Pending SCOTUS Affirmative Action Ruling Could Affect Virginia College Admissions

As the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rule on the constitutionality of certain affirmative action policies in college and university admissions, a change to current precedent could affect admissions in Virginia.

Current Supreme Court precedent allows higher education institutions to give some weight to an applicant’s race, but that consideration cannot be the determinative factor in the student’s admission or non-admission. Although the commonwealth’s colleges and universities abide by this standard, many analysts expect that the Court, which now has a 6-3 conservative majority, could overturn or scale back that affirmative action precedent.

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IG Reports ‘Historic’ COVID Unemployment Funds Lost, Congress Investigates

Reports indicate as much as $400 billion in COVID-19 unemployment relief were likely lost to waste and fraudsters. Lawmakers want answers.

Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Labor demanding documents and information related to the unemployment fraud.

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VDOE Releases New Draft of History and Social Science Standards

The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) has published an updated draft of the History and Social Science Standards ahead of a Thursday Board of Education meeting. Beginning in the summer, Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration called for multiple delays to address technical concerns and to get input from voices that may not have contributed to the document under the previous Democratic administration.

“Every graduate from Virginia’s K-12 schools will possess a robust understanding of the places, people, events and ideas that comprise the history of Virginia, the United States and world civilizations. Our students will learn from the rise and fall of civilizations across time, so that we may pursue and maintain government and economic systems that have led to human achievement. The Virginia standards are grounded in the foundational principles and actions of great individuals who preceded us so that we may learn from them as we strive to maintain our political liberties and personal freedoms and thrive as a nation,” states an introduction to the standards.

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Commentary: Climate Amnesty Will Not Happen

“Let them eat cake,” famously attributed to Marie Antoinette by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, has become universal shorthand for a monarch’s total disregard for her famished citizens stealing and wreaking havoc in the streets to survive. World leaders are making the same faux pas this week at their opulent stay in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, for COP27, the United Nations’ climate change conference.  

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Commentary: Six Bold Ideas for Trump, Republicans to Rebound from 2022 Midterms

After an underwhelming midterm election, the Republican Party and its enigmatic leader Donald Trump find themselves in a political wilderness, much like Ronald Reagan did after losing the 1976 nomination.

The Biden Democrats with hiding Kathy Hochul and hobbled John Fetterman seemed as beatable as bumbling Gerald Ford, and yet somehow the Reagan and 2022 GOP teams lost the process even though polling data showed they had won the hearts of the faithful. And the despair of knowing a far left regime (Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden) might rule for another election cycle led many to throw hands up and point fingers.

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Mexican Government Uses Footage of Philadelphia Streets in Anti-Drug PSA

An anti-drug public service announcement in Mexico is deploying footage of homelessness and drug abuse on the streets of Philadelphia in order to illustrate its message.

The video, posted to Twitter by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador spokesman Jesús Ramírez, urges viewers to be aware of the “damage caused to health by the consumption of chemical drugs,” Ramírez wrote on Twitter.

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George Mason University Will Use Virtual Reality Simulations to Train Faculty on Implicit Bias

A new virtual reality program at George Mason University will help faculty learn how to fight racism and their “implicit bias.”

The university’s College of Health and Human Services announced plans for “training [that] will educate faculty to recognize and react to implicit bias and microaggressions through a [virtual reality] simulation.”

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DeSantis Gains Ground with Conservatives over Trump for 2024 Nominee: Poll

More Republicans and GOP-leaning independents say they would prefer Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to run for president in 2024 over former President Donald Trump, according to a new poll. 

While 35% of Republicans and Republican-leaners want Trump to run in 2024, 42% said they wanted DeSantis to run, according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll released Saturday. Even among those classified as “strong Republicans,” Trump is two points ahead of DeSantis for 2024 at 45% to 43%. 

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Real Estate Firm Owned by Chinese Billionaire Found Guilty of Paying $1 Million in Bribes to L.A. Councilman

A real estate firm in Los Angeles owned by a Chinese billionaire was found guilty of paying a city councilman more than $1 million in bribes to approve a skyscraper downtown. 

On Thursday, a jury found Shen Zhen New World I, a real estate firm owned by Chinese billionaire Wei Huang, guilty after less than three hours of deliberation. The charges included “three counts of honest service wire fraud, four counts of interstate and foreign travel in aid of bribery, and one count of bribery,” according to the Justice Department. 

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Commentary: America’s Electoral System Is Suffering from a Credibility Crisis

Defying all predictions of a photo finish senate race, Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman won 50.3% of the vote to Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz’s 47.3%. The unexpectedly large margin helped avoid a midterm meltdown. But don’t be deceived; that margin masks major electoral system dysfunction that remains unaddressed.

If the margins had been narrower, things might have looked very different. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf last year vetoed a commonsense measure that would have modernized Pennsylvania’s Depression-era voting laws. As a result, the Commonwealth is saddled with a ponderous mail voting system bolted onto a rickety election code that forbids routine practices like voter ID and pre-processing mail ballots. Those policies secure elections and speed tabulations, but were vetoed by Wolf last year.

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Border Patrol Lifts Vaccine Mandate for Personnel

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has ended the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for its personnel, according to a memorandum exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“CBP is halting the COVID-19 screening program, and employees may choose to withdraw their pending reasonable accommodation requests for screening exemption,” an internal CBP memorandum stated. National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd confirmed to the DCNF that both the vaccine mandate and testing requirements have been lifted.

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Disney Set for Layoffs After Billion-Dollar Earnings Miss

CEO Bob Chapek of Disney told executives that layoffs at the entertainment giant were likely, just days after a weak earnings report that missed expectations by over $1 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing an internal memo.

The email also announced a hiring freeze among other cost-saving measures including a request to limit travel without prior approval from executives, according to the WSJ. The company missed expectations for its fourth quarter earnings on Nov. 8 after losing nearly $1.5 billion on its Disney+ streaming service, nearly 40% worse than what analysts anticipated.

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REVIEW: The Book Climate Industrial Complex Doesn’t Want You to Read

When it comes to environmental policy, the only “solutions” coming from liberal politicians activists involve radically restructuring society and centralizing more power in the government — while, of course, handing out billions in tax dollars to politically-favored special interests.

Whether it’s the Paris climate accords, Green New Deal or the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act, these political schemes to remake the economy often end up enriching the climate industrial complex and empowering unelected, unaccountable bureaucracies.

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