Earliest spoken audio of endangered U.S. language discovered, revealing lost Black voices of New Orleans

University of Cambridge

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An extract of Lorenzo Dow Turner's interview with Mrs Emma Benoit, taken in 1935. Benoit (1868–1939) was a sharecropper from the Lafayette area of South Louisiana. She had 16 children, four of whom were adopted, and had been a widow for around twenty years at the time of recording.

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Credit: Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University Bloomington

The earliest spoken-word recordings of Louisiana Creole, a uniquely American language at risk of extinction, have been uncovered and analysed for the first time, shedding light on a tongue that defined the docks and saloons of New Orleans for well over a century.

The field recordings, taken in 1935 by pioneering Black academic and linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner, are a rare document of the lives and voices of Louisianans of colour in the early 20th century, including a former cop and a local with tales of a New Orleans legend.  

While snippets of sung Creole from rural Louisiana were captured by folklorist Alan Lomax in 1934, and again in 1937, the Turner recordings are the only extended audio from a time when the language was still widely spoken, and the only recordings of the New Orleans variety, as Creole died out in the city by the 1950s.

Louisiana Creole takes much of its vocabulary from French, but has its own grammar and structure, along with distinctive words and phrases.

It emerged in the 18th century as an everyday lingua franca among French slavers and colonists, enslaved West Africans and their descendants, and free people of colour, some of whom formed middle-class communities of mixed ancestry and even owned slaves.

This Louisianan cultural melting pot created a “linguistic pressure cooker”, says Dr Oliver Mayeux from the University of Cambridge, who uncovered Turner’s recordings.

“Africans with little common language were forced onto plantations where French was the language of administration,” said Mayeux. “Everybody is learning approximations of French and then approximations of approximations. Quite quickly, a new language is born.”

The language was later adopted by Caribbean exiles escaping the Haitian revolution, along with some French-speaking Acadians expelled from Canada.

“Louisiana Creole was mostly the language of the working class and communities of colour. It was spoken throughout the port of New Orleans as well as in towns, farms and bayous across the plantation belt of the central Gulf coast,” said Mayeux. “Some wealthy white people would have also learned it from their nursemaids and nannies as children.”

“Turner’s lost recordings contain far more linguistic diversity than the texts we relied upon until now. This is the language of the levees and cane fields. The language that drifted out from French Quarter saloons along with early jazz music at the turn of the last century.”

Today, only a few thousand native speakers remain, all of them elderly and in rural areas. However, some young Louisianans have begun a revival movement for the language, teaching themselves what they call Kouri-Vini, and producing social media material so others can learn it.

By the mid-1930s, Creole was in decline. Mayeux thinks that Turner – a North Carolinian who studied Gullah speakers in Georgia and South Carolina – recorded Louisiana Creole for a research project that got rejected for funding. He later produced a major study on the African roots of New World languages.

Mayeux became interested in Turner while in South Carolina, and noticed a line in his biography mentioning a field trip to Louisiana. He tracked down the recordings among old aluminium discs, simply labelled ‘Louisiana’, that had been digitised by the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University.

“Turner’s discs were preserved for posterity by the staff at the Archives for Traditional Music,” said Mayeux, from Cambridge’s Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics. “These recordings were among hundreds of files sitting on a server ready to be discovered and analysed.”

Initially, Mayeux was surprised to find music by classical pianist Jessie Covington Dent, but on digging into Dent’s family papers, he uncovered pages of Dow Turner’s address book sketching out contacts for a Louisiana research trip, which revealed the hidden story of Turner’s fieldwork.

“Turner relied on a network of Black doctors and intellectuals in New Orleans and out in the country. The physicians found him Creole-speaking interviewees and let him record in their offices. These were trusted spaces for the participants during the era of Jim Crow segregation, and, crucially, were wired for electricity.”

Turner’s recording instrument looked more like a cupboard, weighing more than 100 pounds, with a bulky metal microphone. Each large disc held just a few minutes of sound. Turner can be heard in the background cajoling his subjects into speaking Creole.

“For these interviewees the alien nature of the equipment alone would have made it a truly weird experience for them,” said Mayeux.

“Until now, scholars have had to rely on neat written transcriptions for historical studies of the Creole language. In these recordings we can finally hear a fuller range of variation in the language, and better understand how Creole would have developed over time.”

