February, 2019

U.S. Border Patrol agents from the Eagle Pass Station arrested a group of illegal aliens near Eagle Pass, Texas. A Honduran female in the group stated she was kidnapped in Mexico before entering the United States.
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On Feb. 20, at approximately 1 p.m., Eagle Pass Station Border Patrol agents arrested a Honduran woman shortly after she made an illegal entry by crossing the Rio Grande River. During initial processing, the woman claimed to have been kidnapped while in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico and held against her will at a stash house. The woman was told she was to be held captive until her family met the smuggler’s ransom demands. After three days, she was able to escape and eventually travelled to Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, where she made her illegal entry into the United States.

"As you stand before me we presume you're innocent but the state read me a proffer that is outrageous. If true, the noose conjures up [the] greatest evil in this country," Cook County Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke Jr. told Smollett.

The 36-year-old actor said little other than giving his name at the beginning of Thursday's hearing. His attorney, who said the actor denies all charges against him, asked the judge to release Smollett on his own recognizance. However, the judge said that would be inappropriate.

Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi in condemning the Pulwama attack in the “strongest terms” even as India and Saudi Arabia agreed on the need to put pressure on countries that back terror and called on such states to dismantle terrorism infrastructures.

Apart from the specific reference to Pulwama, the joint statement called on “all states to reject the use of terrorism against other countries, dismantle terrorism infrastructures where they happen to exist and to cut off any kind of support and financing to terrorists perpetrating terrorism from all territories against other states”.

A top FBI official admitted to Congressional investigators last year that the agency had contacts within the Trump campaign as part of operation "Crossfire Hurricane," which sounds a lot like FBI "informant" Stefan Halper - a former Oxford University professor who was paid over $1 million by the Obama Department of Defense between 2012 and 2018, with nearly half of it surrounding the 2016 US election.
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Halper's involvement in surveilling the Trump campaign was exposed by the Daily Caller's Chuck Ross, who reported that the 74-year-old spook was enlisted by the FBI to befriend and spy on three members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 US election.

Halper received a DoD contract from the Obama administration for $411,575 - made in two payments, and had a start date of September 26, 2016...

Interesting Comment By ANON:
"This all goes back to ONA (Office of Net Assessment) and the Special Plans committee. Look up Andrew Marshall, aka YODA for more info on what this is about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Marshall_(foreign_policy_strategist)

Who did operation Looking Glass report to ultimately? It's about time."

I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible. It is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current standard. American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind. There is no reason that we should be lagging behind on.........

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 21, 2019

....something that is so obviously the future. I want the United States to win through competition, not by blocking out currently more advanced technologies. We must always be the leader in everything we do, especially when it comes to the very exciting world of technology!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 21, 2019

In a tweet, DeSantis said Tuesday he was formally requesting the president place the Space Force Combatant Command at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.

“This is part of Florida’s history and is a logical fit for our state,” DeSantis tweeted.

The rate of progress is amazing. We can barely keep up!

As governments grapple with the issues raised by the rise of drones, agencies are regularly changing the rules to keep up. This time, it's how registration numbers must be displayed on aircraft. Read on for the details.

Americans For Prosperity, a free-market advocacy group funded in part by the Koch network, has offered to help House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pass legislation that would limit President Trump's ability to unilaterally impose new tariffs.

"[W]e hope to work with your office to advance legislation to require congressional approval of any proposed tariffs," said AFP chief government affairs officer Brent Gardner and Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce executive vice president Nathan Nascimento told Pelosi in a letter sent Friday and made public Wednesday.

“Clearly the 21-year-old me who oversaw the book and that page didn’t understand how offensive the photo was. I wish I had,” Carroll said in a statement. “Today’s 51-year-old me of course understands and is crushed by this mistake. It is horrible, and of course the photo should not have been published.”
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The image was discovered as part of a review of 900 yearbooks at 120 schools across the nation by USA Today and other Gannett-chain newspapers. Reporters collected around 200 examples of racist or offensive material at schools in 25 states, according to the Arizona Republic, where Carroll was editor in chief before heading USA Today.

Washington is concerned with the security risk that the S-400 system radars can pose on NATO defense capabilities, such as F-34 fighter jets. Americans believe that the S-400 radar can spy on Turkish territory exposing sensitive details of the F-35 performance, such as capturing minor patterns of F-35 flights despite its high stealth capability, a Turkish official familiar with the talks told the Hürriyet Daily News on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. is also concerned about the possibility of the Russian system’s radar monitoring on operational activities at İncirlik airbase such as the take-off and landing of aircrafts.

Five MoUs would cover main points of the bilateral dispute. U.S. also seeking to get the yuan included in any deal. However, the main sticking point, according to Bloomberg, technology transfers and protection for US intellectual property have been two of the most contentious topics, with the US accusing China of stealing US R&D from US companies, while forcing firms to hand over their IP to access the Chinese market.

Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett orchestrated a "phony attack" in order to take "advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career."

Johnson said at a news conference Thursday that Smollett also sent a racist and homophobic threatening letter to himself at the Fox studio lot before the attack. He said Smollett was dissatisfied with his salary.

Huawei, a Chinese tech giant increasingly sanctioned in the West, is in talks with the Armenian government to install its controversial “Smart City” technology.

Researchers created the mosquitoes by using the powerful new gene-editing technique known as CRISPR, which Mueller likens to a "molecular scissor which can cut at a specific site in the DNA."

The cut altered a gene known as "doublesex," which is involved in the sexual development of the mosquitoes.

"The females become a bit more male," Mueller says. "A kind of hermaphrodite."

While genetically female, the transformed insects have mouths that resemble male mosquito mouths. That means they can't bite and so can't spread the malaria parasite. In addition, the insects' reproductive organs are deformed, which means they can't lay eggs.

As more and more female mosquitoes inherit two copies of the modification, more and more become sterile.

“Galaxy S10 is built with defense-grade Samsung Knox, as well as a secure storage backed by hardware, which houses your private keys for blockchain-enabled mobile services,” Samsung said.

This will enable users of the device to send and receive cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.