Trucker in Florida Triple Fatal Failed CDL Exam 10 Time

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Trucker in Florida Triple Fatal Failed CDL Exam 10 Time

(Alan Wooten, The Center Square)  Ten failures of a written exam for a commercial driver’s license have been uncovered against the suspect in a triple fatality on the Florida turnpike involving an 18-wheeler.

Harjinder Singh, says Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, also failed a behind-the-wheel training course at a private CDL school in the state of Washington. The state’s top prosecutor, already with litigation against the states of California and Washington, said that school “will be hearing from my office soon.”

The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles said Singh, on Aug. 12 driving an 18-wheeler, tried to U-turn on the Florida Turnpike through a point in the divided highway marked “official use only.” The speed limit at mile marker 171 is 70 mph.

Homeland Security’s link to video from Breaking911, shot from inside the truck, shows the graphic collision that followed.

A Chrysler Town & Country minivan slams into the trailer that suddenly blocked its lanes. All three inside the minivan were killed – a 30-year-old man from Florida City driving, and a 37-year-old woman from Pompano Beach and a 54-year-old man from Miami.

Singh was not injured. He is jailed and facing three counts of vehicular homicide.

Homeland Security says Singh does not have a legal right to be in the United States and obtained a commercial driver’s license in California. The Florida Highway Patrol said he crossed the Mexico border into California in 2018.

Uthmeier has asked for revocation of commercial driver’s license program authority and associated federal funding in California and Washington. He said the states’ choices on rules set by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration are the reason.

Tuesday on the 10 Freeway in Ontario, Calif., 21-year-old Jashanpreet Singh of India was driving an 18-wheeler that never braked before instigating a rear-end collision with eight vehicles, said the California Highway Patrol. In addition to three dead, four others were hospitalized.

Thursday, Homeland Security filed an arrest detainer for Jashanpreet Singh, saying he entered the country through the southern border in 2022 and was released into the United States by the Biden administration.

Neither man named Singh is related, according to published reports.

Trump Suspends Trade Talks with Canada Over Ronald Reagan Ad

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Trump Suspends Trade Talks with Canada Over Ronald Reagan Ad

(Brett Rowland, The Center Square) President Donald Trump suspended all trade talks with America’s largest trading partner over an ad that features former President Ronald Reagan speaking about tariffs in 1987.

Trump suspended talks late Thursday after the Ontario government spent about $75 million Canadian ads featuring audio and video of Reagan to air on American TV stations. 

In the remarks at issue, Reagan said he was “loath” to put up any barriers to free trade, but did so in response to Japan’s trade decisions on semiconductors.

“But, over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer,” Reagan says in the address.

The Ronald Reagan Foundation said Ontario took the former GOP president’s remarks out of context.

“The ad misrepresents the Presidential Radio Address, and the Government of Ontario did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks,” the foundation wrote in a post on X.

The foundation said it was “reviewing its legal options in this matter” and encouraged all interested to watch Reagan’s unedited video on its YouTube channel.

Trump said Reagan, whose portrait hangs in Trump’s Oval Office, loved tariffs. 

“CANADA CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!!,” Trump wrote on Friday morning on his social media platform. “They fraudulently took a big buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like Tariffs, when actually he LOVED TARIFFS FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS NATIONAL SECURITY.”

Trump accused Canada of trying to “illegally influence” the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case challenging his tariff authority.

“Canada is trying to illegally influence the United States Supreme Court in one of the most important rulings in the history of our Country,” Trump said Friday in his post.

Trump’s economic agenda is tied to tariffs. However, a group of small businesses, some Democrat-led states, and two toymakers have challenged the president’s tariff authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. That law doesn’t mention tariffs. The case is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has set oral arguments for Nov. 5.

Late Thursday, Trump said he would suspend all talks with Canada over the ad campaign.

“The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs. The ad was for $75,000,000,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts. TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A. Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”

Trump previously suspended trade talks with Canada in late June, but Canada caved to Trump’s demands by pulling its digital services tax hours before it was to go into effect. Canada’s proposed digital services tax required foreign and domestic businesses to pay taxes on some revenue earned from engaging with online users in Canada.

Jason Kenney, a former Conservative cabinet minister under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, called Trump’s comments and the response from the Ronald Reagan Foundation “embarrassing.”

