As a private citizen, Donald Trump glided through the sky on the trusted wings of his personal pilot, whose job it was to “make sure that everything happens seamlessly behind the scenes for Mr. Trump.”

That’s how easy air travel used to be for the businessman, thanks to John Dunkin, who explained his role in a segment of the “Mighty Planes” series, broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel before Trump’s presidential liftoff in 2016.

“Everything’s good, John?” Trump asked his trim, gray-haired pilot in the segment, whose producers couldn’t have found a more convincing aeronaut if they had handpicked one from “central casting,” as the president likes to say.

“Everything’s perfect, Mr. Trump,” replied Dunkin, whose work with the real estate tycoon dates to 1989.

Now that he occupies the Oval Office and Air Force One, rather than a private jet with enough gold to plate the outside of a Greyhound bus, President Trump is learning that aerospace is not so simple, especially without the aid of a full director of the Federal Aviation Administration, the multibillion-dollar agency responsible for overseeing all civil aviation in the United States. The role has been filled on an acting basis since the five-year term of Michael Huerta, an appointee of President Barack Obama, ended in January 2018.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/03/14/trump-wanted-his-personal-pilot-head-faa-critical-job-is-still-vacant-amid-boeing-fallout/?utm_term=.ab70c59ea7e1&tid=sm_tw&noredirect=on

As Lori Loughlin traveled from Vancouver to L.A. Tuesday night to surrender to federal authorities in the college bribery scandal -- which got her daughter, Olivia Jade, into USC -- Olivia spent the night on the yacht of the Chairman of USC's Board of Trustees ... but she's off the boat now, TMZ has learned.

We've learned 19-year-old Olivia was on Rick Caruso's yacht in the Bahamas. Caruso's daughter, Gianna, Olivia and several other friends were spending spring break in the area.

Gianna and Olivia have been friends for quite some time, occasionally posting photos of them together on social media.

Caruso, a billionaire who has major real estate holdings including The Grove in L.A., tells TMZ, "My daughter and a group of students left for spring break prior to the government's announcement yesterday. Once we became aware of the investigation, the young woman decided it would be in her best interests to return home." Olivia is off the yacht.

https://www.tmz.com/2019/03/13/lori-loughlin-daughter-olivia-yacht-usc-board-of-trustees-rick-caruso/

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A federal judge, citing an “unprecedented measles outbreak” in suburban Rockland County, New York, has denied a request to let 44 unvaccinated children return to school.

Parents of students in the Green Meadow Waldorf School in Chestnut Ridge have sued the county health department. They say none of the school’s excluded children have contracted measles amid the county’s outbreak, which started last fall.

According to the Journal News , their lawyer, Michael Sussman, criticized the judge’s decision Tuesday to deny a temporary injunction that would have allowed the children back in classes.

On the same day, pediatric organizations expressed support for state legislation that would allow minors to get vaccinated without parental consent .

https://apnews.com/efaf49f9d39f4ee3a83a2e4b443af735?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

Aaron Rupar
?Verified account @atrupar

MSNBC: Is Mike Pence an honorable man?

@SenWarren: No.

MSNBC: Want to explain?

WARREN: "Anyone who engages in the kind of homophobia and attacks on people who are different from himself is not an honorable person. That's not what honorable people do."

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1105806550617206785

REYNOSA, Mexico — The “psycho-terror,” as Andreina calls it, started as soon as she stepped off the plane here in February and showed her Venezuelan passport. Mexican immigration officials separated her and the other Venezuelans from the line and pulled them into a room in the airport, one by one.

“They started to verbally attack me, to tell me that they were going to send me back to Venezuela. And then they said to my face, ‘How much money did you bring?’” said Andreina, 42, who is using her middle name to protect her safety.

Andreina opened her wallet — she had $400 to get her from Venezuela to the U.S. Immigration officials took it all. One agent told her “Good luck, get out of here,” and then directed her to a line of taxis that would take her to the bridge linking Reynosa to McAllen, Texas, where she wanted to ask for asylum.

Corruption and organized crime have long been a part of daily life along the Mexican side of the border. But corruption has become even more brazen over the past year, as Mexican immigration officials and organized crime are preying on migrants, charging them thousands for the privilege of simply waiting in line in Mexico to claim asylum in the U.S. The strict limitations on asylum seekers enacted under the Trump administration has turned the process into a lucrative business for corrupt Mexican officials and cartels.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/kzdy4e/exclusive-mexican-officials-are-extorting-thousands-of-dollars-from-migrants-to-apply-for-asylum?utm_campaign=sharebutton

Celebrities like Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin don’t need to resort to criminality to get their kids into elite schools — college admissions already favor the wealthy.

My first official job after graduating from college was with my alma mater’s admissions department, where I’d been working part time since my freshman year. I gave tours to potential students and their parents who had expressed (unfounded) concerns about gender-neutral bathrooms in the dorms; then, in my final year, I interviewed high schoolers and submitted write-ups about their performance to their official admissions files. When I was given the opportunity to stay on full time as an associate, the decision practically made itself. I’d graduated a year early to save money on tuition, so I didn’t mind hanging around campus for a little while longer. I would live cheaply in staff housing, get swiped into the dining hall by friends who were still students, and start chipping away at my student loans by the time the grace period ended. Win-win, I thought.

My college was a small, private northeastern liberal arts school. It was a good school — not the best or most competitive, but a very respectable institution. I applied there early decision, suspecting that my status as a good-but-not-great student and white girl who needed financial aid might hinder my prospects during regular admission. (Like some other mid- to upper-tier schools, mine was “need-sensitive,” meaning that admissions might factor a student’s ability to pay during down-to-the-wire acceptance decisions.) Three years later, when I graduated, I was happy to encourage other students to follow in my footsteps.

But by the time my contract was up and I’d helped assemble the next year’s class — not only seeing how the sausage was made, but sticking my hands right there in the meaty mess of it — I was deeply disillusioned about my college, the liberal arts, and, frankly, the entire US education system at large. I saw firsthand how colleges and well-intentioned parents alike can play a crucial role in perpetuating inequity in higher education by prioritizing the acceptance of white, wealthy, and male students to meet their bottom line. The real scourge of higher education isn’t affirmative action, but wealthy families who will pay any price to prioritize their own children and keep their family’s elite status alive.

So whenever another college admissions scandal blows through the news — as it has this week, with the exposure of a massive college admissions scam involving celebrities and CEOs cheating and bribing their way into admissions acceptances for their children — I think about my brief stint as a college admissions counselor and am filled with rage and sadness anew.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/anonymousadmissions/college-admissions-scam-felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin-ivy