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Grifols, which runs private chain of clinics, to temporarily stop taking donations after new government investigationA chain of private plasma donation clinics in Canada has said it is pausing collections after the deaths of two donors and a new government investigation into potential unsafe practices.Grifols, a Spanish healthcare company which runs 17 clinics in Canada and is the country’s only private clinic for plasma donation, said it informed Health Canada of its decision to temporarily pause collections on Wednesday. Continue reading...

A leaked questionnaire shows President Donald Trump's administration has been asking NATO members to demonstrate their loyalty to him before deciding if the U.S. will cut military support for the alliance.Bloomberg News reviewed the document asking whether each country has "been publicly supportive" of U.S. foreign policy, including strikes in the Middle East and the Western Hemisphere that were carried out without NATO consultation. It also asks what "restrictions" allies have placed on American forces using their bases, and whether they'd be "willing to reduce or eliminate any such restrictions.""Allies have balked at the move, seeing it as an attempt to strong-arm them into ideological alignment in exchange for U.S. protection, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss the private missive," Bloomberg reportedOne question directly invokes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's demand that allies stay "strong, clear, and quiet" in alignment with U.S. interests.When the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran without NATO's blessing, several countries, including Spain, barred Washington from using their bases for the operation, a restriction the questionnaire now asks about directly. Similarly, the U.S. raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January, widely viewed in Europe as a violation of international law, appears to be another test case buried in the document's questions about support for American "initiatives" in the Western Hemisphere.The questionnaire probes whether allies are steering defense contracts toward American firms, whether they've publicly opposed "made in Europe" procurement policies, and, if not, whether they'd be willing to speak out. Given a growing European push to build up domestic defense industries, this line of questioning is likely to be especially contentious.The document was leaked amid a six-month Pentagon review of the U.S. military footprint in Europe, expected to wrap up by December, and allies are already bracing for cuts.The U.S. has said it will pull 5,000 troops from Germany, though it separately pledged to send 5,000 additional troops to Poland after a nationalist ally won that country's presidency, an apparent reward for political alignment that adds weight to concerns the loyalty questionnaire isn't an isolated incident.NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has publicly defended the broader review as reasonable given rising European defense spending, calling it something that is "bringing NATO closer together."But the questionnaire's explicit linkage of military protection to political fealty marks a sharp departure from the alliance's postwar foundation, one built on U.S. guarantees that were meant to hold regardless of individual policy disputes.Allies and NATO officials are expected to discuss the review further at a Brussels meeting later this month.

Kevin Rideout, who was abducted by unknown assailants in Niamey, said to be in good health and in care of US officialsAn American missionary who was kidnapped in Niger in October has been released, his organisation has said.Serving in Mission International said Kevin Rideout “is in good health in the care of US officials” and would soon be reunited with his extended family. Continue reading...

Move will be one of first large-scale foreign investments in country since US ousted leader Nicolás Maduro in JanuaryBP has answered Donald Trump’s call for oil companies to help rebuild Venezuela’s fossil fuel industry with new plans to develop a large offshore gasfield.BP will partner with two oil firms with close links to the Trump administration to develop the second phase of the Loran gasfield, in one of the first large-scale foreign investments in Venezuela since the US ousted its leader Nicolás Maduro in January. Continue reading...

A sailor serving on the USS Abraham Lincoln was rescued last month after going overboard into the water, according to a U.S. official.The official confirmed to CNN the sailor was quickly pulled from the water and medically evaluated, although it's not clear whether that service member returned to duty or evacuated from the aircraft carrier.The U.S. Navy ship is currently on the longest aircraft carrier deployment on record, marked by an unusual lack of normal port visits, and service members on board have reported deteriorating living conditions and attempts by despairing sailors to throw themselves overboard. However, the official said the Navy has "not observed an increase in suicidal ideations or attempts aboard the ship," telling CNN "we take every service member's well-being seriously and have religious, medical and mental health professionals available to assess and address concerns as they arise."Sailors typically go through difficult adjustments over a deployment, the official said, and the ship is "not experiencing an uptick in mental health issues."The official noted that resources available to the crew include five chaplains, a psychologist, a clinical social worker, behavioral health technicians, a prevention counselor, and a therapy dog named Captain Fathom.The Navy's account contrasts with new reporting from Military Times, which has documented multiple instances of Abraham Lincoln sailors attempting to go overboard, raising questions about the psychological toll of extended time at sea.If you are having suicidal thoughts, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was raked over the coals on Thursday morning amid reports of horrific conditions that his US military forces face. On MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Joe Scarborough reacted to reports that the USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed from San Diego for an extraordinary 200-plus days without a port call.With Democrats calling for an investigation after family members of those deployed revealed things have become so bad that some sailors have had to be stopped from leaping off the ship, Scarborough launched into a withering tirade.“This is the longest deployment on a ship like that ever,” co-host Willie Geist explained. "The Secretary of Defense seemed very interested and obsessed with their testosterone levels, but not whether or not they're getting real food aboard the ship as this war drags on.”Scarborough erupted. “This is insane by any measure at all,” Scarborough exclaimed. “And so think about it: we have this happening on the USS Lincoln. We have our sailors being treated like third-class citizens, treated like trash, actually.”“So we're not taking care of job one, which is, again, military readiness,” he continued. “And secondly, we're not even able to keep count of the munitions that we have; Pete Hegseth, the DoD has run out of munitions to fight a hot war with Iran that Pete Hegseth told the president we should start.”Scarborough continued to insult Hegseth's priorities, snapping, "He's sitting around talking about testosterone levels and doing all these stupid promo videos that are supposed to make him look tough." - YouTube youtu.be

