Migrant who entered US illegally makes admission about handouts from blue city

Some migrants have mixed feelings over their situation in New York City.

On Monday, the New York Times released a report on some of the 55,000 migrants who are still sheltering in New York City. It focused specifically on people living in hotels, reconverted office buildings and tent dormitories constructed at Floyd Bennett Field.

At the Watson Hotel, one Colombian mother, Ingrid Henao, admitted to feeling guilty for living at the taxpayers’ expense.

NEW YORK CITY BOOTING MIGRANTS FROM LONG-TIME SHELTERS TO PREPARE FOR ‘SUMMER SURGE’ OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

“We’re getting spoiled,” Henao said. “This was never my idea. I didn’t leave my country under the conditions we fled for this.”

Some migrants expressed fear while living in their shelters, believing they will soon become targets for raids under the Trump administration.

“People are desperate to get out,” Nicolaza Criollo told the New York Times.

The NYT reported more than 225,000 migrants have come into the city since 2022, costing New York City more than $6 billion to house them. 

However, the NYT appeared to downplay criticism of the migrant crisis. 

“Despite critics who blamed migrants for draining public resources, over half of the migrants the city has sheltered since early 2022 have exited the system, and the number entering has been in decline,” it wrote.

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams has seemed more open to collaborating with incoming Trump border czar Tom Homan to begin deporting illegal immigrants. Homan told Sean Hannity earlier this month that he had already spoken with Adams about potential strategies.

“He really cares about public safety, and he’s putting politics aside. He wants to help ICE take criminal threats off the street. He wants to help ICE look for national security threats. He wants to help ICE find over 340,000 missing children, which many are going to be in the city. So a great meeting,” Homan said. 

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Women accused of shoplifting in blue state shocked to learn punishment has changed

Police in California released a video of a trio of alleged shoplifters who were shocked to find out that the penalty for their crime had recently changed. 

In the viral surveillance video shared by the Seal Beach Police Department on Sunday, three women can be seen walking into an Ulta Beauty store, browsing the shelves, then casually exiting the business with what police said was nearly $650 worth of stolen merchandise.

“… a friendly reminder that Proposition 36, which increases punishments for some retail theft and drug possession offenses, went into effect Wednesday morning in California,” the Seal Beach Police Department wrote in the caption of the video on their Instagram account.

The video shows the women entering a Kohls store and allegedly stealing more merchandise, totaling nearly $1,000 in stolen goods.

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Bodycam video then shows police officers chasing after the women and ultimately arresting them.

“It’s a felony?” one of the women asks the other in the back of the patrol car.

“B—h new laws,” the woman responds. “Stealing is a felony and this Orange County b—h. They don’t play.”

CALIFORNIA ‘SHOPLIFT WITH A COP’ BLITZ OPERATION LEADS TO DOZENS OF ARRESTS

The women were later identified by police as Destiny Bender, 24, and Deanna Hines, 24, both from Long Beach, and Michelle Pitts, 26, of Signal Hill.

All three individuals were booked into the Orange County Jail on charges of Grand Theft, Conspiracy to Commit a Crime and Resisting Arrest.

Police shared a friendly reminder along with the video.

“It undoes some of the changes voters made with a 2014 ballot measure that turned certain nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors, effectively shortening prison sentences and leading to a spike in retail theft and crime,” police said. “Here in Seal Beach we never believed in the cite and release program, but this new proposition only strengthens our commitment to combatting Organized Retail Theft. Remember folks, don’t steal in Seal.”

Proposition 36, the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, sought to undo portions of Proposition 47 by increasing penalties for some crimes. It was overwhelmingly passed in California, reversing some billionaire George Soros-backed soft-on-crime policies.

THIEVES STEAL 2,500 PIES IN ODD FOOD HEIST GONE WRONG: ‘SO MUCH WASTE’

When Proposition 47 passed in 2014, it downgraded most thefts from felonies to misdemeanors if the amount stolen was under $950, “unless the defendant had prior convictions of murder, rape, certain sex offenses, or certain gun crimes.”

Progressive Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, backed by Soros, helped author Proposition 47, and lost his seat to challenger Nathan Hochman in November. 

