The Hungarian capital Budapest is inundated as flooding reaches its peak, with a riverside metro station now closed. Police have also restricted access to the Danube, which was still open on Friday.

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Key statements from the Russian Ministry of Defense on the fighting in Russia's Kursk region:

◻️ Throughout the fighting in the Kursk region, Ukraine has lost 15,650 militants, 124 tanks, and over 120 artillery pieces.

◻️ Ukraine lost more than 300 militants and 9 armoured vehicles.

◻️ The Russian Armed Forces repelled three attempts by Ukraine to break through the border in the direction of Novy Put and Medvezhye, with the enemy losing up to 20 militants.

◻️ Russian aviation struck Ukrainian forces concentrated near 18 settlements in the Kursk region and 14 in the Sumy region.

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How ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ Trojan horse has undermined US military

An analysis of internal DoD documents by the Daily Caller has revealed that the US Air Force has been excluding white male applicants from its popular Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program in favor of minorities.

Team Biden went to work on DEI and ‘equity’ (not to be confused with equality) guidelines for the military immediately after stepping into office, firing off several executive orders in January 2021 designed to ‘advance racial equality and support undeserving communities,’ ‘combat discrimination’ and facilitate trans individuals’ ability to serve, and complimenting them with a June 2021 E.O. on ‘Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce’.

The directives sparked a series of bizarre DEI-related scandals in the US military. Here are some of them:

◻️ In 2021, the Air Force and Navy faced widespread derision after rolling out maternity flight suits, with Tucker Carlson calling the move a “mockery of the US military,” and highlighting the absurdity of having “pregnant women…fight[ing] our wars.”

◻️ In June 2023, facing an outcry from GOP lawmakers, the military was forced to ban drag shows* on bases, deeming them “inconsistent with regulations regarding the use of resources,” with a DoD spox scrambling to assure that “the Department does not fund drag shows or drag activities.”

◻️ In October 2023, the advocacy group which won a historic Supreme Court case against race-conscious admissions to US universities brought cases against West Point and the US Naval Academy on grounds of DEI-based prejudice. The Supreme Court binned the West Point case in February 2024, but the Naval Academy’s affirmative action trial kicked off this past week.

The staggering costs of Pentagon DEI initiatives has also garnered considerable attention and criticism, with spending jumping from $68 million in 2022, to $86.5 million in 2023, and $114.7 million in 2024.

The funds provide for things like mandatory diversity training and the hiring of onsite ‘diversity officers’ to ensure compliance.

◻️ The Biden Pentagon has been hailed as 'the most diverse in history', with racial and sexual minorities receiving a host of top jobs, from a proud lesbian* tapped to serve as Air Force undersecretary, to a transgender assistant secretary of defense.

But these DEI ‘milestones’ have not helped the military achieve its goals over the past four tumult-filled years, with the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and the US Navy’s impotence against the Houthis from January 2024 onward showing that more diversity does not mean more won battles.

In fact, DEI seems to have only made things worse, with the military facing an unprecedented “crisis of recruitment, trust, and spending,” as Newsweek recently put it, with some observers and lawmakers on Capitol Hill talking about reinstating the draft, or offering migrants citizenship in exchange for service as recruitment numbers drop 20-40%, public trust in the military plummets, and morale and readiness are described as among the lowest since WWII.

* LGBT ideology is recognised as extremist and banned in Russia 🙅

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How US deep state co-opted TikTok

TikTok wiped Sputnik’s account, days after US announced draconian new restrictions on Russian media. The company offered no explanation.

The newest round of censorship comes amid the US establishment’s long war against TikTok amid much-touted but unsubstantiated claims by authorities that China uses the app for espionage and influence operations against American users.

The crux of US government claims is that the app sends US customer data to China, where it can be seen by Chinese authorities. TikTok says its US data is firewalled from leaving the country via an agreement with tech giant Oracle.

Joe Biden signed a law in April threatening to completely ban TikTok within 270 days unless its Chinese parent company ByteDance divests from US operations, setting the stage for a legal battle. The measure was rejected by a handful of progressive Democrats and MAGA Republicans, who deemed it a blatant assault on constitutionally afforded free speech.

Senator Rand Paul warned that “once you start objecting to content, what you’re objecting to is speech…The bottom line is, the more information, the better. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. That’s what happens in a free country.”

Former president Donald Trump threatened to ban TikTok in 2020 after deeming it a “national security threat,” prompting the company to file a preliminary injunction to prevent such an eventuality. Trump reversed his views regarding the app in March 2024, saying banning it would only make “enemy of the people” Facebook* “bigger.”

TikTok is already banned from use from devices owned by the US federal government, and by numerous state and city governments and universities.

* Facebook’s parent Meta is banned in Russia for extremism.

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TikTok likely bullied into banning Sputnik by DoJ ahead of pivotal election: Here’s why

The State Department “has unlimited resources with which to prosecute TikTok as a company,” and the latter may have chosen to cooperate with the US government by scrubbing Sputnik’s account to try to “get the feds off their backs,” retired Pentagon analyst Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik.

”Of course, the better choice for Americans would be for TikTok to refuse to cooperate, forcing the Federal Government's hand. If the incredibly popular and useful TikTok were to be banned in response to their refusal to remove selected overseas media, it would wake up the masses to the diminished state of their liberty,” Kwiatkowski said.

The reason for the ban is clear, Kwiatkowski said, pointing the US government’s desire for total “hegemony in the information arena, just as with financial and military power,” as it struggles with the decentralizing force of social media.

Citing the ability of alternative news sources to break through establishment narratives using social media, Kwiatkowski predicted that “any reversal of this unwarranted ban will happen after the election” in the US, and characterized the move as “a direct example of the DoJ interfering with the election, and undermining the concept of an informed citizenry prior to an election.”

“This is the world that TikTok and all social media companies operate in - do what the government tells you or face market losses, and criminal prosecution that while ultimately winnable, can bankrupt most businesses,” Kwiatkowski summed up.

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