VLADIMIR PUTIN’S SECRET BILLIONS:

Vladimir Putin has a vast personal fortune and may be one of the richest men in the world, according to a number of former Kremlin insiders.

From their exiles around the world, they spoke to the BBC for a Panorama investigation into the alleged corruption of the most powerful man in the world. Here’s what we learned.

Sergei Kolesnikov told the programme he worked for the Kremlin to collect money from the super-rich, which they believed was to be spent on healthcare, but which was ultimately used “to help build a $1 billion palace for Putin on the Black Sea coast”.

The BBC said it had seen documents from one of the offshore companies that diverted millions of dollars to the palace, which was constructed during Putin’s first term as president.

It said that, according to Kolesnikov, the owner of the company, Lirus Investment Holding, was Putin himself.

It’s good to be the Czar.

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Bernies Sanders turns “uncharacteristically confrontational” against Hillary Clinton in Iowa town hall.

But in reality it was the usual rant on income inequality, the Iraq War, and Keystone XL. Sanders still refuses to go for the jugular on Clinton’s felonious handling of classified intelligence, or her serial mistreatment of the many victims of Bill Clinton’s unwanted sexual advances.

Sanders however is within striking distance in Iowa, dominates New Hampshire, and has cut Clinton’s lead in half in South Carolina.

All this, despite pulling his punches on Emailgate and other issues, campaigning as essentially a single-issue protest candidate, and being by some reports a deeply unpleasant human being.

What’s his secret? It’s no secret at all.

Also, I still believe that Hillary is an AWFUL candidate & may be beatable by just about any Republican with a pulse https://t.co/zvyHhtiabQ

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) January 25, 2016

SCIENCE: Chocolate is better for your cough than codeine:

According to Professor Alyn Morice, head of cardiovascular and respiratory studies at the University of Hull, chocolate is actually a more effective method for relieving a tickle (or hacking cough) than other over-the-counter drugs.

The prof–and resident cough expert–references a recent study where patients who took a new medicine containing cocoa (versus cough syrup) saw a significant improvement in their cough within two days. Another study, performed at the Imperial College of London, further explains: There’s an alkaloid in cocoa that is better at suppressing the urge to cough than codeine. Codeine.

It makes sense: Chocolate’s texture is stickier than regular cough medicines, which means it’s better equipped to coat your throat and protect the nerve endings that trigger the coughing sensation.

I say, Why take chances? Have a Ghirardelli square and a swig off the codeine cough syrup bottle at bedtime tonight.

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: 17-year-old Indian boy burned alive for crime of being Hindu.

GOOD LORD:

A new video released by the ISIS terror group late Sunday shows nine of the extremists who carried out the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris beheading and shooting captives, as well as training with weapons while plotting the carnage that left 130 dead in the French capital.

The 17-minute video shows the extent of the planning that went into the multiple attacks in Paris, which French authorities have said from the beginning was planned in Syria. The video was provided online by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi websites.

The video does not contain any footage of the attacks themselves, but is assembled from material shot before the men left for Paris, as well as news and amateur videos. The video did not specify where the nine men were filmed, but it was believed to have been in ISIS-controlled territory in Syria.

The video also contained threats against landmarks in London.

'Contained' https://t.co/Wz1l2dHz11

— WhigsnTwigs (@bourbonblondie) January 25, 2016

WASHINGTON POST: BERNIE SANDERS SAYS HILLARY CLINTON IS RUNNING A “DESPERATE” CAMPAIGN.

You’d be desperate, too, if you thought the best way to avoid prison would be to get elected to a position where you could pardon yourself.

The FBI is looking into exactly how data classified above “Top Secret” managed to find its way into more than a thousand emails on Hillary Clinton’s homebrew server:

Clinton and her top aides had access to a Pentagon-run classified network that goes up to the Secret level, as well as a separate system used for Top Secret communications.

The two systems — the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) and Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS) — are not connected to the unclassified system, known as the Non-Classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet). You cannot e-mail from one system to the other, though you can use NIPRNet to send ­e-mails outside the government.

Somehow, highly classified information from SIPRNet, as well as even the super-secure JWICS, jumped from those closed systems to the open system and turned up in at least 1,340 of Clinton’s home e-mails — including several the CIA earlier this month flagged as containing ultra-secret Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Programs, a subset of SCI.

“Somehow.”

HILLARY DISSES A THOUSAND FANS IN IOWA:

After a day marred by a new poll showing Bernie Sanders leading her by eight points in Iowa, Clinton might have been expected to go for broke during a rally at the University of Iowa, which featured a performance by popstar Demi Lovato.

But Clinton did not refer to the Vermont senator, or much else, in her speech. The lack of length and substance of her address appeared to upset some in the crowd.

“It was like a political commercial,” said Allison Steigerwald, a 24-year-old graduate student at the university. “I thought she was saying goodbye to Demi and then she’d start her speech. But it never happened.”

