Remittances from the US in 2012 were $123 billion. Money removed from the American economy.

$123,273,000,000 in remittances were sent from United States to other countries in 2012

Patterns of global migration have shifted in recent decades and those changes, along with the ups-and-downs of the economy, have also resulted in changes in the flow of remittances —the money that many migrants send back to families in their countries of origin.

International migrants sent $529 billion in remittances back to their home countries in 2012, according to the World Bank. The United States is the number one sender of international remittances, accounting for nearly a quarter of them (23.3%). India ranks at the top of all countries that receive remittances, with $69 billion in 2012.

Tracking remittances worldwide is difficult because many countries do not track funds that are sent or received. Based on data it is able to collect, the World Bank has used a statistical model to estimatethe amount of money coming from each sending country to each receiving country. Because these numbers are estimates, there is some room for error.

Country	$
Mexico	$22,811,000,000
China	$13,071,000,000
India	$11,956,000,000
Philippines	$10,604,000,000
Nigeria	$6,126,000,000
Vietnam	$5,679,000,000
South Korea	$5,668,000,000
Guatemala	$4,400,000,000
El Salvador	$3,555,000,000
Dominican Republic	$2,732,000,000
Honduras	$2,579,000,000
Germany	$2,568,000,000
France	$1,840,000,000
Lebanon	$1,538,000,000
Jamaica	$1,465,000,000
Colombia	$1,330,000,000
Brazil	$1,306,000,000
United Kingdom	$1,280,000,000
Japan	$1,224,000,000
Thailand	$1,140,000,000
Poland	$1,108,000,000
Pakistan	$1,094,000,000
Peru	$1,091,000,000
Haiti	$1,088,000,000
Ecuador	$1,047,000,000
Egypt	$880,000,000
Italy	$849,000,000
Belgium	$777,000,000
Bangladesh	$694,000,000
Spain	$627,000,000
Serbia	$509,000,000
Jordan	$470,000,000
Nicaragua	$430,000,000
Hungary	$399,000,000
Ukraine	$397,000,000
Iran	$379,000,000
Costa Rica	$361,000,000
Panama	$340,000,000
Nepal	$325,000,000
Indonesia	$321,000,000
Portugal	$319,000,000
Kenya	$315,000,000
Australia	$290,000,000
Austria	$265,000,000
Guyana	$255,000,000
Romania	$240,000,000
Switzerland	$238,000,000
Russia	$216,000,000
Morocco	$214,000,000
Israel	$200,000,000
Syria	$185,000,000
Ethiopia	$181,000,000
Czech Republic	$180,000,000
Bosnia and Herzegovina	$168,000,000
Liberia	$166,000,000
Armenia	$158,000,000
Netherlands	$157,000,000
Denmark	$152,000,000
Ireland	$142,000,000
Sri Lanka	$132,000,000
Bolivia	$130,000,000
Cambodia	$124,000,000
South Africa	$114,000,000
Hong Kong	$113,000,000
Norway	$111,000,000
Argentina	$105,000,000
Yemen	$99,000,000
Sweden	$98,000,000
Lithuania	$96,000,000
Luxembourg	$94,000,000
Croatia	$88,000,000
Latvia	$86,000,000
Slovakia	$84,000,000
Greece	$80,000,000
Moldova	$78,000,000
Sudan	$77,000,000
Uganda	$73,000,000
Laos	$71,000,000
Belize	$68,000,000
Albania	$67,000,000
Senegal	$61,000,000
Trinidad and Tobago	$61,000,000
Saudi Arabia	$58,000,000
Paraguay	$56,000,000
Malaysia	$47,000,000
Venezuela	$44,000,000
Bulgaria	$43,000,000
Barbados	$41,000,000
Fiji	$41,000,000
Finland	$35,000,000
Ghana	$33,000,000
Iraq	$33,000,000
Estonia	$32,000,000
Georgia	$32,000,000
Slovenia	$32,000,000
Mongolia	$31,000,000
Tunisia	$31,000,000
Grenada	$30,000,000
New Zealand	$28,000,000
Samoa	$28,000,000
Tajikistan	$28,000,000
Cape Verde	$24,000,000
Turkey	$24,000,000
Afghanistan	$22,000,000
Tonga	$20,000,000
Dominica	$17,000,000
St. Kitts and Nevis	$16,000,000
Azerbaijan	$15,000,000
Cameroon	$15,000,000
Kyrgyz Republic	$15,000,000
Uruguay	$15,000,000
Gambia	$14,000,000
Belarus	$13,000,000
Sierra Leone	$13,000,000
Algeria	$12,000,000
Macau	$11,000,000
St. Lucia	$11,000,000
Antigua and Barbuda	$10,000,000
Iceland	$10,000,000
Cyprus	$9,000,000
St. Vincent and the Grenadines	$8,000,000
Togo	$8,000,000
Republic of Macedonia	$7,000,000
Ivory Coast	$6,000,000
Mali	$4,000,000
Malta	$4,000,000
Mauritius	$4,000,000
Oman	$4,000,000
Rwanda	$4,000,000
Tanzania	$4,000,000
Zambia	$4,000,000
Guinea	$3,000,000
Botswana	$2,000,000
Namibia	$2,000,000
Niger	$2,000,000
Seychelles	$2,000,000
Benin	$1,000,000
Burundi	$1,000,000
Chile	$1,000,000
Djibouti	$1,000,000
Kazakhstan	$1,000,000
Lesotho	$1,000,000
Mozambique	$1,000,000
Vanuatu	$1,000,000

