US Judge Grants Asylum To Chinese National Who Filmed China's Uyghur Prison Camps

Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A pro-democracy activist who fled China after documenting what he described as concentration camps in the Xinjiang region was granted asylum on Jan. 28 by a New York state immigration judge, amid widespread concern about the risks he would face if deported.

Guan Heng speaks in a YouTube video that documents his trip to China’s Xinjiang region in October 2020. Screenshot/The Epoch Times

Guan Heng, 38, applied for asylum after arriving in the United States illegally in 2021. He was living in New York state before he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August 2025.

The case attracted international scrutiny in December 2025, with lawmakers in two dozen countries, including the United States, urging the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to abandon its plan to deport him to Uganda. The agency subsequently canceled the plan.

During the Jan. 28 hearing in Napanoch, New York, Judge Charles Ouslander said that because Guan had filmed a video of the Xinjiang region, Guan had a “well-founded fear” of being persecuted if he were sent back to China.

Guan was asked whether he filmed the detention camps and released the video shortly before arriving in the United States to support his asylum case. He said that was not his intent.

“I sympathized with the Uyghurs who were persecuted,” Guan, speaking by video link from the Broome County Correctional Facility in Binghamton, New York, told the court through a translator.

Human Rights in China (HRIC), a New York City-based advocacy group that has advocated for Guan’s release, has detailed Guan’s journey from China to the United States. In 2020, he read a BuzzFeed News report on detention centers in the Xinjiang region and decided to verify it, HRIC said.

In October 2020, Guan traveled to the Xinjiang region alone. He released most of his video footage on YouTube in October 2021, the same month he arrived in Florida by boat after sailing from the Bahamas, to which he had traveled from Ecuador after fleeing China, according to the advocacy group.

HRIC characterized Guan’s video footage as an “extremely rare, first-person, on-the-ground video from a Chinese citizen.”

A month after Guan released his video, Chinese authorities, led by state security officials, began systematically targeting Guan’s relatives in China in what HRIC called “collective punishment.”

Guan told the judge that Chinese police had questioned his father three times since he released the video.

Guan’s attorney, Chen Chuangchuang, argued in his closing statement that his client’s case represents a “textbook example of why asylum should exist” and said that the United States has both a “moral and legal responsibility” to grant Guan asylum.

In December, before the DHS shelved its plan to deport Guan to Uganda, Chen spoke to NTD, a sister outlet of The Epoch Times, about how the Ugandan government “has a troubling record of cooperating with the Chinese Communist Party in making arrests in Uganda.”

“Sending a well-known dissident like Mr. Guan to Uganda would be unsafe,” Chen told NTD, according to a translation of his remarks in Chinese.

The judge said in his ruling that Guan had proven his legal eligibility for asylum, describing him as a credible witness. He said Guan faced a real risk of retaliation if returned to China, noting that Chinese authorities had questioned his family members and asked about his whereabouts and previous activities.

Guan was not released immediately, as a DHS lawyer said the agency reserves the right to appeal within 30 days. The judge urged the department to make a swift decision, noting that Guan has been detained for about five months.

Rights groups and activists have welcomed the judge’s decision.

Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders North America, applauded the court for recognizing “Guan Heng’s courageous work and the risks he would have faced if deported,” according to his statement.

“His footage of Uyghur concentration camps was invaluable to journalism that helped expose the horrors in Xinjiang, a region where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has committed crimes against humanity and genocide, according to the US State Department,“ Weimers said in the statement. ”Guan’s asylum is a rare win for press freedom under the current administration.”

Both the Trump and Biden administrations have formally declared the Chinese regime’s treatment of Uyghurs as “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.”

Rayhan Asat, a human rights lawyer of Uyghur heritage at the Atlantic Council, said “the American people stood up to defend Guan Heng’s rights and American values,” according to a post on X.

“The rule of law prevailed,“ Asat wrote. ”America will be better today because Guan Heng will be part of the American dream.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/30/2026 - 20:55

Trump Sues US Treasury For $10 Billion Over Tax-Returns Leak

In the latest sign that we're living in unusual times, the sitting president of the United States is suing the US Treasury and Internal Revenue Service -- both housed in his executive branch -- and asking to be paid at least $10 billion in compensation for "reputational and financial harm," according to a complaint first publicized Thursday.  

We're printing money willy-nilly -- so what's another $10 billion for Trump & Sons? 

The suit springs from the IRS's failure to maintain the confidentiality of President Trump's tax returns. Between 2018 and 2020, then-IRS consultant Charles E. Littlejohn stole Trump's tax files and handed them over to The New York Times and ProPublica, which reported extensively on them. In 2024, Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison for stealing not only Trump's files, but also those of thousands more wealthy Americans, and giving them to the two news outlets. Prosecutors said he sought a role at the IRS with the intention of gaining access to Trump's information. He found such a role via Booz Allen Hamilton, which had a contract with the IRS. Citing the breach, Treasury killed all its remaining contracts with the firm earlier this week. 