FBI Director Kash Patel pledged to investigate agents who caught Russians trying to frame Democrats before 2020, a new report reveals.According to national security writer Marcy Wheeler, an unsigned, undated letter attributed to Patel is the "centerpiece" of a propaganda push, and she flagged in a Wednesday post on her legal blog emptywheel that it was notably not written on FBI stationery.In the letter, Patel says he "immediately disbanded" the bureau's Foreign Influence Task Force upon taking over as director, and that his team is now probing whether the unit improperly zeroed in on informants tied to the Bidens."We remain concerned that defensive briefings to Congress may have been overly focused on just Biden and Ukraine rather than the balanced picture of all foreign threats," the letter reads.Patel added that although "these alleged activities occurred during a different era within the Bureau," his team is "firmly committed to identifying, investigating, and holding accountable all abuses."The task force is the same unit that flagged efforts by John Solomon and Rudy Giuliani to launder foreign influence operations targeting Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 vote, according to Wheeler. The letter's premise, she wrote, rests on a spreadsheet from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that was released by Bill Pulte. It also revives claims from discredited informants, including Alexander Smirnov.The influence campaign lands as Patel prepares for a reported trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg on October 14-15 and just weeks before the midterms.Wheeler mentioned that a Russian outlet with a history of airing material from the FSB, the Russian security service, published a piece that openly speculated this week about Patel receiving kompromat on Democrats and serving as a backchannel to Vladimir Putin."They're just promising to do Russia's bidding in plain sight," Wheeler wrote.

A New York Times photographer on Wednesday revealed several suspicious new details in President Donald Trump's plane swap amid a threat.Douglas Mills, a photojournalist who was on Air Force One with the press corps as the group headed back from Turkey after a NATO summit in July with Trump and several administration officials, told CNN's Erin Burnett the incident was "alarming" after learning Trump had left the plane in a catering truck.Burnett mentioned that Mills and other reporters were asked to lower their window shades. And in an interview with reporters after that flight, Trump had commented specifically on window shades."Probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleazebags that we have to deal with, it has to be closed," Trump said. "But if I go, you go, right? Perhaps someday you want to change professions?"Mills said that comment now has a different meaning."In hindsight, I think back on that, wow, if he didn't, why did they just put our shades down and not his shades up in the front of the plane? So that was kind of a red flag to me mentally," Mills said. "I felt like obviously we were a decoy. And in that moment, we didn't know all the facts that we know now."Burnett pointed to the window shades, asking if that was a potential giveaway that something irregular was happening."Maybe that's why they had to put your window shades down, right? Because they didn't want you to see the catering," she said. "That's exactly right," Mills said."By the time we got to the front of the plane, I had taken those pictures of the catering truck on the backside of the plane as we were motoring up," he said. "And I was shooting pictures through the van that we were driving in. And once we got up and looked out and saw the president was already on board, that kind of also said to me something's going on." This foreign visit was atypical, and Trump ditched his usual goodbye."But no, none of that happened this time," Mills said. "He went up the steps and was on there before we ever got out of our cars. It was unusual. And then once we got up on the plane and the shades had to go down, there were just a lot of questions throughout. And now in hindsight, it was one of those things as a reporter, photographer, you know, that we probably should have been asking more questions about because a lot of things didn't fit right."