U.S. Fails to Counter Threat of Chinese Land Ownership, Report Finds

Tractor towing hay on a farm

The United States government is not appropriately addressing the threat posed by growing Chinese ownership of American land, according to a report released by the Heritage Foundation Thursday.

The federal government is woefully ill-equipped to track Chinese-owned real estate in the country, despite the serious threat these Chinese Communist Party-affiliated entities can pose to critical U.S. infrastructure, according to the report. The report calls on federal and state leaders to take action, such as increasing transparency and conducting more critical reviews of land purchases.

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Ford Shareholders Reject Proposal to Audit Child Labor in Electric Vehicle Supply Chain

Ford electric vehicles

Shareholders at auto manufacturing giant Ford Motor Co. voted down a proposal Thursday requiring that a report be compiled on the use of child labor in its electric vehicle (EV) line.

The proposal, which was presented by the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) at Ford’s annual shareholder meeting, called for Ford to report to shareholders the extent to which the company’s EV supply chain involves, depends or relies on child labor outside of the U.S., according to Ford’s proxy statement. The NCPPR called for the report due to the prevalence of child labor in the harvesting of the components used to craft EVs, particularly cobalt, which is commonly sourced from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

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Commentary: Polls Showing Trump Behind Are Off the Mark

Donald Trump

For the past several months, the public has been inundated by polls. national polls, state polls, issue polls. Yet, the 64-dollar question remains: Who is winning for President, Trump or Biden?

Over the past two months, the two presumptive nominees have swapped first place multiple times with Trump mostly in the advantage. So, the short answer is that the race is so close that neither is really ahead, at least we cannot say who is ahead in that national ballot test with high certainty. Trump is probably ahead very narrowly and has been since February.

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Trump Civil Fraud Judge’s Talks with Attorney Under Investigation by Ethics Commission: Report

The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct is investigating an alleged interaction between a New York real estate lawyer and the judge who issued a $454 million judgement against former President Donald Trump, according to NBC New York.

Real estate lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey said he had a conversation with Judge Arthur Engoron a few weeks before the judge’s decision was due, NBC New York reported. Democratic Attorney General Letitia James of New York sued Trump in September 2022, alleging he overstated the value of real estate holdings in order to obtain loans.

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Two-Thirds of University Protesters Arrested Weren’t Even Students, Police Say

Police arresting campus protester

The majority of people arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) while clearing a pro-Palestinian encampment at George Washington University (GWU) were not students, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith said on Thursday.

Police began clearing the encampment at GWU in the early Wednesday morning hours after nearly two weeks of protesters occupying the campus. The MPD arrested 33 individuals, 11 of which were students at the institution, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith told FOX 5 Washington D.C. on Thursday.

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Labor Board’s Pro-Union Ruling Could Have Devastating Consequences for Free Speech

Construction worker

A judge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last week ruled in favor of a case that has serious implications for free speech by employers when talking about unions, legal experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Judge Brian Gee found that the NLRB was correct in its assertion that certain comments made in interviews in 2022 by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated federal labor law amid a national unionization campaign at the company. Jassy’s comments were about how union members would be “better off” without a union because there would be less red tape between employees and management, and came as the Biden administration has pushed to promote unionization. However, the judge’s decision could significantly chill free speech.

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Commentary: Manhattan Is on Trial

Donald Trump

Like so many Americanos, I’m spending more time than I should listening to news out of Manhattan, where the local prosecutor there has charged the leading Republican candidate for president with 34 felony counts of being Donald Trump. I challenge anyone to find more than this in the charges and specifications. I really should ration myself on trial news. I could even take a day off. I’m beginning to know how Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day must have felt as though the news out of the trial is pretty much the same from day to day.

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Laken Riley’s Alleged Killer Indicted, Also Accused of Being ‘Peeping Tom’

A Georgia grand jury has formally indicted the man accused of killing 22-year-old student Laken Riley on ten charges, including murder, kidnapping and being a peeping Tom.

Jose Ibarra is charged with malice murder, three counts of felony murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, tampering with evidence and interfering with a 911 call for help, Superior Court of Clarke County records show. The 26-year-old Venezuelan national was also handed down a “peeping Tom” charge related to his activities the day of Riley’s murder.

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California Mayor Cites Surge in Border Encounters as Evidence of Federal Enforcement Failure

Mayor Bill Wells

Republican El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells cited a surge in border encounters as proof of federal enforcement failures, Newsweek reported.

