Important Takeaways:
- US Bank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citizen, Chase and PNC are shutting hundreds of branches a year – here is what to do if your bank closes
- Banks are shutting hundreds of branches a year – this month some 41 closures were announced in a single week and among those affected were nine US Bank locations.
- Bank of America, Chase, PNC, Citizen, Capital One, First National Bank of Pennsylvania and Huntington also said they were axing branches.
- Such closures deal a huge blow to customers looking to visit in person to submit a document, make a withdrawal or deposit, cash in a check or simply run through their finances with a trusted bank manager.
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Important Takeaways:
- TSA introduced facial recognition technology into the screening process at select airports. The facial recognition technology represents a significant security enhancement and improves traveler convenience. A traveler may voluntarily agree to use their face to verify their identity during the screening process by presenting their physical identification or passport. The facial recognition technology TSA uses helps ensure the person standing at the checkpoint is the same person pictured on the identification document (ID) credential. Photos are not stored or saved after a positive ID match has been made, except in a limited testing environment for evaluation of the effectiveness of the technology.
- The agency is using second-generation Credential Authentication Technology (CAT-2) scanners as travelers enter the screening process. This technology assists Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) in verifying the authenticity of a traveler’s ID credential, as well as their flight status and vetting status. TSOs must direct all passengers to the proper lane, either TSA PreCheck® screening, standard screening, or enhanced screening. The CAT-2 units are currently deployed at nearly 30 airports nationwide, and will expand to the more than 400 federalized airports over the coming years.
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Important Takeaways:
- “China has signaled interest in joining discussions on setting rules and norms for AI, and we should welcome that,” said Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund to the Breaking Defense site. “The White House is interested in engaging China on limiting the role of AI in command and control of nuclear weapons.”
- [N]o, America should not want to enter into any AI agreement with the People’s Republic of China on “nuclear C2” — command and control — or any other matter.
- An agreement requiring a human to make launch decisions would, as a practical matter, be unenforceable.
- None of China, Russia, or the United States would allow others to pore over millions of lines of their computer code…..
- America does not need another feel-good agreement with China. It already has them, especially the Biological Weapons Convention, which has no enforcement mechanisms.
- The Chinese regime wants to talk about artificial intelligence largely because it is trailing the U.S. and thinks an agreement would help it catch up…. [and] pave the way for China to access the U.S. technology it does not already have.
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Important Takeaways:
- U.S. members of Congress introduced a proposed law called the BIOSECURE Act that would ban the use of tax dollars for the utilization of genetics companies from China that collaborate with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
- This is a good bill, but one must ask: How in the world have we allowed such a practice to continue to this day? Why does the executive branch of the U.S. government need a law for such a common-sense rule that it could have made policy long ago?
- We should have had an all-of-government, if not all-of-society, effort since at least the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 to end reliance on China, especially companies linked to its military. We should most especially have limited the release of genetic data to Beijing.
- As noted in the House announcement, but not in most of the bill’s mainstream media coverage, the proposed law is in part meant to stop the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from using U.S. genetic data for malign purposes, including genetic targeting of U.S. citizens with bioweapons.
- “Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) collects genetic data of Americans [and] uses it for research with the Chinese military,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) in the bill’s announcement. Mr. Gallagher chairs the House Select Committee on the CCP. He introduced the House version of the bill, along with his Democratic co-chair.
- “The CCP will undoubtedly use the genetic data collected by BGI to further its malign aggression, potentially even to develop a bioweapon used to target the American people,” Mr. Gallagher noted.
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Important Takeaways:
- Michael Cassidy faces up to five years in prison for his actions against the satanic altar of Baphomet and/or thousands of dollars in fines if convicted. He will be arraigned on February 15.
- A Christian Navy veteran is facing a hate crime charge after he destroyed a Satanic Temple idol set up at the Iowa State Capitol.
- Polk County prosecutors upgraded the charge against Michael Cassidy to a hate crime felony charge.
- “Mr. Cassidy dismantled the Baphomet Altar on Dec. 14 at the Iowa State Capitol and destroyed the headpiece, according to an Iowa State Patrol report,” the attorney’s office stated in a news release Tuesday. “Based on information from the victims, the cost to replace or repair the property is between $750 and $1,500. That amount would make the offense third-degree criminal mischief, an aggravated misdemeanor, according to Iowa Code Section 716.5.”
- The display was set up near a Nativity scene at the state capitol.
- The Navy veteran, who is from Mississippi, has previously stated he was motivated by his religion to tear down the idol.