Technical insights range from agglutination, with articles mashed into nouns, and determiners like ‘the’ coming after a noun. “Contemporary French speakers would simply not be able to comprehend this language,” said Mayeux.   

All Turner’s participants were Black, and most were late middle-age or older, born deep in the 19th century when Creole was near its height. Through repeated listens – pulling out details then cross-referencing with census data and archives – Mayeux was able to piece together lives behind the voices.

He even tracked down a living descendent of one participant, a sharecropper named Emma Benoit, born in 1868, who describes a life “working in the field”, how she is a mother of twelve who also raised four orphans, and has been widowed for twenty years.

Benoit’s great-granddaughter, Valencia Pradier Linton, told Mayeux that Benoit had lived in the house of her White father as a girl following the death of her mother, an enslaved African woman. Family lore had it that Benoit’s White half-sister used to feed her under the table.

Other recordings feature a former cop, George Doyle, who tells tales of his time in the New Orleans police prior to its segregation, including a beating he took in Tremé market from a gang of White hoodlums – “a band of rats” – managing to arrest them despite the blows. Mayeux found a report of the incident in a New Orleans newspaper from 1893.

The liveliest interview was with Odelia Edmond, a garrulous New Orleanian who recalls mischievous younger years when she had hair “red like fire” and would hide under church pews to pull wedding veils from the heads of passing brides.

Edmond recounts childhood interactions with an old woman named Zozo Labrique (“Birdy the Brick”), a New Orleans folk figure famous for selling the red brick dust known to be used for protective magic in some voodoo rituals.

Edmond claims to have swindled Labrique out of thirty cents, and speaks of wanting to throw coins into the cemetery to pay back the long-deceased legend, but not doing so for fear of being considered a voodoo practitioner.

“Edmond is an extraordinary character,” said Mayeux. “I found a newspaper record from when she was arraigned for battery. She had a husband who was murdered, after which she remarried. In the recording she says ‘I was so glad when they killed him’.”

Mayeux’s own paternal grandfather, born in 1920, was a speaker of both Creole and French. However, Mayeux’s father was raised with little knowledge of the languages.

“By the middle of the 20th century you see the end of intergenerational transmission. My grandfather wanted his children to speak English. This was typical of many Louisianans who saw their future as American rather than Creole or Cajun.”

Mayeux’s father said that when relatives would visit, they were made to leave the house if they wanted to speak that “dirty language”. 

However, for Mayeux, who bounced between Nigeria and Scotland growing up, becoming a “language nerd” in the process, his family’s linguistic roots offer a sense of identity. He has recorded some of the last native Creole speakers, become a fluent speaker himself, and is involved in a movement to revive the language.

“Young people are learning Creole to connect with the richness of their heritage, helping them discover a distinct identity in an increasingly homogenised world,” added Mayeux. 

“Many are grandchildren of native speakers, yet their parents never knew the language. This three-generation pattern of linguistic reconnection is something you see with a lot of minoritised languages around the world. One of my friends cried when I played him Turner’s recordings.” 

Clif St. Laurent, a Louisiana Creole educator and activist, said: “Hearing these, the first known recorded spoken voices of our ancestors, ignites a passion that feels almost compulsory, or at the very least, as though it were incumbent upon us to reclaim this linguistic heritage.”   

"Language is the foundation and the root of a culture, so teaching this language keeps our culture not only living, but thriving,” St. Laurent said.

Mayeux’s analyses and his research on the life histories of those captured on disc by Turner are published in the open-access journal Language Documentation and Description. The appendix includes a catalogue of recordings and a public link where the recordings can be heard in full.

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Journal

Language Documentation & Description

DOI

10.25894/ldd.3083

Article Publication Date

28-Oct-2026

Photograph of Lorenzo Dow Turner by A. P. Bedou. 

Credit

Amistad Research Center, Tulane University

An extract of Lorenzo Dow Turner's interview with George Doyle [AUDIO] 

An extract of Lorenzo Dow Turner's interview with George Doyle. Doyle (1867–1937) was a prominent Creole of Colour civic leader in New Orleans and one of the few Black police officers in the New Orleans Police Department before the force was segregated in 1910.

