(A7)Iranian officials threatened Israel on Friday as thousands of Iranians marched in Tehran to mark “Al-Quds Day,” The Associated Press reported.

Friday was the first time such marches were held since before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Al-Quds Day was declared in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian Revolution. It is marked throughout the Middle East and in countries around the world, including the United States.

During Al-Quds Day, rallies are held around the world and are used to incite against Israelis and Jews.

Demonstrators chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” and set fire to American, British and Israeli flags during Friday’s rally, according to AP.

Iranian state TV later showed a variety of ballistic missiles on display at the rally, describing them as “Israel hitters.”

The head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s expeditionary force, known as the Quds force, said saying that Iran backs all groups ready to fight Israel.

“We support any front that is formed against this criminal regime, and we will support any community that is ready to fight this criminal regime,” Gen. Esmail Ghaani said at a speech in the northeastern city of Mashhad.

Another Guard commander, Gen. Mohammad Salami, warned Israel that it would face a “painful response” if it takes any offensive action against Iran.

“If the slightest act of evil is being taken by you, you know better than me what will befall you,” he said, according to AP.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a speech broadcast live on television, condemned unnamed Arab states in the Persian Gulf for normalizing ties with Israel, referring to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

“We condemn the treacherous move to normalize relations” with Israel, he said, and reiterated Iran’s support for the Palestinian cause.

Khamenei regularly threatens Israel and incites against it. Last year on Al-Quds Day, he called on Muslim nations to keep fighting against Israel, which he said was not a state but a “terrorist garrison” against Palestinian Arabs.

In 2018, ahead of the Al-Quds Day rallies, then-Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called on all Iranians to turn out for mass protests and send a message “to the usurper Zionist Regime [Israel] that they have not forgotten the Palestinian land and the Holy Quds and the freedom of the Holy Quds is still the holy cause of the Iranian people and all Muslims.”

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(AP) — U.S. Sen. Rand Paul promised Saturday to wage a vigorous review into the origins of the coronavirus if Republicans retake the Senate and he lands a committee chairmanship.

Speaking to supporters at a campaign rally, the libertarian-leaning Kentucky Republican denounced what he sees as government overreach in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He applauded a recent judge’s order that voided the federal mask mandate on planes and trains and in travel hubs.

“Last week I was on an airplane for the first time in two years and didn’t have to wear a mask,” he said, drawing cheers from the partisan crowd. “And you know what I saw in the airport? I saw at least 97% of the other free individuals not wearing masks.”

Paul has clashed repeatedly with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, over the government’s COVID-19 policies and the origins of the virus that caused the global pandemic.

Paul, who is seeking a third term this year in Kentucky, said he’s in line to assume a committee chairmanship if the GOP wins Senate control after the November election. The Senate currently has a 50-50 split, but Democrats have the slim edge because Vice President Kamala Harris is a tie-breaking vote.

“When we take over in November, I will be chairman of a committee and I will have subpoena power,” Paul said. “And we will get to the bottom of where this virus came from.”

The senator, an eye surgeon, continued to offer his theory about the origins of the virus.

“If you look at the evidence, overwhelmingly, not 100%, but overwhelmingly the evidence points to this virus being a leak from a lab,” Paul said.

In the U.S., many conservatives have accused Chinese scientists of developing COVID-19 in a lab and allowing it to leak.

U.S. intelligence agencies remain divided on the origins of the coronavirus but believe China’s leaders did not know about the virus before the start of the global pandemic, according a Biden-ordered review that was released last summer.

The scientific consensus remains that the virus most likely migrated from animals in what’s known as a zoonotic transmission. So-called “spillover events” occur in nature, and there are at least two coronaviruses that evolved in bats and caused human epidemics, SARS1 and MERS.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, the state’s senior senator, also pointed to Paul’s opportunity to lead a committee if the GOP wins Senate control. If that occurs, he said Paul would become chairman of “one of the most important committees in the Senate, in charge of health, education, labor and pensions.”

McConnell was upbeat about Republican prospects in November.

“I’ve never seen a better environment for us than this year,” said McConnell, who is in line to again become majority leader if the GOP reclaims the Senate.

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Adam Kredo (Free Beacon) The Biden administration is trying to shield Syrian president Bashar al Assad from sanctions via a congressionally mandated report, according to lawmakers who say it is “late, lackadaisical, and riddled with errors.”

The State Department was required on Tuesday to issue a report to Congress detailing the Syrian dictator’s financial empire but failed to meet that deadline. After requests for information on the report from the Washington Free Beacon and a pressure campaign from Republican foreign policy leaders, the State Department posted the report late Thursday.

The final report contained several errors, little-to-no new information about Assad’s empire, and left Republican lawmakers livid over what they say is the Biden administration’s bid to withhold critical information that could help Congress craft sanctions on Assad’s family and financial allies, including his benefactors in Iran.

