Author: J.P. Knowles

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made a clandestine trip to Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sunday to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The meeting, which was intended to be hush-hush until it was over, hit a snag when Zelenskyy himself leaked news of the upcoming trip. Blinken and Austin were already on the way to Poland when Zelenskyy announced they would be arriving in Ukraine at a conference on Saturday.

The U.S. decided to continue with the visit despite the leak, making Blinken and Austin the highest-level U.S. officials to visit Ukraine since Russia began its invasion in February.

The trip was planned as a show of solidarity from the U.S. to Ukraine and followed visits from several Western leaders. During the visit, Blinken promised the return of U.S. diplomats within the week, according to a senior State Department official.

Blinken and Austin told Zelenskyy that the U.S. would provide new, additional aid to Ukraine.

The latest aid includes over $300 million in foreign military financing, as well as a $165 million sale for ammunition.

“He [Zelenskyy] has the mindset that they want to win, and we have the mindset that we want to help them win,” Austin said Monday during a press conference in Poland.

Blinken reiterated that the trip was “an opportunity to demonstrate directly our strong ongoing support for the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian people.”

“This was, in our judgment, an important moment to be there, to have face-to-face conversations in detail,” he added.

Austin shared with reporters that the objective is to see Russia “weakened.”

“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin declared. “So it has already lost a lot of military capability. And a lot of its troops, quite frankly. And we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.”

Writer Chang Che captured a photograph of a 95-year-old woman fighting off six Chinese workers with her cane Tuesday.

Che posted a photograph to Twitter that shows six people in hazmat suits walking away from a woman wielding a cane with the caption “I’ve never witnessed this level of badassery: 95-year old grandma in Shanghai tests positive for Covid. About to get sent away but fends off SIX workers in haz-mats with her cane until they give up.”

Shortly after, Chinese authorities sealed the woman’s apartment with steel plates, which she later tore off so she could take a walk around the neighborhood. “The next day, after THREE more attempts, they finally get her to the quarantine camps… oh nvm… she jumped the wall…” he continued.

Che also shared a video of the woman defying the hazmat suit brigade.

Chinese authorities have been forcing their way into the homes of individuals suspected of testing positive for COVID-19 and dragging them to quarantine camps. Many of those abducted by Chinese authorities are senior citizens.

China has implemented a “Zero Covid” policy and is trying to remove all COVID-positive individuals from their communities in an attempt to end the spread of the virus. Reports have suggested that authorities have taken seniors but left behind medication and required medical equipment.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ chief of staff Tina Flournoy will be leaving the administration and replaced by top adviser Lorraine Voles in the latest shakeup in Harris’ office, according to the White House.

Voles was brought into Harris’ office by Flournoy last summer, as the vice president faced negative headlines for a number of staffers leaving her office.

Harris tapped Flournoy, a veteran Democratic strategist and aide to the Clintons, as her chief of staff in December 2020.

Harris, praised the departing Flournoy, calling her a “valued advisor and confidant to me and tremendous leader for the office.”

“Tina is the consummate public servant and I will continue to rely on her advice, counsel and friendship,” Harris said.

Flournoy marks the 13th departure from the vice president’s office. Harris’ deputy chief of staff, Michael Fuchs, is also leaving the White House in the coming weeks.

Harris’ national security adviser, Nancy McEldowney, stepped down last month and her spokesperson, Symone Sanders, left the White House in December.

One of the three men charged with the fentanyl-related death of Mac Miller received a 10-year and 11-month jail sentence Monday after pleading guilty to one count of distributing fentanyl.

Ryan Reavis supplied the oxycodone pills to Miller’s drug dealer, Cameron Petit, that were found to be the cause of Miller’s death on September 7, 2018. Reavis was angling for a lesser jail term of just 5 years, claiming to have only been the middle man. The prosecution had requested a 12.5 year prison sentence.

Miller’s death prompted an investigation into the origin of the drugs he’d ingested, which ultimately led to the identification of three men. Stephen Walter is said to have been the drug runner, Cameron Petit was identified as being the drug dealer and police believe Reavis supplied the lethal counterfeit pills. However, Reavis told the court that he did not know the pills were counterfeit. It is believed that Walter ordered Reavis to supply the pills to Miller’s dealer, Petit.

“He would never knowingly take a pill with fentanyl, ever. He wanted to live and was excited about the future. The hole in my heart will always be there,” Meyer’s mother said.

Petit and Walter have not yet been sentenced.

With the help of a little dog, Ukrainian defense personnel are detecting and eliminating explosive devices.

On Monday, April 4, the State Service of Ukraine for Emergency Situations posted a video to Twitter depicting the efforts of its demining squad.

Patron, a uniformed Russell Terrier in the northern city of Chernihiv, about 91 miles from Kyiv, has been sniffing out undetonated bombs at woodland search sites.

