Latest news with #ProPublica
NDTV
10 hours ago
- Business
- NDTV
Did Trump Bury Ex-Wife Ivana On His Golf Course To Save Taxes? Explained
It's been three years since US President Donald Trump buried his first wife, Ivana Trump, on the grounds of his New Jersey golf course, and this unusual decision is once again drawing attention. The reason? A potential tax benefit to the president. Ivana, who died in July 2022 following a fall in her Manhattan home at the age of 73, was laid to rest at the Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey, with no fence, flowers or public memorial, unlike traditional gravesites. This caught the attention of many, who believed it was a potential financial strategy. According to the New Jersey state tax code, any land used for cemeteries is exempt from all taxes, including real estate taxes. Additionally, cemetery companies are excluded from paying business taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, inheritance taxes, and personal property taxes on their land, reports Fortune. This means that by designating even a small portion of the golf course as a burial ground, the land could qualify for tax exemptions. An Instagram post by a popular page recently shared a thread titled, "Why did Donald Trump bury his ex-wife on a golf course? It wasn't grief. It was a strategy." The post mentioned how having just one grave could have led to Trump registering the land as a non-profit cemetery company. This led to the entire golf course being tax-exempt. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Awareness • Mindset • Success (@awareness_of_success) The 79-year-old has been accused of choosing the golf course as Ivana's burial site for more than just sentimental reasons. The post mentioned, "Millions potentially saved in taxes. 150 feet from the clubhouse. The first hole now sits beside a legal loophole." But Trump dismissed these claims and expressed his desire to be buried in the 525-acre property. "This is such beautiful land, and Bedminster is one of the richest places in the country," he told Page Six. According to documents made public by ProPublica, the Trump Family Trust previously applied to become a nonprofit cemetery organisation and establish a property near Hackettstown, about 20 miles from the golf course where Ivana is buried, reported Fortune. Trump specifically chose this property for his final resting place as it is his favourite property, The Washington Post reported.
CBS News
2 days ago
- CBS News
Maryland town works to secure storm drains after child was trapped, drowned in flash flooding
Family members of a 13-year-old boy who drowned after being trapped in an open storm drain during flash floods on Thursday, July 31, in the town of Mount Airy, Maryland, are demanding action. They want those drains covered and believe the child's death could have been prevented. A temporary grate has been placed over the drain where Mason Kearns lost his life, but it is not secure and is not the permanent solution the family wants. Mount Airy's mayor promised an evaluation of all storm drains in the town during a recent council meeting. Allison Eggleston, who is Mason Kearns' aunt, told the town council that her nephew's drowning could have been prevented. She pleaded with officials to do something to cover dangerous and open storm drains like the one where her 13-year-old nephew died. "Mason wasn't playing in a drainage ditch," Eggleston said. "He was simply walking on what he thought to be safe ground. This tragedy could have happened to any child that lived or played in that vicinity. Why doesn't a drainpipe that could easily fit a small adult not have a sturdy grate over it?" Eggleston cited a ProPublica investigation revealing at least 36 deaths over six years across the country. "Many others and I have reached out to the [homeowners' association] about our issue, and it gets pawned off to the town, and still nothing has been done," Eggleston said. "Nothing has been done. There have been no answers. It's just a matter of time before another innocent child dies." Numerous rescuers worked in water up to their waists as they desperately tried to save her nephew. "It was an absolute river running through that area. Rescuing Mason in time was impossible," Eggleston said. "Instead, it quickly turned into a recovery mission for our sweet, innocent 13-year-old boy who was just standing in the grass feet away from his home. It's nauseating to think about. Not only do these storm drains not have grates on them, but also, they are poorly maintained." Mount Airy's mayor promised to work with private property owners to secure drains. He said he is launching an inclement weather task force as floods become more common and severe. "While it is not our land, it is our responsibility to look out for the safety of our citizens," Mayor Larry Hushour said. "The town staff has been directed to look at every drainage pipe." Hushour also expressed condolences and said, "It is regrettable to me as mayor and to our town council that sometimes tragedy is what brings the best out in our town." Almost $60,000 has been raised online to benefit Kearns' family. "The objective is to find out what happened, why it happened and what can be done so this never happens again," Councilmember Stephen Domotor said. Kearns' aunt stressed she does not want to place blame. "It won't change anything," Eggleston told the council. "Mason is never coming back. But this town is responsible for finding out who failed Mason and all who loved him—taking accountability for their part in action and holding other parties to proper standards and fixing the issue. I'm not going to let my nephew's death be in vain." Maggie McBain described how she tried to rescue Kearns moments after he became trapped inside the drain. She recounted to WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren what she told his mother and brother. "I'm going to hold my breath, and I'm going to go under and put my leg up, and when you see my leg flop up, grab me and yank and pull," she said. "And we couldn't do it. …I started getting sucked in, and I almost pushed him in further." She still has bruises. McBain said this tragedy did not have to happen. "100% preventable. This place has just gotten lucky that it hasn't already happened in the last 25 years," McBain said.
