This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The shockwaves from the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump have not only rippled across the U.S., but into other nations as well, namely America's adversaries like the People's Republic of China.

Trump was shot at during a rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania, Saturday, and sustained an injured ear. One innocent bystander was killed and another rally-goer was critically injured. The would-be assassin, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, was dispatched by security snipers after firing his AR-15 style weapon into the crowd from a nearby roof.

China’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement Sunday in which it said Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed his sympathies for Trump.

"China is following the shooting incident at the campaign rally of former U.S. President Donald Trump. President Xi Jinping has expressed sympathies to former President Trump." the statement said.

A tense political environment has been blamed for the attempted assassination, and some Chinese political academics agree. Chinese state-owned media the Global Times, interviewed several experts on who or what was really behind the assassination attempt.

Li Haidong, a professor from the China Foreign Affairs University, said the background of the shooter could have three distinct possibilities.

"First, it could be someone from the deep state, an elusive force within the government that does not want to see Trump win. Second, it could be from the far-left extremist forces, who do not want to see Trump, representing the far-right, win the election and thus have taken radical actions. Lastly, it could be an individual extremist without any organizational background, simply a person who is tired of Trump," Li told the Global Times.

"Political violence has been a persistent element in American history. On the other hand, the fact that such malicious incidents still occur at political rallies attended by former president, despite security measures, highlights the ongoing rampant gun violence issue in the U.S. and the seeming 'intractability' of the problem," Diao said, adding, "This kind of revenge politics, manifested through violence, is a clear indicator of this shift."

Former editor-in-chief of the Global Times Hu Xijin – who had previously stated the first presidential debate between Trump and President Biden was "very entertaining" for many Chinese people – stated the assassination attempt will garner a lot of "sympathy" votes for Trump in the coming election.

"It's shocking. Besides, my feeling is that the shot will win #Trump a lot of sympathy, and he seems to be one step closer to returning to the White House," Hu said on X.

Chinese business owners didn't miss a beat when it came to making a profit from what could have been a tragic day in the U.S., quickly selling dozens of t-shirts online minutes after the shooting occurred at the rally. The t-shirts showed Trump with a bloodied face and his fist raised in the air.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Florida, vows to continue his support for U.S. military members and their families in the wake of a new report that shows an increasing amount of U.S. military weapons are made using Chinese-manufactured components.

In a statement sent to WND, Scott said he knows firsthand the sacrifices veterans, military members, and their families make to keep America safe.

"I'd like to express my sincere gratitude for the selfless service of military members and the families who support them. As a Navy veteran myself, I know firsthand the sacrifices our military members, veterans, and their families make to keep our country safe," Scott said in his statement.

Scott noted during his time as governor of Florida, he worked to champion legislation to make the Sunshine State the most military- and veteran-friendly state in the nation. Now he uses his position in the U.S. Congress to ensure funding is directed where it is needed to keep adversaries at bay.

"Fighting for our heroes continues to be my top priority as a U.S. senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee. Every year I work with my colleagues to pass a National Defense Authorization Act which will authorize the appropriate amount of defense spending to not only deter our enemies and defeat them if necessary but also, importantly, to continue to increase the pay for all members of the armed forces and improve the quality of life for our military families," Scott said.

Scott added that the men and women of the armed forces are America's greatest asset, and vowed to serve and protect the nation's families.

"Our military provides for the safety of our country and protects our national security, and I'll never stop fighting for the funding to support them. I will never lose sight of one of the most important roles I have as a senator: to protect and serve the families of our nation. And that starts with supporting America's greatest asset — the men and women of our armed forces." Scott said.

According to a report from Govini, China’s manufacturing of military weapons components, namely semiconductors, has increased from 12,000 manufacturers to almost 45,000 manufacturers between 2005 and 2023. This puts the U.S. military in a precarious position if China decides to declare war, or simply stop the supply chain to the U.S. together.

Despite President Joe Biden claiming during a news conference Thursday that manufacturing in the U.S. is at "peak growth," the data within the Govini report shows China is outpacing the U.S. on building naval warships, and other weapons systems.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

JERUSALEM – Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said his organization's attack on Israel will cease if Hamas and Israel conclude a ceasefire agreement.

The statement came as both Israeli and Hamas negotiators headed to Doha, Qatar, to try and thrash out a deal to draw a close to nine months of fighting.

Nasrallah boasted the almost daily attacks since Oct. 8 have achieved their aim, namely to "exhaust the enemy materially, financially and mentally."

