Watch an April 11 event on what the rest of Texas can learn from El Paso
Panelists will discuss health care, business and economic development, education, and more in this daylong symposium.
“A hornet’s nest”: How one Texas elections chief is doing his job amid ongoing conspiracy theories
Gillespie County Republicans are moving forward with a plan to count votes by hand during the 2024 primary election.
A 30-year-old North Carolina education funding argument is back in the state Supreme Court
Longstanding education funding litigation is returning to North Carolina’s highest court hardly a year after a majority of justices — all Democrats — agreed that taxpayer money could be moved to spend on addressing schooling inequities statewide without the express approval of legislators. What’s apparently changed to permit Thursday’s scheduled oral arguments at the state Supreme Court is its composition. A few days after the court’s milestone 2022 ruling, registered Republicans won back a majority on the seven-member court after success in statewide elections for two seats. With the partisan shift having taking effect, the five GOP justices agreed last fall to consider additional arguments sought by Republican legislative leaders opposed to the 2022 decision. Those lawmakers contend only the General Assembly can appropriate state funds. NORTH CAROLINA BECOMES 9TH STATE TO PASS UNIVERSAL SCHOOL CHOICE, THE FIRST TO DO SO WITHOUT GOP TRIFECTA The justices wrote that Thursday’s matter would be narrowed upon whether Superior Court Judge James Ammons, the latest to oversee the litigation originating almost 30 years ago, had authority last spring to enter an order declaring the state owed $678 million to fulfill two years of an eight-year plan. But legal briefs filed for Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore essentially seek to overturn the November 2022 decision by the then-Democratic-controlled court. Action by Ammons’ predecessor, the late Judge David Lee, who approved the initial $5.4 billion plan and ordered some taxpayer funds be moved, served as the focus of the 2022 ruling. The legislators’ attorneys say there’s never been a legal determination that school districts beyond rural Hoke and Halifax counties had failed to live up to requirements, affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1997 and 2004, that the state constitution directs all children must receive the “opportunity to receive a sound basic education.” And, the lawyers argue, school funding decisions are political questions that judicial branch must avoid. A host of other legal parties, including several school districts, say Ammons’ statewide order must be upheld and implemented. They say it’s the judiciary’s job to fix statewide constitutional deficiencies in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade instruction that the executive and legislative branches failed to address. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is not a legal party in the case but supports carrying out the plan that his administration helped create. The attorneys supporting the plan — which in part includes funding to improve teacher recruitment and salaries, expand pre-K and help students with disabilities — argue that Moore and Berger are trying to relitigate the 2022 decision, but it’s well past time procedurally to rehear the matter. The justices were unlikely to rule from the bench at the close of oral arguments. The court’s next opinion date is March 22. The new Republican majority has ruled favorably for GOP legislators by striking down previous redistricting decisions and upholding a photo voter identification mandate. Education and civil rights advocates scheduled a rally outside the Supreme Court building while the case was heard. The litigation began in 1994, when several school districts and families of children sued and accused the state of state law and constitutional violations. The matter often has been referred to as “Leandro” — for the last name of one of the students who sued. In requests repeating from the 2022 case, lawyers for the school districts asked that Associate Justice Phil Berger Jr. — son of the Senate leader — recuse himself from the case, while attorneys for the elder Berger and Moore asked that Associate Justice Anita Earls not participate. This year’s recusal motions were denied, as they were in 2022, and Earls, a registered Democrat, and the younger Berger, a Republican, both were expected to participate Thursday.
