. The FOUR Reasons for the Assassination of JFK, The Greatest US President For me, this case is closed. John F. Kennedy was assassinated for stripping the Rothschild-owned Fed... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/the-four-reasons-for-assassination-of.html For me, this case is closed. John F. Kennedy was assassinated for stripping the Rothschild-owned Federal Reserve of its power to print and loan money to the United States Federal Government at interest. President Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 11110 on June 4, 1963, which returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency, without going through the privately-owned Federal Reserve . Unknowingly, he also signed his death sentence that day. President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 and the United States Notes (backed by silver) he had issued were immediately taken out of circulation. Federal Reserve Notes continued to serve as the legal currency of the nation. You can read everything on the subject by following this link .But, it's likely that at least three other factors have played a role in the decision to assassinate him and, later, other members of his family . 2. Not long before his death, President Kennedy famously stated: "I will splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds." It is known that JFK fired CIA Director Allen Dulles and this book claims the latter is responsible for ordering the hit on the US President. 3. In a famous speech, JFK exposed the network of secret societies that operate against the American people and publicly opposed their devious ways of undermining mankind's freedom. Just two years before he was assassinated (1961), JFK gave a really chilling — yet inspiring — speech, exposing secret societies. The warning is especially powerful because it came from a President in office: For me, this speech is remarkable especially because the Kennedys were part of the 13 "elite" families that rule the Earth from the shadows. These three facts are clearly showing that JFK declared war against the shadow "elite" and their network of secret societies. And for this reason, he and many other members of his lineage have paid the ultimate price . But he was not the only US President who gave us this warning: Former US Presidents and High Officials Warn About the 'Invisible Government' Running the USA 4. Lastly, just ten days before his assassination, JFK asked for access to the UFO files. Based on evidence , the plot for JFK's assassination was already set in motion when he asked to access the UFO files. In fact, new evidence suggests that Lee Harvey Oswald worked directly for Robert F. Kennedy and — shockingly — helped save JFK from an 'assassination plot' three weeks earlier in Chicago . But, in so doing, he sealed his own fate. You can read more on the subject by accessing this link . But, even though JFK was already marked for assassination, demanding access to the UFO files could have expedited the efforts to take him out before he could succeed. The following article, wrote by Makia Freeman , makes a very strong case in support of this idea. Was JFK murdered mostly because he was trying to gain access to classified information on UFOs, ETs and aliens? As we approach the 53rd anniversary of the JFK assassination (which occurred on November 22, 1963) and mark the death of the greatest US president ever to challenge the New World Order Secret Government, it is worth briefly looking back in time to realize the tremendous lessons from the Kennedy murder. Last year in 2015 I released an in-depth 3-part series on the JFK assassination, dealing with the Who , How and Why of the event, which was a sacrificial mass ritual designed (among other things) to traumatize the American public. In part 3 I compiled a list of the various motives certain people and groups had to kill Kennedy. JFK had crossed the CIA, the Nazis, the Zionists, the Military Industrial Complex, the Federal Reserve and the Mafia – all the while not being part of Secret Society Freemasonic brotherhood. However, was the ultimate reason he was killed due to his persistence and demands in obtaining top secret intelligence on the alien matter? Was JFK murdered because he challenged the power of Majestic-12 or MJ-12, the hidden group Truman had created to be the keepers of UFO and alien secrets? There is substantial evidence to indicate this is indeed the case. Released JFK Letters to CIA and NASA Show His Demand for UFO Files – 10 Days Before His Death Two memos authored by Kennedy were released to researcher William Lester under FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). Both were written on November 12, 1963, just 10 days before JFK was murdered. One of them is a letter (pictured below) to CIA Director John McCone, who succeeded CIA Director Allen Dulles, one of the JFK assassination conspirators and masterminds (see part 1 ). In the memorandum with the subject "Classification review of all UFO intelligent files affecting National Security", JFK explicitly writes that he has initiated a joint space program with the USSR. He is telling the CIA that he wants to share its UFO, ET and alien data with NASA, and wants to distinguish between knowns and unknowns (we can interpret the "knowns" as US controlled secret technology such as anti-gravity craft and the "unknowns" as genuine extraterrestrial phenomena). Here is the text: "As I had discussed with you previously, I have initiated [redacted] have instructed James Webb to develop a program with the Soviet Union in joint space and inner exploration. "It would be very helpful if you would have the high threat cases reviewed with the purpose of identification of bona fide as opposed to classified CIA and USAF sources. "It is important that we make a clear distinction between the knowns and unknowns in the event the Soviets try to mistake our extended cooperation as a cover for intelligence gathering of their defense and space programs. "When this data has been sorted out, I would like you to arrange a program of data sharing with NASA where Unknowns are a factor. This will help NASA mission directors in their defensive responsibilities. "I would like an interim report on the data review no later than February 1, 1964." The other memorandum (National Security Action Memorandum No. 271, pictured below) is addressed to then NASA administrator James Webb. It carries the subject line of "Cooperation with the USSR on Outer Space Matters". JFK outlines how he wants NASA to develop a program of cooperation with the Russians in the field of outer space. JFK Murdered Over UFO Intelligence Access – The Bigger Picture However, to put these two memos in context, you need to understand that Kennedy had been chasing the golden goose for a long time. Authors and experts such as Dr. Michael Salla, Richard Hoagland and Mike Bara, some of whose work you can read here in " President Kennedy's deadly confrontation with the CIA & MJ-12 over ET/UFO X-Files – Part II ", have done extensive research to show that JFK was determined, before his presidency even began, to get full UFO intelligence access and as president re-take control of the information. He wanted it out of military, unelected hands and placed back into civilian, elected ones. He was out to undo the damage Truman had done, and Eisenhower had continued, by setting up the hidden MJ-12 group in 1947 and keeping the UFO and alien subject under wraps as a giant secret. The following is from a review or synopsis of Salla's book Kennedy's Last Stand: Eisenhower, UFOs, MJ-12 and JFK's Assassination : "In searching for answers to who killed President Kennedy we need to start with the death of his mentor, James Forrestal in 1949. Forrestal became the first Secretary of Defense in 1947, a position he held until March, 1949. "Forrestal was a visionary who thought Americans had a right to know about the existence of extraterrestrial life and technologies. "Forrestal was sacked by President Truman because he was revealing the truth to various officials, including Kennedy who was a Congressman at the time. Forrestal's ideals and vision inspired Kennedy, and laid the seed for what would happen 12 years later. "After winning the 1960 Presidential election, Kennedy learned a shocking truth from President Eisenhower. The control group set up to run highly classified extraterrestrial technologies, Majestic-12, had become a rogue government agency. "Eisenhower warned Kennedy that Majestic-12 had to be reined in. It posed a direct threat to American liberties and democratic processes. Kennedy followed Eisenhower's advice, and set out to realize James Forrestal's vision. "The same forces that orchestrated Forrestal's death, opposed Kennedy's efforts at every turn. When Kennedy was on the verge of succeeding, by forcing the CIA to share classified UFO information with other government agencies on November 12, 1963, he was assassinated ten days later." Joint US-USSR Space Missions: JFK Murdered Over Clever Strategy Although JFK surely and naturally had other reasons for wanting to work together with the Soviets (and thus avoid any possibility of a nuclear war), it is quite possible that his proposed joint US-USSR program was an excuse and a clever means to wrest control of the ET issue from the hands of MJ-12. To have NASA cooperate with the Soviet space administration on lunar missions and outer space exploration would necessarily mean sharing data on UFOs. After all, the existence (and extreme technological capacity) of such craft were an obvious security factor and threat that would impact any space expedition. Kennedy already had Soviet leader Nikita Kruschchev on board. Salla writes : "Documents confirm that on November 12, 1963 Kennedy and Khrushchev had agreed on steps to share UFO information precisely for this reason, and Kennedy identified the CIA as the lead U.S. agency to implement the process. "Unknown to Kennedy, the CIA's chief of counterintelligence, Angleton, implemented a secret set of directives that would deny access to classified UFO information to Kennedy, his national security staff and the Joint Chiefs of Staff." The "burned memo" or MJ-12 Kennedy assassination directive The MJ-12 Kennedy Assassination Directive Truth is heavily guarded by layers of secrecy, deception, falsehood and propaganda. Often, government officials hide the truth by overseeing partial disclosures which are carefully orchestrated to give away just enough of the secret without going in too deep. Ever since the Roswell crash of 1947, the US Government kept 2 sets of UFO files. The tamer cases and less controversial information were made publicly available through Project Blue Book, which was the official public investigation into UFOs by the USAF. It formally ended in 1970. However, the really good stuff with high classifications was kept under lock and key by the CIA and MJ-12. Kennedy must have learnt enough about the situation to have known this, and have slowly but surely been making his way to the source of the information. By the time it got to November 12th, 1963, it was the final straw; MJ-12 who controlled the CIA would not allow Kennedy to have UFO intelligence access – at any cost. As mentioned in part 3, the Kennedy assassination directive (pictured above) was written in code language to disguise the hit they were ordering. It uses the Russian spy term "wet" (i.e. wet from being drenched in fresh blood) to mean a killing. The memo reads:"when conditions become nonconductive for growth in our environment and Washington cannot be influenced any further... it should be 'wet.'" This is from Salla's commentary: "Dr Robert Wood who is the foremost expert in analyzing MJ-12 documents using forensic methods, has concluded that the burned document is an assassination directive... he pointed out that the cryptic phrase "it should be wet" originates from Russia, where the phrase 'wet works' or "wet affairs" denotes someone who had been killed and is drenched with blood. The codeword 'wet' was later adopted by the Soviet KGB and other intelligence agencies... In drafting this cryptic directive, Allen Dulles was seeking approval from six of his MJ-12 colleagues, to lay the justification for the assassination of any elected or appointed official in Washington DC whose policies were "non-conducive for growth". The cryptic directive was a pre-authorization for the assassination of any U.S. President who could not "be influenced any further" to follow MJ-12 policies." CIA Wiretap of Marilyn Monroe Also Suggests JFK Murdered Over UFO Issue Popular actress Marilyn Monroe was a famous lover of both JFK and his brother Robert, who served as Attorney General in the Kennedy Administration. In April 2014, evidence came to light in the form of an alleged CIA transcription (pictured below). If real – and it appears genuine – it shows that the CIA were wiretapping Monroe and knew she was about to go public and blow the whistle on JFK and UFOs. Here is what the alleged CIA wiretap document (dated August 3, 1962) states: "Rothberg indicated in so many words, that she [Monroe] had secrets to tell, no doubt arising from her trists [sic] with the President and the Attorney General. "One such "secret" mentions the visit by the President at a secret air base for the purpose of inspecting things from outer space. 2. Subject repeatedly called the Attorney General and complained about the way she was being ignored by the President and his brother. 3. Subject threatened to hold a press conference and would tell all." CIA wiretap of Marilyn Monroe: more proof JFK murdered due to UFOs and aliens? Robert Kennedy Also Briefed On UFOs Another piece of evidence substantiating the "JFK murdered due to UFOs" hypothesis is that his brother and Attorney General Robert Kennedy was also briefed on the matter. Lieutenant Colonel Philip Corso, a man who served in a number of National Security Council committees from 1953-57 during the Eisenhower presidency, says Bobby actually sought him out. In this short video Corso says he personally briefed Bobby Kennedy on the subject of flying saucers or UFOs. Bobby was JFK's closest advisor. Conclusion: Highly Likely JFK Murdered Over UFOs and ETs / Aliens So at the end of the day was JFK murdered over the UFOs and aliens? While there were many motives for (and conspirators involved in) the killing of JFK, the evidence is overwhelming that his demand for more control over the UFO and alien subject was the crucial factor in the decision by MJ-12 to assassinate him. It may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, but more likely it was the central issue all along. JFK inherited a system from Eisenhower and Truman, US presidents who had already given away substantial control to the Military Industrial Intelligence Complex. Indeed, the very term "Military Industrial Complex" (MIC) has only become so commonplace thanks to Eisenhower using it in his farewell speech , where he issued a grave warning to the American public about the power that the MIC already held (but which he also allowed to a large extent). To study the New World Order and the worldwide conspiracy at the deepest levels is to study the UFO, ET and alien agenda. To study UFOs and aliens, in turn, is to accept the existence of free energy technology (aka zero point or over unity energy). This is the gamechanger . Once people accept the reality of free energy and learn how to create and share it, the control grid and conspiracy will evaporate – because knowledgeable and abundant people cannot be controlled. There is so much at stake at here! Thank you JFK and to all others who have dedicated their lives to making this information public, widespread and accessible ! The truth cannot be hidden forever. Dear Friends, HumansAreFree is and will always be free to access and use. If you appreciate my work, please help me continue.  Stay updated via Email Newsletter: Related


