Posts by Newspaper Staff

The U.S. Department of Education has launched investigations into 45 universities for alleged Title VI violations.
In recent months, the department’s Office for Civil Rights have claimed the universities are in violation of Title VI due to alleged racial discrimination on campus.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs and activities that receive federal funding.
“The Department is working to reorient civil rights enforcement to ensure all students are protected from illegal discrimination. The agency has already launched Title VI investigations into institutions where widespread antisemitic harassment has been reported and Title IX investigations into entities which allegedly continue to allow sex discrimination,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Today’s announcement expands our efforts to ensure universities are not discriminating against their students based on race and race stereotypes.”
In its recent efforts to combat campus discrimination, the Trump administration has informed Harvard University’s accreditors that the university is violating federal anti-discrimination laws, potentially jeopardizing its accreditation.
“When an institution — no matter how prestigious — abandons its mission and fails to protect its students, it forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a press release.
Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin blamed Harvard for ongoing discrimination and antisemitic harassments students faced.
“Harvard, like other universities, has allowed foreign students to abuse their visa privileges and advocate for violence and terrorism on campus,” McLaughlin said.
On Thursday, the Department of Education announced an investigation into George Mason University following a complaint alleging that the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies provide “preferential treatment” to faculty from “underrepresented groups” in an effort to appear “anti-racist.”
“The Trump-McMahon Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights will investigate this matter fully to ensure that individuals are judged based on their merit and accomplishment, not the color of their skin,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor.
The University of Washington and Washington State University have also been under investigation due to their ties with the PhD Project, a nonprofit that assists minorities within graduate programs.
“Our vision is to create a broader talent pipeline of current and future business leaders who are committed to excellence and to each other, through networking, mentorship, and unique events,” the PhD Project stated.
In the announcement back in March, McMahon noted the department efforts are to ensure that all students, regardless of race, have the same opportunities to accomplish greatness.
“Students must be assessed according to merit and accomplishment, not prejudged by the color of their skin. We will not yield on this commitment,” McMahon said.
Colleges being investigated by the Department of Education over Title VI also include the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and two colleges in Colorado.

The U.S. Forest Services plans to cut its budget by $391 million for fiscal year 2026, according to a proposed budget request.
A large portion of the cuts to the forest services budget are expected to be implemented into the new U.S. Wildland Fire Service within the Department of the Interior.
Tom Shultz, chief of the U.S. Forest Service, laid out plans to integrate fire service operations within the department and highlighted its focus on a “back-to-basics approach” at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources hearing on Thursday.
“The fiscal year 2026 President’s budget refocuses forest service efforts on active forest management, critical minerals permitting, recreation [and] energy development,” Shultz said.
Some senators on the committee criticized the forest service’s plans to consolidate fire operations in the Department of Interior.
“Instead of moving quickly, you all have trotted out yet another new and described as improved reorganization in the middle of a very dangerous fire season,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said he was concerned about staffing cuts at the forest service from the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program, which allowed federal workers to resign from their positions while still receiving pay and benefits until Sept. 30.
“The staffing reductions coupled with the president diverting National Guard units in California mean that those resources are no longer available to support our wildfire response capacity,” Padilla said.
Shultz said that most firefighting personnel in the forest service did not take part in the deferred resignation process. He said the forest service maintains 99% capacity for firefighting personnel.
Padilla also said he was concerned about the increased roles state and local governments would need to take up in preventing forest fires with less help from the U.S. Forest Service.
“Communities in the United States of America are at increased risk because of the actions of this administration which contradict the supposed goals and objectives,” Padilla said.
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., opposed Padilla and said that state governments should have greater responsibility over public lands, rather than the federal government.
“If you take a look at the landscapes across Montana and look at federal lands versus state lands, I can tell you the state’s doing a much, much better job in terms of stewardship of public lands than the federal government,” Daines said.
As the U.S. Forest Service prepares to make cuts to its budget, state and local governments are looking for ways to address land management.