He was speaking at a memorial service for slain official Mohammed Nasser, whom Israel eliminated in a strike in Lebanon last week. The terrorist leader claimed Israel had been sufficiently distracted from its war with Hamas in Gaza because of the rocket fire across the Lebanon-Israel border.

"We made them understand that if they want it to stop, they must stop the aggression in Gaza," he added.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

JERUSALEM – Lebanese-based Iranian Shi'ite proxy terrorist group Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets at Israel's Golan Heights Tuesday night – killing a married couple with a direct hit on their car – following the IDF's alleged elimination earlier in the day of an operative on the Beirut-Damascus highway in Syria.

The couple, named Noa and Nir Barnes, both 46 from Kibbutz Ortal, were driving on Route 91 – a relatively short stretch of road connecting the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights – and are survived by their three children, aged 13, 16, and 18.

The number of Israeli civilians killed in the ongoing rocket and missile fire over the Lebanese border and into northern Israel has now risen to 12. An additional 16 IDF troops have been killed in the skirmishes since Oct. 8, when Hezbollah started firing rockets, missiles, and drones into Israel.

While many communities and kibbutzim have been evacuated in the north, the area in which the Baranes' were killed has not. This has drawn the ire of local politicians according to Ynet, which reported Katzrin Mayor Yehuda Dua telling political leaders his region is at war. Katzrin, known as the unofficial capital of the Golan, has a population of about 7,000.

"I looked the decision-makers in the eyes and told them I came there to demand compensation for businesses lost and returned home to the horrors of sirens and interceptions in the ongoing war," he said.

"This is our reality, our routine, and the government is being negligent in the face of this brutal enemy. The only option to beat terror is by force."

The rockets have caused brush fires, which have decimated hundreds of acres of grassland, as well as destroyed buildings, and caused untold damage to wildlife.

In response, the IDF attacked several sites late Tuesday and overnight Wednesday. It released footage of a missile from an IAF jet striking Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon's Qabrikha, from which an estimated 30 rockets were launched.

Hezbollah releases drone footage of military sites in northern Israel

Earlier Tuesday, Hezbollah released previously unseen drone footage of several highly sensitive military sites in northern Israel, as it ramps up its propaganda campaign against the Jewish state.

The almost 10-minute-long video is the second part of drone footage the Iranian-backed militia group has released. The first one was published last month.

The video opened with a map highlighting Mount Dov, the Golan Heights, Nahariya, Safed, Haifa, and Afula.

It showed what Hezbollah described as military intelligence bases, strategic electronic intelligence stations, and facilities capable of conducting electronic attacks, which Hezbollah dubs the "eyes of the state," according to Ynet.

This version differed from the earlier one in that it exclusively highlights military sites, including military outposts, buses reportedly carrying troops, Iron Dome batteries, as well as concentrations of tanks. The terrorist group also claimed it had located a base, which the IDF's vaunted Military Intelligence Unit 8200 purportedly uses.

Hezbollah claimed an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) entered Israeli airspace, captured the footage, and returned to Lebanon undetected. Israel has not commented on the claim.

If Hezbollah's contention is true, it suggests – like on Oct. 7 – that sometimes low-tech solutions to supposedly high-tech problems can work in terrorist groups' favor.

Following the video's release, Hezbollah media relations officer Muhammad Afif said it sent "a clear message to the enemy and its army," the Times of Israel reported.

"The importance stems from demonstrating our technical and technological capabilities in the field of surveillance and obtaining necessary information we need in times of war," he added.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A new report from the Heritage Foundation shows the addition of Finland and Sweden into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a win for the U.S. and will provide a strategic advantage.

The report states both Finland and Sweden have "demonstrated significant capacity and will as NATO members by investing in their militaries and by providing substantial amounts of aid to Ukraine," further noting the membership enhances the alliance and adds critical assets – Finland provides substantial reserve forces, while Sweden has a robust defense industry.

NATO has a 2% defense budget GDP guideline for its members. Both countries have exceeded this and are now participating in NATO military exercises, according to the report.

"Finland demonstrates a steadfast commitment to enhancing its defense capabilities by substantially increasing its defense budget. Finland's fiscal year 2024 defense budget increased by $6.6 billion, constituting 2.3 percent of its gross domestic product.

"This exceeds NATO's 2 percent of GDP investment guideline, an indicator of political resolve to contribute to NATO's common defense," the report states.

The report points out Finland gains significant strength from manpower, despite its relatively small population of 5.5 million people. It has one of the largest fully mobilized armies in NATO with 280,000 troops.

