Two immigrants from Mexico were convicted by a Texas jury on Wednesday of harboring illegal aliens at their bakery near the southern border.  Leonardo Baez-Lara and Alicia Avila-Guel were found guilty of two counts of harboring aliens and conspiracy at their business in Los Fresnos, Texas. The married couple, who are lawful permanent residents from Mexico, employed and housed illegal aliens at the shopping plaza they owned, federal investigators said.  “The jury’s verdict affirms that the defendants knowingly conspired to harbor individuals in the country illegally, committed two separate acts of harboring, and did so for personal financial gain,” said Special Agent in Charge Craig Larrabee. “These actions not only violate federal immigration laws but also exploit vulnerable individuals for profit. This conviction sends a clear message: those who engage in human smuggling and harboring for financial benefit will be investigated, prosecuted and held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.” Baez-Lara and Avila-Guel could face up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and lose their legal status upon sentencing. They are set to be sentenced on November 18.  Testimony during the trial revealed that the pair provided a room for employees to live in the same shopping plaza as the bakery.  “It was a rectangular room with mattresses on the floor and housed two employees at the time of inspection who were unauthorized to work in the United States. Testimony revealed the room was originally an insurance office which became repurposed as a storage area for kitchen equipment. Authorities also found electrical wires which, coupled with the absence of a fire extinguisher and only one entrance, resulted in a safety risk for the inhabitants,” the Justice Department said.  Investigators said that this room was used by the couple to house illegal workers and that as many as five to six adults lived in the room.  Other testimony at the trial revealed that the couple failed to file proper paperwork declaring their employees and continued to pay their employees in cash even after their accountant told them not to.  The case was investigated by ICE and Homeland Security Investigations. Cesar De Leon, who represented Avila-Guel, claimed the laws against harboring illegal aliens were supposed to be focused on international criminal organizations. “We believe that these were hardworking people, and they employed hardworking employees and they were just here to make a better living,” De Leon said. “I believe these laws were supposed to target international criminal organizations, stash houses, human trafficking.” The Trump administration has sought a nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration and has brought a few cases against business owners for employing illegal aliens. 

When this soon-to-be bride and her bridesmaids hopped on a plane for their bachelorette trip, they expected to have an unforgettable time. That said, they didn’t expect the fun to truly begin until after they landed. That’s because they’ve never had a flight attendant quite like this one before. As soon as this kind flight attendant caught wind of the women’s trip, they found a way to pull off the best surprise… Sure, the flight attendant could have simply congratulated the bridal party. But instead, they made a special announcement to everyone on board. First, they shared the fact that this bridal party was on a bachelorette trip… but that’s not the best part. Find out what happened next in the heartwarming video below! @rwphotographynm This was the sweetest and most thoughtful thing she could have done! @Southwest Airlines you have a real star employee on your hands and she deserves some love! ##weddingtok##bridetok##southwestairlines ♬ original sound – ?ᝰ.ᐟ “To the Southwest flight attendant that announced to the plane that I was getting married and asked everyone to write me marriage advice on drink napkins…” the text in this sweet video reads, “you made my bachelorette trip and you deserve a raise.” This Southwest Airlines Flight Attendant Goes Above and Beyond for an Excited Group Starting Their Bachelorette Trip It’s no wonder this bride-to-be is so grateful for this kind gesture. The thoughtful words on these napkins are sure to hold a special place in her heart for the rest of her life. In fact, that’s why so many people who have seen this video are suggesting she find a way to preserve them. For example, someone suggests framing them with a picture from the wedding at the center! “Oh I’m gonna use this when I’m finally a pilot!” another commenter shares. Others add, “You should share some of the [advice] you received. Best of luck in your marriage” and “Humans, we are cute sometimes.” You can find the source of this story’s featured image here! The post “To The Southwest Flight Attendant That Announced To The Plane That I Was Getting Married…” appeared first on InspireMore.

