💻 **Teens Are ‘’Eating” Detergent in the Latest, Stupid Social Media Challenge**
<http://archive.is/XbyhC>

Teens are playing a dangerous game these days. In the latest social media fad, teenagers are ridiculously and perilously eating laundry detergent for the “Tide Pod Challenge.” Due to the big safety risks involved in the newest teens’ craze, a government watchdog is stepping in to issue a stern warning about it.

Detergents are made up of highly toxic ingredients in the pods that include ethanol, hydrogen peroxide, and polymers. Manufacturers have always expressed warnings about toddlers mistakenly ingesting them, but strangely teens are deliberately popping them on their mouths for the purpose of posting videos online.

Teenagers have been posting videos showing them chewing and gagging on the small, colorful detergent pods and daring others to follow suit. Some social media users show themselves cooking the pods before eating them.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is getting involved to issue stern warnings about the deadly risk involved in “eating” detergent. Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle says: “This is what started out as a joke on the internet and now it’s just gone too far.”
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:🇸🇦 **Jailed Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Saudi Arabia's richest man, is running out of time to make a deal**
<http://archive.is/5BLuM>
 
Saudi Arabia's richest man is running out of time.

It's been more than two months since Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was first arrested and detained in what the Saudi government still calls an "anti-corruption" sweep. Yet the first sign of things getting more serious came early this week when Alwaleed was moved out of his restricted quarters at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton Hotel and moved to Al Ha'ir prison, according to the London-based Arabic news site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

Al Ha'ir is not exactly the Bastille, but the decision to get Alwaleed to a more secluded and secure location is ominous.

For more than two months, the prince had been held at the Riyadh Ritz along with what had originally been 200 of his fellow princes and top officials. That number has dwindled to just a few prisoners. Most of the former detainees have bought their freedom with payments and other forms of capitulation to the new Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
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🇺🇸 **Convicted Traitor Chelsea Manning Files To Run For U.S. Senate**
<https://archive.is/ltehx>

Convicted leaker Chelsea Manning has declared her intent to run for Senate in Maryland, challenging Democrat Ben Cardin from the Left.

According to The Washington Post, Manning submitted her initial paperwork on Friday, January 11. The conservative, local Maryland blog, "Red Maryland," found Mannings filings on the Federal Election Committee website, where Manning's name is listed as "Chelsea Elizabeth Manning."

Manning filed similar paperwork with the Maryland Secretary of State later on Friday. She has neither an official campaign operation nor any cash on hand, which will make a full-fledged challenge of a sitting Democratic senator — the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, no less — with more than a million dollars in the bank somewhat difficult.
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🇺🇸 **'S---hole' projected onto Trump hotel**
<https://archive.is/XwrQz>

The word “shithole” was projected onto President Trump’s D.C. hotel Saturday. Video shows the word, along with the poop emoji, being projected onto the property.

“Pay Trump bribes here,” “emoluments welcome” and “we are all responsible to stand up and end white supremacy” were also projected onto the building. Trump has faced intense backlash for calling Haiti, El Salvador and African nations “shithole countries” during an Oval Office meeting on immigration this week.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump reportedly said, before suggesting that the U.S. bring in more immigrants from countries like Norway.

The White House initially did not deny that Trump made the remarks, but Trump later disputed the reports on Twitter. Lawmakers, media figures and world leaders have all decried Trump’s comments. The African Union, representing all 55 African countries, demanded Saturday that Trump apologize for the remarks.

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🇸🇦 **Prince Alwaleed Moved To Highest Security Saudi Prison After Refusing To Pay $6 Billion For Freedom: Report**
<https://archive.is/R3WEW>

Goodbye Ritz Carlton. Saudi Arabia's billionaire prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, has been carted off to Al Ha'ir prison, south of Riyadh, after refusing to pay a reported $6 billion to Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to secure his freedom, following a massive consolidation of power on November 4, 2017 in which over 300 princes, ministers and other elites were rounded up in an "anti-corruption" purge.

