Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Lula da Silva are among a number of other world leaders in Moscow to celebrate Victory Day.
Today marks 80 years since Germany was officially defeated by the Allies, led by the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front and the US and Britain on the Western Front. In Russia, World War II is known as the Great Patriotic War, while the Patriotic War refers to Napoleon’s invasion of the country in the early 1800s.
– Russia has been and will remain an impenetrable barrier to Nazism, Russophobia, and anti-Semitism, declared Russian President Vladimir Putin in his speech.
– We must remain united and stand firm for our national interests, our thousand-year history, culture, and values, Putin added, promising that the country would continue to uphold these principles.
Among the European dignitaries visiting Moscow to take part in the celebrations are Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić, alongside Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, and around 25 other heads of state, mainly from BRICS countries.
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American Robert Francis Prevost will now take over the leadership of Vatican City and the Catholic Church. Prevost has been elected Pope Leo XIV during the conclave in the Sistine Chapel on May 8, 2025, making him the first American-born pope in the history of the Church.
The conclave began on May 7, when 133 cardinals under the age of 80 gathered in the Sistine Chapel to vote for the new pope. On the second day of the conclave, the characteristic white smoke appeared, signaling a successful election.
Robert Francis Prevost, now Leo XIV, was born in Chicago in 1955 and ordained a priest in 1982 after studying canon law in Rome. He served as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, where he worked closely with poor communities for several years.
Leo XIV is expected to build on Francis’ so-called progressive line, focusing on migration, aid and support for marginalized groups. He has previously criticized Trump’s migration policy on social media and advocated “urgent action” on the alleged climate crisis.
In the context of his new ministry, Leo XIV has been accused of ignoring child sexual abuse by priests in his former churches, but these allegations have not been confirmed.
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, emerged with the Christianization of the Roman Empire in the first centuries AD, but survived the fall of both the Roman Empire and later the Western Roman Empire.
US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accuses Dr. Anthony Fauci of resuming biological weapons research under the guise of vaccine production – an activity he believes most likely caused the COVID-19 outbreak in 2019.
Gain-of-function research aims to alter viruses to make them more contagious and deadly. Such research is used both in the development of biological weapons and in the development of vaccines and treatments.
Kennedy stated in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham that Dr. Fauci effectively restarted the US biological weapons program, despite President Richard Nixon’s attempts to shut down all such laboratories as early as 1969.
– Anthony Fauci began essentially restarting the arms race, and the bioweapons arms race, and did it under the pretension of developing vaccines, because of the same science that you develop bioweapons and vaccines, Kennedy said.
RFK Jr: “Anthony Fauci restarted the bio-weapons arms race under the pretense of developing vaccines… eventually moving his experiments offshore, mainly to the Wuhan Lab.”@SecKennedy ARREST FAUCI! pic.twitter.com/SmgDp5bGXf
— NanLee Marie Carissimi (@NanLee1124) May 6, 2025
On the same day that the interview was broadcast, President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning gain-of-function research and all federal funding for such activities.
Experiments moved abroad
Kennedy further claimed that “three of his bugs escaped” from Fauci’s laboratories in the US in 2014, which, according to him, prompted 300 scientists to sign a letter urging then-President Barack Obama to stop the experiments.
– President Obama declared a moratorium, but instead of shutting down his experiments, he moved them offshore, mainly to the Wuhan lab, Kennedy said, referring to what he described as indirect federal funding from Fauci to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The Wuhan laboratory has been identified in several investigations as a possible source of the coronavirus pandemic.
– The CIA, the FBI, the State Department, the Department of Energy – all say that it is most likely that those experiments resulted in the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in 2019, the US health secretary continued.
“A kind of weapon that always has blowback”
During the signing of the executive order at the White House, Kennedy expressed his support for the decision and described gain-of-function research as a form of biological arms race that now involves countries such as Russia, China, and Iran.
– It’s a kind of weapon that always has blowback. There’s always bad news and the justification for this kind of weaponry and this kind of research was always that we have to do this to develop vaccines to counter a future pandemic, he said.
– In all of the history of gain-of-function research we cannot point to a single good thing that’s come from it, Kennedy added.
Believes Fauci appealed for pardon
President Trump emphasized at the signing that the measure could have made a difference if it had been implemented earlier.
– It’s a big deal, could have been that we wouldn’t have had the problem we had if we had this done earlier, he said.
Kennedy also commented on President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon Anthony Fauci just hours before leaving office:
– I don’t know what was going on in Joe Biden’s head, but I think that Anthony Fauci probably asked for that pardon, knowing that he had some liabilities here that were more than reputational, Kennedy said.
Gain-of-function research involves deliberately altering the properties of viruses or other microorganisms to make them more infectious, more virulent or better adapted to new hosts, such as humans.
