FBI Had 40 Sources Providing Intel About Possible Criminal Activity Involving Bidens, Grassley Says

The FBI received information about possible criminal activity involving the Biden family from more than 40 informants over an extended period of time, but most avenues of investigation were thwarted, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed in a bombshell letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, released Wednesday.

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Report: Ford, United Auto Workers Reach Tentative Deal to End Strike

The United Auto Workers union and Ford Motor Company have reached a tentative deal to end the ongoing strike, pending approval from union leaders. The ongoing strike has thus far lasted nearly six weeks. Exact terms of the agreement remain unclear, though the final deal could be announced as early as Wednesday evening, CNBC reported, citing sources familiar with the talks.

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Israel Agrees to Delay Invasion So Pentagon Can Rush Air Defense to the Middle East

Israel agreed to delay an invasion of Gaza until the Department of Defense completes plans to boost air defenses around U.S. troops in the Middle East, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The Pentagon is sending nearly a dozen air defense systems to the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) region, Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to protect American service members from credible threats of attacks by Iran-backed militias. U.S. officials had asked Israel to create time to emplace the air defenses before launching operations that promise to trigger more bombardments on U.S. military positions, the WSJ reported, citing U.S. and Israeli officials.

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Federal Prosecutors Spied on Congress in Search for Leaks, Now DOJ Is Being Investigated for It

Several current and former congressional oversight staff have been recently informed that the U.S. Justice Department seized their phone and email records back in 2017 as part of leak investigations, belated revelations that have touched off an inquiry by DOJ’s internal watchdog and raised serious concerns about the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches.

Over the last week, several current and former Senate and House staff from both political parties have alerted Congress that they received belated notifications from Apple, Google or other Big Tech firms that their email or phone records were obtained from their personal devices via a grand jury subpoena.

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Biden Admin Readies Plans to Evacuate Thousands of Americans from Israel and Lebanon

The Biden administration is readying plans for mass evacuations of American citizens from Middle East hotspots amid fears of significant escalation of violence in the region, The Washington Post reported.

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens could require rescue from Israel and Lebanon if the war between Israel and Gaza spills over into neighboring states, raising the prospect of the largest noncombat evacuation in recent memory, the Post reported, citing four U.S. officials familiar with the government’s contingency planning. Hezbollah in Lebanon and other Iran-backed militant groups throughout the Middle East have stepped up violence since the war’s onset and threatened to escalate further once Israel commences its planned ground operation in Gaza.

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DHS Admitted Hundreds of Thousands of ‘Inadmissible’ Aliens Through CBP One App: House Panel

The Department of Homeland Security has been using a migrant processing app to release hundreds of thousands of otherwise inadmissible foreign nationals into the U.S. interior, according to documents obtained by the House Homeland Security Committee.

CBP One is an app through which would-be entrants to the United States may schedule appointments to appear at U.S. ports of entry. Ostensibly, its users must be in northern Mexico to schedule an appointment, though reporting from the Washington Examiner has suggested that users have turned to virtual private networks (VPN) to evade the geographic requirements. Moreover, the app has come under fire due to its alleged use by cartels in human trafficking operations.

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Government-Funded News Outlet Orders Staff Not to Call Hamas ‘Terrorists’

Government-funded news outlet Voice of America (VOA) management has ordered its employees not to refer to Hamas as “terrorists” unless they are quoting statements, National Review reported.

VOA’s guidance originally distributed on Oct. 10 suggests that reporters and editors are allowed to refer to Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel as terrorist attacks or acts of terror but informed staff they should “avoid calling Hamas and its members terrorists, except in quotes,” according to emails National Review obtained. VOA’s associate editor responsible for news standards conveyed the publication’s guidelines regarding reporting on the initial attacks and the subsequent Israeli retaliation in an email to employees on Friday.

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Economist: Aging Workforce, Learning Loss Among Biggest Wisconsin Economic Worries

Wisconsin’s top economist says the state’s economy is in a great place to grow, as long as the state doesn’t lose what makes it great.

John Koskinen, the chief economist for the state of Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Economic Summit on Monday that Wisconsin has a strong workforce that wants to work, a large and solid manufacturing base and the potential to grow.

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Commentary: Bidenomics Takes Its Toll on Biden 2024

Drops in inflation-adjusted compensation and wages preceded the losses of Harry Truman in 1952, who opted not to run, Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980, George H.W. Bush in 1992 and Donald Trump in 2020, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Economic Analysis data.

They also preceded the historic wipeouts of Republicans in 2008 by Barack Obama and Senate Democrats in the 1958 midterms, and the Republican House wins of the 2010 and 2022 midterms.

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Music Spotlight: Orlando Mendez

 I’ll admit that I don’t watch music competition shows like I did when I was younger. When I watch TV, it’s usually a mind-numbing procedural or mystery.

But thankfully, a lot of the people I interview got their start on a show and if they are country, they often find their way into my email inbox. Because the competition is so fierce, most of the artists pitched to me are outstanding performers. Orlando Mendez is one such artist and I feel privileged to tell his story.

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Oregon Suspends Basic Skills Graduation Requirement in the Name of Equity

In the state of Oregon, high school students will no longer need to display basic comprehension of reading, math, or writing in order to graduate, with state officials claiming that such a change is necessary to guarantee higher graduation rates for minority students.

As reported by Fox News, the pause on such basic graduation requirements had first been implemented during the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic. But last week, the Oregon State Board of Education voted unanimously to extend the requirement suspension at least until the end of the 2027-2028 school year.

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Commentary: Gag Order Against Trump Is the Real Threat to Democracy

The reason you have not heard of a gag order on par with the one imposed on former President Trump is that it is highly unusual. Normally, in a criminal proceeding, there are no gag orders. To the extent they exist, they typically only bind the lawyers, who are admonished to adhere to the rules of professional conduct. Rarely—as in almost never—are criminal defendants forced into a gag order on such spurious grounds as they might “vilify and implicitly encourage violence against public servants who are simply doing their jobs.”

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Commentary: The Uncommon Ella Knowles Haskell

Praise for the “common man” is all too common in the world. It’s the “uncommon” man (or woman) for whom we ought to be most grateful.

Who in their right mind tells their children to aspire to nothing more than common or average? Good parenting is nothing less than encouraging children to become better than simply “run of the mill.” Since when is it a virtue to blend in with the mob, indistinguishable from the mediocre? Who itches to see a movie if the reviews suggest it’s just ordinary and unexceptional?

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CCP-Tied Battery Firm’s Dominance Could Pose Major National Security and Espionage Threats, New Report Warns

A battery firm with considerable ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could pose significant espionage and national security risks to the U.S. as policymakers move to electrify American life, according to a new report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a non-partisan research institute focused on issues of national security and foreign affairs.

CATL, a battery manufacturing firm headquartered in Fujian, China, is a major player in the global battery market, as it already holds a dominant position in the global electric vehicle (EV) battery market and is poised to supply crucial large-scale energy storage systems to American utility companies to help them provide the decarbonized power grids of the future, according to the FDD report. CATL, which has subsidiaries based in the U.S. and several European countries, has already had equipment installed within a U.S. military base, and the burgeoning dependence on the Chinese company’s products may leave essential American infrastructure vulnerable to espionage and malware attacks, according to the FDD report.

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