Time of India
4 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
'Chinese engineers' ..., the 'important angle' Microsoft reportedly missed while revealing SharePoint hack
Microsoft announced last month that Chinese state-sponsored hackers exploited vulnerabilities in its SharePoint collaboration software to breach hundreds of companies and government agencies, including the National Nuclear Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security. However, the tech giant omitted a crucial detail: China-based engineers have been maintaining the very software that was compromised, as reported by ProPublica. According to screenshots viewed by ProPublica, Microsoft's internal work-tracking system showed China-based employees recently fixing bugs for SharePoint "OnPrem" — the exact version targeted in the cyberattacks. The revelation raises serious questions about potential security risks when foreign personnel maintain critical US government systems. Microsoft's China team has 'years' of SharePoint access ProPublica's investigation revealed that Microsoft's China-based engineering team has been responsible for maintaining SharePoint software for years, supervised by a US-based engineer. The company stated that work is "already underway to shift this work to another location" following the security breach. The timing proves particularly concerning given that Microsoft's analysis showed Chinese hackers were exploiting SharePoint weaknesses as early as July 7. Despite Microsoft releasing a patch on July 8, hackers successfully bypassed the initial fix, forcing the company to issue additional "more robust protections." Government systems potentially exposed to foreign oversight Cybersecurity experts warn that allowing China-based personnel to perform technical support on US government systems creates major security vulnerabilities. Chinese laws grant officials broad authority to collect data, making it difficult for citizens or companies to resist direct requests from security forces. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has identified China as the "most active and persistent cyber threat" to US government and critical infrastructure networks. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency confirmed that the SharePoint vulnerabilities enable hackers to "fully access SharePoint content" and execute malicious code. This latest revelation follows ProPublica's previous reporting that Microsoft has relied on foreign workers, including China-based engineers, to maintain Defense Department cloud systems for over a decade. In response, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth launched a review of tech companies' use of foreign-based engineers, while senators from both parties have demanded more information about Microsoft's practices.
The Hill
01-08-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Colleges must speak up for their Chinese students
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said all the right things last week after Hong Kong issued arrest warrants for 19 pro-democracy activists in other countries, including in the U.S. 'The extraterritorial targeting of Hong Kongers who are exercising their fundamental freedoms is a form of transnational oppression,' Rubio declared in a statement. 'We will not tolerate the Hong Kong government's attempts to apply its national security laws to silence or intimidate Americans or anyone on U.S. soil.' But we already tolerate the transnational oppression of one large group on our soil: Chinese students. And for the most part, our universities have kept silent about that. That's because of the billions of dollars that Chinese students bring to American colleges, of course. We're already facing an expected decline in Chinese enrollment because of the Trump administration's threats against international students, which higher-education leaders have rightly condemned. But if we really cared about those students — and not just their tuition fees — we would also speak out against the Chinese government's extraterritorial targeting of their fundamental freedoms. Anything less makes us look petty, scared and small. In a report issued last year — titled 'On my campus, I am afraid' — Amnesty International showed how Chinese and Hong Kong students in the U.S. and Europe faced surveillance and intimidation from Chinese authorities. Students reported being photographed and followed at protests, and that their families back home had been harassed. At Georgetown, for example, a Chinese law student who handed out pamphlets denouncing China's 'zero-COVID' policies was videotaped by members of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, an organization sponsored by the Chinese government. They told him that the pictures would be sent to security officials in China. And soon after that, his family was interrogated and warned that they could face penalties if he continued to speak out. None of this is news, unfortunately. In 2021, ProPublica reported that Chinese intelligence agents were using local informants to threaten and harass students in America. Some Chinese students said they avoided taking courses with other students from their country, because they did not know who was working for the government — and who might report on them. And in 2020, when COVID forced universities to move online, the Wall Street Journal revealed that some professors had told Chinese students that they wouldn't be evaluated on class participation. The faculty didn't want their students to feel the need to speak up and risk getting on the wrong side of Chinese security officials, who were likely monitoring them on Zoom. 