USA Today, by Doyle Rice and Jeanine Santucci: Post-Tropical Cyclone Isaias was moving northeast through central Alabama near Birmingham on Saturday after roaring ashore as a Category 2 hurricane late Friday evening near Destin, Florida, with winds of about 105 mph, causing at least four deaths.

Trees and power lines were down in Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, creating dangerous conditions and forcing road closures late Friday, officials said. Power outages are in the hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across much of Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and western Georgia.

At least four people have been reported killed in the storm, two each in Alabama and Florida, authorities said Saturday.

The storm broke a two-year drought of U.S. hurricane landfalls, with the most recent being Hurricane Milton in October 2024, two years to the day before Isaias made landfall.

The center of Post-Tropical Cyclone Isaias was moving north over Alabama on Saturday and is expected to reach the Tennessee Valley later in the day and into Sunday, when it will make a northeastward turn. As of 5 p.m. ET Saturday, the center of Isaias was about 5 miles west of Birmingham, Alabama, moving northeast at 15 mph, according to the National Weather Service. The storm is forecast to continue inland and weaken further.

Prophetic Link:
“The restraining Spirit of God is even now being withdrawn from the world. Hurricanes, storms, tempests, fire and flood, disasters by sea and land, follow each other in quick succession. Science seeks to explain all these. The signs thickening around us, telling of the near approach of the Son of God, are attributed to any other than the true cause. Men cannot discern the sentinel angels restraining the four winds that they shall not blow until the servants of God are sealed; but when God shall bid His angels loose the winds, there shall be such a scene of strife as no pen can picture.” Testimonies for the Church, Vol 6, page 408

Source References

• 4 dead, mass power outages after Hurricane Isaias roars ashore

GB News, by Peter Stevens: Archaeologists have started drilling at what could be the home of Noah’s Ark in the mountains of eastern Turkey.

Andrew Jones, the founder of Noah’s Ark Scans, explained to GB News why the mysterious boat-shaped Durupinar site, near the Greater Mount Arat summit, could be home to the legendary vessel described in Genesis.

He said: “When the the site was first discovered in 1959, the reason why it got the attention of the world and the Turks was because it was a boat shape that was 300 Egyptian cubits long.

“Now, in the biblical account that matches the length given in the Bible. And when you take the average width inside the boat, it is approximately the 50 cubits mentioned in the Bible too.

“So here we have the length and the width of a boat shape in the mountains of Arat, where Genesis 8:4 says, the ark landed.”

Noah’s Ark Scans has now began the early stages of drilling into the structure – which geologists have previously claimed is a natural formation of limestone and volcanic clay sculpted by erosion.

But Mr Jones hopes his project will find firm evidence of its biblical nature.

He said: “What’s going on now, is that we’re drilling into the boat-shaped object.

“In fact, we just finished the first part of it and shipped off the soil samples.

“We went down at some sites of these drill holes 60 feet, and we’re pulling up super rich, dark soil material that – we don’t know if it’s decayed wood or organics – but we’re sending all that to the laboratory.

“And this is something no one has ever done at this site – core drill into these anomalies.”

Mr Jones said his organisation’s research on the much-debated site began in 2019, and work continued after ground-penetrating radar found evidence of “angular features, parallel lines and different patterns” within the structure.

These suggested “open tunnels and chambers under the surface”, he added.

He said: “So these are patterns of anomalies that if this was this random rock in soil, would not show like a man-made structure.

“But because the radar is showing this pattern, we’re then believing that there’s more to just the shape above ground.

“There’s actually structure below the ground.”

Noah’s Ark Scans also brought in academics, including US military scientist Dr Khosrow Bakhtar and Dr Cenker Atila to conduct research on the site.

Mr Jones said Dr Bakhtar developed a “new type of radar” to examine the structure, proving there was “no bedrock”, also finding angular structures, tunnels and layers.

“In his 40 year career, he claims he’s never seen something like this,” the Noah’s Ark Scans founder revealed.

Mr Jones said while some have given “different opinions” on what the structure could be, his organisation’s most recent data definitively proves it was not a “bedrock or a piece of rock that came down off the mountainside”.

Our Comment: Will undeniable confirmation of the location and structural remains of Noah’s Ark convince unbelievers of the validity and accuracy of the scriptures? Probably not very many. No matter what evidence is presented, determined unbelievers will cavil and refuse to believe. But God will provide the evidence anyway so that their unbelief will be without excuse.

Prophetic Link:
“And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.” Genesis 8:4

Source References

• Archaeologists begin drilling at ‘Noah’s Ark site’ ahead of potential biblical breakthrough

POLITICO, by Casey He: President Donald Trump took a jab at the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday after it awarded this year’s peace prize to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, a South African human rights lawyer and judge who led a United Nations commission that stated Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The president reposted a post on Truth Social blasting the Nobel committee and Pillay while praising Trump’s foreign policy record.

“Today the Nobel Committee shamed itself beyond repair and demeaned the once great Nobel Peace Prize by giving it to the UN’s Navi Pillay,” said the post from the law firm of attorney David Schoen, who represented Trump in his second impeachment trial in 2021.

Trump has long argued that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for what he says are his efforts to settle conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was awarded the prize last year, gave Trump her medal in January after a U.S. operation captured then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The Nobel committee’s decision to award Pillay the esteemed prize was also criticized by the Israeli government, which has denounced the report from Pillay’s commission.

“The Nobel Prize committee has lost its moral compass,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in a statement on social media.

The committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump and Netanyahu’s criticism.

Pillay also served as a judge on the International Criminal Court, another frequent target of Trump and his administration. Just hours after the Nobel announcement, the Trump administration announced it was imposing sweeping sanctions on the ICC itself.

“This is an important recognition of the vital role that international justice plays as a cornerstone of lasting peace,” ICC President Tomoko Akane said in a statement to POLITICO. “At a time of profound challenges to the international legal order and the rule of law, this recognition carries particular significance.”

The Nobel committee, in announcing the peace prize, also appeared to implicitly rebuke the Trump administration and other world governments that have sanctioned international judges and “attacked” institutions of international law.

“In awarding this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wants to remind the world that the rule of law — national and international — underpins the system we have set up to ensure peace and resolve conflicts non-violently,” the committee’s announcement said. “Peace requires justice.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Our Comment:
The Nobel committee is notorious for giving the peace prize to people who least deserve it. President Trump would not likely qualify either. The scriptures even suggest that those who get involved in such political schemes will not see peace.

Prophetic Link:
“The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.” Isaiah 59:8

Source References

• Trump swipes at Nobel committee after peace prize awarded to human rights lawyer

Yahoo! News, by Ryan Curtis: New York state’s Amish community has been facing heavy government fines for allowing students to attend Amish schools without proof of vaccination. Now the Amish are asking the Supreme Court to intervene.

