From Washington, DC!
This is me talking.
Immigration work documents.
Two roommates in Hawaii are facing federal charges after they allegedly entered the U.S. from Mexico as tourists and bought fake passports, Social Security cards and other documents to stay and work illegally. Raul Arambula Ramirez, 48, aka “Alexander Rodriguez, ” and Jose Juarez Ramos, 29, aka “Jose Ramos Mendez, ” are charged with fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents.
Bulgarian authorities have stepped up inspections across the country to combat unjustified price hikes amid concerns that some retailers might exploit the upcoming euro adoption to speculate. A joint effort involving the National Revenue Agency, the Competition Protection Commission, and the Consumer Protection Commission is currently underway, focusing on over 150 retail outlets, primarily food chains both national and local.
Since the start of 2024, Bulgaria has issued 24,000 work permits to foreign nationals, marking a significant increase compared to previous years. Over the entirety of last year, the total number of permits issued was 35,000. The data was shared by Atanaska Todorova, Chief Expert on Labor Market, Migration and Mobility at the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB), in a statement to the Bulgarian National Radio.
East LA.
A 66-year-old retired MTA worker died after being trapped in a Brooklyn basement fire despite his neighbors’ best efforts to save him, the Daily News has learned Patrick Kirton couldn’t escape the basement after the fire broke out in his family home on E. 40th St. near Avenue I in Flatlands at about 6:35 p.m. Wednesday, officials said.
A gun trafficker says he shouldn’t get a longer sentence after being caught with a makeshift weapon in his cell at MDC Brooklyn – because the federal lockup is so violent he needs it for protection. Federal prosecutors want Raymond Minaya, 29, to spend more than 15 years behind bars for his role in a gun-dealing ring — six years more than the ring’s leader received — in part because of the sharpened metal rod and cell phones found stashed in his jail cell last year.
Video of a landscaper being taken down, pinned and repeatedly punched by masked federal agents in Orange County has gone viral online, and Alejandro Barranco finds it painful to watch. The Marine veteran says his father, Narciso Barranco, was working outside of a Santa Ana IHOP on Saturday when several masked men approached him. Frightened, he began to run away, his son said. Moments later, he was on the ground, held down by the men, who struck him.
Six teens were shot at a party in Moreno Valley on Saturday, with five suffering life-threatening injuries, according to Riverside County officials. Sheriff’s deputies responded to a report of gunshots in the 12000 block of Orchid Lane in the Inland Empire city at around 11 p.m. Saturday. Deputies initially found one male victim suffering from several gunshot wounds but later discovered four additional males at the scene who also had been shot.
This is me talking.
How BRICS makes the presidents pro-Russian.
No one’s shocked to see the dictatorships of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua lining up behind Iran’s repressive theocracy in its standoff with Israel. But Brazil — South America’s giant — striking a similar note is sparking outrage in Western diplomatic circles. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government issued a statement on June 13, hours after the conflict started, expressing its “firm condemnation” of Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
BRICS ports in South America.
PARIS -- A 55-year-old Frenchman suspected of commissioning online pedophile crimes in Colombia has been arrested and charged in France, the Paris prosecutor's office said on Saturday. The suspect was charged this week with complicity in human trafficking involving minors under the age of 15 who had been raped, rape and sexual assault of minors including incestuous acts, as well as acquisition, possession and consultation of pornographic images of minors. He was remanded in custody.
This is me talking.
Real estate in Long Island.
SAN DIEGO, CA – U.S. Border Patrol agents have uncovered and disabled a large-scale narcotics smuggling tunnel linking Tijuana to the San Diego area. On Monday, Border Patrol in collaboration with Homeland Security Investigations and Government of Mexico authorities worked to locate the origin point of the tunnel. The entrance was located within a residence in the Nueva Tijuana neighborhood. Mexican authorities served a warrant at the location and found the entrance to the tunnel had recently been concealed by freshly laid tile.
A Virginia woman has been arrested for the Hamptons hit-and-run that killed Sara Burack, a luxury real estate agent who starred on the popular Netflix show “Million Dollar Beach House.” Amanda Kempton, 32, was taken into custody Friday afternoon and charged with leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident involving a fatality, according to Southampton Town police.
A graduation ceremony at a Long Island high school this weekend is shaping up to be a double-take affair, with 15 sets of twins expected to cross the stage, receive their diplomas and mark the start of a new chapter. Among the nearly 500 students graduating from Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School in Nassau County, 30 of them are twins.
Maybe the Russians give the cartels tunneling technology.
