The State of Illinois is providing taxpayer funded incentives, of more than half a billion dollars, to lure a Communist China tied company, Gotion, to build an electric vehicle (EV) battery factory in the state.  Gotion will receive additional federal tax incentives.

The Gateway Pundit reported on Gotion’s recent failed attempt to build a similar factory in a small farming community in Green Twp, Michigan.

But Illinois Governor JB Pritzker announced on Friday that Illinois is more than ready to hand over tax dollars to the CCP tied company.

The plant’s location in Manteno, Illinois lies approximately 30 miles from one of the largest inland ports in the United States.

Pritzker said in a statement announcing the deal, “In partnership with the business community and the General Assembly, two years ago we set out to make Illinois a destination for electric vehicle and clean energy companies from across the globe.”

An LGBTI rights organization in France is calling on the Minister of Equality to intervene in the case of a gynecologist who they are accusing of “transphobia.”

On September 8, SOS Homophobie, which describes itself as a “national association against LGBTIphobia” took to X (formerly Twitter) to condemn a gynecologist for stating he only provided services to females. The comment from Dr. Victor Acharian, who operates in the Pau region, was made in reply to a Google review he received in which a trans-identified male’s partner complained that Acharian refused to provide services to him.

“It was my trans partner’s first appointment. He refused to see her, his secretary threw us away coldly. I advise against [visiting]. Never again,” the review stated.

Webmaster addition:

Democrat New York Gov. Kathy Hochul provided a troubling message for individuals who received the previous experimental COVID-19 shots.

Hochul said the old COVID-19 shots won’t work against new variants.

“Tell everybody don’t rely on the fact that you had a vaccine in the past, it will not help you this time around,” Hochul said.

The Group of 20 leaders have agreed to a plan to eventually impose digital currencies and digital IDs on their respective populations, despite fears that governments will use them to monitor their peoples' spending and crush dissent.

The G20, which is currently under India’s presidency, adopted a final declaration on the subject over the weekend in New Delhi.

The meeting, which included the world’s leading economies, announced last week that they had agreed to build the necessary infrastructure to implement digital currencies and IDs.

The group said that discussions were already underway to create international regulations for cryptocurrencies, but claimed that there was “no talk of banning cryptocurrency” at the summit.

Many critics are concerned that governments and central banks will eventually regulate cryptocurrencies and then immediately replace them with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), which lack similar privacy and security.

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that discussions were underway to build a global framework to regulate crypto assets since they believe cryptocurrencies can not be regulated efficiently without total international cooperation.

Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” shares a clip of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on "The Tim Dillon Show" explaining how the Democratic primary has already been rigged against him.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Russia has been able to significantly ramp up its production of ammunition and other armaments despite Western sanctions meant to degrade the country’s military industry.

According to one senior Western defense official, before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia could produce 100 tanks a year. Now they can make 200. Western officials also believe Russia is on track to produce 2 million artillery shells per year, twice the amount they estimated Russia could make before the war.

As a result of the increase in production, Russia can make more ammunition than the US and Europe combined. The US and its NATO allies are working to bolster their production, but results aren’t expected to be seen for years. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg previously said Ukraine was using artillery rounds at a faster rate than the entire alliance could produce.

Kusti Salm, a senior Estonian Defense Ministry official, estimated in comments to the Times that Russia’s current ammunition production is seven times greater than the West’s. The figure demonstrates how time is on Russia’s side in the conflict and how fueling the proxy war may be unsustainable for the US and its NATO allies.

Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has voiced his opposition to the ongoing impeachment efforts against President Joe Biden. Tuberville’s stance comes as a blow to House Republicans, as he joins a growing list of GOP senators expressing skepticism about the impeachment inquiry.

Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press NOW,” Tuberville emphasized the importance of having a solid case before moving forward with impeachment proceedings. “You don’t bring a vote to the floor unless you are pretty sure that you can get the amount of votes that you need,” he stated.

He further expressed doubt about the Senate’s ability to secure the necessary votes to convict Biden, saying, “I know that wouldn’t make it to anywhere over here in the Senate. That probably wouldn’t even — wouldn’t even let it make it to the floor.”

