at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“The world has fundamentally changed based on what we’ve observed, and the world will not go back to sleep on this.”

The comments note a contrast in global attitude to when he served at the White House during the first Trump administration.

In 2017, Navarro was a key driver directing the administration to conduct a nine-month review of the U.S. defense industrial base. The resulting 146-page report, released in the following October, identified China as “a significant and growing risk to the supply of materials and technologies deemed strategic and critical to U.S. national security.”

When it comes to critical energetic materials for munitions and missiles, the report noted, there’s often “no other source or drop-in replacement material.” And in cases where that option exists, it added, the time and cost can be prohibitive—sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars each.

“My job, literally every day, is to worry about whether we have enough magnets or pharmaceuticals or ball bearings or whatever it is that we need,” Navarro said, citing an old proverb: “The war was lost through a horseshoe.”

“You cannot project power if you surrender production; you cannot deter aggression when your supply chains run through your opponent’s ports; you can’t lead the free world if you can’t make what the free world needs.”

Now, the Chinese regime’s economic aggression is getting harder to overlook.

“My job is a lot easier, because I don’t have to convince anybody anymore.

“And what’s extraordinary to me is that it’s not just in this magnet issue, it’s not just us—it’s the whole world.”

President Donald Trump a week ago unveiled an additional 100 percent tariff on imports from China, citing Beijing’s “aggressive” restrictions on rare earth elements, which are used in virtually all electronic devices, and the regime has a near-monopoly on.

Trump on Friday acknowledged that the high levy is not sustainable but suggested he saw no other option.

“They forced me to do that,” the president said in a Fox Business Network segment aired on Friday, adding that the United States is still seeking a “fair deal.”

“China has ripped us off from day one,” he said.

President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, on Oct. 17, 2025. Tom Brenner/AFP via Getty Images

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday confirmed he will meet with a Chinese delegation in Malaysia a week from now to prepare for an expected U.S.–China summit in South Korea.

“We hope that China will show the respect that we have shown them, and I am confident that President Trump, because of his relationship with President Xi [Jinping], will be able to get things back on a good course,” he told reporters during a bilateral meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Trump, speaking alongside Bessent, said the tariffs have put the United States in a strong position and that he anticipates “a deal that will be good for both” countries from the summit.

“But you have to understand, we never got anything from China. It was a one-way street for many years.”

If Beijing refuses to be a reliable trading partner, the United States and allies may have to decouple, Bessent warned earlier.

The European Union has signaled its readiness to coordinate with the United States in countering China’s rare earth stranglehold.

“This is actually an area of common interest with our friends in the U.S. If we stick together we can much better pressure China to act in a fair way,” said Danish Foreign Minister Lars Rasmussen.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Almost 70 percent of American adults are considered obese under a revamped definition of obesity, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the JAMA Network Open and conducted by researchers affiliated with the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Traditionally, obesity was defined as having an elevated body mass index (BMI), calculated by dividing a person’s weight by their height. Earlier this year, the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology published a new definition of obesity, which incorporated anthropometrics, which include body measurements such as waist circumference, waist to height ratio, and waist to hip ratio, in addition to BMI, the study said.

An individual is now classified as obese under three conditions—if they have an elevated BMI plus at least one elevated anthropometric measure or a BMI greater than 40; or at least two elevated anthropometric measures irrespective of BMI; or excess body fat, according to the study.

Researchers analyzed the U.S.-based All of Us database to determine the prevalence of obesity under the new definition.

Of the 301,026 participants aged 18–80 years included in the analysis, 128,992 individuals (42.9 percent) were deemed to be obese under the traditional BMI-based criteria. But under the new definition, 206,361 individuals, or 68.6 percent, were considered obese. Obesity was found to be more prevalent with older age.

“We already thought we had an obesity epidemic, but this is astounding,” said co-first author Lindsay Fourman, according to an Oct. 15 report by The Harvard Gazette, the official news website for Harvard University.

“With potentially 70 percent of the adult population now considered to have excess fat, we need to better understand what treatment approaches to prioritize.”

According to the study, 78,047 participants (25.9 percent) who were not classified as obese under the traditional definition were reclassified as having obesity under the anthropometrics-only criteria. Among these individuals, 22.3 percent had a BMI traditionally classified as underweight or normal, with the remaining in the overweight category.

The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology guideline also introduced the concept of clinical and preclinical obesity. Clinical obesity refers to people who have obesity-associated organ dysfunction and/or physical limitation, while preclinical obesity pertains to individuals without such obesity-related issues.

Under the new definition, 36.1 percent of overall participants had clinical obesity, researchers found. Individuals with BMI plus anthropometric obesity were found to have a higher proportion of clinical obesity.

