A tourist has been stabbed to death while a British man is reportedly among two others badly injured after a knifeman screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ launched a frenzied attack in central Paris last night.

Witnesses reported hearing people screaming for ‘help’ as they ran away from the hammer and knife-wielding man.

One victim, a tourist with dual German and Filipino nationality, was slashed in the back and shoulder by the attacker last night. The man, who had not been named, was found in cardiorespiratory arrest before he passed away.

The second victim of the attack was British, and was out walking with his wife when Armand R. attacked him from behind.

‘The family were on the Avenue President Kennedy when they were set upon,’ said an investigating source, who added: ‘A hammer was used to hit the man over the head.’

The Englishman was rushed to hospital, where his condition was later described as ‘stable’. A third victim was also badly hurt in a hammer attack, said the source.

Sources said the arrested man was ‘immobilised with an electric stun gun’ as he ran up the Avenue du Parc de Passy – as French prime minister Elisabeth Borne vowed: ‘We will not give in to terrorism. Never.’

The bloodbath happened on the Grenelle quay, close to the Eiffel Tower in the 15th arrondissement of the French capital.

Joseph S., 37 years old, a supermarket manager who asked not to give his last name, was sat in a bar when he heard screams and people shouting ‘help, help’ as they ran.

A man wielding an object attacked a man who had fallen down, and within 10 minutes the police arrived, he told AFP.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said the attacker is French and was born in 1997, and has been arrested in an investigation into murder and attempted murder. The anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office has been put in charge of an investigation.

The suspect had already been sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 for planning another attack, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin revealed.

‘A man attacked a couple who were foreign tourists. A German tourist who was born in the Philippines died from the stabbing,’ he said.

A taxi driver who witnessed the scene intervened, Darmanin said. The attacker then crossed the Seine attacking others and injuring one with a hammer, while police chased in pursuit.

‘He had threatened them very violently… he will now have to answer for his actions before justice,’ Darmanin said.

The attacker was reportedly known to police for ‘radical Islamism’. He was on an ‘S-File’ which means he should have been under surveillance, after telling people that he wanted to die as a martyr.

A police source said that the attacker was known for psychiatric disorders and had said he could not stand Muslims being killed in the world. It’s understood he was upset about the situation in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

In 2016, he was arrested by the French national security agency before carrying out an attack.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin confirmed last night that one person died and another was injured. The minister wrote on X: ‘The police have just courageously arrested an assailant attacking passersby in Paris, around the Quai de Grenelle.

‘One deceased person and one injured person treated by the Paris fire brigade. Please avoid the area.’

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday said he was sending his condolences to the family of a German killed in a ‘terror attack’ in Paris.

The suspected attacker was ‘quickly’ arrested and justice should now be done ‘in the name of the French people’, he wrote on X.

Transport Minister Clement Beaune said that Paris was ‘in mourning’. He wrote on X: ‘Thoughts and solidarity with the families and loved ones of the victims. Thank you to our security and emergency forces for their rapid and decisive intervention.’

The attacker was arrested soon afterwards, and is currently in custody and facing a possible murder charge.

Officers said there was no early indication as to the motive of the stabbing, but it follows a series of bomb, gun and knife attacks carried out by Islamic State and al-Qaeda operatives in France, dating back to early 2015 – many of whom have shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ while carrying out their crimes.

The deadliest single terrorist attack ever in the country came in November 2015 when 130 people were killed in Paris.

Suicide bombers pledging allegiance to ISIS targeted the Stade de France, cafes, restaurants and the Bataclan music venue, where 90 died.

Earlier in the year, two Paris-born gunmen linked to Al-Qaeda broke into the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, leaving 17 people dead inside and three outside.

In July 2016, 86 people were called and more than 400 injured when a 19 tonne truck was deliberately driven into crowds on the seafront promenade at Nice, which is just 20 miles from Cannes.

The terrorist turned out to be a Tunisian immigrant who was shot dead by police.

During the same month, two Isis terrorists murdered an 86-year-old Catholic priest during a church service in Normandy.

And in October 2020, three people were stabbed to death by a Tunisian immigrant in the Notre Dame basilica in Nice.

There have also been frequent knife attacks on the forces of law and order, leading to the deaths of serving police.

Saturday night’s incident in central Paris occurred less than eight months before the French capital hosts the Olympic Games and could raise questions about security at the global sporting event.

Paris plans an unprecedented opening ceremony on the Seine river that may draw as many as 600,000 spectators.

Los Angeles police announced Saturday that a suspect has been identified in connection with the killings of three homeless men this week.

The suspect, Jerrid Joseph Powell, 33, was already in custody after having been arrested in the killing of a county employee earlier in the week.

Powell was arrested Thursday and accused of shooting and killing a San Dimas, California, father of two during a follow-home robbery Tuesday.

Police Chief Michel Moore said Saturday that police were able to match Powell’s car, seen in security video from the killing Tuesday, to the car they had identified as being driven by the suspect believed to be responsible for killing the three homeless people.

A handgun found in that car also matched the weapon used in the killings of the three homeless people, police said.

Moore said the case has a “striking set of circumstances that is puzzling.”

Powell was arrested early Thursday in Beverly Hills on charges of murder and robbery after detectives and Beverly Hills police identified the vehicle used in the killing Tuesday, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said. The Beverly Hills police were then able to arrest the suspect at a traffic stop after they matched his license plate to that of the car used in the killing Tuesday.

“The next objective is to put this guy away at minimum forever, because he doesn’t deserve to be out on the street,” Luna said.

Police had been searching for the gunman responsible for killing three sleeping homeless people in Los Angeles this week before they connected Powell to the crimes.

Police had believed that the same person was responsible for all three deaths.

The three separate attacks took place in the early hours of Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, Moore said Friday.

All three victims are men. They were all asleep in open areas — like alleys or sidewalks — when they were shot and killed, Moore said.

One of the men was killed “brutally and ruthlessly” while he was sleeping on a couch, Moore said, and another was killed as he was leaned against a wall in a manner he described as “chilling.”

The third was fatally shot as he slept on a sidewalk, police said.

A motive had not been established.

All three killings happened in different places in two large areas of Los Angeles that are not frequented by large numbers of homeless people, Moore said.

Mayor Karen Bass cautioned Friday that no homeless person should sleep alone and said the city would open emergency shelters to house homeless people for the time being.

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said an emergency shelter will be available for homeless people Saturday night.

Bass said at the news conference Friday: “Our message to the unhoused community is clear: Do not sleep alone tonight. Seek shelter, seek services, stay together.”

Powell was jailed Thursday in the death of Nicholas Simbolon, 42, who was found dead in his garage in San Dimas on Tuesday night.