Credit

Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University Bloomington

Undated photograph of Mrs Emma Benoit, supplied by her great-granddaughter Valencia Pradier-Linton. 

Credit

Valencia Pradier-Linton

An extract of Lorenzo Dow Turner's interview with Odélia Edmond [AUDIO] 

An extract of Lorenzo Dow Turner's interview with Odélia Edmond. Edmond (1862–1951) was born in New Orleans. Her mother died three days after her birth, and she was adopted at nine days old by the Baquet family. Her childhood home was on St Philip Street in New Orleans.

Credit

Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University Bloomington

 

NYU Abu Dhabi study reveals how coral-associated bacteria help corals survive extreme heat

Discovery in Arabian Gulf corals uncovers a previously unknown mechanism that strengthens coral immunity during thermal stress

New York University

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NYU Abu Dhabi study reveals how coral-associated bacteria help corals survive extreme heat

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Credit: Photo credit - John Burt

A new study from NYU Abu Dhabi has revealed how coral-associated bacteria help corals withstand extreme heat by producing steroid hormones that strengthen their immune response.

Published in Nature Microbiology, the study shows that Endozoicomonas, a group of bacteria commonly associated with corals worldwide, produces steroid hormones including testosterone and progesterone when temperatures rise. These hormones help corals mount a stronger immune response to heat stress, increasing the survival of coral cells.

The research was conducted on Acropora pharaonis corals from the Arabian Gulf, including corals collected near Saadiyat Island. It provides new insight into the role of coral-associated bacteria in helping corals respond to environmental stress, and could inform new approaches to coral conservation as ocean temperatures continue to rise.

“When temperatures become high, corals lose some of their ability to produce steroid hormones that are important for regulating their immune system,” said NYU Abu Dhabi Research Associate and first author of the study Amin Mohamed. “We found that their bacterial partners can compensate by producing these hormones themselves, allowing the coral to activate an immune response that helps its cells survive the heat.”

Steroid hormone production is generally associated with complex organisms, and only a limited number of bacteria have previously been shown to produce these molecules, including in the human gut. The discovery that coral-associated bacteria can produce and provide these hormones to their host reveals a previously unknown function of the coral microbiome.

“These bacteria are doing much more than simply living alongside the coral,” said NYU Abu Dhabi Associate Professor of Biology and senior author of the study Shady Amin. “They are providing the coral with molecules it needs to regulate its immune response at a time when the coral itself is under significant stress.”

The study constitutes a breakthrough in our understanding of bacterial contributions to coral resilience and host–microbe interactions. The findings also point to a potential new direction for coral conservation. While approaches such as coral nurseries, restoration, and assisted evolution focus primarily on the coral itself, the study suggests novel functions of beneficial microorganisms could also play a role in helping corals cope with environmental stress. 

The research was conducted through NYU Abu Dhabi’s Center for Genomics and Systems Biology as part of a collaborative project with John Burt and the Marine Microbiomics Lab.

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Journal

Nature Microbiology

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Steroid hormones produced by coral-associated Endozoicomonas influence coral immune response during thermal stress

Article Publication Date

30-Oct-2026

 

How crushed shells protect against ocean acidification

Study shows shell hash lowers water acidity, allowing shell-making animals to thrive

University of California - Davis

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In the study, UC Davis researchers added crushed shells, pictured here, to sand to better understand how the practice can protect shell-making animals from the negative effects of ocean acidification.

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Credit: Hannah Kempf/UC Davis

New research from the University of California, Davis reveals why adding crushed shells to beach sand helps protect shell-making animals — such as clams, oysters and mussels — from the detrimental effects of ocean acidification. 

In a study appearing in Biogeosciences, the researchers designed an experiment at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory in which they mixed crushed shells, or shell hash, into sand where baby Pacific littleneck clams burrowed and grew. They then monitored the clams’ growth and the water’s chemistry over a 90-day period. 

Adding shell hash, the researchers found, altered the chemistry of the water that fills the tiny spaces between sand particles, decreasing its overall acidity and creating a better environment for shell growth. 