Wells pointed out the concerning surge in border encounters within San Diego County, noting a major shift in migration patterns and federal border enforcement efforts. He stated that San Diego County experienced an unprecedented 37,370 border encounters in April, exceeding the figures in sectors like Tucson, El Paso, and Del Rio for the first time in over two decades. Wells expressed astonishment and concern over the escalating border encounter numbers, according to Newsweek.

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CNN’s Elie Honig Says Stormy Daniels’ Responses Were ‘Disastrous’ for Alvin Bragg’s Case

Elie Honig

CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said porn star Stormy Daniels’ responses to attorneys for former President Donald Trump were “disastrous” for the prosecution’s case.

Daniels testified Tuesday about her alleged relationship with Trump, providing salacious and irrelevant details that prompted Trump’s attorneys to move for a mistrial, which New York Judge Juan Merchan rejected. Honig said that the cross-examination of Daniels by Trump’s attorneys “went poorly” for Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

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Commentary: If Republicans Want Better Legislative Outcomes, Trump Needs to Win Greater Majorities by Playing for the Popular Vote

Donald Trump at rally

Since 1960, Democrats have won the popular vote in 10 out of the last 16 presidential elections, and thanks to a combination of historical realignment (beginning during the 1930s), presidential coattails and the incumbency advantage, have also won U.S. House majorities in 11 out of those 16 contests, oftentimes with super majorities.

The modern story over U.S. House control, and therefore legislatively shaping the society of laws we live in presently, begins in 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt and Democrats utterly crushed Herbert Hoover’s reelection bid, winning 57.4 percent of the popular vote and 42 states to Hoover’s meager 39.6 percent and 6 states.

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College Anti-Israel Agitators Could Be Sent to Gaza Under New House GOP Bill

Fox News A new House Republican bill would send any person charged and convicted for illegal activity on a college campus to Gaza for at least six months. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., introduced the bill on Wednesday alongside Reps. Randy Weber, R-Texas, and Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., in response to the ongoing anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses across the country. Several of those protests have turned violent, with clashes between police and activists, as well as hundreds of activists being arrested across multiple campuses.   While Ogles’ bill text does not mention Israel or the anti-Israel groups, it specifically targets unlawful activity on college campuses after Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants invaded Israel in a surprise attack that killed over 1,000 people.  READ THE FULL STORY                             

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More than 321,000 Children in the U.S. Lost a Parent to Overdose in Just 10 years, Study Finds

CBS News More than 320,000 children in the United States lost a parent to a drug overdose from 2011 to 2021, a study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found.  No national study had previously looked at the amount of children affected by the overdose crisis, according to a news release announcing the findings. Study co-author Dr. Emily Einstein, the chief of NIDA’s Science Policy Branch, said the study was inspired by similar research during the COVID-19 pandemic.  During the decade studied, 649,599 people aged 18 to 64 died of a drug overdose. Children were more likely to lose their fathers than their mothers, the study found.  READ THE FULL STORY                               

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TikTok Sues U.S. Government over New Law Banning App

TikTok User

On Tuesday, the Chinese social media app TikTok and its parent company filed a lawsuit against the federal government of the United States over a new law threatening to ban the app if it is not sold to another company by next year.

ABC News reports that the lawsuit, filed by TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance, claims the new law is a violation of the First Amendment rights of TikTok’s users. The bill was signed into law by Joe Biden last month, with the TikTok ban being one provision of a larger $95 billion foreign aid package. The law requires ByteDance to sell TikTok within 9 months, or else the app will be banned from use in the United States.

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Schumer Plans to Revive Bipartisan Border Deal

Axios Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is seriously considering bringing the failed bipartisan border deal back to the floor for a vote later this month — turning the tables on the GOP’s favorite 2024 issue, Axios has learned. Democrats are launching a border offensive. Senators are slamming Republicans again for killing the border deal months ago and President Biden is unveiling new proposed asylum changes this week. Schumer plans to force Republicans to again reject the border package, according to three Democratic Senate aides familiar. The bill would expedite the asylum process and allow the federal government to curtail asylum access during surges. READ THE FULL STORY                

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Alleged Threats Against LGBTQ ‘Pride’ Event in Montana Revealed to Be a Hoax

LGBTQ Flags

Several threats made against a pro-LGBTQ “pride” event in Montana have since been determined to be hoaxes simply meant to discourage people from attending.

According to ABC News, the Bozeman Police Department (BPD) investigated two threats that “occurred within the city limits of Bozeman” over the weekend, after two other threats had been made on Friday. The threats were eventually determined to have no credibility, and were simply “used to try to dissuade people from participating.”

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Denver Democrats Push Migrants to Private Homes

Breitbart As officials in Denver continue rolling evictions of illegal aliens from city-supported migrant shelters due to a lack of funding, many have ended up in illegal tent encampments. But hundreds more have been placed in the homes of private citizens who volunteered to take migrants in, for a stipend. With more than 40,000 of President Joe Biden’s illegal border crossers flooding into Denver in the last year, city officials have struggled to come up with the funding to arrange housing for them all. In February, officials began warning migrants that the money was gone and many will be evicted from shelters if they stay past the 42-day mark. Many of these illegals say the chief problem is they are not legally allowed to work without a federally supplied work permit and without a job they cannot pay their own way. The lack of jobs and shelter evictions has left hundreds to set up illegal tent encampments on public lands. But even that, as NPR recently reported, has its limits as police departments occasionally sweep them away from their camping spots. READ THE FULL STORY                       

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Judge in Trump Classified Docs Case Indefinitely Postpones Trial Date

Judge Aileen M. Cannon

The judge presiding over the case against former President Donald Trump involving allegations surrounding classified documents indefinitely postponed the trial date Tuesday.

United States District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee, said that setting a date would be “imprudent” before a number of pre-trial motions were addressed in her ruling. Special counsel Jack Smith unsealed a superseding indictment on July 27, 2023, that included charges against Carlos De Oliveira, a maintenance worker at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida estate owned by Trump after the special counsel initially secured a 37-count indictment against Trump and aide Walter Nauta in June 2023.

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AstraZeneca Pulls Its COVID Vaccine from European Market

The Associated Press  The pharma giant AstraZeneca has requested that the European authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine be pulled, according to the EU medicines regulator. In an update on the European Medicines Agency’s website Wednesday, the regulator said that the approval for AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria had been withdrawn “at the request of the marketing authorization holder.” AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine was first given the nod by the EMA in January 2021. Within weeks, however, concerns grew about the vaccine’s safety, when dozens of countries suspended the vaccine’s use after unusual but rare blood clots were detected in a small number of immunized people. The EU regulator concluded AstraZeneca’s shot didn’t raise the overall risk of clots, but doubts remained. READ THE FULL STORY                 

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Alvin Bragg’s Team Produced Docs at Center of Case Against Trump But Fail to Establish Direct Link

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg

Prosecutors finally displayed the documents at the heart of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump on Monday, but have yet to establish a direct link to demonstrate Trump’s culpability.

Until Monday, prosecutors had been focused on setting up other pieces of their case: the context for the $130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about claims of a sexual encounter and the broader “conspiracy” to influence the 2016 election they allege Trump was involved in. Monday’s witnesses — former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney and Trump Organization accounts payable supervisor Deborah Tarasoff — offered starkly different testimony than earlier witnesses like David Pecker and Keith Davidson, providing no salacious celebrity stories and an almost exclusive focus on accounting.

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Report: Biden White House Trying to Force New Regulations to Hinder Second Trump Presidency

Joe Biden Donald Trump

A new report claims that the Biden Administration is attempting to implement federal regulations that will be difficult to reverse by a future president, as polls increasingly suggest that Joe Biden will lose the November election to former President Donald Trump.

According to the Daily Caller, the report says that President Trump plans to sign multiple resolutions under the 1996 Congressional Review Act if he wins a second term, aimed at reversing many of Biden’s regulations. In response, officials in the Biden White House are examining methods to make regulations more permanent or harder to undo.

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Influential Liberal Donor Organizes Massive Coalition to Throw Cash Behind Voter Mobilization

Pierre Omidyar

An influential left-of-center donor’s charity launched an initiative compelling other philanthropies to pour money into voter mobilization efforts ahead of the 2024 elections.

Democracy Fund, which was founded and is funded by liberal philanthropist Pierre Omidyar, has rallied a group of 174 organizations and individuals pledging to expedite their disbursement of grants related to efforts including get-out-the-vote operations. The pledge calls on its signatories to either make the bulk of their election-related donations by the end of April, to “move up” disbursements scheduled for later in the year or to streamline their grant approval processes.

