A group of House Republicans defied leadership on Tuesday to sink a key procedural vote that would have barred lawmakers from overturning President Trump's sweeping global tariffs. read more
Homes are months behind schedule, and contractors face an uphill battle to recruit more workers to finish them. read more
The US House of Representatives has voted to rescind US President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canadian goods.
Women played a key role in the 2024 student-led uprising that rocked Bangladesh's political foundations. They marched in the streets, blockaded roads, painted slogans, and participated in strategy sessions. After the autocratic government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fell, women organized nighttime patrols to monitor public safety.
A review of the riskier apps to use when it comes to protecting personal data finds Instagram and Facebook ranking first, collecting the most sensitive information like physical address, device, and user identity.
@#97 ...
I have to also mention, the memory of that horrific occurence still lingers in this part of Connecticut.
These Sandy Hook survivors say memories of classmates inspire us' as they graduate from Newtown (June 2024)
www.newstimes.com
... In the beginning there were only flashes too disturbing for first-grade minds to reconcile -- alarming things they had never heard or seen....
Bangs and loud popping that would not stop. SWAT teams with big guns in the hallway. Chaos in the parking lot. Strong grownups crying inconsolably. News that friends would never come back.
But as time passed and first graders who survived the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre put distance between themselves and that Dec. 14 morning when everything changed, an uncommon kind of closeness seemed to enshroud them. From a police officer at the door on Christmas day with gifts, to teachers who always anticipated their needs, to the solidarity of classmates who shared the trauma that day, survivors made their way through the seasons of childhood feeling embraced by a closeness that some of them recognize today as one of their saving graces.
"It was such a dark time, and you can feel so alone, but it was really difficult to feel alone in Newtown because everyone came together so close," said Lilly Wasilnak, a 17-year-old at Newtown High School who is graduating in just a few days.
"We were all like a big family ... and the Sandy Hook kids, even if we didn't stay close friends, we always had each other to go back to"
As the mass shooting survivors entered high school and began to process what happened in 2012 when they were too innocent to understand, some survivors came to realize that the 20 first graders and six educators who didn't make it out of Sandy Hook Elementary School that day never really left them, but remained present in an inspirational way. ...
@#94, 95 ... Eric Lanza vibes.... Adam. Not sure who Eric is. ...
Yeah, my search engine of choice seems to refer to this when I searched for Eric Lanza ...
Adam Lanza
en.wikipedia.org
... Adam Peter Lanza (April 22, 1992 " December 14, 2012) was an American mass murderer who perpetrated the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.[8] Before the shooting, Lanza killed his mother at their home in Newtown, Connecticut. ...
@#13 ... You missed the part where they're a net economic positive. ...
Immigrants' Recent Effects on Government Budgets: 1994"2023
February 3, 2026 White Paper
www.cato.org
... Recent increases in immigration have rekindled concerns about their effects on government budgets. This paper updates a model of these effects first developed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to shed light on how immigrants, both legal and illegal, and their children affect government budgets.
This analysis is the first to estimate the cumulative fiscal effect of immigrants on federal, state, and local budgets over 30 years.
The government first began gathering detailed information on benefits use by citizenship status in 1994. The data show:
- - - For each year from 1994 to 2023, the US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government.
- - - Over that period, immigrants created a cumulative fiscal surplus of $14.5 trillion in real 2024 US dollars, including $3.9 trillion in savings on interest on the debt.
- - - Without immigrants, US government public debt at all levels would be at least 205 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)"nearly twice its 2023 level. ...
Canada mass shooting suspect had mental health issues
www.dw.com
... The teenage shooter, who killed six people at a school after slaying her mother and stepbrother, had a history of police visits to her home.
Police identified the suspect in the deadly Tumbler Ridge shooting in Canada as an 18-year-old local woman who had a history of police visits to her home to check on her mental health.
She is suspected of shooting dead six people at the local high school on Tuesday after killing her mother and stepbrother at home.
Police revise death toll down
The suspect killed eight people, police clarified, and not nine as had been previously reported.
The confusion came after they mistakenly thought a victim airlifted to a hospital had died, police commander Dwayne McDonald said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Motive for Tumbler Ridge mass shooting still unknown
McDonald said the motive for the shooting wasn't yet known and police hadn't found a suicide note.
He identified the suspect as transgender, saying that she began to transition to female six years ago and identified as female both "socially and publicly."
The suspect was known to officers who had made multiple visits to their home in response to mental health calls, McDonald said.
She was "apprehended for assessment and follow up" under the Mental Health Act and taken to the hospital on occasion, he said.
Officers had seized weapons from the shooter's residence, he said, and had been subsequently returned.
McDonald said no guns were registered in the name of the shooter. She had previously held a gun license, but this had lapsed. ...
From the sub-summary ...
... So the feds ARE NOT considering an mRNA vaccine for the flu, which could save countless lives, but ARE backing research into whether horse dewormer can cure cancer, because the right views vaccines as elite and ivermectin as populist. ...
About that mRNA flu vaccine ...
FDA refuses to review Moderna's mRNA flu vaccine
arstechnica.com
... The Food and Drug Administration has refused to review Moderna's application for an mRNA flu vaccine, the company revealed Tuesday.