Finland's army, navy, and air force are also heavily equipped with tanks, heavy and light rocket launchers, anti-aircraft weapons, command vessels, minesweepers, jets, and long-range surveillance radars.

Sweden has an extensive domestic defense industry and submarines, and Sweden's Air Force is the largest in Scandinavia and one of the largest in Europe.

"Like Finland, Sweden demonstrates a steadfast commitment to enhancing its defense capabilities by substantially increasing its defense budget. Sweden's FY 2024 defense budget increased by $2.44 billion, constituting 2.1 percent of its GDP. This budget is double that of its FY 2020 defense budget," the report states.

Finland and Sweden as members of NATO also present two distinct strategic advantages for the U.S. – the ability to dominate the Baltic Sea, while contributing to the defense of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania; and the extensive border Finland shares with Russia, which presents a challenge to the Kremlin because of Finland's large military reserves.

Finland shares an 830-mile border with Russia, adjacent to the Kola Peninsula, a critical region known to be home to Russia's Northern Fleet, which includes attack submarines, ballistic missile submarines, and other surface ships.

The report notes Finland and Sweden's proximity to Russian naval forces in the Baltic will pose a significant threat to Russia, and will likely force Russia to move in more conventional military assets into the region it previously considered secure.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

JERUSALEM – The Israel Defense Forces announced the results of a military probe into the defense of Kibbutz Be'eri following the initial Hamas onslaught on Oct. 7 were presented to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi.

Details of the review – which Maj. Gen. Mickey Edelstein, a former commander of the Gaza Division carried out – include the recording of a highly contentious event, namely the incident where at least two IDF tank shells were fired at Pessi Cohen's house.

An unknown number of terrorists had overrun the property, and it was assessed there were at least 14 hostages held there. The presentation to the chief of staff is reported to have lasted several hours as it was highly detailed.

Many units were involved in the largely officially uncoordinated attempts to push back the marauding invaders. In the chaos, Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, the commander of the IDF's 99th Division who had been tapped to be the next head of the Gaza Division, ordered a tank to fire on Cohen's house.

Critics of both Hiram and the IDF have claimed this action was part of the controversial "Hannibal Directive," also known as the "Hannibal Protocol or Procedure." Broadly it states in a situation such as Oct. 7, it is better neither IDF soldiers nor civilians should be allowed to be taken alive into captivity in Gaza.

Officially, the IDF mothballed the directive in 2016, although some claim the exigencies of the Hamas onslaught against Israel meant in extremis it was reanimated, including the incident of Brig. Gen. Hiram's decision to fire on a residential home.

It is still not known exactly how many hostages died because of the tank fire – there was at least one fatality caused by shrapnel from a tank shell – but the whole area was subject to a fierce and prolonged gun battle involving Hamas terrorists and IDF troops.

The probe is expected to provide a large number of details of the incident at Pessi Cohen's house.

For now, Hiram's promotion as commander of the Gaza Division has been frozen. And even this move is seen as somewhat contentious. He is alleged to have given orders which required those under his command to make the very difficult decision to fire on a house that contained their countrymen – and whose condition could not have been known.

He is also credited with helping to take control of an entirely chaotic scene in southern Israel in the first hours and days of Hamas' massacre – when other commanders had either already fallen in battle or had fled. It is unclear what his future will be, for sure nothing will be decided until at least the findings of the probe have been presented to the surviving members of the southern kibbutzim and families of the slain at a special presentation at a Dead Sea hotel on Thursday.

The Be'eri probe is far from the only one; there are some 40 others in the pipeline, which are investigating the actions in the south, and which will be published on a rolling basis throughout July and August. A separate investigation into Oct. 6, which will include specific warnings about the likelihood of a Hamas attack, and the action or inaction that followed – and why – will be released in August.

Will there be a state inquiry?

Despite the dozens of up-and-running military probes that are due to be published over the coming weeks, there is still no word on whether there will be an official state inquiry into the events of Oct 7. It seems extraordinary, but Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has opposed the establishment of such an inquiry – presumably fearful of what the results would mean for his political survival.

Israel's record on state inquiries might be imperfect – one thinks specifically of the Agranat Commission – which convened in November 1973 and delivered its findings in April 1974 – in the wake of the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. It largely fudged the issue – particularly about then-premier Golda Meir's culpability – although it did effectively mark the end of her political career. Netanyahu is petrified that another wide-ranging inquiry will find his leadership similarly lacking and bring down the curtain on his 30 or so years in the political spotlight.