Luna said Thursday that it appeared the shooter followed Simbolon 12 miles from an electric vehicle charging station to his home. He robbed Simbolon of “some personal belongings” before he shot him and fled, Luna said.

Simbolon was a county employee for seven years. He had worked as a business systems analyst for the superior court and in 2019 joined the IT staff of the chief executive’s office as a principal systems analyst, officials said.

“He was a prolific developer who had recently completed an innovative IT system to process our county’s budget process,” Kathyrn Barger, a member of the county Board of Supervisors, said in a statement read at a news conference Thursday announcing Powell’s arrest. “His coworkers describe him as kind, gentle and hardworking person.”

Officials did not announce any charges for Powell on Saturday.

Police ask anyone with information about the suspect, including other crimes he may have committed, to come forward. He was described as a convicted felon who had “violence in his background.”

“We want to make sure that anybody who may have been a victim of this individual that they come forward and notify your own police department,” Luna said.

Muslim leaders from several swing states on Saturday descended on Dearborn, Michigan, to launch a national campaign against the reelection of President Joe Biden — a response to his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Organizers from Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania are calling the campaign #AbandonBiden, vowing to ensure that Biden is a one-term president. These leaders have run separate pressure campaigns in their respective states, members of the coalition said, but they felt now was the time to coordinate their response ahead of the 2024 election.

“We’re looking into finding ways to build a mechanism of coordination between all the swing states so that we’re constantly working together to ensure that Muslim Americans will come out in all of these states, and that Mr. Biden will lose each and every one of them,” said Hassan Abdel Salam, a professor at the University of Minnesota and a member of the #AbandonBiden National Coalition during a press conference Saturday. “Right behind me, what Mr. Biden should see is 111 electoral votes. And he won last time with 74.”

It’s unclear how expansive or successful the campaign will be, but its creation speaks to the mounting political pressure facing Biden amid the conflict in the Middle East. For nearly two months, Muslim and Arab leaders have pushed the president to call for a cease-fire, and now, with more than 15,000 dead in Gaza, this new coalition is dialing up the pressure.

The bubbling anger among Arab and Muslim Americans could threaten Biden’s chances of reelection in many of the swing states in 2024, all of which contain key pockets of Arab American and Muslim American voting blocs.

“We are not powerless as American Muslims. We are powerful. We don’t only have the money, but we have the actual votes. And we will use that vote to save this nation from itself,” said Jaylani Hussein, a member of the coalition. He’s also the executive director of CAIR-MINNESOTA, though the organization is not involved in the #AbandonBiden campaign.

The growing Muslim American population is roughly 3.45 million people, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2020, roughly 59 percent of Arab Americans supported Biden, according to the Arab American Institute, but recent polling suggests this support has continued to deteriorate.

The leaders said Saturday they are not voting for Donald Trump next year, though they recognized that their effort to rally support against Biden could elevate the former president. They said they’ll continue to have discussions as a community about which candidate to throw their support behind as the primaries rapidly approach.

“We’re not supporting Trump,” Hussein said. “We’re not going to make the same mistake of thinking about President Biden the way we thought. We don’t have two options. We have many options, and we’re going to exercise that.”

The political challenge facing Biden has only intensified as progressive-minded Democrats ramp up calls for a cease-fire. The U.S. has been working to secure the release of more hostages, and Biden has said he’s urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to focus on reducing the number of casualties while trying to eliminate Hamas.

Several administration officials say the recent deal to release several hostages is evidence their strategy toward the war is working, but pleas for Biden to go further and call for a cease-fire have only grown louder.

“This is a dangerous president for Americans,” Hussein said during Saturday’s press conference. “And for those who are watching at home, you want your sons to be sent to another war that we know will never end? No. Most Americans agree with us that a ceasefire and bringing peace is the right action.”

Videos capturing the moment a powerful earthquake struck the Philippines on Saturday have made their way across social media.

The earthquake struck at 10:37 p.m. local time on Saturday off the coast of the southern Philippines island of Mindanao and was measured at a depth of 20 miles.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) gave a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 while the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said it measured 6.9, according to the Associated Press. Although there are no immediate reports of damage or casualties, authorities previously issued a tsunami warning.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center initially said that based on the magnitude and location, it expected tsunami waves to hit the southern Philippines and parts of Indonesia, Palau and Malaysia. However, the center later dropped its tsunami warning.

The Philippines experiences regular earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean.

Since the earthquake, many have taken to X, formerly Twitter, to share the horrifying moment the earthquake struck.

X account World Global News shared a series of videos showing the impact of the earthquake from different points of view.

In one video from a hotel room, a bathtub full of water can be seen spilling out onto the floor.

“Footage from a hotel room during 7.6 magnitude of earthquake in Phillipines [sic],” World Global News wrote.

Watch:

🚨VIDEO: Footage from a hotel room during 7.6 magnitude of earthquake in Phillipines.#earthquake #phillipines pic.twitter.com/kUb6Sd6LZO

— World News Global (@WorldNewsGb) December 2, 2023

In another video, people can be seen running as the earthquake hits.

“Another footage from the phillipines [sic] amid huge 7.6 magnitude of earthquake hit the Country,” World Global News wrote on X.

🚨#Breaking: Another footage from the phillipines amid huge 7.6 magnitude of earthquake hit the Country. pic.twitter.com/xUPBCIdOBS

— World News Global (@WorldNewsGb) December 2, 2023

In a third video posted by World News Global, people can be seen taking cover as they were having drinks at a restaurant.

“Video footage captures the intense 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Surigao Del Sur, Mindanao, Philippines, triggering tsunami warnings,” World Global News wrote.

🚨VIDEO:
Video footage captures the intense 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Surigao Del Sur, Mindanao, Philippines, triggering tsunami warnings. #EarthquakePH #earthquake #Phillipines pic.twitter.com/eKnSIfqjwx

— World News Global (@WorldNewsGb) December 2, 2023

X user Internationalism also shared a video showing horrifying moments of the earthquake as people are seen running and taking cover in a building as its ceiling seemingly starts to fall.

“Earthquake in Philippines…7.7Magnitude..Tsunami warning,” Internationalism wrote.

Earthquake in Philippines…
7.7Magnitude..Tsunami warning #earthquakes #phillipines pic.twitter.com/j571dPNVXy

— INTERNATIONALISM (@KHOBOR18) December 2, 2023

In addition to the videos, pictures posted on Hinatuan government’s Facebook account show residents fleeing to higher ground as Teresito Bacolcol, the head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, told the AP that his agency advised residents along the coast of southern Surigao del Sur and Davao Oriental provinces to immediately evacuate to higher ground or move farther inland.

Just last month on November 17, eight people were confirmed dead after a 6.7 offshore earthquake struck in the southern Philippines.

