WHY WHITE U$A NEEDS CRT
Black FedEx Driver Kept Composure During Racist Attack And Went Viral On Social Media

Candace McDuffie
Fri, January 20, 2023

Photo: max.ku (Shutterstock)

ATL Uncensored Twitter recently shared a viral video of a Black FedEx worker who was subjected to racist threats by a white man during a stop in an Atlanta suburb. Somehow, the employee managed to keep his composure. The video, which was posted on Twitter, has now been seen almost six million times and is half a minute long.

Many who saw the video commented on the driver’s ability to keep his cool. To summarize, the white (and bafflingly barefoot) customer calls the worker several racial slurs including the n-word. He then threatens to fight the driver if he runs over his dog, which can also be seen in the video.

“You stupid monkey. You a dumb n*****,’ he said, which can be heard in the footage. “Go ahead and park. You want to f*** around with a white man? You run over my dog and I’ll show you how little Black lives matter.”

The FedEx employee laughed, stated he wasn’t going to run anything over and records the entire incident. As the racist walks up the driveway back toward the house, the driver remarks “Welcome to Facebook” before the footage cuts off.

In an email, FedEx told Newsweek that they will review “the circumstances” behind the exchange. Are there any justifications to call a Black person the n-word, though?

“At FedEx, we believe that everyone deserves respect. The behavior depicted in this video is highly disturbing. The safety and security of our team members and service providers is a top priority and we are reviewing the circumstances behind this matter,” a spokesperson explained to the publication.

This isn’t the first time FedEx employees have been forced to deal with racist encounters. Last year, D’Monterrio Gibson was racially targeted by two white neighborhood residents as he made his FedEx deliveries. In 2022, Jennifer Harris, a former Black FedEx employee, was awarded over $300 million in a discrimination lawsuit against the company.

The Root

Rio Holocaust Memorial remembers Jewish victims - and others
 

A table displays the names of groups persecuted by the Nazis at the Holocaust Victims Memorial on its opening day to the public in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. The memorial tells the stories of the thousands of people who took refuge in Brazil during the Holocaust. 

  

A monument stands outside the Holocaust Victims Memorial on the first day it opened to the public, with a Sugar Loaf Mountain in the background, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. The museum tells the stories of the thousands of people who took refuge in Brazil during the Holocaust. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

ELÉONORE HUGHES
Thu, January 19, 2023

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Rio de Janeiro on Thursday opened the doors to a Holocaust Memorial that honors not only Jewish victims, but also lesser-known groups likewise persecuted by the Nazi regime.

Curators hope that the memorial, perched atop one of Rio’s shapely hills with a view of Sugarloaf Mountain and the Guanabara Bay, becomes a pilgrimage site for a diverse audience.

“Nazism is not only a history of victimized Jews. They were the main target, but others also suffered,” said Sofia Levy, a member of the curatorial team. “The message is: don’t ever think it doesn’t concern you.”

The main exhibition is a journey through a tunnel behind the central hall, depicting victims’ lives before, during and after the Holocaust.

The first section features colorized photos of birthdays, traditions and day-to-day lives of soon-to-be victims. One picture shows Hilarius Gilges, a Black German actor and tap dancer who was a communist. A table displays the names of groups who the Nazis persecuted: artists, anarchists, masons, Roma people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay people and the disabled. It also specifies the various Jewish groups targeted, like Hasidic and Sephardic Jews.

From there, the memorial’s visitors on Thursday passed into the second section and were suddenly bathed in sepia-toned light. A railroad representing the deportation trains runs beneath black-and-white photos of the text of Nuremberg laws that made Jews legally inferior, Hitler Youth members and a man holding a sign inciting the boycott of shops owned by Jews. Graphic images of concentration camps and stick-thin corpses do not appear; instead, visitors can figuratively put themselves in victims’ shoes by standing on footprints to hear recordings of their accounts.

In the final part, life resumes in color — for those fortunate enough to have escaped the horror. Videos from families’ archives show births, celebrations and other snippets of life. And an interactive screen contains a database with information and photos of those who built new lives in Brazil.

Jorge Tredler, 83, leaned over the table and looked up his mother, father and sister. Their family fled Poland and spent years passing through the Soviet Union, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and other nations before finally reaching in Brazil in 1951.

“I feel really emotional, it brings me back to the past,” Tredler said. “This place recalls one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century, so people know about it and there never again is a Holocaust.”

The memorial is Brazil’s third Holocaust-focused institution inaugurated in just over a decade, following a museum in southern city Curitiba and another memorial in Sao Paulo. Levy said the idea was born three decades ago, but work only got off the ground with a municipal ordnance passed in January 2018 allowing for its creation.

That same month, far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro was sworn into office. He was an outspoken champion of Christian faith and conservative values. Many human rights associations blamed his fiery rhetoric for the recent surge in cases of people promoting Nazism, as well as hate crimes against members of the LGBT community.