It seems that Donald Trump is often incapable of avoiding really stupid, but public, mistakes on Twitter. Oftentimes those are spelling errors, and sometimes they re factual errors, but sometimes they re just bizarre. April 26 is Melania s birthday, and to look like a good husband, he tweeted a happy birthday message to her. Across the bottom of the image is a banner that reads, First Lady Melania Trump 4.26.2017, with an American flag.HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our @FLOTUS, Melania! https://t.co/rYYp51mxDQ pic.twitter.com/np7KYHglSv Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2017See the problem? The flag on that banner there never existed. It only has 39 stars the U.S. has never had a 39-star flag. In 1889, flag makers were making 39-star flags in anticipation of North and South Dakota becoming states, but they thought that they would be admitted as one state, not two. In addition, three other states were added to the Union in 1890. We went from 38 states to 43, which made the 39-star flag useless before it was even official.As is always the case, Twitter locked onto the fact that the man in the White House, who holds the highest office in the land, tweeted a fake flag:@christinawilkie @chrislhayes @FLOTUS @eventsforgood How soon before we find out a 39-star American flag is some sort of alt-right meme? Greg Saunders (@waltisfrozen) April 27, 2017The US flag in Trump s tweet is missing 11 stars; it only has 39. h/t @christinawilkie (https://t.co/05dwk78JSD) pic.twitter.com/nvyuOBT3Eu southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) April 27, 2017@realDonaldTrump @FLOTUS @mauriciomacri @WhiteHouse @HillaryClinton Did he tell you that there are actually 50 stars on the American flag, not 39?https://t.co/pTB5Dy5PUn pic.twitter.com/sAkF5V8rgQ ? Dustin Miller ? (@spdustin) April 27, 2017There are only 39 stars on that flag, is pre-1889 the last time America was great? pic.twitter.com/R5f2EtusYq Daniel Holland (@DannyDutch) April 27, 2017@christinawilkie @FLOTUS @eventsforgood Oh my god. WE NEVER EVEN HAD A 39 STAR FLAG. ND (39) and SD (40) Were admitted on the SAME DAMN DAY. Taylor (@DizzyCars) April 27, 2017There are only 39 stars on that flag, sir. https://t.co/KATgoLIQUv Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) April 27, 2017@realDonaldTrump @FLOTUS What s with the 39 stars on this flag? #FALSENEWS #IDIOTINCHEIF DMen (@dmenkens) April 27, 2017@realDonaldTrump @FLOTUS 39 stars on flag bro. And ur responsible for the nuclear football???! TheWood (@TheWood52925) April 27, 2017So apparently #DonaldTrump s tweet had a flag with only 39 stars on it. Is he giving us a hint of what s to come or something? https://t.co/AVPHcTUx3u Politics Village (@PoliticsVillage) April 27, 2017@ALT_uscis And there s a 39-star flag being featured on official WH documents! His plan is to save money by eliminating STATES. Like Hawaii. Now PR? actor1 (@Actor1) April 27, 2017THE IDIOT THINKS THE FLAG ONLY HAS 39 STARS Even DT s birthday tweet to Melania has a factual error it in https://t.co/KDu5zmWHjf via S. Best-James, Ph.D. (@JoylynBest) April 27, 2017@Brasilmagic It s brutal finding a clipart flag with 50 stars. The hilarious part is you probably have to work pretty hard to find one with 39. ?? Terry Hannan (@terryhannan) April 27, 2017@realDonaldTrump @FLOTUS why are there only 39 stars in that flag? what 11 states are you removing for her birthday? TJ Liwanag (@TimothyJLiwanag) April 27, 2017@realDonaldTrump @FLOTUS Really, a 39 star flag. Someone on your staff needs to purge his computer, since this is 2nd time this has happened Lewis Shatzer (@Shatzer667192) April 27, 2017Maybe the 39-star flag is the last one that Russia recognizes. https://t.co/ENenQx2hGS CharlieL (@CharlieLevenson) April 27, 2017LOL what s worse is that the flag has NEVER had 39 stars, on July 4th 1890 it went from 38 to 43 stars w/ addition of ID MT WA ND SD #USA https://t.co/tcenf9u70j Lonnie H. (@dcufan) April 27, 2017Featured image by Mark Wilson via Getty Images


