Month: March 2023

TikTok CEO Dodges on Whether Company Will Cease ‘Spying’ on Americans

Georgia Star News Staff

TikTok CEO Shou Chew dodged questions Thursday about whether tactics by parent company ByteDance used to “spy” on American journalists could be used to target more Americans.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington questioned Chew on reporting by Forbes that staff at ByteDance used TikTok data last year to surveil journalists who were covering the company, gaining access to their IP addresses to track whether they had been in proximity to ByteDance employees.

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House Judiciary Committee: ‘No Legitimate Basis’ for Biden Administration to Target Parents Protesting School Boards

Georgia Star News Staff

The latest report by the House Judiciary Committee declares that there was “no legitimate basis” for the Biden Administration’s efforts to label parents protesting at school board meetings as domestic terrorists and place them under federal investigation.

As reported by Fox News, the Judiciary Committee and its new subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government have completed an interim staff report on the matter of the federal government’s handling of parents’ rights groups, who were “voicing concerns about controversial curricula and education-related policies.”

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Biden Admin Flew Migrants Caught Illegally Crossing Over from Canada to the Southern Border, Memo Reveals

Georgia Star News Staff
illegal immigrant flights

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) flew illegal migrants from the northern border to the southern border to expel them under Title 42, a Trump-era public health expulsion order, according to an internal agency memorandum reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The flights, which are operated by contractor World Atlantic Airlines, also began with a program to move Border Patrol agents from the U.S.-Mexico border to the Canadian border to help with the surge, a U.S. government official familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak, told the DCNF. The Title 42 flights, however, have been costly, with each costing between $150,000 and $200,000, meaning they’re not likely to continue, the source added.

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‘Food Security Is National Security’: Congress Moves to Stop Communist China from Buying Up U.S. Farmland

M.D. Kittle

America’s biggest global threat is buying up U.S. farmland, an acquisition binge that’s putting the nation’s food supply and national security at risk, lawmakers assert. In a rare act of bipartisanship, members of Congress are looking to stop the sale of American agricultural land to buyers in Communist China and…

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House Bill Would Block Biden’s Student Loan Bailout

M.D. Kittle

While the constitutionality of President Joe Biden’s student loan bailout is awaiting a Supreme Court decision, a bill re-introduced by two House members would block the Biden administration from canceling student loan debt on a mass scale. 

The Student Loan Accountability Act, authored by U.S. Representatives Mike Gallagher (R-WI-08) and Drew Ferguson (R-GA-03) would also prevent forgiven loans from getting an additional tax break and it would bar the Internal Revenue Service from sharing American’s tax information for the purpose of implementing mass loan cancelation. 

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Biden Admin in Talks to Potentially Bail Out a Third Bank: Report

Georgia Star News Staff

The U.S. government is considering backing a potential deal to rescue the struggling First Republic Bank, in a bid by U.S. officials and Wall Street executives to head off the chance of a third major bank failure, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the discussions.

Wall Street investors have expressed an interest in helping stabilize the struggling San Francisco-based bank, which has been selling assets — which lost value amid the Federal Reserve’s aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes designed to combat inflation — to pay out a surge in customers pulling their funds from the bank, according to Bloomberg. While the extent of government aid has not yet been decided, the government could cover the cost of First Republic’s losses or offer liability protection to companies involved in a deal.

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Commentary: The Problematic Rise of ‘Media Literacy Education’

RealClearWire

New Jersey is enlisting public-school teachers and librarians to show children how to combat what it calls the grave threat of disinformation.

“Our democracy remains under sustained attack through the proliferation of disinformation,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in signing the nation’s first law mandating “information literacy” instruction for all K-12 students. The law, which aims to provide students with the “critical thinking” skills necessary to differentiate between “facts, points of view, and opinions” will, Murphy proclaimed, ensure “that our kids … possess the skills needed to discern fact from fiction.”

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Two Foreign Countries Join Forces in $10 Billion Lawsuit Against U.S. Gun Manufacturers

Georgia Star News Staff

The Bahamas joined Mexico Wednesday to appeal a federal judge’s November decision to dismiss a $10 billion lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers for deaths caused by firearms, according to EyeWitness News.

Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis announced the decision, saying the firearms used to commit violent acts in his country are manufactured by American firearm companies and illegally trafficked across borders, according to EyeWitness News. The appeal follows a November ruling in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts where a federal judge dismissed Mexico’s lawsuit against gun manufacturers Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. and Sturm, Ruger & Co.

