Tag Archives: Indiana

China seeking to buy more farmland in Indiana

Chinese-Farmland-owned-in-Indiana-map

Important Takeaways:

  • Indiana farmers raise national security fears as China buys up over 600 acres, as lawmakers try to ban purchases near military bases amid spying threat
  • Indiana lawmakers propose a law banning certain land ownership by China
  • Purchases near military bases or national guard armories would be barred
  • 24 states have passed similar laws including Alabama, Idaho and Virginia
  • The Indiana bill does not ban specific countries, but defers to the US Commerce Department’s list of adversaries, which currently includes China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba.
  • At least 24 other US states have passed similar laws restriction certain forms of foreign land ownership.
  • Federal data show that Chinese firms and investors own just over 383,934 acres in the US as of 2021, making it the 18th largest foreign investor.
  • That’s far less than the land owned by the top foreign land owners: Canada, Netherlands, Italy, the UK and Germany.

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Indiana and Michigan hit by deadly storms

Revelation 16:9 “They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Deadly storms unleash damaging winds, trigger mass power outages
  • A line of storms that produced a windy start to the week in the Midwest was responsible for at least two deaths Monday night and more than half a million power outages in Michigan and four other states, with wind gusts topping out at alarming speeds in several other locales.
  • Both Indiana and Michigan dealt with dangerous wind gusts due to the storms, including 81-mph gusts in Lowell, Indiana, 70-mph gusts at Detroit’s City Airport and a 66-mph gust reported in Holland, Michigan, according to AccuWeather data.

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Indiana governor meets with Taiwan president defying the CCP’s wishes

Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

Important Takeaways:

  • China sends four military aircraft towards Taiwan airspace hours after Indiana’s governor met nation’s president in another show of defiance against the CCP
  • The four aircraft crossed the median line, an unofficial barrier in the Taiwan strait
  • Eric Holcomb, the Republican governor of Indiana, landed in Taiwan on Sunday
  • He then met with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen on Monday in Taipei
  • Holcomb emphasized the economic nature of his visit, mentioning that the state is among the top in the U.S. for direct foreign investment
  • US-China tensions have risen since Beijing staged huge military drills in retaliation for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan earlier this month

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Indiana Mall shooter taken out by armed Good Samaritan

Matthew 5:10 ““Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Report: Armed Citizen Foils Mass Shooting, Kills Indiana Mall Attacker
  • WTHR notes that witnesses heard about 20 shots ring out in the food court during the attack.
  • Greenwood Chief James Ison indicated that “a good Samaritan witnessed the shooting and shot and killed the shooter.”
  • Two other individuals were injured.
  • Police indicated that the attacker was an adult male but provided no greater detail.

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Concerned Citizens and Parents cheer School Board over blocking Satan Club

Ephesians 6:13 “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Applause Erupts as Hundreds of Parents Cheer School Board for Blocking After-School Satan Club
  • The Northern York County School District board voted 8-1 against a parent’s request for the satanic club at Northern Elementary School in Dillsburg, the York Daily Record reports.
  • Hundreds of people attended the meeting and erupted in applause when the board vote was taken.
  • “Look at the range of our students the children suffering from mental health issues, suicide, anxiety, depression all these things are off the chart and my heart goes out to these kids,” one resident at the meeting said. “More than ever we need a God in this world and this proposal in the opposite direction (of God).”
  • There are currently four After School Satan Clubs currently in operation in the U.S.  Those chapters are in Indiana and Ohio.

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Department of Agriculture confirmed first case of Avian flu since 2020

Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

Important Takeaways:

  • Avian flu has been detected in Indiana turkey flock, officials say
  • This is not the first time bird flu has struck the area: an outbreak tore through 11 farms in the county in January 2016, leading to the death of more than 400,000 birds, the State Board of Animal Health told The Associated Press.
  • Denise Derrer Spears, a spokeswoman for the Indiana State Board of Animal Health, confirmed to CBS News that approximately 29,000 turkeys would be killed to ensure the disease does not spread.
  • The USDA stressed that no cases of the virus have since been detected in humans and said there is no immediate public health concern

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U.S. to carry out fifth federal execution after 17-year pause

By Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) – The U.S. government was due to execute Keith Nelson, a convicted child murderer, on Friday afternoon in what would be its fifth execution since it resumed carrying out capital punishment this summer after a 17-year hiatus.

