Sheriffs are poised to play a key role in helping federal agents secure the border and deport illegal immigrants under President-elect Donald Trump.  |
- Sheriffs are poised to play a key role in helping federal agents secure the border and deport illegal immigrants under President-elect Donald Trump.
- The state of New York will charge carbon-emitting companies an estimated $75 billion in climate damage they allegedly caused between 2000 and 2018.
- A former Chinese official is sounding the alarm over the communist regime's forced organ harvesting based on his own experience in China.
- Finnish authorities boarded a Russian-linked crude oil tanker on Dec. 26 to investigate the suspected sabotage of the Estlink-2 undersea power cable.
- Three classic novels illustrate the importance of male friendship. Column after the news.
|
☀️ It's Friday. Thank you for reading Morning Brief. |
|
|
A Kinney County sheriff's deputy arrests a woman for smuggling illegal immigrants, in Brackettville, Texas, on July 22, 2022. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times |
Sheriffs are poised to play a key role in helping federal agents secure the border and deport illegal immigrants under President-elect Donald Trump. Trump made mass deportation of illegal immigrants a key part of his campaign to win a second term as almost 11 million people flooded into the country illegally since 2021. The president-elect's incoming border czar, Tom Homan, has signaled a new era of federal, state, and local cooperation when it comes to deporting illegal immigrants. Homan, the former acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), indicated he will first target those who have criminal convictions or are wanted for crimes. "The nation wants a safe country. We've had enough crime in this country," Homan said during a stop at the Texas border in November. Sheriffs in the nation's 3,100 counties could play an essential role in helping ICE to identify and detain illegal immigrants, said Sam Bushman, CEO of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), a conservative organization that opposes "unconstitutional" government overreach. As chief law enforcement officers in their counties, elected sheriffs have more latitude than appointed police chiefs. They have authority over criminal investigations, serving warrants, managing county jails, and providing court security within the county. Bushman foresees cooperation between willing county, state, and federal authorities to deport illegal immigrants, possibly through the creation of a new coordination agency or command center. (More) More Politics |
- Our Supreme Court reporter, Sam Dorman, rounds up the biggest decisions from the nation's top court in 2024.
- Nippon Steel no longer expects to close its acquisition of U.S. Steel in 2024, as President Joe Biden has 15 days to decide on the fate of the merger.
|
The state of New York will charge carbon-emitting companies an estimated $75 billion in climate damage they allegedly caused between 2000 and 2018 under a law enacted on Dec. 26. Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Climate Change Superfund Act into law on Thursday. The law is certain to be challenged in court as a state preemption of federal regulatory oversight. Adopted by lawmakers in June, the law—which goes into effect in 2028—will annually assess large companies' carbon emissions across those first 19 years of the 21st century to "repair damage caused by extreme weather" they said aggravated by greenhouse gas emissions. "New York has fired a shot that will be heard round the world: the companies most responsible for the climate crisis will be held accountable," said Democratic state Sen. Liz Krueger, a lead sponsor of the New York Climate Change Superfund Act. The bill estimates compliance will cost about three dozen of the state's largest carbon-emitting companies about $3 billion collectively each year for the next 25 years—$75 billion in total. That would be 15 percent of the $500 billion the Fiscal Policy Institute estimates the law could actually end up costing by 2050. "With nearly every record rainfall, heat wave, and coastal storm, New Yorkers are increasingly burdened with billions of dollars in health, safety, and environmental consequences due to polluters that have historically harmed our environment," Hochul said in a Dec. 26 statement released by her office, noting that $500 billion equates to "more than $65,000 per household." The money will go into a Climate Change Adaptation Cost Recovery Program to restore and protect coastal wetlands, and upgrade roads, bridges, and stormwater systems, among other infrastructure resiliency projects and programs. (More) More U.S. News |
- Apple is asking a federal judge to let it intervene as a defendant in Google's antitrust case as the court crafts remedies for what the judge said was anticompetitive conduct in the search engine market.