According to Reuters, two people missing in a landslide after the earthquake, which struck deep off Mindanao island, were confirmed dead, the Office of Civil Defense said. While the other deaths were from Sarangani province and in South Cotabato and Davao Occidental province. As a result, 13 people were injured from the tremor and more than 50 houses and other buildings were damaged.

In October 2019, the Philippines had been struck by an earthquake that left multiple dead. The earthquake measured 6.8 magnitude on the Richter scale, with its epicenter located around 50 miles southwest of the city of Davao in Mindanao, according to the USGS.

Pope Francis has called for the elimination of fossil fuels in an historic speech to the UN climate conference Cop28 in Dubai.

He was suffering from a lung infection and was too unwell to deliver the speech, so it was given by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State.

He said: ‘Destruction of the environment is an offence against God, a sin . . . that greatly endangers all human beings, especially the most vulnerable in our midst and threatens to unleash a conflict between generations.

‘Are we working for a culture of life or a culture of death? To all of you I make this heartfelt appeal: Let us choose life!’

The Pope also called for a ‘decisive acceleration’ in energy efficiency, renewable sources, eliminating fossil fuels and educating people to do without them.

The Pontiff, leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics, also warned against blaming destruction of the environment on ‘the poor and high birth rates’.

‘It is not the fault of the poor, since almost half of our world, that is more needy, is responsible for scarcely 10 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, while the gap between the opulent few and the masses of the poor has never been so abysmal,’ he said.

The future of fossil fuels is a key issue at the talks, where countries are debating whether to commit to ‘phasing out’ or ‘phasing down’ fossil fuels.

Cop28 president Dr Sultan Al Jaber, who is from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and chief executive of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, has signalled he favours a ‘phasedown’ of fossil fuels – reducing the emissions of oil and gas.

But analysis by pressure group Global Witness found that the UAE will increase its oil and gas production capacity by 42 per cent by 2030.

US Special Envoy John Kerry also announced for the first time that America would build no new coal power plants, and phase out existing ones.

Twenty-two countries, including the UK, US and France, also committed to tripling nuclear power.

Leaders from nearly 200 countries and around 100,000 delegates are attending the summit, which runs until December 12.

A top Hamas official suggested during an interview with Lebanese media this week that a terrorist attack larger than Hamas’ October 7 massacre was in the works and would happen in the not so distant future.

Osama Hamdan, who is in the terrorist organization’s Political Bureau, said on Wednesday that the terrorist organization had no regrets over murdering 1,200 Israelis and that a “war of liberation” was coming.

In the interview, which was transcribed by the Middle East Media Research Institute, the interviewer asked Hamdan, “If you could go back in time to October 6, would you still do what you did on October 7?”

“Why would some people assume that we would go back on our acts of resistance?” Hamdan responded.

When asked if Hamas had any regrets, he responded: “Regret for shattering an entire division of the occupation army?”

“You said that if the Israelis would make new arrests, after all the prisoners are released from [Israeli] prisons, you would carry out another operation,” the interviewer said.

“So can you promise another October 7?”

“I can promise that a war of liberation is coming, not just another October 7,” Hamdan responded.

When asked if the attack would happen in the “foreseeable future,” Hamdan said: “I do not think it is far off.”

WATCH:

Senior Hamas Official Osama Hamdan: I Promise that a War of Liberation Is Coming Soon – Not Just Another October 7 #Hamas #Palestinians #Israel pic.twitter.com/ILSzPEGDc8

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 1, 2023

A powerful explosion believed caused by a bomb ripped through a Catholic Mass and killed at least four people and wounded dozens of others Sunday in a predominantly Muslim city in the southern Philippines, officials said.

The morning Mass was underway in a gymnasium at the state-run Mindanao State University in Marawi City when the explosion happened, causing panic among dozens of students and teachers and leaving the victims bloodied and sprawled on the ground, said Taha Mandangan, the security chief of the state-run campus.

At least two of the wounded were fighting for their lives, Mandangan said.

“This is clearly an act of terrorism. It’s not a simple feud between two people. A bomb will kill everybody around,” Mandangan told The Associated Press by telephone.

Regional military commander Maj. Gen. Gabriel Viray III said at least four people were killed by the explosion, including three women, and 50 others were brought to two hospitals for treatment of mostly minor injuries.

Only two of those killed had been identified, officials said.

Army troops and police immediately cordoned off the area and were conducting an initial investigation and checking security cameras for any indication of who may have been responsible for the attack. Security checkpoints were set up around the city.

The deadly blast set off a security alarm beyond Marawi city as the Christmas season ushered in a period of travel, shopping sprees and traffic jams across the country.

The Philippine coast guard said it ordered all its personnel to intensify intelligence gathering, stricter inspections of passenger ferries and the deployment of bomb-sniffing dogs and sea marshals following the suspected bomb attack.

“Amid this barbaric act, best public service must prevail,” coast guard chief Admiral Ronnie Gavan said in a statement.

Presidential adviser Carlito Galvez, a former military chief of staff who now oversees government efforts to end Muslim and communist insurgencies, strongly condemned what he called a bombing incident.

“This horrendous attack, which happened during a Mass … shows the ruthless methods that these lawless elements will utilize to sow fear, anger and animosity among our people,” Galvez said in a statement. “We will not allow this to happen.”

There was no clear indication yet who was responsible for the explosion but police said they would check the possible involvement of Muslim militants, who still have a presence in the region despite years of military and police offensives.

Regional police director Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza said investigators were assessing if the explosion was caused by a homemade bomb or a grenade, and if the attack was connected to the killing of 11 suspected Islamic militants in a military offensive backed by airstrikes and artillery fires on Friday near Datu Hoffer town in southern Maguindanao province.

Nobleza said the slain militants belonged to Dawlah Islamiyah, an armed group that had aligned itself with the Islamic State group and still has a presence in Lanao del Sur province, where Marawi city is located.

The mosque-studded city came under attack from Islamic militants aligned with the Islamic State group in 2017, leaving more than 1,100 dead, mostly militants before the five-month siege was quelled by Filipino forces backed by airstrikes and surveillance planes deployed by the United States and Australia.

The southern Philippines is the homeland of minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation and the scene of decades-old separatist rebellion.

The largest armed insurgent group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, signed a 2014 peace deal with the government, considerably easing decades of fighting.

But a number of smaller armed groups rejected the peace pact and press on with bombings and other attacks while evading government offensives.

A 70-year-old woman in Uganda has given birth to twins after receiving fertility treatment that made her one of the world’s oldest new mothers.

Safina Namukwaya delivered a boy and a girl Wednesday via C-section at the hospital in the capital Kampala where she had been receiving in vitro fertilization treatment, said Arthur Matsiko, spokesman for the Women’s Hospital International Facility Center.

