The Texas Lottery and billions in school funding in limbo as deadline nears at Capitol
Lawmakers must act on two bills in order to ensure the lottery continues past September, or find a way to make up the $2 billion for schools the game provides yearly.
Lawmakers want to expand Texas’ teacher pay raise program. Many educators will still be left out.
The Teacher Incentive Allotment gives raises to teachers based on performance. But it leaves out many educators and school staff who contribute to students’ success.
China and Egypt wrap first joint military exercise as Beijing looks to cozy up to American allies
Egypt and China wrapped up their first-ever joint military exercises on Sunday, in a show of force involving the U.S.’ top rival and one of its top recipients of military aid. Running from mid-April until Sunday, the drills consisted of joint aerial exercises, simulated air combat and modern warfare lectures. China deployed its J-10C fighter jets, KJ-500 airborne early warning aircraft and Y-20 transport tankers in a display of its military prowess beyond Asia, according to footage posted by Chinese state media outlet CCTV. Egypt has, in recent years, also purchased large amounts of military machinery from Russia, prompting questions about how the U.S. should address a top Middle East ally and aid recipient growing closer to its biggest adversaries. CHINESE FIRM AIDING HOUTHI ATTACKS ON US VESSELS “We’ve never seen a crisis like this,” said Joel Rubin, a former senior State Department official who worked on the Egypt desk under former President George W. Bush and pens “The Briefing Book” on Substack. “Egypt is essentially flouting us right now and looking to China, looking for more stable, long-term partners after nearly four and a half decades of stability in terms of the peace deal under Camp David.” Egypt operates a number of U.S.-made aircraft – F-16 fighter aircraft, CH-47 Chinook and AH-64 Apache helicopters – and is slated to receive C-130 J transport aircraft. Egypt also possesses 32 American Patriot missile defense systems. The China-Egypt Eagles of Civilization 2025 is expected to bolster Beijing’s ties to Africa’s strongest military and a longtime strategic U.S. ally. Egypt has received roughly $1.3 billion each year in U.S. military aid since the Camp David Accords that normalized relations between Israel and Egypt. That figure puts it behind only Israel, which scores around $3.8 in U.S. military aid. Ukraine receives more aid than Egypt and Israel, but only since Russia’s invasion – prior to 2022, it got between $200 and $350 million each year. ISRAEL APPROVES PLAN TO CAPTURE ALL OF GAZA, CALLS UP TENS OF THOUSANDS OF RESERVE TROOPS When the Trump administration took office and froze all foreign aid, Egypt and Israel were the only two nations who were exempted from the freeze. Egypt partners with U.S. security forces across the region to fight terrorism in places like Iraq and Syria. The Camp David Accords, per Rubin, were the “final piece to the puzzle that peeled off the most important Arab military from the Soviet Union.” Prior to the accords, Egypt was aligned with Russia’s priorities in the Middle East. “It was about getting them into our column, and this is a sign they may be again moving into a different column.” Around $300 million of U.S. military aid to Egypt can be conditioned on human rights concerns, and that money has been frozen and unfrozen in recent years due to complaints about Egypt’s human rights record under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. “Cairo’s hedging tactics are not new. This has been a slow and steady effort, and this exercise marks a clear escalation. For Cairo, they want to diversify their patrons. Washington has long conditioned its aid to Egypt on human rights and democratization efforts. While the U.S. has routinely issued waivers on these conditions and allowed the aid to flow, Cairo does not want to remain beholden to Washington,” said Mariam Wahba, an Egypt-focused researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. However, with a new administration with little appetite for foreign aid, Egypt may be concerned that further aid cuts are on the table. “This exercise should certainly sound the alarm in Washington,” said Wahba. The exercises, according to former Deputy Assistance Secretary of Defense Simone Ledeen, “are both about capability building and sending a geopolitical signal.” “Egypt is hedging, showing the U.S. it has options,” added Ledeen, who worked in the first Trump administration. “China is making clear it intends to expand its influence in the Mediterranean. Everyone should be paying attention.” The latest development, according to Rubin, calls for “very agile diplomacy.” “It’s indicative of the broader global uncertainty and panic about the Trump administration’s position towards international affairs,” he said. “If we do threaten in a way that pushes them out, then even if we might feel justified morally, we could potentially be losing a crucial ally and partner, one that has significant impact on global shipping routes, counterterrorism work across the Arab Middle East, and we would be giving China a toe hold right into the heart of the Middle East at the worst possible time.”
