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Biden DHS’s purchase of weapon linked to Havana Syndrome attacks leads House Republicans to demand answers
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The Biden administration purchased a pulsed energy weapon suspected of being the type that may have caused «Havana Syndrome» which caused a series of mysterious ailments for U.S. diplomats and government workers in Cuba.
The weapon was bought at the end of the Biden administration and has since been tested by the Pentagon, Fox News has learned. House Republicans are demanding answers amid reports of the purchase of the device.
In a letter to Homeland Security Kristi Noem, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., is asking for information on the procurement process for the weapon, its costs and the findings associated with its year-long testing related to Havana Syndrome, officially known as Anomalous Health Incidents (AHI).
HAVANA SYNDROME ‘PATIENT ZERO’ REJECTS INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY FINDINGS THAT FOREIGN ADVERSARY ‘VERY UNLIKELY’
The U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba is seen on Jan. 4, 2023. An array of advanced tests found no brain injuries or degeneration among U.S. diplomats and other government employees who suffer mysterious health problems once dubbed «Havana syndrome,» researchers reported Monday, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Francisco, File)
«The device in question is described as capable of producing pulsed radio waves and containing Russian components, though it is supposedly not entirely Russian in origin,» the letter states. «Following HSI’s successful acquisition of the device, it was reportedly transferred to DoW, which spent more than a year testing the device and its capabilities.»
Some U.S. intelligence agencies have said a foreign adversary could be behind the mysterious ailment.
Fox News Digital previously reported that Adam, a former government employee whose identity Fox News agreed to protect, is considered to be «Patient Zero.»
He was first attacked in December 2016 while living in Havana on assignment. During his time on the Caribbean island, Adam experienced multiple attacks and described pressure to the brain that led to vertigo, tinnitus and cognitive impairment.
HAVANA SYNDROME: FOREIGN ADVERSARIES’ MICROWAVE WEAPONS CAPABILITIES EXPLAINED BY PHYSICIST
Workers at the U.S. Embassy in Havana leave the building on Sept. 29, 2017, after the State Department announced that it was withdrawing all but essential diplomats from the embassy. The Department of Homeland Security purchased a pulsed energy weapon suspected of being the type that may have caused «Havana Syndrome.» (Emily Michot/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
«While assessments from the Intelligence Community (IC) do not conclusively identify the factors causing AHIs or any foreign actor responsible, an assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) presented a majority view concluding that it was ‘very unlikely’ that a foreign actor ‘used a novel weapon or prototype device to harm even a subset of the U.S. Government personnel,’ with five out of seven agencies agreeing with that assessment,» Garbarino wrote in his letter.
«However, two agencies dissented from the majority view and assessed that there was a chance that foreign actors may have developed some sort of ‘novel weapon or prototype device’ that could have harmed U.S. personnel,» he added.
However, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released the report and held a background call with reporters on Friday explaining that new reporting «led two components to shift their assessments about whether a foreign actor has a capability that could cause biological effects consistent with some of the symptoms reported as possible AHIs.»
New evidence suggests Russia behind Havana Syndrome attacks. (Getty Images)
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«This shift consequently led two IC components to subtly change their overall judgment about whether a foreign actor might have played a role in a small number of events,» the agency said.
Fox News’ Liz Friden contributed to this report.
national security,homeland security,cuba,brain health
Amenaza
Culpables
INTERNACIONAL
Sanders-endorsed Senate candidate knocked for alleged flip-flop to ‘have it both ways’ on key issue
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A Democratic Senate candidate endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is being slammed for allegedly flip-flopping on one of his primary campaign issues.
Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive candidate who previously ran an unsuccessful bid for Michigan governor, has made Medicare for All a hallmark of his Senate campaign.
However, as the Michigan Senate primary race heats up, El-Sayed’s Democratic opponent, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, is accusing him of backing down from a full Medicare for all stance and of «rewriting definitions to have it both ways.»
MEET THE NEW ‘SQUAD’: THE NEXT GENERATION OF TRUMP-ERA PROGRESSIVE CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES
Left: Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. Right: Michigan Democratic candidate and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. (Photos by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images; MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Roxie Richner, an El-Sayed campaign spokesperson, responded by telling Fox News Digital that «Dr. El-Sayed is and has always been for Medicare for All—guaranteed public health insurance for every American. Cradle to grave. No premiums, deductibles, or co-pays.»
