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Wednesday 31 January 2018

'Dreamers' turn their backs on Trump’s immigration policy

The small group of immigrants who gathered for a State of the Union watch party in Queens Tuesday night didn’t technically plan on watching the president speak.
“When he starts talking, we’re going to turn our backs to the screen,” explained Antonio Alacaron, a DACA recipient and immigration youth organizer at Make the Road New York, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrant rights and Latino communities. “Just the way he has turned his back on us and our community the last year.” 
But even as Alacaron and the 15 or so others at Make the Road’s headquarters in Jackson Heights sat quietly, poker-faced, through most of the speech, they couldn’t help but react when Trump began talking about immigration.
“This is insane,” Alacaron said softly, shaking his head as Trump talked about his proposed plan to create a 12-year pathway to citizenship for “1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age,” in exchange for “building a great wall on the southern border” and other increased security measures.
“It’s sad to hear that to have citizenship we have to give up the safety of our parents,” Alacaron told Yahoo News after the address, adding that attempts to tie citizenship for ‘Dreamers’ to increased spending for the wall and other immigration enforcement is “something we’re not going to compromise on.”
“It’s upsetting to hear that someone who says they’re representing Americans first is not really representing me and my community members,” he said.  


As the elevated trains rumbled overhead, Trump’s voice could barely be heard over the Spanish-language translation of his speech on Telemundo. But certain words, such as “horrible people” and “gang members,” managed to penetrate through the noise, as Trump lamented how “for decades” our supposedly “open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities,” pointing to the parents of two young women killed by members of the MS-13 gang as he called for increased border security.
“He portrayed immigrants as criminals, as people who are illegal,” said Yatziri Tovar, a 25-year-old DACA recipient who moved to the Bronx from Mexico at age 2. Trump’s speech, she said, “gave me a sense of what this nation is going to be for next three years.”
Tovar was particularly disheartened by Trump’s reiteration of his recent proposal for an immigration deal that includes a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers over a period of 10 to 12 years. 
“I came at age of 2, have been living here over two decades,” she said. “For him to tell me I have to wait 12 more years to become a citizen is ridiculous.”
“This is where we grew up, where we went to school,” she added.
On Wednesday, Tovar, who graduated from the City University of New York last year with a degree in political science, will start her new job in the communications department of Make the Road.
“It’s any recent college graduate’s dream to be able to work full-time,” she said, adding “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do that when my DACA expires” in 2019.

“I basically have a year to save money,” she said, adding that by ending programs like DACA as well as temporary protected status for the victims of war or natural disasters in El Salvador and Haiti, Trump has essentially “created more undocumented people.”

Twitter erupts after Melania Trump didn't stand when Trump mentioned "family & faith" during the State of the Union

Things appeared to get pretty awkward between President Donald Trump and the first lady during his first State of the Union address Tuesday night.
At one point in his address, the president made several bold remarks surrounding the "center" of American democracy, but the first lady's seemingly unmoved reaction to his sentiment sent Twitter users wild with speculation.
“In America we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy are the center of American life,” the president said. “The motto is: In God we trust.”
And though his statement prompted standing ovations from many congressional members and attendees, the first lady remained seated.

Melania Trump's move failed to go unnoticed by the people of Twitter and has further fueled the wave of speculation surrounding reports that the first lady was blindsided by the news that adult film star Stephanie Clifford, or Stormy Daniels, was allegedly paid hush money to cover up an affair with the president in recent weeks.
"Looks like Melania didn't stand! Oh that's right #pornstar," one user tweeted, while another wrote: "Did you notice that Melania refused to stand when trump commented on family values being at the center of American life? She looked like she was in a Stormy mood." 
The first lady was reportedly “furious” with her husband following a report in the Wall Street Journal that alleged his lawyer paid a lofty settlement to Daniels to keep quiet about her relationship with the president in 2016.
The viral moment also arrives after Melania Trump abruptly canceled a planned trip with her husband to Davos and arrived separately to the State of the Union.