Justice Department taps former Kamala Harris adviser as 1st-ever artificial intelligence officer
The Justice Department named its first-ever official focused on artificial intelligence (AI) on Thursday in anticipation of the rapidly evolving technology’s impact on the criminal justice system. Jonathan Mayer, a professor at Princeton University who focuses on the “intersection of technology and law, with emphasis on national security, criminal procedure, consumer privacy, network management, and online speech,” according to his online biography, was selected to serve as the DOJ’s chief science and technology adviser and chief AI officer, Reuters reported. “The Justice Department must keep pace with rapidly evolving scientific and technological developments in order to fulfill our mission to uphold the rule of law, keep our country safe and protect civil rights,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. Mayer previously served as the technology adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris during her time as a U.S. senator, and as the Chief Technologist of the Federal Communications Commission Enforcement Bureau. In his new role, he is expected to advise Garland and DOJ leadership on matters related to emerging technologies, including how to responsibly integrate AI into the department’s investigations and criminal prosecutions, according to Reuters. NEW HAMPSHIRE AG TRACES ROBOCALLS WITH ‘AI-GENERATED CLONE’ OF BIDEN’S VOICE BACK TO TEXAS-BASED COMPANIES Mayer is set to lead a newly formed board of law enforcement and civil rights officials that will advise Garland and others at the Justice Department on the ethics and efficacy of AI systems, according to Reuters. He will also seek to recruit more technological experts to the department. U.S. officials have been weighing how to best balance benefiting from AI, while also minimizing the dangers of the loosely regulated and rapidly expanding technology. During a speech at Oxford University in the United Kingdom last week, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the Justice Department has already deployed AI to classify and trace the source of opioids and other drugs, to help “triage and understand the more than one million tips submitted to the FBI by the public every year,” and “to synthesize huge volumes of evidence collected in some of our most significant cases, including January 6.” “Every new technology is a double-edged sword, but AI may be the sharpest blade yet. It has the potential to be an indispensable tool to help identify, disrupt, and deter criminals, terrorists, and hostile nation-states from doing us harm,” Monaco said. FCC MAKES AI-GENERATED ROBOCALLS THAT CAN FOOL VOTERS ILLEGAL AFTER BIDEN VOICE CLONING IN NEW HAMPSHIRE “Yet for all the promise it offers,” she continued. “AI is also accelerating risks to our collective security. We know it has the potential to amplify existing biases and discriminatory practices. It can expedite the creation of harmful content, including child sexual abuse material. It can arm nation-states with tools to pursue digital authoritarianism, accelerating the spread of disinformation and repression. And we’ve already seen that AI can lower the barriers to entry for criminals and embolden our adversaries. It’s changing how crimes are committed and who commits them — creating new opportunities for wanna-be hackers and supercharging the threat posed by the most sophisticated cybercriminals.” Monaco highlighted the potential risk to election security posed by AI, saying how foreign adversaries could radicalize users on social media with incendiary content created with generative AI, misinform voters by impersonating trusted sources and spreading deepfakes, and spread falsehoods using chatbots, fake images and even cloned voices. “This year, over half the world’s population – more than four billion people – will have the chance to vote in an election. That includes some of the world’s largest democracies – from the United States to Indonesia and India, from Brazil to here in Britain,” Monaco said. “We’ve already seen the misuse of AI play out in elections from Chicago and New Hampshire to Slovakia. And I fear it’s just the start. Left without guardrails, AI poses immense challenges for democracies around the world. So, we’re at an inflection point with AI. We have to move quickly to identify, leverage, and govern its positive uses while taking measures to minimize its risks.”
Karnataka passes bill to tax temples in state, BJP slams Congress’ govt
The bill has triggered a war of words between the ruling Congress and BJP.
Atlanta reparations task force calls Fulton County ‘complicit’ in stealing land from Black residents
A reparations task force appointed by Fulton County, Georgia, officials says the county was “complicit” in stealing land from Black residents in the decades after slavery. The Fulton County Reparations Task Force is currently in its research phase and will soon present its findings and recommendations to Fulton County leaders, FOX 5 Atlanta reported. Chair Dr. Karcheik Sims-Alvarado said the panel has collected a mountain of evidence showing the county benefited from slavery and the disenfranchisement of Black people during Jim Crow. “We believe that we are creating the blueprint to make a very strong argument for reparations,” Sims-Alvarado told FOX 5 Atlanta. Fulton County commissioners approved the creation of the task force with a $250,000 budget to research the county’s ties to slavery, what properties the county may have confiscated illegally from Black owners and the use of illegal prison labor from the county’s confinement facilities. ATLANTA REPARATIONS TASK FORCE HOLDS FIRST PUBLIC MEETING: ‘REPARATIONS ARE MEANT TO REPAIR’ Over the course of two years, the task force gathered documents like land leases, prison records and relied on private citizens coming forward with family documents to build their case for reparations to the Black community. “What we found was that Fulton County was complicit in declaring eminent domain on its residents, particularly within the Buckhead area,” Sims-Alvarado told FOX 5 Atlanta. “Some individuals moved to — if they were fortunate — they were able to buy another home in Dixie Hill, but some individuals wind up becoming residents in housing projects.” Elon Butts-Osby, a task force member and resident of Bagley Park, said land belonging to her grandparents was forcibly taken from them by the county. “Forced out of Forsyth County during the racial cleansing, somewhere between 60 and 84 acres were stolen from my grandfather,” Butts-Osby told FOX 5 Atlanta. CALIFORNIA LAWMAKERS INTRODUCE REPARATIONS PACKAGE WITH FORMAL APOLOGY FOR SLAVERY She said her grandfather was able to purchase land and resettle the family in northwest Atlanta, but the property value is not nearly worth what the land they used to own in Bagley Park is worth today. “The real value was shocking compared to what my grandfather paid for the six lots that he purchased,” Butts-Osby said. CALIFORNIA VOTERS ISSUE STRONG REBUKE TO DEM PLAN TO OFFER CASH REPARATIONS: POLL Her family’s story is one of three case studies the reparations task force is using to justify payments to Fulton County’s Black residents. “People need to pay … the city and the county … they need to pay,” Butts-Osby said. The task force meets on the first Thursday of each month and members of the public are encouraged to share their opinions, concerns or requests during public comment. The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, March 7, 2024. A final report with recommendations to Fulton County leaders is expected in October 2024. Fox News Digital’s Nikolas Lanum contributed to this report.