Hunter Biden on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit against former Trump aide Garrett Ziegler for accessing his ‘laptop from hell.’

The lawsuit was filed in the Central District of California just one day after Speaker McCarthy announced an impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden.

The lawsuit accuses Ziegler of violating California and federal computer privacy laws after he posted content from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop to the website of his nonprofit, Marco Polo.

Hunter Biden claimed in his lawsuit that the “data appears to have been manipulated both before and after Ziegler obtained it,” according to Politico.

How convenient! After denying the laptop is even his, Hunter Biden is now claiming the data has been manipulated.

Ziegler laughed at the allegations in a statement to far-left Politico.

“I nor the nonprofit, Marco Polo, have been served with any lawsuit — but the one I read this morning out of the Central District of California should embarrass Winston & Strawn LLP,” Ziegler wrote in an email to Politico. “It’s not worth the paper it’s written on. Apart from the numerous state and federal laws and regulations which protect authors like me and the publishing that Marco Polo does, it’s not lost on us that Joe’s son filed this SLAPP one day after an Impeachment inquiry into his father was announced.”

An attorney in Venice, California, filed a federal lawsuit on Saturday to bar former President Donald Trump from California’s 2024 presidential primary election, arguing that he is disqualified due to his alleged role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, according to a report.

The lawsuit argues that the Fourteenth Amendment states that no one can hold office who has previously taken an oath of office to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or gave aid to those who did, according to a Los Angeles Times report.

The attorney, Stephen Yagman, filed the lawsuit on behalf of a California voter identified as “A.W. Clark.”

Yagman argues the language in the Constitution “speaks for itself.”

“There is only one issue that would need to be litigated potentially, and that issue is did Trump engage in insurrection or rebellion…I think the answer to that question for anyone who has eyesight is that he did,” he claims.

Yagman, according to the Times, was disbarred and served 29 months in federal prison after being convicted in 2007 for tax evasion, bankruptcy fraud, and money laundering, but his law license was later reinstated.

Webmaster addition: "How many more people do we have to kill ... I mean, how many more people have to die before you give up your guns?" -- Official White Horse Souse

A con woman agreed to a plea deal Monday in exchange for three decades in prison for fatally shooting a Florida college student in front of his horrified girlfriend after they stopped to help her.

Yasmine Hider, 21, will be required to plead guilty to murder, robbery and kidnapping in Alabama federal court for the August 14, 2022, attack on Adam Simjee and Mikayla Paulus. A judge still has to approve the agreement.

Shortly before Hider made the deal, Paulus wrote a heart-wrenching tribute to Simjee, 22, on the anniversary of his murder.

"This is just the first year of many without him, but I see him everywhere," she wrote on Facebook. "There is never a moment that goes by where he's not on my mind. The rest of my life will be a love letter to him. I'll miss you and love you forever sweet boy."

Checkout this video. He wants to wipeout white race pic.twitter.com/Cz5dXDf4kR

— TheConservative (@Matt_sleepyduck) June 17, 2023

The United States is seeking to picture the productive dialogue between Russia and North Korea as a factor of instability in the world, which is repulsing, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said, commenting on US official’s remarks about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s visit to Russia.

"The U.S. has no right to lecture us how to live. Russia being a responsible nuclear power and a permanent member of the UN Security Council can independently decide who to cooperate with. The attempts to label the productive and mutually beneficial Russian-North Korean dialogue as a driver of instability are not only surprising but also repulsive," he was quoted as saying on the Russian embassy’s Telegram channel.

"How should we then regard the White House’s efforts to build up coalitions in Asia Pacific and expand military drills near the Korean Peninsula, with deploying U.S. strategic assets?" he noted.

He pointed to the United States’ janus-faced approach to Russia’s relations with North Korea. "Washington’s hypocrisy is no longer a surprise. The U.S. is OK with delivering weapons to the ‘hot spot.’ At the same time, following the Administration’s logics, Russia’s military and technical cooperation with foreign countries is unlawful. Our partners are once again being threatened with sanctions. And Moscow, presumably, will also suffer consequences. Local Russophobes, however, are unlikely to find new ways to infringe on our interests, taking into consideration the uncountable restrictions already imposed on Russia."

