Viraldice

Meanwhile, Government Officials Say A New Initiative Is Coming

It’s cold.

FREEZING.

And yet, some New York City Public Housing (NYCHA) residents still don’t have heat.

Now, plans to go on rent strike are swiftly approaching, according to New York Daily News.

Many NYCHA residents are spending their time at home in freezing temperatures as a polar vortex makes it’s way across the U.S.

“It’s a disaster,” said 76-year-old Bertha Spivey, a resident of NYCHA’s Soundview Houses in the Bronx. “You can’t take showers or do dishes. We have no heat or hot water. If one goes, both go. It happens every winter for last four years.”

Spivey’s neighbor Rachel Jean, 40, said she had to boil water to make it hot and bring some heat into her apartment. “We’re bathing with it,” Jean said. “When the water does come on it’s brown and then it shuts off. I have six kids. We’re just waiting for them to do something.”

Tenants at the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City are tired of waiting for the government to do something. Certain residents have already started laying the groundwork for a major rent strike, which could force NYCHA to make long-neglected repairs. Almost 70 people assembled at the Queensbridge complex on Monday where they received advice from housing advocates and lawyers.

Back in 2013, tenants of NYCHA’s Lexington Houses in East Harlem threatened the city with a rent strike after having no gas for more than two weeks. NYCHA made the repairs 24 hours later.

“I’m 100% behind a rent strike,” said Brooklyn City Councilman Rafael Espinal Jr., a candidate for public advocate, who showed up at the rent strike strategy session. “If you’re not getting adequate service you have every right to withhold your rent until the work is done.”

A NYCHA spokesman said repair crews arrived at various sites on Wednesday to restore heat. The agency also activated its situation room in Long Island City, Queens to prepare for dangerously low temperatures.

Meanwhile, City Hall is trying to convince federal housing officials and a federal judge that NYC is capable of running its own housing system without any takeover from the Trump administration. Last fall, U.S. District Judge William Pauley rejected a settlement between the city and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), saying the federal government was neglecting its responsibilities to NYCHA.

Both sides have since been discussing ways to address the various issues NYCHA residents face, including heating problems, mold and dangerous levels of lead.

HUD secretary Ben Carson is set to appear in New York on Thursday to make a “huge & historic announcement that will be great news for the residents of @NYCHA,” according to a tweet from Lynne Patton, the head of HUD’s federal housing programs in New Jersey and New York.

We’ll find out if they make impactful moves.

Or else…

They better gear up for that strike.

Homeland Security Operated This Fake University For Years

It might just be easier to go to school where your parents or your older sibling did from now–that is, if you wanna make sure you’re attending a real college.

Newly unsealed court documents revealed that the University of Farmington Hills–which is advertised online even now as a “nationally accredited business and STEM institution” in a suburb of Detroit–was, in reality, a sting operation. The whole thing was run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement meant to lure immigrants on student visas into knowingly paying for fraudulent paperwork in order to stay in the country, the Detroit News reported on Wednesday.

This whole hoax began back in 2015 but later intensified in 2017 after Trump’s inauguration, which resulted in the arrests of eight student “recruiters.” These arrests follow said recruiters allegedly taking in a collective $250,000 in profit in exchange for finding and helping at least 600 other students—mostly from India—to get in on the scheme.

According to the federal grand jury indictments, both the recruiters and the students they found knew the university was operating an illegal scheme, but they did not realize it was actually run by ICE. These same student recruiters were also accused of helping the fraudulent students get the paperwork the students needed to be able to stay in the country from the university.

Starting in 2017, ICE agents began posing as officials at the university, which didn’t have a campus at all, but rather, a small office in a corporate park. The school was legitimized by The Department of Homeland Security, who named the University of Farmington on its list of certified schools for international students. “Our innovative curriculum combines traditional instruction and distance learning with fulltime professional experiences,” the website promises. “We offer flexible class schedules and a focus on students who do not want to interrupt their careers.”

A small number of students who joined in on the scheme asked to be paid for recruiting other fake students, and met several times with university officials who later turned out to be undercover ICE agents. Most of the students they recruited had actually arrived in the country on legal, valid student visas and then transferred to Farmington Hills. The students paid the university several thousands of dollars to get the paperwork proving they were full-time students and then proceeded to go along with their regular lives afterward.

The eight recruiters in question were charged with harboring aliens for profit and conspiracy to commit visa fraud and face a maximum of five years in prison. The other fraudulent students who were arrested are facing deportation.

As other reports point out, this is not the first time a fake university has been created as bait for visa fraud. Back in 2016, the Department of Homeland Security announced it had charged 21 people with student and work visa fraud after establishing a fake University of Northern New Jersey.

Legend of the Demon Cat (read our review), the latest feature from internationally celebrated filmmaker and Palme d’Or winner Chen Kaige, will receive a U.S. theatrical release from myCinema, timed to coincide with Chinese New Year, February 5, 2019.

The sweeping historical drama, based on the novel Gensoshin Kukai, by best-selling Japanese fantasy writer Baku Yumemakura, and filled with legendary Chinese characters, is a visual feast, and will be released in theaters nationwide, including Los Angeles and New York.

Interestingly, the Sino-Japanese co-production, featuring an ensemble cast of top talent from mainland China and Japan, was filmed on a lavish, sprawling set, which included the creation of an entire city, that took over five years and in excess of $250 million to construct (read more about it here). “I have yet to feel at ease making an entire movie using just a green screen,” said Kaige.

Legend of Demon Cat is set over a thousand years ago, during the imperial Tang Dynasty, considered by scholars to be a cosmopolitan period of exceptional cultural and literary flowering. A Chinese poet, Bai Letian (Xuan Huang) and a Japanese monk, Kukai (Shōta Sometani) join forces to investigate the case of a demonic cat who has possessed a general’s wife (Kitty Zhang Yuqi) and wreaked havoc on the imperial court. The investigation takes some gruesome and unexpected twists, leading the monk and the poet to unravel the mystery behind the decades-old death of the legendary, beautiful concubine Yang Guifei (Sandrine Pinna), one of the iconic Four Beauties of ancient China.

“Love After Lockup” Gets Dicey At The Altar

We’re just a day away from a new episode of “Love After Lockup” and we’ve got an exclusive clip!

Here’s what else you can expect from the episode:

Lizzie confesses $800K hustle. Megan expects proposal from Michael, while his wife expects him home. Matt’s temper flares at job interview. Brittany reveals secret to Marcelino. Clint reveals shocking details about the night Tracie went on the run.

LOVE AFTER LOCKUP – “THE $800K HUSTLE”– Airs Friday, February 1st at 9/8C on WE TV!

Following its Sundance premiere (read our review), Bloody Disgusting has the first clip from A24’s next horror title, The Hole in the Ground, about a child who vanishes into a sinkhole only to return…different.

Said to be in the vein of The Babadook, Lee Cronin’s horror film arrived today exclusively on DIRECTV, before opening in limited theaters on March 1, 2019.

In the film,

“Sarah and her young son Chris move to a new home in the Irish countryside, next to a forest that hides an enormous sinkhole. One night, Chris vanishes, and when he reappears he seems unharmed and unchanged. But, as his behavior grows increasingly disturbing, Sarah begins to fear that the boy who has returned may not be her son at all.

“The Hole in the Ground weaves suspense, terror, and supernatural folklore into a richly evocative story about the primal fears of motherhood.”

Seána Kerslake (A Date For Mad Mary) stars with James Cosmo, Kati Outinen, and James Quinn Markey.