Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] American rapper and producer Sean Combs, known as P. Diddy, is living a lavish lifestyle in prison and paying other inmates for various services. NBC News reported this on September 29, citing anonymous testimony from other inmates.
According to four men who spent time with the inmate in the same cellblock, there are inmates who cook his meals, clean up after him, make his bed, and do his laundry. One of the inmates also gives Combs a Chinese-style massage.
He also uses contraband mobile phones to scroll through Instagram (owned by Meta, a banned and designated extremist organization in Russia) and view nude photos sent to him by his ex-girlfriend. He also managed to buy antidepressants, known for their mood-boosting effects, from other inmates. On weekend evenings, he often used a secret stash of premium alcohol smuggled in by guards and shared with a small group of inmates, the publication's sources said.
Combs's life behind bars comes at a cost. He spends thousands of dollars a month to maintain his lifestyle in the low-security prison, with money coming from outsiders, into the accounts of inmates who provide him with services. Among those Combs paid were a man who cleaned the toilets and showers before using them, and men who secretly prepared special meals for him—chicken curry, pizza, and empanadas (small stuffed pastries).
A Bureau of Prisons spokesman said the agency does not comment on the conditions of individual inmates for privacy, safety and security reasons.
"As with all correctional facilities, contraband, particularly cell phones, drugs and weapons, remains an ongoing problem, and we continue to address the issue of contraband entering our facilities," the spokesperson said in a statement.
On October 4, 2025, a New York court sentenced P. Diddy to four years and two months in prison. He stood trial on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation for the purpose of prostitution. In early July of that year, he was found guilty of two counts of prostitution but acquitted of the racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
On September 9, 2025, the man accused of murdering American rapper Tupac Shakur named P. Diddy as the mastermind behind the crime. Combs has repeatedly denied involvement in the rapper's shooting. He has not been charged in connection with Shakur's death. According to a Las Vegas police spokesman, he was not a suspect in the murder case.
[ShabelleMedia] Æthiopian federal forces have reportedly advanced more than 150 kilometres into the Tigray region and are moving closer to Mekelle, according to sources cited by Al Jazeera, amid renewed fighting in northern Æthiopia.
The reported advance was confirmed by sources linked to Æthiopia’s federal government and several people familiar with military movements in the area, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the sources, federal troops have retaken the towns of Mekoni, Wajena and Adi Gudom, which are reportedly about 39 kilometres from Mekelle, the regional capital.
If confirmed, the reported capture of the three towns would represent a significant advance by federal forces and bring them considerably closer to Mekelle, potentially altering the military situation in the region.
The reported movement comes after several days of heavy festivities in Tigray and neighbouring areas. The renewed fighting has raised concerns that the conflict could expand further and increase risks to civilians and regional stability.
Sources cited by Al Jazeera said federal troops had moved more than 150 kilometres into Tigray during the latest military operations, highlighting the depth of the reported advance.
Mekelle remains the political and administrative centre of Tigray and holds major strategic importance for both sides. Any further federal advance towards the city could significantly affect the balance of the conflict.
The latest developments mark a renewed escalation between Æthiopia’s federal forces and Tigrayan forces, following years of conflict and a peace agreement that ended the previous Tigray war in 2022.
The reports could not be independently verified, and details of the fighting and territorial changes remain difficult to establish because of restrictions on access to conflict areas.
Ethiopian pro-government forces claim capture of strategic town in Tigray
28-09-2026
[GaroweOnline] Æthiopia's military and allied snuffies captured the strategic town of Alamata south of Tigray's capital, a pro-government militia said on Monday, turning the tables after an opposition offensive launched from the region last week.
Video posted by the pro-government Tigrai Peace Force on its Facebook page showed soldiers marching through the streets, waving Æthiopian flags. Rooters could not immediately verify the video.
Two diplomatic sources also said the town had fallen, while a third said the pro-government forces had entered, though it was not yet clear whether they were fully in control.
A source with links to pro-opposition forces told Rooters they were retreating from Alamata and expected the town to be under the federal military's control in a matter of hours.