Sources told the Middle East Montior that nearly 60 detainees were transferred to the most high security prison in the Kingdom. The prisoners include Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal as Prince Turki Bin Abdullah and a number of government officials who refused to make the large financial payments for their release.

Meanwhile, none of Prince Alwaleed's powerful friends appear to be coming to his defense. As CNBC points out:

*One of the most stunning aspects of bin Talal's detention is how quiet his long list of influential friends have been about it. This week brought at least some mention of his plight with a statement from two former French presidents who expressed concern over Alwaleed's status. But let's face it: a few words from a couple of French ex-presidents is peanuts.

So now we have bin Alwaleed in an actual prison, with a government aggressively taking cash and assets, and still no significant outcry from his foreign friends.*
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🇺🇸 **Aryan Nations gang member shot Tennessee officer, captured, police say**
<http://archive.is/AQdAv>

An Aryan Nations gang member suspected of shooting at an officer before fleeing the scene has been captured, Tennessee police said Saturday.

Ronnie Lucas Wilson, 31, who was being sought for attempted murder and had been added to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's top 10 most wanted fugitives, was captured in Blount County in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch told news outlets that a man opened fire on Officer David Williams with a shotgun Thursday night as Williams attempted to stop him for speeding. Rausch identified the suspect as Wilson.

Wilson fired at the officer while in his car, and then got out and continued firing, Rausch said. Williams suffered a wound to his shoulder.
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🇺🇸 **Hawaii False Alarm Hints at Thin Line Between Mishap and Nuclear War**
<http://archive.is/NRZEd>
 
Nuclear experts are warning, using some of their most urgent language since President Trump took office, that Hawaii’s false alarm, in which state agenciesalerted locals to a nonexistent missile attack, underscores a growing risk of unintended nuclear war with North Korea.

To understand the connection, which might not be obvious, you need to go back to the tragedy of Korean Air Lines Flight 007.

In 1983, a Korean airliner bound from Anchorage to Seoul, South Korea, strayed into Soviet airspace. Air defense officers, mistaking it for an American spy plane that had been loitering nearby, tried to establish contact. They fired warning shots. When no response came, they shot it down, killing all 269 people on board.

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<:perfect:348458410783539211> **No Cryptocurrency Trading Ban, South Korea Government Confirms**
<http://archive.is/iwCnd>
 
On January 15, in a public press conference, South Korea President Moon Jae-in’s executive office Blue House spokesperson Jeong Ki-joon, emphasized that there will be no cryptocurrency trading ban in the near future.

In an official announcement, spokesperson Jeong noted that the cryptocurrency regulation task force created by the government will improve and alter the original proposal by the Justice Ministry to ban cryptocurrency trading and introduce practical regulations to foster the cryptocurrency market. 

The statement of spokesperson Jeong, translated at CCN, read:

“First, the South Korean government will pursue the crackdown on anonymous cryptocurrency trading accounts and will punish market manipulation, money laundering, and fraudulent transactions through joint investigations participated by the local law enforcement and financial authorities.

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🇩🇪 **Europe 'dismembering itself' by not supporting 'continuity of its people' – chair of German Left**
<https://archive.is/dY1eb>

Europe is "dismembering itself" by not supporting the "continuity of its people," a chairperson of Germany's left-wing populist party Die Linke said, adding that its politics are leading to "nationalistic aspirations.” Speaking at the party’s conference on Sunday, Sahra Wagenknecht criticized the politics supported by Chancellor Angela Merkel, Social Democrat (SPD) leader Martin Schulz, and French President Emmanuel Macron.

She stated that while €323 billion ($396.6 billion) is going to "stockholders in individual European countries," the continent is facing multiple social crises. "We have a situation where poverty in Europe is at an all-time high, where so many young people are facing a life that offers them no chances..."

Such situations show that "this Europe is not a Europe that supports the continuity of its people.” Instead, it is a Europe “that is dismembering itself. That there's nationalistic aspirations and tendencies in so many countries, that's a result of these politics," Wagenknecht said in footage published by Ruptly.

