Inflation Continues to Outpace Wages, Data Shows

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

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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Pfizer Recalls Millions of Pills over Risk of Child Poisoning

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

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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Over 1.6 Million Border Apprehensions, Gotaways to Date This Fiscal Year

More than 1.6 million foreign nationals have been apprehended or reported evading law enforcement officers after illegally entering the U.S. in fiscal 2023 through February, according to Customs and Border Protection apprehension data and gotaway data obtained by The Center Square.

When reporting February enforcement data, CBP stated nationwide total encounters for fiscal 2023 through February totaled 1,285,056, excluding gotaways.

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Medical School Under Federal Investigation over Its Allegedly Racist Scholarship Program

The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) launched a federal investigation March 6 into St. Louis University (SLU) after a complaint was filed accusing the school of offering a racially discriminatory scholarship, medical watchdog group Do No Harm reported.

The complaint, filed by Do No Harm senior fellow Mark Perry in September, accused SLU School of Medicine’s Scholarship Program for Visiting Medical Students Underrepresented in Medicine violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits race-based discrimination, because it is only accessible to students that identify as a specific race, the OCR letter reads. The office “will investigate whether the University discriminates against students based on race, color, or national origin in connection” with the program.

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Pence Tells Iowans U.S. Must Continue to be ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ in Ukraine

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Taking a different position than his old boss on a key foreign policy issue, former Vice President Mike Pence told a gathering of Iowans Saturday that the U.S. must continue to help provision Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression. While he repeatedly trumpeted “Trump-Pence” successes, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate definitely differs with potential top presidential race rivals, former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, on U.S. involvement in the war-torn European country.

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FBI, DOJ Investigating TikTok Parent over Surveillance of Americans: Report

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are investigating Chinese company ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, for surveilling Americans, according to Forbes.

The DOJ Fraud Section and the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia subpoenaed information from the company about its employees’ efforts to access the location and other private information of American journalists through TikTok, Forbes reported, citing an anonymous source. The FBI is conducting interviews on the same subject.

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Republican Lawmakers Unveil New Plan to Spike Biden’s Student Loan Bailout

Several Republican lawmakers announced on Friday that they will introduce a Congressional Review Act (CRA) to reverse President Joe Biden’s attempt to cancel student loan debt, according to a press release sent to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, John Cornyn of Texas and Joni Ernst of Iowa made the announcement shortly after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) ruled that the CRA, a congressional oversight tool to reverse rules by federal agencies, can be used to counter the Biden administration’s student loan cancelation proposal, according to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions’ press release. The senators argue that the plan does not cancel debt, but shifts the burden to the taxpayers.

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Virginia Bill Would Expand Tax Credit for Farmers Donating Crops

As thousands of Virginia families grapple with food insecurity, the state could soon renew and expand tax credits for farmers who donate surplus crops to nonprofit food banks under a bill sent to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk this session. 

Before the close of this year’s legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill that would allow farmers who donate food crops or “wholesome food” to a nonprofit food bank in the commonwealth to claim a tax credit equal to 50% of the fair market value of such donation. In total, each farmer could claim a maximum of $10,000 in tax credits for donations starting in the 2023 tax year. The bill has a sunset date of Jan. 1, 2028. 

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Commentary: The Way Government Lost 15 Million Acres of Public Land in the United States

Leave it to the United States Government to lose track of almost three states worth of public land. Only an institution with so little incentive and ability to allocate resources for the betterment of human wellbeing could instantiate such a catastrophic waste of potential.

The following is a story of an engineer named Eric Siegfried, a Montana man who caught public officials in almost unimaginable levels of incompetence and waste. It is also a cautionary tale about the way extreme misallocations of resources are the predictable outcome of America’s current form of land use governance, which systematically severs control over certain resources from anyone equipped to use them rationally and effectively.

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Investigators Release Details on Bank Record Trail Leading from China to Biden Family

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky) on Thursday released a summary of the first bank records showing how a $3 million payment from a Chinese company came into the United States, was broken up and eventually infused $1.3 million into the accounts of President Joe Biden’s family members. “Pursuant to a subpoena, the Committee recently obtained financial records related to Mr. John Robinson Walker, a Biden family associate, and his company Robinson Walker, LLC,” Comer’s committee reported in a new memo summarizing its investigative findings.

