[FoxNews] Chaofeng Ge, 32, had been in custody for five days at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg awaiting immigration hearing, ICE said
The Lower Paxton Township Police Department said on the day of Ge’s arrest its officers were dispatched to a CVS store in Harrisburg "for a report of a male using fraudulent credit cards in an attempt to purchase gift cards.
"Upon arrival, LPBP Officers located the male, who was identified as Chaofeng Ge of Flushing, New York. An investigation was initiated, where Ge was found to be in possession of numerous stolen credit card numbers located within his cell phone," police added. Slick trick.
[NYPOST] A man suspected of murdering three women in the Portland area and abandoning their bodies has now been formally charged with a fourth homicide, officials announced on Tuesday.
At a presser, Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez revealed that a grand jury has indicted Jesse Lee Calhoun in connection with the death of 22-year-old Kristin Smith, whose remains were discovered in November 2022.
The new charges, second-degree murder and abuse of a corpse, come roughly two and a half years after her body was found.
Calhoun had already faced similar charges for the deaths of Charity Perry, 24, Bridget Webster, 31, and Joanna Speaks, 32.
He pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." to all previous counts of second-degree murder and abuse of a corpse.
''The indictment is a very important and visible step as we seek justice for these victims,'' DA Vasquez said during an emotional presser.
Calhoun is currently being held at the Inverness Jail in Multnomah County. His trial is expected to begin in 2027.
[Federalist] While driving through northern Arkansas on the way to a wedding in rural Missouri earlier this year, I decided to treat an old college friend from Bangladesh to a meal at that bastion of Americana: Cracker Barrel.
I hadn’t been to a Cracker Barrel in years, but it was just as I remembered it — the cluttered general store area full of knick-knacks, the kitschy memorabilia cluttered on the wall, the intentionally dated homestyle atmosphere, and the relatively quick service. It was, in a word, quaint. Exactly as advertised. My friend was not particularly impressed. When he expressed that he didn’t get why Cracker Barrel is so great, I responded, in jest, "That’s why you’ll never be an American."
The executives who run Cracker Barrel obviously share the same opinion as my Bangladeshi friend, since they’re replacing the old-timey charm that makes Cracker Barrel a special place with the same soulless, whitewashed aesthetic that can only be dreamed up and approved in an equally soulless corporate boardroom or at a high-rise consultancy firm.
The typical Cracker Barrel’s aesthetic is very obviously an idealized version of yesteryear’s America, but in a natural, sincere way. It effortlessly harkens back to a simpler time — a time your grandparents knew and lived in — when mom-and-pop general stores and diners hadn’t yet given way to the march of progress. And that’s the entire appeal of the restaurant: For an hour or so, you can go back and indulge in a bit of harmless nostalgia.
By contrast, this new aesthetic tries to pay lip service to that same sense of wizened charm but ultimately comes off as spiritually sterile, manufactured, and hollow. Every decorative item on the wall in the video above looks like it could have come from Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Hearth and Hand line at Target — trying way too hard and not enough at the same time.
#1
So why make these changes? It seems as though declines in guest traffic in recent years helped convince the corporate suits that the restaurants needed a more “modern” look to bring in new customers.
It's not what's on the walls, but rather what's on the plate. The restrooms could certainly use some attention as well.
BTW, the experiment with alcoholic drinks appears to be a failure.
#2
Look, I understand any business place needs to adjust to the majority of PAYING customers.
But my gripe with Cracker Barrel is not looks, it's the signature food item's. The taste, ingredients and type/quality of meats are no longer the same. Plus, waitstaff service was 3/10 the last few visits.
Now they are on our, only if extended family wants to go there, list.
#4
It seems as though declines in guest traffic in recent years helped convince the corporate suits that the restaurants needed a more “modern” look to bring in new customers.
Gosh. Going hard DEI and Gay Pride Month didn't pay off? Food and Service went to shit? Better let those same brains do their take on the ambiance then.
