Kristi Noem is no longer the Special Envoy to the Shield of Americas, the State Department said on Thursday.

Noem will serve as a senior advisor to Deputy Secretary Landau.

CBS News reported:

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is no longer serving as the Trump administration’s special envoy for the Shield of the Americas initiative, a State Department official said Thursday, though she remains involved in the administration’s efforts to coordinate security cooperation across the Western Hemisphere.

“Kristi Noem’s envoy status expired last month and she is no longer in the role,” a State Department official told CBS News Thursday. “She is now a senior advisor to Deputy Secretary Landau and continues to work on the Shield of the Americas portfolio.”

The Shield of the Americas is a coalition made up of the United States and several Caribbean and Latin American countries established by the Trump administration earlier this year to cooperate on economic matters, anti-cartel enforcement and other issues.

Noem’s envoy designation expired just before the United Nations General Assembly last month in New York, where she continued participating in diplomatic meetings connected to the initiative.

President Trump fired Kristi Noem as DHS Chief in March and announced then-Senator Markwayne Mullin as her replacement.

At the time of her firing, NBC reported that Trump was unhappy with Noem about her decision to approve a $200 million limited-bid ad campaign.

Separately, NBC News reported earlier Thursday morning that Trump was not happy with Kristi Noem’s performance during the Congressional hearings.

The post Kristi Noem No Longer Special Envoy to Shield of Americas appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Xi Jinping has promised a “Chinese Dream” of national rejuvenation, greater prosperity and a powerful, modern China by midcentury. Yet the CCP’s presentation of living standards obscures how far ordinary Chinese remain from American prosperity.

Housing figures include shared building areas, headline unemployment statistics omit rural joblessness, and Beijing suspended youth unemployment reporting before introducing a revised measure that excludes students. These practices can make progress toward Xi’s promise appear greater than the underlying conditions justify.

This year, U.S. nominal GDP per capita is projected to reach $94,430, more than six times China’s projected $14,870. Assuming annual growth in nominal dollar GDP per capita of 5% in China and 2% in the United States, China would need about 64 years to catch up, let alone surpass the United States.

In the meantime, the Chinese Communist Party needs people to believe they are becoming rich. Housing statistics help create that impression: official figures suggest the average American home is only 54% larger than its Chinese counterpart, at 1,845 square feet versus 1,197 square feet.

But these figures seem counterintuitive when the vast majority of people in China live in one- or two-bedroom apartments, while about 62% of U.S. households live in freestanding, single-family houses, which might be four or more times the size of the average Chinese home.

The CCP creates this impression by measuring homes differently than the United States does. China reports housing size in gross building area, which includes each unit’s share of hallways, stairwells, elevator shafts, and lobbies, while U.S. figures count only the space inside the home. Shared areas typically account for 15% to 25% of a Chinese apartment’s listed size and can reach 30% or more.

According to People’s Daily, urban residents had 36.6 m² of building area per person in 2017 but only 25.7 m² of indoor space, meaning about 30% of the reported area was not living space.

Adjusting China’s official housing figures using that ratio and comparing them with U.S. EIA data, the average American home is roughly 2.3 to 2.6 times the size of the average urban Chinese home, and Americans have about 2.4 to 2.8 times as much indoor space per person.

China lags so far behind in vehicle ownership that even the CCP does not try to spin the numbers. Instead, it touts high-speed rail and criticizes America for having so many cars, while China vies to export cars to the United States.

The United States had 288.3 million registered cars, trucks, and buses in 2024 for a population of 340.1 million, or about 848 vehicles per 1,000 people. China had 366 million automobiles at the end of 2025 for a population of 1.405 billion, or about 261 per 1,000. Americans have about 3.3 times as many vehicles per person.

Unemployment is also higher in China, but Beijing has two statistical workarounds: it redefined youth unemployment, and its urban unemployment figures omit migrant workers who lose their factory jobs and return to the countryside.

