Fears for safety of Ukraine’s nuclear plants amid repeated attacks; Kyiv launches ‘grain from Ukraine’ scheme; Belarus foreign minister dies

• See all our Russia-Ukraine war coverage

There are growing fears Russia’s relentless targeting of Ukraine’s electricity grid will threaten the safety of the country’s nuclear power plants, in the wake of the unprecedented emergency shutdown on Wednesday. Petro Kotin, the president of Ukraine’s nuclear power company, Energoatom, said all safety mechanisms had worked as intended on Wednesday but two generators were damaged in the process.

Ukrainian authorities are gradually restoring power, aided by the reconnection of the country’s four nuclear plants, but millions of people are still without heat or electricity after the most devastating Russian air strikes of the war.

Russia kept up its onslaught on Ukrainian cities on Saturday with an attack on Dnipro which injured six people and destroyed seven houses, said the regional governor, Valentyn Reznichenko.

Thirty-two civilians have been killed in Kherson since 9 November, when Russian forces withdrew from the southern city they had occupied for eight months, the Kyiv Independent quoted Ukraine’s national police chief, Ihor Klymenko, as saying. Since then, Russian troops have shelled Kherson frequently.

Ukraine accused the Kremlin of reviving the “genocidal” tactics of Josef Stalin as Kyiv commemorated a Soviet-era famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the winter of 1932-33.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy hosted a summit in Kyiv with allied nations on Saturday to launch a “grain from Ukraine” initiative to export $150m worth of grain to countries most vulnerable to famine and drought. Up to 60 Ukrainian grain ships can be sent by the middle of next year to some of the world’s poorest countries in Africa, the Ukrainian president has said in a statement released to the Guardian.

Belarus’s long-time foreign minister, Vladimir Makei, has died. Belarus has been an ally of Russia and a base over the border for the invasion of Ukraine. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova posted on her Telegram channel that “we are shocked by the reports of the death”. Makei had been due to meet Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Minsk on Monday.

The prime ministers of Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine – Ingrida Šimonytė, Mateusz Morawiecki and Denys Shmyhal, respectively – met in Kyiv on Saturday for talks to discuss and reiterate their commitment to work together “in countering Russia’s armed aggression”.

Russia is firing ageing cruise missiles stripped of their nuclear warheads at Ukrainian targets because Vladimir Putin’s stocks are so depleted, the UK Ministry of Defence has suggested. An intelligence update from the ministry on Saturday said the desperate improvisation by the Russian president’s struggling forces were “unlikely to achieve reliable effects”.

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It would be impossible — simply impossible — to describe at length all of Herscel Walker’s insane moves this week in one article. The article would likely be over one thousand pages.

So allow me to do a condensed version. Here is what our vampire has been up to this week — and why EVERYONE in Georgia needs to vote for Senator Warnock.

1) One of Walker’s ex-lovers held a press conference and played messages Walker had left her, including calling her a “big sexy puppy.”

2) Walkers’ former football coach endorsed Warnock. Hey– it’s a big deal. Who knows an athlete’s work ethic better than their own coach?

3) MNSNBC’s Joy Reid has invited Walker on her show for a debate. This happened because Walker started insulting her and challenged her to a debate. She accepted. At the time of this writing, there has been no word from officer Walker about whether he plans to take her up on it.

4) It has come to light that in a talk in 2019, Walker said his son had been an ugly baby” and named his wife’s terrible genes for the problem.

5) On Fox non-news, Walker slipped up and referred to the election as the “erection,” showing the world where HIS thoughts lie. (The funniest thing about this one is that Ted Cruz appeared not to pick up on the mistake and kelp sagely nodding his head along with Walker.)

6) Walker reportedly received a tax break for his permanent residence, which appears to be in Texas — not Georgia. Shades of Mehmet Oz here.

7) Walker went on an anti-transgender diatribe which he is receiving terrible feedback for, especially since it came directly after the shooting in Colorado.

8) Walker also released an ad targeting transgender athletes, which was so dreadful, CNN actually put aside its “both sides” mantra for a bit to shred Walker for it.

And this is just the last week or so! The fact is Walker is completely and totally incompetent, and as bad as this list is, I am sure there will be even worse stuff next week. He can’t help it, you see. It’s just who Walker is.

The post Herschel Walker just stepped in it appeared first on Palmer Report.

Government agencies regularly update and expand their websites, but sometimes a new domain name is ideal for communicating pressing, targeted issues to the public. For example, rather than telling Americans who may wish to report fraud to visit the Federal Trade Commission’s website and then click this or navigate to that, it’s much easier to direct people toward ReportFraud.gov.