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom remained adamantly opposed to the effort to undo portions of Proposition 47, saying it “takes us back to the 1980s, mass incarceration.”

Princess Diana was ‘mortified’ when she found out about royal family’s Christmas tradition

Biden vetoes bill that would have given Trump more judicial seats to fill

President Biden on Monday vetoed a bill that would have added 66 federal district judgeships over a span of more than a decade, a once-bipartisan effort designed so that neither political party would have an advantage in molding the federal judiciary. 

Three presidential administrations, beginning with the incoming Trump administration, and six Congresses would have had the opportunity to appoint the new trial court judgeships, according to the legislation, which had support from organizations representing judges and attorneys.

Despite arguments from the organizations that additional judgeships would help with cases that have seen serious delays in resolution and ease concerns over access to justice, the White House said that Biden would veto the bill.

In a statement, Biden said he made his decision because the “hurried action” by the House of Representatives left open questions about “life-tenured” positions.

BIDEN’S DECISION TO COMMUTE SENTENCES FOR DEATH ROW INMATES SPARKS SOCIAL MEDIA FRENZY

“The House of Representative’s hurried action fails to resolve key questions in the legislation, especially regarding how the new judgeships are allocated, and neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate explored fully how the work of senior status judges and magistrate judges affects the need for new judgeships,” Biden said.

“The efficient and effective administration of justice requires that these questions about need and allocation be further studied and answered before we create permanent judgeships for life-tenured judges,” Biden added.

He said the bill would also have created new judgeships in states where senators have not filled existing judicial vacancies and that those efforts “suggest that concerns about judicial economy and caseload are not the true motivating force behind passage of this bill now.

GOP CONGRESSMAN CHARGES BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S FOREIGN POLICY ‘LEFT THE WORLD IN A WORSE OFF PLACE’

When Biden’s plan to veto the legislation surfaced earlier this month, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told “America’s Newsroom” that the act is “the last spasm of a lame-duck.”

“President Biden and his team don’t want to allow it to become law simply because a Republican administration would get to appoint some of the judges,” Kennedy said. 

“I wish they’d put the country first,” the senator added.

The legislation was passed unanimously in August under the Democratic-controlled Senate, though the Republican-led House brought the measure to the floor only after Donald Trump was reelected president in November, creating an air of political gamesmanship.

Biden’s veto essentially shelves the legislation for the current Congress. 

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Overturning Biden’s veto would require a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate, and the House vote fell well short of that margin.

Which NATO countries are meeting the 2% defense spending commitment?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) released its annual defense spending earlier this year that details how many countries that are members of the alliance are spending on their defense.

In 2014, the heads of state and government for all NATO members committed to spending at least 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense to help ensure the military readiness of alliance members after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea from Ukraine as well as instability in the Middle East. The 2% guideline built on a prior 2006 commitment made by NATO defense ministers.

At the time of the 2014 commitment, just three alliance members — the U.S., the U.K. and Greece — were spending at least 2% of their economic output on defense. By 2020, nine NATO member states had met the commitment, though that fell to six the following year before rebounding to seven in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it rose further to 10 last year based on estimated figures.

The 2024 data showed that 23 of the 32 member countries, including the two newest members, Finland and Sweden, met the 2% defense spending commitment. That’s the largest number of NATO members meeting or exceeding that threshold since its inception in 2014.

NATO CHIEF CREDITS TRUMP FOR RECORD NUMBER OF MEMBERS MEETING SPENDING TARGETS

Here’s a breakdown of which countries are meeting the 2% defense spending threshold for the first time and those that have done so in prior years:

Spending 2% since at least 2023

• U.S. — over 3% since at least 2014
• U.K. — over 2% since at least 2014
• Greece — over 2% since at least 2014
• Estonia — over 2% since 2015
• Latvia — over 2% since 2018
• Lithuania — over 2% since 2019
• Poland — over 2% since 2020
• Finland — over 2% since 2023 (ratified as a NATO member in 2023)
• Denmark — over 2% since 2023
• Hungary — over 2% since 2023

US NATIONAL DEBT INTEREST EXCEEDS DEFENSE SPENDING: CBO

Surpassed 2% in 2024

• Albania
• Bulgaria
• Czech Republic
• France
• Germany
• Montenegro
• Netherlands
• North Macedonia
• Norway
• Romania
• Slovak Republic
• Sweden (ratified as a NATO member in 2024)
• Turkey

BILLIONS IN US INVESTMENT GOES TO CHINESE FIRMS LINKED TO CCP MILITARY, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

Spending less than 2%

• Belgium
• Canada
• Croatia
• Italy
• Luxembourg
• Slovenia
• Spain

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Why Ravens’ Lamar Jackson is apologizing to his teammates over the halftime show

The Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans have a huge matchup on Wednesday afternoon in a game that will have an impact on playoff seeding.