“We found that approximately half of participants classified as having obesity under the new definition also exhibited organ dysfunction and/or physical limitation consistent with clinical obesity,” said the study.

“Our analyses suggest that the new definition of clinical obesity appropriately designates individuals with obesity who are at the highest long-term risk of incident diabetes, cardiovascular events, and mortality.”

The study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association–Harold Amos Medical Research Faculty Development Program, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Robert A. Winn Excellence in Clinical Trials Award Program from the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation.

One of the researchers revealed conflicts of interest, having received grant support and personal fees from pharma company Chiesi Farmaceutici. Another researcher received fees from Exavir Therapeutics and Marathon Asset Management, as well as grant support from Kowa Pharmaceuticals America Inc., Gilead Sciences Inc., and Viiv Healthcare.

“We have always recognized the limitations of BMI as a single marker for obesity because it doesn’t take into account body fat distribution,” said senior author of the study Steven Grinspoon.

“Seeing an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes in this new group of people with obesity, who were not considered to have obesity before, brings up interesting questions about obesity medications and other therapeutics.”

Obesity in United States

According to a January 2024 post by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity is a “common, serious, and costly chronic disease” in the United States. The agency estimated that one in five children and two in five adults in the country are obese.

Obesity can be particularly harsh for children, as it can lead to numerous health conditions, such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. As for adults, people with obesity have a higher risk of developing several diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers.

The CDC attributed the prevalence of obesity to factors such as fewer than one in 10 people eating the recommended daily amount of vegetables, only one in four adults fully meeting their physical activity requirements, and less than one in four youths getting sufficient aerobic physical activity.

According to the agency’s 2023 Adult Obesity Prevalence Maps for 48 states, the District of Columbia, and three territories, all locations had an obesity prevalence of higher than 20 percent.

The highest obesity prevalence was in the Midwest at 36 percent, closely followed by the South at 34.7 percent, the CDC said.

“Three states (Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia) had an obesity prevalence of 40 percent or greater.”

New York City Mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani posted a picture of himself posing with a Brooklyn Imam known as being an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing whose son ran a terrorist camp for children. 

In a post to X, Mamdani can be seen posing with Imam Siraj Wahhaj and City Councilmember Yusef Abdus Salaam in Wahhaj’s Bed-Stuy mosque in celebration of the weekly Muslim prayer. 

Today at Masjid At-Taqwa, I had the pleasure of meeting with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century. I was also joined by CM @dr_yusefsalaam of Harlem. A beautiful Jummah. pic.twitter.com/4kcN4CGlUk

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) October 18, 2025

“Today at Masjid At-Taqwa, I had the pleasure of meeting with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century,” Mamdani wrote on Friday. 

About that camp…

In August 2018, not one. Not two. But three of Wahhaj’s children were charged with terrorism and felony child abuse for running a ‘terrorist training camp’ in the New Mexico desert that was allegedly meant to train child school shooters, and where the remains of Wahhaj’s abducted three-year-old son were found by police. 

The younger Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40 (at the time), had stuffed 11 children into an RV with five adults on the compound, which could be accessed via underground tunnel. 

The couple and three other adults – Wahhaj’s sisters, Hujrah Wahhaj and Subhannah Wahhaj; and Lucas Morten – were charged with 11 felony counts of child abuse. 

The surviving children from the compound told police that Jany Leveille, 35 Wahhaj’s partner, “intended to confront ‘corrupt’ institutions or individuals, such as the military, big businesses, CIA, teachers/schools and reveal the ‘truth’ to these corrupt institutions or individuals.” 

In particular, the Jihadis were targeting Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta – after Leveille in a journal “expressed her displeasure with Grady Hospital … due to the treatment she and her mother received there,” according to the document. 

A handwritten document titled “Phases of a Terrorist Attack” was found at the encampment where authorities found the decomposing remains of Siraj Ibn Wahhaj’s three-year-old son and trained several children to commit acts of terrorism, CNN reported at the time. 

The handwritten document contained “instructions for ‘The one-time terrorist,‘ instructions on the use of a ‘choke point,’ a location ‘called the ideal attack site,’ the ‘ability to defend the safe haven,’ the ‘ability to escape-perimeter rings,’ and ‘sniper position detection procedure,'” according to the court filing.

Some of the children at the compound told police that Morten allegedly “stated he wished to die in Jihad, as a martyr,” prosecutors said in the motion.

“At times, Jany Leveille would laugh and joke about dying in Jihad as would Subhanna Wahhaj,” according to the court document. –CNN

And of course, the case was botched and the judge was shady. For starters, Judge Sarah Backus let the suspects out on $20,000 signature bond – meaning they didn’t have to come up with any cash. 

