Commentary: Foreign Cash Could Be the Culprit Turning Our Kids into Terrorist Sympathizers

Texas A&M

Shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, a Harvard CAPS-Harris X poll found that 48 percent of Americans ages 18-24 supported Hamas over Israel. This is in direct contrast to 95 percent of Americans 65 years of age and older who sided with Israel. This stark difference begs the question: why do half of young Americans support a group that has been designated by the State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization since October 1997? Our ongoing fight for transparency suggests at least some of the answers lie in Qatar’s pocketbooks.

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Watchdog Unveils Top 10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech

A free speech watchdog group Thursday morning named several prominent colleges and universities to its list of the top ten worst colleges in the country for freedom of speech based on specific times the institutions reportedly violated students’ and faculties’ rights.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) named Hamline University, Collin College, Emerson University, University of Pennsylvania Law School, Loyola University New Orleans (NOLA), Texas A&M, Pennsylvania State University, Emporia State University, Tennessee Tech University and the University of Oregon as the worst institutions for free speech in its 12th annual report, shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. The report detailed the worst cases of censorship the watchdog faced at higher education institutions in 2022. 

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Texas A&M Professor and NASA Researcher Zhengdong Cheng Arrested for Alleged China Ties

Texas A&M professor and NASA researcher Zhengdong Cheng was arrested Sunday for alleged conspiracy, false statements, and wire fraud.

According to a United States Department of Justice press release, Cheng allegedly “willfully took steps to obscure his affiliations and collaboration with a Chinese University and at least one Chinese-owned company.”

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Professor Warns Coronavirus Campus Closures Could Have ‘Big Implications’ for 2020 Census

Campus closures because of the coronavirus pandemic could lead to students being undercounted in the 2020 Census, at least according to one professor at Texas A&M University.

Professor Dudley Poston, who teaches sociology, wrote an op-ed for The Conversation explaining how undercounting could occur, and how it could financially affect college communities. He argued that self-isolating at home, which for students means possibly returning to live with their parents, could affect “where and if they are counted.”

“And that could have big implications,” he added.

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Department of Education Going After Elite Colleges for Allegedly Taking and Hiding Foreign Cash

by Luke Rosiak   The Department of Education is going after U.S universities over supposed ties to foreign governments, after some allegedly took huge quantities of foreign cash and hid it from regulators. At the top of the list are Georgetown University and Texas A&M, which have taken hundreds of millions of dollars from the government of Qatar, a middle eastern nation with suspected links to international terrorism. Both schools received letters from the Department of Education Thursday saying they should have disclosed that funding but their filings “may not fully capture” the activity, the Associated Press reported. The letter warned that they could be referred to the attorney general to “compel compliance.” Georgetown was also asked about possible ties to Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, as well as Saudi Arabian money. Both schools were ordered to disclose funding from Huawei and ZTE, Chinese firms suspected of spying. Top Foreign Funders of U.S. Universities, 2011-2016 (Source: Department of Education) Country Amount Qatar $1,024,065,043 England $761,586,394 Saudi Arabia $613,608,797 China $426,526,085 Canada $402,535,603 Hong Kong $394,446,859 China In February, a Senate investigative subcommittee released a bipartisan, 100-page report that found that not only had China been pouring money into the U.S. for a…

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Modified Cotton Could Be Human Food Source After US Green Light

U.S. regulators have cleared the way for farmers to grow a cotton plant genetically modified to make the cottonseed edible for people, a protein-packed potential new food source that could be especially useful in cotton-growing countries beset with malnutrition. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service on Tuesday lifted the regulatory prohibition on cultivation by farmers of the cotton plant, which was developed by Texas A&M University scientists. The plant’s cottonseed cannot be used as food for people or as animal feed yet in the United States because it lacks Food and Drug Administration approval. Cotton is widely grown around the world, with its fiber used to make textiles and the cottonseed used among other things to feed animals such as cattle and sheep that have multiple stomach chambers. Ordinary cottonseed is unfit for humans and many animals to eat because it contains high levels of gossypol, a toxic chemical. With financial help from a cotton industry group, scientists led by Texas A&M AgriLife Research plant biotechnologist Keerti Rathore used so-called RNAi, or RNA interference, technology to “silence” a gene, virtually eliminating gossypol from the cottonseed. They left gossypol at natural levels in the rest of…

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