17 U.S. military bases adjacent to Chinese-owned farmland have experienced drone sightings

map of US military bases adjacent to Chinese owned farmland

Important Takeaways:

  • Mysterious drones have been reported near military bases in Hawaii and by installations in Utah, California, Maine and Florida — among other facilities scattered throughout the country.
  • It comes as residents in New York and New Jersey have reported thousands of sightings of unexplained mystery drones in the night skies.
  • House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Tuesday he believes some of the unidentified drones are “spy drones” from China.
  • “We need to identify who is behind these drones,” he said. “My judgment based on my experience is that those that are over our military sites are adversarial and most likely are coming from the People’s Republic of China.”
  • Sources have previously raised their concerns to The Post over Chinese landowners, who are usually linked to, or working on behalf of, the country’s communist government.
  • Morgan Lerette, a former contractor for private military contractor Blackwater, previously told The Post: “The Chinese are, or will, use this farmland to learn more about US military capabilities, movements, and technology.
  • “This will allow them to better understand how to transition their military from a defensive strategy to an expeditionary one.”
  • Chinese holdings total under one percent of foreign-owned agricultural land in the US, per NBC, but it’s the proximity to critical military installations which raises concerns, critics have charged.

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Growing wildfire forces Salt Lake City residents to evacuate; Officials investigate manmade fire

Sandhurst-Fire-Utah

Important Takeaways:

  • Sandhurst Fire outside Salt Lake City forces residents to flee homes as flames, smoke shoot into sky
  • According to officials, the Sandhurst Fire has so far burned about 400 acres near Ensign Peak and was 0% contained as of Sunday morning.
  • Dozens of homes have been evacuated near Salt Lake City as crews continue to battle a large wildfire that broke out over the weekend that sent heavy flames and thick smoke billowing into the sky.
  • The SLCPD said it also requested the help of all available on-duty officers to assist with the evolving situation, and officers were patrolling the evacuated area to be on the lookout for suspicious activity.
  • Police said they would continue to block all access to evacuated areas, and people who do not live in the area are not being allowed to enter.
  • Officials have said that the Sandhurst Fire was manmade, but an exact cause has not yet been determined

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Armed Utah man accused of threats against Biden shot and killed by FBI agents

Important Takeaways:

  • An armed Utah man accused of making violent threats against President Joe Biden was shot and killed by FBI agents hours before the president landed in the state Wednesday, authorities said.
  • Special agents were trying to serve a warrant on the home of Craig Deleeuw Robertson in Provo, south of Salt Lake City, when the shooting happened at 6:15 a.m., the FBI said in a statement.
  • Robertson was armed at the time of the shooting, according to two law enforcement sources
  • Robertson posted online Monday that he had heard Biden was coming to Utah and he was planning to dig out a camouflage suit and begin “cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle”
  • Neighbors described Robertson as a frail, elderly man — his online profile put his age as 74 — who walked with the aid of a hand-carved stick.
  • “The time is right for a presidential assassination or two. First Joe then Kamala!!!” authorities say Robertson wrote in a September 2022 Facebook post

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Farmers in Utah devastated from Drought now fight Swarm of Grasshoppers

Grasshopper Swarm

Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Massive Swarm of Grasshoppers Wreaks Havoc in Utah – Adding to the Dilemma of Local Farmers Already Suffering from Drought
  • A massive swarm of grasshoppers has invaded Tooele, Utah, causing significant damage to crops. The plague-like surge was captured by weather radar systems of the National Weather Service on the evening of June 21 as it headed northeast toward the Great Salt Lake.
  • Alex DeSmet, a meteorologist, told the Salt Lake Tribune that the unusual radar detection of the grasshoppers was associated with their distinctive non-uniform movement. Unlike weather events such as rain or snow, grasshopper swarms exhibit irregular patterns.
  • “This is not a common thing,” said Kris Watson, the state entomologist managing Utah’s insect and pest program at the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (UDAF). “Grasshoppers themselves are common, but for them to show up on a radar detection — to my understanding, it’s not very common.”
  • This infestation coincided with a widespread drought that has affected several states in the region

