Delhi Metro News: You can now find empty coaches before you board train, know how
The Passenger Information Display System (PIDS) installed on metro platforms now displays the occupancy levels of each coach in real-time.
Senators soften student discipline bill, giving Texas schools more flexibility
The Texas Senate had previously proposed more severe consequences in the bill.
Defense secretary announces pay raises for Army paratroopers: ‘We have you and your families in mind’
In a speech Thursday in North Carolina to soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth pledged to restore what he called the U.S. military’s “warrior ethos” and announced pay raises for paratroopers. Speaking during All American Week at Fort Bragg, Hegseth laid out President Donald Trump’s vision focused on combat readiness, merit-based standards, and investment in the American warfighter. “We’re going to bring it back to the basics,” Hegseth said. “We’re going to restore the warrior ethos… and we are across our formations, a standard that’s set here every single day.” According to the Department of Defense, Hegseth used the occasion to announce an increase in hazardous duty incentive pay, known as jump pay. It will rise from $150 to $200 per month for paratroopers, and for the first time, jumpmasters will receive an additional $150 on top of their existing pay. SECRETARY OF THE ARMY DAN DRISCOLL: ARMY UNVEILS MODERNIZATION PLAN BECAUSE, ‘NO LOBBYIST EVER WON A WAR’ “For the first time in 25 years… we are increasing jump pay,” Hegseth said. “Not only are we increasing jump pay, but… jumpmasters… are going to receive an additional $150 a month in incentive pay.” He added: “Here’s to our paratroopers, our jumpmasters, who do the difficult things in difficult places that most Americans can never imagine.” Hegseth told the crowd that troops remain the focus of every major Pentagon decision. “Inside the corridors of the Pentagon, you are on our minds, with the decisions we make in budgets, in planning, in deployments, in orders, in reorganizations. We have you and your families in mind.” HEGSETH ORDERS REVIEW OF MILITARY FITNESS AND GROOMING STANDARDS: ‘OUR ADVERSARIES ARE NOT GROWING WEAKER’ In his remarks, Hegseth shared a core defense strategy promoted by Trump: prioritize readiness, reject identity politics, and reassert American deterrence. “We will focus on readiness, on training, on warfighting, on accountability, on standards. Black, white, male, female, doesn’t matter. We’re going to be colorblind and merit-based warfighters just like you are here in the 82nd.” This return to fundamentals, Hegseth argued is necessary to rebuild the force and deter growing global threats. “President Trump is committed to historic investments inside our formations. Our promise to you is that when the 82nd Airborne is deployed… you will be equipped better than any other fighting force in the world.” Drawing a contrast with prior administrations, Hegseth referenced global instability, including the war in Ukraine, the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. “Unfortunately, for a number of years, the world watched and wondered where American leadership and American strength was,” he said. “By putting America first, we will reestablish peace through strength.” Hegseth closed by honoring the legacy and future of the 82nd. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “Like those who came before you, you keep showing the world the stuff you’re made of. Because we know you are ready for the important work that lies ahead.” The Army office of Public Affairs did not immediately return Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Texas may require medical records list patients’ sex assigned at birth
The bill, which is poised to become law, creates up to a $250,000 fine for medical professionals who change a patients’ listed sex outside of certain exemptions.
Supreme Court upholds Trump’s removal of Biden appointees from federal boards
The Supreme Court upheld President Donald Trump’s removal of two Democratic appointees from federal boards, handing the administration a legal victory and settling a high-stakes dispute over the president’s power to fire agency officials. The Thursday ruling comes after Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts agreed to temporarily halt the reinstatement of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) member Gwynne Wilcox and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) member Cathy Harris, two Democrat appointees who were abruptly terminated by the Trump administration this year. Both had challenged their terminations as “unlawful” in separate lawsuits filed in D.C. federal court. However, the high court suggested that it could block attempts to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who, according to Trump, has complained has not cut interest rates fast enough. APPEALS COURT BLOCKS TRUMP FROM FIRING FEDERAL BOARD MEMBERS, TEES UP SUPREME COURT FIGHT The issue confronting the justices was whether the board members, both appointed by President Joe Biden, can stay in their jobs while the larger fight continues over what to do with a 90-year-old Supreme Court decision known as Humphrey’s Executor, in which the court unanimously ruled that presidents cannot fire independent board members without cause. The court’s three liberal justices dissented. “Not since the 1950s (or even before) has a President, without a legitimate reason, tried to remove an officer from a classic independent agency,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Kagan wrote that her colleagues were telegraphing what would happen. “The impatience to get on with things—to now hand the President the most unitary, meaning also the most subservient, administration since Herbert Hoover (and maybe ever)—must reveal how that eventual decision will go,” she wrote. Lawyers for the Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to either keep Wilcox and Harris off the job while the case moves through the lower courts, or to resolve the issue directly. They asked the justices to grant certiorari before judgment – a fast-track procedure the court uses occasionally to bypass the appeals process in cases of significant national importance. They urged that Wilcox and Harris not be reinstated to their positions, arguing in their reply brief that the “costs of such reinstatements are immense.” They argued that keeping both Wilcox and Harris in place would “entrust” the president’s powers “for the months or years that it could take the courts to resolve this litigation,” something they said “would manifestly cause irreparable harm to the President and to the separation of powers.” “The President would lose control of critical parts of the Executive Branch for a significant portion of his term, and he would likely have to spend further months voiding actions taken by improperly reinstated agency leaders.” Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit voted 7–4 to restore Wilcox and Harris to their respective boards, citing Supreme Court precedent in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States and Wiener v. United States – landmark rulings that upheld limits on the president’s power to remove members of independent federal agencies. The majority noted that the Supreme Court has never overturned the decades-old precedent upholding removal protections for members of independent, multimember adjudicatory boards – such as the NLRB and MSPB – and said that precedent supported reinstating Wilcox and Harris. It also rejected the Trump administration’s request for an administrative stay, which would have allowed their removals to remain in place while the challenge proceeds in court. “The Supreme Court has repeatedly told the courts of appeals to follow extant Supreme Court precedent unless and until that Court itself changes it or overturns it,” judges noted in their opinion. The ruling would have temporarily returned Harris and Wilcox to their posts – but the victory was short-lived. The Trump administration quickly appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted an emergency administrative stay blocking their reinstatement. In their own Supreme Court filings, lawyers for Wilcox and Harris argued that the court should reinstate them to their roles on their respective boards until a federal appeals court can consider the matter. APPEALS COURT BLOCKS TRUMP ADMIN’S DEPORTATION FLIGHTS IN ALIEN ENEMIES ACT IMMIGRATION SUIT Both Wilcox and Harris opposed the administration’s effort to fast-track the case, warning against skipping the normal appeals process and rushing arguments. “Rushing such important matters risks making mistakes and destabilizing other areas of the law,” Harris’s lawyers told the Supreme Court this week. Wilcox, the NLRB member, echoed this argument in her own brief to the high court. Counsel for Wilcox cited the potential harm in removing her from the three-member NLRB panel – which they argued in their filing could bring “an immediate and indefinite halt to the NLRB’s critical work of adjudicating labor-relations disputes.” “The President’s choice to instead remove Ms. Wilcox does not bring the Board closer in line with his preferred policies; it prevents the agency from carrying out its congressionally mandated duties at all,” they said. Harris and Wilcox’s cases are among several legal challenges attempting to clearly define the executive’s power. Hampton Dellinger, a Biden appointee previously tapped to head the Office of Special Counsel, sued the Trump administration over his termination. Dellinger filed suit in D.C. district court after his Feb. 7 firing. He had maintained the argument that, by law, he could only be dismissed from his position for job performance problems, which were not cited in an email dismissing him from his post. Dellinger dropped his suit against the administration after the D.C. appellate court issued an unsigned order siding with the Trump administration. The Justice Department, for its part, said in February a letter to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., that it was seeking to overturn Humphrey’s Executor. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Suspect charged with murder in shooting of two Israeli embassy workers
Federal prosecutors have filed charges against a man suspected of fatally shooting two Israeli embassy staff workers in the United States capital of Washington, DC. In a federal court on Thursday, Elias Rodriguez was accused of two counts of first-degree murder, as well as charges of murdering foreign officials, causing death with a firearm and discharging a firearm in a crime of violence. In a news conference afterwards, interim US Attorney Jeanine Pirro warned that those charges were only the beginning — and that her prosecutors were combing through evidence for other crimes. “This is a horrific crime, and these crimes are not going to be tolerated by me and by this office,” Pirro said. “We’re going to continue to investigate this as a hate crime and a crime of terrorism, and we will add additional charges as the evidence warrants.” Rodriguez is accused of shooting Israeli citizen Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, an American, both employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC. Advertisement The attack took place around 9:08pm US Eastern time on Wednesday evening (01:08 GMT Thursday), as the two employees were leaving an event hosted by the pro-Israel American Jewish Committee at the Capital Jewish Museum. Both were pronounced dead at the scene. Israeli embassy staff have said that the young couple were set to be engaged in the coming days. “A young couple — at the beginning of their life’s journey, about to be engaged, in another country — had their bodies removed in the cold of the night, in a foreign city, in a body bag. We are not going to tolerate that anymore,” said Pirro, appearing to allude primarily to Lischinsky’s foreign roots. “This is the kind of case that picks at old sores and old scars, because these kinds of cases remind us of what has happened in the past that we can never and must never forget.” She pointed out that the Wednesday night attack took place at a museum that includes one of Washington’s oldest synagogues in the centre of the city. Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said that the suspect chanted, “Free Palestine! Free Palestine!” after the shooting. Rodriguez, who hailed from Chicago, appears to have identified himself to police and was arrested shortly after the shooting. An affidavit from the Federal Bureau of Investigation notes that Rodriguez told police, “I did it for Palestine. I did it for Gaza.” The shooting, which has been widely condemned, comes as Israel faces growing global anger over its war on Gaza, where a blockade has left millions of Palestinians without food or basic supplies. Advertisement Experts at human rights organisations and the United Nations have compared the war, which has killed at least 53,000 people, to ethnic cleansing and genocide. Since the war began on October 7, 2023, Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities have all reported upticks in harassment and racism. In the aftermath of Wednesday’s shooting, officials spoke out against anti-Semitism, and the administration of President Donald Trump promised to pursue every legal avenue against the suspect. “The Department of Justice will be prosecuting the perpetrator responsible for this to the fullest extent of the law,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday. “Hatred has no place in the United States of America under President Donald Trump.” She went on to compare antiwar protests at US universities, which have been largely peaceful, to “ anti-Semitic illegal behaviour”. Protest leaders, however, have largely disavowed anti-Jewish hate. In the wake of the shooting, one US Congress member told Fox News that the “Palestinian cause” was “evil”. Republican Representative Randy Fine continued by suggesting the Gaza war should end like World War II did, with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. “We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender,” he said. “That needs to be the same here. There is something deeply, deeply wrong with this culture, and it needs to be defeated.” Separately, the Israeli government denounced the shooting as an attack against its state. Advertisement “We are witness to the terrible cost of the antisemitism and wild incitement against the State of Israel,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. Adblock test (Why?)
Will Donald Trump’s Golden Dome protect America?
US president says system will shield country from missile threats, including from space. US President Donald Trump announces his latest defence plan: The Golden Dome. Estimated at a cost of $175bn, it is designed to shoot down advanced missiles headed towards the United States. Using both ground and space to detect incoming projectiles, it will far surpass a similar system used in Israel known as the Iron Dome. But critics say it could prove ineffective and upset the balance of world power. So, might the scheme lead to the militarisation of space and threaten the global order? And could there be other motives behind Trump’s announcement? Presenter: Elizabeth Puranam Guests: Michael O’Hanlon, Senior fellow and director of research in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution Youngshik Bong, Research fellow at the Yonsei University Institute for North Korean Studies Marina Miron, Post-doctoral researcher at the war studies department at King’s College London Adblock test (Why?)
Florida court orders ex-Mexican security chief to pay millions to Mexico
Genaro Garcia Luna, formerly a high-ranking government official, is serving a 38-year sentence for accepting bribes. A Florida court has ordered Mexico’s former head of public security to pay more than $748m to his home country for his alleged involvement in government corruption. Thursday’s ruling brought to a close a civil case first filed in September 2021 by the Mexican government. The case centred on Genaro Garcia Luna, who served as Mexico’s security chief from 2006 to 2012. Garcia Luna is currently serving more than 38 years in a United States prison for allegedly accepting millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel. The Mexican government alleges that Garcia Luna also stole millions in taxpayer funds, and it has pledged to seek restitution, namely by filing a legal complaint in Miami, Florida, where it says some of the illegal activity took place. On Thursday, Judge Lisa Walsh in Miami-Dade County not only required Garcia Luna to pay millions, but she also ordered his wife, Linda Cristina Pereyra, to pay $1.7bn. Altogether, the total neared $2.4bn. In its initial 2021 complaint, the Mexican government – led at the time by former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador – accused Garcia Luna, his wife and their co-defendants of having “concealed funds stolen from the government” and smuggling the money to places like Barbados and the US. Advertisement “Under the direction of the Defendant GARCIA LUNA, the funds unlawfully taken from the government of MEXICO were used to build a money-laundering empire,” the complaint wrote. It alleged those funds were used to finance “lavish lifestyles” for Garcia Luna and his co-conspirators, including real estate holdings, bank accounts and vintage cars, among them Mustangs from the 1960s and ’70s. A demonstrator holds a sign that reads in Spanish, ‘Garcia Luna is guilty’, in New York on February 21, 2023 [John Minchillo/AP Photo] Separately, Garcia Luna faced criminal charges for corruption, with US authorities accusing him of pocketing millions while in office for working on behalf of the Sinaloa cartel. Through his work with Mexico’s federal police and as its security chief, US prosecutors say Garcia Luna accessed information that he later used to tip off the Sinaloa cartel, letting them know about investigations and the movements of rival criminal groups. Garcia Luna was also accused of helping the cartel move its shipments of cocaine to destinations like the US, sometimes using Mexico’s federal police as bodyguards – and even allowing cartel members to wear official uniforms. In exchange, prosecutors say the cartel left money for him in hiding places, one of which was a French restaurant across the street from the US embassy in Mexico City. Some bundles of cash – offered in $100 bills – totalled up to $10,000. After leaving office in 2012, Garcia Luna moved to the US. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. His defence lawyers have described him as a successful businessman living in Florida. Advertisement But in February 2023, a federal jury in Brooklyn, New York, convicted Garcia Luna on drug-related charges, including international cocaine conspiracy and conspiracy to import cocaine. The following year, in October, he was sentenced to decades in prison. The Mexican government, however, alleged in its civil lawsuit that Garcia Luna also led a “government-contracting scheme” that included bid-tampering and striking dubious deals as a form of money laundering. Those contracts included deals for surveillance and communications equipment. The Associated Press news agency reported that one such contract was falsified, and others were inflated. Garcia Luna is the highest-level Mexican government official to be convicted in the US. Adblock test (Why?)
