From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
If you rent a car from Hertz, you’re now on notice not to be surprised if you’re randomly pulled over and arrested for seemingly no reason at all.
This is because, according to The Drive, customers of the Florida rental vehicle company are being erroneously stopped and arrested due to a faulty computer system and plain old poor office management at the company. Continue reading ““They Had Me At Gunpoint”: Hertz Customers Keep Getting Arrested For Driving “Stolen” Cars”
Police in Alabama have captured a gunman they say shot and killed a police officer and wounded two others at a trailer park in Auburn late last night, according to local reports.
The officers were responding to a domestic disturbance call when Grady Wayne Wilkes – clad in camouflage body armor and a helmet – opened fire, authorities said. Auburn University, citing police, later tweeted Monday morning that Wilkes was in custody. Continue reading “Alabama gunman in camouflage kills police officer, wounds two others, officials say”
MIAMI – President Donald Trump on Sunday denied reports that hundreds of migrants would be flown from the Mexican border to Florida and other areas in the U.S. interior to lessen the workload at crowded Border Patrol facilities.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, also on Sunday, acknowledged that federal officials did initially alert local leaders of the possibility that migrants would be flown to two South Florida counties. Continue reading “Trump administration drops plan to send migrants from southern border to Florida, elsewhere”
The Trump administration is preparing to send Central American migrants caught along the southern border to Border Patrol stations “across the entire nation,” according to a senior Border Patrol official who confirmed the plans Friday.
With more than 4,500 people being caught each day crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, the agency has run out of room at its Border Patrol facilities in the four border states. The agency has started looking at its facilities around the country, which are mostly along the northern border with Canada and coastal states. Continue reading “Trump administration prepares to release Central American migrants ‘across the entire nation’”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order declaring a national emergency and barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk, paving the way for a ban on doing business with China’s Huawei Technologies Co.
The executive order invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president the authority to regulate commerce in response to a national emergency that threatens the United States. The order directs the Commerce Department, working with other government agencies, to draw up a plan for enforcement within 150 days. Continue reading “Trump order clears way for barring Huawei from U.S. telecommunications networks”
Exports of the Permian Basin’s newest kind of oil are set to jump as production surges, exceeding the appetite of U.S. refiners.
Sales of the new grade, known as West Texas Light, began in September, as explorers sought to separate out increasingly lighter and less sulfurous crude bubbling up from wells in West Texas and New Mexico, so it wouldn’t lessen the quality of U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate. WTL supply has grown to over 500,000 barrels a day, a nearly four-fold rise from last year. Continue reading “Surge of New Permian Basin Oil to Feed Global Supply”
U.S. Border Patrol officials are now using air transportation to move migrants from overcrowded processing centers to lesser-impacted facilities, particularly from the Rio Grande Valley Sector.
On Friday, officials in the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector began flying migrants from McAllen, Texas, to Del Rio, Texas, the Washington Post reported. The flights are operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) but the migrants remain in the custody of Border Patrol. Continue reading “Border Patrol Flies Migrants from South Texas to Reduce Overcrowding”
To scammers, your Social Security number is gold-plated and diamond-encrusted asset, and now they have a new way to try to steal yours and get paid.
Consumer advocates are raising an alert about a twist to an old impostor phone scam. It’s called the “Social Security impostor scam.” A blog at the Federal Trade Commission recently wrote: “In the shady world of government, the SSA scam may be the new IRS scam.” Continue reading “Social Security impostor scam: It’s growing, and this is how it works”
DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia said on Monday that two of its oil tankers were among those attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and described it as an attempt to undermine the security of crude supplies amid tensions between the United States and Iran.
The UAE said on Sunday that four commercial vessels were sabotaged near Fujairah emirate, one of the world’s largest bunkering hubs lying just outside the Strait of Hormuz. It did not describe the nature of the attack or say who was behind it. Continue reading “Saudi Arabia says its oil tankers among those hit off UAE coast”
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The disciplinary trial of the New York City police officer who put Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, in a fatal chokehold will begin on Monday, nearly five years after widely seen video of the death sparked a national outcry about policing tactics.
