An unspecified number of personnel were conducting a training exercise in the eastern Mediterranean when the aircraft experienced a “mishap,” USEUCOMM wrote in a press release obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The cause of the mishap is still under investigation, although officials said the “sortie” was “purely related to training” and was not the result of “hostile activity.”

“On the evening of November 10, a U.S. military aircraft conducting training operations in the eastern Mediterranean suffered a mishap and went down,” USEUCOMM wrote in the press release. “The cause of the training incident is currently under investigation. However, we can definitively say that the aircraft sortie was purely related to training and there are no indications of hostile activity.”

Thank you to the #veterans who have served and sacrificed for our country. Thank you for your strength and courage. Happy #VeteransDay! pic.twitter.com/HLqiYSFVrf

— U.S. European Command (@US_EUCOM) November 11, 2023

The military declined to release more information about the personnel involved “out of respect for the families affected,” USEUCOMM noted in the press release. The agency will release more information as the ongoing investigation of the “training incident” reveals more details.

USEUCOMM told the DCNF that it has no more specifics at this time.

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The county’s jail population has plummeted to levels not seen since at least 2003 under Price, aligning with her pledge to reduce the number of people in jail, according to the Chronicle. Meanwhile, crime has increased in several cities within Alameda county, going up 7% in Berkeley and jumping by 22% in Oakland.

“She feels that she is saving the black and brown communities by [letting people out],” Brenda Grisham, who organized Save Alameda For Everyone (SAFE) — a group that is attempting to recall Price — and advocates for communities throughout the Bay Area, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in October. “I still can’t figure it out… I don’t know how this focus got to where it is. If someone killed 3 people, they should be in jail.”

The jail population is falling fast under Pamela Pricehttps://t.co/hzvfajQqGm pic.twitter.com/qLHm70e3gk

— Dan Kopf (@dkopf) November 3, 2023

The Soros-backed district attorney has faced major backlash for her soft-on-crime approach, which Oakland residents have claimed has exacerbated the explosion of crime in the city that has continued to increase since 2020. Residential robberies have jumped up 71% in the city since Price took office in January, while total crime has increased 24%, police data showed.

Price has denied any responsibility for the increase in crime, and has accused opponents of attempting to “roll back” progress by criticizing her actions, according to her campaign website. But residents in Oakland launched an effort to recall Price in the past few months because she has put “criminal suspects before victims.”

“Women are afraid to walk down the street,” SAFE wrote. “Older couples are being preyed upon. Drivers are afraid to honk their horn or even make eye contact with other drivers… DA Price is hoping we just get used to being afraid.”

Many of the district attorneys and politicians liberal billionaire George Soros has funded have attempted to walk back penalties for crimes, including Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams. Crime increased in six cities run by Soros-backed district attorneys in 2022, including Chicago and New York City.

Price received funding through the California Justice and Public Safety PAC, an offshoot of the Soros-Safety and Justice Network, for her campaign in 2018, although she did not receive funds for her run in 2022.

Price’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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Over 100 looters broke into 28 stores across Philadelphia on Sept. 26 and 27 following a judge’s decision to not pursue charges against a city police officer who was accused of murder. Krasner claimed that most of these looters had been “caught up in a movement” and should be held “accountable” without a “conviction,” he said during a press conference.

“A very large number of them are young,” Krasner said at the meeting. “They’re between the ages of 18 and 25, and in general what we are seeing is most of them have no criminal record or a minimal criminal record. But that isn’t all of them. There certainly are some people in this group that are much more concerning than others and part of our task will be to make sure that we do individual justice in each of these cases.”

Krasner pointed to his previous response to riots and looting, including his choice to not convict many of the violent protesters following George Floyd’s death in 2020, he said during the press conference. The Philadelphia DA chose not to prosecute 85% of the 2020 rioters, instead requiring them to participate in “restorative justice circles” and other “restorative response programs,” according to a 2022 press release.

