Tag: finance

Facebook rushed to apologize on Friday after it labeled black men as “primates”. A Facebook spokesperson told The New York Times, which first reported the story, that it was a “clearly unacceptable error” of its auto-generated recommendation system and said the software involved was disabled.

“We apologize to anyone who may have seen these offensive recommendations,” Facebook – whose senior management team is completely white – said in response to an AFP inquiry. “We disabled the entire topic recommendation feature as soon as we realized this was happening so we could investigate the cause and prevent this from happening again.”

Facebook users in recent days who watched a British tabloid video featuring Black men were show an auto-generated prompt asking if they would like to “keep seeing videos about Primates?“

A screen capture of the recommendation was shared on Twitter by former Facebook content design manager Darci Groves, who said a friend sent her a screenshot of the video in question with the company’s auto-generated prompt. The video, dated 27 June 2020, was posted by UK’s Daily Mail.

It contained clips of two separate incidents, which appear to take place in the US. One shows a group of black men arguing with a white individual on a road in Connecticut, while the other shows several black men arguing with white police officers in Indiana before being detained. “This ‘keep seeing’ prompt is unacceptable,” Groves tweeted, aiming the message at former colleagues at Facebook. “This is egregious.”

Um. This “keep seeing” prompt is unacceptable, @Facebook. And despite the video being more than a year old, a friend got this prompt yesterday. Friends at FB, please escalate. This is egregious. pic.twitter.com/vEHdnvF8ui

— Darci Groves (@tweetsbydarci) September 2, 2021

​In response, a Facebook product manager said the company was “looking into the root cause”. The company later said the recommendation software involved had been disabled.

“We disabled the entire topic recommendation feature as soon as we realised this was happening so we could investigate the cause and prevent this from happening again,” a spokesperson was cited by The New York Times as saying.

Twitter users were split in their response to the AI-generated Facebook prompts. Some were shocked at how the platforms continued to fail addressing the issue.

Again?! How did we not learn this after Google?! They have a much larger data set, are they not training it any better?! Argh

— Bulbul Gupta (@bulbulnyc) September 4, 2021

And to think, this is the same AI that Zuck says will replace human content moderators…

— Chelsea 🙌🏻 (@thatchelseagirl) September 3, 2021

​Others proceeded to directly accuse Facebook of being racist, incompetent and evil.

They’re apologizing because their AI tagged Black men as primates,
even though they won’t rewrite the system? They keep making it obvious that the whites are coding and training the AI to be as racist as they are.

— TaryntheRealtor (@TaryntheR) September 4, 2021

Facebook is equal parts incompetent and evil.

— Chilly Freezesteak (@freezesteak) September 4, 2021

A third group saw nothing wrong with the AI algo that triggered the outrage.

This doesn’t happen because Facebook or any other tech company is racist. It happens because AI still isn’t very “smart”. I do this for a living and the tech is getting better, but it’s not there yet, which is why I still don’t own an auto driving vehicle.

— anton (@perchedfalcon) September 4, 2021

Humans are primates biologicaly. So what’s wrong on it? pic.twitter.com/NWPwYjPa9b

— David Michal (@DavidMi52138016) September 4, 2021

This is not the first time facial recognition software and “racist” AI has gotten in trouble. The latest AI fiasco comes as tech companies have come under fire for perceived biases displayed by their artificial intelligence software, despite the companies’ solemn pledges to the woke cause. Last year, Twitter investigated whether its automatic image cropper may be racially biased against black people as it selected which part of a picture to preview in tweets.

A faculty member has been asking how to stop Zoom from removing his head when he uses a virtual background. We suggested the usual plain background, good lighting etc, but it didn’t work. I was in a meeting with him today when I realized why it was happening.

— Colin Madland, PhD(c) (@colinmadland) September 19, 2020

​In 2015, Google’s algorithm reportedly tagged two Black people’s faces with the word “gorilla”, prompting the company to say it was “genuinely sorry that this happened,” in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.

Authored by Brian C. Joondeph via AmericanThinker.com,

First hydroxychloroquine, now ivermectin, is the hated deadly drug de jour, castigated by the medical establishment and regulatory authorities. Both drugs have been around for a long time as FDA-approved prescription medications. Yet now we are told they are as deadly as arsenic.

