From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
MILWAUKIE, Ore. – A man accused of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl while she was sleeping in her bed at a Milwaukie apartment has been arrested.
Santiago Martinez-Flores, 48, was arrested in Southern California, near the border with Mexico, according to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office. Continue reading “Man accused of sexually assaulting 9-year-old girl arrested near Mexico border”
Washington (CNN)Maine’s Republican governor has filed a lawsuit against the state’s Democratic attorney general for allegedly refusing to represent his administration in court.
Gov. Paul LePage, an outspoken politician like his ally, President Donald Trump, said Monday that his office had filed a complaint in a county court that details Attorney General Janet Mills’ “abuse of power by refusing to legally represent the executive branch in law court.” Continue reading “Maine governor sues his state’s attorney general”
WASHINGTON — Congress extended protections to 44 states that have legalized medical marijuana in its proposed $1 trillion spending bill that funds the government through September.
The language prevents the Justice Department from using any of its funding to “prevent” those states from “implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.” Continue reading “Congress’ spending bill protects medical pot states”
DALLAS – DALLAS — At least one firefighter and one civilian were shot when a gunman opened fire in East Dallas late Monday morning.
The injured firefighter underwent surgery at Baylor University Medical Center and is in critical condition. Sources say he has “coded three times.” The civilian’s condition hasn’t been released. Continue reading “Firefighter, civilian shot in East Dallas; search underway for suspect”
Bloomberg – by Jennifer A Dlouhy
President Donald Trump moved to expand offshore oil drilling and to reconsider rules that safeguard the activity — including mandates designed to prevent a repeat of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Trump on Friday ordered Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to revise a five-year schedule for auctioning offshore drilling rights with the aim of potentially including territory left out by former President Barack Obama. Trump’s executive order also seeks to reverse a potentially more enduring decision by Obama to indefinitely withdraw most U.S. Arctic waters and some Atlantic Ocean areas from leasing. Continue reading “Trump Signs Order To Expand Offshore Drilling”
Mish Talk – by Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The Fed likes to brag about the “We saved the world” recovery.
However, the unfortunate truth of the matter is a record Half of American Families Live Paycheck to Paycheck.
Does it Matter? Let’s investigate. Continue reading “Economic Reality: Bottom 50% of Americans No Longer Matter”
In a post-World War II precedent-setting move (under the country’s expanded military doctrine), the Japanese Navy has reportedly deployed a helicopter carrier (and authorized it to use weapons, if necessary), to escort and protect a US supply vessel.
Defense Minister Tomomi Inada ordered the Izumo Maritime Self-Defense Force helicopter carrier to protect a US Navy supply ship, which is heading towards the Pacific to resupply the American armada sent by Donald Trump to keep North Korean nuclear ambitions at bay, sources told Kyodo news. Continue reading “Japan Deploys Warship To Support US ‘Armada’, Authorizes “Necessary Use Of Weapons” For First Time Since World War II”
WASHINGTON–Congress has reached an agreement to fund the federal government until September in a bipartisan deal that rejected President Donald Trump’s demand for a border wall and non-defense domestic spending cuts, according to a senior congressional aide.
The spending bill will allocate $1.5 billion for additional technology and infrastructure on the border, but explicitly includes language saying those funds cannot go to the construction of a wall. Lawmakers also rejected the president’s demand for $18 billion in non-defense spending cuts, increasing funds for the National Institutes for Health (NIH) by $2 billion. Continue reading “Congress reaches spending deal, lowering odds of government shutdown”
The president of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) on Saturday pushed back against President Trump’s claims that news outlets covering his administration critically are reporting “fake news.”
“We are not fake news, we are not failing news organizations and we are not the enemy of the American people,” WHCA president and Reuters correspondent Jeff Mason said at the organization’s annual dinner. Continue reading “White House Correspondents’ Association chief: ‘We are not fake news’”
After two years of recurring warnings (both on this website and elsewhere) that Canada’s largest alternative (i.e., non-bank) mortgage lender is fundamentally insolvent, kept alive only courtesy of the Canadian housing bubble which until last week had managed to lift all boats, Home Capital Group suffered a spectacular spectacular implosion last week when its stock price crashed by the most on record after HCG revealed that it had taken out an emergency $2 billion line of credit from an unnamed counterparty with an effective rate as high as 22.5%, indicative of a business model on the verge of collapse . Continue reading “Panic Bank Run Leaves Canada’s Largest Alternative Mortgage Lender On Edge Of Collapse”
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators are expected to take to the streets Monday in massive May Day events across the USA mostly protesting the policies of President Trump.
