90,000 migrants cross US border in 10 days as panic over Title 42 end sets in

 Over 73,000 migrants crossed the southern border in the last 10 days according to the US Border Patrol — who admitted a further 17,000 illegal “gotaways” avoided detection and entered the country as things reach a fever pitch ahead of the end of Title 42 on May 11.

22,220 people had been apprehended at all US borders in the last 72 hours, tweeted US Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz on Monday.

He also said another 51,560 migrants were caught at the border in the previous week.

Thousands of people are handing themselves in daily to agents at the southern border in attempts to claim asylum and start a new life in the US.

Most are processed and sent back over the border under Title 42, a pandemic-era policy which allows Border Patrol to immediately send citizens of many countries back to Mexico.

However, this takes time and puts a huge strain in resources along the border.

Customs and Border Protection confirmed in the same time frame at least 16,985 people were recorded as gotaways — who were either spotted by agents or caught by motion sensor cameras but unable to be apprehended.

Officials have said this scene provides a preview of what is to come when Title 42 ends.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Monday the federal government is expecting up to 13,000 illegal immigrants to cross the US-Mexico border each day after it expires.

Migrants camped out on the street in El Paso, Texas on April 30, 2023 ahead of the lifting of Title 42 this month.

REUTERS/Paul Ratje

El Paso police officers telling migrants to not charge their cell phones near a public bench.

REUTERS/Paul Ratje

Responding to Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot, who pleaded with him to stop busing migrants to her city, Abbott wrote: “This is not a Texas problem — this is a problem for the entire United States of America.

“To provide much-needed relief to our overrun border communities, Texas began busing migrants to sanctuary cities … Until [President] Biden secures the border to stop the inflow of mass migration, Texas will continue this necessary program.”

In Brownsville, Texas, and surrounding areas, 6,371 migrants were taken into custody last week, the agency confirmed. The feds turned a college baseball field into an outdoor processing center, as thousands of migrants turned themselves over to authorities.

Firearms, cash and ammunition confiscated by Border Patrol amid the surge in migrants at the border.

Chief Raul Ortiz / Twitter

Drugs recently seized by Border Patrol officers.

Chief Raul Ortiz / Twitter

Packages of drugs found confiscated by Border Patrol last month.

Chief Raul Ortiz / Twitter

In El Paso, Texas — the epicenter of the border crisis — officials expect anywhere between 12,000 to 40,000 migrants who have been waiting on the Mexican side to cross into the city when Title 42 ends. The city has started building a third intake center for processing migrants in the city and called in extra resources to help deal with the expected influx.

On Sunday city blocks in El Paso were lined with migrants sleeping on the streets near a downtown church, Sacred Heart, according to video posted on social media.

“May 11, they believe, will be the day that they can — without any documentation — they can come into the United States and to continue to move on,” said El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser Sunday. “Which is really one of the furthest things from what’s going to happen.”

“We’re not opening the borders, and the borders are not open today, and they will not be open on May 12.”

In the meantime, migrants continue to stream over the international boundary. While many are fleeing failing states and political and economic uncertainty, cartels and criminal influences are among them.

Migrants in an alley behind Sacred Heart Church in El Paso.

REUTERS/Paul Ratje

Agents said in the last ten days there were able to stop 19 sex offenders, six gang members and one convicted murder from entering the country.

In that time, the feds also seized over 2,624 pounds of drugs, including:

• 676 lbs. Cocaine
• 823 lbs. Marijuana
• 1,052 lbs. Meth
• 54 lbs. Fentanyl
• 19 lbs. Heroin

The statistics are for both southern and northern US borders, according to Border Patrol.

https://nypost.com/2023/05/01/90000-migrants-cross-us-border-in-10-days-as-panic-over-title-42-end-sets-in/

New, mysterious balloon has been detected in US airspace — this time over Hawaii

 Another mysterious balloon has been spotted by the US military in American airspace — this time high in the sky off the coast of Hawaii, according to the Department of Defense. 

It’s unclear who owns the balloon, but the object did not fly over any sensitive areas and poses no threat to national security, the DOD said.

The unidentified object traveled 36,000 feet above the coast of Hawaii and has been the military’s radar since Friday when it was detected by the DOD and Federal Aviation Administration, officials said.

The suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts to the ocean after being shot down off the coast in Surfside Beach, South Carolina, U.S. February 4, 2023.

REUTERS

The object could still be shot down if it comes close to US territory again, but at this point it appears to be slowly moving toward Mexico, officials told NBC News, which first reported the high-altitude balloon.

“Although it was flying at an altitude used by civil aviation, it posed no threat to civil aviation over Hawaii,” a DOD spokesperson said in a statement to The Post.

Based on these observations, the Secretary of Defense concurred with the recommendation of his military commanders that no action need be taken against the balloon. The balloon is now out of Hawaii’s airspace and territorial waters.”

The balloon in February was recovered by officials off the Carolina coast.

US NAVY/AFP via Getty Images

In early February, a Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the Carolina coast after traveling over the US.

The Chinese balloon was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites and sent the info back to Beijing, according to a previous NBC News report that cited multiple US officials.

