[FOX] BEVERLY HILLS – Federal authorities raided a California mansion belonging to billionaire Stephen Cloobeck on Tuesday morning, Fox News has learned.
The FBI targeted Cloobeck's Beverly Hills mansion in connection with an investigation into disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif. Swalwell resigned from Congress and withdrew from the California gubernatorial race earlier this year after facing multiple accusations of sexual misconduct.
Law enforcement executed the raid at roughly 6 a.m. local time with at least two dozen agents participating. Authorities searched the massive property for several hours but offered no details about what they found.
Several people were taken out of the house in handcuffs, but they were all released soon after. Cloobeck was not at the residence at the time of the raid.
Thousands of people posing as crime victims paid Nayi to participate in the scheme, prosecutors said.
Alleged co-conspirators Bhikhabhai Patel, Nilesh Patel, Ravinaben Patel and Rajnikumar Patel reached out to Nayi to pose as victims of the staged robberies so they could apply for U visas, which were created under a 2000 law meant to protect trafficking victims and "battered immigrant women."
Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., lead sponsor of the anti-trafficking legislation that created the U visa, expressed outrage over the alleged abuse of the program.
"Anyone who engages in visa fraud or falsifies claims to obtain any government benefit should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and if guilty, jailed," Smith told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.
"It is especially egregious to abuse a program designed to help victims of human trafficking — often women and children — who are cooperating with police and are working to recover from their extraordinary trauma. We must hold abusive criminals accountable."
Prosecutors said Nayi and another suspect, Kewon Young, recruited people to serve as armed "robbers" who at times "struck purported victims to make the staged robbery appear real."
Nayi and alleged co-conspirator Kewon Young organized and participated in staged robberies of shops and bodegas.
After the "robberies," the purported victims would be coached to submit I-918 supplements to law enforcement so authorities could certify that they had been victims of a violent crime and could seek U visas.
An I-918 form would then be submitted to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) seeking protected legal status in the United States.
Purported victims paid Nayi as much as $30,000 to take part in the staged robberies, prosecutors said. During one robbery, a store employee was critically injured by a gunshot fired by one of the alleged assailants.
[Just The News] The Trump administration charged former FBI Director James Comey for the third time on Monday, with the latest accusing him of transmitting national defense information and conspiring to transmit national defense information.
A grand jury has not indicted Comey on the latest charges, but the case has been playing out under seal since Oct. 5, according to NBC News. Comey's defense attorneys sought to have the charges dismissed last week.
Comey was charged with making a threat against the president earlier this year and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce, after he posted a photo of shells on a beach last year in the formation of "86-47," which prosecutors alleged was a threat against the president.
Comey was also charged last year with obstruction of justice and making a false statement to Congress in 2020, though those charges were dismissed.
[FOX] Fox News Digital got a look inside the Karmel Mall of Somalia, which isn't like typical American malls that sport brand-name shops situated around a vast food court and end-capped by large department stores.
Rather, the building that boasts four floors of shops and 900 vendors resembles more of a storage facility. When shop owners arrive, they lift their metal garage doors, signifying that their stores are open. Scheduled opening and closing times don't appear particularly stringent for shop owners.
It was in the mall's dining area, adorned with the Somali, Palestinian and American flags flying at the same height, that Omar dined among friends in the Somali community for lunch on Friday. State Attorney General Keith Ellison was also present. The ceiling of the food vendor area is painted light blue and emblazoned with a white star resembling the Somali flag.
Somali cafes sell traditional food, including sambusas, a flaky fried pastry filled with meat and spices, bijaye, which is fried cornmeal similar to a hush puppy or falafel, and goat meat and basmati rice. Many Somalis in the mall ate only with their hands, though Omar and her acquaintances could be seen using forks during their Friday lunch.
