'Former Rubio intern indicted on Jan. 6 charges'

 A South Florida woman who reportedly interned for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) was indicted this month for her alleged involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

A federal grand jury indicted Barbara Balmaseda, 23, on charges related to storming and entering the Capitol on Jan. 6 alongside at least one Proud Boys member, according to a court filing posted to the docket May 22.

Balmaseda, from Miami Lakes, has years-long ties to the Florida Republican Party and interned for Rubio from 2018 to 2019, the Miami New Times reported. The Hill reached out to Rubio’s office for comment.

Federal investigators said Balmaseda chatted with Gabriel Garcia, a member of the Proud Boys, in the weeks leading up to the insurrection, in which she expressed the belief the 2020 election was stolen from former President Trump. The two coordinated travel arrangements to Washington, D.C., for days surrounding Jan. 6, authorities said.

Garcia was found guilty last year of two felony charges in connection with the Capitol breach. He is slated to be sentenced in September.

Messages obtained by authorities showed pictures of Balmaseda wearing a “Trump 2020” hat with Garcia and others in D.C. on Jan. 6., while phone records showed her cellphone was in the area of the Capitol around the time of the riots, per court documents.

While in D.C. on Jan. 6, Balmaseda was photographed with Garcia in the Black Lives Matter Plaza before she walked in a large crowd toward the Capitol, federal investigators said. She and Garcia allegedly climbed on equipment staged near the Capitol before entering the building as the crowd chanted “Our House!” and “USA.”

After leaving the inside of the Capitol, Balmaseda continued to take photographs of herself on the Capitol grounds and later sent memes about the insurrection, court filings stated.

She was arrested in December in Miami Lakes. She faces five criminal counts including corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding, knowingly entering and remaining in a restricted building, and engaging in disorderly conduct in a Capitol with the intent to impede a session of Congress.

In a statement to The Hill, Balmaseda’s attorney Nayib Hassan said, “We look forward to presenting a vigorous defense on her behalf as we have entered a plea of not guilty.”

“It is our position that the Government is overzealously presenting charges against individuals that have very little to no connections to what occurred on January 6, 2021 in Washington DC,” Hassan continued.

Hassan noted Balmaseda’s team is also awaiting the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on a challenge to an obstruction law used against several Jan. 6 rioters and Trump, as it “may have a direct impact” on Balmaseda’s case.

The Miami New Times reported Balmaseda was previously listed as the director at-large for the Miami Young Republicans and served as regional director for Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends, which describes itself as an advocacy organization in support of “the pro-growth, pro-innovation Baker-Shultz Carbon Dividends Plan.”

More than 1,420 people in nearly all 50 states have been charged for their alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 riot.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4690002-former-rubio-intern-indicted-jan-6-charges/

Amgen rare-disease treatment biosimilar Bkemv gets FDA approval

 Pharmaceutical regulators approved Amgen's (AMGN) Bkemv, a biosimilar to rare-disease treatment Soliris.

The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that Bkemv, a monoclonal antibody, had been approved for treating paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, a rare blood disorder, and atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome, another rare disease affecting kidneys and blood-clotting.

Soliris, developed by AstraZeneca (AZN)-owned Alexion Pharmaceuticals, is approved for the same treatment indications.

In patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, Bkemv is given to reduce hemolysis, while in treating atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome, the drug inhibits complement-mediated thrombotic microangiopathy.

The FDA said that Bkemv was the first interchangeable biosimilar to Soliris to treat the diseases.

https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240528774/amgens-rare-disease-treatment-biosimilar-bkemv-gets-fda-approval

Former CIA Officer Pleads Guilty To Spying For The Chinese Regime

 by Aaron Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A former CIA officer pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to spy for the Chinese regime over a decade in a federal court in Honolulu, the Department of Justice announced on May 24.

Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was arrested in 2020 and charged with conspiracy to transfer top-secret information to the Chinese regime’s intelligence officials.

Mr. Ma, who worked for the CIA from 1982 to 1989, conspired with his blood relative, also a former CIA officer, to provide classified U.S. national defense information to the Chinese regime.

During his tenure at the CIA, Mr. Ma held a top-secret clearance and signed multiple non-disclosure agreements, acknowledging his duty to protect U.S. government secrets. After leaving the agency, Ma lived and worked in Shanghai, China, before relocating to Hawaii in 2001.

Notably, his blood relative had access to CIA top secret information, including “the identities of covert CIA officers,” according to a court document.

The document says the two former CIA officers conspired with Chinese intelligence officials to share classified national defense information over a decade.

Prosecutors said the espionage scheme began with three days of meetings in Hong Kong hotel rooms in 2001, where Mr. Ma and his relative met officers of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), the regime’s top intelligence agency. During these meetings, the two former CIA officers provided highly classified information on the CIA’s personnel, internal structure, operations, and communication methods. Part of these meetings was videotaped, showing Mr. Ma receiving and counting $50,000 in cash for the secrets they divulged.

