Henri could make landfall as a hurricane Sunday between Long Island and Cape Cod.
Storm surge, up to 5 feet in some areas, could be among the storm’s biggest threats.
In North Carolina, 20 people were still missing due to flooding from Tropical Storm Fred.
NEW YORK — Tropical Storm Henri, forecast to become a hurricane by Saturday, had the Northeast in its sights as the path of the storm has continually shifted closer to land.
The storm sparked memories of Hurricane Bob, which made landfall 30 years ago on Cape Cod, knocking out power and running water for days. Bob was the last hurricane to hit Cape Cod and the Islands.
Landfall could come between Long Island and Cape Cod on Sunday, said Da’Vel Johnson, a National Weather Service meteorologist in New York.
The impacts of every storm is slightly different, and with Henri, storm surge could be a significant threat, Johnson said.
“Going into Sunday, the waves and the swell off the water will start to rise,” he said.
Meanwhile, around 20 people were still missing in western North Carolina after severe flooding from Tropical Storm Fred inundated the state earlier this week. Gov. Roy Cooper assessed the damage Thursday, where some 200 water rescues took place along the still swollen Pigeon River.
And in the Gulf, Grace regained hurricane strength Friday before it is expected to crash into central Mexico for its second landfall in the country.
Henri prompts reminders of Bob in Cape Cod as parts of New York see first hurricane watches in 10 years
A combination of storm surge, damaging winds and heavy rain could bring serious damage to the Northeast from Henri.
Storm surge could reach 3 to 5 feet from Watch Hill, Rhode Island, to Sagamore Beach, Massachusetts. The surge along Long Island and up into Rhode Island could reach 2 to 4 feet, while the Jersey Shore could see 1 to 3 feet of surge, the National Hurricane Center said.
Winds from Henri may arrive as soon as late Saturday into Sunday. Winds were up to 65 mph as it was spinning about 800 miles south-southwest of Nantucket, Massachusetts, as of Friday morning.
Rainfall of 2 to 5 inches was expected in southern New England, with some isolated patches of up to 8 inches, possibly causing flash flooding.
When Bob roared ashore on Aug. 19, 1991, much of the Cape and Islands in Massachusetts were devastated for days.
“We shut the entire system down in response to Bob 30 years ago, but we wouldn’t have to do that today,” said William Hinkle, a spokesperson for the utility company Eversource.
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service office in New York issued its first hurricane watches for part of its area in 10 years, when Hurricane Irene threatened the area in late August 2011. Sandy in 2012, though officially not a hurricane at landfall, also caused widespread devastation to the area.
Much of the eastern part of Long Island and coastal Connecticut and Rhode Island were under hurricane watches, while the coast closer to New York City was under a tropical storm watch.
“Everybody along the Long Island area and New York City needs to be watching,” Johnson said.
At least 20 still missing in North Caroline from Fred’s flooding
The damaging floods from Tropical Storm Fred were still causing problems in western North Carolina near Asheville, where at least two people were killed and 20 others still missing days after the storm rolled through.
Cooper on Thursday visited Canton within the hardest hit areas of the state experiencing flooding that washed houses away like unmoored boats and drowned residents caught in waters that rose at at lightning pace as they roared down mountain creeks beds.
“We know that the search and rescue efforts are not stopping until we know where people are or we’ve been able to find somebody,” Cooper said as rescue missions, with assistance from the Air National Guard, continued.
About 10 to 15 bridges were damaged, officials said, creating more difficulties in reaching people.
Water levels reached the point of a 100-year flood, an event that has a 1% chance of happening each year. That damaged the Canton water treatment plant and knocked out power to 50,000 customers.
Cooper said that number without power had shrunk to 1,672 and there was hope to get the water plant back on line by the weekend.
He issued a state of emergency along with an executive order that eased rules for first responders and farmers needing to save existing crops.
Grace to strike Mexico again
Hurricane Grace was about 185 miles east-northeast of Veracruz early Friday as the storm is forecast to hit Mexico a second time.
Grace made landfall Thursday in the Yucatan Peninsula, blocking many streets with fallen limbs and trees that pulled down power lines.
Most businesses remained closed, but the few that opened saw long lines of people waiting to buy tortillas and other food.
Quintana Roo Gov. Carlos Joaquín said the storm had knocked out power to some 84,000 customers in Cancun and 65,000 in Playa del Carmen, Cozumel, Puerto Aventura and Tulum. But he said there were no reported deaths.
One lane of the highway between Playa del Carmen and Tulum was blocked by a fallen road sign. A gas station was destroyed when a large pavilion blew down, smashing two cars.
The storm’s winds on Friday had picked back up to 85 mph and it was headed west at 15 mph.
Contributing: Doug Fraser and Cynthia McCormick, Cape Cod Times; Joel Burgess, Asheville Citizen Times; The Associated Press
Deadly, fast-rising floodwaters have forced thousands of people to flee their homes in Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri.
At least three deaths have been blamed on the flooding, the result of a combination of runoff into rivers from the “bomb cyclone” storm that hit the country last week and spring snowmelt.
Satellite images provided by DigitalGlobe offer a before-and-after view of the historic flooding of the Missouri and Platte rivers south of Omaha, Nebraska.
The images capture the devastation the flood brought to areas along the river, including parts of Offutt Air Force Base and towns in Nebraska and Iowa.
Below is an image that provides an aerial view of Offutt AFB before and after the floodwaters rose.
The floodwaters have displaced more than 2,000 Iowans, who fled after heavy rains triggered flooding last week.
This image shows the flood’s impact in Pacific Junction, Iowa.
One anti-Fauci Twitter post last week said, “Sorry liberals but we don’t trust Dr. Anthony Fauci.”
The hashtag #FauciFraud has been used by more than 70 Twitter accounts, some posting hundreds of times a day, according to an analysis by The New York Times. Criticism of Dr. Fauci has also come from leading conservative voices and supporters of Mr. Trump, including Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, a conservative group; Bill Mitchell, the host of the far-right online talk show “YourVoice America”; and Shiva Ayyadurai, who has falsely claimed to be the inventor of email.
But Mr. Trump himself has praised the doctor. During Wednesday’s briefing, when a reporter asked about Dr. Fauci’s personal security, the president said: “He doesn’t need security. Everybody loves him.”
In fact, Dr. Fauci has earned plaudits from many medical experts and public health officials for his often grim assessment of the threats facing the United States from the coronavirus — even sometimes contradicting the president’s rosier outlook.
For weeks, Dr. Fauci’s remarks on television and at the White House stood in sharp contrast to the commentary from Mr. Trump’s fiercest supporters on Fox News, whose leading hosts repeatedly claimed that Democrats, the news media and public health experts were inflating the threat of the virus.
After the viral video of Dr. Fauci lowering his head, online attacks against him increased. A seven-year-old email that he wrote to an aide of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s was posted online by The American Thinker, a conservative blog. In the email, Dr. Fauci praised Mrs. Clinton for her stamina during hearings into the 2012 attacks on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya. The blog suggested falsely that the email proved that Dr. Fauci was part of a secret group who opposed Mr. Trump.
Ironically, in the past several days, the president has largely adopted Dr. Fauci’s more dire warnings about the dangers of the rapidly spreading virus. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump called it a “great national trial unlike any we have ever faced before” and echoed Dr. Fauci’s language about the need to minimize its spread.
“It’s a matter of life and death, frankly,” Mr. Trump said, offering a sober assessment of the pandemic’s effect. “It’s a matter of life and death.”