“The years when Bolsonaro was in power led to the emergence of extremists with a greater intolerance for difference,” said Fernando Lottenberg, a Brazilian Jew who is the Organization of American States’ commissioner for monitoring and combating antisemitism. “Like (former U.S. President Donald) Trump, he created an atmosphere favoring the expression of this kind of behavior.”

There are more than a dozen neo-Nazi groups in Brazil with between 2,000 and 3,000 organized activists, according to Brazilian nonprofit SaferNet, which fields complaints of intolerance on social media via a hotline it runs with the prosecutor-general’s office.

Brazil’s Jewish population was around 107,000 in 2010, according to the national statistics agency IGBE’s latest census. Many of them are descendants of people who fled rampant antisemitism in Europe in the 20th century. And 14 million Brazilians identified as Black in 2010, while 83 million identified as biracial.

“A developed society is plural and diverse,” said Alberto Klein, president of the Holocaust memorial’s cultural association.

__

AP videojournalist Pedro Varela contributed.

  

Jorge Tredler, 83, of Poland, who came to Brazil with his family in Feb. 1951 after taking refuge in Russia and other countries during the second World War, points to a photo of his mother Irena on an interactive table that tells the stories of thousands of people who took refuge in Brazil during the Holocaust, at the Holocaust Victims Memorial on its opening day to the public in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. 

 

Photos from the permanent collection of the Holocaust Victims Memorial are on display on the first day it opened to the public in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. The museum tells the stories of the thousands of people who took refuge in Brazil during the Holocaust.

 

A youth looks at photos on an interactive table displaying the photos and stories of the thousands of people who took refuge in Brazil during the Holocaust at the Holocaust Victims Memorial on the first day it opened to the public in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023.

Jorge Tredler, 83, of Poland, who came to Brazil with his family in Feb. 1951 after taking refuge in Russia and other countries during the second World War, points to a photo of his father Szymon on an interactive table that tells the stories of thousands of people who took refuge in Brazil during the Holocaust, at the Holocaust Victims Memorial on its opening day to the public in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. Another photo of his father is displayed at left.

AP Photos/Bruna Prado

A SOCIALIST IS "THE GREATEST CANADIAN" 

WHAT IF IT IS A BION

Juárez UFO was of 'nonhuman origin,' Mexico ufologist Jaime Maussan claims

Daniel Borunda, El Paso Times
Thu, January 19, 2023 

Mexico's most-famous ufologist Jaime Maussan claims a photo of a supposed UFO hovering over the FC Juárez soccer stadium last weekend shows "a ship of nonhuman origin."

FC Juárez created a fun stir this week by sharing a fan's photo of an unknown dark object close to a bright setting sun behind Estadio Olympico Benito Juárez on Saturday at the Bravos game against the Tijuana Xolos. A close-up of the small dark speck looks similar to a flying saucer.

More:Does photo show UFO over FC Juárez Bravos soccer game?

In its tweet, FC Juárez tagged Maussan, who expressed interest and followed up on Wednesday, saying that the photo had been computer enhanced and analyzed. The enhanced photo shows a smooth, dark almond-shaped object.

"I share that the case was analyzed with AI equipment, and everything indicates that we are facing an unidentified anomalous phenomenon 'UAP', (Kyiv) scientists call these ships 'Ghost' for being dark objects," Maussan said in a tweet.

"Given all of the above, I think it is a SHIP of nonhuman origin," Maussan stated.

UAP stands for "unidentified aerial phenomena," or what the U.S. military now calls what were traditionally known as UFOs, or unidentified flying objects. Ukrainian astronomers have reported dozens of unidentified objects flying over Kyiv. Since Russia and Ukraine are at war, it's possible the sightings are military aircraft or drones.

Maussan has reported on UFOs for more than three decades and hosts the longtime Mexican TV show "Tercer Milenio" (Third Millenium) about UFOS and other paranormal topics.

New Mexico:UFO sighting over Carlsbad credited to nearby Air Force training mission, feds say

Twitter responses to Maussan's take on the Juárez UFO photo ranged from praise to criticism and jokes ‒ lots of jokes. Among the Twitter takes:

"Parece un bolillo." (Looks like a bread roll.)


"Parecen un sombrero." (Looks like a hat.)


"Super fake esa foto" (The photo is super fake.)

Whether the object in the Juárez UFO photo is nonhuman or nonsense is up for debate.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Juárez UFO was 'nonhuman,' Mexico ufologist Jaime Maussan says

GM to sink over $900M into 4 plants, Flint to get new engine plant


The GMC logo is displayed on the grill of a truck at a GMC dealership in Warminster, Pa., Tuesday, April 26, 2022. General Motors announced Friday, Jan. 20, 2023 it will spend more than $900 million to update four factories, with the bulk going to an engine plant in Flint, Mich., to build the next-generation V8 for big pickup trucks and SUVs. 

