Virginia Beach City Public Schools board to vote on school reopening plan – 13newsnow.com WVEC

The school board will choose one of three plans: stick with virtual learning, teach students in person daily or a hybrid plan that blends both models of instruction.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. The school board for the largest school division in Hampton Roads will vote on a plan to reopen schools for the upcoming school year.

On Tuesday, the Virginia Beach City Public Schools board is expected to select one of three options for how school instruction will proceed in the fall.

Based on current health metrics in Hampton Roads, many have voiced their support for a virtual start to the year.

Superintendent Dr. Aaron Spence has already suggested that students stick with remote instruction only, at least for the beginning of the school year.

Some Virginia Beach teachers and school board members have also aired their thoughts on the matter. The president for the Virginia Beach Education Association, which represents 1,400 teachers in the city, says many teachers don't feel comfortable just yet with face-to-face instruction.

At least three school board members said they believe in a parent's right to choose between in-person learning and virtual instruction. Victoria Manning, Caroline Weems and Laura Hughes all signed a proposal pushing for an alternative plan that would be based on having parents decide what is best for their child. Manning said that if there are fewer students in the classroom this year, school leaders can enforce physical distancing and other mitigation strategies in school buildings to keep students as safe as possible.

School board members are set to hear comments from the public on school reopenings at 6 p.m. Tuesday. Then, they will vote on the best model of instruction.

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Virginia Beach City Public Schools board to vote on school reopening plan - 13newsnow.com WVEC

BILLECK: Hellebuyck snubbed when it comes to Hart, even if he doesn’t think so – Winnipeg Sun

This isnt a shill job or a homer reporter trying to argue a case that has no legs to stand on. If anything, the foundation of this debate is ironclad, wrapped in titanium and perfectly level.

Connor Hellebuyck deserved to be a finalist for the Hart Memorial Trophy this season as the leagues best player and theres oodles of research to back up this claim.

From his .922 save percentage this season and his league-leading six shutouts to some of the underlying numbers, which only cement his case further. A whopping 14.33 goals-saved above average, the fact he faced more shots (1,458) than anyone by a country mile 5-on-5, the most high-danger shots against (412) by the same measurement and the most rebound attempts against (186), again, by a long shot.

The definition of the Hart, too, only further supports Hellebuycks case. Awarded annually to the player judged most valuable to his team, keen observers would be hard-pressed to slot him anywhere but in the top three, if not the No. 1 spot itself.

Simply put, Hellebuyck dragged the Jets, at times, kicking and screaming out of the jaws of defeat and into the winners circle.

If the Michigan man is to win the award, it wont be this year. Edmontons Leon Drasaitl, Colorados Nathan MacKinnon and New Yorks Artemi Panarin are the final three in the running. And they are all deserving in their own right.

But Hellebuycks exclusion feels like a snub, even if the man himself doesnt see it that way.

No, not necessarily, Hellebuyck said Wednesday when asked if he felt brushed off. Those are three great players so they all deserve it themselves so for me to say I deserve more than them would just be very selfish.

Its a classy way to address the matter, and Hellebuyck is likely heading home with the Vezina Trophy this season after being named a finalist for the leagues top goaltending award for the second time in three years.

The exclusion of Hellebuyck still seems off, much in the same way that John Gibsons exclusion from the Vezina race during the 2018-19 season was seen as a slight as well.

There are several similarities between Anaheims starter and Winnipegs in terms of the analytics. In the end, Gibson got screwed because the Ducks were a tire fire and were so far from the playoffs that theyd have to enlist the Hubble Telescope just to see the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference in that particular season. That wasnt on Gibson though, who had stellar statistics that were simply overlooked by many.

Goalies have it tough when it comes to the Hart, and if your name isnt Dominik Hasek, its not an easy code to crack.

Its very difficult for you to put up the kind of numbers you need to and not play behind a really good team, said Jets head coach Paul Maurice, who naturally felt his No. 1 should have been a finalist. So the disqualifier is hes got great numbers but look at the team he plays behind. Youre going to need a guy, for a goalie, who plays on the perception of a weak team but still puts up those numbers that are off the charts, which is hard for him to do. I think for goalies, sometimes the goalies, their performance on great teams actually gets overlooked. I remember Dominik Hasek when he was in Buffalo and he got recognition for being a great goaltender, and probably wasnt fully appreciated for how good he was until after he left Buffalo. And then normal goaltending, and it wasnt even poor goaltending that came in, it was normal goaltending that came in.

Theres some really great goaltending performances each year that we probably dont validate as much because they have powerful teams in front which, again, goes into that goalie having that great year.

Hellebuyck did play behind a poor team for a good portion of the season. Winnipegs defensive game was in shambles for quite some time. You only have to look at that night in San Jose where was here, there and everywhere making 51 saves in a game the Jets won 3-2 but had no business winning.

He was the best player on the ice by far and I think we got outshot bigtime and he allowed us to win that hockey game, and there were plenty of games like that throughout the course of year, said Jets defenceman and alternate captain Josh Morrissey.

Like Maurice, naturally, Morrissey also felt his goalie should have been in the final three.

I dont think we would have been where we were at without him, thats for sure. Hes been our rock all year, hes been so solid for us. I think he should have, but again theres so many good players and when its not a cut-and-dried statistic-based award, thats the conversation were going to have. But Im pretty sure in most guys minds in our room, hed be in those three players.

Jets head coach Paul Maurice feels winning the Hart Memorial Trophy is less about one great season and more about multiple elite years strung together.

I think all of these Hart players, they put a number of years together before you can have a good year, but you need put together two or three of those kinds of years together before you start to get your name out there, Maurice said.

Perhaps tipping his cap to who he would choose out of the final three, Maurice pointed to Central Division foe Nathan MacKinnon as a prime example. And he feels Connor Hellebuyck is following that trend.

Connor is moving into the time where his name will start coming up in that, Maurice said. If its not this year, its next year or the year after. This playoff push will have a lot to say in that. Always felt that Hart Trophy wasnt necessarily for the guy who had the aberration great year. Its a great player that then had a great year. You need to have a little bit of that foundation of a number of elite years under your belt before you get where a great year isnt just an aberration everybody just understands thats how good a player you are.

sbilleck@postmedia.com

Twitter: @scottbilleck

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BILLECK: Hellebuyck snubbed when it comes to Hart, even if he doesn't think so - Winnipeg Sun

The 53 Best Things to Do in Seattle This Weekend: July 24-26, 2020 – TheStranger.com

With the number of COVID-19 cases increasing across the state, it's more imperative than ever that you wear a mask and keep your distance at the in-person events listed below (like a Mariners Kick-Off Viewing at Elysian Fields and Free RPG Day at Arcane Comics). With that in mind, there are also lots of great events happening that don't require leaving your house, from a Naked Giants concert to the GreenStage Virtual Play Reading Series, and from the National Nordic Museum's cultural festival Nordic Sl to the livestreamed unveiling of a Black Lives Matter mural in West Seattle. Read on for all of our top picks for the weekend, or check out our guides to movies to stream this weekend. For event more options, check out our complete streaming events and protests & resistance calendars, as well as our guides to the best movies to stream at home this weekend and anti-racism resources and events.

All Blues presents: Duffy Bishop & Chris CarlsonBlues authority Bo Diddley had this short but sweet review of Duffy Bishop: "She's dangerous!" Join her and fellow musician Chris Carlson for a livestreamed concert hosted byJohn Kessler of KNKX's All Blues.

Back in Black 40th AnniversaryIt's hard to believe the classic AC/DC album is 40 years old in 2020, but that's only because the sound on that LP is literally timeless, and Consequence of Sound hosts this livestream on YouTube celebrating the record that shook rock all night long.

Ethan TuckerOlympia born and bred singer-songwriter Ethan Tucker layers his acoustic rootsy Americana sound with electric guitar work and bluesy vocals for a contemporary spin on a classic genre. Join him for a virtual Nectar show benefitting Northwest Harvest.

Friday Night Feminism with Hollis Wong-WearJoin NARAL Pro-Choice Washington and local singer Hollis Wong-Wear for this edition of their virtualFriday Night Feminism series on Zoom.

Icicle Creek Center for the Arts' Virtual Chamber Music FestivalInstead of gathering at Canyon Wren,Icicle Creek Center for the Arts' annualChamber Music Festival will be livestreamed from an otherwise empty Snowy Owl Theater. Tune in tonight for Fanny Hensel Mendelssohn's Fantasy for Cello and Piano in G minor and Beethoven's Piano Trio in B-flat Major, op. 97.

Missing U - A Livestream Benefit - Feat. Naked Giants!Jasmyne Keimig has written, "Naked Giants encapsulate a lot about your early 20sthat goopy, postadolescent period where the tension between taking things seriously, but not too seriously, is at an all-time high. The trio balances these extremes with great ease." Catch them live on the internet tonight at this virtual concert hosted by The Stranger and Neumos.

Rave the VoteWith DJ sets, educational segments, and calls to action broadcasted live on Twitch in four installments, this virtual voter registration drive and dance-music festival features electronic music heavies like A-Track, Analog Soul, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Yaeji, and many others.

Seattle Chamber Music Society's Virtual Summer FestivalTheSeattle Chamber Music Society has moved this year's summer concert series online, bringing 12 evening-length performances celebrating works by Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy, and other well-known composers throughout the month of July.Tonight, enjoy works by Franz Haydn, Franz Schubert, Sergei Prokofiev, and other heavy hitters.

Tales from The Transgender Street Release PartyThis virtual Minecraft concert will feature sets from Seattle's own maestro ofcelebrity parodies, Left at London, as well as Ash Paris Carter, Intersekt, and others. Proceeds will benefit Black Lives Matter protestors via the Bail Project.

Black Collective Voice Presents: Page EngageJoin members fromSeattle Black Collective Voicefor areading and discussion ofJames Baldwin's The Fire Next Time.

Lindsay Ellis: Axiom's EndThe YouTube superstar best known for her insightful and hilarious multi-part feminist deconstruction of Michael Bay'sTransformersseries is also a novelist, and her debut work,Axiom's End, is an alternate-history adventure about first contact. Lindsay will be joined in conversation with author/filker Seanan McGuire.

Seattle Mariners Viewing Party at OlmsteadParties of five or fewer can watch the Mariners take on the Astros on Opening Day over Southern-inspired cocktails. Olmstead (Capitol Hill)

Janelle Abbott in Conversation with Shin-Yu PaiFemail's Janelle Abbott presents a collection of wearable zero-waste pieces called Ugly House on the Prairie for their likeness tothe "mythological home on the frontier. The designer writes, "Ugly House on the Prairie is an admission of complicit guilt held by each and every one of us who has inadvertently profited from the obliteration of the First Peoples of North America. It is a critique on the insidious nature of the Industrial Revolution, which has only wrought us with a climate crisis as relentless as the heightened state of consumerism that has brought our planet to this precipice." She'll be joined bylocal writerShin-Yu Pai on Instagram Live.

