[FoxNews] Michael Kamfolt faces nearly a dozen weapons charges after authorities discovered the fortified hideout during a marijuana cultivation investigation
A California man was arrested after authorities said they discovered an underground fortified bunker with an "alarming cache of illegal firearms and ammunition" inside. Certainly that's not unlawful.
Michael Kamfolt, 40, of Anderson, is now facing nearly a dozen weapons-related charges, including possession of an assault rifle and manufacturing of a ghost gun, after his arrest by the California Highway Patrol. He was taken into custody as part of an investigation into a suspected illegal marijuana cultivation operation on a property in Anderson, authorities said.
"This operation went far beyond an illegal grow. The combination of a hidden bunker and an alarming cache of illegal firearms and ammunition highlights the threat posed to public safety," CHP Northern Division Chief John Pinoli said in a statement.
In a search of the property Jan. 20, "officers discovered an underground bunker accessible through a 100-foot-long culvert," according to CHP.
"The bunker was equipped with power, ventilation, a concrete floor with built-in drainage and the necessary supplies to cultivate marijuana," CHP said in a statement.
"In addition to the bunker, officers seized 13 firearms, four soft body armor vests, 30 high-capacity magazines, and approximately 10,000 rounds of ammunition, including armor-piercing rounds," it added. "Among the seized firearms were a sawed-off shotgun, three AR-15 style assault rifles, one with an obliterated serial number, and two firearms reported stolen in 2016 and 1978, respectively."
CHP also said it received a tip about the property in December 2025 before returning this month with a search warrant, which "led to an illicit cannabis cultivation operation and underground bunker."
Posted by: chris ||
01/31/2026 4:47 Comments ||
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#3
Firearms ...1st of all, what isn't illegal in California, if you can use it to fight off someone attacking you?
2nd, Cannabis farming is legal in California for both medical and recreational use, with regulations established under Proposition 64.
3rd , the saw-off and removed Serial #'s are illegal. He is looking at 3 to+ years. He should have just purchased a 20 Ga/4.10 ga pistol? (eg. The Judge)
4th, The two firearms reported stolen back in 2016 and 1978. Did he steal them? Obviously not for the 1979 weapon at the least.
So were these purchased via private sales, and does he have a Bill Of Sale to prove it? Because in California, the statute of limitations for theft crimes, including receiving stolen property, is generally one year for misdemeanors and three years for felonies. Given these weapons were stolen 9 years ago and the other 45+ years ago, there is a legality question here.
So... Could it be, there are "maybe" there are other issues and Political reasons at play?
#9
I may be a little different than the rest of you guys, but the head of the HOA would really be able to warm his home as it was burning down around him.
Posted by: chris ||
01/31/2026 9:03 Comments ||
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#10
2nd, Cannabis farming is legal in California for both medical and recreational use, with regulations established under Proposition 64.
Legal assuming you paid your application fee, your license fee, the inspection fee, the fee fee and are collecting and remitting the state sales tax, marijuana tax and the fee tax surchage. It is my understanding that due to the regulatory burden, illegal pot is still quite attractive.
And before we get too smug, Michigan just implemented a 24% wholesale marijuana to finally fix the roads. ("Fix the damn roads" was a campaign theme for Governor Whitmer)
tl;dr: Listen to your uncle chris, boys and girls, and pay your taxes. And don't get high, on your own supply.
#11
So that's why I never see the California Highway Patrol actually patrolling California highways. They're too busy busting pot farmers which should be a job for the county sheriff. Every time I get on Interstate 5, I see bigger problems and never any CHP to do anything about it. But I can understand Newsom being upset about a guy not paying his marijuana tax. He needs every nickle he can get.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/31/2026 11:58 Comments ||
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#12
Dadgummed revenuers.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/31/2026 12:01 Comments ||
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#13
I fail to see the issue with anything this guy did.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Michael Beck, the first person to report symptoms later linked to 'Havana Syndrome,' has died at age 65.
The retired National Security Agency (NSA) officer passed away on January 25 while out shopping, his daughter said. The exact cause of death has not yet been determined.