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Biden Administration Attempting to Bail Out Moderna

Georgia Star News Staff

The pharmaceutical company Moderna, which has already received over $10 billion in taxpayer funds for the development of its COVID-19 vaccine, could receive even more public money at the request of the Biden Administration.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, lawyers with the Department of Justice (DOJ) offered in court filings last month to “relieve” Moderna of any liabilities it may face as the result of a lawsuit claiming that the company has not paid licensing fees for the technology it utilized to develop its vaccine for the Chinese coronavirus.

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Mayorkas Launches Program to Combat Fentanyl Smuggling at the Border

Georgia Star News Staff

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the launch of a program to combat the surge in illicit fentanyl smuggling at the southern border.

Mayorkas announced “Operation Blue Lotus” Tuesday during a visit to the Port of Nogales, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has made large fentanyl seizures, to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) agents to the ports to help collect intelligence on drug cartels to create criminal cases against them. CBP illicit fentanyl seizures at the southern border for fiscal year 2023 are on pace to surpass fiscal year 2022’s seizure of roughly 14,000 pounds of the synthetic narcotic.

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Commentary: The Origin of American Exceptionalism

Georgia Star News Staff

Today, saying that America is exceptional has become a controversial statement. With the claim that America is a deeply racist and terrible country, American exceptionalism is lambasted as a myth.

But few today know the origins of American exceptionalism and its place as the main storyline of U.S. nationalism. And yet, it’s only by examining the history of this idea that we can have an informed opinion on the issue. So, what is the history of American exceptionalism?

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House Administration Chair Warns Hyperpolitical DAs: Weaponize the Law, Lose Federal Funding

Just the News

Amid the Manhattan district attorney’s reported planning to arrest former President Trump next week under a novel legal interpretation of a state law against falsifying business records, Chairman of the House Administration Committee Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.) issued a blunt warning Monday to hyperpolitical big city district attorneys: Any federal funding their offices receive may be at risk if they are abusing their prosecutorial power to settle political scores rather than fight violent crime.

“Often the federal government is funding and providing resources to prosecutors across the United States,” Steil told the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “The purpose of that is to make our cities safer. If we find out through this investigation that instead those are being used to weaponize DAs across the country with a purpose of grinding a political ax rather than making our communities safer, we’re gonna have to go back into the funding model.”

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Trump Grand Jury Hearing Canceled Ahead of Possible Indictment: Reports

Just the News

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office reportedly canceled the grand jury meeting scheduled for Wednesday in the case against former President Donald Trump, who faces a possible indictment in connection to alleged hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

The jurors are on standby for Thursday, according to multiple media reports.

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Memos from 2018-19 Shake Up Trump Case: Cohen Denied Having Incriminating Evidence on Hush Money

Just the News

An attorney who advised disgraced Trump organization lawyer Michael Cohen provided Manhattan prosecutors with voluminous documentation, including contemporaneous emails and memos, purporting to show that in 2018 Cohen wanted Donald Trump to help cover his legal bills and repeatedly claimed he had no evidence incriminating the former president in a hush money deal with porn actress Stormy Daniels.

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Janet Yellen Says More Bank Bailouts Could Be on the Horizon

Georgia Star News Staff

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in remarks Tuesday that regulators may ensure all deposits at more banks following the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank depositor bailouts.

Yellen said the bailouts were essential to safeguard the U.S. banking system in prepared remarks at the American Bankers Association Tuesday, referencing the Federal Reserve’s actions in insuring the deposits of SVB’s customers.

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Parent Groups ‘Fed Up’ with Striking Los Angeles Unions ‘Using Kids as Pawns’

Susan Berry, PhD

Parent groups in California and those specifically in Los Angeles are enraged that tens of thousands of staff and teachers of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) went out on strike Tuesday, demanding higher pay and increased staffing in district schools.

“Parents are fed up with LAUSD unions using kids as pawns in contract negotiations,” tweeted Parent Union (CPC), a coalition of parents, parent groups, education reform advocates and community leaders dedicated to advancing meaningful education policies, accountability and choice in California’s K-12 education system.” 

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TikTok Tracking Code Has Infected Many State Government Websites: Report

Georgia Star News Staff

Tracking code created by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance Ltd. has been discovered in 30 state government websites, Feroot Security says, according to the Wall Street Journal.

This type tracking code, or “pixel” is commonly placed by website administrators to track the results of advertising on TikTok, the outlet reported. Using data gathered in January and February, Feroot Security revealed such pixels in 30 websites maintained by 27 states, some of which have banned TikTok from their government networks and devices.

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Trump Seeks to Bar Georgia DA from Charging Him amid Possible New York Arrest

Just the News

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team filed a petition on Monday with a Georgia state court to bar the Fulton County district attorney from pressing charges against him.