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Commentary: A Government Unrepresentative of the People

Joe Biden

We are in the midst of a presidential campaign year. It’s supposed to be the Super Bowl for political junkies like me. But it feels strange and muted, and, so far, its vibe is uncomfortably similar to 2020.

The 2020 election was strange because of COVID, which became a pretext to change the rules in order to rig the outcome. This time, there is no such excuse for a “basement campaign.” It’s true that Biden is old, feeble, and unpopular. And Trump has been sidelined, quite deliberately, by a malicious New York judge who won’t allow him to travel and conduct his signature rallies. The problem, however, now infects all electoral politics.

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Legislators Debate Whether to Help University of Minnesota Pay for Costs Associated with Anti-Israel Camp

Palestine Protest on UMN Campus

It’s been less than a week since a group of anti-Israel activists on the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus packed up their tents and provisions and ended their encampment protest on Northrop Mall.

And now come the questions: How much was the damage incurred by the boycott/divestment/sanctions protesters? Who will pay for it?

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Commentary: Mammas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Police Officers

Memorial service for a police officer

Four law enforcement officers were shot dead in Charlotte, North Carolina, last week. On hearing the news, I was reminded of my mother’s frequent warnings about police work. Her message? Steer clear. With her husband and her brother patrolling the mean streets of Newark, she didn’t need the added anxiety of having her sons do the same. Today, for the children and spouses of police officers, that anxiety must be unbearable — and not just because of the obvious danger.

You may not have heard of the Charlotte shooting. It vanished from the national news in a flash. Despite the magnitude of the offense, within two or three days the national media had dropped the story cold.

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Former Biden DOJ Official Prosecuting Trump Received Thousands of Dollars From DNC

Matthew Colangelo

The lead prosecutor for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump received thousands of dollars from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2018, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show.

Matthew Colangelo, who was President Joe Biden’s acting associate attorney general and spent two years in the current president’s Department of Justice (DOJ), joined the Manhattan District Attorney’s office as senior counsel in December 2022. The lawyer received $12,000 from the DNC in 2018 for “political consulting” in two payments of $6,000 on Jan. 31 of that year, FEC records show.

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‘May Be Problematic’: New Study Highlights Another Potential Roadblock for Biden’s Offshore Wind Push

Offshore wind farm

A new study has identified a potentially massive problem for offshore wind developments that could further hinder the Biden administration’s push for the technology.

The study, published in a scientific journal called Wind Energy Science and authored by researchers from the University of Colorado and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), focuses on what happens when the presence of nearby wind turbines reduces wind speeds for other turbines and their ability to produce power. The researchers project that the “wake effect,” the technical name for the phenomenon, could lead to a loss of up to 38 percent of power generation at one East Coast offshore wind development.

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Hakeem Jeffries Boasts About Dems ‘Effectively’ Running House — Despite GOP Majority

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries

Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York claimed that Democrats were “governing as a majority” in the House of Representatives even with nominal Republican control during an interview that aired Sunday.

Jeffries noted that Democrats provided over twice as many votes than Republicans in passing HR 8035, the Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act in April during the interview with Norah O’Donnell of CBS News that aired on “60 Minutes.” Jeffries boasted of Democratic successes in the GOP-controlled House during the interview, saying that Dems “get things done.”

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Democrats Outnumber Republicans as Commencement Speakers – Again

Auburn University commencement address

Democrats will again outnumber Republicans as commencement speakers this spring, according to an analysis from The College Fix.

The Fix found similar results last year, after reviewing public statements, news articles, and political donations to determine party affiliation. The Fix reviewed the main graduation speakers at the Southeastern Conference, the Ivy League, and the Big Ten.

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Commentary: Thanks to Our States There Is Hope Amidst Federal Government Failures

Oklahoma Treasure Todd Russ

With Washington, DC, more bitterly divided than ever under the Biden administration, the American people are once again fed up with the state of our nation’s politics.

Who can blame them? In poll after poll, the American people have clearly stated their highest priorities: illegal immigration, lousy leadership, rampant inflation and economic decline. But the Biden administration hasn’t just ignored these issues – they’ve actively made each of them worse.

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Commentary: Are Trump’s Polls Understating His Lead?

Donald Trump

During the two months since President Biden delivered his State of the Union address, a wide variety of legacy news outlets have been at pains to portray an infinitesimal improvement in his polling as a shift of momentum in the presidential race. Last week, for example, USA Today breathlessly reported that “Trump and Biden are ‘darn near even’ in the 2024 election.” If this was meant to provide moral sustenance for worried Democrats it was thin gruel indeed. Biden is an incumbent president struggling to keep up with a challenger most of whose time and money has been devoted to fighting off a ruthless lawfare campaign. Moreover, if history is any guide, it’s probable that the polls understate the strength of Trump’s support.

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Taxpayers in Georgia Are at Risk of Being Latest Victims of Electric Vehicle Gambles

Rivian showroom in Atlanta

Taxpayers could be on the hook if electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Rivian fails to resume progress on its multi-billion dollar Georgia plant.

Rivian announced on March 7 that it would be pausing construction on its $5 billion manufacturing plant that is supposed to be built just east of Atlanta, Georgia, worrying lawmakers and taxpayers in the state that the plant may never be built. However, local authorities had given the company up to $1.5 billion in subsidies and tax incentives with the expectation that Rivian would bring in jobs and tax revenue.

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Commentary: The End of Old Left-Wing Mythologies

Pro-Palestinian campus protest

The current radical and often violent protests on mostly blue-state, supposedly elite campuses have exposed in toxic fashion what the left has become. And yet, in a paradoxical fashion, the campus insanity has offered the nation some moral clarity.

What’s surprising is not that the demonstrators are violent and nihilist, but that they are, on the one hand, so openly and crudely anti-Semitic, racist, and anti-American, and yet on the other hand, so passive-aggressive, narcissistic, and weepy.

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Former Columnist Exposes Scientific American’s Sudden Descent Into Left-Wing Ideology

Michael Shermer

Scientific American, a top science magazine that has been around since 1845, has become increasingly captured by the political left to the detriment of its scientific goals, a whistleblower told City Journal in a story published Sunday.

While the magazine previously pushed for authors to debate accepted perspectives, it has recently moved toward far-left ideology on issues, such as race, gender and climate, Scientific American author Michael Shermer, who wrote for the outlet from 2001-2019, told City Journal. Shermer, who wrote a column called “Skeptic” for the publication says he faced pushback for writing pieces on progress in reducing discrimination as well as for criticizing the ideology of “intersectionality,” commonly referred to as “identity politics.”

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Biden Admin Unveils $3 Billion for Push to Replace All Lead Pipes in 10 Years

Lead Pipe

The Biden administration announced $3 billion in funding for its initiative to get rid of every lead pipe in the U.S. over the next ten years on Thursday.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled the funding, which comes from the bipartisan infrastructure package of 2021 and is part of a larger $15 billion push to replace every lead pipe in the U.S. within a decade. President Joe Biden will tout his administration’s lead pipe removal spending at a Thursday event in North Carolina, according to the White House.

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Judge Blocks Suspensions of Middle School Female Athletes Who Refused to Compete Against Male Student

Track and Field

A West Virginia judge granted a preliminary injunction allowing several middle school girls to compete after the school district banned them from competition after refusing to play against a biological male, according to 12 WBOY, a local media outlet.

Five middle school female athletes forfeited their positions at a track meet in April after they were informed that they would have to compete against a biological male, prompting the school district to allegedly bar the girls from future competitions, according to WDTV News. The students sued, and Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia filed an amicus brief in support of the students.

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Republican States to Ignore Biden’s Title IX Rewrite Recognizing Gender Identity, File Lawsuits: ‘We Will Not Comply’

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders with Riley Gaines

Calling the Biden administration’s recent decision to include gender identity in Title IX “election-year pandering” and a threat to women — and the “truth” — Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed an executive order telling schools in her state to ignore the guidance.

“The educational institutions of Arkansas will continue to enforce state law guaranteeing the right of students to maintain their privacy. Students must not be forced to shower or undress with members of the opposite sex,” states the executive order, signed Thursday by the Republican governor.

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Commentary: College Protests Then and Now

UPenn Gaza Solidarity Encampment

Like every major college protest since the 1960s, the pro-Palestinian — which is to say, the anti-Israel — protests sweeping college campuses today have early and often been compared with the protests of that annus horribilis, 1968.  There are plenty of similarities but also plenty of differences. History repeats itself as student and faculty protestors align themselves with the totalitarians.  Then it was the Viet Cong, Mao, and the Khmer Rouge. Today it is the Sunni Muslim terrorist group Hamas, the main puppet master of the “pro-Palestinian” agitators.

