Drug Manufacturers, CVS, Walgreens Settle Another Opioid Lawsuit with 22 States for $17.3 Billion

Thirteen attorneys general announced settlements with opioid manufacturers Teva and Allergan on Friday, while 18 states settled with CVS and Walgreens for a total of $17.3 billion.

The attorneys general said settlement funds will start flowing into state and local governments by the end of this year and will be used for prevention and treatment of opioid addiction.

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New York Passes Bill That Considers Slavery Reparations

Kathy Hotchu

The New York State Assembly passed a bill this week that would create a commission to consider slavery reparations, The Associated Press reported.

The bill, initially introduced in January, was passed after a three-hour debate in the Democrat-controlled State Assembly on Thursday. The state Senate passed the bill hours later, and is now being sent to Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk, who has yet to comment on the proposed legislation.

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Progressive Activists, Officials Work to Extend Voting to Prisoners, Noncitizens to Expand Base

by Fred Lucas   Inmate voting, noncitizen voting, and even mandatory voting have been among the initiatives pushed in Democrat-led jurisdictions this year to expand their voting base. “The Left wants to normalize voter classes that nobody took seriously a generation ago—criminals, foreigners—to help them win elections,” J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election integrity group, told The Daily Signal. As I noted in my book “The Myth of Voter Suppression,” Democrats long have sought to change election laws to gain a political advantage. The nation’s capital, the District of Columbia, adopted noncitizen voting this year for local elections such as mayor and city council. Oregon lawmakers are pushing prisoner voting, while blue states on the West and East coasts are considering mandatory voting. “The Left talks big about ‘helping everyone vote,’ but for at least the past decade, they’ve focused all their efforts on only helping their preferred voters cast a ballot,” Hayden Ludwig, director of policy research at Restoration of America, a conservative group, told The Daily Signal in an email. “Everything from lowering the voting age to vote-by-mail and felon voting rights is geared to drive turnout among the ‘New American Majority,’ their term for the demographic groups Democrats are…

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State Senate DFLers Vote to Abandon Electoral College for National Popular Vote

DFLers in the Minnesota House and Senate voted this month to transform American presidential elections by abandoning the Electoral College.

The Senate voted along party lines, 34-33, on Wednesday to pass an elections omnibus policy bill that includes a provision that would have Minnesota award its presidential electors to the candidate with the most votes nationwide. Republicans unsuccessfully tried to remove that language from the bill.

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Blue States Suffer Largest Population and Tax Revenue Losses as Red States See Largest Gains, IRS Data Shows

Gavin Newsom

Even as Democratic governors such as California’s Gavin Newsom and Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker slam red state policies, their residents are fleeing in droves for Republican-controlled states.

IRS migration data released late last week shows that California lost more residents than any other state, with a net loss of nearly 332,000 people and more than $29 billion in adjusted gross income in 2021. The state with the second largest population loss is New York, which saw a net loss of over 262,000 residents and $24.5 billion in income. Illinois, meanwhile, suffered a net loss of 105,000 people in 2021 and $10.8 billion in income.

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Advocates Warn of ‘Desperate’ Movement to Undermine the Electoral College

An organization’s efforts to circumvent states’ rights are “getting desperate” as they try new ways to push their interstate compact through state legislatures, two pro-Electoral College advocacy groups told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The National Popular Vote (NPV) is a group initiative to reform the U.S.’ two-step, Electoral College system by ensuring that the candidate with the most popular votes nationwide becomes the president. Now that NPV has enacted its interstate compact in all of the “easy,” bluer states as a standalone bill, it is getting creative to force the law through in swing states like Minnesota, Nevada, Michigan and Maine, Trent England of Save Our States and Jasper Hendricks of Democrats for the Electoral College told the DCNF.

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Commentary: Biden’s Open Borders Are Bringing Diseases to Your Neighborhood

by Betsy McCaughey   Ready for another pandemic? New York City’s health commissioner announced last week that the influx of migrants from the southern border — more than 50,000 to New York City alone in the past year — is delivering contagious diseases, including tuberculosis and polio, to our neighborhoods. The same disease threats are also endangering other migrant destinations, including California, Texas and Florida. In a letter to physicians and health care administrators citywide, Commissioner Ashwan Vasan explained that “many people who recently arrived in NYC have lived in or traveled through countries with high rates of TB.” TB, short for tuberculosis, is a bacterial infection. It is treatable with antibiotics, but it generally takes six to nine months of medication to recover. Not a walk in the park. TB spreads through the air, like flu or a cold. Stand next to someone with TB for a long subway ride or sit next to them every day at school and you can catch it. New York City’s TB rate, at 6.1 cases per 100,000, is more than double the national rate. Close to 9 out of 10 (88 percent) of these TB cases are people born outside the United…

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Manhattan DA Has No Authority ‘To Enforce Federal Campaign Finance Crimes’: Ex-FEC Commissioner

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump is legally “dubious” and motivated by political ambition, alleges legal expert Hans von Spakovsky. 

“It’s an extremely dubious prosecution, and I say that as a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission,” he told Just The News.

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Manhattan DA Bragg Scorched by Victims of Violent Crime During House Field Hearing in New York City

Victims of violent crime in Manhattan on Monday cast much of the blame on District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his policies, during a GOP-led House hearing in New York City on the matter.

“Repeat offenders are plaguing New York City,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan. “Our plan this Congress, has been to include field hearings in some of our greatest cities to analyze and highlight how soft on crime policies hurt families, hurt communities, hurt small business owners. … What better place to start than New York City where videos of violent, senseless attacks appear almost daily.”

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Justice Department Announces Criminal Charges on China for Alleged Espionage Activities from New York City Outpost

The Justice Department on Monday announced three cases involving China’s threat to national security, based on operations in New York City.

Just two miles from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York’s office, the People’s Republic of China opened an undeclared station for the Chinese National Police, officials said.

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AOC Concealed Thousands in Campaign Spending, Ethics Complaint Alleges

Democratic New York U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez concealed thousands of dollars in campaign spending, an ethics complaint exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation alleges.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint cites more than $9,600 in reported campaign credit card expenditures that lacked information on the purpose of the charges. Dan Backer filed the complaint on behalf of the Coolidge Reagan Foundation, a nonprofit organization that’s levied similar complaints.

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Commentary: Prosecute Alvin Bragg

It’s Jim Crow Alabama. In an old plantation town, a young black man—a sharecropper’s son—wants change. He walks up great steps of the county courthouse to dead silence. Proudly he marches under the glare of a puff-chested man chewing on a piece of straw. Stoically, that young man arrives at the counter of the county clerk, and there drops his petition to make it official: He’s to run for mayor.

The straw-chewing man, the town’s current mayor—with thumbs hooked into his silver-plated belt and a hard face shadowed by a cowboy hat—resolves to stop him. So he calls central casting for an evil Southern sheriff.

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Americans Continue to Flee Crime-Ridden Blue Cities for the Burbs and Red States, New Census Data Shows

Americans once again fled large cities for suburbs and Republican-led states in massive numbers from June 2021 to June 2022, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of U.S. Census data.

More than 800,000 people in total left the country’s large metropolitan areas, compared to 1.2 million the year before, in an ongoing trend sparked by the pandemic, according to the WSJ. Ten of the nation’s 25 largest metropolitan areas saw population loss, and most of the top cities that saw population gains were located in red states.

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Mayors Call for Wind Power Moratorium amid Whale Deaths

A group of 30 New Jersey mayors are seeking a temporary moratorium on new wind power projects, citing a recent spike in whale deaths.

In a letter to President Joe Biden and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, the mayors called for a suspension of wind power projects off the coast until federal and state governments conduct investigations to determine if activities are a “contributing factor in the recent whale deaths.”

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The Progressive Movement to Ban New Homes from Having Any Natural Gas Gains Steam

by John Hugh DeMastri   A growing number of states and cities are considering or implementing bans for the future construction of not just gas stoves, but natural gas hookups themselves, a move that would raise costs for consumers and potentially have negative environmental consequences, natural gas advocates told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Lawmakers in the state of Minnesota introduced legislation Wednesday that would permit the state’s Commissioner of Labor and Industry to amend the state’s energy code to “mitigate the impact of climate change,” a directive that could be used to justify a ban on natural gas, according to the free-market Minnesota think-tank Center of the American Experiment. California and New York are weighing statewide bans which would not only increase costs, but may not have the climate benefits advocates hope for, Dan Kish, senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research told the DCNF. “Natural gas is our cleanest fossil [fuel] and it is responsible for the U.S. reducing carbon dioxide emissions more than other country, largely because we have centuries of the stuff.” Kish told the DCNF. “God blessed North America with enormous energy wealth, and our only impediment is power-hungry politicians who want to make energy more expensive and more foreign, while bossing…

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New York Mandates City Employees to Participate in Critical Race Theory-Inspired Training, Report

New York City employees must participate in racial equity training by March, according to a news report Monday that equates the curriculum to critical race theory, which essentially makes the argument America’s institutions are inherently racist.

