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A senior NASA scientist pleaded guilty on Jan. 13 to lying about his ties to a Chinese-backed program designed to harvest talents from the West and transfer intellectual property to China, the Justice Department announced. Meyya Meyyappan, 66, joined NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) in 1996 and has been the chief scientist for exploration technology at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley since 2006. He was charged with one count of making false statements and could face a maximum five-year prison sentence and up to $250,000 fine if convicted, according to a Justice Department press release. The...

Next week, the Ames, Iowa public school district is sponsoring a “Black Lives Matter week of action” that includes teaching transgenderism to children as young as four years old, Young America’s Foundation reports. On the school district’s webpage about this “week of action” slated for Feb. 1-5, it reprints the “Black Lives Matter at School Guiding Principles,” which include the following:6. Queer Affirming – We are committed to fostering a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking or, rather, the belief that all in the world...

On this date in 1987, a once-promising American intelligence asset was executed with a single gunshot to the head in Moscow — his treachery exposed by two of the most infamous Soviet moles in U.S. intelligence history. A Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB posted to the Soviets’ official Washington, D.C. offices in 1980, Martynov had turned in 1982 and begun funneling intelligence to the CIA and FBI under the cryptonym “Gentile”. Truth be told, he was a mediocre source, but he was a younger officer with the chance to grow into a more important asset in the years ahead. Fate...

An employee of the biotech company at the center of the COVID-19 outbreak in Massachusetts is being criminally investigated after she defied the president’s travel ban and went to China. Of the 328 confirmed cases of the disease in Massachusetts, 30 percent of them are linked back to Cambridge-based Biogen after several employees at a conference held by the company at the Marriott Long Wharf tested positive for the virus and traveled across the country, further spreading the disease. Belmont native Jie Li is being accused of knowing she was sick and of taking medication to bring down her fever...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) turned down repeated requests from Bernie SandersÂ’ presidential campaign to appear at events promoting the Vermont senatorÂ’s candidacy in recent weeks, according to three people familiar with the discussions. After the Iowa caucuses, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir asked Ocasio-Cortez to stump for Sanders in New Hampshire, according to the sources. The campaign prepared a model schedule to highlight the kind of popular support she would expect if she attended, one of the people familiar with the talks said. Ocasio-Cortez resisted the entreaties until a few days before the primary on Feb. 12. She ultimately spoke...

Which led to this question from Twitchy favorite James Woods: “Did you step in human feces outside your office this morning and slip and hit your head?”: James Woods ✔ @RealJamesWoods Did you step in human feces outside your office this morning and slip and hit your head? What you #Democrats have done to once-beautiful California is a crime against humanity. https://twitter.com/gavinnewsom/status/1226932938882854913 …

Donald Trump said Saturday that "I am not sure that I have" ever asked God for forgiveness, telling the 2015 Iowa Family Leadership Summit that "I just go on and try to do a better job from there. "I don't think so," Trump, who is Presbyterian, said in response to the question from pollster and summit host Frank Luntz. Trump was among 10 Republican presidential candidates at the daylong event in Ames, Iowa.

Bernie Sanders insists he feels better than ever less than a month after heart surgery, but his return to the campaign trail this week sparked new questions about the unusually old age of the Democratic Party’s leading 2020 presidential candidates. Both Sanders, 78, and Joe Biden, 76, suggest their age isn’t a major issue, but voters, particularly older voters, aren’t so sure. Gordon Lundberg, a 71-year-old retired Lutheran pastor from Ames, said candidates’ health is a key issue for him because he understands how it feels to age. He’s leaning toward Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts because, even though she’s...

One of the largest and most expensive road construction projects in Iowa is being delayed because of a big mistake. A flyover bridge is being built to serve as a new exit ramp to U.S. Highway 30 for motorists heading northbound on Interstate 35 at Ames. Iowa Department of Transportation engineer Scott Dockstader says the contractor, Minnesota-based Minnowa Construction, messed up. “The bridge is being built right now and we have piers in the middle. Our contractor that’s constructing the bridge made a few mistakes with the elevation of the piers and more importantly, the anchor bolts that go into...

