From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
RALEIGH, N.C. – Firefighters battled a massive late-night fire that engulfed an apartment building under construction in North Carolina’s capital city, authorities said early Friday.
Preliminary information indicates there were no injuries, said Raleigh police spokeswoman Laura Hourigan. The fire began shortly after 10 p.m. Thursday in the building in downtown Raleigh, a city in the eastern part of the state. Continue reading “Massive fire engulfs Raleigh apartment building under construction”
New York Times – by MICHAEL R. GORDON and HWAIDA SAAD
WASHINGTON — The United States military said that it had carried out an airstrike against a meeting of Qaeda militants on Thursday in Syria and that a number of the extremists had been killed.
The American military statement came as Syria activists reported that a mosque had been bombed and that scores of innocent civilians had been killed and wounded.
A spokesman for the United States Central Command said the American aircraft had struck a nearby building, but did not hit the mosque. Continue reading “U.S. Military Denies Reports It Bombed Mosque in Syria”
Almost 1 million jobs in the United States are held by foreigners on an H-1B visa, a temporary permit for highly skilled workers, according to an eye-popping study by Goldman Sachs.
President Trump has been highly critical of the program and has suggested he would scale it back. Critics, like Trump, say companies abuse it to hire cheap labor.
Those critical of the program say the time is now for Trump to reform it. Continue reading “H1-B critics urge Trump to reform visa they say takes jobs from US workers”
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and a group of his colleagues are calling on the newly appointed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to immediately investigate how US taxpayer funds are being used by the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to support Soros-backed, leftist political groups in several Eastern European countries including Macedonia and Albania. According to the letter, potentially millions of taxpayer dollars are being funneled through USAID to Soros’ Open Society Foundations with the explicit goal of pushing his progressive agenda. Continue reading “Senators Demand State Department Probe Into Soros Organizations”
In a bill aimed at securing a “right to be forgotten,” introduced by Assemblyman David I. Weprin and (as Senate Bill 4561 by state Sen. Tony Avella), liberal New York politicians would require people to remove ‘inaccurate,’ ‘irrelevant,’ ‘inadequate’ or ‘excessive’ statements about others… Continue reading “New York Assemblyman Unveils Bill To Suppress Non-Government-Approved Free Speech”
A federal judge has dismissed criminal charges against the lawyer for the leader of the armed occupation at an Oregon wildlife refuge.
U.S. marshals tackled Marcus Mumford and zapped him with a stun gun as he argued with a judge last fall over releasing his client, Ammon Bundy, shortly after his acquittal in the standoff. Continue reading “Lawyer for Oregon standoff leader sees charges dismissed”
Defense officials familiar with the situation say that the US will soon deploy another 1,000 ground troops into Syria, with the deployments expected to be part of the buildup ahead of the invasion of the ISIS capital city of Raqqa.
This 1,000 troops is in addition to other recent deployments to Syria announced by the Pentagon, and when completed is expected bring the number of US troops in Syria overall to close to 2,000. The official US limit of the number of troops that can be in Syria is 503, a number long since surpassed. Continue reading “Defense Officials: US to Send 1,000 More Ground Troops to Syria”
Washington Post – by Caitlin Dewey
Luisa Fortin sometimes sits up at night, wondering what her clients are eating. She is the SNAP Outreach Coordinator for the Chattanooga Food Bank — but lately she has done less outreaching.
Her families, working immigrants in northwest Georgia, are spooked by the political climate, Fortin said. Increasingly, she’s being asked to explain how food stamps may impact immigration status, if not to outright cancel family food benefits. Continue reading “Immigrants are now canceling their food stamps for fear that Trump will deport them”
Business Insider – by Barbara Tasch and Reuters
A letter exploded when it was opened at the offices of the International Monetary Fund in Paris on Thursday and slightly injured an executive assistant’s face and hands, a police source said.
According to the first elements of the investigation, a firecracker could be at the origin of the explosion, which occurred late Thursday morning, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro. Continue reading “A letter bomb exploded at the International Monetary Fund offices in Paris and injured 1 person”
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca was convicted Wednesday of obstructing an FBI investigation into corrupt guards who took bribes to smuggle contraband into the jails he ran and savagely beat inmates.