He is survived by his wife of 40 years, Rita Cicala, and also leaves behind his children, Ryan Lewis, Regan Gabrielle Beck and Grant Michael Beck.
Beck, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at 45, claimed the condition resulted from exposure to a directed-energy weapon during a 1996 overseas mission, decades before Havana Syndrome was officially recognized.
Havana Syndrome, first reported publicly in 2016 by US diplomats and intelligence personnel in Cuba, is a mysterious neurological condition marked by severe headaches, dizziness, ringing in the ears and cognitive difficulties, sometimes leaving victims debilitated.
Despite battling his illness and receiving little support from the government, Beck remained with the NSA until 2016, when his health forced him to step down.
In 2017, Beck told investigators he believed a weaponized microwave attack was slowly killing him, a claim that has fueled ongoing debate over the syndrome's origins.
His case became a focal point in the ongoing investigation into Havana Syndrome, drawing attention to the mysterious illnesses affecting dozens of US government personnel overseas.
Experts suspect that Havana Syndrome may be caused by exposure to a type of directed-energy weapon, which transmits concentrated energy toward a target.
The most commonly considered form is pulsed microwave radiation, which can penetrate soft tissue and potentially affect nerves and brain function without leaving visible marks.
High-intensity exposure is believed to cause headaches, dizziness, ringing in the ears, cognitive difficulties and fatigue.
Some researchers have also considered ultrasonic or sonic devices, which use sound waves above the range of human hearing.
Any suspected device would need to be covert, portable, and capable of targeting individuals across rooms or buildings, likely using pulsed emissions rather than continuous waves.
While investigations are ongoing, no device has been publicly confirmed, and much of the research remains classified. Scientists caution that other factors—such as environmental toxins, infections, or stress—could also contribute to the symptoms reported by affected government personnel.
Beck earned a degree in the administration of justice from Pennsylvania State University in 1983 and began his career with the US Secret Service.
In 1987, two years after his marriage, he transitioned to the NSA, where he would spend the bulk of his professional life.
Then, in 1996, he and another agent, Charles Gubete, were sent to a 'hostile country' to assess the security of a facility abroad, The New York Times reported.
The mission was to determine if the country had installed listening devices in a US facility under construction.
The classified information in question prohibited Beck from disclosing any details about where he was, what the information was or any other identifying details of that mission.
During the second day of the mission, Beck said he and Gubete encountered a 'technical threat' at the site.
Speaking to The Guardian, he said: 'I woke up, and I was really, really groggy. I was not able to wake up routinely. It was not a normal event. I had several cups of coffee, and that didn't do a thing to get me going.'
It took about 10 years before Beck began feeling unwell, and a visit to a neurologist determined he had developed Parkinson's.
Parkinson's disease is known to cause the deterioration of brain cells, though scientists do not fully understand why this occurs.
Genetics may play a role, but Parkinson's does not follow family lines in the same predictable way as many other illnesses.
Beck told The Washington Post that, to his knowledge, no one else in his family had ever had the disease.
In 2012, Beck ran into Gubete at the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. Gubete, then 60, moved with a stiff, awkward gait that immediately caught Beck's attention.
'He was slumped over and walking really awkwardly. I went up to him and said, 'What's going on?' Beck told The Guardian.
Gubete then told Beck he had also been diagnosed with Parkinson's.
A decade after his diagnosis, Beck obtained a classified report that he believed detailed the use of a microwave attack against him and fellow officer Gubete while they stayed in adjacent hotel rooms.
'The National Security Agency confirms that there is intelligence information from 2012 associating the hostile country to which Mr. Beck traveled in the late 1990s with a high-powered microwave system weapon that may have the ability to weaken, intimidate, or kill an enemy over time and without leaving evidence,' the report read.
'I was sick in the stomach and shocked when I read that report,' Mr. Beck told The Washington Post in 2017. 'I am familiar with other things this hostile country does, and it just felt raw and unfair.'