“The Ontario ad does not misrepresent President Reagan’s anti-tariff radio address in any respect whatsoever. It is a direct replay of his radio address, formatted for a one-minute ad,” Kenney wrote in a post on X. “Everything that Reagan said in his pro free trade April, 1987 radio message is consistent with the ad. In fact, everything he ever said about trade, before and after becoming President, is consistent with his principled opposition to tariffs.”

He also called out the foundation for its comments.

“The @RonaldReagan Foundation knows these things. They know perfectly well that the Ontario ad captures precisely President Reagan’s opposition to tariffs, and support for free trade,” Kenney wrote. “But it is obvious that the Foundation now has gormless leadership which is easily intimidated by a call from the White House, yet another sign of the hugely corrosive influence of Trump on the American conservative movement. For shame.”

In the video, Reagan said he opposes tariffs and protectionist trade policies, both of which Trump has employed extensively in his second term. Reagan said such policies only work for a short time in the video.

“You see, at first when someone says ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they are doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes, for a short while, it works. But only for a short time,” Reagan said. “What eventually occurs is first homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs, they stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets. And then, while all this is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers and less and less competition.”

Reagan also said high tariffs “subsidize inefficiency and poor management.”

In his second term, Trump used the 1977 law to reorder global trade through tariffs to give U.S. businesses an advantage at home. Using tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Trump put import duties of at least 10% on every nation that does business with the U.S. Some nations, including many U.S. allies, face much higher tariff rates.

Trump has also put tariffs on imported steel, copper and aluminum.

In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a previous lower court ruling saying Trump did not have the authority, but said Trump’s tariffs could remain in place while the administration appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the 7-4 decision, the majority of the Federal Circuit said that tariff authority rests with Congress. It used that same language: “We discern no clear congressional authorization by IEEPA for tariffs of the magnitude of the Reciprocal Tariffs and Trafficking Tariffs. Reading the phrase ‘regulate … importation’ to include imposing these tariffs is ‘a wafer-thin reed on which to rest such sweeping power.'”

A Supreme Court victory for Trump would cement the federal government’s newest revenue source in place, at least for now.

Trump has said the tariff case is so important that he might attend the hearing personally.

According to an analysis of federal data from the Penn Wharton Budget Model, the president’s new tariffs raised $80.3 billion in revenue between January 2025 and July 2025 before accounting for income and payroll tax offsets.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that Trump’s tariffs could generate $4 trillion in revenue over the next decade, but they would raise consumer prices and reduce the purchasing power of U.S. families.

Trump has said he wants to use tariffs to restore manufacturing jobs lost to lower-wage countries in decades past, shift the tax burden away from U.S. families, and pay down the national debt.

A tariff is a tax on imported goods that the importer pays. The importer pays the cost of the duties directly to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a federal agency. 

WATCH: White House Vows to ‘Fight’ Lawsuits Over $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee

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WATCH: White House Vows to ‘Fight’ Lawsuits Over $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee

(Andrew Rice, The Center Square) The White House on Thursday vowed to fight legal challenges to President Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday that the fee is designed to protect American workers and prevent fraud in the H-1B visa system.

“The administration will fight these lawsuits in court,” Leavitt said. “The president’s main priority has always been to put American workers first and also to strengthen our visa system.”

Trump issued a proclamation proposing the $100,000 fee on Sept. 19. Since then, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of unions have filed respective lawsuits against the president’s fee implementation.

Both lawsuits argue Trump’s fee exceeds presidential authority because the law does not allow him to impose a fee on visa entry of certain immigrants.

Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act allows the president to “suspend the entry” of certain noncitizens under certain circumstances. Trump used this authority in his first term to restrict entry of certain immigrants from Muslim majority countries.

Trump’s proclamation cited wage suppression and fewer available jobs for American workers due to the prevalence of the H-1B program. The proclamation pointed to multiple studies displaying diminished wages and job opportunities in science and technology fields due to H-1B visas.

“We know for far too long the H-1B visa system has been spammed with fraud, basically, and that’s droven down American wages so the president wants to refine this system which is part of the reason he implemented these new policies,” Leavitt said.

The two lawsuits argue fees against H-1B organizations will hurt small businesses who rely on the program to recruit workers.

“If implemented, that fee would inflict significant harm on American businesses, which would be forced to either dramatically increase their labor costs or hire fewer highly skilled employees for whom domestic replacements are not readily available,” the Chamber of Commerce said in its lawsuit.