“The training provides all NYC employees with a framework to understand … the importance of racial equity… in the workplace,” reads an excerpt of an email to city employees obtained and posted by Fox News Digital.

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During Visit to the Southern Border, New York City Mayor Says His City Has ‘No Room’ for Illegal Migrants

Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams said his city is at capacity and has “no room” for illegal migrants during a visit to El Paso, Texas, over the weekend.

Adams stressed that there’s misinformation going around that New York City is where illegal migrants can obtain housing and jobs, during a news conference Sunday in the border city. The Big Apple mayor has previously complained about the surges of illegal migrants coming to New York City on transports sent by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Democratic El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser and Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.

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The Country’s Biggest School Districts Are Explicitly Hiding Kids’ Gender Transitions from Parents

The nation’s largest school districts are implementing policies that require educators to keep students’ gender transitions a secret from their parents.

Los Angeles Unified School District, Chicago Public Schools and New York Public Schools are promoting practices and policies that hide a student’s transgender status from their parents. The policies have become a cultural flashpoint amid a battle over the role parents should play in their child’s education, and the extent to which gender ideology has infiltrated K-12 classrooms.

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Report: 97 Percent of Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes in New York Were Committed by Other Minorities

Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) released a report revealing that 97% of hate crimes against Jews in New York between 2018 and 2022 were committed by other minority groups.

AAA’s report was first posted on AAA founder Dov Hikind’s Twitter account Wednesday. The report documented 194 cases of assault against Jews from April 2018 to August 2022, and, in 99 of those assaults, official reports included the ethnicity of the perpetrator revealing 97% were committed by other minorities.

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Liberal Students, Academics Seek to Revoke Conservatives’ Honorary Degrees

Multiple universities across the country have rescinded honorary degrees, which are given to recognize the achievements of individuals who were not students at the university, from prominent members of the Trump administration.

Last month, Syracuse University put wheels in motion to rescind an honorary degree from former New York City mayor and lawyer to former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Business Insider reported. The university has not revoked an honorary degree in its 152-year history.

Giuliani argued that there was widespread election fraud during the 2020 election. He faced a criminal probe in Georgia regarding the presidential election results and appeared before a grand jury in August.

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Commentary: Republicans Can Thank the Federal Government’s Bungled 2020 Census for Their Razor-Thin House Majority

Republicans will soon take control of the House of Representatives, but with a margin so narrow it may prove difficult to achieve their legislative and oversight objectives. That margin might have been larger, were it not for egregious errors made by the U.S. Census Bureau in the 2020 census.

Come January, House membership will consist of 213 Democrats and 222 Republicans. A party must hold 218 of those seats to control the House. Thus, Republicans will have only a four-seat majority. That extremely narrow majority means that GOP leadership can lose any vote on any issue if only four Republicans defect and the Democrats stay united in opposition.

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Commentary: New York and California in a Race to Hit Rock Bottom

Throughout much of the 20th century, America’s status as an economic superpower and the world’s standard-bearer for freedom and opportunity was due in no small measure to the successes of New York and California. Today, those states have become symbols of America’s decline, as the consequences of their incompetent, partisan leadership are now undeniable. Nowhere is this clearer than how these two formerly great states have addressed immigration.

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NYC to Spend More than Half a Billion Dollars Supporting Illegal Migrants

New York City is expected to spend nearly $600 million to support illegal migrants over the course of one year, according to a report released Sunday by the city’s Independent Budget Office (IBO).

The city is expected to spend close to $580 million on shelter accommodations, public school, health care, legal assistance and other forms of aid, according to the IBO report. Approximately 23,000 illegal migrants have arrived in the Big Apple since April.

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‘This Is a Disgrace’: Experts, GOP Reps Call On the Biden Admin to Shut Down a Secret Chinese Police Station in NYC

The U.S. government must immediately investigate and shutter the recently discovered overseas Chinese government police station in New York City for potential violation of U.S. laws, several experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In 2022, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established secret police stations in over 100 cities around the world to conduct intimidation and harassment operations against overseas Chinese, human rights organization Safeguard Defenders revealed in a September report. While other countries have announced probes into the alleged police stations, the location within American Changle Association — a Chinatown community organization in New York City — continues to operate outside legal boundaries and should be shut down, experts told the DCNF.

