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Authored by Mike Fredenburg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Ukraine-Russia war and its innovative use of drones has significantly changed warfare. And while the use of drones as spotters for artillery and bombs is arguably their biggest contribution to death and destruction, Telegram is full of chilling FPV footage of kamikaze drones blowing up soldiers and equipment. Among the many measures being used to protect men and equipment from drone attacks is the shotgun, which along with being used by individual soldiers, is also being mounted on both ground and aerial platforms to provide defense against drones.

The drones these shotguns are being used to defend against are most often cheap and fragile. Sure, even cheap quadcopter-style drones are faster than a foot soldier and faster than most military ground vehicles, but at 30 to 46 mph they fly at the same speed, or slower than many game birds. A good example of a widely used commercial drone that is regularly weaponized is the $3,000 DJI Mavic 3. It weighs just under two pounds and has a no-load (no weapon) max level flight speed of 46 mph with a max flight time of 41 minutes. That means it is slower than a duck, a pigeon, quail, pheasant, or even a turkey. And when weighed down with an explosive device it is even slower, and its endurance and range greatly reduced.

Still, just as it is well-nigh impossible to shoot game birds flying at 50 to 70 mph with a rifle, so it is extremely difficult to hit a drone with an assault rifle that is flying at you to blow you up. That is why an increasing number of soldiers have taken to carrying shotguns with them to be used as a last-ditch defense to shoot down incoming kamikaze drones as well as FPV drones, positioning themselves over the soldiers to drop grenades on them.

With this in mind, Ukraine bought 4,000 BTS-12 bullpup mag-fed shotguns to provide some of its soldiers with last-ditch line of defense against drones. Beyond the BTS-12, Ukrainian soldiers have been using the Safari HG-105M and the Benelli M4 A.I. Drone Guardian, whose design gives it more range and more penetration. Russia is also equipping its troops with a variety of shotguns, including the 20-round AK-style VEPR-12, and the MR-155, a more traditional semi-auto shotgun that can hold eight rounds.

Furthermore, shotgun rounds optimized to destroy drones have also been developed. An example of these rounds are two rounds developed by Rostec. In brief, these shotgun shells are loaded with pellets whose size is optimized for destroying drones. And because drones are made of metal and hard plastics, the pellets themselves are harder than those used against game birds. One of the rounds has chemicals that allow it to act as a tracer. Such tracer rounds can be very effective in guiding follow-on rounds into an attacking drone.

Russian soldiers desperately dealing with the onslaught of drones have developed mini shotgun shells for their AK-74 assault rifles. Using this modification, each AK-74 round fired delivers seven 0.177-inch BB-sized steel bearings downrange. This means a seven-round burst puts just under 50 steel pellets downrange with muzzle velocities much greater than that of a shotgun. While some Western writers have dismissed this innovation as being irrelevant, such dismissals are not supported with evidence. Another Ak-74 modification is to enable under-barrel grenade launchers to fire a single 12-gauge shotgun round. While this is hardly the ultimate drone defense, it is better than firing rifle rounds and is yet another example of shotgun type devices being used to defend against drones.

But the use of shotguns goes well beyond the weapons individual soldiers can carry into battle. Both Ukraine and Russia have developed drones carrying shotguns to shoot down other drones. In a recent case, a larger Ukrainian drone mounting shotguns was videoed shooting down three Russian UAVs. Russian defense contractor Almaz-Antey has developed a unique and inexpensive drone that features a 10-round, fully automatic, VEPR-12 shotgun in a stabilized mount designed to shoot down drones.

Russia is also mounting shotguns on some of its vehicles. This includes deploying anti-drone guns with 24 shotgun barrels on a single mount on its tactical buggies. Such a setup can put a very large and dense cloud of hundreds of damaging pellets into the path of oncoming drones.

However, while shotguns have the potential to be at least somewhat effective against drones, they will not have any chance to be effective unless soldiers know the drone is targeting them, can spot the drone, accurately target it, and do all of this in a matter of seconds. And it also requires the right kind of tactics.

Here is a very brief example pulled from a Ukrainian Special Forces Command report analyzing Russia’s efforts to adapt modern-day drone warfare. In brief, Russian troops will be equipped with a passive detector using acoustic and electromagnetic detection that can detect and track drones to 1,000 meters off. Once aware of the threatening drone(s), Russian soldiers can orient themselves to be ready to engage the drone(s) with their various types of shotgun type weapons as well and any other drone countermeasures they have available. Russian command is also recommending placing a dedicated shooter with a shotgun at the back of every military vehicle near the front lines in case electronic warfare systems fail to disable the flying explosives.

Though the above example involves Russian troops, it does lay out some very basic aspects of what effective drone defense must embody. Ultimately, shotguns are only one of many ways warfighters can defend themselves against drones, but given enough warning of a pending drone attack, they provide a last-ditch defense well worth employing.

And yes, your father’s double barreled 12-gauge shotgun in the hands of a skilled soldier who sees the drone coming absolutely, positively has a good chance to take it out.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Authored by James Gorrie via The Epoch Times,

Today, a significant part of China’s geopolitical calculus rests on its allegiance with Russia, a critical but by no means unbreakable ally. The war in Ukraine, now grinding through its third year, has exposed vulnerabilities in this partnership, as has the potential peace deal being brokered by the Trump administration.

A Global Strategy

In fact, the United States “playing the Russian card” should be viewed not just as an effort to stop the bloodshed in Ukraine but as a global strategy to undermine Beijing’s influence with Moscow and other countries worldwide. This bold move flips the script on the Nixon-era triangulation. Beginning in the early 1970s, the United States countered the Russian-led Soviet Union’s global influence by engaging China diplomatically and economically, which served to counterbalance the United States’ top global adversary.

The idea has merit. Russia’s economy is battered, its military stretched thin, and its global isolation is growing. Western sanctions have choked its access to technology and markets, leaving it desperate for a lifeline.

Furthermore, Moscow is now the weaker partner in its relations with Beijing, reliant on China for trade and diplomatic cover. If the United States flips Russia, China loses a counterweight to Western pressure, leaving it more isolated against a unified NATO and its Indo–Pacific allies.