Sen Bill Hagerty says Dems engaging in ‘sheer power grab’ by tolerating border ‘carnage’
Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., returning from a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, is warning of an “epic crisis” that is still ongoing due to the historic numbers of migrants flooding across the border, and he’s accusing Democrats of attempting a “sheer power grab” to gain electoral influence by tolerating the “carnage and mayhem” at the southern border. “We’re seeing what’s happening out here, though, and I’ve been to California to our border crossing at San Ysidro,” Hagerty told Fox News Digital in an interview. “I’ve been to Arizona. I’ve been to Texas multiple times now. This is the worst I’ve ever seen it. And it is just an epic crisis.” Hagerty visited Eagle Pass, which is one of the hardest hit areas of the border and has become the epicenter of the fight between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the Biden administration over border security. SPEAKER JOHNSON HIGHLIGHTS 100 STORIES OF ‘DANGERS AND DESTRUCTION’ OF ‘BIDEN BORDER CATASTROPHE’ Hagerty spoke with ranchers who had seen the crisis on a daily basis, and retold a story of a rancher who said he woke up one night to find 20 military-age males in his kitchen eating out of the fridge. “Americans should not have to live like this,” Hagerty said. Hagerty praised the actions of Abbott, who has built a border wall, seized a key park in Eagle Pass and is battling the administration on multiple fronts in court over the border crisis. He said the area of Shelby Park has now been cleared out, and he believes that’s why numbers are increasing along other parts of the border, including San Diego. “They’re going to other places along the border though. So now they’ve lost control of Arizona, according to what I’ve learned. In California, they’ve had a record number of Chinese coming across the border now.” CHINESE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ON PACE TO BREAK RECORDS AT US SOUTHERN BORDER Hagerty and many other Republican lawmakers have repeatedly blamed the historic migrant crisis – which saw record encounters in FY 23 and in December, where there were over 300,000 encounters – on the policies of the administration. Hagerty cited the rolling back of Trump-era policies such as border wall construction and the Remain-in-Mexico policy, which conservatives believe largely ended the migrant crisis. The administration has said it needs more funding and comprehensive immigration reform from Congress to fix what it says is a historic crisis, and has pointed to what it says are total removals and returns of illegal immigrants since May that have exceeded every full fiscal year since 2015. The administration, along with many Democrats, have slammed Republicans for not agreeing to a bipartisan border bill that they say would have ended the crisis and provided more staffing and funding at the border. Conservatives said the legislation would have normalized an unacceptably high level of illegal immigration. Hagerty noted how the crisis has a knock-on effect in other states, affecting not only his state of Tennessee but also sanctuary cities like Chicago and New York City. He said such jurisdictions are vocal with their complaints but do not appear to be changing policy. ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION COULD HAVE MAJOR IMPACT ON HOUSE SEATS, ELECTORAL COLLEGE: EXPERTS “What I don’t see them doing is changing their policy. They’re not saying we’re no longer going to be a sanctuary city, we’re no longer going to be a magnet for this. They’re just complaining that they need more ‘resources’ to be able to accommodate all this,” he said. He said he believes the best and simplest explanation for what he sees as tolerance for the crisis is an attempt to gain power by Democrats, and that they are hoping to gain greater representation in the House of Representatives and Electoral College by redistricting, whereby the migrants coming into blue cities and states could subsequently increase their representation – something some experts have warned about. Hagerty has introduced an amendment to the recent border bill that would count only legal citizens in congressional districts. “They are seeing people leave their state. They’re seeing the potential of the next census to lose congressional districts and electoral votes. I think most people in America are shocked to find out that we count the presence of illegal immigrants in determining the allocation of congressional districts and electoral votes,” Hagerty said. “But if you think about the motives for the crime that’s taking place at our southern border, that is it. That’s what the Democrats are trying to do,” he said. “Joe Biden promised he was going to transform America. This is part of that transformation. And it’s a sheer power grab. It’s cynical as hell, and it’s actually the most straightforward explanation of why they would tolerate this carnage and mayhem. It’s in order to retain and gain power.” Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.