"Remittances" are funds or other assets sent to their home countries by migrants, either themselves or in the form of compensation for border, short-term and seasonal employees (World Bank, 2013). Total remittances received by a country, as reported by the World Bank, include remittances sent via formal channels, such as banks and other businesses that transfer money. Data in this interactive are provided by the World Bank and follow World Bank definitions adopted from the International Monetary Fund nations (World Bank, 2013). If unofficial remittances were counted, the total could be as much as 50% higher or more, according to household surveys and other evidence cited by the World Bank (World Bank, 2005). Remittance data are provided by the World Bank and follow World Bank definitions adopted from the International Monetary Fund (World Bank, 2013). Remittance flows presented in this map are based in part on World Bank estimates derived from a statistical model, and therefore are subject to some error. For more information, see (Ratha and Shaw, 2007) Incoming remittance flows from specific countries might not add to the total due to World Bank being unable to identify the source of some of the remittance inflows.

Source: World Bank 2012 Bilateral Remittance Matrix.

Here’s Your Apology, Felipe . . .the Mexican government is in no position to lecture us.

Here’s Your Apology, Felipe . . . 

Leadership failure on the part of former Mexico President Vicente Fox and other elites has sent Mexicans fleeing their country. (Newscom)

• 2/29/2016 6:28 PM EST

Politics: Mexican elites have taken potshots against Donald Trump over his illegal immigration stance. One ex-president actually demanded Trump apologize to the Mexican people. Actually, it’s Mexico’s elites who owe Mexicans an apology.

Sitting in the lap of luxury, former Mexican President Vicente Fox opened fire at Trump, hurling barnyard epithets toward the New York real estate magnate, who, along with the other top two presidential contenders, proposes building a wall to protect the U.S.’ unguarded southern border. Trump also wants Mexico pay for it through taxes on remittances and other fees.

“I have to say that we are not, I am not going to pay for that f***ing wall,” Fox told Jorge Ramos in an interview with Univision and cable network Fusion. Shortly after that, his tag-team party ally, former President Felipe Calderon, jumped in from a cushy Cairo business conference, echoing Fox with “We are not going to pay a single cent for such a stupid wall!” adding that Trump was “completely crazy” for good measure.

Vice President Joe Biden offered an apology for Trump on a trip to Mexico City, but the Mexican elites weren’t finished. Mexico Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu then called Trump “ignorant and racist” and said his wall proposal was “not a proposition we would even consider.” Both Fox and Calderon piled on to compare Trump to Hitler. Via Twitter, Trump called Fox out on his salty language and demanded an apology, prompting Fox to fire back with: “And his apology to all Mexicans?”

Oh, really? That was one sorry demand from Mexico’s elites, whose leadership failures are precisely the reason so many millions of Mexicans can’t stand the idea of living in their own country and seek better luck north. Fact is, the elites are the ones who owe an apology to all Mexicans.

Sure, Ruiz Massieu protests she’s not going to pay for a wall, and we have no doubt she isn’t. But we’d be curious if she’d decline to accept Trump-taxed remittances from illegals, which are pretty much the fuel her government runs on.

If she did, it would virtually cancel out the development model the Mexican elites have made the most of in the past half century: Chase your poorest, least-educated and least-productive citizens north, as a cynical means of ending social pressures for change, and force the U.S. to pay for their housing, education, health care and welfare instead. Maintain tight immigration controls over your own borders but demand open borders with the U.S. to ensure an escape from your nation. This is why Mexico’s elites are so shameless about championing illegal immigration despite the embarrassment it would bring on any other decent government watching its citizens flee.

Remittances to Mexico totaled $24 billion last year, topping the country’s oil earnings. According to the 2013 International Monetary Fund report “Beyond the Household,” that cash not only benefits individuals, it also benefits the government. Sales taxes on money spent fills government coffers, and enables government to spend more and carry higher debt. That often doesn’t contribute to economic development, the IMF warned. It goes to cronies, with the high cash infusions making “corruption less costly,”  the IMF paper said. In short, Mexico’s reliance on remittances tends to keep the country underdeveloped — a real disservice to Mexico’s citizens.

Maybe that’s why Fox also expressed a Marie-Antoinette-like befuddlement at the reality that 44% of Latino, mostly Mexican-descent voters in Nevada cast their votes for Trump. It could well be that they see the game being played by Mexico’s elites in foisting illegal immigration on the U.S. is their own — and the jig is up.

In any case, the apology should be coming from Mexico City.

Obama regime willful ignorance about the anti Christian genocide in the middle east.

White House Says It Has Not 'Reached' Determination That ISIS Slaughter of Christians Is Genocide

By Susan Jones | March 1, 2016 | 6:35 AM EST 

Assyrians protest in solidarity with Christians abducted in Syria and Iraq, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon Saturday, Feb. 28, 2015. The Islamic State group, which has repeatedly targeted religious minorities in Syria and Iraq, abducted more than 220 Assyrians in northeastern Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

(CNSNews.com) - Asked on Monday if Islamic State terrorists are carrying out a campaign of genocide against Syria's Christians, White House Spokesman Josh Earnest said the word genocide "involves a very specific legal determination that has, at this point, not been reached."

He condemned the terrorists' "willingness to target religious minorities, including Christians."

Earnest noted that the Obama administration has long expressed its concerns over ISIS/ISIL's "slaughter" of religious minorities in Iraq and Syria.

"You'll recall, at the very beginning of the military campaign against ISIL, at the--some of the first actions that were ordered by President Obama, by the United States military were to protect Yazidi religious minorities that were essentially cornered on Mount Sinjar by ISIL fighters. We took those strikes to clear a path so that those religious minorities could be rescued.

"So we have long been concerned by the way that--that ISIL attempts to target religious minorities.

"We also know that they target Christians in the area, too. In that region of the world, Christians are a religious minority, and we certainly have been concerned--you know, that's one of the many reasons that we're concerned with ISIL and their tactics, which is that it's an affront to our values as a country to see people attacked, singled out or slaughtered based on their religious beliefs."

The reporter asked Earnest, "But you're not prepared to use the word 'genocide' yet in this situation?"

"The -- my understanding is the use of that word involves a very specific legal determination that has, at this point, not been reached. But we've been quite candid and direct, exactly, about how -- how ISIL's tactics are worthy of the kind of international, robust response that the international community is leading. And those tactics include a willingness to target religious minorities, including Christians."

As CNSNews.com recently reported, Secretary of State John Kerry told Congress last week that he is having an “additional evaluation” done to help him determine whether the systematic murder of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East should be declared “genocide.”

“I will make a decision on it as soon as I have that additional evaluation, and we will proceed forward from there,” Kerry told a House Appropriations subcommittee on Feb. 24.

Kerry was responding to Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R.-Neb.), who is the sponsor of a resolution that would declare on behalf of Congress that the slaughter of Christians is in fact genocide.

Hillary Clinton in December agreed that "genocide” describes the Islamic State’s treatment of Christians.