“She’s healthy. She’s talking. She’s walking around if they tell her to walk around the hospital,” Matsiko said of Namukwaya, who had given birth to a daughter at the same facility in 2020, when she was in her late 60s, following IVF treatment.

Namukwaya used a donor egg and her partner’s sperm to conceive the twins, Dr. Edward Tamale Sali told BBC News, touting the babies’ arrival as an “extraordinary achievement.”

The twins were born prematurely at 31 weeks of gestation and placed in incubators, but were said to be in good health.

Namukwaya is the oldest woman to deliver a baby at the Kampala hospital, which specializes in helping couples who struggle with fertility.

“At 70 years when I’m considered weak, unable to get pregnant and deliver, or look after a baby, and here is a miracle of the twins,” the new mom told AFP.

Before she welcomed her first child three years ago, Namukwaya said she had been labeled in her rural community a “cursed woman” for failing to get pregnant.

Her husband died in 1992, leaving her childless, and she met her current partner in 1996.

Namukwaya blasted her partner for failing to visit her in the hospital, speculating that he might be miffed that she delivered twins.

“Men don’t like to be told that you are carrying more than one child. Ever since I was admitted here, my man has never showed up,” she lamented.

This is not the first time that a woman beyond the traditional child-bearing age has become a mom. In 2019, a 73-year-old woman in southern India gave birth to twin girls after getting IVF care.

A Florida man was arrested near a Tesla Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, after allegedly threatening a mass casualty shooting there.

The man told police that “I was going to shoot up Elon Musk and the plant” during Thursday’s Cybertruck delivery event, Austin CBS outlet KEYE-TV reported.

The man, identified as Paul Overeem, 28, was booked at the Travis County Jail on a charge of making a terroristic threat — a third-degree felony.

The news outlet reported that a Tesla security official told police that Overeem made multiple threats of violence in Instagram messages on Nov. 9, including:

• “I sure am crazy though”
• “But yeah so at the Tesla event I’m planning an attach so up to you guys to stop me”
• “I plan on killing people at that even ok November 30th and I would like you to do something about it so I don’t have to”
• “I wanna die”
• “I need to be stopped”
• “If I’m saying I’m gonna kill people then you should take this seriously”

NBC News reported Overeem used the name “ufotnoitalumis” in the Instragram chat group.

The network news outlet said an arrest warrant quoted him as complaining about modern technology, saying, “My thoughts haven’t been free for over a year. All the electronics around me.”

Investigators used a phone number supplied by Instagram to trace Overeem, who was located in Austin the day before the event he had threatened to attack, said NBC, citing an affidavit.

Overeem told police that he intended to harm Elon Musk and Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis, with whom Musk had twins in 2021, because he believed the two “were watching him through camera systems and tracking him,” KEYE reported.

Tesla was notified of the threats on Nov. 10, KVUE-TV reported. The Travis County Sheriff’s Office began investigating Tuesday, two days before the Tesla event, after learning that no formal police report had been filed.

“That same morning, Overeem’s 2015 black Chevrolet Tahoe was spotted by traffic cameras on Highway 290 in southwest Austin,” the TV station reported.

Tesla Cybertruck delivery event: Florida man arrested in Austin after allegedly threatening ‘mass casualty event’ https://t.co/KKxB6R8qb3

— WFAA (@wfaa) December 1, 2023

The next morning, his phone pinged in west Austin, KVUE said.

“Authorities believe Overeem, who has no ties to Travis County, drove from Florida to Austin to potentially carry out the attack.”

KEYE reported that a SWAT team stopped the suspect in a McDonald’s parking lot and arrested him.

“He told officers that he had weapons in his car and said he was planning on committing suicide before he could be arrested,” the outlet reported.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Saturday he believes Republicans have the votes to launch a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

“I believe we will,” Johnson told Fox News of a GOP-led impeachment inquiry. “I suspect no Democrats will assist in this effort, but they should.”

Johnson added Republicans “have a duty to do this” and “we cannot stop the process.”

Republican leadership and key GOP committee chairs on Friday made the case for why they believe an inquiry vote is necessary, arguing it would strengthen their legal standing in court and accusing the White House of “stonewalling” their probe into the president and his son’s foreign business dealings – a claim the White House has forcefully rebutted.

Johnson, appearing alongside House GOP conference chair Elise Stefanik, claimed the inquiry wouldn’t be used as a partisan political tool.

“Elise and I both served on the impeachment defense team of Donald Trump twice, when the Democrats used it for brazen partisan political purposes. We decried that use of it. This is very different,” Johnson said.

“Now we’re being stalled by the White House because they’re preventing at least two to three DOJ witnesses from coming forward” and withholding evidence from the National Archives, he continued. “A formal impeachment inquiry vote on the floor will allow us to take it to the next necessary step, and I think it’s something we have to do at this juncture.”

A spokesman for the White House counsel’s office, Ian Sams, told CNN in a statement Saturday, “This is a baseless, politically-motivated attempt to smear President Biden with lies, and it reflects how this chaotic House GOP is focused on the wrong priorities, when they should be working on real issues Americans actually care about like the President is.”

To this point, House Republicans have been pushing to formalize their impeachment inquiry into Biden but have not had the votes to do so.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called on his committees in September to open a formal impeachment inquiry into Biden amid increasing pressure from his right flank to move ahead, though it has remained clear that the conference is divided over whether the evidence exists to impeach the president.

In response to a question about Hunter Biden’s lawyers requesting an open hearing in place of a deposition, Stefanik called the request “unacceptable” and said “the only correct response to a subpoena is a deposition.”

“An open hearing is five minutes on the Democrat side, five minutes on the Republican side. It becomes a very public press opportunity,” Stefanik said. “We want to go about this from a legal and factual perspective and the only way to go about that is through a deposition.”

“It’s the precedent,” Johnson added. “Every investigation of Congress in the modern era, the deposition has come first, and the public testimony follows. Why would we break that precedent now?”

A social media post from a popular conservative account has fueled rumors that former President Donald plans to tap Ben Carson, his former Housing secretary, as his 2024 running mate.

The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1), a social media account with 40,000 followers, claimed on Wednesday that a source close to Trump said Carson—who was the only Black member of Trump’s cabinet—is the leading frontrunner for his vice president in a Wednesday post on X, formerly Twitter.

The claim sparked a flurry of tweets with speculations about whether the former president would choose Carson, with some Trump supporters calling the former secretary an “excellent pick.”

Trump has yet to announce who he wants to run alongside him, although it is thought that he will pick a woman or person of color. Among the names that have been floated are South Carolina Governor Kristi Noem, Senator Tim Scott, House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, and one of his Republican primary opponents, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley.

