Category: Policy

Teachers Union Had Hotline to Education Secretary on COVID Policy, Parents Had ‘No Voice’: Watchdog

Just the News

The country’s two largest teachers unions had direct access to the Education Department during the pandemic while parents had “no voice,” says a watchdog group of retired and former public servants.

Michael Chamberlin, the director of the group, Protect the Public’s Trust, made the claim in a recent episode of the “John Solomon Reports” podcast, saying research found “extensive coordination between … the two main teachers unions and high-level officials in the Department of Education,” namely the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.

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GOP Lawmakers Introduce Bill That Would Bar Biden from Invoking a ‘National Climate Emergency’

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Republican Texas Rep. August Pfluger and West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito introduced legislation Monday morning aiming to preempt any possible attempt by President Joe Biden to use emergency powers to circumvent congressional checks on his administration’s sweeping climate agenda.

“The Real Emergencies Act” would clarify that the president is unable to invoke emergency powers permitted by the National Emergencies Act, the Disaster Relief and Emergencies Act and the Public Health Service Act on the basis of a perceived climate change crisis. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other left-wing congressional lawmakers have called for Biden to declare a national climate emergency to further his administration’s aggressive climate agenda.

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With New Evidence, Congress Unmasks a Multi-Year Government Plot to Protect Biden, Sully Trump

Just the News

When the Justice Department discovered from journalists a storage locker containing evidence against ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a search was executed immediately.

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Maine House Democrats Pass Gov. Janet Mills’ Radical Late-Term Abortion Bill

Susan Berry, PhD

Democrat lawmakers in the Maine House narrowly voted Thursday night to approve Gov. Janet Mills’ (D) radical late-term abortion bill, one that Planned Parenthood spent heavily in Mills’ and other Democrats’ 2022 campaigns to bring to fruition.

LD 1619, dubbed “An Act to Improve Maine’s Reproductive Privacy Laws,” passed by a vote of 74-72 in the state House, but the Senate, which had been expected to vote to approve the measure on Friday and send it to Mills’ desk for signature, adjourned without doing so.

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Pentagon Nominees Blocked by GOP Senator Are Pushing Left-Wing Initiatives to Reshape Military

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Several of the military officers whose promotions are held up due to a senator’s fight with the Pentagon have supported left-wing cultural stances and diversity initiatives, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of social media posts, Pentagon materials and public footage.

Republican Alabama U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville has single-handedly blocked numerous officers’ confirmations in protest of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s directive that the military fund out-of-state travel for female troops seeking abortions, initiating a game of chicken between Tuberville and the Pentagon that shows no sign of stopping. Yet several of the candidates in line for promotion have a history of making political statements and backed or spearheaded internal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives related to race and sexuality, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of publicly available information.

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Texas’ Operation Lone Star: More Than 500 Buses Sent to Sanctuary Cities

The Center Square

Since Texas’ border security mission Operation Lone Star (OLS) launched more than two years ago, the multi-agency effort has led to the apprehension of nearly 400,000 foreign nationals who entered the U.S. illegally.

Since last April, Texas has sent over 500 buses of foreign nationals to six so-called sanctuary cities.

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Commentary: Taxation Without Representation Meets the 21st Century

Admin

Who is authorized to tax the income of a commuter who doesn’t commute? This question—born of the pandemic and currently pending before the Supreme Court of Ohio—could be coming to a tax bill near you, and soon.

Following the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020, government orders forced millions of employees to work from home instead of at their usual offices. These orders accelerated a trend which had already begun toward remote and hybrid work and—three years later—is all but entrenched.

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Virginia Looking to Spend COVID Relief Child Care Funds

The Center Square

Virginia has received more than $1 billion in COVID-19 relief funding for its child care sector since the beginning of the pandemic, and it continues to appropriate those funds as the deadline to disburse more than $763 million approaches.

