A caravan of more than 1,000 migrants crossed illegally into El Paso, Texas, Wednesday as chaos erupted in recent days on the Mexican side in Juarez.
Agents apprehended the group, which was mostly comprised of Venezuelans, Wednesday, El Paso Border Patrol Chief Anthony Good said late Thursday. The incident follows chaos in Juarez, where nearly 40 migrants died Monday in a shelter fire.
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Joe Biden is dethroning King Dollar in real time. The US dollar’s financial dominance is under siege from a uniquely bad combination of foreign and domestic policies, and Americans should be deeply concerned by the fallout if the dollar loses its 80-year reign as the world’s reserve currency.
In just the past weeks, China conducted the first major LNG sale in renminbi instead of dollars, struck a major deal with Brazil to conduct trade in their own currencies, and just announced the sale of 65,000 tons of LNG to France denominated in yuan. This dovetails with the Biden administration’s inflationary policies and ham-handed sanctions on Russia that accelerated foreigners’ flight from the dollar at the very moment the world doubts if the dollar remains a safe and reliable store of value.
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Border authorities in the U.S. are expecting a further increase in the number of Chinese migrants crossing illegally at the southern border, and have identified key ways they are entering the country, according to an internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) document exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The document, which was circulated via an internal email to CBP personnel, warns of more Chinese nationals entering the U.S. via the southern border due to a broader message from smugglers about routes into the country. The document details key smuggling routes, and notes that the Chinese nationals are entering in higher numbers due to religious persecution against the Christian faith.
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The “energy transition” continues to receive thunderous applause from all the usual Beltway suspects, an exercise in groupthink fantasy amazing to behold. For those with actual lives to live and thus uninterested in silliness: The “energy transition” is a massive shift, wholly artificial and politicized, from conventional energy inexpensive (Table 1b and here), reliable, and very clean given the proper policy environment, toward such unconventional energy technologies as wind and solar power. They are expensive, unreliable, and deeply problematic environmentally in terms of toxic metal pollution, wildlife destruction, land use massive and unsightly, emissions of conventional pollutants, and in a larger context large and inexorable reductions in aggregate wealth and thus the social willingness to invest in environmental protection.
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The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found itself hoist with its own petard by making 25 basic statistical and numerical errors related to COVID-19, particularly with regard to children, while purporting to expose COVID vaccine misinformation, according to an analysis led by University of California San Francisco epidemiologists.
The preprint, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, documented 20 errors that “exaggerated the severity of the COVID-19 situation” and three that “simultaneously exaggerated and downplayed” severity, while one each was neutral or exaggerated vaccine risks.
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On Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland refused to commit to using federal resources to investigate Monday’s shooting in Nashville as a hate crime, despite the perpetrator’s clear motivations against the Christian victims.
The Daily Caller reports that the Nashville Police Department discovered “writings” in Audrey Elizabeth Hale’s home after the shooting, which suggested a “calculated and planned” attack. Addressing these reports, Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) noted during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing that the 28-year-old Hale “could have had collaborators.”
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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Thursday that he will not visit a small Minnesota town that was evacuated after a Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) train derailed and caught fire earlier that morning.
Raymond, Minnesota, residents who live within a half mile from the derailment site were evacuated after approximately 22 cars derailed and four caught on fire around 1:00 a.m. CST. The train was carrying mixed freight including ethanol and corn syrup.
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Ajay Banga, the former CEO of Mastercard that President Joe Biden has nominated to head the World Bank, told Axios Wednesday that both the bank and the private sector needed to spend “trillions” to combat both climate change and poverty.
Banga has been aggressively campaigning for the job, meeting with officials from 37 different governments in the past three weeks, Axios reported. The World Bank faces competing pressure from wealthy and developing countries over whether to focus on combatting climate change or poverty mitigation, but Banga said he does not view the two goals as inherently opposed to one another.
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Critics say a bill that would increase retirement benefits for beneficiaries of the state’s defined-benefit pension system could put the system’s financials in future jeopardy.
House Bill 239, which passed favorably through the House Appropriations Committee meeting on Tuesday, will increase retirement benefits for the 629,073 members of the Florida Retirement System and 151,913 current retirees.
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In 2016 Tennessee passed two new statutes with bi-partisan support that addressed the issue of whether Tennessee’s private schools, both K-12 and “higher education,” could establish their own policies with respect to whether and to what extent civilian possession of firearms would be prohibited on their campuses. These laws are codified at Tennessee Code Annotated Sections 49-50-803 and 49-7-161.
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S.686, the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act or the appropriately titled “RESTRICT Act” could be used to censor any website in America, not just TikTok.
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Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy blasted the U.S. Department of Education for creating “psychopaths” through gender ideology agendas while the nation’s schools are left unprotected from mass shooters like the one that terrorized a Nashville elementary school this week.
“The real question is why this psychopath in Nashville was able to get into the school in the first place,” the Ohio entrepreneur and anti-woke crusader wrote in a tweet. “We protect green pieces of paper in a bank with more armed guards than we do our kids in schools … There’s more security at a random mall than in a public school.”
