EL PASO, Texas (AP) — An 8-year-old boy from Guatemala died in government custody early Tuesday, U.S. immigration authorities said, marking the second death of an immigrant child in detention this month.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a news release that the boy died shortly after midnight Tuesday.
The boy showed “signs of potential illness” Monday and was taken with his father to a hospital in Alamogordo, New Mexico, the agency said. There, he was diagnosed with a cold and a fever, was given prescriptions for amoxicillin and Ibuprofen and released Monday afternoon after being held 90 minutes for observation, the agency said.
The boy was returned to the hospital Monday evening with nausea and vomiting and died there just hours later, CBP said.
The agency said the cause of the boy’s death has not been determined and that it has notified the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general and the Guatemalan government.
CBP promised “an independent and thorough review of the circumstances.”
Related: Protesters demand end to President Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy
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The border agency has not yet said when the father and son entered the United States or how long they were detained, saying only in its statement that the boy had been “previously apprehended.”
Alamogordo is about 90 miles (145 kilometers) from the U.S.-Mexico border at El Paso, Texas. Ruben Garcia, director of El Paso’s Annunciation House, said Tuesday that he had no reason to believe his shelter had served the family, but was waiting for further details about what happened.
A CBP spokesman declined to elaborate Tuesday, but said more details would be released shortly.
A 7-year-old Guatemalan girl died earlier this month after being apprehended by border agents. The body of the girl, Jakelin Caal, was returned to her family’s remote village Monday.
CBP announced new notification procedures in response to Jakelin’s death, which was not revealed until several days later.
Democratic members of Congress and immigration advocates sharply criticized CBP’s handling of the death and questioned whether border agents could have prevented it.
Dan Bongino urged President Trump not to relent in his criticism of the way Democrats have run America’s inner cities, including Baltimore, where he formerly worked as a federal agent.
Dan Bongino urged President Trump not to relent in his criticism of the way Democrats have run America’s inner cities, including Baltimore, where he formerly worked as a federal agent.
The Fox News contributor and former New York City police officer said he was motivated to run for political office in Maryland in 2012 and 2014 because of the conditions he observed on the streets of Baltimore.
“I would say to the president and anyone else right now: don’t you dare run away from this argument. This argument is long overdue,” he said on “Fox & Friends” Monday.
Trump was heavily criticized over the weekend after he branded Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., a “brutal bully” for his treatment of Border Patrol officials at committee hearings — and described Cummings’ district as “far worse and more dangerous” than the southern border.
“Cumming[s’] District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place,” Trump tweeted, before calling for an investigation into why Baltimore received so much federal funding.
Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, responded Sunday by declaring he has “no doubt” that Trump is racist.
Bongino, who also served as a U.S. Secret Service agent, pushed back on Cummings’ sentiments, saying the people of Baltimore are “good people who have been let down” by liberal policies.
“Liberals have destroyed and decimated these cities. … There is nothing wrong with the people of Baltimore. These are people looking for safety and prosperity. Thank God the president brought the heat to these Democrat politicians who have destroyed these cities. When is the accountability gonna start?” he asked.
Detail of a scarf print from the Beyond Buckskin Boutique. Photo courtesy of shop.beyondbuckskin.com. Download Full Image
Morris said by spearheading innovative partnerships and leveraging resources from ASU, tribes and community organizations, she hopes that Inno-NATIONS will create a “collision community,” causing a ripple effect of economic change in tribal communities.
Both events are free and take place at The Department in downtown Phoenix.
Inno-NATIONS will also launch a three-day pilot cohort with approximately 20 Native American businesses starting in June.
“Beyond Buckskin” features Jessica Metcalfe, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa, Dartmouth graduate and entrepreneur, who grew a small online store into a successful boutique on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota.
The store promotes and sells Native American-made couture, streetwear, jewelry, and accessories from more than 40 Native American and First Nations artist, employing tribe members from the Turtle Mountain community.
ASU Now spoke to Metcalfe to discuss her work.
Jessica Metcalfe
Question: We’ve seen Native American fashion emerge and evolve. How did you get into the business?
Answer: I was writing my master’s thesis in 2005 and my advisor at the time had told me about some research she had done, which looked at Native American fashion in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. She had wondered if I was interested in picking up where her research left off. I looked into it and found that there were these breadcrumbs, little bits here in there, that something had been going on in the past 60-70 years, but hadn’t been looked at as a collective movement.
Through my doctoral dissertation, what I discovered was that Native American fashion has gone through waves of acknowledgements by the broader public, but what we’re experiencing now is perhaps the biggest wave yet.