'There is no way I can say to my students, 'You can say whatever you want on the phone call and you are totally free and safe,'' one Harvard professor admitted. But most of our university leaders are keeping quiet about the matter. They don't want to take any risks, either, with so much money at stake. A welcome exception is Purdue University, which denounced Chinese spying after ProPublica revealed that one of its students was harassed by security agents for posting a letter about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. That's a taboo topic in China, which has prohibited public discussion and commemoration of the event. 'Any student found to have reported another student to any foreign entity for exercising their freedom of speech or belief will be subject to significant sanction,' declared Mitch Daniels, Purdue's president at the time. 'We regret that we were unaware at the time of these events and had to learn of them from national sources,' Daniels added, referring to the 2021 ProPublica report. The rest of us have no excuse, especially now. Everything we have learned over the last four years confirms the same fact: China is intimidating students at our institutions. And so is the Trump administration, of course. It has arrested and deported international students who made pro-Palestinian comments. And it has been screening the social media accounts of student visa applicants to find 'any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States.' Nobody knows what that means, so applicants have been scrubbing their accounts of material about Barack Obama, Kamala Harris and anything else that might put them in the administration's crosshairs. To me, that sounds more like China than America. Our most important founding principle is freedom of expression. And we are flouting it by harassing our international students, even as we accuse them of being hostile to it. But we can't make a persuasive case against Trump's assault on freedom if we ignore the Chinese attacks on it. Anticipating that many international students won't be allowed to come here, some universities — including my own — are creating online courses and programs to serve them. That's a great gesture, but it also leaves the students even more vulnerable to harassment by internet snoops back home. And that's why we have to speak up for the students and make it clear that we won't tolerate intimidation of them, just as Rubio said. Thomas Jefferson — who knew something about America's founding principles — swore 'eternal hostility against every form of tyranny.' He didn't care where it came from. Neither should we.
Gizmodo
29-07-2025
- Business
- Gizmodo
Elon Musk Is Digging Tunnels Under Nashville
Somehow, Elon Musk keeps convincing cities to allow him to dig under them. The latest locale to give The Boring Company the rights to displace dirt directly under their feet is Nashville, Tennessee, which announced an agreement this week to allow Musk's firm to build a 10-mile 'loop' that will connect the city's airport and convention center—an arrangement that has modestly improved traffic flow in Las Vegas while turning the city into a laughingstock of the infrastructure design community. The Nashville project will be privately funded, according to an announcement from Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, and will be backed by The Boring Company and 'its private partners,' who were not named. Musk's firm will have to go through the approvals process to 'evaluate potential routes, engage community stakeholders, and finalize plans for the project's initial 10-mile phase,' which one would imagine could result in some delays—but the governor's office insisted that the loop may open as 'early as fall of 2026,' which sure sounds like the type of date you'd set if you intended to steamroll the whole regulatory procedure. That would be in line with The Boring Company's M.O., for what it's worth. Earlier this year, ProPublica published a massive report on The Boring Company's operation in Las Vegas, which has basically become a free-for-all. Taking the private funding approach allowed the company to bypass many of the regulatory hurdles that a publicly funded transit system would be required to undergo, which also means it may not be up to snuff on safety standards, either. It has, for instance, been regularly criticized for its lack of obvious emergency exits, presenting the risk of trapping people in a fiery death hole. Musk's firm basically has free rein in Vegas, and The Boring Company Goes Country appears like it's going down the same path. But plenty of cities have opted to back out of agreements with The Boring Company once it became obvious that their plans were haphazard and the public wasn't all that into it. Chicago axed a plan that would have built a loop to the O'Hare International Airport, and even Musk-friendly Fort Lauderdale backed off giving The Boring Company the go-ahead to dig after pushback from its residents. Even after undergoing an environmental review to build a tunnel between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the company simply never started digging. Frankly, that might be for the best.
