Mexico: Nearly 3,000 migrants have abandoned caravan, won't go on to US

Nearly 3,000 migrants who had been a part of caravans moving from Central America to the United States' southern border have abandoned the group to either stay in Mexico or return to their home countries in Central America, according to Mexican government officials. Mexico's Interior and Foreign Ministries reported, as of Thursday, 2,934 people originally traveling to the U.S. have stopped and applied for asylum in Mexico. Of those, 927 have canceled their asylum claim with the Mexican government and returned to Guatemala and Honduras, where the caravans originated, according to a government news release. The two Mexican departments said federal police and immigration officers are helping transport those who chose to return home.

For the estimated 2,000 people who remain in Mexico as they wait over the next 45 to 90 days to learn if their asylum requests have been granted, 1,553 have been put up in shelters in the southern state of Chiapas. Mexico's Commission for Refugee Aid is overseeing the application process and fielding all requests for asylum, not the U.N. Another 478 people are in three shelters being overseen by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Approximately 4,000 people are still traveling to the country's border with America, according to the Mexican government.

The government said one the group was expected to arrive in the Matias Romero region of Oaxaca by Friday. The state is 1,000 miles south of South Texas, the most southern part of the U.S. It's not clear which part of the U.S. the group is planning to travel to.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mexico-nearly-3-000-migrants-have-abandoned-caravan-wont-go-on-to-us

>>3710402

Thinking the rest will show up Sunday or Monday..

Kanye cuts six-figure check for Democratic candidate

In a week where Kanye West made headlines for vowing to leave politics, he also donated more than $125,000 to a Democratic candidate. The Associated Press reported that West donated $126,460 to Chicago mayoral candidate Amara Enyia, citing state campaign records. Enyia, one of more than a dozen candidates so far vying to replace outgoing Mayor Rahm Emanuel in next February's election. West had previously donated almost $74,000 to Enyia, who has been endorsed by Kanye's fellow Chicago native and hip-hop star Chance the Rapper.

West announced he is leaving politics to focus on being creative earlier this week, following an Oval Office visit with President Trump and a dust-up with Turning Point USA communications director Candace Owens after she credited him with designs used in her "Blexit" campaign encouraging blacks to leave the Democratic party. Enyia, 35, is a policy consultant and the child of Nigerian immigrants. She previously ran in the 2015 Chicago mayor's race.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/kanye-cuts-six-figure-check-for-democratic-candidate

Approval of powerful opioid likely to put scrutiny on FDA

Activists and Democrats are livid with the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to approve the most powerful opioid ever, hinting at a possible probe into the way the agency oversees drug approvals. The FDA on Friday made the controversial decision to approve the powerful opioid Dsuvia, which would be administered only in a medical setting. The approval drew a sharp rebuke from Senate Democrats and activists worried about another powerful version of the opioid fentanyl hitting the streets, and concerned that the agency did not involve a key safety committee in the approval process. “There was no public health need to approve this formulation of supercharged fentanyl in the face of these questions, opposition from one FDA advisory committee chair, and without the full participation of another advisory committee devoted to drug safety,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in a statement Friday. Markey and three other Democratic senators had asked Gottlieb Wednesday to delay approval until after convening a new advisory committee hearing. The senators are worried that the opioid could be diverted or copied and sold to addicts. Illicitly-made fentanyl has become a major contributor to opioid deaths in recent years.

In 2016, of the more than 42,000 opioid overdoses, more than half were linked to fentanyl, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gottlieb said in a statement that there are severe restrictions on the application of the powerful opioid. It will be delivered through a single-dose applicator, and used in only hospitals, surgical centers, or emergency rooms. He added that the drug was a priority for the Department of Defense as it could be used on the battlefield. “The involvement and needs of the DoD in treating soldiers on the battlefield were discussed by the advisory committee,” he said.

