Posts by Newspaper Staff

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee is changing its “athlete safety policy,” pledging to follow President Donald Trump’s executive order protecting “opportunities for women and girls to compete in safe and fair sports.”
The new policy, announced on Monday, did not come with fanfare, but with a quiet change on the USOPC’s website and a letter sent to national sport governing bodies.
Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order was issued in February.
“In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports,” the executive order states. “This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”
There are many states deemed to be out of compliance with Trump’s directive focusing on Title IX and the participation of transgender women in women’s sports. Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity that receives federal funding.
According to a July 15 post from Defending Education, a national organization that aims to combat the perceived politicization of education, states out of compliance and at risk of losing federal education dollars include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
The 27-page USOPC “Athlete Safety Policy” now includes a section 3.3 which doesn’t overtly mention transgender athletes, but does say, “The USOPC is committed to protecting opportunities for athletes participating in sport. The USOPC will continue to collaborate with various stakeholders with oversight responsibilities, e.g., IOC, IPC, NGBs, to ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment consistent with Executive Order 14201.”
Beth Parlato, senior legal advisor at the Independent Women’s Forum, did not see this coming.
“It did come as a surprise,” she said. “There was no notice; however, there was that mandate from the president’s executive order back in February, where he called them out specifically and other governing bodies to make their policies compliant with his executive order.”
Parlato applauded the policy change, telling The Center Square she and IWF members have been waiting and watching to see if USOPC would comply.
“And then it just happened so quietly,” she said. “They just updated their policy on the website, just saying that they’re not going to allow men to compete. That’s their policy.”
She explained that USOPC is putting the onus on governing bodies of different sports organizations to follow its lead.
“So the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee [is] setting the policy, and now they’re asking everybody else, you know, each individual sport, which has their own governing body, their own federations [to comply],” Parlato said. “So, every individual sport has their own national governing body, so they are asking that all the various national governing bodies of all the different sports follow their lead.”
Parlato said details on how enforcement will work, or if there will be enforcement, are unclear.
“They basically just said that the various sports federations must change their policy,” she said. “As a lawyer, I’m just kind of figuring out why they would have done it that way.”
USOPC is a federally chartered organization, she noted, so there is congressional oversight.
“They are a private nonprofit entity, so they are basically a quasi-governmental entity, so they have to comply with federal law,” Parlato said. “So when President Trump’s executive order to keep men out of women’s sports was signed on February 6th, they had to comply with the EO.”
Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, issued a statement in response to the USOPC policy change.
“The world is watching with alarm at the loss of freedom and opportunity in our country, especially as the United States is expected to host future Olympic events,” she said.
“The Committee will learn – as so many other institutions have – that there is no benefit in appeasing the endless, shifting, and petulant demands coming out of the White House.”
The USOPC move follows the NCAA’s recent decision to stop allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports.

America can no longer afford to be soft on crime through its laws, police budgets, and elections of leaders and prosecutors, according to a Fox News analyst whose brother was murdered.
“On June 24, 2022, my life was changed when my innocent baby, teenage brother Christian was murdered in Chicago,” conservative commentator Gianno Caldwell told an audience Wednesday evening at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. “Since then, I’ve been out for justice not just for him but for others who have experienced a very similar tragedy as my family.”
Caldwell discussed his recently published book, “The Day My Brother Was Murdered: My Journey Through America’s Violent Crime Crisis,” during his talk in Simi Valley, north of Los Angeles. That’s where Caldwell answered questions from Melissa Giller, chief marketing officer of the Ronald Reagan Foundation and Institute, and audience members.
Caldwell wrote that Christian, who was 18, died on Chicago’s South Side when a black SUV pulled up, and several unidentified men opened fire on a crowd.
The Fox News analyst said 150 people across the U.S. were murdered on the same day as his brother. For his book, he told the stories of eight of them, including his brother. He also interviewed Fox News host Sean Hannity and “America’s Most Wanted” host John Walsh. Additionally, Caldwell talked to Dr. Drew Pinsky, a TV host and addiction medicine specialist, about the nation’s mental health crisis and its impact on crime.
Caldwell said he felt inspired by the families he interviewed and their efforts to find justice for loved ones who were murdered.
