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Press Freedom! Celebrities! (Also, the President.)

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Press Freedom! Celebrities! (Also, the President.)

WASHINGTON — The White Home Correspondents’ Affiliation dinner is an annual celebration of the significance of the First Modification. And, you understand, Chrissy Teigen would possibly present up.

On Saturday night time, President Biden will seem for the dinner for the second time in his presidency. He’s anticipated to talk about the significance of press freedom and the troubling detentions of journalists all over the world.

Then, a president who is never round members of the press in casual settings is probably going to provide a speech of roughly 10 to twenty minutes containing salty asides about his protection and actually-pretty-serviceable jokes about journalists and their peculiarities, as he did final yr.

Roy Wooden Jr., a comic and a correspondent for “The Each day Present,” will host the occasion. He informed Politico this week that he would convey “Clarence Thomas jokes” and that he was unsure if his set would go over effectively.

“I don’t suppose Washington has a humorousness,” he stated.

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Ought to be enjoyable!

Folks in Washington all have their methods of coping with this weekend, and that features the president. Some individuals go away city, some soar into the get together lineup like keen little salmon swimming upstream and others take the chance to fold it into their repeatedly scheduled diatribes in regards to the information media.

Nobody did the latter extra vocally than Mr. Biden’s predecessor, Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump may need dimmed the dinner of its star energy and pre-party funding, however he by no means fairly managed to snuff out this city’s will to get together.

Mr. Biden, who will get out of city most weekends, determined to R.S.V.P. to the dinner. In line with an evaluation of his schedule, that is solely his twenty fourth in Washington out of 118 as president. He has spent all or a part of 227 days of his presidency at considered one of his properties in Delaware, in response to Mark Knoller, a former CBS correspondent who has tracked presidential actions for the reason that Ford period.

The coronavirus briefly derailed the occasion in 2020 and 2021, however final yr, Mr. Biden joined town’s elite by packing right into a ballroom amid a surge in Covid-19 circumstances — Trevor Noah! Kim Kardashian hard-launching her (short-lived) romance with Pete Davidson! Additionally: The First Modification!

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Mr. Biden, safely socially distanced, couldn’t resist declaring that case numbers have been rising: “Do you learn any of your personal newspapers?” he requested the hooting crowd. He additionally helpfully reminded the viewers that they have been among the many fellow vaxxed-and-boosted: “Simply contact your favourite Fox Information reporter. They’re all right here. Vaccinated and boosted.”

Count on extra presidential ribbing this yr, and extra hooting. This spring, the coronavirus was shoved to the aspect together with the world’s different roiling issues, and the plan to get together was again in full pressure. Reporters ran throughout Washington prefer it was a high-powered Sadie Hawkins dance, asking administration officers to take a seat at tables with them within the 2,600-seat ballroom of the Washington Hilton. (New York Occasions journalists don’t attend the dinner.)

The tickets promote for $375, Tamara Keith, the NPR reporter and president of the White Home Correspondents’ Affiliation, stated in an interview. The nonprofit takes in some $975,000 from tickets alone, and a big chunk of the income goes to scholarships. Ms. Keith stated that over the previous decade the group has raised some $1.1 million for scholarships. She stated she wrote many of the speech she is going to ship this yr aboard Air Drive One on the president’s journey from Eire.

On the dinner, journalists obtain awards for his or her work to clarify the president and his decision-making to the world, on deadline. This yr, Gwen Ifill of the PBS NewsHour and Washington Week and Invoice Plante of CBS Information will obtain posthumous awards to acknowledge their profession achievements.

In his remarks, Mr. Biden is predicted to convey up the case of Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Road Journal who was formally charged with espionage by the Russian authorities after his detention in March. Mr. Biden’s administration has vehemently denied these fees.

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“It’s at all times a sophisticated night time,” Ms. Keith stated. “There’s comedy, there’s completely tragedy with the journalists who’re wrongfully detained all over the world who we will probably be holding up at our dinner. And yeah, there has at all times been, irrespective of the president, irrespective of the press corps, a considerably uncomfortable relationship between the president and the press who covers them. As effectively there needs to be.”

In line with a roundup by Deadline, friends this yr embody a number of cupboard officers, together with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. The singer John Legend and Ms. Teigen, a mannequin and life-style mogul, are among the many celebrities who will attend. Lisa Vanderpump and Ariana Madix, who star within the Bravo actuality tv sequence “Vanderpump Guidelines” are additionally attending.

Ms. Keith stated reporters may also be handled to a “actually nice message” from Arnold Schwarzenegger, the previous governor of California, who will name the information media “an ally of the individuals.”