The explosives were left by Russian troops, according to the Ukrainian military service.

“Be aware, look under your feet,” the agency said in its tweet.

Patron appears to be leading the demining crew into the woods in a 47-second video released by Ukraine’s State Service for Emergency Situations.

Patron comes to a halt and barks to alert his human handler when he detects something odd. Patron is also seen digging in the dirt with a demining professional in the footage.

According to Fox News Channel’s “The Five,” Patron is responsible for the discovery of 90 explosive devices in the area.

According to the American Kennel Club, dogs have been utilized to carry out activities in battle zones around the world for centuries, but there was a substantial surge in canine aid during World War I.

A group of climate activists who walked onto a busy highway in Washington, D.C., bringing rush hour traffic to a halt, prevented a man from being with his wife as she gave birth.

The activists said they were blocking traffic on I-395 Wednesday morning in an effort to convince President Joe Biden to declare a “climate emergency,” according to video taken by journalist Ford Fischer. The group has successfully blocked the highway on two other occasions over the past two weeks, Fischer tweeted.

“We are asking President Biden to declare a climate emergency and to stop all extraction on federal and indigenous land,” Jon, one of the protesters, told Fischer.

“We have a brief and rapidly closing window to address the climate crisis,” he added. “The government isn’t listening.”

The activist argued that the Biden administration is acting in condradiction to its climate rhetoric by recently encouraging new oil drilling. The White House, though, has repeated a debunked argument that energy producers can drill for fossil fuels on 9,000 unused leases, rather than hold new lease sales.

Fischer’s video showed the moment when the activists walked onto the highway as cars sped by. The group met angry drivers and the honking of horns as drivers realized what was happening.

One driver got out of his car and said that while he agreed with their message, they were preventing him from getting to his wife who was in labor.

“I gotta get to my wife, she’s pregnant. What the f**k?” the man yelled at the protesters. “I need to get to her to have my child.”

The man told the activists to leave the highway and go speak with lawmakers directly. One of the activists argued with the man that they were blocking traffic on behalf of the man’s unborn child.

“That’s why we are doing this because we care about everybody,” the unnamed protester said. “It’s really a bad situation. We only have a few years.”

Police officers with the Metropolitan Police Department eventually removed the group from the busy highway, though three officers were forced to carry one woman off the road.

“This is how women got the vote, this is how civil rights was passed,” one of the protesters told Fischer as the activists were being arrested and put into police cruisers.

During a lecture at the University of Virginia on Tuesday, former Vice President Mike Pence hinted at a possible presidential bid in 2024. At a Young America’s Foundation (YAF) gathering at the campus on Tuesday, Pence was the featured speaker. Pence talked for over an hour, criticizing President Biden’s administration for caving into “wokism” and fielding student questions.

One student got straight to the point saying, “I was just wondering if you’re planning to run in 2024 for president.”

“I’ll keep you posted,” was Pences’ only response.

Pence also addressed the recent controversy surrounding transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who, despite being biologically male, won the women’s NCAA championship in the 500-yard freestyle race in March.

Emma Weyant, a UVA swimmer, was the runner-up to Thomas.

“Emma Weyant won that race,” Pence said to a student who asked about the event.

“I know that in his State of the Union address President Biden promised to stand for the God-given right of men to compete in women’s sports,” Pence said. “But common sense needs to reign and it will reign. And we need to defend the integrity of women’s sports in America for the benefit of women everywhere.”

The former vice president was also asked about how he would react if one of his own children were to come out as homosexual, to which he responded: “I would look them in the eye and tell them ‘I love you.’”

He went on to say that the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize homosexual marriage has sparked a conflict between the gay community and religious Americans’ First Amendment rights.

Pence also spoke about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, praising Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for his leadership and urged students to help Ukrainians in need.

Pence also urged Congress and the Biden administration to boost military aid to Ukraine and tighten penalties on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended the comments she made on Fox concerning News White House correspondent Peter Doocy on Friday after saying he sounded like a “stupid son of a b***h.”

“Full video shows I also told a story about Peter’s grace last night and made very clear I was not being critical of him or any reporter at Fox, and instead was critical of the slant of some Fox topics,” she said. “He is doing his job. I am doing mine. We debate. We disagree. I respect that.”

Psaki said Fox News’ topics can “make anyone look like a stupid son of a bitch” during a Thursday live recording of “Pod Save America.” Afterward, she complimented Doocy for his graciousness to President Joe Biden after being called a “stupid son of a bitch” on a hot mic in January.

The president called Doocy personally within an hour of the incident to explain that the remarks were “nothing personal.” Doocy said he “appreciated” the president for reaching out.

