AP Obama can always be counted on to lie by omission.
Storm dumps heaviest rain ever recorded in desert nation of UAE, flooding roads and Dubai’s airport
One couple, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to speak freely in a country with strict laws that criminalize critical speech, called the situation at the airport “absolute carnage.”
But Bloomberg makes it the lede.
Dubai Grinds to Standstill as Cloud Seeding Worsens Flooding
Paragraph two:
The heavy rains that caused widespread flooding across the desert nation came after cloud seeding. The UAE has been carrying out seeding operations since 2002 to address water security issues, even though the lack of drainage in many areas can trigger flooding.
Arkansas airport executive shot during attempted search warrant, police say
Totally normal.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history who maintained his power in the face of dramatic convulsions in the Republican Party for almost two decades, will step down from that position in November. ...
McConnell’s path to power was hardly linear, but from the day he walked onto the Senate floor in 1985 and took his seat as the most junior Republican senator, he set his sights on being the party leader. What set him apart was that so many other Senate leaders wanted to run for president. McConnell wanted to run the Senate. He lost races for lower party positions before steadily ascending, and finally became party leader in 2006 and has won nine straight elections.
More.
Mitch was 64 when he took over in 2006.
Senator John Thune, 63, is a favorite to succeed him.
Not even the New York attorney general, who filed the lawsuit against Trump, had asked for a “dissolution.”
An Associated Press investigation confirmed how unusual such a punishment would have been if carried out: Trump’s case would have been the only big business in nearly 70 years of similar cases shut down without a showing of obvious victims who suffered major financial losses. The main alleged victim of the real estate mogul’s fraud, Deutsche Bank, had itself not complained it had suffered any losses.
More.
There is an old saying in law, that bad cases make bad law.
This case is an example of such.
Pope says priests can bless same-sex unions...
Meanwhile, newly couples of weds meet with Pope without exhaustive moral analysis.
From the story here:
WeWork has struggled in a commercial real estate market that has been rocked by the rising cost of borrowing money, as well as a shifting dynamic for millions of office workers now checking into their offices remotely.
Differences over what’s happening in Israel and Gaza were laid bare in the Legislature, where Democrats have been divided over pro-Israel resolutions like those that some other state legislatures have passed with near unanimity.
In the state House, a pro-Israel resolution that was introduced with bipartisan support is no longer expected to pass due to objections from some Democrats.
Abraham Aiyash, the Democratic floor leader in the chamber, strongly opposed the resolution.
Aiyash, who grew up in Hamtramck after his parents immigrated from Yemen, said that “if we’re going to condemn terror, we must condemn the terror and the violence that the Palestinian people have endured for decades.”
The state Senate opted to write its own resolution after the House’s stalled for more than a week.
It was introduced by the chamber’s lone Jewish lawmaker, Jeremy Moss, and passed easily with bipartisan support.
More.
FILE - A border wall section stands on July 14, 2021, near La Grulla, Texas, in Starr County. On Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023, the Biden administration announced that they waived 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow border wall construction, marking the administration’s first use of a sweeping executive power employed often during the Trump presidency. The Department of Homeland Security posted the announcement with few details outlining the construction in Starr County, Texas. (Delcia Lopez/The Monitor via AP, File)
McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The Biden administration announced they waived 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow border wall construction on Wednesday, marking the administration’s first use of sweeping executive power to pave the way for building more border barriers — a tactic used often during the Trump presidency.
The Department of Homeland Security posted the announcement on the U.S. Federal Registry with few details outlining the construction in Starr County, Texas, which is part of a busy Border Patrol sector seeing “high illegal entry.” According to government data, about 245,000 illegal entries have been recorded in this region during the current fiscal year.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS secretary, stated in the notice.
The Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Endangered Species Act were some of the federal laws waived by DHS to make way for construction that will use funds from a congressional appropriation in 2019 for border wall construction. The waivers avoid time-consuming reviews and lawsuits challenging violation of environmental laws.