Cheneyville Grab N GoFor two weekends only, fans of baseball and the refreshments that go along with it can pick up stadium fare from the Tacoma Rainiers' home base via a drive-through. Choose from items like Ivar's fish and chips withAlaskan cod, five-cheese pizzas, pulled-pork sandwiches, and brats in individual or family-sized portions.Cheney Stadium (Tacoma)

The Front Street StreateryRestaurants and cafes in downtown Issaquah will move their dining rooms into the sidewalks and parking lanes for two days only to make room for socially distanced noshing.Front Street (Issaquah)

Seattle Mariners Viewing Parties at the Little Red HenWear your blue, green, and silver to the honky-tonk bar for limited-capacity viewings of the Mariners games against the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Angels. Little Red Hen (Green Lake)

Nordic SlSeattle loves a good opportunity to bliss out over our Nordic culture (Reykjavik is our sister city, in case you haven't heard), and this summer extravaganza is no exception. While it won't take place in person this year, you can look forward to a whole month of virtual activities focused on sustainability andthe beauty of the outdoors. This weekend brings a virtual artisan marketplace (Fri-Sun), the Run Like a Viking Virtual Challenge (Sat-Sun), and a virtual Crafts & Cocktails event (Fri).

Vote in the Primary ElectionThere's an important Washington State Primary Election on August 4, and the Stranger Election Control Board has painstakingly interviewed candidates via Zoom to help you fill out your ballot. Grab a pen, read their endorsements, and stuff your nearest ballot box with purpose.

Field Day IPA Release & Mariners Watch PartyPick up cans or growlers of Two Beers' Field Day IPA to drink at home, or order a pint in person while you watch the Mariners game from the Woods. The Woods (Sodo)

Mariners Kick-Off ViewingThe Pioneer Square sports bar will cue up the MLB kickoff games on their TVs and serve up ballgame classics like Stadium dogs, garlic fries, and bags of peanuts, plus six-packs and growlers to go. Seating is limited.Elysian Fields (Sodo)

Pike-Pine Summer UnitedGet 10% off your bill at local bars and eateries like Amandine Bakeshop, A Pizza Mart, Bateau, and tons of other places on Capitol Hill moving into Phase 2 of reopening by mentioning The Stranger's Pike-Pine promotion.Various locations (Capitol Hill)

Comic-Con @ HomeThe mecca of all merchandising, the promised land of pop-culture religion, the convention that was once about comic-books and is now just sort of, like, one giant festival for marketing marks and advertising aficionados, is going online for 2020 because even when therewasn'ta pandemic on, squeezing 100k people into San Diego's Convention Center was getting to be a bit too much in terms of crowding and also being a disgusting germ factory. So now, if you want to watch panels, watch trailers, watch people introduce new things for you to buy that you can't buy yet but you're excited and making a reaction videoalready, Comic-Con @ Home is five straight days of that regular Comic-Con experience, but on your TV instead! All panels will be available on the Comic-Con YouTube channel, and there's going to be about 350 of them spread out over the event.

Tomorrowland - Around the WorldUsing 3D visuals and game design to mimic the experience of Tomorrowland, the EDM music festival held annually in Belgium, this two-day virtual event boasts Katy Perry,David Guetta, and Steve Aoki among its headliners.

Xponential Music Festival Summer CelebrationAt this virtual edition of Philadelphia public radio station WXPN's annual music festival, see livestreamed performances by the likes of Liz Phair and Devon Gilfillian, plus archived shows from acts like the Indigo Girls and Margo Price, while you tuck into your own versions of the artists' favorite recipes (like Jenny Lewis's "Tastes Like Chicken Tofu").

Oedipus the KingPlay Your* Part is a theater company that partners with nonprofits to bring productions to underserved, "under-invited" communities. For this ASL-incorporating adaptation of Sophocles's Oedipus the King, perhaps one of the most fundamental works of Western literature, they'll stage the play digitally.

Saint JoanDespite George Bernard Shaw's trenchant atheism, his classic depiction of the Maid of Orleans stresses her strength, bravery, faith, and humanity in the face of political and religious oppression. The original date of this production, staged by Mathew Wright, was canceled due to COVID-19. This is a digital rendition.

Seattle Mariners vs. Houston AstrosWatch the Seattle Mariners live from Houston's Minute Maid Park as they take on the Astros on Opening Day. You can tune in on Root Sports NW or listen on 710 ESPN or the Mariners Radio Network.

Virtual Best of the Northwest Summer ShowCheck out work by over 40 Northwest artists and craftspeople. If something speaks to you, you can strike up a virtual chat with the artist and buy their piece.

Twisted Flicks: Earth VS The SpiderBased on audience suggestions (which you, the audience, can input via Twitch), Jet City improvisers will add their own dialogue, music, and sound effects to the incredibly cheesy B-movieEarth VS The Spider.

Riesling Rocks RevivalIf you like your wine on the sweet and acidic side, check out this virtual journey through the world of Riesling, moderated by L'Oursin's wine director,Kathryn Olsen. The organizers are offering a three-pack of the stuff so you can sip along. Otherwise, you're encouraged to pour yourself a glass of your favorite varietal.

Free RPG DayFree Comic Book Day will get the RPG treatment at this in-person game sale featuring over 125 items from local publishers. You'll get one game for free just for showing up, plus another free thing for spending $50 or more in the shop. Arcane Comics (Shoreline)

Sporcle Live Virtual Trivia - Baseball!How much do you know about America's favorite pastime? This Sporcle Live team-based trivia night on Zoom will test your dedication to the sport and will offer winners prizes.

Alanis Morissette, The BeachesThe latest artist to take over the Budweiser At Home stage and beam themselves straight into your living room is '90s pop-rock goddess Alanis Morissette, supported by the Beaches.

Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani, & Trace AdkinsGwen Stefani may not be a country crooner, but she made her Grand Ole Opry debut seamlessly alongside her boyfriend, country music star Blake Shelton (and Trace Adkins was there, too). Watch the concert in full from the safety of your car.Skyline Drive-In Theatre (Shelton)

EverlastA one-night-only livestream concert from Everlast, the unlikeliest of all folk stars considering he got his start as part of Ice-T's crew, fronted House of Pain, and became a legitimate pop star withWhat It's Like. Comedian Christopher Titus hosts this intimate show.

GreenStage Virtual Play Reading SeriesIt's not Shakespeare in the Park, but GreenStage's virtual play-reading series will still provide you with the Bard's most famous works, performed live over Zoom, YouTube, and Facebook. It kicks off tonight with A Midsummer Nights Dream, directed by Taylor Davis.

Black Lives Matter: Black/Immigrants/Refugees Solidarity RallyThis rally will demand justice on behalf of Black and immigrant communities in Tukwila. Public Health-King County will provide a number of therapists and other mental health professionals for check-in conversations and referrals for those in need.Tukwila Village

Youth Day Of Action SeattleThe PNW Youth Liberation Front will march in solidarity with Black Lives Matter activists in Portland, a city currently occupied by federal officers. Broadway Avenue E and E Pine Street (Capitol Hill)

Walkable Main StreetEnjoy some socially distanced dining and shopping along Edmonds' temporarily car-free Main Street.Main Street (Edmonds)

BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn FestivalOne of Brooklyn's largest and longest-running music festivals goes online for 2020, aiming to translate their outdoor get-together vibe to a virtual experience that puts Brooklyn right in your living room, featuring performances from Common with Robert Glasper, Angelique Kidjo, Questlove, Lila Downs, Junglepussy, Buscabulla, and more.

Red White Black & BluesDayglo and Steve Jordan present this special 16-hour retrospective on a century of Black excellence, showcasing some of the best performances from America's finest recording artists, including Aretha Franklin, Parliament-Funkadelic, Kamasi Washington, Etta James, Bill Withers, Run DMC, Marvin Gaye, Earth Wind and Fire, The Temptations, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, and many, many more.

Run Like a Viking Virtual Challenge 5K/10K/Half MarathonLog your miles online as you run,bike, kayak, or skateboard your way to Viking glory in this virtual edition of the annual run. All participants will receive a t-shirt and aSkl Beer Hall koozie and $5 gift card.

Social Justice in the Time of CovidCheck out timely work byRaquel Garcia, Tatyana Brown, Nick Griego, and Jake Prendez at this limited-capacity gallery show.Nepantla Cultural Arts Gallery (White Center)Opening Saturday

Oxbow Open DayThe Carnation farm is reopening for limited-capacity visits! Stop by on (re)opening day for $25 veggie boxes at the farm stand and peaceful jaunts through nature. Oxbow Farm and Conservation Center (Carnation)

Virtual Caribbean Sea FestThis family festival celebrating both Caribbean culture in the Northwest and the environment will move online this year. Enjoy performances from folks like Atlas Gonzlez andClinton Fearon, take family-friendly workshops, and consider ordering Caribbean food from local restaurants like Taste of the Caribbean.

Valhalla Dinner Series Featuring Ravenna Brewing CoThis beer-centric dinner series will return (IRL!) with a six-course meal paired with brews from Ravenna Brewing, like jalapeo hushpuppies with Cajun remoulade served alongside their Hazy IPA.Skl Beer Hall (Ballard)

BACON, EGGS, BEATS. presented by BeatmatchYou provide your favorite brunch, and DJs Dizz and Kenny Bounce will provide the beats to get you through the rest of the day.

The Royal Room Staycation Festival: ThaddillacReggae rockersThaddillac will jam out on the Royal Room's virtual stage.

SmokepurppThis up-and-coming hip-hop star hosts not just a livestream concert of his own stuff, but a "Beat Royale" collecting producers from all over the country and putting their best productions in a bracket for Purpp to determine who is best behind the boards.

The Women's Compline Choir at Saint Mark's2019 marked the first time in 64 years that a women's choir led the Saint Mark's Cathedral Compline (which offers "a little peek into the ineffable," as Rich Smith has written). For this virtual concert, enjoy a quartet of voices on the cathedral's website and Facebook Live.

Shayla Lawson, Emma DabiriYou may knowShayla Lawson from her book I Think I'm Ready to See Frank Ocean,which takes individual Frank Ocean songs as inspiration to produce "a mythological mixtape of confession and surreal sleuthing," as Hugo House describes it. The author will be joined byEmma Dabiri (Don't Touch My Hair) for a virtual reading hosted by Powell's.

Vegetable Nerves: A Group Reading of Philip Whalen's Scenes of Life at the CapitalSan Francisco's City Lights and the local Wave Books will invite poets across North America (including David Brazil, Anselm Berrigan, Andrew Schelling, Hoa Nguyen, Marie Buck, Norman Fischer, and Phil Elverum) to readPhilip Whalen's book-length poemScenes of Life at the Capital in its entirety via Zoom.

Chile Woke: The Uprise of Chilean Graphics and Street PhotographyChile Woke's first open-air show will highlight the work of graphic artists documenting the unrest in Chile in response to the actions ofPresident Piera.Volunteer Park Amphitheatre (Capitol Hill)Opening Sunday

WS Black Lives Matter MuralWatch live from an SDOT traffic cam as the West Seattle Art for Social Justice unveils its Black Lives Matter mural in the West Seattle Junction, which was created by local artists of all ages. DJ Derek Moon will spin live from Easy Street Records all the while.