MEXICO CITY, June 21 (Reuters) - Russia is ready to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Mexico and share energy sector technologies, the Russian embassy in Mexico said on Saturday on X. "We are already working with Mexico. We have excellent LNG technologies, and we are ready to share these technologies and supply LNG as well," Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev said. Russia is prepared to offer oil extraction technologies suited for challenging geological conditions, as well as solutions aimed at improving the efficiency of oil processing, the embassy added.
Vice President JD Vance on Friday castigated Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, arguing that the elected leaders are endangering the lives of law enforcement officers because of their opposition to federal immigration raids in Los Angeles and surrounding communities. Vance, while meeting with federal, state and local officials in Los Angeles on Friday afternoon, justified President Trump’s decision to seize control of California National Guard troops from Newsom and deploy them in Los Angeles, a decision that triggered a legal battle between state and federal officials.
This is me talking.
This is me talking.
This is me talking about New York City.
Reports about LA County.
The rash of immigration raids at local car washes have created stressful environments at the businesses that have been targeted and forced others to temporarily close out of fear of future raids. Two dozen car washes in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas have been the sites of immigration sweeps this month, according to CLEAN Carwash Worker Center, a labor advocacy nonprofit that said it has been able to verify these raids through community reports and footage on social media.
Netflix star Sara Burack, best known as a luxury real estate agent who appeared on “Million Dollar Beach House,” has died at age 40 in a Hamptons Bay hit-and-run. Burack was discovered lying unconscious on the side of Montauk Highway, near Villa Paul Restaurant, at around 2:45 a.m. Thursday. Responding officers found her with serious injuries indicating she’d been hit by a car, according to Southampton Town Police. She was immediately rushed to Stony Brook University Hospital, where she died that afternoon, confirmed her friend and fellow realtor Paulette Corsair. Corsair, who was with Burack in her final hours, said her friend suffered severe injuries to her head, brain and liver, as well as a broken leg.
A 30-year-old woman was stabbed in an apparent domestic dispute in Queens, according to police. Officers responding to a 911 call found the woman with a stab wound to her lower back in a residence on 82nd St. near Northern Blvd. in Jackson Heights around 7 a.m. Friday, cops said.
A 29-year-old woman was found dead with trauma to her head in a Brooklyn home Thursday afternoon, police said. Cops responding to a 911 call around 1:30 p.m. discovered the woman unconscious and unresponsive in a house on Avenue X near W. 13th St. in Gravesend, according to police. EMS pronounced her dead at the scene. The medical examiner’s office will determine the cause of the woman’s death. There were no immediate arrests as police continue to investigate.
Healthcare in New York City.
Mayor Adams announced Friday that his administration will not “at this time” shift the city government’s retired workforce into a cost-cutting Medicare Advantage plan — a move that comes after a recent win that followed years fighting in court to enact the program. The reversal came on the heels of the State Court of Appeals ruling earlier this week that Adams’ administration could, in fact, move forward with enrolling the city’s roughly 250,000 municipal retirees in the controversial Medicare Advantage plan. The green light from the top court came after lower courts had blocked Adams from implementing the plan, ruling that local law requires that municipal retirees be offered traditional Medicare coverage.
Fat Joe’s longtime hype man is accusing him of sex acts with minors in a $20 million lawsuit, nearly two months after the Bronx rapper accused his former associate of extortion. Terrance “T.A.” Dixon on Thursday sued the 54-year-old “Lean Back” artist, real name Joseph Antonio Cartagena, in a nearly 160-page filing obtained by the Daily News. He’s accused of paying for then 15-year-old Minor Doe 1 to get a Brazilian Butt Lift despite her “body being adolescent and not fully formed.” Dixon says she’s now married to a pro athlete.
This is me talking about Manhattan.
This is me talking more about Manhattan.
This is me talking about Manhattan.
A kidnapping attempt in Bulgaria.
Some of Blake Lively‘s text messages with friend Taylor Swift could be disclosed in court, in a recent development of the actor’s winding legal battle against her “It Ends With Us” co-star Justin Baldoni. U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman on Wednesday filed an order denying the “Gossip Girl” alumna’s request to keep her messages with Swift out of litigation, according to legal documents reviewed by The Times.
SAN DIEGO — U.S. Border Patrol agents have uncovered and disabled a large-scale narcotics smuggling tunnel linking Tijuana to the San Diego area. The uncompleted tunnel extended more than 1,000 feet inside the U.S. and was highly sophisticated. In early April, Border Patrol agents assigned to the San Diego Sector Tunnel Team discovered the tunnel as it was actively under construction. The Tunnel Team made entry into the tunnel, which ran under a portion of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry. Based on preliminary indications, the tunnel had a projected exit point near or within a nearby commercial warehouse space.