The Trump lawsuit makes for some strange dynamics within the executive branch: Trump-chosen Scott Bessent is both Treasury Secretary and acting IRS commissioner, and he'll have to figure out how to respond to a $10 billion demand presented by his own boss. Trump is joined in the suit by his two eldest sons, Donald and Eric, both executive VPs at the Trump Organization. In a 27-page complaint filed with the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the Trumps allege:  

"[Treasury and the IRS] have caused Plaintiffs reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing."

According to the complaint, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration had warned the IRS about its insufficient protections for confidential taxpayer information -- not just once, but every year from 2010 to 2020. The uncorrected deficiencies enabled Littlejohn to steal Trump's information, upload it to a website and then share it, the Trumps allege: "Defendants were obligated to have appropriate technical, employee screening, security, and monitoring systems to prevent Littlejohn’s unlawful conduct. Defendants failed to take such mandatory precautions." 

Trump says the US government owes him $10 billion for failing to prevent Charles Littlejohn from stealing his sensitive tax files

In late September 2020 -- about five weeks before that year's presidential election pitting Trump against Joe Biden -- the Times published a sprawling, multi-article analysis of Trump's tax filings, determining that he'd only paid $750 in taxes in 2016, and no taxes in 10 out of the previous 15 years. "His reports to the IRS portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes," reported the Times. (In a telling indicator that leftist media's relentless obsession with Russia scaremongering was still going strong in 2020, the Times laughably had to acknowledge that the documents failed to "reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.")

Trump was clearly done wrong by having his tax files exposed to public view without his consent. However, Trump's lawsuit underscores an exasperating aspect of man's relationship to the state: When governments do wrong and are compelled to pay damages, the cost is always passed on to the citizenry, whether through taxation or inflation. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/30/2026 - 20:30

Cold Weather Delays NASA Moon Launch At Least Two Days

Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—Humanity’s return to the Moon’s orbit will have to wait at least another two days.

NASA’s Space Launch System Moon rocket prepares for launch ahead of Artemis II at Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on Jan. 30, 2026 (T.J. Muscaro/The Epoch Times).

NASA said on Jan. 30 that the earliest launch date for the Artemis II mission—the first crewed mission to fly around the Moon in more than 50 years—was pushed back from Feb. 6 to Feb. 8 due to the unusually cold weather disrupting critical pre-launch operations.

“Managers have assessed hardware capabilities against the projected forecast, given the rare arctic outbreak affecting the state, and decided to change the timeline,” the space agency said in a press release.

“Teams and preparations at the launch pad remain ready for the wet dress rehearsal.

“However, adjusting the timeline for the test will position NASA for success during the rehearsal, as the expected weather this weekend would violate launch conditions.”

Before the behemoth Moon rocket called the Space Launch System can be cleared for launch, it needs to undergo a “wet dress rehearsal,” which is a run-through of launch day operations.

They include fully loading and unloading the rocket, powering up, powering down, and recycling critical systems.

It is at this time that any lingering problems with the spacecraft, such as fuel leaks, reveal themselves, as was the case for Artemis I.

Artemis II’s wet dress rehearsal was scheduled for Jan. 31.

However, mission managers decided the day before that it would be too cold and they are now targeting Feb. 2, with the simulated launch window beginning at 9 p.m. (ET).

While the space agency rules out a launch on the first two days of the February window—Feb. 6 and Feb. 7—a finalized launch date won’t be announced until after teams have reviewed the outcomes of the wet dress rehearsal.

According to NASA’s weather criteria for the Space Launch System, fueling cannot be initiated if the 24-hour average temperature at key points of the rocket is below 41.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

The National Weather Service office in Melbourne, Florida, warned of an extreme cold and freeze watch for Cape Canaveral, and several other counties across Central Florida for Jan. 31 through Feb. 1.

Temperatures could drop as low as 20 degrees Fahrenheit, with a cold wind chill possibly hitting as low as seven degrees Fahrenheit.

Strong gusts reaching 45 mph were also possible for the morning of Jan. 31, which would also violate launch conditions.

Now, NASA plans to keep the Moon rocket and Orion crew capsule out on Launch Complex 39B in the meantime, as engineers take precautions to maintain the vehicle through the cold.

Those include keeping the Orion capsule powered up and configuring purges to ensure proper environmental conditions for certain elements of the boosters and spacecraft are maintained.

Meanwhile, the Artemis II crew remains in their pre-flight quarantine in Houston.

Mission managers were still assessing when the crew would arrive at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the launch.