MIKE HOUSEHOLDER and TOM KRISHER
Fri, January 20, 2023

FLINT, Mich. (AP) — General Motors says it will spend more than $900 million to update four factories, with the bulk going to an engine plant in Flint, Michigan, to build the next-generation V8 for big pickup trucks and SUVs.

Factories in Rochester, New York; Defiance, Ohio; and Bay City, Michigan; also will see investments, some to make V8 engine components as well as parts for future electric vehicles, the company said Friday.

The investments won't create any new jobs, but they will preserve about 2,400 hourly and salaried positions positions at the four sites, the company said.

The investments “provide job security at these plants for years to come,” Gerald Johnson, GM's manufacturing chief, said in a statement.

Much of the money, $579 million, will go to Flint Engine Operations for equipment to build the sixth-generation small-block V8 that will go into the next round of big pickup trucks and SUVs. The plant now employs about 700 people who also will keep making their current product, a diesel engine used in light trucks.

GM, like other automakers, is facing stricter government fuel economy standards and pollution limits starting in the 2024 model year. New vehicles sold in the U.S. will have to average at least 40 miles per gallon of gasoline in 2026, up from about 28 mpg, under new Biden administration rules that undo a rollback of standards enacted under former President Donald Trump.

That means the new V8 will have to get better mileage and pollute less than the current versions. Although GM wouldn't release details on the new engine, Johnson said during a news conference at the Flint plant that it would be more efficient than the current version.

GM has a goal of selling only electric passenger vehicles by 2035, but Johnson said that's a dozen years out, a period when many customers will still want gas engines.

“We know that has a horizon,” he said. “Between here and there, there are a lot of internal combustion customers that we don't want to lose,” he said.

In addition to Flint, GM's engine components plant in Bay City, Michigan, will get $216 million to build camshafts and connecting rods, and to machine engine blocks and heads for the new V8 being built in Flint. The plant now employs about 425.

The Defiance, Ohio, foundry will get $55 million to build a variety of block castings for the new V8. Included is $8 million for castings to support future electric vehicles, the company said. The plant has about 530 employees.

And GM's operations in Rochester, New York, will get $68 million, with $56 million to produce battery pack cooling lines for electric vehicles. The rest will go for tools to make intake manifolds and fuel injection rails for the new V8. About 745 people work at the Rochester facility, GM said.

GM's plant in Tonawanda, New York, now builds the fifth-generation small-block V8s for big pickup trucks and SUVs, and Johnson said that will continue until the end of the decade. “It is a great organization, a great work force for us,” he said Friday. “Tonawanda will be fine running the current Gen 5 well into the future,” he said.

GM to invest close to $1B in 4 US factories, 

2 in Michigan

Jamie L. LaReau, Detroit Free Press
Fri, January 20, 2023 

General Motors is investing $918 million in four U.S. plants for expanded V-8 engine production in light-duty full size pickups and large SUVs as well as component parts for electric vehicles.

GM made the announcement Friday at Flint Engine plant where GM leaders, UAW leaders and Michigan's Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist gathered. As part of the investment, two plants in Michigan will receive new products to build: Flint Engine Operations and Bay City Powertrain facilities.

GM said of the $918 million, $854 million will go to prepare the facilities to make GM's sixth generation small block V-8 engine used in the Chevrolet Camaro, light duty pickups and large SUVs. An additional $64 million will be invested in Rochester Operations in Rochester, New York and Defiance Operations in Defiance, Ohio plants to make castings and components to support GM's EV production.

UAW President Ray Curry speaks to employees at General Motors Flint Engine South in Flint on Friday, January 20, 2023, while talking about General Motors investing $918 million in four U.S. plants for expanded V-8 engine production in light-duty full size pickups and large SUVs as well as component parts for electric vehicles. As part of the investment, two plants in Michigan will receive new products to build: Flint Engine Operations and Bay City Powertrain facilities.

The focus of all the investments is job retention, said GM spokesman Dan Flores. That means a total of about 2,400 union and salaried jobs will be retained.

Flores also said these investments will help GM strengthen its full-size pickup and SUV business because this new V-8 engine will give GM vehicles a performance edge in what is a competitive market segment. GM's pickup and SUV sales are key to GM's profits and help to fund GM's development of EVs as the company looks to transition to a zero-emissions lineup by 2035. GM said in a media release that "product details, timing, performance and features related to GM’s next gen V-8 engine are not being released at this time."

“These investments, coupled with the hard work and dedication of our team members in Flint, Bay City, Rochester and Defiance, enable us to build world-class products for our customers and provide job security at these plants for years to come," said Gerald Johnson, GM executive vice president of Global Manufacturing and Sustainability, in a statement.

General Motors EVP of Global Manufacturing & Sustainability Gerald Johnson, right, speaks with people at General Motors Flint Engine South in Flint on Friday, January 20, 2023, after a press conference talking about General Motors investing $918 million in four U.S. plants for expanded V-8 engine production in light-duty full size pickups and large SUVs as well as component parts for electric vehicles. As part of the investment, two plants in Michigan will receive new products to build: Flint Engine Operations and Bay City Powertrain facilities.