The U.S. unemployment rate was 4.2% in September 2026, compared with China’s surveyed urban rate of 5.3% in August. U.S. figures include rural areas, while China publishes no rural unemployment rate. Its closest available measure covers rural-registered migrant workers still living in cities, whose unemployment rate was 4.8% in June 2026.

China changed its youth unemployment measure after the rate reached a record 21.3% in June 2023. Two months later, the National Bureau of Statistics suspended publication, saying it needed to review its methodology. When the series returned, it excluded students, who accounted for more than 65 million of China’s 96 million urban 16-to-24-year-olds in 2022.

Under the revised measure, China’s youth unemployment rate was 14.9% in June 2026, down from 18.9% in August 2025. The U.S. teenage unemployment rate was 14.5% in September 2026, but the figures are not directly comparable: China counts nonstudents aged 16 to 24, while the U.S. figure covers ages 16 to 19 and includes students looking for work.

Even before the methodology changed, Peking University economist Zhang Dandan estimated that including 16 million young people who had stopped looking for work would put youth unemployment at 46.5% in March 2023, compared with the official 19.7%. Her article in Caixin was removed.

Another gap concerns migrant workers. China’s urban survey counts them while they live in cities, but those who lose their jobs and return to their registered rural homes fall outside its coverage. During the first quarter of 2020, China’s migrant workforce fell by about 50 million, yet those workers were not counted as unemployed.

The trade war has severely damaged China’s economy and lowered living standards. In April 2025, when U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods reached 145%, Goldman Sachs estimated that 16 million Chinese jobs depended on exports to the United States. Natixis economist Alicia Garcia-Herrero estimated that the tariffs could cost 6 million to 9 million jobs. After the additional tariff rate was reduced to 30% in May, she said the impact could still go unrecorded in unemployment figures because employers put workers on unpaid leave or reduced their hours instead of laying them off.

This creates underemployment: employers can divide the remaining work between two workers rather than dismissing one, keeping both officially employed but earning less.

China’s own migrant worker survey shows further strain. Average monthly income among its 301 million migrant workers rose just 2.3% in 2025, the smallest increase in a decade, while migrant employment in construction fell by more than 14 million between 2021 and 2025.

Consumer spending also provides a gauge of economic health and living standards. Goods sales by larger retailers fell 4.0%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Retail sales had shrunk 0.6% in May, while fixed-asset investment fell 7.2% in the first eight months of 2026. These figures suggest weak consumer demand and declining investment, offering little sign of a strong recovery in jobs.

The post How the CCP Lies About Living Standards to Promote the “Chinese Dream” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

President Trump blasted New York Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul for their witch-hunt criminal investigation into the “Cornell 7” this week. 

A former Cornell University student, who remains anonymous under the pseudonym Jane Doe, filed a lawsuit last month against seven Chi Phi fraternity members, claiming she was drugged and gang-raped in October 2024.

Cornell police and the District Attorney declined to prosecute after finding that the alleged victim did not withdraw her consent. But amid outrage from the feminists, Kathy Hochul now claims, “Newly released information continues to raise serious questions about the investigation conducted by the Cornell Police Department and the decision by the Tompkins County District Attorney not to prosecute an alleged sexual assault on Cornell University’s campus in October 2024.”

Trump previously responded on Truth Social, sharing a monologue from the Will Cain show on Fox, where Cain blasts Hochul and James’ “malicious prosecution” and exposes the Democrats’ lies and MeToo hysteria over the alleged rape.

Letitia James is seen in the clip responding to a Facebook post, where she publicly declared that the boys are guilty before even investigating the allegations. “I will not comment on a Facebook post,” she said of her own post on social media.

While announcing James’ appointment as the special prosecutor, Hochul also claimed that Jane Doe was “literally gang-raped while intoxicated.” She further advocated for changing the law by closing the “loophole” that makes a woman accountable for choices made while voluntarily intoxicated.

WATCH:

Trump also told reporters, “I feel badly for whoever she’s looking at because they won’t get a fair shake.”