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Virginia Rep. Calls to Shrink Federal Bureaucracy and Administrative State in Midst of Financial Crisis

Virginia GOP Congressman Ben Cline says that in order for the country to get back on track in terms of finances, the federal bureaucracy needs to shrink and power must go back to the people. 

“We’re going to keep working to make sure that we shrink the bureaucracy and the administrative state by balancing the budget,” Cline said on the Tuesday edition of the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “The RSC is going to put forward a balanced budget here in the next few weeks that counters the Biden administration’s budget.”

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Foreign Actors Suspected in Hack of D.C. Obamacare Exchange, Theft of House Members’ Personal Data

A malign foreign actor could be behind the theft of personally identifiable information of hundreds of House members and staff in the hack of an Obamacare health insurance exchange in the nation’s capital, according to the chair of the House Administration Committee.

Lawmakers and their staff were notified a few days ago by the House chief administrative officer of the hack of the D.C. Health Link exchange.

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Illegal Migrant Apprehensions Drop as Biden Ushers in Trump-Era Policies: Report

Illegal migrant apprehensions dropped in February as the Biden administration brought back Trump-era immigration policies, CBS News reported Tuesday, citing internal federal data.

Border Patrol recorded approximately 130,000 illegal migrant apprehensions in February, marking the continuation of a two-year low that began in January, according to CBS News. President Joe Biden expanded in January the Trump administration’s use of Title 42 to expel illegal migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua.

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Treasury Department Agrees to Hand over Hunter Biden Files

The House Oversight Committee said Tuesday that the U.S. Treasury Department is providing the investigatory committee with access to Hunter Biden’s Suspicious Activity Reports after months of delay.

The revelation is the latest chapter in the committee’s ongoing investigation into the president’s son and his associates. The lawmakers concerned with the issue argue the president could be compromised if foreign sources have knowledge of his or his son’s alleged wrongdoing.

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Biden Admin Shot Down Purchase Attempts for Failed Bank, Former Trump Official Says

A former economic adviser to former President Donald Trump said Monday that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) prevented several efforts to purchase Silicon Valley Bank. Federal regulators shut down Silicon Valley Bank Friday after its stock price collapsed and customers began a bank run following the financial institution’s disclosure of a $1.8 billion loss on asset sales due to high interest rates, CNBC reported. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) also shut down Signature Bank Sunday, citing “systemic risk,” CNBC reported separately.

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Teachers, Activists Push School Districts to Drop Calculus in the Name of Equity

Teachers and activists are pushing for high schools to drop their calculus courses to increase equity as many minority and low-income students don’t have access to the class, according to The 74, a nonprofit news organization covering education.

In the 2017-2018 school year, 76% of schools with “low student of color enrollment” offered calculus while 52% of schools with a high proportion of students of color offered the advanced math course, according to a Learning Policy Institute report. The course, teachers and activists argued, is disproportionately offered to students not of an underrepresented group, giving other students an advantage in the college admissions process, according to The 74.

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Biden Approves ConocoPhillips Oil Project Over Green Group Objections

The Biden administration formally approved Willow, an $8 billion oil drilling project located in Alaska, Monday morning over the objection of climate activists who lobbied heavily against it.

The massive project, operated by American energy firm ConocoPhillips, is projected to produce roughly 600 million barrels of oil over a 30-year lifespan, The New York Times reported. In a bid to placate environmentalists, the administration had considered limiting the project to just two drill sites, down from the five that ConocoPhillips initially proposed, but the company and Alaskan lawmakers warned that the project would need at least three to be economically viable, according to CNN.

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Catholic Civil Rights Group Condemns State Legislation to Force Priests to Break Seal of Confession

Bills in the states of Vermont, Delaware, and Washington would include in mandatory reporting laws information about child sexual abuse a priest learns during the Sacrament of Reconciliation, a move the Catholic League states lacks sound reasoning.

Last week Catholic League President Bill Donohue warned the “seal of confession” is “under fire” in Vermont, noting the Catholic civil rights organization is once again “doing battle with lawmakers who want to violate” the priest-penitent privilege, mostly in legislation concerning the sexual abuse of minors.