“It was very short,” said Jennifer Marks, 22. “There were a lot of statements. Like: ‘We are we going to make things happen.’” Marks said. “No actual how.”

“I just feel bad for the people who got here at five,” she said.

Message: I care.

In a tangentially related story, Bernie Sanders has chopped Clinton’s lead in half in firewall South Carolina without even trying.

ASSAD AND PUTIN, A LOVE STORY — Damascus thanks Moscow for help in recapturing Salma from rebel forces:

Government forces were able to capture the city “thanks to the support of the friendly Russian aviation,” Latakia Governor Ibrahim Khder al-Saalem said. “Our army will now press its offensive further.”

Since Russia launched its bombing campaign on Sept. 30, its warplanes have flown nearly 6,000 missions in support of the Syrian government troops. The airstrikes were ostensibly to target Islamic State militants and other extremists, but they also have helped Assad push back rebels on several fronts and capture dozens of villages in the north and west.

The AP report also notes that the “offensive has given Assad a stronger hand going into peace talks with the opposition,” which is what Putin’s military effort there is all about.

At least somebody in the Middle East still knows what it’s like to have a major power as reliable and serious ally.

HERE COMES SNOWZILLA:

Washington and Baltimore may get 2 feet of snow (61 centimeters) by Saturday, and Philadelphia could see almost as much. New York may get buried in 6 to 10 inches. Blizzard warnings and watches stretch from Virginia to Long Island, including New York and Washington.

“It has the potential to be an extremely dangerous storm,” Louis Uccellini, director of the National Weather Service, said Thursday in a conference call with reporters. “It is a potentially paralyzing storm.”

Almost 5,000 flights have already been canceled for Friday and Saturday in the U.S., according to Houston-based FlightAware. Everything from schools to rail lines were planning closures in Washington. Snow will start in the Mid-Atlantic late Friday afternoon or evening and then move up the East Coast, arriving in New York by Saturday morning, Uccellini said.

Major snowstorms are a decent barometer for the basic competency of local government, so right now might not be too soon to send thoughts and prayers to the people of the Northeast.

HAS “CLINTON NORMAL” CAUGHT UP WITH HILLARY?

TRUMP: “Certainly there’d be a role” for Sarah Palin in his administration:

“I haven’t discussed it with her. No, I haven’t discussed anything with her about what she’d do, but she’s somebody I really like and I respect. And certainly, she could play a position if she wanted to,” Trump said, adding that he did not think Palin would want to do that again.

“I mean, I don’t think she’d want to do it, and I really don’t get into it right now because — that question is always asked of me, who do you have in mind,” he continued. “And I don’t even think about VP right now, and I just want to win. I’ve always been a closer, I get the deal done, I have to win before I start thinking about that.”

Maybe put her in charge of media relations and keep the White House Press Corps in a four-year state of apoplexy?

THE ART OF THE DEAL: Iran to build two new nuclear plants as Ayatollah Khamenei warns of American “deceit and treachery” on nuclear issues.

ON THE RUN: Taliban gunman attack Bacha Khan University in Pakistan, killing at least 30.

OLDEST CHRISTIAN MONASTERY IN IRAQ destroyed by ISIS:

For 1,400 years the compound survived assaults by nature and man, standing as a place of worship recently for U.S. troops. In earlier centuries, generations of monks tucked candles in the niches and prayed in the cool chapel. The Greek letters chi and rho, representing the first two letters of Christ’s name, were carved near the entrance.

Now satellite photos obtained exclusively by The Associated Press confirm the worst fears of church authorities and preservationists — St. Elijah’s Monastery of Mosul has been completely wiped out.

Middle Eastern Christians increasingly face a grim choice between conversion to Islam, ethnic cleansing, or death — and almost nobody wants to talk about it.

SHOCKER: Governor of early caucus state dependent on ethanol subsidies wants to defeat presidential candidate who opposes ethanol subsidies.

If I were Reince Priebus, I’d tell Iowans that the GOP’s official position is they can have ethanol subsidies or the first-in-the-nation caucuses, but not both.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Pentagon ordered to “address climate change” in its war plans.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY YOU KNOW —  Brain sensors that dissolve once they’ve done their job:

“I just took out a bullet from the back of a guy’s head an hour ago,” says Rory Murphy.

As a neurosurgeon at the Washington University School of Medicine, Murphy “deals with brain trauma all the time.” Between bullets, blunt forces, and blood clots, traumatic brain injuries kill around 50,000 people in the United States every year. These kinds of injuries often cause the brain to swell, which constricts the flow of blood and oxygen, and can lead to permanent damage. So surgeons like Murphy need reliable ways of monitoring the pressure inside their patients’ skulls. Sensors exist, but they are large, clunky, and must be removed once the patient has recovered.