As a physician, I am certainly aware of ivermectin but don’t recall ever writing a prescription for it in my 30+ years’ medical career. Ivermectin is an anthelmintic, meaning it cures parasitic infections. In my world of ophthalmology, it is used on occasion for rare parasitic or worm infections in the eye.

Ivermectin was FDA approved in 1998 under the brand name Stromectol, produced by pharmaceutical giant Merck, approved for several parasitic infections. The product label described it as having a “unique mode of action,” which “leads to an increase in the permeability of the cell membrane to chloride ions.” This suggests that ivermectin acts as an ionophore, making cell membranes permeable to ions that enter the cell for therapeutic effect.

Ivermectin is one of several ionophores, others including hydroxychloroquine, quercetin, and resveratrol, the latter two available over the counter. These ionophores simply open a cellular door, allowing zinc to enter the cell, where it then interferes with viral replication, providing potential therapeutic benefit in viral and other infections.

This scientific paper reviews and references other studies demonstrating antibacterial, antiviral, and anticancer properties of ivermectin.

This explains the interest in this drug as having potential use in treating COVID.

Does ivermectin work in COVID?

I am not attempting to answer that question, instead looking at readily available information because this drug has been the focus of much recent media attention. For the benefit of any reader eager to report this article and author to the medical licensing boards for pushing misleading information, I am not offering medical advice or prescribing anything.  Rather, I am only offering commentary on this newsworthy and controversial drug.

What’s newsworthy about ivermectin? A simple Google search of most medications describes uses and side effects. A similar search of ivermectin provides headlines of why it shouldn’t be taken and how dangerous it is.

YouTube screen grab

The Guardian describes ivermectin as horse medicine reminding readers considering taking the drug, “You are not a horse. You are not a cow”, saying it’s a medicine meant for farm animals. The FDA echoed that sentiment in a recent tweet, adding “Seriously, y’all. Stop it,” their word choice making it obvious who the tweet was directed to.

Perhaps the FDA didn’t realize that Barack and Michelle Obama often used the term “y’all” and that some might construe the FDA tweet as racist.

The FDA says ivermectin “can be dangerous and even lethal,” yet they approved it in 1998 and have not pulled it from the market despite it being “dangerous and lethal.” Any medication can be “dangerous and lethal” if misused. People have even overdosed on water.

It is true that ivermectin is also used in animals, as are many drugs approved for human use.

This is a list of veterinary drugs with many familiar names of antibiotics, antihypertensives, and anesthetics commonly used by humans. Since these drugs are used in farm animals, should humans stop taking them? That seems a rather unscientific argument against ivermectin, especially coming from the FDA.

And healthcare professionals are not recommending or prescribing animal versions of ivermectin as there is an FDA-approved human formulation.

Does ivermectin work against COVID? That is the bigger question and worthy of investigation, rather than reminding people that they are not cows.

A study published several months ago in the American Journal of Therapeutics concluded,

Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance. Furthermore, results from numerous controlled prophylaxis trials report significantly reduced risks of contracting COVID-19 with the regular use of ivermectin. Finally, the many examples of ivermectin distribution campaigns leading to rapid population-wide decreases in morbidity and mortality indicate that an oral agent effective in all phases of COVID-19 has been identified.

To my knowledge, these 18 studies have not been retracted, unlike previous studies critical of hydroxychloroquine which were ignominiously retracted by prestigious medical journals like The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Yet the medical establishment refuses to even entertain the possibility of some benefit from ivermectin, castigating physicians who want to try it in their patients. 18 studies found benefit. Are they all wrong?

Podcaster Joe Rogan recently contracted COVID and recovered within days of taking a drug cocktail including ivermectin. Was it his drug cocktail, his fitness, or just good luck? Impossible to know but his experience will keep ivermectin in the news.

Highly unvaccinated India had a surge in COVID cases earlier this year which abruptly ended following the widespread use of ivermectin, over the objections and criticism of the WHO. In the one state, Tamil Nadu, that did not use ivermectin, cases tripled instead of dropping by 97 percent as in the rest of the country.