You have designers like Patricia Michaels out at New York’s Style Fashion Week and the Native Fashion Now traveling exhibit touring the country, so there’s really a lot of exciting things happening lately. It’s coming from a collective movement. Designers basically grouping together to share costs but also to put together more events to cause a bigger ruckus.
Q: How did you build your online store into a brick-and-mortar business?
A: I first launched a blog in 2009 as an outlet for my dissertation research, and wanted to share it with more people and to also get more stories and experiences. My readers kept asking where could they see and buy these clothes? At that time, there wasn’t an easy way to access functions like a Native American Pow Wow or market in order to do that.
I had established a rapport with designers through my research and writing. They saw what I was doing through the blog and then a question popped into my head. “How would you feel about creating a business together?” There were 11 initial designers who said they needed the space, and I worked with them to sell their goods online. We just now opened our design lab on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. We are creating a system where we can meet demand and maximize a need in Indian Country.
We employ Native Americans from ages 15 to 22. There aren’t a whole lot of opportunities for people that age on the reservation. They either work at the grocery store or the gas station. One of them is interested in film and photography and so they run our photo shoots. Another person is interested in business entrepreneurship, and they get to see how an idea goes from concept to execution.
Q: The subtext is that this isn’t just about fashion but, history, representation and cultural appropriation?
A: Our clothing is just more than just objects. It’s about how the material was gathered, what the colors represent, what stories are being told and how does that tie into our value system. One of the things I often discuss is the Native American headdress. Our leaders wear them as a symbol of their leadership and the dedication to their communities. These stories are a way to share our culture with non-Natives and protect our legacy for future generations.
Q: Why is it important for Native American businesses to branch out into other cultures?
A: Native American people desperately need to diversify their economic opportunities on and off the reservations. Up until recently, people haven’t thought of fashion or art as a viable career path.
A recent study conducted by First Peoples Fund that found a third of all Native American people are practicing or are potential artists. That is a huge resource we already have in Indian Country and we need to tap it and develop it, and push for Natives in various fields to look at themselves as entrepreneurs and launching businesses.
Now, Native American people have an opportunity to make a positive impact in their local communities by reaching people through their art and sharing our culture with the rest of the world.
A charter plane carrying 143 people and traveling from Cuba to north Florida sits in a river at the end of a runway, Saturday, May 4, 2019 in Jacksonville, Fla. The Boeing 737 arriving at Naval Air Station Jacksonville from Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with 136 passengers and seven aircrew slid off the runway Friday night into the St. Johns River, a NAS Jacksonville news release said. (AP Photo/APTN)
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A chartered jet carrying 143 people from the U.S. military base in Cuba tried to land in a thunderstorm and ended up in the river at Naval Air Station Jacksonville. Authorities said everyone on board emerged without critical injuries, lining up on the wings and waiting to be rescued.
The Boeing 737 arriving in north Florida from Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with 136 passengers and seven crew members came to a stop in shallow water in the St. Johns River. Everyone on board was alive and accounted for, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said, with 21 adults transported to local hospitals in good condition.
Marine units from the sheriff’s department and Jacksonville Fire Rescue joined first responders from the naval air station, helping passengers and crew to safety.
Capt. Michael Connor, the commanding officer of NAS Jacksonville, said during a news conference that those on board were a mix of civilian and military personnel, and that while some were staying in the area, others planned to fly on to other parts of the country.
“I think it is a miracle,” Connor said. “We could be talking about a different story this evening.”
The base’s fire chief, Mark Bruce, said passengers were lined up on the plane’s wings when first-responders started rescuing them.
Several pets were on the plane as well, and their status wasn’t immediately clear. A navy statement early Saturday offering “hearts and prayers” to their owners said safety issues prevented rescuers from immediately retrieving the animals.
It wasn’t immediately clear what went wrong. Boeing said in a tweet Friday night that it was investigating: “We are aware of an incident in Jacksonville, Fla., and are gathering information.” The Federal Aviation Administration was referring media inquiries to NAS Jacksonville. The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a team of 16 investigators to determine what happened.
Connor said he didn’t know what impact the weather had on the flight. “I was at home when this happened and there were thunderstorms and lightning,” he said.
A photo posted by deputies shows a Miami Air International logo on the plane. The company didn’t immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press.
It wasn’t known how long it would take to remove the plane from the river, but Connor said the landing gear appeared to be resting on the river bed, making it unlikely for the aircraft to float away. He said crews began working to contain any jet fuel leaks almost immediately after securing the passengers’ safety.