From 1966 to 2019, unvaccinated students were allowed to attend school in New York with a medical exemption issued by a physician, or if they “hold genuine and sincere religious beliefs” opposed to vaccination. But in 2018 and through 2019, a measles outbreak—the largest in nearly 20 years—spread among the state’s Orthodox Jewish communities. Through effective disease control practices, the outbreak was contained with zero associated deaths.

Rattled, officials amended the state’s legal code in June 2019 to remove all religious exemptions to school vaccine mandates. The legislator who introduced the bill, Jeffrey Dinowitz (D–Bronx), attributed the outbreak to “misinformation and irresponsible rhetoric.” But instead of scaling up information campaigns, he chose to crack down on religious freedom.

In 2022, the government issued $118,000 in fines targeting three rural Amish schoolhouses—all of which are privately run, privately funded, and exclusively attended by members of the local Amish community—for failing to comply with the mandate.

Amongst New York’s Amish, vaccination is generally rare. “Positions vary,” says Cory Anderson, a Penn State expert on Amish health—and an Amish man himself. “But there is hesitation toward integrating unfamiliar and invasive medical practices.”

A group of Amish plaintiffs responded with Miller v. McDonald. Their suit argues that the 2019 expansion of New York’s vaccine mandates violates their First Amendment right to the free exercise of their religion.

Under precedent set by Employment Division v. Smith (1990), a law may burden religious exercise only if meets the “rational basis” test and if it is “neutral and generally applicable.” The Amish argue that the expanded mandate is not neutral because “the State targeted religious adherents by eliminating [the] long-standing religious exemption while leaving the medical exemption process in place.”

Federal courts disagreed. In 2024, the District Court for the Western District of New York ruled that the law “is neutral on its face, neither targeting religious belief nor singling it out for particularly harsh treatment.” In 2025, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

While courts have historically relied on Smith to measure violations of the Free Exercise Clause, the Supreme Court has recently begun to adopt a broader interpretation of the clause, expanding parental religious rights. The Supreme Court recommended that the appellate court reconsider its rejection of the Amish petitioners, in light of Mahmoud v. Taylor. In that 2025 case, the Court ruled that parents have a constitutional right to opt their children out of certain educational programs that conflict with their religious beliefs.

First Liberty counsel Hiram Sasser, who is co-representing the Amish plaintiffs, tells Reason that this re-evaluation was needed because “Mahmoud revived an older case, [Wisconsin v. Yoder], that specifically involved the Amish and preserving their way of life as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” In this 1972 decision, the Court determined that requiring all youth to attend high school unduly limited the Amish community’s free exercise of their religion.

The 2nd Circuit reassessed Miller in June, but it determined that Mahmoud was not applicable because the vaccine requirement “does not regulate what children are taught [and] does not require them to affirm any belief.” With June’s decision bearing down, the Amish schools are now appealing for a second time. “Only the Supreme Court can save them now,” Sasser says.

New York’s vaccine mandates are unusually restrictive. “Presently, forty-five states have legislation allowing school-age children to be exempt from mandatory vaccination laws for religious reasons,” Sasser notes.

There are more productive ways to manage the state’s prevailing interest in health. “For many populations, public health needs to be a resource that can educate, not a hard top-down approach,” says Anderson, the Amish health expert. In 2014, a measles outbreak in Ohio swept through Amish groups there. In response, local health authorities worked closely with the Amish community and found the group surprisingly willing to cooperate, taking vaccines and isolating themselves when infected.

Praising that 2014 success, Anderson writes in STAT, “Successful outreach requires making effort to understand how religious adherents think, acknowledging their concerns, and humbly recognizing that medical knowledge is shaped by more than mere empiricism.” The New York government has not made that effort.

If the Supreme Court declines to hear the case, the state’s regulations will prevail, and many of the Amish may be forced to leave.

Prophetic Link:
“As religious aggression subverts the liberties of our nation, those who would stand for freedom of conscience will be placed in unfavorable positions. For their own sake, they should, while they have the opportunity, become intelligent in regard to disease, its causes, prevention, and cure. All those who do this will find a field of labor anywhere. There will be suffering ones, plenty of them, who will need help, not only among those of our own faith, but largely among those who know not the truth. The shortness of time demands an energy that has not been aroused among those who claim to believe the present truth.” Counsels on Health, 506.

Source References

• New York Is Fining Amish Schools Over Vaccines, So the Amish Are Asking the Supreme Court for Help

USA Today, by Nick Penzenstadler: Michael Khalili always suspected his work tracking federal immigration officers in Minneapolis would land him on the federal government’s radar. The photos agents took of his car and face had to go somewhere.

Those fears became real when his status with Global Entry, a pre-screened flyer program, was revoked a day after an exchange in March with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He then faced secondary airport screening when returning to the United States from an international trip this fall.

Now he has proof.

USA TODAY sued ICE under the Freedom of Information Act and obtained a St. Paul, Minnesota, field office database that reveals what legal observers feared: Protesters are being tracked and logged into a secret database for what they argue is exercising protected First Amendment speech.

The document, titled simply “Agitator Log,” contains 60 instances of ICE officers in Minneapolis logging their interactions with protesters and legal observers around the Whipple Federal Building in the spring of 2026.

“I am in no way surprised. It was clear they were tracking us and trying to find reasons to crack down on us,” Khalili told USA TODAY. “I try to keep this in perspective. I wasn’t physically harmed, but American Democracy cannot operate this way.”

Each incident includes an ICE officer’s brief description of the interaction, along with information about the protester’s vehicle, license plates, a photo of the car, and whether the officer contacted local law enforcement. Personal information was redacted in the copy of the database released to USA TODAY.

While not identified by name, Khalili was driving a black Hyundai SUV during his interactions with ICE. Those incidents are described accurately in the database on the correct dates, he said.

“Black Hyundai began following ICE Officer. Officer made contact with while (sic) male and white female and asked why they were following him. The males (sic) stated “You know why I’m following you,” an ICE officer wrote in the database. “The vehicle continued following the Officer over 16 miles before he lost them in traffic.”

Homeland Security officials had insisted, for months, that no such database was being kept, captured, logged, or maintained.

In a separate revelation on Oct. 2, a newly unsealed court filing in Maine revealed ICE is uploading photos of protesters into an “Investigative Case Management” database.

An ICE officer in the Maine case mentions a “Master List of Agitators,” though that list remains under court seal. The agitator lists may be part of a larger surveillance effort.

“This confirms exactly what we’ve alleged: They’re tracking information in a database, using the term ‘agitators’ as an excuse to retaliate against people who are observing and exercising their First Amendment rights,” said Maryam Jazini Dorcheh, an attorney with Common Cause who represents Khalili and other observers.