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Utah, Nevada, and Arizona see rare Tornados

Revelation 16:9 “They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Rare tornadoes strike Desert Southwest, touching down in Arizona, Nevada
  • Most of the Desert Southwest averages less than 10 inches of precipitation a year, but when it rains, it pours. Parts of Arizona, Nevada and Utah got a bit more than they bargained for Sunday when afternoon monsoonal downpours popped up, with several tornadoes touching down.
  • Tornadoes are a rarity in the southwestern United States, but multiple twisters were on the ground simultaneously for a time Sunday evening. One churned ominously close to Interstate 15 in Nevada, and another was photographed from near Lake George, Utah, as it slipped into northern Arizona.
  • At the same time, the National Weather Service in Las Vegas was maintaining a tornado warning for a separate rotating thunderstorm near Mesquite, Ariz. At one point, the Weather Service noted that the public confirmed a tornado, and it included a stretch of Interstate 15 in the warning.
  • If that winds up having been the case, then two twisters will have been on the ground simultaneously.

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Utah Wildfires keeping authorities busy

Matthew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places

Important Takeaways:

  • Utah wildfire updates: Fire sparks in Parleys Canyon; 4 accused of starting blaze near Fillmore
  • After a windy weekend filled with several area wildfire sparks, Utah firefighters early Monday began battling a new wildfire in Parleys Canyon, which had burned about 10 acres as of about 10 a.m.
  • One of the largest weekend wildfires sparked south of Fillmore, called the Halfway Hill fire. At last report, it had burned 10,141 acres and forced the evacuation of the Virginia Hills subdivision.
  • Four people were arrested and accused of starting the Halfway Hill blaze, police said. According to a probable cause statement, the four started a fire at a campsite — which investigators determined was where the wildfire began — then “left abruptly.”
  • The blaze is 0% contained, according to wildfire officials. The Virginia Hills subdivision remains under evacuation, and drivers in the area can expect increased traffic as crews continue to battle the fire.
  • Jacob City fire • The most recent update from Utah Fire Info indicated that 3,766 acres have burned in the Tooele County fire, which is 14% contained.
  • Dry Creek fire • The fire has burned 1,826 acres and is 40% contained, according to Utah Fire Info. It, too, was human caused.
  • Sardine Canyon fire • The fire northeast of Brigham City had burned about 50 acres…80% contained

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Utah Newspaper suggests using National Guard against the unvaxed

Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.

Important Takeaways:

  • America’s Military Should be used to Oppress The Unvaxed, Says Leading Utah Newspaper.
  • The Salt Lake Tribune proposes deploying the National Guard, a reserve component of the U.S. Armed Forces, to “ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere”:
    • “We might have headed off omicron with a herd immunity-level of vaccinations, but that would have required a vaccination mandate, which our leaders refused. Instead, we get, “No one could have seen this coming.” That is patently untrue. They were told what to do, and they refused.
    • Were Utah a truly civilized place, the governor’s next move would be to find a way to mandate the kind of mass vaccination campaign we should have launched a year ago, going as far as to deploy the National Guard to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere.

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New York nurse given COVID-19 vaccine as U.S. rollout begins

By Jonathan Allen and Gabriella Borter

NEW YORK (Reuters) -An intensive care unit nurse became the first person in New York state to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, marking a pivotal turn in the U.S. effort to control the deadly virus.

Sandra Lindsay, who has treated some of the sickest COVID-19 patients for months, was given the vaccine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in the New York City borough of Queens, an early epicenter of the country’s COVID-19 outbreak, receiving applause on a livestream with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

“It didn’t feel any different from taking any other vaccine,” Lindsay said. “I feel hopeful today, relieved. I feel like healing is coming. I hope this marks the beginning of the end of a very painful time in our history. I want to instill public confidence that the vaccine is safe.”

Minutes after Lindsay received the injection, President Donald Trump sent a tweet: “First Vaccine Administered. Congratulations USA! Congratulations WORLD!”

Northwell Health, the largest health system in New York state, operates some of the select hospitals in the United States that were administering the country’s first inoculations of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine outside trials on Monday.