The federal government apportioned $52.5 billion to the child care industry in three pandemic relief packages, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

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New National Coalition of Sheriffs Forms to Address Border Crisis

The Center Square

Following through on a pledge he made during his first border security summit in Arizona and ahead of his next border trip to Texas on Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday announced the creation of a new national coalition of sheriffs committed to working together to combat crime stemming from the border crisis.

More than 90 sheriffs from 24 states are part of the coalition. Notably absent from the list are Texas border sheriffs who’ve been combating border-related crime for years.

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California Bill Would Enable Therapists to ‘Emancipate’ 12-Year-Olds from Their Own Parents

Virginia Star Staff

On Tuesday, Democrats in the state of California advanced a bill that would allow therapists and other mental health “professionals” to have children forcibly removed from their homes and placed into state custody without the consent of the parents.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the State Senate’s Judiciary Committee approved Assembly Bill 665, which passed by a party-line vote. If the bill became law, children as young as 12 would be legally allowed to check themselves into state-run shelters with the unconditional approval of a therapist or counselor, and without the parents’ knowledge.

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U.S. 13-Year-Olds Show ‘Historic Declines’ in Math and Reading

Susan Berry, PhD

Math and reading achievement for 13-year-olds in the United States is at its lowest level in decades, according to test scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) examination, also known as the Nation’s Report Card.

According to results released Wednesday by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the average mathematics score for 13-year-olds plunged nine points between the 2019‒20 and 2022‒23 school years, while the average reading score declined four points over the same time period.

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Homeland Security Secretary Appoints AFT President Randi Weingarten to Security Council to Advise on Keeping Schools Safe from ‘Terrorism’

Susan Berry, PhD

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas announced Wednesday that American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten is among 20 new members appointed to his Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council (HSAPC), which seeks to advise the DHS secretary on “campus safety and security, improved coordination, research priorities, hiring, and more.”

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Biden Admin Gives Ford, Foreign Company Whopping $9 Billion Loan for EV Plants

Virginia Star Staff

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Thursday announced a conditional loan of up to $9.2 billion to a joint electric vehicle venture between Ford and Korean battery maker SK On.

When combined with state subsidies offered to the joint venture, known as BlueOval SK, the record-breaking loan means that taxpayers will be financing nearly the entire $11.4 billion investment by Ford and SK, according to Blomberg. The loan is the latest in a series of increasingly large offers from the DOE’s Loan Program Office (LPO), which had its lending authority surge to $400 billion — more than 10 times the $33 billion it has issued since 2009 —following the passage of President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.

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House of Representatives Votes to Censure Adam Schiff over Russia Collusion Hoax

Just the News

The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to censure California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff after previously failing to do so in an earlier vote.

The lower chamber rebuked the California lawmaker by a narrow 213-209 vote. Florida GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna had introduced the plan, citing Schiff’s vocal support of the now-thoroughly debunked Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

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Feds Catch More than 450 Known, Suspected Terrorists in Nine Months, Most at Northern Border

Virginia Star Staff

There have been hundreds of known or suspected terrorists apprehended at the northern and southern borders in the current fiscal year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. 

As foreign nationals illegally enter the U.S. and are apprehended, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Field Operations (OFO) agents screen them against a federal Terrorist Screening Dataset, which includes sensitive information about terrorist identities. It originated as a consolidated terrorist watch list “to house information on known or suspected terrorists, or KSTs, but has evolved over the last decade to include additional individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watch-listed individuals,” CBP states.

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Biden Admin to Spend Nearly $1 Billion on Green Upgrades for Fed Buildings

Virginia Star Staff

The Biden administration will spend nearly $1 billion upgrading more than 100 federal buildings with green technology like heat pumps and solar panels, using funds from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

The General Services Administration (GSA) — which manages the U.S. government’s properties —  is planning to make 100 federal facilities all-electric and 28 net-zero emissions, on a budget of $975 million,  according to The Washington Post. The GSA is hoping that will attract roughly another $925 million in private sector investment, bringing total funding to roughly $1.9 billion, in an effort to revamp 40 million square feet of federal property, which is roughly 20% of all buildings managed by the GSA.