In addition to writing the book, Caldwell started the Caldwell Institute for Public Safety and Caldwell Foundation for Public Safety, organizations that stress crime prevention.
“It can be preventable if you have the right people in charge,” Caldwell said as he answered Giller’s questions. “ ‘The Day My Brother Was Murdered’ is a manual for change.”
He noted he supported Nathan Hochman in his successful campaign to replace George Gascón as Los Angeles County district attorney.
“George Gascón was an absolute disaster,” Caldwell said, noting the district attorney did not recommend enhancements to get additional prison time on violent crimes.
Caldwell also warned against defunding police, something he said that Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a Democratic socialist candidate running for mayor of New York, wants to do.
During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, Mamdani advocated dismantling the New York Police Department. Fox News reported Mamdani is now backtracking those comments.
“A number of cities — Los Angeles, Chicago, New York — defunded police departments. What did that lead to, except for death and destruction? It’s insane to do that,” Caldwell said. “The most insane voices have become amplified.”
“In the most dangerous neighborhoods, the citizens there want more police, not less,” Caldwell said.
Caldwell, who warned about the failures of Democratic-led policies on crime, stressed the importance of electing officials who are tough on crime. He said people wanting a safer country voted for President Donald Trump instead of former President Joe Biden. In addition, Caldwell, who was in the Oval Office when Trump appointee Pam Bondi was sworn in as attorney general, praised her for supporting his efforts for stronger policies on crime.
“If you don’t have the right people in place, you might not be able to change much,” Caldwell said. “We saw that with four years of Biden.”

With the sight of homeless encampments plaguing cities nationwide, President Donald Trump has issued an executive order to get many of the homeless off the streets and into “long-term institutional settings.”
The announcement came as Trump toured the ongoing multi-billion-dollar Federal Reserve building complex construction project.
Citing addiction and mental health issues as leading causes for homelessness, Trump’s executive action argues that states and the federal government have failed to address homelessness’s “root causes,” adding that the problem leaves “other citizens vulnerable to public safety threats.”
The order targets safe injection sites and other community services that critics of those programs argue only enable drug use.
The president’s order outlines a plan to place homeless individuals in “long-term institutional” facilities for “humane treatment.” It underscores that the status quo is “neither compassionate to the homeless” or to others.
The White House claims there were 274,224 “individuals living on the streets” across the country “on a single night during the last year” of the Biden administration.
The order calls for the attorney general and the secretary of Health and Human Services to partner to “seek, in appropriate cases, the reversal of Federal or State judicial precedents and the termination of consent decrees that impede the United States’ policy of encouraging civil commitment of individuals with mental illness who pose risks to themselves or the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves in appropriate facilities for appropriate periods of time.”
In addition, the federal government would be charged with offering assistance in the form of grants and “technical guidance” to provide institutional treatment for individuals who pose a risk to themselves or others and “cannot care for themselves.”
The order provides “priority” for grantees in localities and states actively cracking down on open drug dens, homeless encampments and squatting. It would restrict federal funds to support “harm reduction” or “consumption” sites, which the White House argues “facilitate[s]” drug use.
The order didn’t indicate a price tag for the president’s plan.

More than 230,000 unaccompanied minors were released from immigration custody into the U.S. during the Biden administration and subsequently became unaccounted for, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari testified in front of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. He said 31,000 children were sent to invalid home addresses in the U.S. and that sponsors were not properly vetted before the unaccompanied children were released to them.
The Oversight panel was called to review the findings of a March 2025 report by DHS that found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is unable to track the status of all unaccompanied minors currently in the U.S. The report’s findings “reveal significant gaps” in ICE’s management of these children, Cuffari testified.
“This is not simply an administrative problem,” Cuffari said. “It’s a systemic breakdown that poses grave risks to unaccompanied alien children (UACs) and the integrity of our legal immigration system.”
DHS’s report found that more than 43,000 of these children failed to appear for court hearings and can no longer be tracked by ICE. The report said these children are “considered at higher risk for trafficking, exploitation or forced labor.”
“The findings are a double-edged sword,” Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., said during the hearing. “While some vulnerable children have likely been trafficked, exploited and subject to forced labor, the report also found other older teens that were convicted criminals and gang members.”
Cuffari testified that a team of special agents was set up by ICE in February to locate and carry out welfare and health checks on unaccompanied minors who have been lost by DHS and the Department of Health and Human Services. With assistance from the FBI and U.S. Marshals, the unit has visited 50,000 homes so far to locate 200,000 children, Cuffari said.
Democrats on the panel pushed back against the Trump administration’s “reckless” immigration initiatives and argued that DHS has increasingly targeted children in its deportation efforts.
“Are these little kids the dangerous criminals Trump vowed to go after?” Subcommittee Ranking Member Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., said.
The panel’s meeting is the first in a series of hearings that will examine past shortcomings of DHS, determine how the U.S. immigration system can be reformed to locate and better monitor unaccompanied minors and establish how DHS and HHS can work together effectively on this issue.

President Donald Trump and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican, used a visit to a Federal Reserve renovation site on Thursday to talk about the need to lower interest rates.
“So I met with the contractors, we toured it with the chairman, and we had a very good tour, and we’ll talk to you about it sometime, but Tim and I sort of understand what happened,” Trump said after a tour led by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Scott said Americans need lower interest rates to become first-time homeowners.
“Americans deserve to become first time home buyers,” Scott said. “President Trump has created the best economy in the world. The one thing that would make it better is lower interest rates.”
Trump added: “The one thing we have to do is get housing prices down and the interest rates down so people can buy the house, because they’re all making money, but they can’t get the interest rate down.”
The comments came after Trump brought a team of allies and construction professionals to tour an over-budget renovation project at the Federal Reserve buildings in Washington D.C.
Trump met with Powell at the site. The president brought along Scott, R-S.C., U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and Federal Housing Finance Agency boss Bill Pulte at the Federal Reserve project site. Also joining them were Trump’s appointees to the National Capital Planning Commission, the federal government’s central planning agency for the National Capital Region, James Blair and Will Scharf.
Trump also said “various other construction professionals” would be joining the tour of the renovation projects, which were estimated to cost $1.9 billion in 2023. The project now stands and $2.5 billion after issues with the high water table, asbestos and toxic contamination in the soil.
Trump put the figure even higher in a Truth Social post on Thursday.
“Getting ready to head over to the Fed to look at their, now, $3.1 Billion Dollar (PLUS!) construction project,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
After the meeting Trump called it “luxurious,” but didn’t mention fraud.
Powell said Thursday at the meeting that he doesn’t expect additional cost overruns on the project, which the Federal Reserve has defended as cost-conscious and responsible renovations to historic buildings located on the National Mall. He also shook his head at Trump’s $3.1 billion cost estimate.
“Construction involving the preservation of historic spaces requires specialized processes and methods, which are generally more complex and have increased costs compared with new construction or renovation of spaces that are not historically significant or located on the National Mall,” according to the Federal Rerserve’s new frequently-asked-questions page that focuses on the remodel.
Powell said Thursday the project should be finished by 2027.
A reporter asked Trump, who made his name in real estate, what he’d do with a contractor who was over budget on a project. Trump said that normally he’d fire a project manger for going over budget. However, the president declined to comment directly on Powell.
“Well, I’m here just really with the chairman,” Trump said. “He’s showing us around, showing us the work. And so I don’t want to get into that. I don’t want to be personal. I just would like to see it get finished.”
Trump also said he’d like to see Powell lower interest rates during the meeting with Powell and reporters at the project site.
The visit comes amid Trump’s “nasty” pressure campaign to get Powell and the Federal Open Market Committee to lower interest rates. The Fed has taken a wait-and-see approach on interest rates, citing Trump’s broad-based reciprocal tariffs as a reason for caution.
Trump previously called Powell to the White House for a meeting. After that May meeting, Powell issued a rare statement saying that FMOC decisions would be based “solely on careful, objective, and non-political analysis.”
Since returning to the White House for his second term, Trump has called Powell every name in the book. One of the president’s favorites for Powell has been “numbskull.” He’s also given Powell the nickname “Too Late” for not cutting interest rates as fast as Trump would like.
Powell has largely ducked Trump’s criticism. When Trump criticized cost overruns on the remodel, the Fed Chairman referred the matter to the central bank’s inspector general.
Last week, Trump said he wasn’t planning to fire Powell, but kept the option on the table.
“We’re not planning on doing anything,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Later, the president added, “I don’t rule out anything, but I think it’s highly unlikely, unless he has to leave for fraud.”