Founded in 2007, Germany's Die Linke (also known as the Left Party) was born following the merger of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Electoral Alternative for Labor and Social Justice (WASG). It is the most left-wing party of those represented in the Bundestag.
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<:jew:351904133470617610> **Trump to cut millions from UN agency for Palestinian refugees – officials**
<https://archive.fo/y5tj2>

The Trump administration is preparing to withhold tens of millions of dollars from the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, cutting the year’s first contribution by more than half or perhaps entirely and making additional donations contingent on major changes to the organization, US officials said.

Donald Trump has not made a final decision but appears more likely to send only $60m of a planned $125m first installment to the UN Relief and Works Agency, said the officials, who were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

Future contributions would require the agency, which faces heavy criticism from Israel, to demonstrate significant changes in operations, the officials said, adding that one suggestion under consideration would require the Palestinians to re-enter peace talks with Israel.

The US donated $355m in 2016 and was set to make a similar contribution this year. But after a highly critical 2 January tweet from Trump on aid to the Palestinians, the state department opted to wait for a formal policy decision before sending any of the first $125m.
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🇺🇸 **NAACP Says MLK’s Vision Can’t Be Achieved Without Fighting Global Warming**
<https://archive.is/nFI8B>

This Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the NAACP wants man-made global warming to be seen as a civil rights issue, arguing King’s vision of a society free of racial injustice can’t be achieved without addressing warming.

“We see climate change as a civil rights issue,” Jacqueline Patterson, head of the NAACP’s environmental and climate justice program, said in an online radio spot for the Yale Center for Environmental Connection.

Environmental activists have been increasingly framing global warming as a matter of “environmental justice,” since “minority and low-income populations are disproportionately affected by global warming,” Patterson told Yale’s online radio Climate Connections.

Traditionally, such concerns focused on traditional pollutants from factories or vehicles, but the NAACP is expanding it to carbon dioxide, which scientists blame for warming the Earth in recent decades.
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🇦🇫 **President Trump Awarded Medal Of Bravery By Afghan Elders**
<https://archive.is/yjANG>

"A community gathering in Afghanistan’s Logar Province has awarded U.S. President Donald Trump a 'bravery' medal, thanking him for his tough stance against Pakistan," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

On January 4, Trump announced that the U.S. would withhold up to $2 billion in security aid for Pakistan to punish the country for harboring terrorists. While the Pakistani government angrily denied the accusation, the country did, in fact, allow Osama bin Laden to hide there until he was taken out by Seal Team 6 in a daring operation in May 2011.

“This is a handmade medal from available gold,” Akbari said. He said the handwritten message on the award states: “This Bravery Medal is from the Afghan people to Donald Trump, president of the United States of America.”

Akbari said the cost of the medal was about 45,000 afghanis ($645), considered a large sum for many in the region, about 60 kilometers outside of the capital, Kabul. He said those supporting the award paid from their own funds and that he personally presented the medal to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on January 13.
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🇺🇸 **The president's vital signs**
<https://archive.fo/aeJAA>

The White House briefing began with a readout of President Trump's vitals from Dr. Ronny Jackson, who conducted the routine physical examination. "The president's overall health is excellent," Jackson said.

The bottom line: After the examination, Trump's doctor is confident that the president will complete his term in the Oval Office "with no serious medical issues." How is Trump healthy despite his diet and lack of exercise? "He has incredibly good genes. It's just the way God made him."

Trump requested a cognitive exam during the session. Trump scored 30/30 on a test of his cognitive ability — "The Montreal Cognitive Assessment" which screened for Alzheimer's and dementia, among other illnesses. "I have no concerns about his cognitive ability," Jackson said.

Trump is 6'3" and weighs 239 pounds. Jackson added that he discussed a diet plan with the president that would include a smaller amount of carbohydrates and fats. A reasonable goal is for Trump to lose 10–15 pounds in the next year, he said. "The president has acknowledged that he'd be healthier if he lost a few pounds."
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🇺🇸 **DHS preparing to arrest leaders of sanctuary cities**
<http://archive.is/fP37H>
 
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen confirmed Tuesday that her department has asked federal prosecutors to see if they can lodge criminal charges against sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with federal deportation efforts.