“We found that, on average, clams grew larger shells when shell hash was present in their treatment,” said study first author Hannah Kempf, an environmental scientist at the California State Water Board who graduated from UC Davis with a Ph.D. in earth and planetary sciences in 2024. “Interestingly, we also found that, on a genetic level, the ‘acidification’ signal was dramatically minimized when shell hash was present.” 

The findings suggest that shell hash can buffer, on a very local level, the impacts of acidification and promote clam growth.

Indigenous communities have long added shell hash to sands to keep coastal ecosystems healthy. The research illuminates the biology underlying why this method is effective. 

“This was the first time the question was studied from a genetic perspective,” said study corresponding author David Gold, an associate professor of earth and planetary sciences at UC Davis. 

Why does ocean acidification hurt shell-making organisms? 

Ocean acidification occurs when seawater absorbs excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

As the water becomes more acidic, Kempf said, it becomes more energetically costly and difficult for shell-making animals to build their shells. Acidic seawater can even dissolve shells. Larvae and juveniles are thought to be especially vulnerable to its negative effects. 

To understand why adding shell hash acts a buffer against ocean acidification, the researchers raised baby Pacific littleneck clams in four different conditions: seawater with sediment, acidified seawater with sediment, control seawater with sediment plus shell hash, and acidified seawater with sediment plus shell hash. 

Over 90 days, the researchers sampled the seawaters three times a week, monitoring acidity, salinity, temperature and dissolved oxygen. They also tracked the clams’ shell growth and after 90 days, they sampled the clams’ mantle tissue for follow-up gene sequencing. 

Not only were the clams raised in shell hash-rich sediments larger on average, but the gene expression profiles of those raised in acidified seawater with shell hash were largely indistinguishable from those raised in non-acidified waters. 

“Adding crushed shells removed the negative genetic changes that occur when young clams are raised in acidified water,” said Gold.   

Lessons from Indigenous science  

Study co-author Tsim Schneider, an associate professor of anthropology at UC Santa Cruz, said there is significant evidence from traditional ecological knowledge that shell hash is beneficial to the health of shell-making animals. 

In the Pacific Northwest, he said, some Indigenous communities create large-scale structures that enlarge intertidal spaces, promoting habitats for invertebrates and other marine organisms. 

“For me, one of the interesting aspects of this research is the potential to engage more fully with tribes on designing projects that promote their long-standing expertise and Indigenous science,” said Schneider, who is also affiliated with the National Science Foundation’s Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science. “If there's a history of adding shell hash to clam beds in California, for example, western science might be able to better support communities interested in reawakening dormant cultural knowledge and coastal stewardship practices.”

The research was supported by a California Sea Grant and the Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski Fellowship. 

Raising groups of Pacific littleneck clams in four different conditions, the researchers monitored their growth and the water’s chemistry over a 90-day period.

A UC Davis researcher holds a Pacific littleneck clam. 

Credit

Hannah Kempf/UC Davis

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Journal

Biogeosciences

DOI

10.5194/bg-23-7627-2026

Method of Research

Experimental study

Article Title

Shell hash promotes growth in Pacific littleneck clams (Leukoma staminea) by altering pore water chemistry

Article Publication Date

29-Oct-2026

Fury as Dem senator remains lone lawmaker to spill on Trump's 'insane' post-midterm Iran plan

By:Alexander Willis

Oct 31, 2026

RAW STORY



Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) warned this week that the Trump administration plans to resume its war on Iran after the midterms — an “insane” scheme he said he learned of in confidential briefings. By Saturday night, he was still the only lawmaker to speak out about those briefings, leaving one independent journalist furious.

“In one of these briefings, we did get the chance to have a fairly detailed conversation about what the war plan would be if we restarted military operations,” Murphy said, speaking at the Middle East Institute.

“You’ve heard a preview that it would be a short-duration plan. I will just say this: their plan is insane. It will lead to devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law. The plan that they have developed will lead, in my view, to a prolongment and escalation of this war that will be devastating for our security interest.”

As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and ranking member of the Department of Defense Subcommittee, Murphy is often briefed on matters related to U.S. military operations and foreign policy. As noted by Murphy, however, he was not the only member of Congress to have been briefed on the Trump administration’s post-midterm plans for Iran.

“How has literally no other member of Congress mentioned this briefing???” independent journalist Ken Klippenstein wrote in frustration Saturday evening, later calling the lack of interest in the briefings from other members of Congress “just pathetic.”