ICE and DHS spokespeople did not immediately respond to USA TODAY about the database’s existence, but as recently as Oct. 2 told other media outlets that it’s a “lie that there is a database of ‘domestic terrorists’ run by DHS.”

As new information emerges, ICE’s denials increasingly do not square with the truth, said JoAnna Suriani, an attorney representing the Maine protesters with Protect Democracy.

‘Our case was never about whether there is a standalone database with a particular name, but whether the government is tracking everyday Americans who record them. The government has now admitted there are records about observers,” Suriani said.

Concern over protests in Maine and Minnesota

Whether the government was tracking Americans became an issue in January, after Renee Good was shot and killed while monitoring ICE officers in Minneapolis. Senior Trump administration officials, including then Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem, called her a “domestic terrorist.”

Weeks later in Maine, a masked ICE officer was caught on video taking a picture of a woman protester and saying: “We have a nice little database… And now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.”

Former ICE Director Todd Lyons testified under oath to Congress about allegations that ICE was tracking protesters in February.

He was emphatic during the hearing: “There is no database for protesters,” he told them.

Noem did the same in March: “We’re not creating a database.”

Lyons told them again in an April follow-up letter to Democratic Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost and 11 others that “(ICE) does not maintain any kind of database of U.S. citizens protesting ICE activities.” Lyons wrote that ICE was “fully committed to upholding the Constitution and respecting First Amendment rights of all individuals, including the right to peacefully assemble.”

Lyons claimed the only time ICE keeps information on protesters is if their actions “go beyond protected speech,” like threatening, assaulting, or interfering with ICE operations.

Federal prosecutors charged 15 people in Minnesota in June for allegedly attempting to impede or injure federal law enforcement officers during the ICE surge last winter.

The “Agitator List” released to USA TODAY appears to directly contradict Lyons.

“These records suggest that Americans were being documented in connection with simply observing what their government was doing,” Frost told USA TODAY. “No American should feel unsafe exercising their First Amendment rights or worry that watching and documenting their government could put them on a list.”

Kevin Riach, an attorney defending some of the Minneapolis defendants in the criminal case, received a version of the same ICE database released to USA TODAY.

He said what ties the incidents on the released list together is that they originated at the Whipple building. Riach said he believes DHS was trying to build support for criminal charges against the protesters and the list only represents a small fraction of the documented interactions throughout the Twin Cities.

Minnesota data shows legal observers

ICE officers often reported benign interactions, such as “I was followed,” to enter a protester’s detailed information into the database, according to the records released to USA TODAY.

Others include details of cat-and-mouse evasions that ended with local law enforcement stepping in.

In an April 10 entry, an ICE officer wrote that a “bright blue Toyota car” followed them out of the main gate of a federal building. “One occupant, 30s female with glasses… followed very aggressively, I ended up losing her in a neighborhood.”

Three days later, an ICE officer took down the plates of a “Maroon Chevy 4-door SUV Midsize” and wrote, “Subject remained stopped at a stop sign at [redacted] for longer than a reasonable time with no traffic approaching and drove slower than reasonable in clear weather conditions.” The records indicate the officer photographed the SUV and reported it to Bloomington Police.

“Called 911, they were not helpful…” an ICE officer wrote in a May 13 log that ended up in the database. “A separate lady tracking movements also began filming my vehicle and making hand gestures.”

Some of the “agitators” in the database appeared to understand they could draw more scrutiny if they followed ICE officers across the state border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. That’s at the heart of the government’s case against 15 protesters charged with interstate stalking, which can carry a five-year prison sentence.

On May 27, an officer described an incident with a 2005 black Honda Civic. The ICE officer called local police as he was traveling east toward Wisconsin. The dispatcher arranged to have a police officer connect with them and stop the Honda if it followed the officer across state lines. The Honda took the last exit, just before crossing the bridge into Wisconsin.

Redactions make it difficult to definitively match the vehicles in the ICE database with any of the 15 people charged by Minnesota federal prosecutors.

But many of the vehicles and situations line up, including in the case against Natasha Rakotz, who prosecutors claim drove her black Honda Civic into an ICE officer’s Ford pickup truck on May 15 and has been charged with assault.

In general, following ICE officers, shouting at them or recording them in public spaces is lawful. But speeding, running red lights, or driving recklessly makes it a crime, which some officers alleged in the database.

Tracking protesters solely for expressing their constitutionally protected speech could be a violation of the First Amendment, said Mindy Haas, an international affairs professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

“If you end up chilling speech,” Haas said. “We’re pushing up against the line of thought crimes.”

Prophetic Link:
“By the decree of enforcing the institution of the Papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with Spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and Republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan, and that the end is near.” Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 5, page 451.

Source References

• ‘They were tracking us.’ ICE tracks protesters in secret database

La Arena, by Redaccion Avances: The Commercial Employees’ Centers of Santa Rosa and General Pico have rejected the proposal to repeal the “Sunday Rest” Law, asserting that “Sunday belongs to everyone, as does the right to enjoy it.”

“In light of the proposal by legislator María Laura Trapaglia to repeal Law 2717—the Sunday Rest Law—we believe it is necessary to recall certain facts and, crucially, to request the data that would justify dismantling a regulation that has been in effect for nearly 13 years. Law 2717 was not an imposition by the State or by workers upon business owners; rather, it was the result of a broad agreement reached between the Commercial Employees’ Centers of La Pampa, business chambers, and the provincial government. This consensus was also reflected in a decisive political outcome: 29 out of the 30 provincial legislators voted in favor of its enactment. Therefore, if, after nearly thirteen years, anyone claims that the law has led to a decline in sales, job losses, or economic harm, they should provide the statistics to prove it,” stated Rodrigo Genoni, of the Santa Rosa Commercial Employees’ Center, and Daniel Lovera, of the General Pico center, in a joint statement. They posed the following questions: “How many jobs were actually lost due to the Sunday rest policy? Which large retail outlets closed down because they couldn’t open on Sundays? What sales simply vanished, rather than shifting to the other six days of the week or to small, local businesses? Furthermore, one crucial fact cannot be overlooked: in La Pampa, shopping is still possible on Sundays. Neighborhood grocery stores, greengrocers, kiosks, ice cream parlors, delis, and various other local shops—all explicitly permitted under the law—remain open. The regulation primarily restricts the opening of large-scale retail outlets. There is an economic rationale for this: throughout the week, large chains command an immense commercial, financial, and advertising advantage. Sundays offer an opportunity for small, neighborhood businesses, helping to ensure that a portion of consumer spending remains within the local economy. Allowing large retail outlets to open on Sundays does not automatically lead to job creation; there is no requirement to hire even a single additional worker. Companies could simply spread their existing workforce across seven days by using rotating days off, reduced shifts, and various new organizational and scheduling arrangements.”

“Sundays belong to everyone.”