The first truly great American sports documentary, it's universally agreed, was "Hoop Dreams. " Released in 1994, it garnered immediate critical acclaim Roger Ebert later called it the best film of the decade and "one of the great moviegoing experiences of my lifetime. " Its failure to be nominated for an Academy Award caused such an outcry that the process for nominating documentaries was eventually revamped. "Hoop Dreams," you'll perhaps recall, followed two promising basketball players from Chicago's West Side from the eighth grade through high school. One of them, William Gates, became a star guard for suburban St. Joseph, where Isiah Thomas went to high school the other, Arthur Agee, began at St. Joseph but ultimately wound up at his local public school, Marshall High, where in 1991 he led the team to a surprise finish in the Illinois state championships. Like thousands of poor families in disadvantaged neighborhoods all over the country, the Gateses and the Agees yearned for William and Arthur to make it as professional basketball players, in no small part to catapult them out of the poverty that permeates the West Side. But there were so many obstacles. William damaged his knee just as he was approaching stardom. Arthur and his family had to deal with the city shutting off their power because they could not pay their bills. The film touches on issues of addiction and domestic violence. Indeed, as I watched "Hoop Dreams" recently, I thought there was only one obvious obstacle that didn't make it onto the screen: gun violence. "The reality is, it wasn't what we really saw a lot in their lives," recalled Steve James, the filmmaker who wrote and directed "Hoop Dreams. " This was the case even though the crack epidemic was at its peak and the murder rate in Chicago was reaching a record high. "It was different then," James said. So it would appear. Shawn Harrington was one of the bit players in "Hoop Dreams. " A sophomore point guard at Marshall who moved from the junior varsity to the varsity during that glorious 1991 tournament run, he had his own star turn a few years later. After bouncing around several colleges — during which time he both got a degree and became a Division II — Harrington returned to the West Side, where he raised a daughter and eventually became an assistant coach for the Marshall basketball team. His first year as an assistant, 2008, Marshall won the state championship that had eluded the "Hoop Dreams" team. "When I left for school," he told me when I met him this week, "my mom said she hoped I would never come back. She was happy that I was away. She didn't have to worry. " "I had the dream like any other player in Chicago to play in the N. B. A. ," he added. "But God had another plan. " Then he pushed his wheelchair up a small ramp and joined me by the dining room table in his small, apartment. Harrington, 41, originally returned to the West Side because he had just fathered a daughter and he wanted to be a real parent — not an absent father as his own dad had been. By 2014, he had etched out a life he was happy with: In addition to his assistant coaching duties, he worked with students at Marshall, and operated a small "scouting service" that was meant to help Chicago basketball players land college scholarships. He viewed his life's work as helping youngsters in the neighborhood where he grew up, and he became a proselytizer for the importance of education in achieving a better life. Like many former athletes, he saw sports as a means to that education. Eleven years earlier, Harrington's mother had been killed when she mistakenly walked into a house that was being robbed. "That was a rough patch," he recalled. "I donated mom's organs, which helped three people. God was preparing me for this. " By "this," Harrington was referring to his own shooting. One of his daily rituals was driving his daughter, Naja, to high school. Early one morning in late January in 2014, with Harrington's car in a repair shop, they set out together in a rented white sedan. At the corner of Augusta Boulevard and Hamlin Avenue, in the West Side neighborhood of Humboldt Park, a shooting had just taken place involving a white sedan. When Harrington and Naja drove into that same intersection, the men who had been shooting at the other white sedan opened fire, thinking it was the same car. Harrington lay on top of his daughter, trying to protect her. "Daddy, I don't want to die," she cried. By the time the shooting stopped, she was unharmed, but he had been hit twice one bullet went through his back and damaged two vertebrae, causing him to lose the use of his legs. He has used a wheelchair ever since. The person who brought Shawn Harrington to my attention was an assistant professor at New Mexico State, Rus Bradburd. A former college basketball assistant coach, Bradburd had recruited Harrington to New Mexico State from a junior college. Harrington left the school after one year, and the two men had lost touch. But when he heard about the shooting, Bradburd visited Harrington and has since been a constant in his life, helping him in innumerable ways. (Bradburd is also writing a book about Harrington, which is to be published in 2018 and is tentatively titled, "All the Dreams We've Dreamed. ") In the course of our conversations, Bradburd made me aware that Harrington was not the only former Marshall High basketball player to have been shot in recent years. Most of them had been coached by Harrington. Tim Triplett, star of the 2014 Marshall team, was killed in April 2015 — just a few years after his brother had been killed. Martin Satterfield, shot six times in the spring of 2014, is now paralyzed. Shawn Holloway was killed in early 2015. Marcus Patrick and Keon Boyd were killed this year. And two months ago, Edward and Edwin Bryant, twins who were sophomores at Marshall, met the same fate. Edward, a talented forward, was becoming a star of the basketball team, and Edwin played football for Marshall. "The violence has always been there," Harrington told me. "When I was in high school, it was bad. But back then, gang members protected the athletes. They'd say: 'Get out of here. Go back to school. '" Indeed, that's why Steve James didn't focus on gun violence when he was filming "Hoop Dreams" — athletes, especially basketball players, had a on the street. Regular newspaper coverage of high school basketball turned players into celebrities. Gang members, some of whom had once played basketball themselves, wanted to see them succeed. There was an "unspoken alliance" between gang members and basketball players, said Bradburd, who grew up in Chicago and spends his summers there. And sometimes not so unspoken: "Hoop Dreams" has a remarkable scene at a sporting goods store where Agee and a friend are buying clothes, paying with a thick wad of bills. Agee explains to the camera that they got the money from drug dealers. "They're thinking they can give us stuff and keep our career going," he says. In 1984, when Benji Wilson, a heralded high school player, was shot and killed, the news was shocking not only because Wilson was considered the next great Chicago talent, but also because it simply didn't happen: Basketball players were supposed to be immune to the violence that was so prevalent in the city's poorer neighborhoods. So what has happened? First, the nature of gun violence on the West Side has changed. Twenty years ago, the gangs were fewer in number and better organized, and most of the shootings were among gang members. "These were gangs who were mostly fighting over turf," said Alex Kotlowitz, the great chronicler of Chicago's poor. Today, gun violence feels much more random, and people can be killed over the tiniest slights, including insults on social media. "The morality has changed," said Dorothy Gaters, Marshall's athletic director and Hall of Fame girls' basketball coach. "People are getting shot for blowing their horns. " Harrington told me that Marshall itself is a safe haven for students during school hours, and Gaters agreed. But the school can't protect the students once they leave the building. Second, athletes no longer seem to be protected the way they once were. Gang members simply don't seem to care anymore whether or not athletes succeed. Vince Carter, who coaches the Chicago Demons, a youth traveling team that Edward Bryant played for, told me that the Bryant twins were standing on a corner not far from Wrigley Field around 3:15 a. m. (The Cubs had lost a World Series game that night.) Although the hour was late, the neighborhood was relatively safe. They were gunned down in a shooting. The killers have not been apprehended, and no one has any idea what the motive might be — if there even is a motive. That's why even though Chicago had 928 homicides in 1991, the city felt safer than it does in 2016, a year in which it had 739 homicides as of Wednesday. "Even though there were more murders, and the gun violence was greater, it felt more circumscribed," said James, who in 2011 made a film with Kotlowitz about gang violence called "The Interrupters. " (Gates and Agee escaped Chicago's gun violence, but they each had close relatives who were killed after "Hoop Dreams" came out.) Even if you survive being shot, it changes your life irrevocably — and never for the better. Harrington's circumstances today are pretty dire. He hasn't been able to return to work at Marshall because the school does not have accommodations for wheelchairs it does not even have a freight elevator that might allow him to go from floor to floor. He is essentially confined to his apartment unless someone takes him out. He lives on $300 a month in Social Security, $175 from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (a. k. a. food stamps) and the generosity of family. Although he says he is still coaching Marshall players, it is a volunteer gig now. "He's been abandoned," Bradburd said. "It is a failure of America. " Not completely abandoned, though. Dale Brown, the former basketball coach at Louisiana State University, heard about Harrington and took up his cause. In 2015, Harrington was named coach of the year by the National Consortium for Academics and Sports. This year, during the Final Four, he spoke on a panel with Brown and Shaquille O'Neal at the National Association of Basketball Coaches convention. During the event, O'Neal and Brown gave him a check for $40, 000 to buy a van. Harrington remains relentlessly upbeat. He has a machine in his apartment that allows him to stand and put weight on his legs, and he firmly believes that he will walk again someday. He corresponds regularly with Bradburd and Brown. He is trying to shepherd a group of basketball players — "teaching them," he says, "to be student athletes, and use it to get an education. " He checks in from time to time with Martin Satterfield, the former Marshall basketball player who is also paralyzed. Ever since he returned to the West Side all those years ago, Harrington's goal has been to help young people find a better life. Even from a wheelchair, that hasn't changed. "I'm glad to have the opportunity to help kids in my community," he told me. To help them succeed and achieve, yes. But also to help them find a path where they won't end up dead or maimed, victims of the scourge of gun violence in Chicago.


Recently, I went a whole month without seeing a play. Five weeks, actually. For most people, this is a profound nonevent. For me, it was a marvel. And also sort of a problem. I was a adolescent who became a college actress who became a theater critic. I don't really know what to do with myself if I'm not spending a lot of my week sitting in a creaking plush seat, staring up at a stage. You could call this a vocation. You could also call it an addiction. You'd be right. Why the hiatus? My son was born in late June it seemed wise to take some time off. Still, I jokingly told an editor that I'd tried to schedule my delivery for a slow point in the season. This may not have been a joke. I likewise sent an email to a publicist, teasingly proposing theater matinees for nursing mothers. Also not entirely a joke. My leave has baffled my toddler daughter, who's used to waving me away an hour or two before her bedtime. "Mama, don't you go to shows anymore?" she asked. Even my husband seems a little surprised to see me sitting across from him at dinner. It feels strange to me, too. Luckily, it's never been easier to enjoy theater without actually going to the theater. I can stream David Tennant's "Hamlet" online while I nurse, or play the "Hamilton" cast album while I rock the baby to sleep. I can download audiobooks of plays to hear while I'm pumping, or listen to radio drama podcasts like "The Message" or "Welcome to Night Vale" while pushing the stroller. I can go to the library and take out stacks of scripts, including the "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," which I read cuddling the baby with the other. He and I might even slip into a movie theater for an encore presentation of a broadcast of "The Audience" or "A View From the Bridge. " (In truth, I've done all of these things, except for sneaking the baby into the cinema, though that day may come. And yes, I'm aware that this is a weird and possibly even mildly pathological way to spend a maternity leave, but once I'd caught up on "UnReal" and read "The Girls" and a bunch of Lew Archer mysteries, I started to feel a little restless.) These are good options. For one thing, they're democratizing. Theater is inherently local. It is also often expensive. DVDs and live streams make an experience that was once available to only a few accessible to many, a phenomenon that would have made my preteen self, who used to obsessively play cassettes of original cast recordings of shows I would never see, weep for joy. And they're a mental workout. Scripts and podcasts excite the imagination even more than live theater, forcing us to picture the characters, the settings, the actions and the gestures. (Which is salutary for those experiencing the synaptic haze of "mommy brain. ") But as grateful as I am for PBS's "Great Performances," Methuen collections of Caryl Churchill, YouTube clips of "Chess" (which I can sing, enthusiastically and off key, overture to finale) none of it feels really, properly like theater. What's missing, of course, is the sense of liveness, the thrill of the present tense. Theater is the art form most like life. Sure, the dialogue is snazzier, and the clothes fit better, but it's performed by real people, in real space, in real time. A video, however can't substitute for that. Theater presents a laboratory for human life that obliges me think about my own — my marriage, my family, my ways of moving through the world. It's why a good play feels meditative, even therapeutic. (I'll confess that after a breakup, I once wept my way through a Broadway production of "Private Lives" and felt a lot better afterward.) I learn about my life by slipping, mimetically, into others' as they walk and chat in front of me. And I don't have to meditate alone. Plays ask us to come together to engage with people and relationships presented just a few feet away — farther, if you have a balcony seat — while still allowing us the privacy that darkness confers. It offers community and anonymity at once. Additionally, a script or a streaming site won't provide theater's ephemerality, the sensation that each performance will never recur in exactly the same way. Perhaps this isn't always meaningfully true. Plenty of productions alter little from one night to the next. But every show depends on the audience assembled. By simply bunching together in the dark, each of us contributes to the event each of us creates it. My daughter wouldn't articulate it that way, but I've seen her experience it. She loves moments when she's asked to clap or shout along. My husband and I took her to her first show, Soho Rep's antic, kiddie play, "Washeteria," when she was a year and a half, and she still remembers how the performers reached into the crowd and gave high fives. It's that scene that's stuck with her, even as she's forgotten everything else about the play. As a relatively adult, I obviously have a somewhat more fraught relationship with audience participation, but on the right night, I can still feel some of her wonder. The opportunity for reflection, the evanescence, the liveness — they go a long way toward explaining why, even though I'm usually at the theater four or five nights a week for work, I still sometimes see plays for fun. It's why I've tried to find a performance of some sort on almost every vacation my husband and I have taken. It's why three or four weeks after my son was born, I started looking up outdoor Shakespeare offerings, searching for something we could see together, with exits all around in case he fussed. It's why, a few nights ago, my mother and I settled him into an infant car seat, and we all rode through Brooklyn, from Park Slope to a park in Bushwick, which was hosting an evening performance of Dave Malloy's theatrical song cycle "Ghost Quartet. " The park didn't feel much like a theater. It was breezy there and still warm, with flocks of pigeons wheeling overhead, and hot dog and ice cream carts lining the paths. I was relieved to see that other parents had taken babies. I counted a handful of older children, too. ("Ghost Quartet" is wonderfully creepy I hope they didn't have nightmares.) When the lights turned on, and the show began, I rocked my son from side to side in time to the music. He shut his eyes and nestled against my chest, while I looked up at the makeshift stage, home in the world again.


