None
3 held for egg attack on MunirathnaSoccer-Liverpool go seven points clear, Chelsea drop points, Man City remain in freefallPushed through: On mega projects
Digital Access, AI, and 99% e-Prescriptions: Estonia's e-Health Revolution and What It Could Mean for the GCC's FutureConor McGregor breaks silence after Nikita Hand wins her High Court case against him
Israeli Attorney General Orders Probe Into Report That Alleged Netanyahu’s Wife Harassed Opponents
Congressional Republicans and former Trump appointees have spent the last year building out their response to the movement protesting Israel’s war in Gaza , and now that Donald Trump is returning to the White House they warn that protest leaders, activists and those who help them raise money could face an onslaught of federal investigations and possible indictments. An NBC News review of congressional hearings and letters, along with lawsuits filed by organizations led by former Trump officials, provides a preview of which federal laws a second Trump administration could use when pursuing investigations and potential prosecutions. Judging from what has been pushed thus far, there are several legal measures most likely to be used once Trump returns to Washington. One would be deporting foreign college students in the U.S. on a visa after they’re found to have openly advocated for Hamas or another U.S.-designated terror group, or after they participated in an unauthorized campus protest and were suspended, expelled or jailed. Another measure would be to pursue federal prosecutions of demonstrators who block synagogue entrances or disrupt Jewish speakers at events. A third approach is to charge protest leaders and nonprofits that aid in fundraising for protest groups with failing to register with the U.S. Justice Department as an “agent of a foreign principal.” And a fourth avenue is to open investigations into protest leaders who are in direct contact with U.S.-designated terror groups while advocating on their behalf. The multifaceted law enforcement approach is a marked departure from the Biden administration’s response to the protest movement. Some of the nation’s leading civil rights groups told NBC News that they are gearing up for a flood of legal battles to protect the protesters. “Trying to predict what Trump will do is a fool’s errand. We have to be prepared for the most extreme version of what he’s threatened,” said Ben Wizner, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. “We have to take him both literally and seriously.” Biden administration officials have told NBC News that prosecuting speech-related crimes related to the anti-war protests is not a high priority for the current Justice Department, nor is seeking out student protesters on foreign visas a top concern for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “President Trump will enforce the law,” said Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, in an email to NBC News. Ernst recently asked the FBI to open an investigation into a pro-Hamas student group at Columbia University called Columbia University Apartheid Divest. A member had threatened “Zionists” on social media , which the organization had initially distanced itself from after a strong public outcry but later supported in an Instagram post . CUAD also has handed out pro-Hamas flyers that circulated around campus featuring masked men holding weapons. “There is a new sheriff in town,” Ernst said. The FBI has yet to respond to Ernst’s request, her office said. An FBI spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment. A Columbia University spokesperson said CUAD is not a recognized organization by the school and the flyers were under investigation. Members of CUAD declined to comment. Reed Rubinstein, who held high-ranking positions in both the Justice Department and the U.S. Education Department in the first Trump administration, is now a senior vice president at America First Legal, a public policy law firm in Washington, D.C., founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller. (Miller is expected to return to the White House as a deputy chief of staff for policy.) Under Rubinstein, America First Legal has in the past year filed four lawsuits that provide a glimpse into how the Trump administration could differ from its predecessor. America First Legal alleges in the suits that the State Department, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education have protected pro-Hamas extremists. In court papers and in letters to several federal oversight officials, America First Legal has also said it believes the Justice Department should have forced several leaders of pro-Palestinian groups to report themselves under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA, which requires individuals acting as “an agent of a foreign principal” to register themselves with the Justice Department. It has also accused the Department of Education of not following Title VI regulations, which prohibits schools that accept federal funding from allowing on-campus discrimination based on race, shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics including being Jewish. “There’s a difference between lawful speech and unlawful conduct,” Rubinstein told NBC News. “Law enforcement has an obligation to act.” Although the lawsuits haven’t progressed in court, they provide a possible road map for how Trump-minded prosecutors could respond to the protest movement. So far, only the Education Department has responded to the allegations, court papers show, and said the agency doesn’t have sufficient evidence to respond to the claims that policies aren’t being enforced. The Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment. Spokespeople at the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education all said they can’t comment on pending litigation. Rubinstein in an interview brought up an additional law he expects a second Trump administration could enforce. Known as the FACE Act , the law prohibits people from using force, threats or intimidation while blocking entrances of places of worship. Earlier this month, protesters with SJP Chicago gathered at the Chicago Loop Synagogue to demonstrate against an Arab Israeli speaker who had served in the Israeli military. Videos posted to social media showed demonstrators blocking the synagogue’s entrance, banging on the windows and getting inside. “You do not have the right to deny somebody the ability to congregate in a church or synagogue,” Rubinstein said. “We would like to see the Department of Justice do its job.” A spokesman for the FBI’s Chicago office said its policy is not to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation. The Chicago Police Department said it arrested two protesters and charged them with trespassing and one with property damage, both misdemeanor charges. SJP Chicago did not respond to a request for comment. But in an Instagram post, it said protesters were not being anti-Jewish. “Zionist have scrambled to throw together a narrative that these acts were anti-semetic and fueled by hate (what’s new).” Some of the nation’s leading free speech and civil rights groups say they are gearing up to fight a new Trump administration and any attempts to go after protesters or their funders. Since 9/11, organizations including the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), along with the ACLU, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Knight First Amendment Institute have represented Muslim Americans and pro-Palestinian activists in cases involving free speech, surveillance or abuse. Edward Ahmed Mitchell, CAIR’s deputy executive director, argued that the Biden administration failed to enforce FARA against leaders of pro-Israel groups. Mitchell said both Trump and President Joe Biden single out pro-Palestinian activists with either a lack of enforcement or with too much enforcement. “Just as Americans who peacefully marched, protested and lobbied against segregation, the Vietnam War and South African apartheid were not deterred when government agencies spied upon, smeared, arrested and brutalized them,” Mitchell said, “the college students, human rights activists and everyday Americans peacefully opposing the Gaza genocide have not been deterred by such government abuses and, God willing, will not be deterred by such abuses in the future.” Both CCR and the ACLU told NBC News that their concerns go beyond what the administration could do to crack down on just the protests. They pointed to the possibility that a Republican-led Congress could pass a bill currently under consideration that would strip away the tax-exempt status of nonprofits that a Trump appointed treasury secretary designates as providing material support to “terrorist supporting organizations.” CCR also said it worries a second Trump administration could wrongly level accusations of failing to register as foreign agents against protest leaders and nonprofits that aid protest groups with collecting donations. CCR is also watching whether a Trump Justice Department will charge certain activists accused of supporting Hamas and other U.S.-designated terror organizations with violating a U.S. anti-terror law that prohibits advocating for terror groups while in coordination with them. “We are prepared for the Trump administration coming in and changing the game, particularly around the question, ‘Where does speech fit into this?’” said Vince Warren, CCR’s executive director. “To the extent that the Biden administration drew a line between speech and actionable conduct, we don’t think that the Trump administration will do that at all.” CCR is also concerned about the plans laid out in Project Esther , an initiative backed by the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that published Project 2025 . Project Esther urges law enforcement to use a plethora of federal and state laws to dismantle what it terms the “global Hamas Support Network” using racketeering laws — used to break up the mafia — along with anti-terrorism and anti-hate speech laws. “They will throw any type of spaghetti up against the wall,” Warren said. The Knight Institute said although it expects the new Trump administration to aggressively police speech, it is prepared to fight back. Earlier