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The 53 Best Things to Do in Seattle This Weekend: July 24-26, 2020 - TheStranger.com

NSA and CISA Recommend Immediate Actions to Reduce Exposure Across Operational Technologies and Control Systems – HSToday

Over recent months, cyber actors have demonstrated their continued willingness to conduct malicious cyber activity against critical infrastructure (CI) by exploiting internet-accessible operational technology (OT) assets.[1] Due to the increase in adversary capabilities and activity, the criticality to U.S. national security and way of life, and the vulnerability of OT systems, civilian infrastructure makes attractive targets for foreign powers attempting to do harm to U.S. interests or retaliate for perceived U.S. aggression. OT assets are critical to the Department of Defense (DoD) mission and underpin essential National Security Systems (NSS) and services, as well as the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) and other critical infrastructure. At this time of heightened tensions, it is critical that asset owners and operators of critical infrastructure take the following immediate steps to ensure resilience and safety of U.S. systems should a time of crisis emerge in the near term. The National Security Agency (NSA)along with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommend that all DoD, NSS, DIB, and U.S. critical infrastructure facilities take immediate actions to secure their OT assets.

Internet-accessible OT assets are becoming more prevalent across the 16 U.S. CI sectors as companies increase remote operations and monitoring, accommodate a decentralized workforce, and expand outsourcing of key skill areas such as instrumentation and control, OT asset management/maintenance, and in some cases, process operations and maintenance. Legacy OT assets that were not designed to defend against malicious cyber activities, combined with readily available information that identifies OT assets connected via the internet (e.g., Shodan,[2] Kamerka [3]), are creating a perfect storm of 1) easy access to unsecured assets, 2) use of common, open-source information about devices, and 3) an extensive list of exploits deployable via common exploit frameworks [4] (e.g., Metasploit,[5] Core Impact,[6] and Immunity Canvas [7]). Observed cyber threat activities can be mapped to the MITRE Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge (ATT&CK) for Industrial Controls Systems (ICS) framework.[8] It is important to note that while the behavior may not be technically advanced, it is still a serious threat because the potential impact to critical assets is so high.

Click herefor a PDF version of this report.

Since the Ukraine cyberattack of 2015 organizations must assume in their planning of not only a malfunctioning or inoperative control system, but a control system that is actively acting contrary to the safe and reliable operation of the process. Organizations need an OT resilience plan that allows them to:

In a state of heightened tensions and additional risk and exposure, it is critical to have a well-exercised incident response plan that is developed before an incident.

An accurate and detailed OT infrastructure map provides the foundation for sustainable cyber-risk reduction.

Informed risk awareness can be developed using a variety of readily available resources, many of which include specific guidance and mitigations.

A vigilant monitoring program enables system anomaly detection, including many malicious cyber tactics like living off the land techniques within OT systems.

Read more at CISA

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NSA and CISA Recommend Immediate Actions to Reduce Exposure Across Operational Technologies and Control Systems - HSToday

Posted in NSA

NSA clears the air on national teams – BusinessGhana

The National Sports Authority (NSA) has cleared the Black Maidens and Princesses to go into campaign following the green light given by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

The President of the Republic in his update Number 14 on measures taken against the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic gave the Black Starlets, Maidens and the Princesses the greenlight to start camping ahead of their respective international assignments.

A statement signed by Prof.

Peter Twumasi, Director General of the NSA and copied to GNA Sports, urged national teams to adhere to all safety protocols as they start camping following the greenlight by the President.

"In line with the directions issued on 26th July 2020, by the President in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the female Under-20 and Under 17 national football teams have been cleared to go into their respective training camps to begin preparations towards their FIFA and CAF sanctioned international matches, which begins in September this year.

"While in training, they are expected to adhere strictly to all the protocols issued by the Government, CAF, and FIFA.

"The directive further stated that all other team sports, contact sports, and competitive sporting events still remain suspended until further notice,'' the statement said.

The statement urged all stakeholders to adhere to and respect the directives of the President for their own safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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NSA clears the air on national teams - BusinessGhana

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Netball SA hoping to host Scotland this year amid coronavirus outbreak – News24

Proteas captain Bongi Msomi

Reg Caldecott/Gallo Images

Netball South Africa (NSA) confirmed plans to stage an international series this year despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The Proteas have been out of action since January after losing theirthird-place playoff at theNetball Nations CupagainstEngland.

The South Africans were scheduled to compete in theQuad Series in Australia in September, which has since been cancelled and a new date still being negotiated.

Under the Level 3 lockdown regulations, professional non-contact sport is permitted, but with no recreational or amateur sport allowed.

Netball, which falls in the contact sport bracket, is only allowed training during level 3 of the lockdown.

NSACommunications ManagerNnusi Gazi told Sport24 that there are talks for Scotland to tour South Africa at the end of the year.

However, the governing body would need approval from the government to host the series and abide by strict safety regulations.

Proteas captain Bongi Msomi revealed that the team is being "well-looked after" despite all activity being halted due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

"We have meetings like this as a team where we catch up and get updates as a team," Msomi told Sport24 on Tuesday.

"We have our sports scientist, who prepared training programmes for the team. She updated the programme baring in mind that we aren't competing at the moment and the preparations need to align with what might come in the next month or so.We are well looked after, the coaches send in netball skill drills so we can kind of add it to our strength and conditioning sessions."

Msomi admitted that the lockdown has been tough as there is lots of uncertainty over when the Proteas will return to action.

"With the Proteas, there will probably be a netball camp ... having this idea of maybe we're playing is exciting, even the idea of being able to play this year because it's been long... the worst thing is not knowing when it'll happen with so many fixtures and tours postponed or cancelled."

NSA revealed that the country's premier netball tournament, the Telkom Netball League (TNL), is suspended due to the outbreak with no fixtures announced yet.

Msomi believes the TNL could resume in October but they are still awaiting confirmation from NSA.

"Everything is on hold for now because of the lockdown restrictions but Netball South Africa has mentioned that the plan is to have the Telkom Netball League go on in October until November and all the provisional teams now are preparing for that. At this stage, we still haven't started training in groups, which I hope we'll probably start next month."

The TNL sees12 teams from across the nine provinces play over seven weeks.

Meanwhile,Msomi has asked netball fans to sign up for the Women's Virtual Challenge on 26 September.

* On 26 September, fans who have entered can run, jog, walk, skip or even dance their own challenge at their own pace, choosing their own route and completing their challenge at any time between 06:00 and 21:00. They then share their experience on social media, using the hashtags #BeSunshine or #SPARVirtualChallenge.

The organisers are hoping to set a world record for the number of entrants in a women's virtual challenge.

For an entry fee of only R50, each entrant will receive a challenge t-shirt, a buff and challenge magazine. But that's not all - for every entry, SPAR will donate a food parcel to a survivor of gender based violence (GBV).

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Netball SA hoping to host Scotland this year amid coronavirus outbreak - News24

Posted in NSA

Abducted teen killed in UP, Yogi asks cops to consider NSA against accused – The Indian Express

Written by Manish Sahu | Lucknow | Published: July 28, 2020 4:55:19 am Following a preliminary investigation, the police picked up a few local people, including the boys neighbour Daya Nand, for questioning. (Representational)

The police in Uttar Pradeshs Gorakhpur district on Monday arrested five people in connection with the death of a 14-year-old boy, whose body was found a day after he was abducted from his home in the Pipraich area of Misrauli village. The prime accused, and one of those arrested, is the victims neighbour.

Five persons have been arrested and two others are still on the run, said Gorakhpur SSP Sunil Kumar Gupta.

The police said around 3 pm on Sunday, the victims father Mahajan Gupta, who runs a paan shop, received a ransom call from an unidentified number. The caller asked him to pay Rs 1 crore to ensure his sons release.

Following a preliminary investigation, the police picked up a few local people, including the boys neighbour Daya Nand, for questioning.

After Daya Nand failed to provide proper answers during questioning, the police interrogated him at length. The police said the boy was killed because he had identified Daya Nand.

Taking note of the incident, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asked the police to consider invoking the National Security Act (NSA) against the accused, and expedite the trial. He also issued directions to find if there was any lapse on part of the police. The government also announced Rs 5 lakh compensation for the victims family.

The Indian Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and stay updated with the latest headlines

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Abducted teen killed in UP, Yogi asks cops to consider NSA against accused - The Indian Express

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Life is good for Patrick Mahomes, now part owner of the Royals – MLive.com

What is Patrick Mahomes going to spend all that money on?

Well, how about ownership stake in a Major League Baseball team. And a new ride, of course.

The Kansas City Chiefs quarterback received a record contract extension this offseason, one that can keep him with the team through 2031 and could be worth over $500 million. As if that long-term commitment to K.C. wasnt enough, the Royals announced Tuesday that he is now part of the teams ownership group.

I love this city and the people of this great town, Mahomes said in the statement. This opportunity allows me to deepen my roots in his community, which is something Im excited to do.

Mahomes father Pat spent 11 seasons as a MLB pitcher, while the younger Mahomes once played in the Little League World Series and was a 37th round draft pick of the Detroit Tigers. (Apparently hes sticking with football.)

At just 24 years old, Mahomes led the Chiefs to a win in Super Bowl LIV over the San Francisco 49ers in February, signed a record contract and now is part-owner of an MLB team, who happens to drive a $338,000 Ferrari.

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Life is good for Patrick Mahomes, now part owner of the Royals - MLive.com

Capstone Mining to Expand Leaching at Pinto Valley; 300 to 350 MIbs of Low-Cost, Copper Cathode Production Potential – Junior Mining Network

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Capstone Mining Corp. (Capstone or the Company) (TSX:CS) announces that its Pinto Valley mine has successfully demonstrated positive economics from enhanced dump leach performance by partnering with Jetti Resources, LLC (Jetti) to apply their novel patented catalytic technology at Pinto Valleys existing dump leach operation.

HIGHLIGHTS

During the first year of Capstones partnership with Jetti, cathode production per area irrigated has doubled (see Figure 3). A plan to increase activity is being implemented with the goal of generating strong cash flow from Pinto Valleys underutilized 25 million pound per year solvent extraction and electrowinning (SX-EW) plant, which is currently operating at only 20% of capacity. The plan is to increase cathode production to 300-350 million pounds from residual and high-grade waste over the next two decades (see Figure 1), creating 30 new jobs at Pinto Valley.

Figure 1: Low Cost Recovery of Copper from Residual and High-Grade Waste

Darren Pylot, Capstones President and CEO said, The mining industry has long been pursuing a viable technology to leach low-grade chalcopyrite ores. The results after year one of our partnership with Jetti Resources are exciting because it means we can generate high margin from material that would have been waste. This project represents an opportunity to position Pinto Valley more competitively, which will create and sustain jobs, and economic benefits in a socially and environmentally responsible manner.

The engagement of Jetti and utilization of their proprietary technology was an extension of Pinto Valleys existing PV3 Optimization Study, which is focused on several low capex, high impact projects aimed at having a material increase to the net present value of the operation. The PV3 Optimization Study is scheduled for release in Q4 2020.

JETTI NOVEL CATALYST TECHNOLOGY

Jettis patented technology makes it possible to extract copper from low-grade primary sulfides, such as chalcopyrite, the worlds most abundant copper mineral ore. Jetti has developed and commercially deployed a catalytic technology that allows for the efficient and effective heap and stockpile leach extraction of copper trapped in these challenging mineral ores. Jettis catalysts enable the disruption of the sulfur metal bond of the mineral, allowing copper extraction to take place unimpeded. As a result, Jetti is now increasing profitability at operations and extending project life, while also converting uneconomic waste rock into valuable assets.

