In The News Today, and other things.

Thousands attend ‘March for Jesus’ in Dublin

Image: March for Jesus Ireland

Up to 12,000 people joined the family-friendly event, according to organisers, who described Saturday’s march as “a historic walk of faith.” 

Ahead of the event, organisers encouraged individuals, families and community groups to attend and “make a public stance for faith,” promising a “day filled with worship, joy and celebration,” describing the event as “a great opportunity to meet new people, worship together, and experience the joy of walking with Jesus.” 

Saturday’s march started at the Garden of Remembrance and ended at Dáil Éireann, with organisers saying the march showed the “incredible scale of believers united in faith and purpose, filling the streets with praise and hope for our nation.”

Participants flooded the streets of the capital holding signs which read “Jesus is our King” and “Jesus changes everything.” Organisers of the event, which included All Nations Church in Dublin, described the success of the march as “a moment that will be remembered in Dublin and beyond.”

Pastor John Aherne of All Nations Church in Dublin, who organised the event, told Gript:

“The March for Jesus was a seminal moment for the church in Ireland. Thousands of Christians took to the streets to honour Christ and reaffirm Ireland’s Christian heritage.

“In view of the passing of the bills in the Dáil this week, it is very significant that so many gathered there to pray for the nation. Clearly neither God nor the church in Ireland are dead but very much alive, something our government have chosen to ignore.”

Taking to social media, one attendee wrote: “Very uplifting to see so many people, singing and praising the Lord. Perhaps we have more true believers than the establishment think?”…


We need to end Irish “immigration industrial complex” – Carol Nolan TD

Speaking to Gript, Ms Nolan said that there are “sufficiently robust and persuasive evidential reasons for the Government to consider establishing a strictly time limited tribunal of inquiry and investigation into where precisely the billions of euros of taxpayers’ money is actually going”.

“Who is benefitting from the reckless financial largesse of the Irish state? Much of the evidence now points to incredibly wealthy investment funds, pension funds, speculators and those whose sole interest is not to assist the humanitarian impulse of the Irish people, but to exploit, however ‘legally’ an opportunity for obscene profits,” she said.

The “utter inadequacy” of safeguards ensuring proper contractual agreements have been exposed, Ms Nolan said, adding that by the time the State knows what is happening, “untold sums of money have been handed over”.

“We need to end the gold plated gravy train that the Irish asylum and immigration industrial complex has become,” the deputy said.


Fitness app Strava gives away location of world leaders, French newspaper says

(Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

An investigation by French newspaper Le Monde found that the highly confidential movements of US President Joe Biden, presidential rivals Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and other world leaders can be easily tracked online through a fitness app that their bodyguards use.

But the US Secret Service told the newspaper that it does not believe the protection it provides was in any way compromised.

Le Monde found that some US Secret Service agents use the Strava fitness app, including in recent weeks after the two assassination attempts on Mr Trump, in a video investigation released in French and in English.

Strava is a fitness tracking app primarily used by runners and cyclists to record their activities and share their workouts with a community.

Le Monde also found Strava users among the security staff for French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In one example, Le Monde traced the Strava movements of Mr Macron’s bodyguards to determine that the French leader spent a weekend in the Normandy seaside resort of Honfleur in 2021. The trip was meant to be private and was not listed on the president’s official agenda…


Protests erupt in Georgia after contested vote as Hungary’s Orban begins state visit

Georgian opposition supporters rally to protest the results of the weekend’s parliamentary elections, Tbilisi, October 28, 2024. © Giorgi Arjevanidze, AFP

Thousands of Georgians took to the streets Monday to protest against the ruling party’s victory in parliamentary polls denounced as “stolen” by the pro-Western opposition, while Georgia’s president alleged to AFP that the vote was rigged using “sophisticated” methods she linked to Russia.

The Caucasus country – rocked by mass protests earlier this year – has plunged into political uncertainty since Saturday’s vote, with Brussels, Washington, France and Germany condemning “irregularities”.

According to near-complete results announced by the electoral commission, the ruling Georgian Dream party won 53.92 percent of the vote, compared with the 37.78 percent garnered by a union of four pro-Western opposition alliances.

Georgian Dream has for months been accused by the opposition of steering Tbilisi away from its goal of joining the EU and back into Russia’s orbit.