[X} Full-on Commie: Bolsonaro's Passport to be confiscated
BREAKING:
Flávio Bolsonaro has been summoned by the Federal Police to hand over his passport within 24 hours by order of Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
The Supreme Court Justice argues that there is a risk that Bolsonaro could flee abroad to avoid prosecution. https://t.co/dfL55NPTlF
#2
What a participating medical provider bills matters less than what they will accept as payment without billing the member (aside from a co-pay or deductible).
Also keep in mind the staff needs to be paid, medical malpractice insurance paid for, office rent, utilities, pay down the medical school loan and maybe pay down the loan for the equipment used to start the practice
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Gevorg Mirzayan
[Regnum] "A political earthquake" is how Euronews described the results of the October 25 parliamentary elections in Serbia. They ended the nearly decade-long rule of President Aleksandar Vučić, who had been seeking to transition from the presidency to the prime minister's seat.
However, his United Serbia party won only about 100 seats in the 250-seat parliament. The opposition Student List won the election, taking about 140 seats.
The "List" emerged around the November 2024 protests, when a concrete canopy collapsed at the Novi Sad train station, burying 16 people. Youth movements blamed the government for the tragedy, claiming it was caused by corrupt officials turning a blind eye to irregularities in construction processes.
People took to the streets under anti-corruption slogans, and the president's opponents saw this as an excellent opportunity to create a new political force.
"The Student List is a new, untainted opposition that emerged after the previous one proved politically bankrupt. However, there aren't many students on this list—it's mostly made up of doctors and teachers, "Oleg Bondarenko, founder of the Balkanist.ru project, explained to Regnum.
The Serbian elections demonstrated that the winner isn't the one with the highest approval ratings, but the one who brings more supporters to the polls. "The opposition won because of public fatigue with Vučić. Essentially, he lost because of record turnout," Oleg Bondarenko continues.
Turnout was nearly 69%—an all-time high for Serbia. It was 10 percentage points higher than the 2023 elections and 15% higher than Vučić's first presidential victory in 2017.
Essentially, those who opposed Vučić came to the polls and voted for those who opposed him. It didn't matter that his opponent was a hastily formed force.
"This is a rather motley group of people dissatisfied with Vučić's long rule. Their main internal slogan is the fight against corruption and nepotism in power. And that's what brought them victory," Vadim Trukhachev, associate professor at the Financial University, told Regnum.
But the sculptors were no longer so much internal as external forces. And when Vučić says that behind his opponents' victory are "various European countries and the US 'deep state', which is against Trump," he's right.
"The list itself was created with the participation of several Western embassies. Particularly noteworthy here are Germany, Britain, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia," continues Vadim Trukhachev. A number of MEPs attended the "student" protests in 2025 and 2026.
Europe was dissatisfied with Vučić for his attempts to combine the course of European integration with maintaining special relations with European rivals China and Russia. This was true both in the economic sphere (Vučić did not impose sanctions) and in the socio-political sphere (it is no coincidence that several Russian companies opened offices in Serbia).
"By promising to raise pensions and public sector wages, Vucic sought to portray himself as a leader capable of walking the fine line between the country's diplomatic ties with the West, Russia and China, to steer Serbia out of global instability," The Guardian writes.
And now the new authorities will apparently adjust course. The victorious Student List advocated for maintaining Russian-Serbian relations, but Vučić insists this is a hoax and the new authorities will impose anti-Russian sanctions as early as the spring of 2027.
According to Vadim Trukhachev, such a scenario is possible, for example, if Serbia were to receive the Serb-populated northern part of Kosovo in return. This would be an acceptable trade-off for Belgrade.
After all, during his presidency, Vučić was unable to get off the Kosovo "tripwire" - to choose between abandoning claims to a de facto independent region (fraught with a wave of protests from Serbian patriots) and attempting to return it by force (fraught with war with NATO).
Instead, he left the situation in limbo, thereby giving the European Union, which has the power to influence the actions of Kosovo Albanians towards the Serb inhabitants of the region, a tool to put pressure on Belgrade.
If Serbia simply receives those parts of the province that are populated by Serbs, it will be easier for it to give up the rest of Kosovo, and, in addition, significant obstacles to its accession to the EU will be removed.