Trump attorney Drew Findling submitted the filing to the Superior Court of Fulton County, asking that DA Fani Willis be barred from further involvement in the ongoing investigation and that a grand jury report regarding Trump’s attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 election in the state be “quashed.”

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Commentary: A Trump Arrest Imperils the American Idea

Georgia Star News Staff

Peril awaits the America I love if the 45th president of the United States is arrested or even “just” arraigned. When a former American president is targeted by the politically despicable woke, we all face disaster.

We have rules in the American game. Most of those rules are set forth explicitly in our Constitution, its amendments, and two centuries of binding judicial opinions interpreting, adding to, or deleting rules. One might call those rules “America’s Written Law.” And then there are unwritten rules one might call “America’s Oral Law,” the traditions that have been handed down from generation to generation. How can we know what these Oral Laws of America are if they are not written anywhere? We just do.

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Wyoming Passes Bill to Ban Men from Women’s Sports, Becoming 19th State Overall to Do So

Georgia Star News Staff

A new bill has passed in the Wyoming state legislature forbidding biological men from competing in women’s sports, thus making Wyoming the 19th state in the country to pass such legislation.

Breitbart reports that the bill will become law without the signature of Governor Mark Gordon (R-Wyo.), who refused to veto it but also would not sign it. In a letter to Secretary of State Chuck Gray (R-Wyo.), Gordon described the legislation as “discriminatory” and “overly draconian.” Gordon also claimed that the bill “pays little attention to fundamental principles of equality.”

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U.S. Bishops Warn Against Catholic Doctors Performing ‘Gender Transition Procedures’

Georgia Star News Staff

U.S. Catholic bishops urged medical professionals to not perform gender transition surgeries, warning that they are not a “not morally justified” practice, according to a Monday statement.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) released its statement titled “Doctrinal Note On The Moral Limits To Technological Manipulation Of The Human Body” Monday to address the recent controversy surrounding transgender ideology within the church. The bishops acknowledged the benefits of modern technology in the medical field, but also said that some of the results of technological advancement can inhibit the “true flourishing of the human person.”

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Commentary: The Things Students Are Learning After They Left Public Schools During Pandemic

Georgia Star News Staff

The education disruption caused by mass school closures and prolonged remote instruction beginning three years ago this month led many families to seek other learning options beyond an assigned district school. Emerging research reveals just how significant and sustained that shift was.

In a new report, “Where the Kids Went: Nonpublic Schooling and Demographic Change during the Pandemic Exodus from Public Schools,” Stanford economist Thomas Dee reveals that more than 1.2 million students left district schools during the pandemic response. That exodus endured throughout the 2021/2022 academic year, as families continued to opt for private schools and homeschooling even though most district schools reopened. 

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‘People Will Die’: Drug Shortages Rock Medical Industry

Georgia Star News Staff

The U.S. is experiencing its worst drug shortage in 10 years due to manufacturing issues and plant closures, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists told Axios.

The shortage has impacted several drugs that are used to treat cancer, according to Axios. Issues caused by manufacturing and quality control problems are exacerbated by a lack of alternative options for acquiring some of these drugs, industry experts told the outlet.

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Diversity Dean Who Derailed Law School Speaker Event Placed On Leave

Admin

An elite Stanford Law School (SLS) dean who berated a federal judge during a speaker event earlier this month was placed on leave, the school announced on Tuesday. Federal Judge Kyle Duncan attempted to deliver remarks about COVID, Twitter and guns on the California campus on March 9 but was repeatedly interrupted by student hecklers. SLS Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Tirien Steinbach responded to his request for an administrator to help silence the room, but instead took the podium to accuse Duncan of causing “harm” and questioned if his speech was worth delivering.

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John Solomon Sues DOJ, National Archives over Access to Declassified Trump-Russia Probe Memos

Just the News

Just the News Editor-in-Chief John Solomon on Tuesday sued the Justice Department and National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), alleging they have wrongly kept from public inspection hundreds of pages of documents chronicling the FBI’s bungled Russia collusion probe that were declassified by former President Donald Trump. Solomon’s suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. with help from the nonprofit America First Legal public interest law firm. It alleged that the two federal agencies were violating the Presidential Records Act by keeping the declassified Russia probe documents out of the Archives’ official collection for the Trump presidency.

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California School District Hires CRT Critic Consultant to Teach Staff, Parents, and Students

Susan Berry, PhD

The governing board of the Temecula Valley Unified School District (TVUSD) in California has voted 3-2 to approve a consulting contract with an anti-Critical Race Theory (CRT) attorney who will educate teachers, parents, and students about the ideology and the “myth” of systemic racism.