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Americans Increasingly Turning to Discount Grocer Amidst Rising Prices

Grocery Shopping

A German discount grocer has seen an increase in business from American customers over the last year, as inflation remains stubbornly high and presents an ongoing threat to Americans’ financial security.

The Daily Caller reports that Aldi, the German-based grocer, saw a staggering 26% increase in foot traffic at its store in March compared to March of 2023. This rise far surpassed increases at other popular grocery store chains, including the 6% year-over-year increase at Kroger and the 15% increase at Trader Joe’s.

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Latest Productivity Data Spells More Trouble for Future of American Economy

Staff Meeting

U.S. productivity growth slowed in the first quarter of 2024, casting doubt on the American economy’s future growth, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Thursday.

Growth in U.S. business productivity slowed to just 0.3% in the first quarter of 2024, below economists’ predictions of 0.5% and far lower than the 3.5% rate of growth achieved in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to the BLS. Sluggish growth in productivity bodes poorly for broader gross domestic product (GDP) growth, which slowed to 1.6% in the first quarter of 2024.

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Commentary: Free Markets are Necessary But Not Sufficient

Family Prayer at Dinner

For most of our lifetimes, classically liberal economics so dominated the Right that nobody wondered if conservatives were abandoning free markets. In recent years, though, a new generation of conservative thinkers—more traditionalist, populist, or nationalist than libertarian—has challenged the utility and even the morality of laissez faire economic policy.

We welcome their questions and critiques, as they have compelled American conservatives to have a long overdue conversation about the market, the family, and the state. But the blunt truth is the movement cannot abandon free markets. The moral and practical case for free enterprise is as necessary today as it was when Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher used it to rescue their nations’ economies and win the Cold War.

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Hiring of Police Officers Increased in 2023 After Years of Decline

New Police Officers

The year 2023 saw an increase in the number of police officers hired for the first time in several years, after widespread anti-police sentiment as a result of the race riots in the summer of 2020.

According to ABC News, more sworn officers were hired in 2023 than in any of the preceding four years. At the same time, fewer officers resigned or retired than in recent previous years. The information comes from 214 different law enforcement agencies responding to a study conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).

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Gains in Government Jobs Couldn’t Save Biden’s Economy in April

Business Meeting

Growth in government jobs slowed in April, bucking the pattern that has contributed to above-trend job growth over the past several months, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Employment in government grew just 8,000 in April, lower than the average over the past year of 55,000 per month, according to data from the BLS. A slowdown in government hiring led total job growth in April to be largely anemic compared to recent months, with the U.S. adding only 175,000 nonfarm payroll positions in the month, lower than the average over the past year of 242,000.

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Commentary: Jobs Report Shows the Specter of Stagflation Has Returned

Meeting

The specter of stagflation has returned. The monthly jobs report released Friday showed only 175,000 jobs were created last month, well below the recent average and expectations.

More than half of new jobs were created in the unproductive government and quasi-government healthcare and social services sectors that don’t generate growth. Average wages grew at a slower rate than inflation, meaning Americans’ real wages and living standards are declining.

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Recruit More Queer, Trans Scholars to Help Environment: University of Minnesota Report

University of Minnesota

A new University of Minnesota report advocates for more “2SLGBTQIA+” individuals in environmental work, arguing their communities are disproportionately harmed by pollution and natural disasters.

Published in the university’s Gender Policy Report, the article “Environmental Justice for Queer and Transgender Communities” says queer and transgender communities tend to be left out of environmental health policies and planning even though they “experience discrimination leading to social, economic, and health disparities that place them at an increased risk for environmental injustices.”

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Commentary: Finding Authentic Male Friendship in a Loneliness Epidemic

Male Friendship

In an increasing online world, people are lonelier than ever, especially men. In a 2021 study, 15 percent of men reported having no close friends, up from only three percent in the early 1990s. Perhaps more alarmingly, 28 percent of young men (under 30 years old) reported not having any close social connections.

As a man, I can speak to this deficit of male friendship. Many of us can say hello in passing, talk about the weather, and maybe discuss the latest sports news, but how many of our connections truly care about us and would be there when we need them?

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