The fraud remark referred directly to the renovation project. The Fed is a self-funded, quasi-private institution. The president picks its members in staggered terms with Senate confirmation.
Trump has wanted to fire Powell for years, but hasn’t taken action.

The U.S. Supreme Court will most likely be revisiting issues of nationwide injunctions and transgender status in its next term.
The Federalist Society, a law and public policy nonprofit, hosted an expert panel on Thursday to discuss the Supreme Court’s recent term and predictions for future terms.
In the past term, the high court issued 56 majority decisions and 11 of those decisions were decided 6-3, along partisan lines.
The experts said the emergency docket applications were particularly staggering in the past term. The Trump administration filed 20 emergency petitions to the court since January, compared to 19 applications in the Biden administration and 41 applications across all four years of Trump’s first term.
One case of significance from the emergency docket was the court’s ruling against nationwide injunctions, based on a challenge to the Trump administration’s birthright citizenship executive order.
The court left open the possibility to challenge unlawful executive actions through class action lawsuits.
Kannon Shanmugam, partner at the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison, said the court’s decision to allow class action lawsuits will have “limited practical consequences” for nationwide injunctions.
“If a court thinks that a class action might eventually be certified, presumably by engaging in some sort of quick look at whether or not this feels like a class, like a class action, the court can then proceed to grant nationwide relief,” Shanmugam said.
On Wednesday, the ninth circuit court of appeals upheld a lower courts nationwide injunction decision that prevented Trump’s birthright citizenship order from going into effect.
On July 10, a federal judge in New Hampshire certified a class action lawsuit against the Trump administration to protect the citizenship of children born in the United States to noncitizen parents.
Shanmugam said the courts can find people with “generalizable injuries” against Trump’s executive order and it will present “all the same litigation challenges” as nationwide injunctions.
Kristen Waggoner, CEO of the advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, also said the court’s decision leaving transgender care for minors up to states, is particularly consequential for the future definitions of transgender status discrimination.
In Skrmetti v. U.S., the high court allowed states to prevent minors from receiving transgender care. Liberal justices dissented from this decision, citing discrimination on the basis of sex since the law allowed certain children to continue to receive treatment like puberty blockers for issues like precocious puberty.
The court will take up two decisions on transgender athletes from Idaho and West Virginia in its next term. Waggoner said these decisions will force the court to decide what protections exist for transgender people.
“There’s no question that the physical differences will come to bear in the decision and will be front and center in oral argument,” Waggoner said.
Waggoner and Shanmugam said Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh are emerging as “the center of the court.” They said the three justices joined the liberal majority almost as much as the conservative majority in split court decisions this term.
“We really have a 3-3-3 court nowadays,” Shanmugam said. “I think that is something that has taken place for long enough now that we can say that that is really a trend.”

A group of anglers got President Donald Trump’s attention in a long-running campaign to protect a lesser-known forage fish in the Chesapeake Bay.
The Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association posted a 4-minute video on YouTube that blames a reduction in menhaden in the bay on the Canadian company Cooke Seafood. A letter posted along with the video calls on Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to stop Cooke Seafood from removing menhaden from the Chesapeake Bay and other Virginia waters.
“Foreign companies profit off of industrial fishing for U.S. forage fish (aka bait fish) undermining American businesses and workers,” the group wrote in a Change.org petition. “By taking bold action to end industrial scale fishing for vulnerable bait fish, America can harness the full economic potential of our fisheries, create jobs, and secure a sustainable future for America’s fishing industry and coastal communities.”
The company involved in the menhaden operation, Ocean Harvesters, disputed the allegations in the video.
“Ocean Harvesters continues a long and proud tradition of menhaden fishing in Virginia’s Northern Neck region, where menhaden fishermen have operated continuously for over 145 years,” the company said in a statement. “Ocean Harvesters vessels are crewed primarily by American fishermen, many of whom are multi-generational, holding the same jobs as their fathers and grandfathers. The fishery employs hundreds of local workers directly, and hundreds more indirectly, and has long been one of the best sources of good-paying jobs in the region.”
The video casts the conflict as a battle between local anglers and a giant Canadian-owned conglomerate illegally fishing in U.S. waters. A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Cooke, Ocean Fleet Services and others in January.
