From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is levying a $1 billion fine against Wells Fargo — a record for the agency — as punishment for the banking giant’s actions in its mortgage and auto loan businesses.
Wells Fargo’s “conduct caused and was likely to cause substantial injury to consumers,” the agency said in its filings about the bank. Continue reading “Wells Fargo Hit With $1 Billion In Fines Over Home And Auto Loan Abuses”
A new study from the National Foundation for American Policy, shows that U.S. tech companies are relying more on skilled foreign workers using H-1B visas, while Indian outsourcing firms are losing their previous stronghold in the area.
According to the study, four U.S. tech companies – Amazon, Microsoft, Intel, and Google – were among the top 10 employers for approved H-1B applications in FY 2017 (which ended September 30), and they all saw increases of more than 10 percent from the previous year.
Continue reading “Big American tech companies are snapping up foreign-worker visas, replacing Indian outsourcing firms”
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — President Donald Trump has given his “blessing” for North and South Korea to discuss the end of the Korean War amid a diplomatic push to end the North Korean nuclear standoff. One problem: There can be no real talks without the involvement of the other countries that fought the 1950-53 war, and especially the United States.
The reason is that South Korea wasn’t a direct signatory to the armistice that stopped the fighting but left the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war. Continue reading “South and North Korea are talking about peace — But to end the war they need the US and China”
Times have been hard for Wall Street banks lately, what with record amounts of cash pouring in and causing all kinds of bookkeeping headaches. So — big-hearted people that we are — Americans stepped up and helped by lowering the banks’ taxes. From Today’s Wall Street Journal: Continue reading “No (Wall Street) Bank Left Behind!”
A Georgia deputy was injured Tuesday night after being stabbed in a sheriff’s office restroom by a man who authorities say became hostile before eventually being fatally shot by another deputy.
The unidentified man came to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office around 10:30 p.m. looking for some help, and deputies let him inside the building and gave him water, investigators told FOX5 Atlanta. Continue reading “Georgia deputy stabbed in sheriff’s office restroom, suspect shot dead, officials say”
North and South Korea are in talks to announce a permanent end to the officially declared military conflict between the two countries, daily newspaper Munhwa Ilbo reported Tuesday, citing an unnamed South Korean official.
Ahead of a summit next week between North Korean premier Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, lawmakers from the neighboring states were thought to be negotiating the details of a joint statement that could outline an end to the confrontation. Continue reading “North and South Korea reportedly set to announce official end to war”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Commerce Department is blocking Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE Corp. from importing American components for seven years, accusing the company of misleading U.S. regulators after it settled charges of violating sanctions against North Korea and Iran.
Shenzhen-based ZTE agreed in March 2017 to plead guilty and pay $1.19 billion for illegally shipping telecommunications equipment to North Korea and Iran. ZTE promised to discipline employees involved in the scheme. Continue reading “US bars China’s telecom giant ZTE from buying US components”
New York Post – by Ben Feuerherd
A Queens man was busted with more than 70 weapons including shotguns, handguns and rifles, as well as 50,000 rounds of ammunition, in his basement, police said Monday.
Ronald Drabman, 60, was arrested Sunday after an investigation led NYPD cops from Brooklyn to the weapons cache in his basement on 208th Street in Oakland Gardens, authorities said. Drabman has two prior arrests, including for possessing an illegal .357-caliber handgun in 2017, police said. Continue reading “Cache of guns, ammo found in Queens man’s home”
Washington Post – by Amy B Wang and Mark Berman
At least seven inmates are dead and 17 people are injured after hours-long rioting at a maximum-security prison in South Carolina, according to the state’s corrections authorities.
Several fights broke out among inmates in three housing units at the Lee Correctional Institution about 7:15 p.m. Sunday, and it took authorities more than 7½ hours, until 2:55 a.m. Monday, to secure the prison, officials said. Continue reading “7 inmates dead, 17 injured after hours of rioting at South Carolina prison”
A large number of anti-war protesters have again held demonstrations in cities across the United States to condemn the US-led airstrikes on Syria, where the government of President Bashar al-Assad in fighting foreign-sponsored terrorists.
