It's Been Reported

Convicted Democrat Election Fraudster Is Appointed Vice Mayor Of Arizona City (Daily Mail) — A local politician who was convicted of ballot fraud has been named the vice mayor of San Luis, Arizona at a city council meeting last month. Democrat Gloria Torres was appointed in December to her new post, just six months after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy and ballot abuse dating back to the controversial 2020 election. The serious election charges were brought following a two-year investigation by the State Attorney General's Office and the Yuma County Sheriff's Office into evidence that Torres and others conducted illegal ballot harvesting during the July 2020 primary election. Hidden video surveillance footage turned over by two vigilant residents of Yuma became the key piece of evidence that led to the convictions of Torres, Nadia Guadalupe Lizarraga-Mayorquin, former San Luis Mayor Guillermina Fuentes, and Alma Yadira Juarez. Torres was ultimately handed a two-year supervised probation sentence, after which she shockingly chose to remain in local government, a decision that underscored the issue of corruption in local government. See full story	Incredible! Navy Service Member Who Sold Secrets To China Sentenced To Just 27 Months In Prison (Daily Wire) — A Navy service member was sentenced to just over two years in prison after he pled guilty to being bribed to send sensitive military information to a Chinese intelligence officer. Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao, a 26-year-old from Monterey Park, California, was sentenced to just 27 months in prison and ordered to pay a $5,500 fine after his guilty plea for one count of conspiring with an intelligence officer and one count of receiving a bribe. Zhao could have faced up to 20 years in prison, 15 years for the conspiracy charge and 5 years for the bribery charge. “Mr. Zhao betrayed his solemn oath to defend his country and endangered those who serve in the U.S. military,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “Today, he is being held to account for those crimes. The Justice Department is committed to combating the Chinese government’s efforts to undermine our nation’s security and holding accountable those who violate our laws as part of those efforts.” He was paid at least $14,866 by a Chinese intelligence officer for sending information on the U.S. Navy operational security, military trainings and exercises, and critical infrastructure, according to the DOJ. See full story
Sen. Blackburn Requests Subpoena Of Epstein’s Flight Logs, Maxwell’s ‘Little Black Book’ (The Epoch Times) — Her letter comes as the Southern District of New York is set to unseal names in Virginia Giuffre’s lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) is asking Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to help her secure a subpoena for additional documents revealing disgraced former billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s associates. Her request came on the same day, Jan. 3, that a federal judge was set to unseal the identities of 157 people named in Virginia Giuffre’s civil lawsuit against Mr. Epstein’s former friend and alleged trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In a letter to Mr. Durbin, Ms. Blackburn requested subpoenas for the FBI and Mr. Epstein’s estate to obtain Ms. Maxwell’s notorious “little black book,” as well as unredacted flight logs. She said the unsealing scheduled for Jan. 3 was “a critically important step forward in providing Mr. Epstein’s victims the transparency and justice they deserve.” On X, formerly known as Twitter, she also stated that the “American people deserve transparency.” See full story	Iran Seizes Oil Tanker Involved In U.S.-Iran Dispute In Gulf Of Oman (Reuters) — Iran seized a tanker with Iraqi crude destined for Turkey on Thursday in retaliation for the confiscation last year of the same vessel and its oil by the U.S., Iranian state media reported, a move likely to stoke regional tensions. The seizure of the Marshall Islands-flagged St Nikolas coincides with weeks of attacks by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi militias targeting Red Sea shipping routes. "After the theft of Iranian oil by the United States last year, St Nikolas tanker was seized by Iran's Navy this morning with a judicial order ... it is en route to Iranian ports," the semi-official Fars news agency reported, citing a statement by the Navy. In Washington, the Pentagon said Iranian forces unlawfully boarded the St Nikolas in the Gulf of Oman and forced it to change course toward Iranian territorial waters. See full story