A New Hampshire voter asked her, "Will you join those leaders, faith leaders and secular leaders and political leaders from both the right and the left, in calling what is happening by its proper name -- genocide?"

"I will, because we now have enough evidence," Clinton replied.

Speaking in Bolivia last July, Pope Francis denounced the persecution of Christians: "In this third world war, waged piecemeal, which we are now experiencing, a form of genocide is taking place, and it must end," he said.

In January, the United Nations released a report on the "armed conflict" in Iraq, stating that "the violence suffered by civilians in Iraq remains staggering." The report noted that ISIS "continues to commit systematic and widespread violence and abuses of international human rights law and humanitarian law. These acts may, in some instances, amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide."

The same report said that ISIL continues to target members of different ethnic and religious commuities, "systematically persecuting these groups and subjecting them to a range of abuses and violations. These acts exemplify ISIL's apparent policy of suppressing, permanently expelling, or destroying some communities. Women and children remain  particularly vulnerable...."

And finally, the report noted that, "While the precise reasons for many    of the targeted killings are unknown, information indicates that ISIL continues to target    particular individuals and groups, such as those opposed or perceived to be opposed to it and its ideology." The report then mentions cases where Islamic State terrorists blew up the homes of Christians.

Obamacare Co-Ops Used Accounting Gimmick Approved by Feds. Honest accounting is always the first victim in a criminal operation

Obamacare Co-Ops Used Accounting Gimmick Approved by Feds

Failed co-ops reported net assets despite losing millions

AP

BY: Elizabeth Harrington 
March 1, 2016 5:00 am

Co-ops created under Obamacare reported net assets despite losing millions because they used an accounting trick approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Tax filings for 18 co-ops, including nine that collapsed in 2015, also revealed that co-op CEOs were paid handsomely before many had to shut down.

In July 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services amended its agreement with co-ops, allowing them to list $2.4 billion in loans they received from taxpayers as assets.

“This notice is to inform you that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will now allow co-ops to request that surplus notes be applied to Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (co-op) Program start-up loans,” the agency said in a notice to co-op project officers. “Applying surplus notes to the startup loans will enable co-op borrowers to record those loans as assets in financial filings with regulators.”

Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonprofit that seeks to eliminate inefficiency in government, said the notice permitted Obamacare co-ops to use fuzzy math to mask their true financial situation.

“Taxpayers expect to hear the truth about Obamacare’s co-ops,” Curtis Kalin, the group’s spokesman, said. “It is unconscionable that CMS attempted to obscure the financial disaster the co-ops have become through gimmicks and loopholes.

“The fact that failed co-op CEOs received bonuses is ethical salt in a festering fiscal wound,” he said.

Though 21 of 23 co-ops lost money in 2014, most listed net gains on their 990 forms filed with the IRS. Additionally, CEOs were paid well over six figures, including the Health Republic Insurance of New York, which paid its president and CEO $427,000.

That co-op closed last fall and is now under investigation for its finances.

The nine co-ops that collapsed in 2015 paid their CEOs a combined $2.8 million.

New Mexico Health Connections listed net assets of $23.2 million in 2014, though it lost $2.97 million the same year. Every employee of the co-op made over six figures, including CEO Martin Hickey who made $262,874.

The New Mexico co-op is still operating, though it announced last year it was dropping preferred provider plans, limiting individuals who purchase insurance through the co-op to the more restrictive health maintenance organization plans, or HMOs.

Co-ops in Kentucky, Louisiana, New York, Tennessee, Utah, and Oregon listed net assets despite suffering multi-million dollar losses in 2014. All have since folded.

For instance, Kentucky Health Cooperative lost $50.4 million, but reported net assets of $65.2 million. The co-op shut down in October. “In plainest language, things have come up short of where they need to be,” the interim CEO said at the time.

Louisiana Health Cooperative lost $20.8 million, but listed net assets of $14.1 million and paid its CEO $307,000.

The co-op announced it would end all policies by 2016. Its founders were able to rake in $3.6 million in contracts from the co-op in 2013, the Times-Picayune reported.

Health Republic Insurance of New York listed $77.5 million in losses, but also $63.7 million in net assets. CEO Debra Friedman was the highest paid official at a failed Obamacare co-op, earning $427,632 in 2014. The co-op closed in November, leaving 200,000 New Yorkers without coverage.