Trump went off again on Tuesday, calling for James to be “IMMEDIATELY” removed from the case and replaced “with somebody who is not a Third Rate, Crooked Politician.”

Slamming James as a “DIRTY AND DISGUSTING COP herself,” who has “ZERO credibility,” Trump further suggested that the accused should appeal because of “her mere presence on this case.”

How can “New York State Attorney General,” Letitia James, be allowed to investigate the Cornell rape scandal, when she is a DIRTY AND DISGUSTING COP herself, and has ZERO credibility? Any decision will be appealed by her mere presence on this case. The stench of Letitia James will greatly add to the anguish that everybody feels in viewing how this case is being handled. The Governor should take James off this case, IMMEDIATELY, and replace her with somebody who is not a Third Rate, Crooked Politician! President DONALD J. TRUMP

This comes as new evidence continues to emerge in the case, showing that the alleged victim may have consented to everything that happened and appeared to be a willing participant in what she, herself, called a “gangbang.”

In recently unearthed text messages, Jane Doe wrote to one of the accused that she “really liked” being with the men and that “non[e] of the sexual stuff was illegal” two days after the encounter. She further slammed other students who were gossiping about the orgy, writing, “anything anyone has to say about the [gangbang] is out of their jurisdiction.”

“I don’t think we should feel any shame for the part. our body our choice [as f*ck],” she further wrote. She even admitted to voluntarily taking ketamine and snorting the drug off one man’s penis.

However, more than two weeks later, after she was uninvited from one of the fraternity’s parties, she changed her tune and reported the incident as a rape to the police.

Earlier this week, additional text messages were released, which show she was not incapacitated during the alleged assault, one of the accused men says. The new texts show Jane Doe texting with a roommate at 3:05 am, when the alleged rape was occurring.

According to TMZ, “One of the accused claims the texts show Jane was able to read, process, and respond … therefore she was not incapacitated.”

MORE:

New Jane Doe Cornell 7 Texts Show Alleged Victim Was Not Incapacitated During Alleged Assault, Frat Bro Says

The post Trump Goes Off on “DIRTY AND DISGUSTING COP” Letitia James Over Cornell 7 Case – Says Decision Will be Appealed Due to “Her Mere Presence on This Case” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington-area home on Monday. The Justice Department said Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant, adding that “this enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.”

Sources told Fox News Digital the probe centers on immigration paperwork completed by Omar’s late father, Nur Omar Mohamed, who served for more than two decades as an officer in Somali dictator Siad Barre’s army.

In March 2026, Vice President JD Vance said he believed Omar had committed immigration fraud. Omar has denied the accusations, and her chief of staff, Connor McNutt, called the claim a “ridiculous lie.”

Mohamed was born in Bandarbeyla, a coastal town in northeastern Somalia, and grew up in Mogadishu, according to his 2020 Sahan Journal obituary. A former army comrade who had known him since the early 1970s said he joined the Somali National Army after military training in Russia and rose to colonel. During the 1977–1978 war with Ethiopia, he commanded a regiment and was recognized for his service.

He may have served under a different name. A former Somali army general told the Daily Mail in December 2025 that Nur used the name Nur Said and enlisted in 1966. Snopes reported some evidence supporting claims that his full name was Nur Said Mohamed Elmi. In March 2026, Somaliland’s government identified him as Nur Said Elmi and said the family used multiple names in different countries.

Former generals who served alongside Nur described his career to the Daily Mail anonymously, citing fear of reprisals. Their accounts included training in Egypt, service in air defense and infantry units, postings in Mogadishu and Garbahaarrey, and a transfer to Hargeisa in 1984. Garbahaarrey was Barre’s southwestern hometown and a military hub; Hargeisa was the north’s main city.

Mohamed Haji Ingiriis, a historian and Oxford University doctoral researcher, told the New York Post that Nur served under the name Nur Said and remained loyal to Barre’s regime until its collapse. Yusuf Ismail Faraton, who served with Nur and later moved to Minneapolis, told the Post that Nur led multiple brigades and commanded a regiment.