“Some of these issues that we’ve discussed, it’s just a reminder of the fact that states and tribes are incredible partners. They’re indispensable parties really, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah said.
“They’re the ones on the ground, living in communities that depend on these forests, that are right next to them, whose lives are inextricably intertwined with the land in question,” Lee added.

The new leadership at the U.S. Department of State is moving full speed ahead on its mission to “rightsize” and reshape the department to serve its America First foreign policy vision, according to department spokesperson Tammy Bruce.
“We inherited a dynamic that needed reform, and we are taking and implementing reform,” Bruce said at a press briefing Thursday afternoon.
The briefing takes place two days after the Supreme Court issued a stay on a lower court’s decision challenging the administration’s sweeping personnel and staffing cuts, allowing the administration to proceed with mass layoffs and firings for now.
This effort “restores the department to its roots of results-driven democracy,” according to Bruce.
“This is about making sure that the State Department is able to operate in a manner that makes it relevant and effective. That is what the American people want. It’s what all of us want,” she said.
The emergency stay was issued Tuesday evening in an 8-1 decision in response to a request from the administration to enforce a February executive order and memorandum attempting to reform the federal workforce.
“Because the Government is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful — and because the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied — we grant the application,” the justices wrote.
They added that the order does not represent an opinion from the Court on “the legality of any Agency [Reduction in Force] and Reorganization Plan produced or approved pursuant to the Executive Order and Memorandum.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
Bruce emphasized that the cuts were not to be taken as a reflection of those being laid off or terminated — calling her experience working at the State Department “life-changing” — but rather as a reflection of the structure and effectiveness of the organization as a whole.
“I do also want to make a note here as my experience at the State Department now moves into its six month [of] the remarkable experience, the life-changing experience, I’ve had getting to know the people who work in this building,” Bruce said. “In the midst of this, know that the people who have committed to the State Department and to diplomacy — that they know also — that this is not about them.”
The stay will remain in effect until the lawsuit concludes. It’s currently under review by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the court rules against the administration, the government will likely appeal to the Supreme Court.

Real estate owners looking to sell their homes in the future may be able to avoid paying the federal capital gains tax if newly-introduced legislation passes.
The No Tax on Home Sales Act, introduced Thursday by U.S. Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., would eliminate the federal capital gains tax on home sales if the home is the seller’s primary residence. This caveat would ensure that house flippers or real estate investors would not take advantage of the change.
Currently, if homeowners sell their property for more than they originally paid for it, the difference is called a capital gain. The federal government will usually tax the gain, depending on the home seller’s income, gain amount, and how long the home was owned. The capital gains tax falls into 0%, 15%, and 20% brackets.
Greene said her bill, by removing what amounts to a tax penalty on home selling, would increase housing market fluidity as well as housing inventory.
“Families who work hard, build equity, and sell their homes should not be punished with massive tax bills,” Greene said in a statement. “The capital gains tax on home sales is an outdated, unfair burden – especially in today’s housing market, where values have skyrocketed.”
The Internal Revenue Service does allow some homeowners to exclude gains up to $250,000 for qualifying single filers and $500,000 for joint filers. But that rule has not been updated since 1997, and housing prices have risen 119% since then, subjecting more and more Americans to a tax originally meant for the wealthy.
“Homeowners who have lived in their homes for decades, especially seniors in places where values have surged, shouldn’t be forced to stay put because of an IRS penalty,” Greene added. “My bill unlocks that equity, helps fix the housing shortage, and supports long-term financial security for American families.”
If the bill passes, the federal government would see a significant decrease in revenue. While the number of capital gains tax filers fluctuates from year to year, 26 million tax returns included some capital gains in 2019, amounting to billions of dollars in taxes.
The federal government is already set to lose at least $3.3 trillion in projected tax dollars over the next 10 years due to the passage of Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill,” which makes the bulk of the 2017 tax cuts permanent.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arrested one of El Salvador’s most notorious MS-13 gang members in Nebraska.