Murphy’s warning came after reports that the U.S. told Gulf nations to prepare for a short-lived, high-intensity campaign after the Nov. 3 election. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was weighing strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites and civilian infrastructure. Trump has said he won’t launch any attacks on Iran until after the election.

THE MAJORITY OF SNAP USERS ARE WHITE 

Jaws drop as Trump cabinet official drops shockingly 'racist' Halloween message

By:Alexander Willis

Oct 31, 2026
RAW STORY



Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins set off a firestorm Saturday with a Halloween message to Americans that critics almost immediately slammed as blatantly “racist.”


“This is the most racist s--- I’ve ever seen,” wrote Jamie Bonkiewicz, a Nebraska-based political activist whose home was visited by the Secret Service for comments about former White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

In a post on X, Rollins reminded her more than 212,000 followers that defrauding federal food assistance programs was a crime and illustrated the point with a mock Halloween costume labeled “SNAP FRAUDSTER.” The program, formally the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, pays low-income Americans an average of $6.30 per day.

“Some costumes come with a price tag. This one comes with a prison sentence,” Rollins wrote. “To anyone stealing from American taxpayers: The tricks are over. The treats are running out. Happy Halloween!”

The mock Halloween costume features a depiction of an African American man giving the middle finger while wearing copious amounts of jewelry. The man is seen holding a $1 bill set aflame and standing in front of piles of cash and a lighter. The mock costume notes the man’s “questionable fashion choices” and includes “stacks of taxpayers cash,” “fake grills,” an “EBT card” and a pair of “handcuffs.”

Rollins didn’t name him, but the costume appears to reference Mercedes Reshard New, an Atlanta social media personality known as “Shawty Dred.” New was arrested this month on federal charges accusing him of fraudulently obtaining more than $4 million in SNAP benefits to fund a lavish lifestyle.

“Just insane white supremacy, out in the open brazen racism, from Trump cabinet members,” wrote journalist and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan. “But hey, let’s return to our regularly scheduled programming on Hasan Piker and the left.”

Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH) called Rollins’ post “despicable” and “disgusting,” and hinted that she would ask Rollins what motivated her to make the post during her upcoming testimony before the Agriculture Committee, which Brown sits on as the vice ranking member.

Prominent attorney George Conway quipped, “I had no idea Secretary of Racism was a cabinet position,” and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) sarcastically wrote, “Not in any way racist if you ignore the obvious racism.”

Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA) made his own version of Rollins’ post, only shifting the target from a Black SNAP recipient to President Donald Trump, whom Walkinshaw depicted in his own mock costume labeled “CONVICTED FRAUDSTER.”

“Some costumes come with a price tag. This one comes with a failed Presidency,” Walkinshaw wrote. “To the Trump Administration officials stealing from American taxpayers: The tricks are over. The treats are running out. Happy Halloween!”

WHAT'S UP DOC?!

Abdul El-Sayed stomps out intraparty feud with one statement days out from midterms

By: Julia Conley, 

Common Dreams

Oct 31, 2026

After issuing a brief statement in response to Rep. Haley Stevens’ demand that he apologize for the views he’s expressed—in line with a growing majority of Democrats—that are critical of US funding for Israel, Michigan’s Democratic US Senate candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, headed into the final weekend before the midterm elections with the same focus he has maintained throughout his campaign.


“While Congresswoman Stevens seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago,” said El-Sayed, “let’s all focus on the task at hand: That’s beating Mike Rogers, holding [President Donald] Trump accountable, and getting money out of politics, putting money in pockets, and passing Medicare for All.”

The statement followed Stevens’ latest attempt to suggest that El-Sayed’s candidacy has threatened Jewish communities, by tying him to an anti-Rogers ad by an outside group, Rebellion PAC, that addressed how the billions of dollars and political support the US provides to Israel each year costs Americans. The Trump administration has publicly said the US launched its illegal war on Iran after being pushed to do so by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a decision that has markedly worsened the affordability crisis for Americans.

El-Sayed’s campaign has said the digital ad does not “speak for” the progressive candidate, while others have pushed back on the claim by the vehemently pro-Israel Stevens and pro-Israel groups that the video is antisemitic, noting that it says nothing about Jewish people.