While the move came as a surprise to the high-profile vaccine maker, it is just the latest hostility toward vaccines"and mRNA vaccines in particular"from an agency overseen by the fervent anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In his first year in office, Kennedy has already dramatically slashed childhood vaccine recommendations and canceled $500 million in research funding for mRNA vaccines against potential pandemic threats.
In a news release late Tuesday, Moderna said it was blindsided by the FDA's refusal, which the FDA cited as being due to the design of the company's Phase 3 trial for its mRNA flu vaccine, dubbed mRNA-1010. Specifically, the FDA's rejection was over the comparator vaccine Moderna used.
In the trial, which enrolled nearly 41,000 participants and cost hundreds of millions of dollars, Moderna compared the safety and efficacy of mRNA-1010 to licensed standard-dose influenza vaccines, including Fluarix, made by GlaxoSmithKline. The trial found that mRNA-1010 was superior to the comparators.
Moderna said the FDA reviewed and accepted its trial design on at least two occasions (in April 2024 and again in August 2025) before it applied for approval of mRNA-1010. It also noted that Fluarix has been used as a comparator vaccine in previous flu vaccine trials, which tested vaccines that went on to earn approval. ...
More about the cited X opinion...
Social Development Commission Approves Several Resolutions Aimed at Ending Poverty, Ensuring No One Is Left Behind, Concluding Annual Session
press.un.org
... The Commission for Social Development concluded its sixty-fourth session today, approving several texts without a vote, despite differences among delegates, including about the definition of gender and the absence of certain terms relating to development.
The 46-member body held its current session from 2 to 10 February, bringing together ministers and civil society, United Nations officials and delegates, in a series of conversations about eradicating poverty and building inclusive societies. A subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council, the Commission annually recommends texts for adoption by that organ.
Coordinated, Inclusive Policies to Advance Social Development and Justice
Among the texts that the Commission approved today was a draft resolution on "Advancing social development and social justice through coordinated, equitable and inclusive policies" (document E/CN.5/2026/L.4). It would have the Economic and Social Council reaffirm commitment to implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development for all "by ensuring that no one would be left behind and reaching the furthest behind first" and urged Member States to place social development priorities at the heart of development frameworks, including by reinforcing synergies between and among social, economic and environmental policies.
By further terms, it would call upon Member States to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, including by removing barriers that prevent women from accessing, remaining and progressing in the labour market, such as gender stereotypes, and all forms of violence, including gender-based violence. The text also recognizes the important role that families can play in combating social exclusion and highlights the importance of investing in inclusive and responsive family-oriented policies and programmes.
While it was approved without a vote, several speakers spoke afterwards to express reservations and disappointments.
Text Lacks Important Language on Discrimination, Right to Development
Switzerland's delegate, speaking also for a number of countries (Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Norway and the United Kingdom), expressed regret that the text does not refer to "multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination". This is not controversial or contested language, she stressed; "the concept simply recognizes that discrimination rarely happens on a single ground but operates along multiple characteristics that intersect and mutually reinforce each other".
...
@#20 ... What really happened is that FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford made the call to shutdown the airspace without notifying the White House, Pentagon or Home Security after the pentagon rushed the deployment of an anti-drone laser that they used against some mylar balloons without coordinating with the FAA. ...
The apparent incompetence would be funny, if it were not so serious.
An update ...
El Paso airport closed after military used new anti-drone laser to zap party balloon
arstechnica.com
... "I want to be very, very clear that this should've never happened."
On Tuesday night, the Federal Aviation Administration closed airspace up to 18,000 feet above the El Paso International Airport in Texas, saying the restrictions would be in place for 10 days. Then, less than 10 hours later, the federal agency reopened the airspace, allowing planes to land and take off at the busy airport.
About an hour after lifting the restrictions, US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, whose responsibilities include overseeing the FAA, explained the unexpected closure by saying, "The FAA and DOW acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion." (The Trump Administration refers to the Department of Defense as the Department of War, or DOW, although its legal name remains the former.)
Not everyone agrees with Duffy's account.
Based upon reporting from The New York Times and other publications, the military has been developing high-energy lasers to bring down drones. The FAA and US military officials had been discussing tests of the new weapon from the nearby Fort Bliss Army base. However, the FAA had not resolved all of its concerns about airplane safety from the tests.
Despite these apparently lingering concerns from the FAA, the military went ahead with a test earlier this week against what was thought to be a drone.
The object was a party balloon. ...
"I want to be very, very clear that this should've never happened," El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson said during a news conference on Wednesday. "That failure to communicate is unacceptable." ...
It's a stated reason why Pres Trump wants the Fed to lower interest rates.
To reduce the interest-load of the Trump Deficit upon the US budget.
Pres Trump has been saying that he wants the US to have the world's lowest interest rates, while the economy could grow at 15% per year.
What affect might that have upon inflation?
Trump to Kudlow: This country should have the lowest interest rates in the world'
www.foxbusiness.com
Trump Says Fed Chair Pick Kevin Warsh Could Drive More Than 15% Economic Growth
finance.yahoo.com
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