The allegations started years after Cooke Inc., a New Brunswick company and parent of Cooke Aquaculture Inc., bought Omega Protein Corporation, which makes specialty oils and specialty protein products, for $500 million in 2017.
Two people sued Cooke, Omega Protein, Ocean Fleet Services, Ocean Harvesters and others in 2021 under the False Claims Act, alleging the companies falsely structured the acquisition and defrauded the government when they obtained U.S. fishing permits.
Ocean Harvesters said it abides by all U.S. laws.
“As required by U.S. law, all menhaden fishing is conducted by U.S.-owned fishing companies, and vessels are crewed primarily by American fishermen. Ocean Harvesters is an American company headquartered in Reedville, Virginia. It has additional operations in Abbeville, Louisiana and Moss Point, Mississippi.
Some of the defendants, including Ocean Fleet Services, wrote in a motion to dismiss that “stripped of the hyperbolic innuendo, this is a case about entities engaging in a routine business transaction, with the express authorization of a fully informed industry regulator, involving the purchase of fish processing facilities and the sale of fishing vessels.”
“The net result of the transaction, which is a U.S. citizen-owned fleet entering into an agreement to sell its catch to a foreign-owned processor, is expressly permitted under federal law,” defendant’s wrote in the motion to dismiss.
A judge dismissed that suit in January, ruling that neither fish nor a fishing license met the definition of property under the False Claims Act.
The complainants have since appealed that ruling, alleging, among other things, that defendants violated the American Fisheries Act’s citizenship requirement, which requires U.S. commercial fishing vessels to be owned and controlled by U.S. citizens.
A decision on the appeal is pending. A group of law professors wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief in the appeal that “the district court’s decision fails to recognize the substantial property rights States and the Federal Government historically had and today still have in wildlife in their lands and waters,” according to court records. That brief further argued that the “district court’s denial of those substantial property rights overlooks two hundred years of American history and weakens Federal and State protections of our Nation’s natural resources.”
Cooke Seafood told The Center Square it doesn’t own or operate the menhaden operation. Cooke directed comment to Ocean Fleet Services. Ocean Harvesters said it has a long-term supply contract with Cooke.
“Ocean Harvesters does have a long-term supply contract with Omega Protein, which, while owned by Canada-based Cooke Inc., is also headquartered in Reedville and operates exclusively in the U.S. Omega Protein purchases the menhaden caught by Ocean Harvesters and processes it into fish meal and fish oil for use in aquaculture, health supplements, and healthy food for pets,” the company said.
The Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association succeeded outside the court in getting Trump to post its video on his Truth Social platform. Trump’s post didn’t include any comment.
Conservatives for Fair Fishing, a group focused on the issues, wrote in a recent blog post that Trump should stop the practices highlighted in the video.
“The plundering of menhaden in U.S. waters only scratches the surface of foreign control over the American seafood industry. While menhaden serves as bait, other foreign conglomerates command tremendous control over the U.S. food supply,” the group wrote in a blog post.
FULL STATEMENT FROM OCEAN HARVESTERS:
A recent video that has been widely shared on social media repeats many false claims about the Atlantic and Gulf menhaden fisheries. Most notably, it recirculates claims about foreign ownership of the fisheries and the sustainability of menhaden that have been repeatedly debunked. The video also ignores the fact that Atlantic and Gulf menhaden fisheries are tightly regulated, responsibly managed and a source of good-paying jobs for hundreds of rural American fishermen and seafood workers.
At several points the video makes claims about “Canadian exploitation of U.S. natural resources” and fisheries “being pillaged by foreigners”—claims that ignore how the fishery actually operates and wrong about the companies that fish for menhaden. As required by U.S. law, all menhaden fishing is conducted by U.S.-owned fishing companies, and vessels are crewed primarily by American fishermen. Ocean Harvesters is an American company headquartered in Reedville, Virginia, with additional operations in Abbeville, Louisiana and Moss Point, Mississippi.
Ocean Harvesters continues a long and proud tradition of menhaden fishing in Virginia’s Northern Neck region, where menhaden fishermen have operated continuously for over 145 years. Ocean Harvesters vessels are crewed primarily by American fishermen, many of whom are multi-generational, holding the same jobs as their fathers and grandfathers. The fishery employs hundreds of local workers directly, and hundreds more indirectly, and has long been one of the best sources of good-paying jobs in the region.
