From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
Click Orlando – by Mark Lehman
ORLANDO, Fla. – Attorneys for Noor Salman are calling for a mistrial after they say new details from prosecutors reveal that Pulse gunman Omar Mateen‘s father was an FBI source and is currently under a criminal investigation.
According to a motion filed by the defense, prosecutors sent an email on Saturday that stated Seddique Mateen was a confidential FBI source from 2005 through June 2016. Continue reading “Motion reveals Pulse gunman’s father was FBI informant”
After a late 1:30 pm start to the hastily organized afternoon press conference, President Donald Trump signed a $1.3 trillion spending measure Friday averting a government shutdown at midnight, acting just hours after saying he was considering a veto. He wasn’t. Continue reading ““Unhappy” Trump Signs $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill”
The Senate rushed to approve a $1.3 trillion government funding bill early Friday morning, sending the mammoth legislation to President Trump‘s desk less than 24 hours before a deadline to avert another government shutdown.
Senators voted 65-32 on the measure, well over the simple majority needed to approve it, despite late drama after the bill easily cleared the House on Thursday afternoon. It now goes to the White House where Trump is expected to sign it. Continue reading “Senate approves $1.3 trillion spending bill, sending to Trump”
President Trump on Thursday announced he plans to slap tens of billions of dollars in tariffs and penalties on imports from China to try to curb what he described as its efforts to steal intellectual property from U.S. companies.
The president signed a memorandum directing the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the Treasury Department to launch a broad range of actions against China. Continue reading “Trump says new tariffs, penalties on China could total $60B”
Boston Globe – by Jeremy C Fox
A 70-year-old man was arrested for possession of an assault rifle and high-capacity magazines containing more than 350 rounds of ammunition, and a 29-year-old woman was apprehended for heroin possession in Dorchester on Tuesday, according to Boston police.
Police Commissioner William B. Evans said in a statement that such military-style weapons make the city’s streets more dangerous. Continue reading “70-year-old man arrested with assault rifle, 350 rounds in Dorchester”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday auctioned off more than 51,000 acres (21,000 hectares) in southeastern Utah for oil and gas development, a sign of strong industry demand in a region conservationists have vowed to protect.
The Utah lease sale included terrain near the former boundaries of the Bears Ears National Monument, whose size was scaled back by the Trump administration last year, as well as the Hovenweep and Canyons of the Ancients monuments, according to the bureau. Continue reading “Drillers snap up federal leases near Utah’s wilderness monuments”
Three illegal immigrants, who avoided capture after Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf blew the whistle on a raid by federal immigration authorities last month, have since been re-arrested for new crimes including robbery and spousal abuse, ICE officials said.
Schaaf tweeted out a warning ahead of the raid in northern California last month, infuriating Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and the Trump administration. Continue reading “Illegal immigrants, who dodged California ICE raid after Dem mayor’s tip-off, re-arrested for new crimes”
The U.S. government has dropped a demand that all vehicles made in Canada and Mexico for export to the United States contain at least 50 percent U.S. content, The Globe and Mail reported on Tuesday, citing sources.
President Donald Trump’s administration dropped the demand on the so-called rules of origin during the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations in Washington last week, which included talks between Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the Canadian newspaper reported. Continue reading “Trump administration reportedly drops NAFTA U.S. auto-content proposal”
Washington Examiner – by Paul Bedard
A building network of backwoods doomsday camps around the country are pulling in members from affluent areas and even Washington national security officials as the threats grow from nuclear war, an EMP or virus attack.
Called Fortitude Ranch, the outposts promise protection and a year’s supply of food for those unable to build their own bunker. What’s more, until a crisis strikes, they are being used for prepper training and vacations. Continue reading “Official Washington flocking to Doomsday Camps”
Congress is considering attaching a narrow background check bill for gun purchases to a must-pass government funding package before the end of the week, when thousands of high school students are expected to congregate in Washington for the March to End Gun Violence.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Tuesday said leadership was talking to its members about adding the background legislation, even as news broke of a new school shooting on Tuesday morning in Maryland. Continue reading “Congress may pass background check legislation in funding bill”
GREAT MILLS, Md. (WJLA) – The suspect, believed to be a student, is dead after a shooting Tuesday morning at a high school in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, that has left a female in critical condition and a male in stable condition, according to authorities.
