Author: J.P. Knowles

The Pentagon confirmed a U.S. operation lead to the death of the leader of the Islamic State in northwest Syria late Wednesday evening.

The mission resulted in the death of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the known leader of the terror group ISIS, according to the Department of Defense. There were no American casualties and all U.S. forces were safely evacuated.

“U.S. Special Operations forces under the control of U.S. Central Command conducted a counterterrorism mission this evening in northwest Syria,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said. “The mission was successful. There were no U.S. casualties. More information will be provided as it becomes available.”

At least 13 people, including six children and four women, were killed during the mission, according to the Syria Civil Defense. When SCD personnel arrived at the scene they were unable to get in close due to the ongoing clashes.

A woman close to the scene said that members of her family were forced out of their home and she was handcuffed as the ISIS leader’s house was attacked.

Senior Biden administration officials said that al-Qurayshi detonated a suicide bomb during the raid, causing the death of his family members.

“Last night at my direction, U.S. military forces in northwest Syria successfully undertook a counterterrorism operation to protect the American people and our Allies, and make the world a safer place,” President Joe Biden said in a statement Thursday.

“Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi—the leader of ISIS,” the president said. “All Americans have returned safely from the operation.”

Thursday morning, Biden confirmed that al-Qurayshi blew himself up “in a final act of desperate cowardice.”

In October 2019 al-Qurayshi was named as the ISIS leader after U.S. forces killed the group’s founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdad.

The flow of natural gas through a Russian-controlled pipeline abruptly stopped Wednesday as tensions continue to grow between Russia and the West.

The Yamal-Europe pipeline’s liquified natural gas (LNG) flows, operated by Russian state-run firm Gazprom, have usually been pumped westward from Russia to Germany through Poland, were stopped early Wednesday. The sudden stop is a setback after leaders expected the pipeline to return to its normal flow pattern.

In December 2021, Gazprom slowed the pipeline’s gas flows and reversed the flow direction from westward to eastward. The sudden reversal sent natural gas prices skyrocketing after they had already surged amid a European energy crisis.

Gazprom and the Russian government said that the change was a “commercial” decision and that customers would continue to get purchased gas. But geopolitical tensions between Russia and members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have increased over the last several weeks, putting Europe’s energy supply at risk.

Russia controls nearly 46% of European gas imports, according to European Union data.

“A disruption in the physical energy supplies transiting Ukraine would, clearly, most acutely affect natural gas markets in Europe,” a senior Biden administration official said.

“And so we’re engaging our European allies to coordinate our response planning, including talking to them about how they deploy their existing energy stockpiles, which are, obviously, at significantly low levels this year due to the reduced Russian supplies over the last several months,” the official said.

On Jan. 25, the White House announced it would help facilitate non-Russian natural gas flows into Europe from North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the U.S.

“We are collaborating with governments and market operators on supply of additional volumes of natural gas to Europe from diverse sources across the globe,” President Joe Biden said in a joint statement with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Jan. 28. “LNG in the short-term can enhance the security of supply while we continue to enable the transition to net-zero emissions.”

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said Wednesday’s hearing on Afghanistan was a “clown show” because it was being held behind closed doors.

“The fact that this hearing is happening behind closed doors is absolutely outrageous,” Hawley told reporters. “It is a total travesty, and it’s for one reason only: they do not what to have any accountability. They do not want to answer questions in public.”

“This is a joke,” Hawley said. “What’s happening today is a clown show. It is meant to be a clown show, and it is an absolute travesty.”

The Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was marked by chaos as the Taliban seized the capital and took control of the country in a matter of days. Hundreds of American citizens were abandoned in the country as the deadline for the U.S. to evacuate passed.

Hawley said he was frustrated to have learned more about the withdrawal from leaks to the press than directly from the Biden administration, and he wanted to know why no one who was responsible for the evacuation had been fired.

Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska also said the hearing should have been open to the public. “Instead, it took place behind closed doors and administration officials purposefully stonewalled, limiting senators’ opportunities to ask important questions,” she said.

Hawley also called out the administration for holding closed-door briefings as it “blunders into war with Ukraine.”

The Republican senator sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier on Wednesday calling on the administration to rescind its promise to Ukraine that it will be admitted into NATO. The White House accused Hawley of “parroting Russian talking points” in response to the letter.

