World

Tech behemoth Apple complied with an order from the Chinese government to remove popular messaging apps from the company’s app store in the country, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. Apple removed messaging platforms WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram, as well as social media app Threads, from its Chinese App Store in compliance with an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China, which cited national security concerns as the reason for the restrictions, according to the WSJ. China’s order follows a heated debate among U.S. lawmakers over whether to place restrictions on the Chinese Communist Party-linked app TikTok, with some parties calling for the app to either be sold to a non-Chinese entity or be banned in the U.S.

President Joe Biden promised on Wednesday to block the acquisition of U.S. Steel by a Japanese competitor in remarks to a crowd in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, made up of unionized steelworkers. The Japanese Nippon Steel Corporation, the fourth-largest steel producer, first announced that it would be acquiring U.S. Steel in December for around $14.9 billion after turning down other offers, including from American steel company Cleveland Cliffs. The president, in his remarks, emphasized the importance of the American steel industry and called out China for subsidizing their own steel producers.

A Scottish gender clinic for minors announced Thursday that they would no longer be prescribing puberty blockers for patients under the age of 18. The Sandyford Sexual Health Services to Paediatric Endocrinology, which is the only clinic in Scotland that prescribes puberty blockers for minors, said that it would not be accepting new 16 and 17-year-old patients for hormone therapy until they turn 18, according to the announcement. The clinic cited the National Health Service (NHS) of England's decision in March to ban puberty blockers for minors and the publication of the Cass Review on April 10, which found “weak evidence” for giving puberty blockers to children.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been secretly attempting to lobby members of Congress over recent proposals to ban the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok. As reported by Breitbart, employees of the Chinese Embassy have been meeting with congressional staffers to try to persuade members to vote against the bill that would force the Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok, or else face an indefinite ban on the app’s use in the United States. The bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in March with bipartisan support, and is now being reviewed by the Senate.

Many American wheat farmers may face losses in 2024 due to a glut of foreign supply coupled with soaring equipment and labor costs amid high inflation, Reuters reported Wednesday. Wheat prices are near their lowest point in nearly four years as supply from the Black Sea and Europe has unexpectedly flooded the market after three years of droughts draining reserves, hitting winter wheat farmers in the Great Plains particularly hard, according to Reuters. Costs for transporting and producing American wheat have soared compared to foreign wheat suppliers, with high inflation increasing costs for farm equipment, repairs and labor for farmers.

A new report Tuesday detailing the Chinese Communist Party’s role in the fentanyl crisis plaguing the country details the findings of a House investigation that concluded the Chinese government subsidizes the manufacturing and export of fentanyl materials and refuses to crack down on the illicit market. The report, released by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, coincided with a public hearing with former Attorney General Bill Barr, former DEA Chief of Operations Ray Donovan, and an expert from the RAND research organization.

The majority of American voters polled believe the U.S. is being invaded at the southern border.  The findings come after Texas counties have led the national conversation on invasion, introducing the term and making the case for Texas’ constitutional right to self-defense. 

An advocacy group based in Northeastern Mexico that lobbies U.S. lawmakers has distributed and posted flyers encouraging illegal immigrants to vote for President Joe Biden in the 2024 election, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. Translated from Spanish, the Oversight Project notes, the flyers posted by the organization Resource Center Matamoros say: "Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open." (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news and commentary outlet.)

Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida blasted Democrats for trying to get the Biden administration to block the sale of advanced F-35 jets to Israel that defended on Saturday against Iran’s large-scale drone and ballistic missile attack in an exclusive statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi joined 39 Democratic colleagues, including members of the "Squad," in an April 5 letter urging the president to reverse his decision authorizing a weapons sale to Israel after an Israeli airstrike killed seven humanitarian workers in Gaza. The transfer included U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets and other American-origin weapons needed "to ensure Israel can survive" amid threats and attacks from Iran, Mast, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement to the DCNF.

A United Nations climate official issued a dire warning by claiming that only "two years" remain to save the world from an environmental crisis.  "When I say we have two years to save the world, it begs the question - who exactly has two years to save the world? The answer is every person on this planet," UN climate official Simon Stiell said Wednesday during a speech at the Chatham House think tank in London.

A bipartisan warrant requirement amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act section 702 renewal bill failed to pass in a tie vote of 212-212 on the House floor on Friday. The amendment would have prohibited "warrantless searches of U.S. person communications in the FISA 702 database, with exceptions for imminent threats to life or bodily harm, consent searches, or known cybersecurity threat signatures."

The city of Chicago has become overrun with third-world diseases such as measles and tuberculosis due to the surge of illegal aliens flooding into the city, with the number of measles cases in the city rivaling nationwide totals. As reported by Breitbart, health officials in Chicago report 57 "confirmed cases" of measles, with the vast majority being found in the shelters that have been set up for illegals. Of those cases, 33 are children under the age of 4, while 7 cases are children between the ages of 5 and 17, 16 cases are among those between the ages of 18 and 24, and a single case was found in an adult over the age of 50.

President Joe Biden indicated in a new interview that he is considering taking executive action to secure the southern border. "Have you made a final decision on taking executive order in terms of what you want to do at the border? That includes the power to shut down the border, as it was suggested," Univision’s Enrique Acevedo asked Biden in an interview that aired late Tuesday night.

A recent Daily Mail poll showed 54 percent of voters support Trump's proposal to put 10 percent tariffs on most imports, from China or not. This is sacrilege to American free traders. The free-trade globalization crowd – who saw the 80s up to early 2000s as their heyday– believe in a world that does not exist the way they say it does on paper. Do you think Germany allows Ford Mustang’s into their country tariff free? EU charges Ford a 10 percent tariff, four times what we charge their automakers.

A Brazilian judge ordered the government to carry out a criminal probe of Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Sunday, according to multiple media reports. Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Brazilian Supreme Court ordered the inclusion of Musk in a probe into alleged "fake news," accusing Musk of "obstruction," CBS News reported. Musk announced his intention to defy orders from de Moraes to censor the accounts Saturday, then pinned a post urging users to acquire a VPN app to ensure access to the social media site.