- “The world may tell Christians to submissively accept the legitimization of Satan, but none of the founders would have considered government sanction of Satanic altars inside Capitol buildings as protected by the First Amendment,” Cassidy told Christian publication The Sentinel. “Anti-Christian values have steadily been mainstreamed more and more in recent decades, and Christians have largely acted like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot of water.”
- “I saw this blasphemous statue and was outraged,” Cassidy said in December last year. “My conscience is held captive to the word of God, not to bureaucratic decree. And so I acted.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Ukraine set to receive new game-changing US-made ‘glide bombs’ with 100-mile range as soon as today in new frontline blow to Putin
- Ukraine is set to receive a first batch of new long-range missiles that will be able to strike deep into Russian-held territory.
- The new 100-mile ‘glide missiles’ could prove to be a game changer in Kyiv’s military capabilities, and in its fight against Vladimir Putin’s invading forces.
- Built by Boeing and Saab, the new precision-guided missiles will also supplement Ukraine’s existing ATACM rockets, which are provided by the US.
- Their arrival follows months of testing by the United States military, but even the US doesn’t have these weapons in its arsenal, sources cited by Politico said.
- Ukraine is set to receive the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bombs as early as today, according to the US officials familiar with the matter, a relief for officials in Kyiv after the EU said it would provide only half the shells it promised by March.
- A precision-guided weapon of this type could allow Ukraine to again strike high-value targets more consistently and conserve its ever-dwindling supply of shells that it vitally needs to keep Russian advances at bay in the coming months and year.
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Important Takeaways:
- Tehran warns Biden that if US strikes Iranian soil in retaliation for death of three soldiers the Islamist regime will hit back at American targets across the Middle East – sparking all-out war between the foes
- Tehran has told Washington, via intermediaries, that it will attack U.S. targets in the Middle East if the Pentagon launches strikes on Iranian soil
- The grim warning came as the world holds its breath to see how Joe Biden will respond to the killing of three U.S. soldiers by Iranian-backed militias.
- Joe Biden on Tuesday said that he had made up his mind about how to respond to Sunday’s killing of three U.S. service members by an Iranian-backed militia
- The strikes are expected to take place over time, and in waves: targets could include Iranian naval vessels in the Persian Gulf, or a cyberattack
- The Pentagon has existing plans for potential strikes on Iranian missile sites and air bases, in case a conflict broke out between Iran and Israel. Israel has been carrying out high-profile bombing runs, practicing attacks on the Natanz nuclear site and the underground facility at Fordow.
- The cyberattack would disable Iran’s air defenses, communications systems and crucial parts of its power grid.
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Important Takeaways:
- Dem-led Portland declares state of emergency over fentanyl crisis: Oregon Governor wades into turmoil three years after woke city decriminalized drugs that has caused ‘economic and reputational harm’
- Oregon leaders have declared a 90-day state of emergency in Portland to battle the city’s debilitating fentanyl crisis three years after decriminalizing possession of all drugs.
- Governor Tina Kotek, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson made the declaration and are directing their agencies to work with first responders in connecting people addicted to the synthetic opioid with resources including drug treatment programs and to crack down on drug sales.
- Fentanyl addicts who interact with first responders in Portland’s downtown in the next 90 days will be triaged by this new command center. Staff can connect people with various resources from a bed in a drug treatment center to meeting with a behavioral health clinician to help with registering for food stamps.
- ‘Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,’ Kotek said.
- Oregon became the first state in the country to decriminalize the possession of all drugs including heroin and cocaine in 2020.
- But residents have since demanded for politicians to take action on the open-air drug markets that surfaced and fueled a homelessness crisis.
- Opioid deaths in Oregon more than tripled from 280, before the de-criminalization of drugs was voted in, to 955 in 2022.
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Important Takeaways:
- Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds
- According to a Jan. 25 report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, roughly 653,000 people reported experiencing homelessness in January of 2023, up roughly 12% from the same time a year prior and 48% from 2015. That marks the largest single-year increase in the country’s unhoused population on record, Harvard researchers said.
- Homelessness, long a problem in states such as California and Washington, has also increased in historically more affordable parts of the U.S. Arizona, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas have seen the largest growths in their unsheltered populations due to rising local housing costs.
- That alarming jump in people struggling to keep a roof over their head came amid blistering inflation in 2021 and 2022 and as surging rental prices across the U.S. outpaced worker wage gains. Although a range of factors can cause homelessness, high rents and the expiration of pandemic relief last year contributed to the spike in housing insecurity, the researchers found.
- The median rent in the U.S. was $1,964 in December 2023, up 23% from before the pandemic
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