President Donald Trump began the day after Christmas with a self-soothing posting spree bragging about everything from firing federal workers to Bill Clinton’s appearance in the Epstein files.
As Americans woke from their Christmas slumber on Friday morning, Trump, 79, embarked on a social media tirade, posting an average of once every two minutes on his Truth Social platform.
“TRUMP IS DOING AN AMAZING JOB!” he declared, alongside a graph showing crime rates falling over the past year.
The strike involved more than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles fired off a Navy ship in the Gulf of Guinea, hitting insurgents in two ISIS camps in northwest Nigeria’s Sokoto State, according to a U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. The operation was done in coordination with the Nigerian military, the official said.
In a statement, U.S. Africa Command said its initial assessment concluded that “multiple” ISIS terrorists were killed in the strike.
“U.S. Africa Command is working with our Nigerian and regional partners to increase counter terrorism cooperation efforts related to ongoing violence and threats against innocent lives,” Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, said in a statement. “Our goal is to protect Americans and disrupt violent extremist organizations wherever they are.”
The attack occurred in a region along the border with Niger, where a branch of ISIS called the Islamic State-Sahel has been attacking both government forces and civilians, according to Caleb Weiss, a counterterrorism analyst and editor with FDD’s Long War Journal.
By publicly cooperating with the United States on Christmas Day airstrikes, Nigeria's government may have averted humiliating unilateral military action threatened a month ago by President Donald Trump.
Nigeria's government has said armed groups target both Muslims and Christians, and U.S. claims that Christians face persecution do not represent the complex security situation and ignore efforts to safeguard religious freedom.
The United States' strike against Islamic State militants in Nigeria at the request of the country's government has put the spotlight on the group, amid concerns that it is making a comeback after it was defeated by a U.S.-led coalition in the Middle East.
Camera trap photos confirmed that flat-headed cats are still living in Thailand. (Image credit: DNP/Panthera Thailand)Researchers have photographed a rare cat in Thailand that hasn't been seen in the country for almost 30 years — and it's adorable.
Flat-headed cats (Prionailurus planiceps), named after their flattened foreheads, live in fragmented pockets across Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, but they were feared extinct in Thailand.
"For decades, the flat-headed cat has been classified as 'likely extinct,' but after years of sustained protection, strong scientific partnerships, and community stewardship, we can now celebrate its return to Thailand this National Wildlife Day," Suchart Chomklin, Thailand's minister of Natural Resources and Environment, said in a statement.
Flat-headed cats have webbed feet to traverse wetland habitats, such as waterlogged peat-swamp forest, where the species is thought to primarily hunt fish. However, researchers know very little about their lives. The enigmatic cat is the smallest in Southeast Asia, weighing around 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) — less than a domestic cat — and is scarcely seen by humans.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) last assessment of the species, carried out in 2014, concluded that flat-headed cats were endangered. They are primarily threatened by the loss and degradation of their wetlands and lowland forests, as well as other human pressures like over-fishing and hunting.
Fox News host and close Trump confidant Sean Hannity confronted embattled Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem Thursday night, asking her ...