The suspect, whose name has not been released, is a Salvadoran national. He was wanted by authorities because he had multiple violent charges against him including the killings of five people, unlawful detention, aggravated murder, and a connection to a terrorist organization.
He was arrested along with Rene Saul Escobar Ochoa, a 30-year-old MS-13 terrorist and foreign national who was residing with the suspect in the United States illegally.
Ochoa, also wanted in El Salvador, is alleged to be the ringleader of a network of gang members, directing them to carry out a series of violent crimes like murder, extortion, drug distribution, and imprisonment.
They were both taken into custody without any resistance during a focused operation. Their presence was known in Omaha and posed a severe threat to the community, according to ICE officials.
“These illegal aliens didn’t just sneak into our country; they brought with them a legacy of violence, terror and death,” HSI Kansas City Special Agent in Charge Mark Zito, said in a statement. “They thought they could hide in America’s heartland, but they were sadly mistaken.”
Federal officials are warning that any misinformation about immigration enforcement could have deadly consequences.
“When ICE agents move in to make an arrest, it is extremely important that the public not interfere,” ICE acting Director Todd M. Lyons, said in the release. “The misinformation, and sometimes blatant lies, being spread around the country could result in someone stepping into a federal operation and suddenly finding themselves face-to-face with a killer who has nothing to lose.”
The Trump administration is prioritizing finding and removing TdA members as well as others it’s designated as members of foreign terrorist organizations.
A Homeland Security task force is working to protect Americans “by eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, and transnational criminal organizations operating in Nebraska and Iowa,” The Center Square reported.
One recent arrest was of a Venezuelan national and alleged TdA member charged with attempted murder of special agents in Bellevue, Nebraska, after throwing an ICE agent to the ground, slamming her head on the pavement, ripping off her body armor, and making “repeated and physical violent contact,” The Center Square reported.
This is after more than one million Venezuelans illegally entered the country under the Biden adminstration, including members of the terrorist organization Tren de Aragua, whose criminal activity has been confirmed in at least 22 states, The Center Square exclusively reported.

A group of 16 retired U.S. Air Force generals is asking congressional leaders to increase the purchase of F-35 Lightning fighter aircraft and a replacement for the Air Force’s aging airborne warning and control system fleet.
The Air & Space Forces Association sent a letter on Monday to Congressional leaders, asking them to restore funding for a full purchase of 75 F-35s and to undo the termination of the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail AWACS program.
As part of the U.S. Department of Defense’s $961 billion funding request, the number of Air Force F-35 purchases was cut from 75 to 24, while the E-7 program was canceled.
Gen. Ronald R. Fogleman, the 15th chairman of the Air Force, said on a Zoom call with media that cutting the F-35 purchases could jeopardize the service’s operations if several of the four theaters of operation — the continental U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East — flare up simultaneously.
“And so 72 might not be the right number, but it’s, in my opinion, a minimum number to build back up the fighter force structure to deal with the threats that we face,” Fogleman said.
Air Force leaders have repeatedly said a minimum of 72 fighter aircraft need to be purchased annually to replace the service’s aging fleet. This year’s budget request would only purchase 45, with 21 of those F-15EX Eagle II aircraft.
The Air Force has already spent $2.5 billion on the Wedgetail program, which the retired generals said is a vital system. AWACS aircraft are flying air contact tracking and battle management platforms and have been essential in every U.S. conflict since the Vietnam War. The Wedgetails were intended to replace the service’s aging E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft, which entered service in March 1977.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Congress in June that the E-7 is an example of a platform that isn’t survivable on a modern battlefield and that the service would pivot to space-based surveillance systems instead, along with a purchase of the Navy’s Northrop Grumman E-2D Hawkeye AWACS.
