
California national park site vandalized with hazardous chemicals, hate speech
Authorities are investigating a break-in at a historic Nike missile site in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area outside San Francisco.
Sometime between the evening of March 15 and the morning of March 19, someone vandalized the SF-88 Nike Missile Site magazine in the Marin Headlands, which is known for its scenic views and hiking trails, according to the National Park Service.
The vandal or vandals spray-painted hate speech throughout the building and spilled gallons of hazardous chemicals, the park service said in a news release. It's unclear how many people were involved, but officials said whoever participated may have sustained chemical burns.
According to the park service, the SF-88 site was one of almost 300 Nike missile sites built by the U.S. Army during the Cold War and is the most fully restored one in the country.
"These sites were designed to be the last line of defense against H-Bomb carrying Soviet bombers that had eluded the Air Force's interceptor jet aircraft," the park service said.
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area works with volunteers to preserve the site, according to the park service.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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Newsweek
3 hours ago
- Newsweek
Man Born on Army Base to US Soldier Deported to Jamaica
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Jermaine Thomas, who was born in 1986 on a U.S. Army base in Germany to a father who had become a naturalized U.S. citizen, was deported to Jamaica last month, according to The Austin Chronicle. Newsweek has reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and several immigration legal experts for comment via email on Saturday. Why It Matters Thomas' deportation comes amid an immigration crackdown by the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has pledged to launch the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, with people residing in the country illegally as well as immigrants with valid documentation, including green cards and visas, having been detained, and many deported. The Trump administration has deported multiple individuals to countries where they did not hold citizenship, despite family ties in those nations. Ending automatic birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment has been a focus for the Trump administration. The president signed an executive order restricting birthright citizenship, but the policy was initially blocked by a nationwide injunction. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal judges cannot issue national injunctions, clearing the way for some states to move forward with measures limiting birthright citizenship. The ruling did not address the legality of the executive order itself. What To Know Thomas' citizenship status has been in question for decades, with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) having issued a "Notice to Appear and Additional Charges of Inadmissibility/Deportability" in 2013, according to court documents reviewed by Newsweek. He was born to an active-duty member of the U.S. Army stationed on a U.S. base in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1986. Court documents from 2015 state that "Thomas's father first entered the United States in September 1977, enlisted in the United States Army in 1979, and became a United States citizen in May 1984." Thomas' mother, who was married to his father at the time of birth, was a citizen of Kenya. Margaret Stock, a lawyer who specializes in immigration and military law, told Newsweek in a phone interview Saturday that citizenship status for babies born on overseas military bases can be "really complicated" and depend on a range of factors including marriage status, parental citizenship status and length of residency, paperwork, and more. Children born on U.S. military bases overseas do not get automatic citizenship, but they typically acquire citizenship through their parents if eligibility requirements are met and proper paperwork is filed. Stock said typically they have to go to the State Department and file certain applications to obtain a "Consular Report of Birth Abroad." "Thomas was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in July 1989. His visa form listed his nationality as Jamaican," the 2015 court filing noted. Thomas moved around the U.S. a bit from bases and ended up settling in Texas when he was older. The Fifth Circuit ruled against Thomas, finding that he was not born "in the United States" and therefore the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause did not apply to his case. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision, leaving the deportation order in place. The court documents also note that "Petitioner has been convicted of several crimes in the United States, including theft and domestic assault causing bodily injury." The filing notes that due to his criminal background, the DHS initiated removal proceedings. Thomas does not hold citizenship in Germany or Jamaica, The Austin Chronicle reported. With the U.S. also denying his claim to citizenship, he is effectively stateless. "There's going to be a lot of people getting deported who are stateless, and a lot of people born on military bases overseas," Stock told Newsweek. Thomas told The Austin Chronicle that he was arrested earlier this year after he was evicted from his apartment and moving stuff onto the lawn with his dog. Killeen police said he was arrested for suspected trespassing. He says he spent a month in jail and then was transferred to ICE detention centers. He told The Austin Chronicle he was deported to Jamaica in late May. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, right, ERO Regional Attaché Guadalupe "Lupita" Serna and U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala Tobin Bradley watch people deported from the United States disembark a repatriation flight, at La Aurora International Airport... Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, right, ERO Regional Attaché Guadalupe "Lupita" Serna and U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala Tobin Bradley watch people deported from the United States disembark a repatriation flight, at La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City on June 26. More nna Moneymaker/Pool Photo via AP Images) What People Are Saying Jermaine Thomas told The Austin Chronicle: "If you're in the U.S. Army, and the Army deploys you somewhere, and you've gotta have your child over there, and your child makes a mistake after you pass away, and you put your life on the line for this country, are you going to be okay with them just kicking your child out of the country?" U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday: "Coming to America and receiving a visa or green card is a privilege. Our laws and values must be respected. If you advocate for violence, endorse or support terrorist activity, or encourage others to do so, you are no longer eligible to stay in the U.S." What Happens Next? It is unclear if there will be any other legal proceedings in Thomas' case, which brings birthright citizenship to the forefront. The Court's ruling allows the Trump administration to issue guidance on how the executive order on birthright citizenship can be implemented, which can now happen in 30 days. The executive order could still face challenges, with at least two attempts at class action lawsuits filed later Friday.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Grandfather of incoming MI6 chief was leading Nazi spy, reports say
The grandfather of the incoming head of MI6 was a Nazi spy chief, reports have said. Blaise Metreweli was announced as the new chief of MI6 earlier this month – becoming the 18th person to take on the role in the organisation's 116-year history. The Daily Mail reported her grandfather Constantine Dobrowolski had previously defected from the Red Army to become a Nazi informant in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine. The newspaper said German archives showed Mr Dobrowolski was known as 'The Butcher' or 'Agent No 30' by Wehrmacht commanders. Reports also said the Nazi spy chief had a 50,000 rouble bounty placed on him by Soviet leaders, and was dubbed the 'worst enemy of the Ukrainian people'. Ms Metreweli's grandfather also sent letters to superiors saying he 'personally' took part 'in the extermination of the Jews', the newspaper said. Ms Metreweli will take over as head of MI6 from Sir Richard Moore, a senior civil servant who will step down in the autumn after five years in the role. Commonly referred to as C, the chief has operational responsibility for MI6, and is the only publicly named member of the organisation. She first joined the service as a case officer in 1999 and has carried out operational roles in the Middle East and Europe. In her new post, she will be accountable to the Foreign Secretary. A Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office spokesperson said: 'Blaise Metreweli neither knew nor met her paternal grandfather. Blaise's ancestry is characterised by conflict and division and, as is the case for many with eastern European heritage, only partially understood. 'It is precisely this complex heritage which has contributed to her commitment to prevent conflict and protect the British public from modern threats from today's hostile states, as the next chief of MI6.'


Bloomberg
a day ago
- Bloomberg
H-1B Middlemen Bring Cheap Labor to Citi, Capital One
By Marie Patino Silicon Valley's hunger for innovation has made H-1B visas a pipeline for top global talent in science and engineering. Yet new data obtained by Bloomberg News shows a broader array of businesses, including banks and telecommunication companies, are also among the largest H-1B employers. Unlike large tech firms, however, these companies often use the visa program to hire lower-paid workers — and do so indirectly, through staffing and outsourcing companies that capture about half of the 85,000 new visas allocated each year. Banks, Telecom Firms Were Biggest Users of H-1B Middlemen New H-1B workers hired between May 2020 and 2024 Citigroup Inc. added 3,000 new H-1B workers from May 2020 through May 2024, the data shows. That's more than many tech giants, including Nvidia Corp., Oracle Corp. and Qualcomm Inc., added over that four-year period. Yet few of Citi's H-1B workers were Silicon-Valley-type researchers and engineers; most weren't even actual Citi employees. Instead, about two thirds were IT contractors from staffing and outsourcing agencies that pay their visa-holders substantially less than those whom Citi hired directly. These two types of companies — staffing firms and outsourcers — function in effect as visa middlemen. Staffing firms provide a pool of relatively low-level information-technology workers to corporate clients. And outsourcing companies supply positions with an eye toward helping their clients move back-office functions offshore. Some visa middlemen have been accused of mistreating workers and discriminating against US employees. Citi's largest supplier of H-1B contractors, the outsourcing firm Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., is currently under investigation by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for alleged discrimination against non-Indian