“The Department of Justice is reviewing what avenues may be available,” Ms. Nielsen told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Her confirmation came after California’s new sanctuary law went into effect Jan. 1, severely restricting cooperation the state or any of its localities could offer.

SEE ALSO: Trump can’t extend March 5 DACA deadline: DHS chief

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan says those policies put his officers and local communities at more risk because they have to arrest illegal immigrants out in the community.

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🇺🇸 **New California declares 'independence' from California in bid to become 51st state**
<http://archive.is/sTYWb>
 
The founders of New California took an early step toward statehood Monday with the reading of their own Declaration of Independence from California, a state they describe as "ungovernable."

Their solution: Take over most of current-day California — including many rural counties — and leave the coastal urban areas to themselves.

"The current state of California has become governed by a tyranny," the group, led in part by vice chairman Robert Paul Preston, declared in a document published online.

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🇺🇸 **Ex-CIA officer arrested for trying to pass classified information to China**
<https://archive.is/GnjpJ>

US authorities have arrested a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer accused of disclosing top secret information to China. The man could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Jerry Chun Shing Lee was detained Monday night after landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport. On Tuesday, the former CIA employee was "charged with unlawful retention of national defense information" by the Eastern District Court of New York. The judge ordered that Lee be held without bail.

US federal authorities accuse Lee of violating the terms of his top secret clearance and conditions of non-disclosure agreements he had signed with the agency he worked for from 1994 to 2007. Lee's disclosures reportedly led to a crackdown on the CIA's informants in China starting in 2010, the New York Times reported citing several former intelligence officials. The 53-year-old was at the center of a mole hunt for years.
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🇩🇪 **German far-right ‘Reich Citizens’ planning own army, preparing for 'Day X' – reports**
<https://archive.is/DMXvX>

Germany’s far-right Reichsbuerger movement has grown to almost 16,000 members, while some of them are eying their own armed wing and are preparing for 'Day X', Focus magazine reports, citing intelligence sources. The stunning revelation came into the spotlight earlier this week after Germany’s Focus magazine published a report citing an assessment of the domestic intelligence agency, the BfV.

The extremist movement is reportedly nurturing plans to set up an armed wing and stage violent acts, Focus reported. “They have begun preparing themselves for Day X,” an unnamed security official told the magazine, allegedly referring to a day of reckoning or uprising against the government.

Many members of the group are considered to be on the extreme right. They maintain that the old German Reich – which ceased to exist in 1945 after the capitulation of Nazi Germany – should be restored in its pre-1937 borders, which included large swathes of land in Poland, Czech Republic and other neighboring countries.

In the past, members of the Reichsbuerger movement were often perceived as eccentric conspiracy theorists, but a string of attacks on police prompted the German government to take aim at the extremists.
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🇺🇸 **Illegal Who Killed Cops Wishes He “Killed More Of The Motherf\*\*kers”**
<https://archive.is/c3q9I>

“I will break out soon and I will kill more, kill whoever gets in front of me … There’s no need for a fu\*\*ing trial,” Bracamontes shouted with a smile.

Judge Steve White retorted, “Be silent!” but Luis kept barking, “I killed the f\*\*\*ing cops. They’re f\*\*\*ing dead. I don’t f\*\*\*ing regret that.” After the outburst, White decided to remove the jury and warn Bracamontes not to interrupt again under threat of removal.

The illegal immigrant faces the death penalty for killing two California sheriff’s deputies in 2014 and has admitted guilt in multiple court hearings. Bracamontes illegally entered the United States from Mexico and has been deported multiple times. The trial gained national attention due to the current immigration debate and California’s recent “sanctuary state” declaration.
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<:trump:284711336934375425> **Border Patrol agents 'are repeatedly destroying or vandalizing food and water left for migrants in the Arizona desert by humanitarian aid groups'**
<https://archive.fo/0vmgC>

U.S. Border Patrol has been accused of causing the deaths of hundreds of migrants a year by destroying food and water supplies left for them in the brutal Arizona desert by humanitarian groups.

On Wednesday, two humanitarian groups released a report, detailing how they've distributed more than 31,000 gallons of water along dangerous migrant paths in the Arizona desert between 2012 and 2015.

In that time frame, they say volunteers have found these stashes of food and water destroyed 415 times - or about two times a week on average.

The report says that wild animals, hunters, hikers and vigilante groups are also to blame for destroying these water and food supplies, but that they found that in most cases the Border Patrol was responsible.
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🇺🇸 <:autism:292463076278665236> **Utah man who runs popular YouTube science channel is charged with possessing explosives during backyard experiments**
<http://archive.is/u8EhQ>
 
The man behind the popular science-focused YouTube channel King of Randomhas been charged with two counts of second-degree felony possession of an explosive device for allegedly conducting incendiary experiments in his backyard.

Jonathan Grant Thompson, of South Jordan, was charged Tuesday for two separate events involving an explosive. He was not arrested.

An initial court appearance has been set for Feb. 21 in West Jordan’s 3rd District Court, according to the court docket, which says a summons will be issued.

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🇺🇸 **California AG: Employers who Cooperate With Federal Immigration Raids Will be Prosecuted**
<https://archive.fo/18Bdo>

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D-CA) said during a press conference Thursday that employers in California who cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in their rumored upcoming immigration raids would be prosecuted if they cooperate in a manner that violates California law.

Becerra held the press conference following reports that ICE officials are “preparing for a major sweep in San Francisco and other Northern California cities.”

The law Becerra is referring to, AB 450, is a complicated law that “puts employers in a difficult situation of having to comply with federal immigration law obligations on one hand and state law requirements on the other.”

Under AB 450, employers are prohibited from “providing voluntary consent to an immigration enforcement agent to enter nonpublic areas of a place of labor unless the agent provides a judicial warrant, except as specified.”

California employers who violate the law face fines ranging from “$2,000 up to $5,000 for a first violation and $5,000 up to $10,000 for each subsequent violation.”
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🇺🇸 **There are 3.6M 'DREAMers' — a number far greater than commonly known**
<https://archive.fo/tywzM>

The political debate over the fate of "DREAMers" — undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children — has overlooked just how many there are in the country today: about 3.6 million.

That number of people whose lives risk being uprooted is not widely known, in large part because so much public attention has been focused recently on 800,000 mostly young DREAMers accepted into the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The 3.6 million estimate of undocumented immigrants brought to U.S. before their 18th birthday comes from the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit think tank that studies global immigration patterns. That is roughly a third of all undocumented immigrants in the country and does not include millions of their immediate family members who are U.S. citizens.
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🇺🇸 **Pelosi: ‘God Bless’ the Dreamers ‘And Their Parents for Bringing Them Here’**
<https://archive.fo/3Cs54>

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said Wednesday that she is grateful for the parents of Dreamers who brought their children to the U.S.

"The CBS poll out this morning shows overwhelming support for DACA, but then on the question of whether or not it's worth risking shutting down the government, it was very evenly split," an off-camera reporter said to Pelosi. "What happens if there's a shutdown and there is no real one side wins?"

"Well, it's not a shutdown over DACA. How many more times do I have to say?" Pelosi responded, sounding somewhat annoyed. "We have issues in terms of the funding."

"As I said," Pelosi continued, "if there had never been one DACA, one Dreamer—thank God that there are; God bless them and their parents for bringing them here—but if there had never been one Dreamer, we'd still have issues."
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<:trump:284711336934375425> **Al-Qaeda Bomb Instructions are a Free Download at Barnes & Noble**
<https://archive.fo/ZpYmJ>

Key propaganda texts from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are posted for free download on the Barnes & Noble website, including the inaugural issue of a magazine linked to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

Reviews posted on the e-books indicate that they've remained on the bookseller's website for years, despite clearly indicating in the titles that al-Qaeda materials are being offered.

There are two listings for "Al-Malahem Media Foundation presents A Special Gift to the Islamic Nation The first Magazine issued by al-Qaida in the English language." That refers to the 2010 debut of AQAP's English-language Inspire magazine; the site notes that the free Nook book is "digitized from 2010 volume."

The first issue of Inspire includes the infamous "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" article from "The AQ Chef" that sparked the trend of publishing detailed, open-source instructions to jihadists on constructing explosive devices. "We are conveying to you our military training right into your kitchen to relieve you of the difficulty of traveling to us," states the article. "...In one or two days the bomb could be ready to kill at least ten people. In a month you may make a bigger and more lethal bomb that could kill tens of people."
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<:swattie:348458410288873474> **Campus police create witch-hunt after man posts 'It's OK to be white' fliers on campus**
<https://archive.fo/u2oss>

Campus police are circulating pictures of an unidentified man who placed “It’s OK to be white” flyers around Florida Gulf Coast University.

Even though the flyers are not against the law, campus police say they removed them from academic buildings because the “method of posting” was against university policy.

“If identified and the person is affiliated with FGCU, the case will be turned over to the proper office for conduct review,” states an email from campus police to FGCU faculty, staff, and students.

This is not the first time “It’s OK to be white” flyers have appeared at FGCU. Similar flyers were hung up and then torn down back in November.

FGCU has received national attention in recent months due to a course titled “White Racism,” which is being taught this spring. University police had to attend the first class meeting of the controversial course due to threats sent to the professor.
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Update: Perp found <https://archive.fo/riXhF> *Griffin Baker-Royo, of Miami, a junior studying marketing, was not arrested, but he may be disciplined by FGCU if it's determined that he violated a school rule.*

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🇺🇸 **Florida State hosts communist Angela Davis for MLK Week**
<https://archive.fo/2pyOE>

Florida State University hosted communist leader Angela Davis last night to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Week.

Davis, who was once on the FBI’s “Most Wanted List” and holds a strong allegiance to the Communist Party USA, was invited by the FSU Student Government Association as a part of their Golden Tribe Lecture Series.

“The Golden Tribe Lecture Series is an academically focused speaker series, which attempts to connect students to outstanding individuals who are either experts in their field or working at the forefront of a relevant political or social issue,” according to its website. The mission of the series is to “engage students in issues and dialogue that will positively benefit their overall academic, scholastic, or humanitarian experience.”

The event was funded by Activity & Service fees — a $12.86 fee collected from each undergraduate student — which is built into the final cost of student tuition. Davis’ average speaking fee is between $20,000 and $30,000 and the university is publicly funded.

Davis was a well-known member of the Communist Party USA and an associate of the Black Panthers during the '60s and '70s. She was an assistant professor at UCLA until she was dismissed due to her ties with the Communist Party. Davis has not backed away from her commitment to communism. As recently as 2016, she declared her allegiance to the Communist Party.
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<:trump:284711336934375425> **Trump to ban Haitian immigrants after alleged ‘shithole’ slur**
<https://archive.fo/hCfnf>

The Trump administration will ban immigrants from Haiti — which the president included in his “s–thole countries” remark —​ from applying for ​temporary ​visas given to low-skilled workers, the Department of Homeland Security​ said.

The department said it would remove Haiti, Belize and Samoa from a list of more than 80 countries whose residents are eligible for H-2A and H-2B visas, which usually are granted for seasonal workers in agriculture and other industries.

DHS cited “high levels of fraud and abuse” by Haitians and their “high rate of overstaying the terms” of their visas in its decision, announced late Wednesday.

​Haitians in the United States on a number of non-immigrant visas​, including those cited by DHS, had an overstay rate of 39 percent in 2016, the department said.

“Haiti has shown no improvement in these areas, and the Secretary of Homeland Security has determined, with the concurrence of the Secretary of State, that Haiti’s inclusion on the 2018 H-2A and H-2B lists is no longer in the U.S. interest,” DHS said
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🇬🇧 **'The screws have lost control': UK inmates spend all day on phones, drugs & Facebook**
<https://archive.is/Vsekf>

Prisoners are running riot in UK jails in an embarrassing – and very public – blow for the government. RT UK found footage on social media of inmates taking drugs and fighting.