Demonstrations were held in New York City, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Chicago, Oakland and Washington, DC, on Sunday, a day after similar protests were staged in several American cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. Continue reading “Protests over Syria airstrikes continue across US”
Tultitlán, Mexico (CNN)A stampede of Central American migrants rushed to the tracks Saturday when the first whistle of the train rang out.
After a few days in Mexico City, it was time to continue their journey north to the US border. About 500 migrants traveling in a caravan climbed onto the freight train just outside the Mexican city of Tultitlán.
Continue reading “Hundreds of Migrants Board Freight Train in Mexico Bound for US Border”
Russia and Iran on Saturday denounced overnight airstrikes from the U.S., France and Britain against targets associated with their ally Syrian leader Bashar Assad over an apparent chemical weapons attack.
“With their actions, the U.S. is deepening a humanitarian catastrophe in Syria,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said, according to The Wall Street Journal. Continue reading “Russia, Iran denounce US-led strikes against Syria”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S., British and French forces hammered Syria with air strikes early Saturday Syria time in response to a poison gas attack that killed dozens of people last week, in the biggest intervention by Western powers in Syria’s civil war.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced the military action from the White House late on Friday. As he spoke, explosions rocked Damascus. Continue reading “Trump orders strikes against Syria over chemical weapons attack”
The 911 recordings are gut-wrenching.
“I probably don’t have much time left. Tell my mom I love her, if I die,” the caller, a 16-year-old teen, tells police dispatchers.
The boy was inside a gold 2002 Honda Odyssey van in the parking lot of his school, pinned under the third-row folding seat. Continue reading “Trapped and dying in a minivan, desperate Ohio teen calls 911 for help that doesn’t find him”
President Donald Trump is poised to pardon Scooter J. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, according to sources familiar with the president’s thinking.
The president has already signed off on the pardon, which is something he has been considering for several months, sources told ABC News. Continue reading “President Trump poised to pardon Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, sources say”
A Cape Cod police officer was fatally shot Thursday afternoon while serving a warrant in the village of Marstons Mills in Barnstable.
Yarmouth Police Officer Sean Gannon, 32, and his K-9, Nero, were part of a team of officers serving a warrant on a number of firearms violations at a home on Blueberry Lane when the suspect shot the officer in the head, fatally wounding him. Continue reading “Yarmouth officer fatally shot while serving warrant for firearms violations”
Washington Examiner – by Gabby Morrongiello
President Trump has directed his top economic and trade advisers to look into the potential benefits of re-entering the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multilateral trade agreement that he withdrew the U.S. from in one of his first acts as president
Trump told a group of Republican senators during a meeting Thursday that he had assigned National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer “the task of taking another look at TPP,” Sen. Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, told reporters following the meeting. Continue reading “Trump directs top economic advisers to look at re-entering TPP”
The New York Times, in a recent article about the prospect that H-4 aliens will not be allowed to continue to work, wrote sympathetically about the plight of a two-guestworker family that may become a one-guestworker family under the proposal: “She began fretting about how they would afford their $4,800 monthly mortgage.”
The situation is that the family, including an H-1B alien worker and his H-4 alien worker wife, both currently working in the U.S. economy, were worried that the latter would lose her job should the administration roll back an Obama-era scheme in which some of the H-4 dependents of H-1B workers are allowed work permits. Continue reading “New York Times Urges Sympathy for Plight of H-1B Workers in Million-Dollar Homes”
Bank of America plans to stop lending to manufacturers of “military-style firearms” used by civilians, an executive told Bloomberg.
“We want to continue in any way we can to reduce these mass shootings,” Anne Finucane, vice chairman of Bank of America (BAC), said in an interview. “It is our intention not to finance these military-style firearms for civilian use.” Continue reading “Bank of America to stop lending to makers of ‘military-style firearms’”