The Pentagon announced President Joe Biden had approved more U.S. military deployments to Eastern Europe on Wednesday as diplomatic talks fail to de-escalate the Russian troop buildup at the Ukrainian border.

“Bad idea. It’s a mistake,” Hawley told reporters. “It’s a mistake to send more American troops to Europe at this time.”

“It’s just another foreign policy crisis that this administration has blundered into, and I’m sure it will not be the last,” Hawley said.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams dined with former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo who was removed from office last year after sexual misconduct claims surfaced.

According to a spokesperson for Adams, “Mayor Adams meets with a lot of former government officials to talk about governance, which is particularly important in these unprecedented times. There was nothing political about the conversation, and the mayor stands by his earlier comments that the former governor should have stepped down, as he did.”

Despite the former governor retiring from his job in July amid allegations of sexual harassment and controversies concerning his handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, Adams was spotted with Cuomo in Midtown. The dinner took place just two days before Adams’ meeting with President Joe Biden, whom Adams hailed in an earlier press conference.

“We just really like each other. … You know, we just got to hang out together, you know. That’s my dude,” said Adams of Biden.

Adams also gave himself the nickname “Biden of Brooklyn” and boasted about being the president’s favorite mayor, a status that remains unconfirmed.

President Joe Biden declared Qatar a “Major Non-NATO Ally” during his meeting Monday with Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the emir of Qatar.

The designation comes amid ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine and means increased security cooperation in the Gulf, as Russia supplies a significant amount of natural gas to Western European countries, in part, the move is intended to ensure a potential Russia-Ukraine war won’t lead to shortages

“I think it’s long overdue,” Biden told reporters of the decision to declare Qatar a “Major Non-NATO Ally.”

In a readout of the meeting, The White House noted the two leaders have a “mutual interest in promoting security and prosperity in the Gulf and broader Middle East region, ensuring the stability of global energy supplies, supporting the people of Afghanistan, and strengthening commercial and investment cooperation.”

The administration also noted Qatar Airways’ $20 billion deal to buy Boeing planes – a move Biden claimed will help with U.S. jobs.

Qatar, which joins 17 other countries as “Major Non-NATO” allies, recently brokered a deal with the Taliban that will allow chartered evacuations out of the country to resume. The agreement ends a months-long flight halt due to fighting between Qatar and the Afghan government.

Qatar Airways will now be allowed to charter two weekly flights out of Afghanistan. This means countries, including the U.S., can get more citizens, as well as left-behind, at-risk Afghans, out of Afghanistan.

Qatar’s emir is the first Gulf leader to join Biden at the White House in Washington, D.C.

Following the meeting, Biden issued a formal notice of his decision to leaders in Congress.

While declaring a country a “Major Non-NATO Ally” doesn’t mean the U.S. has an obligation to defend that country, it does extend some technology and training to Qatar.

The White House described the relationship between the U.S. and Qatar as a “strategic partnership” that “has deepened over the past 50 years.”

Former Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard slammed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, arguing that his decision to appoint Harris was based on identity politics, just like his Supreme Court pick.

“Biden chose Harris as his VP because of the color of her skin and sex—not qualification. She’s been a disaster. Now he promises to choose Supreme Court nominee on the same criteria. Identity politics is destroying our country,” Gabbard said.

President Joe Biden reiterated his promise Thursday that he will nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court, saying that his decision will be announced by the end of February.

Associate Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer officially announced his plans to retire Thursday. The 83-year-old justice is the second-longest serving current member, his retirement will go into effect at the beginning of summer recess if Biden gets a new justice approved by the Senate before then.

In 2020, Biden said that he was already putting together a list of qualified black women to fill a vacant Supreme Court seat should one become available during his presidency.

Western Australia is threatening jail time and huge fines for individuals who are aggressive when asked to present their COVID-19 vaccination cards at restaurants and other public spaces.

Any person who “threatens,” “intimidates,” or is “offensive” to business establishments or workers when they ask for proof of COVID-19 vaccination, face up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $50,000.

The new penalties come as a number of new rules in other areas of the country are banning unvaccinated people age 16 and over from entering public spaces, including hospitals. Businesses that are not in compliance with the state’s vaccine passport system will be fined up to $250,000.

