Category: News
Surgen rumores de venta de los Seahawks, pero herederos de Paul Allen lo niegan
Por ANDREW DESTIN
SEATTLE (AP) — Los herederos del fallecido empresario Paul Allen desmintieron el viernes que los Seahawks de Seattle vayan a ser puestos a la venta después de la aparición del equipo en el Super Bowl el 8 de febrero.
Citando fuentes no identificadas, ESPN indicó que se han llevado a cabo conversaciones entre los dueños de los Seahawks y la NFL durante la última semana.
Sin embargo, el albacea de los herederos del fallecido propietario Allen negó el informe, según un comunicado emitido a The Associated Press y otros medios.
“Nosotros no comentamos sobre rumores o especulaciones, y el equipo no está a la venta”, dijo un portavoz de los herederos. “Ya hemos dicho que eso cambiará en algún momento según los deseos de Paul, pero no hay noticias que compartir. En este momento nos concentramos en ganar el Super Bowl y completar la venta de los Trail Blazers de Portland Trail en los próximos meses”.
Desde 1997, la familia Allen ha sido dueña de los Seahawks —que intentarán conseguir su segundo título de Super Bowl enfrentando a los Patriots de Nueva Inglaterra en Santa Clara, California. En aquel año, Paul adquirió el equipo a Ken Behring por 194 millones de dólares.
Un portavoz de la NFL dijo que la liga no haría ningún comentario.
Allen, cofundador de Microsoft, murió en 2018 por complicaciones de un linfoma no Hodgkin a los 65 años. Desde entonces, los Seahawks y los Trail Blazers de la NBA quedaron en manos de su hermana, Jody.
Los herederos acordaron en septiembre vender los Trail Blazers a un grupo de inversión liderado por el propietario de los Hurricanes de Carolina de la NHL, Tom Dundon.
En 2022, Jody Allen reconoció que los Seahawks algún día se pondrían a la venta, de acuerdo con los deseos de su difunto hermano.
“Llegará el momento en el que eso cambie, dado que los planes de Paul eran dedicar la gran mayoría de su fortuna a la filantropía”, indicó Jody Allen en un comunicado que emitió en julio de 2022. “Pero las herencias de este tamaño y complejidad pueden tardar de 10 a 20 años en liquidarse. No hay un cronograma predeterminado por el cual los equipos deban ser vendidos”.
Antes de la práctica del viernes, el entrenador de los Seahawks, Mike Macdonald, habló sobre la participación de Jody Allen y señaló que hablan después de cada juego.
“Lo que me llama la atención sobre Jody fue su entusiasmo sobre dónde quería que estuviera nuestro equipo, nuestra franquicia como una visión de los Seahawks de Seattle y eso fue durante nuestro proceso de entrevistas”, dijo Macdonald. “Honestamente, ahí fue donde realmente pensé, ‘bueno, esto es algo sobre lo que me siento muy fuerte, que creo que podría ayudar a crear eso’. Así que todo ha sido a través de esa lente, y es muy claro qué tipo de equipo quiere y ha sido increíblemente solidaria”.
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Deportes AP: https://apnews.com/hub/deportes
US Judge Grants Asylum To Chinese National Who Filmed China’s Uyghur Prison Camps
US Judge Grants Asylum To Chinese National Who Filmed China’s Uyghur Prison Camps
Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A pro-democracy activist who fled China after documenting what he described as concentration camps in the Xinjiang region was granted asylum on Jan. 28 by a New York state immigration judge, amid widespread concern about the risks he would face if deported.
Guan Heng, 38, applied for asylum after arriving in the United States illegally in 2021. He was living in New York state before he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August 2025.
The case attracted international scrutiny in December 2025, with lawmakers in two dozen countries, including the United States, urging the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to abandon its plan to deport him to Uganda. The agency subsequently canceled the plan.
During the Jan. 28 hearing in Napanoch, New York, Judge Charles Ouslander said that because Guan had filmed a video of the Xinjiang region, Guan had a “well-founded fear” of being persecuted if he were sent back to China.
Guan was asked whether he filmed the detention camps and released the video shortly before arriving in the United States to support his asylum case. He said that was not his intent.
“I sympathized with the Uyghurs who were persecuted,” Guan, speaking by video link from the Broome County Correctional Facility in Binghamton, New York, told the court through a translator.
