From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
New Jersey 101.5 – by Michael Symons
NEWARK – Undocumented immigrants raised in New Jersey can now apply for state financial aid programs to attend New Jersey colleges.
The law was signed Wednesday and takes effect starting with the fall semester, and the New Jersey Alternative Financial Aid Application was immediately posted on the state Higher Education Student Assistance Authority website. (Click here.)
Continue reading “NJ Already Taking Financial Aid Applications from Undocumented”
JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (AP) — Staging a made-for-TV, still-of-the-night arrival ceremony, President Donald Trump welcomed home three Americans freed by North Korea and declared their release a sign of promise toward his goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
Speaking early Thursday on an air base tarmac with the former detainees by his side, Trump called it a “great honor” to welcome the men to the U.S., but said “the true honor is going to be if we have a victory in getting rid of nuclear weapons.” Continue reading “Trump gives freed Americans flag-waving, wee-hours welcome”
Campus Reform – by Hannah Scherlacher
Rutgers University recently debuted a program to teach students and staff about the illegal immigrant community, and at least one administrator wants to make the workshop mandatory.
The “DREAM Zone” program, a three-hour interactive event that originated at New York University, expanded to Rutgers in April, according to The Daily Targum. Continue reading “Rutgers trains students to empathize with illegal immigrants”
Less than two months after a Tesla Model X burst into flames in Mountain View, CA after a gruesome crash attributed to an autopilot error trapped the driver in the burning car resulting in his death, Tesla tragedy has struck again after two 18-year-old men died, trapped in a fiery Model S crash near Fort Lauderdale beach Tuesday evening, the SunSentinel reported. Continue reading “Tesla Model S Bursts Into Flames After “Horrific” Crash, Killing Two Men Trapped Inside”
President Trump on Tuesday announced plans to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, saying it has failed to halt the country’s nuclear ambitions.
Speaking in the Diplomatic Room of the White House, Trump said: “I am announcing today the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.”
A source said that Trump’s announcement will start a 90-day countdown to the restoration of sanctions. Continue reading “Trump withdraws from Iran nuclear agreement”
A California high school student was charged on Monday after he allegedly recruited classmates into a drug and human smuggling ring, authorities said.
Phillip Junior Webb, 18, was arraigned Monday at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego on federal charges of human smuggling and conspiracy to distribute illicit narcotics. He is also charged with trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border with illegal immigrants hidden in his trunk, according to charging documents. Continue reading “California teen charged with recruiting classmates for drug smuggling operation”
The Treasury Department announced new sanctions on three Venezuelans as the U.S. ratchets up pressure on the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has overseen a crackdown on protesters amid an economic crisis fueled by rapid inflation.
The sanctions targets include Pedro Luis Martin Olivares, a former Venezuelan intelligence official now under indictment in Florida on drug trafficking charges. The penalties also cover two people identified as his associates, Walter Alexander Del Nogal Marquez and Mario Antonio Rodriguez Espinoza, along with 20 companies in Venezuela and Panama the Treasury Department says are owned or controlled by the three. Continue reading “U.S Sanctions Venezuelans, Including Ex-Intelligence Official”
Molten lava from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano continued gushing into the lush paradise on the Big Island Monday, even as an eleventh fissure opened up, destroying more than two dozen homes and spewing lava hundreds of feet in the air.
The 26 decimated homes were located in the Leilani Estates subdivision, where molten rock, toxic gas and steam have been bursting through openings in the ground created by the volcano, officials said. No fatalities or major injuries have been reported since the eruptions began Thursday. Continue reading “Hawaii volcano shows ‘no sign of slowing down,’ destroys dozens of homes”
OLATHE, Kan. – Body camera footage shows that law enforcement ignored the advice of SWAT team members when they entered a suburban Kansas City home and fatally shot a mentally distressed woman with a history of only minor, nonviolent offenses.