Here is how the investment breaks down:

Flint Engine Operations: GM employs 709 people at Flint Engine. GM will invest $579 million to prepare the plant to assemble the sixth-generation small block V-8 gasoline engines as well as do some preparation of engine parts for final engine assembly. Construction work at the facility will begin immediately and Flint will continue building the 3.0-liter turbo-diesel used in GM full size light duty pickups during the renovations.


Bay City: GM, which employs 425 people at the plant, will invest $216 million to build camshafts, connecting rods and machinery used in making the engine block and head that go into future production at Flint Engine.


Defiance Operations, Ohio: GM, which employs 530 people at Defiance, will invest $55 million in the facility. Of that, $47 million will cover the cost to prepare the facility to build block castings to be sent to Flint Engine for its production. The investment includes $8 million for Defiance to cast metal parts for future EVs.


Rochester Operations, New York: GM employs 745 people at Rochester. There it will invest $68 million, in which $12 million will be used to prepare the plant to make other parts for the future V-8 production at Flint Engine. GM will spend $56 million to prepare the facility to make battery pack parts for EVs.

Some workers at Flint Engine said the investments provide future job security there, people familiar with the investment told the Free Press on Thursday. Those people asked to not be named because they are not authorized to speak to the media. But they said contractors have been at Flint Engine for about three months doing prep work. Some at the plant hope the upgrades could lead to 100 additional new jobs in the future, they said.

Employees at General Motors Flint Engine South in Flint listen to speakers announcing General Motors investing $918 million in four U.S. plants on Friday, January 20, 2023, at the plant in Flint.

Flores declined to speculate on future hiring, emphasizing that the focus of these current investments is job retention at the four locations.

Flint Engine currently builds the 1.5-liter turbo engine for the Chevrolet Malibu sedan and the 3.0-liter turbo diesel engine for the light-duty Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups and the Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon large SUVs.

GM's last big investment in Flint Engine was in 2015. It put $263 million in the plant to build a new engine line. In 2019, GM assigned Flint the Duramax 3.0-liter turbo-diesel for its light-duty pickups. Nearby, GM builds the heavy-duty Silverado and Sierra at Flint Assembly plant.

In a statement, UAW President Ray Curry said, “Our union celebrates the announcement of these new investments into our GM facilities, which will benefit our members at Locals 659 (Flint, Michigan), 362 (Bay City, Michigan), 211 (Defiance, Ohio) and 1097 (Rochester, New York). The skill and dedication of UAW members are a key part of GM’s success, and this investment recognizes that our members will remain a vital part of GM’s future.”

UAW President Ray Curry left, speaks with Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist at General Motors Flint Engine South in Flint on Friday, January 20, 2023, after the announcement of General Motors investing $918 million in four U.S. plants for expanded V-8 engine production in light-duty full size pickups and large SUVs as well as component parts for electric vehicles. As part of the investment, two plants in Michigan will receive new products to build: Flint Engine Operations and Bay City Powertrain facilities.

In September, GM announced it will invest $760 million at its Toledo Propulsion Systems plant to prepare it to make drive units that will be used in future GM EVs. Those drive units will be used in the 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV, 2024 GMC Sierra EV and current GMC Hummer EVs. GM's Factory Zero, which straddles Detroit and Hamtramck, is currently building the Hummer and will build the Silverado EV, along with Orion Assembly in Orion Township.

More:Tesla starts an EV price war with GM and Ford, analysts say

More:GM's return to office plans are key for metro Detroit cities' future economic plans

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: GM to invest close to $1B in 4 US factories, 2 in Michigan

US will resume border wall construction at San Diego park


A man looks through the wall at Friendship Park, near where the border separating Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego meets the Pacific Ocean on Jan. 19, 2021, in Tijuana, Mexico. Advocates say the Biden administration has agreed to lower part of a border wall planned in the southwest corner of the continental United States. Construction paused in August at Friendship Park, which was inaugurated in 1971 by then-first lady Pat Nixon as a symbol of ties between the U.S. and Mexico. 

(AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)More

ELLIOT SPAGAT
Thu, January 19, 2023 

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration agreed to lower part of a border wall planned in the southwest corner of the continental United States, advocates said Thursday, dismissing the concession as a token gesture.

Opposition prompted a construction pause in August at Friendship Park, which was inaugurated in 1971 by then-first lady Pat Nixon as a symbol of ties between the U.S. and Mexico. For decades, visitors to the oceanfront park between San Diego and Tijuana could easily converse and touch, but access gradually diminished from the U.S. over the last 15 years.

After public feedback, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agreed to lower a double wall for 60 feet (18.3 meters), about the length of a tractor-trailer, said the Rev. John Fanestil of Friends of Friendship Park. In that section, the height will dip to 18 feet (5.5 meters) from 30 feet (9.1 meters).