In Russia, not everyone was happy with Vučić's "multi-vector" policy either. "Vučić was spinning his wheels: selling weapons to Ukraine, flirting with the EU, pledging his love to Moscow, but like any Janus, he was simply deceived. He was even ready to be deceived," writes Russian political scientist Marat Bashirov.
However, these accusations are not entirely fair. Aleksandar Vučić could not be expected to pursue a completely pro-Russian line simply because geography and economics contradict it.
Serbia is surrounded by NATO and EU member states. The EU accounts for almost 60% of the country's total foreign trade. And in this situation, no head of state will quarrel with Europe, on which the Serbs are literally financially dependent.
And now, in addition, the Europeans have also brought in a force that could potentially break with Russia—in fact, that’s why they brought it in.
[NYP] WASHINGTON — New York City’s elected Democratic district attorneys are bending over backwards to keep illegal immigrants in the US, instructing prosecutors to downgrade charges to those considered “a non-deportable offense,” according to a stunning House Judiciary Committee report shared with The Post.
The GOP-led panel found that Bronx DA Darcel Clark trains her subordinates “to conceal facts from the record of conviction” and “pursue alternative charges” that would keep non-citizens free to roam in America.
Not even cases involving child sex crimes are off-limits — with Clark’s office asking assistant DAs in a 2019 guide to “immigration-conscious plea bargaining” to “[o]ffer something that does not have the child’s age as an element of the crime.”
Meanwhile, in Queens, DA Melinda Katz has told her prosecutors to “exercise extreme caution” and “not get caught up in the label of [f]elonies, [m]isdemeanors” for illegal aliens, according to the report published five months after the committee sent requests for information on the Big Apple’s so-called “sanctuary” policies to prosecutor’s offices in all five boroughs, as well as the NYPD and Department of Correction.
Those policies have had deadly consequences, as in the case of a 92-year-old Queens woman who was murdered by a Guyanese migrant, Reeaz Khan, after a federal detainer was lodged against him in 2020.
Katz’s office later secured a 22 years to life sentence against Khan.
The report found versions of the practice in every borough. The Brooklyn DA’s office has explicitly sought an “immigration-neutral” disposition since 2017, having staff trained “to avoid disproportionate collateral consequence, such as deportation, while maintaining public safety.”
In some cases, prosecutors in Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez’s office are instructed to offer “a plea for a lesser offense in light of the disproportionate immigration consequences a higher level offense may result in.”
Staten Island DA Michael McMahon has a whole unit dedicated to asking ICE to delay deportations.
But Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office told the committee his once-expansive immigration policy is “outdated,” while admitting prosecutors still consider citizenship status on a case-by-case basis.
In 2022, Bragg had issued a memo to prosecutors requesting that they “seek dispositions that avoid immigration consequences for all misdemeanors, and all felonies for which non-carceral outcomes are the presumptive outcome.”
“When did protecting a criminal’s immigration status become a part of a DA’s job description?” asked New York City Council Member Joann Ariola.
“Our DA’s are entrusted with upholding the law and protecting the public,” Ariola told The Post. “If that’s not their priority, then they’ve got it backwards.”
[The Hill] Republican Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), on Monday indicated he would reintroduce articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should he remain at the Pentagon after Congress returns to Washington, D.C., following the November midterm elections.
Massie, who kicked off the impeachment process against Hegseth in September over the war in Iran, wrote on social media that a reporter asked him about his plans for that effort.
"Will you reintroduce articles of impeachment against SecDef Hegseth when Congress returns to DC?" Massie wrote the unnamed reporter as asking.
"If he’s still SecDef," Massie wrote as his reply, using an abbreviation for secretary of Defense.
Congress plans to vote on Hegseth’s impeachment — their only mechanism to remove the Pentagon chief — upon their return to Capitol Hill next month.