“He said, ‘it’s nothing personal, pal,’” Doocy said on Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “I told him that I appreciated him reaching out. Hey, Sean, the world is on the brink of, like, World War III. With all the stuff going on, I appreciate that the president took a couple minutes out this evening while he was still at the desk to give me a call and clear the air, but I don’t need anybody to apologize to me.”

CNN’s Brian Stelter defended Psaki saying her remarks were directed at Fox News, not Doocy personally. He noted that Doocy has a tendency to “advance right-wing talking points” and that the network pushes narratives that “are sometimes nonsense.”

“She didn’t really criticize him directly, she was really criticizing Fox News as an organization,” Stelter said on Friday.

Fox News issued a statement Friday in Doocy’s defense by calling him a “terrific reporter” whose job it is to “elicit the truth.”

“In his role as White House correspondent, Peter Doocy’s job is to elicit truth from power for the American public. His questions are his own, he is a terrific reporter and we are extremely proud of his work,” the statement said.

Pope Francis said during a Good Friday interview that there is prejudice toward certain groups of refugees because “we are racists.”

Italian-based reporter Lorena Bianchetti asked the Pope if refugees will be “subdivided into the category of being an annoyance” and whether there will be prejudice toward those that come from certain parts of the world. Francis compared today’s refugees to Saint Joseph, Mary and an infant Jesus, who fled Bethlehem seeking refuge in Egypt to escape King Herod who was plotting to kill the child.

“It is true. Refugees are subdivided,” Francis said. “There’s first class, second class, skin color, if they come from a developed country or one that is not developed. We are racists, we are racists. And this is bad. The problem of the refugees is a problem that Jesus suffered too, because he was a migrant and a refugee in Egypt when he was a child, to escape death. How many of them are suffering to escape death!”

Francis described an image depicting St. Joseph seeking refuge in Egypt with the baby Jesus.

“But Saint Joseph does not have a beard, no,” he continued. “He is Syrian, from today, with a baby, who is fleeing the war today … On the cross, there are people from the countries of Africa at war, of the Middle East at war, of Latin America at war, of Asia at war. Several years ago I said that we are living a third world war in pieces. But we have not learned.”

Francis said that Jesus is “in agony” over the wars that have devastated many parts of the world, including Syria, Yemen and Ukraine.“One writer said, ‘Jesus Christ is in agony until the end of the world’. He is in agony in his children, in his brothers and sisters, above all in the poor, in the marginalized, in the poor people who cannot defend themselves. At this moment in Europe, this war is really affecting us. But let’s look a little further. The world is at war, the world is at war!”

The pope stressed that people around the world are part of “one single family” in a 2021 message for the World Day for Migrants and Refugees.

“No matter where you are and why you are there, every baptized person is a full member of the local Church community, a member of the one Church, an inhabitant of a single home, part of one single family,” he said.

Francis has implored the U.S. and other world powers to open their doors for more refugees, saying that “we must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation.”

Parents in Massachusetts say school officials aided their children in transitioning to the opposite gender without their knowledge or consent, according to a lawsuit filed last week.

Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri allege that Ludlow Public Schools had a “protocol and practice of concealing from parents information related to their children’s gender identity and efforts to affirm a discordant student gender identity” during the time that their children attended Baird Middle School, according to the suit filed last week in a Massachusetts federal district court.

The suit also alleges that Foote and Silvestri’s 11-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son were undergoing “social transitions,” meaning school officials referred to their children by a different name and pronouns other than those matching the child’s biological sex, without the parents’ knowledge or consent. The parents had been unaware of the transitions until their daughter’s teacher, Bonnie Manchester, forwarded an email to them.

The parents attempted to hold a virtual meeting on March 18, 2021, with Baird Middle School principal Stacy Monette to discuss what the suit described as “disregard of the Plaintiffs’ parental rights.” Foote and Silvestri allege that officials ignored “specific instructions that the school staff not engage with their children” who were being treated by a “mental health professional” who was addressing the gender issues their children were dealing with.

Foote and Silvestri claim that Monette cancelled the meeting and placed Manchester on administrative leave the next day. Manchester was later fired by Monette.

A second couple, Jonathan Feliciano and Sandra Salmeron joined the suit, claiming that they are “deliberately hindered from ascertaining whether their children are being secretly counseled.”

The suit also allegedes that during a meeting, Todd Gazda who at the time was superintendent of Ludlow Public Schools, called objections to the secret transitions “intolerance of LGBTQ people” that was disguised as claims about “parental rights.”

“For many students school is their only safe place, and that safety evaporates when they leave the confines of our buildings,” Gazda said, according to the suit.

“School officials are making decisions about the lives of children that they are not qualified or authorized to make and doing it without telling, and often deceiving, parents,” Vernadette Broyles of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign said in a statement.