Sick mum takes her daughter, 16, to hotel room to be raped by stranger after he asked for a ‘younger version’ of her

A SICK mum left her teen daughter to be raped in a motel room by a man who told her he wanted to have sex “with a younger version of her”.
The twisted woman called her daughter “a f***ing bitch” in the courtroom today as she was sentenced to four years behind bars.
Years ago, the depraved mother took her child, then just 16, by bus to a motel in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, on the pretence of a “girls trip” and plied her with vodka, Sunshine Coast Daily reported.
The woman then left her in the room and waited outside while she was raped by a man named only as “Thommo” who she had met online.
The now adult victim broke down in the courtroom and said she would never forgive her mum, who claimed she feared the man would break up with her if she didn’t oblige.
She told her mum in court: “I’ve felt nothing but pain, anger… mentally numb as to how a mother can do this to a child.
“Words cannot express my loss of a childhood by your actions, your lack of compassion.
“Your actions will not, cannot, be forgiven.”
The 47-year-old pleaded guilty to “procuring a young person for carnal knowledge”.
The woman’s defence barrister said his client pleaded guilty on the basis that she did not believe the girl would be raped.    
Her four-year jail term will be suspended after she serves 12 months inside.
Sentencing her at Ipswich court, Queensland, in Judge Dennis Lynch said: “What occurred was your daughter was raped. You procured her and you stood by while all that happened.”
Police have so far not arrested “Thommo”.

Lottery winner dies only weeks after winning $1 million lottery from stage four cancer he was previously unaware he had

A New York man who struck it big with a scratch-off lottery ticket died just weeks after he claimed the prize.

It was a lucky start to 2018 for 51-year-old Donald Savastano, a Queens native who was living upstate in Sidney. He played the New York Lottery's "Merry Millionaire" game and won $1 million.

"This is going change our lives, to tell you the truth," Savastano said when he picked up his winnings.



The self-employed carpenter shared some plans he had in mind for how he was going to spend the money, saying most of it was going to fund his retirement.

"I'm probably going to go get a new truck and I don't know probably go on vacation," Savastano said.

The plans also included a trip to the doctor, because he couldn't afford to go previously.
"He was self-employed," said Danielle Scott, who works at the store where he bought the winning ticket. "He didn't have insurance, he hadn't been feeling good for a while, I guess, and when he got the money he went into the doctor."

The news wasn't good. He learned he had stage four cancer.

"He had a friend come and talk to me, and they told me that he was very sick and that he had brain and lung cancer and that he was in the hospital and they didn't think he was gonna make it," Scott said. 
 

Savastano died Friday, 23 days after he won the lottery.
"I was hoping that the money was maybe going to save his life," Scott said.

Savastano's obituary said he was born in Queens and grew up on Long Island. He became a carpenter after working with and learning from his father as a child.

"He was known for his high-quality work and perfectionism. He always tried to reach out and help those he could by teaching them "the right way to do things," his family wrote in the obituary.

Trump's State Of The Union Gets Brutal Review From New York Daily News

The New York Daily News’ review of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address is in. And the president probably won’t enjoy his hometown newspaper’s take on Tuesday’s speech.
For its Wednesday cover, the New York tabloid used the headline, “What A Load Of Clap,” with a photograph of Trump applauding his own address:
The Daily News’ has fiercely criticized Trump since before his 2016 election victory. It has previously used its cover to depict Trump as a clown, call him “racist” and “stupid,” and brand his feud with former White House strategist Steve Bannon a “cuck fight.”

Internet Burns Washington Post Over Its Front Page On Trump's Speech

The Washington Post’s first edition headline covering President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address didn’t go over well on social media.
Twitter users panned the original five-column headline:
By the time the evening was over, the newspaper had given its front page a major makeover, replacing the “call for bipartisanship” of what many called a highly-partisan and even extremist speech with a quote from the address instead.
Ironically, that line was first delivered by Hillary Clinton in 2010
While it’s not unusual for newspapers to undergo changes between editions, it’s unclear what role the more than 3,000 comments on Twitter ― mostly negative ― played in this case. The makeover also drew more than 1,000 replies, with many noting that the new headline wasn’t much of an improvement: