feddit.org

Conspiracies and rumors are hurting recovery and relief efforts, warned FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell.

Axios.com

Donald Trump took “British naval secrets” to Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House, the former UK spy Christopher Steele says in a new book.

“I was reliably informed by impeccable sources that among the classified documents which Trump, apparently unauthorizedly, took with him to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his presidency were British naval secrets, some of the most sensitive ones in our governmental system,” Steele writes.

“It remains unclear to me, at least, why Trump would have wanted to retain such documents and what eventually happened to them.”

In a statement sent to the Guardian after this story was published on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the British Ministry of Defence said of Steele’s comments about naval secrets taken to Mar-a-Lago: “These claims are untrue.”

Trump administration protected Brett Kavanaugh from full FBI investigation

Inquiry by Sheldon Whitehouse found White House and FBI ‘misled’ about inquiry into supreme court nominee Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington Tue 8 Oct 2024 13.05 EDT

The Trump administration protected Brett Kavanaugh from facing a full FBI investigation in the wake of serious allegations that he sexually assaulted two women – once in high school and once in college – during his controversial 2018 Senate confirmation to become a supreme court justice, according to a new report.

An investigation led by the Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse also found that both the Trump White House and the FBI “misled the public and the Senate” about the scope of the investigation it did conduct into the sexual assault allegations by falsely claiming that the FBI had conducted its investigation thoroughly and “by the book”.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation by the Senate seemed to be in doubt after Christine Blasey Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University, alleged he had sexually assaulted her while the two were in high school. A classmate at Yale, named Deborah Ramirez, alleged in a report published by the New Yorker that Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party. Kavanaugh denied both allegations.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20537473

The Schwarzlose M.07/12 is an early 20th-century machine gun designed by Austrian engineer Andreas Schwarzlose. It was adopted by the Austro-Hungarian Army in 1907, with improvements leading to the M.07/12 version introduced in 1912. Here are some key details:

• Design: The M.07/12 is a water-cooled, belt-fed, recoil-operated heavy machine gun. It is known for its unique delayed blowback system, which uses a wedge-shaped lock to delay the opening of the bolt, allowing chamber pressures to drop before extraction.

• Caliber: Typically chambered for the 8×50mmR Mannlicher cartridge, the standard Austro-Hungarian military round of the time.

• Rate of Fire: It has a relatively slow rate of fire compared to other contemporary machine guns, around 400-580 rounds per minute, due to its delayed blowback system. This was seen as an advantage in conserving ammunition and maintaining barrel life during prolonged firefights.

• Water-Cooled: The gun has a water jacket around the barrel to prevent overheating during sustained fire, a common feature in machine guns of that era.

• Service: It saw extensive use during World War I by the Austro-Hungarian military, as well as by several other nations after the war. The Schwarzlose was also used in modified forms by various countries during the interwar period and into World War II.

The Schwarzlose M.07/12 was appreciated for its simplicity and durability, though its relatively low rate of fire and weight were drawbacks compared to later machine guns.