Un paso más en la modernización de la información ha dado el diario LA PRENSA con la primera transmisión en línea de Noticias LPTV, a través de su sitio web. El nuevo proyecto informativo mantiene al diario a la vanguardia digital del país.
Xochilt Gutiérrez, productora de Noticias LPTV, asegura que “en la internet está la nueva forma de hacer televisión y eso es lo que estamos haciendo junto con un grupo de jóvenes periodistas”, afirma la productora, que cuenta con vasta experiencia en el medio.
Noticias LPTV rompe con el modelo tradicional de ver noticias y ofrece nuevas alternativas a los usuarios de la red.
De acuerdo con Gutiérrez, los lectores de LA PRENSA tendrán la opción de ver el noticiero en www.laprensa.com.ni desde cualquier plataforma con acceso a internet, no exclusivamente frente a un televisor. Esto impulsa la proyección del país en materia de información, porque no solo las personas dentro de Nicaragua podrán informarse, sino que los residentes en el extranjero tendrán la oportunidad de enterarse de las noticias en otro formato, asegura Gutiérrez.
“Noticias LPTV es un proyecto innovador, que como toda profesional esperás sea un gran paso en tu carrera”, define Cindy Regidor, presentadora del noticiero. Regidor es una periodista joven con experiencia en prensa escrita y televisiva, que ahora forma parte de Noticias LPTV como la presentadora estelar del proyecto informativo de LA PRENSA.
NUEVA ALTERNATIVA
“Ahora nuestros anunciantes tendrán la oportunidad de apuntar hacia nuevos mercados y llegar más allá de sus objetivos, gracias a este proyecto de vanguardia que LA PRENSA ha desarrollado” asegura Ricardo Alvarado, gerente de mercadeo del Grupo Editorial LA PRENSA.
Noticias LPTV será transmitido en vivo a través del sitio web www.laprensa.com.ni, de lunes a viernes a las 4:30 de la tarde. Además, podrá seguir los comentarios de las noticias en las redes sociales usando la etiqueta #NoticiasLPTV en Twitter y Facebook, todas las emisiones serán grabadas y guardadas en tv.laprensa.com.ni para que usted pueda verlas, en caso de perderse la emisión en vivo.
Retired ICE Director Tom Homan pushed back on the Department of Homeland secretary claiming the Trump administration ‘gutted the system’ regarding immigration policy.
The Biden administration’s immigration policies are not as compassionate and humane as they are claiming, former Acting ICE Director Tom Homan said on Tuesday.
“Look, it’s inhumane to put your children in the arms of criminal cartels,” Homan told “Fox & Friends,” referring to migrants making the dangerous journey to the southern border using human smugglers.
Homan recalled a heated exchange he had with Congress members during a House hearing, which was called to examine the Trump administration’s decision to stop considering requests from immigrants seeking to defer deportation for medical treatment and other hardships.
“You and I talked about one of the times I testified. I lost my temper to the Congresswoman who said I didn’t care about dying children. I’ve held many dying children. I was in the back of a tractor-trailer with a five-year-old boy who suffocated to death in his father’s arms,” Homan said.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday urged migrants thinking of coming to the United States to “wait” as the Biden administration rebuilds a “gutted” immigration system — as he claimed there is no crisis at the U.S. southern border.
“The men and women of the Department of Homeland Security are working around the clock seven days a week to ensure that we do not have a crisis at the border—that we manage the challenge, as acute as the challenge is,” Mayorkas said, adding that the “challenge” is not just for the government, but for non-governmental organizations and border communities.
“All understand it is imperative,” he said. “Everyone understands what occurred before us and what we need to do now.”
He added: “And we are getting it done.”
Appearing in the White House briefing room, Mayorkas also took aim at the prior administration — and said the Department of Homeland Security is working to “replace the cruelty” of the Trump administration with “an orderly humane and safe immigration process.”
“Don’t tell me this is compassion!” Homan responded to Mayorkas’ statement.
“Putting your children in the hands of criminal cartels is inhumane, is dangerous, and it’s just bad. So, I’ve seen it and I and I just I can’t believe that statement was even made.’
Homan urged Congress to secure the U.S. border and enforce the laws that they wrote and enacted which were signed by the president. Homan noted that “last year, Mexico received 40 billion dollars in remittances from illegal migrant workers in the United States,
“[The U.S.] sent money back to Mexico; 40 billion in a year of a pandemic,” Homan said.
“So, of course, the Mexican president wants to send more people here because he doesn’t have to take care of them. He doesn’t have to provide social services. … This is a win-win for Mexico, bad for the United States, bad for the American worker.”
Image caption
En el exterior de la cínica se vio como la policía se llevaba a un hombre detenido.
Al menos tres personas –una de ellas un agente de policía– murieron este viernes en un tiroteo en una clínica de Planned Parenthood en la ciudad de Colorado Springs, Colorado, en el oeste de EE.UU.
La policía ya detuvo al sospechoso de realizar los disparos, quien se atrincheró durante horas en el interior de la clínica, informó el alcalde de la localidad, John Suthers.
Al menos 9 personas –cinco de ellas policías– resultaron heridas en el tiroteo, que se produjo en instalaciones del que es el mayor proveedor de servicios reproductivos de EE.UU.
Una fuente de la policía identificó al autor de los disparos como Robert Lewis Dear, de Carolina del Norte. No se dieron más detalles.
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption
Un hombre armado abrió fuego en las inmediaciones de una clínica de Planned Parenthood en Colorado Springs.
“Quiero transmitir a los seres queridos de las víctimas que esto es una tragedia terrible, es terrible lo que ocurrió hoy en Colorado Springs”, declaró el alcalde Suthers.
“Obviamente, perdimos dos víctimas civiles. Y lamentamos la pérdida de un agente de policía muy valiente”.
El agente muerto fue identificado como Garrett Swasey, de 44 años, casado y con dos hijos.
Motivos inciertos
Las autoridades dijeron que todavía no está claro si este incidente está vinculado con el trabajo que se realiza en las cínicas de Planned Parenthood.
La organización emitió un comunicado en el que coincide en decir que no se sabe “si la organización era objetivo del ataque”.
Image copyright Kody Fisher FOX21 via AP
Image caption
No está claro si algún civil ha resultado herido en el incidente
Según la teniente Catherine Buckley, varias personas fueron evacuadas de la clínica mientras el atacante permanecía dentro.
“Nuestra preocupación se centra en la seguridad de los pacientes, el personal y los agentes de seguridad”, escribió la directora ejecutiva de Planned Parenthood, Vicki Cowart.
Planned Parenthood tiene 700 clínicas repartidas por todo EE.UU. y ha estado en el centro de la polémica en los últimos meses después de que un grupo antiabortista hiciera públicos unos videos en los que aparecían algunos de sus altos ejecutivos supuestamente discutiendo con un lenguaje gráfico la venta de órganos y tejidos de fetos abortados.
Desde la organización se defendieron asegurando que los videos fueron editados para dañar su imagen y que no hacen negocio con los abortos que practican.
Good news for Spanish marketers – Google News seems to live on in Spain, despite its apparent closure last week. Tom Williams has the details, plus more prime news stories from the world of SEO.
Franken-news: Google News Still Alive in Spain, Mostly
Last Tuesday, Google pulled its News service for Spanish users, after a tough new copyright law forced it to shut its doors or pay hefty levies to Spanish publishers.