The army Nur served was Marxist and aligned with Moscow until November 1977, when Barre expelled all Soviet advisers, according to a declassified CIA analysis. Nur belonged to the Majerteen clan. After Majerteen officers attempted a coup in April 1978, the regime retaliated against the clan with extrajudicial executions, rape, livestock killings, and destruction of water reservoirs, according to a Canadian government paper citing Africa Watch. Nur remained in the army.

Hargeisa, where the Daily Mail’s source and Ingiriis placed him, became the center of the regime’s campaign against the Isaaq clan. When rebels took the city in 1988, the army bombarded it with artillery and aircraft and attacked survivors fleeing toward Ethiopia from the air, according to an Amnesty International report cited by Canadian authorities. The State Department’s 1989 human rights report found that about 90 percent of Isaaq homes, businesses, and property in Hargeisa were destroyed or severely damaged.

Robert Gersony’s State Department-commissioned study, Why Somalis Flee, conservatively estimated that Somali forces deliberately murdered at least 5,000 unarmed Isaaq civilians between May 1988 and March 1989. At least 500 Isaaq men were rounded up in Berbera, killed mainly by having their throats cut, and buried in mass graves.

The Gersony report also estimated that 300,000 to 500,000 Somali refugees, mainly Isaaqs, arrived in Ethiopia between May 1988 and January 1989.

No document ties Nur Omar Mohamed to specific crimes. The Daily Mail reported that archival footage uncovered by Somaliland academic Hussein Bulhan shows Barre’s senior commanders discussing the destruction of northern towns. One officer reportedly resembles Nur, but the paper did not identify him as that officer and stated there was no conclusive proof he personally ordered or committed atrocities. Somaliland’s government has accused him of participating in the Isaaq Genocide.

After Barre’s fall in January 1991, Darod civilians became targets. United Somali Congress militias that took Mogadishu carried out large-scale violence against Darod clans, according to historian Lidwien Kapteijns’ Clan Cleansing in Somalia, as summarized in Project MUSE. Nur’s Majerteen clan is part of the Darod.

According to the Daily Mail’s source, Nur was then running a military school in Baidoa. Ingiriis told the Post that Nur ran the Daynuunaay military school. The family fled to Kismayo and crossed into Kenya months later, spending four years in the Utange refugee camp. No source describes Nur’s activities during those years.

The family entered the United States as refugees in 1995. After two years in Arlington, Virginia, they settled in Minneapolis’s Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. Nur worked as a cab driver and postal worker. His obituary says he later helped rebuild security forces in Puntland, an autonomous state in northeastern Somalia. He died of COVID-19 complications at Hennepin County Medical Center in June 2020, aged 67.

In her 2020 memoir, Omar describes her father as “an educator.”

Nur’s refugee status placed him in the same legal category as civilians who fled the army he served.

Under U.S. law, an applicant’s own persecution does not offset earlier participation in persecuting others. The persecutor bar turns on whether the applicant ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in persecution. The Supreme Court examined its scope in Negusie v. Holder in 2009. Whether Nur disclosed his military career, and how U.S. officials weighed it, is not public.

The post Ilhan Omar’s Father, Nur Omar Mohamed, and Somalia’s Genocide appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

President Trump ripped RINO John Cornyn and “Super RINO Karl Rove” on Thursday for their attempts to derail Republican Ken Paxton in Texas.

Paxton is running against the fluffy Democrat James TalaFREAKO (Talarico) who went missing from the campaign for about two weeks this month and is running as a normal Texan, which is a complete lie! TalaFREAKO has lied about ALL of his positions in order to con Texans into voting for the least impressive and most radical candidate put forth in years.

Where’s Talarico? Trump Savages Talarico Over His “So-Called Flu Bug” as Paxton Places Missing Signs Across Texas

The fake news is hoping desperately that TalaFREAKO is able to fool enough Texans and represent the conservative state in the US Senate. It’s a complete con-job.

And, of course, Never-Trumper Karl Rove, who ran the George Bush campaign is still butthurt that MAGA is running the party today. Sorry Karl, MAGA voters won’t be swayed your toxic RINO nonsense.

President Trump UNLOADED on Rove and Cornyn on Thursday.

President Donald Trump: Sadly, and very stupidly, John Cornyn, and his Liddle’ Buddy, Super RINO, Karl Rove, are doing everything possible to make it hard for Ken Paxton, the Greatest Attorney General in the History of Texas, and one of the Best in the United States, to win the upcoming Midterm Election against a Radical Left Lunatic, James TalaFREAKO, who is the ANTITHESIS of Texas Values.

John Cornyn who, after my Endorsement, lost the Primary to Ken by a very wide margin, and Karl Rove, who shouldn’t be allowed to spew his jealousy on FoxNews, should be ashamed of themselves.

They are hurting Texas and, more importantly, hurting the United States of America! If Ken Paxton loses, it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove, who have ineffectively opposed me for my entire political career.

As your ALL TIME WINNER in the History of Texas, “Trump won 96% of the Counties in Texas, 242 of 254. Harris won only 12 counties (FoxNews),” and by MILLIONS of Popular Votes, the Highest in the History of Texas, your favorite President (ME!) is asking all of those who supported Senator John Cornyn to UNITE, and immediately switch your support to Ken Paxton. He will be a Great Senator, just like he is a Great Attorney General.

We cannot take a chance on having a FREAKO, sometimes referred to as James TalaFREAKO, as our man in Washington, D.C., representing the magnificent people of the Great State of Texas! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

Here is Trump’s post on TRUTH Social.

The post Trump UNLOADS on Toxic RINOs Cornyn and Karl Rove for Efforts to Sabotage Ken Paxton and Assist ‘TalaFREAKO’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Update: Several people are dead, including children. The shooter is also dead.

Per CBS News:

Several people were killed in a shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, sources told CBS News. The suspect was shot and killed.

Bend Police communications manager Sheila Miller said at a news conference at least two people were taken to St. Charles Medical Center and that “the victims include children.” It was not immediately clear if those were the victims who were killed.

The total number of victims was not clear, Miller said.

BREAKING: Multiple people are dead after a shooting at an Oregon elementary school, sources say. The suspect is also dead. https://t.co/lucaoMvdi5

— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 15, 2026

A suspect opened fire at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday afternoon.

“The Bend Police Department is currently at Silver Rail Elementary School after a report of an active shooter. There is a large police presence in the area. Please avoid the area. We will share more information as soon as we can,” Bend PD said.

The Bend Police Department is currently at Silver Rail Elementary School after a report of an active shooter. There is a large police presence in the area. Please avoid the area. We will share more information as soon as we can.

— City of Bend Police Department #BendPolice (@BendCityPolice) October 15, 2026

Police said there are multiple victims, including children.

The victims were transported to a local hospital. Their conditions are not known.

Police said it is unclear who fatally shot the suspected gunman.

SPECIAL REPORT: Students injured and suspect dead after shooting at Bend, Oregon elementary school https://t.co/k23jB2kPWz

— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 15, 2026

Oregon’s Democrat Senator Jeff Merkley released a statement.

“My team and I are closely monitoring reports of an active shooter situation at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend,” Merkley said.

“As details continue to come out, my heart is with the Bend community and all of the students and families affected,” he said.

“No one should have to fear violence at school,” Merkley added.

My team and I are closely monitoring reports of an active shooter situation at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend.

As details continue to come out, my heart is with the Bend community and all of the students and families affected.

No one should have to fear violence at school.

— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) October 15, 2026

FBI Director Kash Patel said FBI Portland is on the scene assisting local law enforcement.

DEVELOPING…

The post BREAKING UPDATE: Suspect Opens Fire at Elementary School in Bend, Oregon – Multiple People Are Dead – Shooter is Also Dead appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.