The long and sometimes arcane ritual of electing the next U.S. president begins on Monday in more than 1,100 schools, churches and libraries across Iowa, a state that wields political influence far greater than its small size. After more than a year of up-close and personal evaluation of the candidates, Iowans will gather with their neighbors on what promises to be a cold wintry night to kick off the state-by-state process of picking the Republican and Democratic nominees for the Nov. 8 presidential election. The starring opening-night role of the largely rural Midwestern state in the presidential drama, now four decades old, is a source of pride for Iowa voters, who spend months evaluating the candidates, looking them in the eye and asking questions. "Iowans see it as a great privilege and a great gift. They take their role very seriously," said Tom Henderson, chairman of the Democratic Party in Polk County, home to Iowa's biggest city, Des Moines. The caucuses will begin on Monday at 7 p.m. CST, and results are expected within two or three hours. Most gatherings will be in schools, community centers or other public locations, although at least two Republican caucuses will be in private homes and one Democratic caucus will be held at an equestrian center. Turnout varies by community, with up to 1,000 people typically gathering in cities like Des Moines, while a few dozen or less may gather in more sparsely populated areas. The state Republican and Democratic parties run their caucuses separately, although in some areas they hold them in different parts of the same building. Republicans will have more than 800 caucus sites, and Democrats will have about 1,100. The two parties also have different rules. Iowa Democrats gather in groups by candidate preference in a public display of support, a tradition that can allow for shifts back and forth. If a candidate does not reach the threshold of support of 15 percent of voters in a caucus needed to be considered viable, that candidates' supporters are released to back another contender, leading to another round of persuasion. Republicans are more straightforward. They write their vote privately on a sheet of paper that is collected and counted at the site by caucus officials. A surrogate or volunteer from each campaign may speak to their neighbors in a last-ditch plea for support, adding to the uncertainty going into the process. Neither party is offering voter turnout estimates this year, although many Iowans predict the Republicans will surpass the 121,503 who turned out in 2012. In the last contested Democratic caucus, in 2008, excitement over Barack Obama's candidacy spurred a record turnout of 239,872. Iowa, the 30th most populated state, and tiny New Hampshire, which holds the second nominating contest on Feb. 9, have traditionally served as early filters to winnow out the losers and elevate the top contenders for later contests. But Iowa Republicans recently have had a spotty record at backing the ultimate presidential nominees. Neither the Republican winner in 2008, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, nor the winner in 2012, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, managed to win the party nomination. Iowa Democrats did back the party's last two nominees: John Kerry in 2004 and Obama in 2008, which ultimately launched Obama's drive to the White House. (Editing by Leslie Adler) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency.


On Tuesday, Senator Jose Menendez (D-San Antonio) filed a bill in Austin to expand the use of medical cannabis. The bill, titled Senate Bill 269, will allow for doctors to decide how much or which part of the plant to use in order to treat patients with chronic health conditions such as severe autism, epilepsy, PTSD and a wealth of other disorders that cause debilitating pain and mental and physical disabilities.After this unprecedented bill was filed in Texas on Tuesday morning, Menendez held a press conference along with citizens who were there to speak about why this bill is so important to their lives and what cannabis will do for their children and families who are suffering.Senator Menendez opens with his reasons for this crucial bill: No one has died from an overdose of cannabis in this country, said Menendez. 44 people are dying every single day from overdoses of painkillers, prescription painkillers. Why if we re such a state that is always been, we thrive on talking about our independence and less regulation and less government and all of these things, why are we deciding to put more government or a politician s decisions between a patient and their doctors. One mother, Debbie Tolany, spoke at length about her 13-year-old son, Miles, who is affected by autism, has intractable epilepsy and a rare endocrine disorder called hypoparathyroid disease. In 2015, Texas passed a bill allowing for the limited use of cannabis for certain patients with epilepsy which a giant leap for the red state, but unfortunately, it wasn t enough to help Miles and others like him. Doctors, having little control over the treatment they prescribe, are forced to use medicines with chemical side-effects that can be severely damaging to the brain and can continue to be a detriment to the well-being of their patients.Debbie had this to say about her son and the side-effects that Miles recently endured from chemical medications prescribed to him: I watched a child with low muscle tone and usually low endurance for physical movement run in frantic circles around my living room for 30 minutes. His face and lips were completely white and he cried out in pain, looking at me for support, which his body would not allow him to receive. No parent should have to watch their son suffer in such a way and no human being should be FORCED by doctors, who are supposed to be taking care of them, to ingest chemicals that only make things worse.The answer for these families is pretty simple. Please watch the full report below: You can also view the press conference, in its entirety, here.


"Lifeline" is a thriller directed by an Academy Award winner about a man's search for his missing girlfriend. In the film, set in Shanghai with a plot driven by corporate malfeasance, punches are thrown, shots are fired and people are killed. At one point, the actress Olivia Munn stands over a dead woman, blood on her hands. But this is no ordinary movie. It is an online advertisement for the mobile technology company Qualcomm and, in particular, its Snapdragon 820 chip set, a smartphone processor. As more people skip or block ads when streaming shows or browsing websites, advertisers are trying to find new ways to deliver their messages. The internet has long been a place where companies have tried to break out of the and ad model, but as it has become easier to present videos online — and as top directors and actors have shown a willingness to be involved — these efforts have become more sophisticated. The goal of "Lifeline" and similar ads is "to make something you want to see — and the holy grail is if people seek you out," said Teddy Lynn, chief creative officer for content and social at Ogilvy Mather, which produced the film. "This is a piece of entertainment that can compete in a very crowded marketplace. " "Lifeline" was released in May and pushed out on multiple social media channels in the United States and China. "Inside Lifeline," a look at the film, is also available on the "Lifeline" website. It emphasizes the importance of the cellphone to the action in the film and the phone's various features the film hopes to highlight, like its long battery life and improved photo capability. In many ways, "Lifeline" is just an extension of product placement and show sponsorship by advertisers that goes back to the early days of radio and television, said Lou Aversano, chief executive of Ogilvy Mather NY. "I think we continue to push, not just in terms of length, but in terms of the line between entertainment and brand message," he said. Many companies are looking for ways to promote their brand through longer storytelling, such as Johnnie Walker, Nike and Prada. It is an impulse that dates to at least 2001 or 2002, when a series of eight films for BMW starring Clive Owen appeared online. "That was at the time the internet was still " said Steve Golin, founder and chief executive of Anonymous Content, a multimedia development company that produced the BMW ads and "Lifeline. " "It would take all night to download. " "Lifeline," which stars Ms. Munn, Leehom Wang and Joan Chen, is directed by Armando Bo, who won an Oscar for best original screenplay for "Birdman" in 2015. The film has attracted 20 million views. There have been an additional 100 million combined views of the film's trailers and the video, Mr. Lynn said. Eighty percent of the views came from China, which was the primary market. The dialogue is 70 percent in Chinese and 30 percent in English. Mr. Lynn said Qualcomm would not disclose the cost of the ad, but noted that with less money needed to buy time on television, more was available for the production. "You can create content that is compelling and you don't have to spend money to place it on TV," said Mr. Golin, whose company has been involved with movies like "Spotlight" and "The Revenant" and TV shows like "Mr. Robot. " "We think this is the direction advertising is headed. As long as sports exists, we will still do and commercials, but with most other entertainment there is a lot of resistance to watching advertising. " Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies at New York University, said the disappearing boundaries between advertising and entertainment could be troubling. Ads, by their nature, often exaggerate "the benefits or virtues of the products and, even more troubling, downplay the dangers or risk of a product," Mr. Miller said. And using big stars "makes the commercial intent even harder to perceive and blurs the true purpose behind the work. " Still, more advertisers are eager to experiment. Take "The Ballad of the Dreadnought," a documentary about the distinctive guitar body originally manufactured by C. F. Martin Company. It is narrated by Jeff Daniels and includes interviews with musicians like Rosanne Cash, Stephen Stills and Steve Miller. The film appears solely on Martin's website, but was selected to appear at several film festivals. It has received 40, 000 views since it first streamed on May 5, said Scott Byers, a managing partner at Lehigh Mining Navigation, the advertising agency that developed the film. The documentary idea developed, Mr. Byers said, when Martin came to his agency wanting to celebrate the dreadnought guitar, which was developed in the early 20th century but never trademarked, enabling many other manufacturers to copy it over the years. "They asked, 'What can we do to reclaim ownership of the shape? '" said Denis Aumiller, also a managing partner at the agency. "The initial thought was that we would produce a short, product video, or maybe a magazine article. " As enticing as it may be to think of every commercial as a potential short film that could play on the festival circuit, creating something that attracts viewers and promotes a product is not easy. Entertainment, after all, is not the ultimate goal. "At some point," Mr. Aversano said, "there's a responsibility to deliver the message of the brand. Otherwise it's just empty calories. "