Later in February, the military shot down three UFOs that were later deemed harmless and believed to be hobby or weather balloons not tied to any foreign country.

US officials do not believe the latest balloon spotted over Hawaii is Chinese property, NBC News reported Monday.

The DOD said in its statement officials do not believe the balloon was being controlled by a “foreign or adversarial actor” and does not have maneuvering capabilities. 

https://nypost.com/2023/05/01/us-military-tracking-mysterious-balloon-that-flew-into-us-airspace/

Mistrial in Apple-Masimo smartwatch trade secrets fight

 A U.S. judge in California on Monday declared a mistrial in Masimo Corp's smartwatch trade secret lawsuit against Apple Inc after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict in the potential billion-dollar case.

A Masimo spokesperson said in a statement that the company was "disappointed that the jury was unable to reach a verdict" but intends to retry the case.

The jury in federal court in Santa Ana had been asked to determine whether Cupertino, California-based Apple misused confidential information from Masimo related to the use of light to measure biomarkers including heart rates and blood-oxygen levels.

The jury began deliberating on April 26 after a trial lasting about three weeks before U.S. District Judge James Selna.

Apple said in a statement that it "deeply respects intellectual property and innovation and does not take or use confidential information from other companies," and will ask the court to dismiss remaining claims in the case.

Irvine, California-based Masimo and its spinoff Cercacor Laboratories Inc sued Apple in 2020, accusing it of stealing trade secrets and using them to create and sell several Apple Watch models.

The lawsuit claimed Masimo representatives met with Apple in 2013 about integrating its inventions into Apple products and that Apple subsequently hired away two executives - one from Masimo and one from Cercacor - and used their knowledge to copy the technology.

Masimo asked for more than $1.8 billion in damages, reduced from its initial request for $3.1 billion after the judge dismissed some of its trade-secret claims during trial.

Apple in a court filing called Masimo's lawsuit a "maneuver to clear a path" for its own smartwatch. Apple sued Masimo in Delaware last year, accusing it of patent infringement.

Smartwatches, mobile devices worn on the wrist with an array of capabilities, are a lucrative market, with global sales worth tens of billions of dollars.

Masimo has also sued Apple at the U.S. International Trade Commission over Apple Watch imports that it said violated its patent rights. An ITC judge preliminarily ruled in favor of Masimo in January, which could lead to an import ban on infringing Apple Watches if the full commission affirms the decision.

Apple is facing another potential Apple Watch import ban in a separate patent fight with Mountain View, California-based medical device maker AliveCor Inc over heart-monitoring technology.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-us-judge-declares-mistrial-231837273.html

Prepare For Major Accidents In The Market; Morose Milken-ites Warn

 Bad loans, worse banks, but "it's not nearly as bad as it was in 2008" if you believe Charlie Munger.

Having admitted over the weekend in an interview with The FT that American banks are "full of" what he said were "bad loans", thanks to the plunge in commercial property prices, the 99-year-old warned ominously that "trouble happens to banking just like trouble happens everywhere else. In the good times you get into bad habits... When bad times come they lose too much."

Quite notably, while the Biden administration is deftly attempting to paint SVB, SI, and now FRC as "outliers" and "unique", the latter is far from 'unique' and that is a problem as Munger later noted that "it's not that damned easy to run a bank intelligently, there are a lot of temptations to do the wrong thing."

More specifically, their loan books are now plagued with CRE loans (a topic we warned about extensively - before the mainstream media picked up the torch).

"A lot of real estate isn’t so good any more,” Munger said.

“We have a lot of troubled office buildings, a lot of troubled shopping centres, a lot of troubled other properties. There’s a lot of agony out there.”

And while the grumpy old man has slammed bitcoin (we don't blame him for not understanding that), he is certainly far more versed in the details of commercial property loans and banking, which is why we take him seriously and at today's Milken Conference, Munger's message was echoed loud and clear by investment leaders from Apollo's Marc Rowan to Cain's Jonathan Goldstein and Citi CEO Jane Fraser.

“It’s a bad day to be an office owner in San Francisco and Chicago,” Marc Rowan, co-founder and chief executive officer of Apollo, said Monday.

“We are going to see losses,” he said, adding that the stresses will be concentrated and not systemic.

“Every piece of real estate, everywhere in the world, that was purchased pre-the run up in interest rates, as a result of the change in interest rates, is now worth less,” Rowan continued.

“It does not mean it won’t come back. It does not mean it won’t ultimately be a good investment, but in the short term, we have significant dislocation.”

David Steinbach, global chief investment officer at real estate investment firm Hines, said Monday during one panel that commodity office buildings - older office buildings that lack amenities - would face particular pain, with Amherst CEO Sean Dobson pointing to office towers in central business districts as a particular rough spot for the industry.

“I do think we’ve got a period of pain and I don’t think we’ve yet reached the bottom of that,” Cain's Goldstein said.

“But there will be opportunity that comes out when people do begin to sense that the bottom’s been reached.”

As Bloomberg reports, Fraser said she's most worried about real estate with debt that’s been packaged into lower-rated commercial mortgage-backed securities.

“It’s the return-to-office phenomenon that’s driving it,” Fraser said Monday during a panel discussion at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California.

“We’re not talking about the local doctors’ office, we’re not talking about all of the office space either.”

Finally, TCW Group President and CEO Katie Koch warned that cracks are starting to show in the private credit market and that investors should prepare for “major accidents” in the red-hot sector over the next 12 to 18 months. 

“We have had five years where ‘diligent light’ became a term,” Koch said.

“That is not going to be fun over the next five years if you arrived at it from that perspective.”

Koch said investors should be “very underweight” regional banks.

“The globally systemically important banks are a good place to be invested,” Koch said.

“Regional banks is an area we are concerned about because of deposit flight, and also they have the highest exposure to commercial real estate, which is an area we are concerned about.”

Marc Cowan had perhaps the most important comment though for 'average joe' and his 401(k), warning that "equity has adjusted somewhat, but not nearly as much as credit."

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/prepare-major-accidents-market-morose-milken-ites-warn-were-going-see-losses

Joe Biden Is Losing Young Climate Voters

 by Rick Whitbeck via RealClear Wire,

Now that President Biden has made his 2024 run official, he has plenty of work to do if he hopes to shore up his lagging support among key constituencies. According to a recent NBC News survey, a full 70 percent of Americans do not want the President to run again. One demographic to watch is younger voters, who backed Biden by a wide 61-36 margin in 2020. 

Younger Americans are exceptionally aggressive and vocal on climate policies. Nearly two-thirds (62%), support phasing out fossil fuels entirely, said Alec Tyson, an associate director of research at Pew Research Center.  According to a recent Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics poll, an amazing half of those polled prefer the government do more to curb climate change, even if U.S. economic growth is damaged in the process.

As friendly as Biden has been to the eco-left, and outright hostile to our domestic, traditional energy industries, he is still facing backlash from these eco-centric voters over three recent decisions dealing with energy development. As always, my state of Alaska is at the epicenter. 

First, the President – through the Department of Interior – approved Alaska’s Willow oil and gas development project last month. His decision elicited a collective groan of disgust and disapproval from the environmental movement.  They’d dedicated years opposing the project, and spent the weeks ahead of the final decision bombarding social media, protesting outside of the White House and using their extensive, inside access to stop Willow from progressing.  

Afterward, they vented.

“Biden approved [Willow] knowing full well that it'll cause massive and irreversible destruction, which is just appalling, particularly coming from an administration who has pledged to address the climate crisis, has pledged to address environmental injustice, has pledged to address the extinction crisis,” said Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, who, along with other activist organizations, promptly took legal action to oppose the decision.

Next, Biden greenlit the export plan for Alaska Gasline Development Corp’s goal to build an 800-mile pipeline to bring trillions of cubic feet of gas from the North Slope to homes, businesses and eventually a tidewater port for export to Asia and other Pacific Rim countries.  Having previously been held up under the guise of environmental and Indigenous justice reviews, the approval on April 14 gave a significant boost to the $43 billion project.  

Environmentalists went apoplectic. “Joe Biden’s climate presidency is flying off the rails,” said Lukas Ross of Friends of the Earth. Ross pointed out this was the second U.S. approval of a “fossil-fuel mega-project” in as many months.  

Finally, the tipping point for climate activists may have come on April 21, when Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm penned a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), asking to “expeditiously” approve regulatory authorizations for the Mountain Valley Pipeline in West Virginia. Granholm noted the gas pipeline can "play an important role as part of the clean energy transition".

Once again, green activists hit the roof, including former National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) attorney and current Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA), who stated bluntly, “She (Granholm) sounds like a cheerleader for the fossil fuel industry; it’s really quite pathetic.”

The same groups who previously cheered when the Green New Deal was introduced, celebrated when the Keystone Pipeline was shuttered and nearly danced in the streets when copper mines in Alaska and Minnesota were ruled off-limits to development are now blasting Biden for losing his way on what they see as an ‘existential threat’ to their survival, and turning his back on mankind.

The group Gen-Z for Change recently put out a statement that clearly spells out the position of many young voters. "There is no deeper form of betrayal than watching a president who has claimed to value the voices of youth…blatantly disregard one of our generations' largest and clearest movements."  Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) was even more blunt: ''Young people are plugged in and more informed than they have ever been about climate change,'' he said. ''Now they're feeling stabbed in the back.'' If Mr. Biden doesn't reverse course, ''young people stay home in 2024, that's the consequences.'' 

Make no mistake: Biden is a dedicated disciple to the green cult. If given another four years, he will take steps toward fulfilling his promise to “end fossil fuel.” The next 17 months will determine whether Joe Biden will turn 86 in 2028 as a two-term President or defeated, one-term leader.  Ironically, voters much younger will make or break his fate, and they see the world through a very green lens. Right now, they’re seeing red, and that spells trouble for Team Biden.

Rick Whitbeck is the Alaska State Director for Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs and opportunities.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/joe-biden-losing-young-climate-voters