Making Beijing Even More Vulnerable

As for China, it finds itself in a vulnerable position as well. Its dependence on Russia runs deep, especially for resources. For example, Russia supplies more than 15 percent of China’s crude oil imports and vast amounts of natural gas via pipelines like Power of Siberia. China also sees Russia’s freshwater reserves—Lake Baikal alone holds 20 percent of the world’s unfrozen freshwater—as a hedge against its own water scarcity.

Losing or even reducing access to Russia’s resources, including its arable land and timber, would put huge pressure on China to find alternatives at a much higher cost. But that could well be the outcome of a U.S.–Russia rapprochement.

A One-Sided Relationship

What’s more, trade with China—$240 billion in 2023—keeps Moscow afloat, but it’s a one-sided relationship. China buys cheap Russian energy while selling finished goods, leaving Russia a junior partner. Moscow is not comfortable and even resents playing second fiddle to Beijing.

On the other hand, the United States could offer a sweeter deal: access to global markets, investment in infrastructure, and a tech lifeline. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, who thrives on pragmatism, the allure of rebuilding Russia’s economy might outweigh ideological loyalty to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The potential for such a development is more than hypothetical. A negotiated settlement in Ukraine where Russia retains some territorial gains but withdraws from most of Ukraine could be framed as a “win” for domestic consumption. In return, the United States could push NATO to pull back from its easternmost footprint—perhaps even reverting to pre-1997 boundaries, as Russia has long demanded, or a planned return to prior agreed-upon limits along with an enforced neutrality for non-NATO nations bordering Russia, like Ukraine.

A New US–Russia Détente?

Such an arrangement wouldn’t dismantle NATO but could ease Moscow’s paranoia about encirclement, making a pivot away from China palatable. It’s a low-cost concession for the United States: NATO’s core remains intact, and Russia’s ties to China diminish.

Of course, it’s not yet a reality. Putin and Russia’s elite are wary of U.S./NATO promises. Plus, China could counter with sweeter deals—more loans, more weapons tech. But that remains to be seen.

The Ukraine leadership is also a wild card. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is proving himself to be less predictable and more capricious than the Trump administration anticipated. What’s more, Western European NATO members are all less inclined to seek a peace settlement with Putin.

Therefore, part of the Trump administration’s effort is to force Ukraine to the peace table, which is happening as I write this, and convince NATO members such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany to accept a peace deal. The United States must also find a way to meet Russia’s conditions while not losing Ukraine’s agreement to a cease-fire. Both should be achievable, but time will tell.

The US Has Better Cards Than China

However, as far as Moscow is concerned, Washington has better cards to play than Beijing in terms of market size, technological edge, and the relief of a powerful NATO backing off Russia’s border countries—all of those appeal to Moscow.

At the same time, such a deal would add salt to the wound of the Chinese regime, which already finds itself in the Trump administration’s crosshairs concerning the Panama Canal, rising trade tariffs, and the accelerating American economic decoupling from China.

At the moment, Trump is showing both a carrot and a stick to Putin. At the same time, China’s shrinking economy and growing diplomatic isolation from U.S. actions become a greater negative going forward.

This isn’t just a hypothetical for the Chinese regime—it’s a nightmare scenario that threatens its strategic depth, resource security, and regional dominance.

The stakes are high, and China has plenty to lose.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

Let’s start with that phone call. The Kremlin readout is quite sober – but it does reveal a few nuggets. There is no comprehensive deal – yet – between Moscow and Washington. Far from it: we are just in the initial tentative stage of talking and talking about several interconnected dossiers.

President Putin gave absolutely nothing away. The agreed-upon pause on attacks on energy infrastructure – not energy and (italics mine) infrastructure – spells out as Putin imposing a stop on dangerous Ukrainian hits on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

That may be lost among all the Western hysteria; but there are two absolute conditions expressed by Moscow for anything in this riddle to start complying with objective reality – and not muddle along as a reality show narrative trainwreck:

1.“The settlement in Ukraine must take into account the unconditional need to eliminate the root causes of the crisis, Russia’s legitimate security interests.”

2.“The key condition for preventing the escalation of the conflict should be a complete cessation of foreign military aid and the provision of intelligence information to Kiev.”

US special envoy Witkoff is spinning that ceasefire “details” will be ironed out on Sunday in Saudi Arabia. No matter the amount of shrieking, Kiev will have to accept it.

Putin-Trump did not spend over 2 hours just talking hockey, hazy Black Sea navigation prospects and a quite limited energy infrastructure missile strike one-month pause.

In this incandescent juncture, what matters is off the record. And that might as well have been Iran. And the prospect of serious Hard Rain fallin’.

I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard

A certain psychopathological entity in West Asia is obsessed to ram all its opponents through the mouth of a graveyard. Putin must have had the chance to explain to Trump that Russia respects the UN Charter and abides by international law. Russia and Iran – top BRICS members – signed a comprehensive strategic partnership last January in Moscow. Russia provides detailed ISR/air defense/EW intel to Tehran.

A proverbially hysterical narrative now imprints the notion that Tel Aviv – courting Trump 2.0 backing – is ready to inflict airstrikes on Iran to “prevent it from going nuclear”. Tehran, as detailed by Ayatollah Khamenei, has no interest whatsoever in building a nuclear weapon.

There’s no way Russia will allow Israel – with crucial American backing – to wreak havoc on Iran. Even as Tehran is already capable to react to any attack, with devastating consequences. Without nuclear weapons – and even without Russian direct help.

Operation True Promise 2 – True Promise 3 is still on hold – had already demonstrated that Israel is absolutely defenseless against wave after wave of sophisticated Iranian missiles. Were the US under Trump 2.0 to be involved in a direct attack, all US military bases in West Asia would be incinerated, plus severe punishment to vassals hosting these bases. End result: oil prices skyrocketing, massive global economic crisis.