Liz Torres told the Florida Times-Union that she heard what sounded like a gunshot Friday night from her home in Orange Park, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) south of NAS Jacksonville. She then drove down to a Target parking lot where police and firefighters were staging to find out more.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said.
The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department posted on Twitter that approximately 90 personnel responded to the scene, adding that the department’s special operations team had trained with marine units for a similar incident earlier Friday. Navy security and emergency response personnel also were on the scene, the Navy release said.
___
Schneider reported from Orlando. Other Associated Press contributors included David Fischer in Miami.
WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress on Thursday aimed to end a dispute over border security with legislation that would ignore President Donald Trump’s request for $5.7 billion to help build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border but avoid a partial government shutdown.
Late on Wednesday, negotiators put the finishing touches on legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, along with a range of other federal agencies.
Racing against a Friday midnight deadline, when operating funds expire for the agencies that employ about 800,000 workers at the DHS, the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice and others, the Senate and House of Representatives aimed to pass the legislation later on Thursday.
That would give Trump time to review the measure and sign it into law before temporary funding for about one-quarter of the government expires.
Failure to do so would shutter many government programs, from national parks maintenance and air traffic controller training programs to the collection and publication of important data for financial markets, for the second time this year.
“This agreement denies funding for President Trump’s border wall and includes several key measures to make our immigration system more humane,” House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, a Democrat, said in a statement.
According to congressional aides, the final version of legislation would give the Trump administration $1.37 billion in new money to help build 55 miles (88.5 km) of new physical barriers on the southwest border, far less than what Trump had been demanding.
It is the same level of funding Congress appropriated for border security measures last year, including barriers but not concrete walls.
Since he ran for office in 2016, Trump has been demanding billions of dollars to build a wall on the southwest border, saying “crisis” conditions required a quick response to stop the flow of illegal drugs and undocumented immigrants, largely from Central America.
He originally said Mexico would pay for a 2,000-mile (3,200-km) concrete wall – an idea that Mexico dismissed.
Joaquin, 36, a chef from Guatemala who says he was deported from the United States, builds a bed in a tree, near a section of the border fence separating Mexico and the United States, in Tijuana, Mexico, February 26, 2017. “I’ve tried to cross so many times that the (U.S.) border guards even got to know me, but I never made it back,” said Joaquin, who makes a living by collecting trash in Tijuana that he tries to sell to a local recycling plant. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido SEARCH “FENCE GARRIDO” FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH “WIDER IMAGE” FOR ALL STORIES.
Joaquin, 36, a chef from Guatemala who says he was deported from the United States, poses for a photograph while leaning on a section of the border fence separating Mexico and the United States, in Tijuana, Mexico, February 26, 2017. “I’ve tried to cross so many times that the (U.S.) border guards even got to know me, but I never made it back,” said Joaquin, who makes a living by collecting trash in Tijuana that he tries to sell to a local recycling plant. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido SEARCH “FENCE GARRIDO” FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH “WIDER IMAGE” FOR ALL STORIES.
Mexican architect Carlos Torres, 68, adjusts signs near the double border fences separating Mexico and the United States, in Tijuana, Mexico, February 25, 2017. “Walls won’t halt immigration,” Torres said. Trump, he said, “doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Here at this fence, people keep crossing every week.” REUTERS/Edgard Garrido SEARCH “FENCE GARRIDO” FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH “WIDER IMAGE” FOR ALL STORIES.
Mexican architect Carlos Torres, 68, is reflected in a glass window of his house near a section of the double border fences separating Mexico and the United States, in Tijuana, Mexico, March 1, 2017. “Walls won’t halt immigration,” Torres said. Trump, he said, “doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Here at this fence, people keep crossing every week.” REUTERS/Edgard Garrido SEARCH “FENCE GARRIDO” FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH “WIDER IMAGE” FOR ALL STORIES.
Joaquin, 36, a chef from Guatemala who says he was deported from the United States, sits underneath a tree near a section of the border fence separating Mexico and the United States, in Tijuana, Mexico, February 28, 2017. “I’ve tried to cross so many times that the (U.S.) border guards even got to know me, but I never made it back,” said Joaquin, who makes a living by collecting trash in Tijuana that he tries to sell to a local recycling plant. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido SEARCH “FENCE GARRIDO” FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH “WIDER IMAGE” FOR ALL STORIES.
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Trump has not yet said whether he would sign the legislation into law if the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and Republican-led Senate approve it, even as many of his fellow Republicans in Congress were urging him to do so.
Instead, he said on Wednesday he would hold off on a decision until he examines the final version of legislation.