NASA backs Trump budget blueprint with $6B cut to agency
President Donald Trump unveiled a budget blueprint last week that includes roughly $6 billion in federal funding cuts to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Despite the multibillion-dollar slash, a senior official at the space agency told Fox New Digital that the reduction in funding is actually beneficial for efficiency and exploration. “The reductions in the President’s blueprint budget counterintuitively represent an opportunity to truly innovate in how we conduct our space missions,” senior NASA official Ryan Whitley told Fox News Digital in an exclusive statement. “Now is the time to reduce the bureaucracy at NASA and turn our attention to the execution of bold new human missions to the Moon and Mars.” HOUSE FREEDOM CAUCUS EMBRACES TRUMP BUDGET PROPOSAL ‘PARADIGM SHIFT’ The proposed plan would cut roughly 24% of NASA’s entire budget, and could phase out some major projects like the Artemis moon program. Artemis, which was conceptualized by Trump in his first term, was designed to push the U.S. to return to moon exploration and came after President Barack Obama canceled the Constellation program in 2011. The original timeline of the Artemis program included a mission to land astronauts on the moon by 2024 via the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, but technical challenges have delayed the undertaking several years, and it is now set for at least September 2026 should the program survive the cuts. While funding reduction threatens some existing programs, the White House touted new investments that would bolster the agency in an effort to beat Chinese space innovations. TRUMP, GOP PUSH FOR MAJOR REDUCTION OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING IN NEW BUDGET PLAN “By allocating over $7 billion for lunar exploration and introducing $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs, it ensures that America’s human space exploration efforts remain unparalleled, innovative, and efficient,” the White House topline preview reads. “To achieve these objectives, the Budget would streamline the NASA workforce, IT services, NASA Center operations, facility maintenance, and construction and environmental compliance activities.” Aligning with the Trump administration’s movement to improve government efficiency, the White House clarified that the budget “refocuses [NASA] funding on beating China back to the Moon and on putting the first human on Mars.” With a heavy reduction in federal funding, it is most likely that outside contractors and companies like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX will most likely play a bigger role in launching rockets and exploring space. SpaceX has conducted 479 launches thus far, and Blue Origin has conducted 31. As the current head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), though he has announced his intention of leaving the agency to focus more on Tesla and his other ventures, Musk clarified he had no involvement in NASA budget discussions in a post on X last month. GOP LEADERS FIND NEW MAJOR HOLIDAY DEADLINE FOR TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ AMID MEDICAID, TAX DIVISIONS The budget blueprint and the funding changes to NASA still have to make their way through the legislative process, but the U.S. space agency has stood fast in its position that the current proposal will bolster innovation and exploration. “We have accomplished the impossible time and time again, but even the best organizations need to take a hard look in the mirror,” Whitley told Fox News Digital. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “For the past 25 years, NASA has had access to billions of dollars to advance human exploration beyond Low Earth Orbit. Despite that, in all that time, the United States has only successfully conducted one—uncrewed—test flight around the Moon,” he said. “We know we are capable of accomplishing much more.”
Amid India-Pakistan tensions, mock drills to be held across 244 locations tomorrow: Here’s what we know so far
According to the ministry, the drills will take place in 244 civil defence districts across the country. These areas have already been categorised for civil defence activities.
Who is Indian-origin billionaire Balvinder Singh Sahni, once paid Rs 80 crore for Rolls Royce fancy number, now sentenced to 5 years in jail in Dubai for…
Balwinder Sahni, 53, is the founder and chairman of the RSG Group, a property development firm with projects in several countries.
As tensions with Pakistan rise after Pahalgam terror attack, India to conduct defence mock drills after 54 years: Here’s what happened in 1971
The last time India conducted such a nationwide mock drill was 54 years ago, during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. That war led to the creation of Bangladesh.
Lawyer of whistleblower in Trump impeachment case sues administration over revoked security clearance
A lawyer who represented a government whistleblower in a case that led to President Donald Trump’s first impeachment sued the Trump administration on Monday for “unconstitutional retaliation” after his security clearance was revoked. Lawyer Mark Zaid argued that the administration’s decision to pull his clearance in March was in retaliation for representing former Department of Homeland Security intelligence chief Brian Murphy, who was key to Trump’s 2019 impeachment. Murphy filed a whistleblower complaint in 2019 alleging Trump, amid his re-election campaign, pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate then-U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine. The U.S. House of Representatives voted later that year to impeach Trump for abusing the power of his office and obstructing Congress, but he was later acquitted by the Senate. HAKEEM JEFFRIES BLAMES TRUMP FOR NEWARK AIRPORT CHAOS, ACCUSES WHITE HOUSE OF ‘BREAKING THE FAA’ Zaid’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., claims the decision to rescind his security clearance represents a “dangerous, unconstitutional retaliation by the President of the United States against his perceived political enemies” that “eschews any semblance of due process.” The complaint accuses the Trump administration of violating the Administrative Procedures Act, the First Amendment and parts of the Fifth Amendment. “No American should lose their livelihood, or be blocked as a lawyer from representing clients, because a president carries a grudge toward them or who they represent,” Zaid said in a statement. “This isn’t just about me. It’s about using security clearances as political weapons.” FORMER VP PENCE VOWS TO SPEAK OUT IF PRESIDENT TRUMP VEERS FROM ‘CONSERVATIVE AGENDA’ The lawsuit cites a 2019 incident in which Trump called Zaid a “sleazeball” at a Louisiana rally and told reporters that the lawyer was a “disgrace” who “should be sued.” The move to pull Zaid’s clearance was “a bald-faced attack on a sacred constitutional guarantee: the right to petition the court or federal agencies on behalf of clients,” the lawsuit says, noting that an “attack on this right is especially insidious because it jeopardizes Mr. Zaid’s ability to pursue and represent the rights of others without fear of retribution.” Trump has also revoked clearances of several other political foes, including former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and his own former national security advisor John Bolton, as well as attorneys at other law firms. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Zaid urged the court to rule that Trump’s revocation decision was unconstitutional and reinstate his clearance. He has had access to classified information since 1995 and a security clearance since 2002. Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment. Reuters contributed to this report.
What happens on ‘bad days’: Troubling revelations about John Fetterman and Joe Biden
John Fetterman has always been an eccentric character on a star-crossed path. He is the only United States senator who has adopted a hoodie as his official uniform. He is also the only one who suffered a stroke on the eve of his primary victory, making it difficult for him to speak, but won the general election anyway. And the Pennsylvania Democrat doesn’t toe the line on all party positions, especially when it comes to his fierce support for Israel. AS JUDGE IS CHARGED WITH OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE IN MIGRANT CASE, SPINNERS CAST IT AS AN ANTI-TRUMP STORY But now comes a troubling story in New York Magazine that casts the senator in a much darker light. The New York Times put it this way: Fetterman’s former chief of staff “was so alarmed with his ex-boss’s erratic behavior last year that he wrote a lengthy letter to his doctor warning that the senator was spiraling out of control and that his mental health issues could cost him his life.” The staffer, Adam Jentleson, added in writing Fetterman’s Walter Reed doctor: “I’m worried that if John stays on his current trajectory he won’t be with us for much longer.” Other former staff members told the Times that colleagues were sometimes “frightened” to be in his presence when he was manic, and that his “volatile” behavior has gotten worse since the election. Fetterman issued a statement saying that “my ACTUAL doctors and my family affirmed that I’m very well.” He called the magazine story a “hit piece” and promoted the idea that its author, Ben Terris, was “best friends” with Jentleson and that they “sourced anonymous, disgruntled staffers with lies or distorted half-truths.” Terris, for his part, disclosed in the article that Adam Jentleson is a “personal friend.” So it wasn’t a state secret. Jentleson wrote to the medical director who supervised Fetterman’s hospitalization for mental health problems in 2023: “He does not see his doctors. I am not sure when he last saw a cardiologist, but I don’t think he’s seen one since he was released. He long ago ordered us to stop putting regular drop-bys with Dr. Monahan on his schedule, despite the fact that he had agreed to those as part of the plan.” Brian Monahan is the Capitol and Supreme Court physician. Fetterman was the first Democratic senator to visit Trump, who carried Pennsylvania and the other swing states, at Mar-a-Lago. STATE OF WAR: HOW TRUMP IS FIGHTING A 9-FRONT BATTLE Jentleson wrote another doctor: “We do not know if he is taking his meds, and his behavior frequently suggests he is not.” Among other things, wrote Jentleson, his ex-boss drives recklessly and recently bought a gun. There are “high highs and low lows; long, rambling, repetitive and self-centered monologues lying in ways that are painfully, awkwardly obvious to everyone in the room.” Joe Biden, who does his first post-White House interview today, with his wife on “The View,” is a whole other story. His problem was not depression but making other Democrats depressed when he insisted on running for a second