The plea deal showed that Mr. Ma sought employment with the FBI, aiming to regain access to classified information for Chinese intelligence. In 2003, he applied for a job as a contract linguist with the FBI’s Honolulu Field Office.

Knowing his ties to Chinese intelligence, the FBI hired Mr. Ma as part of an investigative plan to monitor his activities. From August 2004 to October 2012, he worked as a contract linguist, reviewing and translating Chinese language documents at an off-site location.

Prosecutors said over the next six years, Mr. Ma regularly copied, photographed, and stole classified documents. He took the stolen documents and images with him on frequent trips to China and handed them over to the Chinese handlers. He often returned from these China trips with substantial cash payments and expensive gifts, including new golf clubs.

According to prosecutors, Mr. Ma admitted that he convinced his CIA relative to reveal the identities of at least two individuals in photographs that were given to him by Chinese spies. Mr. Ma confessed that he was aware that the Chinese regime could use this information to harm the United States, but he deliberately did it anyway.

Court documents showed that in 2019, Mr. Ma met with an FBI undercover agent whom he believed to be a Chinese intelligence officer. During these meetings, Mr. Ma confirmed he worked for Chinese intelligence and accepted $2,000 in cash as a “small token” of appreciation for his work for the Chinese regime. He also offered to resume working for Chinese intelligence.

In a final meeting with the FBI undercover agent in Aug. 2020 before his arrest, Mr. Ma again accepted more money for his past spying efforts and expressed his willingness to support the Chinese regime, saying he wanted “the motherland” to succeed.

The plea agreement requires Mr. Ma to cooperate with U.S. authorities, including submitting to debriefings by government agencies. If accepted by the court, he will face a 10-year prison sentence.

Espionage Attempts

The case is one of many espionage attempts by the Chinese regime targeting U.S. military and intelligence personnel. In 2019, former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee received a 19-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide classified information to Chinese intelligence following his departure from the agency in 2010.

Earlier this year, a former U.S. Navy sailor was sentenced to 27 months in prison for providing the Chinese communist regime with sensitive U.S. military information in exchange for bribes. In 2021, a former U.S. Navy sailor was also sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $20,000 for conspiring with her husband to send sensitive military equipment to China illegally.

These cases highlight the Chinese regime’s intelligence efforts in the United States. In 202o, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the agency investigated one new Chinese counterintelligence case every 10 hours. Mr. Wray also noted that the bureau had over 2,000 China-related counterintelligence investigations at the time.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/former-cia-officer-pleads-guilty-spying-chinese-regime

It's the Immigrants, Stupid

 While the Biden administration insists Americans shouldn't believe their lying bank accounts amid 'strong growth and low unemployment,' guess who's actually been benefiting? (Regular ZeroHedge readers already know)

Consider the 3.2 million increase in the foreign-born adult population in the U.S. in the 21 months since July 2022. We start at that date because it gives us a clean slate, free from the effects of the pandemic lockdown and reopening. And this period captures the full effect of the Biden administration’s loose border policies.

Over that period, foreign-born employment has increased 1.8 million—meaning that roughly 56% of the 3.2 million new foreign-born adult population became employed. Setting aside the political matter of how much of this employment is legal, the stereotype that immigrants don’t or can’t work appears to be false.

The figures, contained within the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly household survey, are collected through door-to-door census of 60,000 households in which respondents are asked whether they're native or foreign born (but not whether they're here illegally!). Luskin notes that illegal aliens are probably less likely to answer a knock at the door, so BLS probably undercounts them.

Even so, foreign-born individuals represent 80% of the 4.1 million increase in America's adult population since July 2022, and 71% of the 2.5 million new jobs. In short, without new foreign-born workers, total US job growth under Biden during this period would have been roughly 86,000 less each month - or 724,000 jobs added vs. 2.52 million. So without illegal immigrants, the economy would have grown less than a third as much since July 2022.

According to Luskin;

It’s a catastrophe of lawlessness and maladministration. But it appears to have contributed to a strong labor market and to economic growth.

...

[A] border crackdown such as Donald Trump has proposed could end up leading to slower growth. Whoever is president in 2025 will need to take great care in balancing these urgent interests.

As we noted in March, there has been virtually zero job creation for native-born workers since the summer of 2018...

... and that since Joe Biden was sworn into office, most of the post-pandemic job gains the administration continuously brags about have gone foreign-born workers.

Luskin suggests, therefore, that the new, foreign-born adults are diluting the productivity of the US economy by arriving with few skills and poor English, however "the economy needs many low-skill workers, and they rapidly acquire skills on the job, so they will surely contribute to productivity growth in the future."