Visitors to the Google News homepage in Spain were (and are) greeted with a pained message from Google lamenting the loss of the service:
However, the service is apparently still being delivered to users in the form of ‘In the news’-style results in web search…
And through direct searches when users click on the ‘Noticias’ (News) link from Google.es:
Despite claims from Google that it would pull Spanish publishers from the service, some of these results come from well-known Spanish newspapers like El Mundo and El Periodico.
So what’s the deal? As Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land points out, the only obvious difference between the Spanish service and international News services is that users can no longer browse stories by topic.
As Sullivan asks:
Is this still ‘Google News’ living on or merely the highlighting of news stories relevant to a topical query? Google would probably argue the latter. However, we may start to see a debate about whether the new Spanish “anti-piracy” law would apply to these results as well.”
Indeed, it would seem that Spanish publishers are doing everything they can to wrestle some money out of Google, so it would be surprising if they let this one lie.
On Friday December 12, The Spain Report revealed that the Spanish newspaper association, AEDE, wants authorities to force Google to keep News open for users in Spain – thus forcing it to pay the copyright tax.
However, Google is staying steadfast in its response, at least for now. Greg Sterling reports that Google will still index news publisher content in its main search results, and in response to queries from Search Engine Land, the search giant confirmed its organic News snippets and News search will remain in Spain.
Freebase, Google’s Knowledge Graph Fact Repository, to Close
Freebase, the ambitious, open-source facts repository that helps feed Google’s Knowledge Graph, is to shut its doors in 2015.
Freebase was launched by Google in 2007 to store a treasure trove of facts in a structured data format – making it easy for its Knowledge Graph to retrieve and display information accurately in response to search queries.
A bit like Wikipedia then? Well, yes. But Wikipedia as written for machines, not people. The prose format of Wikipedia makes it difficult for search engines and other information providers to retrieve information accurately.
Wikidata, Wikipedia’s own structured data knowledge base, launched in 2012. And Freebase openly admits that Wikipedia’s platform would be more suited to achieving its aim of becoming “a comprehensive open database of common knowledge that anyone can use”.
When we publicly launched Freebase back in 2007, we thought of it as a ‘Wikipedia for structured data.’ So it shouldn’t be surprising that we’ve been closely watching the Wikimedia Foundation’s project Wikidata since it launched about two years ago.”
“[…] They’re growing fast, have an active community, and are better-suited to lead an open collaborative knowledge base.”
Freebase plans to retire its website and APIs by June 30, 2015, and switch everything over to Wikidata.
What does this mean for SEO? Well, as Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land points out, the closure may make it more difficult for people to influence Knowledge Graph results. Or not.
As Barry Schwartz points out in his Search Engine Land article, this is a bit of an odd one from Google. It seems strange to put bandwidth-heavy image thumbnails in mobile search, as speed is of the essence when searching on smartphone and tablets. It’s especially weird when you consider how much Google has been harping on about mobile user experience recently.
We have to agree with Schwartz when he writes “it would […] surprise me to see Google decide to release this more widely.”
Nest and Google Now Integration – a Bit 2001: A Space Odyssey?
Not really SEO news this, but we couldn’t resist the inevitable references to HAL 9000, the sentient computer in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
As Search Engine Land reports, Google has launched integration between Google Now and the Nest intelligent thermostat, a property it acquired at the start of this year.
Users can now ask Nest to warm or cool their home based on their behaviour – for example, by cutting the heat when they leave for work, but ensuring their home is comfortably warm when they return.
Nest can also be controlled directly through voice search.
Is this more evidence of the Internet of Things becoming reality, or the dawn of the robot uprising? Probably the former, although we’d advise you not to upset your Nest…
Android on the Go: Google to Fit Cars With Android Technology
The Telegraph reports that Google is planning to build its Android operating system directly into cars.
Sound familiar? The search giant has already developed Android Auto, which will allow drivers to stream music, use apps and access maps – but it requires a smartphone to be plugged in to a compatible vehicle.
Android Auto will debut in vehicles next year. But Google’s next version, which will be integrated directly into the vehicle without requiring a smartphone, seems to be underway already.
This new system, dubbed Android M, is functionally similar to Android Auto in that it will present apps on the car’s built-in screen. However, Android Auto simply ‘projects’ its app onto the car’s screen – Android M will be built-in to the car and thus will not require this smartphone link.
Is the future of SEO going to rely on optimisation for desktop, mobile and car? To be honest, that would drive us up the wall. (Sorry.)
Justin Sapp: When things started in 2001, I went in advance with the CIA paramilitary teams in the middle of October. At that time, the war was very much an unconventional warfare kind of domain. We were the only guys on the ground—all told, there were probably less than 20 people. The definition of the campaign wasn’t fully formed yet. It was all being put together.
So it was a pretty heady time. It was all new. It was all unique. We were new to the Afghans. They were new to us. We had very broad guidance. And the guidance was to enable the Northern Alliance to defeat the Taliban and destroy al-Qaeda. And that was it.
It was sort of like, you knew the first chapter of the book and then hopefully you knew the last chapter of the book. But everything in between was very much ill-defined. It was sort of an adventure.
Jahara “Franky” Matisek: When I first started flying cargo missions there in 2008, I had a very narrow tactical view of the country because I never really had to deal with any of the locals. It was basically deliver troops, take troops home, do helicopter swap-outs. It felt like it was a bureaucratized sort of routine war. I remember thinking on my first combat mission, ‘Oh, we have to get all mentally pumped and prepped.’ And it was like, no, FedEx is flying in there! It was not that big of a threat or deal, flying into the bases, for the most part.
It felt like the bulk of my missions from 2008 to 2011, especially 2010, were when the ground forces in Afghanistan were getting ambushed and IED’ed [improvised explosive device] all the time. I spent a good chunk of 2010 and 2011 just transporting mine resistant ambush protected vehicles—they look like those big Humvee vehicles that protect the folks inside. I probably did at least 40 or 50 missions just transporting those things to Kandahar and Bagram.
Being sent back to Afghanistan in 2020 kind of confirmed my suspicions. The Afghan National Defense Security Forces basically is still a paper army, much like when the Soviets built up their version of the Afghan army in the 1980s.
When Covid basically shut down Afghanistan in March of 2020, it seemed like it was almost a relief for a lot of the advisers and trainers. Like, ‘Sweet, now we don’t really have to see them anymore, because Covid. We’re just going to VTC and FaceTime, just do all our advising through WhatsApp, texting and video calls.’ I think it was the nail in the coffin. We were already so risk-averse that it made it almost easier—now there was almost no chance of losing any U.S. or NATO troops to the Taliban or insider attacks.
On my way out in October, I’m like, once we finally pull out of this thing, if we’re going to actually follow through on this, the Afghan Air Force is just going to collapse. They are so dependent on on the U.S. military and contractors basically providing air power.
Jess Gonzalez: I had a very different experience. As a combat cameraman, I supported every aspect of the Marine Corps. I did female engagement teams, I did mortuary affairs. I did logistics, I did helicopter drops, I did helicopter recoveries. I’ve been around that whole country.
I’m going to talk a little bit from the experience of the regular warfighter—the junior enlisted. The “suck.” We’re here. We got to do it. And then we’re going to go home. Being on the enlisted side, you don’t understand the policy. You go through your pre-deployment training and you understand what your little piece is within counterinsurgency and all of that. But you feel like a little piece in the game and not someone who’s able to see the whole board.