Spokespeople for the Æthiopian military and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which is leading the armed resistance to the federal government, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The capture of Alamata would be a major boon to federal forces as they press towards the regional capital Mekelle, about 120 km (75 miles) to the north. An important supply hub for troops, food and fuel near Tigray's southern border with the neighbouring Amhara region, Alamata exchanged hands several times during a 2020-2022 civil war.
ETHIOPIAN MILITARY ACCUSES NEIGHBOURS OF BACKING OPPOSITION
The fighting since last Wednesday in Tigray and the neighbouring regions of Amhara and Afar has shattered a four-year-old peace deal, the Pretoria Agreement, that ended fighting that killed hundreds of thousands of people.
The 2020-2022 civil war stemmed from a breakdown in relations between the TPLF, a guerrilla movement turned political party that dominated Æthiopian politics for nearly three decades, and Abiy, whose appointment as prime minister in 2018 ended the TPLF’s dominance.
In recent months, the TPLF and federal government have traded accusations of violating the November 2022 agreement. Three days before launching its offensive, the TPLF announced a new alliance with six other gangs across Æthiopia aimed at overthrowing Abiy's government.
The renewed conflict adds to instability, opens new tab in the Horn of Africa, already unsettled by Sudan ...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans... 's civil war, frictions over Red Sea access and spillover from Middle East conflicts.
In comments broadcast on state media on Sunday, the top Æthiopian military commander, Berhanu Jula, reiterated previous accusations that Æthiopia's neighbour and historical rival Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... was supporting the opposition forces, alongside Sudan's armed forces and Egypt.
Eritrea and Sudan's army have denied the allegations. No, no! Certainly not! Egypt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS REMAIN DOWN IN TIGRAY
The conflict has raised fears of a return to the humanitarian crisis experienced during the 2020-2022 war when the federal government severed communications with Tigray and access to food, cash and medicines was severely restricted.
The International Committee of the Red Thingy in Æthiopia said on Monday that it had evacuated 161 people from Mekelle to the capital of neighbouring Afar state, including African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... monitors, federal police, Æthiopian Airlines employees and Red Thingy staff.
In Tigray, internet and phone networks remained disrupted for a fourth day. Four sources told Rooters on Friday that the TPLF had ordered the networks shut down. The TPLF has not responded to requests for comment about this.
Tigray is yet to recover from the devastating humanitarian toll of the 2020-2022 war, which pushed hundreds of thousands into famine conditions. Around 750,000 Tigrayans were still internally displaced as of February, according to the UN refugee agency, and the region is facing drought linked to El Nino.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] The heads of major tech companies have agreed with US President Donald Trump to introduce a four-tiered system of oversight for the safety of advanced artificial intelligence models. The White House chief announced this on the social media platform Truth Social.
The agreement was signed by Google CEO Sundar Pinchai, Anthropic CEO Dario Amadei, Meta CEO (recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, xAI CEO Elon Musk, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
"Every company training and deploying advanced models must have robust internal processes and controls in place," the agreement states.
The companies have committed to creating their own mechanisms to monitor the capabilities of AI models and their compliance with security requirements. Particular attention will be paid to cybersecurity risks, biological and chemical threats, and preventing unintended access of models to technical systems.
Independent committees of boards of directors will provide another level of oversight. They will receive the results of internal and external audits and oversee the remediation of any identified deficiencies.
The parties to the agreement also intend to meet regularly, develop common standards, and exchange practices in the field of artificial intelligence security.
Musk has previously warned of the risks associated with the uncontrolled development of AI. According to him, the uncontrolled development of neural networks could lead to the destruction of humanity. The businessman compared the proposed future scenario to the plot of the film "Terminator."
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Ilya Maximov
[Regnum] Spain is once again rocked by mass protests. This time, the cause is not the migration issue, but a severe housing crisis.
The eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from her Madrid home sparked discontent among thousands of Spaniards. In response, Pedro Sánchez's government could think of nothing better than to plunge the country into chaos.