This is anecdotal and could have other explanations but the discovery of penicillin was also anecdotal and observational. Good science should investigate rather than ignore such observations.

The Japanese Medical Association recently endorsed ivermectin for COVID. The US CDC cautioned against it.

There is legal pushback as an Ohio judge ordered a hospital to treat a ventilated COVID patient with ivermectin. After a month on the ventilator, this patient is likely COVID free and ivermectin now will have no benefit, allowing the medical establishment to say “see I told you so” that it wouldn’t help.

By this point, active COVID infection is not the issue; instead, it is weaning off and recovery from long-term life support. The early hydroxychloroquine studies had the same flaw, treating patients too late in the disease course to provide or demonstrate benefit.

These drugs have been proposed for early outpatient treatment, not when patients are seriously ill and near death. Looking for treatment benefits in the wrong patient population will yield expected negative results.

Given how devastating COVID can be and how, despite high levels of vaccination in countries like the US, UK, and Israel, we are seeing surging cases and hospitalizations among the vaccinated, we should be pulling out all the stops in treating this virus.

Medical treatment involves balancing risks and benefits. When FDA-approved medications are used in appropriate doses for appropriate patients, prescribed by competent physicians, the risks tend to be low, and any benefit should be celebrated. Instead, the medical establishment, media, and regulatory authorities are taking the opposite approach. One has to wonder why.

Buried deep in the ongoing mess that is the Afghanistan evacuation, another ugly problem is rearing its head: older Afghan men have reportedly been admitted to intake centers with young girls they have claimed as their “brides”.

The problem has surfaced at intake centers in the United Arab Emirates and in Wisconsin, a new report from AP says. There have been “numerous” incidents where Afghan girls have been presented to authorities as the “wives” of much older men, the report says. Some girls at a transit site in Abu Dhabi have even told authorities they had “been raped by older men they were forced to marry in order to escape”, the report says.

A cable sent from the United Arab Emirates to Washington described allegations by girls that they had been sexually assaulted by their “husbands”.

The normalcy of child marriage in Afghanistan stands at odds with strict child trafficking laws that the U.S. has, catalyzing the State Department to seek “urgent guidance” on how to handle the situation, specifically in Fort McCoy in Wisconsin.

Some of the men being taken in at Fort McCoy claim to have more than one wife, the report says. 

“Intake staff at Fort McCoy reported multiple cases of minor females who presented as ‘married’ to adult Afghan men, as well as polygamous families,” an August 27 situation report sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates abroad as well as military command centers in Florida read. 

No immediate action has been taken by the military or the departments of homeland security and health and human services, AP noted. 

The State Department didn’t offer a comment, except to say that many allegations “are anecdotal and difficult to prove”.

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

Starting salaries for college graduates are at an all-time high despite the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

The average starting salary for the college class of 2020 was $55,260, a roughly 2.5 percent increase from the starting salary of $53,889 for the class of 2019, according to NACE’s Summer 2021 Salary Survey (pdf). The report also shows that the new average represents a gain of about 8.5 percent from the class of 2018’s final average starting salary of $50,944.

Technical majors were the highest-paid among the 2020 graduates earning bachelor’s degrees, with the list of the 10 majors offering the highest average starting salary being dominated by those in technical areas.

Petroleum engineering came out on top with an average starting salary of $87,989, followed by computer programming at $86,098, computer engineering at $85,996, computer science at $85,766, and electrical, electronics, and communications engineering at $80,819.

The figures reported are for base salaries only and don’t include bonuses, commissions, fringe benefits, or overtime rates. The data is based on the 249 schools that provided salary data by specific program or major.

“In some cases, salary increases most likely reflect these unique times,” said Shawn VanDerziel, NACE executive director.

“For example, the increased demand for nurses as frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic may have fueled the 2.1 percent increase in the average starting salary for registered nursing majors from $57,416 for these graduates from the class of 2019 to $58,626 for class of 2020 registered nursing graduates.”

The report comes despite many employers facing work shortages and hiring difficulties as the pandemic upended job market dynamics, even as 8.7 million people are officially unemployed.

U.S. employers posted a record 10.1 million job openings at the end of June, the most ever recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics since it began tracking job openings in December 2000.