But Wednesday’s game is being played on Christmas Day as part of a special slate of matchups being featured on Netflix. Beyoncé is set to perform at halftime of the Ravens-Texans game and NFL MVP contender Lamar Jackson is already planning on being on the field for that.

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He said he wasn’t going to be disappointed that he couldn’t watch because he will be out there.

“I’m going to go out there and watch,” he told reporters on Monday. “First time seeing Beyoncé perform, and it’s at our game – that’s dope. I’m going to go out and watch. Sorry [head coach John] Harbaugh, sorry. Sorry fellas.”

Jackson said his favorite Beyoncé song was “Irreplaceable.”

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The Ravens star quarterback has become one player who is irreplaceable. He’s put himself into the running for a second consecutive NFL MVP award as he has the team on top of the AFC North division and in play for homefield advantage throughout the playoffs.

Should he somehow top Buffalo Bills star Josh Allen for the award, it would be the third time for him.

“If it [does] happen, it happens, [and] that’d be dope. Three times [winning it], but like you said, I’m not really focused on that,” he said. “That’s never been my goal though. Even [with] the first or second one, [winning MVP has] never been my goal. I always want to finish with the championship, but I’ve been falling short.

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“Got that accolade, but I still feel like the MVP is a team thing, though, because my teammates [are] helping me get that award, because I always say that I’m not the one catching the passes [or] blocking to help me get these passes off [and] stuff like that. That’s [the] offensive line, tight ends, receivers [and] running backs. It’s everybody, all of us included. I’m trying to win the championship. That’s my biggest goal. That’s been my goal ever since [I was] a little kid, but an MVP in the National Football League – that’s dope. That is dope.”

Nicole Kidman, Rachel Ray, Ted Danson keep marriages hot with unconventional rules

Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman have been married for 18 years, and have shared how they’ve made their long-lasting relationship work along the way.

The powerhouse couple have a few rules to ensure their communication is aligned, but they refuse to talk over text messages and opt for phone calls and in-person discussions.

Kidman and Urban aren’t the only pair with unconventional marriage rules in Hollywood. Gwyneth Paltrow and husband Brad Falchuk didn’t live together after they were hitched, while Rachael Ray and her husband, John Cusimano, get into “screaming matches” as a healthy means of conflict resolution, and Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen make sure to reconnect with each other at an unusual hour.

RACHEL RAY SAYS MARITAL BLISS COMES FROM ‘SCREAMING MATCHES,’ NO-APOLOGY RULE WITH HUSBAND

The “Babygirl” actress and her country star husband decided from the beginning of their relationship that they would only communicate by voice, Kidman told Parade magazine.

“We don’t text,” Kidman said. “We call. We’ve done this since the very beginning. The reason it started at the beginning was because I didn’t know how to text, and it just kind of worked for us. So, now we don’t.

“We just do voice to voice or skin to skin, as we always say. We talk all the time, and we FaceTime, but we just don’t text because I feel like texting can be misrepresentative at times.

“And I’ve had the thing where I reread texts, and I’m like, “What does that mean?” and then read it to somebody and go ‘Can you interpret that?’ I don’t want that between my lover and I.”

CAMERON DIAZ, DEAN MCDERMOTT: STARS ADMIT TO UNCONVENTIONAL LIVING SITUATIONS WITH THEIR PARTNERS

“We don’t text. We call. We’ve done this since the very beginning. The reason it started at the beginning was because I didn’t know how to text, and it just kind of worked for us. So now we don’t.”

— Nicole Kidman

Besides their no-texting rule, their secret to a lasting marriage is easy: “Not having secrets,” Kidman said.