Daniel Pantaleo, who is white, could be fired after the conclusion of what is expected to be a 10-day trial at the New York Police Department’s headquarters in Manhattan. The ultimate decision will rest with New York City Police Commissioner James O’Neill. Continue reading “Years after chokehold death, New York police officer’s disciplinary trial to begin”
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Thousands of Polish nationalists marched to the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw Saturday, protesting that the U.S. is putting pressure on Poland to compensate Jews whose families lost property during the Holocaust.
The protest took place amid a dramatic rise in anti-Semitic hate speech in public life in Poland and it appeared to be one of the largest anti-Jewish street demonstrations in recent times. It also comes as far-right groups are gaining in popularity, pressuring the conservative government to move further to the right. Continue reading “Polish nationalists protest US over Holocaust claims”
HOUSTON — The Coast Guard and state environmental agency are responding to a collision at the Houston Ship Channel, which spilled products used to make gasoline.
Two barges collided with a tanker south of Morgan’s Point in the ship channel Friday around 3:30 p.m. Continue reading “Coast Guard, TCEQ respond to chemical spill at Houston Ship Channel”
Intelligencer – by Jeff Wise, March 20, 2019
A few weeks ago a Boeing jet was maneuvering near an airport when it abruptly nosedived and plowed into the ground at tremendous speed, killing everyone aboard. This was not the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10 that has transfixed the world, however. It was an American plane, a 767, and its destruction in a muddy bay near Houston remains even more mysterious and, consequently, potentially more disturbing in its long-term implications. Continue reading “The Recent Deadly Boeing Crash No One Is Talking About”
The Trump administration has seized a North Korean cargo ship used to supply coal to the isolated nation in violation of international sanctions, law enforcement officials said Thursday.
The seizure of the vessel, detained last month in Indonesia, comes at a delicate moment between the two countries. It was announced hours after the North Koreans fired two suspected short-range missiles in an apparent sign of trouble for nuclear disarmament talks. Continue reading “US seizes North Korean cargo ship for violating sanctions”
CASTLE ROCK, Colo. (Reuters) – Two teenage students accused of fatally shooting one classmate and wounding eight in a suburban Denver school made separate court appearances on Wednesday, a day after their arrest on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.
Douglas County District Judge Theresa Slade, who presided over both proceedings, ordered the two suspects to remain held without bond pending their next court hearings, set for Friday, when formal charges are expected to be filed. Continue reading “Two students arrested in Colorado school shooting make first appearance”
A settlement in a seven-year-long legal battle between the House and the Justice Department over records related to a gun-running investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious was publicly announced Wednesday just as similar clashes continue to intensify between the House and the Trump administration.
The deal ends a civil suit the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee filed in 2012 following the House’s historic vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for refusing to release some records the panel demanded about the probe, during which law enforcement officials monitored but did not intervene as up to 2000 weapons were illegally sold. Continue reading “Subpoena fight over Fast and Furious documents finally settled”
May. 08, 2019 – 6:12 – ‘This kind of one-sided, dishonest attack is part of what’s sickening American politics,’ former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says after the paper reports on 10 years of the president’s tax returns.
Continue reading “Gingrich: New York Times has descended to the level of the Kardashians with reveal of Trump tax records”
An arrest has been made in the murder of an on-duty police officer who was gunned down in front of his police station.
Officer Robert McKeithen, a veteran of the Biloxi Police Department, was killed in an ambush shooting outside the Biloxi, Mississippi, police headquarters Sunday night. After shooting McKeithen multiple times, the suspect escaped the area, said Biloxi Police Chief John Miller. Continue reading “Suspect arrested after police officer gunned down outside Mississippi station”