On September 11, Joe Biden concluded his visit to Vietnam, often hailed as a historic one by the mainstream propaganda machine. For instance, the BBC claims that “more than 50 years since the last American soldier left Vietnam, Mr Biden travelled to Hanoi to sign the agreement that will bring the former foes closer than ever before”. The troubled Biden administration hailed the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Vietnam as a major upgrade in relations with Hanoi and the culmination of efforts Washington DC invested in over the last several years. Biden also tried to present the rapprochement as having nothing to do with containing or isolating China, but about “maintaining stability in accordance with international rules”.

“I think we think too much in terms of Cold War. It’s not about that. It’s about generating economic growth and stability,” Biden told reporters on September 10, adding: “I want to see China to succeed economically, but I want to see them succeed by the rules.”

Obviously, this is a laughable claim for anyone remotely familiar with the rabidly Sinophobic policies the United States keeps escalating, be it the strategic containment of China, the never-ending stoking of tensions in Taiwan, attempts to prevent or at least derail Beijing’s technological development, etc. And to say nothing of the vaunted “rules-based world order”, as nobody actually knows what “rules” Biden is referring to. Not even Western leaders could pinpoint or even broadly explain the meaning of this pointless phrase, as the “rules” they keep parroting about are not defined. Essentially, they just make them up as they go, depending on the geopolitical circumstances, only later trying to present them as “in line with the international law”.

Still, even the BBC had to admit that Vietnam sees this rapprochement as nothing more than symbolic. According to Le Hong Hiep from Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, “Hanoi has thought this through”, as the aforementioned agreement with the US is “symbolic rather than [one of] substance”. Washington DC was hoping to use the sizeable investments of various American corporations in Vietnam for geopolitical purposes, including the reduction of China’s economic influence and Russia’s close military cooperation with Hanoi. However, both attempts are bound to fail, as Vietnam will certainly not break close ties with either for the sake of US interests in the region, particularly not with Moscow, one of its closest allies.

Webmaster addition: You don't suppose that Vietnam still holds a grudge against the US, do you? :)

We received some seemingly excellent news over the weekend. The appellate court of the 5th Circuit has reimposed the restrictions on the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the FBI to stop bullying social media companies to censor content.

This has taken place ahead of the actual trial because two judges found that the practice was so egregious that it needed to be stopped right now before more damage is done to the First Amendment.

“The officials have engaged in a broad pressure campaign designed to coerce social-media companies into suppressing speakers, viewpoints, and content disfavored by the government,” a three-judge panel wrote in Missouri v. Biden.

“The harms that radiate from such conduct extend far beyond just the Plaintiffs; it impacts every social-media user.”

That’s all excellent news so far.

But there's a fly in this ointment.

The lower court’s injunction included restrictions on a whole host of agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (and its sub-unit, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA), and the State Department and its relationships with other third-party agencies.

I was personally disappointed that the initial injunction didn't name the CIA and all of its thousands of proxies, to say nothing of the other 400-plus agencies in the administrative state of the federal government.

What’s strange and disappointing is that the appeals court stripped all of this out of its ruling.

The impeachment inquiry announced by House Republicans against President Joe Biden centers on his involvement with Ukraine, just as the Eastern European country figured prominently in the first impeachment of President Donald Trump. In fact, both impeachments touch upon the same incident, but from opposite sides.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced the impeachment inquiry on Sept. 12, summarizing the results of the investigations to date, including nearly $20 million in alleged payments from foreign sources to the Biden family and associates, the president’s past communications with his son Hunter Biden about his overseas business dealings, as well as whistleblower allegations that the Department of Justice extended special treatment to the Biden family.

“These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption and they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives,” Mr. McCarthy said.

The centerpiece of the allegations goes back to 2016, when then-Vice President Biden used a $1 billion loan guarantee as leverage to have Ukraine fire prosecutor Victor Shokin, who was investigating Ukrainian energy company Burisma. At the time, the vice president's son Hunter Biden was collecting $1 million a year to sit on the company’s board and Burisma associates were pressuring him to ensure any investigations into the company’s owner were quashed.