«Dr. El-Sayed would be the first Democratic doctor elected to the U.S. Senate since 1969, and he looks forward to passing Medicare for All into law,» added Richner.
El-Sayed’s campaign website page on «A Healthier America» cites a book he co-authored in 2021 in which he wrote that limiting private alternatives to Medicare for All would be important to ensuring providers accepted the insurance. The book advocates for Medicare for All as a type of «monopsony» in healthcare, in which there is only a single buyer of medical services, the government.
«By insuring all Americans, M4A becomes a monopsony in healthcare. This is different from a monopoly, where there’s only one seller of a good; in a monopsony there’s only one buyer of a good. That gives the single buyer considerable negotiating leverage, which Medicare could use to rein in the cost of drugs, hospital stays, and physician services,» the book reads.
In a November post on X, El-Sayed explained that this monopsony «would instantaneously create a disciplining feature against rising prices,» because it «takes out the profit motive on the payer end of the transaction.»
The book further states that «because alternatives to M4A [Medicare for All] would be limited, participation of providers would be virtually guaranteed.»
«Instead of spending time and money dealing with the arcane requirements of hundreds of different health plans […] providers could use one streamlined system that would free up resources to focus on clinical care,» the books reads.
The latest version of the federal Medicare for All Act, introduced in the Senate by Sanders, includes language that would effectively ban most comprehensive private insurance plans and relegate private insurers to providing limited supplemental care.
The legislation would make it unlawful for «a private health insurer to sell health insurance coverage that duplicates the benefits provided under this Act; or (2) an employer to provide benefits for an employee, former employee, or the dependents of an employee or former employee that duplicate the benefits provided under this Act.»
MICHIGAN FAMILY SAYS COUNTY SEIZED HOME OVER TAX BILL THEY DIDN’T OWE — CASE NOW HEADS TO THE SUPREME COURT
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed speaks during a coronavirus public health roundtable with Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. (Erin Kirkland/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
El-Sayed testified before the Senate in support of the Medicare for All Act in 2022, calling it «the clearest pathway to universal, durable health care insurance, bar none» and saying that «cradle to grave coverage would do away with the premiums, co pays, deductibles that leave even privately insured Americans rationing their health care today.»
The year before, in an interview with NerdWallet, El-Sayed said that under a Medicare for All plan, the government would be «buying you out» of your private insurance plan but that «a few insurance companies that offered a sort of concierge-level service for folks who wanted to pay for that.»
In a 2024 episode of the «America Dissected» podcast, El-Sayed emphasized that «we don’t really need private health insurance in this country.»
He said that «private health insurance is a system by which you have a middleman in our healthcare system making a tremendous amount of money that is leading to a number of the biggest problems in American healthcare whether that’s the fact that our costs continue to spiral upward, whether that’s the fact that nearly ten million people in our country don’t get health insurance at all, or it’s the fact that we are consistently in this country, unable to guarantee, even people who are insurance access to the health care they need.»
In October, El-Sayed knocked McMorrow for advocating for allowing a public option under universal healthcare, writing on X, «a public option can’t deliver healthcare to every Michigander. Medicare for All can.» Politico, in December, reported El-Sayed slamming McMorrow’s call for universal health care with a public option as «incoherent.»
«Now a public option is exactly that; it’s just an option. There is no reason why it would actually address any of the foundational problems in our system. It wouldn’t bring down the rising costs. It wouldn’t guarantee people health care, and we don’t really know how much it would cost,» he said.
Yet, while speaking on the Brian Tyler Cohen Podcast in January, El-Sayed suggested that under Medicare for All, «if you like your insurance from your employer or from your union, that can still be there for you.»
PROGRESSIVES NOTCH ANOTHER WIN OVER DEMOCRATIC MODERATES AS SANDERS-AOC ALLY NEARS CONGRESS
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced the Medicare for All Act. (Getty Images)
Days later, speaking on radio channel WDET, he again said, «Medicare for All is government health insurance guaranteed for everyone, regardless of what circumstances you’re in. If you like your insurance through your employer or through your union, I hope that’ll be there for you. But if you lose your job, if your factory shuts down, you shouldn’t be destitute without the health care that you need and deserve.» He also said, «If you have a public option, what happens is, the private health insurance system will try to dump all of the most expensive patients onto that public option, vastly increasing the cost of that public option and making it unsustainable.»