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Detransitioned Teen to Sue Doctors Over Puberty Blockers, Double Mastectomy

Susan Berry, PhD

A detransitioned 18-year-old girl has filed a letter of intent to sue a healthcare company and the doctors who gave her puberty-blockers, at age 12, and then removed her breasts a year later.

Layla Jane claims Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, the Permanente Medical Group, and the doctors who treated her rushed her into transgender medical treatments without proper informed consent.

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‘Six Smoking Guns’: Doctor-Turned-US-Senator Roger Marshall’s Reasons for His Wuhan Lab Leak Theory

Just the News

Long before key components of the intelligence community acknowledged they believed COVID-19 came from a lab leak, Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall had drawn a bull’s-eye around the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Marshall, a doctor turned politician, argued early and often that the virus’ emergence and genetic characteristics did not seem like those of a naturally evolving animal-to-human virus. But senators like him and Kentucky Republican Rand Paul were marginalized and even demeaned early on by detractors ranging from Dr. Anthony Fauci to TV comedian Stephen Colbert.

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States Push for Harsher Fentanyl Penalties amid Uptick in Overdose Deaths

Admin

Several states are advocating for harsher fentanyl penalties as overdose deaths surge in the U.S.

Nevada, Oregon, Alabama, Texas, West Virginia and South Carolina have all pushed to increase the length of sentences for fentanyl dealers, according to the Associated Press. Fentanyl is largely responsible for the more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths that occurred in 2021 up from 93,331 drug overdose deaths in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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New York Attorney General Hosts Drag Queen Story Hour with Drag Group Receiving City Contracts

Susan Berry, PhD

The attorney general of New York State hosted a drag queen story hour event for young children in New York City to protest a perceived “rise in anti-LGBTQ+ protests, rhetoric, and policies.”

In a press statement following the event Sunday, James’ office said “nearly 200 guests enjoyed four back-to-back Story Hours hosted by the Drag Kings, Queens, and Royalty of Drag Story Hour NYC at The Center, which has been a home and resource hub for the LGBTQ+ community and allies since its founding in 1983.”

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Programs, Awareness Campaigns Not Stopping Railroad Crossing Crashes

The Center Square

As freight trains grow longer and more frequently block railroad crossings, federal dollars are going toward removing grade crossings.

“A lot of organizations and agencies have education and awareness campaigns to stay off the tracks, but every year thousands of people still walk along and across tracks and many are killed or injured,” Benjamin Dierker, the executive director of the Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure, told The Center Square via email.

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Commentary: Donald Trump, American Dissident

Admin
President Donald J. Trump prepares to sign a plaque placed along the border wall Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021, at the Texas-Mexico border near Alamo, Texas.

Donald Trump has had an unusually long and dramatic tenure at the center of American politics. The reason is simple: Trump has an indomitable personality and an abiding refusal to kowtow to the establishment’s sacred cows. From the moment he entered the arena, he continuously provoked the ruling powers into a hysterical frenzy of breathless rage. Indeed, it’s hard to think of another American political figure who has caused more chaos, or faced more concerted and unscrupulous opposition.

Only days ago, Trump sent his enemies up a wall with a blistering statement calling for an immediate end to the war in Ukraine, which he dared to call a “proxy battle,” and not the moral crusade for “democracy” that busybodies in both parties in Washington have described ad nauseam. America’s most dangerous foes are not in Russia, Trump said, but right here at home. Patriotic Americans are under siege by corrupt, “godless” tyrants who want to flood their neighborhoods with foreigners, force “Marxist” ideology on them and their children, and let politically protected criminals run amok, Trump said.

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Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Once Vaunted as the Best in the Word, Stanford University’s Wayward Record is Growing Infamous

Admin

Stanford was once one of the world’s great universities. It birthed Silicon Valley in its prime. And along with its nearby twin and rival, UC Berkeley, its brilliant researchers, and teachers helped fuel the mid-20th-century California miracle.

That was then. But like the descent of California, now something has gone terribly wrong with the university.

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‘Sustainable’ Electric Cars Are Getting Junked Over Minor Damage

Admin

Insurers are being forced to write off many electric vehicles with only minor damage to battery packs, sending the batteries to scrap yards and hindering the climate benefits of going electric, Reuters reported.

Battery packs typically represent roughly half the cost of an electric vehicle, sometimes costing tens of thousands of dollars, often making it more economical for insurers to consider a car as totalled than replace a battery pack, according to Reuters. While many carmakers, including Ford and GM, told Reuters that their battery packs were repairable, many are unwilling to share key data with third-party insurers to help assess damage.

