April 30, 2026

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Excerpt from amp.scmp.com

After meeting President Xi Jinping at Elysee Palace on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed Beijing’s commitments to “refrain from selling any weapons or aid” to Russia and to “strictly control” sales of products and technologies that could be used for both civilian and military purposes.

Meanwhile, the commerce ministry’s director of Eurasian affairs, Liu Xuesong, said on Monday that China would “work along with Russia” to tap new sectors for bilateral trade, including in services, the digital economy, and green industry and low-carbonisation development.

A bilateral trade expo will be held from May 16-21 in the northeastern city of Harbin, with a focus on industrials and manufacturing, agriculture, and logistics collaborations.

Both countries “have a solid development on China-Russia crude oil pipelines, the Power of Siberia, the Blagoveshchensk-Heihe Bridge and the Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye railway bridge”, Liu said at a press conference.

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Excerpt from finance.yahoo.com

(Bloomberg) — Apple Inc. illegally interrogated staff at its World Trade Center store in New York City, the US labor board ruled Monday, marking the latest rebuke of the iPhone maker’s labor practices.

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A trio of Democratic-appointed labor board members ruled against the company, affirming the findings last year of an administrative law judge. In that decision, the judge concluded that the company violated federal law in 2022 by confiscating union flyers, prohibiting workers from placing them on a table in the break room and “coercively interrogating” employees.

Monday’s ruling is the first decision against Apple by the NLRB’s members, agency spokesperson Kayla Blado said. The Cupertino, California-based company, which didn’t have an immediate comment, has previously denied wrongdoing.

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Excerpt from ca.movies.yahoo.com

(Reuters) – Search engine giant Baidu Inc beat first-quarter revenue and profit estimates on Tuesday as businesses spent more on advertising amid China’s post-COVID reopening, and said it was awaiting regulatory approval to launch its ChatGPT-like Ernie bot.

Business momentum in China is building after it dropped most of its strict COVID-19 curbs late last year, with consumers and companies reviving spending.

China’s economy grew a faster-than-expected 4.5% year-on-year in the three months through March, according to the latest official data.

Baidu CEO Robin Li said on Tuesday that after the Lunar New Year in late January, there was a quick economic recovery that especially benefited the company’s advertisers in offline sectors such as travel and healthcare.

“Some of these verticals have already rebounded to above pre-pandemic levels, indicating solid signs of recovery,” Li said. Baidu’s revenue rose 10% to 31.14 billion yuan ($4.54 billion) in the quarter to March 31, surpassing analysts’ estimates of 29.97 billion yuan, according to Refinitiv data.

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Excerpt from www.businessinsider.com

One of Tesla’s top executives has been reassigned to China in another sign that Elon Musk is tightening his grip on the electric carmaker.

Tom Zhu, who was previously in charge of Tesla’s US plants and sales — effectively making him second in command to Elon Musk — has now been named VP of China, Electrek reports.

Prior to the move, Zhu had assumed more responsibilities at Tesla as Musk was increasingly occupied by X, according to Electrek.

Reuters reported last year that Zhu — who had formerly led the Gigafactory Shanghai manufacturing plant — had been promoted.

Now, Musk has resumed control of Tesla’s North American sales operations, Electrek reports.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

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Excerpt from qz.com

Elon Musk’s “absolutely hardcore” layoffs won’t stop coming as Tesla employees announce their terminations on social media.

Well over a dozen Tesla employees took to LinkedIn on Monday to tell their networks they are now out of a job. It was unclear Monday afternoon how many workers have been affected by the latest round of job cuts. While at least one worker said they were directly informed by their manager, it’s likely that many found out by email.

“You will not need to perform any further work and therefore will no longer have access to Tesla systems and physical locations,” an email shared by one now-former Tesla worker said. “We understand this news is difficult and are committed to supporting you through this transition,” the email continued, before informing them that additional information would be sent within 48 hours.

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Excerpt from news.bloomberglaw.com

A patent owner taking on Google LLC, Amazon.com Inc., and Walmart Inc. is urging the US Supreme Court to undo an appeals court ruling that its patent shouldn’t have been granted in the first place.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in February ruled that “interacting with data objects on the World Wide Web is an abstraction” under the high court’s 2014 decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, and Eolas Technologies Inc.’s distributed computing patent covering just that is invalid.

“That conclusion conflicts with Alice and pushes the boundaries of its ‘abstract idea’ …

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Excerpt from www.gmtoday.com

Debbie Lindh leaned forward in a chair on the front porch of her Grass Valley, California, home and pointed at the house directly across a narrow street.

Lindh, 71, and her husband were recently told State Farm will no longer insure their property near the city’s downtown.

