All posts tagged: influence

How Bad Is Foreign Influence In America’s Nonprofit Universe?

How Bad Is Foreign Influence In America’s Nonprofit Universe?

Published by Jenni Sidey

In February, the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing titled “Foreign Influence in American Nonprofits: Unmasking Threats from Beijing and Beyond.” While Democrats deflected and tried to make the hearing about MAGA and free speech, the underlying topic remains important. 🧵Senate Hearing Raises Alarms Over FOREIGN INFLUENCE Looting American Pockets 📢 During a Senate subcommittee testimony chaired by @HawleyMO, @seamusbruner connected government fraud, nonprofit funding networks, migrant-based money transfers from U.S. to overseas, and the… pic.twitter.com/4V7B6n8CKf — Government Accountability Institute (@Govt_Acct_Inst) February 11, 2026 So how bad is foreign influence in America’s nonprofit universe? It turns out: very bad. The Muslim Brotherhood Earlier this week, the New York Post published a story reporting that CAIR was under investigation by HHS for alleged fraud. The report referred to CAIR receiving $30 million in taxpayer dollars to resettle Afghan refugees, with little proof of how the money was spent. In HHS letters to the governors of California and Washington, the states in which the alleged fraud occurred, the agency stated that it had been informed that …

Bill Pulte’s family has ties to “The Family,” secretive Christian org with vast political influence

Bill Pulte’s family has ties to “The Family,” secretive Christian org with vast political influence

Published by Sam Flores

Incoming acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte’s family has had extensive ties over two generations to leaders and financial backers of a secretive Christian organization that conducts shadow diplomacy around the world, according to public records and documents I obtained. Pulte’s grandfather, at one point one of the wealthiest men in the world, built a Fortune 500 company and gave tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to charity before his 2018 death. He was also friends with Doug Coe, died in 2017 after decades leading the secretive, controversial Fellowship Foundation that built and sustained a global right-wing network including dictators, lobbyists, and corrupt millionaires largely united against labor, LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights. Better known as The Family, The Fellowship runs the National Prayer Breakfast and the congressional residence on Capitol Hill called C Street. Pulte’s father, Mark, like others of the patriarch’s progeny, has kept a hand in the grandfather’s work, including funding religious charities with Fellowship ties. It’s not clear whether Pulte’s grandfather, after whom he’s named, passed on any of …

‘I don’t want to have a big influence on him’

‘I don’t want to have a big influence on him’

Published by Sam Flores

IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Full interview: Trump says Iran ‘is not an endless war’ as conflict reaches 100 days 39:29 Trump says ‘I’d pay’ anti-weaponization fund applicants ‘the kind of money they deserve’ 06:40 Now Playing Trump on new Fed Chair Warsh: ‘I don’t want to have a big influence on him’ 12:44 UP NEXT ‘I’m not going to defend someone with that kind of history’: Rep. Dingell on Graham Platner 09:53 Exclusive: Trump says Iran hasn’t made a deal because ‘they’re strong’ and ‘proud’ 03:08 ‘YOLO caucus’ in Senate is ‘lighting fires’ but stopping short of ‘burning the whole house down’ 15:37 Ukraine’s Amb. to U.S.: ‘Every possible option’ is on the table to defend against Russia 09:36 Trump redistricting push causing seats to be ‘stripped away’ from blue voters: Texas congressman 08:43 Trump agenda facing rebuke from some congressional Republicans 11:44 Judges call out rising acts of violence against the judiciary, slam Trump’s ‘irresponsible rhetoric’ 13:28 Steve Kornacki breaks down California’s ‘cliffhanger’ …

Earth has a mysterious triple symmetry that may influence its climate

Earth has a mysterious triple symmetry that may influence its climate

Published by skeptic

The 27° east meridian, running through Europe and Africa, divides Earth into two equally reflective halves PLANETARY VISIONS LTD/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY A line that runs through Africa, Europe, Alaska and both poles divides Earth into two halves that reflect the same amount of light – and this newly discovered symmetry may play a critical role in the planet’s climate. It was previously known that the northern and southern hemispheres have almost equal reflectivity, or albedo, but Jianhao Zhang at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US and his colleagues have now uncovered a second line of symmetry along the 27° east and 153° west meridians. The hemispheres separated by this line are nearly equal in three respects: their albedo in clear skies, the reflectivity of clouds and the fractions covered by ice-free oceans. This symmetry has persisted throughout 25 years of satellite observations analysed by Zhang and his colleagues. At first, Zhang thought it must be a coincidence. “What convinced me that the east-west symmetry is not trivial are three features: its uniqueness, …