The coalition of unions also argued that hospitals, schools and religious organizations would be harmed by the fee. The lawsuit includes a pastor and postdoctoral researcher who live in the United States on work visas and are afraid the fee will impact their ability to continue working in the United States.

“The government failed to consider harms to hospitals, churches, schools and universities, and small businesses and non-profits, or how the fee will harm communities across the nation,” the unions wrote in their lawsuit.

“These actions are lawful, they are necessary and we’ll continue to fight this battle in court,” Leavitt said on Thursday.

Unions Sue Trump Over Immigrant Drivers License Crackdown

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Unions Sue Trump Over Immigrant Drivers License Crackdown

(Andrew Rice, The Center Square) Two national public employee unions sued the Trump administration over its restrictions preventing illegal immigrants from obtaining commercial drivers licenses.

The American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees filed a petition for review against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

The employee unions challenged a rule implemented by Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy restricting foreign individuals from receiving commercial drivers licenses.

Commercial drivers licenses are used for operating large vehicles such as tractor-trailers and buses. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia allow unauthorized immigrants to receive commercial drivers licenses.

In California, more than 25% of commercial drivers licenses were improperly issued, according to a Department of Transportation press release.

“The process for issuing these licenses is absolutely 100% broken. It has become a threat to public safety, and it is a national emergency that requires action right now,” Duffy said.

The unions argued these restrictions would prevent asylum seekers, refugees and DACA recipients from accessing commercial drivers licenses.

“This unlawful rule seems intended to put people authorized to work in the United States out of work, solely because of the prejudices of the Trump administration,” said Wendy Liu, attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group, in a news release.

The Department of Transportation issued the rule to crack down on commercial drivers licenses for illegal immigrants after a deadly Florida collision involving a commercial tractor-trailer left three people dead.

The rule restricts noncitizen applicants to only those in visa programs like the H-1B, H-2A and H-2B. It also requires non citizen applicants to provide an unexpired foreign passport or arrival/departure record to obtain the license.

The rule would also require state licensing agencies to verify the accuracy of citizenship status and application documents in order to issue a commercial drivers license.

In a separate incident, an Oct. 21 collision on a California highway left three people dead after a semi-truck slammed into multiple vehicles.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Thursday that the driver of the semi-truck was an illegal immigrant who obtained his commercial drivers license in California. She said the driver of the semi-truck was intoxicated and driving under the influence and was released by the Biden administration after crossing the southern border in 2022.

“These tragedies are following a disturbing pattern of these criminal illegal aliens being issued commercial drivers licenses,” Leavitt said.

The employee unions argue that loss of commercial drivers licenses for immigrants will cause businesses and livelihoods to suffer.

“Drivers who take our children to school, deliver food and medicine, and clean trash off the streets must have these commercial driver’s licenses, and denying them inflicts unnecessary pain on everyone their lives touch,” said Lee Saunders, AFSCME president.

WATCH: Trump Touts Counter-Narco Operations During Law Enforcement Roundtable

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WATCH: Trump Touts Counter-Narco Operations During Law Enforcement Roundtable

(Sarah Roderick-Fitch, The Center Square) In the midst of the U.S. counter-narcotics measures in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean and a major crime crackdown, President Donald Trump hosted a roundtable Thursday of top law enforcement officials from around the country.

Trump touted his administration’s crackdown on crime, including targeting drug cartels, a central theme of the roundtable.

At Thursday’s round table, The Center Square White House Bureau Chief Sarah Roderick-Fitch asked President Donald Trump whether shuttered Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico could be used to help in the fight against drug smuggling .

“Under the Trump Administration, we’re finally treating the cartels as the core national security threat that they really are … past administrations have tried to mitigate this threat — and our objective is to eliminate it,” the president said during his remarks at the White House Thursday afternoon.

The roundtable comes as the administration continues to target boats suspected of transporting narcotics across the Caribbean and the Pacific.

The roundtable comes a week after FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced 8,700 violent criminals had been arrested as part of Operation Summer Heat.

Trump and Patel touted the numbers as “historic,” claiming record numbers compared to prior administrations.

“Over the past few months, FBI offices in all 50 states made crushing violent crime a top enforcement priority, and that’s what they did – rounding up and arresting thousands of the most violent and dangerous criminals,” the president said during a news conference in the Oval Office.