Asked about whether or not he’d pick a woman as his vice president, Trump told NBC News in September, “I like the concept, but we’re going to pick the best person.”

He added that while Noem was “one of the people I’d consider,” there was a long list of potential picks. Trump appeared to rule out Scott, who has dropped out of the GOP primaries, and Haley when he told a crowd in Michigan he didn’t see any VPs in the Republican primary field.

While Carson’s name may be overshadowed by other high-profile Republicans, he has previously signaled his White House ambitions, launching his own presidential bid in 2016. Carson dropped out after Super Tuesday and endorsed Trump, describing him as representing “the voice of the people to be heard.” The retired surgeon has already thrown his support behind Trump for the 2024 election, endorsing the former president at an Iowa rally last month.

“Trump isn’t a politician — we certainly know exactly what he’s thinking, which makes him highly effective for the American people, and a threat to the Washington swamp,” Carson wrote in an op-ed earlier this month for USA Today. “Americans deserve freedom — meaning reduced government regulation, a less biased media, and more opportunity for prosperity. A vote for Trump is a vote for freedom.”

As the then-youngest chief of pediatric neurosurgery in the United States, Carson rose to international fame in 1987 when he led the team of surgeons in the first successful separation of conjoined twins. After retiring from medicine in 2013, he became famous in conservative circles after delivering a speech viewed as critical of Barack Obama’s presidency.

Under the Trump administration, Carson led the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which saw an exodus of career officials under his tenure. Trump’s decision to nominate Carson faced initial skepticism because the retired surgeon had no government experience. As HUD secretary, Carson focused on deregulation and self-reliance in housing policies, a direction praised by conservatives but criticized as undermining Obama-era fair housing regulations.

Carson has been unequivocally loyal to Trump. During the 2020 Republican National Convention, he defended his boss against accusations of racism, saying those who claimed Trump was a racist “could not be more wrong.”

“President Trump does not dabble in identity politics. He wants everyone to succeed and believes in the adage, ‘a rising tide lifts all boats,'” Carson said at the time, touting prison reform and a decrease in unemployment among African Americans during Trump’s presidency.

Carson made headlines in September when he tried to defend Trump again, comparing the former president to Al Capone as proof that the Justice Department was going after Trump.

Asked what evidence he had of the DOJ being weaponized against Trump, Carons told CNN’s Abby Phillips, “Well, let’s put it this way. Al Capone, who was a notorious killer, had one indictment, and Donald Trump has four indictments. That would tell you something right there.”

“It’s evidence that you have a group of people, a system that is out to get this president, and they feel that he is an existential threat to their existence,” Carson said.

Trump has commended Carson’s work at HUD and called it a “great honor” to have his endorsement for president in 2024. He has not suggested that Carson could be his running mate next year.

“A great honor to have just received the Endorsement for President from Dr. Ben Carson,” the former president said on Truth Social. “Thank you Ben!!!”

As he campaigns to retake the White House, Donald Trump has increasingly tossed aside the principles of limited government and local control that have defined the Republican Party for decades.

The former president is laying plans to wield his executive authority to influence school curricula, prevent doctors from providing medical interventions for young transgender people and pressure police departments to adopt more severe anticrime policies. All are areas where state or local officials have traditionally taken the lead.

He has said he would establish a government-backed anti-“woke” university, create a national credentialing body to certify teachers “who embrace patriotic values” and erect “freedom cities” on federal land. He has pledged to marshal the power of the government to investigate and punish his critics.

It is a governing platform barely recognizable to prior generations of Republican politicians, who campaigned against one-size-fits-all federal dictates and argued that state legislators, mayors and town halls were best positioned to oversee their communities. While many of his proposals would be difficult to achieve, the second-term agenda outlined by Trump could require waves of new federal intervention, even as he calls for firing government workers, neutering the “deep state” and cutting regulations.

“If Trump wins, the days of small government conservatism may be over,” said Lanhee Chen, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution who served as the policy director of Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.

A transformed GOP Agenda

For Trump, a second presidential term would mark the culmination of a yearslong campaign to reshape the party in his image, moving away from the core ideals espoused for decades by Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and other idols of the conservative movement. Instead, Trump has rallied his millions of supporters in part by tapping into the cultural and social grievances that animate the conservative base.

The rapid shift in the priorities of the party has led to something of an existential crisis for longtime Republican officials. They have privately said the GOP of today is unrecognizable from even a decade ago, when many Republicans were campaigning on leaner government, balanced budgets, entitlement reform and free trade.

As president, Trump presided over four straight years of rising annual deficits, signing bipartisan budget agreements that boosted federal spending. He launched a trade war with China. And earlier this year, he warned his party not to “cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security.”

“What do we stand for as Republicans? The orthodoxy is a little bit upside down,” said Margaret Spellings, who led the Education Department and the Domestic Policy Council during the George W. Bush administration.

Fighting the culture wars

The former president’s allies contend that the party needed shaking up, and that Republicans were losing elections because they misjudged what American voters wanted. They contend that government intervention is a necessary corrective to what they view as overreach at the hands of liberals promoting their own ideas on diversity and education.

Brooke Rollins—a Trump White House official who now leads the America First Policy Institute, a think tank run by former Trump aides—argued that the majority of the public thinks that “the federal government [should] ensure that it is working on behalf of the people.”

“When local or state government drifts away from that, either unintentionally or intentionally, then I think that the vision is with an America First approach that the federal government will lean in and pull freedom back to where it should be,” Rollins said.

A Trump campaign spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s approach has won partial buy-in from powerful conservative groups. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said conservative policy has to “account for the reality of the damage that has been imposed by the culture war.”

Though Trump’s education policy proposals break with the longstanding conservative belief that schools should be controlled locally, Roberts argued that exceptions should be made to ban critical race theory from school curricula, for example, or to ensure that transgender athletes compete on teams only of the sex they were assigned at birth.

“For two generations, conservatives have said, ‘Let’s apply the principle of subsidiarity’ ”—the idea that decisions should be made at the most appropriate local level, Roberts said. “And what has happened is that federal money changed how those local entities, particularly local school boards, make decisions. It’s worse than that—it’s corrupted and diseased it. And so any conservative running for office would want to correct that.”

Redefining conservatism

Some Republicans warn that Trump is going too far.

Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, a former Republican senator and governor, said Trump’s ideas were “antithetical to conservative thought and conservative history.” The federal government funds only a small portion of elementary and secondary education and yet Trump would use that money to “mandate 100% of the control.”

“That’s not conservative—but that’s the point: Trump is not a conservative,” said Gregg, who has endorsed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s presidential bid. “He’s an iconoclastic populist, and his views have no relation to any philosophical views. They’re all related to his personal views, which are built on all sorts of different platforms depending on what he sees in the mirror in the morning.”