Some 20,000 people gathered outside the main parliament building in central Tbilisi Monday evening after the opposition called for protests, AFP journalists saw.

Speaking to AFP, Georgia’s pro-European president Salome Zurabishvili claimed the use of “quite sophisticated” fraudulent schemes in the weekend vote


Major defeat: Japanese politics in turmoil as ruling party loses majority

Shigeru Ishiba (L), Japan’s Prime Minister and leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), speaks next to former Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga during a press conference at the party’s headquarters in Tokyo on October 28, 2024. AFP – KIM KYUNG-HOON

Japan experienced rare political turmoil on Monday as it grappled with the results of Sunday’s snap elections that snatched away the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) majority in parliament for the first time in 15 years. 

Called by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who was named only last month after his predecessor Fumio Kishida left office over a series of corruption scandals, the general election was expected to help secure the new PM’s mandate and bolster much-needed public support for the LDP. 

It did neither, however, as Sunday’s results dealt a shocking blow to the ruling party which has held power in Japan almost without interruption since its creation in 1955

Faced with a growing cost-of-living crisis, disgruntled voters shunned the scandal-ridden LDP by taking away 68 of its seats in the House of Representatives, the more powerful of Japan’s two-chamber parliament.

Meanwhile the main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), scored big in the election by winning 148 seats – up from 96 – but failed to secure a majority. To do so, it would have to join forces with other opposition parties, ranging from communists to conservatives.


WATCH: Ex-Trump ICE Director’s Viral Take On Deporting Without Family Separation

Former acting ICE Director Tom Homan triggered leftists over the weekend when he responded to a question from CBS News’ “60 Minutes” about how to carry out deportations without separating families.

Homan’s remarks aired Sunday night during the interview with co-host Cecilia Vega.

“Is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families?” Vega asked.

“Of course there is,” Homan responded. “Families can be deported together.”

He added that children of illegal aliens who are born in the U.S. should be deported with their parents because their parents caused the problem by knowingly having a child on U.S. soil despite being in the country illegally.

A leftist blogger at MSNBC claimed: “Mass deportation is family separation.”

Homan explained in the interview that Trump’s proposed largest deportation in American history would not involve “a mass sweep of neighborhoods” or putting people in camps.

“They’ll be targeted arrests,” he said. “We’ll know who we’re going to arrest, where we’re most likely to find them based on numerous investigative processes.”…


Neighbor of Chicago Jewish Man Shot By Gunman Shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ Speaks Out

Malka was home alone with her baby in the West Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago on Saturday morning when she heard gunshots ring out. The gunman, who shot Malka’s Orthodox Jewish neighbor as he walked to synagogue, returned to the scene 20 minutes later, shouting “Allahu Akbar” and shooting at police and paramedics.

In a video of the first shooting Malka shared with The Daily Wire, two gunshots are heard, followed by a voice screaming “Get off me! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Get out of here! What is wrong with you?”

Malka, who requested that her last name be withheld for privacy, said she left her home to check on the 39-year-old victim, who was receiving first aid in another neighbor’s home.

“I was home alone with my baby and I saw the shooter running,” Malka said. “I eventually went outside to check on the person who was shot, because I thought it was safe, because the police and paramedics were there. People were walking their dogs, and it seemed like life was back to normal with the police being there.”

The victim, whose name is also being withheld by The Daily Wire to respect his privacy, has been released from the hospital after suffering a gunshot wound to his shoulder. 

Initially the police did not comment on the victim being Jewish, frustrating Malka and other neighbors. “My gut is telling me that it was a hate crime. It was crazy that he came back, that made me think he was on a suicide mission,” Malka said. “He wanted to kill people and police officers and Jews. He didn’t care about getting killed.”…


Israel strikes Iran’s “strategic systems”; Ayatollah Khamenei vows retribution TV7 Israel News 28.10

1) Israel destroys Iran’s critical military infrastructure and aerial defense array, in response to the Islamic Republic’s belligerent attack against Israeli territory, some four weeks ago.

2) U.S. Outgoing President Joe Biden voices hope that the cycle of direct hostilities between Iran and Israel has come to a close.

3) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asserts that the Islamic Republic of Iran will once again retaliate for Israel’s attack.