Health Republic Insurance of New York is being investigated by the state for “substantial under-reporting” of its finances and may be investigated by the FBI.

Community Health Alliance Tennessee ended coverage for 27,000 people in October. The co-op reported $22.9 million in net assets, and suffered $22.1 million in losses the year before.

Health Republic Insurance Company in Oregon, which also closed in October, is now suing the federal government for $5 billion. The co-op filed suit because it never received $20 million in federal funding after Congress amended the “risk corridor” program under Obamacare. The co-op still owes the federal government $60 million in loans.

Prior to the lawsuit, the Oregon-based co-op lost $12.9 million, but reported $11.4 million in net assets.

Nevada Health did not paint a rosy picture of its finances to the IRS, and did not count taxpayer-funded loans as assets on its filings. The co-op lost over $16 million in 2014, and reported negative net assets of $29 million. Citing high costs, Nevada Health closed in August after receiving $65.9 million in loans from the federal government.

The outlook for co-ops still operating is grim. Agency officials are now warning that eight of the 11 remaining co-ops are on the verge of financial collapse.

This year is a “make or break” for Evergreen Health Cooperative in Maryland, which used the same accounting trick, listing $8 million in net assets despite losing $16.3 million.

The prospects for Maine Community Health Options, which listed negative $1 million in assets, seem grim after the co-op lost more than $17 million in the first nine months of 2015.

Even co-ops that are confident about their finances, like HealthyCT, Inc. do not expect to turn a profituntil 2017. The co-op lost $28 million in 2014, but listed $58 million in net assets.

Oregon’s Health Co-Op, the second co-op in the state, is still operating, and listed negative net assets of $17.7 million in 2014. The co-op paid its CEO $315,706 despite “abysmal enrollment” that drew less than 1,600 members. This resulted in a $6.8 million loss for the co-op.

The Portland Tribune recently noted the co-op has survived on a “combination of caution and pure luck.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not respond to a request for comment.

Here is a prime example of how the BDS movement harms Palestinians.

Backfire: Hundreds of Palestinians Lose Jobs After Activists Push to Boycott Israeli Company that Scarlett Johansson Promoted

Mar. 1, 2016 10:53am Sharona Schwartz

Hundreds of Palestinian workers have lost their jobs following a boycott campaign against SodaStream, an Israeli company that manufactures home kitchen fizzy drink machines once promoted by Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson.

SodaStream was a prominent target of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign and CODEPINK, because it operated a factory in the West Bank, territory that Palestinians claim as theirs.

An Agence France-Presse photographer captured images Monday of the laid-off Palestinian workers sobbing as they said goodbye to their Israeli colleagues following a decision by the company to move its factory out of the West Bank.

Arab-Israeli women greet a colleague, right, being one of the last Palestinian employees of the Israeli SodaStream drinks firm leaving after they were laid off following a work permit battle Monday before they leave SodaStream’s plant in the Israeli city of Rahat in the Negev desert. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)

“We’re heartened by all the support that everyone has shown us, but in the end, when I get up tomorrow, I won’t have a job to go to,” Yasin Abu Ateek, a 29-year-old father of two who worked for SodaStream for six years told the Jerusalem Post.

The Post, quoting the company, reported that the Palestinian employees each supported an average of 10 other people with their income.

“All the people who wanted to close [the factory] are mistaken. … They didn’t take into consideration the families,” Ali Jafar, a Palestinian shift manager, told The Guardian in September.

“SodaStream should have been encouraged in the West Bank if [the BDS movement] truly cared about the Palestinian people,” SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum told the British paper then.

The company moved its operations a two-hour drive away from its original plant to southern Israel in October, citing financial reasons; however, BDS activists had hailed it as a victory of their campaign.

The company employed more than 500 Palestinians and boasted that all employees regardless of nationality and ethnicity received equal pay and benefits for comparable jobs.

When it relocated the factory to southern Israel, SodaStream had planned to bus in 74 of its Palestinian workers two hours in each direction every day; however, the Israeli government did not grant the Palestinians work permits that would have allowed them to enter Israel.

“Today is their final day working with the company, sadly,” SodaStream spokesman Maayan Nave told AFP on Monday.