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/30/2026 - 20:05

 

 

So, we announced our succession plan this morning.

My emails and DMs lit up immediately, with all sorts of questions, but mostly asking, “Are you retiring?!?”

No, but I’ll get to that shortly.

The reason we announced this: As a financial planning firm, I wanted all of our clients, partners, employees, and colleagues to see that we practice what we preach. If you want clients to take you seriously when you advise them to think in decades, make estate and business continuity plans, you have to follow your own advice.

From the beginning, when we self-funded our launch and had just five of us, we have been inviting key employees to become partners. We have always done this with our own capital, a bank line of credit, and no outside investors. By the end of our first decade, we had 20 partners. In 2024, there were 26 partners. This year, we grew to 29 partners.

Our goal is to be the best employee-owned advisory shop in the country.

As for my daily routine, nothing has changed. I still hold the roles of Chairman and Chief Investment Officer. My daily activities are essentially the same. I am still in the office the same number of times a week; I am still doing my pods at Bloomberg, still blogging, speaking at conferences, and writing more books.

What is going to change? More of our RWM rockstars are now employee-owners, with many more expected to become owners over the next decade.

Maybe I’ll swap the old Cabrio for a newer model, one with ABS & airbags. I recently found a new timepiece I’d been hunting for a while, and I pulled the trigger on that. And, I added more Munis to my personal portfolio. Aside from that, not much is different…

~~~

For the past 12 years, we have built a firm dedicated to putting clients first. Every day, we share with investors what we truly believe are the best ways to manage their portfolios and financial lives. We do this for free to the general public, and in great specificity and detail for our clients. I have been doing this publicly since the late 1990s, and that will go on for as long as I can cobble together an intelligent sentence.

I am excited about what we have built so far, and I look forward to what this team will accomplish over the next decade!

 

 

Source:
Ritholtz Wealth Management Executes Employee-led Succession Plan to Create Industry’s Most Visible, Dominant “Forever Firm”
BusinessWire, Jan 30, 2026

 

See also:
Inside Ritholtz Wealth Management’s Succession Plan
By Andrew Welsch
Barron’s Jan 30, 2026

Barry Ritholtz sells shares in $7.6bn RIA’s planned succession
By Ian Wenik
CityWire, Jan 30, 2026

Ritholtz Wealth Puts Succession Plan in Place As Co-Founder Barry Ritholtz Nears 65
By Alex Ortolani
Wealth Management, January 30, 2026

 

The post Succession appeared first on The Big Picture.

Watch: Jennings Destroys Dems For Refusing To Condemn DA's Vow To "Hunt Down Nazi" ICE Agents

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

CNN contributor Scott Jennings unloaded on Democrats during a heated panel discussion, exposing their failure to denounce Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s inflammatory threats against federal ICE agents enforcing immigration laws.

Jennings highlighted how such rhetoric from left-wing officials undermines law enforcement and fuels division, especially as the Trump administration ramps up deportations of criminal illegal immigrants.

“Yeah, this is highly inappropriate. No prosecutor in America should be doing that, let alone yelling at and about law enforcement officers,” Jennings urged.

? BREAKING: Scott Jennings just DROPPED THE MIC on every Democrat in America

"The fact that Democrats cannot, in unison, condemn a loony tunes prosecutor for vowing to 'HUNT DOWN' ICE agents like 'Nazis' is beyond chilling!"

"Yeah, this is highly inappropriate. No prosecutor… pic.twitter.com/cRoDA6PibL

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 29, 2026

He laid out the core issue plainly: “Look, this debate, a lot of words and a lot of talking around it. We have existing federal immigration law. We have law enforcement agencies, duly sworn officers that have been ordered by the president to go out and enforce those laws. That’s really all the debate is about here.”

Jennings pointed to successful enforcement elsewhere: “And in most jurisdictions, these laws are being enforced quite amicably. There are no incidents. Transfers are happening.”

“People are being deported that have a reason to be deported. It’s just in this specific jurisdiction, people have decided that federal immigration law shouldn’t apply!” he added.

He then escalated his critique to the broader pattern among Democrats: “And now you have sort of radical Democrats around the country ramping this up even further by claiming that they’re going to ‘hunt down’ federal law enforcement officers as though they were Nazis.”

Jennings called out Rep. Eric Swalwell specifically: “You have Eric Swalwell in California promising a reign of terror if he becomes governor against anybody who’s ever worked for ICE!”

“I mean, this kind of division and this kind of threat against people who basically signed up to enforce the law and do public service, it’s outrageous. And any Democrat ought to be able to sit here and say this is way over the line!” Jennings concluded.

The outburst came in response to Krasner’s recent vows during a City Hall event in Philadelphia, where he joined city councilmembers to unveil the “ICE OUT” legislation package. 

The bills aim to bar ICE agents from city-owned property, restrict agency cooperation and data sharing, and limit access to public facilities like libraries, shelters, and health centers without a judicial warrant.