But Trump, widely blamed for a five-week shutdown that ended in January, said he did not want to see federal agencies close again because of fighting over funds for the wall.
Senator Richard Shelby, the Republican negotiator who is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a Twitter post he spoke to Trump later on Wednesday and he was in good spirits. Shelby told Trump the agreement was “a downpayment on his border wall.”
‘NATIONAL EMERGENCY’
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is in regular contact with the White House, said Trump was “inclined to take the deal and move on.”
But Graham also told reporters that Trump would then look elsewhere to find more money to build a border wall and was “very inclined” to declare a national emergency to secure the funds for the project.
Such a move likely would spark a court battle, as it is Congress and not the president that mainly decides how federal funds get spent. Several leading Republicans have cautioned Trump against taking the unilateral action.
Under the bill, the government could hire 75 new immigrant judge teams to help reduce a huge backlog in cases and hundreds of additional border patrol agents.
Hoping to reduce violence and economic distress in Central America that fuels immigrant asylum cases in the United States, the bill also provides $527 million to continue humanitarian assistance to those countries.
The House Appropriations Committee said the bill would set a path for reducing immigrant detention beds to about 40,520 by the end of the fiscal year, down from a current count of approximately 49,060.
Democrats sought reductions, arguing that would force federal agents to focus on apprehending violent criminals and repeat offenders and discourage arrests of undocumented immigrants for minor traffic violations, for example.
Pastor Jose Murcia, 47, preaches to migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America traveling to the U.S., outside a temporary shelter in Tijuana, Mexico November 24, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
Nicolas Alonso Sanchez, 47, from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands of migrants from Central America traveling to the U.S., poses for a picture as he holds a cross at a temporary shelter in Tijuana, Mexico November 24, 2018. “God helped me and gave me the strength, helped me to make my dreams come true. God gave me all the strength to get all the way here,” Sanchez said.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America traveling to the U.S., pray before food distribution outside a temporary shelter in Tijuana, Mexico December 1, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
Juan Francisco, 25, from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands of migrants from Central America traveling to the U.S., shows his tattoo of the 23rd Psalm of the Book of Psalms as he poses for a picture outside a temporary shelter in Tijuana, Mexico November 26, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
Victor Alfonso, 29, from Guatemala, part of a caravan of thousands of migrants from Central America traveling to the U.S., poses for a picture as he wears charms depicting the Virgin of Guadalupe at a temporary shelter in Tijuana, Mexico November 26, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
David Amador, 25, from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands of migrants from Central America traveling to the U.S., poses for a picture as he holds a cross at a temporary shelter in Tijuana, Mexico November 28, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America traveling to the U.S., raise their hands while praying before moving by buses to a new shelter, in Tijuana, Mexico November 30, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
A migrant, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America traveling to the U.S., is wrapped with a banner depicting the Virgin of Guadalupe in front of a riot police cordon, as migrants try to reach the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico in Tijuana, Mexico November 25, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
Herso, 17, from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands of migrants from Central America traveling to the U.S., poses for a picture as he wears a t-shirt depicting the Virgin of Guadalupe outside a temporary shelter in Tijuana, Mexico November 24, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
A booklet of Psalm 119:105 is left on a self-made tent at a temporary shelter of a caravan of thousands of migrants from Central America traveling to the U.S., in Tijuana, Mexico November 27, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
Migrants, part of a caravan from El Salvador traveling to the U.S., pray as they are blocked by the Mexican police during an operation to detain them for entering the country illegally, in Metapa, Mexico November 21, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America traveling to the U.S., raise their hands as they listen to the preaching of pastor Jose Murcia (not pictured) outside a temporary shelter in Tijuana, Mexico November 24, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
A migrant, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America traveling to the U.S., sleeps with a book in Spanish “What does the Bible teach us?” in a temporary shelter in Tijuana, Mexico November 24, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
A writing “Jesus Christ is the Lord” is seen on a car window outside a temporary shelter for a caravan of thousands of migrants from Central America traveling to the U.S., in Tijuana, Mexico November 24, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
Elmer, 29, from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands of migrants from Central America traveling to the U.S., poses for a picture as he holds an icon depicting Jesus Christ and the Virgin of Guadalupe while lining up for food distribution outside a temporary shelter in Tijuana, Mexico November 24, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
Juan Francisco, 25, from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands of migrants from Central America traveling to the U.S., shows his tattoo reading “I can do everything with Christ who strengthens me” as he poses for a picture outside a temporary shelter in Tijuana, Mexico November 26, 2018.
(REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis)
An image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is seen in a tent of migrants part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, on a street in Tijuana, Mexico, December 15, 2018.
(REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins)
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The Senate Appropriations Committee, which is run by Republicans, said there were provisions in the bill that could result in an increase in detention beds from last year.
Lowey said the bill would improve medical care and housing of immigrant families in detention and expand a program providing alternatives to detention.
The wide-ranging bill also contains some important domestic initiatives, including a $1.2 billion increase in infrastructure investments for roads, bridges and other ground transport, as well as more for port improvements.
With the 2020 decennial census nearing, the bill provides a $1 billion increase for the nationwide count. Also, federal workers, battered by the record 35-day partial government shutdown that began on Dec. 22 as Trump held out for wall funding, would get a 1.9 percent pay increase if the bill becomes law.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan Editing by Robert Birsel and Chizu Nomiyama)
The press did pry out of DHS the board’s goal to contest disinformation crafted by Russia as well as the general disinformation (authors unstated) that had deceived immigrants from Haiti and other places that the U.S. southern border was open. Republicans like Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and conservative media like the Washington Times flipped out at the announcement, dusting off their Orwell and combing out their fright-wigs to warn of an impending DHS crackdown on not just free speech but free thinking. “This is dangerous and un-American,” Hawley said in a statement. “The board should be immediately dissolved.”
The idea that the Biden administration would pulp the First Amendment and institute an authoritarian regime through its agents at DHS is immediately dismissible if only because it is one of the most ineffectual departments in the president’s Cabinet. Had Biden given the task to Agriculture or Commerce or another department with a better GPA in governing, we should be afraid. But DHS couldn’t stamp out disinformation or erect an American Reich if we reallocated to it all of the arms we’re currently shipping to Ukraine. It’s peopled by a confederacy of dunces and botch-artists, incapable of carrying out its current mission. For instance, DHS shrugged off the Jan. 6 warning signs, according to a Government Accountability Office report. It failed to share intelligence about the wave of Haitian immigrants who breached the border in 2021. (Based on its track record, DHS’ content monitors will surely miss any treacherous disinformation the Russkies ship our way.) The department is so riddled with “copycat” programs that duplicate duties handled by other federal agencies, Dara Lind argued in Vox, that it should be abolished, a view held by many. In 2020, former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wrote an op-ed regretting having midwifed it with her Senate vote.
But never mind DHS. Who among us thinks the government should add to its work list the job of determining what is true and what is disinformation? And who thinks the government is capable of telling the truth? Our government produces lies and disinformation at industrial scale and always has. It overclassifies vital information to block its own citizens from becoming any the wiser. It pays thousands of press aides to play hide the salami with facts.
This is the government that lied about winning the war in Vietnam, that said the Watergate affair was a “third-rate burglary,” that fought a secret war in Nicaragua, that lied about a clandestine love affair in the White House, that used faulty intelligence to force a war in the Middle East. Even President Barack Obama shortchanged the truth. Of 600 Obama statements PolitiFact checked during his administration, a quarter of them fell into the “red zone” of being false, mostly false, or “pants on fire” false. Not so long ago, 50 intelligence officials — each of them smarter and better informed than any DHS brainiac — assured the nation that the Hunter Biden laptop story bore “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” How did that work out? The idea that Covid could have come from a Chinese lab was similarly dismissed as disinformation; now it’s considered a legitimate possibility by the Biden administration. Meanwhile, we have documented proof from the Washington Postthat even Joe Biden can’t handle simple truths! (We don’t need to reassess the Donald Trump presidency here, do we?)
Making the federal government the official custodian of truth would be like Brink’s giving a safe-cracker a job driving an armored car. On top of that, who is going to accept DHS’ determinations? Not reporters, who are accustomed to government lies. Not the man in the street. Certainly not the so-called low-information voters the government would like to diaper and stuff into an escape-proof playpen. By conjuring the Disinformation Governance Board into existence, the Biden administration will give itself a referee’s power to declare some things completely out of bounds. Without stepping out on the slippery slope, that would give Biden’s people the power to find some things dangerous or objectionable. After branding something disinformation, it’s only a short slide to suppressing the contested information or replacing it with what Kellyanne Conway fancifully called “alternative facts.”
If Russian disinformation is a problem, it has been so for almost a century. As Lawfare reported in 2017, the Russians started sending out fake defectors in the 1930s to spread disinformation in the West. After World War II, the Soviets shifted their focus to the United States. Two years after the surrender of Nazi Germany, Soviet leadership sought to influence public opinion by covertly funding newspapers and radio stations around the world and establishing fronts to nurture communism. It forged documents and attempted to plant them in credible publications. In one disinformation campaign, it promulgated the tall tale that AIDS was the product of an American biological weapons experimentation. And so on.