After which there are the events, so many in quantity that information organizations like Politico and Axios — that are internet hosting occasions this yr — have accrued how-to guides for optimizing one’s attendance. The free drinks are plentiful, and the hangovers will probably be lingering till Sunday morning, when there will probably be extra events. After that, there are solely 364 days or so till the following dinner.

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Border Patrol sector stops hundreds of Chinese illegal immigrants in just two days as numbers soar

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Border Patrol sector stops hundreds of Chinese illegal immigrants in just two days as numbers soar

One Border Patrol Sector has seen over two hundred Chinese migrants on two separate days this week, which by itself outpaces the entire number of total Chinese migrants encountered in Fiscal Year 2021.

A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) source told Fox News that on May 1 and May 2, Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector apprehended over 200 Chinese nationals each day.

On Thursday, agents encountered 223 migrants, after encountering 262 on Wednesday.

That means that more Chinese illegal immigrants crossed illegally into the sector in two days than across the entire southern border in all of FY 21, – where 342 migrants were encountered.

ICE CHIEF SAYS THIS FOREIGN ADVERSARY ISN’T TAKING BACK ITS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

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A Chinese migrant speaks to a border patrol officer before being processed after crossing the Rio Grande into the U.S.  (Brandon Bell)

Numbers have increased dramatically since FY 21. There were 1,970 encounters in FY 2022, over 24,000 in FY 2023 and so far there have been over 24,200 encounters so far this fiscal year.

Fox News reported last month that the number of Chinese nationals entering illegally has surged by over 6,300% since FY 2021. 

Some migrants previously told Fox News that they are seeking a better life in the United States.

“My English is not very good, and I don’t know anyone in the United States,” one migrant said in March. “Once I get to the United States, I know I have to start all over again. But I want to live a good life in the future, and I want my children to be educated well. I strive to take root in the United States as soon as possible.”

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But some lawmakers have raised concerns about potential espionage by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the movement of fentanyl into the U.S. – which is often created in Mexico using Chinese precursors and then smuggled across the land border. 

SPIKE IN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FROM THIS US ADVERSARY BLOWS LID OFF PREVIOUS YEAR’S RECORD 

“There have been numerous documented instances of Chinese nationals, at the direction of the CCP, engaging in espionage, stealing military and economic secrets,” lawmakers, led by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said last year. 

Earlier this year, a Chinese illegal immigrant was detained in California after entering a Marine Corps base without authorization and ignoring orders to leave. In response to that incident, CBP has stressed that there will be consequences for those who enter the U.S. illegally, including those from China.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS

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Migrants in California near the border

Migrants in line in Jacumba, California. Border authorities are contending with an influx of Chinese migrants in a key border sector. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

“DHS continues to enforce United States immigration laws, expanding lawful pathways while strengthening enforcement consequences for those who cross our border unlawfully,” the agency said.

“Individuals and families without a legal basis to remain in the U.S. are subject to removal pursuant to Title 8 authorities and are subject to a minimum five-year bar on reapplying for admission and potential criminal prosecution if they subsequently re-enter without authorization.”

However, the overwhelming majority of the Chinese are mass released as China is not cooperative with deportation flights from the U.S.

At a recent House Appropriations Committee hearing, acting ICE Director Patrick Lechleitner was asked by Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., to identify the top countries that are the most difficult to send back their nationals who are being deported from the U.S.

“We’ve got Bhutan, top of the list there, Cambodia, they’ve been challenging, the People’s Republic of China, although we’ve had some recent cautiously optimistic progress with the Chinese, so I want to say it’s moving in the right direction there.”

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He also said that ICE is working with both other DHS agencies and the State Department in trying to rectify recalcitrant countries, but he noted that “it’s not an easy issue for them either,” given other factors, including geopolitical issues.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently told lawmakers in the House that there had recently been one deportation flight to China after he had spoken to officials in the communist country.

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Ali: Mocking Gaza protesters as 'gluten-free warriors' was fun — until a mob at UCLA attacked them

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Ali: Mocking Gaza protesters as 'gluten-free warriors' was fun — until a mob at UCLA attacked them

Bill Maher on his HBO talk show this week said that pro-Palestinian student protests on college campuses are what happens when “activism merges with narcissism.”

The Atlantic columnist David Frum referred to protesters like the UCLA students who were violently attacked Wednesday by a mob of counterprotesters as “banana-allergy revolutionaries.”

During Tuesday night’s tactical police response to Columbia University students’ taking over a building on campus, author Judith Miller tweeted: “Hey Columbia protesters! If you’re so proud of what you’re doing, why are you covering your faces?”

Mocking student protesters has become a fun and easy pastime since they began marching and camping out in opposition to Israel’s ongoing military incursions in Gaza following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in Israel. All critics and jeering old folks need is a platform (cable TV, Instagram, a tattered soap box) to discredit the movement as the performative act of feckless snowflakes and spoiled children.