Krasner labeled ICE agents as “a small bunch of wannabe Nazis” and threatened, “If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities. We will find you. We will achieve justice.”

Backlash has been swift. Pennsylvania State Sen. Jarrett Coleman dismissed the comments as “empty threats,” emphasizing that local officials cannot interfere with federal law enforcement. 

House Minority Leader Jesse Topper called them “not just hypocritical [but] outright laughable,” urging focus on community security instead. 

The White House noted a 1,300% surge in assaults on ICE officers, blaming “dangerous, untrue smears by elected Democrats” and praising agents for “act[ing] heroically to enforce the law and protect American communities.”

This rhetoric from Krasner fits into a larger pattern of incitement from Democrat-led cities against federal immigration enforcement. 

As we highlighted earlier, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson admitted to coordinating with other Democrat mayors, including Minneapolis’ Jacob Frey and Boston’s Michelle Wu, to impede ICE operations. 

Johnson has even established “ICE-Free Zones” prohibiting agents from city properties without warrants and is pushing measures to hold them accountable for alleged misconduct.

Tucker Carlson accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Mayor Frey of deliberately fueling chaos to spark a “color revolution” and civil war by refusing to protect citizens and allowing riots. 

Carlson warned that such actions lead to states rejecting federal authority, resulting in “warring nations within the same borders” and “killing at scale.”

These escalating threats from radical Democrats not only endanger federal agents doing their jobs but also erode the rule of law that protects American communities from criminal elements. 

With polls showing a majority of Americans supporting mass deportations, this resistance looks increasingly out of touch and dangerous. 

Enforcing immigration laws isn’t optional—it’s essential to putting America First and restoring order after years of open-border chaos.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/30/2026 - 14:17

Tesla Shares Jump 5% After Musk Reportedly Mulls Merging SpaceX, xAI, Tesla Merger

Tesla shares jumped about 5% on Friday after reports suggested that Elon Musk is considering bringing his companies closer together through a possible merger involving SpaceX, Tesla, and artificial intelligence startup xAI. The news helped reverse losses from the previous session, when the stock slid following the company’s earnings report.

According to people familiar with the discussions, SpaceX has been evaluating different ways to combine parts of Musk’s business portfolio ahead of a potential public offering. One option involves a tie-up with Tesla, while another centers on xAI. These talks are still preliminary, and no agreement has been reached, but investors welcomed the possibility of deeper cooperation across the group.

The market reaction was swift. After falling to its lowest level in two months on Thursday, Tesla rebounded strongly in early Friday trading. The rally lifted the company’s valuation back toward $1.65 trillion, signaling renewed confidence in Musk’s long-term strategy despite recent financial pressures.

Much of that optimism reflects the potential overlap between the companies’ ambitions. Musk has repeatedly floated the idea of using SpaceX technology to support large-scale computing in orbit, which could benefit xAI’s push to expand its artificial intelligence systems. Tesla, meanwhile, could contribute through its battery, energy storage, and manufacturing operations, creating a tightly linked ecosystem spanning transportation, robotics, space, and AI.

Financial ties between the firms have already been growing. Tesla recently committed $2 billion to xAI, matching a similar investment made earlier by SpaceX. In a shareholder letter, Tesla said, “As set forth in Master Plan Part IV, Tesla is building products and services that bring AI into the physical world. Meanwhile, xAI is developing leading digital AI products and services, such as its large language model (Grok).”

Musk reinforced that view during the earnings call, arguing that collaboration is central to Tesla’s future. “But if there are things xAI can help accelerate our progress, then why should we not do that?” he said. “And that is the reason why we’ve gone ahead with such an investment. Because this is part of the strategic initiative.” The company has also highlighted links between AI development, its Optimus robots, and autonomous driving systems.

Still, significant uncertainty surrounds any potential deal. People close to the matter say the companies may ultimately decide against merging, and any transaction could complicate SpaceX’s plans for a major stock market debut later this year. That offering, if it moves forward as expected, could be one of the largest in history.

The surge in Tesla’s share price also comes as the company faces near-term challenges. Recent earnings showed weaker profitability, and management has warned that heavy spending is coming as it ramps up investments in autonomy and robotics.

Musk acknowledged the scale of those plans, saying, “This year for Tesla is the first major steps as we increase vehicle autonomy and begin to produce Optimus robots at scale — we’re making very, very big investments.” For now, investors appear to be focused less on short-term risks and more on the possibility that Musk’s interconnected vision could unlock new sources of growth.

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/30/2026 - 14:00