Somehow we survived the Soviet onslaught without a Disinformation Governance Board to guide us. Not every particle of disinformation can be blocked. Anybody who is good at inventing lies can produce disinformation faster than anybody can shoot disinformation down. (See this RAND report about the Russian “firehose“ of lies.) Instead of installing a Truth Politburo at DHS, the government should leave the job of policing disinformation to the competitive organs of the press, which compete “to obtain the earliest and most correct intelligence of the time, and instantly, by disclosing them to make them the common property of the nation,” as Times of London editor J. T. Delane put it in 1852.
If DHS so badly needs a paperwork project, it can address a problem closer to home: set up a bureau to study and eradicate U.S. government disinformation.
*******
Thanks to Nick Gillespie for expanding my consciousness on this one. Earlier this week, David C. Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker fame responded to the Disinformation Governance Board news by tweeting a poll: “Okay you’re a punk rocker in 1982 and the Department of Homeland Security under President Reagan sets up a Disinformation Governance Board to combat disinformation. You’re reaction: That’s punk rock; That’s not punk rock.” Send government disinformation to [email protected]. You can’t subscribe to my email alerts because the list is full. My Twitter feed liked Cracker more than CVB. My RSS feed believes nothing.
Incredible GoPro footage takes you inside the gunfire-heavy raid that ended drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s six months on the run.
The video, obtained from Mexican authorities, looks as if it’s from an action movie. The camera follows the armed men as they storm the house, unleash grenades and bullets, and search room to room.
The Friday raid was called “Operation Black Swan,” according to the Mexican show “Primero Noticias.” Authorities decided to launch the raid Thursday after they got a tip about where Guzman was sleeping, the show reported.
Seventeen elite unit Mexican Marines launched their assault on the house in the city of Los Mochis at 4:40 a.m., “Primero Noticias” said.
They were met by about one dozen well-armed guards inside who were prepared for a fight, the show said.
The Marines moved from room to room, clearing the house. Upstairs they found two men in one room and found two women on the floor of a bathroom. All were captured, “Primero Noticias” said.
After 15 minutes, the Marines controlled the entire house, according to “Primero Noticias.”
In the end, five guards were killed and two men and two women were detained. One of the women was the same cook Guzman had with him when he was detained a couple years ago, according to “Primero Noticias.”
Eventually the marines determined that the only bedroom on the first floor was Guzman’s and they began pounding on the walls and moving furniture, finding hidden doors, the show said.
His room had a king-sized bed, bags from fashionable clothing stores, bread and cookie wrappers, and medicine including injectable testosterone, syringes, antibiotics and cough syrups, the show said. The two-story house had four bedrooms and five bathrooms. There were flat-screen TVs and Internet connection throughout the house, according to “Primero Noticias.”
The Marines eventually found a hidden passageway behind a mirror, with a handle hidden in the light fixture. The handle opened a secret door, leading down into the escape tunnel, the show explained.
The escape tunnel was fully lit and led to an access door for the city sewage system, “Primero Noticias” said, adding that Guzman had at least a 20-minute head start on the Marines.
The address where Guzman was captured had been monitored for a month, Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez has said. According to Gomez, Guzman and his lieutenant escaped through that drainage system.
“Primero Noticias” said it obtained surveillance footage showing Guzman and his lieutenant emerging from the manhole cover, where they then stole two cars to flee, the show said.
Guzman was finally caught when he and the lieutenant were stopped on a highway by Mexican Federal Police, the show said.
Authorities took them to a motel to wait for reinforcement. The men were then taken to Los Mochis airport and transfered to Mexico City.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP PHOTO
Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is escorted by soldiers and marines to a waiting helicopter, at a federal hangar in Mexico City, Jan. 8, 2016.
Guzman is now back in prison as his lawyers fight his extradition to the U.S.
The drug kingpin escaped from the Altiplano prison near Mexico City on July 11, launching an active manhunt. When guards realized that he was missing from his cell, they found a ventilated tunnel and exit had been constructed in the bathtub inside Guzman’s cell. The tunnel extended for about a mile underground and featured an adapted motorcycle on rails that officials believe was used to transport the tools used to create the tunnel, Monte Alejandro Rubido, the head of the Mexican national security commission, said in July.
