Minneapolis: First Somali Refugee to Run Public Housing
Admits to Stealing Millions
1 in 3 Minneapolis Public Housing residents are Somalis.
Glass ceilings get broken, then wallets get stolen. Only in America? No. Only in Gov. Walz’s Minnesota.
But first, let’s pause to celebrate the incredible historic moment of the first Somali refugee to run a public housing agency.
Sharmarke Issa was confirmed by the Minneapolis City Council to chair Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA). Issa is the first immigrant and first East African to serve as chair of the MPHA Board of Commissioners.
“Having grown up in in Minneapolis public housing after coming to our city as a refugee, Sharmarke’s story of success highlights public housing as vital asset in Minneapolis,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. “Sharmarke’s life experience and background in urban planning are especially important to MPHA’s mission. At a time when the federal government continues to shortchange housing funding, he will be a skilled steward of our public housing infrastructure who understands and centers the needs of residents.”
Approximately one-third of Minneapolis Public Housing residents are members of the East-African community.
One third. 1 in 3 are Somalis. Just one of those little factoids about diversity being our strength. Kinda like Issa’s stewardship.
An Edina man who chaired the board of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal wire fraud charges for his role in the Feeding Our Future nutrition program fraud scheme.
That was a $250 million social welfare fraud to help the Somali community.
Sharmarke Issa, 42, admitted to running entities that laundered federal funding for the scheme, including Wacan Restaurant LLC and a nonprofit called Minnesota’s Somali Community.
Issa was responsible for $7.6 million of the $50 million in fraud scheme money that the federal government says it lost,
Issa claimed to serve 2.3 million meals to children at his food sites. He admitted that some of the fraud scheme money instead went to properties he purchased in Edina, Minneapolis and elsewhere.
Everyone is now pretending to be shocked and outraged at water being wet.
When Sharmarke’s name first surfaced in 2022 as part of the case, Frey said the allegations against him were “appalling” and “run counter to the values that we are entrusted to uphold in the City of Minneapolis.”
Forget it, Jake, it’s Somalitown.
Elon Musk to comply with Brazilian court's orders
to restore X in nation
Sept. 21 (UPI) -- Billionaire Elon Musk has decided to comply with court orders in Brazil in an effort to end the ban on his his social platform X in the Latin American nation.
On Saturday, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes said the company had not filed the proper documentation showing that it had appointed Rachel de Oliveira Conceicao as its Brazilian representative. The company was given five days to present documents validating her appointment.
And the judge also granted the court's secretary 48 hours to verify if earlier orders were respected. Then the court will decide whether to reinstate X.
The ban began on Aug. 30.
The company said Friday it is complying with other orders.
The company formerly known as Twitter also informed the court that it blocked accounts allegedly responsible for disseminating hate speech and fake news, two sources told Bloomberg.
Musk, who also owns SpaceX and Tesla, has expressed outrage at the ban.
"Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes," Musk posted on X on Aug. 30.
Moraes opened a criminal inquiry into Musk and accused him of spreading disinformation.
On Thursday, the platform abruptly became accessible to Brazilian users after an automatic update switched the way it directs traffic, the country's association of internet providers said.
Moraes ordered X to restore a block on its site or face fines of $907,000 a day, accusing it of attempting to "disobey" the court.
About 40 million of Brazil's 215 million citizens used X, which has more than 550 million monthly users.
Brazil also has about 250,000 Starlink subscribers and is popular among the nation's rural citizens and indigenous tribes in the Amazon region.
Brazil last week withdrew $3 million from local bank accounts of X and the satellite internet provider Starlink to pay for fines imposed by the Supreme Court.
"Unless the Brazilian government returns the illegally seized property of X and SpaceX, we will seek reciprocal seizure of government assets too. Hope Lula enjoys flying commercial." Musk posted on Sept. 2.
Mexico: Ten years after disappearance of 43 student
teachers, questions remain unanswered
It's the biggest mystery and probably the biggest scandal to hit Mexico in the past decade. On September 26, 2014, in the southern town of Iguala, police officers fired on several buses carrying students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College. In the ensuing chaos, six people including three students were killed, while 43 other trainee teachers were taken away by the police, allegedly in cahoots with a local cartel. They were never seen alive again. Ten years on, the Mexican government and judicial system are unable to explain the tragedy. Our reporters Laurence Cuvillier, Matthieu Comin and Quentin Duval look back at this strange disappearance.
In Mexico, the families of the 43 students who disappeared 10 years ago have met a wall of silence. They continue to tirelessly demonstrate and demand progress in the investigation. The few meetings they have had with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have ended in frustrating failure. So far, only bone fragments of three students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College have been identified.
The Mexican authorities, who initially sought to minimise their responsibility, had at the time fabricated a "historic truth" – based on testimony obtained under torture – suggesting that the local police had colluded with organised crime, and claiming that the students were transporting drugs on the night of the events. But independent investigations have shown that this version was riddled with lies. The role of the army, garrisoned in the town of Iguala, in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, has never been fully clarified.
The Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College has forged its identity around this tragedy, which still permeates the walls of the university, as we see in this report. Ten years on, the families and relatives of the 43 missing young men are gradually losing hope that they will one day know the truth about what really happened.
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