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Smugglers Are Using Drones to Spy on Agents, Border Patrol Says

The U.S. Border Patrol said that smugglers are using drones to spy on its agents along the U.S.-Mexico Border between San Diego and Tijuana.

“They’re gathering intelligence, they’re doing counter-surveillance on our agents, they’re trying to see our work patterns, how many agents and what they’re doing,” said Border Patrol Agent Diana Ibarra in a recent bulletin published by the federal agency. “They’re working to try and find any possible vulnerability and exploit those.”

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Commentary: Please, No More America-Hating Diplomats

It would be illogical to put a Quaker, whose religion forbids violence, in charge of recruitment for the Marines. So why would we ask someone who despises the U.S. economic system in charge of recruiting American diplomats?

Yet, recently, at an Atlantic Council seminar, the deputy director of the Rangel International Affairs Fellowship called capitalism “a common enemy.”

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Three More States Dropping Voter Data-Sharing Collective as Trump Rips ‘Fools Game for Republicans’

Three more red states — Florida, Missouri, and West Virginia — this week followed Louisiana and Alabama in withdrawing from a multistate data-sharing partnership that facilitates voter registration and maintenance of voter rolls, citing unmet concerns over protecting voter information and partisan influence at the nonprofit.

The latest withdrawals from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) came after the nonprofit’s board of directors rejected changes proposed by a bipartisan working group of several member states.

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Commentary: Medicaid Expansion Fails to Deliver on Promises

Medicaid expansion is failing states across the nation according to a recent Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) report. The report found states that have expanded Medicaid have faced more hospital closures than states that haven’t expanded the program. Of course, for years, advocates have claimed that expansion would be a necessary provision for financial health and job security for hospitals. Though, as suspected, data reveals the opposite. More accurately, non-expansion states have seen improved profitability, a larger bed capacity, and increased job growth. 

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House Freedom Caucus Names Its Price for a Debt Limit Increase

The House Freedom Caucus on Friday outlined the terms by which it might agree to vote for an increase to the debt limit amid a budgetary standoff between House Republicans and President Joe Biden with a looming deadline to avert an unprecedented default.

Announcing their plans in a press conference, the conservative bloc indicated they would support an increase in the debt limit after Congress enacted legislation both to cut current spending and cap future expenditures.

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U.S. Congress Asks Biden to Declassify Reports on COVID-19’s Orgin

by John Palomino   The United States Congress approved this Friday a bill that calls for the declassification of information from the country’s intelligence services on the origins of Covid-19. The bipartisan initiative goes to the table of President Joe Biden. After its authorization in the Senate on March 1, the House of…

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Virginia Officials Make Case to GSA for New FBI HQ

Gov. Glenn Youngkin and members of the Virginia congressional delegation made their case Thursday for why the Federal Bureau of Investigation should build their new headquarters in the commonwealth, arguing the location is a better fit than either of the sites under consideration in Maryland. 

Virginia officials made presentations to members of the General Services Administration and the FBI in Washington D.C. Thursday regarding a site in Springfield, Virginia, that is one of three locations under consideration for the FBI’s new headquarters. The other two locations under consideration are both located in Prince George’s County in Maryland. 

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House Votes to Overturn ‘Overreaching’ Biden Water Rule

The House of Representatives voted 227-198 Thursday to overturn the Biden administration’s “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule, which has been heavily criticized for broadening the definition of what are considered “navigable waters” subject to federal regulation under the Clean Water Act.

Republicans say the rule places a costly burden on landowners, ranchers, and farmers by claiming regulatory control over lands containing small streams and wetlands. All but one Republican, Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, voted to overturn the rule, with nine Democrats joining.

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Commentary: Government Censorship Agency Scrubs Disinformation Web Page About Its History Interacting with Social Media Platforms

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the censorship agency everyone has been talking about, has scrubbed its Misinformation, Disinformation and Malinformation (MDM) webpage, https://cisa.gov/mdm to remove any mentions of interacting with “appropriate social media platforms” to “route disinformation concerns”.

How malinformative, to use the agency’s jargon. Malinformation, per the agency, “is based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” By removing mentions and the context of the agency’s stated history of interacting with social media platforms, the agency is apparently attempting to mislead, harm and manipulate the public into believing it never did those things in the first place.