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The protective gear of the “gluten-free warriors” is a form of dress-up. Their safety measures — encampment barricades and self-manned medical tents — are seen as ploys for attention. They’re called cowards for covering their faces with masks and goggles.

But these actions weren’t just for show. UCLA’s pro-Palestinian demonstrators did need to shield and defend themselves when a violent mob of pro-Israeli counterprotesters attacked their encampment.

Video shot by The Times, other media outlets and witnesses at the scene show counterdemonstrators in black attire and white masks ripping down barricades, beating people with batons and poles and screaming racial epithets. Campers were dragged, kicked and pummeled by the predominantly male mob Tuesday night and Wednesday morning while police and campus security stood by for three hours before responding.

Law enforcement eventually cleared the counterprotesters, who reportedly included non-student organizations. No arrests were made.

But 24 hours later, more than 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested when UCLA called in a massive police presence to clear the student encampment.

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“What we’ve just witnessed was the darkest day in my 32 years at UCLA,” David Myers, a professor of Jewish history at UCLA who is working on initiatives to bridge differences on campus, told The Times. “Why didn’t the police, UCPD and LAPD, show up? Those in the encampment were defenseless in the face of a violent band of thugs. And no one, wherever they stand politically, is safer today.”

The optics, at best, discourage free speech on campus and encourage violent reprisal from those who disagree with the message. Recent weeks have seen police summoned by universities such as USC, UCLA and Columbia to quash largely peaceful student rallies and clear encampments, while racial slurs, verbal threats and violent attacks perpetrated against antiwar protesters have not been treated with the same seriousness or urgency.

Fox News naturally took the “Good vs. Evil” theme a step further when describing the protest movement as a Trojan horse for nefarious, anti-American operations.

“A lot of them seem to be the same type of protester we saw during the George Floyd protest,” anchor Trace Gallagher said in response to the tactical response of the NYPD at Columbia this week. “They have changed the chants. It’s a new location and a lot of the same crowd that moves into these things.”

His guest went on to say that the protesters are “targeting the American system and using the Palestinian cause to piggyback their nonsensical, glazed-over beliefs in order to start mass anarchy.”

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Delegitimization is a classic tactic in the debate over who has the higher moral ground. But it shouldn’t matter: All peaceful protesters — on and off campus — need to be protected, regardless of where their participants stand on the war.

Watching footage of the violence at UCLA this week is chilling, and there’s sure to be more dangerous clashes if the safety of protesting students is mocked as unnecessary, or colleges continue to treat them as the threat. Their right to safely exercise free speech has to be protected.

Cynical agitators like Maher will always leverage incendiary moments for ratings and clicks. But tucking one’s opposition to the protest movement into a flippant screed against Gen Z isn’t just obnoxious, it’s dangerous. It feeds a harmful narrative that their need for protection is make-believe, that they’re a whining, pampered generation we should ignore, or worse, allow others to target while we watch from the sidelines.

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Democratic Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar indicted by DOJ on conspiracy and bribery charges

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Democratic Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar indicted by DOJ on conspiracy and bribery charges

The Department of Justice indicted Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas on conspiracy and bribery charges Friday. 

Cuellar’s wife has also been indicted in an investigation connected $600,000 in bribes they accepted from an Azerbaijan-based energy company and a bank in Mexico to advance the former Soviet republic’s interests in the U.S. 

Federal law enforcement raided Cuellar’s house and office in 2022 as part of an investigation into a group of U.S. businessmen, and their ties to the country. The representative and his office agreed to cooperate with the investigation.

FEDERAL GRAND JURY SUBPOENAS REP. CUELLAR, WIFE, AND ASSOCIATES IN AZERBAIJAN-TIED PROBE: REPORT

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, is seen outside a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus in the U.S. Capitol. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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Cuellar released a statement on Friday following reports of the upcoming indictment, declaring both himself and his wife as innocent without specifying the charges.

“I want to be clear that both my wife and I are innocent of these allegations,” wrote Cuellar. “Everything I have done in Congress has been to serve the people of Texas.”

REP. CUELLAR, STAFF TOOK SPONSORED TRIPS TO AZERBAIJAN COORDINATED BY CONVICTED BUSINESSMAN

The Texas representative specifically defended his wife and her qualifications, once again without specifying the nature of the indictments.

Department of Justice logo

A podium displays the seal of the Department of Justice at the department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

“Imelda and I have been married 32 years. On top of being an amazing wife and mother, she’s an accomplished businesswoman with two degrees. She spent her career working with banking, tax, and consulting. The allegation that she is anything but qualified and hard working is both wrong and offensive,” he wrote.

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Cuellar previously served as a co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus.

This is a developing story and will be updated.  The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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