As Texas refuses online voter registration, paper applications get lost

People register to vote at a Texas Rising tent in Corpus Christi on Oct. 5, 2024. Credit: Gabriel Cárdenas for VoteBeat

There is no simple way to know how many people are disenfranchised because of this, but more than a dozen local election officials and volunteer deputy registrars shared examples, and multiple people told similar stories: They filled out the paper application form, mailed it, gave it to a volunteer deputy registrar, or even went to their county office to drop it off — and still weren’t successfully registered.

Votebeat’s investigation found the problems apparently share a root cause: a registration system that relies on paper forms. Texas is one of only eight states without universally available online voter registration.

Most people in the state have to fill out a paper form, whether they are registering through an election office or while getting a new driver’s license or state ID at the Texas Department of Public Safety. Only people who already have a Texas driver’s license and are engaging in an online transaction with DPS, such as renewing their license or updating their address, can use a DPS online portal to register.

The Texas Secretary of State’s office told Votebeat that offering online registration to all voters would require legislative action. State lawmakers have for years resisted efforts to do so.

That means information from hundreds of thousands of applications processed each year has to be entered into county election systems by hand — creating plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong.

Attempts to register via DPS, which handles roughly 2 million voter registrations a year, also didn’t always work. Public records obtained by Votebeat via a records request show election officials from at least 41 different counties contacted the agency during either the November 2022 general election or this year’s primary about more than 100 people who said they registered at DPS, but didn’t make it onto the rolls. Dozens of other inquiries to the agency sought information about voters whose DPS applications were incomplete, records show.

Election officials say the volume increases during presidential election years, making it more likely that some registrations could slip through the cracks….


Fires set in drop boxes destroy hundreds of ballots in Washington and damage 3 in Oregon

Authorities, including the FBI, were investigating Monday after early morning fires were set in ballot drop boxes in Portland, Oregon, and in nearby Vancouver, Washington, where hundreds of ballots were destroyed.

The Portland Police Bureau reported that officers and firefighters responded to a fire in one ballot drop box at about 3:30 a.m. and determined an incendiary device had been placed inside. Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott said a fire suppressant inside the drop box protected nearly all the ballots; only three were damaged, and his office planned to contact those voters to help them obtain replacement ballots.

A few hours later, across the Columbia River in Vancouver, television crews captured footage of smoke pouring out of a ballot box at a transit center.

Vancouver is the biggest city in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, the site of what is expected to be one of the closest U.S. House races in the country, between first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican challenger Joe Kent.

Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey in Vancouver told The Associated Press that the ballot drop box at the Fisher’s Landing Transit Center also had a fire suppression system inside, but for some reason it wasn’t effective. Responders pulled a burning pile of ballots from inside the box, and Kimsey said hundreds were lost.

Voters were encouraged to check their ballot status online at www.votewa.gov to track its return status. If a returned ballot is not marked as “received,” voters can print a replacement ballot or visit their local elections department for a replacement, the Secretary of State’s office said…


Teacher fired for ‘inappropriate’ chats with pupil, 16, charged after being found in same girl’s bedroom: cops

Patrick John Mester, 65, was fired by Enochs High School in March 2021 after he was arrested for “inappropriate communication” with the girl, who was 16 at the time, according to the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office, which did not detail the alleged messages.

The band teacher was released on $5,000 bail — just to be caught seven months later “in that same student’s bedroom by the student’s mother,” the sheriff’s office said.

Mester was finally arrested again last Wednesday, three years after he was allegedly caught creeping in the girl’s room. The lengthy investigation had been “trailing since 2021,” with the arrest following “several interviews” with the girl, the sheriff’s office said.

“Serious cases like this need to be carefully built over time,” the sheriff’s office told SFGate, defending the long delay before Mester’s arrest and charges.

The school has been under fire for several instances of inappropriate conduct between teachers and minors over the years.

In 2012, a former teacher, James Hooker, 41, was arrested after a former student at a different school alleged he had had sexual contact with her 14 years prior when she was 17….


