Buzz Feed News

The family of a woman who left the US to join ISIS is now suing President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Attorney General William Barr to prove that she is an American citizen and has the right to return home.

Hoda Muthana secretly traveled from her home in Alabama to Syria when she was 19, and BuzzFeed News exclusively profiled her journey to radicalism in 2015. Now 24 and the mother of a toddler, Muthana has fled ISIS, and she told the Guardian on Sunday she regrets the ignorance she had about the terrorist group. She wants to return home, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday, and she’s prepared to surrender to authorities for criminal prosecution if she does. Continue reading “A Woman Who Left The US As A Teen To Join ISIS Is Suing Trump To Come Home”

The Weather Channel

Winter Storm Quiana continued to dump heavy snow on parts of Arizona Friday, prompting emergency declarations, closing schools across the region, shutting down interstates and bringing record snow to the Flagstaff area.

Flagstaff Pulliam Airport remained closed Friday morning, a day after reduced visibility forced its closure, KTAR reported. More than 38 inches of snow fell at the airport Wednesday into Friday, covering the runway.   Continue reading “Arizona Airport, Highways Shut Down; Flagstaff Receives Record Snow From Winter Storm Quiana”

The Guardian

An American woman captured by Kurdish forces after fleeing the last pocket of land controlled by Islamic State says she “deeply regrets” travelling to Syria to join the terror group and has pleaded to be allowed to return to her family in Alabama.

Once one of Isis’s most prominent online agitators who took to social media to call for the blood of Americans to be spilled, Hoda Muthana, 24, claims to have made a “big mistake” when she left the US four years ago and says she was brainwashed into doing so online.   Continue reading “Hoda Muthana ‘deeply regrets’ joining Isis and wants to return home”

Fox News

A seven-year-old boy was harassed and called “Little Hitler” after setting up a hot chocolate stand to raise money for President Trump’s border wall, his parents say.

Benton Stevens, of Austin, Texas was reportedly motivated to help fund the border wall between the United States and Mexico after watching Trump’s State of the Union on February 5 with his parents Jennifer and Shane, who are both active members with the Republican National Committee, KXAN reports.   Continue reading “Boy called ‘Little Hitler’ for using hot chocolate stand to raise money for border wall, parents say”

New York Times

WASHINGTON — A coalition of 16 states, including California and New York, on Monday challenged President Trump in court over his plan to use emergency powers to spend billions of dollars on his border wall.

The lawsuit is part of a constitutional confrontation that Mr. Trump set off on Friday when he declared that he would spend billions of dollars more on border barriers than Congress had granted him. The clash raises questions over congressional control of spending, the scope of emergency powers granted to the president, and how far the courts are willing to go to settle such a dispute.   Continue reading “16 States Sue to Stop Trump’s Use of Emergency Powers to Build Border Wall”

The Washington Post – by Danielle Paquette

DUETTE, Fla. – Both human and machine have 10 seconds per plant. They must find the ripe strawberries in the leaves, gently twist them off the stems and tuck them into a plastic clamshell. Repeat, repeat, repeat, before the fruit spoils.

One February afternoon, they work about an acre apart on a farm the size of 454 football fields: dozens of pickers collecting produce the way people have for centuries — and a robot that engineers say could replace most of them as soon as next year. Continue reading “Farmworker vs Robot”

The Eagle – by Mike Copeland

At least 11,000 Texas farmers believe they have suffered because of tariffs and trade disputes erupting amid President Donald Trump’s get-tough stance with China, which buys about half the cotton grown statewide, according to the Waco-based Texas Farm Bureau and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Thursday, Valentine’s Day, was the deadline for agricultural producers to sign up for the USDA’s Market Facilitation Program, launched in September to help producers “suffering from damages due to unjustified trade retaliation,” according to a USDA press release.

Continue reading “11,000 Texas farmers sign up for tariff relief”

New York Post – by Isabel Vincent

It’s the line from scripture that stayed with Cait Finnegan for nearly half a century as she tried to suppress the painful memories of the sexual abuse she says she suffered at the hands of her Catholic clergy educator.

“God is Love,” Sister Mary Juanita Barto told Finnegan as she repeatedly raped her in classrooms at Mater Christi High School in Queens in the late 1960s.   Continue reading “Inside the horrifying, unspoken world of sexually abusive nuns”

CBS New York

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — The controversial Amazon deal is dead, taking with it the 25,000 jobs promised for its proposed headquarters in Long Island City.

The internet giant issued a statement on Thursday saying it will not pursue a second headquarters in Long Island City, and has no plans to look elsewhere.   Continue reading “Amazon Pulls Out Of HQ2 Deal With New York City”

The New York Times

A bird hopping outside the window lately is the strangest that Shirley and Jeffrey Caldwell have ever seen.

