Wed: Does It Help the QOP to Tank the World Economy?

Russia Blamed This on Urkaine, Too.

Russian ships able to perform underwater operations were present near to where explosions later took place on the Nord Stream pipelines, according to an investigative documentary.

The vessels were reportedly located using intercepted Russian navy communications.

Underwater explosions last September knocked the two Nord Stream pipelines - built to carry gas from Russia to Europe - out of action.

The cause of the blasts is unclear.

Formal investigations are still taking place in countries close to the blast site. So far, they have said only that they believe the explosions were the result of sabotage rather than any kind of accident.

But one possible lead pointing towards Russian involvement has emerged from details of suspicious Russian ship movements in the run-up to the Nord Stream blasts, reported by four Nordic public broadcasters and an accompanying English-language podcast Cold Front.

And Denmark's Defence Command has confirmed a separate report that a Danish patrol boat called Nymfen took 26 photos of a Russian submarine-rescue ship in the area days before the explosions. The Information website said the SS-750 had sailed from Kaliningrad and was close to Bornholm island on 22 September 2022.

I Wouldn't Want to Be the Relative Who Was Sheltering Him.

A man suspected of killing five of his neighbours in Texas has been arrested after police found him hiding in a cupboard underneath a pile of laundry.

Francisco Oropesa was detained north of Houston. He was several miles from his own home where the shootings happened late on Friday.

Mr Oropesa is accused of attacking his neighbours after they allegedly asked him to stop practising with his rifle as the noise was keeping a baby awake.

The victims included a nine-year-old.

They were all from Honduras, and the country's foreign ministry identified them as Sonia Guzman, 28; Diana Velasquez, 21; Obdulia Molina, 31; Jonathan Caceres, 18, and Daniel Enrique Lazo, nine.

The arrest of Mr Oropesa, a 38-year-old Mexican national, brings an end to a four-day manhunt that swept up law enforcement officials across multiple jurisdictions, including the FBI. Drones and scent-tracking dogs were used as police searched an area as far south as the Mexican border.

Authorities offered a reward of $80,000 (£64,000) for information leading to his arrest and, on Tuesday, the FBI said Mr Oropesa "could be anywhere" as the days-long search failed to yield any leads.

But a member of the public contacted the FBI's tip line on Tuesday evening and the suspect was captured just over an hour later near the town of Cut and Shoot (not Cut and Run?), officials said in a news conference.

Police have not said who owns the home he was arrested in, but the New York Times reported that property records show it belongs to a relative.

On Wednesday, police said Mr Oropesa's wife had also been arrested. Divimara Lamar Nava, 53, was detained in connection with the Friday night shooting in the small town of Cleveland.

Montgomery County Sheriff Rand Henderson said she allegedly hid Mr Oropesa before he was captured by police. She faces the felony charge of hindering the apprehension or prosecution of a known criminal.

I Would Hate to Be the Person Who Sold An Undocumented Immigrant Who Had Been Deported 4 Times An AK-47.

It's a Game Of Wack-A-Shooter.  You Arrest One and Another Pops Up

A mother and her three children have been gunned down in a Florida apartment in a "senseless" mass shooting, according to authorities.

On Tuesday night, after family members called 911, officers responded to the Sunrise Apartments and found a mother, her son and two daughters shot dead, said Lake Wales police.

The victims were ages 40, 21, 17 and 11, according to police.

Al Stenson, who knew the victims, allegedly shot them in the apartment around 5 a.m. Tuesday and then fled, according to police.

The motive is unknown, police said.

"Completely senseless. It makes absolutely no sense," Lake Wales Police Chief Chris Velasquez said at a news conference.

These Two Shootings Happened in Texas and Florida.  What Do These States Have in Common?

This is a Story to Remember

We could be entering the era of Alzheimer's treatments, after the second drug in under a year has been shown to slow the disease.

Experts said we were now "on the cusp" of drugs being available, something that had recently seemed "impossible".

The company Eli Lilly has reported its drug - donanemab - slows the pace of Alzheimer's by about a third.

However two volunteers, and possibly a third, died as a result of dangerous swelling in the brain.

Donanemab works in the same way as lecanemab, which created headlines around the world when it was the proven to slow the disease.

Both are antibodies like those the body makes to attack viruses. But these are engineered to clear a sticky gunk from the brain, called beta amyloid.

Amyloid builds up in the spaces between brain cells, forming distinctive plaques that are one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's.

"The decades-long battle to find treatments that change Alzheimer's disease is changing," Dr Cath Mummery, the clinical lead for the cognitive-disorders clinic at the UK's National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, said.

"We are now entering the time of disease modification, where we might realistically hope to treat and maintain someone with Alzheimer's disease, with long-term disease management rather than palliative and supportive care."

The full details of Eli Lilly's trial have yet to be published - but it has revealed the key findings:

-1,734 people in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's took part
-Donanemab was given as a monthly infusion until the distinctive plaques in the brain were gone
-The pace of the disease was slowed by about 29% overall - and by 35% in a set of patients researchers thought more likely to respond
-Those given the drug also retained more of their day-to-day lives such as being able to discuss current events, drive or pursue hobbies
-However, brain swelling was a common side-effect in up to a third of patients.

It was mostly mild or asymptomatic despite being detected on brain scans - but 1.6% developed dangerous brain swelling, with two deaths directly attributed to it and a third volunteer dying after such a case.