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Virginia Senators Look to Permanently Expand Medicare Telehealth Services

The Center Square

Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner are cosponsoring bipartisan legislation to expand Medicare coverage of telehealth services and “make permanent telehealth flexibilities that were enacted during COVID.”

The federal government dictates how Medicare and self-insured plans cover telemedicine, whereas Medicaid and fully insured private plans fall within the purview of the states. 

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Virginia U.S. Rep. Wittman Introduces Legislation to Decrease Shark Depredation

The Center Square

Virginia U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA-01) is co-sponsoring legislation designed to decrease shark depredation to protect sharks from “unsafe conditions and food sources.”

Shark depredation occurs when sharks bite or consume marine animals that fishermen are trying to catch, which both recreational and commercial fishermen experience.

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Commentary: Trump Lawyers Targeted by Dark Money Group

Admin

Among the unusual features of last week’s arraignment of former President Trump in Miami involved the difficulty he had finding a qualified attorney to represent him in the classified documents case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. The corporate media inevitably made much of this issue. The Washington Post, for example, quoted various anonymous sources who claimed that Trump’s reputation as a “challenging client” caused several prominent lawyers to turn him down. In reality, the problem resulted from an intimidation campaign by a radical pressure group called the 65 Project, whose explicit mission is to ruin any lawyer willing to represent Trump.

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Chinese Intelligence Arm Quietly Operates ‘Service Centers’ in Seven U.S. Cities

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by Philip Lenczycki   A Chinese intelligence agency quietly operates “service centers” in seven American cities, all of which have had contact with Beijing’s national police authority, according to state media reports and government records reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) United Front Work…

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Lawmakers Demand Answers on Illegal Immigrant Child Labor as Universities Perpetuate Illegal Workforce System

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The House Education and the Workforce Committee is demanding answers from the Biden administration on child labor among illegal immigrants.

In a letter to Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Workforce Protections Subcommittee Chairman Kevin Kiley (R-CA) called on the Department to take action to stop migrants from being exploited for illegal child labor.

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Biden Picks Mandy Cohen to Serve as CDC Director

Just the News

President Joe Biden on Friday announced that he had selected former North Carolina Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen to serve as the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Dr. Cohen is one of the nation’s top physicians and health leaders with experience leading large and complex organizations, and a proven track-record protecting Americans’ health and safety,” Biden said in a statement, pointing to her management of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state and her role in expanding Medicaid.

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Nearly Half of U.S. States Now Have Measures Limiting Transgender Surgery for Minors, but Lawsuits Abound

Admin

At least 20 states have either restricted or banned transgender procedures for minors, with many of them facing lawsuits and temporary blocks by courts as a result, while future litigation is possible in states considering adopting such laws. 

The states that have enacted legislation against such procedures are: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia – essentially all conservative-leaning.

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Conservative CEO Will Give ‘Baby Bonus’ to Employees to Help Build Strong Families

Virginia Star Staff

As a response to woke corporations incentivizing employee abortions, one conservative CEO says he will offer his employees a $5,000 “baby bonus” to help sustain their families.

PublicSq. Founder and CEO Michael Seifert believes “strong families make a strong nation.” But when the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, he began witnessing a lot of companies grandly making “impassioned petitions to pay for their employees’ abortions.”

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Virginia Gov. Youngkin Signs ‘Historic’ Legislation to Improve Behavioral Health Care Access

The Center Square

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed 24 bills for improving behavioral health care access as part of the governor’s “historic” Right Help, Right Now plan.

The legislation is intended to improve insurance coverage for behavioral health in the commonwealth, while strengthening the behavioral health workforce and easing the strain on public safety.

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American Medical Association Pledges to Work with Activists to Push Child Sex Changes

Virginia Star Staff

The American Medical Association (AMA) pledged to ramp up its support for cross-sex medical interventions for minors with gender identity issues in a resolution its House of Delegates approved this week.