Russia Weighs Million Plan To Influence Armenia’s Election

Russia Weighs $50 Million Plan To Influence Armenia’s Election

Published by Jenni Sidey

Via Eurasianet, Reuters reported that Russian officials discussed influence operations aimed at weakening Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan ahead of Armenia’s June 7 parliamentary election. One alleged proposal involved temporarily bringing Armenian passport holders living in Russia back to Armenia to vote for opposition candidates. Despite the reported efforts, polling suggests Pashinyan’s Civil Contract Party remains the clear frontrunner as Armenia debates its future relationship with Russia and the West. Russia has mulled an extraordinary measure of exporting humans to Armenia in an effort to undermine Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s chances of retaining power in the fast-approaching parliamentary elections on June 7, according to an investigative report published by the Reuters news agency.  Despite the Kremlin’s best efforts to manipulate the election’s outcome, recent polling data shows that Pashinyan’s Civil Contract Party is pulling away from a collection of opposition forces and appears increasingly likely to have a majority in the next parliament. According to Reuters, citing four sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Kremlin set up an agency in October called the Directorate for Strategic Cooperation …

Former RT France chief Xenia Fedorova fuels concerns over pro-Kremlin influence in French media

Former RT France chief Xenia Fedorova fuels concerns over pro-Kremlin influence in French media

Published by Sam Flores

The soft-spoken commentator delivered her views in fluent, Russian-accented French, as she appeared this week on one of France’s most influential television channels. “Russia is capable of helping the French economy,” Xenia Fedorova said on the rolling news channel CNews, insisting it would be “mandatory” for President Emmanuel Macron’s successor next year to maintain good relations with Moscow. Fedorova is the former head of the French arm of the Russian state-run channel RT, which was banned in France after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. Read moreFrench film giant Canal+ to blacklist hundreds over petition against right-wing owner While RT France was shut down in 2023, Fedorova did not disappear from public view. Instead, she has gained an even wider audience in France, securing a coveted role as a commentator for outlets within conservative billionaire Vincent Bollor’s media empire. The 45-year-old appears regularly on CNews and Europe 1 and writes a column for Le Journal du Dimanche, spreading Kremlin talking points about Ukraine and the West. As France is heading into one of its most …

San Diego mosque suspects’ writings reveal influence of online extremism, experts say

San Diego mosque suspects’ writings reveal influence of online extremism, experts say

Published by Sam Flores

The two teenage suspects in this week’s deadly attack on a San Diego mosque appear to have written a 75-page document replete with neo-Nazi ideology, incel rage and racist meme culture drawn from the darkest corners of the internet. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. In an echo of the 2019 massacre at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, the gunmen appeared to have worn body cameras that livestreamed their assault, video of which has circulated online. The gunmen — identified by authorities as Caleb Vazquez and Cain Clark, teenagers who are believed to have first met online — killed three people at the Islamic Center of San Diego before they took their own lives Monday. Authorities looking into the motivation behind the shooting are working to authenticate the lengthy typewritten document, which is filled with vitriol about Muslims, Jewish people, Black people, Latino people, the LGBTQ community, women and various other identity groups. The document features Nazi iconography and explicit references to accelerationism, a white supremacist …

Huge study of ancient British DNA reveals only minor Roman influence

Huge study of ancient British DNA reveals only minor Roman influence

Published by skeptic

Boudica led an uprising against the Romans in around AD 60, as depicted in this Victorian-era chromolithograph Popperfoto via Getty Images Despite the Romans’ huge cultural and social impact on Britain, the genetic trace they left behind was surprisingly small, according to a study of more than a thousand ancient genomes. “The Roman conquest was much less impactful in genetic terms than perhaps historically we have been led to believe,” says Rachel Pope at the University of Liverpool, UK, who wasn’t involved in the work. Marina Soares Da Silva at the Francis Crick Institute in London and her colleagues analysed the genomes of 1039 people in Britain spanning from 2550 BC, in the Bronze Age, to AD 1150, after the Norman conquest. Roman occupation began in AD 43, immediately after the Iron Age, and lasted until 410. They found that most people who lived under Roman rule in Britain traced 100 per cent of their ancestry to Iron Age Britain, with only 20 per cent carrying detectable ancestry from outside Britain. “Evidence of only 20 …

After losing influence in West Africa, France seeks a regional reset at Kenya summit

After losing influence in West Africa, France seeks a regional reset at Kenya summit

Published by Sam Flores

Shorn of influence in its former colonies in West Africa, France will seek to deepen ties elsewhere on the continent next week at an Africa summit in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, its first to be held in an English-speaking country. With a year left in his presidency, French President Emmanuel Macron is hoping ​to showcase a “renewed ‌partnership” with Africa, an aide at the Élysée Palace told reporters. Monday and Tuesday’s summit, which will ⁠be attended by heads of state, business executives and heads of multilateral development banks, follows repeated setbacks for France in former colonies where it has wielded influence for decades. A series of coups in ‌the Sahel region since 2020 have brought to power military officers who have expelled French troops and invited in ⁠Russia-backed mercenaries like the Wagner Group and its successor, Africa Corps, to deal with violence and unrest perpetrated by jihadist militias. Read moreStreet battles and withdrawal of Russian mercenaries: Inside the 48-hour fall of Mali’s Kidal France also handed over control of its last major military facility in …