Prior to the report’s release, Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee told the Free Beacon that the Biden administration was withholding the report in order to avoid irritating Iran amid negotiations over a new nuclear agreement. They expected the report, which was legally mandated in bipartisan legislation passed last year, to provide details on Assad that would help Congress target the illicit financial channels that have enabled the dictator’s mass human rights crimes in Syria.

“What was released was late, lackadaisical, and riddled with errors,” Rep. Pat Fallon (R., Texas), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the Free Beacon. “One cannot help but to think that this may have something to do with the erroneous negotiations taking place with Iran.”

Fallon said the administration’s “trend of failing to apply the rule of law to its fullest degree to terrorist regimes such as this is deeply troubling” and called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to “immediately issue a full and robust report.”

The report’s inadequacies are fueling concerns about the Biden administration’s efforts to roll back pressure on Assad and legitimize his regime. The administration has already floated plans to unwind sanctions on Assad to facilitate an energy deal with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon. Lawmakers expected the report would unmask the financial pipelines that connect Assad and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terror group.

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R., N.Y.), who authored the provision mandating the report, told the Free Beacon it is clear the State Department rushed to publication and omitted information on the Assad regime’s illicit drug trade.

“Not only did the Department of State fail to deliver the report on time, but when it finally did deliver it, the report was clearly rushed,” Tenney said. “I am particularly disappointed that it did not discuss at length the Assad regime’s increasing involvement in drug trafficking through the illicit Captagon trade, which is generating increasing revenue for the Assad regime and its proxies, such as Hezbollah. The Department undoubtedly could, and should, have comprised a much more comprehensive report on Assad’s illicit and corrupt activities.”

Captagon, an illicit amphetamine, has been a prime source of revenue for Assad and his family members. While the report notes that Assad’s brother, Maher, is involved in the “smuggling of the amphetamine captagon,” it does not provide any details about these networks and relies only on material that has already been published.

A majority of the report relies only on “open-source information” published in the media and by NGOs. While a classified annex accompanies the report, lawmakers and senior congressional sources who spoke to the Free Beacon said the State Department’s reliance on previously published information shows that it spent very little time researching the report and fulfilling the law.

“It seems they began writing this report 9 a.m. the day after it was due just to get it done,” said one senior Republican congressional official who works on foreign policy issues. “They did such a bad job on it that they are basically sheltering Assad and his wealth. There are much better reports out there in the open source by reporters and journalists with information about the Assad family’s wealth.”

The report pegs the Assad family’s net worth at around $1 to $2 billion but claims “this is an inexact estimate which the [State] Department is unable to independently corroborate.” Several paragraphs later, the report claims that Assad’s cousin, Rami Makhlouf, is worth $5 to $10 billion—a discrepancy that was immediately noted by Republican lawmakers who reviewed the report.

“I’m disappointed that the report was, at best, the bare minimum of what was required,” Rep. Joe Wilson (R., S.C.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Free Beacon. “Sadly, this is a weak, sloppy, and clearly rushed report that shelters the Assad regime from scrutiny.”

Former Trump administration officials also took aim at the final report.

“I don’t see anything substantial or new here,” tweeted Matthew Zweig, who served as the senior sanctions adviser in the Office of the Special Representative for Syria Engagement. “The Assad wealth report is a missed opportunity.”

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By NICK GILBERTSON Google Chrome has announced a significant update for its more than three billion users after detecting 30 security vulnerabilities on its browser — seven of which were deemed highly severe — just weeks after issuing an update for a zero-day vulnerability that hackers exploited.

The company issued a press release on April 26 announcing that it will promote Google Chrome 101.0.4951.41 in the coming days or weeks to the stable channel for Mac, Windows, and Linux, which will offer protection from the dozens of common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) found on the browser, which Statista reports is used by 3.2 billion people.

“Access to bug details and links may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix,” Chrome said in its release.

“A vulnerability is a mistake in software code that provides an attacker with direct access to a system or network,” CSO reported, citing the CVE website. “It could allow an attacker to pose as a super-user or system administrator with full access privileges.”

The company noted that hackers had not yet exploited the vulnerabilities, WIRED reported. However, on April 14, Google Chrome announced a patch that corrected the high-risk CVE-2022-1364, which hackers did exploit, according to WIRED. The browser updated the stable channel to 100.0.4896.127 for Mac, Windows, and Linux users.

“The technical details aren’t currently available, but the timing of the fix—just a day after it was reported—indicates it’s pretty serious,” WIRED wrote.

The incident followed another high-threat CVE patch announced on March 25, in which Google said attackers were already exploiting CVE-2022-1096. Forbes noted the fact that the company corrected a single vulnerability, emphasizing the severity of the issue. The bug was fixed when the stable channel for Windows, Mac, and Linux was updated to 99.0.4844.84.

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