Figure 2: Surface of Chalcopyrite Leach Residue With and Without Jetti Catalyst

Mike Outwin, Jetti Resources Co-Founder and CEO said, Pinto Valley was a perfect candidate to pioneer our breakthrough technology given the abundance of copper resources available for leaching and the underutilized plant and infrastructure in place. Our technology has integrated seamlessly with the existing infrastructure on site, and we have doubled the production of copper cathode per area irrigated within one year of our partnership. We are excited to partner with Capstone to realize more economic value from their vast copper resource in Arizona and possibly other projects in the Americas.

Figure 3: Copper Cathode Production Per Area Irrigated Doubled

In 2019, Jetti started deploying its novel catalytic technology at Pinto Valley's leach operation and, one year later, has now doubled copper cathode production per area irrigated.

PINTO VALLEYS CATHODE PRODUCTION HISTORY

Pinto Valley started producing copper cathode in 1981 from material below the cut-off grade of its mill that had been stockpiled since the early 1970s (see Figure 4). This provided a 12 to 15% boost to total copper production as cathode accounted for an average of 16 million pounds per annum through to the early 2000s. Since then, the production of copper cathode has decreased consistently to under four million pounds per annum due to the impact of reduced leach kinetics as chalcopyrite is subjected to a passivation layer inhibiting further breakdown.

Figure 4: Historical Production at Pinto Valley

NEXT STEPS

As a result of the positive commercial demonstration phase, Pinto Valley intends to significantly expand leaching activity, targeting approximately 280 to 300 million tonnes of historic leach stockpile and 175 to 185 million tonnes of high-grade waste already scheduled for removal over the remaining 19 years of mine life. Potential to increase the mill cut-off grade to bolster copper concentrate production, thereby increasing the tonnage of high-grade waste available for leaching, will be studied during H2 2020. An updated NI 43-101 Technical Report is expected in 2021.

Figure 5: Pinto Valley Dump Leach Area

Figure 6: Aerial Photo of 25 Million Pound Per Year SX-EW Plant

The SX-EW plant is currently only 20% utilized.

Figure 7: High-Grade Waste Area

A total of 11 to 12 million tonnes of high-grade waste has been placed since early 2019 and by the end of 2022, approximately 48 to 52 million tonnes are expected to be under irrigation.

Figure 8: July 2020 LME Grade A Copper Cathode Waiting for Pick-Up

ABOUT CAPSTONE MINING CORP.

Capstone Mining Corp. is a Canadian base metals mining company, focused on copper. Our two producing mines are the Pinto Valley copper mine located in Arizona, US and the Cozamin copper-silver mine in Zacatecas State, Mexico. In addition, Capstone has a large scale, fully-permitted, 70% owned copper-iron-gold Santo Domingo project in Region III, Chile, in partnership with Korea Resources Corporation, as well as a portfolio of exploration properties. Capstone's strategy is to focus on the optimization of operations and assets in politically stable, mining-friendly regions, centred in the Americas. We are committed to the responsible development of our assets and the environments in which we operate. Our headquarters are in Vancouver, Canada and we are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). Further information is available at http://www.capstonemining.com.

COMPLIANCE WITH NI 43-101

Unless otherwise indicated, Capstone has prepared the technical information in this news release based on information contained in the technical reports and news releases (collectively the Disclosure Documents) available under Capstone Mining Corp.s company profile on SEDAR at http://www.sedar.com. Each Disclosure Document was prepared by or under the supervision of a qualified person (a Qualified Person or QP) as defined in National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators (NI 43-101). For readers to fully understand the information in this news release, they should read the Technical Reports (available on http://www.sedar.com) in their entirety, including all qualifications, assumptions and exclusions that relate to the information set out in this presentation which qualifies the Technical Information. Readers are advised that mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The Disclosure Documents are each intended to be read as a whole, and sections should not be read or relied upon out of context. The Technical Information is subject to the assumptions and qualifications contained in the Disclosure Documents. For further details refer to the Companys NI 43-101 Technical Reports for Pinto Valley Mine Life Extension Phase 3 (PV3) Pre-feasibility Study, Miami, Arizona, published Feb 23, 2016, effective Jan 1, 2016.

The Technical Information in this presentation has been prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 and reviewed and approved by Colleen Roche, Capstone Pinto Valleys Manager, Operations Support, a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101.

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

This news release, and the documents incorporated by reference herein, contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation and forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (collectively, forward-looking statements). These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this document and Capstone Mining Corp. (Capstone or the Company) does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect our expectations or beliefs regarding future events. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the continuing success of mineral exploration, Capstones ability to fund future exploration activities, the estimation of mineral resources and mineral reserves, the realization of mineral reserve estimates, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of production and capital expenditures, the success of our mining operations, the estimation of increased cathode production, the ability to obtain required permits for the intended expanded leaching activity, the estimation of the expected economics of the expanded leaching activities, the estimations for potential quantities and grade of inferred resources and exploration targets, environmental risks, unanticipated reclamation expenses and title disputes. In certain cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as plans, expects, aiming, approximately, guidance, scheduled, target, estimates, forecasts, extends, convert, potential, intends, anticipates, believes or variations of such words and phrases, or statements that certain actions, events or results may, could, should, would, will, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved or the negative of these terms or comparable terminology. By their very nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, amongst others, risks related to inherent hazards associated with mining operations and closure of mining projects, the inherent uncertainty of mineral exploration and estimations of exploration targets, potential delays in exploration or interruption of production directly or indirectly related to COVID-19 or governmental action, future prices of copper and other metals, compliance with financial covenants, surety bonding requirements, our ability to raise capital or fund explorations, Capstones ability to acquire properties for growth, counterparty risks associated with sales of our metals, foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, changes in general economic conditions, risks associated with hedging strategies, accuracy of mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates, operating in foreign jurisdictions with risk of changes to governmental regulation, compliance with governmental regulations, compliance with environmental laws and regulations, reliance on approvals, licences and permits from governmental authorities, impact of climatic conditions on our operations, aboriginal title claims and rights to consultation and accommodation, land reclamation and mine closure obligations, uncertainties and risks related to the potential development of the Cozamin project, increased operating and capital costs, challenges to title to our mineral properties, maintaining ongoing social license to operate, dependence on key management personnel, potential conflicts of interest involving our directors and officers, corruption and bribery, limitations inherent in our insurance coverage, labour relations, increasing energy prices, competition in the mining industry, risks associated with joint venture partners, our ability to integrate new acquisitions into our operations, cybersecurity threats, legal proceedings, and other risks of the mining industry as well as those factors detailed from time to time in the Companys interim and annual financial statements and MD&A of those statements, all of which are filed and available for review under the Companys profile on SEDAR at http://www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those described in our forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause our results, performance or achievements not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that our forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as our actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements.

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Capstone Mining to Expand Leaching at Pinto Valley; 300 to 350 MIbs of Low-Cost, Copper Cathode Production Potential - Junior Mining Network

Anti-fascists linked to zero murders in the US in 25 years – The Guardian

Donald Trump has made warnings about the threat of antifa and far-left fascism a central part of his re-election campaign. But in reality leftwing attacks have left far fewer people dead than violence by rightwing extremists, new research indicates, and antifa activists have not been linked to a single murder in decades.

A new database of nearly 900 politically motivated attacks and plots in the United States since 1994 includes just one attack staged by an anti-fascist that led to fatalities. In that case, the single person killed was the perpetrator.

Over the same time period, American white supremacists and other rightwing extremists have carried out attacks that left at least 329 victims dead, according to the database.

More broadly, the database lists 21 victims killed in leftwing attacks since 2010 , and 117 victims of rightwing attacks in that same period nearly six times as much. Attacks inspired by the Islamic State and similar jihadist groups, in contrast, killed 95 people since 2010, slightly fewer than rightwing extremists, according to the data set. More than half of these victims died in a a single attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016.

The database was assembled by researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a centrist thinktank, and reviewed by the Guardian.

Its launch comes as Trump administration officials have echoed the presidents warnings of a violent leftwing revolution. Groups of outside radicals and agitators are exploiting the situation to pursue their own separate, violent and extremist agenda, the attorney general, William Barr, said amid nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd. A new justice department taskforce on violent anti-government extremists listed antifa as a major threat, while making no mention of white supremacy.

Defining which violent incidents constitute politically motivated acts of terrorism, and trying to sort political violence into leftwing and rightwing categories, is inherently messy and debatable work. This is particularly true in the US, where highly publicized mass shootings are common, and some have no clear political motivation at all.

Stated political motives for violent attacks often overlap with other potential factors, including life crises, anger issues, a history of violent behavior and, in some cases, serious mental health conditions.

While researchers sometimes disagree on how to categorize the ideology of specific attacks, multiple databases that track extremist violence, including data maintained by the Anti-Defamation League, and from journalists at the Center for Investigative Reporting, have found the same trend: Its violent rightwing attacks, not far-left violence, that presents the greater deadly threat to Americans today.

Leftwing violence has not been a major terrorism threat, said Seth Jones, a counter-terrorism expert who led the creation of CSISs dataset. .

Most of the deadly extremist attacks the CSIS researchers categorized as leftwing were killings of police officers by black men, many of them US military veterans, who described acting out of anger or retribution for police killings of black Americans.

These shooting attacks include the murder of two police officers in New York City in 2014, after Michael Brown and Eric Garners killings; and the murders of five officers in Dallas, Texas, and three officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2016.

Some of the gunmen who killed police had connections to black nationalist groups, which extremism researchers at CSIS and elsewhere said they typically categorize as leftwing, largely because in the 1960s, influential black nationalist groups like the Black Panther party were anti-capitalist and considered part of the New Left.

Making that categorization is less straightforward today, some researchers acknowledge, since some prominent black nationalist organizations express homophobic, misogynistic and antisemitic views, values that set them in opposition to the current American left.

Mark Pitcavage, a senior fellow at the ADLs Center on Extremism, noted that Gavin Eugene Long, who staged an attack on police in Baton Rouge, had ties to black nationalism and was also part of an offshoot of the sovereign citizens movement, an anti-government ideology that is typically categorized as rightwing.

In several of the high-profile leftwing attacks included in the CSIS list the only fatality was the perpetrator. A mass shooting attack on a group of congressional Republicans during a baseball practice outside of Washington DC, in 2017 left the Republican congressman Steve Scalise seriously injured, and three other people shot.

The gunman, James Hodgkinson, 66, was the only one killed in the attack. Hodgkinson had deliberately targeted Republicans and had expressed disgust with Trump.

Many of the other leftwing attacks or plots in the CSIS database, including by anarchists, environmental groups and others, resulted in no deaths at all. Often, leftwing plots, particularly by animal rights activists, have targeted businesses or buildings, and their primary weapons have been incendiaries designed to create fires or destroy infrastructure not kill people, said Jones, the researcher who led the creation of the data set.

The one deadly anti-fascist attack listed in the database occurred in July 2019, when Willem von Spronsen, a 69-year-old white man, was shot dead by police outside an Ice detention center in Tacoma, Washington. Authorities said von Spronsen had been throwing molotov cocktails, setting flares, that he set a car on fire and that he had a rifle. Local activists told media outlets they believed he had been trying to destroy buses parked outside the facility that were used to transport people who were being deported.

Von Spronsen, who had previously been arrested at a protest outside the detention center, was involved in a contentious divorce, and both a friend and his ex-wife had described him as suicidal. In a letter he wrote to friends before his death, Von Spronsen called detention centers concentration camps and said he wanted to take action against evil, BuzzFeed News reported. I am antifa, he reportedly wrote.

