News and Headlines: In the News, Politics, World News, Commentary/Opinion.

In The News:

‘Taking Our Baby to the Hospital Was the Single Most Harmful Decision We Made’

Last May, John Cox was worried he had accidentally hurt his newly adopted infant by rolling into her when they both dozed off.

Erring on the side of caution, he brought her to Children’s Wisconsin hospital—where he worked, coincidentally, as a pediatric emergency doctor—just to make absolutely sure she was fine.

It turned out she had suffered a minor fracture that is common in babies and heals on its own.

Two weeks later, child protective services declared him a child abuser and took the baby from him and his wife.

What happened? According to a remarkable investigative story by ABC’s Mike Hixenbaugh, it’s possible for the authorities to interpret almost any bump or bruise as evidence of evil intent:

Jewish couple kicked off American Airlines flight over body odor now suing for discrimination

“When we entered this plane I asked the stewardess for headphone[s],” Yehuda said in the lawsuit, claiming that on a previous flight an American Airline employee told them to ask if they needed anything, “including headphones.”

The pilot allegedly was standing there at the time Yehuda asked and said, “I wasn’t on that plane and we don’t offer anything complimentary.”

The Adlers considered the response to be “so nasty and humiliating,” though they reportedly ignored it and went to their seats.

Soon afterward, the Adlers claim they were approached by a flight attendant who told the family there “was an emergency” and that they had to deplane.

Once off the flight, the flight attendant allegedly told the family the pilot requested the family be removed from the flight because of body odor.

Oregon man on meth opened fire on two strangers outside steakhouse, cops say

Vicente Cirildo Guerra, 43, was arraigned Wednesday in Deschutes County Circuit Court in connection with the Jan. 20 shooting that occurred feet from where the suspect worked as a barber, according to police court records.

Bend police said Guerra fired shots into the front windshield of an Infiniti G35 parked in front of Okawa Steakhouse & Sushi on Southeast Third Street, grazing one of the two men seated in the car.

Guerra fled when an officer responded to the shooting and tried to confront him, police said.

Police found the suspect shivering in a nearby canal a couple of hours later, according to Officer Eli Allen.

Migrants from 41 Nations Apprehended in Texas near Border Since New Fiscal Year

“Del Rio Sector continues to arrest individuals from around the world,” Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul L. Ortiz said in a written statement.

“So far this year, the men and women of Del Rio Sector have arrested people from 41 different countries.

Del Rio Sector has coordinated with local hospitals and contract medical professionals to be prepared to process and manage these detainees safely.”

On January 28, Del Rio Sector agents from multiple stations apprehended 17 Haitian migrants, 17 from Honduras, and three from Brazil.

Two days earlier, agents arrested a Chinese national after he attempted to run from a vehicle that led agents on a pursuit.

9/11 First Responder Who Lost Brother in Attacks Issues ‘Desperate’ Plea for a Kidney Donation

While he’s on a waiting list for a cadaver kidney donor, that can take between seven and 10 years, meaning he’s in “desperate” need of a live donor, he wrote in a letter shared to the Facebook page of the Carl Vincent Bini Memorial Fund, which is named after a firefighter who died on 9/11.

“I am a proud man and it hurts me to write this. I am looking for a live donor so I can get my life back. I am in desperate need of a kidney, help me please,” he wrote.

Esposito was at work at a Staten Island landfill when the Twin Towers went down, and he headed straight for the site to meet up with his brother Joe, who was an FDNY firefighter, he wrote.

DNA exonerates New York man who served 25 years for rape, insisted he was innocent

By the time Rafael Ruiz was released from prison, he had spent half his life there.

Ruiz, now 60, was convicted of a sexual assault in 1985, sentenced to 8 1/2 to 25 years in prison, and served the maximum.

Ruiz was released on parole in 2009, but still had the conviction hanging over him, even though he had always maintained his innocence, which ironically contributed to his long sentence.

“I lost 25 years of my life because I insisted upon my innocence and rejected plea bargains,” he said.

“Today feels like a huge burden off my shoulders and I look forward to living a good life moving forward.”

Santa Ana man gets two years in prison after flipping out over the alleged use of his bathroom by a gay roommate

Joe Martin Rodriguez, a 41-year-old man, will serve two years in prison for threatening two gay roommates in Santa Ana at knifepoint on the Fourth of July and slashing the tires of one victim’s vehicle.

Rodriguez pleaded guilty to a felony count of making criminal threats and a misdemeanor hate crime charge.

He was sentenced on Tuesday, but the sentence was light as he was given 418 days credit for time served in custody, according to the O.C. Register.