While microwaves are less strongly linked to cancer than higher-frequency waves, their potential effects on the nervous system remain a subject of debate.
Convinced that the incident had caused lasting damage, Beck filed a claim with the Department of Labor, asserting that his health had been irreversibly harmed on the job.
Then more government employees came forward to report similar symptoms after being deployed to Cuba, Russia and Canada, along with at least one case from Washington DC.
Between 2016 and 2018, over 200 US government employees and diplomats reported experiencing similar symptoms, with the majority of cases linked to staff stationed at the US Embassy in Havana.
The Foreign Policy Research Institute estimates that 1,500 American officials have suffered mysterious neurological injuries like Beck since 2016.
The cases drew national attention, from both the media and Congress, sparking scientific investigations. However, the research produced conflicting results.
A study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania found data supporting the possibility of a directed-energy attack.
While a separate investigation by the National Institutes of Health concluded there was no evidence linking such a device to the reported illnesses.
The exact details of the device linked to Havana Syndrome remain classified, though reports have suggested that certain components may have been produced in Russia.
#2
The classified information in question prohibited Beck from disclosing any details about where he was, what the information was or any other identifying details of that mission.
.....or the type of equipment he and Chuck were using.
#3
I guess we used a similar weapon in Venezuela against a bunch of Cubans. Hopefully, we dropped them some Kleenex boxes for the nose and organ bleeding. Oh, I forgot, we killed the Cubans.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/31/2026 6:58 Comments ||
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[Beitbart] A Philadelphia snowplow driver recorded himself burying parked cars as he drove through city streets, seemingly delighted by the act as he laughed and said “Happy snow day, motherfuckers.”
The video emerged Thursday after it was obtained by the NBC affiliate in the City of Brotherly Love.
The driver, who reportedly was only identified as a city worker, launched his expletive-filled video after a winter storm dropped more than nine inches of snow in the area on Monday.
“If your car look like this, you (expletive) just go back in the house. Just go in the house. Ain’t no need for you to be outside today,” the driver shouted, while laughing maniacally.
He added, “If I can’t drive, you bitches can’t drive.”
The footage was apparently shot in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood as the angled blade of the plow deposited even more heavy snow against the vehicles that were already partially buried on Allegheny Avenue.
“Happy snow day, mother fuckers,” the driver continued. “We tearing this shit up. Allegheny don’t need to go nowhere. Go in the fucking house. Go in the house. Go in the house!”
During a moment in the video not posted by the NBC affiliate, a resident who was clearing their car called the driver an “asshole” as the plow covered the side of the vehicle again, according to the news station.
“Go in the house,” the driver reportedly shouted back.
City officials were made aware of the video and told the outlet they knew the identity of the driver, but said they were handling the matter internally.
Philadelphia’s Director of Clean and Green Initiatives Carlton Williams released a video on social media, explaining the “unintended consequences” during snow removal operations, which sometimes include plowing in cars parked on the street.
“Unfortunately, I’ve received several reports of activity when there were drivers who intentionally buried people in their cars, often causing safety and dangerous conditions,” he said. “The city of Philadelphia does not tolerate this kind of behavior. And if it occurs, we will address it immediately.”
#7
The driver has probably been plowing that route at least all winter so far, if not for years and finally had enough of the self entitled morons making his job more difficult. His mistake was broadcasting it to the world, instead of just a few of his coworkers.
‼️In Ethiopia 🇪🇹, the war in Tigray has just resumed.
Ugh. What idiots.
The last one (2020-2022) had caused 600,000 deaths...
This is an entire regional chain reaction being triggered, as the Tigray conflict is linked to Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Libya, Chad...
Ethiopia, which was already at war in Amhara (against the Fano rebels, who have recently coalesced into the AFNM), must now face a new northern front with the resumption of fighting against Tigrayan forces. At the same time, sporadic clashes are also taking place in the Oromia and Afar regions, though it is not yet possible to speak of full-scale war there.