term. We now know how his wife and his staff protected him from the press and even his own staff to avoid revealing his mental decline. And that blew up on them in the horrible debate with Trump. Ron Klain has gone on the record with his frustration that his longtime boss walked out on one prep session and fell asleep by the pool. Now comes a new revelation in a forthcoming book by Josh Dawsey of the Wall Street Journal, Tyler Pager of the New York Times and Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post. The Times writes, citing the book, that “his top White House aides debated having him undergo a cognitive test to prove his fitness for a second term” in the early weeks of 2024. Here was the dilemma, according to “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America.” And that’s an accurate title. Biden’s closest aides “worried that the mere fact of his taking one would raise new questions about his mental abilities.” SENATOR’S WARNING FOR DISTRICT JUDGES AS SUPREME COURT SET TO HEAR LANDMARK CASE Which is precisely what would have happened. Rather than persuading the former president not to run, they wouldn’t even let him do a soft-focus Super Bowl interview. During this period in 2022, the Times published an interview with David Axelrod, the former Obama White House official turned CNN commentator. Axelrod said Biden “looks his age”–then 79–and added: “The stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue.” Axelrod angrily called Klain, then the chief of staff, to ask why he was fueling doubts about a Democratic president. “There’s no Obama out there, Axe,” Klain told him, according to the book. “Who’s going to do it if he doesn’t do it?” This was also around the time that special counsel Robert Hur, declining to prosecute Biden on the classified documents he voluntarily turned over, called the president “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” That seems incredibly mild now. Biden held a news conference to declare his memory was fine, but referred to the president of Egypt as the president of Mexico. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Talk about good days and bad days. Everyone has bad days, but it has national and international resonance when it involves a senator or a president. None of this should be used to stigmatize those with mental health or mental acuity problems. But there are red flags here that deepen our understanding of what’s really happening.
Trump administration bars Harvard from future research grants
US Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon halts funding in escalation of dispute centred around anti-Semitism claims. The administration of United States President Donald Trump has announced that Harvard University will no longer receive public funding for research in a sharp escalation of its dispute with the top university. In a letter to Harvard on Monday, US Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon said the elite university had made a “mockery” of higher education and should no longer seek federal grants, “since no will be provided”. “Harvard will cease to be a publicly funded institution, and can instead operate as a privately-funded institution, drawing on its colossal endowment, and raising money from its large base of wealthy alumni,” McMahon wrote in the letter. The move comes after the Trump administration last month froze nearly $2.3bn in federal funding to Harvard over what it claimed was its failure to tackle rampant anti-Semitism on campus. The administration announced the freeze after Harvard rejected a series of demands that it said would subject the university to undue government control, including that it accede to external audits of faculty and students to ensure “viewpoint diversity”. Advertisement In her letter, McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, outlined a series of grievances often made by conservatives against the university, including that it had fostered lax academic standards and admitted foreign students who “engage in violent behaviour and show contempt toward the United States of America”. “Where do many of these ‘students’ come from, who are they, and how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country – and why is there so much HATE?” McMahon wrote in the letter, emulating Trump’s use of all-capital letters to emphasise certain words. “These are questions that must be answered, among many more, but the biggest question of all is, why will Harvard not give straightforward answers to the American public?” Harvard, which is fighting the Trump administration’s earlier funding freeze in court, said in a statement that McMahon’s latest demands would have “chilling implications for higher education”. “Today’s letter makes new threats to illegally withhold funding for lifesaving research and innovation in retaliation against Harvard for filing its lawsuit on April 21,” a university spokesperson said. “Harvard will continue to comply with the law, promote and encourage respect for viewpoint diversity, and combat antisemitism in our community. Harvard will also continue to defend against illegal government overreach aimed at stifling research and innovation that make Americans safer and more secure.” US universities have faced controversy over alleged anti-Semitism on their campuses since the eruption last year of nationwide student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. Advertisement In two reports released last month, separate Harvard task forces said that students and staff had faced both anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim bias on campus. In response to the reports, Harvard President Alan Garber expressed concern that some students had been pushed “to the periphery of campus life because of who they are or what they believe”, and pledged to redouble efforts to ensure the university was a place where “mutual respect is the norm”. Trump and prominent conservatives in the US have also long accused Harvard and other universities of propagating extreme left-wing views and stifling right-wing perspectives. Adblock test (Why?)