Despite Downing Street’s “best efforts,” the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) seem entirely unable to stop lags (prisoners) sneaking phones and contraband into prisons, with many ordering deliveries of drugs on drones direct to their door – or cell.

Easily-accessed groups on social media channels are openly sharing videos posted from behind bars. Footage shows prisoners playing pranks, taking selfies, fighting, smoking drugs and standing out in the open – filming fellow inmates. Some pages even run competitions for the “best prison selfie.”
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🇺🇸 **"No Deal" - Government Shutdown Begins**
<https://archive.is/oHZvE>

“No deal,” Cornyn said as the Senate prepared to take up a House-passed funding bill that Democrats have the votes to block.

A group of lawmakers has been working on a plan for a three-week funding bill that would give Democrats and Republicans time to negotiate a long-term compromise on immigration, the chief sticking point in the spending fight.

CNN's Phil Mattingly explained on air: "Democrats aren't looking for a reduction in time in the continuing resolution, they're looking for substantive policy, commitments, changes or actual legislative text before they are willing to come on board with that."

This is what America will wake up to...

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🇵🇰 **London: Muslim Enclave Votes to ‘Ban Trump’**
<https://archive.fo/JgcAX>

A London borough – which has the highest percentage of Muslims in the UK – has voted to ban U.S. President Donald J. Trump for the area, declaring him a “bigot”.

The council has been at the centre of serious corruption scandals, including the removal of an Islamist mayor who was found guilty of bribing Muslim groups and wielding “undue spiritual influence” on Muslim voters.

The anti-Trump motion, proposed by Councillor Ohid Ahmed and Councillor Oliur Rahman, passed by a majority vote this week.

It calls for President Trump’s planned state visit to the United Kingdom to be cancelled, adding: “Should the Government still choose to go ahead with State Visit, this Council makes clear that President Trump would not be welcome in our Borough.”

It also bemoans that he has allegedly “bigoted attitude towards women, ethnic minorities and Muslims which has resulted in examples of division and hatred within the USA and beyond” and attacks his “illogical” decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
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🇫🇷 **French Leftists Complain Their Children Cannot Succeed in ‘Diverse’ Paris District Schools**
<https://archive.is/wCQ2o>

For many years, leftist couples have moved from the expensive centre of Paris to the heavily-migrant populated district, and now that they have children they have found the “mixed” schools in the areas to be substandard.

Indeed, schools in the area have become known as “ghetto schools” and many French now attempt to move their children elsewhere, French newspaper Liberation reports. The paper, which conducted an investigation into the issue, claims that leftist parents do not want to “sacrifice” their child to their beliefs and many parents are putting the success of their children above their multicultural ideals.

Julien Grenet, a teacher at the Paris School of Economics, said: “You cannot blame them for saying no. What is shocking is that some parents, very intellectually armed, are blind and deny segregation with false arguments.”

Grenet said that the segregation of schools along cultural and ethnic lines is unlikely to change. “We have reached such a gap between some schools, it is difficult to go back and reintroduce the mixture,” he said.
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🇺🇸 **Pro-Life Leader Says Trump Is Reversing Abortion Policy**
<https://archive.is/DsvMa>

Tony Perkins, the pro-life leader who heads the Family Research Council, says there has never been a “better political climate” to roll-back abortion. Speaking to The Daily Caller Friday after the annual March for Life, Perkins noted, “The sun was shining today and we’ve never had better weather for the March for Life; but we’ve also never enjoyed a better political climate to promote pro-life polices.”

The reason for the favorable political environment is President Donald Trump, says Perkins. Trump addressed the march via satellite, and on Friday a White House news release entitled “President Donald J. Trump is Standing Up for the Sanctity of Life” explained how the current administration is working to restrict abortion services.

Perkins says the Trump presidency has been the most effective pro-life administration since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision made abortion legal in the U.S. “Under previous pro-life presidents, we’ve seen abortion legislation stopped or slowed down; we’ve rarely seen it reversed.”
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=====

__Acrimony deepens after government shutdown's first day__
*http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/20/politics/government-shutdown-daca-deal-developments/index.html*
*CNN)Day one of the government shutdown ended with recriminations between the parties deepening and no sign of progress towards ending the impasse.

