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When her mother went missing, an Illinois woman ventured into the dark corners of America's romance scam epidemic
CBSN
When Laura Kowal decided to date again after losing her husband of 24 years, the 57-year-old retired hospital executive from Galena, Illinois, joined an online dating site because that felt safer.
The relationship she forged with a self-described Swedish investment adviser named Frank Borg began with florid emails and giddy phone calls in October 2018. It was romantic and exciting — but it soon became more furtive.
On August 7, 2020, Kowal's daughter, Kelly Gowe, received a voicemail from a federal investigator informing her that her mother "may have been involved in a fraud scam" as a victim.
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More than 2 million federal employees face a looming deadline: By midnight on Thursday, they must decide whether to accept a "deferred resignation" offer from the Trump administration. If workers accept, according to a White House plan, they would continue getting paid through September but would be excused from reporting for duty. But if they opt to keep their jobs, they could get fired.
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More employees of the Environmental Protection Agency were informed Wednesday that their jobs appear in doubt. Senior leadership at the EPA held an all-staff meeting to tell individuals that President Trump's executive order, "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing," which was responsible for the closure of the agency's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office, will likely lead to the shuttering of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as well.
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