Gregg said he found it ironic that Trump was proposing a muscular use of federal authority over schools, given that conservatives had once attacked Gregg for overreaching with a landmark, bipartisan bill he co-authored, known as No Child Left Behind. That bill, signed by then-President George W. Bush in 2002, required reading and math assessment tests for students in certain grades. Schools faced sanctions for failing to move more students toward proficiency, but the states, and not the federal government, set the standards.

Even some of Trump’s allies have privately expressed doubts about several of his proposals. Several former Trump administration officials said they were skeptical of the feasibility of the former president’s plan, announced in a video message on his social-media platform last month, to establish an “American Academy” funded by “taxing, fining and suing” what he calls “excessively large” private university endowments. Trump pitched the government-backed free online school as an alternative to the current higher education system. “There will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed,” Trump said.

Roberts, Heritage’s president, said he “loves” the university plan but opposes Trump’s proposal for federal certification of teachers. “I hate it. It’s a terrible idea,” he said. Heritage wants to end teacher certification altogether. As with many of his second-term proposals, Trump has offered little detail about the plan other than to say he would create a “credentialing body to certify teachers who embrace patriotic values and support the American Way of Life.”

Using government to counter liberalism

Trump’s platform is an expansive example of the reorientation among some within the GOP more broadly in favor of a more active federal government. In Congress, some Republicans have pushed for such federal measures as caps on credit-card interest rates, social-media regulations and worker protections in contracts that fit awkwardly with the party’s business-oriented impulses.

Like Trump, several other GOP presidential candidates say that an aggressive use of federal authority is needed to push back against a liberal social agenda that they say has taken hold in schools, academia, the media and corporate boardrooms. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has argued that “old-guard corporate Republicanism isn’t up to the task.”
The idea is an extension of one advanced in an influential 2016 essay, “The Flight 93 Election,” by Michael Anton, who went on to be a Trump national security aide. He said that the U.S. was “headed off a cliff” because of liberal dominance of institutions, and traditional conservatives weren’t prepared for the seriousness of the fight.

Trump’s governing philosophy is at times difficult to decipher. Unlike with past presidents, his résumé doesn’t include years of government service during which he staked out consistent positions on issues of the day. People who have worked for him said he is unconcerned with hewing to timeworn party rules, and the former president has privately and publicly expressed disdain for Republican standard-bearers such as Bush.

“Certain things hit him viscerally, and he wants to fix them personally. He thinks Republicans have been too passive in the face of a lot of these issues,” said Joe Grogan, Trump’s former Domestic Policy Council director. “He’s totally nondoctrinaire. He’s definitely willing to throw the old rules away.”
Trump’s unorthodox and unpredictable approach to governing continued throughout his White House tenure, and a second term would push that approach further.

In dozens of policy proposals outlined in speeches and on his campaign website, Trump has called for vastly expanding the power of the presidency, shifting authority away from federal agencies and to himself. He has said he would slash major federal programs and revive a mandate from his first term to eliminate two regulations for every new one that is put in place.

“For anyone to say he loves big government—that’s just wrong,” Rollins said.

More government means more bureaucracy

Implementing many of his other proposals could require building additional layers of government bureaucracy, some of which could overrule or duplicate existing state and local efforts. Credentialing teachers on the federal level could mean creating a new government body that would complicate existing state certification efforts.

Setting up a new government-backed university could require a labyrinthine system of government contracts to hire instructors and staff. Trump’s proposals to direct the government to investigate everything from MSNBC to hospitals could require hiring additional lawyers and other employees to carry out the probes.

Other vaguely defined ideas—like Trump’s proposals to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to declassify and publish documents on “Deep State spying” and an independent auditing system to monitor U.S. intelligence agencies—would also likely require new government programs.

Washington policy-making veterans said many of Trump’s plans are unlikely to come to fruition even if he wins a second term, citing logistical and financial hurdles, potential opposition from Congress and likely court challenges.

The former president’s proposals “might make for good stump speech fodder (at least for his MAGA base), but are miles from the real world of programs and policies,” Michael Petrilli, an education policy analyst and the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said in an email. “The point of these proposals is to take sides in the culture war, not to present a governing agenda.”

Tech giant Apple has released another update for iOS, just weeks after dropping the landmark 17.1.1.

iOS 17.1.2 was made available to the public on Nov. 30 and aims to patch two possible security exploits documented in 17.1.1.

“This update provides important security fixes and is recommended for all users,” Apple said in the rollout of the new version.

The company is urging its customers to download the update as soon as possible.

Apple was expected to release iOS 17.2 later this month with new features and minor bug fixes, but security issues proved too pressing.

Security notes were published to accompany the update, noting two fixes for WebKit, Apple’s web browser engine.

The notes state that “processing web content” may “disclose sensitive information” and “may lead to arbitrary code execution.”

iOS 17.1.2 can be downloaded via the Software Update function on the iPhone’s settings app.

No new features are included in the update.

Law enforcement agencies across the U.S. are also warning iPhone users about a feature released with iOS 17.1.1 called NameDrop.

“This feature allows you to easily share contact information and photos to another iPhone by simply holding the phones close together,” the Longwood Police Department wrote on Facebook. “This feature is defaulted to ‘ON’ which could result in you unknowingly sharing your contact information contact with others.”

Michael Latt, a social justice advocate and Hollywood figure, was targeted and killed this week because he was friends with a woman the attacker was stalking, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Thursday.

Jameelah Michl fatally shot Latt, 33, after she forced her way into his Los Angeles home around 6 p.m. Monday, the district attorney’s office and police said.

Michl, 36, is charged with one count of murder and one count of first-degree residential burglary with person present, the district attorney’s office said.

She “targeted him for being friends with a woman she had been stalking,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement.

Michl is accused of knocking on the door of the home, then forcing her way in when it was opened and shooting Latt with a handgun.

Los Angeles police said Michl, who lived in her car, remained at the scene. She was being held on $3 million bail, jail records showed.

Online court records did not appear to show an attorney for Michl. Her arraignment was continued until Dec. 15, the district attorney’s office said.

Latt was the founder of social impact marketing agency “Lead With Love,” and led campaigns alongside major artists and brands, including “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler, and “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins.

He was the son of film producer David Latt and Michelle Satter, the founding senior director at the Sundance Institute.

“Our beloved son Michael Latt fell victim to a tragic act of violence this week,” Satter wrote in a post on X. “Michael devoted his career to supporting artists, championing organizations that raised up artists of color, & leveraged storytelling for enduring change.”

Celebrities, activists and other fans expressed their condolences in the comments on a post on Latt’s Instagram about his death.