No one was harmed in the attack except Von Spronsen, according to media reports.

Researchers who monitor extremist groups at the Anti-Defamation League and the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism said they, too, were not aware of a single murder linked to an American anti-fascist in the last 20 to 25 years.

Heidi Beirich, a co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said some leftwing groups were known for more radical and violent tactics in the 1960s, adding: Its just not the case today.

Mark Pitcavage said he knew of only one killing, 27 years ago, that might potentially be classified as connected to anti-fascist activism: the shooting of a racist skinhead, Eric Banks, by an anti-racist skinhead, John Bair, in Portland, Oregon, in 1993.

Given the discrepancies between the deadly toll of leftwing and rightwing violence, American law enforcement agencies have long faced criticism for failing to take the threat of white supremacist violence seriously, while at the same time overstating the risks posed by leftwing protesters. After a violent rally in California in 2016, law enforcement officers worked with neo-Nazis to build criminal cases against anti-fascist protesters, while not recommending charges against neo-Nazis for stabbing the anti-fascists.

Antifa activists have been the targets of domestic terror attacks by white supremacists, including in a terror plot early this year, in which law enforcement officials alleged that members of the neo-Nazi group the Base had planned to murder a married couple in Georgia they believed were anti-fascist organizers.

Antifa is not going around murdering people like rightwing extremists are. Its a false equivalence, said Beirich.

Ive at times been critical of antifa for getting into fights with Nazis at rallies and that kind of violence, but I cant think of one case in which an antifa person was accused of murder, she added.

The new CSIS database only includes attacks through early May 2020, and does not yet list incidents connected with the massive national protests against police violence after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, including the killings of two California law enforcement officers by a man authorities say was linked to the rightwing boogaloo movement.

Today, Jones said, the most significant domestic terrorism threat comes from white supremacists, anti-government militias and a handful of individuals associated with the boogaloo movement that are attempting to create a civil war in the United States.

Daily interpersonal violence and state violence pose a much greater threat to Americans than any kind of extremist terror attack. More than 100,000 people have been killed in gun homicides in the United States in the past decade, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. US police officers shoot nearly 1,000 Americans to death each year. Black Americans are more than twice as likely to be shot by the police as white Americans, according to analysis by the Washington Post and the Guardian.

But the presidents rhetoric about antifa violence has dangerous consequences, not just for anti-fascists, but for any Americans who decide to protest, some activists said.

Yvette Felarca, a California-based organizer and anti-fascist activist, said she saw Trumps claims about antifa violence, particularly during the George Floyd protests, as a message to his hardcore supporters that it was appropriate to attack people who came out to protest.

Its his way of saying to his supporters: Yeah, go after them. Beat them or kill them to the point where they go back home and stay home afraid, Felarca said.

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Anti-fascists linked to zero murders in the US in 25 years - The Guardian

LETTERS: On deaths of officers; Protect the food; Thoughts on Antifa; Group critiqued – Monitor

On deaths of officers

This is in regard to the murders of two fine McAllen law enforcement officers, Officer Edelmiro Garza Jr. and Officer Ismael Chavez Jr. We had just gone through the 22nd anniversary of our 24-yearold sons and Border Patrol Agent Susan Rodriguezs murders that week!

Deja vu all over again!

Art Salinas

San Antonio

Protect the food

In the interest of protecting my family and the people of the Rio Grande Valley, I like many others have patronized fastfood chains as this offers us the opportunity to eat without having to mingle with other folks.

Heres my beef: In the last several days I have encountered two different fast-food chains where some employees would wear their masks while they were in an area ofthe restaurant where the customers were. The second they walked into the kitchen area or the order pick-up area, they pulled their masks down.

This is where food is being prepared and handled. Hundreds of customers eat this food.

One bad apple here can do a lot of damage to a community.

And this is not a blanket accusation; I did say some.

Owners and managers, please cover this subject with your employees and let them know that it is a huge mistake to underestimate the intelligence of the buying public.

Jos C. Coronado

Mission

Thoughts on Antifa

Jesus Rodriguez and possibly others have written about Antifa. My understanding is that they claim to be antifascist; however, they are a loose group of individual anarchists who want to berid of all government.

There is little formal organization, but groups of them have been around for nearly 100 years.

This information is readily available on the internet.

Some have been arrested, jailed and prosecuted. However, finding the exact groups and individuals funding them has been difficult and no legal proof has been determined. Most of these anarchists attach themselves to other groups to be able to create violent reactions in the name of other groups.

Currently, they have attached themselves to another group of radical organizations called Black Lives Matter; one of its organizers claims to be Marxist trained.

Antifa has no known identifiable leadership.

Most of the peaceful protestors support that a Black persons life does matter, but are not members of the radical core of Black Lives Matter.

Many Antifa members are unemployed collegeeducated radicals whowere radicalized by leftist, radical college professors.

They just want to end all government services and cause trouble. There are some members who have jobs; currently a couple of lawyers have been arrested for arson and assault on police officers.

By the way, the 75-year-old man pushed and knocked down by police has been arrested several times during protests. President Trump labeled him an ANTIFA Provocateur.

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LETTERS: On deaths of officers; Protect the food; Thoughts on Antifa; Group critiqued - Monitor

Cruz calls hearing on antifa and political violence as Dems denounce Trumps show of force against – The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON -- Citing recent protests in Portland and across the country, Sen. Ted Cruz scheduled a hearing next Wednesday on political violence carried out by members of the leftist group known as antifa.

Cruz has defended President Donald Trumps deployment of federal agents to Portland, Ore., and his threats to send more officers to Democratic bastions like Chicago and New York City to curb unrest.

The protests began with demands to end police brutality and systemic racism. Trump has warned that mob rule is taking hold because local leaders have failed to crack down. Portlands mayor and other Trump critics say the show of force itself has inflamed tensions and prompted more violence and vandalism than would otherwise have taken place.

Antifa is fundamentally against free-speech and is using peaceful protests as a cover and an excuse to engage in violence and other criminal actions, Cruz said in a Thursday statement announcing the hearing. We are seeing this most clearly in Portland right now, as criminals are trying to burn down the federal courthouse. The hearing will highlight how Antifa and other anarchists are hijacking peaceful protests and engaging in political violence that is not only criminal, but antithetical to the First Amendment.

The Texas Republican chairs the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution. He titled the hearing The Right of the People Peaceably to Assemble: Protecting Speech by Stopping Anarchist Violence.

Antifa is not an organized group, though Trump has threatened to ban it. The name stands for anti-fascist and its a loose network of left-wing militants that conservatives blame for inciting violence.

Cruz has engaged in a weeks-long campaign against antifa via social media and conservative talk shows, emerging as a top defender of Trumps tactics.

Since the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers on May 25, protesters have taken to Portlands streets for more than 50 consecutive days demanding police reforms. Antifa supporters are often part of the crowds.

The deployments come as Trump attempts to refocus his reelection message to one of law and order. A string of recent polls shows former Vice President Joe Biden leading in almost every battleground state.

You wont be safe in Joe Bidens America, reads one recent Trump campaign ad.

Videos of unidentified federal officers whisking away protesters in unmarked vehicles have prompted accusations of authoritarianism. Cruz and other supporters have celebrated the deployments as overdue steps to protect federal property and halt rising violent crime rates.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler joined protesters Wednesday night, and ended up being tear gassed by federal officers. He called the tactic an egregious overreaction and has demanded that the federal forces exit the city.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced Thursday that he has opened an investigation into the use of force by U.S. marshals at protests in Portland and Washington, D.C. U.S. Park Police and others used pepper spray to clear the park across from the White House for Trumps photo op at a nearby historic church on June 1.

Horowitzs office will work with the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to investigate all federal agents deployed to the protests.

Were seeing violence and police cars being firebombed, police officers being murdered, and violent mobs within our cities, Cruz said Wednesday on Fox News. But even worse, in the face of that, were also seeing Democratic politicians, Democratic mayors, Democratic governors whove somehow made the decision its in their political best interest to allow the mob to carry out their violence.

Cruz used the appearance to promote a bill allowing lawsuits against local governments for wrongfully denying police protection in the situation of a riot.

Cruz cites autonomous zones -- short-lived protest camps free of police presence that have popped up in Seattle, Richmond, Va., Philadelphia and New York in recent weeks. While the zones are generally peaceful, criminal mischief is common. Seattle police shut down that citys autonomous zone July 1 after two teens were shot dead nine days apart.

Texas Democrats have voiced outrage over the federal intervention, arguing that it has only escalated problems.

Invading American cities without the authority to do so is un-American, Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, tweeted Monday.

Last weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted that Trump and his storm troopers must be stopped, complaining that unidentified officers were kidnapping protesters and causing severe injuries in response to graffiti.

Cruz shot back.

Arrests are not kidnapping, he said Monday on the Mark Levin Show. And violent antifa protesters who are assaulting people, who are firebombing police cars, who are murdering police officers they are not simple, peaceful protesters.

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Cruz calls hearing on antifa and political violence as Dems denounce Trumps show of force against - The Dallas Morning News

Police chief believes Antifa, Boogaloo boys were at Richmond riot – wtvr.com

RICHMOND, Va. -- The chief of police believes members of Antifa and the Boogaloo boys were part of the hundreds of people who marched to Richmond Police Headquarters Saturday night during a demonstration in support of protesters in Portland, Oregon. That group continued marching leaving a path of destruction that included windows shattered at restaurants, businesses and a Virginia Commonwealth University dorm.

"We have identified some individuals who have been seen with the Boogaloo boys and some Antifa groups around the area," Richmond Police Chief Gerald Smith said during a news conference Sunday afternoon. "The majority of those individuals who were there last night were Caucasian."

Smith also said that he believed some in the crowd were Antifa-influenced.

"And some of the individuals that we encountered were from outside of Richmond, Virginia, and some of the surrounding area," Smith noted.

Smith said an online flyer for the Richmond Stands with Portland demonstration, which had been circulating for days and called for violence, did not originate in Richmond."

"We know that the origin of the flyer came from outside of Richmond," Smith said. "There are some people who are still inside some of these organizations that will still give us information. And that's how we know it came from outside of Richmond.

Officials said the six men arrested Saturday night were not charged in the vandalism and destruction in several Richmond neighborhoods. (Two of those suspects were charged with felonies: assault on a law enforcement officer; possession of a firearm while rioting.)

PHOTOS: Rioters leave path of destruction across Richmond

When asked when those responsible for the destruction would be held responsible, Smith said police are "utilizing a lot of video to identify people."

Smith had this message to the owners of businesses, like Graduate Richmond, the Village Cafe, Chipotle, Noodles & Company, Panda Express, Rick's Pizza and SWEAT in the Fan, were damaged.

"We still stand with them and we hope that they continue to stand with us," Smith said. "And know that we are not necessarily laying down on this -- we're not. What we are doing is doing vigorous investigations to identify these individuals to hold them accountable for everything that they did."

The chief and the mayor later thanked the 200 Virginia State troopers who helped with the demonstration as well as the Richmond police officers who worked during their vacation or days off.

Mayor: White supremacists marched under Black Lives Matter banner

Mayor Levar Stoney opened his remarks by thanking peaceful protesters with organizations like Black Lives Matter after what he called "24 consecutive days of peaceful protests." He also thanked the police and fire departments for their response Saturday night.