CBP didn't respond to questions about the revised design. But it said in a news release Tuesday that it “developed an approach that meets the border security needs of the area while also addressing feedback from the community.” It expects construction to resume early this year and take about six months to complete.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas approved the changes, Fanestil said he was told by CBP officials.

Chris Magnus, who was ousted as CBP commissioner in November after less than a year on the job, paused work on the Trump-era contract, saying he wanted to first understand community concerns.

The decision comes a week after Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador thanked President Joe Biden for building “not even one meter of border wall,” which is not entirely true. While Trump built hundreds of miles, Biden has pursued small projects in Texas' Rio Grande Valley; Yuma, Arizona; and San Diego.

The San Diego project involves 0.3 mile of double-layer wall that currently rises 18 feet, Fanestil said. Aside from its height, it will be made of tightly spaced steel bollards, which are more difficult to see through than current material.

“The proposal to ‘dip’ the primary border wall to 18 feet for a small stretch near the center of Friendship Park is a token and inadequate gesture,” Friends of Friendship Park said in a statement.

CBP agreed leave unchanged a policy to open the outer gate from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays for up to 25 people at a time to converse with people on the Mexican side through a barrier of steel mesh.

SELF DRIVING CAR BOMB
Self-driving cars create new opportunities for terrorist attacks, says FBI Director Chris Wray

Peter Kasperowicz

 FOX NEWS
Thu, January 19, 2023 

The expanding use of self-driving cars opens up new ways for terrorists to harm Americans, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Speaking on a panel on national security, Wray said the FBI views autonomous vehicles as both a possible tool to cause physical harm and a potentially valuable source of personal data that could become a target.

"When you talk about autonomous vehicles, it’s obviously something that we’re excited about, just like everybody," Wray said. "But there are harms that we have to guard against that are more than just the obvious."


FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday that self-driving cars create new ways for terrorists to attack Americans.

"One of them is the danger that there could be ways to confuse or distort the algorithms to cause physical harm," he said. "I’m thinking about a story I heard not that long ago about the researchers who were able to trick a self-driving car’s algorithm by essentially putting a piece of black tape over a stop sign. It caused the car to accelerate, about 50 miles an hour or something.

"It’s a simple example, but it shows some of the harms we have to guard against," Wray said.

"A different kind of harm we’re concerned about is the enormous amount of data that autonomous vehicles, for example, aggregate. And any time you aggregate lots and lots of sensitive data, it makes a very tempting target," he added.

He said these potential threats are something that is "very much on our mind" in the federal government.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety expects there to be 3.5 million self-driving cars on the road in the U.S. by 2025.

Wray said the expanding use of self-driving cars is an example of a new "attack surface" that terrorists will try to use to their advantage. He said Russia’s war against Ukraine is giving U.S. national security officials new examples of how cyberattacks are evolving and demonstrated how early surveillance activity can be a precursor to a cyberattack.

"We did see as the conflict erupted an increased effort by the Russian intelligence services, which have been conducting malicious cyber activity against U.S. infrastructure for years," he said. "We’re increasingly concerned that the surveillance activity – the scanning, the research, all the preparatory activity – could be one thing, could be an indication of something more serious."

"The name of the game in terms of cyber defense from our perspective is to try to get – to use a terrorism analogy – further left of boom," Wray added.

The U.S. is also worried about China’s growing Artificial Intelligence program.

"The Chinese government has a bigger hacking program than any other nation in the world, and their AI program is not constrained by the rule of law," he said. "It’s built on top of the massive troves of intellectual property and sensitive data that they’ve stolen over the years and will be used unless checked to advance that same hacking program."

"That’s something we’re deeply concerned about and I think everyone here should be deeply concerned about it," Wray said.

 
 Buda’s Wagon

A Brief History of the Car Bomb
by Mike Davis

The brilliant and disturbing 100-year history of the “poor man’s
air force,” the ubiquitous weapon of urban mass destruction
On a September day in 1920, an angry Italian anarchist named Mario Buda exploded a horse-drawn wagon filled with dynamite and iron scrap near New York’s Wall Street, killing 40 people. Since Buda’s prototype the car bomb has evolved into a “poor man’s air force,” a generic weapon of mass destruction that now craters cities from Bombay to Oklahoma City.

In this provocative history, Mike Davis traces the its worldwide use and development, in the process exposing the role of state intelligence agencies—particularly those of the United States, Israel, India, and Pakistan—in globalizing urban terrorist techniques. Davis argues that it is the incessant impact of car bombs, rather than the more apocalyptic threats of nuclear or bio-terrorism, that is changing cities and urban lifestyles, as privileged centers of power increasingly surround themselves with “rings of steel” against a weapon that nevertheless seems impossible to defeat.