The bin Laden raid happened in Pakistan while I was there. I remember coming off a convoy and everyone’s talking and whispering and watching the news on their computers. I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, bin Laden’s dead.’ There’s some silence. My other photographer that I worked with was like, ‘Oh, well, I guess I get to go home now!’ There was this crazy morale boost for a little bit.
Towards the end of my time, I was with the 2nd Marine Logistics Group, and we saw a lot of infrastructure getting built. So we had completed Route One and that connected to Route Red, which were two major roads within Helmand province. I had some friends that deployed last year and they said that the roads are completely destroyed now. That’s a little disheartening to hear, because it was this huge accomplishment to attach those two roads.
Jason Dempsey: When I was moving in in January 2009, it was part of the precursor to what became known as the Afghan surge. The mentality both of the military and of our political leadership was that we were getting back to the good war. There was this assumption that the military had become competent at counterinsurgency and had been a learning institution over the previous eight years. And so I was pretty gung-ho to get to Afghanistan and get after these problems. Being there that year was fairly rewarding, albeit frustrating.
But it was clear by the time I got back in 2012-13 that the entire mission was essentially—it was a failure. The question was, to what degree was it a failure and where did the blame fall? I spent years thinking about that, finding out that more and more of the blame fell squarely on the shoulders of the American military. We decided to mirror-image our army structure on a nation and country that simply wasn’t set up for that. Instead of doing what needed to be done, we did the mission we wanted to do.
Phil Caruso: I echo a lot of what Jason said. When I got there in 2011, I was very proud to be a part of what I thought was finally giving Afghanistan its due attention and focus after almost a decade of underresourcing in favor of the effort in Iraq. I did think that we had more expertise and capability than we had early on from a conventional military perspective.
I think there was a series of events in that deployment that made me realize the reality of the situation. I saw a number of things that made me question the viability of our strategy over the long run. I believe then and I still do believe that counterinsurgency can work, but on a timeline and a commitment that I don’t think is realistic for the United States, given our system and our interests domestically.
What I came out of that deployment trying to do was just make the piece of Afghanistan I could touch a little bit of a better place, make the lives of the people that I dealt with a little bit better and try not to focus on the larger effort and shoulder the responsibility, the burden of winning the war myself and or with my unit.
I do think we helped people in that deployment. And I do think we made a lot of progress. But at the end of the day, I don’t think it was sustainable without a long-term commitment, one that I don’t think would be viable.
When I went back in 2014, it was a very different environment. The combat mission was ending. The sense I got was there was a lot of frustration in the military ranks because there was concern about artificial thresholds and micromanagement from Washington. The military, I felt, was being somewhat defensive about trying to protect the gains that it had made when the surge forces were there.
We’re trying to literally count billets to figure out, how could they keep a unit viable with five people in uniform and replacing the rest with civilians and contractors? How many helicopters they could have at any given base? These were the things that were dominating discussion of the day as opposed to continuing to try to make progress on the ground. That made it very difficult and demoralizing for a lot of folks that were trying to carry on the mission because there wasn’t a clear sense of what we were trying to do.
I think there was a sense of fatigue institutionally. There was a lot more risk aversion. Missions required a lot of higher approvals. A lot of commanders were concerned about the well-being of their soldiers and airmen, sailors and Marines, given what the climate was in Washington.
As I look back on that decade of involvement in Afghanistan, there was for me a decreasing sense of what we were going to be able to achieve. And a decreasing sense of what we were even trying to achieve because the issues just became so complicated and so politically fraught that it made it very difficult to reach clear conclusions.
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Descartan convocar a elecciones y aumenta confusión
Algunos jóvenes que estaban reunidos afuera de la sede de la “Generalitat” celebraron después del discurso de Puigdemont. Credit
Samuel Aranda para The New York Times
Ante una escalada de la crisis entre el gobierno catalán y el de España, el líder regional Carles Puigdemont iba acudir ante el Parlament para presumiblemente anunciar su intención de convocar a elecciones para diciembre, un aparente intento por reducir las tensiones con Madrid, aunque terminó por suspender la declaratoria y después dijo que no habrá a comicios pues no existen las “garantías”. Dejó en manos del parlamento regional decidir cómo responder al que el gobierno de Mariano Rajoy ya invocó el artículo 155 de la Constitución para remover al gobierno de Cataluña por sus movidas independentistas, pedido que iba a ser debatido mañana en el senado.
Queda por ver también la reacción del gobierno central a la sugerencia vía carta de Puigdemont de que el artículo 155 no permite removerlos del cargo sino darles “instrucciones a las autoridades autonómicas”.
En medio de la confusión, algunos sectores de la coalición gobernante catalana expresaron su descontento y decepción e incluso anunciaron su salida de Junts x el Sí, de cara al fervor independentista que sí se ha hecho sentir en ciertos lugares, como el enclave de Llivia.
La sequía en India Credit
Geeta Anand y Vikram Singh
Los estragos del calentamiento global y del cambio climático parecen cada vez más notorios en un mundo en el que las temporadas de huracanes se han vuelto más intensas, las sequías más extendidas y los incendios forestales más grandes.
En Europa, por ejemplo, la producción del aceite de oliva se ha dificultado debido a factores como olas de calor o plagas que duran más tiempo, mientras que los incendios en zonas como California han resultado en las últimas semanas en la desaparición de varias especies en peligro de extinción.
Otro caso evidente es el de India, en particular el distrito de Nagapattinam, en Tamil Nadu. Ahí, cientos de miles de agricultores han terminado por suicidarse debido a que la sequía y las olas de calor han diezmado sus cosechas. Un estudio halló que mientras más altas son las temperaturas, más aumenta el promedio de suicidios.
“No conseguimos suficiente agua para quitarnos la sed. La poca agua que tenemos la usamos para mojar ligeramente nuestra boca y garganta”, dijo K. Muthu, una de las pocas habitantes que ha decidido quedarse en Nagapattinam.
Julio Borges, el presidente de la Asamblea Nacional venezolana Credit
Cristian Hernandez/European Pressphoto Agency
El premio anual por la libertad de conciencia fue otorgado hoy por el Parlamento Europeo a los integrantes de la oposición venezolana, con mención particular a Julio Borges y quienes forman parte de la Asamblea Nacional, la legislatura venezolana que es el único organismo de gobierno no controlado por el chavismo, y a quienes han sido calificados como prisioneros políticos, entre ellos Leopoldo López, Yon Goicoechea y Antonio Ledezma.
El premio les fue extendido en apoyo “inquebrantable a la Asamblea Nacional, el único parlamento elegido democráticamente en Venezuela”, según el comité, en referencia a que a mediados del año se estableció la llamada Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, que quedó por encima de otros poderes, con lo que las medidas aprobadas por la Asamblea Nacional legislativa pueden ser supeditadas por un cuerpo de mayoría chavista. También hubo intentos previos por parte del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia de asumir las funciones de la legislatura.
“El Parlamento Europeo también quiere expresar su proximidad y rendir tributo al pueblo venezolano: a todos aquellos que han sido detenidos injustamente por expresar su opinión, a quienes luchan por sobrevivir diariamente bajo un régimen brutal y a las familias en duelo porque han perdido a sus seres queridos en estos meses de protestas ininterrumpidas a favor de la libertad”, dice el comunicado en el que se anuncia el Sájarov.