“Michael was a shining beacon of selfless kindness and consistency,” “Grey’s Anatomy” actor Jesse Williams wrote in a comment. “We’ve all been incredibly blessed to know him and that such goodness surrounds us still.”

District Attorney George Gascón called Latt “a passionate advocate who believed in the principles of justice and equity within our criminal legal system.”

“It is devastating to see a life cut short, especially one dedicated to fighting for a more just society,” Gascón said.

If convicted, Michl faces up to life in prison, the district attorney’s office said.

Tennessee officials uncovered a massive marijuana grow operation Thursday — inside a booby-trapped church.

Roughly 2,000 cannabis plants in uniform rows were discovered throughout the former house of worship, making it the biggest bust in Stewart County history, according to the sheriff’s department.

The former Methodist Church was rigged with “a very sophisticated growing environment” that included growing and watering systems that were set on timers.

The elaborate setup cost weed farmers more than $3,000 per month for electricity alone, officials told WSMV.

It was also designed to keep out intruders — and police.

“Officers were also slowed down in the search by the possibility of booby traps laid out for law enforcement,” the department said.

A large amount of possibly toxic chemicals were found, investigators said.

Officials descended on the former church after a three-week investigation that was launched when neighbors of the church complained of a skunk-like stench.

One person was taken into custody, but more arrests are expected to be made.

Tennessee is one of 11 states yet to legalize the drug.

Stewart deputies burned the mind-altering plants outside the church.

The church, located 70 miles northwest of Nashville, is up for sale as a converted four-bedroom, three-bathroom home, according to a listing.

“I am looking for a quick sale,” the lister wrote.

A Florida woman pretended to be a 14-year-old homeschooled child to prey on middle schoolers for sex, police announced Friday.

Alyssa Ann Zinger, 22, was arrested last week for allegedly engaging in at least 30 sexual acts with at least one student and sending explicit videos to several more.

“It is disturbing and unsettling to see an adult take advantage of a child and prey on them,” Tampa Police Chief Lee Bercaw said in a statement.

“Anyone who may have been a victim of Zinger’s, we encourage you to come forward. The Tampa Police Department will support you and ensure a predator like Zinger doesn’t cause you or others additional harm.”

Zinger allegedly crafted her fake persona and communicated with her victims on social media platforms, mainly Snapchat, according to a search warrant obtained by the Tampa Bay Times.

Multiple victims, who attended Wilson Middle School in Tampa’s Hyde Park neighborhood, told police they believed the Zinger was their age but was homeschooled.

“There are believed to be additional victims,” Tampa police said.

The accused predator allegedly initiated a sexual relationship with one of the victims in May, which lasted through September, the warrant states.

The victim — a boy between the ages of 12 and 15 — told police that the pair had sex multiple times and that Zinger sent him explicit photos and videos.

Another said Zinger sent a video to several children through Snapchat depicting sexual intercourse.

Zinger allegedly admitted to one victim that she had engaged in sexual activities with other minors.

The accused pervert and one of the children were caught shoplifting at a Nordstrom in July, according to the documents.

She allegedly tried to keep up her facade in front of her victim and told an officer she was born in 2009, a lie he was unable to verify.

The officer confirmed the only other Alyssa Ann Zinger he could find information on was born in 2001.

In a desperate attempt at deception, Zinger claimed she had a half-sister with the same name, according to the warrant.

Police had already been investigating Zinger for about a year, according to the warrant.

The officer later dispelled her lies by requesting government, school and employment records, as well as following up with her Tampa Publix employers, all of which confirmed she was an adult.

One of her victims came forward about Zinger’s alleged inappropriate behavior just three months later.

Zinger was charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious battery, and five counts of lewd or lascivious molestation on a victim between the ages of 12 and 15 years old, records show.

She has pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released from jail on the day of her arrest after posting the $7,500 bond on each of her second-degree felony charges.

The man who stabbed ex-Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin in prison purposefully attacked on Black Friday as a symbolic connection to the Black Lives Matter movement, according to investigators.

Former Mexican Mafia member John Turscak, 52, stabbed Chauvin 22 times inside a Tucson federal prison and said he would’ve killed him if corrections officers had not responded so quickly, prosecutors said.

He is now charged with attempted murder, assault with the intent to commit murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, and assault resulting in bodily injury.

Turscak — who is serving a 30-year sentence for crimes committed while working as an FBI informant – said he thought about stabbing the ex-cop convicted of killing black man George Floyd by kneeling on his neck during his arrest for months before the act.

Turscak attacked Chauvin with an “improvised knife” with the “intent to do bodily harm” and to “commit murder,” according to the criminal complaint viewed by The Post.

He told investigators he chose Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving when shops bring sale events — for his attack because it was “symbolic with the Black Lives Matter movement and the ‘Black Hand’ symbol associated with the Mexican Mafia criminal organization,” according to FBI agents who interviewed him on Nov. 26

The attack on the disgraced police officer took place around 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 24 inside the facility’s law library. Officers used pepper spray to subdue Turscak.

Chauvin, who is serving a 22-year sentence for Floyd’s death, was taken to a hospital for “emergency medical treatment,” after employees had to perform “life-saving measures” on him.

Turscak waived his Miranda Rights for his interview with the FBI, where he denied he had intended to kill Chauvin.

A lawyer for the criminal was not listed, although he has represented himself on previous occasions.

He has since been moved into an adjacent federal facility, where he remains.

Tursak was convicted in 1997 for crimes he committed while working as an FBI informant against the Mexican Mafia. His work resulted in getting an indictment against 40 alleged mafia members and associates, according to a 2001 report by the Los Angeles Times.

However, during his time as an informant, he dealt drugs, extorted money, and authorized assault. He was dropped as an informant and charged with racketeering and conspiring to kill a rival gang member, The Times reported.

At the time, Tursak claimed he told the FBI about his methods and was allegedly told: “Do what you have to do.”

“I didn’t commit those crimes for kicks. I did them because I had to if I wanted to stay alive,” he said at the time.

Chauvin, on the other hand, was shoved into the spotlight in May 2020 after he was pictured kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nine-and-a-half minutes, causing his death.

He was sentenced to almost two decades in federal prison in July 2022 for depriving Floyd of his rights.

His condition following the stabbing is still unknown. Chauvin’s attorney, Greg Erickson, told The Post on Wednesday his client’s family has not been able to speak to the ex-cop and don’t know about his current condition.

“They say he’s stable, but he also could be stable but unconscious, we just don’t know,” Erickson said. “That’s all we were told.

Erickson could not immediately be reached on Friday afternoon.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy characterized the Ukrainian military’s summer counteroffensive against Russia as a disappointment, failing to achieve its expansive goal of pushing Russian forces back to pre-2014 lines, in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday.