REMEMBER WHEN THE U$A WELCOMED ALL CUBANS
Homeland chief: Cubans, Haitians who come by sea are disqualified from new parole program


David Goodhue/dgoodhue@miamiherald.com

Syra Ortiz-Blanes, David Goodhue
Thu, January 19, 2023

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that Cubans and Haitians who illegally come to the United States by boat will be disqualified from applying to a recently announced parole program, a public declaration that follows a wave of migrant landings in the Florida Keys.

“Cubans and Haitians who take to the sea and land on U.S. soil will be ineligible for the parole process and will be placed in removal proceedings,” said Mayorkas in a tweet on Wednesday evening.

Mayorkas’ tweet is not a new policy announcement from the federal government. But it’s an attempt by the agency’s top official to deter maritime migration as hundreds of Cubans and Haitians have landed in the Florida Keys since late December, as well as an indirect endorsement for migrants to apply to the new parole program for Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua announced on Jan. 5

Mayorkas warned that the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection were actively patrolling the Florida Straits and Caribbean waters for migrants, who would be sent back home if they were caught at sea.

“Irregular maritime migration aboard unseaworthy or overloaded vessels is always dangerous, and often deadly,” Mayorkas said. “We are steadfast in our commitment to saving lives and discouraging anyone from taking to the sea to irregularly migrate.”

Since Oct. 1, the beginning of the federal fiscal year, Border Patrol agents have come across over 240 migrant landings in South Florida and encountered over 4,000 migrants. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard interdicted 4,962 Cubans and 1,199 Haitians at sea during that same period.

Under the new parole program, people from Haiti, Nicaragua and Cuba can fly to the United States if they have a financial sponsor in the country and if they pass the required medical and background checks. The agency announced a similar parole process for Venezuelans in October. The United States will parole up to 30,000 people a month through the programs.

Officials hope the programs will curb irregular migration from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua, which all increased in the last fiscal year. In 2022, Customs and Border Protection registered nearly 221,000 encounters with Cuban migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. During that same period, it also recorded almost 54,000 encounters with Haitians and close to 164,000 encounters with Nicaraguans.

When announcing the parole program earlier this month, the agency said that migrants from Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua who attempt to unlawfully cross the border would be returned to Mexico, which agreed to receive 30,000 people monthly.

Agency officials have said that the number of Venezuelans coming to the U.S.-Mexico border has drastically dropped since a parole program for Venezuelans was put in place last fall. Encounter numbers for December and January are not yet public.

However, at the Winter Meeting of the Conference of Mayors on Thursday, Mayorkas said that “encounters from the targeted countries have dropped significantly” since the “new lawful pathways … accompanied by a consequence regime” were announced earlier this month.

At a press conference in the airport in Marathon in the Middle Keys, Sen. Rick Scott said on Thursday that the effect of Mayorkas’ tweet remained to be seen.

“As you know, the situation in Cuba is bad, and their economy is horrible. I think the impression is still that the border is completely open, which is what it is. So, we’ll see what impact it has.”

US drops case against NYC cop accused of spying for China

NYPD officer Baimadajie Angwang, left, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Tibet, and his attorney John Carman, right, hold a press briefing outside Brooklyn's Federal court after a judge dismissed spy charges against him, Thursday Jan. 19, 2023, in New York. Federal prosecutors dropped charges against Angwang, who authorities had initially accused of spying on independence-minded Tibetans on behalf of the Chinese consulate in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

BOBBY CAINA CALVAN
Thu, January 19, 2023 

NEW YORK (AP) — Charges against a New York City police officer accused of spying on behalf of China were formally dropped Thursday after U.S. prosecutors said they uncovered new information that warranted the dismissal.

It ended a two-year ordeal for Baimadajie Angwang, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Tibet, who spent about six months in custody before being granted bail. He had been accused of spying on expatriate Tibetans in New York on behalf of officials at the Chinese consulate in the city.

Outside the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, Angwang, wearing a pin of the American flag on his lapel, thanked his family and his supporters, including those on the city's police force and the U.S. Marine Corps, where he formerly served.

During a brief court appearance, prosecutors said they were dropping charges “in the interest of justice." U.S. District Judge Eric Komitee tried to prompt prosecutors to share what they could about their change of mind, but they declined to reveal what new information led them to do so.


“The decision was based on all the evidence and information developed," Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Hagans told the judge, adding that some of the information were too sensitive in nature to discuss in open court.

The prosecution is among several brought by the Justice Department alleging spying for China that have fallen apart in recent years, though the details of Angwang's case differed from the others, which involved academics.

A year ago, federal prosecutors dropped their case against a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who had been accused of concealing ties to the Chinese government. In 2021, a judge acquitted a professor at the University of Tennessee who had faced similar charges. Those prosecutions were brought as part of an initiative, begun during the Trump administration but later dropped, to root out economic espionage by Beijing.

In Angwang's case, the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn had claimed that he began working as an agent for China in 2018 and was secretly supplying information on Tibetans pushing for their homeland’s independence from the communist government. It said he had worked to locate potential intelligence sources and identify potential threats to Chinese interests.

