“Hundreds of National Guard troops deployed to Chicago and Portland are being sent home, and those who will remain will continue to stay off the streets amid court battles over their domestic mission by the Trump administration, a defense official said Monday. The withdrawal of soldiers — sent from California and Texas — is part of a larger change to troop deployments after President Donald Trump began his immigration crackdown in various cities with Democratic leadership. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue and requested anonymity. U.S. Northern Command said in a statement Sunday it was ‘shifting and/or rightsizing’ units in Portland, Los Angeles and Chicago, although it said there would be a ‘constant, enduring, and long-term presence in each city.'” (11/18/25)
“Former US Treasury Secretary and former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers announced on Monday that he would be ‘stepping back from public commitments’ following the release of communication documents between him and the late convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. Summers, a current Harvard University Professor, stated that while he will ‘continu[e] to fulfill my teaching obligations,’ the withdrawal from public roles is ‘one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.’ … The documents revealed that Summers and Epstein continued to exchange messages until July 5, 2019 — just one day before Epstein’s arrest on new sex-trafficking charges.” (11/18/25)
“A prisoner is challenging an Australian state’s ban on inmates eating Vegemite, claiming in a court suit that withholding the polarizing yeast-based spread breaches his human right to ‘enjoy his culture as an Australian.’ Andre McKechnie, 54, serving a life sentence for murder, took his battle for the salty, sticky, brown byproduct of brewing beer to the Supreme Court of Victoria, according to documents released to The Associated Press on Tuesday. Most Australians revere Vegemite as an unfairly maligned culinary icon, and more than 80% of Australian households are estimated to have a jar in their pantries. But inmates in all 12 prisons in Victoria are going without.” [editor’s note: I suspect Vegemite is an acquired taste. After giving it a try, I decided I don’t really want to acquire it – TLK] (11/18/25)
“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Monday it’s investigating a new sexual battery allegation against hip-hop mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, who is serving a four-year prison sentence on prostitution-related convictions. … A male music producer and publicist said he was asked to come to a photo shoot in 2020 at a Los Angeles warehouse, where Combs exposed himself while masturbating and told the accuser to assist, according to NBC News, citing a police report. Combs then tossed a dirty shirt at the man, the producer said. The accuser, whose name is redacted in the police report, said he did not tell anyone for several years because he felt embarrassed. He came forward to police in Largo, Florida, this September, shortly after Combs was convicted on other charges.” (11/18/25)
“The Kessler twins, who were best known for their postwar entertainment in the ’50s and ’60s, have died by joint assisted suicide. Alice and Ellen Kessler died at age 89 at their home in Grünwald, near Munich, Germany, on Monday. The sisters ‘no longer wanted to live’ and they ‘had chosen to end their lives together’, as reported by the German newspaper Bild. According to CNN, Alice and Ellen were assisted by advocacy organization the German Society for Humane Dying (DGHS). The DGHS provides people with access to lawyers and doctors and other tools. The organization told CNN that the twins contacted the DGHS over a year ago and became members. ‘The decisive factor is likely to have been the desire to die together on a specific date,’ DGHS spokesperson Wega Wetzel told CNN. However, Wetzel noted that she wasn’t aware of why each woman chose this method.” (11/18/25)
“France Tuesday promoted Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army captain wrongly convicted of treason in 1894, to the rank of brigadier general as an act of reparation in a notorious case of anti-Semitism that has caused outrage for generations. … Dreyfus, a 36-year-old army captain from the Alsace region of eastern France, was accused in October 1894 of passing secret information on new artillery equipment to a German military attache. … Despite a lack of evidence, Dreyfus was convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment in the infamous Devil’s Island penal colony in French Guiana and publicly stripped of his rank. … Only in 1906, after many twists, did the high court of appeal overturn the original verdict, exonerating Dreyfus. He was reinstated with the rank of major and decorated with a Legion d’Honneur award. He served during World War I and died in 1935, aged 76.” (11/18/25)
“Tanzania’s president on Tuesday said her government may lose access to the international funding that largely keeps the nation afloat after the worst election violence in the country’s history. ‘We have to look for funds internally using our God-given resources,’ President Samia Suluhu Hassan said. The East African nation’s Oct. 29 elections were marked by three days of protests during which the opposition asserts that more than 2,000 people died. Hundreds of others were arrested and charged with treason. The president later asked for some to be released. Hassan was declared the winner with over 97% of the vote after competitors from the two main opposition parties were barred from running. On Monday, she announced her new cabinet, which includes her daughter and son-in-law. On Tuesday, Hassan urged it to find local money to fund development projects.” (11/18/25)
“Cloudflare, a company that helps websites secure and manage their internet traffic, experienced issues with its global network, the company said early Tuesday, disrupting service for many websites and apps.
‘Cloudflare is aware of, and investigating an issue which potentially impacts multiple customers,’ the company posted in a status update shortly before 7 a.m. ‘We are working to understand the full impact and mitigate this problem.’ In an update about 20 minutes later, it said disruptions had begun to ease, but said it was continuing to investigate the issue. … The outage hit nearly a month after Amazon Web Services experienced problems with its service, disrupting a wide range of online services for hours.” [editor’s note: Rational Review News Digest was down for several hours due to the Cloudflare problems, but it remains the best CDN/caching solution I’ve found – TLK] (11/18/25)
“As Democrats in the US House of Representatives introduced their latest measure to stop President Donald Trump from continuing his attacks against alleged drug cartels without approval from Congress, the president said he wouldn’t ‘rule out’ deploying US ground troops in Venezuela, and warned he could escalate attacks across Latin America, with possible strikes in Mexico and Colombia as well. Shortly after the Department of Defense, called the Department of War by the Trump administration, announced its 21st illegal airstrike on what they’ve claimed, without evidence, to be ‘narco-terrorist’ vessels mostly in the Caribbean (attacks that have killed at least 83 people) Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that he may soon begin similar operations against drug cartels in mainland Mexico.” (11/18/25)
“Britain’s MI5 security service issued a new warning to lawmakers on Tuesday about attempts by Chinese agents to collect information and influence activity, its latest accusation that Beijing was trying to spy on the nation’s parliament. Lawmakers were told Chinese spies were targeting them by posing as headhunters or companies to make contact, with two individuals reaching out on LinkedIn to ‘conduct outreach at scale on behalf’ of the Chinese government. The speakers of the lower and upper houses of parliament said MI5 had said the Chinese Ministry of State Security ‘was actively reaching out to individuals in our community.’ Britain’s Security Minister Dan Jarvis told parliament the alert revealed ‘a covert and calculated attempt’ by Beijing to interfere in UK politics and said the government would launch a counterespionage plan to address the threat.” (11/18/25)