America Is Better Without Borders Steven Hahn, TIME, November 1, 2016  "A nation without borders," Donald Trump has warned us , "is not a nation at all." Trump was explaining the logic of the multi-billion dollar wall he promises to build along the U.S.-Mexican border, but he was hardly the first to make the case. Years ago, Ronald Reagan said much the same about the threat of illegal immigration, and others urging border vigilance have wrapped themselves in the high-flown rhetoric. Tee-shirts and coffee mugs have turned the idea into a saleable slogan.  {snip}  {snip} For much of its early history, the United States had hazy borders in good part because through war, conquest and diplomacy the country was constantly expanding and the shifting boundaries were not clearly marked. There was no agreement about how far west the Louisiana Territory reached or how far south the state of Texas stretched or how far north the Oregon Territory extended. Highly charged political words and brutal conflict followed (like the U.S.-Mexican War), while the imperial eyes of many leaders fell on Cuba, Central America and Hawaii.  What's more, the borders that were agreed upon were remarkably porous. Until well into the nineteenth century, immigrants could come and go at will and even participate in electoral politics if they simply declared an intention to become citizens; indeed, for decades it was not at all clear what a citizen of the United States was. The only international migration policed was the African slave trade, which Congress outlawed in 1808 after nearly half a million captives had been forcibly deposited on North American shores.  {snip}  It is easy, when politics and ethnocentrism serve, to proclaim the principle of the nation with borders as the nation itself, while the borders are, in fact, regularly traversed by policy makers, investors and moneyed interests pursuing the main chance and wielding the big stick. Trump himself regularly touts, though refuses to reveal, his international dealings, many of which confound his goal of keeping jobs within American borders if they don't outright violate American laws.  Truth is that the nation's prosperity has long rested on the labor and resourcefulness of immigrants–voluntary and involuntary, free and slave–and that those who most loudly denounce a "nation without borders" are likely descendants of immigrants who were themselves harassed for their origins, faith and lifeways at some point in the past. We would do well to recognize that in a global economy such as ours, where the movement of people and goods are the lifeblood of our sustenance, a nation's security is best maintained not by walling itself off but by lifting the prospects–and thereby creating political allies–of working people around the world.


Even though not all the states in the Democratic Primary have been accounted for, the Clinton campaign is feeling pretty confident as a surrogate reveals they are ready to take on Donald Trump in the general election.Their method? Release hell on the Donald Trump campaign with their copious amount of opposition research. David Brock, who spoke to Politico reporters, said:We [Democrats] can knock Trump Tower down to the sub-basement. American Bridge is building a database of all the regular people, from unpaid vendors to harassed tenants to defrauded students at Trump University, who got screwed over for one reason only: they took Trump at his word.American Bridge, as Brock refers to, is a group of private progressive donors who funnel money to Clinton s campaign through their PAC, and have apparently been collecting data and research on Trump since the summer of 2015. According to Brock, they have discovered a multitude of issues that Republicans missed when vetting the frontrunner. They also claim they have discovered harmful information that the media too has missed.What could be worse than what the media already knows? How much worse can he get after being exposed as a sexist, racist, xenophobic, bombastic, sensationalist fraud? Apparently that isn t enough to turn off voters, Brock warns. Instead, Democrats need to be cautious, saying beating Trump will not be a cakewalk, but is possible if they paint him as a danger to the Constitution, a menace to democracy, and a threat to the nation as a whole. Considering he s all three, this might be a cakewalk for Democrats. And what s even better is that American Bridge is as meticulous as Clinton herself, and has collected equally damaging evidence on rival Ted Cruz, should he squeak out a win at the Republican National Convention.As Brock puts it, should it come to it, this campaign will be a bare-knuckles campaign for the White House. And who better to come out swinging than Clinton? Featured image by Eric Thayer/Getty Images


As Spanish police wielded batons and fired rubber bullets at crowds attempting to vote in Catalonia s banned independence referendum on Sunday, the region s own police force gave many voters a much gentler reception. In Catalonia s pro-independence heartland, among the farming towns of Osona county north of Barcelona, the Catalan force made little attempt to remove people from polling stations despite being tasked with the same court order to shut them down. Local courts received several complaints on Sunday against the Catalan police accusing them of inactivity and failing to close polling stations, despite the court order, the region s High Court said in a statement. In Sant Pere and Osona s capital of Vic, crowds waited in orderly queues and cast their ballots in school halls, though the mood was jittery as photos of bloodied voters circulated via social media from the cities of Barcelona and Girona. More than 840 people were injured during Sunday s police crackdown, Catalan officials said. Spain s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, however, praised the police for carrying out their duties and upholding the law. In Sant Pere, children ran along the street playing tag, young people passed around barbecued kebabs and flagons of red wine, and pensioners at a retirement home nearby sat by windows and waved Catalan flags. If we don t win today, we will never be able to do it. This is the opportunity, Ramon Jordana, a 92-year-old former taxi driver said as he dropped his vote into a ballot box that organizers had smuggled into the town in the dead of night. At the polling station in Sant Pere, a town of some 2,500 people close to the Pyrenees which symbolically declared independence from Spain in 2012, voters arrived before sunrise and Jordana cast the first vote at 9 a.m. Officers from Catalonia s regional police, the Mossos d Esquadra, had tried to enter Sant Pere and Vic s polling stations before voting began but crowds clustered around the entrances to stop them. They withdrew to applause and cheers. We won t use force to enter, but we ll stay outside all day in case at some point we can, one of the officers in Sant Pere told Reuters afterwards. He asked not to be identified. The two officers in Sant Pere chatted casually with locals outside the polling station, and one of them posed with a child for a photo. After a second attempt to enter the voting center, the crowd resisted and they retreated around a street corner. In Osona s overwhelmingly separatist-controlled municipalities, opinion polls show support for independence tops 80 percent on average, around double the overall support among Catalonia s 7.5 million population. The referendum has been declared illegal by Rajoy s central government in Madrid, which says the constitution states the country is indivisible, and it has dispatched police across Catalonia to seize ballot boxes and prevent people voting. However, national police and the Mossos have taken very different approaches, despite Spain s state prosecutor telling Mossos recently that they had been put under a single chain of command reporting directly to the interior ministry in Madrid. The Mossos are held in great affection by Catalans, especially after they hunted down Islamists accused of staging coordinated attacks in Barcelona in August which killed 16 people. In contrast, the Civil Guard national police were branded Rajoy s thugs on Twitter on Sunday. National police unions said officers had carried out an impeccable intervention to preserve the constitution and called the Mossos inaction scandalous . The national police are disappointed and indignant ... The Mossos presence has been insufficient, deliberately weak and embarrassingly neutral, the unions said in a statement. In Sant Pere, before voting got underway, the town s mayor, Jordi Fabrega, asked a crowd of about 200 people to guard the booth s entrance all day and to resist peacefully any attempt by police to enter. The moment we leave it unguarded, they will come, Fabrega said. The first count of Sant Pere s vote showed 80 percent turnout with 97 percent of voters supporting independence. High turnout will be key to legitimizing a yes vote, which the Catalan government says would lead to a declaration of independence from the regional parliament within 48 hours. Locals blocked streets with vans and construction trucks as word spread that national police, who have been drafted into Catalonia in their thousands, were en route to raid the polling station. If the police really want to get the ballot boxes, they will get them, said one Sant Pere voter, 66-year-old Carles, who declined to give his surname as he was worried the Spanish government would come after him. In the end, no national police turned up. Organizers said it had been no easy task to get to this point. Joan Vaque Casas, Sant Pere s head coordinator, said he had received a text message at about 2 a.m. to meet at a secret location to pick up the ballot box and voting papers.


Alleged President Donald Trump created worldwide chaos with his latest executive order banning Muslims from entering the U.S. Yes, it is a Muslim ban. I ll tell you the whole history of it, Giuliani said in an interview with Fox News Jeanine Pirro. When he first announced it, he said Muslim ban. He called me up. He said, Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally. Of course, the ban isn t implemented in Muslim countries Trump does business with. Protests have erupted across the country for two days straight over Trump s highly controversial move. Travelers, including a 77-year-old woman and a 5-year-old boy were detained.So, what do you do when you re a newly minted president and you just created worldwide chaos? You watch Finding Dory while protesters are outside of the White House, angry over his reckless decision.Trump, along with family members and White House staff, screened the Disney Pixar film in the afternoon after prohibiting foreign nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.Finding Dory is an animated story of a character s attempt to reunite with her parents despite outside forces working against her.The Internet was not amused.The nation is in turmoil over the Executive Order, and @POTUS @realDonaldTrump will be watching @findingdory. https://t.co/snpcZJuU2k Derry London (@Derry_London) January 29, 2017Meanwhile in the White House, Trump is watching Finding Dory with his unvetted staffers and their families. https://t.co/tLSoAhgh7g Fernando Espuelas (@EspuelasVox) January 29, 2017If you wonder what Trump will be doing today during a potential constitutional crisis that he d have triggered he s watching Finding Dory https://t.co/aX7GXzLwZj Zachary Alfred (@ZacAlf) January 29, 2017And it s Finding Dory. For real. This is happening. https://t.co/CnZtrN2sgy Bronwen Dickey (@BronwenDickey) January 29, 2017The nation is in turmoil over the Executive Order, and @POTUS @realDonaldTrump will be watching @findingdory. https://t.co/snpcZJuU2k Derry London (@Derry_London) January 29, 2017Odd that Trump is watching Finding Dory today, a movie about reuniting with family when he s preventing it in real life. Albert Brooks (@AlbertBrooks) January 29, 2017Bannon running amok while Trump watches Finding Dory pic.twitter.com/odwqyt5Tjp Joshua Block (@JoshACLU) January 29, 2017Finding Dory is mostly about a family reuniting across a border that wouldn t be blocked by a wall Jared Rizzi (@JaredRizzi) January 29, 2017Imagine if former President Barack Obama just sat back, chillin out, watching a cartoon while the world is freaking out over chaos he created.Image: Pixar with added photo of Trump by Scott Olson/Getty Images.