The National Federation of Independent Business jobs report in July found that 49 percent of small-business owners reported job openings that couldn’t be filled—a 48-year record high.

Lack of affordable child care, pandemic-related retirements, fears of contracting COVID-19, and generous federal pandemic unemployment benefits have all been cited as reasons behind the disconnect.

However, with pandemic restrictions being eased, COVID-19 vaccines being rolled out, and federal pandemic unemployment benefits set to expire on Sept. 6, labor shortages could potentially ease.

In an effort to counteract shortages and attract workers, numerous companies, particularly those in the dining and hospitality sector, as well as small-business owners, are increasing pay for employees.

“Small-business owners struggled to find qualified workers for their open positions, which has impaired business activity in the busy summer months,” NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg said in a statement. “Owners are raising compensation to the highest levels in 48 years to attract needed employees.”

Companies such as McDonald’s, Chipotle, and Walgreens Boots Alliance—which will see its starting pay rise to $15 per hour beginning in October—have all opted to raise salaries.

In August, Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank, one of the country’s largest financial services companies, said it was raising its minimum wage to $18 per hour, while also giving higher-paid workers a bump in pay, in what the company described as an “accordion effect” across its branches.

As we’ve been detailing of late, the goalposts in ultra-vaxxed Israel keep perpetually moving after health authorities’ recent initiative to demand all citizens get a third COVID jab. This even as this past week witnessed the small Mediterranean country reach yet more daily case records. 

Despite the WHO coming out against countries giving their populations booster shots at this point, Israel has as of Friday issued a third dose to 2.5 million Israelis. Given the likelihood that this too will fail to blunt the growing numbers of infections, naturally the question is: so what next? 

You can’t make this up, health authorities are providing this “answer”: “Israel’s national coronavirus czar on Saturday called for the country to begin making preparations to eventually administer fourth doses of the coronavirus vaccine,” The Times of Israel reports.

The ‘coronavirus czar’, Professor Salman Zarka made the statements to Kan national broadcaster: 

“Given that that the virus is here and will continue to be here, we also need to prepare for a fourth injection.”

As if bluntly admitting that the country will continue with the very simplistic strategy of ‘throwing more shots’ at the problem, Zarka added, “This is our life from now on, in waves.”

This also all but ensures that the controversial “Green Pass” system will also likely continue expanding and being “updated” indefinitely. Already authorities have said that this form of a ‘vaccine passport’ which gives the holder entry to specified public venues like restaurants, gyms, and publish worship spaces, is subject to expiration depending on if the holder received their second or third dose of the vaccine. 

Now Israelis can look forward to a “pass” that will be dependent on getting a fourth vaccine.

Presumably if a forth jab is in the works, the Green Pass will at the same time eventually be voided for people only on their third dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Unvaccinated after two doses? Israel was also the first to start talking openly about the “pandemic of the vaxxed”…

#Israel PM Naftali Bennett:”The most vulnerable population at the moment…are the ones who received two vaccine doses but not the third…they walk around feeling like they are protected because they received both doses…must quickly get vaccinated with THE THIRD VACCINE DOSE…” pic.twitter.com/dK3uwadmrT

— Nicole Elisei (@EliseiNicole) August 24, 2021

Given the pass is good for six months since the last jab, this means Israelis might be ordered to get a fourth shot in a mere half-year… and on and on it will go, apparently.

We give it a mere months if not weeks before officials start floating a 5th future shot, or even a 6th. There will be no end.

Authored by Lorenz Duchamps via The Epoch Times,

The Taliban terrorist group unleashed a barrage of aerial gunfire in and around Kabul on Friday after the group reportedly gained ground in Panjshir province, the last region in Afghanistan that still remains under the control of anti-Taliban militants.

Footage of gunfire in #Kabul by RT’s Murad Gazdiev pic.twitter.com/rLpoSqjaMk

— RT (@RT_com) September 3, 2021

At least 17 people were killed and 41 injured, including children, local Afghan news outlets reported. The Taliban fired the celebratory gunfire as news broke that the resistance in Panjshir was defeated.

“We are in control of entire Afghanistan. The troublemakers have been defeated and Panjshir is now under our command,” news agency Reuters quoted one Taliban leader as saying.