It was President Trump’s requesting assistance from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in investigating this matter during a 2019 phone call that prompted House Democrats to launch an impeachment inquiry of him and later voting to impeach him. President Trump was acquitted by the GOP-led Senate at the time.

What a cruel irony: The president whose policy obsession from Day 1 in the Oval Office has been not to grow the economy but to reduce income inequality has presided over a near-record surge in the percentage of Americans in poverty.

That’s the finding of the Census Bureau’s annual data report released this week.

In just a year, from 2021 to 2022, poverty in America rose by almost 5 percentage points, from 7.8% to 12.4%. 

Today nearly 40 million Americans live in poverty.

Worse is the more than doubling of the child poverty rate, from 5.2% to the same 12.4%.

So much for no child left behind.

Wait. Isn’t this supposed to be a recovery?

Fighting between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Arab tribesman aligned with Deir Ezzor Military Council (DEMC) erupted again Monday night in eastern Syria, reports The New Arab. Both sides used to be united in the fight against the Islamic State (IS). However, now that the terrorist group is all but vanquished, ethnic tensions amongst the two groups exacerbated by the illegal US occupation have turned into clashes during recent weeks.

Per local sources speaking with the outlet, in the town of Abu Humam, SDF drone strikes killed an elderly man while he was working on his agricultural land. Further SDF drone attacks on the banks of the Euphrates River, close to Abu Humam, injured two men and three children. An unidentified drone, likely belonging to the SDF, targeting a vehicle in the area and wounded two civilians.

Secretary of the Armenian Security Council Armen Grigoryan is pivoting the Caucasian country toward the West when his immediate priority should be securing Armenia since a conflict with Azerbaijan is seemingly close to breaking out. It is no secret that his appointment to the head of the Security Council initially caused legitimate concern among Armenians since it strayed from the traditional and longstanding relations Armenia has with Russia. However, his mission to derail Armenian-Russian ties is unsurprising when remembering that he was the former coordinator of election programs of Transparency International, a Soros-funded NGO with an obvious liberal agenda.

Grigoryan recently made another, but quite conceptual, trip to Brussels and had a working lunch with the special representative of the NATO Secretary General in the Caucasus and Central Asia, Javier Colomina. According to Armenian media, Grigoryan explained to Colomina “the security situation around Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, and also discussed the consequences of Azerbaijan’s illegal blocking of the Lachin corridor.”

Under the guise of “ecological protest,” Baku first blocked, then set up its own checkpoint on the road between Goris and Stepanakert, the capital of the Armenian-populated separatist region of internationally recognised Azerbaijan. This blockade has led 120,000 Armenians in the region to face starvation and shortages.

The US, Britain, and other Western countries, particularly France, are looking for ways to level out any agreements reached with the participation of Russia. Hence, numerous rounds of consultations with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, European Council president Charles Michel, and others. This does not exclude the recently somewhat obscured negotiation format between Grigoryan, the Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan Hikmet Hajiyev, and White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

Russia’s response to potential US deliveries of its ATACMS missiles to Ukraine would not be long in coming, said Konstantin Gavrilov, head of the Russian delegation to the Vienna talks on military security and arms control.

"According to the information at hand, Washington is planning to provide its puppets with long-range ATACMS missile systems, as well as MQ-1C Grey Eagle and MQ-9 Reaper multi-purpose UAVs. We are warning that appropriate retaliation will not be long in coming. You are well aware that the weakening Western war machine will not be able to prevent the combat success of the Russian army in the special operation zone," he said at the 1054th plenary session of the OSCE Forum for Security Cooperation, according to a copy of his speech posted to the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website.

Gavrilov also noted that the "manic efforts" of some Western OSCE member countries to isolate Russia "are futile and will backfire on their initiators."

A Seattle police officer is under fire after he was caught on his own bodycam joking and laughing about a woman who was killed by another officer in January. Officer Daniel Auderer can be heard on the video saying “she is dead” before laughing and joking about writing a check for $11,000. He also said “she had limited value” after referencing her age. The Law&Crime Network’s Sierra Gillespie has the details.

There is mounting evidence that Joe Biden was involved in his family’s influence peddling schemes, including while he served as Vice President. However, Democrats and their corporate media allies continue to ignore this overwhelming evidence as they seek to distract the American people from the Biden family’s corruption. Below are over 20 examples of Joe Biden’s involvement.  