I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken

While the self-proclaimed peacemaker was on the phone polishing the newest iteration of his Art of the Deal, genocidal psychopathological Zionists with hammers a-bleedin’ were unleashing wild wolves on displaced newborn babies – huddling in tents ablaze in Khan Yunis.

And ten thousand EUrotrash talkers with their tongues all broken were mute on genocide but ready to erupt in shrieking delight pledging loyalty – and billions in funds – to the envoy of the former self-proclaimed Emir of Al-Nusra, a moderate head-chopper turned Hugo Boss-clad President.

All yelled a Eurovision-tinged Sieg Heil to the protégé’s mercenary “army”, duly backed by Qatari, British and European masters: ISIS-clad Salafi-jihadis, al-Qaeda remnants, assorted takfiris, Chechens, Uzbeks, Uighurs, a movable Terror Inc. on tour slashing Alawites, Christians, Shi’ites and even moderate Sunnis, facilitating the evisceration of Syria and the “donation” of large swathes of Syrian sovereign territory to Tel Aviv.

The Zionist SS Brussels Medusa von den Lugen gleefully showered the moderate head-chopper gangs – al-Qaeda R Us – with 2.5 billion euros. It was Qatar that pressured the European Commission (EC) to invite Jolani’s henchman turned Foreign Minister, Asaad al-Shaibani to the 9th Brussels Conference for Donors on Syria – even as at least 7,000 Alawites and Christians were being “slaughtered” by his goons, according to a Greek Member of the European Parliament, Nikolas Farantouris, who visited Damascus on March 8-9 and met, among others, with the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Near East.

In parallel the Exceptionalist “peace through strength” circus ringmaster – dubbed across vast swathes of the Arab street as “The Marmalade Moron” – brutally started bombing Ansarallah in Yemen, to force unbowed warriors to ditch their unwavering support for Palestine and wallow in submission.

Additionally, “Bomb, bomb, bomb – bomb bomb Iran” was back as the crypto-Beach Boys theme song, because in the end Tehran must by all means be turned into Syria, Jordan, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Yemen: a pitiful Quisling Zionist regime.

The destabilized but not broken Axis of Resistance is fighting titanic, simultaneous battles against the Axis of Genocidal Zion on several fronts: the psycho-killers in Tel Aviv; the Jolani mercenary army in Syria, de facto ground troops of Israel, simultaneously supported, ideologically, by Zionist Arab regimes and assorted Salafi/takfiri Islamic outfits blessing the massacre against Palestinians; the Eurotrash liberal totalitarians, who are financing Jolani; and Washington/Pentagon-bombed Ansarallah in Yemen.

Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, leader of Ansarallah, made it all very clear in his March 16 speech:

“Our decision to support the Palestinian people, including our move to block Israeli maritime navigation, that clearly targets the Israeli enemy and no one else, is aimed solely at pressuring Israel to open the crossings, allow the entry of humanitarian aid, and put an end to the starvation of Gaza.”

So Ansarallah will not be broken – whatever the Empire of Chaos throws against them:

“The US is the one turning the sea into a battlefield, thereby directly impacting maritime navigation and global trade. Our decision was only targeting Israeli ships, and will now extend to US ships, but they are the ones who turn the sea into a battlefield and threaten maritime navigation. It is essential that all nations recognize who truly threatens international waters and the movement of ships.”

Compared to Yemeni courage, EUrotrash cowards might yearn, in their wildest dreams, to sound like thunder but are more likely to drown under a massive wave of irrelevance – to the sound of drummers whose hands are a-blazin’, bangin’ the Syria jihadi song. They shouldn’t even bother to whisper – because nobody is listenin’.

I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’

The batshit crazy Estonian chick with the IQ of an undernourished worm, masquerading as EU foreign policy chief, wants no less that 40 billion euros for “military aid” to country 404. Hungary, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal emitted a resounding “No”: after all none have even a sliver of that kind of money.

Even Germany hasn’t signed off on its own €3 billion pledge – although the accumulated dementia never stops: the future BlackRock chancellor is convinced that “Putin has declared war on all of Europe.”

No one on Trump 2.0 even bothers to address a word to the Estonian worm: yes, “nobody is listenin’.” Batshit crazy – and irrelevant.

For Trump 2.0, the whole EUro trash Cage aux Folles spectacle is irrelevant: from the €800 billion ReArm Europe military scam to the Macron-Starmer Dumb and Dumber politico double down, both clowns so eager to deploy 30,000 unsuspecting cannon-fodder items to country 404 when their “security” simply will not be guaranteed by Mama Pentagon.

The message is as stark as Hard Rain: you may not even qualify as a convenient tool for us anymore. At best you may be repositioned as a – rotten – basket of resources. You’re on the menu. Like the former Global South in the previous century. Now it’s your turn.

The imperial projections of a bunch of Hollow Men

The possibility remains that bombastic “peace through strength” Trump is trying to weave a web of deceit facing chess-master Putin while the EUrotrash set up a Syrian-style buffer – with European troops securing Ukraine’s most sensitive zones. All that would be masking the Zio-con axis, once again, revamping their obsession on “eliminating” Iran from the new Primakov triangle in BRICS (Russia-Iran-China instead of Russia-India-China).

According to this purely wishful thinking script, profiting from a “weak” Iran the Empire of Chaos would once again be reigning supreme in West Asia, manipulating energy prices to undermine Russia’s economy while compromising China’s energy security.

The key spanner in these proverbially childish works – a mere imperial projection – is that Putin is not trying to be part of the imperial club. Putin and several of the Security Council members in Moscow have accumulated piles of doctorates on Western deceit, coups, outright lies, blatant betrayals and hardcore geoeconomic sabotage.

Putin, Medvedev, Patrushev, Naryshkin, Lavrov, they all know that this war the current, breathless circus ringmaster is trying to end was always about breaking Russia, as well as containing China, and designed mostly as a Hail Mary pass to salvage the fast-declining Empire of Chaos.

And all that brings us to Spengler, as re-examined in this superb analysis, and to where Hard Rain is mostly gonna fall with no mercy.

