Effingham Unit 40 Schools Report Card: 'Commendable" designations for 4 schoolsThe Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arrested a suspected fraudster, Osang Otukpa, for allegedly defrauding 139 Australians to the tune of eight million Australian dollars. The EFCC Head of Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale, disclosed this in a statement on Friday in Abuja. He said the suspect was picked up in a stakeout at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, after arriving from the United States on December 6. Oyewale said: “Otukpa goes by five aliases namely: Ford Thompson, Oscar Donald Tyler, Michael Haye, Jose Vitto and Kristin Davidson. “He scammed his victims by luring them on social media to invest in his rogue cryptocurrency investment platform, Liquid Asset Group (LAG). “The proceeds of the alleged crimes were routed to his bank accounts through a global cryptocurrency exchange platform.” He said the suspect would be arraigned in court at the end of the investigations. Opinions Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs. As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake. If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause. Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development. Donate NowWhen it comes to Jerry Jones, you've got to take anything he says with a grain of salt. After all, the Dallas Cowboys owner recently described the team as a 365-day soap opera and to keep the drama going, he's got a knack for dropping the right quotes at the right time. You can argue about how good he is in the football business. But there's no denying what he's capable of when it comes to shaping narratives and getting people talking. And yet... like, come on, now. He's totally running it back with Mike McCarthy, isn't he? Just check out what he had to say about the Cowboys head coach on 105.3 The Fan. "I can't tell you how proud I am of the way the coaching staff, led by Mike McCarthy, the way that the leadership on this team, and really proud of these young players," Jones said on the radio. "They just are growing mentally and physically by leaps and bounds, makes me think we've got an outstanding future ahead of us." Makes me think we've got an outstanding future ahead of us, is the key part here. The quote literally makes no sense unless McCarthy gets a contract extension ahead of the 2025 NFL season. For a coach whose team was eliminated from playoff contention before the Cowboys even played in Week 16, Jones' comments sure will make McCarthy's Christmas Eve brighter. McCarthy and Jones were caught on camera in the locker room exchanging a hug, followed by some words from the Cowboys owner. Though the audio isn't available, the interaction is visibly positive. Jerry Jones and Mike McCarthy in the locker room after tonight’s win pic.twitter.com/zPfti4P31i Chances are we won't know for sure what's ahead for McCarthy until a couple of weeks after the regular season is over. But make no mistake about it, the coach's stock is rising in the eyes of the front office. This article first appeared on A to Z Sports and was syndicated with permission.WASHINGTON (AP) — After several weeks working mostly behind closed doors, Vice President-elect JD Vance returned to Capitol Hill this week in a new, more visible role: Helping Donald Trump try to get his most contentious Cabinet picks through Senate confirmation in the Senate, where Vance has served for the last two years. Vance arrived at the Capitol on Wednesday with former Rep. Matt Gaetz and spent the morning sitting in on meetings between Trump’s choice for attorney general and key Republicans, including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The effort was for naught: Gaetz announced a day later that he was withdrawing his name amid scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations and the reality that he was unlikely to be confirmed. Thursday morning Vance was back, this time accompanying Pete Hegseth, the “Fox & Friends Weekend” host whom Trump has tapped to be the next secretary of defense. Hegseth also has faced allegations of sexual assault that he denies. Vance is expected to accompany other nominees for meetings in coming weeks as he tries to leverage the two years he has spent in the Senate to help push through Trump's picks. Vance is taking on an atypical role as Senate guide for Trump nominees The role of introducing nominees around Capitol Hill is an unusual one for a vice president-elect. Usually the job goes to a former senator who has close relationships on the Hill, or a more junior aide. But this time the role fits Vance, said Marc Short, who served as Trump’s first director of legislative affairs as well as chief of staff to Trump’s first vice president, Mike Pence, who spent more than a decade in Congress and led the former president’s transition ahead of his first term. ”JD probably has a lot of current allies in the Senate and so it makes sense to have him utilized in that capacity,” Short said. Unlike the first Trump transition, which played out before cameras at Trump Tower in New York and at the president-elect's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, this one has largely happened behind closed doors in Palm Beach, Florida. There, a small group of officials and aides meet daily at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort to run through possible contenders and interview job candidates. The group includes Elon Musk, the billionaire who has spent so much time at the club that Trump has joked he can’t get rid of him. Vance has been a constant presence, even as he’s kept a lower profile. The Ohio senator has spent much of the last two weeks in Palm Beach, according to people familiar with his plans, playing an active role in the transition, on which he serves as honorary chair. Mar-a-Lago scene is a far cry from Vance's hardscrabble upbringing Vance has been staying at a cottage on the property of the gilded club, where rooms are adorned with cherubs, oriental rugs and intricate golden inlays. It's a world away from the famously hardscrabble upbringing that Vance documented in the memoir that made him famous, “Hillbilly Elegy.” His young children have also joined him at Mar-a-Lago, at times. Vance was photographed in shorts and a polo shirt playing with his kids on the seawall of the property with a large palm frond, a U.S. Secret Service robotic security dog in the distance. On the rare days when he is not in Palm Beach, Vance has been joining the sessions remotely via Zoom. Though he has taken a break from TV interviews after months of constant appearances, Vance has been active in the meetings, which began immediately after the election and include interviews and as well as presentations on candidates’ pluses and minuses. Among those interviewed: Contenders to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray , as Vance wrote in a since-deleted social media post. Defending himself from criticism that he’d missed a Senate vote in which one of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees was confirmed, Vance wrote that he was meeting at the time "with President Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including for FBI Director.” “I tend to think it’s more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote 49-46 rather than 49-45,” Vance added on X. “But that’s just me.” Vance is making his voice heard as Trump stocks his Cabinet While Vance did not come in to the transition with a list of people he wanted to see in specific roles, he and his friend, Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who is also a member of the transition team, were eager to see former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. find roles in the administration. Trump ended