Its left side is the taupe shade of female cardinals; its right, the signature scarlet of males.

Researchers believe that the cardinal frequenting the Caldwells’ bird feeder in Erie, Pa., is a rare bilateral gynandromorph, half male and half female. Not much is known about the unusual phenomenon, but this sexual split has been reported among birds, reptiles, butterflies and crustaceans.

Continue reading “A Rare Bird Indeed: A Cardinal That’s Half Male, Half Female”

Washington Post

The Senate on Tuesday passed the most sweeping conservation legislation in a decade, protecting millions of acres of land and hundreds of miles of wild rivers across the country and establishing four new national monuments honoring heroes including Civil War soldiers and a civil rights icon.

The 662-page measure, which passed 92 to 8, represented an old-fashioned approach to dealmaking that has largely disappeared on Capitol Hill. Senators from across the ideological spectrum celebrated home-state gains and congratulated each other for bridging the partisan divide.   Continue reading “The Senate just passed the decade’s biggest public lands package. Here’s what’s in it.”

The Hill

Activist David Hogg on Wednesday urged former first lady Michelle Obama to run for president in 2020.

“I wish @MichelleObama would run for president and end this madness already,” Hogg, who survived last year’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., said on Twitter.

Continue reading “David Hogg calls for Michelle Obama to run in 2020: ‘End this madness’”

AOL

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar clashed on Wednesday with Elliott Abrams, President Donald Trump’s new special envoy to Venezuela, at a heated House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing about the crisis in the South American country.

The freshman congresswoman from Minnesota and Abrams had the testy exchange after she questioned his truthfulness, his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal under President Ronald Reagan and his position on the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador in 1981.   Continue reading “Rep. Ilhan Omar, Trump envoy Elliott Abrams clash at Venezuela hearing”

North Jersey

GLEN ROCK – The school district has done an about-face on its decision to skip an annual American Legion coloring contest over a depiction of guns.

On Tuesday, NorthJersey.com and USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey posted a story that Glen Rock was opting not to participate in the 2019 statewide contest for fourth- and fifth-graders.   Continue reading “Facing backlash, Glen Rock reverses decision not to join American Legion coloring contest”

ABC 7 New York

RICHMOND HILL, Queens (WABC) — An NYPD detective was killed by friendly fire during a robbery in Queens.

The shooting was reported near Atlantic Avenue and 121st Street in the Richmond Hill section around 6 p.m. Tuesday.   Continue reading “19-year veteran NYPD detective shot, killed by friendly fire during robbery in Queens”

Click 2 Houston

BELLVILLE, Texas – Questions are swirling around an officer-involved shooting in Bellville.

One of the major questions from the attorney representing the victim: Why did a Prairie View A&M police officer drive more than 30 miles to a different jurisdiction to serve a warrant?   Continue reading “Questions surround Prairie View A&M officer-involved shooting in Bellville”

Washington Post

Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and husband of former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, announced Tuesday that he is moving forward with a U.S. Senate bid, a move that could create a marquee race next year in Arizona.

Kelly, a Democrat, is challenging Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), who was appointed late last year by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) to the seat long held by former senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), who died last year after a battle with brain cancer.   Continue reading “Former astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of Gabby Giffords, announces Senate bid in Arizona”

AOL

WASHINGTON — Democratic and Republican lawmakers emerged from a series of meetings Monday night and announced they had reached a deal to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year and to avert another government shutdown, according to CNN.

Talks between four lawmakers — two Senators and two members of the House — produced a preliminary agreement, with details to be announced Tuesday.   Continue reading “‘Preliminary agreement’ reached to avert shutdown”

Huffington Post – by Mary Papenfuss

A new study of the intensifying concentration of wealth in the United States reveals that the 400 richest people in the nation — just .00025 percent of the population — own more than the 150 million adults in the bottom 60 percent, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

The information on the richest Americans, in a working paper by University of California at Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman, comes as pressure appears to be mounting among American taxpayers to increase taxes on the country’s ultra wealthy.

Continue reading “400 Richest Americans Own More Than 150 Million Of The Nation’s Poorest: Study”

Dallas News

A West Texas ranch that’s one of the largest in the state has sold to an El Paso oilman.

Paul Foster — CEO of El Paso-based Franklin Mountain Capital — paid $32.5 million for the 37,000-acre KC7 Ranch in the foothills of the Davis Mountains.

The iconic ranch is near Interstate 10 in Reeves and Jeff Davis counties.   Continue reading “El Paso billionaire completes $32.5 million West Texas ranch buy”