In his statement Friday evening, El-Sayed appeared to have little interest in engaging with Stevens further regarding persistent accusations by corporate Democrats who have claimed he hasn’t done enough to reach out to Jewish communities, whom his campaign has been speaking with extensively about fighting antisemitism and their views on Israel at “deep canvassing” events.

“Our campaign is and has always been focused on addressing the most critical challenges Michiganders are facing: skyrocketing gas prices, unaffordable groceries, and the inability to see a doctor,” said El-Sayed, noting that his message had allowed him to win the primary in August despite “a historic $70 million in outside spending by big corporations” and the pro-Israel lobby on behalf of Stevens.

Two sources told Politico that El-Sayed’s campaign was asking Stevens not to campaign with him in the final weekend, which the congresswoman had begrudgingly said she planned to do in her statement demanding an apology from the candidate.

But El-Sayed himself was applauded by progressives for “holding firm and ignoring the whines and threats of extremists,” as art director Lindsay Ballant said.



“For those folks demanding that El-Sayed condemn that ad, he isn’t playing your stupid game,” said another observer. “He understands that whatever he does, it won’t be enough. There will always be another demand. So take your cudgel somewhere else.”

Even if El-Sayed took time away from the statewide door-knocking tour he had planned for the weekend to address Stevens’ demand, podcaster and former Obama administration staffer Tommy Vietor asserted that “people would then say he didn’t condemn it firmly enough.”

“The guilt by association shit is endless,” said Vietor. “Meanwhile, Abdul is literally being called a jihadist by the president of the United States!”



Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) are set to join El-Sayed at the “Knock Out the Vote” canvassing event from Saturday through Monday.

‘Grotesque’ Trump deal arms foreign unit accused of torturing people to death: WSJ

By: Bennito L. Kelty

Oct 29, 2026

RAW STORY


President Donald Trump's administration quietly agreed to arm a foreign military unit with a gruesome human rights record, a new report revealed.


The Trump administration agreed to send about $35 million in military aid, including armored personnel carriers, to Cameroon's Rapid Intervention Battalion, known as the BIR, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. U.S. officials and congressional aides told The Journal that State Department officials negotiated the aid alongside a deal for the Central African nation to accept deportees from the U.S. who aren't Cameroonian.

The unit has a brutal past. A 2017 Amnesty International report accused the BIR of war crimes during its fight against the Boko Haram terrorist group, finding that members beat and drowned detainees and tortured some of them to death. Trump's first administration cut off some aid to the unit in 2019 and booted Cameroon from a U.S.-Africa trade pact over its forces' ongoing abuses, which Cameroon denied at the time.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, placed a hold on the aid package earlier this year, according to The Journal. That stalled the deal for months until April, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio's team told her the administration was overriding her and pushing ahead.

Shaheen this week tore into the arrangement as "grotesque" and said Rubio had let her down by signing off on it.

In a statement, Shaheen argued that the U.S. has no business handing sensitive military gear to governments with shaky human rights records, let alone as payment for taking in people.

Cameroon started accepting U.S. deportation flights in December and has taken in at least 36 people since, according to Refugees International, a humanitarian advocacy group. Some officials told The Journal the Trump administration intends to ramp up flights to African countries in the coming months. Around the time the aid was disclosed to Congress in January, the U.S. also steered $30 million to the United Nations refugee agency's operations in Cameroon, even as it slashed foreign aid elsewhere.

The State Department wouldn't discuss the details of any agreement but praised its partnership with Cameroon on security and counterterrorism, and said it follows the Leahy Law, which prohibits military aid to forces tied to human rights abuses. Cameroon's embassy in Washington did not respond to The Journal's request for comment.

‘Defies belief’: Hegseth’s leak crackdown sparks accusations Pentagon broke law

By: Erik De La Garza

Oct 30, 2026
RAW STORY


The Pentagon may have violated federal privacy law while publicly accusing a fired Army general of leaking classified information, attorneys told CBS News.


The unusual disclosure followed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s removal of Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia. A Pentagon official told media outlets that Sylvia had failed three polygraph examinations during a leak investigation.

"It defies belief to see … [the] leaking of Privacy Act-protected information of an employee in order to accuse that same employee of themselves being accused of unauthorized leaks," national security attorney Brad Moss told CBS News.