When it comes to Europe, we are now dealing with Faustian men that don’t even qualify as T. S. Eliot’s hollow men, as “Europe has forgotten how to breed conquerors.” The Spenglerian metaphor for “the suffocation of a young civilization by the corpse of an old one” does apply. Yet Russian was never Faustian: more like Tolstoyan.

All of us who have been spending quality time in Russia after the start of the SMO do carry the feeling that it’s as if “the Third Rome was always waiting, biding its time, watching as Europe gutted itself on the altar of its own hubris.”

Now Russia seems to have shed “its Western skin”, turning to “its own roots – Eurasian, Orthodox, steppe-born.” I was personally overcome by this cultural/spiritual illumination not only in white nights in Moscow, Kazan or Vladivostok, but mostly while traveling in the black soil of Novorossiya – where the “rules-based international order” came to die.

The fragmented West is indeed trapped in a Baudrillard-style total simulation of its own making – while Russia is operating full tilt in objective reality. And indeed “this is why the West cannot win in Ukraine. It fights as a bureaucratic entity, not as a people. And Russia, for all its flaws, fights as a people.”

The current Hollow Men masquerading as Europe’s political “leaders” tough should not be underestimated. They will get their revenge – over their own European fellow citizens.

Cue to Christine “Vuitton” Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB): “The digital euro is more crucial than ever.”

Translation: all European bank accounts will eventually be transferred to the ECB. Now couple that with the proclamation by the Toxic Medusa in Brussels: “This month [March 2025] the European Commission will present the Savings and Investment Union. We will turn private savings (italics mine) into much-needed investments.”

Extra translation: it’s the private savings of European citizens that will be stolen and invested in 800 billion warmongering euros for Europe’s “defense” against the perennial “Russian threat”. Hard Rain – on each and every European citizen.

You may be asking why a beat poem structured as a psalm, composed on a typewriter in Greenwich Village in New York City in 1962, slightly before the Cuban missile crisis, by a 21-year old recently arrived from an industrial belt in Minnesota is telling our big story today of hubris and deceit. That’s the unconquerable power of Art.

I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number

Pellets of poison will be flooding the waters; souls may be forgotten – especially those of the Hollow Men; some – across the Global Majority – may be even resourceful enough to emerge from the depths of the deepest black forest; but most of all, as the executioner’s face remains quite well hidden, many will finally be able to see who he really is.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

A study by Summit Defense Criminal Lawyers ranks U.S. states by arrest likelihood, based on police presence and arrest rates.

Using law enforcement data normalized per 100K people, it calculates a Crime Arrest Risk Score by summing police personnel and comparing it to arrest rates. Higher scores indicate a greater chance of arrest in criminal cases.

Among the key findings, the study found South Dakota ranks first among states with the highest likelihood of arrest, reporting 5,878 arrests, the highest rate nationwide. Louisiana follows in second place, boasting the largest police presence at 350 officers, increasing the chances of lawbreakers being caught.

It also found, incredibly, that New York takes third place, with 10,450 first-line supervisors of police and detectives, the highest in the country, making arrests more likely for criminals, the study says. 

Wyoming ranks fourth, with an arrest rate of 3,681 per 100K and 271 officers per 100K residents, giving it a score of 81. North Dakota takes fifth place, recording 4,033 arrests per 100K, the second-highest among top-ranking states, with a score of 77. Illinois follows in sixth, featuring a strong police presence of 288 officers per 100K and a total of 36,190 officers statewide, achieving a score of 71.

Florida ranks seventh, with a large police force of 55,310 officers, including 8,310 first-line supervisors, and an arrest rate near 3,700 per 100K.

New Hampshire takes eighth place with 252 officers per 100K residents and an arrest rate of 3,385 per 100K, earning a score of 68.

Tennessee follows in ninth place, reporting 245 officers per 100K and an arrest rate of 3,523 per 100K. Finally, Alabama rounds out the top ten with 269 officers per 100K, 12,600 patrol officers, and a Crime Arrest Risk Score of 67.

“The criminal justice system can vary significantly from state to state, leading to differing approaches in handling crimes. Arrest rate variations across states may stem from differences in state laws, sentencing guidelines, and enforcement priorities, all of which impact how offenses are handled. In such a complex legal environment, having experienced legal counsel is crucial for ensuring fair treatment and safeguarding one’s rights,” a spokesperson from Summit Defense Criminal Lawyers concluded. 

You can view the whole study here. 

Authored by Ana Kasperian via RealClearInvestigations,

Francesca Padilla was awakened by the sound of screaming people and breaking glass. Soon she could hear the tortured howls of her neighbor’s dog Togo as the bungalow right next to her Venice home was engulfed in flames.  

“It was yelping so loud–the sound isn’t the usual dog sound–it was suffering,” another neighbor told a local newspaper. “It was suffering.” The homeowner, Dr. Courtney Gillenwater, a pediatrician, was at work when the fire started around 3 a.m.  Her neighbors tried and failed to break into her bungalow to rescue Togo. But the Husky-mix ultimately died, and Gillenwater’s home in this Los Angeles neighborhood was destroyed.

Gillenwater suspected that drug addicts from the growing homeless encampment nearby started the April 2021 fire because she had asked city officials to remove a dumpster behind her house where they would congregate. 

Her neighbor, Padilla, also believes the homeless were the culprits. “Anyone can see the correlation between homeless encampments and the rise of fires,” she said. “We have people cooking drugs out in the open right across the street. Is that not a recipe for disaster?”

Initially, firefighters with the Los Angeles Fire Department also suspected arson, telling reporters candidly at the time that they believed someone threw something over Gillenwater’s fence to start the fire. But soon the department issued a statement declaring in euphemistic bureaucratese that “there is no evidence that indicates the involvement of a person experiencing homelessness.” Four years later, the cause of the blaze remains officially unsolved. 

The 2021 fire is now viewed by some Los Angeles residents as a symbol of the city’s failure to control the spread of homeless encampments that have become a major cause of fires in the city. While LA’s leaders have been quick to point to climate change and faulty power lines for the recent historic fires that razed large swaths of the city, critics say they have intentionally downplayed the role played by the city’s swelling homeless population.

A new investigation by KCAL News using LAFD data found that since 2019, the number of fires connected to a homeless person has increased by the thousands. In 2024 alone, there were nearly 17,000 such fires.

A separate investigation by NBC4’s I-Team tallied nearly 14,000 homeless fires a year earlier. The report found that some of the fires were sparked as a result of encampments illegally tapping into the city’s electrical system to power items in their tents. Regardless, the upward trend in these types of fires is clear. The 13,909 homeless fires in 2023 were nearly double the number in 2020 when 43% of all citywide fire incidents involved a homeless person. Today, more than half of the fires do, even as the homeless account for less than 1% of the city’s population.

Gigi Graciette, a reporter for Fox 11 television, says fire officials have been advised to evade questions about homeless fires from local journalists.  “Even when [high-ranking fire officials] know for a fact how a fire … was indeed connected to an encampment or to an unhoused individual, they are not to say that,” Graciette said during a February 21 broadcast. “They are just to say it’s under investigation,” she continued.

Graciette noted that “many chiefs, many battalion chiefs, many captains are extremely frustrated to see their men and their women risking their lives on fires” at the same encampments repeatedly, including one whose squatters have taken over an abandoned office building in the working class neighborhood of Van Nuys. “It was there that a battalion chief told me ‘we’ve been to this one building ten times and I’m not allowed to speak about it,’ “ Graciette said. “That’s just the politics at play here.”

Fire officials do speak up from time to time, as did Capt. Freddy Escobar, president of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, last June after fire crews responded to a homeless encampment fire that has recurred at the same site in the Sepulveda Basin. In highlighting the department’s frustration with city leadership, Escobar described how fire crews were expected to respond to the same encampment fire over and over again. “It was caused by the homeless and we nearly lost a firefighter over this,” he said. “I’m asking the city of Los Angeles, where is the outrage for what’s happening in the city? Because what we’re doing today is not working.”

A dozen firefighters were injured due to a sudden explosion as they battled the blaze. One member of the fire crew sustained severe injuries, including head trauma and a severed ear, which had to be reattached by doctors after he was airlifted to a nearby hospital. The Los Angeles Police Department later confirmed that multiple suspicious devices were found at the encampment where the fire started, preventing fire crews from returning. Instead, a helicopter was used to douse the fire with water and extinguish the blaze.

Located in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, the Sepulveda Basin is surrounded by parks, fields for competitive sports and a long bike path. The area is also home to the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve, a favorite among local birdwatchers due to its diverse variety of avian species. 

Last June, San Fernando Valley Audubon Society treasurer Pat Bates told the Los Angeles Daily News that her organization had been worried about the fire risk posed by the makeshift multi-story structures, propane tanks and construction materials they’ve discovered throughout the wildlife reserve. She and her colleagues estimated that roughly 150 people were living there, with some in desperate need of mental health treatment. 

The president of the SFV Audubon Society even recalled witnessing a screaming man waving a machete during a recent field trip for around a dozen third-grade students. No one was harmed. But the incident highlighted what Escobar put bluntly: what the city is doing is not working. Bates agrees. “We are very frustrated,” she said. “Why is anybody allowed to bring construction materials in and live there?”

Bates isn’t the only one asking such questions. Business owners and residents alike have been lobbying local leaders to be proactive and do something about the risks associated with the open fires commonly seen in encampments. Among the critics is commercial property owner John Alley, who is furious that open fires continue to be an issue in Santa Monica and Westlake, where the city’s notoriously crime-ridden MacArthur Park is located.

“Every night, on the sidewalks across MacArthur Park and in MacArthur Park, there’s two types of fires,” Alley says he told L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. “There’s the fires which are used to cook meth and the others are used to stay warm,” Alley continued. 

Bass called Alley on January 4, mere days before massive wind-fueled fires tore through and leveled the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. “I said [to Bass] there’s going to be a problem there, and if these fires burn buildings and people die, it’d be very embarrassing for you Mayor to have to come back early.”

Alley secretly recorded his exchange with Bass and felt justified in doing so because he “felt my life and the safety of my tenants and their hard-working employees were in danger.” Alley says the crime in the area, including drug trafficking, shootings and stabbings, has gotten so bad that police often refuse to escort firefighters in MacArthur Park for protection. “If firefighters don’t have their backs covered, they’re not going to be safe,” Alley asserted. “But the problem is the police … are staying two and three blocks away from the park at night. The police are afraid, not enough of them.”

Mayor Bass did not respond to RealClearInvestigations’ request for comment for this article.

Alley’s claims have been brushed off by anti-police activists as nothing more than paranoid musings. In reality, the gang MS-13 has had a foothold in MacArthur Park for years, and several transgender sex workers have been stabbed to death by gang members seeking to rid the area of them. But they’re not the only victims. For decades, gang members have been charging a weekly fee to street vendors, drug dealers, sex workers, homeless individuals and even legal business owners in the area. In 2021 the Los Angeles Times detailed a horrific incident involving the killing of a 3-week-old baby who was struck by gunfire after 18th Street gang members opened fire on a street vendor who refused to pay them $50. 

A 2023 report commissioned by the LAFD detailed the challenges facing the Fire Department in dealing with its the high volume of homeless-related calls. Aside from battling blazes, the LAFD also responds to medical emergencies throughout the city, which has proven to spread their resources thin in the context of an ever-expanding homeless population. 

“Over the course of late 2021 and into 2022, the City and County rolled out a pilot project for the delivery of alternative, non-urgent patient care—including mental health and homeless program diversion; however, this is not enough,” the report stated. “The alternative response program needs to scale massively and quickly to lower the workload placed on fire units back down to moderate and serious emergencies.”

Two Calls Per Hour

To highlight how homeless-related emergency calls were overburdening the LAFD, the report cited that “in 2020, Fire Station 9 in the east downtown area responded to 18,986 incidents—an average of 52 per day, or two per hour,” and recommended that the city “shift low-acuity EMS incidents from firefighter-staffed rescue ambulances in very high-incident-demand areas to non-firefighter-staffed, low-acuity units to include medical, mental health care, and homeless resources.” 

Further, the report recommended that “well over 100 new non-firefighter personnel must be hired” for homeless response measures. Two years later, data show that the LAFD continues to be more severely understaffed than almost any other major city, with only one firefighter for every 1,000 residents. By comparison, other major cities like Chicago, Dallas and Houston have closer to two firefighters per capita. 

“This is a woefully understaffed fire department,” Escobar said during a tearful interview with CNN last January. “We’re either going to have a fire department that’s going to reflect 2025, or we’re going to have a fire department that’s going to reflect the 1960s.” 

Ironically, data show that the LAFD was actually better-staffed back then. In a December 2024 memo that has since been deleted from the city’s website, former Fire Chief Kristin Crowley drew attention to the fact that the city has fewer fire stations today than it did in 1960 despite the population growing from 2.5 million to 4 million by 2020. 

Bass faced fierce backlash after having slashed more than $17.5 million from the Fire Department’s operational budget months before January’s devastating wildfires. But she still denies the cuts despite overwhelming evidence otherwise. 

In fact, the Mayor originally proposed trimming LAFD funding by $23 million for fiscal year 2024-2025. But that plan was never adopted. Later, a leaked memo City Hall sent to division fire chiefs and captains, following a tense meeting between Bass and Crowley one day before the fires, communicated that the Mayor was looking for an additional $49 million in cuts. The memo suggested that as many as 16 fire stations could shutter, but also clarified that “this is a worst-case scenario and is NOT happening yet.” 

Nevertheless, the eventual $17.5 million cut from the department’s operational budget did hamper the LAFD’s response to the fires. It resulted in firings of civilian workers, for example, including mechanics who repair fire trucks. In announcing Crowley’s demotion later, Mayor Bass claimed that “a thousand firefighters could have been on duty the morning the fires broke” but “were sent home.” Bass did not mention the department’s 75 fire trucks that were sitting idle because mechanics were not available to repair them. 

Burning Acreage, and Money for Homeless

The city has endured annual increases in both the number of fires and acres burned, but Bass has consistently dedicated more taxpayer resources to nonprofits serving the homeless than to the LAFD, which is tasked with protecting millions of people. While $837 million was budgeted for the fire department in fiscal year 2023-2024, $1.3 billion was allocated for the homeless. As with the fire budget, funding for homelessness was also reduced in the 2024-2025 budget, but its amount was still higher than that of the LAFD.

Also of concern is how the city’s homeless funding is being spent. A new audit commissioned by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter shows that the city has failed to track the performance of homeless programs that received a total of $2.4 billion in grants. Auditors argue that the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which chooses grantees, lacked “uniform data standards and real-time oversight” and that “increased the risk of resource misallocation and limited the ability to assess the true impact of homelessness assistance services.”

The audit maintained that LAHSA’s missing data and lack of oversight “made it challenging” to determine how program funds were used and “whether they achieved the intended outcomes.”

One example highlighted in the audit was a nearly $2.1 million contract LAHSA head Va Lecia Adams Kellum approved for Upward Bound House’s housing assistance program. Adams Kellum breached ethics rules by approving the contract because her husband holds a senior position with the organization. But LAHSA made two amendments to the organization’s existing contracts to increase the grant amount to $2.4 million. The latest judge-mandated audit found that LAHSA had no performance reports for Upward Bound House.

Bass has little to show for the many billions she has poured into alleviating the homeless crisis. A federally mandated annual count found that 75,312 people were homeless on any given night across the county in January 2024. That represented a slight 0.3% improvement from the year before when the homeless tally totalled 75,518 people. And while the fire department was suffering from chronic underfunding, city comptroller Kenneth Mejia discovered that $513 million of the $1.3 billion in homeless funding was never spent. 

LAFD’s Honorary Fire Chief Paul Scrivano speculated that the city’s failed approach was not the bug but a feature of their leadership. “If the problem goes away, the money goes away,” Scrivano said on the Wisenuts Podcast. “So, the problem will never go away. This is an industry.”

A little over a year after the Venice fire took the dog Togo’s life, in October 2022, one hundred firefighters battled for more than 80 minutes to put out another fire in Venice that locals say was started by the homeless. A home that was under renovation was completely destroyed and five others sustained serious damage. Neighbor Glenn Searle says he personally witnessed several homeless individuals entering the property that was being renovated. “I can say that all day before there were homeless living in here and using the toilet all day,” he revealed to CBS. When asked if the Fire Department had any suspicion that the blaze was started by a homeless person, an LAFD spokesperson had “no comment.”

Pilots of a Delta flight that crashed spectacularly at Toronto’s Pearson Airport last month received a critical warning of a rapid descent less than three seconds before slamming onto the runway and flipping upside-down in a fiery wreck, new findings reveal.

The dramatic crash occurred Feb. 17 when Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 – operated by regional carrier Endeavor Air – made a catastrophic landing at Pearson after arriving from Minneapolis, according to a preliminary report by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB).

All 76 passengers and four crew members managed to survive the terrifying incident, though 21 were injured and hospitalized. Miraculously, everyone was released within days.

Investigators revealed Wednesday that the plane’s ground proximity alert system sounded a frantic warning just 2.6 seconds before touchdown, registering an alarming descent rate of 1,100 feet per minute – above Transport Canada’s maximum allowable rate of 1,000 feet per minute for commercial landings.

The aircraft was hurtling toward the runway at roughly 250 kilometers per hour (136 knots) just moments before disaster struck.

Upon impact, the plane’s landing gear collapsed, ripping off a wing and triggering a dangerous jet-fuel leak that instantly ignited, engulfing the craft in flames as it skidded violently down the runway. The plane then rolled sharply onto its right side and flipped upside-down, shearing off a significant portion of its tail.

“The flight crew had to exit through the emergency hatch located on the ceiling of the cockpit,” TSB lead investigator Ken Webster revealed in a chilling video update.

Seconds after emergency responders cleared the plane of all passengers, a powerful explosion erupted near the left wing. Investigators are still probing its mysterious cause.

Initial inspections uncovered no obvious mechanical defects or issues with flight controls. The TSB’s continuing investigation will focus on metallurgical analysis of the damaged wing, pilot training, landing protocols, cabin safety procedures, and passenger evacuation.

“This investigation will take some time, as many questions remain unanswered,” Webster admitted, adding “The TSB will continue to work toward determining the full sequence of events that led to the accident.”

In response to the harrowing ordeal, Delta has offered survivors $30,000 each in “no strings attached” compensation. But the drama doesn’t stop there—at least two lawsuits have already been filed stateside, with a Canadian law firm reporting multiple passengers have hired them seeking further damages.

The TSB’s investigation—backed by the FAA, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, Delta’s incident response team, and Mitsubishi (the aircraft’s manufacturer)—continues, promising more explosive revelations in the weeks to come.

Authored by Selena Zito via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Small businesses have been the backbone of the United States since its founding. The Hotel Saxonburg, which has also been known as the Vogeley House, the Belvedere House, the Laube House and the Central Hotel, opened in 1835 and has lasted most of our nation’s existence.

Yesterday, the new owners abruptly closed the hotel after purchasing it two years ago. This not only shuttered the historic restaurant and hotel that served as a cultural touchstone for nearly 200 years, but it also caused people to lose their jobs.

Because the business was small, those job losses, likely around 50 people total, were a statistic that didn’t gain attention from the national press. However, when you consider that more people in the U.S. work for small businesses than any other sector, those numbers start to add up.

According to the Small Business Administration, which draws its data from the U.S. Census Bureau, over 60 percent of U.S. businesses are small businesses. They range from employing a handful of people (think your favorite food truck) to 100 people (think a local machine shop).

Before 2020, most Americans worked for small businesses that employed under 500 people. The last four years have upended that number. Now, only 53 percent of Americans work for businesses with 500 or more workers.

In short, the U.S. is no longer a nation of small businesses. In February, the Business Dynamics Statistics from the Census Bureau showed that shift. It also showed that the biggest change of all has been the increase in the number of people working for companies with 10,000 or more workers and the decrease in the number of people working at firms with under 100 workers.

Case in point: Last year, there was a story about a local independent grocery, Ferri’s, that closed after 70 years in a snowball effect that began with the unexpected shuttering of the small independent pharmacy located inside the grocery.

The beloved family grocery posted a note on the building’s large glass front windows and on Facebook, saying they were closing “with a heavy heart” after serving as “a cornerstone of our community and … fostering connections that have spanned generations.”

Ferri’s general manager, Gary Silvestri, said the loss of rent and traffic from the pharmacy had a significant impact, as it was 20 percent of the grocer’s business.

Another factor was the economic pressure of Target being located a couple of miles to the east, Walmart a few miles to the west, and Giant Eagle, a massive local grocery store chain, within a half mile of Ferri’s. All three of those companies employ well over 10,000 people and have the buying-power advantage to lower prices over a mom-and-pop grocery.

Jeff Hastings of Wholesale Central, the leading publisher of content for the wholesale merchandise industry, wrote that ever since the dawn of the big-box store in 1962, the year Walmart, Kmart and Target all opened their doors, small local businesses, from hardware stores to clothing and shoe stores to pharmacies and groceries, have struggled to compete.

He cited the 2006 Walmart move into the west side of Chicago as an example. Eighty-two local stores went out of business and cost an estimated 300 retail jobs in neighboring ZIP codes.

It isn’t just groceries, restaurants or hotels that are falling to larger entities with 10 to 100 employees. Small local gas stations, clothing stores and even small insurance companies that either close or merge with larger companies are also losing ground as big companies expand.

Locals in Saxonburg were sad that the hotel closed and that people lost their jobs, but they also felt confident that someone would come along and revive the historic hotel and restaurant as a gathering place for the community and visitors.

The good news for small businesses, and why many economic experts expect a turnaround, is the surge in construction, manufacturing, retail, and service industries in January of this year. Optimism levels exceed the 51-year average, according to the latest Small Business Economic Trends survey from the National Federation of Independent Business Research Center.

That quarterly report revealed that the overall small business population is signaling renewed confidence despite persistent economic challenges. That just might turn around this current trend.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

The US might also share India’s concerns that a hidden Pakistani hand is playing a role in all of this…

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard sparked a scandal when she recently told Indian media during her trip to the country that Trump 2.0 is concerned about the persecution of minorities and growing caliphate threats in Bangladesh. That country’s interim authorities predictably denied that either is a problem, which prompted a State Department spokesman to remind them that “We’re watching.” This back-and-forth shows that the future of their ties is no longer as clear-cut as before.

Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, many Indian observers, and a sizeable number of foreign ones believe that the US played a role in Bangladesh’s regime change sequence last summer. 

Trump claimed that “There was no role for our deep state” when asked about this last month during Modi’s visit, but regardless of whether he’s taken at his word, Tulsi’s comments show that the US is no longer giving Bangladesh’s new rulers a blank check. They might even sanction them if the situation deteriorates.

Their interests in minority rights there might stem from a desire to repair the damage that the last administration dealt to bilateral ties by championing what’s now India’s top cause in Bangladesh, which is in spite of possibly pressuring it on tariffs and trade, while the caliphate one is of more direct importance. Hasina was a heavy-handed secular leader who was overthrown by Islamist-instigated street violence and the “Arab Spring” precedent shows that such regime changes usually end badly with time.

Bangladesh has long struggled to contain radical Islamist sentiment within its society, but the new authorities no longer share their predecessors’ threat assessment of such movements, instead partnering with them to legitimize the new order that came to power after Hasina fled to India. That’s problematic from the US’ perspective and is made all the more worrying by reports that Bangladesh has since improved its ties with Pakistan, including in the military and possibly also intelligence domains too.

Readers can learn more about this from the BBC’s recent article here. 