Three Ukrainian nationals, aged 22, 24, and 25, have been detained by order of the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office in connection with the kidnapping of a 17-year-old Ukrainian boy in Sofia. The suspects are being held for up to 72 hours as part of the pre-trial proceedings. According to the investigation, the incident took place on the night of January 4 in the Malinova Dolina district. Around 10:20 p.m., the three men, along with an unidentified accomplice, reportedly ambushed the teenager at the entrance of a residential building. Dressed in dark clothing and wearing hoods, they allegedly used physical force to seize the boy, threatened him with a weapon pressed against his body, confiscated his phone, and forced him into a car parked nearby. Inside the vehicle, the victim was placed in the back seat between two of the perpetrators, while the other two occupied the front seats. The car drove in the direction of Simeonovsko Shose before entering the area of Studentski Grad. The abductors then contacted the boy’s brother and demanded a ransom of €10,000. After a few hours, once the sum was paid, the young man was released.
The Dodger Stadium parking lot.
Seven times in the last 10 days, the Dodgers and San Diego Padres have faced each other. In the last inning of the last one of those games Thursday night, mounting tensions between the clubs — and their respective managers — finally spilled onto the field. At the end of the Padres’ 5-3 win against the Dodgers, San Diego star Fernando Tatis Jr. was hit by a Dodgers pitcher for the third time over the two recent series between the National League West rivals.
The sentencing comes after armed federal agents raided the El Cajon business in March, a decision that Washburn’s attorney said had no purpose other than to “terrorize the community.” According to the complaint filed against Washburn, about 50 people were working at the company at the time, and about 15 of them appeared to lack legal authority to work in the U.S. ICE officials did not immediately respond to questions about the status of the unauthorized workers who were identified in the March operation.
Federal immigration agents in a line of unmarked white vans and SUVs attempted to enter the parking lots of Dodger Stadium on Thursday morning, sparking a wave of speculation online about potential immigration enforcement at the ballpark. But, according to Dodgers officials, the agents were denied entry to the grounds. In photos posted on social media Thursday, a procession of vehicles appeared to attempt to enter Dodger Stadium through the ballpark’s main Sunset Gate off Vin Scully Avenue around 8 a.m.
This is me talking again about the gym.
This is me talking more about the gym. 6-19-25
A Los Angeles lawyer.
A Westside lawyer, who used the promise of criminal justice reform to sign up thousands of inmate clients, has agreed to be disbarred for misleading prisoners and their families about their chances for release. With a filing in State Bar Court on Tuesday, Aaron Spolin pleaded no contest to misconduct involving eight clients, all current or former California prisoners, and consented to the stripping of his law license. The stipulation signed by Spolin, his lawyer and a bar prosecutor stated that Spolin “promoted false hopes in his clients and their families that the clients’ sentences would be reduced when in fact that was highly unlikely.” The Times revealed in stories two years ago how Spolin persuaded inmates’ families, most of them of limited means, to shell out fees of up to $30,000 for services that he knew or should have known had no chance of freeing them. Spolin, a 39-year-old practicing in California since 2016, had a clean record until last year, when the bar filed a pair of disciplinary actions against his license.
A dishwasher shot to death outside a Bronx bodega gave his killer a fist bump — and then sucker-punched him moments before being shot as they got into a sudden quarrel, harrowing surveillance video shows. Victor Bautista was shot in the chest by a gunman wearing a reflective green construction vest outside of D’mi Muñeca Grocery on Trinity Avenue near E. 149th St. in Mott Haven at about 7:45 a.m. Tuesday, cops said. The killer remains on the loose. In the minutes leading up to the slaying, Bautista, 38, is seen casually chatting with a man on the sidewalk by a row of parked cars, surveillance video obtained by the United Bodegas of America advocacy group shows.
Reports about Mexico.
MEXICO CITY, June 17 (Reuters) - The Mexican association that groups major global oil services companies warned that it is going through an "unprecedented crisis" due to the lack of payments from the state-owned oil company Pemex, the world's most indebted energy company. In a letter sent to President Claudia Sheinbaum and released on Monday afternoon, the association warned that many of these companies may have to stop operations as early as July.
(NewsNation) — An alleged leader of a violent drug trafficking organization in Tijuana, Mexico, was captured and arrested, a report said. Pablo Edwin Huerta, known as “El Flaquito,” was apprehended when federal forces surrounded him after a search. Omar Hamid García Harfuch, secretary of security and citizen protection of Mexico, confirmed the arrest. “In a coordinated action between @Defensamx1 and @FGRMexico in Tijuana, BC, elements of the Mexican Army arrested Pablo Edwin “N”, alias “Flaquito” and three other people in two different actions,” Harfuch posted on X.
Federal security forces intensified their crackdown on drug trafficking operations this week with a series of coordinated operations across Sinaloa, Sonora, and Tamaulipas that resulted in the dismantling of clandestine drug labs, the seizure of firearms, and the confiscation of large drug shipments. Authorities estimate the economic damage to criminal organizations at over 163 million pesos. In Culiacán, Sinaloa, a joint military and federal law enforcement operation uncovered eight clandestine laboratories used for the production of methamphetamine.
This is me talking about the gym. 6-19-25
This is me talking more about Manhattan. 6-18-25
This is me talking about Manhattan. 6-18-25
A report about the Justice Department.
An emotionally disturbed man who assaulted multiple court officers was known to be a “problematic presence” for two years at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, with investigators believing the incident to be a “targeted attack,” according to prosecutors. Wohl was charged with attempted murder, attempted aggravated assault on a police officer and assault. He was held without bail at his arraignment Tuesday afternoon inside the same courthouse where the attack occurred.
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was released from custody late Tuesday after being arrested in a Manhattan courthouse by ICE agents who claimed he assaulted one of them while trying to observe immigration proceedings amid the Trump administration’s “mass deportation” crackdown. It wasn’t immediately clear if Lander — whose arrest drew immediate and widespread condemnation — would actually face assault charges.
A report about Los Angeles County.
The seasonal Guayabo Pass, which temporarily connects the municipalities of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, and Bahía de Banderas, Nayarit, has been destroyed due to the rising waters of the Ameca River. The damage was confirmed by Civil Protection authorities in Bahía de Banderas and representatives from the San Juan ejido. The destruction of the crossing, caused by heavy rainfall upstream, was reported on Tuesday, June 17. With the rainy season underway, the Ameca River has swelled significantly, overwhelming the temporary structure and rendering it impassable for vehicles.
An off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy was killed in a fatal traffic collision on the 101 Freeway early Tuesday morning in North Hollywood, the agency announced. Sheriff’s Deputy Marcos Pena Jr., 31, was pronounced dead at the crash site, according to the Sheriff’s Department, after being struck by a vehicle around 2:20 a.m. A female companion was also killed in the collision. California Highway Patrol investigators believe both were standing outside his vehicle on the freeway when they were hit and killed.
This is me talking more about domestic policy. 6-17-25
This is me talking about domestic policy. 6-17-25
I guess the items arrive in Mexico and Canada.
US-Mexico trade decreases moderately to $69B in April Mexico was the top trading partner of the U.S. in April, with two-way commerce totaling $69.7 billion, a 4% year-over-year decline compared to April 2024. It was the 16th consecutive month and 26th of the past 27 months that Mexico has been No. 1 in trade with the U.S. Canada ranked No. 2 in trade at $56.6 billion in April. China ranked third at $33.6 billion, followed by Germany at $20.5 billion and Japan at $20.4 billion. John F. Kennedy International Airport was the No. 1 international U.S. trade gateway in April, totaling $35.1 billion, according to Census Bureau data analyzed by WorldCity. Chicago O’Hare International Airport was the second-ranked U.S. gateway for international trade at $30.2 billion during April. Port Laredo, Texas, was the No. 3-ranked U.S. trade gateway in April, compared to the same month in 2024, when Laredo was the No. 1 gateway for trade. Trade in the month totaled $28.3 billion, a 3% year-over-year increase.
The protesters.
A suspect has been arrested for murder in the Bronx road rage shooting of a young U.S. Navy veteran, police said Monday. Michael Aracena, 20, was charged with murder, manslaughter and weapon possession late Sunday, cops said. He allegedly shot 27-year-old Keino Campbell to death during a 2 a.m. Saturday confrontation.
A 22-year-old man riding on the back of a electric dirt bike in the Bronx was killed when the driver lost control and slid into an oil tanker truck, police said Monday. The 24-year-old man operating the Razor dirt bike was heading south on Bruckner Blvd. in Mott Haven when he crashed into a Western Star tanker about 7 a.m. on Friday, cops said. The tanker truck driver was turning left off Southern Blvd., cops said. The dirt bike’s operator and his passenger, Jaydin Arroyo, both fell into the roadway.
The Riverside Police Department is seeking help from the public two days after the driver of a black SUV rammed through a group of demonstrators in downtown Riverside, running over a young woman who remains in critical condition but is stable. The department is asking for help in identifying and locating the suspect in the incident that occurred around 9:10 p.m. on University Avenue between Main and Orange streets, according to Officer Ryan J. Railsback, a spokesperson for the department. Railsback said a “speeding SUV drove around the march and struck a female pedestrian before fleeing the scene.”