“It’s a significant deterrent for anyone likely to go after a shop assistant for simply doing their job,” Shop Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association State Secretary Peter O’Keefe said. “If people break these rules and a couple of them are prosecuted, that would send a message far and wide.”

West Australia has recorded 1527 COVID-19 cases throughout the course of the pandemic and 1357 recoveries, according to its Department of Health. The state has no current COVID-19 hospitalizations as of Jan. 31, with the one person who had been in the ICU on Jan. 30 being released.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki says she briefly considered cutting President Joe Biden’s press conference short when he said he would go past the originally announced time schedule.

Psaki appeared on Pod Save America, saying that she was surprised by Biden’s decision but didn’t stop it because he seemed “to be having a good time.” Biden’s Jan. 19 press conference was longer than any recent president, lasting nearly two hours. While Biden was composed throughout, he made several statements about Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine and the legitimacy of the 2022 midterm elections that Psaki later had to clean up.

“Did Biden accidentally take an Adderall that Donald Trump Jr. left behind? Like, 90 minutes in, were you surprised by how long it was going?” Pod Save America host Jon Lovett asked.

“I was in the back and I was thinking, ‘Do I cut this off? He seems to be having a good time. He’s calling on nearly everyone in the room.’ So yes I did have that go through my mind,” Psaki responded.

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb made light of fears that an emerging COVID variant, BA.2, was cause for concern.

Though the strain appears to be more transmissible, Gottlieb indicated that a “fully boosted person may be more protected against this new variant than the original strain of omicron.”

“So if you have omicron protection, you should have protection against this new variant. That’s why I don’t think this will create a huge wave of infection. What is likely to happen, as we’re coming down, and we’re coming down quite sharply in parts of the northeast, Florida and the mid-Atlantic, you might see as this new strain starts to pick up, we start to slow down in that decline, but the decline will happen nonetheless … We have so much omicron immunity, it will probably be a backstop against this really taking off,” he added.

BA.2, a “spin-off” of the Omicron variant was first identified in early December and has since been reported in 49 countries, including the U.S.

“Among all the lineages of Omicron, this is the one showing a higher increase of cases. But we have to be careful in interpreting that, because higher increases from a very low number are easier to observe,” Ramon Lorenzo-Redondo, assistant professor of medicine for infectious diseases at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago said.

Even though this new variant is 1.5 times more transmissible, the World Health Organization has not labeled it a variant of concern. World Health Organization (WHO) officials have warned that new variants will arise as omicron spreads across the world at an unprecedented rate.

“The next variant of concern will be more fit, and what we mean by that is it will be more transmissible because it will have to overtake what is currently circulating,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead said. “The big question is whether or not future variants will be more or less severe.”

Singer and songwriter Kid Rock posted a video to his official Facebook Thursday announcing that he would not be “showing up” to venues on his new “Bad Reputation” tour that requires COVID-19 vaccinations.

“There’s been a lot of talk about vaccine mandates and venues. People saying, ‘I’m not going to that venue because of the vaccine mandate’ and this, that and the other,” Kid Rock said. “Trust me, we’ve done all our research on this and the consensus says that all this is going to be done, if there are any at these venues, I’m not aware of any, but if there are any, they’re going to be gone by the time we get to your city. If they’re not, trust me, you don’t have to worry. You’ll be getting your money back because I won’t be showing up either.”

“If you think I’m going to sit out there and say ‘Don’t tell me how to live,’ that ‘We the People’ are holding up their f***ing vaccine cards and wearing masks, that s**t ain’t happening.” Kid Rock added, referencing his track “We the People.” The singer also mentioned that his tour had to take Buffalo, NY, and Toronto, Canada off their agenda due to vaccination mandates. The “Bad Reputation” tour is set to appear in cities across the country, from Woodlands, TX to Clarkston, MI, according to Kid Rock’s website. The tour starts on Apr. 6 and ends on Sept. 17.

Kid Rock’s announcement comes on the heels of controversy on Spotify, with singer Neil Young demanding they choose between his music and Joe Rogan’s podcast. Young accused Rogan of “spreading fake information about vaccines” in a since-deleted letter. Spotify chose to drop Young’s music and keep Rogan’s podcast.