Abascal, who uses a wheelchair, has lived in her Madrid apartment for almost her entire life—71 years. Her father rented the place back in 1956, and after her parents' death, the lease passed to her.
The previous owners voluntarily decided to allow the elderly woman to continue renting the space under favorable terms by today's market standards. The last lease agreement was signed in 2008, with a monthly rent of 500 euros.
However, in 2018, the building was acquired by the investment fund Urbagestión, and the rent skyrocketed from €500 to €2,650 per month. The new owner later lowered it to €1,650, but the pensioner couldn't afford to pay that much—her pension is only €1,350.
On September 23, police evicted the woman on her fourth attempt. The previous three attempts had been blocked by the courts, but the Supreme Court ultimately sided with the owner.
Getting the Spanish woman to leave the premises wasn't easy—protesters blocked the area around her building, the staircase leading to her apartment, and even barricaded themselves inside the home with the pensioner. All these measures only succeeded in delaying the police, and they ultimately accomplished their task.
They had to carry Abascal out on a stretcher. She was hospitalized in a state of stress and exhaustion.
The story was widely covered in the media and on social media, bringing thousands of people out onto the streets.
Some protesters pitched tents in Madrid's Puerta del Sol, their informal slogan: "Either the rentier economy or the government will fall." Initially, there were only a dozen tents, but by Monday there were already over three hundred.
Similar camps also sprang up in Seville, Málaga, Santiago de Compostela, and Palma, with protests also taking place in Ávila, Barcelona, Cádiz, Oviedo, Seville, and Valencia. Participants chanted, "The investors are to blame, the government is responsible!"
Young people have become the driving force behind the protests. Marina Martín, a 25-year-old nurse, explained to El País: " It's impossible to buy a home, and renting one is very difficult. All the money goes toward rent, leaving almost nothing for other expenses."
And a 26-year-old student protester told The Guardian that young Spaniards were "fed up with weak measures that solve nothing."
As a result, Maricarmen Abascal was able to reach an agreement to return home and reduce her rent to the previous €500 under a new eight-year contract. Her lawyer, Beatriz Duro, called this "the result of social mobilization."
Naturally, there were those who were unhappy with this decision. "I just want to know at what age I can stop paying the landlords and continue living in my apartment. Maybe then I'll even join the next tenants' protest," said Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the autonomous community of Madrid, with bitter irony, speaking out in defense of property owners' rights.
However, the cancellation of the eviction did not end the protests – the problem is much broader.
According to Idealista, the country's largest real estate portal, the average rental price in the country has nearly doubled over the past 10 years: from €7.6 per square meter in 2015 to €15.1 in August 2026. In 2025, 44.3% of Spaniards aged 26–34 were still living with their parents, with almost half of them due to inability to afford housing.
Furthermore, the Bank of Spain estimates that the country is short 700,000 homes. More than 50% of the shortage is concentrated in major cities and tourist hubs: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante, and Málaga. Meanwhile, millions of homes are empty in declining rural areas, where there are no jobs, so there is no demand.
Amid ongoing protests, the Socialist government, already under public pressure over the migrant crisis in Ceuta, has approved a package of measures aimed at protecting the interests of tenants.
"The time has come to intervene in the speculative housing market and begin to restore the balance between ordinary citizens and vulture funds," Health Minister Monica García said in this regard.
The cabinet's proposals include a ban on evictions of vulnerable tenants until 2030, automatic renewals of expired leases until 2028, and a two-year ban on home purchases by investment funds. Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez called this "an agreement of enormous social significance" that addresses "the main problem facing Spaniards."
However, in reality, this is a restriction on private property, which will prevent owners from managing their property based on their own interests. In other words, the problems of some citizens are being solved by disenfranchising others, but the minister chose to remain silent about this.
The Spanish authorities apparently have no time to think about long-term consequences—elections are just around the corner, so the main thing is to satisfy the protesters and portray a bold and effective solution, and then let the grass grow.
The law, although approved by the cabinet, has not yet been passed—it still awaits a parliamentary vote. And here the government faces serious problems, as the initiative faces considerable opposition, and Sánchez's party doesn't have a majority.