Virginia holds the majority of the menhaden quota due to the post-Civil War migration of New England fishery operations to Reedville, where economic opportunity, access to abundant fish stocks, and a favorable climate for year-round processing led to the concentration of the reduction industry. Families and companies from the North moved south, establishing plants and infrastructure that anchored the fishery in the region. Over time, Reedville evolved into the national center of the menhaden reduction fishery, building a deeply rooted local economy around this industry. This type of concentration of quota is similar to how the majority of permitted lobster fishing effort is concentrated in Maine and Massachusetts.
Menhaden bait fishing occurs across the East Coast using the same gear—like purse seines—but only Virginia allows the catch to be processed into marine ingredients such as omega-3 oil and fish meal. Other states permit menhaden harvest for bait, which is used in Maine and Massachusetts’ lobster fisheries and Maryland’s crab fishery, among others. Despite identical fishing methods, these states ban the reduction fishery—a rare regulatory approach that targets end use rather than gear or harvest limits. Much of the bait doesn’t stay local, supplying fisheries as far as Alaska’s Bering Strait and crawfish farms across the Gulf of America.
While the video claims to want to “put America first,” it actually advocates against American fishermen and their communities by falsely attacking a fishery that is critical to rural America.
Ocean Harvesters does have a long-term supply contract with Omega Protein, which, while owned by Canada-based Cooke, Inc., is also headquartered in Reedville and operates exclusively in the U.S. Omega Protein purchases the menhaden caught by Ocean Harvesters and processes it into fish meal and fish oil for use in aquaculture, health supplements, and healthy food for pets.
The video badly misrepresents the current state of the menhaden population and the impact of the fishery on other species. While the video refers to the “pillaging of menhaden” by the fishery and claims that it “crushes” other fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay, this is not supported by any available science. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), the interstate body that manages menhaden, has repeatedly found that the species is not overfished and that overfishing is not occurring—most recently confirming this finding in its 2022 stock assessment. The Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission (GSMFC) similarly found in 2024 that Gulf menhaden is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring.
The sustainability of the Atlantic and Gulf menhaden fisheries has been internationally recognized as well. Since 2019, both fisheries have been certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the most rigorous and widely recognized seafood sustainability label in the world.
The video is also deceiving and flatly wrong about how the menhaden fishery affects the ecosystem, claiming that “striped bass are the ones that are most impacted by a reduction in menhaden,” and that there are “no croaker in the Bay, no trout in the Bay, crab populations are down,” because of the fishery. There is no available scientific data that supports these conclusions. Striped bass, unlike menhaden, are currently considered to be overfished by the ASMFC, and are in the middle of a rebuilding plan. Overharvest by recreational fishermen is by far the single most important factor affecting the striped bass population. There is no evidence that a lack of access to prey is responsible for the current overfished status of striped bass.
Croaker and trout have not been identified by the ASMFC as relying significantly on menhaden for food. Crabs do not eat menhaden at all, and in fact the food web relationship between the two species is the opposite: menhaden regularly feed on crab larvae.
Mentioning these species as negatively affected by menhaden fishing demonstrates a misunderstanding of Bay food web dynamics.
Atlantic menhaden are managed specifically to take into account the needs of predator species like striped bass. The system, known as Ecological Reference Points, sets the coastwide menhaden quota not just with the menhaden fishery in mind, but also to ensure there are enough menhaden left in the water to serve as a food source for predators. They were developed through a rigorous, multi-year process led by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) in partnership with NOAA and other scientific bodies, and represent the most up-to-date science understanding predator-prey relationships on the Atlantic coast. This makes the menhaden quota inherently conservative, and contradicts the picture of an unrestricted fishery made by the video.
The video is misleading about the menhaden fishery’s impact on the Bay overall, criticizing the fishery by stating that “51,000 metric tons or 112,000,000 lbs. of menhaden [are] removed from the Bay every year.” But the current cap on menhaden harvests in the Chesapeake Bay is based not on science but on politics. The ASMFC originally implemented the Bay cap in 2006 at just over 109,000 metric tons (mt) as part of a political compromise—not due to any scientific finding or ecological necessity. In fact, the ASMFC clearly stated at the time that the cap was “precautionary and not based on a scientifically quantified harvest threshold, fishery health index, or fishery population level study.”