Since Trump took office in January, the FBI has reported an 86% increase in arrests, with 28,649 arrests in 2024, compared to 15,388 in 2023, 15,771 in 2022, and 16,864 in 2021.

The administration reported that 152,119 lbs. of narcotics have been seized, including 17,011 lbs. of meth, 128,479 lbs. of cocaine, 1,131 lbs. of heroin, 5,101 lbs. of fentanyl powder, and 2,139,738 lbs. of fentanyl pills.

During Thursday’s roundtable, Patel highlighted drug seizures made by the president’s Homeland Security Task Forces.

“Those aren’t numbers, those are lives…enough fentanyl to kill over 200 million Americans gone—evaporated—off our streets permanently,” said Patel.

Author Michael Wolff Sues Melania Trump, Saying she Threatened $1B Suit Over Epstein-Related Claims

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Author Michael Wolff Sues Melania Trump, Saying she Threatened $1B Suit Over Epstein-Related Claims

(Headline USA) Author Michael Wolff claims in a lawsuit that First Lady Melania Trump threatened to sue him for over $1 billion in damages if he didn’t retract Jeffrey Epstein -related statements he recently made about her.

Wolff sought unspecified damages in the lawsuit filed Tuesday in state Supreme Court in Manhattan.

Nicholas Clemens, a spokesperson for Melania Trump, issued a statement, saying: “First Lady Melania Trump is proud to continue standing up to those who spread malicious and defamatory falsehoods as they desperately try to get undeserved attention and money from their unlawful conduct.”

In his lawsuit, Wolff said Melania Trump and her husband, President Donald Trump, “have made a practice of threatening those who speak against them” with costly legal actions “to silence their speech, to intimidate their critics generally, and to extract unjustified payments and North Korean style confessions and apologies.”

He said the threats “are designed to create a climate of fear in the nation so that people cannot freely or confidently exercise their First Amendment rights.”

According to the lawsuit, the threats are also meant to shut down inquiry into the couple’s involvement with Epstein, the notorious financier who killed himself in a New York federal jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The lawsuit came on the day that Melania Trump’s lawyer had set as a deadline for Wolff to retract statements, issue an apology and pay damages to his client.

The lawyer, Alejandro Brito, wrote on Oct. 15 that she would be “left with no alternative” but to sue for over $1 billion after the statements had caused her “overwhelming reputational and financial harm.”

Through his lawsuit, Wolff announced his intention to use the legal action to put the president and his wife under oath to answer questions about Epstein. Wolff has published a dozen books, including four bestsellers about the president.

Wolff said in the lawsuit that Melania Trump’s threat to sue came over statements he made to “The Daily Beast” and in three videos published on social media, although he added that some statements were incomplete phrases and were taken out of context.

Others, the lawsuit said, were protected speech. For instance, the statement that the Trumps were in a “sham marriage, trophy marriage,” was a “fair and justified” statement of opinion, it said.

The lawsuit noted that Wolff never said Melania Trump was involved in any of Epstein’s crimes.

Among the statements the lawsuit said were true were those saying Melania Trump was “very involved” in Epstein’s social circle, where she met her future husband, and that Donald Trump liked to have sex with his friend’s wives and first slept with Melania Trump on Epstein’s private jet.

The lawsuit said it was fair to question how Melania Trump fits into the Epstein story.

And, it added, it was proper to “find out what happened in Mr. Trump’s and Epstein’s 10 years of pursuing models, including supermodels, runway models, catalog models, Eastern European models, and girls who just dreamed of being models.”

According to the lawsuit, that subject “will be one of the zones of inquiry that this lawsuit will have to undertake.”

Wolff conducted interviews with Epstein before his death.

Earlier this year, President Trump berated Wolff as a “Third Rate Reporter” and, in one lengthy social media post, called his upcoming book “a total FAKE JOB, just like the other JUNK he wrote.”

Trump added: “His other books about me have been discredited, as this one will be also.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

 

US Hits $38 Trillion in Debt, After the Fastest Accumulation of $1 Trillion Outside of the Pandemic

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US Hits $38 Trillion in Debt, After the Fastest Accumulation of $1 Trillion Outside of the Pandemic

(Headline USA) In the midst of a federal government shutdown, the U.S. government’s gross national debt surpassed $38 trillion Wednesday, a record number that highlights the accelerating accumulation of debt on America’s balance sheet.