The CEO of the Israeli SodaStream drinks firm, Daniel Birnbaum, greets one of his Palestinian employees who were laid off after being caught in a work permit battle on Monday before they leave SodaStream’s plant in the Israeli city of Rahat in the Negev desert. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)

The Israeli Defense Ministry’s branch COGAT, which handles Israeli-Palestinian civilian ties, did not comment on why the 74 did not receive permits to work in Israel but released this statement: “COGAT has taken many measures to help the factory and provided temporary permits to hundreds of laborers in the past year and a half to enable the transfer [of the factory].”

Israelis have been on edge given a five-month wave of nearly daily Palestinian stabbing attacks in Israelis, including an ax attack on Friday at a mall just a 10-minute drive from the former West Bank SodaStream plant in Mishor Adumim outside Jerusalem. The main suspect in the stabbing was a worker at the mall who held a work permit, according to Israeli media reports.

Johansson faced pressure from BDS activists two years ago after she took the position of brand ambassador for the carbonated beverage kit.

David Horovitz, the founding editor of the Times of Israel, in an op-ed Monday slammed the boycott Israel activists given the huge layoff of Palestinian employees.

“Proponents of BDS purport to act in the interests of Palestinians, specifically their quest for independence. It is doubtful that the hundreds of unemployed former Palestinian workers of SodaStream see it that way,” Horovitz wrote.

“And as of Monday, all of its Palestinian employees are out of work. What a challenge now, for them, to feed their families, to keep their children safe and prevent them from succumbing to the prevailing hatreds,” he wrote, adding, “Well done, BDS campaign. A great victory for Palestine. A great step forward on the way to… what, exactly?”

“What happened on the bus was not a ‘hate crime,’” Chief Wiley said. Really? More proof hate crimes are a one way street.

Black College Students Who Cops Say Lied About Racist Attack and Were Actually the Aggressors Appear in Court. Here’s How They Plead.

Three black students from State University of New York at Albany who police say lied about being targets of a racially motivated attack on city bus pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of assault and harassment. Two of the three women also pleaded not guilty to charges of falsely reporting the incident.

The charges against the women came weeks after a rally at the school supporting them; they had claimed they were attacked by a group of white men and women Jan. 30.

Image source: WTEN-TV

Last week university police said a three-week investigation found the three women actually assaulted a 19-year-old female passenger in the incident, were not subjected to racial slurs and falsely reported the incident. In addition, WTEN-TV reported one of the accusers was recorded on a 911 call — apparently when she thought she was on hold — saying, “I think it’s so funny … I beat up a boy.”

TheBlaze reported last week that a witness claimed one of the accusers used a racial slur against a white female passenger.

Image source: WTEN-TV

“The evidence shows that, contrary to how the defendants originally portrayed things, these three individuals were not the victims of a crime,” university Police Chief Frank Wiley said in a statement before the arraignment. “Rather, we allege that they are the perpetrators.”

After Monday’s hearing, the women, all 20 years old, face various charges, CNN reported. Ariel Agudio was charged with assault in the third degree, falsely reporting an incident in the third degree, attempted assault in the third degree, harassment in the second degree and attempted criminal mischief in the fourth degree; Alexis Briggs was charged with a count of assault in the third degree; Asha Burwell was charged with assault in the third degree, harassment in the second degree and falsely reporting an incident in the third degree.

The false reporting charges emerged from the initial 911 calls Agudio and Burwell made to police on Jan. 30.

Agudio’s attorney, Mark Mishler called the charges “unwarranted” in a statement Monday.

“It is also unfortunate that some in the media and public appear to have reached a conclusion as to what occurred in this incident without actually having the information needed in order to reach such a conclusion,” Misher said. “Ms. Agudio, an exemplary young woman and an excellent student who has never previously been in legal trouble, asks that people not rush to judgment in this matter.”

Agudio and Burwell were released on the condition that they would be monitored by the state Department of Probation. Albany City Court Clerk Shawn Gallagher reported that Briggs was released with the condition of a 9 p.m. curfew. 

The evidence against the three women emerged from interviews with 35 bus passengers, video from security cameras on the bus and videos recorded by passengers, police said.

