News of the World

[kyonides]

Middletown High School Partners with Yondr to Build Phone-Free Campus

Middletown High School is partnering with a company to build a distraction-free environment for its students.

Starting Feb. 28, all Middletown High School students will have to put their phones in specialized pouches upon arriving on campus and can not access them until the end of the school day.

The change is being made to help students overcome phone addiction, focus on their academics, and build face-to-face relationships, according to Middletown School District Superintendent Amy Creeden.
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Under the policy, the roughly 2,500 Middletown high-schoolers are expected to put their phones—turned off or in airplane mode—and earbuds into pouches before passing the security check at the building entrance; they are not allowed to open the pouches except for special or emergency contact needs during the school day.

In those situations, an adult staff member will help them access an unlocking station.

Designed by the Yondr company, these pouches have special magnetic locks that cannot be opened by hand; rather, they get unlocked in seconds by tapping on a specialized station.

The pouches are considered school property, and students are expected to bring them to and from school each day and keep them in good working condition.

I have mixed feelings about this.
For those that are addicted to their  cellphones, it makes a lot of sense while it doesn't for people that have gone through emergencies like shootings.

Explosion in San Francisco Neighborhood Caused by Drug Factory

The explosion at a residence on 1700 Block of 22nd Avenue on Feb. 9 was caused by “an active illegal narcotics manufacturing lab” in that house, according to the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD).

The SFPD arrested 53-year-old male suspect Darron Price of San Francisco on Feb. 10.

The suspect was booked into San Francisco County Jail and will face felony charges of involuntary manslaughter, manufacturing narcotics, and two counts of child endangerment, the SFPD revealed in a press release late at night on Feb. 10.

The explosion occurred just before 9:20 a.m. on Feb. 9. It claimed the life of a woman in the building and badly injured another person. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries while putting out the fire.

Investigators from the SFPD/SFFD Arson Task Force, SFPD Narcotics were able to extract possible narcotics manufacturing equipment.

19-Year-Old Man Charged Over Protest Outside Merseyside Migrant Hotel

Jarad Skeete, 19, of Irwell Close, Aigburth, Liverpool [UK] was among 15 people arrested amid the demonstration outside the Suites Hotel in Knowsley on Friday evening, Merseyside Police said.

Skeete has been accused of violent disorder and assault by beating an emergency services worker.
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The remaining 14 people who were arrested—12 men and two women who are mainly from the Knowsley area—have been conditionally bailed pending the outcome of police inquiries.

The protest took place after video was circulated on social media showing a man with a foreign accent allegedly making inappropriate remarks to a 15-year-old local girl.

Merseyside police said the protest was “initially peaceful” before a separate group of people turned up to make trouble. A police van was burnt and three people received minor injuries.

British-Iranians Speak of ‘Climate of Fear’ From Regime’s UK Outposts

That fear, they say, does not come from the country they now live in, but from the harsh Middle Eastern regime they were born into.

Despite being about 4,000 kilometres away, Iran’s repressive establishment has sinister tentacles that reach as far as the UK.

Earlier this month, Parliament heard how Iran’s armed forces were not only behind 10 kidnap and death plots on British soil but also the execution of British-Iranian dual national Alireza Akbari.

Akbari, an Iranian former deputy defence minister, was arrested in 2019 and accused of espionage for MI6 related to past nuclear talks between Iran and western nations, according to reports.

BBC Persian stated at the time that Akbari denied the charge, and said he was tortured and forced to confess on camera to crimes he did not commit.
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“All my activities are in disguise, not under my real name because even here in this country, I fear for the safety of myself and my family.”
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She works in education and has been the target of vicious trolling attacks and street abuse for taking part in demonstrations.

“I’ve had a lot of hate messages coming through Instagram, some of them pretty awful,” she told The Epoch Times.

“I’ve been accused of being an Israeli spy along with aggressive abuse.

American Public Not Getting Full Story on Chinese Balloon,
Says Former Acting Secretary of Defense

Christopher C. Miller, who served as the acting secretary of defense during President Donald Trump’s last days in office, has said the American public is getting “Orwellian tap dancing” from the current administration about the Chinese high-altitude balloon that drifted across the United States last week and may have surveilled the country.
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“They’re doing this Orwellian tap dancing,” Miller said. He said he observed a similar pattern of officials giving roundabout and politically nuanced answers on serious national security issues when he served in the military and as a defense official.