But the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen raised questions about the advisory committee that recommended approval for Dsuvia, which is made by the drugmaker AcelRx. Public Citizen said that the Oct. 12 meeting at which the application was reviewed should have included the FDA's panel of experts on drug safety issues, which can review the potential for a new opioid to be abused. Dr. Raeford Brown, who is the chairman of the FDA's anesthetic and analgesic committee, made the unusual move of calling for the FDA to not approve Dsuvia because of the possibility of abuse. Brown could not make it to the meeting on Oct. 12. “Clearly the issue of the safety of the public is not important to the commissioner, despite his attempts to obfuscate and misdirect,” Brown said in a statement. “The FDA should never have any discussion about an individual opioid or a problem affecting a group of opioids without having the drug safety committee,” Sidney Wolfe, founder and senior adviser of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, told the Washington Examiner. “The committee is made up of people who know more about safety and epidemiology.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/healthcare/approval-of-powerful-opioid-likely-to-put-scrutiny-on-fda

>>3710544

>>3710568

>>3710606

The thing that got me was the Chicago factor…we know who we are dealing with there..not good..I feel bad for him and his family.

>>3710735

Agreed and Finally, this crap needs to be over no more lives need to be lost at the hands of these legal drug dealers.

"Swift And Severe": Trump Administration Readies Its Best Hackers For Cyberattack Against Russia

The Pentagon and members of the US intelligence community have not-so-secretly agreed on a rough plan for an offensive cyberattack against Russia in the event the Kremlin interferes with the 2018 midterm elections on November 6, according to Yahoo! News, citing "current and former senior US officials" familiar with the plan. In preparation for its potential use, U.S. military hackers have been given the go-ahead to gain access to Russian cyber systems that they feel is needed to let the plan unfold quickly, the officials said. The effort constitutes one of the first major cyber battle plans organized under a new government policy enabling potential offensive operations to proceed more quickly once the parameters have been worked out in advance and agreed among key agencies. -Yahoo!

So far, national security officials have reported limited efforts by Russians to compromise political organizations and campaigns. There is concern, however, that "Moscow might unleash more aggressive interference" right before midterm voting begins, during voting, or while the votes are being counted, according to the report. The plan is the first hacking offensive to be organized since President Trump signed an August Executive Order streamlining the approval process for such operations - effectively giving the Department of Defense additional prerogatives to prepare cyber-strikes. It also "preemptively addresses traditional intelligence community concerns that cyberattacks will compromise ongoing or future intelligence-gathering by exposing U.S. data-collection operations," reports Yahoo!. While the officials refused to provide specific retaliatory actions, administration officials said on an October 31 call with reporters that it would take more than "malign influence … trying to sway peoples’ opinion or the way people might vote," adding "This is something that has happened since the dawn of the republic."

Social media influence operations, widely used by Russia in 2016 and again over the past two years, were the focus of an indictment by the Justice Department of Russian national Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova unveiled Oct. 19, in which she was charged with conspiring with others against the United States. The senior official clarified that it would be direct interference — efforts to tamper with voting registration and recording votes — that would bring “swift and severe action.” The reason, the official said, is “that fundamentally wrecks the natural process that we have established in this country.” That official didn’t describe what the U.S. action would be. -Yahoo!

Russia was accused by the Department of Homeland Security of attempting to break into election systems of at least 21 states during the 2016 election, however there was no evidence of any alterations - while five of the 21 states told ABC News that they were never attacked.

As we reported last September when word that the 21 states were being targeted, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla released a statement in response to the DHS, the whole thing was just a bunch of "fake news." Padilla noted that after requesting additional information from DHS on the "hacks" it quickly became clear that their "conclusions were wrong" and that "California's elections infrastructure and websites were not hacked or breached by Russian cyber actors." That said, Putin is on watch.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-02/swift-and-severe-trump-administration-readies-its-best-hackers-cyberattack-against

>>3710921

emphasis on "have not-so-secretly agreed"