May Day — also known as International Worker’s Day — has spawned protests around the globe in past years highlighting workers’ rights. But on Monday, the impetus for the U.S. marches span from immigrants’ rights to LGBT awareness to police misconduct. Continue reading “Thousands expected to hit the streets for May Day protests”
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The Guardian – by Michael Finkel
Christopher Knight was only 20 years old when he walked away from society, not to be seen again for more than a quarter of a century. He had been working for less than a year installing home and vehicle alarm systems near Boston, Massachusetts, when abruptly, without giving notice to his boss, he quit his job. He never even returned his tools. He cashed his final pay cheque and left town. Continue reading “Into the woods: how one man survived alone in the wilderness for 27 years”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – At least 352 civilians have been killed in U.S.-led strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since the operation began in 2014, the U.S. military said in a statement on Sunday.
The Combined Joint Task Force, in its monthly assessment of civilian casualties from the U.S. coalition’s operations against the militant group, said it was still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths. Continue reading “U.S.-led fight on ISIS have killed 352 civilians: Pentagon”
President Donald Trump has made cracking down on illegal immigration a centerpiece of his administration — but so far his administration is deporting fewer people than his predecessor.
According to statistics from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) given to CNN, the pace of removals under Trump in his first three months lags behind even the last two years of his predecessor, when then-President Barack Obama ordered his agencies to use more discretion when it came to deporting undocumented immigrants, focusing specifically on criminals.
Continue reading “Despite tough talk and more arrests, deportations slow under Trump”
President Donald Trump on Friday proclaimed May 1 as ‘Loyalty Day’ as a way to “recognize and reaffirm our allegiance to the principles” upon which America was built and express pride in those ideals, according to a release of the proclamation from the White House.
“The United States stands as the world’s leader in upholding the ideals of freedom, equality, and justice. Together, and with these fundamental concepts enshrined in our Constitution, our Nation perseveres in the face of those who would seek to harm it,” the proclamation reads. Continue reading “Trump proclaims May 1 as ‘Loyalty Day’”
MIAMI (AP) — A Florida sheriff’s deputy was sleeping when his 11-year-old daughter called and asked him to pick her up at her school bus stop. Seconds later, his daughter screamed into the phone. “Dad, help me, help me!”
Polk County Sheriff’s Deputy Jonathan “JJ” Quintana told reporters at a news conference Friday that he assumed the worst as he jumped out of bed Thursday afternoon and ran barefoot to the bus stop. He found his daughter safe, but immediately saw the carnage left when a suspected drunken driver hit five of her fellow Dundee Ridge Middle Academy students as they walked home from the stop. One student later died of his injuries. Continue reading “Former officer charged with hitting kids with car, killing 1”
North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile on Saturday shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that failure to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs could lead to “catastrophic consequences”.
U.S. and South Korean officials said the test, from an area north of the North Korean capital, appeared to have failed, in what would be the North’s fourth straight unsuccessful missile test since March. Continue reading “North Korea test-fires ballistic missile in defiance of world pressure”
President Donald Trump pledged to never infringe on the 2nd Amendment during a speech at the National Rifle Association’s meeting in Atlanta, Ga., on Friday.
“We all took an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States, and that means defending the 2nd Amendment. So let me make a simple to every one of the freedom-loving Americans in the audience today: as your president, I will never, ever infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms – never, ever,” Trump said. Continue reading “Trump: ‘I Will Never, Ever Infringe on the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms’”
Just three days after Turkish warplanes killed at least 20 US-backed Kurdish fighters along the Turkey-Syria border as well as several Kurdish peshmerga troops on Mount Sinjar in northwestern Iraq, footage posted by Syrian activists showed the US has deployed troops and APCs in the contested region, in a move that could potentially drag the US in a conflict where it already finds itself mediating between two so-called US ally forces in the proxy war against Syria. Continue reading “US Deploys Troops Along Syria-Turkey Border”