If the "Yugoslavia of Africa" is once again at war, it is not for nothing. For months, Eritrea and Sudan have been drawing closer to the Tigrayans in the face of an Abiy Ahmed government that plans to seize the port of Assab in Eritrea in order to gain access to the sea, and which has opened an RSF base on its territory, thereby becoming de facto one of the main backers of the Rapid Support Forces in the war in Sudan.
The return of conflict in northern Ethiopia, alongside the resumption of fighting in South Sudan this week, the worsening war in Sudan, and the catastrophic situation in Somalia, raise fears of a widespread humanitarian crisis across the Horn of Africa.
[ZeroHedge] Another massive defeat for China's interests in the Western Hemisphere, and another 'win' for Trump's "Donroe Doctrine"...
The Supreme Court of Panama has just issued a final decision to void the contract renewal for Hong Kong's CK Hutchison's subsidiary to operate two Panama Canal ports, in a much anticipated landmark case driven by claims of unconstitutionality and financial irregularities. The top court has found irregularities in the 25-year extension of the concession granted in 2021.
The contested position that CK Hutchison occupied conferred de facto leverage over one of the world's most critical maritime chokepoints linking the two oceans, provoking the scrutiny and ire of Washington.
This was legally challenged last year, with the question of whether CK Hutchison violated the terms of its concessions - including the renewal granted in 2021 - allegedly harming taxpayers and breaching the country's constitution.
Crucially the lawsuit came directly at the behest of the Trump administration amid immense pressure put on Panama City, and was subsequently filed by Panama's government following an official audit claiming CK Hutchison's management shortchanged Panama by roughly $1.3 billion. And in the meantime:
CK Hutchison Holdings announced a deal last year to sell its majority stake in the Panamanian ports and others around the world to an international consortium that included BlackRock Inc. But the [$22.8 billion] deal appeared to stall over objections by the Chinese government.
Trump had publicly praised that later stalled transaction in March. This after the White House's eyeing of Panama began nearly a year ago with Secretary of State Marco Rubio's January 31, 2025 visit - his first foreign trip as new Secretary of State. This served to put control of the country's ports squarely at top of the US agenda for Latin America policy.
President Trump has long made clear his intention to reassert American influence and control over the Panama Canal, given the strategic artery was built by the United States in the early 20th century and formally transferred to Panama in 1999. He has made statements expressing wanting it back, essentially.
As for another country which could increasingly be in Trump crosshairs for either a pressure campaign (or worse) under the 'Donroe Doctrine' is Panama, already subject of the mid-December 1989 US military invasion which deposed on-again-off-again Washington ally (and long-running CIA asset) and military dictator Manuel Noriega. The historic Operation Just Cause mission saw over 27,000 US troops invade, ostensibly to go after Noriega for drug trafficking and to protect the Panama Canal.
A mission to 'protect' the Panama Canal could once again be used as rationale for American intervention in 2026.
And now: "It's not just a huge win for Panama's taxpayers, it's a big win for America and certainly for President Trump," a senior Trump administration official told Axios Thursday in anticipation of the court ruling going Washington's way.
[Breitbart] Amazon has reported finding hundreds of thousands of pieces of suspected child sexual abuse material in data collected for training its AI models last year, though the company has provided limited information about the material’s origins to child safety officials.
Bloomberg reports that Amazon detected the illicit material throughout 2025 within its AI training data and subsequently reported it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC.) During 2025, NCMEC experienced at least a fifteen-fold increase in AI-related reports, with the vast majority originating from Amazon.
The e-commerce and cloud computing giant removed the problematic content before using the data to train its AI models. However, child safety officials have expressed concern that Amazon has not provided sufficient information about where the material came from, which could potentially hinder law enforcement efforts to locate perpetrators and protect victims.
An Amazon spokesperson stated that the training data came from external sources and that the company lacks detailed information about its origin. While other major technology companies have also scanned their training data and reported potentially exploitative material to NCMEC, the clearinghouse has identified significant differences. Other companies collectively submitted only a handful of reports and provided more comprehensive details about the material’s origin.