The vaccine, developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, won emergency-use approval from federal regulators on Friday after it was found to be 95% effective in preventing illness in a large clinical trial.

The first 2.9 million doses began to be shipped to distribution centers around the country on Sunday, just 11 months after the United States documented its first COVID-19 infections.

As of Monday, the United States had registered more than 16 million cases and nearly 300,000 deaths from the virus.

Health officials in Texas, Utah, South Dakota, Ohio and Minnesota said they also anticipated the first doses of the vaccine would be received at select hospitals on Monday and be administered right away.

LOGISTICAL CHALLENGE

The first U.S. shipments of coronavirus vaccine departed from Pfizer’s facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Sunday, packed into trucks with dry-ice to maintain the necessary sub-Arctic temperatures, and then were transported to UPS and FedEx planes waiting at air fields in Lansing and Grand Rapids, kicking off a national immunization endeavor of unprecedented complexity.

The jets delivered the shipments to UPS and FedEx cargo hubs in Louisville and Memphis, from where they were loaded onto planes and trucks to be distributed to the first 145 of 636 vaccine-staging areas across the country. Second and third waves of vaccine shipments were due to go out to the remaining sites on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“This is the most difficult vaccine rollout in history. There will be hiccups undoubtedly but we’ve done everything from a federal level and working with partners to make it go as smoothly as possible. Please be patient with us,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told Fox News on Monday, adding that he would get the shot as soon as he could.

The logistical effort is further complicated by the need to transport and store the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at minus 70 Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit), requiring enormous quantities of dry ice or specialized ultra-cold freezers.

Workers clapped and whistled as the first boxes were loaded onto trucks at the Pfizer factory on Sunday.

“We know how much people are hurting,” UPS Healthcare President Wes Wheeler said on Sunday from the company’s command center in Louisville, Kentucky. “It’s not lost on us at all how important this is.”

MORE DOSES ON THE WAY

More than 100 million people, or about 30% of the U.S. population, could be immunized by the end of March, Moncef Slaoui, the chief advisor to the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed coronavirus vaccine initiative, said in an interview on Sunday.

Healthcare workers and elderly residents of long-term care homes will be first in line to get the inoculations of a two-dose regimen given about three weeks apart. That would still leave the country far short of the herd immunity that would halt virus transmission, so health officials have warned that masks and social distancing will be needed for months to control the currently rampaging outbreak. Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla told CNN in an interview on Monday that most of the 50 million vaccine doses the company will provide this year have been manufactured, adding that it plans on producing 1.3 billion doses next year. Approximately half will be allocated to the United States, he said. But Bourla said Pfizer is “working very diligently” to increase the amount of doses available because demand is very high. At the same time, he said, the company has not reached an agreement with the U.S. government on when to provide an additional 100 million doses next year. “We can provide them the additional 100 million doses, but right now most of that we can provide in the third quarter,” Bourla said. “The U.S. government wants them in the second quarter so are working very collaboratively with them to make sure that we can find ways to produce more or allocate the doses in the second quarter.” Slaoui said the United States hopes to have about 40 million vaccine doses – enough for 20 million people – distributed by the end of this month. That would include vaccines from both Pfizer and Moderna Inc. An outside U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel is scheduled to consider the Moderna vaccine on Thursday, with emergency use expected to be granted shortly after. On Friday, Moderna announced it had struck a deal with the U.S. government to deliver 100 million additional doses in the second quarter.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen, Gabriella Borter, Lisa Lambert, Lisa Baertlein and Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Paul Simao)

Utah governor declares new state of emergency as coronavirus spreads

(Reuters) – The governor of the U.S. state of Utah, Gary Herbert, declared late on Sunday a new state of emergency to address hospital overcrowding in response to weeks of stress on its hospital networks due to a surge of novel coronavirus cases.

“Due to the alarming rate of COVID infections within our state, tonight I issued a new state of emergency with several critical changes to our response”, Herbert said on Twitter.

“These changes are not shutting down our economy, but are absolutely necessary to save lives and hospital capacity,” he said.