1) In July 2023, former Biden business associate Devon Archer described how Joe Biden was “The Brand” and was used to send “signals” of power, access, and influence to enrich the Biden family from foreign sources.

2) Devon Archer alone was aware of at least 20 times in which then-Vice President Biden spoke on speakerphone with Hunter Biden’s foreign business associates. Democrats would have Americans believe that these phone calls with then-Vice President Biden were simply to discuss the weather.

3) In February 2014, then-Vice President Joe Biden dined with oligarchs from Russia and Kazakhstan who funneled millions of dollars to Hunter Biden and his business associates.

Conservative Texas Republican Mayra Flores said during a recent interview that the Mexican cartel now controls the southern border.

While the Biden administration has allowed the border to be overrun by illegal crossers, one of the main concerns of critics has been the national security risk.

Flores reinforces these concerns with her comments.

From Townhall:

Former Texas GOP Rep Shares How the Border Is ‘Getting Out of Hand’ Under Biden

In a recent interview with Townhall, former GOP Rep. Mayra Flores, who is running to reclaim her seat in Texas’ 34th congressional district in 2024, shared how her Mexico-bordering district has been impacted by the Biden administration’s mishandling of the border crisis.

“The Mexican cartel is in full control of the southern border,” Flores told Townhall. “This is a situation that we [people who live near the border] deal with on a daily basis.”

“It’s the best time for terrorists to come into the country, because we don’t have border security,” she explained. “We have a federal government that refuses to enforce the law.”

The anti-Russian agenda is being used by Washington as a smokescreen for US President Joe Biden’s corruption, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF).

"There is a struggle for power, there is a cover-up of terrible, colossal, corruption on a global scale; political opponents are being torpedoed. There is opposition to the authorities, and different branches of this government in the investigation of these very criminal acts, which I mentioned. That is what is happening there," the diplomat said when asked whether the congressional investigation into the possible impeachment of Biden could affect the US position on Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Zakharova noted that the US uses the Russophobic agenda for several purposes. "And this anti-Russian position, which was developed precisely by the Democrats under [former US President Barack] Obama, who for two terms pumped their society with this nonsense. This anti-Russian, Russophobic agenda is needed for two purposes: first - to cover up the facts of rampant corruption. <...> And second - to create a cause to consolidate the public, to forge a kind of front of like-minded people facing the Russian threat. That's what's going on there," she added.

Hundreds of Israeli high school students have publicly declared that they will refuse to serve in the army, in protest at the judicial reforms which have caused widespread unrest and controversy in the country in the past year.

Although it is not the first time Israelis have refused military service in protest, the decision by 230 students to boycott the service is the first organised attempt to use refusal as a specific means of opposing the current government’s judicial reforms.

In a statement released on Sunday at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium high school in central Tel Aviv, Youth Against Dictatorship also explicitly tied their cause to opposition to the oppression of the Palestinians.

“As young women and men about to be conscripted into Israeli military service, we say NO to dictatorship in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We hereby declare that we refuse to join the military, until democracy is secured for all who live within the jurisdiction of the Israeli government,” read the statement, which attracted widespread attention and controversy in Israel.

The statement said that the “dictatorship that has existed for decades in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is now oozing into Israel proper and is directed against us.

“Violent settlers now control the entire state. These are not recent developments. Undemocratic attitudes and actions are essential to maintaining this regime of occupation and Jewish supremacy. The only thing that has changed is that the mask is now off. Faced with this reality, we say NO!”

In recent months, the practice of refusing has shifted from exclusively small groups on the radical left to the heart of public discourse in Israel.

The U.S. government has confirmed that it seized nearly a million barrels of crude oil from Iran that was allegedly bound for China.

The Justice Department (DOJ) confirmed on Sept. 8 that in April, the United States seized a shipment of crude oil from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a designated foreign terrorist organization.

In confirming the confiscation, the department also announced its first criminal resolution involving the illicit sale and transport of Iranian oil, which is a violation of U.S. sanctions.