"You know, here in Richmond our standard for protest is that all groups walk away safe," Stoney said. "But protesters having expressed their discontent, and the officers having supported that peaceful expression of their First Amendment rights. That's not what happened last night."

Stoney said the violence "hurt many people in the Richmond community, both through the threatening of lives and the destruction of property. And simply put, that is unacceptable in the City of Richmond. Unacceptable."

Projectiles like rocks and batteries were thrown at police officers, Stoney said. and bricks were lobbed at firefighters trying to douse a city dump truck that was set ablaze by someone in the crowd.

"That could have led to a very, very deadly event," Stoney said.

The mayor blamed white supremacists "marching under the banner of Black Lives Matter" for corrupting the peaceful social justice movement.

"We've spoken on many occasions about those who've chosen a more violent route to express their discontent, and what that does for the overall movement towards social justice," Stoney said. "Last night that reared its ugly head right here in the City of Richmond... We saw some violent actions, violent protests, spearheaded by white supremacists. And frankly, it was disgusting. Disgusting. As they held plywood shields that read, BLM, these folks toured areas of damage downtown, The Fan, breaking windows, tagging private property with hateful language."

Stoney said Saturday's riot aimed to undermine the month of peaceful, community-driven protest in Richmond.

"As I began with, I want to send a thanks to the BLM protesters on the ground who decried the white supremacists once they were identified. I'm thankful to you for drawing the line and sticking up not just for the sanctity of your movement, but also the safety of your fellow Richmonders that you marched alongside as well," Stoney said. "I'm thankful to the officers who were on duty last night for contending with the change in expectations for them. Change is always hard, but now it is the time for that change -- and if you're on our team, you know that."

The mayor said vigils and basketball games are "far more common than the mess we saw last night."

Police want videos

The police chief urged anyone with video of the riot, including the media, to turn send it to Crime Stoppers to help investigators.

"And we will be more than happy to review that footage to help us identify who these rioters were," Smith said. "You capture things that we may not have seen or individuals we may not have seen."

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 804-780-1000 or at http://www.7801000.com. The P3 Tips Crime Stoppers app for smartphones may also be used. All Crime Stoppers methods are anonymous.

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Police chief believes Antifa, Boogaloo boys were at Richmond riot - wtvr.com

OPINION: Rachel Brougham I went to an antifa meeting and this is what I learned – Petoskey News-Review

I recently found a flier lodged under my car windshield wipers. It read, Antifa meeting at 7 p.m. on the first and third Wednesdays of each month and gave me an address. Come alone, as this is top secret, the flier noted at the bottom. It told me that when I got to the secret location, Id have to knock six times and give a password to be allowed entry.

I looked around, wondering if the person who left it on my car was watching me.

I was curious. For the last few years, President Trump, along with a family member who gets her news from Facebook, has claimed antifa is a terrorist group responsible for all the violence in America. Antifa is blamed by some for causing the recent race riots in my city of Minneapolis and others around the country, so I decided to check out the meeting and this is what I learned.

Antifa has roots in Germany and throughout Europe dating back to the 1920s. This came as a surprise since I keep hearing its a new, very organized group that came up from the underworld and magically showed up in Charlottesville in 2017.

Antifa really isnt an organization. Instead, its this insane belief that fascism, nazism and white supremacy is bad. Were you against Hitler and the German forces in World War II? Congratulations you too are antifa. Your free T-shirt and membership card will arrive in the mail in six to eight weeks.

People with the antifa mindset also have this crazy idea that health care should be affordable, all races are equal and woman should be gasp equal to men.

Did you know those who identify with antifa also believe police brutality is wrong and that some cops are bad people?

When it comes to the LGBTQ movement (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer), antifa believes they should have the same rights as straight people. The nerve!

Antifa terrorizes young minds with this wild notion that hate of any kind is bad. They work to instill secret weapons of knowledge, including real facts and history, to show why facsism is bad.

Antifa believes people of all backgrounds can coexist and live in harmony as long as they wait for it listen to each other.

While theyve been labeled a terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan has not. Seems odd, huh?

Is it Ant-e-fuh or Aunt-e-fuh? I still dont know and nobody could really tell me.

Yes, there is a secret handshake but I cant tell you what it is because I took an oath to never share it with anyone who isnt antifa.

Will I go back to another antifa meeting? Probably not since weeknights are hard for me. I prefer spending time with my family and I like to go to bed by 10 p.m.

Oh, and also because there are no antifa meetings.

Rachel Brougham is the former assistant editor of the Petoskey News-Review. You can email her at racheldbrougham@gmail.com. You can also find her on Twitter @rachelbrougham and Instagram @rachbrougham.

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OPINION: Rachel Brougham I went to an antifa meeting and this is what I learned - Petoskey News-Review

Letter to the editor: BLM, antifa treasonous radicals – TribLIVE

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Letter to the editor: BLM, antifa treasonous radicals - TribLIVE

Before Portland, Trump’s Shock Troops Went After Border Activists – The Intercept

Images of Border Patrol agents in military-style tactical gear grabbing protesters off the street inPortland, Oregon, have drawn condemnation from Democratic lawmakers, who have described the teams as secret police. For immigration advocates like Kaji Doua, a senior pastor at Park Avenue Christian Church in New York City, there is nothing secret or particularly new about them.

As the co-chair of the New Sanctuary Coalition, an immigrant rights organization, Doua knows what its like to have the weight of the Department of Homeland Security come down on you she has a growing stack of internal DHS documents, produced in ongoing litigation surrounding the agencys surveillance of her and dozens of lawyers, journalists, and asylum advocates who were targeted in a sweeping DHS spying operation during the 2018 midterm elections. We were perceived to be radicals, Doua told The Intercept. A lot of white people turned away because it wasnt them, but now that its them in Portland, everybodys like, Oh, this is crazy.

The surveillance was just one politicized DHS operation among many that have taken place under the Trump administration. The same Border Patrol tactical teams currently on the ground in Oregon were also deployed to provide muscle and a visible show of strength for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conducting a crackdown on New York and other so-called sanctuary cities earlier this year. During the enforcement blitz, an ICE officer dressed in tactical gear was spotted knocking on doors in a Bronx apartment building with a rifle propped against his shoulder. In Brooklyn, a team of ICE officers shot a man in the face while attempting to make an arrest. As The Intercept reported in March, the escalated enforcement came as New York City was becoming the global epicenter for the coronavirus pandemic and led to the filling of local jails, which in turn became hot spots for Covid-19.

We were raising the alarm about it, Doua said. It feels like weve been screaming into a vacuum.

Long beforeDHS deployed masked paramilitary agents to the Pacific Northwest, the agency was directing its intelligence efforts against opponents of the presidentspolicies on the southern border, citing the coordinated circulation of public information, tweets, and potential vandalism as a precursor to extremist violence and domestic terrorism.

Long beforeDHS deployed masked paramilitary agents to the Pacific Northwest, the agency was directing its intelligence efforts against opponents of the presidentspolicies on the southern border.

In the summer of 2018, when the Trump administration was taking children from their parents by the thousands in an effort to ward off asylum-seekers at the southern border, a New York City-based data artist designed a tool for scraping LinkedIn that would collect and share information thatICE personnel had posted about themselves online. Alarm bells went off inside DHS.

Multiple incidents of doxing of DHS personnel and facilities could result in actualized violence against DHS employees by violent extremist actors, the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis warned in a June 29, 2018 intelligence note, describing the actors in question as individuals vehemently opposed to purported or perceived DHS actions regarding immigration policy.

While protests against the administrations family separation policy were massive, widespread, and diverse, the note went on to say that the current publicity surrounding federal immigration policy most likely will resonate with anarchist extremists or individuals who self-identify or subscribe to anti-fascist (ANTIFA) anarchist extremist ideology. The DHS intelligence office reported with medium confidence that if any criminal acts were to be conducted by these domestic terrorists, these acts would most likely be limited to destruction of critical infrastructure.

The intelligence note is among a trove of law enforcement documents that were recently hacked and posted online under the title BlueLeaks. The leaked documents reveal several instances in recent years of DHS and its subagencies circulating warnings about a dangerous anarchist or antifa element constituting a domestic terrorist threat. The documents bolster past reporting that has repeatedly demonstrated the agencys targeting of leftist opponents of the Trump administrations immigration and border policies, which set the stage for the federal law enforcement campaign the president is now seeking to take nationwide.

The materials are particularly noteworthy in light of recent events in Portland, in which DHS has cited the actions of violent anarchists as a justification for its show of force on the citys streets, pointed to doxxing as the reason that agents names are hidden from the public, and where the same DHS office that has hyped a threat from the left is now overseeing the intelligence work driving arrests on the ground.

The Intercept sent DHS a list of questions for this story, including clarification on how the agency is determining the political ideology of individual protesters accused of violence on the ground in Portland earlier this month, for example, acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf issued a press release blaming violent anarchists for 70 incidents of lawless destruction and violence in Portland (nearly all of the incidents involved graffiti or property destruction). The agency did not respond.

When considering the Trump administrations actions in Portland, its impossible not to recall the Department of Homeland Securitys targeting of activists and civil society organizations on the border for surveillance and criminal investigation, said Brian Griffey, a researcher at Amnesty International. In 2019, Griffey was the lead investigator on a report that documented how DHS engaged in a sweeping, multi-year campaign targeting human rights defenders, attorneys, and journalists working on the border. To label these political activists terrorists, its just the same in my mind as how they labeled activists and immigration lawyers on the border as criminals and smugglers, he said.

Having previously conducted human rights research in eastern Ukraine, Griffey has found himself increasingly concerned with the direction the administration now appears to be taking. A lot of whats happening here seems incredibly familiar, he said. From little green men, to the encouragement of far-right protesters to stage armed demonstrations outside Capitol buildings in regional areas. As we get into election season this is a recipe for trouble if they dont roll back the rhetoric and stop threatening civil society.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrest an undocumented Mexican immigrant during a raid in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn on April 11, 2018 in New York City.

Photo: John Moore/Getty Images

There is no legal definition of a sanctuary city. For the Trump administration, the term has typically meant ostensibly liberal jurisdictions where local law enforcement has pulled back on some element of cooperation with ICE though ICE still operates in those cities, and in places like New York,a low-level brush with the New York Police Departmentcan still lead to deportation. President Donald Trump has repeatedly identified such jurisdictions as his political enemies. The federal law enforcement posture that has garnered so much attention in the past month is largely an extension of that view and is being rolled out alongside a reelection effort framed around the notion that leftist activists and political leaders are in cahoots to destroy the country.

As Doua and Griffey noted, much of whats happened in recent weeks, from the DHS operations themselves to the units involved to the governments characterization of the perceived threat, would be familiar to anyone whos had a close eye on the border in recent years.

On January 17, 2018, a specialized Border Patrol unit conducted a raid on a humanitarian aid station in the unincorporated border community of Ajo, Arizona. Scott Warren, a geographer and volunteer with the faith-based organization No More Deaths and several other humanitarian groups was arrested along with two young undocumented men from Central American who were attempting to cross one of the deadliest stretches of the Sonoran Desert. A Border Patrol agent who later admitted that he did not know how to secure a warrant for a wiretap had conducted a multi-month investigation into the aid facility. The U.S. Attorneys Office pursued the case aggressively, hitting Warren with two federal felony counts of harboring and one count of conspiracy. He faced up to 20 years in prison. The office brought nine other federal cases against No More Deaths volunteers accused of leaving jugs of water for migrants crossing the desert on public lands.

Trump administration prosecutors spent two years trying to lock Warren away. When the first trial ended in a hung jury, they brought another. The second jury returned a verdict of not guilty after just two hours of deliberations. Throughout Warrens ordeal, prosecutors alleged that No More Deaths and groups like it were effectively a border-wide anarchist conspiracy network aimed at breaking U.S. immigration laws.

Warrens case was among the first clear signs that the Trump administration was willing to devote considerable resources to aggressive and politically symbolic law enforcement activity in matters related to the presidents border agenda.

While Warren was able to avoid time behind bars during his brush with the Trump administrations politicized brand of border law enforcement, others were not so fortunate.

On August 3, 2018, ICE agents in Texas arrested 18-year-old Sergio Salazar at an Occupy ICE encampment in San Antonio, Texas. As The Intercept reported last year, Salazars tweets landedthem on the radar of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), which forwarded the posts to an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Antonio that included ICE personnel. Federal authorities surveilled Salazar and the Occupy ICE encampment for weeks. Tactical agents in masks not unlike those in Portland visited the camp at night. One day after Salazars protections against deportation under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals expired, an ICE team moved in and placed them under arrest. In an evidence packet ICE compiled to support Salazars deportation,which Salazar shared with The Intercept, DHS argued that the recent high school graduates social media revealed their affiliation with the Anarchist Extremist Group ANTIFA. Salazar was locked up for 43 days before being deported banished, in their words from the only country they had ever known.

While much of the country was reacting in horror at the family separation policy, U.S. Customs and Border Protection was reporting an increase in social media threats targeting DHS personnel.

The BlueLeaks documents show that Salazars case was referenced in a report circulated by a law enforcement fusion center in Colorado the following year: On 03 August 2018, an 18-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient was arrested by the FBI after posting instructional videos for making bombs to kill ICE agents. He also posted several anonymous messages online against ICE agents. Salazar was not arrested by the FBI nor were they ever charged or accused of a crime. The source of the fusion centers reporting was an article published by the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization with longstanding ties to Trumps top immigration architect, White House adviser Stephen Miller the Southern Poverty Law Center includes the organization among its designated hate groups.CISrejects the characterization.

The author of the CIS post was Todd Bensman, a former senior intelligence analyst at the Texas Department of Public Safety who, according to biographies on CISs website and his own, had a supervisory role at DPS that frequently involved sharing intelligence with JTTFs and ICE at the time that DPS shared Salazars tweets with FBI. Bensman left DPS for CIS the month of Salazars arrest, where he proceeded to writemultiple articles and posted a video about the national security threat that people like Salazar posed, drawing comparisons to ISIS propagandists who become the targets of hellfire missiles overseas because their incitement has proven so mortally effective.

Bensman told The Intercept he was aware of Salazars case during his tenure at DPS, but that he went to great pains to compartmentalize his work in law enforcement from the public facing reporting he produces at CIS. Though he believes federal law enforcement would not have devoted the resources to the Salazar case that it did absent a serious threat, he acknowledged that he did not have access to the case file ICE presented laying outits purported evidence to support that claim. If there was exculpatory information about that investigation, I certainly would have written about it, Bensman told The Intercept.

Salazars life was upended entirely by the investigation Bensmans previous office set in motion. From an apartment in Mexico, they wrote: Despite the hateful behavior and writings of the DHS and its employees against a teenage me, I still believe a better world is possible and still hold in my heart a vision of a world where migration is not criminalized or regulated through violence.

The BlueLeaks documents show that on June 22, 2018, while much of the country was reacting in horror at the Trump administrations family separation policy, and Salazar and their friends were occupying the ICE facility in Texas, U.S. Customs and Border Protection was reporting an increase in social media threats targeting DHS personnel. The threats included advocating violence against ICE officials and destruction of government property, the release of DHS officials personally identifiable information (PII), and the release of DHS facility locations.

For the most part, DHS facility locations, like the details government employees post on their LinkedIn pages, are publicly available information. CBP acknowledged that while doxxing itself may be constitutionally protected, the government would continue to monitor incidents of doxing where there is a reasonable belief that the doxed information could lead to violent domestic extremist activity. In a preview of what would become a Trump administration talking point regarding the recent protests, CBP warned that anarchist extremists have previously exploited constitutionally protected events to engage in violence against police. The agency listed nearly a dozen indicators of planned criminal or violent domestic extremist activity, which included preoperational surveillance of government buildings, symbols of capitalism, or symbols of corporate globalization and possessing anarchist signs.

Some of these behavioral indicators involve constitutionally protected activities, CBP noted. These indicators, therefore, only support a reasonable suspicion of violent activity when considered in conjunction with additional, supporting facts.

In the months after the alerts were issued, the Trump administration shifted into election mode, zeroing in on migrant caravans making their way north from Central America to rally the presidents base for the 2018 midterm elections.

Central American migrants run away from tear gas thrown by the Border Patrol after they tried to cross from Tijuana to San Diego, as seen from Mexico on Jan. 1, 2019.

Photo: Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images

When the caravans reached Tijuana at the end of the year, they were met with tear gas lobbed over the border wall by DHS officers and agents. Last February, The Intercept revealed that the agency had embarked on a sprawling, binational intelligence-gathering operation run by U.S. and Mexican law enforcement focused on journalists, immigration attorneys, and asylum advocates in the area. Targets of the program were routinely interrogated by DHS personnel when crossing into San Diego, in some cases for hours at a time. Multiple lawyers and photojournalists were barred from traveling internationally. Members of the press were forced to turn over their notes, cameras, and phones while plainclothes U.S. border officials pumped them for information about activists working with the caravans.

A month after The Intercepts investigation, NBC San Diego obtained a cache of documents, leaked by an ICE whistleblower, showing that DHS had built a secret database of activists, journalists, and social media influencers tied to the migrant caravan and in some cases, placed alerts on their passports. The program featured the lead DHS border and immigration enforcement agencies, as well as the FBI, and it fell under the umbrella of Operation Secure Line, the Trump administrations border surge of military units during the midterms initially dubbed Faithful Patriot. Doua was among the immigrant rights advocates included in the database. In a section of Douas classified DHS file titled Target Significance, CBPs San Diego Intelligence Unit wrote, Possible connection to recent ANTIFA movement along the southwestern border.

There were 59 of us in the Operation Secure Line targeting database that basically tied all of us to so-called antifa, Doua said. I have no idea what that is.

The DHS border spying revelations prompted a bipartisan letter to the head of CBP from Sens. Ron Wyden and Chuck Grassleylast Marchdemanding answers. The border enforcement agency initially dismissed the matter then, four months after the story broke, admittedthat U.S. and Mexican authorities had indeed engaged in a cross-border intelligence operation. In October, the American Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of asylum advocates caught in the surveillance program, accusing CBP, ICE, and the FBI of First and Fourth Amendment violations. The governments powers are not limitless, the complaint read.

In July of last year, Willem Van Spronsen, a 69-year-old, self-identified anarchist, who went by the pen name Emma Durutti, was shot dead by police while allegedly carrying a rifle and throwing lit objects at vehicles used at a privately run ICE jail in Tacoma, Washington. The incident is the most serious escalation of force involving leftists challenging DHS to date. Other reported threats that federal authorities have investigated in recent years appear far shakier.

Last May, the FBI circulated a report, later leaked to Yahoo News and included in the BlueLeaks cache, titled Anarchist Extremists Very Likely Increasing Targeting of US Government Entities in Arizona, Increasing Risk of Armed Conflict. As Yahoo News noted in its coverage, which included interviews with individuals included in the document, almost all of the evidence cited in the report involved nonviolent protest activity. The reporting came just months after the San Diego Union-Tribune broke the news that the Trump administrations targeting of journalists and advocates at the border may have been linked to a bizarre FBI investigation in which an alleged Mexico-based cartel associate known as Cobra Commander was suspected of trying to sell guns to antifa in order to stage an armed rebellion at the border.

Like many of the materials that have emerged from the Blue Leaks trove, DHS documents concerning antifa suggest that the agency struggles to identify real threats in a world rife with internet jokes. In July 2019, for example, CBP alerted personnel about a social media user who had compared immigration agents to the gestapo and written kill all ICE agents, and an Antifa member who had written the following: I have perfected an acid that you can mix into milkshakes that will still taste refreshing and creamy but give you 3rd degree chemical burns hit me up. CBP followed the milkshake intel with a list of precautions to reduce the risk of targeting or attack.

The antifa-anarchist boogeyman that has haunted the minds of the nations border and immigration agencies for the past three and a half years has now gone national. According to a leaked DHS document obtained by Lawfare, the same office of intelligence and analysis that described anti-fascist (ANTIFA) anarchist extremists as domestic terrorists in 2018 is now collecting intelligence for federal law enforcement operations in Portland.

The president, accompanied by Barr and the heads of DHS and the FBI, announced that ramped-up federal law enforcement will be coming to several other cities around the country.

Just days after George Floyd was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis and a local precinct went up in flames, Trump declared that he would designate antifa a terrorist organization. Highlighting antifa by name, Attorney General William Barr announced that the nations JTTFs, the same federal task forcesinvolved in Salazars deportation, would be called upon to identify criminal organizers and instigators whose role in hijacking the nationwide protests amounted to domestic terrorism. According the attorney general, the FBI is currently pursuing more than 500 such investigations. Incidentally, instigator, along with the word antifa, was one of the markers used in the secret DHS database of advocates on the border.

We shouldnt be looking at DHS in isolation from DOJ, Faiza Patel, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told The Intercept. Historically those two agencies have been engaged in turf battles, but it does seem that they are working pretty much in tandem here.

As The Intercept reported earlier this month, an official Trump Super PAC has pointed to the administrations antifa crackdown to raise money for the presidents reelection campaign. This is a political move, Patel said. The feds dont normally respond to graffiti when the local police say they can handle it. In a press conference on Wednesday, the president, accompanied by Barr and the heads of DHS and the FBI, announced that ramped-up federal law enforcement will be coming to several other cities around the country.

When the White House began pushing DHS into New York as part of the sanctuary city crackdown earlier this year, an underground network of advocates organized a rapid response system for identifying ICE activity in immigrant communities. Experiences like that are now informing how immigration advocates interpret and respond to the present moment, Doua explained. Its very concerning to us, but it doesnt feel all that different to me yet, she said. To the extent that there have been any radical shifts in the past few weeks, she said, its the fact that white people are starting to care.

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Before Portland, Trump's Shock Troops Went After Border Activists - The Intercept

These are not fireworks: Antifa accused of throwing real explosives at feds in apparent major escalation in Portland – RT

In an apparent disturbing escalation in violence, after the 61st consecutive day of protests in Portland, Antifa have been accused of throwing real explosives, not fireworks, at federal agents.

Approximately 1,000 protesters took to the streets of Portland on Monday evening, including parents and veterans groups, all of whom were teargassed in something that has become a nightly tradition.

Daily footage from the city shows that neither side is backing down and, in the latest disturbing escalation, accusations that members of the protest group have begun throwing actual explosive devices at authorities have been made online, complete with eyewitness video purporting to show the explosives in action.

Until now, demonstrators have peppered the assorted federal agents with Roman candles and display rockets, but tensions and ensuing violence have increased night on night as video from the besieged city shows.