Meanwhile, labor representatives pointed out that the actual outcome could be the exact opposite of what is being promised: the same number of workers spread out over more days, leading to greater flexibility—and greater precariousness—in their working hours. “Having a day off on a Tuesday is not the same as having a Sunday off. On a Tuesday, children are in school, one’s partner may be at work, and the family goes about its usual routine. A day of rest on Sunday serves a different purpose: it provides a common day for the family to spend time together. Furthermore, Law 2717 is not limited solely to Sunday rest. It establishes special provisions for Christmas and New Year’s, setting closing times for retail businesses on December 24th and 31st, so that those who work can also enjoy the year-end holidays with their families. Underlying this legislation, therefore, is a much broader vision than simply determining when a supermarket should open or close. It reflects a philosophy regarding work, family, community, and balance—a recognition of the value of workers’ time. Law 2717 should not be repealed; it should be defended, because behind every worker is a family, and behind every family is a life that also deserves to be cared for. Sunday belongs to everyone, as does the right to enjoy it,” they concluded.

Our Comment:
These are basically the same reasons that God gave the seventh day sabbath for. They are just switched to Sunday.

Prophetic Link:
“The substitution of the laws of men for the law of God, the exaltation, by merely human authority, of Sunday in place of the Bible Sabbath, is the last act in the drama. When this substitution becomes universal, God will reveal Himself. He will arise in His majesty to shake terribly the earth. He will come out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the world for their iniquity, and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.” Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 7, page 141.

This article was translated from Spanish.

Source References

• “The right to enjoy Sunday belongs to everyone.”

AP News, by Konstantin Toropin, Eric Tucker, and Claudia Lauer: The firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed, the Pentagon said Thursday, a stunning revelation about plans for the first military execution in more than 65 years after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had described it as being “public.”

The Army announced this week that the execution would take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3 after Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009.

Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice on Wednesday, said, “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.” Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed and that more details would follow.

The revelation from Hegseth about the public nature of the execution — let alone one as violent as a firing squad — has raised further questions about how the death penalty is carried out in the U.S., especially after the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee.

Experts offer mixed reactions on the plan

Hasan could choose to resist execution and file a habeas petition — a legal request to review the legality of a detention — in civilian court, which could significantly delay the execution, experts said.

“It frankly might outlast the current administration, and who knows if the next one will have the same penchant for executions,” said Eugene R. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School specializing in military law.

Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert and law professor at Fordham University, said livestreaming an execution could make the process “much more transparent” and inform the public about all that capital punishment entails. Those are benefits that she said would be useful at a time when Pike’s botched execution has raised fresh questions about the manner by which criminal defendants are put to death for their crimes.

“I think it could possibly be a good idea because it would be transparent and the public would be fully aware that it’s happening,” she said.

When many states have had difficulty carrying out lethal injections due to difficulty accessing drugs or finding medical professionals willing to participate in executions, firing squads are coming to be seen as a less inhumane alternative, said Brenner Fissell, a professor at Villanova Law and vice president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

“Firing squads can be a quicker, cleaner, more precise way to execute a prisoner,” he said. “I don’t think that’s what’s motivating this. There’s a perceived masculinity and military-ness to firing squads that is part of the aura Hegseth is trying to emphasize — the ‘lethality culture.’”

Elisabeth Semel, co-director of the Death Penalty Clinic at UC Berkeley Law, said Hegseth’s announcement raises a host of legal and public policy questions, including concerns for the dignity of the defendant, who will be eligible to view the execution and what the Trump administration has in mind in opting for an unusual spectacle.

Though there has been long-running discussion about the idea of televising an execution, “I don’t recall a situation in which it was instigated by the government. I think that also raises serious questions about what is the motivation of the government,” she said.

“This is a president who’s about spectacle and that’s, I think, precisely the message that he intends to deliver,” Semel said, adding that she was skeptical that the administration had given a second thought to the legal and social questions being presented by the decision.

Trump has spoken out against public executions in Iran

Trump, who approved Hasan’s execution, has previously been critical of public executions in Iran, at times using the possibility of protesters being killed by the Iranian government as a possible rationale for military action that preceded his ultimate choice to attack Iran on Feb. 28.

“We’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping,” Trump told reporters on Jan. 14. “It’s stopping, and there’s no plan for executions.”

In his State of the Union address just days before launching the Iran war, Trump reiterated, “We stopped them from hanging a lot of them with the threat of serious violence.”

The White House on Thursday referred questions about the plans for the livestreamed execution to the Pentagon.

Hegseth was asked Wednesday if Hasan had made any final requests or reached out to the Trump administration. The Pentagon chief replied: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on Dec. 3.”

It’s not clear if Hasan will try to appeal

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who held the rank of major, walked into a medical building on Nov. 5, 2009, where soldiers were waiting in long lines to receive immunizations and medical clearance for deployment. He shouted “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun. He also shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.

Hasan said it was an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims. A military judge barred him from presenting that as a defense during his 2013 trial. Hasan was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the back by law enforcement, and he now uses a wheelchair.

Hasan could seek a lengthy delay of his execution, though given his behavior at trial, he may not want to.

After firing his lawyers and representing himself, Hasan began his portion of the trial by telling jurors he was the gunman. He said little else over the next three weeks, which convinced his court-appointed standby lawyers that Hasan’s only goal was to get a death sentence.

The military called nearly 90 witnesses, but Hasan rested his case without calling a single person to testify in his defense and made no closing argument. Yet he leaked documents during the trial to journalists that revealed him telling military mental health workers that he could “ still be a martyr ” if executed.

Attorney John Galligan, a former military judge who had represented Hasan in several civil matters following his criminal trial, spoke with Hasan on Wednesday but is barred from offering much detail about that conversation. He is not representing Hasan in his criminal case but said he’s worried about his physical health under the plan laid out by officials, and that Hasan has not yet had access to legal counsel.

Galligan said that according to Hasan, the commandant of the facility brought a chaplain but no attorney from either the Trial Defense Service or from his civilian defense when he was notified that Trump had signed off on his execution. Galligan called that a breach of Army regulations.

A spokeswoman for the Army said Thursday that multiple attempts were made to contact Trial Defense Service attorneys, saying they made every reasonable effort and adhered to policy.

“The civilian counsel was not reasonably available to be physically present for the notification on the 5th,” the spokeswoman said, adding that counsel was located in Virginia but did not provide a name.

The spokeswoman also said Hasan has not been kept from contacting and communicating with his counsel.

Hegseth said the military hasn’t executed a service member by firing squad since World War II. The last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging.

Amnesty International said in its report on executions in 2025 that it knew of at least 17 public executions — 11 in Iran and 6 in Afghanistan.