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Biden Administration Requires Diversity Pledge from Companies Seeking Decarbonization Funds

On Wednesday, the Biden Administration’s Department of Energy (DOE) announced a new plan for a $6.3 billion decarbonization fund that will only be available to companies that first submit a pledge to “diversity.”

According to the Daily Caller, companies can only apply for funding from the Industrial Demonstrations Program (IDP) after they submit a “Community Benefits Plan.” The plan must outline each individual company’s dedication to four policy goals of the administration: Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); investment in America’s workforce; engaging communities and labor; and implementing aspects of a plan called “Justice 40,” which pledges to spend at least 40 percent of federal spending projects focusing on minority communities that are allegedly disproportionately impacted by “pollution.”

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Latest ‘Rhetorical Game’ of Anti-Life Abortion Lobby: Sue Pro-Life States with Claim Women’s Lives Are at Risk Without Abortion

The latest scheme of the anti-life abortion industry is to encourage lawsuits against states that have largely banned the procedure with the apparent claim seriously at-risk women who reside in those states are being denied allowable emergency medical care because providers are afraid of professional and criminal consequences.

As The New York Times reported Monday, five women are suing the state of Texas with the claim they were denied emergency medical care, despite life-threatening risks to themselves and their unborn babies, because their medical providers refused to give the care necessary for their dire situations due to possible punitive consequences resulting from the state’s abortion ban.

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Biden Budget to Fund ‘Transgender’ Treatments for Veterans

The Biden Administration’s proposed budget for 2024 includes funding for genital mutilation surgeries and hormone treatments for veterans who think they are “transgender.”

As the Daily Caller reports, the budget proposal comes after the Department of Veterans Affairs was ordered to lift a 20-year ban on such transgender procedures in June of 2021, thus allowing such treatments to be covered by Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits.

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U.S. House Passes Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act

The GOP-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that prohibits federal bureaucrats from using their influence to censor speech or pressure social media companies to censor speech.

The Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act passed on a 219-206 vote. It broke along party lines according to The Hill and is seen as unlikely to advance in the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate.

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Gov. Glenn Youngkin: ‘I Don’t Think Biological Boys Should Be Playing Sports with Biological Girls’

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) delivered a straightforward response to a 17-year-old girl identifying as a boy who asked the governor about school restrooms and sports policies that place biological sex above gender identity.

During a CNN Townhall, Nico, a 17-year-old girl who identifies as a boy, asked Youngkin about his school policies requiring students to use the bathrooms and play on the athletic teams consistent with their biological sex.

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Florida Judge Strikes Down Biden Administration ‘Catch and Release’ Border Policy

A federal judge in Florida ruled Wednesday that the Biden Administration’s “catch and release” border policy is illegal.

Federal Judge T. Kent Wetherell, of the Pensacola Division of the Northern District of Florida, entered a 109-page ruling ruling that the policy that allows Border Patrol agents to release undocumented immigrants who cross the border to the United States instead of deporting them is illegal and “should be struck down.”

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Virginia’s Temporary COVID-19 Benefits Assistance Programs Ending Soon

Temporary benefits enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic attached to medical coverage and food assistance programs are set to end soon due to recent federal action, raising concerns from advocates about the impact the loss of additional support will have on Virginians. 

The recent passing of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 and the approaching May 11 end date for the federal COVID-19 public health emergency means the expiration of temporary benefits associated with several Virginia assistance programs, according to the Virginia Department of Social Services and the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services. 

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Red Cross Packets Show Migrants Where to Cross the U.S. Border

The American Red Cross has maps and guides for migrants to make the dangerous journeys to the U.S.-Mexico border, according to documents exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The map, which is part of a packet stamped with the International Committee of the Red Cross and American Red Cross logos, shows a list of resources, including hotels, clinics and shelters where migrants can get support in Mexico and Central America. The maps include clearly defined lines leading to cities along the U.S. border. The organization also has a guide to “self care” along the journey, which includes tips on how to survive the desert and disease, how to safely jump on trains, and how to obtain contraceptives.