El galardón llega en momentos en que las divisiones internas de la coalición opositora Mesa de la Unidad Democrática se han vuelto cada vez más públicas ante reveses electorales por los que han acusado fraude.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner a su llegada a un tribunal en Buenos Aires en marzo Credit
David Fernandez/European Pressphoto Agency
• La expresidenta argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, recién elegida al Senado de ese país, acudió hoy a los tribunales para comparecer en una de las investigaciones en su contra por presuntamente haber ayudado a encubrir la supuesta participación iraní en el atentado al centro judío AMIA en los años noventa. Estuvo una hora y media en el juzgado, desde donde aseguró que el caso es una persecución política y que “la única traición a la patria es utilizar a un poder judicial para perseguir a los opositores”.
Una persona lava las hojas de coca, primero con gasolina y después con agua, para recopilar el extracto en barriles y después acidificarlo y mezclarlo con cemento. Credit
Juan Arredondo para The New York Times
• Los cultivos de coca, marihuana y amapola de hasta 3,8 hectáreas podrían ya no conllevar prisión en Colombia, si se avala un proyecto impulsado por el gobierno en momentos de particular tensión con los cocaleros y agricultores colombianos, algunos de los cuales no han tenido éxito al intentar sustituir sus cultivos y otros que han protestado en contra del programa de erradicación en manifestaciones que en ocasiones se han vuelto mortíferas.
El expresidente Sebastián Piñera y actual candidato presidencial saluda a los votantes durante las primarias de Chile Vamos, el 2 de julio en Santiago Credit
Esteban Felix/Associated Press
• A semanas de la primera vuelta presidencial en Chile, programada para el 19 de noviembre, los sondeos más recientes sugieren que el expresidente Sebastián Piñera alcanzaría el 44,4 por ciento de los votos frente al senador Alejandro Guiller, que obtendría el 19,7 por ciento de los sufragios, y Beatriz Sánchez, la abanderada del gobernante Frente Amplio que sumaría 8,5 por ciento.
• Una sesión del senado mexicano que fue pospuesta ayer debería ser retomada hoy para discutir la reciente destitución del fiscal electoral Santiago Nieto después de que este fuera retirado del cargo por presuntas irregularidades de conducta. La situación está bajo investigación ya que poco antes había denunciado que un poderoso integrante del partido gobernante, el exdirector de la petrolera estatal Pemex Emilio Lozoya, le envió una carta en la que parecía exhortarlo a que dejara de investigarlo.
Lozoya Austin está siendo investigado por denuncias de que recibió dinero por parte de la oficina mexicana de Odebrecht en 2012, cuando estaba a cargo de la dirección internacional de la campaña del ahora presidente Enrique Peña Nieto. El exdirector de Pemex ya compareció hoy por el caso ante la FEPADE, la fiscalía para delitos electorales; dijo que no tenía responsabilidades en cuanto al supuesto financiamiento que habría hecho Odebrecht a la campaña de Peña Nieto.
Legisladores de la oposición llegaron el 25 de octubre a la sede del congreso en Brasilia con carteles que dicen “Fuera Temer”. Credit
Joedson Alves/European Press Agency
• El presidente brasileño Michel Temer libró ayer los cargos de corrupción que pesaban en su contra (si es que es enjuiciado por ellos, lo sería hasta dejar el cargo) después de que 251 diputados votaran a favor de descartar las acusaciones para que no avanzaran al Supremo Tribunal Federal, contra 233 que votaron para que sí lo hicieran, el ejecutivo brasileño indicó que se concentrará en intentar promover reformas económicas, como un posible cambio al sistema de jubilación que ha despertado fuertes críticas en el país.
George Springer le dio la ventaja a los Astros en la decimoprimera entrada, 7-5, en el segundo juego de la Serie Mundial, el 25 de octubre. Credit
Harry How/Getty Images
Ocho cuadrangulares: un récord para una Serie Mundial. El duelo entre los Astros y los Dodgers sin duda fue histórico, con ventajas que desaparecían en un segundo y empates que extendieron el partido a once entradas en un calor con temperaturas promedio de 33 grados Celsius, hasta que Houston salió victorioso, 7-5 frente a Los Ángeles.
“Si te gusta el béisbol que se juega en octubre –si te gusta cualquier béisbol– este es uno de los juegos más increíbles de los que vas a ser parte”, dijo el mánager de los Astros A. J. Hinch.
Houston y Los Ángeles ahora están empatados en la serie, 1-1. El tercer partido se disputará el viernes.
El exsecretario general de la Federación Nacional de Futbol de Guatemala Héctor Trujillo a su llegada a la corte en Brooklyn, el 25 de octubre Credit
Kathy Willens/Associated Press..
• En el fútbol, ayer el expresidente de la asociación de fútbol guatemalteca y anteriormente juez Héctor Trujillo fue condenado a ocho meses de prisión en Estados Unidos tras admitir que aceptó sobornos y que ayudó a lavar dinero de ese modo. También deberá pagar una multa de 415.000 dólares a la Federación Nacional de Fútbol de Guatemala.
• También hay otro misterio en el seno de la FIFA como parte de la investigación de corrupción: ¿cómo fue que una empresa prácticamente desconocida se hizo con los derechos de transmisión de los mundiales de fútbol de 2018, 2022, 2026 y 2030? ¿Por qué no fue anunciado públicamente cuando obtuvo esos contratos? Mountrigi tendrá los derechos para 16 países latinoamericanos y, según una investigación de autoridades suizas y estadounidenses, los habría obtenido por medio de sobornos. Mountrigi, además, es una filial del gigante de telecomunicaciones mexicano Televisa.
Image caption
Los niños fueron rescatados de una de estas casas, en San Antonio, Texas.
La Policía de Texas, Estados unidos, rescató este viernes a ocho niños de una situación de “abuso horrendo” en la ciudad de San Antonio.
El rescate se produjo después de que un vecino de los menores llamara a las autoridades y para advertir que había escuchado a uno de ellos llorando por un largo rato.
Cuando los oficiales llegaron al lugar, encontraron a un niño de dos años encadenado en el jardín.
También había una pequeña de tres años amarrada a una puerta con una correa de perro.
Esta menor tenía un brazo roto, por lo que fue llevada a un hospital local.
Padres arrestados
Seis niños más, de edades entre 10 meses y 13 años, estaban solos dentro de la casa.
Cuando los padres de seis de los ocho llegaron a la casa, fueron arrestados.
Image caption
El abuso ocurrió en San Antonio, al este de Texas.
“Es deprimente”, dijo el vocero de la policía del condado de Bexar, James Keith, al diario local San Antonio Express News.
“Calificar a este hecho como horrendo sería atenuarlo. Si no hubiera sido por nuestros oficiales y por el vecino que nos llamó, sabemos que esto pudo haber terminado peor”, agregó.
Una agencia del estado de Texas está cuidando a los niños ahora.
La policía está buscando a los padres de las otras dos víctimas.
Described by the historian Philip Foner as “probably the most moving passage” in all of Frederick Douglass’s speeches, Mr. Douglass asked a crowd in Rochester, N.Y., on July 5, 1852, “What, to the American slave, is your …” what?
After images of drunken spring-breakers partying amid a contagion were broadcast nationally, DeSantis — a protégé of President Donald Trump — was thrust into the vanguard of Republican governors balking at issuing a broad shelter-in-place order to limit the spread of the virus.
As the state’s coronavirus caseload has increased, so has thecriticism of DeSantis, making him an inevitable target for Biden in a state Trump mustcarry in order to win the White House.