The governor said the entire state was being placed under a mask mandate until further notice and casual social gatherings were being limited to household-only for the next two weeks.

All extracurricular activities were being put on hold, he said.

The total number of coronavirus infections in the United States rose past 10 million late on Sunday, according to a Reuters tally.

Utah has had 132,621 total confirmed cases and 659 deaths from COVID-19 since the pandemic began.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Robert Birsel)

‘We don’t give up really easy’: Navajo ranchers battle climate change

By Stephanie Keith and Andrew Hay

CEDAR RIDGE, Ariz. (Reuters) – Two decades into a severe drought on the Navajo reservation, the open range around Maybelle Sloan’s sheep farm stretches out in a brown expanse of earth and sagebrush.

A dry wind blows dust across the high-desert plateau, smoke from wildfires in Arizona and California shrouding the nearby rim of the Grand Canyon.

The summer monsoon rains have failed again, and stock ponds meant to collect rainwater for the hot summer months are dry.

With no ground water for her animals, Sloan, 59, fills an animal trough with water from a 1,200-gallon white plastic tank. She and her husband, Leonard, have to pay up to $300 to have the tank filled as her pickup truck has broken down. When it’s working, she hauls water herself every two days, spending $80 a week on fuel.

The cost of hauling water has made their ranch unprofitable.

The Navajo Nation – covering a 27,000 square mile area straddling the U.S. states of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah — competes with growing cities including Phoenix and Los Angeles for its water supply.

And as climate change dries out the U.S. West, that supply is becoming increasingly precarious.

In decades past, “we got rain every year around June, July, August,” said Leonard Sloan. The 64-year-old rancher pointed toward the dry ponds in the ground near a local butte named Missing Tooth Rock. “When we had that storm, there would be water and they would be full. And now due to global warming, we don’t get no rain, just a little.”

To keep their ranch alive the Sloans have to get water, which is free, from the sole livestock well in the area some 15 miles to the east.

They spend between $3,000 and $4,000 a year on hay to supplement their animals’ feed as the open range no longer produces enough grass to sustain them.

Maybelle has cut her sheep herd down to 24 head, and Leonard tells her to get rid of them and her 18 goats to focus on their 42 cattle, which bring more money at market.

But Maybelle bristles at the thought of giving up sheep herding learned from her mother, and grandmother before her. Maybelle’s mother, father and sister all died in April from coronavirus.

“I’m doing it for my parents,” Maybelle said, wiping tears away as she sat on the metal railing of a corral while her cattle licked salt blocks and drank water.

GRADUAL DISASTER

The Sloans remember grass growing as high as the belly of a horse as recently as the 1980’s.

But drought conditions on the reservation have become largely relentless since the mid-1990’s.

Annual average temperatures rose by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the reservation’s Navajo County area over the 100 years to 2019, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.

The months of June to August this year were the driest on record in the area for the three-month period, according to drought monitoring data studied by climate scientist David Simeral of the Desert Research Institute in Nevada. Three of the five driest July-August rainy seasons in the area have occurred since the late 1990’s.

The warming trend has prompted desertification, with sand dunes now covering about a third of the reservation, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

All but one of the reservation’s rivers have stopped running year-round, said Margaret Redsteer, a scientist at the University of Washington in Bothell.

“That’s the really tricky thing about droughts, and climate change is like that too,” Redsteer said. “It’s a gradual disaster.”

DETERMINED PEOPLE

On paper, the Navajo Nation has extensive water rights based on the federal “reserved rights” doctrine which holds that Native American nations have rights to land and resources in treaties they signed with the United States.

In practice, the Navajos and other tribes were left out of many 20th century negotiations divvying up the West’s water.

There are signs some of the next generation are keeping up ranching traditions.

Some youths simply help their grandparents haul water each day from the sole well for livestock in the Bodaway-Gap area. Still others, including Maybelle’s children, send money from their work off the reservation to help fund their families’ ranches.

“Us Indians, we don’t give up really easy,” Maybelle said. “We’re really determined people.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Keith and Andrew Hay; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)