The purpose of such research is often said to be twofold: to increase understanding of how dangerous pathogens evolve and spread, and to stay ahead of the curve in developing vaccines and treatments against future pandemics.
Critics, however, argue that the research is fraught with risk, especially if engineered viruses were to leak from laboratories. Proponents argue that it is crucial for preparedness and public health, while opponents warn that it could also be misused in the development of biological weapons.
Yesterday, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth strongly criticized left-wing liberal so-called diversity and inclusion programs within the military and reiterated the message that there is no future for such destructive phenomena within the US Armed Forces.
In a speech delivered at the Special Operations Forces Week conference, the defense secretary declared that climate alarmism, LGBTQ lobbying, and vaccine mandates are over, and that from now on, the focus will be solely on issues that are actually relevant to the military.
– No more pronouns, no more climate change obsession, no more emergency vaccine mandates, and no more dudes in dresses.
– We’re done with that shit, Hegseth continued.
BREAKING Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has a message for the entire World:
Hegseth’s statements follow a US Supreme Court ruling that gives the green light to the Trump administration’s efforts to strengthen the military’s focus by restricting the participation of transgender people in the armed forces.
The decision is based on an executive order signed in January, shortly after Donald Trump took office, with the aim of ensuring what the administration describes as an effective and unified defense force.
“The dumbest phrase in military history”
The Nordic Times has previously highlighted Hegseth’s views on diversity programs in the US military and how he condemned the left-liberal rhetoric previously used by the military leadership.
– I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is ‘our diversity is our strength’, Hegseth explained at a meeting with Defense Department employees at the Pentagon.
– I think our strength is our unity, our strength is our shared purpose, regardless of our background, regardless of how we grew up, regardless of our gender, regardless of our race, he continued, promising to do everything in his power to remove left-wing activist influence from the army.
President Donald Trump’s administration announced on Monday that it will offer $1,000 in compensation to anyone who is in the US illegally and voluntarily returns to their home country. The measure is part of the mass deportation campaign that has been central to Trump’s politics since he ran for office.
According to a press release from the US Department of Homeland Security, the government will also cover travel expenses. Migrants who use the CBP Home app to notify the authorities that they plan to return will also be given priority in the agency’s work on arrests and physical removals.
– If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest, said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, adding:
– DHS is now offering illegal aliens financial travel assistance and a stipend to return to their home country through the CBP Home App.
The department itself states that it has already paid for the plane ticket for a migrant who has returned to Honduras from Chicago, and that more tickets are booked for this week and next week.
NOW – Kristi Noem breaks down self-deportation: “These illegal aliens that are in our country have the opportunity to go on the CBP Home app and we will facilitate them finding their way back to their countries—They will be paid $1000 as an incentive.” pic.twitter.com/9Rw5mmWxrX
During his presidential campaign, Trump made immigration control and mass deportations a central issue, and his administration has continued along this path during its first months in power. At the same time, implementation has been described as expensive, slow, and resource-intensive.
While the Republican government is requesting significantly increased funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency responsible for deporting unwanted immigrants from the country, it is also trying to get people without residence permits to leave the US voluntarily.
The initiative has been combined with TV ads warning of measures against illegal immigrants and images on social media showing arrests and migrants being taken to a giant prison in El Salvador.
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele inspects the giant “Cetot” prison, where criminal migrants have also been sent. Photo: Casa Presidencial, El Salvador/CC0 1.0
The Trump administration has repeatedly described self-deportation as a way for migrants to preserve the possibility of legally returning to the US in the future, and the president himself repeated this message on Monday in a statement to reporters at the White House.
He said that immigrants who leave the country voluntarily may have a chance to return legally in the future, “if they are good people” and “love our country”.
– If they aren’t, they won’t, Trump added.
Activists urge migrants to reject the offer
It should be noted that the app developed by the Trump administration is a revised version of the app launched during Joe Biden’s presidency with the aim of allowing nearly one million immigrants to book appointments to enter the country.
However, as the purpose of the app is now to encourage immigrants to return home, it has been renamed from CBP One to CBP Home and, according to the Department of Homeland Security, has so far been used by “thousands” of migrants for self-deportation.
However, Trump’s opponents do not view the proposal favorably. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration activist and senior researcher at the American Immigration Council, urges migrants to be very cautious and consider remaining in the US for as long as possible to pursue their cases in immigration court.
He points out that it is often a disadvantage for migrants themselves to leave the country voluntarily, especially for those already facing deportation, as failure to participate in court proceedings can lead to automatic deportation orders and returning home is often considered abandoning important applications, such as asylum.
Others argue that the amount is probably far too low and that only a few illegal immigrants would actually consider leaving the US permanently in exchange for $1,000.