Retailers say Texas’ “devastating” THC ban will force them to close shop
Some hemp retailers are looking at other states, while others say they are ready to take Texas to court over a THC ban.
Alex Soros blasted for condemning shooting of Israelis while funding anti-Israel groups
Far-left progressive billionaire Alex Soros is being slammed online for his statement condemning the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers despite funding anti-Israel groups through his Open Society Foundation (OSF). Soros, who is the son and heir to George Soros’ fortune and philanthropic empire, condemned the killings in an X post, saying “the murder of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky at the Capital Jewish Museum was evil in its most basic form” and that “this brutal antisemitic act must be condemned in the strongest terms.” Milgrim and Lischinsky, two Israeli Embassy staffers who were set to be engaged, were killed outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night. D.C. police identified the suspect as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, who was taken into custody after the shooting attack. He was allegedly seen pacing outside the museum before he approached a group of four people, including the two victims, and opened fire. Rodriguez then reportedly went into the museum, where he was detained by security. He allegedly shouted “Free, free Palestine!” while in custody. OMAR WALKS AWAY FROM REPORTERS ASKING ABOUT ISRAELI EMBASSY STAFFERS KILLED IN DC Though Soros condemned the killings, his statement was flooded with replies calling out his funding of radical anti-Israel groups that foment anti-Jewish sentiments. “Alex, you and your father created this problem through the ruthless and international silencing of critics to open borders policies,” said one X user named Joseph Janecka. “Their blood is on your hands as much as their murderers. We will never forget.” Carl Wheless, another user, commented, “You are behind the hate, so excuse us if you don’t wish to hear from you on the matter.” Another, Eitan Fischberger, asserted that Soros “funds the revolutionary Marxist group the shooter belonged to.” YOUNG COUPLE FATALLY SHOT OUTSIDE JEWISH EVENT IN DC WERE ABOUT TO GET ENGAGED Though the details of Rodriguez’s affiliations are currently unclear as chair of OSF, Soros has helped to fund several leftist groups that have accused Israel of genocide and called for the end of the Jewish state. In 2023, Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs and social equality, Amichai Chikli, told Fox News Digital that Soros is a mirror image of father George’s anti-Israel agenda. When asked if Soros would continue to fund anti-Israel entities that bash the Jewish state, Chikli said it “looks like the son is a replica of his father. We have no expectation that his son will be a big Zionist.” Chikli added that OSF funds Human Rights Watch, which he said, “is attacking Israelis heavily and attacking Israel as an apartheid state and delegitimizing and demonizing Israel.” PIRRO ANNOUNCES MURDER CHARGES AGAINST ALLEGED DC SHOOTER: ‘ANTISEMITISM WILL NOT BE TOLERATED’ He also said OSF funds “J Street,” an organization that claims to be pro-Israel but has faced criticism because of its support for positions that allegedly favor Iran’s regime and the Palestinians. Chikli also noted that the Soros foundation “gives money to radical small Palestinian organizations in Israel that describe Israel as a colonial state and a moral sin.” He cited the NGO Adalah, which means “justice” in Arabic, as an organization “denying the vision of Israel as a Jewish state” in its “published vision for Arab society in Israel.” The elder Soros has also faced intense criticism from Israel’s ambassador to the U.N. for pumping over $15 million into a network of nongovernmental organizations that allegedly support Hamas. “George Soros’ donations to organizations that seek the destruction of the State of Israel as a Jewish state is shameful. However, I am not surprised,” Israeli ambassador Gilad Erdan told Fox News Digital in December 2023. “For years, Soros has backed and transferred money to organizations supporting BDS that want to isolate Israel,” added Erdan, who has been leading the diplomatic campaign at the U.N. to spell out Hamas’ crimes against humanity. “They have never been about real peace or any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”