“We take a deliberately cautious approach to scanning foundation model training data, including data from the public web, to identify and remove known [child sexual abuse material] and protect our customers,” the spokesperson said.
The dramatic increase in Amazon’s reports comes during an intensifying AI competition that has left companies racing to acquire and process massive volumes of data to enhance their models. Amazon accounted for the majority of the more than one million AI-related reports of child sexual abuse material submitted to NCMEC in 2025. This represents a substantial jump from 67,000 AI-related reports the previous year, and just 4,700 in 2023.
The presence of illegal content in AI training data raises concerns among experts. It could potentially influence a model’s fundamental behaviors, possibly enhancing its capability to digitally manipulate and sexualize images of real children or generate entirely new images of sexualized children.
The Amazon spokesperson clarified that as of January, the company is not aware of any instances where its models have generated child sexual abuse material. An automatic detection tool flagged the content by comparing it against a database of known child abuse material, a process known as hashing. Approximately 99.97 percent of the reports came from scanning non-proprietary training data.
Amazon believes it over-reported these cases to NCMEC to ensure nothing was overlooked. “We intentionally use an over-inclusive threshold for scanning, which yields a high percentage of false positives,” the spokesperson added.
The volume of suspected material Amazon detected surprised child safety experts. The hundreds of thousands of reports represented a dramatic increase for the company, which made a total of 64,195 reports in 2024.
“This is really an outlier,” said Fallon McNulty, the executive director of NCMEC’s CyberTipline. “Having such a high volume come in throughout the year begs a lot of questions about where the data is coming from, and what safeguards have been put in place.”
McNulty explained that Amazon has provided very little to almost no information in their reports about where the illicit material originally came from, who shared it, or whether it remains actively available on the internet. While Amazon is not legally required to share this level of detail, the absence of information makes it impossible for NCMEC to trace the material’s origin. “There’s nothing then that can be done with those reports,” she said. “Our team has been really clear with [Amazon] that those reports are inactionable.”
When asked why the company did not disclose information about the possible origin of the material, the Amazon spokesperson responded that because of how the data is sourced, the company does not have the data that comprises an actionable report. “While our proactive safeguards cannot provide the same detail in NCMEC reports as consumer-facing tools, we stand by our commitment to responsible AI and will continue our work to prevent CSAM,” the spokesperson said.
“There should be more transparency on how companies are gathering and analyzing the data to train their models — and how they’re training them,” said David Thiel, the former chief technologist at the Stanford Internet Observatory, who has researched the prevalence of child sexual abuse material in AI training data.
Amazon was not the only company to spot and report potential material from its AI workflows last year. Google and OpenAI told reporters that they scan AI training data for exploitative material. Meta and Anthropic also said they search training data for such material.
McNulty said that with the exception of Amazon, the AI-related reports received last year came in very small volumes and included key details that allowed the clearinghouse to pass actionable information to law enforcement. “Simply flagging that you came across something but not providing any type of actionable detail doesn’t help the larger child safety space,” McNulty said.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
01/31/2026 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1790 views]
Top|| File under: Human Trafficking
#1
Were the modeling on the Disney Channel?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/31/2026 7:05 Comments ||
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#2
"When asked why the company did not disclose information about the possible origin of the material, the Amazon spokesperson responded that because of how the data is sourced, the company does not have the data that comprises an actionable report."
I hope that's true, even though it makes solving these crimes harder. The alternative, that Amazon's training included identifying information on everything, would not be encouraging.
Posted by: James the lesser ||
01/31/2026 14:43 Comments ||
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#3
the Amazon spokesperson responded that because of how the data is sourced, the company does not have the data that comprises an actionable report."
"We hoover up all the data we could find on the internet. Then we dump it in a big pile and let the AI try to make sense of it. It is not what we would call supervised learning."
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] An experiment with 'free money' in Finland proved a failure nine years ago, when a landmark trial found that unemployed workers are 'no better or worse' at finding a job if they receive a guaranteed basic income.
Nevertheless, a Labour minister has said the government may have to introduce a universal basic income (UBI) system to allow society to cope with the scale of artificial intelligence stealing people's jobs.