The AMA already supported cross-sex medical interventions for children, but the new resolution makes this stance more proactive in response to state-level restrictions on such procedures; it passed Monday, according to the Endocrine Society, which sponsored the resolution. The organization pledged to work with special interest groups to fight state and federal limits on cross-sex medical procedures, which it euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care.”

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Maine Democrats Kill Bill to Protect Fundamental Rights of Parents

Susan Berry, PhD

Democrats in the Maine House voted down a bill Thursday that would have guaranteed the “fundamental right” of parents “to make decisions regarding the upbringing, education and well-being” of their children.

Maine Senate Democrats had also previously voted against the measure, LD 1800 (SP 725), titled “An Act Regarding Parental Rights in Education.”

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Virginia AG Leads Coalition on Recommendations for Artificial Intelligence Governance

The Center Square

A bipartisan coalition of 23 attorneys general, co-led by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, submitted a letter advising the National Telecommunications and Information Administration on governance policies on artificial intelligence. 

As part of creating policy recommendations on AI, the NTIA invited policymakers and subject matter experts for expertise and commentary.

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Commentary: Almost Two-Thirds of Federal Arrests Involve Noncitizens

Virginia Star Staff

Customs and Border Protection encountered over 275,000 illegal aliens crossing our borders nationwide in April alone, setting a distressing precedent for increased illegal entries under the Biden administration. While the majority of illegal aliens seek a better life, the undeniable link between increasing illegal immigration and crime poses a significant threat to American communities.

President Joe Biden’s decision to grant mass parole for millions of aliens, allowing them to remain illegally in the United States, only amplifies the devastating effects of increased illegal immigration on our society.

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Commentary: Nashville Forensic Files

Virginia Star Staff

On March 27, in the run-up to “Trans Day of Vengeance,” Audrey Hale murdered six people at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. Nearly three months later, Hale’s manifesto is still under wraps but autopsies enable the youngest victims to testify. 

The nine-year-old Hallie Scruggs, daughter of Covenant Presbyterian pastor Chad Scruggs, sustained an “indeterminate range gunshot wound of the head,” that caused injuries to the scalp, left temporal bone, and left temporal lobe of the brain. Hale also targeted Scruggs with an “indeterminate range gunshot wound of the pelvis,” entering at the left lower abdomen and causing injuries to the left femoral artery, vein and soft tissue. 

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Pfizer COVID Vaccine Safety Report Identified Nearly 1.6 Million Adverse Events Early On

Virginia Star Staff

By June of  2022, Pfizer had identified over 10,000 categories of nearly 1.6 million adverse events, a recently-released safety update report shows. Pfizer’s pharmacovigilance documents were requested and released by the European Medicines Agency, the EU’s drug regulator, Conservative Review’s Daniel Horowitz reported on Wednesday.

The 396-page confidential Pfizer report, dated August 18, 2022, reveals that Pfizer was well aware its product was causing an unacceptable level of serious and debilitating injuries early on.

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The Trans Lobby Wants to Make It Illegal in Michigan to Talk a Child Out of a Sex Change

Virginia Star Staff

Transgender activists, hospitals and medical associations are pressuring lawmakers in Michigan to pass a “conversion therapy” ban that critics say would effectively prohibit therapists from helping gender-confused children come to terms with their natural bodies and biological sex.

If enacted, the ban would be another win for activists and their medical industry allies who have helped push more than 20 states to ban clinical attempts to change a minor patient’s “gender identity.” Critics say these laws silence and intimidate therapists who don’t automatically affirm young patients’ transgender status and put them on the medicalization track.

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Texas Gov Abbott Signs Bills Banning DEI in Public Higher Education, Reforms Tenure

The Center Square

Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday signed two bills into law designed to reform public higher education institutions in Texas. One bans them from implementing DEI policies and another revises the tenure structure. 

Both bills, authored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, passed the legislature during the regular legislative session. Senate Bill 17 bans public colleges and universities from implementing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies that prioritize gender, race, ethnicity and ideological beliefs as factors for hiring or admission policies. Earlier this year, Gov. Abbott’s chief of staff sent a letter to public higher education institutions and state agencies saying if they were implementing DEI policies, they were violating federal law. In response, the heads of Texas colleges and universities said they were “pausing” and reviewing their DEI policies. The new law requires them to terminate them.