The 18th U.S. Air Force chief of staff, retired Gen. Michael Moseley, said space is no longer a free game, it’s a contested combat arena and putting all of eggs into orbit is a bad operational idea.
“But it was basically a notion of what can we move on to orbit, and what can we divest ourselves of?” Moseley said. “Divest ourselves of air breathing? Can we move (now retired E-8) J-STARS? Can we move AWACS? Can we move our sensors into orbit? We spent quite a bit of time on that, and I think we, with 100% agreement, came back and said, that would be a great idea, except for two realities: We don’t have the technology to migrate the air breathing sensors into orbit, and two, the vulnerabilities will eventually become severe.”
Gen. Michael Loh, the first commander of the Air Combat Command and a former Air Force vice chairman, said the vulnerability of the E-7 in contested air space isn’t an issue because Air Force has traditionally “sanitized” areas from both aerial and ground-based threats such as surface to air missiles.
“And that’s just a false assumption, but the Air Force seems to have taken up the fact that if an aircraft can’t operate in contested airspace, it can’t contribute to the battle,” Loh said. We can sanitize areas of operation. We’ve done it in every war. We’ll do it in every war. We can operate in contested airspace. We can clear it out when we have an air operation like we we’ve done very well in Desert Storm.
“We did it in Midnight Hammer. We did it every campaign we’ve been involved in, we can, we can operate in that airspace, with defense suppression, with overwhelming force and with smart tactics, and we’ve done it all the time. So we shouldn’t be afraid of contested airspace.”
The E-2 is designed to operate from the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers and has fewer on-board operators, decreased range and a smaller radar than the E-7.
Since the Hawkeye is designed to take off and land on carriers, this design would allow the aircraft to use shorter landing fields closer to the battlespace.
The E-2 also doesn’t use the Air Force’s in-flight refueling method which uses a “boom” flown by an operator into a receptacle on the receiving aircraft.
The Hawkeye can only be refueled via probe and drogue method as are other Navy and Marine Corps aircraft. This refueling method uses a probe on the receiving aircraft, which is flown by the pilot into a basket (known as a drogue) from the trailing aircraft.
The advantage of the boom method is a much greater fuel transfer rate, while the older probe and drogue method allows even fighter aircraft to be fitted with refueling gear (such as the Navy’s F-18 Super Hornet) to act as tankers.
The E-7 is operated by the Royal Australian Air Force, the South Korean Air Force and the Turkish Air Force and will be entering service with the Royal Air Force next year.
The E-7 also has the advantage of more operator stations, with Australian aircraft having 10 and space for four more, while the smaller fuselage of the E-2 only has three.

Rewards totaling $35,000 have been offered for information leading to the apprehension of a wanted man allegedly involved in a planned ambush of federal and local law enforcement officers at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in North Texas.
Texas Department of Public Safety issued a Blue Alert as a manhunt continues for the suspect, Benjamin Song, 32, “wanted in connection to violence against a law enforcement officer,” DPS said.
Texas DPS also added Song to its 10 Most Wanted Fugitive List, stating, “Subject should be considered ARMED and DANGEROUS!”
DPS released photos of him describing him as approximately 5’6” tall, weighing 150 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair.
Song has ties to Dallas County, including Dallas and Addison, DPS said. On July 8, warrants were issued out of Johnson County for his arrest for “Aiding Terrorism, Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon on a Public Servant, and Engaging in Organized Crime.” On July 9, a federal arrest warrant was issued in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth, after Song was charged with “Attempted Murder of a Federal Officer and Discharging a Firearm During, in Relation to, and in Furtherance of a Crime of Violence.”
The FBI, which is leading the ongoing investigation, has asked members of the public to provide any information about the incident by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI. It’s also issuing a $25,000 reward for information that leads to his arrest, bringing the total reward to $35,000.
Anyone who sees Song is instructed not to approach him and to call 911, the FBI, DPS or Texas Crime Stoppers.