Related stories
Although no maps were provided in the announcement, a previous mapshared during the gathering of public comments shows the piecemeal construction will add up to an additional 20 miles (32 kilometers) to the existing border barrier system in the area.
“The other concern that we have is that area is highly erosive. There’s a lot of arroyos,” said Starr County Judge Eloy Vera, the highest-elected official in the county, pointing out the creeks cutting through the ranchland and leading into the river.
Starr County is home to about 65,000 residents spread over about 1,200 square miles (3,108 square kilometers) that includes ranchland and part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.
Environmental advocates say structures will run through public lands, habitats of endangered plants and animal species like the ocelot, a spotted wild cat.
“A plan to build a wall through will bulldoze an impermeable barrier straight through the heart of that habitat. It will stop wildlife migrations dead in their tracks. It will destroy a huge amount of wildlife refuge land. And it’s a horrific step backwards for the borderlands,” Laiken Jordahl, a southwest conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, said Wednesday afternoon.
During the Trump administration, about 450 miles (724 kilometers) of barriers were built along the southwest border between 2017 and January 2021. Texas Governor Greg Abbott renewed those efforts as part of his ongoing immigration enforcement from the state level after the Biden administration initially halted them at the start of his presidency.
The DHS decision on Wednesday contrasts the Biden administration’s posturing when a proclamation to end the construction on Jan. 20, 2021 stated, “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection had no immediate comment.
The announcement prompted political debate by the Democratic administration facing an increase of migrants entering through the southern border in recent months, including thousands who entered the U.S. through Eagle Pass at the end of September.
“A border wall is a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem. It will not bolster border security in Starr County,” U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar said in a statement. “I continue to stand against the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars on an ineffective border wall.”
Political proponents of the border wall said the waivers should be used as a launching pad for a shift in policy.
“After years of denying that a border wall and other physical barriers are effective, the DHS announcement represents a sea change in the administration’s thinking: A secure wall is an effective tool for maintaining control of our borders,” Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said in a statement. “Having made that concession, the administration needs to immediately begin construction of wall across the border to prevent the illegal traffic from simply moving to other areas of the border.”
The House measure would fund government at current 2023 levels for 45 days, through Nov. 17, setting up another potential crisis if they fail to more fully fund government by then. The package was approved by the House 335-91, with most Republicans and almost all Democrats supporting.
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"In a subsequent raid, agents found $90,000 in marked money in the freezer of Jefferson’s Virginia home."
In the national sample of 13-year-old students, average math scores fell by 9 points between 2020 and 2023. Reading scores fell by 4 points. The test, formally called the National Assessment of Educational Progress, was administered from October to December last year to 8,700 students in each subject.
Similar setbacks were reported last year when NAEP released broader results showing the pandemic’s impact on America’s fourth- and eighth-grade students.
Math and reading scores had been sliding before the pandemic, but the latest results show a precipitous drop that erases earlier gains in the years leading up to 2012. Scores on the math exam, which has been given since 1973, are now at their lowest levels since 1990. Reading scores are their lowest since 2004. ... The federal government sent historic sums of money to schools in 2021, allowing many to expand tutoring, summer classes and other recovery efforts.
But the nation’s 13-year-olds, who were 10 when the pandemic started, are still struggling, Carr said.
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SIDES WITH WEB DESIGNER WHO REFUSES TO DO GAY SITES...
Phillips’ lawyer, Kristen Waggoner, of the Alliance Defending Freedom, also brought the most recent case to the court. On Friday, she said the Supreme Court was right to reaffirm that the government cannot compel people to say things they do not believe. “Disagreement isn’t discrimination, and the government can’t mislabel speech as discrimination to censor it,” she said in a statement.
The bigoted AP Obama, here:
But once revealed as a wild-eyed hermit with long hair and beard who weathered Montana winters in a one-room shack, Kaczynski struck many as more of a pathetic loner than romantic anti-hero.