It’s also the fastest accumulation of a trillion dollars in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic — the U.S. hit $37 trillion in gross national debt in August this year.

The $38 trillion update is found in the latest Treasury Department report, which logs the nation’s daily finances.

Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model, who served in President George W. Bush’s Treasury Department, told The Associated Press that a growing debt load over time leads ultimately to higher inflation, eroding Americans’ purchasing power.

The Government Accountability Office outlines some of the impacts of rising government debt on Americans — including higher borrowing costs for things like mortgages and cars, lower wages from businesses having less money available to invest, and more expensive goods and services.

“I think a lot of people want to know that their kids and grandkids are going to be in good, decent shape in the future — that they will be able to afford a house,” Smetters said. “That additional inflation compounds” and erodes consumers’ purchasing power, he said, making it less possible for future generations to achieve home ownership goals.

The Trump administration says its policies are helping to slow government spending and will shrink the nation’s massive deficit. A new analysis by Treasury Department officials states that from April to September, the cumulative deficit totaled $468 billion. In a post on X Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that’s the lowest reading since 2019.

“During his first eight months in office, President Trump has reduced the deficit by $350 billion compared to the same period in 2024 by cutting spending and boosting revenue,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement, adding that the administration would pursue robust economic growth, lower inflation, tariff revenue, lower borrowing costs and cuts to waste, fraud and abuse.

The Joint Economic Committee estimates that the total national debt has grown by $69,713.82 per second for the past year.

Michael Peterson, chair and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, said in a statement that “reaching $38 trillion in debt during a government shutdown is the latest troubling sign that lawmakers are not meeting their basic fiscal duties.”

“Along with increasing debt, you get higher interest costs, which are now the fastest growing part of the budget,” Peterson added. “We spent $4 trillion on interest over the last decade, but will spend $14 trillion in the next ten years. Interest costs crowd out important public and private investments in our future, harming the economy for every American.”

The U.S. hit $34 trillion in debt in January 2024, $35 trillion in July 2024 and $36 trillion in November 2024.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

Man Pleads Not Guilty to Sparking Deadly Palisades Fire in Los Angeles

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Man Pleads Not Guilty to Sparking Deadly Palisades Fire in Los Angeles

(Headline USA)  A 29-year-old man accused of sparking the deadly Palisades Fire, one of the most destructive wildfires in California history, pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal charges.

Jonathan Rinderknecht appeared in federal court Thursday afternoon after arriving in Los Angeles from Florida earlier in the day, his attorney Steve Haney said. A judge ordered that he remain in custody ahead of his trial.

Federal officials said Rinderknecht, who lived in the area, started a small fire on New Year’s Day that smoldered underground before reigniting nearly a week later and roaring through Pacific Palisades, home to many of Los Angeles’ rich and famous.

The fire, which left 12 dead in the hillside neighborhoods across Pacific Palisades and Malibu, was one of two blazes that broke out on Jan. 7, killing more than 30 people in all and destroying over 17,000 homes and buildings while burning for days in Los Angeles County.

Haney told the judge he took issue with the fact that Rinderknecht was facing charges for the Palisades Fire when he allegedly started the smaller fire beforehand known as the Lachman Fire.

“My client is being charged with a fire that started seven days after,” he said.

Rinderknecht was staying at his sister’s house in Orlando when he was arrested by federal officials on Oct. 7. He made his first court appearance the next day in Florida on a charge of malicious destruction by means of a fire.

A week later, a grand jury indicted him on additional charges including one count of arson affecting property used in interstate commerce, and one count of timber set afire. If convicted, he would face up to 20 years in federal prison.

Rinderknecht’s trial is set for December 16.

On Thursday, he appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver wearing a white jumpsuit. His attorney argued that he should be released on bail, based on the evaluation of court officials in Florida.

Rinderknecht has no documented history of mental health issues, drug use, or prior criminal activity, Haney said.

However, the judge in Florida who ordered Rinderknecht to be detained said he had concerns about the Rinderknecht’s mental health and his ability to get to California for future court hearings.

He appeared agitated when the judge in Los Anglees again ordered that he remain in jail, interjecting into the microphone, “Can I actually say something about detainment?”

Haney said they planned to return to the judge with additional evidence for why Rinderknecht should be released on bail.