US Space Force sees surge in foreign military sales demand

The Space Force recently closed its largest FMS deal to date, a $126 million agreement with Canada to access the Mobile User Objective System, depicted here. (Lockheed Martin)

The U.S. Space Force saw a sixfold increase in demand for foreign military sales over the last year – growth that the service attributes to the increasingly important role space systems play in economic and national security worldwide.

Space Systems Command’s FMS division saw a 500% increase in requests between 2023 and 2024. The service last week finalized its largest FMS agreement to date — a $126 million deal with the Canadian Armed Forces that will give the country access to the U.S. Space Force’s Mobile User Objective System, a satellite fleet capable of providing ultra-high frequency satellite communications to troops operating during bad weather and in challenging terrain.

According to Deanna Ryals, director of international affairs for the service, that increased interest spans a range of satellites and sensors. And it comes as the U.S. is taking a more forward-leaning posture toward exporting space capabilities to other countries.

“As nations have started to prioritize space as a national need or a national capability that they want to invest in, many nations do not have their own industrial base for space yet,” Ryals told reporters in a briefing at SSC’s Space Industry Days conference in Los Angeles. “People are starting to see the advantage of military space and commercial space, and that drives the need for having a way to buy it.”…


Mark Levin Gives The Democrat Party A Lesson On Who Hitler Is

Mark Levin: “This current administration, with Kamala Harris as the number two, is the most antisemitic, anti-Israel administration in history, and they bring up Hitler, because Kamala Harris is pathetic, sophomoric, childish, no substance, is illiterate in English, doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and she wants to be president of the United States because she thinks it’s owed to her. You better wake up, America.”


Florida man convicted of murdering teen over Yeezy shoes lunges at victim’s father in courtroom

Al Diaz / Miami Herald Staff adiaz@miamiherald.com

Adrian Cosby, 23, murdered 18-year-old high school senior Andrea Camps-Lacayo in April 2020. During Cosby’s sentencing on Friday, Camps-Lacayo’s father read a statement that set the murderer off.

“You are the epitome of evil and darkness that this world represents,” Camps-Lacayo’s father, identified as Alexander Camps in an online obituary, said, according to NBC Miami. “There’s only one place animals like you belong, and that’s in prison for the rest of your life.”

“What the f— you talking about b—-,”  Cosby said, according to the Miami-Herald. The newspaper added that Cosby leaped from his chair, and that it took about six officers to restrain him. 

Camps-Lacayo and her boyfriend, Sergio Berben, met with 19-year-old George Walton outside an abandoned house in Homestead, when Walton asked to try on one of the pairs of shoes designed and launched by the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. 

Berben asked to see the payment first, at which point Cosby approached Berben’s driver’s side door, where he began shooting, striking both Camps-Lacayo and Berben, according to NBC Miami. Camps-Lacayo then died at a nearby hospital.


Norway to Buy US Air Defense Missiles for More Than $360 Million

Norway has agreed with U.S. authorities to buy AIM-120C-8 AMRAAM air defense missiles for more than 4 billion Norwegian crowns ($362.91 million), the Norwegian military said Monday.

“With more and newer missiles, the Norwegian Armed Forces will have a better ability to protect Norway against air attacks,” Norway’s Defense Minister Bjoern Arild Gram said in a statement from the Norwegian Defense Material Agency.

The missiles are primarily intended for Norway’s ground-based air defense system, but can also be included in the weapons inventory of F-35A fighter aircraft, the agency said.

The procurement was among the largest single procurements of weapons ever made for the Norwegian Armed Forces, according to the agency….


China will double its nuclear arsenal to over 1,000 warheads by 2030, according to US intelligence

Visitors walk past China’s second nuclear missile on display as they visit the Military Museum in Beijing, July 23, 2007.

China is expected to double its nuclear arsenal to 1,000 warheads over the next five years, according to a new Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report. 

In 2020, the DIA assessed China had acquired 200 nuclear warheads and would double that by the end of the decade. Now, the intelligence agency says China has already reached 500 warheads and will have more than 1,000 by 2030. 

“China is undergoing the most rapid expansion and ambitious modernization of its nuclear forces in history,” the report said, while noting China’s capabilities are still far behind that of the U.S. or Russia.

At the same time, China carried out another “combat control” near the island over the weekend as Beijing threatens countermeasures for the U.S.’ $2 billion arms deal with Taiwan.