Guzman had been sent there after he was arrested in February 2014. He spent more than 10 years on the run after escaping from a different prison in 2001. It’s unclear exactly how he had escaped, but he did receive help from prison guards who were prosecuted and convicted.
Guzman, the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, was once described by the U.S. Treasury as “the most powerful drug trafficker in the world.” The Sinaloa cartel allegedly uses elaborate tunnels for drug trafficking and has been estimated to be responsible for 25 percent of all illegal drugs that enter the U.S. through Mexico.
Josh Yokela, a Republican state legislator in New Hampshire, is working on a way around that problem. He is the lead sponsor of a bill, passed by the State House last month, to request that New Hampshire be shifted into the Atlantic time zone, which by fine coincidence would do exactly what daylight saving does now: put the state an hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time. Then the state would opt out of seasonal clock changes, as the 1966 law allows.
The key is that moving to a different time zone does not require an act of Congress — all it takes is an order from the Transportation Department, the federal agency that oversees time (a legacy of its duties regulating railroad schedules).
“We would be on the same time as the rest of the Eastern time zone for eight months of the year, because they accept daylight saving time — and when they fall back in the winter, we wouldn’t,” Mr. Yokela said.
Of course, it matters what your neighbors’ clocks say, and not just your own. Regional considerations played a role both in how daylight time first appeared a century ago, and in the debate over what to do about it now.
New Hampshire’s bill, for example, says that because the state is so closely tied economically with the other New England states, especially Maine and Massachusetts, it would only try the jump to Atlantic time if the others did as well.
Proximity also had ripple effects in the 1920s, when New York City, having tasted daylight saving as a temporary measure during World War I, decided to keep it in peacetime. Retailers found that people shopped and spent more on their way home from work when there was more evening light, and Wall Street investors liked gaining an hour of overlap with trading on the London financial markets.
Supporters also argued that nudging the clock forward to have more of a summer’s daylight fall in the evening would save energy by reducing the need for artificial light.
A Winter Weather Advisory has been issued for parts of the Chicago area until midnight.
Counties include Cook, DuPage and Lake counties in Illinois.
Plan on slippery road conditions due to accumulating snow and reduced visibilities.
And the cold and snow will last through the weekend and beyond.
The cold is to tighten its grip on the Chicago area as the core of the bitterly cold air mass, locked over Canada and a chunk of the Lower 48, rotates southward over the area–especially Sunday and Monday.
Daytime highs and minimum morning wind chills expected over the coming days look like this:
As mourners at a New Jersey funeral on Wednesday paid their respects to the college student who was killed after she mistook a car for her Uber ride, lawmakers in South Carolina, where she died, are pushing to require ride-share vehicles to be clearly marked with illuminated signs.
Samantha Josephson, a 21-year-old University of South Carolina student from New Jersey, was killed last week. Investigators think she got into the wrong car early Friday while waiting for an Uber outside a bar in Columbia. A suspect has been arrested, and police say she apparently mistook his car for the Uber she ordered.
Nathaniel D. Rowland, 24, has been charged with murder and kidnapping. The student’s body was found in a wooded area in Clarendon County on Friday afternoon. Rowland was arrested after he was pulled over in Columbia early Saturday, police have said.
Seth Josephson told mourners Wednesday that the family’s “sadness will never end,” NBC New York reported.
“It may wane in the future, but it will always leave a hole in the heart,” he said, while reading a statement on behalf of Josephson’s family. Seth Josephson is a cousin of Samantha Josephson’s father.
Josephson’s father, Seymour Josephson, has said he would dedicate his life to improving the safety of ride-share services.
“Samantha was by herself. She had absolutely no chance. None. The door was locked, the child safety locks were on. She had absolutely no chance,” he said at a vigil in Columbia on Sunday.
In response to Josephson’s death, South Carolina lawmakers have introduced a bill that would require all ride-share drivers to display an illuminated sign to clearly mark their vehicles.
“We can’t stop a psychopath from doing something hideous, but as lawmakers, policymakers, we need to take precautions to make the likelihood that something like this happen less,” said state Rep. Seth Rose, a Democrat, according to NBC affiliate WIS of Columbia.
The bill, the “Samantha L. Josephson Ridesharing Safety Act,” was introduced Tuesday.
It would require that “transportation network company” vehicles display an illuminated sign that can be seen in darkness. The current law requires a sign or emblem that is reflective.
Uber and Lyft did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday about the proposed changes to the law or about regulations they have regarding lighted signs.
It appears from Lyft’s website that its lighted sign, called “amp” is available to higher-tier drivers in some areas. Uber also has a lighted sign called “beacon” that is described as an option, according to that company’s website.
