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Federal agents raided a Philippines-based church in Los Angeles early Wednesday in a human trafficking investigation that led to arrests of two church leaders in what prosecutors said was a decades-long scheme to trick followers into becoming fundraisers and arrange sham marriages to keep them in the U.S. The local leader of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ church was arrested on immigration fraud charges in the early morning bust along with a worker who confiscated passports of the victims of the scheme, the U.S. attorney’s office said. Fundraisers who managed to escape from the church told the FBI that they...

Wuhan citizen says the symptoms of the virus do not match what authorities are saying. “Imagine being a Wuhan citizen…we can’t get any medical treatments, we can’t even get a diagnosis. We can only sit and wait to die.” Direct link to video… https://twitter.com/EpochTimesChina/status/1222596705465643008

U.S. stocks pulled back after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell offered investors a mixed outlook on the economy, deflating the stock market’s recovery from an early-week selloff. The central bank left interest rates unchanged, which initially kept the stock market steady. Stocks started slipping after Mr. Powell, in his press conference later in the afternoon, said the fast-spreading coronavirus may pose risks to global growth and offered a more tempered outlook on economic growth. “There are grounds for what I would call cautious optimism for the global economy,” said Mr. Powell. ”We are not at all assured of a global...

The Free Software Foundation really set the bar high there Good news everybody! The Free Software Foundation has blown through its self-imposed target of 7,777 signatories in its efforts to persuade Microsoft to make Windows 7 open source.We noted last week the GNU-gang's attempt to coax the born-again open-sourcerer formerly known as "The Beast Of Redmond" into making a surprise deposit into GitHub.The thinking was that since Windows 7 has now come to the end of the road, as far as free security updates are concerned, then perhaps Microsoft might release it as open software?We put it to the Free...

The Supreme Court said Monday it will allow the Trump administration to begin enforcing a controversial new policy making it harder for low-income legal immigrants to obtain green cards or visas. The administration's new, expanded “public charge” rule, which makes it easier for officials to bar immigrants who use, or are deemed likely to use, non-cash government benefits such as Medicaid or food stamps, is one of the most consequential policy changes by the Trump administration to date in its efforts to curtail legal immigration. (Under previous practice, the public charge rule was only applied to immigrants who were considered...

Boston EMS and Massport were called to the airport around 3 p.m. Wednesday for a report of a sick passenger at Terminal E. Boston EMS says the passenger was evaluated on scene and refused to be taken to the hospital. Officials would not give any details about the person’s symptoms. A source told Boston 25 News the person could refuse hospital transport because they did not fit coronavirus criteria. If they did fit the criteria, they would not be able to refuse transport. That criteria is set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

South Lawn 11:11 A.M. EST THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. That’s beautiful music. Such talented musicians, and we appreciate it very much. We have a tremendous — (applause) — we have a tremendous list of people here today. In fact, so long that if I announced every name, we’d be here for about three hours. (Laughter.) And we have to get back to business. Everybody does. Please sit down. Please. But I want to thank everybody for coming — coming to the White House on this very momentous, historic, and joyous occasion. It’s been a long time. Everybody...

The USMCA is the largest, most significant, modern, and balanced trade agreement in history. All of our countries will benefit greatly. President Donald J. Trump DELIVERING ON HIS PROMISE: President Donald J. Trump is replacing the outdated North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Today, President Trump is signing his historic USMCA deal, making good on his promise to deliver fairer and more reciprocal trade for the American people.USMCA will replace the terrible NAFTA agreement that resulted in the loss of millions of American jobs and devastated communities across our county.The deal marks a...

The Massachusetts Democrat also made a promise. “So today, I’m making a pledge: I will not knowingly use or spread disinformation to benefit my own candidacy or damage others. And I will fight disinformation aimed at my campaign, my opponents, and voters,” Warren wrote in a tweet announcing her plan.

