United States | News & Politics

there’s simply no way for the Pentagon to productively absorb that scale of resources on that timescale. Again, almost a 50% increase on a budget that is already massive in absolute and relative terms. If you think about what that scale of diversion means, you still won’t really quite grasp it, just as I’m not able to fully grasp it.

So who are they going to levy war against?

A 20-year-old man was arrested for throwing a Molotov cocktail at the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

This is exactly Republican policy

Blamed in part on climate change, the threat of water ponding in your yard or your basement is growing, a Sun-Times/WBEZ investigation has found, putting health, homes at risk.

Hegseth’s distinct combination of piety and bloodlust was most prominently on display at the 25 March worship service at the Pentagon, the first since the war in Iran began, when he prayed for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy”. The prayer was so shocking that it appears to have provoked a direct rebuke from Pope Leo, who preached on Palm Sunday that God ignores the prayers of those whose “hands are full of blood” from making war.

Hegseth will hardly mind harsh words from the head of the Catholic church, however. The 45-year-old US army veteran and former Fox News host is a member of an obscure, deeply Calvinist wing of evangelical Christianity – John Calvin broke from the Catholic church during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation – that rejects the pope’s authority and is rooted in a belief in predestination.

“They believe that nothing happens that isn’t in God’s will,” said Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida, who researches this branch of Reformed Christianity. “They believe that God directs everything that happens.”

Even a bomb falling on an elementary school full of children?

Duration - 24:50

[a video about Cuba from the news collective Belly Of The Beast]

“NeuralCIM is so effective as a new drug, this should change the narrative.”

Colorado-based physician Dr Bill Blanchet has spent years researching Cuba’s biopharmaceutical industry. He says its latest product, NeuralCIM, a breakthrough treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, could change the lives of millions of people in the United States, but is blocked by the same embargo that is claiming Cuban lives.

Over the past year, 52 of Dr Blanchet’s patients have gone through La Pradera International Clinic in Havana to receive the treatment, and he’s been monitoring their progress. The drug was approved by Cuba’s Ministry of Health in 2025 for the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s, free for Cuban citizens.

In this interview, Dr Blanchet explains the science behind the medication, how it was trialed, its potential in helping with Parkinson’s disease and traumatic brain injuries, and his outrage at how U.S. foreign policy is punishing ordinary Cubans and crippling Cuba’s healthcare system.

Watch our report on NeuralCIM here: https://youtu.be/mKHvyi1MyuA

An upcoming Belly of the Beast documentary, Teresita’s Dream, tracks the research and development of NeuralCIM. It meets the Cuban scientists behind it, focusing on Dr Teresita Rodríguez, who was driven by her mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s.

Watch the trailer here: https://youtu.be/a2Y5FBR0pnU

Help shift the conversation on Alzheimer’s - for press inquiries or to host an early screening of the film visit the Teresita’s Dream section on our website: https://www.bellyofthebeastcuba.com/teresitas-dream

A lobbying firm led by one of Donald Trump Jr.'s hunting buddies helped a Chinese company make its case to a U.S. national security watchdog, public filings show.

The case involved a U.S. startup that was seeking to have the Chinese firm removed as one of its investors. The watchdog rejected the U.S. firm's request for a national security review of the Chinese firm's investment, according to a document seen by Reuters, handing a rare win to a Chinese company in ​Washington. The decision has not previously been reported.

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The lobbying firm, Checkmate, helped a lawyer for China's Grand Pharmaceutical Group (0512.HK), opens new tab clinch a meeting with the head of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) in early January, according to two people familiar with the matter. During the meeting, ‌the lawyer argued that the case was a commercial disagreement with no national security implications, one of the people said.

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Such lobbying, by foreign or domestic companies is "very typical," according to Tim LaPira, a professor of political science at James Madison ​University. "If you want to speak to the party in power, you are going to need to hire somebody that has those partisan connections," he added.

Six China experts and three Democratic lawmakers who were informed of the situation by Reuters said the case raised concerns that Chinese companies could gain influence over the Trump administration by ​hiring lobbyists close to his orbit.

Michael Sobolik, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, said that if a Chinese company can lobby the U.S. government into siding with it against an American firm on a national security matter, "that is the ⁠height of the swamp."

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said it was "troubling that Chinese companies are hiring Trump-connected lobbyists to influence independent decisions about American national security," calling for answers on who made the decisions and what CFIUS's risk assessments of the deal found.

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