up selecting Gabbard as the next director of national intelligence , a powerful position that sits atop the nation’s spy agencies and acts as the president’s top intelligence adviser. And he chose Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services , a massive agency that oversees everything from drug and food safety to Medicare and Medicaid. Vance was also a big booster of Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who will serve as Trump's “border czar.” In another sign of Vance's influence, James Braid, a top aide to the senator, is expected to serve as Trump’s legislative affairs director. Allies say it’s too early to discuss what portfolio Vance might take on in the White House. While he gravitates to issues like trade, immigration and tech policy, Vance sees his role as doing whatever Trump needs. Vance was spotted days after the election giving his son’s Boy Scout troop a tour of the Capitol and was there the day of leadership elections. He returned in earnest this week, first with Gaetz — arguably Trump’s most divisive pick — and then Hegseth, who has was been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 2017, according to an investigative report made public this week. Hegseth told police at the time that the encounter had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing. Vance hosted Hegseth in his Senate office as GOP senators, including those who sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee, filtered in to meet with the nominee for defense secretary. While a president’s nominees usually visit individual senators’ offices, meeting them on their own turf, the freshman senator — who is accompanied everywhere by a large Secret Service detail that makes moving around more unwieldy — instead brought Gaetz to a room in the Capitol on Wednesday and Hegseth to his office on Thursday. Senators came to them. Vance made it to votes Wednesday and Thursday, but missed others on Thursday afternoon. Vance will draw on his Senate background going forward Vance is expected to continue to leverage his relationships in the Senate after Trump takes office. But many Republicans there have longer relationships with Trump himself. Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, said that Trump was often the first person to call him back when he was trying to reach high-level White House officials during Trump's first term. “He has the most active Rolodex of just about anybody I’ve ever known,” Cramer said, adding that Vance would make a good addition. “They’ll divide names up by who has the most persuasion here,” Cramer said, but added, “Whoever his liaison is will not work as hard at it as he will.” Cramer was complimentary of the Ohio senator, saying he was “pleasant” and ” interesting” to be around. ′′He doesn’t have the long relationships," he said. "But we all like people that have done what we’ve done. I mean, that’s sort of a natural kinship, just probably not as personally tied.” Under the Constitution, Vance will also have a role presiding over the Senate and breaking tie votes. But he's not likely to be needed for that as often as was Kamala Harris, who broke a record number of ties for Democrats as vice president, since Republicans will have a bigger cushion in the chamber next year. ___ Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
The top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee warned Friday that President-elect Donald Trump is planning to "steal from the programs and services that affect middle-class, working, and vulnerable families" by refusing to spend money appropriated by Congress. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) said in a statement that Trump's strategy, known as "impoundment," is "uninformed and unconstitutional," adding that "the Supreme Court , the Department of Justice, and the Government Accountability Office are all in agreement — the Constitution provides no impoundment power to the president to unilaterally withhold funds appropriated by Congress." "It is the sworn duty of the president of the United States to faithfully execute the law," DeLauro added, "and appropriations laws are no exception." In a new fact sheet , Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee note that "the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, and nowhere does it give the president any unilateral power to either temporarily or permanently impound — steal, withhold, or prevent from being spent — funds appropriated by Congress." "The Framers were right to give Congress the power of the purse," the fact sheet states. "If the president had the unilateral power to decline to spend resources as directed by Congress, then those who rely on Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Medical Care, and other federal spending programs would be subject to the whims of the executive branch. The American people would be unable to depend on promises made by Congress in appropriations laws." Trump has explicitly vowed to use impoundment to "squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings," a plan endorsed by the billionaire pair tapped by the president-elect to run a new commission tasked with identifying spending and regulations to slash. "With impoundment, we can simply choke off the money," Trump declared in a campaign ad. "They have no authority. Does anybody get that?" Following Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's visit to Capitol Hill on Thursday to discuss their plans for the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) with GOP lawmakers, The Washington Post reported that Republicans are "keen on expanding the president's power to impound spending—or refuse to spend money Congress authorizes." "Musk and Ramaswamy said they were eager to test the constitutional limits of Trump's ability to unilaterally control spending decisions," the Post reported, citing two unnamed lawmakers. "Republicans largely left the more than two-hour meeting giddy." Analysts argue Trump's plan to withhold federal spending would run afoul of the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The law, as Propublica 's Molly Redden explained , "forbids presidents from blocking spending over policy disagreements." "A similar power grab led to his first impeachment," Redden wrote. "During his first term, Trump held up nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine while he pressured President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to open a corruption investigation into Joe Biden and his family. The U.S. Government Accountability Office later ruled his actions violated the Impoundment Control Act ." Democrats on the House Budget Committee recently pointed out that "although decided after the ICA passed, the Supreme Court unanimously held in Train v. City of New York that even without the ICA, the president does not have unilateral authority to impound funds." That hasn't stopped Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy from exploring ways to cut or block spending without congressional approval. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published last month, Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that "even without relying on" the view that the ICA is unconstitutional, "DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion-plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood ." Housing assistance, childcare aid, student loan programs, and other spending would also be vulnerable under such an approach. "They want [to cut] $2 trillion ," DeLauro told reporters Thursday. "Think about the discretionary budget. It's $1.7 trillion. Where are they going for the money? Where are they going?" "They have no authority," she added. "Does anybody get that?"
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