The University of South Carolina on Monday announced a “What’s My Name” campaign to help students stay safe when requesting ride-share vehicles.
Uber announced it would partner with the university to raise awareness about safety.
“Since 2017, we’ve been working with local law enforcement to educate the public about how to avoid fake rideshare drivers,” Uber said in the statement. “Everyone at Uber is devastated to hear about this unspeakable crime, and our hearts are with Samantha Josephson’s family and loved ones.”
Uber encourages users to check the car, license plate and driver against information delivered through the app before getting in. If the information does not match, do not get in the vehicle, the company says.
Wilbur Scoville ganhou um Doodle do Google com direito a um jogo que simula o ‘teste da escala quente’ de pimentas. Hoje, o Google celebra o nascimento do químico há 151 anos (1865-1942). Scoville, além de receber a homenagem desta sexta-feira (22), é conhecido por ter inventado um método de avaliação do nível de ardência de vários tipos de pimenta, a famosa Escala de Scoville, disponível abaixo em app.
O Doodle foi produzido pela artista e doodler do Google Olivia Huynh. Para a designer, a melhor parte do trabalho foi desenhar as pimentas e as reações de Scoville. “O conceito de picante é universal, cômico, e foi o que tentei usar para criar esse jogo de luta”, explica Huynh, em post do Google.
“Fiz storyboards de como poderia ser, rascunhos e testamos um protótipo. Depois vieram os cenários e animações. Desenhar as pimentas e as reações de Scoville foram minhas partes favoritas”, conta.
Doodle também é informativo, detalhando tipos de pimentas (Foto: Reprodução/Google)
Escala de Scoville
Wilbur Lincoln Scoville nasceu em Bridgeport, nos Estados Unidos, em 22 de janeiro de 1865 e morreu em 10 de março de 1942. O trabalho do americano como farmacêutico é reconhecido mundialmente: criou o Teste Organoléptico de Scoville, que gerou a já conhecida Escala de Scoville.
Com este método, Wilbur Lincoln Scoville definiu o grau de pungência de vários tipos de pimenta, através da detecção da concentração de capsaicina, substância responsável pela ardência da pimenta.
O teste é um Procedimento de Diluição e Prova. Scoville misturava as pimentas puras com uma solução de água com açúcar, e quanto mais solução fosse necessária para diluir a pimenta, mais alta seria sua picância. Depois disso, o método foi melhorado e foram criadas as unidades de calor Scoville (Scoville Heat Units, ou SHU).
Doodle Wilbur Scoville (Foto: Reprodução/Google)
Uma xícara de pimenta que equivale a 1.000 xícaras de água é uma unidade na escala de Scoville. A substância Capsaicina, que gera a ardência nas pimentas, equivale a 15 milhões de unidades Scoville.
A pimenta mexicana Habanero chega a 300 mil, uma “Red Savina Habanero”, modificada, tem 577 mil, e a Tezpur indiana, 877 mil.
Entretanto, este não foi o único trabalho de Scoville. “The Art of Compounding” (A Arte dos Compostos), de 1895, é um de seus livros, que foi usado como referência na farmacologia até os anos 60.
Scoville também publicou um livro com centenas de fórmulas de perfumes e outras essências, que foi chamado de “Extract and Perfumes” (Extratos e perfumes).
Em 1922, Scoville recebeu o Prêmio Ebert, e em 1929 ganhou a sua Medalha de Honra Remington e o título de Doutor honoris causa em Ciências pela Universidade de Columbia. O pesquisador morreu no dia 10 de março de 1942, deixando mulher e dois filhos.
Polémica. El caso de Silvana Buscaglia, la mujer que agredió a un policía tras resistirse a una intervención, tuvo fuerte repercusión mediática y en redes sociales, pero la creación de una página en Facebook para apoyarla tras lo ocurrido ha generado gran polémica y críticas por parte de varios usuarios de esta red social.
Los usuarios en redes sociales han compartido todo tipo de comentarios sobre la página Facebook ya que esta afirma que la “minoría blanca” en el Perú es “altamente discriminada”.
Foto: Captura / Facebook
“Silvana, cometiste una infracción. Pero tu verdadero delito es ser blanca en un país de cholos, resentidos y envidiosos”, fue una de las publicaciones que generó mayor indignación en Facebook.
Además, en la última imagen compartida, la página de Facebook afirma que el Gobierno debe reconocer a la “minoría blanca” como población perseguida.
Hasta el momento no se sabe si se trata de una web satírica.
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