Plamegate: 25 Lingering QuestionsBy Fedora (The first four questions and answers below were previously posted as Was Plame Covert? A Review of Isikoff and Corn's Hubris.) I recently finished reviewing Michael Isikoff and David Corn’s Hubris (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006) to see what it adds to the current state of knowledge in the Plamegate investigation. Here I will present my findings in the form of a list of questions and answers focusing on loose ends and other points of interest in the case. I will list the questions first so that individual readers may more easily scroll down to...

Was Angleton Right? WALL STREET JOURNAL December 30, 2004 by Edward Jay Epstein Recently a number of former CIA officers received an invitation from the Spy Museum in Washington to attend a luncheon for former KGB Col. Victor Cherkashin. The event, as the invitation said, would afford "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dine and dish with an extraordinary spymaster." In the heyday of the Cold War, such an offer, delivered with slightly more discretion, might have been the prelude to a KGB recruitment operation. Now it's merely the notice for a book party celebrating yet another memoir by a former KGB...

AMES, Iowa -- Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss - star of Jaws and Mr. Holland's Opus - was on hand, somewhat inexplicably. He quietly nabbed a reserved front-row seat as Cruz made his own entrance...

At a rally in Iowa this week, Donald J. Trump explained in bold terms and broad brush strokes the many ways he would improve the United States as president: building a wall, rebuilding the military, beating China on trade. When a protester chimed in to question how the Republican would do the things that he promised, Mr. Trump decided that instead of removing the man from the audience, he would respond. "You watch," the billionaire developer said flatly. His supporters cheered. Mr. Trump has regained momentum in Iowa two weeks before the state's caucuses, and many voters cite his bravado...

GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) appeared to walk back his campaign spokesman’s earlier comments about Gov. Sarah Palin’s expected endorsement of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump in Ames, Iowa on Tuesday evening.

Today on CNN's State of the Nation, Jake Tapper revisited an old question with Donald Trump. He asked him about his faith and specifically about if he had ever asked forgiveness. By my count this is the third time that Trump has been asked the question. At he Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, back in June: Trump, who told CNN earlier that he is both anti-abortion and anti-same-sex marriage, said people are surprised to learn about his Christian faith. "People are so shocked when they find ... out I am Protestant. I am Presbyterian. And I go to church...

Join me on Tuesday, January 19th at the Iowa State University Hansen Agricultural Student Learning Center in Ames, Iowa! I will have a major announcement and a very special guest in attendance. You will not want to miss this rally!

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Saturday said the leaders of Planned Parenthood should be prosecuted after the release of a video this week showing an executive discussing the donation of fetal organs. "Every American should watch that video and say, ‘Are those my values?’ ” the 2016 presidential candidate said at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa. "On tape, it appears a Planned Parenthood official is admitting to multiple felonies," he continued. "The U.S. Department of Justice, if it was not simply a partisan arm of the DNC, should open an investigation and prosecute Planned Parenthood. Congress should hold...

The Republican Party of Iowa has gotten bids from four different sites in central Iowa competing to be the host of the Iowa GOP’s Straw Poll this summer. Jeff Kaufmann, the Iowa GOP’s chairman, says the second Saturday in August is the likely date for the event. “That’s one part of the tradition we’d like to keep in terms of having it in August, so August 8 is still our target date,” Kaufmann told Radio Iowa today. “…I can’t say absolutely that if there was once heck of a deal and a great site and they absolutely couldn’t do it...

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad has said it many times recently. But each time he says it, he likely makes it more apparent the Republican Party of Iowa has held its final Straw Poll. “We’ve had discussions,” Branstad said Monday morning of his talks with top party leaders about what could replace the straw poll in 2015. Branstad several times said it will be up to his party’s state central committee to make the final decision on whether to end the straw poll, a much-watched event his party has held since 1979. The party holds the straw poll in August in...

Tim Pawlenty, whose poll numbers have been stagnant in Iowa, has reserved roughly $200,000 of television advertising time in the state, the largest purchase yet by anyone in a 2012 presidential race that’s much more frugal with advertising dollars than four years ago. The ad buy represents a substantial wager for the former Minnesota governor, who reported Friday that he had $1.4 million to spend on the 2012 primary campaign at the end of June. Despite more than a year and a half of networking in his neighboring state of Iowa, polls show support for Pawlenty in the single digits....