“He’s a frustrated young man,” Haney said after the hearing. “He doesn’t know why he’s in jail right now.”

Haney said they plan to argue that even if Rinderknecht was the cause of the initial smaller fire on New Year’s Day, there were several “intervening factors” in the week between that day and when the Palisades Fire ignited, mainly the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Rinderknecht made several 911 calls to report the fire, according to a criminal complaint. Federal officials called the Palisades blaze a “holdover fire” from the Jan. 1 fire, which was not fully extinguished by firefighters, the complaint said.

The city’s interim fire chief said such fires linger in root systems and can reach depths of 15 to 20 feet (4.6 to over 6 meters), making them undetectable by thermal imaging cameras.

“They had a duty to put the fire out,” Haney said. “I do think he’s a scapegoat.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

 

Texas Murder Suspect Identified as Biden-imported Illegal Alien

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Texas Murder Suspect Identified as Biden-imported Illegal Alien

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The suspect in the Texas murder of a 43-year-old woman has been identified as Javier Roman Hernandez, an illegal alien who entered the country through the controversial CBP One app. 

Hernandez, who entered the U.S. on July 23 through Hidalgo, Texas, was arrested on Oct. 8 in connection with the murder of Mary Gonzalez. 

The victim’s body was discovered near a wooded area after she was fatally shot, reported the Daily Wire, which first noted Hernandez’s entry into the United States. 

The CBP One app has facilitated the unprecedented entry of nearly a million foreign nationals into the U.S. 

President Donald Trump has since overhauled the app to turn it into a tool to expedite the self-deportation of illegal aliens. 

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin slammed the app in a press statement, saying that the “cold-blooded” murder suspect should never have been in the U.S. in the first place. 

“Open border policies have deadly consequences,” McLaughlin said. “Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, these accused murderers will never be free on American streets to commit heinous crimes again.” 

Two other individuals, Jesus Llamas-Yanez and Enrique Gomez-Urbina, have also been charged in connection with the murder. 

Llamas-Yanez has a prior criminal conviction for driving under the influence and assault and is currently wanted in Mexico, reported Fox 7 Austin.  

Meanwhile, Gomez-Urbina, another illegal alien, was arrested earlier this month by the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force, Austin police said. 

Trump Pardons Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao

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Trump Pardons Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao

(Headline USA)  President Donald Trump on Thursday pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who created the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and pled guilty in 2023 to enabling money laundering.

Zhao served prison time for failing to stop criminals from using the platform to move money connected to child sex abuse, drug trafficking and terrorism.

“I failed here,” Zhao told the court last year during sentencing. “I deeply regret my failure, and I am sorry.”

Trump says he was told Zhao ‘wasn’t guilt of anything’

The president says of pardoning crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao “a lot of people say that he wasn’t guilty of anything.”

Zhao founded the Binance crypto exchange. Trump said he didn’t believe he’d ever met Zhao, but had “been told” he “had a lot of support, and they said that what he did is not even a crime.”

Trump said Zhao had been “persecuted by the Biden administration” and added, “I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people.”

Zhao served four months in prison after reaching a deal with the Justice Department to plead guilty to charges of enabling money laundering at Binance.

Leavitt said the president has “the constitutional authority to grant clemency requests, and that he and the White House have a very thorough examination of every pardon request that comes to the president’s desk.”

She said during her briefing with reporters that the pardon for Binance founder Changpeng Zhao was “thoroughly reviewed by the White House counsel office” and that the crypto billionaire known as CZ faced “an overly prosecuted case by the Biden administration.”

“The Biden administration was pursuing an egregious over-sentencing of this individual. And the previous administration was very hostile to the cryptocurrency industry,” she said. “So the president wants to correct this overreach.”

Leavitt said in a statement Thursday that the Biden administration prosecuted Zhao out of a “desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry.”

Zhao has deep ties to World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture the Republican president and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. launched in September.

Trump’s most recent financial disclosure report reveals he made more than $57 million last year from World Liberty Financial, which has launched USD1, a stablecoin pegged at a 1-to-1 ratio to the U.S. dollar.

World Liberty Financial also recently announced that an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates would be using $2 billion worth of USD1 to purchase a stake in Binance. Zhao also has publicly said he’d asked Trump for a pardon that could nullify his conviction.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

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