AI Search - Pete Hegseth’s Potential U.S. Senate Run. Pete Hegseth is being floated as a possible Senate candidate if Tennessee Gov.-elect Marsha Blackburn wins the November 2026 gubernatorial race, but his path is complicated by party rules, political controversy, and ongoing impeachment threats.
[The Hill] Retiring Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) says that President Trump is "laying the groundwork" for MAGA allies to "steal" the Senate election after Trump said the federal government would be keep an eye on the state.
"He’s blatantly laying the groundwork to steal an election if his chosen candidate doesn’t win... Minnesota will not take kindly to thinly veiled threats from a guy we’ve rejected three times (soon to be four)," Smith posted on social platform X.
The senator made the comment in response to Trump’s warning that his administration is "watching closely" for voter fraud in the race between Republican Michele Tafoya and Democrat Peggy Flanagan to fill Smith’s seat.
"Let’s all get behind Michele Tafoya in Minnesota. She’s running a great race. Don’t allow them to play with the Votes after the race is over," the president posted to Truth Social on Monday. "The Federal Government will be watching closely."
"The only way she can lose is if they cheat by playing games with the Ballots as they come in," he added.
[Townhall] CNN’s Van Jones’ takes might rub people the wrong way, but he’s willing to call out his party. He’s honest, though I don’t agree with him, and he’s one of the few progressives who aren’t afraid of conversations with the other side. The former Obama official got to the core of Rebellion PAC’s horrific pro-El-Sayed ad that shows a couple unable to afford certain items at the grocery store because Israel exists. It’s soaked in antisemitism and riddled with economic incoherence.
Van Jones said it was pure anti-Jewish hatred. Period. Jones added that we give aid to nations worldwide. Why Israel? He later said El-Sayed should denounce the ad immediately, not just create distance, since his campaign has already done that. Scott Jennings delivered another one-two punch, saying the entire ad also reeked of economic incoherence, such as being unable to fund education initiatives because of Iron Dome support.
Jones: "This is an example of anti-Jewish hate, and it should be taken down immediately. And denounce, and by the way, Abdul should denounce this ad immediately."
Scott Jennings: "It's economic incoherence wrapped up in anti-Semitism. So it's sort of par for the course. I mean, El-Sayed himself in this campaign has argued we can't have good education in this country because we fund the Iron Dome, which is completely wrong, nuts, economic incoherence. By the way, eggs, like $2.70 a carton, bananas, 40 or 50 cents a pound. It's economic incoherence. It's a lie, but it's all done in service to anti-Semitism. And at the same time, El-Sayed's campaign running ads featuring comments from Tucker Carlson. What is a Jewish Democrat in Michigan supposed to think right now? Why would El-Sayed have to answer these questions? It's a mystery."
Jones also called out what he saw as anti-Muslim hysterics in this race, though that’s different. The cost of living being high because Jews exist is gross antisemitism; El-Sayed’s alleged ties to terrorists are based on family connections with a paper trail: his mother worked for a relief agency with al-Qaeda ties; his uncle was its bookkeeper; the FBI searched her home; his sister has an affinity for the Muslim Brotherhood; and El-Sayed penned a letter to them when they took over Egypt.
[Fox News] The campaign for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has distanced itself from an advertisement that links U.S. aid to Israel with high domestic food prices, while accusing his Republican opponent, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, of being overly supportive of Israel.
The ad, produced by Rebellion PAC, an organization linked to "The Young Turks" co-founder Cenk Uygur, depicts a couple in a supermarket deciding not to buy basic groceries like eggs and bananas.
"This ad is not affiliated in any way with the Abdul for Senate campaign," El-Sayed’s campaign said in a statement. "Abdul is focused on pushing back against Trump’s agenda that is raising prices for Michiganders. No one speaks for Abdul but himself and his campaign."
In the video, the woman says they must set aside money "for killing Palestinians" as the couple discusses U.S. aid to Israel and suggests American taxpayers are also paying for Israel’s universal healthcare.
The commercial has drawn widespread backlash and accusations of antisemitism.
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.