Civil rights leader slams Biden’s proposed menthol ban, exclusion from talks: ‘I feel slighted’
FIRST ON FOX: A prominent civil rights leader blasted the Biden administration’s proposed menthol cigarette ban and said the White House has excluded his group from the table on issues involving Black people. In an interview with Fox News Digital, Dr. Charles Steele Jr., the president and CEO of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which Martin Luther King Jr. co-founded and served as its first president, aired his concerns about the Biden administration and other local and state leaders routinely ignoring his group, including talks regarding the proposed menthol ban. “We are not being included in the conversation in terms of the civil rights movement, so how can any group of leaders – be it mayors, Congress, or the President of the United States – talk about Black folks and poor folks?” Steele asked Fox News Digital. “How can they bring policy and a mandate to ban menthol cigarettes?” BIDEN ADMIN’S PROPOSED MENTHOL CIGARETTE BAN COULD BECOME LIABILITY IN 2024: ‘UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES’ The Food and Drug Administration first proposed rules prohibiting menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars in April 2022 to “prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers” and to “help adult smokers quit.” The Biden administration has since delayed its plans until March. The proposed ban has brought an avalanche of criticism, with many individuals and organizations arguing it could lead to significant consequences, such as heightened border problems and a surge in the criminal black market that could extend to Mexican cartels and terrorist groups. “People have choices,” Steele continued. “If you’re talking about banning anything, think about the prohibition on alcohol [in the 1920s and early 1930s]. You’ll create criminals. You’ve got an underground economic base of criminals.” “I am against anyone who is trying to tell us what’s best for the African American or Black community, and they won’t sit down at the table and talk with us,” Steele said. “I feel slighted. Nobody is making any moves to include us, so we’re being taken for granted. African Americans are not going to be taken for granted anymore.” EX-LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS WARN BIDEN’S MENTHOL CIGARETTE BAN COULD ‘CREATE A VACUUM’ FOR MEXICAN CARTELS The Biden administration’s postponement of the federal rules until March came on the heels of several delays. The regulations were expected to be finalized in August, but the administration later announced that they hoped to complete them by January. However, they noted that legal challenges would likely slow the ban from going into effect for several years. Three officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity previously told the Washington Post the delay stemmed from pressure from lobbyists and critics who cautioned that the ban might anger Black smokers and negatively impact Biden’s prospects in 2024. Steele’s organization has argued that special interest groups like the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which has received extensive funding from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have hijacked minority policy. Bloomberg has committed over $1.5 billion to combating tobacco products since 2005. In addition to Steele and the SCLC, other Black leaders have voiced worries over the proposed ban. Rev. Al Sharpton said the action would have unintended consequences for the Black community. EX-USDA OFFICIAL BLASTS ‘MIND-BOGGLING’ BIDEN REGULATIONS ON FARMING, MENTHOL: ‘DOESN’T SEEM VERY AMERICAN’ “What we said is, ‘Y’all have got to consider unintended consequences.’ Imagine some cop pulling a kid over saying, ‘Where did you buy or get that Kool cigarette?’” Sharpton told Politico last year. “People are not going to stop smoking Newports and Kools because of a rule,” Sharpton said. “They’re going to go and get them from people that go to the street in the black market. Then what happens? That’s all I’m asking.” Groups have also taken aim at the Biden administration over how the proposed ban could hurt small businesses. The New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association undertook a campaign to urge candidates to oppose it, starting with advertisements in New Hampshire. Conservative advocacy groups such as Building Americas Future followed suit with six-figure ad buys across multiple 2024 swing states and congressional districts. Meanwhile, proponents of the ban argue it could reduce tobacco use and usher in positive health outcomes. “Once finalized, rules to end the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars rule will be the most significant actions that the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products has taken in its 14-year history,” American Lung Association CEO and President Harold Wimmer previously said. “The American Lung Association is eager for these lifesaving rules to be implemented and urges the White House to finalize these rules before the end of the year.” The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Ship crash causes bridge collapse in China
NewsFeed Two people have been killed after a cargo ship crashed into a bridge in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. Vehicles, including a bus, fell off the Lixinsha Bridge as it collapsed into the river below. Published On 22 Feb 202422 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Deadly collapse at illegal Venezuela gold mine
NewsFeed Video shows the moment part of an illegal gold mine collapsed in central Venezuela, where dozens of people are feared dead. Published On 22 Feb 202422 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)