Donald Trump is surging in new battleground and national polls at a time when Hillary Clinton faces tough questions not only about her health but her sweeping criticism of her Republican opponent's supporters. Several surveys appear to show the Republican presidential nominee effectively ending, at least for now, a post-convention slump that saw Clinton leading in virtually every swing state. Now, a Monmouth University Poll shows Trump taking a narrow 2-point lead in Nevada; a Bloomberg Politics poll shows Trump leading Clinton by 5 points in Ohio; and new CNN/ORC polls show Trump leading in Florida and Ohio. In the latter survey, Trump leads 46-41 percent among likely voters in Ohio, and 47-44 percent among likely voters in Florida. "We've really had a good month," Trump told Fox News' "Fox & Friends," claiming he's enjoying renewed "enthusiasm" from voters. Clinton, though, plans to return to the campaign trail Thursday afternoon after taking three days off to recover from a bout of pneumonia. While her campaign dispatched high-powered surrogates to the stump in her absence -- including Bill Clinton and President Obama -- the Democratic nominee's presence could help reset the race once again. The contest remains tight, and the polls are hardly uniform. A Quinnipiac University national poll released Wednesday showed Clinton leading 48-43 percent among likely voters. But that still represents a narrowing of the race since a late-August survey showing Clinton up 10 points. The recent surveys come as Clinton grapples with new controversies on two fronts: Her comment at a Friday fundraiser that half of Trump's backers are in a "basket of deplorables," and her campaign's handling of a health scare on Sunday during a 15th anniversary ceremony honoring victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Clinton has since expressed regret for her "deplorables" comment, though Trump has called on her to outright retract it. And Clinton's campaign has sought to answer questions about the former secretary of state's health, after Clinton was seen stumbling at the 9/11 memorial event in New York City. The campaign said she was overheated and dehydrated, and revealed she had been diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday. While the incident revived long-simmering questions about her health, the campaign on Wednesday released additional medical details. Dr. Lisa Bardack, Clinton's physician, said she is "recovering well with antibiotics and rest." Bardack also said Clinton remains "healthy and fit to serve." Trump, too, has tried to answer questions about his own health. He discussed the results of a recent physical with TV's "Dr. Oz," and told Fox News on Thursday "they were good." The discussion with "Dr. Oz" will air on his show Thursday. Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign maintains they always knew states like Ohio would be competitive – and they are building out their operation there. The campaign announced that they will open a half-dozen new offices in the state, bringing their total to 54.


Massive explosions and a blaze at a military ammunition depot in central Ukraine forced authorities to evacuate 24,000 people and close airspace over the region, officials said on Wednesday. The blasts occurred late on Tuesday at a military base near Kalynivka in the Vynnytsya region, 270 kilometers (168 miles) west of Kiev, Ukrainian emergencies service said in a statement. One person was injured, it said. Arriving in the region hours later, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said external factors were behind the incident.


Every time Donald Trump lashes out at Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, he gets his ass handed to him.For instance, when Trump threw a petty temper tantrum because Corker criticized him, Corker responded thusly:It s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning. Senator Bob Corker (@SenBobCorker) October 8, 2017Corker didn t even have to say another word. He just sat back and watched as the world laughed at Trump. Trump even continued throwing a hissy fit by relentlessly attacking and insulting Corker, but to avail. Corker had already kicked his ass.On Tuesday morning, Trump took aim at Corker once again for criticizing Trump s massive tax cuts for the wealthy.Bob Corker, who helped President O give us the bad Iran Deal & couldn t get elected dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting Tax Cuts . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2017 Corker dropped out of the race in Tennesse when I refused to endorse him, and now is only negative on anything Trump. Look at his record! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2017Isn t it sad that lightweight Senator Bob Corker, who couldn t get re-elected in the Great State of Tennessee, will now fight Tax Cuts plus! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2017Corker could probably get re-elected in Tennessee. It s just that he has decided to retire rather than run again.But while Trump required three tweets to attack Corker, Corker only needed one.Same untruths from an utterly untruthful president. #AlertTheDaycareStaff Senator Bob Corker (@SenBobCorker) October 24, 2017Indeed, where is the adult day care staff? Clearly, General John Kelly has utterly failed to regulate Trump s social media usage. Like a child, Trump needs serious supervision. Every time he rage tweets he embarrasses himself and the nation.If Trump thinks he is winning this little feud with Corker he should think again. Because Corker has zero f*cks left and he ll burn Trump s tiny-handed ass to the ground every single time.Featured Image: Ron Sachs Pool/Getty Images


Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, hinted at the possibility of laying obstruction of justice charges down against Donald Trump in a conversation with CNN s Manu Raju yesterday.Raju relayed a message to Grassley from Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat out of California, in the Senate s hallways. According to Raju, Feinstein says that she wants the Judiciary Committee to investigate potential obstruction of justice. Raju was referring to a letter Feinstein wrote to Grassley on Friday in which she begged the committee to investigate all issues that raise a question of obstruction of justice. These issues should be developed by our legal staff, presented to us, and be subject to full Committee hearings. Grassley s response was one that we all wanted to hear. Let me give you a process answer because this is where we are, Grassley replied to Raju. Sen. Feinstein wanted to talk to me by phone today. I sent word back that I d like to have her and I sit down face-to-face and we ll work out all of the subpoenas and all the stuff we have to do in the future and work out a whole program. Raju pressed for more details, asking, Are you okay, though, looking into the potential of obstruction of justice? Is that something for your committee? We re going to leave that to a conversation with Feinstein, was Grassley s answer.Dianne Feinstein s letter to Grassley mainly focussed on fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who, on January 26 and 27, warned White House counsel that then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had lied about his contact with the Russian Ambassador, leading to Flynn s forced resignation. She also mentioned that, if necessary, the committee could subpoena Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Administrator Mike Rogers following their unforthcoming responses when questioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee.These could be the subpoenas that Chuck Grassley was referring to, but you can make up your own mind by reading Feinstein s letter and watching Raju and Grassley s exchange, here.GRASSLEY says he's meeting soon with Feinstein to discuss subpoeanas on Russia, FBI, Comey probes. https://t.co/wgNDVuy29D Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 13, 2017


It s Fox News, but that doesn t mean that everyone is blindly following Donald Trump. Anchor Megyn Kelly fell off the Trump train right about the time of the first Republican presidential debate of the season, after which Trump accused Kelly of having blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever, all because she dared ask about Trump s history of sexism.It s been more than a year since that debate, and in that time, Trump the sexist has come front and center, especially after Trump was caught on a hot mic, saying that he likes to grab women by the pussy, and to confirm Trump s own words, nearly a dozen women are now accusing the self-described billionaire of sexual misconduct.Kelly, when interviewing Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich, suggested that Trump is a sexual predator. At that point, the interview went off the rails. Gingrich became very angry and said to Kelly,Kelly responded in the best way possible, I m not fascinated by sex, but I am fascinated by the protection of women and what we are getting in the oval office. Every woman knows that when a man tells a woman she s fascinated by sex, he s not saying it in a way that means she d be welcome in Trump s locker room not at all. When a man tells a woman she s fascinated by sex, especially in an argumentative context, he s calling her a whore. While that statement might not have the same bite in 2016 that it might have had when Gingrich was young, the intent is there. Gingrich is trying to discredit Kelly in the exact same way that Trump is trying to discredit his alleged victims. A woman liking sex is still used as a defense in rape trials. While men grabbing pussy, or talking about grabbing pussy, is just boys being boys. Women talking about sex is taboo and any woman who dares talk about sex deserve whatever they have coming to them.Believe it or not, that exchange was the most rational part. In the now familiar Trump tactic of I know you are but what am I, Gingrich went on to call Bill Clinton a sexual predator. He even tried subtly bullying Kelly into say(ing) the words, Bill Clinton sexual predator.' Kelly went on to say that on her show, they ve covered the Bill Clinton story and that she s interviewed Kathleen Willey, who has accused Clinton of rape (an accusation for which a grand jury found insufficient evidence).Here s the video:Gingrich has a grudge against Clinton, to be sure. If you recall, the former Speaker of the House was one of architects of the Clinton impeachment, which only served to boost Clinton s popularity while it seriously hurt Congress s.Ironically, Gingrich and the other two Speakers who presided during the impeachment investigation and trials, were all sexual predators. Dennis Hastert molested boys while a wrestling coach in Illinois and Bob Livingston had a string of affairs. Gingrich was cheating on his second wife. Before that, though, Gingrich earned the title of sexual predator, at least that s what he s accused of:One former aide describes approaching a car with Gingrich s daughters in hand, only to find the candidate with a woman, her head buried in his lap. The aide quickly turned and led the girls away. Another former friend maintains that Gingrich repeatedly made sexual advances to her when her husband was out of town. On one occasion, he visited under the guise of comforting her after the death of a relative, and instead tried to seduce her. In certain circles in the mid-1970s, Gingrich was developing a reputation as a ladies man.Source: SalonOh, and he also served his first wife her divorce papers while she was recovering from cancer surgery. Yes, he and Trump are a perfect match.