To be eligible to receive cash rewards, tipsters must call Texas Crime Stoppers at 1-800-252-TIPS (8477), submit a web tip through Texas DPS’ 10 Most Wanted website or Texas DPS online form.
Tips are anonymous and tipsters are given a number instead of using their name.
On July 4, the Alvarado Police Department announced that one of its police officers had been shot in the neck after responding to a call without stating the incident occurred outside of an ICE detention facility. What occurred was “a planned ambush with the intent to kill ICE corrections officers,” involving 10 to 12 people dressed in black, wearing tactical gear and body armor, who shot 20-30 rounds at unarmed corrections officers and the police officer, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Susan Larson said.
Ten individuals were each charged with three counts of attempted murder of a federal officer and three counts of discharging a firearm related to a crime of violence. Each defendant faces a mandatory minimum 10 years in prison and up to life in prison. One co-conspirator was charged with obstruction of justice and conspiracy for attempting to conceal and destroy evidence and faces up to 10 years in prison, The Center Square reported.
It was the first of two officer involved shootings outside of a federal immigration facility in Texas this week, The Center Square first reported. The second occurred on Monday after a Michigan man opened fire on a Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas, shooting a McAllen Police officer in the knee who responded to the call. The shooter was killed by Border Patrol agents and a multiagency investigation is ongoing.
Josh Johnson, acting field office director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations-Dallas said, “This type of vigilante lawlessness is emblematic of the dangers federal, state and local law enforcement officials face every day. Within ICE alone, our officers and agents are facing a 700% increase in assaults.”
That’s a 200 percentage point increase from three weeks ago when attacks were up by 500%, The Center Square reported.

Tim Walz and Wes Moore came to South Carolina earlier. This week it is Gavin Newsom. Andy Beshear is on the schedule, too.
The sitting governors are in the mix as candidates for the 2028 presidential election, and this state – politically red as it may be – was lifted in importance by former President Joe Biden. First he resurrected his primary chances ahead of the 2020 election, then he sought to make it the first stop in the calendar saying it was more representative of the nation’s voters.
“What we’re experiencing is America in reverse,” Newsom told the Kershaw County Democratic Party crowd. “They’re trying to bring us back to a pre-1960s world on voting rights. You know it well. Civil rights. LGBTQ rights. Women’s rights. And now just access to abortion but also access to simple reproductive care contraceptives.”
Newsom’s meet and greets have been a contrast to the Minnesota governor’s visit to the state party’s convention May 31. Walz told his audience, speaking of second-term Republican President Donald Trump, they should “bully the s— out of him back.”
His speech was laced with profanities in a state where Republicans are in both U.S. Senate seats, seven of eight U.S. House seats, seven of the eight state executive office seats including governor, and hold General Assembly majorities of 34-12 in the Senate and 88-35 with a vacancy in the House.
“Maybe it’s time for us to be a little meaner, a little bit more fierce,” said Walz, the vice-presidential half of the Kamala Harris ticket scrambled together following Biden’s July exit from the race.
Newsom was quizzed as he traveled about Harris, and if he would support her should she choose to run for president a second time. He was noncommittal.
And, for the record, the official purpose of his trip was to support local Democrats and disaster-torn communities. He was in many community settings, from county party gatherings to stops in small local businesses.
Still, Walz and Maryland’s Moore were definitely in front of audition audiences at the party state convention. Kentucky’s Beshear next Wednesday visits the University of South Carolina in Columbia, an AFL-CIO event in Greenville, a dinner with the Georgetown County Democratic Party, and Charleston.
Expect the same narrative as those before him.
Newsom targeted Trump at every turn, told his audiences the “legislative agenda is effectively over” because of voter power in the midterms, and called California “the most un-Trump state.”
It’s still two years before the Democratic National Committee confirms whether South Carolina, Iowa, New Hampshire or Nevada goes first in the primary schedule. That said, it’s never too early to prime the pump.
Next week is Beshear’s turn.