The government case partly relied on intercepted communications between Angwang and a consulate official — someone Angwang called “big brother” and “boss” — about how to identify dissenters in the independence movement.

There was no allegation that Angwang compromised national security or New York Police Department operations. When prosecutors filed their case in 2020, they deemed him “the definition of an insider threat."

Angwang initially traveled to the United States on a cultural exchange visa at age 17. He overstayed a second visa and eventually sought asylum in the United States, alleging he had been arrested and tortured in China partly because of his Tibetan ethnicity.

In court filings, Angwang's attorney said any discussions with the Chinese consulate were meant to curry favor so he could obtain a visa to visit relatives in Tibet.

Beijing had called the case “pure fabrication."

After Thursday's proceedings, Angwang’s attorney, John Carman, said his client was “innocent from the very beginning.”

“As an American, he is a great one,” Carman told reporters.

Angwang, 36, has worked at an NYPD precinct in Queens as a community liaison. His lawyer said they were still considering how to proceed to get him reinstated to the police force.

After gaining asylum, Angwang became a Marine and served in Afghanistan before being honorably discharged, according to court papers filed by his attorney. Angwang went on to join the Army Reserve and the NYPD, earning a “Cop of the Month” award at his precinct in September 2018, according to the court filing.

He is currently suspended, with pay from the NYPD, the department said. The U.S. Army Reserve said Angwang was “administratively separated” on Jan. 21, 2021, but it didn't specify why. It said federal law allows some discharged reservists to reenter on a case-by-case basis.

U.S. authorities continue to hunt for China's operatives.

Last fall, federal authorities in New York charged seven people, including five in China, with what they said was a campaign of harassment against a Chinese national and his family living in the U.S. to force him to return home.

The U.S. attorney’s office alleged the threats and harassment continued for years and were part of “Operation Fox Hunt,” characterized by the FBI as an illegal global effort by China to locate and repatriate alleged fugitives who flee to foreign countries.

In another case, two suspected Chinese intelligence officers were charged with attempting to obstruct a U.S. criminal investigation of Chinese tech giant Huawei by offering bribes to someone they thought could provide inside information.

Tibet has been an especially sensitive issue for communist China.

China says Tibet has historically been part of its territory since the mid-13th century, and China's ruling Communist Party has governed the Himalayan region since 1951. But many Tibetans say they were effectively independent for most of their history and that Beijing wants to exploit their resource-rich region while crushing their cultural identity.

___

Associated Press reporter Jennifer Peltz contributed to this story.

 

US hands over to Mexico suspect in missing students case

Relatives and classmates of the missing 43 Ayotzinapa college students, march in Mexico City, Sept. 26, 2022, on the anniversary of their disappearance in Iguala, Guerrero state. U.S. authorities handed over a key suspect, Alejandro Tenescalco, in the 2014 disappearances, after the man was caught trying to cross the border Dec. 20, 2022 without proper documents. 

(AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File) 

FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ
Thu, January 19, 2023 

MEXICO CITY (AP) — U.S. authorities handed over a key suspect in the 2014 disappearance of 43 college students to Mexico, after the man was caught trying to cross the border Dec. 20 without proper documents.

Mexico’s National Immigration Institute identified the man only by his first name, but a federal agent later confirmed Thursday that he is Alejandro Tenescalco. The institute said he failed to qualify for asylum in the United States.

Tenescalco was a police supervisor in the city of Iguala, where the students from a rural teachers college were abducted by municipal police. Investigations suggest corrupt police turned the students over to a drug gang, who killed them and burned their bodies.

Alejandro Encinas, the head of the government Truth Commission, has called Tenescalco “one of the main perpetrators” of the crime.

He faces charges of kidnapping and organized crime. The Mexican government had offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest.

In 2022, the Truth Commission declared the disappearances a “state crime,” because authorities at all levels of government were involved in the disappearances and cover-up.

The investigations resulted in the arrests of three soldiers, including a now retired general who had been the army commander in the area when the abductions occurred. Also, then federal Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam has been accused of inventing the government’s original account based on torture and manipulation of evidence.

But some charges against dozens of other suspects have been tossed out because of tainted evidence.

Man arrested in Santa Teresa tied with kidnapping 43 students in Mexico


Aaron Martinez, El Paso Times
Fri, January 20, 2023 

A man wanted in connection with the 2014 kidnappings of 43 college students in Southern Mexico was extradited to Mexico after he was arrested in Santa Teresa.

Alejandro Tenescalco-Mejia, 41, was turned over to Mexican authorities Wednesday at the international boundary at the Santa Teresa Port of Entry, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.

Tenescalco-Mejia, of Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico, allegedly illegally entered the U.S. on Dec. 14 by climbing over the border wall near Santa Teresa. He was then arrested by immigration officials and turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Enforcement and Removal Operations officers.

He remained detained at the El Paso Processing Center until his removal on Wednesday, officials said.

