President Donald Trump ordered major changes to U.S. asylum policies in a White House memo released Monday night, including measures that would charge fees to those applying for humanitarian refuge in the United States.
Trump’s directive also calls for tightening asylum rules by banning anyone who crosses the border illegally from obtaining a work permit, and giving courts a 180-day limit to adjudicate asylum claims that now routinely take years to process because of a ballooning case backlog.
The order, announced in a presidential memorandum, comes as the president is seeking to mobilize his supporters with a focus on illegal immigration ahead of his 2020 reelection campaign.

What keeps Colonel O up at night is not the constant threat of cyber attack. No, the commander of the Israeli military’s IT unit Mamram is much more concerned with the challenge of human resources, he told Calcalist in a recent interview. O heads one of the Israeli army’s most selective and highly classified units, which is why his full name cannot be published. But recruiting the best of the best is only the first step. Retaining the highly specialized talents as the tech world woos them with large salaries and perks, now that is a challenge fit for a colonel.
Mamram is the Israeli Defense Force (IDF)’s Center of Computing and Information Systems, the unit charged with providing all military arms with data processing services and IT infrastructure.

Rav Dan of Radvil (1838)

Iran’s armed forces chief of staff threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route, in response to U.S. sanctions on the regime, which he labeled as “hostility,” reported the semi-official ISNA news agency.
“We are not after closing the Strait of Hormuz, but if the hostility of enemies increase, we will be able to do so,” Mohammad Bagheri told the outlet. “Also, if our oil does not go through the strait, other countries’ oil will certainly not cross the strait, too,” he added.
The strait lies between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman as the sole maritime passage from the former to the open ocean.
Kuwaiti Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled al-Jarallah expressed alarm over Bagheri’s remarks.

For the first time in five years, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared in a video released by the terror group on Monday.
It’s unclear when the footage was filmed but Baghdadi uses past tense to refer to the months-long fight for Baghouz, ISIS’s final bastion in eastern Syria, Agence France-Presse reported. That dispute ended last month.
The reclusive boss was last heard from in August 2018, when he urged his supporters to “persevere” in an audio recording. He has appeared in public only once in 2014. The US has offered a $25 million reward for information leading to his death or capture.
Read more at NY POST.
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Top city pols backed switching the Verrazzano Bridge to two-way tolling Sunday as a way to cut down on congestion on Staten Island and in southern Brooklyn.
The proposal — backed by top members of the city’s Albany and Washington delegations — would cut the current tolls in half, but charge drivers both ways.
Supporters say that will stop New Jersey commuters from avoiding tolls as they drive towards Manhattan and Brooklyn, reducing traffic on the island and generating badly needed cash for the MTA.

Amazon.com Inc. expects to improve the delivery times for customers who sign up for its Prime subscription program, cutting free deliveries to one day instead of two, an executive said Thursday afternoon.
Amazon offers one-day delivery on some products now, and even same-day delivery for some purchases. But Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky suggested that the company now expects that the standard free two-day shipping that is the biggest selling point for the Prime subscription plan will be improved to a one-day schedule globally.

French authorities say they have arrested three adults and a minor for planning an imminent attack on security forces. The four suspects were arrested as part of an investigation into a terrorist conspiracy that the Paris prosecutor’s office said was opened on 1 February.
“Four people are being held over a plan to carry out an extremely violent terror attack,” Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told reporters.
The prosecutor’s office did not provide details about where the arrests were made or about the nature of the planned attack but said the arrests concerned “individuals suspected of preparing imminent violent acts, susceptible to target security forces”.

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Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard successfully managed a surveillance flight over a U.S. aircraft carrier, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported Saturday.
The report included footage apparently from a Guard drone that flew over the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and another U.S. warship in the Persian Gulf. The images show fighter planes parked on the carrier deck.
The development comes after the U.S. government earlier this month designated the Guard as a terrorist group to increase pressure on Iran and further isolate the country. Iran responded by labeling all U.S. forces as terrorists.