Lord Stockwood said people in Whitehall were 'talking about' cushioning the blow for those worst affected by the 'bumpy' introduction of AI, amid fears that it will rock the foundations of society.
Ugh. Another initiative to manage the decline instead of letting growth happen.
UBI, where people are paid a lump sum whether they work or not, is not currently government policy, but the tech entrepreneur said there would have to be 'some sort of concessionary arrangement with jobs that go immediately'.
Advocates of the idea argue that it cuts bureaucracy and say that people will be more willing to take on temporary or part-time work if their benefits will not be cut as a result.
The system was trialled in an experiment in Finland from January 2017 until December 2018, when 2,000 randomly selected unemployed people got a monthly flat payment of €560 (£490), with no obligation to seek a job and no reduction in their payment if they accepted one.
The study ultimately found that the no-strings-attached handout did not improve employment levels, however, leading to people being in work for only six more days over a one-year period.
But participants in the Finnish study 'were more satisfied with their lives', researchers found, and 'experienced less mental strain, depression, sadness and loneliness'.
Undoubtedly we're going to have to think really carefully about how we soft-land those industries that go away, so some sort of UBI, some sort of life-long learning mechanism as well so people can retrain,' Lord Stockwood, a former tech businessman, told the FT.
It came after the boss of a major AI firm said humanity had to 'wake up' to the risks it presents us 'as a species'.
Dario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive of Claude chatbot creator Anthorpic, used an online essay this week to warn that 'humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it'.
He has previously warned AI could 'displace' half of all entry-level white collar jobs by the end of the decade.
Several countries have carried out trials of UBI, the most notable being the study in Finland in 2017.
Researchers put to the test whether free income could better incentivise jobless people to find work than traditional unemployment benefits, which may be docked as soon as the recipient starts earning money.
The experiment compared the income, employment status and general wellbeing of those who received the UBI with a control group of 5,000, who carried on receiving benefits.
After one year of the experiment, researchers found that there was no difference between the two groups in terms of employment - with both working an average of 49 days in 2017, and the UBI trial group earning €21 less on average than the control group.
Responding to the results, Kari Hämäläinen of Finland's VATT Institute of Economic Research said the basic income had only a 'small' effect on employment levels.
The findings suggest that for many people, 'the problems related to finding employment are not related to bureaucracy or to financial incentives,' he said.
Creating such an income across the country would be expensive and 'unsustainable', he added, according to Bloomberg.
The Helsinki government allocated €20million (£17million) to the two-year trial.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. But at least his generous salary will still be paid until he steps down, later this year.
[IsraelTimes] ‘The crisis is deepening,’ secretary-general says, citing unpaid fees and budget rules on unspent money
The UN chief has told member states that the organization is at risk of "imminent financial collapse," citing unpaid fees and a budget rule that forces the global body to return unspent money, a letter seen by Rooters on Friday showed.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres ...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years... has repeatedly spoken about the organization’s worsening liquidity crisis, but this is his starkest warning yet, and it comes as its main contributor, the United States, is retreating from multilateralism on numerous fronts.
"The crisis is deepening, threatening program delivery and risking financial collapse. And the situation will deteriorate further in the near future," Guterres wrote in a letter to ambassadors dated January 28.
The US has slashed voluntary funding to UN agencies and refused to make mandatory payments to its regular and peacekeeping budgets.
US President Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... has described the UN as having "great potential" but said it is not fulfilling that, and he has launched a Board of Peace, which some fear could undermine the older international body.
Founded in 1945, the UN has 193 member states and works to maintain international peace and security, promote human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... , foster social and economic development, and coordinate humanitarian aid
In his letter, Guterres said, "Decisions not to honour assessed contributions that finance a significant share of the approved regular budget have now been formally announced."
He did not say which state or states he was referring to, and a UN spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
"I can say no more!" Under UN rules, contributions depend on the size of the economy of each member state. The US accounts for 22% of the core budget, followed by China with 20%.