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El-Sayed’s campaign website states that he «believes in expanding Medicare to cover every single American from cradle to grave while sustaining the option for workers to keep supplemental private insurance their unions or employers may provide.» Amid criticism from McMorrow, El-Sayed doubled down on his Medicare for All messaging in a January fundraising message, in which he wrote that «private insurance could supplement or duplicate Medicare.»
Meanwhile, McMorrow has accused him of not being honest on Medicare for All.
«On an issue as important as healthcare, you have to be honest about what you’re fighting for,» McMorrow wrote in a public reply to El-Sayed, adding, «The Medicare for All legislation that you’ve championed completely eliminates private health insurance as it exists today.»
Sanders’ office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
midterm elections,senate elections,democratic party,michigan
INTERNACIONAL
Peligro en Los Alpes italianos: dos muertos y múltiples avalanchas en menos de una semana
Una serie de avalanchas sacudió el norte de Italia este fin de semana, con un saldo de dos esquiadores muertos y al menos dos heridos en incidentes separados que se produjeron en condiciones de nieve excepcionalmente inestables a lo largo del arco alpino.
El episodio más grave ocurrió el domingo en el Couloir Vesses, una conocida ruta de esquí fuera de pista en la parte alta del Val Veny, en Courmayeur, localidad ubicada en el lado italiano del Mont Blanc, cerca de la frontera entre Francia y Suiza. La avalancha sepultó a varios integrantes de un grupo de esquiadores. Los rescatistas localizaron en un primer momento el cuerpo de una víctima y trasladaron de urgencia a dos heridos en estado crítico. Uno de ellos falleció poco después de llegar al hospital, mientras que el único superviviente fue derivado en condiciones muy graves al hospital Molinette de Turín.
Las labores de búsqueda y rescate, concluidas el mismo domingo, movilizaron a 15 rescatistas, tres unidades caninas, dos médicos, dos helicópteros y dos ambulancias. Medios locales estiman que el grupo original estaba integrado por entre tres y seis personas de nacionalidad francesa, aunque las autoridades no precisaron el número total de afectados.
El mismo domingo, en Trentino, también en el norte del país, una persona quedó parcialmente sepultada por otra avalancha en la zona de Tesino, pero fue rescatada por sus propios compañeros sin necesidad de asistencia médica.
Dos días después, el martes 17 de febrero, un testigo filmó en la misma zona de Val Veny, cerca del telesilla Zerotta en Courmayeur, cómo una enorme nube de nieve generada por una avalancha se extendió sobre una fila de esquiadores y snowboarders que esperaban para subir al remonte. Las imágenes muestran cómo la nube cubrió completamente el área, redujo la visibilidad a cero e impactó a quienes aguardaban en la fila. En ese caso no se registraron heridos.
Los expertos advierten que incluso las nubes de polvo generadas por avalanchas pueden derribar personas, crear condiciones de respiración peligrosas y causar pánico, aun cuando no arrastren escombros de nieve. En el momento del incidente del martes, el nivel de peligro de avalanchas en la zona estaba calificado en 4 sobre 5, considerado “alto” por los servicios de alerta alpinos.
Los fallecidos del domingo en Courmayeur se suman a un contexto de peligro extendido en toda la región. Según informó el Servicio de Rescate Alpino de Italia, un récord de 13 esquiadores de fondo, alpinistas y excursionistas murieron en las montañas italianas en los siete días previos al 8 de febrero, diez de ellos en avalanchas provocadas por un manto de nieve particularmente inestable.
Las nevadas recientes, combinadas con fuertes rachas de viento en cotas altas y la acumulación de nieve sobre capas débiles del manto nivoso, han creado condiciones especialmente peligrosas a lo largo de todo el arco alpino entre Italia, Francia, Suiza y Austria. Los servicios de alerta de los cuatro países han instado de forma reiterada a los esquiadores a consultar los boletines de avalanchas diariamente, respetar los cierres de pistas y evitar las zonas de terreno expuesto durante este período de alto riesgo. Los expertos advierten que, con los ciclos de tormentas que continúan afectando partes de los Alpes, el peligro elevado podría persistir en muchas regiones en el corto plazo.
Courmayeur, localidad de unos 2.900 habitantes, se encuentra a aproximadamente 200 kilómetros al noroeste de Milán, una de las sedes de los Juegos Olímpicos de Invierno de Milán-Cortina.
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