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Virginia County Board Members Advance Plan to Hike Their Pay 45 Percent amid Police Shortage, Crime Surge

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to move forward with consideration of a proposal to give themselves salary increases of up to 45 percent, even as the county, located just outside of Washington, D.C., faces a shortage of police in the midst of a crime surge.

With inflation still high, county residents are facing real estate taxes that have risen 7 percent on average. In addition, Virginia counties assess the value of personal vehicles and send “personal property tax” bills that residents must pay each year. These bills are at record levels due to the high values of used vehicles.

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THREATTOSCOTUS2022: FBI Whistleblowers Say Threat Tags Were Used to Target Conservatives

What do school parents, Catholic attendees of Latin Mass and pro-life activists have in common? They’ve all been branded by the FBI as potential domestic terrorist threats in what whistleblowers say is a growing trend of using intelligence threat tags to enforce cancel culture.

The latest revelation came this past weekend when House Republicans released testimony from an FBI whistleblower who alleged colleagues in the bureau flipped a terrorist threat tag originally created to flag threats against pro-life Supreme Court justices into a signifier that anti-abortion protesters were somehow a threat.

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Former New York Times Science Editor Testifies Fauci ‘Not Too Pleased to Hear’ Virus May Have ‘Escaped from Research His Agency Had Funded’

The former science editor at The New York Times testified Wednesday morning before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic there is now strong evidence the COVID-19 virus escaped from a Wuhan lab, but that “powerful scientific officials, such as [Anthony] Fauci and [National Institutes of Health Director] Francis Collins, kept researchers “in line” with their natural origins narrative with the knowledge the scientists were dependent on government grants to continue their research.

In his testimony, Nicholas Wade, who not only served as former science and health editor at the Times, but also as former editor at Science and at Nature, quickly got to the heart of the matter: the campaign to suppress the lab leak narrative.

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Border: 205,000 Apprehensions, Gotaways in February as Gotaways Increase in West

More than 205,000 foreign nationals were apprehended or reported as gotaways after illegally entering the southwest border in February, according to preliminary data obtained by The Center Square from a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The agent provided the information on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation; it only includes Border Patrol data and excludes Office of Field Operations data.

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Commentary: The Difficult Truths About Unrenewable ‘Renewables’

Today in America, there are obvious disconnects between observable reality and the narratives we get from the corporate special interests controlling the news we consume, along with politicians who are supposedly elected to represent us.

This is nothing new. Elites have defined America’s destiny throughout its history. The only difference today is that the internet, despite ongoing crackdowns, still manages to deliver an unprecedented volume of contrarian perspectives to millions of people. We aren’t any freer or less manipulated today than we ever were, we’re just more aware of it.

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Civil Rights Commissioners Urge Speaker Kevin McCarthy to Hold Hearings on Title IX to Assure ‘Biological Sex’ is Protected

In a letter obtained by The Star News Network, four members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) are calling upon House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to hold hearings on the Biden administration’s “radical and legally unsupported proposals to change Title IX” to require that its prohibition on sex discrimination be interpreted to bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The letter, signed by USCCR Commissioners labor attorney Peter Kirsanow, University of San Diego law professor Gail Heriot, Public Interest Legal Foundation President J. Christian Adams, and South Carolina African American Chamber of Commerce CEO Stephen Gilchrist, asserts to McCarthy that the Biden Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has erred in its claim that the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County “requires that Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination be interpreted to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.”

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Biden Considers Adopting Trump-Era Immigration Policy He Once Criticized: Report

The Biden administration is considering detaining illegal migrant families after criticizing a similar program under the Trump administration, according to The New York Times.

The possible policy change would mean the Biden administration might be reversing course on its promises to end many Trump-era immigration policies, according to the NYT. Nothing has been finalized, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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GOP Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Wants to Fire ‘At Least Half the Federal Workforce’

Arguing that a lot of the U.S. government’s “civil service protections” for federal employees are unconstitutional, entrepreneur and 2024 GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has vowed to end public sector unions. 

“I take a strong view of Article Two of the Constitution,” Ramaswamy said in an interview at CPAC. “It says the president of the United States runs the federal government, runs specifically the executive branch of the federal government. That means, I think, a lot of those civil service protections are unconstitutional.”

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