The White House told former national security adviser John Bolton that his manuscript included “significant amounts of classified information,” according to a Jan. 23 letter made public on Jan. 29. Bolton has a book scheduled for a March release; parts of the book were leaked to the media, which published some of the details. The letter was sent to Bolton’s lawyer, Charles Cooper, from Ellen Knight, the senior director for records, access, and information security management for the White House National Security Council. “Based on our preliminary review, the manuscript appears to contain significant amounts of classified information. It also...

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, January 28, 2020 Francisco Joseph Arcila Ramirez (Arcila), a Colombian national and South Florida resident was sentenced to 240 months in federal prison today by U.S. District Judge Jose E. Martinez for illegally selling firearms to the National Liberation Army (ELN), a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization and a violent paramilitary group operating in South America.John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, Ariana Fajardo Orshan, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, George L. Piro, Special Agent in Charge, FBI’s Miami Field Office, Diane J. Sabatino, Director,...

Senior Member of European Parliament Guy Verhofstadt has made the extraordinary assessment that the lessons to be learnt from Brexit is for Brussels to push for ‘More Europe’ and to take away even more democracy from nation-states. Speaking ahead of the European Parliament’s vote on the UK-EU withdrawal deal on Wednesday, Mr Verhofstadt rejected the notion that the lesson to be learnt from Brexit is to devolve power back to the nation-state but to give more power to Brussels. The former Belgian prime minister said: “This lesson, dear colleagues, is not to undo the union, as some are arguing. The...

The witness aspect of the impeachment trial for President Trump has been the controversy on Capitol Hill this week, especially after Former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s book preview insinuated he may have relevant information. Democrats, who have historically demonized Bolton, immediately pounced and demanded Bolton testify. Most Republicans have united against a hypothetical Bolton testimony, on account of national security, and dragging the taxpayer funded impeachment charade on longer than necessary. As multiple GOP senators pointed out, the timing of the leak of Bolton’s memo to the New York Times is suspicious, at best.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)...

Most Democratic voters say that billionaire politicians are out of touch with the average American, according to the latest Hill-HarrisX poll released on Wednesday. Sixty-nine percent of Democratic voters in the nationwide survey said that billionaires don’t understand the problems facing the majority of Americans. Another 31 percent of Democrats said they thought billionaire candidates are better equipped to focus on the needs facing the majority of voters across the country.

New numbers from China coming in shortly

China claims virus spread is declining

In this essay, I introduce a slew of neologisms—new words—to capture the tone and substance of much discourse, rhetoric, dysfunction, and bias in academia and psychology. It’s partly inspired by an article entitled ‘Lexicon for Gender Bias in Academia and Medicine’ by Drs Choo and May in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), although that one was coming at this from a different perspective. They argued that “mansplaining” was just the “tip of the iceberg” and so coined terms such as “Himpediment,” defined as a “man who stands in the way of progress of women.” Adminomania: A delusion that increased administrative...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7941211/Flight-carrying-240-Americans-evacuated-Wuhan-diverted-military-airbase.html

A consortium of tech companies wants a $350 million refund on H-1B visa application fees—and it’s willing to sue U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in order to get it. USCIS “has unlawfully charged United States companies approximately $350 million dollars in visa fees (likely more) over the past six years,” reads the lawsuit (PDF), filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “Plaintiffs now seek a refund.” (Hat tip to NFAP for posting the link to the court documents.) In addition to the IT Serve Alliance, which claims it has more than 1,250 tech companies as...

It was clear to Senate Republicans on Wednesday after a morning meeting between Senate Majority Leader (R-Ky.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that the question of having additional witnesses is settled, and the Senate will vote Friday to wrap up the impeachment trial of President Trump.There was no discussion of witnesses at a Senate GOP lunch meeting Wednesday, which was held a couple hours after McConnell and Murkowski met for about 20 to 30 minutes.That was seen as a sign by several senators that Democrats will fail to convince four Republicans to join them in calling for witnesses. Without a...