Our Comment:
Public executions were a feature of Papal persecutions in the dark ages. Amazing precedent in modern times! As remnants of Catholic policy, public executions were carried out as a public spectacle and as a deterrent in some of the early colonies.

Prophetic Link:
“God’s word has given warning of the impending danger; let this be unheeded, and the Protestant world will learn what the purposes of Rome really are, only when it is too late to escape the snare. She is silently growing into power. Her doctrines are exerting their influence in legislative halls, in the churches, and in the hearts of men. She is piling up her lofty and massive structures in the secret recesses of which her former persecutions will be repeated. Stealthily and unsuspectedly she is strengthening her forces to further her own ends when the time shall come for her to strike. All that she desires is vantage ground, and this is already being given her. We shall soon see and shall feel what the purpose of the Roman element is. Whoever shall believe and obey the word of God will thereby incur reproach and persecution.” The Great Controversy, Ch. 38, page 581

Source References

• Pentagon says the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed

CNN, by Joseph Ataman, Catherine Nicholls, Sana Noor Haq, and James Legge: France’s President Emmanuel Macron addressed the nation on Sunday evening as communities reeled from one of the most violent nights of unrest in recent years after largely peaceful anti-government protests descended into rioting, leaving government buildings torched, one police officer and one protester dead.

Macron said that the full force of the law would be brought to bear on those who had damaged property or participated in rioting.

“Those who destroyed must pay,” Macron said. “Those who looted must pay back. Those who sought to bring down the Republic will be held accountable.”

Macron described the violence as the work of “seditious elements from far-left factions, joined by numerous delinquents.”

“Watching these images, we were all wondering: what had got into them? How can French people do that to France?”

“Nothing can justify it, explain it or excuse it,” Macron said. “Tonight we all feel both anger and shame.”

The president added that the government should listen to public grievances, and that many protesters did not participate in violence.

“Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of our compatriots demonstrated to state legitimate claims,” Macron said. “Never must we confuse the latter with those who destroyed and vandalized.”

Macron said that he had asked the government to convene stakeholders – including students, teachers, trade unionists and others – this week to discuss “concrete proposals.”

There were at least two deaths connected to rioting and protests over the weekend. A 22-year-old police officer died after being “struck by a third-party vehicle” in the city of Nantes, about 250 miles southwest of Paris, France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said.

One protester died just north of Paris following a “cardiorespiratory arrest,” CNN affiliate BFMTV reported on Sunday, citing the Paris Police headquarters.

Police have detained more than 2,000 people, Nunez said, adding that more than 600 police officers were injured.

Scenes unfolded again on Sunday of police officers launching tear gas into the hallowed Place de la République, where dozens of people gathered in response to messages on social media to “continue the movement,” BFMTV reported. In the central city of Limoges, the 143-year-old town hall was set ablaze on Saturday, with video showing its spire collapsing. In Marseille, masked protesters dressed all in black broke into city hall and defaced the building, and in Lyon, protesters torched the city’s tourist office.

Lawmakers and regional officials launched mounting criticism over the government’s law enforcement plan, BFMTV said, with French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu set to meet the mayors of Paris, Lyon and Marseille, who called for greater reinforcement to repair the damage.

As night fell in Paris on Saturday, groups of young people looted shops and started fires as protests wound down, prompting police to respond with tear gas and baton charges in the narrow streets. Alexandre Bompard, CEO of retail giant Carrefour, said in a social media post Sunday that around 1,500 stores across the country were affected by violence.

More than 600 police officers have been injured, France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez posted on X on Sunday, warning that “nothing can justify” the unrest. Earlier this weekend, Lecornu also condemned “unacceptable levels of violence.”

The destruction followed what had been largely peaceful protests, which have grown out of sweeping student-led rallies that gripped parts of France last month, sparking a broader movement against crumbling schools, the spiking cost of living, and perceived government inaction. The rallies have become emblematic of long-simmering, intergenerational anger among people who say their calls for social and political change are going unmet by negligent governments.

Some 550,000 protesters hit the streets across France, including 110,000 in Paris, Nunez said on Saturday. Organizers said far more people turned out.

“There’s an accumulation of wealth and power that’s completely out of control,” one protester, who gave her name as Pauline, told CNN in Paris on Saturday.

“We’re also here to support the youth. There are victories, but if we look at the bigger picture, it’s not going in the right direction,” the 36-year-old added.

Another demonstrator complained of “less democracy” and a “concentration of power” under Macron’s leadership. “There are billionaires who control the media,” Louise, 38, told CNN. “We are fighting to change things.”

Macron slammed “sowers of chaos” for interfering with peaceful protests, and warned late on Saturday that “those who have broken, attacked (police) prefectures, as well as businesses, looted even our town halls, will be prosecuted and punished.”

“We do not back down in the face of rioters and those who’ve come to attack law enforcement,” said the Paris Police Prefecture – the body that oversees the Paris Police Force, emergency services and various other administrative departments – adding that its staffers stood “their ground with courage and professionalism.”

‘Two worlds, two realities’

The police response to the weeks of protest has come under scrutiny. Earlier in the week, that response had left a 14-year-old boy with a fractured jaw. Another police officer was captured on camera using a headlock on a girl in the northwestern area of Alençon, an action now prohibited by law.

A protester in the city of Saint-Étienne, about 40 miles southwest of Lyon, lost his hand during a march there on Saturday, a police source told BFMTV.

This is the second reported instance of a demonstrator losing their hand in the current wave of student protests.

A student in the northeastern city of Lens lost his hand after reportedly picking up a grenade earlier this month, prompting the temporary suspension of one type of stun grenade by police. That ban, which still allowed police to use several different grenades, has now been rescinded.

Overall, authorities said that the “vast majority of individuals” had demonstrated peacefully on Saturday, according to BFMTV.

Posting on X, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left La France Insoumise Party, emphasized that the majority of demonstrators on Sunday had made their point peacefully. “While news channels are flooded with images of violence in dozens of cities, everything is unfolding peacefully with tens of thousands of people calmly mobilized. Two worlds, two realities.”

Youth activists also led solidarity protests in Belgium, Albania and Italy, where police arrested more than 70 people for identification in the city of Milan on Sunday, according to CNN affiliate SkyTG24.

Reuters reported Sunday that police in Milan clashed with stone-throwing demonstrators for a second day, with law enforcement firing tear gas and water cannons in response. SkyTG24 shared video from a supermarket in Milan, showing the windows smashed out and merchandise scattered over the floor after looting.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the looting in a statement posted on social media, and said that she will convene a meeting in Rome on Monday to “evaluate further measures against those who exploit legitimate demonstrations to sow violence and chaos.”

The wave of protests in France has its roots in the country’s public school system. Earlier this fall, French high school students organized scattered protests demanding reduced class sizes, increased spending on teachers, investments in infrastructure designed to withstand the climate crisis and an end to police violence against young people.