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Top Mueller Probe Attorney Turned Powerful FBI Office Into a Place of Dysfunction, Fear: REPORT

Admin

Former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann, who later became a leading figure in former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, negatively impacted the FBI general counsel’s office’s culture during his tenure there, his immediate successor alleged, according to Politico.

During a trial this month for an unsuccessful gender discrimination lawsuit against the FBI, former bureau General Counsel Jim Baker described starting his tenure and discovering a fearful office atmosphere left by Weissmann, who was general counsel from 2011 to 2013, the outlet reported. Baker said the office’s personnel “didn’t tell each other what they were doing,” claiming the issue was “inherited from Andrew” and mentioning “negativity that flowed from” him.

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Inflation Continues to Outpace Wages, Data Shows

The Center Square

Inflation has outpaced wages for nearly two years, recently released federal data shows.

A closer look at federal wage and pricing data shows workers are making less overall as the price for all kinds of goods and services rise faster than average hourly wages.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks “real” average hourly earnings, which are wages of Americans with rising inflation taken into account.

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Nikki Haley Still Silent on Possible Trump Indictment

Admin

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has remained silent on the potential indictment of former President Donald Trump, while several of her 2024 opponents – and potential opponents – have weighed in.

Conservative businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence have spoken out against the Manhattan District Attorney’s political agenda they allege is behind the targeting of the former president. Their comments come after Trump announced on Truth Social that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday.

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Texas, U.S. Officials Warn Americans Not to Travel to Mexico as Cartel Violence Escalates

The Center Square

The U.S. State Department and Texas Department of Public Safety have warned Americans not to travel to Mexico because of escalating cartel violence. While some news reports have suggested the warnings were for spring break, the warnings have been issued since at least last August and remain indefinite.

They’ve also been issued after more than 550 Americans have been reported and remain missing in Mexico.

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Commentary: The Universities I Knew in Soviet Russia Valued Merit More than Some American Schools Do Today

Admin

Walking near Temple University, I noticed a flyer advocating for “socialism in our lifetime.” The message from an outside group reads in full, “Socialist Revolution: Join the fight for socialism in our lifetime.” Having grown up in Soviet-era Ukraine and now a tenured professor at Temple, I feel strongly that most college-age Americans do not understand what they are saying when they advocate for socialism. 

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Commentary: Connecting Dots from COVID to SVB and Beyond

Admin

A collection of seemingly random crises can spell out a sinister “conspiracy theory” when you consider their connections and where they are leading. An overplayed plot? Perhaps, but how many so-called conspiracy theories have proven to be reality recently?

First, the world economy shut down with the COVID lockdown. Manufacturing stopped and capital construction projects were put on hold. No one was making anything, and consumers were buying very little. 

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In New Record, Biden Requests Billions to Advance Gender Agenda Worldwide

The Center Square

President Joe Biden’s 2024 budget proposal requests billions of dollars to advance his gender and sexuality agenda around the world, allocating far more taxpayer dollars to that than dozens of other spending priorities, such as stopping fentanyl from being smuggled across the southern border.

Biden’s budget request for this issue in particular has more than doubled in the last two years. In the past, that focus would have been almost entirely on women and young girls. In recent years, though, advancing women’s rights across the globe is sharing the focus, and the funds, with the president’s gender agenda.

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Meta Launches Paid Verification Service

Just the News

Meta on Friday launched a paid verification service for Facebook and Instagram that offers a profile badge and identity monitoring services in exchange for subscription fee.

While the company will not charge fees to existing verified accounts, others seeking verification must pay $11.99 per month on the web or $14.99 per month on mobile device, according to The Hill.

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Pfizer Recalls Millions of Pills over Risk of Child Poisoning

Admin

Pfizer recalled more than four million packages of Nurtec ODT Thursday due to the risk of child poisoning, according to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

Pfizer is recalling the migraine medicine because it is currently in a blister packet, which is not deemed “child resistant” and therefore poses a potential risk to children. For a package to be child resistant, it must be significantly challenging for a child under five to open it, according to CPSC.

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Mexican Leaders Mount ‘Deception Campaign’ to Deny Fentanyl Involvement as GOP Seeks Cartel Crackdown

Admin

Mexico is running a “deception campaign” to deflect blame for America’s fentanyl epidemic as Republican lawmakers ramp up calls to target cartels, former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Operations Division chief Derek Maltz told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Top Mexican officials, including the country’s president Andres Manuel López Obrador, have in recent days attempted to shift the blame for fentanyl production in their country. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported seizing 11,000 pounds of fentanyl between October 2022 and February 2023 at the southern border.

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