workers. There is no indication the investigation involves Citi. In a statement, a TCS spokesperson said: 'Allegations that TCS engages in unlawful discrimination are meritless and misleading. TCS has a strong track record of being an equal opportunity employer in the US, embracing the highest levels of integrity and values in our operations.' A Citi spokesperson said the company supplements its 71,000 US workers with 'highly skilled H-1B visa holders to address specific, timely needs. When we do so, we follow relevant laws and regulations, including anti-discrimination laws.' To be sure, the H-1B contractors Bloomberg identified constitute only a small portion of Citi's workforce, and the data is limited to new H-1Bs issued over the four-year period ending in May 2024. The government does not keep track of how many pre-existing H-1B contractors are working at each company or how many jobs have been moved offshore. So, experts say, Bloomberg's analysis captures only a fraction of the jobs US firms have outsourced. 'This is the tip of the iceberg,' said Susan Houseman, a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. While there's been a national debate about the US reliance on imported goods, she said, not enough attention has been paid to the offshoring of service jobs, 'Not because it doesn't happen or isn't important, but because we don't have good data on it.' Congress conceived of the H-1B visa in 1990 as a way to recruit the world's top talent and to help the US dominate the emerging tech industry. The visas became so popular that demand quickly outstripped supply, forcing the government to hold annual lotteries to determine who could apply for the limited number of H-1Bs allotted each year. Visa middlemen soon found ways to manipulate the lottery, giving them an advantage over sponsors seeking a specific worker for a specialized role. H-1B rules require applicants to have a 'bona fide' job offer for each visa they seek. Yet staffing firms used webs of connected companies to submit multiple lottery registrations for the same applicants. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services called this practice, known as 'multiple registration,' fraudulent in a 2023 report and took steps to end it last year. A second strategy – flooding the lottery with thousands of interchangeable applicants – provides a major advantage for large outsourcing firms that tend to have vast overseas workforces. The middlemen who win the lottery then farm out the visa-holders on contract to their business clients and take a portion of each worker's pay. Academics and labor advocates say this practice distorts the H-1B program, resulting in a system that undercuts US workers, creates a kind of second-class workforce with fewer job protections, and tilts the labor market in favor of employers. The new data, obtained through a lawsuit filed against the Department of Homeland Security under the Freedom of Information Act, shows for the first time which US companies, or 'end-clients,' relied most heavily on visa middlemen who used multiple registrations to secure H-1B visas. Companies like Capital One Financial Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc. and Walmart Inc. top the list. (Capital One and Verizon said in statements that they require suppliers to comply with all applicable laws. AT&T, Walmart and USAA declined to comment.) Top US Firms Used H-1B Contractors With Multiple Entries US officials ended the tactic — known as 'multiple registration' — after changing the lottery rules last year. A Bloomberg investigation last year identified a network of 13 staffing firms that the USCIS had flagged for engaging in multiple registration fraud. The agency did not name the companies, but reporters were able to identify them using federal data. At least six of those firms supplied eight workers to Capital One, the data shows. Overall, more than half of Capital One's 905 H-1B contract workers turned up in multiple registrations over the four-year period reflected in the data. That's the highest ratio among the top-10 end-clients in Bloomberg's analysis. Capital One drew its H-1B contractors mostly from smaller staffing firms that regularly filed multiple registrations. During the four years captured in the data, the company added new H-1B workers from 429 different staffing firms. Of those firms, 361 had used multiple registration. Capital One Drew Heavily from Firms that Gamed H-1B Lottery Capital One used hundreds of small staffing firms that filed multiple registrations. Citi, the largest user of H-1B contractors, relied on them less. Middlemen firms that relied on multiple registrations Other middlemen In response to questions, a spokesperson for Capital One declined to confirm whether the company worked with the six staffing firms reflected in the data, but said Capital One is unaware of any government accusations of visa fraud against its third-party vendors, and that it would 'take appropriate action' if it becomes aware of any investigation. Regardless of how the visas were obtained, the data show that middlemen companies paid workers far less than H-1B holders who didn't go through staffing or outsourcing firms. Immigration law requires visa sponsors to pay H-1B workers no less than their similarly-situated American colleagues, but because contract workers are not directly employed by the end-client, they can be paid lower salaries than their direct-hire counterparts in the same office. Steve Hall, Chief AI Officer at Information Services Group Inc., a technology research firm that advises clients on IT outsourcing, said at least part of the pay differential can be attributed to contractors working lower-level and less technical jobs. Some