#5
And I want a point of order, especially for our visitor looking for The American Experience.
Cracker Barrel, Applebee's, Carlos O'Kelly's, all of them, they are not "American Food" or experience - they are corporate food and atmosphere. Even those high end burger chains. No, go to Earl's BBQ a couple blocks off the Interstate, or Jan's Crab Shop, Tito's Taco Stand, anything other than what is front street to an Interstate.
I have within a 20 minute drive, 6 different restaurants, and this is rural Kansas, superior in taste, quality, price, and atmosphere to peak Cracker Barrel, which was some 30 years ago. Don't take them to Sonic But With Tables.
#6
BTW: For TRUE Southern Food
Visit Taylor's in Waynesboro, GA.
1/2"+ thick Fried Pork Chops, fried Cat-Fish, Fried Chicken, black-eye peas, Lima's, Real Mac & Cheese, and all the usual Southern Fixin's.
[FoxNews] "Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…. even by children, because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?" the actress posted at the time.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The strongest magnetic storm in the last two months will occur on Earth on August 8. This was reported by the solar astronomy laboratory of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Scientists recalled that on August 5, a major M4.4 flare occurred on the Sun. As a result, plasma was ejected. Calculations showed that the impact of the ejection was stronger than scientists had previously expected. At first, they believed that the peripheral rarefied areas of the ejected solar matter would [not] reach the Earth, since the plasma cloud after the explosion was not ejected directly to our planet, but to the side - at an angle of about 45 degrees.
"After the latest recalculation, however, the models showed that the planet would be hit by the high-speed core of the cloud, and the impact on the magnetic field could be much stronger," the lab said.
The plasma is expected to arrive at Earth around 7 a.m. Moscow time. The geomagnetic index Kp at the moment of impact will reach 6 — the highest value since June 13.
Although events of this magnitude are considered moderate on the space weather scale, they can impact high-latitude power systems, cause spacecraft orbital drifts to differ from predicted ones, and affect radio propagation.
Scientists said that usually during such magnetic storms, the aurora borealis is visible up to a latitude of 60 degrees, but sometimes it descends to a latitude of 50 degrees.
The laboratory also warned that the geomagnetic situation should be expected to worsen at night. This is due to the fact that the Earth will enter the zone of action of another large coronal hole several hours before the arrival of the plasma cloud. The geomagnetic background will worsen for almost a week.
According to scientists, the situation on the Sun is currently considered extremely difficult. On August 6, 18 flares occurred in 24 hours, and almost all of them were observed near the Sun-Earth line.
[FoxNews] Both wounded troopers are recovering and in stable condition following Thursday incident
The suspect who allegedly ambushed two Pennsylvania state troopers in a shooting Thursday afternoon has died, officials confirmed.
Pennsylvania State Police Colonel Commissioner Christopher Paris identified the suspect as 61-year-old Carmine Faino, who, after failed negotiations, was shot and killed by members of a special response team.
Troopers were called to a rural area in Thompson Township in Susquehanna County at about 11:20 a.m. on Thursday morning after receiving reports that shots had been fired in the vicinity.
The call was made by the boyfriend of 57-year-old Lori Wasko, who had been shot and killed in front of her residence near her vehicle.
When troopers arrived, they were ambushed from a "very good distance away," by several rounds of fire.
Trooper Joseph Perechinsky was shot twice in the chest/torso area, while Trooper William Jenkins was shot twice – once in each arm. Perechinsky was able to tourniquet both of Jenkins’ arms.
The vehicles they arrived in sustained several gunshots. Paras would not say exactly how many rounds, but felt confident in saying "dozens of rounds were fired." Two additional troopers arrived to evacuate the two injured troopers.
An EMT responding to the scene, Carl Lawson, also became a victim in the incident after his vehicle was fired at by the gunman. Lawson took evasive action and drove off the side of the road and crashed, sustaining injury. He is listed in stable condition.