this month, Knight successfully rebuffed the Biden Treasury Department, which had blocked a New York based nonprofit from organizing an overseas conference with Hezbollah members, arguing it can’t work with people sanctioned for ties to terrorism groups. The agency reversed course and settled the case earlier this month after Knight argued that an academic exchange of ideas could not violate anti-terror laws. “If there’s one thing the First Amendment protects, it’s the right of Americans to criticize their own government’s policies,” said Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institute’s executive director. The ACLU’s Wizner struck a similar note, saying: “The courts have made clear that the First Amendment protects all manner of controversial advocacy, including advocacy of violence, so long as the speaker isn’t actively inciting imminent harm,” Wizner said. Kenneth Marcus, who ran the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights during the Trump and George W. Bush administrations, now leads the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, one of the leading civil rights organizations focused on Jewish students. Over the past year, the center has sued a growing list of universities arguing officials failed to stop what it sees as widespread antisemitism on campus. Marcus said he has met with Department of Education officials requesting an expansion of civil rights enforcement to protect Jewish students on campuses. The Department of Education didn’t respond to questions regarding Marcus’ concerns. “We know that President Trump has repeatedly expressed concern about the campus situation,” Marcus said. During the presidential campaign, one of the 20 promises in the preamble to the Republican Party platform was to “deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.” NBC News reported in August that the Biden administration said it was not targeting visa revocations for foreign students who may have engaged in speech-related offenses or participated in unauthorized campus protests and had not terminated any university or college student visas due to protest activity related to the Israel-Hamas war. Trump’s return to Washington could lead to possible attempts to revoke student visas for foreign students who openly support Hamas or other U.S.-designated terror organizations, Marcus said. Marcus also anticipates more intervention from the Justice Department when Jewish students say they are being targeted on campus. At a campaign stop in September , Trump said that at the start of his second presidency, he would inform universities that if they allow violence and threats against Jewish students, they “will be held accountable for violations of the civil rights law.” “My administration will move swiftly to restore safety for Jewish students and Jewish people on American streets,” Trump said. This article first appeared on NBCNews.com . Read more from NBC News here:
Native American patients are sent to collections for debts the government owesStock market today: Wall Street drifts to a mixed close in thin trading following a holiday pause
The champions crashed to a fifth straight defeat in all competitions – something not experienced by the club in more than 18 years – as they were thrashed 4-0 by Tottenham at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday. The loss, which was also a third in succession in the Premier League and shattered a 52-game unbeaten home run, damaged the club’s hopes of winning an unprecedented fifth title in a row. It is the worst run of Guardiola’s glittering managerial career and the City boss, who extended his contract until 2027 last week, is determined to turn the situation around. The Catalan said: “When we start to lose I say to the people I have to find a way, I have to. It’s my duty, my responsibility, to find a way to be more consistent, that our game will be better and win games. “This is what we have to do.” City have been hampered by injuries to key players in recent weeks, particularly by the absence of Ballon d’Or-winning midfielder Rodri, who has been sidelined for the remainder of the season. Problems have emerged at both ends of the field with a lack of clean sheets – just five in 19 outings this term – and a shortage of goals being scored on occasions, like Saturday, when the prolific Erling Haaland has an off-day. Guardiola said: “We don’t expect to lose important players but it’s happened and you have to find a way. We have to find other abilities. “I don’t think we didn’t create enough chances. We created a lot of chances, clear ones at 0-0, 0-1, 0-2. “Of course we want a lot of players to score but it’s happened now. “I know at the Etihad when we are there and we score goals our momentum is there, but now we are not solid enough. That is the truth. “In both sides normally we are solid but we concede the goals. Now in both sides we are not good enough. “In these situations, what do you have do to? Keep going my friends, keep going. “We have done it in the past – not in terms of results being as bad as now – but we have done it and we face the situation and move forward.”