Tenescalco-Mejia was wanted in connection with the Sept. 26, 2014, disappearance and abduction of 43 college students in Southern Mexico. The students - all men from a rural teachers' college in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, Mexico - went missing when they were traveling on a bus, officials said.

Alejandro Tenescalco-Mejia, 41, was wanted in connection with the 2014 kidnappings of 43 college students in Southern Mexico .

According to Mexican court documents, Tenescalco-Mejia is one of several suspects wanted in the case.

"ERO made good on its promise to protect the American people by removing a suspected violent criminal back to his home country," Mary De Anda, field office director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Enforcement and Removal Operations in El Paso, said in a statement. "The ongoing cooperation between ICE and our Mexican counterparts resulted in holding another fugitive accountable for his actions, highlighting the critical public safety role ERO plays in the community."

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations arrested 46,396 noncitizens with criminal histories in the 2022 fiscal year. The people arrested had a total of 198,498 associated charges and convictions, officials said. The charges and convictions included 21,531 assault offenses; 8,164 sex and sexual assault offenses; 5,554 weapons offenses; 1,501 homicide-related offenses; and 1,114 kidnapping offenses.

'Concerning' map reveals where fish caught in the US are full of hazardous 'forever chemicals'

Morgan McFall-Johnsen
Thu, January 19, 2023 

An uncle and his nephew fish for salmon with a net on the Trinity River on the Hoopa Valley Reservation in California.

Stephanie Keith/Reuters

Fish in lakes and streams across the US are contaminated with hazardous "forever chemicals."


A map of documented contamination sites shows how PFAS pollution is everywhere.


Eating a fish from a local lake could be equal to drinking PFAS-contaminated water for a month.

Eating fish from a local lake or stream could give you a giant dose of hazardous "forever chemicals," equal to nearly a month of drinking highly contaminated water, researchers have calculated.

Since their invention in the 1930s, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have multiplied and spread. Humans have created thousands of substances in the PFAS class, since their resistance to water and heat makes them useful in everyday products like food packaging and clothing.


But in recent decades, research has revealed that PFAS are harmful to human health. Peer-reviewed research has linked them to some cancers, thyroid disease, decreased fertility, developmental delays, liver damage, high cholesterol, and reduced immune responses.

What's worse, PFAS only stick around and build up. They're nicknamed "forever chemicals" because they don't really break down. Now they're in soil, food, water, clothing, and even the dust in your home. One recent analysis found that rainfall across the entire planet contains unsafe levels of PFAS.

So it's no surprise that these substances have filled waterways across the US, where they can accumulate in the bodies of fish. Eating a fish can give you a concentrated dose of its entire lifetime of forever chemicals.

The problem is widespread across the US. The Environmental Working Group assembled a map, below, of the more than 500 samples of PFAS-contaminated fish. The instances span all 48 contiguous states.

Locations where PFAS-contaminated fish have been documented.Copyright © Environmental Working Group, www.ewg.org Reproduced with permission.

An interactive version of the map on the EWG website contains details about each site.

The map is based on EPA data from 2013 to 2015, in which the agency tested over 500 samples of fish from freshwater sources across the US.

EWG researchers published their analysis of that data in the journal Environmental Research on Tuesday. They found PFOS — one of the most notorious substances — was the largest contributor to PFAS contamination in fish.

Eating just one freshwater fish could be equal to a month of drinking water contaminated with 48 parts per trillion of PFOS, EWG researchers calculated. Last year, the EPA lowered the level of PFOS in drinking water it considers safe to 0.02 parts per trillion.

"To find this level of contamination in fish across the country, even in areas not close to industry where you might expect heavy contamination, is very concerning. These chemicals are everywhere," Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, told CNN.
PFAS are everywhere, making the planet 'a bit inhospitable'

Some places have even issued advisories about PFAS contamination in fish, like Wisconsin in 2021, when the state warned people not to eat smelt from Lake Superior more than once per month.

But states don't always detect or warn people about PFAS contamination in their fish. So taking your fishing pole to the local river could be riskier than you think.

"When we start to really worry about using our environmental resources, that makes me really angry and annoyed," Ian Cousins, who led the analysis of PFAS levels in rainwater, told Insider in August.

He said he's also seen PFAS contamination advisories for fishing spots in Sweden, where he lives.

"We kind of made the planet a bit inhospitable," he added.

The new EWG study found that the median total PFAS level in freshwater fish was 278 times higher than that of commercially sold fish tested in the last three years.

A fish market in Reading Terminal Market, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Hannah Beier/Reuters

While avoiding PFAS altogether is probably impossible, it can help to know how to cut out little things that pack big doses — like certain fish in certain waterways.

Though the EPA's stringent new guidelines for PFOS and its equally notorious cousin, PFOA, are not currently enforceable, the agency is working to clean up some of the country's most contaminated drinking water.

The 2021 Infrastructure Bill designated $5 billion for that effort.