Even though such an idea may seem quite reasonable and uncontroversial—or perhaps precisely because it does—the Trump administration had an awful habit of saying no when agencies have made such requests. Given that Donald Trump is a diabolical control freak who’s unashamedly anti-progress and anti-government, this revelation comes as no surprise.

Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Insider, records reveal that Trump’s White House rejected requests from “dozens” of federal agencies wishing to create new government websites. Under Trump’s reign, websites focused on fighting human trafficking, curbing homelessness, ending fraud, and helping voters were not allowed to exist.

The Trump administration considered requests for 105 new websites from July 2018 until the end of Trump’s failed term. According to Insider, Trump’s OMB accepted only 60 of them, denying 44 with one pending, leaving an ugly legacy of a 41.9% rejection rate.

In addition to ReportFraud.gov, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) also rejected HumanTrafficking.gov, Telehealth.gov, FindShelters.gov, FiscalData.gov, and many more. As you might expect, the records offered no explanation for the OMB’s rejections, and both an OMB spokesperson and Trump 2024 campaign representatives refused to respond to Insider’s questions.

By contrast, the Biden administration considered 95 new website requests since taking office through September 9, 2022. President Joe Biden’s OMB accepted 85 requests and denied only four, with six requests voluntarily withdrawn. Over this period, Biden’s rejection rate was only 4.2%.

Despite its penchant for rejecting new websites, Trump’s OMB proved it possessed both the ability and the desire to greenlight certain websites very quickly. TrumpLibrary.gov and TrumpWhiteHouse.gov are two of just a few examples. Sigh.

The post President Biden has cleaned up yet another corrupt Donald Trump mess appeared first on Palmer Report.

ST. LOUIS — A federal judge has denied a request from a 19-year-old woman to allow her to watch her father’s death by injection, upholding a Missouri law that bars anyone under 21 from witnessing an execution.

Kevin Johnson is set to be executed Tuesday for killing Kirkwood, Missouri, Police Officer William McEntee in 2005. Johnson’s lawyers have appeals pending that seek to spare his life.

His daughter, Khorry Ramey, had sought to attend the execution, and the American Civil Liberties Union had filed an emergency motion with a federal court in Kansas City. The ACLU’s court filing said the age requirement served no safety purpose and violates Ramey’s constitutional rights. But U.S. District Judge Brian C. Wimes ruled late Friday that Ramey’s constitutional rights would not be violated by the law.

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“I’m heartbroken that I won’t be able to be with my dad in his last moments,” Ramey said in a statement. “My dad is the most important person in my life. He has been there for me my whole life, even though he’s been incarcerated.”

While the judge acknowledged that the law would cause emotional harm for Ramey, he found that was just one part of the court’s consideration and the law did not violate her constitutional rights.

Ramey said she was praying that Gov. Michael Parson would grant her father clemency. Johnson’s lawyers have filed appeals seeking to halt the execution. They don’t challenge his guilt but claim racism played a role in the decision to seek the death penalty, and in the jury’s decision to sentence him to die. Johnson is Black and McEntee was white.

Johnson’s lawyers also have asked the courts to intervene for other reasons, including a history of mental illness and his age — he was 19 at the time of the crime. Courts have increasingly moved away from sentencing teen offenders to death since the Supreme Court in 2005 banned the execution of offenders who were younger than 18 at the time of their crime.

In a court filing to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office stated there were no grounds for court intervention.

“The surviving victims of Johnson’s crimes have waited long enough for justice, and every day longer that they must wait is a day they are denied the chance to finally make peace with their loss,” the state petition stated.

(KXAN) — One wrong click is all it can take for a hacker to lock your files or account and demand money.

“We got an email from someone. And we accidentally clicked on it — it looks legitimate. We clicked on it. And then it was a hacker, and they asked us to give them ransom, or they threatened to delete our account,” Amanda Wadsworth, co-founder of Tiny Pies, a small business in Austin told KXAN News.

Ransomware attackers can also threaten to reveal customers’ information on the dark web, and there’s a lot of that data right now.

“Organizations are managing about 10 times more data than they were even five years ago,” said Bobbie Stempfley, vice president and business unit security officer for Dell Technologies.

“It’s an astronomical amount of data,” she added.

She said there’s been an increase in attack attempts. In fact, she said businesses like Dell have to fend them daily.

“It’s an environment where, when you put in better protections, the threat actors work to find better ways to go work around those protections,” Stempfley said.

She said Dell is constantly doing training and simulations for employees throughout the year so they don’t fall for ransomware attacks like phishing — when hackers try to lure you via email to click on a fake link.

Holiday shoppers beware

Security company Tanium said attacks like these increase during the holiday shopping season, as hackers try to capitalize on the surge of people surfing the web for deals.