Its relevance to Tulsi’s comments is that the caliphate part could be connected to allegations that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which has a history of cultivating radical Islamist movements across South Asia, might be plotting to use Bangladesh as a launch pad for waging another Hybrid War on India. If true and anything tangibly comes of it, then this could worsen Indo-Bangladeshi ties, destabilize the region, and complicate US policy.

It’s beyond the scope of this analysis to describe India’s vulnerability to externally exacerbated identity conflicts, which often take terrorist and separatist forms, but it’s enough for casual observers to know that Bangladeshi-based groups have a history of stirring trouble in West Bengal and the Northeast. India also believes that past iterations were tied to the ISI’s activities in Bangladesh that were tacitly approved by its former Islamo-nationalist governments as a means of jointly balancing India in asymmetrical ways.

The way in which last summer’s regime change unfolded and the nature of the interim authorities that came to power have rekindled these concerns, which Trump 2.0 also takes seriously as proven by Tulsi’s comments. So-called “rogue activity” by Pakistan, which includes its long-range missile program and cultivation of radical Islamists in Bangladesh who persecute minorities with impunity, won’t be tolerated. Continued movement in this direction risks further complicating already difficult US-Pakistani ties.

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An FBI agent who accused the bureau of political bias during President Donald Trump’s first administration has been arrested on charges related to the alleged unauthorized disclosure of confidential information.

Johnathan Buma, a 15-year veteran of the FBI, was taken into custody on Monday at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport while waiting to board a flight out of the country, according to his charging documents filed on Tuesday.

According to court filings, Buma allegedly shared internal documents and other sensitive information when he circulated a draft of a book about his career as an FBI agent among his associates.

“The book draft contained information that Buma obtained through his position as an FBI Special Agent that relates to the FBI’s efforts and investigations into a foreign country’s weapons of mass destruction program,” a criminal complaint reads.

The complaint alleges that beginning in October 2023, Buma “printed approximately 130 files from the FBI’s internal network,” some of which contained classified details from confidential informants. Several of these documents were “clearly marked with warnings” indicating they were protected information.

Buma also printed nine documents containing text that had been “copied and pasted from reports” that were marked as protected information and contained information from confidential informants, the complaint alleges.

After obtaining the materials, Buma allegedly informed FBI supervisors of his intention to take unpaid leave before departing from his office. Authorities said that in the ensuing months, he circulated a draft of his book via email to several individuals assisting him in negotiating a book deal and purported to authorize them to share confidential information.

The charges were filed in the U.S. Central District of California, where Buma has a home.

Buma spoke out against the FBI prior to the alleged misconduct. In July 2023, he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, accusing senior bureau officials of suppressing intelligence related to his investigations into Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani and claimed he faced retaliation as a result.

“I do not fully understand why I have been singled out for this treatment nor who exactly is driving it,” Buma said in a testimony to the Senate committee. “But my strong suspicion is that one or more of my sources provided truthful, accurate information that is harmful to a person or persons that higher-ups in the Bureau are trying to shield.”

In a September 2023 interview with Business Insider, Buma recounted an incident from four years earlier when he had presented information to a supervisor at the FBI’s Los Angeles field office regarding potential criminal activity in the business dealings of Hunter Biden, son of former President Joe Biden, with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Buma said his boss was “very interested” and “adamant” about pursuing the case.

In the same meeting, according to Buma, his supervisor immediately shut him down after he suggested that Giuliani might have been “compromised” in a Russian counter-influence operation.

In November 2023, the FBI searched Buma’s California home as part of an investigation into his handling of classified information. Scott Horton, an attorney representing Buma at the time, denied any wrongdoing and insisted that the search yielded no classified materials.

Buma’s attorney in this case could not be immediately reached for comment.

The U.S. Department of Justice didn’t respond to a request for comment by publication time.

On Thursday Russia’s southern Saratov region suffered its largest drone attack of the war from Ukraine, with the  Engels-2 airfield being impacted by another direct hit.

The base which is known for hosting Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bombers has been targeted several times since the war began in 2022. Photos to emerge of the fresh attack show a large fireball lighting up the sky.

“Due to a fire at the [Engels] airfield, residents of a nearby farming co-op are being evacuated for safety reasons,” Saratov region Governor Roman Busargin announced.

Busargin further characterized it as the “largest ever” drone assault on the Saratov region since the war began. Other regions of Russia were also hit.

In total Russia’s defense ministry said the military intercepted 132 Ukrainian drones overnight across six regions and Crimea, also including shoot-downs of 54 over Saratov alone.

The overnight strikes happened not long after Presidents Zelensky and Trump help a phone call Wednesday, where in the Ukrainian leader said he’s open to a partial ceasefire. 

Russian Telegram channels report this morning that Engels-2 airbase—home to Russia’s Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers, which regularly launch missile attacks onto the people of Ukraine—is now facing serious difficulties. pic.twitter.com/6uijALSmNq

— SPRAVDI — Stratcom Centre (@StratcomCentre) March 20, 2025

However, both sides are still accusing the other of stalling tactics at this point:

Mr. Zelensky has characterized some of the Kremlin’s proposals as stalling tactics to maneuver for military advantage and a better deal from Mr. Trump. On Thursday morning, he suggested the same in noting that Russian attacks had not stopped.

“Every day and every night up to a hundred drones and missile attacks also do not stop,” he wrote on Telegram. “With every such strike Russia shows the world its real attitude to peace.”

As for damage at Engels, the regional governor has described that 30 residential homes were damaged in the attack. The base and town are located some 500 miles southeast of Moscow. The damage is so significant as an ammunition depot was believed struck.

Russian Telegram channels report the largest drone attack on Russian Engels and Saratov, according to the local governor.

It is reported that evacuation was announced in the area of the local airfield (it hosts Russian strategic bombers that attack Ukraine). pic.twitter.com/SyqnzQQ4tH

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) March 20, 2025

“Footage from the attack showed a huge plume of smoke rising from the base and an intense blaze,” Newsweek describes “Other footage showed that the blast completely destroyed some homes, tearing off roofs and blowing them across the street.”