Several law enforcement agencies helped to set up a perimeter around Faino. At one point, law enforcement launched a drone, but Faino allegedly shot it down with a firearm. Still, a perimeter was eventually setup up around Faino's location.
"We attempted, at length, to try and negotiate with Mr. Faino," Paris said. "At one point…he was sitting on a propane tank, which caused further concern that he had attempted to turn that into an improvised explosive device."
Paris said police were concerned Faino had other weapons, aside from a semiautomatic long gun he had fired several rounds from. But along with additional weapons, police were also concerned he had explosive devices.
After a period of attempting to negotiate with Faino, Paris said, Faino continued to be a threat and was fatally shot. Good
Rep. Dan Meuser commented on the shooting.
"Latest update from Susquehanna County: I’ve received word that, to the best of my knowledge, both troopers who were wounded are okay and are recovering," Meuser wrote.
Perechinsky and Jenkins were airlifted to a medical facility for emergency treatment.
[BBC] Almost a million more deaths than births were recorded in Japan last year, representing the steepest annual population decline since government surveys began in 1968.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has described the demographic crisis of Japan's ageing population as a "quiet emergency", pledging family-friendly policies such as free childcare and more flexible work hours.
But efforts to reverse the perennially low birth rates among Japanese women have so far made little impact.
New data released on Wednesday by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications showed the number of Japanese nationals fell by 908,574 in 2024.
Japan recorded 686,061 births - the lowest number since records began in 1899 - while nearly 1.6 million people died, meaning for every baby born, more than two people died.
It marks the 16th consecutive year of population decline with the squeeze being felt by the nation's pension and healthcare systems.
The number of foreign residents reached a record high of 3.6 million people as of 1 January 2025, however, representing nearly 3% of Japan's population.
The government has tentatively embraced foreign labour by launching a digital nomad visa and upskilling initiatives, but immigration remains politically fraught in the largely conservative country.
The overall population of the country declined by 0.44 percent from 2023 to about 124.3 million at the start of the year.
Elderly people aged 65 and over now make up nearly 30% of the population - the second-highest proportion in the world after Monaco, according to the World Bank. The working-age population, defined as those between 15 and 64, has dropped to about 60%.
A growing number of towns and villages are hollowing out, with nearly four million homes abandoned over the past two decades, government data released last year showed.
The government has spent years trying to increase birth rates with incentives ranging from housing subsidies to paid parental leave. But deep-rooted cultural and economic barriers remain.
High living costs, stagnant wages and a rigid work culture deter many young people from starting families. Women, in particular, face entrenched gender roles that often leave them with limited support as primary caregivers.
Japan's fertility rate - the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime - has been low since the 1970s, so experts warn even dramatic improvements now would take decades to bear fruit.
[FoxBusiness] Project Blue was set to create 3,000 construction jobs and 180 permanent positions in Pima County
A massive data center that was slated for southern Arizona may be no more after a city council vote on Wednesday unanimously directed all staff to stop work.
Dubbed "Project Blue," the data center was supposed to be built on 290 acres in Pima County. The county's board of supervisors approved selling the land north of the Pima County Fairgrounds for the center, but the project still required the city of Tucson's approval of a development agreement and annexation of the land, local KOLD reported.
Dozens of people filled the city's council chambers in opposition to the project, which had been proposed by Beale Infrastructure, citing utility usage.
"In addition to the water use, this was a problem because of the energy use," councilmember Kevin Dahl said during the meeting, according to KOLD.
Local reports say the data center was tied to tech giant Amazon.
Beale Infrastructure called the council vote "a missed opportunity for the City," in a statement provided to FOX Business.
"Data centers are the backbone of the modern economy and are required to serve municipalities throughout the U.S.," it continued. "We would like to thank our supporters in the community. We look forward to sharing our future plans."
The company – which "partners with the world's leading technology companies to develop data centers and infrastructure that supports national economic growth," according to its website – told AZ Luminaria that its proposal was compatible with the city's climate goals.