The arrest of one female protester on Monday night drew further criticism of the federal agents, leaving them facing accusations of using heavy-handed tactics.

The Justice Department also shared photos of materials seized from protesters throughout the unrest, which included several bottles of bleach, which can be used in the manufacture of explosives.

The protesters in Portland initially rallied against police brutality and racism after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, but recently the protests have evolved into a tit-for-tat escalation in violence between the protesters, assorted agitators in their midst, and the federal agents ostensibly deployed to restore order in a controversial move by US President Donald Trump.

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These are not fireworks: Antifa accused of throwing real explosives at feds in apparent major escalation in Portland - RT

Has Antifa finally Arrived in the Jewish State? – The Jewish Press – JewishPress.com

Photo Credit: Yonatan Sindel / Flash 90

About a month ago, Ken Abramovich, the chairman of the American Friends of Likud and head of Save the West, pondered whether it was possible for the race riots that began in the US following the brutal murder of George Floyd to arrive in the Jewish state. At that time, the BLM and Antifa riots had already started to spread from America to England, Greece, Mexico, Germany and a variety of other countries. However, Dr. Mordechai Kedar could not contemplate that any Jewish Israeli would ever bring that sort of violence to our country, for it is anathema to Israeli culture.

As journalist Lara Logan exposed, Antifas mission statement includes 1) liberation will be won by any means necessary; 2) We will destroy the state, the police, military, corporations and all of those who run the plantations; 3) We will live in dignity in a world without prisons; 4) Systems of punishment will be abolished. There will be no law to enforce, no money to protect. 5) Revolutionary justice will be determined by those who are oppressed; 6) There will be no government. No person or group will have power over another. 7) Communities will make decisions about where they live and will make sure that everyone has what they need to live a dignified life; 8) Land is not property. It is alive, communal and must be protected. 9) Alongside international comrades, we will destroy all borders for the free movement of people everywhere; 10) Militant networks will defend our revolutionary communities. Liberation begins where America dies. Why would anyone Jewish want to support that, especially given the fact that Antifa has committed so many anti-Semitic acts of violence in America?

But in recent days, more and more violence has been registered in the daily demonstrations against the Israeli government. Matt Peleg, CEO of Im Tirtzu, stated in an exclusive interview: A quarter a million walk down Rothschild in September and not a window was broken in the past. But now, there are stones being thrown on shops and homes. Furthermore, a topless woman stood on top of a statue of a menorah, waving Antifa imagery. This makes one ponder, has Antifa tactics taken over what was until recently a peaceful protest movement, seeking justice for those who suffered economically during the pandemic?

Although there is no evidence of a direct connection between the Israeli Black Flag protesters and Antifa or BLM, Peleg argued that they have nevertheless imported the symbols, the flag and the same attitude from abroad, acknowledging that doing such things is not typical Israeli behavior: The New Israel Fund is active in the demonstrations via Standing Together, Zazim and other groups. They are always coming to every demonstration that is against the government. They also go after soldiers in Judea and Samaria. These same types of people have now come to Balfour and committed acts against the menorah. They also waved Palestinian flags and yelled out crime minister.

Im Tirtzu was not active in front of those demonstrations in the beginning, for it is legit to be against the prime minister, Peleg stressed. We are a democracy. But when you do something against the menorah, attack reporters and taxi drivers, and attack shops, Im Tirtzu will be there for to do something against the menorah is dangerous. Today, there are two demonstrations. One is Antifa-like radicals and one is by the right-wingers. We called upon the two camps to sing Hatikva together at 10:50pm at night, for they need to finish at 11pm. Some of the left-wingers were saying that they would not sing Hativka, even though we are close to Tisha BAv. This should tell you how much the radical left has taken over the protests.

Following the coronavirus pandemic, prominent Middle East scholar Dr. Mordechai Kedar believes that Israeli society is now divided: There are those who consider the state as the fulfillment of the Jewish dream to come back to Zion and to renew the Jewish sovereignty over the Jewish forefathers land. For them, Israel is a dream fulfilled. They also suffer from the coronavirus economic crisis, but they are at home, trying to make a living one way or another. The other side of Israeli society who does not share the same dream view the state as a supplier of bread and amusement (nightclubs, pubs, restaurants, beaches). Since for five months the state does not provide enough bread and all the amusement sites are closed, they run to the streets. Therefore, roughly saying with clear generalization that most of the demonstrators in the street are left-wing, while the people who do not demonstrate tend to be on the right side of the political map. It involves much politics and culture. You hardly see people with yarmulkes on their heads in these demonstrations.

The nude lady with the menorah resembles the cultural differences, Kedar added. The menorah symbolizes the Jewish dream, especially in front of the Knesset. She gets on top of the menorah and strips her body to show that for her the amusement is more important than the Jewish dream. Sitting on the menorah topless shows her scale of priorities in life. Interestingly, the very idea of a woman striping as a form of protesting against the state originated in Portland, Oregon, with a woman known as Naked Athena stripping in front of police officers during an Antifa protest, while doing ballet poses nude in front of the cameras. Prior to that, nude protests have a long tradition in the West, from Lady Godiva to the Hippies to the Iraq War protests to the Yellow Vest and Femen protests in France: It is the fashion today for women to expose themselves in order to cause attention to their cause.

While some commentators on the left have praised the topless woman standing on top of the menorah as a Lady Godiva-like feminist icon, posing naked in front of numerous spectators does nothing to enhance the status of women in Israel. It does not assist the country in battling increased incidents of domestic violence and rape within the family heading into another potential lockdown. It does not help any of the social workers in addressing the needs of battered Israeli women during the pandemic. It does not help rape survivors psychologically cope with the potential of another lockdown. All it does is objectify women as sexual objects, rather than portray females as thinking and feeling intellectual beings, who have an opinion to express.

Therefore, her action adversely affected the status of women in Israel, just as Antifa, the anti-Semitic movement that she glorified, offers no real solutions to the Israeli people struggling economically and psychologically with the pandemic. Therefore, adopting Antifa tactics, symbols and ideology harms any Israeli who seeks to speak out against the present economic disaster and seeks true solutions for the nations problems. For this reason, the fact that these economic demonstrations have been taken over by the radical left is a great tragedy for each Israeli who loves the country yet opposes another lockdown.

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Has Antifa finally Arrived in the Jewish State? - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

Time to defund the defunders | TheHill – The Hill

Like many Americans, Republicans in Congress have a hard time coming up with a plan to fight back against antifa and the outraged mob that has terrorized communities across the country. The main goal of these rioters is to defund police departments. It is so insane that it is hard to respond with anything more than confused laughter. But the conservatives in the House and Senate have the right idea to defund the defunders.

Let us back up from the cable news hysteria and remember an important point. Police departments are the main reason we have the government. When you look at it, the government has a monopoly on the legal use of force. Its emissaries are paid to commit premeditated violence if needed to enforce laws. Police officers are those emissaries who carry guns and swear to use them only to enforce laws written by the people.

Yet the party of big government has become so drunk on its wokeness that its members want to eliminate the most basic core functions of the government, such as fighting crime, enforcing the laws, and protecting public safety. Defunding the police is somewhat like watching a football game without referees. Someone must call penalties or the contest will descend into a brawl. There would be more injuries than points.

This principle can be doubly applied when you talk about criminals. What exactly is supposed to deter murderers, drug dealers, human traffickers, and sexual predators from openly plying their trade if there is no one to stop them? If your city council defunds the police department, and you see a robbery taking place, who do you call? If criminals break into your house, what are you supposed to do? The activists have no answers.

The best they have is to replace police officers with social workers. They seem to not know that the reason adults become criminals is because the authority structures of family and society have failed. When that happens, the heroic efforts of social work are incapable of fixing the problem. What are social workers supposed to do with armed bank robbers or drug cartel hit squads? Should they sing Imagine by John Lennon to them?

But it is much worse than that. After all, we have seen a glimpse of what life would be like without police in Seattle and Portland. In Seattle, a mob took over a neighborhood, turned that into an autonomous zone, created physical barriers, and declared it an independent state not subject to the city or state. The local government told law enforcement to stand down. What followed was weeks of violent chaos until the mayor ceded.

The situation was perhaps even worse in Portland. The occupiers were not just trying to establish an autonomous zone outside of the authority of the city and state. They actively worked to destroy the legitimate authority of their community. They attacked residents, threw bottles at police officers, and set fire to several buildings. The liberal politicians in charge here have mostly sided with the mob. They are more outraged over President TrumpDonald John TrumpBiden hits Trump's 'law and order' message: He's trying to 'scare the devil' out of people Pelosi bashes Barr after testimony: 'He was like a blob' and 'henchman' for Trump Schumer: Trump should want COVID-19 deal to help GOP election chances MORE trying to restore order than the violent mob destroying their city.

These liberal politicians also seem to want to defund police departments. If cities and states are crazy enough to throw their people to the wolves, the Constitution might give them the right to be crazy, although when it involves federal laws and property, the federal government has legitimate reasons to intervene. But if these cities and states refuse federal support, then the rest of us should not have to subsidize such lunacy.

Congress must ensure we have serious leaders. Lawmakers cannot simply lock their doors and hide. They must take action. When Congress passes spending bills for next fiscal year, it has to deny federal law enforcement funds to city councils and state legislators that seek to defund the police. If the rioters want to risk the lives of their fellow citizens to be cool, make them do it on their own dime. It is time to defund the defunders.

Jim DeMint is the chairman of the Conservative Partnership Institute. He is a former senator from South Carolina, sits with the White House economic recovery task force, and is the author of Saving America From Socialism.

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Time to defund the defunders | TheHill - The Hill

Minnesota Attorney General in favour of using law to shutter businesses, but not to help victims of rape – The Post Millennial

Minnesota Attorney General and former Congressman Keith Ellison spoke in favour of defunding police, using the example of rape as a reason why.

During an interview with PBS' Yamiche Alcindor, Ellison said that he does not believe women should contact the police after a sexual assault.

He said "If you're a woman who has been the victim of a sexual assault, and the assailant has ran away, wouldn't you rather talk to somebody who is trained in helping you deal with it, what you're dealing with as opposed to somebody whose main training is that they know how to use a fire arm. Right?"

Ellison's reasoning is that the assailant is gone, so the main problem for the woman who has been raped is to figure out how to deal with it, not to apprehend the rapist. Sexual assault victims, he believes, should instead get in contact with "someone who is trained in helping you."

Where rape is concerned, Ellison does not advocate for use of justice, but instead for some kind of mental health approach to deal with the rape victim. But back in May, Ellison was interested in bringing the law to bear on restaurants intent on keeping their businesses operational.

In May, Ellison filed suit against Kris Schiffler who owns Shady's restaurant as well as operating restaurants in other Stearns County, Minnesota locations. The attorney general's office referred to this area as "a COVID-19 hot spot," according to the Star Tribune.

Ellison is in favour of using law to shutter businesses, but not to apprehend rapists.

Ellison openly supports Antifaa far-left organization that has wreaked havoc across the country, using the death of George Floyd as an excuse for chaos and mayhem. President Trump announced his intention to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization.

Ellison is in favour of lawlessness for women who are victims of violent crime, but not for restaurants that want to stay operational.

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Minnesota Attorney General in favour of using law to shutter businesses, but not to help victims of rape - The Post Millennial