Human Rights in China (HRIC), a New York City-based advocacy group that has advocated for Guan’s release, has detailed Guan’s journey from China to the United States. In 2020, he read a BuzzFeed News report on detention centers in the Xinjiang region and decided to verify it, HRIC said.
In October 2020, Guan traveled to the Xinjiang region alone. He released most of his video footage on YouTube in October 2021, the same month he arrived in Florida by boat after sailing from the Bahamas, to which he had traveled from Ecuador after fleeing China, according to the advocacy group.
HRIC characterized Guan’s video footage as an “extremely rare, first-person, on-the-ground video from a Chinese citizen.”
A month after Guan released his video, Chinese authorities, led by state security officials, began systematically targeting Guan’s relatives in China in what HRIC called “collective punishment.”
Guan told the judge that Chinese police had questioned his father three times since he released the video.
Guan’s attorney, Chen Chuangchuang, argued in his closing statement that his client’s case represents a “textbook example of why asylum should exist” and said that the United States has both a “moral and legal responsibility” to grant Guan asylum.
In December, before the DHS shelved its plan to deport Guan to Uganda, Chen spoke to NTD, a sister outlet of The Epoch Times, about how the Ugandan government “has a troubling record of cooperating with the Chinese Communist Party in making arrests in Uganda.”
“Sending a well-known dissident like Mr. Guan to Uganda would be unsafe,” Chen told NTD, according to a translation of his remarks in Chinese.
The judge said in his ruling that Guan had proven his legal eligibility for asylum, describing him as a credible witness. He said Guan faced a real risk of retaliation if returned to China, noting that Chinese authorities had questioned his family members and asked about his whereabouts and previous activities.
Guan was not released immediately, as a DHS lawyer said the agency reserves the right to appeal within 30 days. The judge urged the department to make a swift decision, noting that Guan has been detained for about five months.
Rights groups and activists have welcomed the judge’s decision.
Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders North America, applauded the court for recognizing “Guan Heng’s courageous work and the risks he would have faced if deported,” according to his statement.
“His footage of Uyghur concentration camps was invaluable to journalism that helped expose the horrors in Xinjiang, a region where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has committed crimes against humanity and genocide, according to the US State Department,“ Weimers said in the statement. ”Guan’s asylum is a rare win for press freedom under the current administration.”
Both the Trump and Biden administrations have formally declared the Chinese regime’s treatment of Uyghurs as “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.”
Rayhan Asat, a human rights lawyer of Uyghur heritage at the Atlantic Council, said “the American people stood up to defend Guan Heng’s rights and American values,” according to a post on X.
“The rule of law prevailed,“ Asat wrote. ”America will be better today because Guan Heng will be part of the American dream.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/30/2026 – 20:55
Justin Rose rompe su récord de 36 hoyos en Torrey Pines; Brooks Koepka avanza al fin de semana
Por DOUG FERGUSON
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Justin Rose logró un marcador incluso más destacado el viernes, en el complicado Campo Sur del Farmers Insurance Open, y la prueba está ya en el libro de récords del torneo.
El británico rompió por dos golpes su propia marca de 36 hoyos en Torrey Pines para construir una ventaja de cuatro impactos.
El fin de semana incluirá a Brooks Koepka en su regreso a la Gira de la PGA después de cuatro temporadas en la Liga de Golf LIV financiada por Arabia Saudí. El floridano, cinco veces campeón de majors, sigue desconcertado por los greens de la especie de césped Poa annua y se conformó con un 68 en el Campo Norte, considerado más sencillo, para pasar el corte con el marcador justo.
Faltará Xander Schauffele, el dos veces campeón de majors y originario de San Diego, quien vio terminada su racha de 72 torneos pasando el corte. Su último fin de semana libre en un torneo fue el Masters de 2022.
Koepka está 14 golpes detrás. La pregunta ahora es si alguien puede alcanzar a Rose.
Rose comenzó con un 62 en el Norte, 7,14 golpes por debajo del promedio del campo. Sabía lo que le esperaba en el Sur —sede de dos Abiertos de Estados Unidos— y terminó con un 65, siete bajo par, 7,4 golpes por debajo del promedio del campo.
Esto dio un acumulado de 127 golpes, 17 bajo par, y rompió por dos la marca anterior que tenía Rose en 2019, Tom Lehman en 2005 y Lennie Clements en 1996. Asimismo, redituó a Rose una ventaja de cuatro golpes sobre Seamus Power de Irlanda, quien tuvo un 66 en el Norte.