'These results are happening night after night'

'It is time for courage'

'Not going to happen'

MORE RUSSIAGATE SECRETS EXPOSED ... CLAPPER BRUSHED OFF NSA CHIEF'S CONCERNS ABOUT INTEL, TOLD HIM TO GET ON BOARD FOR 'OUR STORY' ... Obama Intel Chief James Clapper Ignored NSA Head’s Concerns About Pushing Russiagate “I’ve just returned from a TYD overseas and been updated on the current status of our efforts to produce a joint product related to Russian attribution and intent for the DNC/DCCC hacks. I know that this activity is on a fast-track,” [Former NSA Director Mike] Rogers wrote in a Dec. 22, 2016, email. “However I wanted to reach out to you directly to let you know of some of the concerns I have with what I’m hearing from my folks.”

Kylee Monteiro was last seen on Aug. 7

Books Mark as Read We All Miss Mass Market Paperbacks It’s partly nostalgia, but there really is something special about those books… By Molly Templeton | Published on August 14, 2025 Photo by Daniel Lim [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by Daniel Lim [via Unsplash] One way in which I have been dealing with the state of the world at present is by allowing myself to collect pretty, or at least interesting, editions of books I already know I love. It is just a little distracting kindness for myself: These are not new books, and therefore do not add to my endless TBR pile. They are not fancy books. They are cheap books. At most they are used $15 hardcovers of, for example, a Joan Vinge book with a Leo and Diane Dillon cover.  But mostly, they’re mass markets, those virtually square little tomes that used to be the backbone of SFF. My beloved local SFF store, Parallel Worlds, had tables and tables of mass markets out on the sidewalk the other weekend for a buck apiece. A dollar! I restrained myself and only bought books I do not already own. I do not need to buy a whole new set of Jo Clayton’s Duel of Sorcery books to give to some as yet unknown person. (But sometimes you just want to take old favorites home with you.) There are many charms to the books that are commonly referred to as mass market paperbacks (they are also known by the somewhat less wordy term “rack size”). They are small. If you have reasonably sized pockets, apparently they fit in pockets. (They fit in the pockets of my chore coat, and that’s it.) They stack neatly. They often have incredible cover art. They smell different. Sometimes the page edges are that bright, bright yellow.  And they’re cheap. Or at least cheaper. I was thinking about mass markets because of that sidewalk sale, and all the things I wanted to take home but didn’t. But it seems like a lot of people have had them on the brain. Jenny Hamilton recently posted a photo of some of hers while she was reshelving. Chuck Wendig, in response to a Nat Cassidy post, said, “We lost something as a nation when we lost the mass market paperback format.” From there, things went in all directions. Charles Stross got detailed about when he’d seen mass market sales decline, and mentioned that “mass market” technically refers to a distribution channel, not a book trim size. This is a fair thing to point out, especially since there are no industry standards when it comes to book sizes. Cassidy griped about the “WEIRD NEW TALL PSEUDO MASS MARKET EDITIONS,” a gripe that I share. I don’t generally hate books, but those are just wrong. I went poking around Bluesky and found all sorts of mass market posts, just from the last month. A lot of them said some variation of “Bring back the mass market paperback,” which is sort of funny, because it’s not really gone. Not entirely. Not yet. But it is fading.  Earlier this year, Readerlink announced it would stop distributing mass market paperbacks by the end of 2025. Readerlink describes itself as “the largest full-service distributor of hardcover, trade and paperback books to non-trade channel booksellers in North America,” which is to say, Readerlink is a main channel through which books get to all those non-bookstore places we used to find mass markets, like grocery stores. According to Publishers Weekly, “Readerlink’s customers, which include Walmart, Kroger, Hudson News, and other mass merchandisers, account for as much as 60–70% of mass market paperback sales in the U.S.” That’s a lot of mass markets no longer going into the world. In a follow-up piece, Publishers Weekly wrote, “Consensus across the six publishers that spoke with PW said that most new and established authors who had been published in mass market will now simply get moved over to trade paperback.”  But trades aren’t the same. And not just because mass markets are cheaper, though that is certainly part of the picture—both in terms of why readers want them and why publishers might not want to print them. Why would they want to sell a book for $9 when they could sell it for $18? Once upon a time, maybe, those little books were selling in larger quantities, so it all mathed out in the end. And once upon a time, maybe, publishing was a slightly less money-driven industry. People joke about the era of the three-martini lunch, and publishing being a “gentleman’s” business, and how different it used to be. But there is, I think, some truth in those jokes. So many books that I love first appeared as mass markets—like all those Jo Clayton novels I keep buying new-to-me copies of. I don’t think I’m alone in that, as a reader, I grew up almost entirely on mass markets. If the books I was reading had ever come in other formats, I never saw them—with rare exceptions like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the giant omnibus edition in faux leather) or The Mists of Avalon (which I always assumed was just too big to fit in the smaller size). Hardcovers? Presumably they existed, but not to me. Those books were invisible until they arrived in the small, portable, affordable format. It is often said that ebooks ate the mass market paperback market, which is probably true for some readers (I would love to see how that played out within different genres). Some things are still printed in mass market; some things still sell in mass market (Publishers Weekly says that 2024’s bestselling mass markets were both George Orwell anniversary editions. Make of that what you will). But it seems telling that, for example, paperback editions of the Star Wars High Republic books come only in trade size. (The Rise of Skywalker novelization, though, that you can get in the small size.) The things that used to feel like the norms simply aren’t anymore. (I haven’t yet read Dan Sinykin’s recent book Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature, but the more I think about this, the closer it inches to the top of my read-this-next stack. The first two sections are about the mass market, the next about trade.) Reluctantly, I get it. Sort of. It’s about money; it’s about production costs and volume; it’s about “the market”; and it’s about distribution (when’s the last time you saw a spinner rack at a grocery store?). And equally reluctantly, I have to admit that a big part of my love for this format is nostalgia. I haven’t bought a new mass market since I read the Song of Ice and Fire books almost 15 years ago.  But I buy used ones all the time. I buy the ones I had and have since waylaid; I buy the ones with the very best covers. (Am I going to read the book with the giant space otter in the sky? Possibly not. But it was still worth a dollar.) I have a running list of mass markets I want to find: the Wizard of Earthsea with the cover depicting a half-man, half-hawk wearing bright teal tights; the Lord of the Rings series with the Barbara Remington cover art; Robin Hobb’s Farseer trilogy with the Michael Whelan art. Anything with art by the Dillons. All the Jo Claytons I don’t have and/or never read. And so many more.  Part of the reason I love these books so much is just that I remember being in my teens, and being able to buy four or five books with one birthday giftcard. It was all discovery, all new things; it was the way I stepped out from under the shadow of my mother’s (excellent) reading taste and finding my own. I was buying all those books at Waldenbooks, a mall store that doesn’t exist anymore, so in a way, it makes a bitter kind of sense that the books themselves are less and less common, too. Still: The price difference is no joke. Nor is the fact that you can’t just buy bestselling novels with your groceries the way you used to be able to do. I miss these books because I’m nostalgic, but I also think that nostalgia isn’t just about the books—it’s about a different way of books coming into the world. A more accessible way; a less specialized way. It’s not really about the size of the book, is it? It’s about what it meant, and means, to each reader.[end-mark] The post We All Miss Mass Market Paperbacks appeared first on Reactor.