That deal included, for the first time, an advanced air defense system battle-tested in Ukraine. 

Taiwan’s defense ministry said it had detected 19 Chinese military aircraft, including Su-30 fighter jets, carrying out a “joint combat readiness patrol” around Taiwan in conjunction with Chinese warships starting on Sunday morning….


WATCH — Tucker Carlson at Madison Square Garden Rally: ‘People Like Donald Trump’ Because He ‘Likes Them’

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Carlson spoke about how the Democratic Party has “no idea why people” like Trump so much, adding that Democrats’ “first theory” was that Trump “is evil, so half the country’s evil also.”

“Donald Trump’s gonna win,” Carlson told the crowd. “He’s going to win. I know that that’s true. Why is Donald Trump gonna win? The people he’s about to defeat have no idea. And, they’re panicked, they have no idea why people like Donald Trump. And, their first theory was, ‘Well, Donald Trump is evil, so half the country’s evil also.’ And, that’s one of the reasons they’ve spent the last four years trying to destroy the country because they’re mad at its voters for liking Donald Trump.”

“How much easier would it have been just to pause for 20 minutes and ask yourself honestly, in some silent place, ‘Why do people like Donald Trump?’” Carlson continued. “And, if they had been honest enough to ask themselves that question, they would’ve come up with the two main reasons, and here’s what they are. The first reason people like Donald Trump is because he likes them, that’s why.”

Carlson added that Trump’s like for people was “real,” adding that “affection is something you can’t fake.”

“I don’t care how many times Kamala Harris would tell me she loves me, I don’t believe her,” Carlson added. “I saw her kiss her husband with a mask on, a mask on.”…


Tommy Robinson Jailed for 18 Months for Repeating Allegations About Syrian Refugee

Robinson, who rose to prominence by highlighting the scourge of mostly Muslim grooming gangs sexually preying on young girls in England, admitted to repeating claims about Syrian Jamal Hijazi ten times between 2023 and 2024, according to The Telegraph.

As previously reported:

The case stemmed from a 2018 incident in which the Syrian refugee schoolboy was filmed being attacked by other pupils at the Almondbury Community School in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.

Following outrage over the incident, Robinson had claimed that Hijazi was “not innocent and he violently attacks young English girls in his school”.

Hijazi was awarded £100,000 in compensation from Robinson after a court found the statements to be libellous and unfounded.

On Monday, Robinson admitted to repeating the claims during six online interviews, including one with Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson earlier this year, as well as four times in his documentary film Silenced, which is still pinned to his profile on X.

The prosecutor in the case, Aidan Eardley KC told the court, “This is not a case about Mr Yaxley-Lennon’s political views. It is not even directly a case about freedom of expression.

Representing Robinson, Sasha Wass KC argued that the case is about freedom of speech, arguing that “the defendant believes that the public is entitled to have all the information, not merely that provided by the mainstream media, so the public can make up its own mind.


Is FBI Still Colluding With Big Tech to Interfere in Our Elections?

Four years ago this month, the FBI worked with Facebook and Twitter to suppress a New York Post story detailing the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, just weeks before the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Today, on the eve of another contentious election, America could see a repeat of what federal District Court Judge Terry Doughty called the “most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”

The FBI knew Hunter Biden’s laptop was authentic in November 2019. Yet, it repeatedly warned social media platforms of an impending “hack and leak operation” ahead of the 2020 election.

The FBI’s false flag served as the pretext for Facebook and Twitter to suppress the New York Post story as likely “Russian disinformation” in October 2020. At the same time, the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force  flagged other “domestic disinformation” without distinguishing between foreign and American users-generated content.

Following a brief pause due to a court injunction, the FBI resumed coordination with platforms this July after the U.S. Supreme Court punted on a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s collusion with Big Tech due to the plaintiff’s lack of standing.

In other words, not much has changed.

In response to a two-year investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general, the FBI declassified a summary of its standard operating procedures for engaging with social media platforms to counter foreign malign influence….


‘Once-in-a-lifetime’: Highlights from Trump’s historic Madison Square Garden rally

The ‘Fox & Friends’ co-hosts react to former President Trump’s iconic rally at Madison Square Garden Sunday night, where he rallied thousands of supporters ahead of Election Day.