“We’ll finally get a serious response, you know, in a year and a half after people have moved on,” Miller added.
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“One is we didn’t identify the balloon entering our airspace. That’s our sovereign territory. Let’s not call it an act of war, but it’s definitely an act of espionage. So that’s a problem if we didn’t identify it,” Miller said. “The second issue is, if we did identify it and we let it fly all the way across the United States without either disabling it or bringing it down until it left our airspace, that’s another issue.”
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Miller said China’s decision to deploy the high-altitude balloon over U.S. airspace is an example of them engaging in “irregular warfare” and acting within the “gray space” between peaceful diplomacy and open military hostility.
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“They fear instability,” he said. “And that’s what irregular warfare is all about. It’s about fomenting unrest. Best case is you use truth, right? Just like we did in the Cold War. … The message of American values—that brought down the Soviet Union.”

Miller’s new book, “Soldier Secretary: Warnings from the Battlefield & the Pentagon about America’s Most Dangerous Enemies,” hit shelves this week. In it, Miller advocates for cutting the national defense budget, which currently sits at about $816 billion, by about 50 percent.
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“We spend a trillion dollars on defense and national security and we don’t have the capability to disable or bring down a … balloon?” He said.

I'm not in favor of escalating a conflict, be it in Ukraine or Taiwan. Yet, the chances that China might declare war to the US and its allies is high nowadays.  So I can't recommend them to cut on expenses like crazy. It's always good to optimize resources and be picky about the investments in an attempt to focus just on what might be required in case the war in Ukraine gets a lot worse or China finally invades Taiwan or breaks into any US nuclear facility. Hey! North Korea had already attempted to do it in South Korea!  And we all know that NK is nothing but China's proxy in the Far East.  

DHS Hires Outside Legal Counsel Ahead of Possible Mayorkas Impeachment

“The Department of Homeland Security has retained outside counsel to help ensure the Department’s vital mission is not interrupted by the unprecedented, unjustified, and partisan impeachment efforts by some Members of Congress, who have already taken steps to initiate proceedings,” a DHS spokesperson told The Epoch Times in a Feb. 10 statement.
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Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) filed three articles of impeachment against Mayorkas on Jan. 10, charging that the DHS secretary had committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” and violated his oath of office by failing to maintain operational control of the border as outlined by the Secure Fence Act of 2006; willfully providing “perjurious, false, and misleading testimony” to Congress; and “slandering” Border Patrol agents by supporting false claims that they had used whips on illegal immigrants.

Last week, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) introduced his own resolution to impeach Mayorkas, echoing Fallon’s assertion that the DHS chief had been derelict in his duties and adding that his actions had “subverted the will of Congress” and the Constitution.
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“Secretary Mayorkas is the chief architect of the migration and drug invasion at our southern border,” he continued. “His policies have incentivized more than 5 million illegal aliens to show up at our southern border—an all-time figure. Instead of enforcing the laws on the books and deporting or detaining these illegal aliens, the vast majority of them are released into the interior and never heard from again.”

Further holding that Mayorkas has allowed deadly drugs like fentanyl to pour across the U.S.–Mexico border, Biggs added: “It’s clear Secretary Mayorkas has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. His conduct is willful and intentional. He is not enforcing the law and is violating his oath of office. For these reasons, Secretary Mayorkas should be impeached.”

FTX Lawyers Threaten Politicians: Return Donations or Be Sued

According to a company statement, “to the extent such payments are not returned voluntarily, the FTX Debtors reserve the right to commence actions before the Bankruptcy Court to require the return of such payments, with interest accruing from the date any action is commenced.”

Based on data from the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), Coindesk, a cryptocurrency news site, identified 196 U.S. senators and representatives who accepted FTX donations. Meanwhile, Unusual Whales, a retail trading platform, compiled their own tally of political recipients of FTX money, who donated to whom, and whether or not the money was returned.
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Legal experts say it would probably be wise for the politicians to comply with FTX attorneys’ request before things go to court.

"Donations"

Wilson cited the precedent of Craig Berkman, a financier charged by the SEC with defrauding investors, who had donated to the presidential campaigns of John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani in 2007–2008.

“After Berkman filed for bankruptcy in 2009, many of the campaigns and candidates who received funds from Berkman were sued and/or returned the funds to Berkman’s bankruptcy trustee,” Wilson said.

FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried, together with other top FTX executives, lavished more than $70 million on politicians and political organizations leading up to the 2022 midterm elections, making FTX the third-largest political donor and Bankman-Fried the second-largest donor to the Democratic Party after George Soros.

According to data collected by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, led by economist Stephen Moore, Bankman-Fried himself gave $40 million, mostly to Democratic candidates. His co-CEO, Ryan Salame, reportedly gave more than $20 million to Republicans and conservative groups. And FTX engineering director Nishad Singh reportedly gave nearly $13 million to Democrats and left-wing causes.