Quest Partners LLC Acquires 13,860 Shares of Central Garden & Pet (NASDAQ:CENTA)Wikipedia at Elon Musk's crosshairs, slams its $50 million DEI budget, calls it 'Wokepedia'Interview : Eli Belotsercovsky: “One of my main tasks was to see how we can strengthen our relationship with Mauritius”
Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE:SF) Given Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” by Brokerages
By Derek B. Johnson December 26, 2024 The South Korean government has sanctioned more than a dozen individuals and one organization for a wide-ranging global scheme to fund North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs through impersonating IT workers abroad, stealing cryptocurrency and facilitating cyberattacks. South Korean officials on Thursday identified 15 North Korean nationals and the Chosun Geumjeong Economic Information Technology Exchange Corporation for economic sanctions. The individuals are allegedly working for North Korea’s 313 th General Bureau, part of the DPRK’s Ministry of Munitions Industry, which oversees Pyongyang’s weapons production, research and development and ballistic missile programs. The individuals and others “are known to be dispatched to China, Russia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and other countries as employees of regime-affiliated organizations such as the Ministry of Defense, disguising their identities and receiving work from IT companies around the world, while some are also known to be involved in information theft and cyberattacks,” according to a machine-translated press release from South Korea’s Peninsula Policy Bureau. The Chosun Geumjeong Economic Information Technology Exchange Corporation is described as a company that “dispatches many North Korean IT personnel overseas and pays a large amount of military funds to the North Korean regime,” according to the release. North Koreans posing as IT workers to gain employment at Western firms — bypassing work restrictions and earning revenue for their home government — has become a frequent occurrence in recent years. The growing trend has increasingly alarmed U.S. and Western national security officials, as well as company executives who have publicly come forward with their experiences after being duped. Beyond just earning a paycheck, placing North Korean operatives in technical roles at Western firms can also make it easier to carry out hacking operations and cryptocurrency theft. In some cases, these workers have installed malicious software on company devices, stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from companies and attempted to gain access to sensitive software building environments. Some executives suggest the issue is likely worse than the public understands, as the stigma of hiring a fraudulent employee still pushes companies to keep quiet. South Korea also accused its northern neighbor of playing an outsized role in global cryptocurrency theft. A 2024 report by a United Nations panel stated that it is investigating at least 58 cyberattacks by DPRK operatives against cryptocurrency companies between 2017 and 2023, with the incidents yielding an estimated $3 billion in stolen gains. The panel also investigated “reports of numerous Democratic People’s Republic of Korea nationals working overseas earning income in violation of sanctions, including in the information technology, restaurant and construction sectors.” In addition to threatening the overall cyber ecosystem, South Korea said the actions pose “a serious threat to international peace and security in that it is being used to fund North Korea’s nuclear and missile development.”It has been nearly a full year and a half since the University of Colorado announced its intention to join the Big 12 Conference. One of the many perks of the move, beyond the financial, was that the Buffaloes would be joining the premier men’s basketball conference in the nation. After 17 months of anticipation, that time has finally arrived. Although the Buffs received a Big 12 primer last month at the Maui Invitational with a lopsided loss against Iowa State, they make their official return to Big 12 men’s basketball with a rematch against the third-ranked Cyclones on Monday night at the CU Events Center (7 p.m., CBS Sports Network). Excluding last month’s loss against Iowa State, which was played as a nonconference affair, Monday’s battle will mark CU’s first Big 12 game since bolting for the Pac-12 following a loss against Kansas on March 11, 2011 in the Big 12 tournament semifinals. It will be the first Big 12 game at the Events Center since CU topped Nebraska in the 2010-11 regular season finale on March 5, 2011. CU head coach Tad Boyle, who played in the Big Eight (which later expanded to the Big 12) during his college days at Kansas, knows there will not be any easy wins in the 20-game league slate. And it will be a far more physically challenging schedule than any of the 13 seasons in the Pac-12. “I just know it’s a very physical league, there’s no doubt about that,” Boyle said. “The coaches and the programs are different, other than Utah, Arizona and Arizona State,” Boyle said. “The personnel is different. Playing against a TJ Otzelberger-coached team is different than playing against a Dana Altman-coached team. Both really good coaches. Both really good programs. It’s just different