“I do think that if it turns out that none of the people involved in the unrest before [in 2020] are this group of people, that’s an important thing to note,” Krasner said at the press conference. “It would appear that the way those cases are resolved — both with vigorous prosecution as to some and with an approach that was involving accountability but did not involve a conviction — it would appear, if none of them are here, that we did the right thing before.”

Krasner has already released some suspects on zero bail, most within 12 hours of their initial arrest. So far, more than 70 people been charged for their involvement in the riots and looting, according to NBC10 Philadelphia.

“We understood [in 2020] the complexity of taking people who have essentially no prior record and are caught up in a movement and are nonetheless committing crimes,” Krasner said at the press meeting. “All of them should be held accountable, but there is more than one way to hold them accountable…”

Krasner did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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(Daily Caller)—Cooper Middle School in McClean, Virginia, gave students an age- inappropriate reading list for their 7th grade English class this year, a concerned parent told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Students in the English class were assigned a wide variety of books on topics that spanned from illegal immigration to Black Lives Matter (BLM), according to a copy of the list. Although the reading list clarifies that students will not have to read every single book, one teacher at the middle school said students would have to choose books to read from the provided options unless a parent offered an alternate, school-approved book, an orientation video welcoming students to the class showed.

“The first time I got this syllabus was after the open house,” “Jane,” a parent who immigrated to the U.S. from Communist China and who requested anonymity so her child would not be bullied by teachers and students in the class, told the DCNF. “I didn’t think much of it at the time because I thought it was about teaching English. But. . . when I saw the second page, there were some words that looked completely unrelated.”

The list specifies eight core concepts the students will study by reading a “variety of books” over the course of the year to “challenge” them and let them “explore universal concepts”: Identity, community, the unknown, loyalty, justice, ethics, perspective and change. Students received slightly different book assignments depending on if they were in the honors-level course or the regular class, but both lists contained controversial books with explicit sexual or violent content.

“My parents were little during the communist revolution,” Jane told the DCNF. “Every textbook was about indoctrination, whether about physics, math or Chinese language. There was politics everywhere. . . Now it looks like this ‘English’ class has become indoctrination.”

“The thing is, the whole state, the whole country has something wrong. Every person is like a small screw in a big machine. I wonder if the teachers really know what critical thinking really is,” Jane added. “When I was in China, we didn’t have freedom of speech. Now I feel like in the United States we are losing our freedom of speech. It’s not just about speech. It’s about thinking.”

Both syllabi contain “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You,” a book by controversial author Ibram X. Kendi, who has advocated for the idea that every white person is inherently racist and compared anti-lockdown protesters in 2020 to slaveholders. “Stamped” is a “kid-friendly” remix of Kendi’s original book, “Stamped From The Beginning,” and gives a simplified explanation of his racial theories while encouraging students to “build an antiracist America” by “recognizing America’s racist past,” according to an excerpt from the preface.

“I saw the author [of one of the books], Kendi, and I read a report about him before,” Jane told the DCNF. “When I saw a book by him on the list, it was like an alarm to me. I started to Google books, and there are some on the honor’s list that are not on the others. There were some books promoted by BLM.”

“I don’t think schools should be giving these books to 7th graders in classrooms,” Jane added. “This curriculum is made to integrate an ideology about identity. I don’t think it’s correct for a teacher to promote their political agenda at a public school. They’re on the taxpayer’s money, we pay their salary.”

Parents have raised concerns about controversial reading lists across the country over the past few years, as more public schools and libraries have attempted to introduce LGBTQ and BLM ideology into the classroom. Republican Sen. John  Kennedy of Louisiana read aloud sections of books at a Sept.12  Senate hearing that revealed the extremely graphic nature of the stories public schools have recently assigned to young students.