Project Blue would have generated $250 million in tax revenue, created 3,000 temporary construction jobs and provided 180 permanent positions with an average salary of $64,000 per year, Beale Infrastructure claims, according to the Tucson Sentinel. Still, residents and the council were not swayed. The Sentinel reported that officials' findings included that the finished project would demand more water than four golf courses, as well as a tremendous amount of power.
"AWS has previously engaged in standard due diligence processes in Arizona, like we do in any geographic location we consider building and operating our infrastructure," an Amazon Web Services spokesperson said in a statement to FOX Business.
"We do not have any commitments or agreements in place to develop this project and will continue to assess all potential geographic regions to ensure our data center developments provide the best possible product and value for our customers, while bringing positive benefits to the local communities where we operate," the statement concluded.
[American Liberty] The Supreme Court has asked a question long deferred: may race be the predominant factor in drawing congressional districts? On August 1, 2025, in the case of Robinson v. Ardoin, the justices issued an order for supplemental briefing on precisely that issue. At the heart of the case is a map in Louisiana, which connects disparate Black communities across the state to create a second majority-Black district. The method is undisguised: race was the reason for the shape. The rationale? Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act requires it. But does it? And if so, is Section 2 itself unconstitutional in its current interpretation?
This moment offers an opportunity to resolve a contradiction at the core of American election law. States like Texas, currently advancing a new map that adds five Republican-leaning districts, now face legal crossfire: if race is not considered, they risk violating Section 2. If it is considered, they risk violating the Equal Protection Clause. One branch of federal law demands race-consciousness, another forbids it. The state is expected to perform a legal contortion that no theory of jurisprudence can justify and no mapmaker can survive.
Let us be clear: race-based redistricting, as presently practiced, is not a civil rights triumph. It is a vestige of a failed doctrine, preserved by inertia and political convenience. Its intellectual foundation is cracked. Its moral justification is confused. And its legal coherence has long since collapsed.
The Court has spent three decades attempting to split the atom of race and districting. In Shaw v. Reno (1993), it held that districts shaped predominantly by race are presumptively unconstitutional. But it also held, implicitly, that racial consideration is sometimes required. In Miller v. Johnson (1995), the Court offered a test: race must not "subordinate traditional race-neutral districting principles." But this is not a rule. It is a riddle. What is a "traditional principle"? Compactness? Contiguity? Political advantage? And what counts as subordination? The problem is not that these questions are difficult. The problem is that they are incoherent.
[BLAZE] The administration accused the university of not doing enough to prevent discrimination.
The Trump administration canceled more than half a billion dollars' worth of federal funding for the University of California in Los Angeles over claims that they did not do enough to shut down anti-Semitism on campus.
The college said they were in negotiations to preserve the $584 million dollars in federal research funds frozen by the administration, according to a letter shared with Politico.
"If these funds remain suspended," UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk wrote in the letter Wednesday, "it will be devastating for UCLA and for Americans across the nation."
They are certainly welcome to do any research they like without federal dollars, so long as they continue to defy federal civil rights laws. This is the same mistake Harvard insists upon. Though to be fair, it is still illegal to break civil rights laws even if they don’t get federal funding, for which there are traditionally severe penalties. So the question is whether these obnoxious schools will be clever enough to br only punished once for it, or if they will demand to be punished twice.
University of California President James Milliken told Politico that the school had agreed "to engage in dialogue with the federal administration" and said its goal was to restore the millions in funding as quickly as possible.
[Breitbart] Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) announced a new push to rescind or redirect $14 billion in federal transportation funding from what she calls “boondoggle” rail projects that are years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget, according to a letter sent this week to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.
In the letter, Ernst commended Secretary Duffy for releasing a long-delayed audit of California’s high-speed rail project and for canceling $4 billion in federal funding for the effort. The Department of Transportation’s 315-page report, required by a provision Ernst authored in the bipartisan infrastructure law (Section 11319 of Public Law 117-58), outlined what Ernst called a “trail of project delays, mismanagement, waste, and skyrocketing costs.”