styles. Adjusting to those styles we’ll take on a game-by-game basis. The great thing about the Big 12 is you don’t have the quick turnaround like you do in the Pac-12. You usually have two days of prep time. Which is helpful as a staff playing against new coaches and new programs.” As of Friday, 14 of the Big 12’s 16 teams were in the top 81 of the NET rankings. Six were in the top 20, tying the SEC for the most in the country. Fifteen Big 12 teams began Friday in the top 90 at KenPom.com, including three in the top eight and five of the top 20. It’s a similar story in the Associated Press Top 25. Iowa State leads the Big 12 rankings, with Kansas (No. 7), Houston (No. 15), Cincinnati (No. 17) and Baylor (No. 25) also landing spots in this week’s poll. West Virginia, Arizona State and Texas Tech all received votes. Colorado has hosted just eight ranked opponents over the past six seasons combined. CU may not quite reached that total over the next two months, but it will be close. The early results have done nothing to diminish the Big 12’s stature nationally. West Virginia and Arizona State, both of which visit the Events Center in January, have been the league’s pleasant surprises while the expected front-runners, like Kansas and Iowa State, have flashed their Final Four potential. “It’s an exciting moment for sure,” CU graduate transfer Trevor Baskin said. “It’s a very big welcome to the Big 12, playing the third-ranked team in the country. It’s fitting and I’m excited for it. This is the start of our second season now and our goal is to go 1-0.”Red Team turns on its offense in the second half to win Mooch Boys Soccer Senior Game
President Joe Biden's administration said Friday that it has cemented deals for billions in funding to South Korean semiconductor giant Samsung Electronics and Texas Instruments to boost their chipmaking facilities in the United States. US officials have been working to solidify Biden's legacy to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's White House return -- and these agreements are among the latest efforts to do so. The United States has been trying to reduce its dependence on other countries for semiconductors, while also seeking to maintain its scientific and technological edge as competition with China intensifies. Samsung's award of up to $4.7 billion in direct funding goes towards its effort to grow its Texas presence into a full-fledged operation for developing and producing leading-edge chips, said the US Commerce Department. The funding will supplement the company's investment of more than $37 billion in the coming years, the department added. Samsung's expansion will help "ensure we have a steady, domestic supply of the most advanced semiconductors that are essential to AI and national security, while also creating tens of thousands of good-paying jobs," Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement. National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard added that Samsung is "the only semiconductor company that is a leader in both advanced memory and advanced logic chips." In a separate notice, the Commerce Department said it also had finalized an award of up to $1.6 billion for Texas Instruments, supporting its efforts to build new facilities. Raimondo noted that shortages of current-generation semiconductors were a problem during the supply chain disruptions sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic, adding that TI now plans to grow its US capacity in making these devices. The Biden administration has unveiled billions in grants through the CHIPS and Science Act, a major law passed during the veteran Democrat's term aimed at strengthening the US semiconductor industry. Officials have managed to get many deals across the finish line before Trump returns to the Oval Office, awarding the vast majority of more than $36 billion in proposed incentives that have been allocated. The finalized deals mean funds can be disbursed as companies hit project milestones. bys/sst
Former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Republicans had to “disabuse themselves of this strange affection for Vladimir Putin.” McMaster said, “This is what I can’t understand, Margaret. There are some people in the Republican Party these days who kind of tend to parrot Putin’s talking points.” Host Margaret Brennan asked, “Why?” McMaster said, “I don’t if it’s because they’re draw to him and see him as a defender of Western Civilization, the shirtless guy on horseback but they’ve got to disabuse themselves of this strange affection for Vladimir Putin. You know, who is not going to stop in his efforts to restore Russia to national greatness at our expense. That’s what he’s obsessed with. He’s obsessed with re-establish the Russian empire. So he has aspirations that go far beyond anything that’s in reaction to what we do.” He added, “The only thing that stops him really is strength, Margaret.” Brennan said, “And you wrote in your book that you didn’t understand Donald Trump’s fascination with Vladimir Putin. Quickly, Sebastian Gorka is going to be the Senior Director for Counterterrorism, deputy assistant to the president. Is he a good person to advise on security?” McMaster said, “No, no, he’s not, Margaret. But I think that the and others will determine that quickly soon after he gets into that job.” Follow Pam Key on X @pamkeyNEN