“We never tell anybody any advice about their relationship or think that we have a secret. We just approach it with humility and hope, and just really love hanging out. I mean it’s that simple. We love spending time together. We have a lot of fun together and we just choose each other. If there is one person I can hang out with, it’s him and the girls, and that’s it.”

Rachael Ray and her husband, musician and entertainment lawyer John Cusimano, have their own ways of keeping the love going strong after 19 years of marriage.

‘CHEERS’ STAR TED DANSON AND WIFE MARY STEENBURGEN WAKE UP AT 4:30 A.M. FOR ‘DATE EARLY BIRD SPECIALS’

“I am very wildly, wildly, wildly lucky that I have my husband,” the former Food Network star said on the first episode of her new podcast, “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.” “But he understands I need my space. He needs his space.”

Space and time apart are both non-negotiable for the celebrity chef and her husband.

“It’s very hard, especially for hot-tempered or creative or vociferous, loud people to be able to just calm it down,” Ray told her guest, Jenny Mollen. “John and I don’t calm it down ever. We have huge screaming matches all the time, but I think that’s healthy. I really do. And I don’t trust people that are too quiet.

“Too quiet freaks me out. I prefer that you tell me what you think when you think it, and let’s just get it all out there.”

Ray and Cusimano have a unique way of making up after an argument, too.

“John and I don’t calm it down ever. We have huge screaming matches all the time, but I think that’s healthy. I really do. And I don’t trust people that are too quiet.”

— Rachael Ray

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“I don’t know that we ever apologize to each other,” the “30 Minute Meals” star said. “Eventually, I pat him on his a–, or he kisses me on the head, and that’s just sort of it. That’s the apology. It’s just sort of understood. ‘I still like your a–. I still like your head.’ It’s kind of in that zone.”

Ted Danson and wife Mary Steenburgen know how to make their almost 30-year marriage last: morning dates.

The couple make the most of their time together in the early hours instead of spending late nights out.

“Date nights are kind of, at my age, date early bird specials,” Danson, 76, told People magazine. “The most fun is the early mornings, 4:30 in the morning, coffee in bed, playing Wordle, Connections, and Spelling Bee, talking and laughing and sharing.”

He added, “To both of us, it’s like heaven on Earth.”

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Danson refuses to let their busy work schedules interrupt their special time together, even if they’re in different locations.

“Even if she’s working in a different time zone, we will wake up in time to be able to play our games and have coffee over the phone,” he said.

When Gwyneth Paltrow married producer Brad Falchuk in September 2018, the couple retreated to their own separate homes after the wedding. 

One year later, they decided it was finally time to make their union official under one roof and move in together.

At the beginning of their marriage, the Academy Award-winning actress and her “intimacy teacher” approved an arrangement where the couple would spend three nights per week at their own homes before living together at Paltrow’s home the remaining four nights.

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“Oh, all my married friends say that the way we live sounds ideal, and we shouldn’t change a thing,” she told The Sunday Times.

In 2020, she told Harper’s Bazaar, “I thought it was really interesting how resonant that was for people. One of my best friends was like, ‘That is my dream. Don’t ever move in.’

“Oh, all my married friends say that the way we live sounds ideal, and we shouldn’t change a thing.”

— Gwyneth Paltrow

“I think it certainly helps with preserving mystery and also preserving the idea that this person has their own life. So, this is something I’m trying to remain aware of now as we merge together.”

Judith Light and her husband of 39 years, Robert Desiderio, know the secret to a long-lasting marriage: distance.

The star of the new Apple TV+ supernatural drama “Before” explained why living at opposite ends of the country from her partner makes their bond stronger. 

“We talk every day. We FaceTime every day,” she told People magazine. “He loves to be alone, and I love to be alone. We both love our alone time. We have that. It’s also very creative for us.”

She added, “We also make sure that, when we’re having something that’s upsetting for either one of us, that we both make sure that we stay in the room, and we keep talking. Sometimes we have to take a break. We say, ‘Wait, we have to stop now. Now, we have to stop, and then we’re going to come back to this.'”

“We talk every day. We FaceTime every day. He loves to be alone, and I love to be alone. We both love our alone time. We have that. It’s also very creative for us.”