In the past decade and a half, a rise in fertility coupled with funding cuts has led to more students, but fewer teachers in classrooms. The French Education Minister Edouard Geffray has met with student protesters multiple times in recent weeks, although an agreement is yet to be made.

Prophetic Link:
“At the same time anarchy is seeking to sweep away all law, not only divine, but human. The centralizing of wealth and power; the vast combinations for the enriching of the few at the expense of the many; the combinations of the poorer classes for the defense of their interests and claims; the spirit of unrest, of riot and bloodshed; the world-wide dissemination of the same teachings that led to the French Revolution—all are tending to involve the whole world in a struggle similar to that which convulsed France.” Education, 228.2

Source References

• France’s Macron vows to hold accountable those who ‘sought to bring down the Republic’ during major protests

AP News, by Samy Magdy and Cara Anna: The latest attack on the international airport in Saudi Arabia’s capital of Riyadh killed 12 people and injured over 300 others, civil aviation authorities said early Sunday, with some in critical condition. A Saudi-led coalition blamed Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen.

It was the deadliest attack in any Gulf Arab country since the start of the Iran war, whose fronts have expanded to include the recent surge in fighting between the Houthis and Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces.

A missile struck a King Khalid International Airport complex housing terminals 3 and 4 for domestic flights, a regional official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media.

The Saudi statement said the dead included four Saudi citizens as well as two Bangladeshi nationals, a Palestinian, a U.S. citizen, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Syrian and a Sudanese. It said the injured were being treated at several hospitals.

Footage posted on social media following the attack and analyzed by The Associated Press shows emergency vehicles outside the airport.

Saudi civil aviation authorities on Saturday said airport operations were suspended. The closure was later extended by 24 hours until 9 p.m. Sunday, according to the flight tracking platform Flightradar 24.

Trump said he would consider joining strikes against rebels

The attack — the latest of several in the past week on the airport — is expected to increase Saudi pressure on allies including the United States to provide military support for the kingdom, which has seemingly tried to avoid all-out war with the Houthis.

Shortly after the attack on Saturday afternoon, U.S. President Donald Trump said he was evaluating whether the U.S. should join Saudi strikes against the rebels. “We may. We’re going to look at it,” he said. “We just found out about the recent attack. So we’ll make a decision. We move very quickly.”

Trump later Saturday said he planned to speak to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and said “what happened in Saudi Arabia is not acceptable.” Asked if the U.S. might get involved, Trump responded, “We’ll find out.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged in a social media post that an American citizen had been killed in the attack, which he condemned.

“These reprehensible attacks demonstrate a blatant disregard for innocent civilian life. They must stop now,” he said.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis blamed them for the attack, calling it a “fully-fledged war crime” and vowing a firm response. The airport has no military facilities.

There was no immediate statement from the rebels, who earlier Saturday accused Saudi Arabia of striking Sanaa International Airport in the Houthi-held Yemeni capital.

The Houthis claimed attacks earlier in the week on King Khalid International Airport that killed three Saudis, including a pilot. The surge in attacks, including against other Saudi airports, military facilities and oil infrastructure, has come in the week since a Saudi-led coalition launched a major military offensive against the Houthis.

The airport had a heavy police presence on Saturday, with all entrances blocked, and lights around the complex were dimmed. Flights diverted elsewhere, Flightradar24 said. Countries including the United States, Britain, Germany, Australia and Canada warned citizens to avoid the airport.

Also Saturday, U.S. Central Command said a fighter jet struck and disabled a commercial cargo vessel with a precision munition in the Gulf of Oman, part of U.S. efforts to maintain a naval blockade of Iranian ports. The Panama-flagged M/V Ocean Molica had departed an Iranian port and did not heed repeated warnings. The ship’s crew was unharmed, CENTCOM said.

For Iran, the fighting puts pressure on a key US ally

The attacks on Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, have rattled markets and the region. And yet the Saudi energy ministry hours after the latest one was still promoting a major international energy conference set to begin in Riyadh on Sunday.

Until recently, the Houthis had been largely on the sidelines of the Iran war. Now the rebels are a way for Tehran to apply pressure on a key U.S. ally.

The Saudis and the Houthis began fighting in 2015 when the kingdom entered Yemen’s civil war on behalf of the internationally recognized government. Relative calm after a 2022 ceasefire ended in July when the Houthis resumed attacks, saying the Saudis fired on the Sanaa airport as a plane from Iran was trying to land. That revived anger over the Saudi-led blockade that has largely isolated Houthi-run areas.

Now fighting has escalated, with the Saudi-led coalition providing air support for Yemeni government forces attempting to reverse recent Houthi gains along the Red Sea. Those gains gave the rebels better surveillance of shipping on a corridor that is a crucial alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has been attacking ships.

While the Houthis have said they are only targeting Saudi shipping as part of a blockade in retaliation for the one imposed on them, concerns about wider attacks persist. The Houthis previously attacked dozens of ships after the war in Gaza began, calling it solidarity with Palestinians. A U.S. bombing campaign sharply limited that.

Saudi Arabia has run low on interceptors, officials say

Saudi Arabia is running low on missile interceptors and has asked France, Britain, Pakistan and Egypt to deploy air defense support to the region, regional officials told the AP last month, with one noting that the U.S. has seen its own stock dwindle during the war with Iran.

Officials have said U.S. assistance has included intelligence sharing, target identification and planning for the latest offensive against the Houthis.

On Saturday, Saudi Arabia said its foreign minister and Omani counterpart spoke by phone about the importance of “supporting diplomatic solutions to de-escalate tensions” in the region. Oman, which lies across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran, has played a mediator role at times in the region.

Saudi flight disruptions are growing

The Houthis this week warned global airlines “for the last time” about the potential consequences of operating in Saudi airspace, which they described as a theater for their military operations.

Before the latest attack, Air India, FlyDubai, Lufthansa Group and Pakistan International Airlines were among airlines suspending flights to and from Riyadh and other Saudi airports for varying periods.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency had expanded its guidance on Saudi airspace, noting the Houthis’ ability to strike targets deeper inside the kingdom, including Riyadh, and a “greater focus on aviation infrastructure.”

The missile and drone attacks and interception efforts “create an increased risk of misidentification of civil aircraft,” it said.

Two regional officials said Houthi attacks on the Riyadh airport on Thursday damaged three planes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief the media. The Saudi national carrier said one of its aircraft was damaged while it was on the ground, with no passengers on board.

Meanwhile, Saudi authorities warned the public this week that “filming, publishing or sharing information related to countering missiles and drones and their impact sites exposes you to legal liability.”