However, this claim was quickly disputed by Ahmad Massoud, the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA) leader, who said “news of Panjshir conquests” that is circulating on Pakistani media “is a lie.”

“News of Panjshir conquests is circulating on Pakistani media. This is a lie. Conquering Panjshir will be my last day in Panjshir,” Massoud said on social media.

Afghan resistance movement and anti-Taliban uprising forces take part in military training at Malimah area of Dara district in Panjshir province, Afghanistan, on Sept. 2, 2021. The valley remains the last major holdout of anti-Taliban forces. (Ahmad Sahel Arman/AFP via Getty Images)

In a later message, the resistance leader said that the deadly celebratory gunfire was because Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt. Faiz Hameed is visiting the Central Asian nation at the invitation of the terrorist group to discuss the future of the two countries.

A video posted on social media appears to show the Taliban’s celebratory gunfire. A rain of bullets is seen covering the sky as rapid-fire is heard in the distance. In another video, it looks like people are seen taking wounded relatives to the hospital.

The “celebratory gunfire” drew a rebuke from Taliban chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid.

“Avoid shooting in the air,” Mujahid said in a message on Twitter.

“Weapons and ammunition are in your hands, no one has the right to destroy them. Cold bullets do more harm to civilians. So don’t shoot unnecessarily.”

Several, including children killed & injured in the #Taliban Aerial gunfire last night. pic.twitter.com/AkdtHEuFGV

— Aśvaka – آسواکا News Agency (@AsvakaNews) September 4, 2021

Following the deadly barrage of bullets, a Taliban leader instructed all provincial governors and police chiefs to strictly control and avoid aerial firing, Ahmadullah Muttaqi, chief of the multimedia branch of Taliban’s cultural commission, said in a statement, the Pakistan Daily reported.

“You’re instructed to strictly avoid aerial firing. From this time on, there should be no aerial firing under any circumstances. If it happens in your province, you will be held responsible for it,” Muttaqi said.

After several Gold Star parents of servicemembers slain in last month’s Kabul airport bombing claimed that President Biden checked his watch several times during a ceremony to honor them, USA Today ‘fact checker’ Daniel Funke wasted no time refuting their eyewitness accounts – essentially accusing them of lying.

“i watched you disrespect us all 5 different times by checking your watch!!!,” wrote Gold Star mother, Shana Chappell (whose Facebook and Instagram accounts were ‘incorrectly deleted’ after she posted, and have since been restored).

Another Gold Star parent, Darin Hoover, said Biden looked down at his watch 13 times.

“I actually leaned into my son’s mother’s ear and said ‘I swear to God, if he checks his watch one more time…’ I found it to be the most disrespectful thing I’ve ever seen,” Hoover told Fox News.

Gold Star Father Mark Schmitz, whose son Marine Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz was killed in Kabul:

“I actually leaned into my son’s mother’s ear and said ‘I swear to God, if he checks his watch one more time…’ I found it to be the most disrespectful thing I’ve ever seen.” pic.twitter.com/VG9BafFFzn

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 31, 2021

Yet, USA Today’s Funke wrote that the claims were “partly false” because Biden checked his watch “only after” the ceremony – not during.

Except…

It’s true. Joe Biden checked his watch during the dignified transfer of the servicemembers killing in Afghanistan at the airport. You can see him jerk his left hand to pull the watch out from under his sleeve, then look down at it. pic.twitter.com/M3QVzJbTIm

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) August 29, 2021

The following day, the paper issued a massive correction:

Corrections & Clarifications: This story was updated Sept. 2 to note that Biden checked his watch multiple times at the dignified transfer event, including during the ceremony itself. The rating on this claim has been changed from partly false to missing context.

In a Wednesday tweet, Funke said “I regret the error.”

As many of you already know, this story has been corrected. Biden checked his watch multiple times during the ceremony. I regret the error. https://t.co/F6bjQFYVbC

— Daniel Funke (@dpfunke) September 3, 2021

In a subsequent tweet, he said “It’s easy to dunk on journalists when we get things wrong. I get it – to many, we’re just another name on a screen. But behind that screen is a person trying to do their best.“

Clearly Funke is the victim here.