Happy first day of school!@langleyfcps @CooperMS_FCPS @SpringHillFCPS @MarshallRoadES @CedarLaneHS @CunninghamPark pic.twitter.com/aeMoc9qNFH

— FCPS Region 1 (@FCPSRegion1) August 21, 2023

The list provides students with several other books that promote BLM ideas: “The Hate U Give,” “Dear Martin,” “All American Boys,” “Ghost Boys,” “Just Mercy,” “New Kid” and “A Good Kind of Trouble.” Each book uses a fictional narrative to introduce students to concepts like “microaggressions,” modern-day white supremacy, police brutality and inherent racism.

The school does not have a specific policy on allowing parents to opt their children out of books with extreme violence or overly politicized ideas, although the Fairfax County Public Schools system (FCPS) told the DCNF that parents have a right to opt their students out of an assignment if they are “uncomfortable with any books on any of our school reading lists.” FCPS administrators told the DCNF that all “controversial” books go through an extensive committee review process before being assigned to students.

Jane expressed concern about some of the books she claimed had an ulterior agenda or had sexual themes that are inappropriate for children who are 12 or 13 years old. She pointed to one book, “Gracefully Grayson,” which is about a young boy who decides over the course of the story that he is actually a girl and that he wants to transition.

“The students are vastly growing, not just with their bodies but with their minds,” Jane told the DCNF. “They [public schools] want to interfere with our children, and they want to make our children follow them, to accept their ideology. Identity is important. But discovering identity is a lifelong journey.”

Other books focus more on the purely sexual side of the LGBTQ world, like “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” and “They Both Die At The End.” Both books present two teenage boys as their protagonists, and both novels have extremely graphic descriptions of the boys making out and wanting to have sex.

Other stories, like “Shatter Me,” “Uglies,” “The Fifth Wave” and “Five Feet Apart” focus on characters that want to have physical contact or sex but are not able to for varied reasons. “Shatter Me” in particular focuses on eroticism to emphasize to readers that the main character cannot touch anyone because she has the power to kill people on contact.

“His hand. On me,” a passage at the very beginning of “Shatter Me” reads, describes the first time the main character is touched by her male cellmate. “2 tips of 2 fingers graze my cloth covered shoulder for less than a second and every muscle of every tendon in my body is fraught with tension that clenches my spine.”

When the DCNF asked FCPS why they assign borderline pornography to young students, the administration pointed to their policy that requires teachers to inform parents at least 30 days in advance if their students will be reading a sexually explicit book in class. Parents can choose to opt their student out of reading those books and can also suggest alternate books they would rather have their child read.

Jane told the DCNF that she worried about her child’s literature education, especially since the classroom functions as a “book club” style discussion format. She also said she was concerned the school would not approve her book choices if she chose more classic literature or conservative-leaning nonfiction.

“One thing I was worried about: My daughter, my child, may be persecuted in her class,” Jane told the DCNF. “I want her to have the opportunity to actively participate in the learning activities. But some of the learning material that is provided is concerning. But how do you participate when the material is inappropriate?”

Cooper Middle School, the school’s principal and the three teachers overseeing the English class did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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Passantino claimed that Weissmann intended to defame him in a September tweet when he allegedly referred to the lawyer as “the one who coached [Cassidy Hutchinson] to lie,” according to the court document. The complaint alleges that Weissmann “chose to smear” Passantino to advance his “career as a partisan political pundit.”

Hunt also is Cassidy Hutchinson’s good lawyer. (Not the one who coached her to lie) And he is the guy who took notes of Trump saying, when Mueller was appointed, quoting him as saying “I’m f….d” https://t.co/HFGmwI9f0B

— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads) (@AWeissmann_) September 15, 2023

“As with all my clients during my 30 years of practice, I represented Ms. Hutchinson honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me (and others) while I represented her,” Passantino told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “As Ms. Hutchinson herself testified, I never counseled her to lie. I have never counseled a client to mislead anyone.”

The former Trump lawyer represented Hutchinson, a former White House aide, during the Jan. 6 Committee’s investigation, the complaint says. Hutchinson made several statements during the hearing that were later brought into question.

“Anyone who takes the time to read the transcripts in which I represent Ms. Hutchinson or to learn anything about me will know this one-sided caricature of me is false,” Passantino told the DCNF. “I have already initiated legal action arising from the January 6 Committee’s unlawful and unethical conduct. This country has defamation laws for a reason, and I intend to avail myself of them – starting today.”

“Defendant attacked Mr. Passantino as a means of distracting from and rehabilitating the contradictory and uncredible aspects of Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, as they undermine the Select Committee and its partisan findings and purpose,” the complaint alleges. “Defendant’s smear has deeply damaged Mr. Passantino’s 30-year reputation and had caused him to lose significant business and income. Mr. Passantino seeks to hold Defendant accountable for this vicious lie and the damages it has wrought.”

Passantino is seeking $75,000 in damages, according to the complaint.

Weissmann did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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(Daily Caller)—Residents of Manteno, Illinois were outraged when they found out local and state officials had finalized a deal with a Chinese Communist Party-linked company to construct an electric vehicle battery “gigafactory” in their town.

The multi-billion dollar deal, which Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced on Sept. 8, was hashed out behind closed doors and without any public input, according to over a dozen Manteno residents who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“There was absolutely no public participation or notification that this was going [on],” Darrel Bruck Jr., a longtime resident of Manteno who runs an informational group called “Outrage of Kankakee County,” told the DCNF. “There were probably 200 people [at the announcement], but the public was not invited. It was strictly for local politicians, the mayor, some local people who owned land who will make a lot of money off strip malls and such.”

Manteno Mayor Tim Nugent had been involved in discussions with Gotion Inc. and the Illinois government from at least December 2022, he said in an Aug. 23 Kankakee County meeting. Nugent also said he spoke with individual council members about the deal behind closed doors despite the project receiving massive tax incentives from the county, which he referred to as an “intergovernmental agreement between certain Kankakee County taxing districts and officials,” according to a recording of an Aug. 7 meeting.

“When I heard of it, I stopped, because it was the first I’d heard about it, and I immediately texted all of the trustees for our city,” Annette LaMore, a longtime resident of the area and a former Manteno council board member, told the DCNF. “I wondered why money would be so important that we’d overlook all of the safety issues. Not one of the trustees — we have six — got back to me.”

“I asked the mayor if there was an informational meeting that was open for the public,” LaMore continued. “He answered me and said, ‘There are no information meetings that I am aware of.’ I feel like, ‘Did he forget that he’s working for us, for the community?’ I think people need to be able to ask questions and know about what’s going on before decisions are being made.”

When residents of Manteno had the opportunity to speak at a town hall meeting on Sept. 18 — the first official public meeting on the issue — Nugent limited the discussion to a comment period and refused to answer the locals’ questions.

“You can tell us we need this battery plant. But you don’t know! Look at the people that are here tonight. This is exactly why you didn’t publicize it,” Bob Forsythe, a Manteno local, said at the meeting. “It’s not good for us. If it was, you’d be ranting all over the place.”

Residents told the DCNF that they felt concerned about the plant’s placement, which will be across the street from a residential neighborhood, next to a large blasting quarry and within a mile of the the village’s elementary, middle and high schools.

“My concern is that it’s close to the elementary school, less than five minutes away,” Dorian Black Reynolds, a resident of Manteno and the mother of a child who currently attends the village’s elementary school, told the DCNF. “The pollution and the possibility of disasters are not something the town is prepared for.”

“The town seems to want to be having discussions of what is being done, and most people didn’t seem to have a clue that something was going on until they knew Pritzker was coming into town,” she added.

Gotion, Inc. is a subsidiary of Gotion High-Tech, which is based out of Hefei, China and employs 923 CCP members, including the CEO. Former U.S. ambassadors have called on the Treasury Department to launch a review into Gotion’s operations because of its CCP connections.

Gotion has also announced a plan to create a battery plant near Big Rapids, Michigan, and purchased 270 acres near the area in August to build its new plant. Michigan locals have heavily protested the battery plant for months, and succeeded in blocking the company from purchasing several additional plots of farm land near Big Rapids.

ICYMI: Key takeaways on Gotion’s historic investment:

2,600 new good-paying jobs
$2 billion company investment in IL
Gigafactory will supercharge the growth of IL’s EV ecosystemhttps://t.co/6GjEoVw9aZ pic.twitter.com/4smmDY23vV

— . (@puffer_flnance) September 12, 2023

Gotion received a $536 million incentive package from state and local governments to move to the Manteno area, as well as a property tax abatement from Kankakee County over the next 30 years, the government agreements show.

“The whole of Kankakee county is going to be impacted by this,” a longtime resident of Manteno, who asked for anonymity, told the DCNF. “Taxes are definitely going to go up. The elderly, who are just making it, and the families who are still trying to make it … Our sales taxes, our local taxes. . . everything will go up.”

Bringing Gotion into Manteno would invest $2 billion and bring more than 2,600 jobs to the area, according to the press release.

“The workforce is a mess right now,” Reynolds told the DCNF. “Yes, this should help the community. [But] again, at what risk? To themselves, by working in the factory? The pay is going to be about $55,000 a year, but for what the job is and what the risk entails, it’s not worth it … I would not work there. If they quadrupled the pay, I still would not work there. Why would you want to put yourself in close proximity to [carcinogens]?”

One resident told the DCNF that although she is concerned about the deal, she hopes local officials have acted for the benefit of the community.

“As residents, we have to hope that our government is looking out for us, that they have a plan, that they know that this is going to be safe,” Crystal Wolfe, a Manteno local, told the DCNF. “But working off of hopes and dreams … I don’t think lithium-ion batteries are the way that we should go. There’s a danger in moving too fast. I guess that’s what really scares me, health-wise, is that the danger here is that it’s moving so fast. The true unknown is what are the long-term effects going to be, if any? I hope … I hope our government is looking out for our best interest.”

Pritzker, Gotion, Inc. and Nugent did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC) on behalf of Jonathan C. Richardson, claiming that the state violated the 14th and Eighth Amendments by denying “medical procedures” to inmates based on gender identity, AP reported. Richardson is currently serving 55 years in prison for murdering his 11-month-old step-daughter in 2001, according to court records.

“Indiana Code § 11-10-3-3.5(a), denies medically necessary surgical care, including vaginoplasties and orchiectomies, to transgender prisoners because of their status as transgender persons,” ACLU said in the lawsuit. “This unwarranted and intentional discrimination against Plaintiff and other transgender prisoners, because of their transgender status, violates equal protection.”

The lawsuit claimed that sex reassignment surgery is “lifesaving” for those who experience gender dysphoria, according to the AP. The ACLU asserted that individuals with gender dysphoria who do not receive surgery will succumb to anxiety and depression, and may eventually commit suicide because of their emotional distress.

Indiana prosecutors charged Richardson with the murder of his 11-month-old stepdaughter in October 2002, after police discovered evidence that he had strangled her to death when he was left to watch her alone in September 2001, according to court documents. He initially claimed that he had found the girl dead in her crib, but later told an officer that, “well all I know is I killed the little f***ing b***h.”

Richardson has been in a men’s incarceration prison since 2002 and is set to have a clemency hearing with the Indiana Paroles Department in Septembe, according to court documents. He currently goes by the name “Autumn Cordellioné,” and began receiving medicine for hormone replacement in 2020 when he first claimed to be experiencing gender dysphoria, the IndyStar reported.

Richardson applied for sex-change documents in August 2022, but the court denied his request after he failed to appear for a hearing regarding the case, according to court records. He allegedly attempted suicide, engages in self-harm and experiences severe emotional distress because he cannot transition, the lawsuit claimed.

Indiana law prohibits the state from funding surgeries, but does not prevent inmates from receiving hormone-replacement medicine.

The IDOC declined to comment further on the matter. The ACLU did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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