But by the end of 2025, there was a record $1.57 billion in outstanding dues, Guterres said, without naming them.
"Either all Member States honor their obligations to pay in full and on time — or Member States must fundamentally overhaul our financial rules to prevent an imminent financial collapse," he said.
Guterres launched a reform task force last year, known as UN80, which seeks to cut costs and improve efficiency. To that end, states agreed to cut the 2026 budget by around 7% to $3.45 billion.
Still, Guterres warned in the letter that the organization could run out of cash by July.
One of the problems is a rule now seen as antiquated whereby the global body has to credit back hundreds of millions of dollars in unspent dues to states each year.
"In other words, we are trapped in a Kafkaesque cycle expected to give back cash that does not exist," said Guterres, referring to author Franz Kafka, who wrote about oppressive bureaucratic processes.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] Californian startup Galactic Resource Utilization Space announced plans to open the first hotel on the lunar surface in 2032. This was reported on January 30 by the German newspaper Bild. I think that’s a brilliant idea.
According to the project concept, the hotel will be constructed as an inflatable structure, delivered to the Moon in a folded state and unfolded into a fully functional residential module after landing. The first version of the hotel is designed to accommodate up to four guests for several days and is planned to operate for approximately ten years.
The project currently exists only in development. The company plans to conduct its first lunar mission in 2029, and begin crew training in 2031. Subsequently, construction of a larger hotel—for ten people—using protective structures made from lunar soil is planned.
The company is now accepting reservations. To participate, you must pay a $1,000 registration fee, followed by a deposit of between $250,000 and $1 million. The final cost of the stay is expected to exceed $10 million.
However, as Bild notes, the project does not yet have construction permits or confirmed funding, and the stated deadlines remain tentative.
The idea of a permanent human presence on the Moon has been repeatedly voiced internationally. For example, in 2024, entrepreneur Elon Musk spoke of the need to create a permanently inhabited base on the Moon.
At the same time, such initiatives are viewed with skepticism in the professional community. Cosmonaut and Hero of Russia Fyodor Yurchikhin called plans to build lunar settlements unrealistic in the foreseeable future, citing the lack of ready-made technologies for the delivery and landing of heavy habitation modules, as well as a comprehensive concept for their deployment on the lunar surface.
#1
Underground, or 6" Armor Steel plated hull and NO widows?
"Scientists estimate that about 100 meteoroids the size of a ping-pong ball strike the Moon daily, amounting to roughly 33,000 such impacts each year. Despite their small size, these objects travel at such tremendous speeds that each one hits with the explosive force of about 7 pounds (3.2 kilograms) of dynamite." Source
Mattress so-so. No bathroom,
And noplace to go, so...
To travel so far
In my new flying car
And get gassed on the Moon... Fabuloso!
Currently living that, minus vacuum and meteoroids, for forty-something a night, net. Gotta love third party booking. Not that I'd deal with OYO, but those jolly cannibals will probably get some billionaire in the Mootel 6 for half price.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] An out-of-control Chinese rocket has crashed into the Southern Pacific Ocean, after Britain readied the emergency alert system over fears of falling debris.
Earlier today, the UK government asked mobile network providers to ensure the alert system is operational, in preparation for a potential impact.
However, the rocket has now safely landed in the ocean some 1,200 miles (2,000 km) southeast of New Zealand.
The rocket, a Chinese Zhuque–3 launched in early December, crashed to Earth at 12:39 GMT, according to the US Space Force.
With an estimated mass of 11 tonnes, the EU's Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) agency had cautioned that ZQ–3 R/B was 'quite a sizeable object deserving careful monitoring.'
While the vast majority of space debris which falls on Earth either burns up in the atmosphere or is never found, experts say we can be certain this rocket fell safely.
Dr Marco Lanbroek, a debris tracking expert from the Delft University of Technology, says he 'strongly suspects' that the US Space Force observed the re-entry fireball using a space-based satellite.
This puts an end to intense uncertainty over the rocket's potential landing site, after predictions suggested it could hit Northern Europe and the UK.
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.
...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years...
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