Together with a team of engineers, Murphy is developing a better option: a dissolvable pressure sensor. Thinner than the tip of a needle, it can be left in a patient’s brain to take accurate readings for several days, before completely disappearing. You don’t need to remove them because there’s nothing to remove. They just get absorbed into the body.

John Rogers from the same lab also designed a similar “dissolvable heater that could burn away a bacterial infection in mice, before spontaneously vanishing once the animals were healthy.”

Those miniature heaters have the potential for reducing our dependence on antibiotics.

NORMALIZING IRAN: Bret Stephens writes in today’s Wall Street Journal:

Today’s liberal foreign policy, to adapt Churchill, is appeasement wrapped in realism inside moral equivalency. When it comes to Iran policy, that means believing that we have sinned at least as much against the Iranians as they have sinned against us; that our national-security interests require us to come to terms with the Iranians; and that the best way to allay the suspicions—and, over time, diminish the influence—of Iranian hard-liners is by engaging the moderates ever more closely and demonstrating ever-greater diplomatic flexibility.

That’s a neat theory, proved wrong by experience at every turn. The Carter administration hailed the Ayatollah Khomeini as “a saint.” Our embassy was seized. Ronald Reagan sent Khomeini a birthday cake, along with secret arms, to facilitate the release of hostages in Lebanon. A few hostages were released, while others were taken in their place. The world welcomed the election of “moderate” President Mohammad Khatami in 1997. Iran’s illicit nuclear facilities were exposed during his second term.

Getting it wrong with Iran has been a bipartisan project stretching back nearly 40 years, but it took Barack Obama to bring the country’s theocrats back into the community of nations — with a welcoming gift of $150,000,000,000.

FEEL THE BERN: “Sanders winning millennial women from Clinton.”

And it’s not by a small margin:

Bernie Sanders has a 19-point lead over Hillary Clinton among Democratic and independent women ages 18 to 34, according to a USA Today/Rock the Vote poll.

The Vermont senator, who has been surging in the polls in the last two weeks, won 50 percent compared to Clinton’s 31 percent among millennial women.

The poll also showed Sanders is the favorite among younger voters. He wins 57 percent of those ages 18 to 25, according to the same poll. His support falls to 36 percent among people between 26 and 34.

If Hillary can’t mobilize women, she loses.

SLATE: “Hillary Clinton Isn’t a Lesbian—but She Dresses Like One”

Why must Slate stereotype lesbians?

GERMAN TOWN BANS MALE REFUGEES FROM PUBLIC SWIMMING POOL:

A spokesman for the local government of Bornheim said on Friday that the ban on male asylum seekers above the age of 18 came after six people filed complaints “over the sexually offensive behaviour of some migrant men at the pool”.

The measure aimed at “making it clear to the men that the rights of women in Germany is inviolable”, he added.

Borhheim officials are going so far as to try and teach young Muslim males proper swimming pool etiquette, and pools in Bavaria have produced pamphlets with “simple pictorial instructions on behaviour for migrants who may never have swum in public before.”

It’s impossible to gauge just how many unforeseen challenges like this Europe faces in trying to accommodate so many foreigners so quickly, or to guess at what point officials (and the public) might become overwhelmed.

SPIDER-MAN DRONE CATCHES OTHER DRONES JUST LIKE FLIES:

Mo Rastgaar, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Michigan Technological University (MTU). Rastgaar and his team have developed a drone that has the ability to shoot a large net at another drone from as far as 40 feet (12 meters) away, then bag it up and carry it away. The net-shooting drone can function autonomously or be controlled by a human operator.

(Video at the link, too.)

Begun, the Drone Wars have.

GOOD QUESTION: Mississippi Will Phase Out the State Income Tax. Why Can’t Other States Do the Same?

HE ISN’T LIKE MOST MULTICENTIBILLIONAIRES: Ice cream from Trump and a ‘comically tiny office’: Inside Elon Musk’s wild 3 months getting DOGE rolling.

Elon Musk says he saved the U.S. taxpayer more than $160 billion during his first three months getting the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) off the ground — but he also enjoyed midnight snacks of ice cream from the White House kitchen, a “comically tiny office” and a friendship with President Donald Trump.

Fox News Digital was invited, along with a small group of reporters, to have an on-the-record discussion with Musk in the White House’s Roosevelt Room on Wednesday evening about his first 100 days as a special government employee.

That status allowed him to work for the federal government for “no more than 130 days in a 365-day period,” according to data from the Office of Government Ethics. Musk said the first 100 days was “an intense period” and said at times, he was in Washington, D.C., working on his DOGE efforts “7 days a week, or close to 7 days a week.”
…
“DOGE is a way of life,” Musk said. “Like Buddhism. You wouldn’t ask who would lead Buddhism.”

When asked who would lead DOGE when Musk is not in Washington, Musk replied, “Is Buddha needed for Buddhism?”

Good to know.