“This is the first-ever criminal resolution involving a company that violated sanctions by facilitating the illicit sale and transport of Iranian oil and comes in concert with a successful seizure of over 980,000 barrels of contraband crude oil,” the announcement reads.

Webmaster addition: "Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a Pirate's Life For Me!"

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy Shandong Carrier Strike Group is operating in the Philippine Sea, being shadowed separately by Republic of China Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) destroyers, according to both countries.

Meanwhile, North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan on Wednesday – shortly before its leader, Kim Jong Un, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia – marking the first time North Korea has conducted such a launch while its leader was overseas.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense in a Wednesday social media post stated that a total of 35 PLA aircraft had been detected – 28 of which crossed the median line between China and Taiwan, entering Taiwan’s southwest air defence identification zone. Taiwan also reported that PLAN aircraft carrier Shandong had sailed into the western Pacific. A follow up post stated that the ROC Armed Forces were monitoring the situation and had tasked combat air patrol aircraft, navy vessels and land-based missile systems to respond, and included a picture of destroyer ROCS Kee Lung (DDG-1801) (former Kidd-class destroyer USS Scott [DDG-995]) shadowing the carrier.

Japan’s Joint Staff Office of the Ministry of Defense issued a release stating that at 8 a.m. Wednesday, the Shandong CSG was 403 miles south of Miyako Island, with a map showing the CSG closer to Luzon in the Philippines than to Japan or Taiwan. The CSG consisted of six ships: carrier CNS Shandong (17), destroyers CNS Guilin (164) and CNS Changsha (173), frigates CNS Xianning (500) and CNS Xuchang (536) and fleet oiler CNS Chaganhu (905). The carrier conducted launches and recovery of both fighter aircraft and helicopters, according to the release, which also stated that destroyer JS Ariake (DD-109) was shadowing the CSG.

A study from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has found that an increasing number of college students favor violence to stop campus speech they do not like.

The subjects that students find the most difficult to discuss are abortion, gun rights, racial issues, and “transgenderism.” Nearly half of the students in the study said they had difficulty having conversations about abortion. 

Arguably the most alarming finding of the study is that “73% of students said that using violence to stop a campus speech is never acceptable.” This, as FIRE noted, was “down from 80% last year.” 

The Media Research Center reported that the study, “conducted January 13 to June 30, 2023 by College Pulse, ranks the free speech cultures of 248 of America’s largest and most prestigious campuses, incorporating survey responses from more than 55,000 current students.”

The results found that of all the included schools, Michigan Tech was the most friendly to free speech, while Harvard, the oldest university in the country, came in last. In fact, the elite Ivy League school was given a score of 0 and was the only school with a speech climate considered “abysmal.”

A California family has been awarded a record $27 million after school staff failed to prevent a 13 year-old boy being beaten to death by bullies at school.  

The wrongful death suit filed by the family of Diego Stolz was settled by Moreno Valley Unified School District on Wednesday and is the largest bullying payout in history. 

Diego had been picked-on by his bullies the week before his death but the school's principal failed to suspend them as promised, leaving them free to kill days later.

Diego died in 2019 after being beaten by two of his bullies at Landmark Middle School in Moreno Valley near Riverside, California. 

Harrowing footage showed him being shoved into a concrete pillar and banging his head, before the bullies continued to rain blows on him while he was unconscious. Diego was rushed to hospital and died days later. 

His tearaway tormentors, who have never been identified, subsequently pleaded guilty to manslaughter but walked away with no prison sentences.

China has flown 68 warplanes and deployed 10 navy vessels around Taiwan in a day's span - just weeks after the US announced its first-ever transfer of military equipment to the island. 

The move is the latest in military demonstrations between China, Taiwan and the US. 

The 68 plane total came a day after Taipei said 35 Chinese warplanes were detected around the self-ruled island, with some then flying to join China's Shandong aircraft carrier for naval drills in the Western Pacific. 

Communist China claims self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and relations have soured since Taiwan's independence. When Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen came to power in 2016, Beijing ratcheted up military and political pressure on the island. 

The US has been a long backer of Taiwan, including Nancy Pelosi making a visit to the island in 2022. Last month, President Joe Biden's administration announced an $80million transfer of military hardware to Taiwan.