So, "It would seem that in purely economic terms, and at least for the moment, the Biden administration’s loose border policy is a feature, not a bug."

That said, the Biden administration isn't exactly bragging about this influx of future Democrat voters.

In a February Pew poll, 77% of Americans said that the southern border is either a “crisis” or a “major problem.” Even 62% of Democrats agreed. People see the bug, not the features, because the boom in job growth from immigration is, by definition, experienced by people most Americans here already don’t know—and, presumably, who won’t be able to vote this November. And even with his own political base, it would be awkward for Mr. Biden to argue that he has produced economic growth via laissez-faire deregulation at the border.

Such a policy is unsustainable in any case. Under capitalism, economic growth depends on trust—on the ability of economic participants to rely on others’ adherence to a set of defined and stable rules. The ad hoc lawlessness of the Biden border policy undermines that, and unless it can be stabilized it will be corrosive to long-term growth prospects. On the other hand, a border crackdown such as Donald Trump has proposed could end up leading to slower growth. Whoever is president in 2025 will need to take great care in balancing these urgent interests. -WSJ

The comments section ain't buyin' it...

In response to Luskin, WSJ readers had some choice words:

...I'm not buying it, Mr. Luskin.  The economy boomed under Trump, when the number immigrants entering the country illegally was much lower.

The growth in the Biden economy (and the Trump economy, without inflation) is due to the positive impact and incentives provided by the significant reduction in corporate taxes put in place by Trump in 2018...

*  *  *

...There’s nothing wrong with immigration. Even lots of it. There is everything wrong with illegal immigration and millions of people coming across the border who cannot legally work and can only become burdens to the states and cities until some unknown future date when they may or may not become legal residents. Just listen to the howling cries of New York and other self declared sanctuary cities demanding millions of Federal taxpayer dollars to help them care for the illegals if you think losing control of our country’s border is beneficial. And it’s not just about immigrants. It’s about known terrorist, human traffickers and drugs pouring across the open border. Yes, legal immigrants are good. Biden is a disaster...

*  *  *

...This article makes no sense. Sounds like a backhanded defense of Biden's open border touting an economic boom. No mention of the cost of food, housing, medical, etc. of the illegals. The Rule of Law is critical to the success of America, which with this open border is being destroyed. What about the cost of additional police with the additional 10 million that have entered the country. The economy is strong because of the still alive entrepreneural and corporations that drive the country and create wealth. The opposite has been true under Biden with his inflation that hurts everyone and his arming the bureaucracy to increase the rules that make it tougher to run a business, not even including the wasted billions on the green nonsense. This article is wrong about everything it says and it's claiming the Biden economy is creating an economic miracle is a joke..."

*  *  *

...What a silly "conclusion:" - widespread law breaking, overstretch of welfare resources, destruction of public facilities, swamping schools that are already underperforming?  Those are the facts of Biden's open borders, not some sort of indirect economic benefit. What are all these jobs? Housekeeping? Janitorial? Maybe farm workers? And how much is each one of these new "workers" costing us? Food, housing, healthcare, education, crime? So what is the "net benefit"?  None...

Perhaps Lusk needs to go back to the drawing board.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/its-immigrants-stupid

Corcept Primary Endpoint Met in Pivotal Phase 3 Cushing's Trial

 Corcept Therapeutics Incorporated (NASDAQ: CORT), a commercial-stage company engaged in the discovery and development of medications to treat severe endocrinologic, oncologic, metabolic, and neurologic disorders by modulating the effects of the hormone cortisol, today announced that GRACE, the Phase 3 trial of its proprietary selective cortisol modulator relacorilant in patients with hypercortisolism (Cushing’s syndrome), met its primary endpoint.

The GRACE study has two parts. On April 22, Corcept announced that patients in GRACE’s initial, open-label phase exhibited clinically meaningful and statistically significant improvements in hypertension, hyperglycemia and other symptoms experienced by patients with Cushing’s syndrome. Patients who exhibited pre-specified improvements in hypertension, hyperglycemia or both were given the opportunity to enter the trial’s randomized, double-blind withdrawal phase, in which half of the patients continued to receive relacorilant and half received placebo, for 12 weeks. 