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Poll: Republican Lee Zeldin Gains Lead In New York Governor’s Race

Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, who is running for governor against Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul, has taken the lead in the race for the first time, per a new poll.

Zeldin currently has the support of 48.4% of respondents, compared to Hochul’s 47.6%, a lead of 0.8 points, according to the poll by The Trafalgar Group released Monday. Per RealClearPolitics, this is the first major poll that has shown a lead for Zeldin, a Long Islander representing New York’s 1st Congressional District.

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Massive Crowd Gathers for Zeldin Rally with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

by Madeleine Hubbard   Rep. Lee Zeldin, New York’s Republican nominee for governor, said thousands of people attended his Long Island, New York, rally with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. With both men facing gubernatorial elections next week, some observers online noted that the giant turnout for the rally Saturday evening with DeSantis may foreshadow what his possible 2024 presidential campaign would look like, ADN America reported. “INCREDIBLE turnout tonight on Long Island for our Get Out The Vote Rally,” Zeldin tweeted after the event. “THOUSANDS strong showed up for our event on only one day’s notice.” INCREDIBLE turnout tonight on Long Island for our Get Out The Vote Rally with Florida Governor @RonDeSantisFL! THOUSANDS strong showed up for our event on only one day’s notice. 10 days until New York elects a new Governor. It can’t happen soon enough! pic.twitter.com/0rMVuNsYzW — Lee Zeldin (@leezeldin) October 30, 2022 DeSantis, who is double-digits ahead in some polls against his Democratic challenger, former Gov. Charlie Crist, focused on Zeldin’s tough-on-crime approach during the rally. “Florida is a law-and-order state. I am a law-and-order governor. If Lee Zeldin gets into office, New York will become a law-and-order state,” he said. NY deserves a leader who will restore law & order. @leezeldin is…

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Commentary: As Ex-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard Stumps for Republicans, Many Ask If She Has Coattails

On polls taken up to Oct. 17, Arizona Republican nominee for Governor Kari Lake was leading her opponent Katie Hobbs by 3 and 4 points respectively in Daily Wire/Trafalgar and Data for Progress polls. And then she got the endorsement of former Democratic U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, fresh off leaving the Democratic Party, on Oct. 18 in a Twitter post.

“For too long, establishment leaders from both parties have sought to enrich themselves, play games, and build up their power while ignoring and even enabling the suffering of millions of hard-working Americans,” Gabbard said in a press release, adding, “Kari Lake is a leader who puts people first, fighting for border security, energy independence, public safety, and other policies that actually make life better and more affordable for the American people.”

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Aftermath: Rushdie Has Lost Sight in One Eye, Use of Hand After Attack, Agent Says

Author Salman Rushdie lost sight in one eye and the use of one of his hands as a result of an attack in August, his agent said.

Rushdie “lost the sight of one eye,” his agent Andrew Wylie told the Spanish paper El Pais on Saturday. “He had three serious wounds in his neck. One hand is incapacitated because the nerves in his arm were cut. And he has about 15 more wounds in his chest and torso. So, it was a brutal attack.”

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Commentary: Yet Again, New York Is Sticking It to Religious Schools

New York education bureaucrats are rapidly and gleefully ditching standards for what children in public schools should learn. Why then are they increasing their imposition on private yeshivas?  

The State Board of Regents has finalized new regulatory oversight of yeshivas, and the standards by which these and other private schools can demonstrate that their education is “substantially equivalent” to what is offered in government-run schools.

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NYC Abandons De Blasio-Era Admissions Policies as Families Flee Public Schools

New York City is changing its admission policies implemented by former Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, now basing admissions to selective high schools and middle schools on test scores amidst the city’s enrollment drop, according to a press release by New York City Schools Chancellor David C. Banks.

In an effort to admit “top-performing applicants,” the top 15% of students with a grade point average (GPA) of 90 or above, will be vetted first for the selective schools, according to a press release by Banks. The previous admissions policy was a random lottery that allowed underperforming students to receive admission to the screened schools, introduced during the pandemic.

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New York Will Ban Gas Car Sales by 2035, Copying California

Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said Thursday that it will follow California’s lead by banning the sale of gasoline-powered cars and light trucks by 2035.

