News

Andy Byron, the chief executive of New York-based tech company Astronomer, has resigned from his role after he was spotted embracing an employee at a Coldplay concert, according to a statement shared with CNN on Saturday.

Astronomer’s board of directors accepted Byron’s resignation and will begin searching for its next CEO, according to the statement.

A man was convicted and deported to Mexico, and at least 26 other people have been arrested under a Florida immigration law that officials were ordered not to enforce.

Like most of the more than 230 Venezuelan men deported to a Salvadoran prison, José Manuel Ramos Bastidas had followed U.S. immigration rules. Then Trump rewrote them.

Source.

Source.

• Foreclosures Focused in Maine: Since March, the USDA has filed 56 foreclosures in the federal court system against properties purchased with a rural development mortgage. All but one were in Maine.
• USDA Delayed Action: The Maine borrowers have been in default for an average of nearly nine years, racking up more debt because of the interest and fees that piled up in intervening years.
• National Problem: About 20% of USDA Section 502 direct loans across the nation were delinquent as of March, according to internal agency data.

As a new postmaster general with ties to FedEx assumes control of the agency, postal workers and their customers are bracing for either scenario, especially as corporate America weighs in.

White House.

The Texas attorney general said U.S. Masters Swimming violated the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act by allowing trans athletes to compete in women’s events.

The Senate has approved the Trump administration's $9 billion rescission package aimed at clawing back money already allocated for public radio and television — a major step toward winding down nearly six decades of federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

• Short-Lived Investigation: After Clayton Strong drove his wife’s body to a hospital in Idaho, the coroner took his word that it was a natural death.
• A History of Red Flags: Police had previously made repeated visits to the Strongs’ home in Florida. After an officer called in adult protective services, the couple left town.
• Another Wife Dies: Clayton Strong was indicted in murder of the next woman he married. Both women’s families say Idaho’s flawed coroner system is partly to blame and needs reform.

After he committed to unmasking extremist groups in North Carolina and beyond, reporter Jordan Green got a first-hand look at how a movement known as ‘militant accelerationism’ operates.

Original article at DailyKos.

Mirelys Casique was ready to be reunited with her son, 24-year-old Francisco Garcia Casique. In March, Francisco called Mirelys from an ICE facility to say that he was being deported back home to Venezuela the following day. After 6 years apart, they would finally see each other again.

But Francisco would never arrive on Venezuelan soil.

Instead, he was deported to El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison along with more than 230 others.

“I was so hopeful, waiting for him on the couch, waiting for the news that the planes were arriving in Venezuela,” Mirelys told Daily Kos.

But when images began to circulate on social media of the shaved and shackled men forced to kneel on CECOT’s concrete floors, Mirelys knew that Francisco would not be coming home.

“I wanted to bang my head against the wall, refusing to believe my son belonged in that place,” she said.

Francisco, like many of the people who President Donald Trump deported without just cause through use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, had no prior criminal convictions. Rather, he was targeted because of his tattoos and the fact that he’s from Aragua, the Venezuelan town home to the Tren de Aragua gang.

And while the Trump administration has labeled Francisco a dangerous criminal to justify keeping him in El Salvador, his mother says otherwise.

“He was always a barber, a worker, responsible,” she told Daily Kos.

Before arriving in the United States in 2023, Francisco was living in Peru working as a barber. Ultimately, Francisco would cross the border illegally into the United States and later turn himself in, beginning a lengthy process of mandatory court hearings as he attempted to become a legal resident. In the meantime, he lived and worked in Texas.

“He left Venezuela to help his family as the eldest son, not to end up abused and locked in a prison as if he were a terrorist,” Mirelys said.

And while the Department of Homeland Security insists that Francisco is a member of Tren de Aragua, the young barber was part of an administrative mixup in the past.

An online Texas database listed suspected gang members, including Francisco. But the photo was incorrectly identified and was actually of an older, bearded man completely unaffiliated with Francisco. Despite being listed in the database, Francisco was released from ICE custody, given an ankle monitor, and labeled nonthreatening as he awaited trial.

But after Trump took office, Mirelys told Daily Kos, everything changed. On Feb. 6, ICE agents broke down Francisco’s door and violently abducted him in the middle of the night.

“It was a kidnapping,” she said.

Mirelys, like many other relatives of the Venezuelan men being held in CECOT, has not heard from her son since he boarded the deportation flight.

“Francisco is a humble young man. We are low-income people, but that doesn’t mean we should be labeled criminals or bad people,” she said.

On June 16, Mirelys—along with four other relatives of detained men—traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, to plead for the United Nations to step in. Many have also tried traveling directly to El Salvador to see their loved ones. But even with lawyers at their side, the trips have been unsuccessful.

And while Mirelys’ story of a heartbroken mother may resonate with the citizens of Geneva, she has returned to Venezuela without the results she was hoping for.

“Many have spoken out in support, but we want action,” she told Daily Kos. “We want this to end soon. We don’t know the extent of their physical and mental deterioration.”

As reports have surfaced regarding the torture inside CECOT, the wellbeing of the deported Venezuelan men is a top concern.

It’s unclear what the next legal steps will be as people like Mirelys await their relatives’ hopeful release. While the Trump administration previously said that the responsibility to release anyone was in the hands of El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele has now insisted that El Salvador is simply holding them as a favor for the United States.

For Mirelys, all she can do is continue to tell her son’s story and hold onto hope.

“I want the world to know that even though we are going through this great pain and we are destroyed because this is an injustice—because evil wants to stalk us and hurt our families—we still believe in God, and God is just and good,” she said. “He will return our children to us.”

Azraiel Raines dreamed of working for the State Department, when she graduated from Idaho State University with a degree in global studies.

But the State Department is not hiring. In fact it cut more than 1,300 jobs this past week as part of a broader government downsizing.

"My very first avenue was poof, gone," Raines says.

As graduation approached, she interviewed at law firms, but never got a call back. Applications for school district jobs also came up empty.

"I was panicking," Raines says. "What am I going to do if I don't have a job after graduation?"

Eventually, she landed a position in the counseling department at her alma mater in Pocatello, Idaho, where she oversees community outreach.

"Which is not something I envisioned myself doing," Raines says. "But it's using my skills in ways I didn't think I'd be able to, and the people there have been really great, so it's helped a lot."

Economists say Raines is not alone among recent college graduates in struggling to find work. Although the overall unemployment rate is just 4.1%, few people are quitting jobs today, and employers are skittish about hiring.

Source.

Source.

On Thursday federal immigration agents joined by National Guard soldiers carried out two brutal immigration raids in Carpinteria and Camarillo, California, which left at least one worker dead and several others hospitalized. Reports indicate as many as 200 people have been taken by the immigration Gestapo.

In a post on social media, the United Farm Workers union confirmed that a “farm worker” died of injuries “sustained as a result of yesterday’s immigration enforcement action.”

In a GoFundMe, Yeseni Duran said her uncle Jaime Garcia, “was chased by ICE agents and we were told he fell 30 [feet].” In an interview with ABC 7, Garcia’s family confirmed he had broken his neck and skull.

Duran wrote that her “uncle Jaime” was “just a hard-working, innocent farmer. He has his wife and daughter waiting for him.”