“Floridians deserve science-based action from Governor Ron DeSantis,” Biden said in a written statement that faulted the “absence of leadership from President Trump.”
“While other large states continue to take strong, urgent, and sweeping action to stop the spread of COVID-19, Florida has not. I urge Governor DeSantis to let the experts speak to the public and explain why this is the case,” Biden said. “In this moment of growing uncertainty and anxiety, Floridians want — and deserve — to hear from the public health officials leading the charge.”
Republicans called Biden’s statement a desperate political move to damage the president by attacking DeSantis, a top ally whose successful2018 primary campaign revolved around fealty to Trump.
Trump has since changed his residency to Florida, made sure to focus his attention deeply on the state and, on Wednesday, approved a disaster declaration to let federal aid flow more easily to the state.
The president’s nationalpoll numbers have improved sincehe began holding regular White House news briefings, where he occasionally praises DeSantis. At the same time, Trump has occupied the spotlight, Biden has been stuck at home, maintaining social distance as he slowly ramps up‘virtual’public appearances from a newly installed home studio in Wilmington, Del.
“The Gallup Poll today had President Trump at a 60 percent approval for how he’s handling the crisis and the governor’s polling was pretty close last week on how he’s handling it,” said Evan Power, chairman of the council of county chairs for the Republican Party of Florida.
“So it’s not a great move to criticize DeSantis or the president over this,” Power said. “It’s a cry for relevancy.”
After the March 10 round of primaries, Biden has struggled to capture the media spotlight as national TV news turn its near-complete attention to coronavirus and away from the 2020 campaign trail.
Over the period beginning March 11 through Wednesday, Trump has gotten 440,785 television mentions nationally compared to roughly 83,000 for Biden, according to TV Eyes, a program that tracks mentions.
Biden also received a fraction of the attention Trump got on March 17, the day the former vice president won a key bloc of primary states — including Florida — and essentially ended his primary contest with Bernie Sanders. In a typical election year, that performance would have given any presidential candidate a big shot of momentum and national airtime.
That day, Biden’s name was mentioned 5,417 times nationally, compared to Trump’s 16,488.
São Paulo – Businessmen and investors who were in Brazil during the World Cup this year, invited by the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil), will do business amounting to US$ 6 billion with Brazilian companies in the next twelve months. The project brought to Brazil, between June and July, 2,836 businessmen, investors and foreign opinion makers, from those 81 were Arabs. They engaged in matchmaking, got to know companies and watched the matches.
Press release
Guests saw World Cup matches
“The delight of the guests, including the Arabs, was very positive,” says the Relationship Marketing manager at Apex-Brasil, Jacy Braga. There were 104 participating countries, including 15 Arab nations.
The manager says that the majority of the participants came from nations which are already leading markets for Brazilian products, such as the United States, Latin American and European countries. “But the participation of new markets such as the Arabs was very important for the Apex-Brasil and for the Brazilian companies,” Braga told ANBA in an interview. The fact that Qatar will host the World Cup in 2022, according to him, helped bring together Brazilians and Arabs who attended the project.
The Arab importers invited by the Apex to visit Brazil represented 18 sectors: medical and dental equipment, personal hygiene products, toiletries and perfumery, ceramics and ceramic tiles, pharma chemicals, marble and granite, agricultural machines and equipment, foodstuff, shoe industry, chocolates and chocolate products, fruit and juices, non-ferrous metals, textiles, rubber industry, alcohol industry, dairy and dairy products, rice, defense and multi sector companies, segment which comprises the trading companies.
The World Cup project had the participation of 708 Brazilian companies from 18 estates and 837 separate business schedules were carried out – i.e. sets of appointments to be kept by the international visitors for the duration of the tournament – according to the Apex-Brasil. All of the 64 matches were watched by the foreigners invited by the organization. The best results came from housing and construction, machinery and equipment, foodstuff, beverages and agribusiness, health technology, and also fashion and services. From the Brazilian companies which participated in the program, 70% said sales increased and 30% entered in new markets.
The foreigners’ perception of Brazil and Brazilian production also improved. The Apex-Brasil enquired them before the trip and by the end of it about how they felt about the country. The answers “high” and “very high” increased from 83% to 90% on the question about the quality of the Brazilian products and services, from 65% to 81% about the creativity and innovation of the products and from 77% to 90% about the professionalism of Brazilian businessmen.
Braga also mentions that the project was focused on the business schedules and also on image building.
Meanwhile, a wide swath of 5-10 inches of rain will extend inland from far-East Texas across the central Gulf Coast.
Flood Advisories in Texas (Credit: Fox News)
Some tropical tornadoes, storm surge and gusty winds will also be dangerous especially east of the center of circulation.
In other weather news, strong to severe thunderstorms will be possible from the Central Plains to the Northeast along a frontal boundary bringing the risk for hail, damaging winds, an isolated tornado and heavy rain.
Severe weather threats from the Central Plains to the Northeast (Credit: Fox News)
Authorities seen entering Laundrie home before FBI confirmed human remains found were Brian Laundrie’s.
More than a month before authorities found the decomposed remains of Florida fugitive Brian Laundrie in a swamp near his home, he allegedly slipped away from his parents’ house under the guise of a hike.
That was on Sept. 13, two days after Laundrie’s fiancée, Gabby Petito, was reported missing. His attorney, Steve Bertolino, told Fox News Digital Thursday that he immediately informed the FBI that his client had failed to come home.
However, local police in North Port, Florida, said they thought Laundrie was still inside the house until they knocked on the front door on Sept. 17.
Brian Laundrie as seen in bodycam footage released by the Moab Police Department in Utah. (Moab PD)
Bertolino said that after he told the FBI that Laundrie failed to return from the park, he had no further contact with the FBI until they told him Friday about a tip that Laundrie had been seen in Tampa.
But from Tuesday evening to Thursday, neither Laundrie’s parents nor his attorney followed up with the FBI or local authorities about their missing son’s whereabouts.
“There was never any communication between myself and law enforcement in the next three days,” Bertolino told Fox News Digital. “They never asked me, and I never informed them that Brian didn’t come home.”
“North Port PD was under the assumption that Brian was home, and so was the FBI when they got a tip on Friday that Brian was in Tampa, and they wanted to meet with us on Friday,” Bertolino said. “I was shocked and said, ‘That’s good. You found him in Tampa,’ and they said, ‘What do you mean? I thought he’s at the house.’ I said, ‘No, I told you the other day he never came home.'”
(Taylor Bostwick via Storyful)
North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison had said in the middle of that week that he knew exactly where Brian Laundrie was – but he was wrong.
Speaking to reporters during a news conference on Sept. 16, Garrison was asked if he knew where Laundrie was at that moment.
The family made no effort to correct him and showed no public urgency about their son’s whereabouts or well-being — even though Bertolino later told ABC News that Brian’s father, Chris Laundrie, believed his son was “grieving” and upset when he left for the Sept. 13 hike. The public didn’t know Petito was dead until authorities said they found her remains on Sept. 19.
Chris and Roberta Laundrie lead investigators to personal items belonging to their son in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021. Police separately found human remains that the FBI later concluded belonged to their fugitive son, Brian Laundrie. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
Bertolino did not immediately respond to a request for clarification about Brian Laundrie’s mental state when he left or what he was “grieving” about.
Laundrie and Petito set off on a cross-country road trip earlier this year in a white Ford Transit van, which they lived out of as they camped at public parks along the way.
An FBI-led search found Petito’s remains at a Bridger-Teton National Forest campsite on Sept. 18 north of Jackson, Wyoming. Teton County Coroner Dr. Brent Blue later ruled her death a homicide by manual strangulation – meaning she’d been killed by hand.
A travel-blogging couple known as Red, White and Bethune spotted Petito’s van at the campsite on Aug. 27 – hours after what may have been the last time she was seen alive in public.
That day, Nina Celie Angelo and Matthew England were eating at Merry Piglets in Jackson when they saw Brian Laundrie arguing with restaurant staff, they told Fox News Digital last month.
Laundrie exited and reentered about four times, and Petito apologized to the workers for his behavior, the couple said.
Two weeks before that, witnesses in Moab, Utah, told police they’d seen Brian Laundrie slapping and hitting Petito outside an organic grocery store. He also allegedly threatened to take her phone and drive off without her before police pulled the couple over north of town.
Despite a Utah law requiring arrests or citations to be made in all domestic violence cases, police deemed the matter a “mental health break” and told the couple to spend the night apart. Moab officials later announced an investigation into the officers’ handling of the matter.
@lee.panich found a winter wonderland in the Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve. Snow fell across the Bay Area on Feb. 5, 2019.
@lee.panich found a winter wonderland in the Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve. Snow fell across the Bay Area on Feb. 5, 2019.
Photo: Instagram / Lee.panich
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@lee.panich found a winter wonderland in the Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve. Snow fell across the Bay Area on Feb. 5, 2019.
@lee.panich found a winter wonderland in the Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve. Snow fell across the Bay Area on Feb. 5, 2019.
Photo: Instagram / Lee.panich
Everywhere hillsides and mountain peaks rise above the landscape, there was snow to be seen around the San Francisco Bay Area.
Residents woke Tuesday morning to the unlikely sight of mountaintops frosted in powder sugary-snow after a cold storm dropped down from the Northwest, pushing temperatures down into the 20s and 30s and delivering snow.
Snowfall on the Bay Area’s highest mountain peaks above 4,000 feet elevation occurs annually, but with this storm the snow levels dropped remarkably low with accumulation down to 1,000 feet and snow that didn’t stick as low as 400 feet.
SFGATE readers are sending in images of their snow-covered cars, backyards and roads as well as lots of snowy views of Mt. Tamalpais, the East Bay hills, Mt. St. Helena and the Santa Cruz mountains that saw more than eights inches of accumulations in some spots.
San Francisco resident Jeanette Flodell, who shared an image of the Marin hills taken from the city, shared, “For a brief second, I thought I had teleported back to Scandinavia, and wanted to bring out the x-country skis!”
Rob Ferber of the Santa Cruz Mountains sent in an image taken from Skyline near Bear Gulch early Tuesday morning, and wrote, “It is snowing now!”
Please take a look at readers’ photos in the gallery above and email your images to agraff@sfgate.com and we’ll add them to the gallery.
While temperatures are forecast to remain chilly with highs in the 40s Tuesday, the snow is unlikely to last long as the skies clear and the sun shines over mountaintops.
En Venezuela, un país que tiene severas restricciones en los medios de comunicación, hay un canal que está emitiendo un noticiero que se llama “Desnudando La Noticia”.
“Damos noticias desnudas, sí, pero no faltamos al respeto a nadie”, afirmó una de las periodistas, pero una detractora defensora de la mujer dijo, “lo que menos claro queda es la noticia”, así que hay opiniones para todos los gustos tras esta polémica forma de dar información.
Las presentadoras, a medida que van dando las noticias se van quitando la ropa hasta quedarse totalmente desnudas, y a pesar del corto tiempo que lleva en el aire, como era de esperar, ya tiene un mar de seguidores por todo el mundo, pero también detractores como hemos visto.
De lo que seguro no queda duda es de que los níveles de audiencia deben estar por los aires y que el éxito está asegurado.
Habría que ver también cuál es el género mayoritario de su audiencia y qué opinan las espectadoras sobre esta curiosa forma de dar la información.
Si la noticia es una exposición de la verdad, DLN podría tener un slogan como: “La verdad nos hará libres… libres de ropa”
William Rick Singer, founder of for-profit college prep business Edge College & Career Network also known as “The Key,” is allegedly the mastermind behind one of the largest college admissions scams to ever hit the U.S. and went to great lengths — which included pricey fees — to ensure his clients’ demands were met.
Singer, 58, has been called the “ringleader” behind the scheme, purportedly collecting roughly $25 million from dozens of individuals including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin over the course of nearly a decade to bribe school coaches and administrators into pretending their children were athletic recruits to ensure their admission into top tier colleges, prosecutors say.
The Newport Beach, Calif., businessman agreed to plead guilty in Boston federal court Tuesday to charges including racketeering conspiracy and obstruction of justice. As a part of his guilty plea, Singer said he would pay at least $3.4 million to the feds, The Boston Globe reports.
On his website for The Key, Singer describes himself as a dedicated father and coach who understands the pressure put on families surrounding college acceptances. The Key calls itself “the nation’s largest private life coaching and college counseling company.”
William Rick Singer, founder of the Edge College and Career Network, pleaded guilty to charges in a nationwide college admissions bribery scandal. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
“As founder of The Key, I have spent the past 25 years helping students discover their life passion, and guiding them along with their families through the complex college admissions maze. Using The Key method, our coaches help unlock the full potential of your son or daughter, and set them on a course to excel in life,” Singer stated online, providing biographies for seven other “coaches.”
Andrew Lelling, U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, reportedly claimed Singer’s clients paid him “anywhere between $200,000 and $6.5 million” for his unique services.
Parents of prospective students allegedly conspired with a college entrance consultant to beat the system and ensure their students were admitted or had a better chance to be admitted to certain colleges or universities, including Yale, Stanford, Texas, UCLA, USC, Wake Forest and others.
“According to the charging documents, Singer facilitated cheating on the SAT and ACT exams for his clients by instructing them to seek extended time for their children on college entrance exams, which included having the children purport to have learning disabilities in order to obtain the required medical documentation,” the U.S. Justice Department explained, in part, in an online statement.
“Singer would accommodate what parents wanted to do.”
— Andrew Lelling
However, that was just one of many ways Singer ensured the students got accepted to elite schools.
“Singer would accommodate what parents wanted to do,” Lelling said, adding that it “appears that the schools are not involved.”
Prosecutors say the consultant represented to parents that the scheme had worked successfully more than 800 times.
Singer also served as CEO of the Key Worldwide Foundation (KWF), a non-profit he claimed was a charity. Bribery payments were disguised as donations to KWF in sums up to $75,000 per SAT or ACT exam, the Justice Department said, noting that many students didn’t realize their parents had staged anything.
“This is a case where [the parents] flaunted their wealth, sparing no expense to cheat the system so they could set their children up for success with the best money can buy,” Joseph Bonavolonta from the FBI Boston Field Office said in a Tuesday news conference.
In total, 50 people — including more than 30 parents and nine coaches — were charged Tuesday in the scheme.
Fox News’ Katherine Lam,Travis Fedschun and The Assocaited Press contributed to this report.
El mundo aquí afuera es mejor de lo que dicen. Ya lo verás. A pesar de que yo mismo le hago a veces mala publicidad, no tengas la menor duda: la vida es fantástica. Hay días, sí, en que los hechos carecen completamente de sentido y lo instalan a uno muy cerca del desánimo, pero basta un destello de humanidad, nada muy preciosista ni logrado, humanidad solamente, para devolverte la fe y la terquedad.