Botching a fact-check (or being straight up dishonest, more likely), then issuing a correction that is still incorrect is the hallmark of an exceptional journalist, according to Snopes editor. https://t.co/DMsA65F4Rj

— Doug Powers (@ThePowersThatBe) September 4, 2021

Do you have any idea how harmful these lies are to our military community? You are a disgrace with zero credibility. We believe our Gold Star families and the video footage.

— Code of Vets ™ (@codeofvets) September 3, 2021

By Amy Korte of Illinois Policy

Patricia Hill grew up in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood dreaming of one day owning a home. She and her husband accomplished that dream in 2003 when they moved to the suburb of Matteson to raise their two daughters. They bought a two-story home in a quiet neighborhood for $315,000. Her property taxes were $7,800 for 2004.

But Hill’s home is now worth less than she paid for it back in ’03. Meanwhile, her property taxes have done anything but decline. She now pays nearly $10,000 in property taxes.

“Everyone is in shock when I tell them the property taxes. They say it must be an error,” Patricia said.

Patricia is not alone. In the 1990s, Illinois property tax bills were around the national average. But in the two decades from 1999 to 2019, we’ve seen a massive 65% increase in residential property taxes, adjusted for inflation. That increase is what drove Illinois to having one of the highest tax burdens in the nation.

The source of Patricia’s – and her fellow Illinoisans’ – property tax pains? Public employee pensions.

More than 70% of Patricia’s property tax bill goes to the school district. While school districts account for a significant portion of property tax bills in localities across the United States, school district budgets across Chicago and Illinois are getting devoured by underwater pension systems.

While the state is responsible for paying employer pension costs for teachers outside of Chicago, rising pension obligations mean more state dollars are spent on pensions, leaving more classroom costs for school districts to fund through property taxes.

The Teachers’ Retirement System, the plan that oversees retirement benefits for teachers and other educational workers outside of Chicago, is funded at 40% as of 2020. This means that for every $1 of promised benefits, the state has set aside only 40 cents to fund that promise.

Because the cost of these generous retirement packages has grown faster than existing government revenues can sustain, property taxes continue to climb.

Municipalities also are on the hook for pensions for their city workers as well as for their police and firefighters. As unfunded pension obligations have grown, so has the percentage of property tax dollars devoted to paying these costs. In Cook County, from 1999 to 2019, 76% of additional property tax dollars spent on municipal police and 74% of additional property tax dollars spent on municipal firefighters went to pensions rather than to public safety costs.

While Cook County’s property tax system is designed to make commercial and industrial businesses pay a larger share of property taxes, in many south suburbs, business closures leave homeowners on the hook for more and more of the burden. Matteson has seen a Target, Walmart and Sam’s Club close in recent years.

“Lots of businesses have left. You’re a homeowner, so you’re left picking up the taxes that commercial piece of property used to pay,” Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas told ABC 7 Chicago in August.

The high property taxes are driving many people to leave the state. But Patricia is not giving up.

“My youngest daughter lives in Savannah, Georgia. The taxes are nothing. I don’t want to live in Savannah. I want to live here,” she said. “This is me.”

Lawmakers have done little to advance solutions for rising property taxes.

Patricia believes a grassroots movement is needed.

“The most important thing is to find a group of people trying to make a change,” she said.

“But people aren’t involved. They complain about it but they don’t do anything.”

Public pension reform received bipartisan support in 2013, but because of a decision by the Illinois Supreme Court, the only way to achieve meaningful pension reform for Illinois state and local governments is through a constitutional amendment. Will we ever see pension reform on the ballot in Illinois?

Although Patricia is not giving up, she has endured many sleepless nights over her massive property tax bill.

“This is supposed to be the American Dream for me and my family … I’m holding on to everything I can, but I’m losing because of this house,” she said.

“It’s a nightmare.”

Patricia is willing to fight for her home, but she shouldn’t have to. Illinois’ inability to control spending and reduce long-term debt should never cost anyone their home.

At least 100 Afghan refugees who were set to enter the US have been flagged for terrorist ties, NBC News reports, and will now be sent to Kosovo where they will undergo additional screening and review. 