Prophetic Link:
“The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.” Genesis 6:11

Source References

• 12 killed and over 300 hurt in latest attack on Riyadh airport, Saudi authorities say

The Epoch Times, by Etienne Fauchaire: Blockades at high schools and universities continued across France on Oct. 7, a day before students and teachers were expected to return to the streets for another nationwide protest.

The Student Union called on high school and university students to resume blockades on the morning of Oct. 8 before “converging on Bastille” in Paris at 3 p.m., a call seen as a reference to the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, during the French Revolution.

Several education unions, including SNES-FSU, France’s largest secondary school teachers’ union, also called for strikes and demonstrations in support of the students.

The number of disrupted high schools fell significantly on Oct. 7. Classes were fully or partially suspended at 459 schools, compared with 891 the previous day, according to the Education Ministry, which described the movement as being in sharp decline.

The Oct. 8 demonstrations will mark the fourth nationwide day of action in a protest movement led largely by far-left student organizations and initially fueled by grievances over school conditions.

‘To Arms!’

In central Paris, the protest took a more confrontational turn at the Institute of Political Studies, commonly called Sciences Po, where students barricaded entrances to the elite school and a tense standoff developed with police.

“To arms!” and “Everybody hates the police,” protesters chanted outside the school on the morning of Oct. 7.

Among the signs held up in the crowd were messages reading “High schools repressed, universities enraged,” “Sexy antifa girl,” and “Bismillah, it’s darkness,” using the Arabic expression meaning “in the name of God.”

Lawmakers from the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, including Antoine Léaument, arrived to support the protesters. From behind the police line, they tossed food and bottles of water toward the blockaders as officers sought to contain the crowd.

The demonstration also unfolded on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. A woman who arrived carrying an Israeli flag had it ripped from her hands by a protester, who called her a “dirty Nazi” and “genocidal.”

The woman later told reporters at the scene that in her view, the demonstration was no longer about the grievances of high school students, but about causes supported by the far-left, such as support for Palestinians.

The blockade began at around 6 a.m., when students piled trash bins and metallic objects in front of entrances on Rue Saint-Guillaume. Sciences Po shifted the day’s classes online. By late morning, hundreds of high school and university students had gathered outside, and shortly after 11:30 a.m. the crowd spilled onto Boulevard Saint-Germain.

Jeanne, a 19-year-old Sciences Po student, told The Epoch Times that she had joined the blockade in solidarity with high school students “who are repressed by the police.”

Her concerns extended beyond the immediate dispute over schools. She said young people faced a gloomy future in both the job market and their broader lives, arguing that “[President Emmanuel] Macron’s government is not doing anything to solve the climate crisis.”

Dahlia, 20, another Sciences Po student, framed the protest in broader ideological terms.

“The world we are being offered today was forged by a capitalist system that we contest and reject,” she told The Epoch Times.

She also said she was deeply concerned about the prospect of a National Rally victory in the 2027 presidential election, arguing that “the studying conditions of minorities who are already victims of racism and Islamophobia will worsen.”

‘Only a Pretext’

Théo Chêne, a representative of the right-wing student union UNI at Sciences Po, offered a sharply different interpretation of the blockade.

“The reasons put forward by the demonstrators are only a pretext for blockading and mobilizing,” he told The Epoch Times.

“At Sciences Po, as at other institutions, these actions are always carried out by the same active far-left minority, which is not at all representative of high school or university students as a whole.”

Chêne said he was particularly struck by the presence of LFI lawmakers bringing supplies to the blockaders.

“Facing the police, you had lawmakers who were doing nothing but encouraging the blockade, and even implicitly violence,” he said.

He said the incident involving the Israeli flag came as little surprise to him.

“We can clearly see that we are dealing with an anti-Semitism that is now openly embraced within this movement,” Chêne said.

He also alleged that the blockade was unlawful because it prevented other students from attending classes.

Macron Asks for ‘Empathy’: Interior Minister

The Oct. 7 blockades unfolded against a growing political controversy over the government’s handling of the unrest, after Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez suspended the use of stun grenades during the high school protests.

Nuñez told RTL radio on Oct. 7 that the measure would remain in place “until light has been shed” on an incident two days earlier in the northern city of Lens, where a 15-year-old lost a hand.

The decision came after Nuñez joined the ministers of national education and higher education for an Oct. 6 meeting chaired by Macron.

“He reiterated the need to maintain order and intervene when violence occurs, while asking that interventions be proportionate,” Nuñez told RTL, recounting Macron’s instructions.

“The president asked us to show empathy,” he said.

The suspension of stun grenades, coupled with Macron’s remarks, drew sharp criticism from opposition figures and police representatives.

Marine Le Pen, the National Rally’s presidential candidate, accused Macron of undermining officers confronting the unrest.

“Emmanuel Macron always takes the side that consists of attacking the police,” she said on Oct. 7 during a visit to a livestock fair in central France.

Le Pen said that what she described as “fake news spread by the far left” since the events began had been immediately disproved by the prosecutors in charge of the cases. She accused France Unbowed of churning out such claims to cast blame on the police, and said that this was stirring up violence against officers by making young people believe the police were the ones being violent toward them.

“It’s a real issue, and I think the president of the Republic has once again shown that he has no interest in protecting our law enforcement,” she said.

“Yet he was quite happy to have them during the Yellow Vest [crisis], when he and his entourage seemed holed up in the Élysée, very worried about seeing the Yellow Vests get into the Élysée,” she added, referring to the movement of anti-government protests sparked by a tax on fuel in 2018.

Axel Ronde, national president of the CFTC Police union, went further, calling on X for “an end to public-order operations” following the suspension. He warned of the risk of officers being injured while deprived of the means to respond.

The scale of the unrest was laid out later that day before lawmakers. Nuñez told the National Assembly’s law committee that 761 police officers and gendarmes had been injured since the protests began.

He said authorities had also recorded injuries to 89 education staff members and 215 students, while 6,600 arrests had been made.

Violence and injuries continued to be reported on Oct. 7.

In Strasbourg, eastern France, a 16-year-old student from Lycée Couffignal high school suffered a serious hand injury that morning while handling a firework mortar outside the school, the Bas-Rhin prefecture told The Epoch Times.

According to the prefecture, the teenager had fired the mortar himself before being hospitalized for emergency treatment.

Even as the government faced mounting pressure over how police should respond, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is seeking dialogue with the students.

“The voices of high school students are valuable and must be heard,” he wrote on X, announcing that discussion sessions would be organized in every high school.

Right-Wing Students Push Back

The government’s response to the protests has drawn criticism from right-wing student organizations, which accuse Macronists of treating left-wing unions as representative of France’s students and of making concessions that give the idea that violence and rioting get results.

Baptiste Gili, national delegate of the right-wing student union UNI, said many students simply want campuses to remain open.

“UNI wants to give a voice to the large silent majority that the government has abandoned and that asks only to study in peace and prepare for its future,” Gili told The Epoch Times.

He accused the Education Ministry of giving disproportionate attention to organizations on the left.

“These young people have had enough of the far left,” he said, noting that the ministry had received a delegation from several left-wing student groups, but not UNI.

Clément Liebard, president of another right-wing student organization, La Cocarde Étudiante, said the current protests should be viewed as part of a long effort by the far left to take over schools and universities.

“For years, La France Insoumise has been pursuing a deliberate strategy of establishing itself in high schools and universities through the student unions the government treats as legitimate,” Liebard told The Epoch Times.

Liebard also blamed successive governments for allowing such organizations to expand their influence.

La Cocarde Étudiante has itself become directly involved in confronting campus blockades.

On Oct. 1, members of the group dismantled a barricade made of trash bins at a Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University campus. LFI lawmaker Thomas Portes subsequently criticized the organization on social media as “fascist.”

Liebard said the intervention reflected what he considers the union’s responsibility toward students who oppose the blockades.

“We decided to unblock the universities because our responsibility as a student union is to protect the vast majority of students, those who want to go to class and who do not want to see their university blockaded,” he said.

Prophetic Link:
“To transgress His law, physical, mental, or moral, is to place one’s self out of harmony with the universe, to introduce discord, anarchy, ruin.” Education, 99.2

Source References

• School Blockades Continue Across France as Protesters Are Called to the Bastille

CNBC, by Jenny Lee: Nearly 200 people have been placed under medical observation in Russia’s Irkutsk region in eastern Siberia over suspected exposure to plague, according to local media reports.

The report said 189 people were being monitored following the illness of an employee at an anti-plague research institute in Irkutsk. Alexei Tsydenov, head of the nearby Republic of Buryatia, said the woman had died from an unspecified form of plague.

Russia’s public health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, said Sunday that the employee had been diagnosed with “pneumonia of unknown etiology” and that the sanitary and epidemiological situation in the Irkutsk region and the cities of Irkutsk and Shelekhov remained stable.

The agency said expanded testing had not detected microorganisms linked to the employee’s work.

The update follows local media reports on Friday that a 27-year-old employee at an anti-plague institute had fallen ill with suspected pneumonic plague after returning from a work trip to Buryatia, where an outbreak had been reported near the border with Mongolia, citing Russian Telegram channel Mash.

The White House is monitoring reports of the suspected case and related quarantines in Russia, Axios said Sunday, citing a Trump administration official. The official said the administration was “aware, monitoring the outbreak, and assessing options,” the report said.

The Russian and Moscow ministries of health, the World Health Organization, and the U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

Prophetic Link:
“Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.” Psalm 91:5, 6

Source References

• Russia hospitalizes almost 200 people after researcher’s death from plague: Reports

Parkinson’s News Today, by Andrea Lobo: A team at Colorado State University (CSU) has been awarded $3 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate how a distinct variant of the alpha-synuclein protein — which can build up into toxic clumps in the brain — contributes to Parkinson’s disease with dementia.

The federal grant will allow the university’s researchers to study how this variant spreads through the nervous system. The team’s ultimate goal is to develop therapies to stop the disease’s progression, according to a university news story announcing the funding.

The five-year project, led by Amanda Woerman, PhD, an associate professor at CSU, will build on the team’s previous identification of a unique alpha-synuclein variant in a person with Parkinson’s disease dementia. The researchers will now try to determine how this variant may contribute to the disease’s progression — potentially informing future diagnostic and treatment approaches.

“We’re getting closer to understanding what drives these types of diseases,” Woerman said. “If we can learn how this specific variant causes Parkinson’s with dementia, it will help us better understand what we need to do to successfully intervene and stop the disease.”

Parkinson’s is caused by the loss of nerve cells that produce dopamine, a signaling molecule involved in movement. A hallmark feature of Parkinson’s is the buildup of toxic clumps of misfolded alpha-synuclein protein, known as Lewy bodies, which are believed to contribute to nerve cell dysfunction and death. Alpha-synuclein is a small protein key to nerve cell communication.

While Parkinson’s is best known for its hallmark motor symptoms, such as tremor, stiffness, and slowed movements, people with the progressive disease may also experience cognitive decline and dementia. Known as Parkinson’s disease dementia, the condition refers to a decline in memory, attention, and thinking that interferes with everyday activities.

Colorado State team discovered variant in lab testing

Prior studies have demonstrated that misfolded alpha-synuclein may adopt different structures, or conformations, that are associated with distinct effects on patients. Woerman’s lab found that a particular variant of the protein could trigger neurological disease in a mouse model. 

In that study, the researchers found that a post-mortem brain sample from a person with Parkinson’s disease dementia contained a distinct form of misfolded alpha-synuclein. The team tested it in mice and reported their findings in a study titled “Evidence of a novel α-synuclein strain isolated from a Parkinson’s disease with dementia patient sample,” published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications.

The data showed that four of six mice developed abnormal alpha-synuclein clumps in several brain regions and neurological symptoms after receiving the patient-derived sample. Further experiments suggested that this strain differed from the alpha-synuclein strain linked to multiple system atrophy (MSA), pointing to potentially distinct ways that alpha-synuclein can spread through the brain.

MSA is a form of atypical Parkinsonism also marked by alpha-synuclein clumping, which has many of the motor symptoms seen in Parkinson’s. However, it usually causes greater impairment of the autonomic nervous system, which regulates unconscious bodily processes, and progresses faster than Parkinson’s.

The patient’s brain showed Lewy bodies typical of Parkinson’s disease dementia, but also had alpha-synuclein deposits in oligodendrocytes, a type of nerve supporting cell, which are characteristic of MSA. This led researchers to question whether an MSA-like alpha-synuclein strain was responsible for the disease in mice.

When the scientists transferred material from the affected mice to a second group, the disease progressed faster and led to more widespread alpha-synuclein buildup in the brain. However, the pattern of symptoms and brain changes differed from those caused by MSA, suggesting the patient had a distinct, previously unrecognized alpha-synuclein variant, according to the researchers.

The NIH-funded project will build on the researchers’ discovery of this previously unrecognized alpha-synuclein variant to investigate how its molecular structure influences where the protein spreads in the brain and how it contributes to dementia and other disease features.

The long-term goal is to use insights into alpha-synuclein biology to support the development of better diagnostic tools and treatments for people with Parkinson’s and other diseases caused by alpha-synuclein clumping.

“This work will give us insight into how we might be able to successfully fight Parkinson’s,” Woerman said. “The ultimate goal is to develop a successful cure for somebody living with one of these disorders.” 

Prophetic Link:
“The brain and nerves are in sympathy with the stomach. Erroneous eating and drinking result in erroneous thinking and acting.” Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 9, page 159.3

Source References

• $3M federal grant will allow study of protein causing Parkinson’s dementia