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When the existence of the Disinformation Governance Board burst into public view, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said there was nothing sinister to hide and claimed the office was rooted in “best practices.”
A year later, Mayorkas’ department is refusing to let Americans see most of the legal justifications and talking points it created to defend the now-disbanded board from “blowback,” FOIA documents showed.
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Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear let a bill that allows parents to challenge sexually explicit school materials become law without his signature on Tuesday.
Senate Bill 5, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Josh Calloway, lets parents file complaints over school materials that depict sexual acts “in an obscene manner” or are “patently offensive to prevailing standards.” The legislation passed the state Senate in February and then the state House on March 15 before Beshear allowed the bill to become law.
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Political observers and partisan activists debate whether Donald Trump or some other Republican candidate has the best chance of beating a Democratic rival in the 2024 presidential election. But earlier this month, Trump demonstrated that just as he did in 2016, he is raising campaign issues central to America’s future, issues that no other candidate is talking about. The latest flare-ups of what have been nearly eight years of relentless, orchestrated prosecution of Trump are a massive distraction but don’t change this reality.
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Make no mistake about it, TikTok is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda machine living rent-free on the devices of 150 million Americans, and it’s putting our national security in jeopardy. This insidious app collects your data, surveils behavior, monitors user habits, and negatively influences our youth with an endless stream of addictive content.
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As more foreign nationals are caught attempting to illegally enter Florida and are repatriated to their country or port of origin, a new method to bypass law enforcement efforts by sea is underway by air: hang gliders.
On Saturday, two Cuban nationals landed at the Key West International Airport using a powered hang glider. They were taken into custody by Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputies, who then turned them over to U.S. Border Patrol. No injuries were reported, the sheriff’s office said.
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The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. agreed that the North Carolina-based First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co. can acquire the troubled Silicon Valley Bank, and 17 branches of the California-based bank will reopen Monday as branches of First-Citizens.
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Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a piece of legislation into law on Monday creating a universal school choice program.
House Bill 1, sponsored by the Education Quality Subcommittee, establishes an Education Savings Accounts (ESA) program under which every family is eligible to receive up to $8,000 to cover education expenses outside of the public school system. The vouchers will be distributed on a “priority” basis, with families of four making less than $51,000 annually receiving the funds first.
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“[W]e would not proceed with this without support from Congress, and I think that would ideally come in the form of an authorizing law, rather than us trying to interpret our law to enable this.”
That was Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in March 2021, noting the fact that when it comes a central bank digital currency – a more distinct possibility after several bank failures have swept across the global financial system – that Congress simply has not authorized such an undertaking.
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The dates have been revealed for when six United States Army bases will officially have their names changed due to a far-left campaign to rename any installations bearing Confederate names.
According to Axios, the six bases in question are: Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Pickett, Virginia; Fort Rucker, Alabama; Fort Lee, Virginia; Fort Benning, Georgia; and Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The name changes come after Joe Biden created a federal Naming Commission, for the sole purpose of changing names of federal facilities, monuments, parks, and other territories that were originally named for Confederate figures; the campaign has been widely criticized as an effort to erase American history in the name of political correctness and “woke” racial justice politics.
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The federally-chartered regulator responsible for managing fisheries in the oceans of New England acknowledged that offshore wind farms could pose a threat to the local marine wildlife, according to a letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Thomas Nies, executive director of the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC), noted the “concerning implications” of a study by researchers from the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, which found that the high voltage direct current (HVDC) power cables used by some offshore wind farms emitted magnetic fields that could hinder the ability of haddock larvae to navigate, according to a January 18 letter obtained by the DCNF. The negative impact on both the haddocks’ speed and ability to navigate could result in increased “predation” of affected fish.
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As “Zuckerbucks” — the injection of private money into public election administration — make a comeback, states and municipalities are clashing over whether the funds should be accepted or banned.
While many states and counties across the country have either restricted or banned the use of private money to fund public elections offices, a nonprofit with progressive Democrat ties that served as the key link in the 2020 Zuckerbucks funding chain is still finding loopholes in some counties as states seek to tighten up their laws.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis wants Florida teachers to emphasize civic education and reward those who do with a $3,000 bonus.
The second-term Republican held a news conference in Orange Park Thursday to discuss the importance of teaching American civics and how it is being better implemented in Florida for school students.
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After nine weeks of testimony from multiple government witnesses, including FBI agents, the Justice Department finally concluded its case-in-chief in the Proud Boys’ seditious conspiracy trial on Monday.
Five Proud Boys, including the group’s leader, Enrique Tarrio, are accused of conspiring to “oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force” on January 6, 2021. It is Attorney General Merrick Garland’s most consequential case related to January 6; convictions will help build a similar case against Donald Trump largely based on his infamous “stand back and stand by” remark to the Proud Boys during an October 2020 presidential debate.
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Hawaii will not cooperate with other states’ civil or criminal investigations related to abortion under a new law signed by Gov. Josh Green.