Then, all charges were dropped against three of the five suspects after Backus recused herself from the case because the state failed to indict them within a 10-day window.

Then, the compound was mysteriously bulldozed. 

Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said that during the initial serving of the search warrant, their tactical team came upon children holding boxes of ammo, and at least one child was armed when he was found. The defendants’ attorney tried to downplay the “heavily armed” portion of the case.  

While cross-examining of Hogrefe, the suspects’ defense attorneys each took their chance to try and distance the suspects as far from the weapons as possible, and the connotations of violence they imply. One defense attorney suggested it’s “prudent” that children learn how to use firearms safely, which Hogrefe agreed to.

The sheriff also confirmed that Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is investigating the legalities surrounding the occupants’ possession of firearms. 

Another defense attorney pointed out, and Hogrefe confirmed, that the compound’s occupants did not shoot at the tactical team as they raided the compound. He did say, however, that Morton was “struggling” and “resisting” while being arrested by deputies. –KOB.com

THREAD: This week we were given rare access inside the NM compound where authorities think children were getting weapons training to carry out school shootings. This is part of the tunnel that extends out from the property. @NBCNews pic.twitter.com/1tuGlkeHzX

— Gadi Schwartz (@GadiNBC) August 11, 2018

Anyway, Mamdani’s hanging with the guy who raised these pieces of shit. The elder Wahhaj claims he helped authorities find the compound and distanced himself from his three terrorist children, but you know what they say about apples and trees – much less three apples.

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 17 rejected an advocacy group’s emergency application to allow a religious parent to opt her child out of California’s mandatory vaccination policy for schoolchildren.

The court’s decision in We The Patriots USA v. Ventura Unified School District took the form of an unsigned order.

No justices dissented. The court did not explain its ruling.

The applicant, We The Patriots, is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Caldwell, Idaho.

California’s position is that its vaccination mandate keeps children healthy and prevents the spread of dangerous illnesses.

The group filed an emergency application last month with the Supreme Court on behalf of a woman identified as Jane Doe, who is seeking an exemption for her son from the vaccination mandate based on his personal beliefs.

The school district initially granted the son an exemption based on his personal beliefs, but later revoked it. The school district has barred the son from attending school for the time being. His last full day of school attendance was in December 2024.

Doe applied for the exemption based on her understanding that the vaccines required by state law are “researched, developed, tested, and/or produced using cell lines artificially developed from aborted fetuses and contain products that could result in harm to a human recipient,” according to the application.

The Constitution’s First Amendment does not allow “California to exile children from public school because their parents seek to raise them in accordance with their religious beliefs,” the application states, citing the Supreme Court’s June ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor.

In that case, the high court ruled for parents in Maryland who, for religious reasons, wanted to opt their young children out of school storybooks that promote LGBT lifestyles.

“That principle protects parents’ right to opt their children out of LGBTQ+ school curricula. It also protects parents’ right to opt their children out of an act that would render them complicit in abortion,” the application reads.

On Sept. 9, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied the group’s request to pause an Aug. 15 order by U.S. District Judge André Birotte. The district judge rejected the group’s request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to suspend the vaccination policy.

We The Patriots had filed with the district court on May 22, asking it to block the enforcement of section 120335 of the California Health and Safety Code against the plaintiffs and other parents and children whose sincere religious beliefs prevent them from receiving the required immunizations.

That state law states that school districts in California may “not unconditionally admit any person as a pupil” unless he or she has been immunized against diphtheria, influenza, measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio, rubella, tetanus, hepatitis B, chickenpox, and “any other disease deemed appropriate” by the state public health department.

The district court previously rejected a prior application for a temporary restraining order on June 17, finding that the plaintiffs failed to show that they would face irreparable harm without such an order, according to Birotte.

The school district filed a brief Oct. 1, urging the Supreme Court to dismiss the emergency application.

The case is unusual in that the applicant asked the high court to halt California’s school immunization requirement and recognize a new constitutional entitlement to attend a specific school, not only for the child concerned, but “for an undefined set of ‘all similarly situated’” persons.

“They press that suite of extraordinary remedies on a thin paper record, without an evidentiary hearing or a developed preliminary injunction ruling. That is the litigation equivalent of pulling the fire alarm and asking the building to be emptied before anyone has confirmed there is smoke.”

The district court and Ninth Circuit were right to rule against the applicant, the brief said.

The Epoch Times reached out for comment to We The Patriots’s attorney, Cameron Atkinson of Harwinton, Connecticut, and the school district’s attorney, David Adida of Santa Monica, California.

No replies were received by publication time.