The 19-year-old woman who was the alleged subject of the students’ assault has not been identified.

“What happened on the bus was not a ‘hate crime,’” Chief Wiley said. “The only person we heard uttering racial epithets was one of the defendants.”

The incident gained traction on social media after it was initially reported, resulting in the hashtag #DefendBlackGirlsUAlbany. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton even joined the cries for justice before the true details unfolded.

On the day of the arraignment, the People of Color Caucus, Capital Area Against Mass Incarceration published a letter in support of the students. 

“No male struck the three women,” Monday’s police statement said. “The evidence indicates they were actually the aggressors … and that they continued to assault the victim despite the efforts of several passengers to stop them.”

US Experiment Tests Kids Raised Around Guns and Those Shielded From Them. The media omits certain facts to prop up their narrative.

Experiment Tests Kids Raised Around Guns and Those Shielded From Them — One Side of Gun Debate Will Likely Be Shocked by Results

Mar. 1, 2016 9:18am Dave Urbanski

What happens when eight children are let into a room where a real gun is partially hidden — lodged next to a couch’s seat cushion?

Image source: KWWL-TV

Iowa TV news station KWWL-TV, in conjunction with Waterloo police, videotaped the experiment — and with the mothers of the preschool- and kindergarten-age kids watching from another room at the news station.

After the kids were let into the room, it took just 15 seconds for one of them to find the gun.

Image source: KWWL-TV

Before long the gun — which was not loaded — was being passed around and pointed at other children.

Image source: KWWL-TV

The moms were visibly shaken.

Lieutenant Aaron McClelland said it was typical behavior “for young kids. Curiosity. Everything is a toy in their world. Unless we educate them and let them know sometimes it’s not.”

At the very end of the dramatic video 7-minute — after the image of kids holding the gun and the mom’s emotional reactions — the reporter shared a compelling caveat regarding the two children in the room who didn’t pick up the gun.

“Those two children are the ones who have guns in their homes and their parents have talked extensively about guns so therefore their curiosity is gone,” she said.

But the text of the station’s story made no mention of this fact, only noting that the mothers of the two kids who didn’t pick up the gun were “still very much shaken.”

“I was really upset that he didn’t find someone and tell them,” one mother told KWWL, with the other tearfully adding she thought her daughter “would be more proactive. Sorry. And tell somebody. That was scary for mommy to see how quickly that escalated — tell a parent right away.”

McClellan emphasized that parents need to talk to their kids: “Until they know that sometimes it’s not a toy, these accidents will happen.”

Video here

(H/T: TownHall)

Charging passengers by weight is the future of aviation. Bench seats for the obese.

At 175 lbs., this man was told he weighed too much to fly

By Fox News

March 1, 2016

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Photo: EPA

A man weighing 175 pounds says he was forcibly removed from a flight because he weighed too much.

Illinois dentist Dan Nykaza was preparing for takeoff on an American Airlines Envoy regional flight departing from O’Hare to Salt Lake City when he and another passenger were booted from the aircraft to reduce the weight, reports ABC7 Chicago.

Nykaza said he was buckled in and had been on the plane about 20-30 minutes when he was approached by a flight attendant who told him he needed to get off.

“And I’m like ‘Why?” Because there was too much weight on the plane and nobody would take the voucher they were offering. So they chose two people, me being one of them.”

Nykaza says even though the flight wasn’t oversold, he and the other passenger were told they were the last to check in, so they were out.

The platinum status member says he was so angry he walked away and turned down a $200 voucher.

“So I missed the entire weekend. My nephew was there, my daughter, it was sad,” he said. “I was in shock, I didn’t sleep that night, I was kinda numb all first day or two.”

Experts say it happens more than you may think.

“Every airplane has maximum take-off weight. They can’t take off if they are any heavier than that,” airline expert Brian Sumers told ABC.

This comes amid a long-standing debate over commercial airlines and obese passengers.

Last week, a new Airbus patent proposing bench-like seats for overweight passengers made headlines.

Yet, some say flights must always maintain a safe weight level and that charging passengers by weight is the future of aviation. One airline, Samoa Airline started that policy in 2013 and last year Uzbekistan Airways started weighing passengers before boarding its airplanes for flights.