Headlines — 08 March 2019
Ex-Trump campaign boss Manafort sentenced to 47 months
- 16 cases of mumps at Temple University
- Not-for-profit schools endangered, a part of Dream Center, a Christian based outreach of a Pentecostal megachurch in LA. 26,000 students affected.
- normal operations restored at North Korean long-range rocket launch site.
- House vote to condemn all hate as antisemitism debate overshadows Congress.
Trump inauguration took money from shell companies tied to foreigners
THE GUARDIAN—Donald Trump’s inauguration received tens of thousands of dollars from shell companies that masked the involvement of a foreign contributor or others with foreign ties.
The Guardian has identified the creators of three obscure firms that contributed money to Trump’s inaugural committee, which collected a record $107m as he entered the White House in 2017.
The three companies each gave $25,000 to Trump’s inaugural fund. At least one of the contributions was made for a foreign national who appears ineligible to make political donations in the U.S.
US asylum shift targets Spanish speakers, Latin Americans
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Border agents have been told to explicitly target Spanish speakers and migrants from Latin America in carrying out a Trump administration program requiring asylum seekers wait in Mexico, according to memos obtained by The Associated Press that reveal some inner workings of a top government priority to address the burgeoning number of Central Americans arriving in the country.
The Trump administration launched the program in late January in what marks a potentially seismic shift on how the U.S. handles the cases of immigrants seeking asylum and fleeing persecution in their homeland.
The Women Whose Secret Work Helped Win World War II
By Katie Sanders—NYTIMES Magazine
Before the Central Intelligence Agency, there was the Office of Strategic Services — a clandestine espionage organization of almost 13,000 Americans who, from 1942 to 1945, gathered intelligence for President Roosevelt and wreaked havoc against the Axis powers in every World War II theater. While an ideal O.S.S. recruit was famously described as “a Ph.D. who can win a bar fight,” the staff were diverse in their backgrounds. They came in as academics, military personnel, scientists, athletes, filmmakers, farmers and even some convicts; they served as spies, cartographers, forgers and propagandists. They broke code, planted false information to mislead the Germans and parachuted into enemy territory to blow up bridges and rail lines. One third of them were women.
Their ranks included Marlene Dietrich, the actress, and Margaret Mead, a pioneering anthropologist. Julia McWilliams, later known by her married name, Julia Child, cooked up shark repellent. Jane Wallis Burrell went on to become one of the first C.I.A. operatives killed in the line of duty. Thousands of others broke barriers and demolished stereotypes without ever seeking recognition.