Hubo un tiempo en el que la idea de la paternidad no me estimulaba en lo absoluto. Me parecía insensato traer a este planeta en franco proceso de descomposición a una criatura que, más temprano que tarde, acabaría contaminándose. Pensaba que la gente se reproducía por puro egoísmo, creyendo que así podría corregir una especie condenada de antemano al fracaso de la mediocridad. Con los años, descubrí que detrás de esa forma de pensar había básicamente miedo. Y el miedo, aun siendo natural como reacción, es inaceptable como argumento vital.
Ahora veo todo muy distinto, aunque nunca dejo de sorprenderme de ciertos pensamientos súbitos. Hace casi seis meses, el día de diciembre que Natalia, tu mamá, me anunció, con una alegría inmensurable, que estaba encinta, una frase automática surgió, sólida, instintiva, desde lo más profundo de las taras y prejuicios de mi educación: “Ojalá que sea hombre”. Sí, ya sé: flor de tarado. Te lo cuento así, sin reservas, porque, si es posible la transparencia entre padres e hijos, quisiera practicarla contigo. A diferencia de tu abuelo –que fue un hombre hermético que evitaba mostrar sus debilidades–, tiendo a irme hacia el otro extremo y no pierdo ocasión de mostrar mis fisuras. Espero que no sea también un error.
Sé muy bien qué fuerzas inconscientes me llevaron ese día a pedirles un varón a las máximas instancias divinas y cósmicas. Por un lado, la idea machista, y un tanto sobreestimada, de la complicidad masculina como símbolo de fortaleza de la tribu. Por otro, la sensación de que el mundo –pese a ser un lugar digno de conocer– sigue siendo más difícil de conquistar para las mujeres.
Con el paso de los meses, sin embargo, todas esas consideraciones fueron disolviéndose en mi mente como la arena cuando el puño empieza a soltarse. A cambio quedó vivo un único deseo: que haya en ti salud y bondad a partes iguales (la belleza e inteligencia, por el lado materno, están garantizadas).
Por eso cuando hace unas semanas, después de la última ecografía, la doctora nos informó que serías “una niña”, pensé en el eufónico nombre que ya habíamos elegido para ti –Julieta– y sentí que todo lo que hasta ese instante me parecía crucial y verdadero pasaba de golpe a un segundo plano.
Más adelante, contigo en brazos, podré contarte al detalle todo esto que te escribo. Por ahora me queda el privilegio de seguir interpretando los movimientos que haces por las noches, cuando me acerco al vientre de tu madre para balbucear unas palabras o musitar una canción y tú, desde ese otro lugar del mundo en el que te encuentras, estiras un brazo o una pierna en entusiasta señal de desacuerdo. Julieta del alma, no has nacido y ya me doblegaste. No quiero ni pensar lo que vas a hacer conmigo cuando aprendas a hablar. Esta columna fue publicada el 27 de mayo del 2017 en la revista Somos.
During the court session, Trump’s personal attorney William Consovoy urged the judges to prevent Vance from immediately accessing the documents, which Vance has said he urgently needs to pursue potential criminal activity involving the Trump Organization.
One of the three judges, John Walker Jr., sounded particularly receptive to arguments from Trump’s lawyers that grand jury subpoenas Vance’s office issued are too broad.
“It has the feeling of overbreadth,” said Walker, an appointee — and first cousin — of the late President George H.W. Bush.
Although the Supreme Court issued a ruling in July unanimously rejecting Trump’s claims of absolute immunity from such criminal investigations while in office, Walker stressed that the opinion still endorsed “heightened respect that’s due the president” and called for “necessarily meticulous review.”
Walker also questioned Vance’s need to pursue information from abroad, although Manhattan-based prosecutors have long prized their ability to use New York’s role as a financial nerve center to assert jurisdiction over transactions that span the globe.
“It just seems to me that it’s really very broad. … You’re asking [about] activity in Europe and Dubai and so forth. You’re a prosecutor in New York — in New York County, specifically,” Walker said.
Vance’s general counsel, Carey Dunne, said it is commonplace for the DA’s office to probe alleged wrongdoing in business dealings worldwide.
“There’s nothing unusual about our office asking about entities out of state or foreign transactions. New York City is a center of worldwide commerce,” Dunne said.”There’s a lot of international financial activity we have jurisdiction over.”
The other two judges on the panel — Clinton appointee Robert Katzmann and Obama appointee Raymond Lohier — gave fewer hints about their views of the substance of the Trump legal team’s arguments.
However, there seemed to be at least some openness among the judges to giving Trump’s lawyers time to fully brief the legal issues before the appeals court on an expedited basis, which could take the better part of a month.
At the conclusion of the roughly 30-minute argument session, Katzmann promised the panel would issue a decision on the president’s stay request by the end of the day.
Walker’s views could ultimately be of little significance on anything besides the timing of the case. Although he was on the panel that decided to grant the stay, he may not be one of the three judges assigned to rule on the merits of Trump’s appeal.
If Trump ultimately fails to win relief from the 2nd Circuit, his lawyers have already indicated they plan to take the dispute to the Supreme Court for a second time. That could leave the justices facing a politically sensitive emergency request from the president with just weeks or even days to go before Election Day.
While such a delay seems like an obvious goal for the president’s lawyers, Consovoy insisted Tuesday that his side is not trying to drag out the proceedings.
“Throughout this case, we have always accepted, and not resisted, expedited review,” he said.
Vance issued a subpoena a year ago for documents held by financial institutions connected to Trump, as well as overseas affiliates. Trump’s team initially claimed the president was exempt from such demands for as long as he remains in office, but that argument struck out in the Supreme Court, which turned aside his claim of “absolute immunity.”
However, the justices ruled that Trump may fight the subpoena on other, largely more conventional grounds, which triggered another, faster-paced round of litigation.
Within days, Trump’s team renewed its argument in federal district court, arguing that the subpoena is an overbroad fishing expedition issued for political purposes. The lower court judge, Victor Marrero, said the new claims had no merit and quickly ruled in Vance’s favor, tossing out Trump’s suit. But the appeals court appears poised to slam the brakes again.
Dunne told the three-judge panel that Consovoy’s new claims about the subpoena had no factual basis and the Trump legal team has presented no evidence to support claims of bad faith, he said. And further delays, he argued, hurt the DA’s ability to pursue potential crimes.
Dunne also stressed, as the DA’s office has repeatedly signaled in court filings in recent weeks, that the office’s investigation is not limited to probing the so-called hush money payments made in 2016 to women who appeared to be considering claiming sexual liaisons with Trump.
“We have tried to spell out, consistent with grand jury secrecy, all along, and I can represent to the court now, that each of the category of documents that was sought is directly relevant to a subject matter of our inquiry and, importantly, virtually all of those subject matters have been previously identified in public reports as examples of possible corporate wrongdoing,” the DA’s office lawyer said.
Dunne said Trump hadn’t shown any impropriety on the part of Vance’s office and that “the burden doesn’t shift to the prosecutor” to justify all aspects of the subpoenas just because Trump objected.
Lohier said he was worried that giving Trump the ability to continue to pursue his complaints would lead to grand juries at all levels being “mired in civil litigation.”
However, Consovoy said challenges to state grand jury proceedings in federal court are and will remain a rarity, but that, as president, Trump has the right to take the issue before federal judges. “I do not think this is the ordinary situation,” Trump’s attorney said.
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