Senate Bill 1, also known as Act 2, prohibits the issuance of a subpoena in connection with an out-of-state or interstate investigation related to abortion and bans any agency from providing information or spending time or resources to further such an investigation.
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The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has followed through on their plan to turn millions of lawful gun owners into felons in the name of “public safety” by reclassifying pistols with stabilizing braces as short-barreled rifles, effectively expanding the unconstitutional national gun registry.
Stabilizing braces are devices that can be attached to pistols to aid the user in balancing their arm. Originally created to help people with disabilities, the accessory is now more popular amongst mainstream shooters who use them to adapt pistols into guns that can be shot from the shoulder, which has been legal to do in the past. Now, there’s a big hoop to jump through if you don’t want to be hit with fines and/or jail time.
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Most Americans are likely pleased that when they turn on their television, no longer are there talking heads and public health figures breathlessly discussing COVID-19 case counts and deaths. Broadly, the media as a whole is no longer incessantly reporting on the topic, and nationally, the federal public health emergency declared for the COVID-19 pandemic terminates on May 11.
While the old signs of the pandemic have virtually vanished, Americans won’t forget what their governments did to them.
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Records newly released by the National Archives show efforts to suppress negative stories about the Biden family’s business deals long predate the Hunter Biden laptop controversy, dating back to 2015 when an aide to then-Vice President Joe Biden boasted she got a reporter to “only use” negative information “if her editors hold a gun to her head.”
The emails come from the Obama administration archives and were forced into the public through litigation by the America First Legal nonprofit public interest law firm. They chronicle efforts by Biden’s then-aides in the vice president’s office to suppress stories about Huter Biden’s relationship with the Ukraine energy compamy Burisma Holdings during a Biden trip to Ukraine in December 2015.
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Utah passed legislation Thursday to require parental consent for children to use certain social media apps, becoming the first state in the country to limit teenagers’ social media usage.
Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed two bills into law that limits minors from using social media apps like TikTok, requiring parental consent for those under 18. Minors are prohibited from using these platforms between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m., and are subjected to age verification prior to social media use.
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Four families backed by multiple LGBT activist groups filed a federal lawsuit against Florida on Thursday, challenging its new rule banning gender transition procedures for minors.
The ban, which took effect on March 16, prohibits minors from accessing surgical sex change procedures, puberty blockers and hormone therapy. Four parents, along with several LGBT and left-wing activist groups, filed the lawsuit against Florida’s Surgeon General Thursday on behalf of their children who they claim are transgender, arguing the ban is a violation of parents’ rights to “make medical decisions to ensure the health and wellbeing of their adolescent children,” according to the complaint.
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A recent Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey purporting to find that transitioning made life more satisfying for transgender adults additionally found that a huge proportion of sampled transgender people had not undergone any form of medical transition.
Most — not all — of the transgender participants had socially transitioned, but fewer than one third had ever undergone puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, and only one in six had undergone any type of surgery to present as the opposite sex, according to the survey. Additionally, the survey’s definition of transgender included many individuals who didn’t identify as either gender, and most transgender respondents didn’t consistently present as the opposite sex, the survey found.
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President Joe Biden and Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, have brokered a deal to address the illegal migrant surge at the U.S. northern border, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.
The deal would allow federal authorities in the U.S. to return illegal migrants to Canada within 14 days of crossing, according to the Los Angeles Times, which cited internal documents and a source familiar with the discussions. The plan is set to soon take effect in an effort to “reduce incentives” for migrants to come into the U.S. illegally.
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The Oklahoma Supreme Court has upheld part of the state’s ban on most abortions from the time of fertilization, ruling the state Constitution protects only a “limited right to terminate a pregnancy” in the case of saving the life of the mother.
The state Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, held on Tuesday “the Oklahoma Constitution creates an inherent right of a pregnant woman to terminate a pregnancy when necessary to preserve her life.”
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By almost any significant metric, this is not America’s finest hour. We do not appear to be respected or feared economically, militarily, or in any other way by rival nations. Americans do not feel confident about the future, and we are seemingly more polarized along partisan lines than ever before.
Adding to our collective sense of dread is the sight of our nation’s geographic integrity slipping away. Almost daily we see untold numbers of foreign nationals trampling what used to be our southern border, demanding rights and privileges that previously were reserved for citizens and legal residents.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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The Federal Reserve hiked its target federal-funds interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point Wednesday, the ninth in a series of hikes that started in March 2022.
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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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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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Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is calling on his Legislature to pass a bill that would prohibit any federally adopted Central Bank Digital Currency from being used in the state.
“A federally controlled Central Bank Digital Currency is the most recent way the Davos elites are attempting to backdoor woke ideology like Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) into the United States financial system, threatening individual privacy and economic freedom,” DeSantis’ office said Monday, taking aim at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in an announcement about the proposal.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is taking the first steps in handing out $2.2 billion to farmers, ranchers or forest landowners who experienced discrimination with USDA farm lending programs.
The Inflation Reduction Act that was signed by President Joe Biden in August 2022 authorizes the spending.
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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. 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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