Child Rapist to Be Released from Prison Because He Is Changing Gender

The Storm Lake Times reported in November that Joseph Matthew Smith, 23, a former Midwest Christian Services (MCS) student, convicted of as many as 15 sex crimes against victims whose ages ranged from 1 to 13 years, was sentenced to prison in December 2015.

On January 16, the Times reported a spokesman from the Iowa attorney general’s office said they are “no longer seeking” Smith’s commitment because “an offender’s hormone levels are an important part of substantiating an offender’s likelihood of recidivism.”

“We don’t believe we have evidence sufficient to prove Josie Smith has a significant chance of reoffending,” spokesman Lynn Hicks said.

New Maryland homeowner finds body of former resident in foreclosed house: reports

The woman had special needs and was cared for by her grandmother until her death about a year ago, a neighbor told WRC-TV.

“As we grew up into adults, she never grew up,” he said. “So she needed help with things and didn’t process things as well as an adult would, even though she was an adult.”

A caregiver and family members had not been seen at the house for several months, the neighbor told the station, adding that it was believed the woman had gone away with relatives when the house went into foreclosure.

Illegal Immigrants Buy, Rent Kids for Easier U.S. Entry, Guatemalan With Fake Son Jailed

A federal case out of south Florida illustrates the perils of a U.S. policy that facilitates the entry of illegal immigrants with children over those traveling alone.

The matter involves a Guatemalan national who obtained false documents in his impoverished Central American country to claim a 12-year-old boy as his son.

The 35-year-old illegal alien, Walfre Eliseo Camposeco-Montejo, and his fake son were released by federal authorities as a family unit and remained free until the boy escaped.

Camposeco-Montejo eventually pled guilty to providing and obtaining forced labor, alien smuggling and unlawfully transporting aliens.

This month he was sentenced to eight years in prison for labor trafficking a minor.

U.S. life expectancy increases for first time in 4 years

New CDC data released Thursday provides hope that the major contributors to three years of stagnant or declining life expectancy may be relenting. Still, other factors such as suicide ticked up in the past year.

The data confirms fatal drug overdoses dropped in 2018 for the first time in nearly 30 years — a bright spot for President Donald Trump, who has made the opioid crisis a key issue of his presidency.

The decrease could indicate that federal and state efforts to tackle the opioid epidemic are working.

Americans born in 2018 are expected to live to 78.7 years, up from 78.6 the year before.

The increase is a break from the three-year streak where the life expectancy either decreased or stayed the same — largely due to a dramatic rise in overdose deaths and suicide.

Person-to-person transmission of coronavirus reported in US, CDC says

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported the first case of person-to-person transmission of coronavirus in the United States.

In a telebriefing on Thursday, officials said the patient is the husband of a Chicago woman who was diagnosed with the illness after returning from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the virus.

The case marks the sixth coronavirus illness confirmed in the U.S., and the second in Illinois.

Both patients remain hospitalized and the man is stable.

The woman, who is also in her 60s and was the first travel-related case confirmed in Illinois, is said to be “doing well.”

Illinois officials declined to identify which hospital is treating the patients.

Trump Administration Forms Coronavirus Task Force

The President’s Coronavirus Task Force will lead the U.S. government’s response to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus and keep Trump apprised of developments.

The task force will lead the Trump administration’s efforts to “monitor, contain, and mitigate the spread of the virus” and give Americans accurate and up-to-date health and travel information, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.

Secretary of Health Alex Azar, who held a press conference giving an update on the virus earlier this week, is leading the task force.

Mohammed Nuru, head of SF Public Works, arrested in FBI corruption probe

A newly released federal complaint has detailed the stunning allegations that led to the FBI arresting Public Works Director Muhammed Nuru and a San Francisco businessman over a series of suspected pay-to-play schemes.

In the biggest public corruption scandal to shake City Hall since 2015, Nuru and local entrepreneur Nick Bovis of famed Union Square sports bar Lefty O’Doul’s have each been charged with one count of wire fraud.

The alleged kickback scheme was just one of five that federal authorities described in a complaint released Tuesday after surveilling Nuru and Bovis with FBI wiretaps and undercover operators since at least 2018.

US bans 13 Salvadoran army officials for ‘gross violation of human rights’ over 1989 murder of Jesuit priests

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that the department has “credible information” that the 13 former military officials, whose ranks ranged from general to private, were involved in planning and executing the extrajudicial killings more than three decades ago.

Under the Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act, Pompeo designated the 13 and their immediate family members “ineligible for entry” into the United States.

“The United States condemns all human rights abuses that took place on both sides of the brutal civil war in El Salvador, including those committed by governmental and non-governmental parties,” the statement said.

Politics:

Elizabeth Warren says young transgender person must personally OK her pick for education secretary

During a Sunday town hall event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Warren said she would begin by encouraging a trans youngster to sit down and have a face-to-face discussion with anyone Warren might consider for the post of education secretary.

The remarks, according to The Daily Caller, were prompted by a voter who said that children should be learning more about LGBTQ history and inclusivity.

“I have two qualifications that I have talked about over and over for my secretary of education,” Warren said in the Daily Caller story. “The first, it has to be someone who has taught in a public school.”

Warren added that she would have a young trans person interview the education secretary candidate on her “behalf.”

Latest 2020 Democratic Primary Poll Sees Mike Bloomberg Surge Past Elizabeth Warren Into Third Place

The poll, conducted by The Hill and HarrisX, saw Bloomberg pick up four points (11), while Warren lost ground (9) on frontrunners Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden.

According to the Real Clear Politics Average, Sanders is currently leading Biden in the first two primary states.

He currently holds a three point lead ahead of Monday’s Iowa caucuses and a nearly ten point lead in the New Hampshire primary.

Dana Loesch rips Warren’s plan to combat online ‘disinformation’: ‘You’re going to arrest them over memes?’

Warren announced on her campaign website plans to crack down on “digital disinformation” by working with social media companies to address false posts, having them label certain content, ban accounts trying to interfere with elections and alert users who have interacted with content determined to be disinformation, among other things.

She would also lead a charge to criminalize the mere spreading of false information about the process of voting in U.S. elections.

“I will push for new laws that impose tough civil and criminal penalties for knowingly disseminating this kind of information, which has the explicit purpose of undermining the basic right to vote,” she says on her campaign website.

Warren’s plan says this criminally punishable false information would be “about when and how to vote” in elections.

Swipe at Romney? Utah lawmaker introduces bill to recall US senators

First reported by Deseret News, the bill would create a process by which a recall vote could go on the ballot after a petition by voters.

“I know that’s what’s going to be the narrative,” Quinn told the Deseret News when asked if the bill was aimed at Romney, the sitting GOP senator whose current term doesn’t expire until 2025.

“If it were, then it might make sense to have a sunset on it. That would not be the case.”

“Six years is a long time,” he said, according to the Deseret News.

Activists Slam Klobuchar Over Criminal Justice Concerns

Klobuchar was reportedly a lead prosecutor against Myon Burrell, a black teenager who was sentenced to life in prison for murder even after his co-defendant reportedly confessed to the crime.

The groups are also accusing Klobuchar of using the case for political gain.

“Young people, young adults, were given life sentences to rot away in prison — this benefits no one,” stated Leslie Redmond, President of the Minneapolis NAACP.

“However it does benefit politicians that have used the criminal justice system to enhance their political careers and enough is enough.”

Democrats Kill Amendment Protecting Americans from Credit Discrimination Based on Politics, Religion

Without such an amendment, Republicans warn, the powerful CFPB would have the legal authority to make nearly any criteria mandatory for a private credit evaluation company to take into consideration, paving the way for a system in which the federal government has the power to assign numerical scores to individuals based on their loyalty to a certain political party, membership in civil society groups that the government approves or disapproves of, or other private behaviors.

The system, they say, would mirror the newly minted “social credit system” in place in China, which bans citizens from key social services like public transportation if they lose too many points behaving in a way the Communist Party disapproves of.

The CFPB, the brainchild of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), is an executive agency that does not answer to the presidency, making it unaccountable to anyone but its head.

Trump tweets ‘game over’ after Bolton, Schiff videos resurface

Senator David Perdue weighs in on the Bolton and Schiff interviews that have resurfaced and brought their credibility into questions.

He also discusses the ongoing impeachment trial.

World News:

Gunman shoots India student during march against citizenship law

Jan. 30 (UPI) — A teenager pulled a gun and shot a demonstrator Thursday during a mass protest in India opposing the government’s new citizenship law, authorities said.

The shooter opened fire at New Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University, following weeks of demonstrations by students and other opponents to the law, which establishes a path to citizenship for refugees in neighboring nations, but excludes Muslims.

The gunman flashed the firearm at protesters before he opened fire, officials said. He was overpowered by other students and arrested by police.

Planes bomb hospital in Syrian safe zone; at least 11 dead

Jan. 30 (UPI) — Russian airstrikes in residential areas of battle-scarred northwestern Syria killed nearly a dozen civilians late Wednesday after bombs destroyed a hospital, defense officials said.

The Syria Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said the attacks in Idlib’s Ariha district injured 50 others.

The hospital is no longer operational following the strike, which Turkish officials say broke cease-fire rules that designate Idlib province a safe de-escalation zone.

Eleven people were killed, the White Helmets said.

The Censorship of Katie Hopkins

Commentary/Opinion:Anne Marie Waters Leader, For Britain
Move comes after ‘Countdown’ star Rachel Riley and campaigners demand action from social network.