H-1B holders serve as liaisons, he explained, connecting US end-clients with the outsourcers' offshore workforces. However, a Bloomberg analysis of the 10 largest end-clients shows that even when job titles are similar, the pay differential persists. Of the nearly 5,300 H-1B 'software developers' hired by those companies from 2020 through 2024, more than 75% were contractors. A typical contractor was paid about $48,000 less, the data show, than a worker employed directly by the company that sponsored her visa – even after accounting for education level and age. One out of every three such contractors was paid the minimum salary required by the Department of Labor. Same Companies, Less Pay H-1B contractors hired as software developers at the 10 largest end-clients were paid less than direct-hires at the same companies H-1B contractors H-1B direct hires 'They're going to pay as little as they can legally,' said Ron Hira, a political scientist at Howard University who has been critical of how the visa program is run. He has testified multiple times before Congress about how the H-1B program undercuts wages for everyone, especially US workers. The new data reinforces that view, Houseman said. 'It's data we haven't seen before,' she said after reviewing Bloomberg's analysis. 'If the whole purpose of this program is to hire the best of the best, then why aren't we seeing higher wages?' It is difficult for H-1B workers to complain about compensation or seek jobs that pay more because the staffing firms sponsor, and thus control, their visa status, according to Daniel Hutchinson, an attorney at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein. In 2013, Hutchinson helped 12,000 visa workers win a $29.75 million settlement from TCS after plaintiffs alleged the outsourcer took out illegal deductions from their salaries and required them to sign over their tax refund checks to TCS. Attorneys say they regularly encounter outsourcing firms that impose employment contracts requiring workers to use arbitration, complicating any legal remedies for unfair labor practices. 'There's a lot of fear,' Hutchinson said. 'If they lose their job and lose their status in the US, there may not be any protection against retaliation.' Asked about the settlement, a TCS spokesperson said: 'In 2013, to avoid the cost and expense of further litigation, TCS agreed to settle the litigation. In settling the case, TCS admitted no wrongdoing and none was found by the court.' Congressional Republicans have been mulling legislation to overhaul immigration, but it's unclear if President Donald Trump would return to the H-1B policies of his first term, when he sought to eliminate the program. Months after a public dustup pitting his nativist supporters against his new allies in the tech industry, a separate nasty feud broke out between Trump and Elon Musk, who had been the most prominent advocate for high-skill immigration within the administration. Just before leaving office in January 2021, the first Trump administration issued a Department of Labor guidance that held end-clients accountable for ensuring H-1B contractors are paid the same as their American counterparts. Former President Joe Biden's Labor Department rescinded that guidance on his first day in office without explanation. Regarding any new guidance on pay equity, 'The DOL could reissue this tomorrow,' said Hira, the Howard professor. 'The Fortune 1000 would be up in arms, of course.' Edited by Jason GrottoYue Qiu Methodology Before submitting an H-1B petition, employers must file a Labor Condition Application (LCA) with the Department of Labor, attesting to paying at least the prevailing wage for the position and location as well as certifying that the hiring does not adversely affect US workers. Although LCA data is regularly published, not all LCAs lead to H-1B approvals. By linking H-1B petition data obtained from the USCIS to LCA data publicly released by the DOL, reporters pieced together, for the first time, exactly how many H-1B contractors each staffing firm sent to each end-client. Because visa sponsors manually input end-client names on a government form without standardization, reporters used a machine learning algorithm in conjunction with manual labeling to normalize company name spellings and to identify the top-10 end-clients: Citigroup Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc., American Express Co., Apple Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Capital One Financial Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., United Services Automobile Association, and Ford Motor Co. To identify staffing firms that likely engaged in multiple-registration, Bloomberg calculated how many H-1B approvals were associated with candidates whose names were submitted multiple times in the same lottery. Since some multiple registrations might reflect legitimate job offers made by more than one company to the same individual, reporters included only staffing firms that had at least 10 lottery registrations per year and multiple-registered individuals in more than 50% of their registrations. When analyzing individual wages in the H-1B petition data, reporters included only H-1B workers who were classified as a 'software developer' by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Standard Occupational Classification system. Reporters excluded annual salaries that were below $40,000 or above $200,000. The analysis did not include H-1Bs that are awarded to certain university- and government-affiliated research organizations, because they are exempt from the annual H-1B cap. An approved H-1B petition is necessary for, but does not always result in, an H-1B visa, which is a travel document.