The execution was scheduled to take place at 4 p.m. (2000 GMT) at the U.S. Department of Justice’s execution chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana, using lethal injections of pentobarbital, a powerful barbiturate.

On Thursday, a federal judge overseeing legal challenges to the execution protocol by Nelson and other death row inmates ruled that the Justice Department’s protocol violated drug safety laws.

Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court in Washington ordered Nelson’s execution be delayed until the Justice Department revised its protocol to comply with the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, including a requirement that a drug can only be issued on a clinician’s prescription.

The Justice Department challenged the injunction delaying the execution in the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit. The appeals court overturned the injunction on Thursday evening, ruling that Chutkan had not established that violations of the act constituted “irreparable harm.”

Chutkan spoke with lawyers representing Nelson and the Justice Department in a telephone conference on Friday as she considered a request by Nelson’s lawyers to revise her order or issue a new one blocking Friday’s execution.

Nelson, who was convicted of raping and murdering 10-year-old Pamela Butler in Kansas in 1999, is one of more than a dozen inmates on federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana, who sued the Justice Department over its lethal injection protocol, which was announced in 2019, replacing the old three-drug protocol last used in 2003.

Three of those plaintiffs have since been executed by the Justice Department after the U.S. Supreme Court swiftly dismissed earlier injunctions issued by Chutkan delaying the executions to allow the litigation to proceed.

U.S. to execute only Native American on federal death row

By Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) – The United States is set to execute Lezmond Mitchell, a convicted murderer and the only Native American on federal death row, on Wednesday, despite opposition from the Navajo Nation, which says the government is infringing tribal sovereignty.

Mitchell, a Navajo, is set to be killed with lethal injections of pentobarbital, a powerful barbiturate, at 6 p.m. in the Department of Justice’s execution chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana.

His lawyers and Jonathan Nez, the Navajo Nation president, have asked U.S. President Donald Trump for clemency, and Mitchell has asked the U.S. District Court in Washington to delay the execution while this is considered.

On Tuesday night, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his bid for a stay based on his lawyers’ argument that racial bias may have tainted the jury at his trial.

Absent intervention, Mitchell, 38, will become the fourth man to be executed by the U.S. government this summer after an informal 17-year hiatus, which was caused in part by legal challenges to lethal injection protocols and difficulties obtaining deadly drugs.

Mitchell and an accomplice, Johnny Oslinger, were convicted of murdering a 9-year-old Navajo girl, Tiffany Lee, and her grandmother Alyce Slim in 2001 on the tribe’s territory, which spans four states in the U.S. Southwest.

According to prosecutors, the men stabbed Slim more than 30 times, put the body in the backseat of her car alongside the granddaughter as they drove elsewhere before killing the girl later and decapitating both bodies.

Mitchell was sentenced to death in an Arizona federal court over the objection of Navajo officials, who said the tribe’s cultural values prohibited taking human life “for vengeance.” At least 13 other tribes joined the Navajo Nation in urging Trump this month to commute Mitchell’s sentence to life in prison.

Oslinger was a teenager at the time and ineligible for the death sentence.

Under the Major Crimes Act, the federal government has jurisdiction over certain major crimes occurring on Indian territory, including murder but usually cannot pursue capital punishment for a Native American for a crime on tribal land without the tribe’s consent.

Navajo officials, along with other leaders of other tribes, have opposed the death penalty, including in Mitchell’s case. But John Ashcroft, attorney general under then-President George W. Bush, overrode federal prosecutors in Arizona who said they would defer to the tribe’s position against pursuing a capital case.

In what Mitchell’s lawyers deride as a legal loophole, federal prosecutors successfully pursued a capital case against Mitchell for carjacking, a capital crime that is not among those listed in the Major Crimes Act.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

COVID-19 outbreak in hard-hit U.S. states may be peaking, Fauci says

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A coronavirus surge in Florida, California and a handful of other hard-hit states could be peaking while other parts of the country may be on the cusp of growing outbreaks, the top U.S. infectious diseases official said on Tuesday.

A spike in cases in Florida, along with Texas, Arizona and California this month has overwhelmed hospitals, forced a U-turn on steps to reopen economies and stoked fears that U.S. efforts to control the outbreak are sputtering.

“They may be cresting and coming back down,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” program regarding the state of the outbreak in several Sunbelt states.

Fauci said there was a “very early indication” that the percentage of coronavirus tests that were positive was starting to rise in other states, such as Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky.

“That’s a surefire sign that you’ve got to be careful.”

He urged the states with rising positivity rates to act quickly now to prevent a surge and other states to reopen carefully following guidelines established by U.S. officials and health experts.

Fauci has become a lightning rod for some supporters of President Donald Trump who accuse the 79-year-old health official of exaggerating the extent and severity of the U.S. outbreak and playing down possible treatments.

Trump, who is seeking a second term in the White House in the Nov. 3 election, retweeted a post accusing Fauci and Democrats of suppressing the use of the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat the virus. The post included a link to a video of a group discounting the need for face masks.

A Twitter spokesman confirmed that tweets with the video were in violation of the company’s COVID-19 misinformation policy, and the tweets shared by Trump were deleted.

In his interview with ABC, Fauci defended his work to protect Americans’ health.

“I have not been misleading the American public under any circumstances,” he said.

RISING TOLL

The number of people in the United States who have died of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, rose to 148,446 on Monday, with more than 4.3 million confirmed cases, according to the latest Reuters tally.

Florida had 191 coronavirus deaths in the last 24 hours, the highest single-day increase since the start of the epidemic, its state health department reported on Tuesday.

Texas became the fourth state with more than 400,000 total cases, joining California, Florida and New York in the grim club. But in a glimmer of hope, Texas’ current hospitalizations due to COVID-19 fell on Monday, according to its state health department.

The rise in deaths and infections has dampened early hopes that the country was past the worst of the economic fallout in March and April when lockdowns brought business activity to a near standstill and put millions out of work.

The U.S. Congress on Tuesday was locked in difficult talks over another coronavirus aid package to help American families and businesses recover from the crisis.

In late March, as the economy was beginning to crater, Congress passed a $2.3 trillion stimulus package that included enhanced unemployment benefits to blunt the pain of lockdowns that were being adopted to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Senate Republicans announced on Monday a $1 trillion coronavirus aid package hammered out with the White House, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell touted as a “tailored and targeted” plan to reopen schools and businesses, while protecting companies from lawsuits.

But the proposal sparked immediate opposition from both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats decried it as too limited compared with their $3 trillion proposal that passed the House of Representatives in May. Some Republicans called that one too expensive.

The Republican proposal would give many Americans direct payments of $1,200 each, provide billions in loans to small businesses and help schools reopen. But it would slash the current expanded unemployment benefit from $600 per week in addition to state unemployment to $200 per week. The enhanced unemployment benefit expires on Friday.

The supplemental benefit has been a financial lifeline for laid-off workers and a key support for consumer spending.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Daniel Trotta, Patricia Zengerle and Lisa Shumaker; Writing by Paul Simao; Editing by Howard Goller)

Ten more states added to New York quarantine order: Cuomo

(Reuters) – Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday ordered those arriving in New York from an additional 10 states to quarantine for 14 days to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus as cases flare up across the country.

Alaska, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Virginia, Washington were added to the travel order which was first issued in June. Minnesota was removed.

Travelers arriving in New York from a total of 31 U.S. states are now required to quarantine upon arrival in New York, according to the travel advisory.

(Reporting by Maria Caspani, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)