UN agency declares global emergency over virus from China

BEIJING (AP) — The World Health Organization declared the outbreak sparked by a new virus in China that has been exported to more than a dozen countries as a global emergency Thursday after the number of cases spiked tenfold in a week.

The U.N. health agency defines an international emergency as an “extraordinary event” that constitutes a risk to other countries and requires a coordinated international response.

China first informed WHO about cases of the new virus in late December. To date, China has reported more than 7,800 cases including 170 deaths.

French Cardinal Acquitted Of Sex Abuse Cover-Up Scandal

The appeals court in the French city of Lyon initially gave no explanation for its controversial decision to acquit Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of all charges.

However, the court later released a 38-page document that said there was no “intentional element” found showing a cover-up.

At his trial earlier this month, Bernard Preynat, the priest at the center of the cover-up who was recently defrocked, told the court that he repeatedly sexually abused boys for over two decades.

Preynat said other clergymen were aware of his illicit actions since the 1970s.

Israel strikes Gaza in response to indiscriminate rocket fire – TV7 Israel News 30.01.20

1) Rocket and explosive-rigged balloons were launched from the Gaza Strip toward Israel’s southern communities; prompting Israeli retaliatory strikes against Hamas installations in the Jihadist plagued territory.

2) Palestinian residents of Jerusalem voiced cohesive anger over the U.S.-initiative, stressing that regardless of any international plan, they will fight to preserve the city’s Palestinian, Arab and Islamic character.

3) Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett revealed that he already ordered to form a special team to implement the application of Israeli law and sovereignty over major parts of the West Bank.

6,000 passengers stuck on cruise ship in Italy over coronavirus fears

An initial plan to disembark 1,140 passengers who had been due to leave the ship on Thursday morning was put on hold after Civitavecchia mayor Ernesto Tedesco protested.

“Are you mad? Who gave you the order to disembark?

I’ll take you all to court,” he shouted at officials after racing to the port in his Fiat 500, according to the Repubblica newspaper.

The Lazzaro Spallanzani national institute for infectious diseases is examining samples taken from a Chinese woman who fell ill with a fever as well as her travelling companion.

It told Agence France-Presse that the definitive results could take up to 48 hours.

EU governments sign off on Brexit deal

The Council of the EU, the body made up of the bloc’s member governments, today adopted a decision concluding the Brexit deal — a final legal step ahead of Britain’s departure from the bloc on Friday.

The decision was a formality, following Wednesday’s vote in the European Parliament to ratify the withdrawal agreement negotiated between the U.K. and the EU.

“The withdrawal agreement will enter into force upon the UK’s exit from the EU, on 31 January 2020 at midnight CET.

Mexico cartels: Three suspects escape ‘with help from guards’

When guards did their morning check of the inmates they noticed that three were missing.

Víctor Manuel Félix Beltrán, Luis Fernando Meza González and Yael Osuna Navarro had all escaped from the medium-security jail in Mexico City.

The fugitives passed through five gates to get to a courtyard where they boarded a prison car which whisked them away.

The gates had been installed at the medium-security jail after the three had been transferred there from high-security facilities.

Commentary/Opinion:

Mitt Romney: The Dumbest Smart Person?

Clearly, Romney, Collins, Murkowski, and Alexander are all smart people. They’re successful. They’ve managed to get elected to the Senate.

Romney himself is a near-billionaire in his own right. But they are willfully blind to the obvious-to-everyone-else tactics of the Democrats.

Romney especially — as a businessman — should know better. He should know that insiders can become blind to problems that someone from outside the system can see clearly. That’s the entire point of business consultants.

Romney himself was a consultant. And yet, now that he’s a Washington insider, he appears to have forgotten what he once knew about strategy.

The Democrats’ strategy is (or should be) clear to one and all: use the impeachment trial as the means to retake the Senate.

An actual attempt to impeach Trump would not be articles based on supposition about Trump’s intent and vague charges of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress.”

Given such standards, any sitting senator or congressman could be impeached under “abuse of power” every time he exploits his elected position to send endless mailers to his constituents to brag about his successes, whereas his challengers have no such ability.

A veto could be considered “obstruction of Congress.”

How The Media Is Rigging The Democratic Election (Pt. 2) | Michael Malice | POLITICS | Rubin Report

Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report talks to Michael Malice (Author and Media Personality) about the power and manipulation done by corporate mainstream media.

He makes the point that it is not the Democrats that run the media, but that the DNC is run by the media.

Malice believes it is becoming clearer to many on the left that it is not Democrat vs. Republican, but establishment vs. outsider.

Malice gives examples from the past of how the media has controlled the narrative putting it’s agenda first.