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Medicaid Emergency Spending for Illegal Migrants Doubles in One Year to $7 Billion: GOP House

Just the News

Medicaid emergency spending for illegal immigrants more than doubled from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2021, according to House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green.

During a congressional hearing Wednesday on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ job performance, Green said more people have entered the U.S. illegally under his roughly two-year tenure “than in the 12 years of the Obama and Trump administrations combined.”

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Texas Sends First Bus of Illegal Border Crossers to Los Angeles

The Center Square

A bus of foreign nationals who illegally entered Texas and were apprehended and released by the Biden administration were taken to Los Angeles for the first time, Gov. Greg Abbott said. They were dropped off at the Los Angeles Union Station Wednesday evening.

“Texas’ small border towns remain overwhelmed and overrun by the thousands of people illegally crossing into Texas from Mexico because of President Biden’s refusal to secure the border,” Abbott said. “Los Angeles is a major city that migrants seek to go to, particularly now that its city leaders approved its self-declared sanctuary city status. Our border communities are on the frontlines of President Biden’s border crisis, and Texas will continue providing this much-needed relief until he steps up to do his job and secure the border.”

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Report: Intelligence Agencies Buying ‘Sensitive and Intimate’ Data of American Citizens

Virginia Star Staff

A recently-declassified report alleges that multiple U.S. intelligence agencies have been actively “flouting the law” by gathering massive collections of “sensitive and intimate” data on American citizens.

According to the New York Post, the claims were made in a report to Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines, which was only recently declassified and is now being amplified by watchdog groups and privacy advocates. The report details a loophole that has allowed intelligence agencies, including the FBI, DHS, and NSA, to simply buy large troves of cell phone data for tracking purposes without needing a warrant.

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Commentary: The EPA’s Proposed Carbon Capture and Storage Regulations Is a Trial Lawyer’s Dream

RealClearWire

In May, the US Environmental Protection Agency proposed new regulations that will require power plants to capture almost all their CO2 emissions, compress them, transport them via a network of pipelines, and store them underground. The plan is economic folly, but the problems go beyond money: CO2 injected underground may well escape into the atmosphere or contaminate underground water supplies, either of which could yield deadly results and create a feeding frenzy of litigation. The liability risks will be another nail in the coffin for the country’s reliance on fossil fuels to supply electricity, which in 2022 accounted for about 60% of all generation.     

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Movement to Decide Presidency by Popular Vote Gains States, Momentum But Also Faces Challenges

Just the News

The effort to change how the United States elects its presidents – from the existing Electoral College process to a national popular vote – is gaining momentum, but critics are questioning its legality and whether it improves the country’s election system. 

Sixteen states and Washington, D.C., have joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, with Minnesota being the latest and Michigan and Nevada considering it.

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Biden DHS Rewards Sanctuary Cities, NGOs with $290 Million

Virginia Star Staff

The Biden Administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has awarded over $290 million in taxpayer money to various “sanctuary cities,” as well as pro-illegal alien non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

As reported by Breitbart, the nearly $300 million was taken from the Shelter and Services Program (SSP), a federal initiative that is funded by the U.S. Congress. The money was divided among 34 different cities, NGOs, and other entities.

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USDA to Crack Down on False Labeling in Meat and Poultry Industry

The Center Square

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will be cracking down on false claims on labeling of meat claiming it is “grass-fed,” “free-range,” “raised without antibiotics,” or “no antibiotics ever.”

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has received petitions, comments and letters asking the agency to boost oversight of marketing claims made by the meat and poultry industry, the agency said Wednesday in a news release. The agency will then determine if it needs to do more rulemaking on the industry’s claims.

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GOP House Settles Rift, Returns to Conservative Agenda in Passing Bill Protecting Gas Stoves

Just the News

The rift with within the Republican House Conference that shut down floor votes last week appears to have been resolved enough for the chamber to resume voting, with the Tuesday passage of a marquee conservative bill to stop Biden administration initiatives to further regulate gas-powered stoves.

The Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act passed 248-180, after failing to get a final vote last week because 11 conservative-leaning conference members – in a nearly unprecedented move – blocked a preliminary procedural vote, essentially over what they considered House GOP leadership’s mishandling of the debt-ceiling agreement with Democrat President Joe Biden.

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Tennessee U.S. Rep Mark Green Says He Has Evidence That Some Chinese Migrants Are Tied To CCP, PLA

Admin

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green possesses evidence that some Chinese migrants that crossed the southern border illegally and were released into the U.S. under the Biden administration are connected to the Chinese Communist Party and China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), he told the Daily Caller News Foundation during a press conference Wednesday.

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Biden to Extend Stay for More than 300,000 Immigrants: Report

Virginia Star Staff

The Biden administration will extend the temporary legal status of roughly 337,000 immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal and Honduras, CBS News reported Tuesday.

Immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal and Honduras will be allowed to stay and work in the country for an additional 18 months under Temporary Protected Status (TPS), according to CBS News, which cited two current and former U.S. officials. TPS is granted due to either armed conflict, environmental disaster, an epidemic or other “extraordinary” conditions, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

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Illinois Finds 54 Percent Uptick in Abortions One Year After Dobbs Decision

Virginia Star Staff

Planned Parenthood of Illinois (PPIL) announced Monday that it had seen an increase in abortions by over 50% since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, according to a press release.

The Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022 that abortion was not a constitutional right and left the decision up to the states to enact their own laws on the issue. Nearly a year later, PPIL announced that clinics reported an increase in abortions by 54% with almost a quarter of the patients traveling out-of-state to get the procedure, according to the press release.

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Commentary: The Odious Practice of ‘Taxation by Citation’

RealClearWire

Poverty can be a jailable offense in Whitehall Village Court, a judicial outpost in upstate New York. Brandon Wood learned the hard way after pleading guilty to two misdemeanors in 2015.

His sentence included no incarceration, but he faced $555 in fines and fees. A wealthier defendant could have settled the tab on the spot and walked free, but Wood lacked the money. After failing to pay—for no reason other than insufficient funds—he found himself behind bars until his wife could appear in court and confirm his financial straits.

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The Marine Corps Is Waging ‘Civil War’ with a Secretive Group of Retired Officers Over the Service’s Future

Admin

The U.S. Marine Corps is facing fire from high-ranking retired officers as the outgoing commandant passes on responsibility to implement his radical changes to new leadership, according to experts and a review of arguments by current and retired Marines.

A secretive group of retired Marine Corps generals, including two previous commandants, renewed a years-long assault against what they characterized in multiple articles as dangerous narrow-mindedness underlying Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger’s plan to revamp the force, of which the latest update was released on Monday. As Berger is slated to depart by the end of this year and be replaced with his second-in-command, the service will face new struggles amid new leadership and political pressures, where the stakes could mean failure in a conflict with China, according to an expert and the retired officers.

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Whistleblowers: Biden’s Veterans Affairs Nominee Failed to Address Data Breaches

Just the News

President Joe Biden’s nominee for deputy secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department has been accused by at least one whistleblower of being involved in serious data security breaches, resulting in demands from watchdog groups for more information about the allegations before the Senate votes on whether to confirm her.

The nominee, Tanya Bradsher, currently serves as Veterans Affairs chief of staff. She was nominated to the position of deputy secretary by Biden in April.

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FDA Kicks Off Crackdown on ‘Dangerous’ Flavored Vapes Imported from China

The Center Square

Flavored, nicotine-packed vape products manufactured in China are becoming increasingly common among teenagers and raising health concerns.

The problem took off in February of 2020 after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration implemented a ban on the sale of many flavored vaping products, pushing compliant manufacturers out of the flavored market while some Chinese-based manufacturers continued to distribute and sell the now banned-products to American youth.

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