Sorprendentemente, fue la misma puntuación para el líder tras 36 hoyos en The American Express la semana pasada. El golf de la PGA en Palm Springs y San Diego no se parecen en nada. Rose está jugando así de bien.
Joel Dahmen, quien entró en Torrey Pines porque dos campos permiten un grupo de participantes mayor de lo normal, tuvo tres eagles en su ronda de 63 en el Norte y se unió a Max McGreevy (67 en el Norte) en un empate por el tercer lugar, seis golpes detrás.
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Deportes AP: https://apnews.com/hub/deportes
Trump Sues US Treasury For $10 Billion Over Tax-Returns Leak
Trump Sues US Treasury For $10 Billion Over Tax-Returns Leak
In the latest sign that we’re living in unusual times, the sitting president of the United States is suing the US Treasury and Internal Revenue Service — both housed in his executive branch — and asking to be paid at least $10 billion in compensation for “reputational and financial harm,” according to a complaint first publicized Thursday.
We’re printing money willy-nilly — so what’s another $10 billion for Trump & Sons?
The suit springs from the IRS’s failure to maintain the confidentiality of President Trump’s tax returns. Between 2018 and 2020, then-IRS consultant Charles E. Littlejohn stole Trump’s tax files and handed them over to The New York Times and ProPublica, which reported extensively on them. In 2024, Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison for stealing not only Trump’s files, but also those of thousands more wealthy Americans, and giving them to the two news outlets. Prosecutors said he sought a role at the IRS with the intention of gaining access to Trump’s information. He found such a role via Booz Allen Hamilton, which had a contract with the IRS. Citing the breach, Treasury killed all its remaining contracts with the firm earlier this week.
The Trump lawsuit makes for some strange dynamics within the executive branch: Trump-chosen Scott Bessent is both Treasury Secretary and acting IRS commissioner, and he’ll have to figure out how to respond to a $10 billion demand presented by his own boss. Trump is joined in the suit by his two eldest sons, Donald and Eric, both executive VPs at the Trump Organization. In a 27-page complaint filed with the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the Trumps allege:
“[Treasury and the IRS] have caused Plaintiffs reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.”
According to the complaint, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration had warned the IRS about its insufficient protections for confidential taxpayer information — not just once, but every year from 2010 to 2020. The uncorrected deficiencies enabled Littlejohn to steal Trump’s information, upload it to a website and then share it, the Trumps allege: “Defendants were obligated to have appropriate technical, employee screening, security, and monitoring systems to prevent Littlejohn’s unlawful conduct. Defendants failed to take such mandatory precautions.”
In late September 2020 — about five weeks before that year’s presidential election pitting Trump against Joe Biden — the Times published a sprawling, multi-article analysis of Trump’s tax filings, determining that he’d only paid $750 in taxes in 2016, and no taxes in 10 out of the previous 15 years. “His reports to the IRS portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes,” reported the Times. (In a telling indicator that leftist media’s relentless obsession with Russia scaremongering was still going strong in 2020, the Times laughably had to acknowledge that the documents failed to “reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.”)
Trump was clearly done wrong by having his tax files exposed to public view without his consent. However, Trump’s lawsuit underscores an exasperating aspect of man’s relationship to the state: When governments do wrong and are compelled to pay damages, the cost is always passed on to the citizenry, whether through taxation or inflation.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/30/2026 – 20:30
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-sues-us-treasury-10-billion-over-tax-returns-leak
‘I tried to grab his phone’: Body camera footage sheds light on immigration agent’s gas station confrontation with protester
An immigration agent facing criminal charges in Cook County told Brookfield police officers that he tried to grab the phone of an individual who was filming him at a gas station in the western suburb, according to body camera footage released Friday.
Adam Saracco is charged with misdemeanor battery in one of the first known instances in Cook County of an immigration officer brought to court in connection with encounters with protesters. He is scheduled to make a first appearance in March.
“I don’t want anybody sticking their camera in my face. I don’t know what he’s trying to do with this,” Saracco said, according to police body camera footage. “I tried to grab his phone.”
The Brookfield Police Department released partially redacted police reports and body camera footage to the Tribune following a Freedom of Information Act request, shedding more light on the Dec. 27 confrontation.