Radio host Rush Limbaugh discussed the riots at UC Berkeley that shut down Breitbart Senior editor MILO's scheduled event on his show again today, ridiculing former Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich for suggesting that the rioters were plants. ["The labor secretary, former labor secretary, Robert B. Reichhhh," said Rush, "claims that the protesters in Berkeley were actually hired by Breitbart. That it was a Breitbart false flag. (laughing) They weren't really leftists that were doing this. Go to the audio sound bites. Last night on CNN Tonight, Don Lemon speaking with the former Secretary of Labor for Clinton, said, "The violence we saw at Berkeley, it plays right into the hands of the white supremacists, you know, the people at Breitbart. What do you think about that, Mr. Secretary?" Rush then played the clip of Reich claiming that the protesters were planted by MILO and Breitbart. "Ha! Ha! Ha! Haaaaaaa! Do you hear how enthusiastic he is? (laughing) Do you know any capable of this kind of behavior? (laughing) I mean, go to Ferguson, go to Baltimore, go to San Bernardino, go to Watts. Take any protest, any violence. Go to Oakland any time you want. Any time there is violent protests, it's always left wingers bought and paid for by the Hillary campaign, the Democrat Party, or George Soros, and never once have the Democrats ever condemned them, 'cause they're proud of them. " "They're proud of these anarchists. They're proud of the people who blow up bank buildings. They're proud of the people that start fires. They never blame them. They never try to pass it off as fake protesters hired by Republicans. (chuckles) Until now. Why now? Why would it be … ? Why don't they embrace these people? Why isn't former labor secretary Reichhhh and the rest of the left embracing these people and giving them a bunch of attaboys? Why aren't they encouraging 'em?" "You know this is the kind of instability and chaos that they want because they know it's gonna be blamed on Trump. They know that all of this … The and everybody in education's gonna point fingers at Trump. Peggy Noonan's done it. I've got it … (That's one of the things that's been superseded by other stuff in the news.) Oh, and they've discovered a new unemployment rate! (chuckling) Wait 'til you hear this. They've discovered the unemployment rate at CNBC. Ah, this is just … It's too juicy. And here's now the former Clinton labor secretary!" "They don't want anybody to think that these protesters in Berkeley that blew that place up were Democrats. They don't want 'em to think it's leftist students. Why do they not want to embrace them, encourage them, and claim credit? What is there to gain by blaming this on Breitbart? Don Lemon, now thoroughly intrigued, said, "You think this is a strategy by Milo Yiannopoulos or right wingers? Did they put this on in an effort to show that there's no free speech on a college campus like Berkeley? The right wingers did this? "" "These people are losing their minds. "I was there! I was there! They were all dressed in black! I've not seen this before. " It's called … There's a name for these people. They're Black Rock or something, and they are leftists associated with George Soros. They come in in all black and they hide their faces. Many of them are not students. That's the point. They are bought and paid for! (laughing) But here is Reich (paraphrased) "I was there! I saw them! These were right wingers, sure as I'm sitting here with you, Don!" (cracking up)" "I thought he was checking student IDs or whatever. But no, they weren't students. That's the point. Here's something else about this if I can try to regain my composure. (laughing) I don't know. I just hear this little guy get so juiced, folks. He gets so excited talking about this conspiracy. (impression) "I really wouldn't bet against it, Don! I … " (laughing) I heard that the president of the university — I'm still tracking this down — actually had campus cops and Berkeley cops stand down while this happened, that there was, in certain quarters, a desire for this to happen. " Listen to the full clip here.


Left wing extremist offences have risen considerably in the last year according to Austrian officials who say that Islamic terror is still the most pressing danger. [The new report, presented by the Austrian Federal Office for Constitutional Protection and Counterterrorism (BVT) shows that criminal offences involving left wing extremists rose 112 per cent in 2016. A total of 383 offences were recorded by police compared to 186 in 2015 whilst there were 463 criminal reports opposed to 312 in 2015, Kronen Zeitung reports. The BVT say 46. 5 per cent of the cases involved left wing activists damaging campaign posters and other material of former migration Freedom Party presidential candidate Norbert Hofer during last year's election campaign. Other incidents have been much more violent such as the attack on the migration Identitarian youth movement Martin Sellner at a Vienna metro station by members of the " action" group. Sellner was forced to use a pepper spray gun on his attackers who subsequently fled after punching and kicking him. Whilst the number of right wing offences, which included and incidents, numbered far greater at 1, 313, the increase was much smaller at only 13. 6 per cent. The increase in 2016 was lower than the increase in 2015, according to the report. BVT director Peter Gridling said Islamic extremism was still the biggest security threat to the country. "As we have seen many times in Europe, religiously motivated Islamic extremism and terrorism is still the greatest threat to the security of democratic Western states," he said. "At the end of 2016, 296 people were known to us who were travelling from Austria to the Syrian or Iraqi regions, but we were able to prevent 51 from leaving the country. Ninety returned to Austria and 45 persons were killed in the fighting area. The rest are still abroad," Gridling added. Left wing extremism has also been on the rise in Germany where in certain areas like Berlin, they frequently clash with police. A study showed that most of the extremists were young men who overwhelmingly still lived with their parents and most had no job and no girlfriends. Leipzig is another German city with a large left wing extremist scene. A report from migration organisation Einprozent claimed there had been 22 cases of left wing violence in the city in 2016. Several of the attacks were aimed at the migration Alternative for Germany party which included the torching of several cars including of the party Frauke Petry.


Lighter, tighter and more carefully worded, the reworked travel ban announced by the Trump administration on Monday aims to pass legal muster in the United States while meeting its stated objective of combating Islamist terrorism. But in the Middle East, where its effects will be most keenly felt, the executive order was seen as boiling down to the same thing: a Muslim ban. In Iraq, where the initial ban had drawn the sharpest criticism, relieved officials welcomed President Trump's decision to drop their country from the list of nations whose citizens will be barred from entering the United States for 90 days. That decision came after pressure from the State Department and the Pentagon — and as American troops are working closely with Iraqi soldiers in the battle for Mosul. In a minor triumph, there were none of the earlier chaotic scenes of travelers and refugees being turned back at airports. Yet in the other six countries still on Mr. Trump's list, his decision to push ahead with the ban only stoked their sense of grievance and discrimination. Regional experts repeated earlier warnings that Mr. Trump's order handed an easy propaganda victory to enemies and might ultimately weaken American security. "The idea that this is a Muslim ban has been reinforced even further," said Maha Yahya, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. "Islamic State will use this ban to say: 'I told you so. They only mean you harm. They only see you as the enemy. '" The six countries left on the list are among the poorest, most chaotic or most politically isolated in the Middle East, so their inclusion carries ostensibly low costs for the Trump administration. Libya has multiple competing governments. Aid officials warn that Yemen, consumed by civil war, is on the verge of famine. Syria's vicious conflict has left vast urban landscapes in ruins. Somalia has been in a state of rolling chaos since 1991. Iran does not suffer domestic upheaval, but decades of diplomatic hostility with the West have left it political isolated. Trump administration officials point out that parts of the banned countries have become havens for Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other groups, largely as a result of war and chronic instability. But by the same token, studies have shown that the citizens of those countries are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence, and have historically not posed a major risk to security in the United States. According to the New America Foundation, all 13 jihadist terrorists who have killed people in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, were American citizens or permanent residents. None had ties to the seven countries first singled out by Mr. Trump in January. A federal appeals court, rejecting that order, said his administration had produced "no evidence" linking citizens from the seven affected nations to terrorist acts in the United States. Among citizens in the banned countries, the sense of injustice is compounded when they look at richer or more powerful neighbors, like Egypt or Saudi Arabia, whose citizens have carried out major attacks in the United States, yet which have escaped Mr. Trump's censure because their governments are harder to push around. "You know what they say: When the wife commits adultery, hit the maid," said Abdel Bari Taher, a Yemeni political analyst speaking by telephone from the country's capital, Sana. "They are punishing Yemen and others because they are the weak ones. Meanwhile, all the Gulf states that funded terrorism carry on as usual. " Mr. Taher said he had little doubt Mr. Trump's ban was driven by domestic political considerations. "He is going after us just to please his supporters at home," he said. Nonetheless, he added, it stung. In Iraq, the initial ban had been taken as a grievous insult from an ally it was supposed to be partnering with in the fight against the Islamic State. When the ban was announced in January, it prompted calls from some officials in Baghdad for Iraq to reciprocate with a ban on Americans entering Iraq, putting the prime minister, Haider under political pressure to act. The plight of military translators who had worked for the United States government and been promised resettlement in the United States provided a further focus for popular outrage. Mr. Abadi, however, ultimately decided not to impose any restrictions on Americans and instead worked through back channels to have the ban overturned. On Monday, relieved officials said their approach had been vindicated. "We were hoping for the decision to be reconsidered, and this is what has happened," said Jasim Iraq's minister of migration, in a telephone interview. Still, it was equally likely that pressure from the Pentagon, which feared damage to the Islamic State campaign, played a significant part in Mr. Trump's decision. In the revised executive order issued Monday, Mr. Trump dropped a provision to bar Syrian refugees from the United States indefinitely, but will still freeze all refugee admissions for 120 days. David Miliband, a former British foreign secretary who leads the International Rescue Committee aid agency, denounced that decision as a "historic assault on refugee resettlement to the United States, and a really catastrophic cut at a time there are more refugees around the world than ever before," The Associated Press reported. Ms. Yahya, the analyst, said the refugee decision was part of the growing "moral and reputational toll" from Mr. Trump's actions in the Middle East. Yet there was not much of an immediate outcry in many countries — possibly because, as elsewhere, citizens were becoming slowly used to a steady stream of yet often perishable, decisions from Mr. Trump's White House. Some have been tickled by American news media coverage of the simmering conflict between Mr. Trump and the "deep state" — a phrase more commonly associated with discussions about the Egyptian security services, or Pakistan's Intelligence spy agency. Yet Mr. Trump's assault on the news media as an "enemy of the people" has uncomfortable echoes in many countries, and some have taken the parallels to signify that the United States has entered an unwelcome phase. "Trump has taken America from its ivory tower to the level of a rotten banana republic," Mohamed Rageh Roweis, a Palestinian analyst, wrote on Twitter. Even in unaffected countries, the ban has stoked the belief that the true goal of Mr. Trump and senior advisers like Stephen K. Bannon is to pursue a civilizational war against Muslims, rather than to combat terrorism. "It doesn't make any sense," said Mustapha Kamel a professor at Cairo University. "These terrorist groups are multinational organizations. If they want to attack the United States, they don't have to send people from these six countries. They can just find someone from another country. "


It s so much fun watching Kellyanne Conway get humiliated on live television.On Monday morning, the wicked witch of the White House appeared on the Today Show to whine about how the media covers Donald Trump.Specifically, she bitched about the media covering what Trump says on Twitter. This obsession with covering everything he says on Twitter and very little what he does as president, Conway started before NBC host Craig Melvin pointed out that Twitter is Trump s preferred method of communication with the American people. Conway replied by accusing Melvin of lying. Melvin fired back and instantly owned Conway with a simple fact. Well, he hasn t given an interview in three weeks. So lately it has been his preferred method. Here s the video via Twitter.WATCH: This obsession with covering everything he says on Twitter and very little what he does as president @KellyannePolls pic.twitter.com/iyS3WnHoxh TODAY (@TODAYshow) June 5, 2017Indeed, Trump has especially used Twitter heavily ever since the London terrorist attack on Saturday.He attacked London s mayor and tried to use the tragedy to scare people into supporting his Muslim ban.Trump even threw a temper tantrum on Monday morning because the courts have blocked his unconstitutional ban.But Trump has used Twitter repeatedly like a drunken sailor since taking office and everything he says should be covered and scrutinized by the media. If Kellyanne Conway thinks the media shouldn t cover Trump s tweets she should take his phone away from him and make him quit social media entirely.Until then, Trump s Twitter feed is fair game.Also, why are networks still letting Conway spew her bullshit on the air?For quite some time, she had been kept off the air because of the amount of lying she does every time she makes an appearance. Now she is all of sudden back on television. If the media should be criticized for anything, it s the way they keep giving Trump s minions a platform to lie to the American people.But at least Craig Melvin called Conway out.


The top U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Democrat said on Wednesday he would push the panel's Republican chairman to expand a probe of Russian hacking to include the calls to a Russian diplomat made by President Donald Trump's former National Security Adviser. Representative Adam Schiff said he would make his case to Republican Devin Nunes, the committee's chairman, when he met with him later on Wednesday.


It seemed like it took exactly 30 seconds for every person on the right-wing to take Hillary Clinton s early departure from a 9/11 memorial as proof that she is suffering from some severe medical disorder. In reality, Clinton did actually become overheated. Her medical doctor released a statement that explains that Clinton is currently suffering from pneumonia. It explains why she has been coughing on the campaign trail and why she needed to leave the event she was attending in New York.Politico reports that Clinton s physician, Lisa Bardack released a statement saying: Secretary Clinton has been experiencing a cough related to allergies. On Friday, during follow up evaluation of her prolonged cough, she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was put on antibiotics, and advised to rest and modify her schedule. While at this morning s event, she became overheated and dehydrated. I have just examined her and she is now re-hydrated and recovering nicely. Shocking. It s almost as if Clinton is a human being who gets sick. Pneumonia can, of course, turn deadly. However, given the medical miracles of the modern age, she ll probably be fine. Just as Clinton s doctor, who you know, actually has a medical degree, and who examined her just today after the incident says she will be.Thanks to right-wing blowhards such as Sean Hannity, this bizarre health conspiracy has gone totally mainstream. It really says a lot about the power that the right-wing has harnessed when it comes to the media, both in traditional and online formats. They managed to turn a brief clip of Clinton falling while being rushed into a car into absolute proof that Clinton is suffering from Alzheimer s disease or whatever they believe she has this week.Welcome to the era of Alex Jones-like mass media speculation.Featured image from Justin Sullivan/Getty Images


The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency will run out of disaster assistance funding on Friday unless Congress approves more money, two Florida senators warned on Thursday. As Hurricane Irma barrels through the Caribbean on its way to an expected landfall on Florida on Sunday, the Senate approved a measure 80 votes to 17 to more than double funding to $15.25 billion to FEMA and local block grants to handle natural disasters. The House is expected to approve the measure later this week. It already approved $7.85 billion on Wednesday. FEMA is stretched, and, of all things, FEMA runs out of money unless we act by tomorrow, Democrat Senator Bill Nelson said in a speech on Thursday, following a letter he wrote with Republican Senator Marco Rubio to congressional leaders warning that more funds were needed. The bill also extends the National Flood Insurance Program through Dec. 8 that was set to expire on Sept. 30. The government-subsidized insurance program helps homeowners in flood-prone areas receive coverage. It is nearly $25 billion in debt and members of both parties want to reform it. FEMA declined on Thursday to say how much remained in its Disaster Relief Fund, which had just over $1 billion on hand as of Tuesday, less than half the $2.1 billion it had last week. The agency has received a record number of disaster assistance requests from victims of Hurricane Harvey. We re not going to let money get in the way of saving lives, FEMA director Brock Long told broadcaster CBS on Wednesday. Congress knows what they need to do. David Lapan, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, also declined to say on Thursday when the fund would be depleted, but said it would not be long without congressional action. On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump approved a major disaster declaration for the U.S. Virgin Islands, which makes residents eligible for FEMA and other government grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs. In response to Irma, FEMA said staff had been deployed to the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico and more than 1,000 personnel were ready to respond in Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. Provisions include millions of liters of water, meals, medical equipment and generators.


Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations committee, said on Sunday that President Donald Trump's executive order on refugees and immigration had been "poorly implemented," particularly for green card holders. "We all share a desire to protect the American people, but this executive order has been poorly implemented, especially with respect to green card holders," Corker said in a statement. "The administration should immediately make appropriate revisions, and it is my hope that following a thorough review and implementation of security enhancements that many of these programs will be improved and reinstated," he said.


Email  The Times made a reference on Thursday to the suffering of millions of Yemenis using the phrase "the forgotten war".  An18-year-old Yemeni girl's image catches the attention on the front page of the newspaper. Her malnutrition reduced her to a skeleton and she has disturbingly become emaciated as a result of food shortage.  This newspaper reported that Saida has been hospitalized in the port city of Hodeidah because of malnutrition while the city is under economic siege of Saudi Arabia.


DHAKA, Bangladesh — A Canadian man suspected of having planned a July attack on a bakery in Dhaka that left 22 people dead was killed in a shootout with the Bangladeshi police on Saturday, officials said. The man, Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, a Canadian citizen of Bangladeshi descent, was one of three militants killed in the raid outside Dhaka, the capital, the officials said. The Bangladeshi authorities have said Mr. Chowdhury planned the July 1 assault on the Holey Artisan Bakery, a restaurant popular with expatriates and Bangladeshis. Some analysts believe Mr. Chowdhury acted as a coordinator for the Islamic State militant group in Bangladesh and northeastern India. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for several recent attacks in Bangladesh, including the assault on the bakery. The Bangladeshi police, however, identified Mr. Chowdhury as the leader of a new branch of a domestic terrorist group, the Jama'atul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, and the government initially denied that the bakery attack had been carried out by members of foreign groups. Later, officials acknowledged that the attackers might have had links to such groups, including the Islamic State. The shootout on Saturday morning took place at a house in the Narayanganj district near Dhaka, after the police received a tip that the militants were hiding there, said A. K. M. Kamrul Ahsan, a spokesman. They were given a chance to surrender but attacked the police with guns and grenades, at which point the police opened fire, said a police official, Inspector General A. K. M. Shahidul Hoque, in televised comments to reporters on Saturday. Both officials said Mr. Chowdhury was among the militants killed. The police had offered cash bounties of about $25, 000 this month for information leading to the arrest of Mr. Chowdhury and for another militant, Syed Mohammad Ziaul Haque, who was suspected of being involved in recent killings of secular writers. Mr. Chowdhury's name was on a list of 10 suspects released by the Bangladeshi authorities last month after the Holey Artisan Bakery attack, an siege carried out by five militants who were eventually killed by soldiers. Analysts said Mr. Chowdhury and two other Bangladeshi expatriates on that list could have been acting as links between local and international extremist groups. The bakery siege was the most deadly in a series of violent attacks carried out by Islamist militants in Bangladesh over the past several years. The frequency of those attacks has increased in recent months. Officials said they suspected that Mr. Chowdhury was also behind a July 7 bombing at Bangladesh's largest prayer gathering for the Eid holiday, which killed four people: two police officers, a civilian and a militant. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said Saturday in televised remarks to reporters that the identities of the two militants killed with Mr. Chowdhury would be released after an investigation, but that one of them appeared to be Mr. Chowdhury's man. It was not clear whether either of them was on the list of suspects released last month. "We think Tamim Chowdhury's chapter has ended here," Mr. Khan said. "We will be able to catch the rest of the militants soon. "