The St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office says it happened at Great Mills High School and that police are on the scene. ABC7’s Brad Bell said sources tell him the shooter was a student, as were the two victims. Bell says a school resource officer took action to end the threat and authorities confirmed the incident has been contained. Continue reading “Suspect dead, female victim critical, male stable after shooting at Great Mills HS in Md.”
AUSTIN/SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) – A homemade bomb blew up at a FedEx Corp distribution center early on Tuesday injuring one person, officials said, the fifth explosion in the state this month. It was bound for Austin, the site of four other bombings.
Officials did not say if they believed the device, which exploded at the FedEx facility near San Antonio, was the work of a “serial bomber” who police feared may be responsible for the four earlier devices, which killed two people and injured six others. Continue reading “Fifth package bomb goes off in Texas, injures one at FedEx site”
Sent to us by Clay.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles city prosecutors have charged two men with unlawful firearms storage following investigations into separate gun violence threats allegedly made last month by their teenage sons at two high schools.
City Attorney Mike Feuer announced the filings Monday, saying that locking up firearms not only saves lives, it’s the law. Continue reading “2 California parents charged with unlawful gun storage”
NEW YORK (AP) — When the Kushner Cos. bought three apartment buildings in a gentrifying neighborhood of Queens in 2015, most of the tenants were protected by special rules that prevent developers from pushing them out, raising rents and turning a tidy profit.
But that’s exactly what the company then run by Jared Kushner did, and with remarkable speed. Two years later, it sold all three buildings for $60 million, nearly 50 percent more than it paid. Continue reading “Kushner Cos. filed false NYC housing paperwork”
An explosion that injured two men Sunday night could’ve been triggered by a tripwire, said Austin Police Chief Brian Manley, after a fourth blast in the Texas city in little over two weeks.
Authorities are working under the belief that the latest incident is connected to the previous three explosions in the city, Manley said. At this point, information is preliminary, he said early Monday morning, and police have yet to fully process the scene.
Continue reading “4th Austin explosion may have been triggered by tripwire, police say”
With little debate, the Maryland House of Delegates on Thursday passed three gun control bills that expand the state’s assault weapons ban and creates ways to seize guns from dangerous people.
The chamber approved, 128-7, a ban on “bump stocks” and other devices that can turn a semi-automatic gun into a rapid fire one. Those after-market devices were used by the shooter in last year’s massacre that killed 58 at a Las Vegas concert. Continue reading “Gun-control bills pass Maryland House of Delegates”
The Trump administration is finalizing a plan to combat the opioid crisis that will call for changing mandatory minimums for drug traffickers and include language urging prosecutors to seek the death penalty as an option for drug dealers in fatal opioid overdose cases, a White House source confirmed to CBS News.
The plan, first reported by Politico, is expected to be released in New Hampshire on Monday where President Trump will make stops in Manchester. New Hampshire has some of the highest rates of overdose deaths in the country, according to the Center For Disease Control, coming in third after West Virginia and Ohio.
Continue reading “Trump’s opioid plan includes pushing death penalty for drug dealers”
MIAMI (AP) — An innovative pedestrian bridge being built at Florida International University was put to a “stress test” before it collapsed over traffic, killing six people and sending 10 to a hospital, authorities said.
As state and federal investigators worked to determine how and why the five-day-old span failed on Thursday, one factor may have been the stress test that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said crews were conducting on the span. Continue reading “Fallen bridge: ‘Stress test’ preceded collapse that killed 6”
Surveillance video released Thursday shows former deputy Scot Peterson standing outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School while Nikolas Cruz fatally shot 17 students and staff.
Broward County Sheriff’s Office, which released the video, identified Peterson in the footage, adding that it “speaks for itself.” Continue reading “Parkland surveillance video shows officer standing outside school during shooting”