GRACE met its primary endpoint of loss of blood pressure control in the randomized withdrawal phase among patients receiving relacorilant as compared to placebo (odds ratio: 0.17; p-value: 0.02). Consistent with its known safety profile, relacorilant was well-tolerated in both phases of GRACE, with no differences in the randomized withdrawal phase between the relacorilant and placebo groups. Additional data will be presented at the Endocrine Society (ENDO) annual meeting in Boston (poster presentation, June 3) and the Heart in Diabetes (HiD) conference in Philadelphia (oral presentation, June 7). The company expects to submit its New Drug Application in the third quarter.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/05/28/2888977/0/en/Corcept-Announces-Primary-Endpoint-Met-in-Pivotal-Phase-3-GRACE-Trial-of-Relacorilant-in-Patients-With-Hypercortisolism-Cushing-s-Syndrome.html

Arcturus Positive Development for Cystic Fibrosis Program

 

Arcturus to present new Phase 1b interim data for ARCT-032 at European Cystic Fibrosis Conference on June 7, 2024

First four CF patients demonstrated an average improvement of 4% FEV1 after two administrations

Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc. (the “Company”, “Arcturus”, Nasdaq: ARCT), a global late-stage clinical messenger RNA medicines company focused on the development of infectious disease vaccines and medicines to treat unmet medical needs within liver and respiratory rare diseases, today announced Arcturus will be presenting Phase 1 results in healthy volunteers and new Phase 1b interim data in CF patients for ARCT-032, an inhaled investigational mRNA therapeutic to treat CF, at the 47th European Cystic Fibrosis Conference on June 7, 2024.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240528329036/en/

Biden admin scrambles as at least 6 on terror watchlist were let into US over last 2 years

 The Biden administration is scrambling to close an intelligence sharing gap after at least six people on the terror watchlist were let into the US over the last two years.

Men with ties to US-designated terror groups including Somalia’s al Shabaab and Afghanistan’s Hezb-e-Islami (HEB) were all vetted by border officers and allowed into the US, before later being found to be on watchlists.

Under current rules, immigration judges and asylum officers — who interview migrants to see if they qualify for entry into the US — are barred from accessing certain classified information held by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which would help them make better decisions about whether migrants are terrorists or national security threats.

4

Members of the terror group al-Shabaab hold their weapons in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.REUTERS

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas now plans to increase automatic access to that information for judges and asylum officers, rolling back an order which stood since 2004 barring them from it except in certain exceptional circumstances, as first reported by NBC.

However, some feel the order is coming far too late, after almost four years of crisis at the border which have seen over seven million arrested for attempting to enter the US illegally, according to Customs and Border Protection figures.

“Now the administration is becoming reactive,” former immigration judge Edwin Pieters, who left the bench last year, told The Post of the policy change.

During his tenure as an immigration judge, Pieters said he’d have to take DHS at their word that they had completed “satisfactory” background checks on the cases he oversaw.

“Honestly, I don’t know why they held us back and it’s only coming up because a news report came out and now they’re trying to play catch up,” he added.

Pieters was referring to the case of Afghan migrant Mohammad Kharwin, 48, who illegally entered the US near San Ysidro, Calif., in March of 2023.  

4

Migrants attempt to cross through border wire erected by the state of Texas in El Paso.AFP via Getty Images

He was arrested by border officers but processed and released into the country. Almost a year later the FBI notified Immigration and Customs Enforcement Kharwin was a suspected member of the terror organization Hezb-e-Islami, or HIG.

Kharwin was re-arrested February 28 in San Antonio, Texas, but briefly let go after DHS failed to inform the immigration judge of his suspected terror ties. He was then arrested again April 11.

Former immigration judge Matt O’Brien, who is now at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, told The Post DHS is supposed to disclose information on even possible terror ties in court, but it appears they failed to do so in certain recent cases.

“What I suspect happened here is that the current administration’s lax approach to national security bit it in the posterior and in a desperate ‘cover your ass’ move it’s now trying to make it look like it’s closing a loophole that never existed in the first place,” O’Brien said.

4

An ICE agent monitors hundreds of migrants being processed in New York City.Getty Images

4

Mugshot of suspected terrorist, Isnardo Garcia-Amado, 35, who was released into the United States.U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Andrew Arthur, former terrorism prosecutor with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, said he believes with watchlisted migrants being let into the country and incidents such as two illegal immigrants trying to breach Marine Base Quantico in Virginia, the Biden administration needs to be wary of a full-blown terrorist attack.

“I think the Biden administration is very concerned there is going to be an October surprise and one or more of these people are going to do something,” Arthur told The Post.

“I think the Biden administration is very concerned … I think they’re only now waking up to the fact that this would be an electoral disaster for Democrats and for Biden if one of these guys were to do something. This is a huge vulnerability politically and I think it’s a huge national security vulnerability.”

The DHS didn’t respond to The Post’s request for comment.

In February, ICE also admitted a 27-year-old Somali man, who has not been identified by name, was released by border authorities into the country after he crossed the border illegally into California despite being a “confirmed member of al Shabaab,” designated a terrorist group by the US.

The man was listed on the terror watchlist for his alleged involvement “in the use, manufacture or transportation of explosives or firearms,” but was released after border agents got wrong information. ICE later realized the error and he was arrested in January in Minnesota.

https://nypost.com/2024/05/28/us-news/terror-suspect-vetting-failures-prompts-dhs-scramble-report/