The complaining witness in the case is Robert Held, a local attorney who has often protested at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in nearby Broadview. Held reported that Saracco threw him to the ground at a gas station after Held followed him from the processing facility, according to police reports and Held’s account.
“He started walking toward me and then he increased his pace and threw me to the ground,” Held previously told the Tribune. “And he was on top of me and he grabbed my phone and … I had to use all my might to hold onto my phone.”
A statement from Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the arrest “gross” and defended the actions of Saracco.
“We won’t accept this stay tuned,” the statement said.
DHS accused Held of harassing Saracco and called him a “known ICE agitator.”
“While off duty and driving home in his personal vehicle, the officer was stalked by this individual to a local gas station. The agitator confronted the officer, filmed him at close range, and recorded the officers (sic) personal license plate,” the statement said. “These were clear attempts to dox our officer. The officer, who was alone and without protective equipment, acted to protect himself when faced with this threatening behavior.”
Held, though, hit back on the accusations with his own statement, saying of the statement, “every word of that is a lie.”
“What she calls ‘malicious rhetoric,’ I call documentation. What she calls ‘agitation,’ I call accountability. What she calls a ‘threat,’ a local police department and prosecutor call battery. McLaughlin knows the difference. She’s lying,” he said.
Body camera footage captures the responding officers trying to make sense of the situation, going back and forth between Held and Saracco asking if anyone involved is a federal agent. A police report says all parties initially denied being employed by the federal government.
“Nobody’s like law enforcement or anything? Where’s the federal agent thing coming into play?” an officer asked.
“He said I’m a federal agent,” Saracco replied, referring to Held. “He’s filming me while I’m trying to pump my gas. He’s got the camera in my face.”
Later, another officer asks: “Do you work for the government or no?”
After a redacted portion of the video, Saracco replies: “He followed me from my work.”
Asked to describe what happened between him and Held, Saracco said he started “hollering” at Held, asking why he was filming him.
“I tried to grab his phone to get the images and videos off his phone,” Saracco said.
At the scene, officers interviewed Held, sought to collect video and interviewed multiple witnesses, in addition to taking a statement from Saracco.
“He got very angry that I was filming him. He ran up to me and grabbed me and threw me on the ground … and he tried to grab the phone out of me,” Held told an officer.
A witness told police she was stopped at a light and pulled around when she “saw this old man being tackled to the ground.”
“I started beeping my horn … and I said get off him!” the woman said.
Saracco has been named in lawsuits filed against the Department of Homeland Security, including in a 2017 amended complaint that accused him and other agents of battering a man at a Chicago field office. The suit was later settled.
Protesters, advocates and members of the public have called on local authorities to investigate and bring charges against immigration agents accused of battering people they encounter on the street.
In October, a left-leaning voters’ rights group wrote to Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke, Gov. JB Pritzker and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, asking their offices to launch investigations into the conduct of immigration agents.
In a previous statement to the Tribune, Brookfield police officials said they initially sought a felony charge.
The state’s attorney’s office said in a statement last week that it “reviews the available facts and relevant law when making charging decisions.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/30/immigration-agent-charged-body-camera/
Judge blocks additional citizenship provisions in latest setback to Donald Trump’s election executive order
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A federal judge on Friday blocked certain federal agencies from requesting citizenship status when distributing voter registration forms, the latest blow to a wide-ranging executive order on elections President Donald Trump signed last year.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington ruled that the Constitution’s separation of powers, giving states and to an extent Congress authority over setting election rules, are at the heart of the case.
“Put simply, our Constitution does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes to federal election procedures,” wrote the judge, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton.
Specifically, Kollar-Kotelly permanently blocked two provisions of the executive order that sought to impose proof-of-citizenship rules.
Her decision said agencies will not be allowed to “assess citizenship” before providing a federal voter registration form to people enrolling in public assistance programs. It also said the Secretary of Defense cannot require documentary proof of citizenship when military personnel register to vote or request ballots.
“Our democracy works best when all Americans can participate, including members of our military and their families living overseas. Today’s ruling removes a very real threat to the freedom to vote for overseas military families and upholds the separation of powers,” said Danielle Lang, a voting rights expert with the Campaign Legal Center, which is representing plaintiffs in the case.
The White House said Trump’s executive order was intended to ensure “election security” and said Friday’s ruling would not be the last word.
“Ensuring only citizens vote in our elections is a commonsense measure that everyone should be able to support,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman. “This is not the final say on the matter and the administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.”
The specter of noncitizens voting and tainting elections was a central strategy for Trump and Republicans during the 2024 campaign, and congressional Republicans are continuing to push proposals that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Research, even among Republican state officials, has shown voting by noncitizens is a rare problem.
Friday’s ruling is among several setbacks for the president’s executive order, which has faced multiple lawsuits. In October, Kollar-Kotelly blocked the administration from adding a documentary proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form. Separate lawsuits by Democratic state attorneys general and by Oregon and Washington, which rely heavily on mailed ballots, have blocked various portions of Trump’s order.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/30/citizenship-provisions-trumps-election-executive-order/
Greg Biffle wasn’t flying his plane before crash that killed him and 6 others, NTSB report says
Retired NASCAR driver Greg Biffle was not flying his own jet when it crashed last month, killing him and six others, according to a Friday report from investigators.
The preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board also concluded that while an experienced pilot was at the controls, the person sitting in the right seat wasn’t qualified to be the copilot. Biffle and the retired airline pilot at the controls, Dennis Dutton, and his son Jack, who were all licensed pilots, noticed problems with gauges malfunctioning on the Cessna C550 before it crashed while trying to return to the Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina.
The plane erupted into a large fire when it hit the ground about one-third of a mile from the airport’s runway.
The NTSB made clear that Jack Dutton was sitting in the copilot seat. Neither Jack Dutton nor Biffle had the right endorsement on their pilot’s licenses to serve as a copilot on that plane, and the younger Dutton had only about 175 hours of flying experience. Aviation safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti, who used to investigate crashes for both the NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration, said he believes the lack of an experienced copilot may have been a key factor in the crash.
“This airplane requires two trained pilots, and if things go wrong and you don’t have a trained pilot, then bad things can happen,” Guzzetti said. “The airplane might have been able to be landed safely if there were two qualified pilots up front.”
The report said that a thrust reverser indicator light wasn’t working before takeoff, but after the plane got into the air, the pilot’s altimeter and some other instruments weren’t working on the left side of the cockpit. After that the report said the pilot temporarily transferred control over to the copilot while he tried to troubleshoot the problems.
The cause of the problems with the plane isn’t clear at this stage in the investigation, partly because the cockpit voice recorder cut out at times and NTSB experts have only just begun to dig into what caused the crash. Over the radio, Jack Dutton announced, “we’re having some problems here” and the cockpit recorder captured part of the conversation between the three pilots about the issues with the plane.
John Cox, who is the CEO of Safety Operating Systems, said he thinks the instrument problems on the plane might have been a bigger factor in the crash than the inexperience of the copilot.
“In the clouds with failing flight instruments is a serious situation,” Cox said.
But the report indicates that the pilots were able to resolve the problems with the gauges before they tried to land back at the airport. The NTSB said that after a few minutes of discussion where Biffle was suggesting possibilities about what was going wrong, the pilot indicated that he had found the problem but didn’t say what it was. At that point, the audio in the cockpit recorder returned to normal, and there was no further discussion of instrument problems before the crash.
First responders tend to the scene of a plane crash at a regional airport on Dec. 18, 2025, in Statesville, N.C. (Matt Kelley/AP)
It’s not clear why the plane came in so low and slow that it clipped two poles of landing lights before it crashed. Investigators discovered the throttle in the full forward position when they examined the wreckage. Guzzetti said that suggests the pilot may have realized the plane was too low and tried to pull up and maybe even go around.
Biffle’s wife, Cristina, and children Ryder, 5, and Emma, 14, were killed in the crash along with his friend, Craig Wadsworth.
Biffle, 55, won more than 50 races across NASCAR’s three circuits, including 19 at the Cup Series level. He also won the Trucks Series championship in 2000 and the Xfinity Series title in 2002.
In 2024, Biffle was honored for his humanitarian efforts after Hurricane Helene struck the U.S., even using his personal helicopter to deliver aid to flooded, remote western North Carolina.
Hundreds of people in the NASCAR community gathered at an arena in Charlotte earlier this month to honor Biffle at a public memorial service.
The jet had departed Statesville Regional Airport, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Charlotte about 10 minutes before it crashed while trying to return and land. Every indication is that the plane needed to land quickly because of the problems, so it wouldn’t have been a good option to fly to Charlotte.
The plane’s speed and altitude fluctuated significantly during the brief flight. At one point, the plane quickly soared from 1,800 feet (550 meters) up to 4,000 feet (1,220 meters) before descending again. Just before the crash, it was only a couple of hundred feet off the ground.
An unqualified copilot in that seat is a violation of FAA rules that could have led to suspended licenses for both the pilot in charge and the unqualified copilot if the agency had discovered it under normal circumstances. But the FAA might have known about that unless someone reported it.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/30/greg-biffle-plane-crash-ntsb/
Cold Weather Delays NASA Moon Launch At Least Two Days
Cold Weather Delays NASA Moon Launch At Least Two Days
Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—Humanity’s return to the Moon’s orbit will have to wait at least another two days.
NASA said on Jan. 30 that the earliest launch date for the Artemis II mission—the first crewed mission to fly around the Moon in more than 50 years—was pushed back from Feb. 6 to Feb. 8 due to the unusually cold weather disrupting critical pre-launch operations.
“Managers have assessed hardware capabilities against the projected forecast, given the rare arctic outbreak affecting the state, and decided to change the timeline,” the space agency said in a press release.
“Teams and preparations at the launch pad remain ready for the wet dress rehearsal.
“However, adjusting the timeline for the test will position NASA for success during the rehearsal, as the expected weather this weekend would violate launch conditions.”
Before the behemoth Moon rocket called the Space Launch System can be cleared for launch, it needs to undergo a “wet dress rehearsal,” which is a run-through of launch day operations.
They include fully loading and unloading the rocket, powering up, powering down, and recycling critical systems.
It is at this time that any lingering problems with the spacecraft, such as fuel leaks, reveal themselves, as was the case for Artemis I.
Artemis II’s wet dress rehearsal was scheduled for Jan. 31.
However, mission managers decided the day before that it would be too cold and they are now targeting Feb. 2, with the simulated launch window beginning at 9 p.m. (ET).
While the space agency rules out a launch on the first two days of the February window—Feb. 6 and Feb. 7—a finalized launch date won’t be announced until after teams have reviewed the outcomes of the wet dress rehearsal.
According to NASA’s weather criteria for the Space Launch System, fueling cannot be initiated if the 24-hour average temperature at key points of the rocket is below 41.1 degrees Fahrenheit.
The National Weather Service office in Melbourne, Florida, warned of an extreme cold and freeze watch for Cape Canaveral, and several other counties across Central Florida for Jan. 31 through Feb. 1.
Temperatures could drop as low as 20 degrees Fahrenheit, with a cold wind chill possibly hitting as low as seven degrees Fahrenheit.
Strong gusts reaching 45 mph were also possible for the morning of Jan. 31, which would also violate launch conditions.
Now, NASA plans to keep the Moon rocket and Orion crew capsule out on Launch Complex 39B in the meantime, as engineers take precautions to maintain the vehicle through the cold.
Those include keeping the Orion capsule powered up and configuring purges to ensure proper environmental conditions for certain elements of the boosters and spacecraft are maintained.
Meanwhile, the Artemis II crew remains in their pre-flight quarantine in Houston.
Mission managers were still assessing when the crew would arrive at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the launch.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/30/2026 – 20:05
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cold-weather-delays-nasa-moon-launch-least-two-days
Americans Have Limited Trust In AI Search Results
Americans Have Limited Trust In AI Search Results
Using a search engine nowadays will inevitably render AI-generated results towards the top of the page.
This means that not only the many people going straight to ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini for their queries, but everybody else as well, is seeing the conclusions of Large Language Model in their online searches.
While most people are aware that LLM results can be wrong, tedious double-checking might be skipped when in a hurry or when the results are just what one was looking for and enthusiasm prevails.
But how trustworthy is the average American of AI search results and does trust vary by search category?
Katharina Buchholz reports that results from a Statista Consumer Insights survey show that only around one third of Americans have a high level of trust in these search results (giving eight to 10 points on a 10-point scale), while around a quarter indicated only one to three points, with one being zero trust.
You will find more infographics at Statista
This leaves close to 40 percent of Americans in the middle, trusting AI results somewhat.
Depending on the topic, there was a slight variation in trust, with Americans trusting AI a little more on health or wellness topics (35 percent showing a high level of trust and only 19 percent showing a low level of trust).