— Judith Light

The duo first met while starring in “One Life to Live” in the ’80s before tying the knot in 1985. Desiderio, who has appeared in various television and film projects throughout the years, published his first novel, “The Occurrence,” in February 2020.

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“He calls himself a recovering actor,” Light said of Desiderio’s retirement from acting. “Now he’s so much happier than he was.”

“[It] makes our marriage and our relationship much happier.” she added. 

Groundbreaking treatment for heart failure could transform lives of desperately ill children

Renowned visionary English physician William Harvey wrote in 1651 about how our blood contains all the secrets of life.

“And so I conclude that blood lives and is nourished of itself and in no way depends on any other part of the body as being prior to it or more excellent,” he wrote. “So that from this we may perceive the causes not only of life in general … but also of longer or shorter life, of sleeping and waking, of skill, of strength and so forth.”

Dr. Kevin Watt, team leader of the Heart Regeneration and Disease Laboratory at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne, Australia, understands this concept deeply. 

STEM CELL RESEARCH SHOWING NEW POSSIBILITIES FOR TREATING INFANT HEART DISEASE

He lives it every day, as he and his fellow researchers study and reprogram the potential of the blood to treat disease, specifically heart failure in children. 

Building on the work of Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Japan, who discovered that specialized cells could be reprogrammed back to immature stem cells, Watt and his collaborators have taken this work several steps further. 

They have used small molecules to turn these new stem cells from the blood into heart cells.

Small heart organoids are developed in the lab — which can then be injected into the failing hearts of children. 

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Relying on the philanthropic support of the Murdoch Institute, the work is progressing rapidly and has been shown to be effective already in mice, pigs and sheep.

“The vision of our research is to develop new therapies that can transform the lives of children with heart failure.”

Clinical trials in humans will be starting soon, and as Dr. Watt told me in an interview from Australia, “Large sheets of heart tissue will be stitched into the failing heart.” 

Congenital heart failure as well as side effects of chemotherapy in children will be targets for this miracle therapy. Millions of children around the world suffer daily from these conditions. 

Watt said that certain chemotherapy (anthracyclines) have a higher risk of heart failure – up to 15% of the time – and this treatment may be useful to protect the heart.

Watt said, “Heart failure remains an urgent, unmet clinical challenge across the world. While we have made significant advances over several decades in managing the disease, we lack targeted therapies to treat these devastating conditions.”

FAMILY OF CHILD WITH DOWN SYNDROME WENT FROM SHOCK TO GRATITUDE: ‘LOST THE AIR IN MY CHEST’ 

He added, “More than 500,000 children around the world live with advanced heart failure that requires transplantation. The vision of our research is to develop new therapies that can transform the lives of children with heart failure.”

To achieve this, he said, “we use a technology called induced pluripotent stem cells, where we can convert blood or skin cells of patients with heart failure into stem cells that we then turn into heart cells … or even make engineered heart tissues that can be stitched onto the patient’s heart to help it pump.” 

The cells that are targeted in the blood are known as peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). 

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They are “pushed back in time to an earlier time before they became differentiated into heart or kidney cells,” he said. 

Then they can be pushed forward to become healthy heart cells or mutations — or other abnormalities can be corrected.

While the team at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute is making heart cells from stem cells in the blood for clinical use, it’s also using these stem cells to figure out new drugs to treat heart failure directly.  

Said Watt, “Using stem cells from patients with heart failure caused by chemo, we are actively developing new drugs and cell-based treatments that we believe will transform the lives of patients with these conditions … Our research group has pioneered methods to turn these stem cells into miniature heart tissues that can be used to model disease-in-a-dish, to identify new drug targets for the development of new therapies.”

These treatments are personalized and highly expensive, but they’re also highly effective. 

Correcting heart failure in young children is only a few years away from becoming a reality. 

It’s a Christmas miracle that relies on the kind of philanthropic support that MCRI is famous for arranging.

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“Philanthropic support plays a critical role in accelerating the development of these new, transformative treatments,” said Watt, “and this support will be essential as we work toward bringing stem cell-based precision therapies for heart failure to every child who needs it.” 

Visit go.fox/MCRI to donate or to learn more about MCRI’s important research.