“You’re going to potentially want to look for people impersonating your brand, by stealing websites or sending out emails,” said Melissa Bischoping, Tanium endpoint security research director.

It’s not just companies that hold your data that need to watch out for attacks, Bischoping said. Shoppers should be aware, too.

“Be aware when you receive an email, maybe advertising a holiday sale. Check and go through the official app or the official website that you trust versus just clicking on the link in the email,” she explained.

She said another common holiday scam is through botnets, which grab up inventory for some of the most in-demand products so they can sell it at a markup.

Bischoping said technology has made it easier for hackers to strike.

“It’s much easier than ever for threat actors to enter the marketplace by buying these sorts of pre-built kits to deliver their malware or set up their own botnet. And that does contribute to us seeing more activity,” she said.

It all lines up with the busiest time of year for your favorite shops.

“Security staffing may be low for people who are on vacation and so the security operations team is running around like the elves at the North Pole, trying to stay ahead of the increased demand as well as the increased threat actors,” Bischoping said.

Security tips

• If you get an email about a shopping sale, go directly to the company’s website instead of clicking on any links.
• Keep an extra eye out this season on your credit card for potential fraudulent charges.
• Use different passwords for different websites that you shop on, so if one company gets hacked, your financial information won’t be misused at another company.

The progressive government of Australia’s Victoria state won re-election on Saturday, clearing the way for spending on infrastructure, education and healthcare.

After eight years in power, centre-left Labor was tipped to defeat its Liberal-National coalition opposition, and the government, led by Daniel Andrews, was comfortably returned at Saturday’s poll.

With 67% of the vote counted, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Sunday forecast Labor to win 49 seats in the state’s lower house, and the Liberal-National coalition to take 24 seats.

Forty-five seats are needed to form a majority government in the 88-seat Victorian legislative assembly.

“I’m humbled and so grateful, so so grateful, that Victorians have re-elected a majority Labor government,” Andrews told ABC television on Sunday morning.

Four years ago, Labor returned to power in a landslide, winning just under two-thirds of seats, but polling in the final days of this campaign had suggested a tighter race.

Going into the campaign, both fronts pledged millions to spruce up the state’s infrastructure, education and healthcare system.

Labor has pledged to build a rail loop project for state capital Melbourne, which local media estimates will cost about A$125 billion ($85 billion), but the coalition, led by Matthew Guy, vowed to shelve it if elected.

Guy conceded his conservative coalition had “a lot of work to do” after the third straight election loss to Andrews, The Guardian reported on Sunday.

Victoria, with its capital of Melbourne, is Australia’s second most populous state after New South Wales.

The GOP is finding it impossible to get away from the masses of evil election deniers, misfits and delusional insurrection supporters. This midterm election that we had was a referendum on election denial and the drama that the GOP has been unable to stop.

The American people spoke. They sent the GOP a message. They said no more election denial, no more drama. And that message — at this time is going in one ear and out the other.

This is because Republicans have spent years embracing conspiracy theories in their corrupt attempts to gain power. And their shitshow is far from being over. One thing that many republicans have been candid about is needing a change in leadership. Ronna McDaniel has been the leader of the republican national committee. Ronna McDaniel has been doing a poor job at it.

Many Republicans have even called for a new candidate to step into the race — to challenge Ronna in the quest for Republican leadership. And now it appears the GOP may just have found the candidate of their dreams.

Who is this mystery person? Why it’s MyPillow CEO Milke Lindell, of course! Just how long did YOU think he could stay out of the news?

“We need someone who knows how to run a business to lead one of the most important organizations in the country,” potential candidate Lindell said this week.

That’s right — Mike Lindell is mulling over a candidacy. I imagine at this moment many Republicans are indeed losing their minds. Perhaps they have their hands over their ears, desperately trying to quiet the noise of approaching lunacy.

Lindell has been asking viewers if they would support him in a candidacy. Many said yes, and Lindell is seriously thinking about challenging McDaniel.

Is THIS the GOP’s twilight zone? They can’t get away from it, can they? Everywhere they turn, evil monsters are cackling and chuckling with mirth, edging their way closer to the GOP machine.

So let’s consider what a Lindell candidacy would look like. Will he consider changing the name of the grand old party to the grand old pillows? If so, this move may prove to be a good thing. “We need someone,” Lindell said. “And I would step into that if God willing.”

And so it goes, like a wicked fairy tale with no end, the GOP cannot get rid of the crazy. One KNOWS they don’t want Lindell. One also knows they might find they have no choice in the matter.

The post Mike Lindell just went there appeared first on Palmer Report.