Moss said the Privacy Act generally bars disclosure of such records without consent or other legal authorization.

"This is a Privacy Act violation," former Army attorney Cody Harnish told the network. "Secretary Hegseth cannot sign off on the Pentagon not following the statute."

Harnish also criticized the disclosure of an ongoing counterintelligence investigation and a Justice Department referral, along with a declaration of “severe misconduct” before the investigation had concluded.

Another military justice expert, Frank Rosenblatt, disagreed that disclosing the polygraph information violated the law, but blasted reliance on the tests.

"This unreliable junk information is being allowed to stand in for like actual evidence that he's done something," he said.

CBS could not independently verify the official’s leak allegations. Two other Pentagon sources confirmed the firing was connected to polygraphs but disputed that Sylvia leaked classified information.

The controversy follows earlier accusations by Hegseth against three Pentagon aides whom he dismissed last year while a leak investigation remained underway.

“Once a leaker, always a leaker,” Hegseth told Fox News at the time. “And if those people are exonerated, fantastic, but we don’t think, based on what we understand, it’s going to be a good day for a number of those individuals because of what was found in the investigation.”

Canadian rock star brutally mocks Trump with new song: 'Like a baby tossing the toys'

By:Robert Davis

Oct 29, 2026

RAW STORY


Canadian rock star Bryan Adams brutally mocked President Donald Trump in a new song he released just before the midterm elections, according to a new report.


The Guardian reported that Adams wrote a new song titled "Lake Ontario," which takes a shot at Trump for his efforts to "rename" one of Canada's most famous bodies of water. The move further escalated the feud between the two countries and resulted in the U.S. and Canada placing additional tariffs on goods coming from either side.

The lyrics make it clear that Trump's renaming efforts were an attempt to "deflect from the president’s other political problems, including the war in Iran and renewed scrutiny of the Jeffrey Epstein files," according to the report.

"But things weren’t going his way in Iran/ So like a baby tossing the toys from the pram/ But it feels like another distraction/ while the Epstein files were getting traction," the lyrics read in part.

Adams explained that the song came from a project he called a "love letter" to Canada.

“After finishing the first song, I moved on to that one, and then moved on to another one, and then started thinking maybe I should just carry on with my theme,” Adams told The Guardian.

 THE EPSTEIN CLASS

Police probe the royal retreat at the center of cryptic Epstein emails

By:Travis Gettys

Oct 30, 2026

RAW STORY


Scottish detectives are investigating time that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell spent at Balmoral, King Charles’ private estate in Scotland.


Police Scotland said it had received “information” and that inquiries into the disgraced royal’s time there with the late child sex offender were at a “very early stage," reported The Guardian.

The Daily Express has reported that the inquiries relate to claims that women were trafficked to the estate.

“We have received information and active inquiries are ongoing, but these are at a very early stage,” a Police Scotland spokesperson said. “All inquiries are evidence-led, with the needs of victim survivors at the heart of those inquiries.”

Photos previously released by the U.S. Department of Justice appear to show Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein on a shooting trip at Balmoral.

The estate also appears in a string of cryptic emails released last year as part of the Epstein files. In August 2001, someone using the name “the Invisible Man” sent four emails to Maxwell, who has since been convicted of sex trafficking. In one, the sender said their “valet” had recently died and that they had “left the RN,” shorthand for the Royal Navy. Mountbatten-Windsor left the Royal Navy the month before.

Another email from the same sender, dated Aug. 16, 2001, said they were at “Balmoral summer camp for the royal family” before asking Maxwell: “Have you found me some inappropriate friends?”


In March 2002, Maxwell wrote to the Invisible Man that she had passed along a message to an unnamed person, beginning: “I just gave Andrew your telephone no.” She added that “Andrew” would be “very happy” if the person did some “two legged sight seeing.”

The sender of the emails has not been confirmed.

Several other British police forces, including the Metropolitan Police, Thames Valley Police and Surrey Police, have live investigations linked to the Epstein files. The National Police Chiefs’ Council said there is no national investigation at present.


Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office over allegations that he shared sensitive information with Epstein while serving as a U.K. trade envoy. He denies wrongdoing, and that investigation continues.