Despite this lack of scientific foundation, the cap has since been reduced to 51,000 mt, a figure that does not reflect historical harvest levels or the established norms of U.S. fisheries management. In nearly all federally managed fisheries, harvest allocations are based on historic landings, not arbitrary political negotiations. Under that standard,
Virginia would have been allocated at least two-thirds more than the current cap.
It’s also critical to recognize that the current harvest level is a fraction of what it used to be. From 1955 to 2010, the average annual harvest of menhaden from the Chesapeake Bay was 112,000 mt, and in some years reached as high as 170,000 mt. Today’s cap of 51,000 mt is less than half that long-term average, making clear that the industry is already operating at dramatically reduced levels—despite a lack of scientific evidence that such reductions are necessary.
If we truly want to “put America first,” we should be supporting the hardworking Virginians, Louisianans, and Mississippians who comprise the Atlantic and Gulf menhaden fisheries, not attacking them. This American industry has thrived for over 145 years thanks to the efforts of fishermen, scientists, and fishery managers. With strong collaboration, it can continue to thrive for the next 145 years to come.

President Donald Trump brought a team of allies and construction professionals to tour an over-budget renovation project at the Federal Reserve buildings in Washington D.C.
Trump met with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at the site. The president brought along U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and Federal Housing Finance Agency boss Bill Pulte at the Federal Reserve project site. Also joining them were Trump’s appointees to the National Capital Planning Commission, the federal government’s central planning agency for the National Capital Region, James Blair and Will Scharf.
Trump also said “various other construction professionals” would be joining the tour of the renovation projects, which were estimated to cost $1.9 billion in 2023. The project now stands and $2.5 billion after issues with the high water table, asbestos and toxic contamination in the soil.
Trump put the figure even higher in a Truth Social post on Thursday.
“Getting ready to head over to the Fed to look at their, now, $3.1 Billion Dollar (PLUS!) construction project,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
Powell said Thursday at the meeting that he doesn’t expect additional cost overruns on the project, which the Federal Reserve has defended as cost-conscious and responsible renovations to historic buildings located on the National Mall.
“Construction involving the preservation of historic spaces requires specialized processes and methods, which are generally more complex and have increased costs compared with new construction or renovation of spaces that are not historically significant or located on the National Mall,” according to the Federal Rerserve’s new frequently-asked-questions page that focuses on the remodel.
Powell said Thursday the project should be finished by 2027.
A reporter asked Trump, who made his name in real estate, what he’d do with a contractor who was over budget on a project. Trump said that normally he’d fire a project manger for going over budget. However, the president declined to comment directly on Powell.
“Well, I’m here just really with the chairman,” Trump said. “He’s showing us around, showing us the work. And so I don’t want to get into that. I don’t want to be personal. I just would like to see it get finished.”
Trump also said he’d like to see Powell lower interest rates during the meeting with Powell and reporters at the project site.
The visit comes amid Trump’s “nasty” pressure campaign to get Powell and the Federal Open Market Committee to lower interest rates. The Fed has taken a wait-and-see approach on interest rates, citing Trump’s broad-based reciprocal tariffs as a reason for caution.
Trump previously called Powell to the White House for a meeting. After that May meeting, Powell issued a rare statement saying that FMOC decisions would be based “solely on careful, objective, and non-political analysis.”
Since returning to the White House for his second term, Trump has called Powell every name in the book. One of the president’s favorites for Powell has been “numbskull.” He’s also given Powell the nickname “Too Late” for not cutting interest rates as fast as Trump would like.
Powell has largely ducked Trump’s criticism. When Trump criticized cost overruns on the remodel, the Fed Chairman referred the matter to the central bank’s inspector general.
Last week, Trump said he wasn’t planning to fire Powell, but kept the option on the table.
“We’re not planning on doing anything,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Later, the president added, “I don’t rule out anything, but I think it’s highly unlikely, unless he has to leave for fraud.”
The fraud remark referred directly to the renovation project. The Fed is a self-funded, quasi-private institution. The president picks its members in staggered terms with Senate confirmation.
Trump has wanted to fire Powell for years, but hasn’t taken action.