All passenger cars, pickup trucks and SUVs sold in the state will have to be classified as “zero-emissions vehicles” by no later than 2035, according to a press release. Hochul directed the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation to begin implementing the new rules that will also require 35% of state vehicle sales to consist of electric cars by 2026, rising to 68% by 2030.

“With sustained state and federal investments, our actions are incentivizing New Yorkers, local governments, and businesses to make the transition to electric vehicles,” Hochul said.

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Project Veritas Exposes New York City Middle School Teacher Encouraging Children to ‘Throw Bricks’ at People Who Oppose Her Political Agenda

A New York City middle school English teacher told a Project Veritas (PV) undercover journalist she encourages her students to engage in political violence by teaching them “to throw bricks,” not to “black and brown communities,” but at “the people that are actually doing the things that [need to] change.”

In the fourth video of its education series titled “The Secret Curriculum,” New York City Department of Education middle school teacher Ariane Franco is heard telling the PV journalist she teaches her students “there’s strategic ways” to engage in violent protests against the people who oppose her political agenda.

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Merchant Banking Organization: Gun, Ammunition Purchases by Credit Card Will be Coded

An unloaded handgun sitting on the center console of a vehicle with the magazine clip next to it

The international organization responsible for creating merchant category codes for credit card purchases has given its approval to establish one for transactions made at gun stores.

The International Organization for Standardization’s Registration and Maintenance Management Group met on Wednesday to discuss a request made by Amalgamated Bank to set up such a code.

An ISO spokesperson told The Center Square that RMMG members could not decide whether to approve the application. That elevated the discussion to the ISO leadership that oversees standards for retail financial services.

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Bannon Surrenders to New York Authorities on Fraud, Money Laundering Charges Related to Wall Fundraising

Former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon surrendered Thursday to New York authorities, on fraud and money laundering charges in connection to fundraising efforts to complete the southern U.S. border wall.

Bannon and unnamed others in the fundraising effort in New York and elsewhere from about Feb. 4, 2019, to roughly Oct. 10 of that year “knowing that the property involved in one and more financial transactions, to wit, money donated to WeBuildTheWall, Inc. through a crowdfunding website, represented the proceeds of a Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree, conducted one and more such financial transactions,” according the an eight-page indictment obtained by CNN. 

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New York Gov. Hochul Calls Remote Learning During Pandemic ‘A Mistake’

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday called it “a mistake” the state switched to remote learning in schools at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic more than two years ago.

Hochul, a Democrat running to serve a full term in November, made her remarks during a wide-ranging speech at the University of Albany commemorating Women’s Equality Day. That included her calling on the Department of Labor to study the impact the coronavirus had on women in the workforce.

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30 Months into the COVID-19 Pandemic, at Least a Dozen States Are Under ‘Emergency’ Orders

In October 2020, the Michigan Supreme Court stripped Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of the unilateral powers she was using when she declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whitmer had been using a 1945 law – which was prompted by a three-day race riot in Detroit three years earlier – that had no sunset provision in it and didn’t require approval by the state legislature.

In May 2021, Whitmer told a news agency that if she still had that 1945 state-of-emergency law, she would use those powers, but not for anything related to a pandemic.

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‘Misled the Public:’ Oversight Launches Investigation into Nursing Home COVID Deaths

Republicans on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis and the House Oversight Committee have joined forces in an investigation over the thousands of nursing home deaths in New York state during COVID, saying New York Democrats ignored previous inquiries.

The controversy began in 2020 when thousands of New York nursing home residents died during the pandemic, drawing extra scrutiny to then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s policy of sending elderly patients recovering from COVID-19 into nursing homes.

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Commentary: No City is Prepared for Sanctuary Status

As our southern border crisis rages on promulgated by a non-response to the issue by the White House and progressive policies encouraging illegal migrants to travel in caravans, our American cities are being left to deal with the aftermath.

Leftist leaders across the country decry that this humanitarian crisis is a result of Republican policies, but when push comes to shove, Democrat mayors are completely disinterested in their city funding resources for border crossers. Just this week D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has asked for the National Guard to be activated and has made claims that these migrants are being “tricked” into coming to her city. This is the same mayor who tweeted in 2017 that “DC is a sanctuary city!” and has poured $2.4 million of her city’s budget into a program aimed at protecting immigrant rights for those who are not yet citizens.

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