In contrast to Netanyahu, former prime minister Benny Gantz, who recently left Israel's war cabinet, called for a state commission into the intelligence and army failures of Oct. 7, back in May. Another senior defense establishment figure Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) director Ronen Bar said in 2023, "Despite a series of actions we carried out, unfortunately, we were unable to generate a sufficient warning that would allow the attack to be thwarted. As the one who heads the organization," Bar said, "the responsibility for this is mine. There will be time for investigations. Now we are fighting."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A woman who works at Scotland's National Health Service is going to court to be punished after she objected to a man using a changing room for women.

The situation is becoming more and more common as men who say they are women invade spaces that society for millennials has deemed for women only.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

JERUSALEM – Israel's north came under heavy bombardment today, as Iranian Shi'ite proxy group Hezbollah responded to the IDF's killing yesterday of one of its senior commanders, Muhammad Nimah Nasser, also known as Abu Nimah.

Hezbollah claimed to Al-Jazeera that it had fired some 200 rockets and at least 20 drones at targets in northern Israel, several of them thought to be IDF military bases. The IDF subsequently released a statement saying Hezbollah fired 160 rockets at northern Israel and launched 15 drones; the majority of which were shot down.

Sirens blared for several hours on Thursday morning across large swathes of northern Israel, including the areas that abut the Lebanese border, as well as parts of the Western Galilee, including Acre and Nahariya. In the Golan, which stretches from the banks of the Sea of Galilee to the border area between Lebanon and Syria, there were also several incoming drone and rocket alert sirens. There were reports in Katzrin, a town with a population of some 7,500 people that lies about 50 kilometers south of Israel's highest point – Mt. Hermon – and only approximately 12 miles from Lebanon's southernmost settlement, of power outages.

In response, Israel Air Force jets hit multiple targets in southern Lebanon. A post in Hebrew on the official IDF X account said, "Following the activation of alerts in the north of the country regarding the infiltration of hostile aircraft and the firing of missiles and rockets, suspicious aerial targets and launches that crossed from Lebanon were identified. The air defense fighters and fighter jets… successfully intercepted several targets and launchers." Indeed, Lebanon's National News Agency reported that Israeli jets broke the sound barrier in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon.

The barrages sparked numerous fires across northern Israel, which has experienced temperatures well above 90 degrees Fahrenheit for several weeks, turning grassland into tinder. Indeed, while the Israeli government officially evacuated tens of thousands of people from border towns in the north to places farther south, some agricultural workers remain, including those who work in the many vineyards dotted around that part of the country. It is estimated that some 4,100 acres of forested land have been burned since Hezbollah started launching rockets on October 8, 2023. Israel is perhaps the only country on the planet that ended the twentieth century with more trees than it had started 100 years previously.

Tensions remain very high in the region, despite some evidence of marginal progress regarding a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza. According to reports in both the Israeli and wider media, a halt to the fighting in the coastal enclave would provide Hezbollah with an off-ramp to de-escalate the situation on Israel's northern border. Indeed, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to speak with U.S. President Joe Biden today about the Gaza situation. This will be followed in the evening with Netanyahu holding a cabinet meeting to come up with a reply to Hamas' latest response to a proposal for a hostage deal and possible pause to the war.

The IDF top brass has intimated that the war against Hamas should be drawn down. They have argued about a lack of remaining significant targets, as well as already having carried out a largely successful campaign of greatly reducing Hamas' fighting capabilities. They also seem to understand the need to potentially focus on the much bigger issue of the threat Hezbollah faces across the northern border. However, it appears the military rationale for ceasing the fighting and the requirements of political expediency are misaligned.

At a memorial event for Hezbollah's slain commander, another senior leader warned Israel that the terrorist group would aim its missiles at new and unexpected sites. Hashem Safieddine said, "The series of responses continues in succession, and this series will continue to target new sites that the enemy did not imagine would be hit," according to the Times of Israel.

Meanwhile, Israeli-Arab influencer Yoseph Haddad took to his social media channels and warned his hundreds of thousands of followers, "We've lost the north. Hezbollah is firing missiles and launching drones with impunity; it doesn't matter which leader we've eliminated if we allow this to continue without declaring war. What are we waiting for? That they will repeat the slaughter of October 7?! If rockets are falling on Akko, it is time that missiles will fall on Hezbollah areas - including Beirut."

"The people of the north have for nine months been evicted from their homes, and Hezbollah struts around as if they own the place. It's a security weakness that is impossible to live with. If we don't have leaders who are prepared to release the IDF from its shackles and act in a way that the people would support to relieve the north, then make way for leadership that does have the balls to do the necessary work."