- With Amazon's five-day-a-week return-to-office mandate about to take effect, many are wondering if the explosion in remote working is coming to an end in 2025.
|
A former Chinese official is sounding the alarm over the communist regime's forced organ harvesting based on his own experience in China. Du Wen, a former executive director of the Legal Advisory Office of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Government, was wrongfully imprisoned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for 12 years before going abroad and settling in Belgium in 2023. During his time in prison, Du learned first-hand that death-row prisoners have their organs collected before they die. He also encountered wealthy inmates who described how easy it is to obtain a matching organ, suggesting that hospitals are sourcing the organs from living people. "Every single advertisement is evidence. Every phone call is evidence: organs are being openly bought and sold," Du said of the organ transplant advertisements that were seen outside major hospitals in Beijing. The CCP's mass killing-for-profit scheme of forced organ harvesting has existed in China as early as the 1990s. The London-based independent China Tribunal in 2019 unanimously concluded that prisoners of conscience have been—and continue to be—killed in China for their organs "on a significant scale." Over the past two decades, the main victims of forced organ harvesting have been practitioners of Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, an exercise, meditation and spiritual practice based on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. The issue of forced organ harvesting had attracted increased attention this year, with the first known survivor escaping to the United States and stepping forward. (More) More World News: |
🎤 American Thought Leaders: Kyle Bass discusses the future of TikTok and the collapse of the Chinese economy. (Watch) ▶️Facts Matter: A Supreme Court ruling cut this state in half (Watch) 🔀Crossroads: The partial greenlight to shoot down mystery drones raises new questions. (Watch) 🍿 Documentary: "Losing Sight of Shore" follows four women who rowed more than 8,000 miles from California to Australia. (Watch free on Gan Jing World) ✍️ Opinion: Assad's Downfall May Disrupt Strategic Interests of China, Russia, Iran by Alexander Liao, Olivia Li and Sean Tseng 🍵 Health: Try these five hot exercises to help you shed unwanted pounds. 🎵Music: "My Fatherland" by Bedřich Smetana. (Listen)
📷 Photo of the Day: A train arrives with family members of the victims on board at a special memorial monument to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 2004 tsunami, in Peraliya, Sri Lanka, on Dec. 26, 2024.👇
|
Ishara Kodikara/AFP via Getty Images |
Our photography editors comb through the best images in the world every day. See their picks for today. ➞ |
Homer's "Iliad," Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray," and Corman McCarthy's "The Road" illustrate the role of friendship in a man's life. |
What is the nature of male friendship? The following three works explore what both healthy and unhealthy male friendships look like, giving us insight into male psychology and why it's important for men to have strong relationships with other men. 'The Iliad' by Homer At the foundation of Western civilization stands an epic work that deals with war, peace, fate, free will, heroism, and friendship. In an age when waging war was an exclusively male occupation, it's no surprise that a poem focused on the blistering uproar of combat would have much to say about the bonds between men, particularly the bonds hardened in the furnace of war. 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde "The Picture of Dorian Gray" provides an image of how friends can influence one another for the worse, and how male companionship can go astray. It's a warning to choose your friends wisely if you want to follow an upright path. 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy This novel deals with one of the most beautiful forms of male friendship: the relationship between father and son. The darkness of the setting and plot throw into greater relief the beauty of the father and son's relationship. They have no one but each other to hold onto—and that's enough. Each one aims simply to help the other, to love the other, and to persevere for the sake of the other. Each of these three stories shows how men bond through shared experiences and goals and how they inspire one another to take action—with the potential to become, ultimately, villains or heroes.
Click here to read the full story by our colleague Walker Larson.
|
|
|
Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful day. |
|
|
Copyright © 2024 The Epoch Times, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: The Epoch Times. 229 W. 28 St. Fl. 7 New York, NY 10001 | Contact Us Our Morning Brief newsletter is one of the best ways to catch up with the news. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, unsubscribe here. |
|
|
|
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon