Jocelyn Benson vows to defy Donald Trump’s EO on citizenship verification for elections
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has no plans to comply with an executive order from President Donald Trump Tuesday aimed at enforcing federal election laws.
“This executive order is illegal on its face. States run elections, not the president,” Benson wrote in a statement Tuesday. “This order will only make it harder for eligible Michigan citizens to vote and will create chaos at every step of the election process,” she said.
“The truth is that our elections are already secure,” Benson alleged. “By ordering the DOJ to target state and local election officials, this administration is coming after hardworking local public servants for doing their jobs safeguarding democracy. It is meant to sow fear, confusion, and doubt among voters.”
Benson, who is overseeing her own election for governor, vowed to “take swift action to fight this illegal order in court.” Click here to read more.
‘It started with a tipoff’: how a Guardian investigation exposed child sex trafficking on Facebook and Instagram
It started with a tipoff. I was reporting on the trafficking and exploitation of migrant workers in the Gulf when a source I had known for more than a decade reached out. They told me that child sexual abuse trafficking in the US was surging. As the Covid pandemic pushed predators online, some were using Facebook and Instagram to buy and sell children.
It was 2021 and I was about to begin an investigation with Mei-Ling McNamara, a human rights journalist, that would lead to the tech company META losing a multimillion-pound court case in March this year. The company had not yet rebranded and was known as Facebook, and there had not been any reporting on how children were being trafficked on its platforms. Experts from anti-trafficking nonprofit organisations and an American law enforcement official talked me through the crimes they were seeing. Click here to read more.
THE MOLECULE YOUR BODY ALREADY TRUSTS
Imagine you cut your finger. Within seconds, before you’ve even reached for a bandage, your body has already deployed its first line of chemical defense. Deep inside the white blood cells that flood to the site of injury, a remarkable reaction is taking place: hydrogen peroxide is being transformed, by an enzyme called myeloperoxidase, into a potent antimicrobial oxidant that will annihilate bacteria, viruses, fungi, and virtually anything else that tries to take advantage of your open wound.
That molecule is hypochlorous acid. Scientists write it as HOCl. And your immune system has been relying on it for millions of years.
Here is the extraordinary thing: scientists have figured out how to bottle it. And when they did, they discovered that the same molecule your body produces to fight infection is also, by almost every measure, the most effective and safest disinfectant ever studied. Over 5,600 peer-reviewed papers agree. Regulatory agencies in more than 50 countries have approved it. Military field hospitals have deployed it in war zones. Burn units swear by it. Doctors use it to prepare the eyes of patients for surgery. And yet, until recently, most people had never heard of it. Click here to read more.
Central Florida man sentenced to 22 years in Snapchat child exploitation case
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Tuesday that a Kissimmee man has been sentenced to 22 years in prison after being convicted on multiple child sexual abuse material charges tied to activity on Snapchat.
Miguel Giraldo, 20, was convicted on 20 counts of possession of child sexual abuse materials, according to the Attorney General’s Office.
“In Florida, child predators will be caught and held accountable every single time,” Uthmeier said in a statement. “This multi-decade sentence is what this predator deserved, and we are glad the Court refused to grant a downward departure on his sentence.”
The case began in September 2024 after the Florida Department of Law Enforcement received a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children indicating child sexual abuse material was being uploaded to a social media account later linked to Giraldo. Click here to read more.
‘We are sick of it’: Hundreds of pounds of meth found in ice cream truck
LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC/CNN Newsource/WKRC) - Investigators discovered hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine in a ice cream truck that was being towed on an interstate.
Authorities held a press conference to announce multiple high-profile drug busts that acted as “a major blow” to the cartels and criminal organizations in the area.
The first drug bust allegedly involved authorities discovering two Mexican nationals towing an ice cream truck on the interstate that contained over 300 pounds of methamphetamine.
"We all myself, probably you, probably your viewers, all have somebody in their lives whose lives have been affected, have been ended, have been ruined by these drugs, and we are sick of it," said attorney Zachary Keller in an interview with KPLC. Click here to read more.