Specifically the 100 were “flagged for possible ties to the Taliban or terror groups.” NBC detailed that “of more than 30,000 evacuees from Afghanistan to the U.S., about 10,000 needed additional screening as of Friday, said the sources, and of those about 100 were flagged for possible ties to the Taliban or terror groups.”

These were discovered coming into the D.C. area – among the major hubs that serve as a reception point for the tens of thousands evacuated from Kabul international airport over the past two weeks. 

Alarmingly, some of the arrivals were also found to have been prior deportations based on criminal offenses: “Other evacuees who are currently being evaluated in the D.C. area were found to have been deported from the US previously for past criminal offenses, said two sources briefed on the data,” the NBC report continues. “The Department of Homeland Security is now deciding what to do with the individuals.”

A senior law enforcement official was cited as saying, “A lot of people were moved very quickly and the intelligence community has been working hard to evaluate whether any of them pose a threat.”

During the initial days’ frantic rush of Afghans piling on US military transport planes as the Americans had struggled to gain security control of the airport, it appeared there wasn’t any proper vetting whatsoever. The NBC report suggests the vetting process is lagging behind even by the time evacuees arrive on US soil. 

The law enforcement official cited in the report explained further that “Some of the vetting occurs while they are overseas, and some of it occurs here … We are not going to allow people to intentionally be released into the community if they have unresolved derogatory information.”

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Texas judge on Friday ordered a pro-life group and people affiliated with it not to bring lawsuits against a trio of Planned Parenthood affiliates.

The action relates to a new law that bans most abortions and went into effect on Sept. 1.

People under the law can sue doctors who perform illegal abortions and others who allegedly aid and abet the illegal procedures.

But Texas Right to Life, already barred for now from bringing suits against two lawyers and an abortion fund, were ordered by Travis County District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble not to sue Planned Parenthood South Texas Surgical Center, Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas Surgical Health Services, Planned Parenthood Center for Choice, and Bhavik Kumar, who performs abortions at the center.

Gamble, a Democrat who began her term in 2019, said the new law, Texas Senate Bill 8, “creates a probable, irreparable, and imminent injury in the interim for which Plaintiffs and their physicians, staff, and patients throughout Texas have no adequate remedy at law” if they’re sued by private citizens under the measure.

Those restrained by the ruling, which is in effect until Sept. 17, are Texas Right to Life, its legislative director John Seago, and Jane/John Doe 1-100, described in Planned Parenthood’s suit as “individuals or entities who have expressed to other Defendants, whether by words or actions, their intention to enforce S.B. 8 against Plaintiffs.”

“This restraining order offers protection to the brave health care providers and staff at Planned Parenthood health centers throughout Texas, who have continued to offer care as best they can within the law while facing surveillance, harassment, and threats from vigilantes eager to stop them,” Helene Krasnoff, vice president for public policy litigation and law for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.

Texas Right to Life, a pro-life group that advocated for the new law, said in a statement that the order does not block it because citizens not named as defendants can still sue abortion providers or others who violate the law.

“This lawsuit will not stop the work of Texas Right to Life. Estimates are that approximately 150 babies per day are being saved because of Texas Right to Life’s leadership on the Texas Heartbeat Act. Planned Parenthood can keep suing us, but Texas Right to Life will never back down from protecting pregnant women and preborn children from abortion,” Elizabeth Graham, vice president of the group, said.

The court will hold a hearing on the matter on Sept. 13.

A similar ruling was issued by a different judge against Texas Right to Life late last month, preventing it from suing attorneys Michelle Simpson Tuegel and Allison Van Stean and The Bridge Collective, a group that helps women get abortions.

But the law took effect on Sept. 1 after a district court, an appeals court, and the Supreme Court declined to intervene.

In a narrow 5–4 ruling, Supreme Court justices later allowed the law to stand, for now. The majority said they weren’t sure they could block the law because of its mechanisms. Chief Justice John Roberts, joined with the liberal bloc of the court.

The law does not allow state officials to enforce it. Instead, private citizens can bring lawsuits, and are awarded money if the suits are successful.

“The applicants now before us have raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue,” the majority said. “But their application also presents complex and novel antecedent procedural questions on which they have not carried their burden” to get a preliminary injunction issued.