Family Man Gunned Down In Front Of Wife And Son Was Actually A Hitman Wanted By Interpol (Fox News) — A Serbian man executed in front of his family last week in Brazil has now been identified as a hitman wanted by Interpol for multiple contract killings. "Investigations showed that he lived here clandestinely and under a false Slovenian name," the lead officer on the investigation, Luiz Ricardo Lara Dias Jr., told reporters on Friday. Dias Jr. said that Interpol wanted the man for nearly a decade and that police believe his murder may be related to his criminal past. Local police this week identified the victim as Darko Geisler, 43, after consulting with the Slovenian consulate in São Paulo based on the passport found on the victim -- only to learn that the passport did not belong to him, but to a Slovenian citizen who lost it in 2017. Reverse-searching for Geisler’s photos online helped police identify him as a Serbian hitman wanted in Montenegro for multiple homicides and possession of weapons and explosives, Jam Press reported. Montenegrin authorities confirmed that Geisler was a contract killer. See full story	Cockpit Window Crack Forces ANA Boeing Flight In Japan To Turn Around (Fox Business) — A Japanese domestic flight was forced to turn around and land on Saturday after a crack was found on the cockpit window of the Boeing 737-800 aircraft in midair, an airline spokesperson said. All Nippon Airways (ANA) Flight 1182 took off from Sapporp-New Chitose airport headed for Toyama airport, about 700 miles to the south, but reversed course after the crack was discovered on the outermost of four layers of windows surrounding the cockpit, the spokesperson said. There were no injuries reported among the 59 passengers and six crew, according to the ANA spokesperson. "The crack was not something that affected the flight's control or pressurization," the spokesperson said. The plane was a different model from Boeing's 737 MAX 9 airplanes, which have made headlines in recent weeks. On Jan. 5, a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 in midair, which forced the plane to make an emergency landing. See full story
Fire Destroys Russian Warehouse For Country's Behemoth Retailer As Workers Scramble In Horror (Fox News) — A huge fire tore through an online retailer's warehouse in St. Petersburg in Russia on Saturday with video showing intense flames and thick black smoke rising high into the clear morning sky. Nearly 300 firefighters and dozens of fire engines, as well as helicopters, battled to put out the blaze, the Ministry of Emergency Situations said, as workers inside desperately ran to safety. The warehouse's owner, Wildberries, said in a statement that all its staff had been evacuated and there were no injuries. However, media outlet Baza reported on its Telegram channel that there were two people hospitalized as workers initially struggled to escape the quickly moving fire. The warehouse is located in the Pushkin district, south of St. Petersburg, the country's second city. See full story	U.S. Coast Guard Seizes 2,450 Pounds Of Cocaine Worth $32.2 Million In Caribbean Sea (Fox News) — U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Margaret Norvell crew members intercepted over 2,450 pounds of cocaine valued at about $32.2 million in the Caribbean Sea. It was offloaded in Miami on Tuesday. The narcotics were seized in international waters in two separate cases, with assistance from Cutter Richard Nixon, Cutter Dauntless and the Joint Interagency Task Force South. Also taken into custody were six suspected smugglers, who now face prosecution by the Department of Justice in federal court. … The Coast Guard said the operations were part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) designated investigations. The task force goes after high-level criminal organizations that pose a threat to the U.S. by identifying, disrupting and dismantling them using a multi-agency approach involving prosecutors. See full story
NASA's Fermi Telescope Discovers Unknown Gamma-Ray Pattern Beyond Our Galaxy (UPI) — Astronomers studying gamma rays said they have found a mysterious phenomenon just outside of the Milky Way. Researchers published the findings in study Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Alexander Kashlinsky, a cosmologist at the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt presented the research at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans. Kashlinsky's team originally was searching for a gamma-ray signal related to the cosmic microwave background, the oldest light in the universe, to determine whether or not its signal pattern is relative to the motion of our solar system. What they discovered, however, was a completely separate signal possibly originating from a yet-unidentified cosmic event. See full story	Meerkat Escapes Petting Zoo In England (UPI) — Officials with a petting zoo in England are warning the public about a meerkat on the loose in the area. Reddish Vale Farm in Stockport, near Manchester, said the male meerkat escaped overnight and is believed to be wandering somewhere in the Reddish Vale Country Park. The farm said in a Facebook post that although meerkats are "very friendly, they can bite if feeling threatened." Jordan Beckwith, the farm's manager, said the meerkat escaped through a drain hole during maintenance work. "We've been looking for him in the burrows and we've had the meerkat barking sound on and put out food to try and entice him back," Beckwith told the BBC. See full story