The White House, Republican and Democratic leaders spent most of Saturday apportioning blame and flexing partisan muscles after the Democrats blocked a Senate bill to fund the government and the federal machine ran dry on cash at midnight on Friday.
While both the House and Senate were in session Saturday, there was little sign of an opening, as leaders who will eventually have to talk to one another to resolve the showdown stayed in their corners.
"Everyone's dug in. No movement at all from either side," said a Democratic aide.
President Donald Trump had been hoping to be the star of the show at a glitzy fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida Saturday celebrating the anniversary of his inauguration. But he was forced to stay in Washington.*

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🇫🇷 **Macron admits France would vote to LEAVE EU if country held referendum**
<https://archive.is/gmaLk>

Emmanuel Macron has sent shockwaves throughout Europe after he conceded that French voters would quit the EU if France held an in/out referendum on the Brussels-led bloc. No other European Union country has risked putting membership of the bloc to a public vote since Britain surprised member-states by voting to leave the bloc in 2016,

Asked about the Brexit vote, the candid president told Marr: "I am not the one to judge or comment on the decision of your people. "But, my interpretation is that a lot of the losers of globalisation suddenly decided it was no more for them."

Marr then pushed the French president, regarded by many as the EU's new leader, on whether Britain's decision was a one-off. The BBC journalist asked: "If France had had the same referendum, it might have had the same result?" Macron responded: "Yes, probably, probably. Yes. In a similar context. But we have a very different context in France."
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🇬🇧 **Oxford University extends time for maths and computer science exams in bid to help women get better grades**
<https://archive.is/k9GR3>

Oxford University has extended time for maths and computer science exams in a bid to help women get better grades. Undergraduates were given 105 minutes to complete their papers, rather 90. There was no change in difficulty or the length of questions and female students were said to do better as a result.

Dons trialed the changes to allow women to achieve higher results, with just seven female maths finalists achieving firsts last year compared with 45 men. The proposals were put forward to reduce the 'undue effects of time pressure' which the prestigious university believe effects women more than men, reports the Sunday Times.

A document obtained by the Times, under Freedom of Information laws, showed that faculty at the university believed the changes could: 'mitigate the... gender gap that has arisen in recent years, and in any case the exam should be a demonstration of mathematical understanding and not a time trial.'
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🇺🇸 **California Democrats want businesses to give half their tax-cut savings to state**
<https://archive.is/Z9nEi>

California lawmakers are targeting the expected windfall that companies in the state would see under the federal tax overhaul with a bill that would require businesses to turn over half to the state.

A proposed Assembly Constitutional Amendment by Assemblymen Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, and Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, would create a tax surcharge on California companies making more than $1 million so that half of their federal tax cut would instead go to programs that benefit low-income and middle-class families.

“Trump’s tax reform plan was nothing more than a middle-class tax increase,” Ting said in a statement. “It is unconscionable to force working families to pay the price for tax breaks and loopholes benefiting corporations and wealthy individuals. This bill will help blunt the impact of the federal tax plan on everyday Californians by protecting funding for education, affordable health care, and other core priorities.”
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🇺🇸 **California to register illegal aliens to vote – automatically**
<https://archive.fo/xd6km>

California will take the next step in blurring the lines between citizens and non-citizens beginning April Fool’s Day when the state complies with a court order to begin automatically registering to vote all those who are granted driver’s licenses.

The state has long provided driver’s licenses to all who simply claimed, without proof, that they were citizens of in the country legally. There were no checks made or documentation required.

But beginning April 1 every person who gets a California driver’s license will be automatically entitled to vote.

“We are very pleased that Californians will have easier access to voter registration,” said Jeremiah Levine, an attorney with Morrison Foerster who represented the voting-rights groups. “We are especially satisfied that changes will be made before California’s statewide and federal primary elections.”

The League of Women Voters and three other groups sued the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles and Secretary of State’s Office in May 2017, claiming the state burdens would-be voters by making them fill out the same information on two separate forms to register to vote.
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