People's Party leader Alberto Nunes Feijóo said the proposals would not produce the desired result and that "no one can solve a problem they have created for eight years with legislation whose only purpose is to extend a fruitless parliamentary term."
Miriam Nogueras, a representative of the Together for Catalonia party, accused the authorities of endangering small business owners in order to solve their problems.
Renowned Spanish journalist, television presenter, and writer Vicente Valles criticized the government's haste in proposing the new measures. "This is being done in haste, when we're already approaching the end of the legislative term and when the housing promises made over the past eight years have yielded no results," he noted.
According to economist Niño Santiago Bercerra, the current problem can only be solved by building new housing, not by passing any laws. "If supply doesn't increase, the problem won't be solved. Any decrees or laws will only be temporary measures to appease public opinion," the newspaper Vozpopuli reports him as saying.
As for the upcoming "triumph of socialism," even if it does occur, given Spain's other realities, it will approach anarcho-socialism—albeit not yet on a national scale, but only in the housing sector. The government is unwilling to take responsibility for building social housing, and instead is depriving property owners of their legal rights in favor of those it deems most in need.
Worse still, the state not only restricts property owners but also fails to protect them from the arbitrary actions of squatters—people who illegally occupy other people's property. These squatters exploit loopholes in the law, and for a long time now, thousands of egregious incidents have occurred annually in the country.
In 2025, a new law was passed that finally limited squatters' options by introducing expedited court procedures. However, in reality, the ideal remains far from being achieved—the law still contains loopholes that allow for the brazen seizure of other people's property.
Moreover, evicting tenants costs the owner time, stress, and considerable money. Estimates suggest that expedited court proceedings cost between €2,500 and €8,000, while standard proceedings cost between €6,000 and €20,000.
The Sánchez government's migration initiatives appear no less strange against the backdrop of the current crisis. Spaniards are unable to afford housing, let alone buy it, or even rent it, which is in dire shortage. Meanwhile, the country is legalizing hundreds of thousands of migrants and promising to invite even more.
The Vox party openly states that legalizing half a million undocumented immigrants will exacerbate the pressure on the "absolutely strained and inaccessible" housing market. Senator Paloma Gómez Enríquez emphasized: "Public administration is not about ideological activism at the borders, but about defending the rule of law, sovereignty, and public services for Spaniards."
If the government's proposal is adopted, the Spanish housing market will be dominated by renters and squatters, not bona fide owners. One can only guess what new crises this situation might eventually lead to.
With the security of real estate investments becoming increasingly difficult to guarantee, owners may begin to sell their assets en masse, potentially triggering a market collapse and, as a consequence, a serious economic crisis.
Warnings are already being heard that the ban on investment funds purchasing residential property and automatic contract renewals are creating legal uncertainty, pushing owners to sell rather than rent. This, in turn, could lead to a collapse in prices and a devastating impact on the entire economy.
"If it seems like every new decree reduces the owner's decision-making power, many will choose not to rent out their homes or seek alternatives outside the traditional real estate market," real estate expert Inki Unsain told Infobae.
Moreover, excessive legal protection for tenants is likely to create a boomerang effect: as uncertainty increases, landlords will sharply tighten their requirements, requiring bank guarantees or proof of income that significantly exceeds the rent.
As a result, it will be young people and other vulnerable groups, whom the decree is formally intended to protect, who will be forced out of the market. This will only deepen the social crisis and increase tensions within society.
"The problem is that landlords are reluctant to rent out their properties because they're afraid, especially now that the eviction suspension is becoming permanent. This only makes the market more restrictive, exacerbating the housing crisis," says Yogi Tadhani, regional manager of fintech platforms Finteca and Prestalo.
Spain is facing an experiment that could have long-term devastating consequences. The country now risks not resolving the crisis, but deepening it—with heightened social tensions and economic instability, as well as further increases in housing prices.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans...
BREAKING: Israel says pilot tried to hijack flydubai flight to Tel Aviv that diverted, landed in Saudi Arabia