Yet the neighbor across the street is not losing coverage. Her insurer is also State Farm.

“It’s just so arbitrary,” said Lindh, who noted the many trees that surround both her home and that of her neighbor’s.

“This house versus that house? I just totally don’t get it.”

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Excerpt from www.aol.com

WhatsApp founder and Chief Executive Officer Jan Koum is leaving Facebook Inc., just a few years after his messaging app was acquired by the social-media giant for $22 billion.

Koum posted his plan to depart on his Facebook page, saying the decision was emotional. His mobile-messaging tool, which has been kept separate from Facebook’s main social network, its Messenger app and other businesses, is known for offering end-to-end encryption, meaning only the sender and recipient can see the content of messages. The app has about 1.5 billion users worldwide. The news received a quick response from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done to help connect the world, and for everything you’ve taught me, including about encryption and its ability to take power from centralized systems and put it back in people’s hands,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Those values will always be at the heart of WhatsApp.”

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Excerpt from sg.news.yahoo.com

Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC) investors were blindsided Thursday when CEO Brian Krzanich announced his resignation due to an consensual relationship with another Intel employee. The unexpected departure may have rattled Intel shareholders, but analysts say the change of leadership could actually be a blessing in disguise.

Intel announced CFO Bob Swan will be taking over as interim CEO while the company searches for a permanent replacement.

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Excerpt from www.aol.com

(Reuters) – Home improvement chain Lowe’s Companies Inc announced the closure of another 51 underperforming stores in the United States and Canada on Monday as it strives to compete with rival Home Depot Inc in a slowing housing market.

Lowe’s gave no detail of job losses in the move, which closes stores in some upmarket areas including Broadway and Chelsea in Manhattan and follows the shutdown of 99 Orchard Supply stores in California.

Buffeted in recent quarters by the impact of a long winter in North America, Lowe’s has been striving to find ways to catch up with the long-time sector leader Home Depot, each of whose stores on average generate almost twice as much in sales.

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Excerpt from www.breitbart.com

Matthew Colangelo, an ex-Biden Justice Department official who delivered the prosecution’s opening statement for former President Donald Trump’s business records trial in New York, was paid by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for political consulting in 2018, raising further eyebrows regarding the integrity of Democrat District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s entire case.

Colangelo recently joined Bragg’s office after spending years targeting the former president, and not only in his capacity as senior DOJ official. Colangelo also worked for Attorney General Letitia James, who launched the infamous civil fraud case against the former president.

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Excerpt from www.aljazeera.com

Sanders says that he will run for another term as country faces ‘difficult political moment’ amid schisms over Gaza.

United States Senator Bernie Sanders, the 82-year-old leftist and two-time presidential candidate from Vermont, has announced that he will run for reelection amid rumours of possible retirement.

Sanders, whose presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020 galvanised young people and progressives, announced on Monday that he would run for a fourth six-year term in the US Senate.

“Let me thank the people of Vermont, from the bottom of my heart, for giving me the opportunity to serve them in the United States Senate. It has been the honour of my life,” Sanders, an independent, said in a video recording.

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Excerpt from amgreatness.com

A new report claims that the Biden Administration is attempting to implement federal regulations that will be difficult to reverse by a future president, as polls increasingly suggest that Joe Biden will lose the November election to former President Donald Trump.

According to the Daily Caller, the report says that President Trump plans to sign multiple resolutions under the 1996 Congressional Review Act if he wins a second term, aimed at reversing many of Biden’s regulations. In response, officials in the Biden White House are examining methods to make regulations more permanent or harder to undo.

“They’re all looking back to what happened in 2017 and thinking, ‘That could repeat itself in 2025,’” Steven Balla, co-director of George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center, told the Wall Street Journal.

“When re-elected, President Trump will immediately cut Joe Biden’s burdensome regulations, unleash our domestic energy industry, and implement a pro-worker agenda that will uplift all Americans,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.

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Excerpt from www.forbes.com

Topline

Former President Donald Trump received another win on Monday in his bid to delay his criminal trial for allegedly mishandling White House documents, as U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely extended a key deadline in the case—the latest move by the judge to slow-walk the trial, which she has yet to set a new date for.

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Excerpt from www.thegatewaypundit.com

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has launched an investigation into Special Counsel Jack Smith following recent admission that some of the evidence in President Trump’s ‘classified’ documents case was altered or manipulated after being seized by the FBI during its raid on Mar-a-Lago.

The Gateway Pundit reported that Jack Smith’s admission came in response to Trump’s co-defendant, Walt Nauta’s, legal team’s concerns about discrepancies in the evidence’s organization.

Walt Nauta, a former White House valet and Navy veteran who later served as a personal staffer at Mar-a-Lago and was indicted alongside Trump last year, claimed through his attorney that the order of items in the seized boxes did not match their scans provided during discovery.

In a late Friday filing, Smith conceded that the FBI had indeed moved documents around within the boxes that contained ‘classified’ information. This directly contradicts earlier Department of Justice (DOJ) assurances to the court that the contents’ arrangement had been preserved intact.

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Excerpt from uk.movies.yahoo.com

(Reuters) – U.S. Senator Mark Warner called on Facebook Inc to provide more transparency over its decision to not fact-check ads run by politicians, asking whether it would comply with a new rule that requires online platforms to disclose the purchasers of ads.

Facebook has been under fire over its advertising policies, especially after it exempted politicians’ ads from fact-checking standards applied to other content on the social network.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has earlier defended Facebook’s policy, saying that the company did not want to stifle political speech.

In a letter to Zuckerberg on Monday, Warner cited some recent ad examples which he described as containing falsehoods about former Vice President Joe Biden and said it underscored the need of accountability.

“Facebook’s apparent lack of foresight or concern for the possible damages caused by this policy concerns me,” Warner said in the letter. (http://bit.ly/2Ng3z3C)

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Excerpt from www.newsweek.com

The Supreme Court‘s June 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade shows that “extreme MAGA Republicans” could threaten Social Security, Medicare and even American democracy itself, according to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

The New York Democrat made the charge during a 60 Minutes interview with CBS News correspondent Norah O’Donnell on Sunday, which also covered the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, a threat to Mike Johnson‘s House speakership and whether Black voters are turning away from President Joe Biden.

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t support a right to abortion, reversing the landmark 1973 Roe decision. The ruling was celebrated by abortion opponents but drew a furious response from many women’s rights organizations and was widely blamed for the failure of a Republican “red wave” in the November 2022 midterm elections.

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Excerpt from www.wlfi.com

Washington (CNN) — House Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to confront a vote over his ouster in the coming days, a pivotal moment that presents a major leadership test for the Louisiana Republican even though he is expected to prevail.

House Democratic leaders have said that Democrats will vote to kill the effort led by GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, effectively ensuring Johnson won’t lose his job.

Johnson will meet privately with Greene at her request at 3:30 p.m. ET on Monday, according to sources familiar.

A failed vote will give Johnson an opportunity to argue that it is time to move on from the issue. But support from Democrats will open Johnson up to even more criticism from his right flank.

It’s not yet clear how many Republicans will vote against Johnson – the higher the number, the more of a blow it could prove to be to the speaker’s standing within the House GOP conference.

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Excerpt from www.infowars.com

Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Monday issued a statement about the Biden administration’s attempts to take over state National Guard units.

“President Biden and his Admin. are making a power grab for the National Guard. They want to give the Secretaries unilateral authority to dismantle National Guard units on a whim. Governors must not be sidelined as commander-in-chief of our National Guards,” Abbott wrote on X.

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Excerpt from www.nbcsandiego.com

San Diego County and national firearm safety group Giffords have partnered to sue a company that manufactures devices and software allowing people to build their own firearms, with the lawsuit alleging the company is selling a banned device in California under a new name.

The lawsuit alleges Defense Distributed, based in Austin, Texas, is barred from selling its “Ghost Gunner” computer numerical control milling machine locally, yet seeks to circumvent state laws by rebranding and selling the device as the “Coast Runner.”

Another company, Coast Runner Industries, Inc., was launched last year but has notable connections to Defense Distributed, according to the lawsuit, including a homebase in Austin and a chief technology officer who was the Ghost Gunner’s lead product designer.

Reached for comment, Defense Distributed co-founder Cody R. Wilson said in a statement, “Defense Distributed is and will always follow California law. Even when that law is itself illegal.”

The company previously sued to block California’s laws barring the production of ghost gun manufacturing equipment, but a judge denied its request to find the law unconstitutional. The company later dropped its legal challenge.

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Excerpt from townhall.com

After Hamas terrorists agreed to a “softened” version of a ceasefire deal that is an unserious, deceptive ploy aimed at delaying Israel’s looming offensive in Rafah, the State Department refused to directly comment on the terms (pending a U.S. review) to which Hamas had agreed — but again insisted that the Biden administration’s “top priority” is to reach a “ceasefire agreement that will lead to the release of hostages” and allow a “surge of humanitarian assistance” into Gaza.

Note the subtle but significant rhetorical difference between a ceasefire that releases hostages and a ceasefire deal that will lead to the release of hostages. They’re not the same, and the Biden administration knows that.

State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said Monday that the Biden administration previously “made clear” to Hamas that it should “accept the offer” repeatedly made by Israel in recent weeks — the ceasefire offers so far rejected by Hamas while its U.S. based supporters in the halls of Congress and encampments on university grounds continue chanting “CEASEFIRE NOW.”

Seeming to put on his Hamas apologist hat, the State Department’s Miller then complained that the Biden administration has “not seen” a “humanitarian plan that is credible” or “implementable” for Israel to launch a military offensive to root out Hamas terrorists in their final stronghold of Rafah near the border with Egypt in Southern Gaza.

According to the State Department, “a military operation in Rafah right now would dramatically increase the suffering of the Palestinian people” and “would lead to an increase in loss of civilian life.” Never mind, apparently, the reality that Israel’s prosecution of the war started by Hamas on October 7 has seen IDF operations protect civilian lives on a level unseen in recent conflicts — including those in which the U.S. military is a belligerent.

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Excerpt from thefederalist.com

Special Counsel Jack Smith admitted federal prosecutors tampered with evidence in his criminal case alleging former President Donald Trump mishandled classified documents.

According to a Friday court filing, prosecutors said documents the FBI seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence are no longer in the same order in which they found them, and some are mislabeled and may even be misplaced. A government “filter team” that dealt with the boxes once the FBI took them “was not focused on maintaining the sequence of documents within each box,” the special counsel’s office wrote in the filing.

Later the filing says, of early inventories and scanned records of the seized document boxes, “Because these inventories and scans were created close in time to the seizure of the documents, they are the best evidence available of the order the documents were in when seized. That said, there are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans.” A footnote on this last sentence says: “The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court.”

The filing also suggests the Department of Justice and FBI may have lost and mislabeled some of the documents. When the agencies first took the documents at Mar-a-Lago, government employees used many blank sheets of paper as substitutes and cover papers for what they decided might be classified documents.

After the FBI brought the document boxes to Washington DC, federal employees and contractors began replacing these “handwritten sheets” with proper classified document covers. At that point, the filing says, “In many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet.” This indicates the special counsel’s office disclosed it isn’t sure whether some it lost or mislabeled some of the allegedly classified documents it seized in the Trump raid.

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Excerpt from legalinsurrection.com

There is a famous adage that when Republicans screw up, that is the story; when Democrats screw up, the Republican reaction is the story.

Legal Insurrection readers will recall our coverage of EcoHealth’s bat virus research in Wuhan and the history of its President Peter Daszak, as it pertains to the origins of the novel coronavirus that spread worldwide. As a reminder:

Daszak was in charge of organizing the infamous Lancet article used to assert the coronavirus was from a natural source and deem lab-leak proposals as conspiracy theories. He arranged for over 20 scientists to sign the document.

….Weren’t they even slightly suspicious when the person organizing the letter in The Lancet was none other than the deeply conflicted Dr. Peter Daszak, head of green nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance?

Daszak had been collaborating for 15 years with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which we know was conducting dangerous Frankenstein research, known as “gain of function,” on bat coronaviruses, which makes them more lethal and more infective to humans.

He co-authored papers with Shi Zhengli, the head of the Wuhan research team, and he funneled part of the $100 million in US government funding he received to her lab.

Yet despite his compelling vested interest to absolve the lab of involvement in the pandemic, Daszak drafted the Lancet letter and convinced 26 others to sign it, emails released under the Freedom of Information Act revealed last year.

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Excerpt from slaynews.com

Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has appeared on national television to promote wild conspiracy theories about President Donald Trump’s supporters.

During an appearance on MSNBC, Waters claimed that Trump supporters and “right-wing organizations” are currently “training up in the hills somewhere.”

According to Waters, they are preparing to launch an “attack” against “communities” if Democrat President Joe Biden beats Trump in the November presidential election.

85-year-old Waters warned the show’s viewers that “we better be careful about” Trump, who she claims is planning to unleash “violence” against the public.

The congresswoman made the comments during a discussion about the Democrats’ favorite fearmongering narrative.

According to Waters and the Left, Trump won’t accept the election result if he doesn’t win, just like Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“This is a man we better be careful about and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, I’m going to ask the Justice Department and I’m going to ask the president to tell us what they’re going to do to protect this country against violence if he loses,” said Waters.

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Excerpt from redstate.com

America First Legal (AFL) scored a major victory against the Biden Administration as it successfully pressured Biden’s DHS into dissolving the panel of “experts” that was ultimately a threat to American’s free speech rights.

As RedState previously reported, Alejandro Mayorkas brought on James Clapper and John Brennan to take part in a panel of national security “experts” to help with issues regarding “terrorism, fentanyl, transborder issues, and emerging technology,” at the DHS.

Both men are credibly accused of lying to Congress and you’ll know them as two of the men responsible for declaring the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop being “Russian disinformation,” a lie that ended up having positive effects for Biden during the 2020 election.