The verdict was the 21st and final conviction in a wide-ranging corruption investigation that overshadowed a distinguished 50-year law enforcement career abruptly halted by Baca’s 2014 resignation from the nation’s largest sheriff’s department as the probe spread from rank-and-file deputies to his inner circle. Continue reading “Ex-LA County sheriff convicted of impeding FBI’s jail probe”
Sent in by Stefan Verstappen.
Continue reading “We Are At War”
The Charlotte Observer – by Mark Price
Undocumented immigrants waiting for Charlotte taxpayers to cover their legal fees – as immigrant groups have demanded – are out of luck.
After giving the matter some study, City Attorney Bob Hagemann has issued a concise statement putting the idea to rest.
It won’t happen. Ever. Continue reading “Taxpayer dollars to fight deportation cases? Charlotte city attorney issues ruling”
The Denver Post – by Kieran Nicholson
More than 100 barrels of crude oil was released from a Chevron pipeline in Rio Blanco County into a dry drainage ditch, killing some wildlife and prompting recovery and cleanup operations.
The spill from a Chevron Pipe Line Company line in Rangely was contained in a siphon dam about a mile and a half from Stinking Water Creek, according to a news release from Chevron and the Rio Blanco County Sheriff’s Office. Continue reading “More than 100 barrels of Chevron crude oil foul drainage ditch in Rangely”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration in its final year in office spent a record $36.2 million on legal costs defending its refusal to turn over federal records under the Freedom of Information Act, according to an Associated Press analysis of new U.S. data that also showed poor performance in other categories measuring transparency in government.
For a second consecutive year, the Obama administration set a record for times federal employees told citizens, journalists and others that despite searching they couldn’t find a single page of files that were requested. Continue reading “Obama’s final year: US spent $36 million in records lawsuits”
Sent to us by Tax Revolution Institute.
On February 24, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), addressed the attendees of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to provide his vision for Republican “tax reform.” Continue reading “The 5 Things Republicans Don’t Want You to Know About Their Tax Reform”
While the Northeast braces for an expected blizzard, parts of western New York are already coping with the effects of extreme weather.
In Webster, New York, on the edge of Lake Ontario, a summer home turned into an icicle haven after high winds over the weekend sprayed the house with waves from the lake. The winds reached 80 mph, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Continue reading “High winds off lake turn western New York home into an ice house”
The star of the reality TV show “American Guns” faces up to 15 years in prison after his conviction last week on firearms and tax evasion charges.
Richard Wyatt, 53, ran a Denver-area gun shop called Gunsmoke that was the setting for the Discovery Channel show for two seasons in 2011 and 2012.
He was found guilty Friday of selling guns without a license and failing to disclose $1.1 million in income to the IRS after a trial in Denver Federal Court, The Denver Post reports. Continue reading “‘American Guns’ reality star convicted of selling firearms illegally, evading taxes”
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A jury on Friday convicted two men of conspiracy to impede federal officers during last year’s high-profile armed occupation of a wildlife refuge in Oregon in a protest over control of Western lands. They face possible sentences of years in federal prison.
The verdict handed prosecutors some measure of redemption after they failed to convict occupation leaders Ammon and Ryan Bundy and five other occupiers in a trial last fall involving the takeover of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a federally owned remote bird sanctuary about 290 miles southeast of Portland. Continue reading “Jury convicts 2 of conspiracy in Oregon ranching standoff”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has asked the remaining 46 U.S. attorneys who served under the Obama administration to resign, the Justice Department announced Friday, describing the move as part of an effort to ensure a “uniform transition.”
The department said some U.S. attorneys, as in prior transitions, already had left the department. Now, “the Attorney General has now asked the remaining 46 presidentially appointed U.S. Attorneys to tender their resignations,” a spokeswoman said. Continue reading “AG Sessions asks remaining 46 US attorneys to resign”