Ukraine’s forces have made incremental advances against Russian lines and crippled Moscow’s Black Sea naval fleet, Zelenskyy said, but did not achieve major routs similar to those claimed in a previous counteroffensive. Zelenskyy told the AP that Ukraine lacked both the manpower and the weapons from allies it needed to make a quick advance and push back Russian troops.

“We wanted faster results. From that perspective, unfortunately, we did not achieve the desired results. And this is a fact,” he said.

The Ukrainian president was in Kharkiv following a tour throughout the country aimed at boosting morale, according to the AP.

Winter will bring new challenges, Zelenskyy told the outlet, but said that Ukraine is determined not to give up on the fight to expel invading forces.

“Look, we are not backing down, I am satisfied. We are fighting with the second (best) army in the world, I am satisfied,” he said, referring to the Russian military.

However, speaking about whether he was satisfied with the counteroffensive, Zelenskyy added, “We are losing people — I’m not satisfied. We didn’t get all the weapons we wanted — I can’t be satisfied, but I also can’t complain too much.”

He also noted that the ongoing conflict in the Middle East has captured the attention of the U.S., Ukraine’s biggest backer, and worried that competing political priorities could jeopardize Western resources and support for Ukraine.

The U.S. has devoted heavy weaponry and long-range missiles in limited quantities. Ukraine could not commit the 31 U.S.-made Abrams main battle tanks to the conflict until the fall, after training and deliveries were completed, and so far there is only one documented use of the long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), in October.

Still, American military support for Ukraine, now totaling $44 billion, includes short range artillery systems along with millions of rounds of standard artillery ammunition, Patriot air defense systems, infantry fighting vehicles and more, according to the latest fact sheet.

Artillery stockpiles are running low, even as the winter months will bring a heavier reliance on fires over maneuver warfare. It also brings renewed fears of Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure, according to the AP.

“We have a new phase of war, and that is a fact,” Zelenskyy told the AP. “Winter as a whole is a new phase of war.”

On Nov. 25, Moscow launched the largest drone attack since the war began in February 2022, according to the AP.

“There is not enough power to achieve the desired results faster. But this does not mean that we should give up, that we have to surrender,” Zelenskyy told the AP. He is working to boost domestic artillery production.

“This is the way out,” he said.

Five homeless people were shot, leaving two dead, in Las Vegas – just hours after cops revealed they are hunting for a serial killer who murdered another three in Los Angeles.

A lone gunman opened fire on the group of homeless people at 5.30pm near a highway overpass in the northern part of Vegas. Two died and the other three suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

The Vegas bloodbath came on the same day LA officials revealed they are hunting for a serial killer who shot three homeless people dead in their sleep in alleyways during separate attacks on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday.

The Californian killings led to an unprecedented warning from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who told the city’s homeless population: “Our message to the unhoused community is clear – do not sleep alone tonight.”

Then just hours later, Vegas cops were called to a shooting that bore similar hallmarks – although it is not officially confirmed that the incidents are all linked. LVPD Lt. Mark Lourenco said: “We believe this is an isolated event,” when asked if it was an active shooter situation. The investigation is currently ongoing, with no suspect in custody.

The identities and ages of the Vegas victims have not been released yet. The LA victims were described as two Hispanic males and one Black male. Detectives released a CCTV image of a hooded suspect and a dark-colored sedan believed to be linked to the killings

Mayor Bass said: “Our message to our unhoused community is clear – try not to be alone tonight. We will do all we can to make shelter and services available.

“To the many Angelenos who have friends or family who are unhoused, please let them know the danger that exists. We must stay safe. We will work diligently to bring those responsible to justice.

“As we always do in the face of a challenge or crisis, our region is mobilizing to respond to this issue. We will work tirelessly to find the individual responsible, arrest them, and hold them accountable. I have met with our partners at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Housing Department and we are moving immediately to get the word out to our unhoused neighbors in housing networks.”

LAPD Chief Michel Moore said: “I commend the LAPD for creating a dedicated task force to uncover the identity of a potential serial killer preying on the most vulnerable in our community.

“I’ve assigned our Major Crimes Division, Bureau of Victim Services and our Bureau of Investigation to assist with these efforts. Today, we demonstrate our collective resolve and stand united in our pursuit of justice, unwavering against the darkness that preys on the most defenseless among us.”

Texas must remove a floating barrier it placed at the Rio Grande to deter immigrants from illegally crossing the United States-Mexico border, an appeals court ruled Friday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled 2-1 to decline a request by Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) to reverse a lower court decision that had ordered it to remove the 1,000-foot-long string of buoys placed at the river in July near Eagle Pass, Texas. The decision can still be appealed, but it marks a victory for the Biden administration’s efforts to remove the barriers, arguing they unlawfully block navigation and cause humanitarian concerns.

A panel of three judges held that the shallow waters where the buoys were deployed were considered navigable, thereby requiring Texas to obtain permission from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under environmental laws, according to a 67-page majority opinion.

Abbott blasted the panel’s decision as “completely wrong” and said he and Attorney General Ken Paxton would seek an immediate en banc hearing. If granted, it would convene all the court’s judges to rehear the case.

“We’ll go to SCOTUS if needed to protect Texas from Biden’s open borders,” Abbott posted on X, the website formerly known as Twitter.

Following the Biden administration’s July lawsuit against Texas, U.S. District Judge David Ezra ordered state officials to move the buoys to an embankment on the U.S. side of the river, which serves as the border with neighboring Mexico, pending a final ruling in the case.

Judge Don Willett, an appointee of then-President Donald Trump, was the lone dissenter. He argued the district court “tried to spin” the river’s naturally treacherous conditions as evidence that the barrier itself is dangerous. But “I cannot,” he contended.

“To support the district court’s assessment, the majority opinion cites a quote by Governor Abbott that migrants ‘risk their lives by crossing illegally through the [Rio Grande],'” Willet said, noting that the majority opinion “misread” Abbott’s quote.

“The majority opinion holds this out as evidence that ‘the floating barrier pose[s] a risk to human life.’ But Governor Abbott was talking about the danger posed by the river, not the barrier,” Willet explained.

The barrier is one of Abbott’s most recent strategies to try to block immigrants from crossing the river, and he has also deployed razor wire along the riverbank to deter crossings further. On Thursday, a federal judge rejected Texas’s bid to block federal immigration authorities from destroying wire fences.

Abbott and Republican allies have criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the immigration crisis at the southern border, and they say the federal government is not working hard enough to deter illegal immigrant crossings.

The Department of Homeland Security announced in October that it would create more sections of border wall to deter immigrants from crossing from Mexico, which marked an about-face to embrace a familiar policy position of the Trump administration.