The Kansas City Star reports that it reviewed 23 hours of footage tied to the Aug. 23 shooting of 26-year-old Ciara Howard after a three-hour standoff in Olathe. The Star had sued for the video and dropped its lawsuit last month after receiving it. Continue reading “SWAT team discouraged entering home before deadly shooting”
For years indigenous people living in small villages along Alaska’s Arctic coast fiercely fought offshore drilling. Now they want a piece of the action.
When Shell first showed up in 2007 with a fleet of drillships and support vessels, and parked them in the migration path of the bowhead whale in the eastern Alaska Beaufort Sea, the Inupiats went to court. An injunction from the US Ninth Circuit stopped the company and started a chain of problems that would ultimately defeat Shell’s multibillion dollar Arctic initiative. Continue reading “An Arctic about-face: Alaska natives, who fought offshore oil projects, now leading the charge to drill”
Several rural Illinois counties have taken a stand for gun rights by co-opting a word that conservatives associate with a liberal policy to skirt the law: sanctuary.
At least five counties recently passed resolutions declaring themselves sanctuary counties for gun owners — a reference to so-called sanctuary cities such as Chicago that don’t cooperate with aspects of federal immigration enforcement. Continue reading “Illinois counties declare ‘sanctuary’ status for gun owners”
NEW YORK — The Trump administration said Friday that it is ending special immigration protections for about 57,000 Hondurans, adding them to hundreds of thousands of immigrants from other countries battered by violence and natural disasters who are losing permission to be in the United States.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s widely anticipated decision not to renew temporary protected status for Hondurans means an estimated 428,000 people from several countries face rolling deadlines beginning late this year to leave or obtain legal residency in other ways.
Continue reading “US ends immigration protections for thousands of Hondurans”
A man was mauled to death by a wounded bear this week when he foolishly tried to take a photograph alongside the apex predator — the third wild animal-related selfie fatality in this region of India in less than a year, according to reports.
The victim, identified by local media as Prabhu Bhatara, was driving a group of people home from a wedding in an SUV when he stopped to relieve himself in a forest area in the eastern Indian state of Odisha on Wednesday evening, the Hindustan Times reported. Continue reading “Man mauled to death by bear while taking selfie with it”
Gun Owners of America – by Michael Hammon
Illegal Bump Stock Regs to go beyond Johnson, Clinton, and Obama in Anti-Gun Reach!
When campaigning, Donald Trump said he would respect and honor the Second Amendment.
Instead, he continues to push ahead on bump stock regulations which would turn 500,000 gun owners into felons. And the regulations would arguably do the same for the millions of Americans who own semi-automatic rifles. Continue reading “Trump’s Bump Stock Regulations Can Turn 500,000 Gun Owners into Felons”
TIJUANA (Reuters) – Dozens more Central American caravan migrants were let into the United States to begin pleading their case for asylum on Thursday despite sharp criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, bringing the total to 158 since last weekend.
Seventy men, women and children were allowed into the crowded port of entry border crossing early Thursday morning, according to Alex Mensing, a caravan organizer with advocacy group Pueblos Sin Fronteras. Continue reading “Dozens more caravan asylum seekers let in to U.S. from Mexico”
Illegal immigration along U.S.-Mexico border surged 230 percent in April compared to last year, according to new numbers released Thursday that experts said expose major loopholes in American immigration law.
Chief among the loopholes is the de facto “catch-and-release” policy that sees most illegal immigrants caught at the border quickly put back out on the streets, with the hope that they’ll return to be deported later. Continue reading “Illegal immigration surges 230 percent in April on southwest border”
An ATF agent was critically wounded in a shooting on Chicago’s South Side early Friday morning.
The agent was on a federal mission with Chicago police assisting when shots rang out near West 45th Street and South Hermitage Avenue in the city’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. Continue reading “ATF agent shot in head in Back of the Yards; manhunt underway”
DUSON, La. (AP / KATC) – A fire broke out at a chemical plant in Duson, Louisiana, sending massive smoke plumes in the air and prompting an evacuation for a mile all around.
Louisiana State Police have said that no injuries have been reported from the fire at FlowChem Technologies, which provides products and services to the oil and gas industry. Continue reading “Explosion, fire at Duson, Louisiana chemical plant”