Finance and news topics elicited a little less trust, with only around 29 percent of respondents picking the upper end of the scale for finances and a high 27 percent saying the had little trust in regards to news coverage.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/30/2026 – 19:40
https://www.zerohedge.com/ai/americans-have-limited-trust-ai-search-results
What to know about the civil rights charges Don Lemon faces for covering church protest in Minnesota
Seven people, including former CNN anchor Don Lemon and another journalist — have been charged with violating two different federal laws in connection with the protest that interrupted a worship service at a Minnesota church earlier this month.
The group that barged into a worship service that Sunday was upset that the head of a local field office for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement serves as a pastor. The protest was quickly denounced by President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and other officials, as well as many religious leaders.
Mayor Brandon Johnson and Don Lemon speak out against Trump at annual MLK breakfast
Lemon and a local reporter were covering the protest on Jan. 18 at the Cities Church in St. Paul. Those two and five people who helped organize the protest have all been charged in complaints, but the full details of the allegations against them haven’t been released yet because parts of the case files remains sealed.
The arrests of Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort are especially troubling for legal experts and media groups who worry about the chilling effect on coverage of the Trump administration.
David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor specializing in criminal law, said the charges against the protesters are more tenable, given the federal laws against disrupting the free exercise of worship. “A court will have to sort that out,” he said.
But charges against reporters are troubling, he said.
“Charging journalists for being there covering the disruption does not mean they were part of the disruption,” Harris said. “Don Lemon and other journalists are the way that we the public are finding out what is happening in these spaces,” he said. “They are our eyes and ears. The message that is being sent is that journalists like Don Lemon and others should feel intimidated from doing this.”
The two key laws cited in the complaints against those who were arrested were passed more than a century apart — one rooted in efforts to prevent intimidation by the post-Civil War Ku Klux Klan and the other to enable access to abortion clinics, though they both have had wider applications.
Here are some details about those laws:
Law designed to protect access to abortion clinics and churches
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law, known as the FACE Act for short, was passed in 1994 to help ensure that patients seeking care at an abortion clinic — as well as the doctors and nurses who work there — could safely access the facilities that often draw protests. It followed incidents of violence targeting clinic workers.
A Republican-sponsored clause that provided for penalties for disruptions of worship services was also incorporated into the law.
Anti-abortion conservatives have denounced the law, focusing on the clinic protections. Trump last year pardoned several people convicted for blockading clinics. His Justice Department scaled back FACE Act prosecutions of those accused of blocking clinics, claiming there had been a “weaponization” of the law.
But the U.S. Supreme Court, despite having overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide, last year refused to hear a challenge to the constitutionality of FACE.
In 2025, 42 House Republicans co-sponsored legislation, introduced by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, to repeal the FACE Act. The conservative Heritage Foundation supported the stalled repeal effort, calling the FACE Act “an ideological weapon” designed to suppress anti-abortion activity.
They have contended the worship-protection aspect of the law hasn’t been invoked in the past. In 2025, the Justice Department did invoke the act in a lawsuit against demonstrators who protested outside of a synagogue.
Someone charged with their first violation of the FACE Act could be fined or sentenced up to one year in jail. Subsequent offenses, or charges that involve injuries, deaths or damage, could face tougher penalties.
The Conspiracy Against Rights law dates back to the post Civil War era
The other charges against Lemon and Fort are based on a law commonly known as the Conspiracy Against Rights law, which was enacted shortly after the Civil War. It was originally designed to target vigilante groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. The law prohibits intimidating or otherwise preventing someone from exercising constitutional rights.
The Klan had been targeting those newly freed from slavery, but over the years the law has been revised to apply to a wide range of violations of constitutional rights. It was used to charge suspects in the “Mississippi Burning” killings of three civil rights workers in 1964. It has been used in cases ranging from church arsons and antisemitic intimidation to political conspiracy and witness tampering.
The law carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison –- or more if it involves injury, death or destruction of property.
Harris said it’s important for Americans to be able to see what’s happening so they can make up their own minds, instead of only hearing officials describe what happened.
“We all have had the experience of them telling us things that simply do not square with what we see with our own eyes,” he said. “Journalists being present to witness these things and report them are crucial to our being able to make our minds about what our government is doing.”
AP reporter Tiffany Stanley contributed.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/30/what-to-know-don-lemon-minnesota/