DOT found that the California high-speed rail project failed to meet the terms of its federal grant awards, citing missed deadlines, budget shortfalls, and exaggerated ridership projections. The project, originally pitched to voters in 2008 as a $33 billion rail line connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles by 2020, has since ballooned to $128 billion with no high-speed tracks laid.
Ernst praised DOT’s review as setting “a new gold standard in accountability” and urged Secretary Duffy to apply similar scrutiny to other federally funded projects identified under her boondoggle law. She listed four projects currently receiving a combined $4.5 billion from taxpayers: Honolulu Rail Transit in Hawaii at $1,941,400,000; the Purple Line Transit in Maryland at $1,006,000,000; the Transbay Corridor Core Capacity project in California at $1,335,730,000; and the Queens Railroad Project in New York at $294,781,579.
The letter also highlighted three additional projects that Ernst said were omitted from the official audit despite being over budget and behind schedule. These include the Subway Extension to Silicon Valley, California, receiving over $5 billion; the San Francisco Transit Center at $3.38 billion; and the Minneapolis Light Rail project in Minnesota at roughly $939 million. According to Ernst, the Department of Transportation has committed $9.4 billion to these three projects alone.
“If these can’t be salvaged with better management, they too should be canceled,” Ernst wrote. She suggested that the total $14 billion could be redirected to higher-priority infrastructure needs or used to help pay down the national debt, which she noted has surpassed $37 trillion.
Although the audit of California’s high-speed rail project was over 300 pages long, Ernst noted that the DOT’s summary of the other 14 projects required by her provision was condensed into a one-page chart. She called for greater detail in future “boondoggle reports,” including information on budget overruns, schedule delays, and additional DOD-supported transportation efforts.
Ernst has made opposition to progressive rail mandates a priority in recent months. In May, she introduced the LOCOMOTIVES Act to block states like California from using EPA waivers to require all new trains to be zero-emission by 2030. That proposal had included limits on train idling, restrictions on older railcars, and new spending mandates for rail operators. California later withdrew its waiver request.
Ernst concluded her letter by offering support for DOT’s ongoing efforts and stated that she looked forward to “getting the number of projects listed in future reports down to zero, by whatever means necessary.”
#3
In a sense this project has pretty much but the brakes on enthusiasm for High Speed Rail in the US.
If the Bakersfield to Merced line ever gets going the many shots of 10-20% filled passenger cars will pretty much end this.
Of course common sense and honest analysis could have ended it years ago.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
08/08/2025 15:29 Comments ||
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#4
I was enthusiastic about this project when it was first on the ballot. I voted for it. I still think trains are great. If you ever drive on Interstate 5 from Los Angeles to Sacrament, you'll have some idea what I mean. If you could ever see how well the trains work in Japan you might understand.
The problem in California is not that trains are a bad idea. The problem is that all the money for this project has been stolen by the criminals who run our state.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/08/2025 16:26 Comments ||
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#5
Brightline is the only privately owned and operated intercity passenger railroad in the United States. Brightline's maximum operating speed is 125 mph (200 km/h). Trains cover the 235-mile (378 km) route in 3 hours and 25 minutes, with an average speed of 69 mph.Wiki
Enjoy comfortable, sustainable train service between Miami and Orlando — with stops in Aventura, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, and West Palm Beach. Brightline
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/08/2025 16:50 Comments ||
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#6
They just stole the money.
Remember when $25 billion for a border wall was totally out of the question? Far too expensive, we can't afford that.
#7
CPC in China executed officials who stole money when they were building their HSR.Good guy CPC.
Those trains are great. Roomy, can walk around unlike an airliner, run on time and don't stink.
#8
The problem is the Chinese national debt, so much of which is tied up in mortgages on entire cities built on spec that are empty, unlivable, crumbling, and unsaleable. And the below-replacement birthrate leading to falling population tracking a few decades behind Japan.
But the trains running on time is certainly something to be proud of, in that part of the world.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