Does It Help the QOP Politically to Tank the World Economy?

Their anti-woke, crime stuff isn’t working as they hoped. Their 2024 frontrunner mounted an insurrection against the United States, is a serial criminal, and remains unnaturally beholden to Putin. Their potential savior, DeSantis, sucks. Biden’s reelection rollout was very strong, capable, compelling. Their crazies keep doing crazy things. ... Their extremism on abortion could be the biggest political mistake we’ve seen in decades. The war in Ukraine is going pretty well for Biden and the West.

The disrepute of GOP policies leaves Republicans little to work with other than the economy, and they desperately need that economy to be remarkably bad in order to hang it around the necks of Biden and Democrats next year.

The two easiest ways to tank the incredibly resilient economy Biden has built is to force spending cuts so austere that they tip the U.S. into a recession. That basically sums up the dead on arrival measure House Republicans just passed tying a debt ceiling increase to budget cuts. Neither the White House nor Senate Democrats will touch it.

The other option for House Republicans is to go nuclear and blow up the economy by allowing the U.S. to default—which could have catastrophic effects globally as well as here at home. In 2011, President Obama and House Republicans narrowly avoided default, but the mere threat of it shook financial markets and resulted in both a credit downgrade for the U.S. and higher borrowing rates for consumers.

In the event of default, President Biden and Democrats would go into overdrive trying to rightfully pin the blame on House Republicans. But regardless of who’s at fault, many or even most of Americans’ lives will take a terrible—perhaps even tragic—turn for the worse. And that would simply be an entirely different political landscape on which to fight the 2024 cycle.

Millions of People Admire This Creep?

When Jessica Leeds ran into Donald Trump at a charity gala in the early 1980s, he didn’t say much, but his few words were searing.

“‘I remember you,’” Leeds recalled him saying. “‘You’re that cunt from the airplane.’”

Leeds’s recollection was delivered as she was testifying Tuesday afternoon in E. Jean Carroll’s civil rape trial against Trump. The former saleswoman and stockbroker, now 81, described how a routine flight some five decades ago turned into an airborne house-of-horrors at Trump’s hands.

The year was 1979 or 1980. Ms. Leeds was on a Braniff flight returning to New York City from Dallas, Texas. She had been sitting in coach when she had the good fortune to be offered a seat in first class. She accepted, moved up the aisle and sat down. Perched at the window next to her was one Donald John Trump. They made small talk, although Ms. Leeds didn’t know who Trump was. After both were served a meal, Trump allegedly began groping her.

Carroll, writing for The Atlantic in the run-up to the 2020 election, had interviewed other women who say they were assaulted or harassed by Trump. Leeds was one such woman, and related the following at that time about the incident:

“I introduce myself,” Jessica says, “and he is perfectly reasonable when I first sit down. He’s blond, tall—you know, a good-size man—but I don’t remember being overwhelmed by his looks. Then we take off, and they serve a wonderful meal with real linen and real food. And you know? It is delightful. Really delightful. What do we talk about? We talk about him. He doesn’t ask me any personal questions. I know very few men who ever ask personal questions. They don’t want to know the answers. And I have my book. And he has nothing to read, and when they come and pick up the trays and everything, within a short amount of time—all of a sudden—he is on me.”

“It’s like he’s got four extra hands,” Jessica says. “He’s grabbing my breasts. He’s trying to kiss me. I’m trying to get his hands off me. And this struggle”—the very data on the Zoom screen seems to shiver as Jessica recalls the scene—“it’s when he starts putting his hand up my skirt that I get a jolt of strength and manage to wiggle out of the seat. I grab my purse and storm to the back of the plane.”

It's OK to Hate Gays, As Long As You Don't Hate Them as Much as ISIS?

There was a jaw-dropping moment on the floor of the Florida House of Representatives this week after a Republican lawmaker’s comment about who really hates the LGBTQ+ community.

“ISIS, the Taliban and al Qaeda. Those are the folks who discriminate,” state Rep. Jeff Holcomb said Monday. “Our terrorist enemies hate homosexuals more than we do.”

It’s not clear if he misspoke or intended to say it like that, but he was speaking in support of a bill that urges Congress to prohibit “woke social engineering and experimentation” that are “eroding” the military.

The implication that Republicans hate the gay community ― but terrorists hate them even more ― led to gasps in the audience, while Democratic Rep. Kelly Skidmore’s jaw literally dropped:

Did They At Least Get a Kids Meal?

More than 300 children, including two 10-year-olds, were found working at McDonald's restaurants across Kentucky and several other states in violation of federal labor laws, the Labor Department said Tuesday.

In one case, investigators found two 10-year-olds were working unpaid and until as late as 2 a.m. at one McDonald's restaurant in Louisville operated by Bauer Food LLC, which is based in Louisville, the department said in a news release.

The two children prepared and distributed food orders, cleaned the store, worked at the drive-thru window and operated a register, investigators found. One of the kids was also allowed to operate a deep fryer, a task prohibited for workers under the age of 16 under federal law.

Most of the restaurants, 45 of the 62, were in Kentucky, according to data released by the department.

The two 10-year-olds were among at least 305 children found to have been employed in violation of federal labor laws across 62 McDonald’s locations in Kentucky, Indiana, Maryland and Ohio, operated under three franchisees — Bauer Food LLC, Archways Richwood LLC and Bell Restaurant Group I LLC, the Labor Department said.