pelespirit

The United States military has overseen scores of secretive ship-to-ship oil transfers to keep Gulf energy exports flowing, using aerial and water drones as well as helicopters in an operation to guide convoys to awaiting tankers.

The operation on the edge of the Strait of Hormuz employs a shuttling technique long used by Iran to skirt sanctions. Two specific locations where the oil transfers take place were identified by 11 people familiar with the operation – one off the coast of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates and the ​other off Oman’s port of Sohar. It started in early May, and at least 92 ships have been involved in the transfers, according to shipping data and satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters.

But Hildebrand, a major Trump donor whose wife had been named ambassador to Costa Rica, had already seen how loyalty could be rewarded. Even though he had no notable operations outside the U.S., he hunched toward a microphone and said in a halting voice, “Hilcorp is fully committed and ready to go to rebuilding the infrastructure in Venezuela.”

“That’s good,” Trump said. “You’ll be very happy.”

As the founder and owner of Hilcorp, a privately held company known for buying up old, low-producing “stripper wells,” Hildebrand needs Trump’s favor. Long one of the oil industry’s top polluters, Hilcorp releases unusually large quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas that can trap 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide.

Just under $300 million was tagged as coming from “private sources,” the newspaper reported Tuesday. Taxpayers remain on the hook for the rest—with $155 million coming through the Secret Service, another $149 million through the White House Military Office, and $3 million through the Executive Residence.

5:34: Joe Rogan is, of course, in attendance in Washington, D.C. He’s in a suit (presumably out of respect). His tie is very short.

5:54: Lopes vs. Garcia starts, and I finally get to see the Cosm UFC concept fully fleshed out. If anything the shakiness of the cameras mounted on the octagon helps with immersion, creating the illusion that you can feel the heft of the fighters’ as they dance around one another. It quickly ends with a decisive knockout by Lopes. In the final moments of the fight, I notice my eyes have been gravitating toward the TV-style displays against my will. Maybe my instinct is to push back against “immersion” in this experience, but I’m not sure that’s the issue.

FBI Director Kash Patel may have authorized taxpayer-funded special payments to his inner circle of FBI executives and agents on his protective detail, according to the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

“We have been receiving troubling reports that you may be using part of the budget of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a personal slush fund to make tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in unlawful ‘bonus’ payments to loyalist MAGA henchmen who have engaged in misconduct,” says a letter from Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., to Patel, obtained exclusively by MS NOW.

Committee Democrats have information that Patel has issued more than $1 million in awards, the letter says. The letter says the money went to special agents serving on his Director’s Advisory Team, which Raskin’s letter describes as “a curated group of agents who are willing to carry out your unlawful partisan and personal orders.” It also went to agents on Patel’s security detail, “circumventing the mandatory maximum pay caps established by statute,” the letter says.

After Texas, Florida has the largest number of agreements nationwide, according to ICE data. Under a law passed by the state’s Republican-led legislature last year, county detention facilities, like the one in Pinellas County, are required to enroll in the 287(g) program. And the law’s language—as many residents, immigrant advocates, and attorneys have pointed out in the last year—doesn’t specify that cities and their police departments must participate in 287(g).

But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration have pressured local officials to sign up. In Fort Myers, for instance, council members received a threatening letter from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier when their 3-3 deadlock vote prevented the city from entering into an ICE agreement. “This action constitutes a serious and direct violation of Florida Law,” he wrote in the letter. He cited a state law that bans “sanctuary policies.” “Failure to correct the Council’s actions will result in the enforcement of all applicable civil and criminal penalties, including but not limited to being held in contempt, declaratory or injunctive relief, and removal from office by the Governor.” The city council ultimately approved the agreement.

Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, a Trump administration adviser on intelligence issues who recently stepped down from two senior national security positions, previously helped her father secure at least $12 million from a Russian investment bank that cooperated with the Kremlin, leaked documents show.

Kennedy, a former CIA officer, was involved in the deal in 2009 and 2010 as head of an offshore corporation owned by her father. She was employed as a spy during those years, according to media reporting.

The documents show that as president of the British Virgin Islands-registered Helios Enterprises Limited, Kennedy was involved in an effort on behalf of her father, Hodson Thornber, to pressure a Moscow-based investment bank to fulfill a 2008 agreement to pay roughly $30 million for Helios’ shares in a large Ukrainian agricultural company. The Russian bank, Renaissance Capital, included former senior Russian intelligence officers in its top ranks.

Much of President Donald Trump’s name was removed from the facade of Washington’s Kennedy Center overnight after a federal judge issued an order. The tarp covering the performing arts venue is still up.

The Trump administration has barred Los Angeles County’s main homelessness agency from accessing federal funds while it investigates the agency’s alleged “wanton mismanagement of public funds.”

The move puts at risk almost $200 million that LA area service providers count on to help California’s largest homeless population.