A provision in President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” has caused more than 30 Planned Parenthoods to close—with more closures on the horizon. In the bill, House Republicans removed Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in the country. The effort had been supported by dozens of pro-life legislators from around the country. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America released an interactive map tracking Planned Parenthood’s closures in the wake of the bill, which was signed into law by Trump on July 4. The tracker also points women to community health centers within a 50-mile radius where women on Medicaid can receive life-affirming health care. While 34 Planned Parenthoods have closed their doors, seven have announced they will soon. “The One Big Beautiful Bill’s provision defunding Big Abortion is not even fully in effect and still 41 Planned Parenthoods have closed or will close soon,” SBA President Marjorie Dannenfelser said. “Imagine how many more will shut down once they stop receiving half a billion dollars in Medicaid money.” “By Planned Parenthood’s own account, our victory stopping the forced taxpayer funding of abortion businesses could cause up to 200 facilities to close,” she continued. At the end of July, a federal judge ruled Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide must continue to be reimbursed for Medicaid funding. The Trump administration condemned the injunction as “illogical and incorrect.” “It is orders like these that underscore the audacity of the lower courts as well as the chaos within the judicial branch,” White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields told The Daily Signal. “We look forward to ultimate victory on the issue.” The post How Many Abortion Clinics Have Closed Because of Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.