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WASHINGTON D.C. - The Trump administration has paused $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania over the university’s insistence on allowing men to compete in women’s sports.

The action follows President Donald Trump’s executive order issued last month that bars federally funded institutions from allowing male athletes to compete against women and threatens to rescind funding from any institution that refuses to comply.

The funding pause is a “proactive punishment” from President Trump that pulls back discretionary funding from the Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services, a senior administration official told Fox Business on Wednesday. The move was described as the first step in holding UPenn accountable. The $175 million sum is a fraction of the Ivy League school’s total federal funding.

UPenn received over $1 billion in federal funding last fiscal year, the student-run Daily Pennsylvanian newspaper reported. More than 80 percent of the funding came from HHS. Click here to read more.

 

INDIANAPOLIS - A woman has been charged after allegedly attacking a middle school student who she says was bullying her son.

Latea Hentz, 36, and her 17-year-old daughter got on her son’s school bus on the morning of March 6 to confront an 8th-grade student who was allegedly bullying him.

Security cameras and a viral video appeared to show Hentz and her daughter punching the student multiple times.

According to an affidavit, investigators learned the problems started between Hentz’s son and the other student after her son made “racist comments.” The day before the fight, her son “was making jokes about ICE” to the student because his father is Mexican, WISH reports. Click here to read more.

 

DALLAS, TX - Many Mennonite community members in West Texas feel “frustrated” and “targeted” by mainstream media coverage of the current measles outbreak in Gaines County, Texas, Tina Siemens, a Mennonite business owner and award-winning author told The Defender in an exclusive interview today.

“The media spins it as there’s a large panic in our community. I have not seen that — and I get out and about in my community,” said Siemens, an immigrant who has lived in the Seminole, Texas, area since 1977. Seminole is the county seat for Gaines County.

“There’s some frustration, especially that it is so much targeted just to the Mennonites.”

The measles outbreak in West Texas — particularly in Gaines County — garnered mainstream media attention after the Texas Department of State Health Services (Texas DSHS) last week reported what it called “the first death from measles in the ongoing outbreak in the South Plains and Panhandle regions.”

Texas DSHS spokesperson Lara Anton on Feb. 26 told The Associated Press the outbreak’s main concentration of cases has been a “close-knit, under-vaccinated” Mennonite community. Click here to read more.

 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A Florida Senate panel on Wednesday amended and passed a vaccine materials bill, adding bans on mRNA vaccines in fruits and vegetables and certain toxic chemicals in cosmetics.

What it does: SB 196 sets forth labeling requirements for specific food products containing “vaccine or vaccine material” and establishes that any food product containing vaccine or vaccine material without required labeling is a misbranded drug.

The sponsor: Republican Sen. Joe Gruters is carrying the Senate bill. The House bill, HB 525, is being carried by Rep. Monique Miller.

Vaccine materials: The legislation would change the definition of “drug” to include food that contains vaccines or vaccine materials.

• It defines “vaccine or vaccine material” as a substance authorized or approved by the FDA to stimulate immunity. Click here to read more.

 

NEW YORK, NY - Since Amazon announced plans for a generative AI version of Alexa, we were concerned about user privacy. With Alexa+ rolling out to Amazon Echo devices in the coming weeks, we’re getting a clearer view of the privacy concessions people will have to make to maximize usage of the AI voice assistant and avoid bricking functionality of already-purchased devices.

In an email sent to customers today, Amazon said that Echo users will no longer be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally and, therefore, avoid sending voice recordings to Amazon’s cloud. Amazon apparently sent the email to users with “Do Not Send Voice Recordings," which is supported by the Echo (4th Gen), Echo Show 15, and Echo Show 10, enabled. Starting on March 28, recordings of every command spoken to the Alexa living in Echo speakers and smart displays will automatically be sent to Amazon and processed in the cloud.

Attempting to rationalize the change, Amazon’s email said:

As we continue to expand Alexa’s capabilities with generative AI features that rely on the processing power of Amazon’s secure cloud, we have decided to no longer support this feature. Click here to read more.

 

 

LANSING, Mich - Michiganders are marking a grim anniversary this March 18. Five years ago, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer locked down the state in response to the COVID-19 emergency, shuttering most of the economy in a shock from which Michigan businesses have yet to recover.

Whitmer issued nearly 200 executive orders, many of them baffling. The governor deemed liquor stores, casinos, and cannabis dispensaries essential — allowing them to remain open — but ordered greenhouses to close.

Yet at the time, Whitmer was considered one of the most trusted sources of information about COVID-19.

“She has repeatedly emphasized that she is guided by science,”said Marianne Udow-Phillips, founding executive director of the Center for Health and Research Transformation, a nonprofit health policy center at the University of Michigan, as quoted by MLive.

A report from the center concluded, “People trust health care providers, public health officials, and Governor Whitmer more than many other sources when it comes to communicating important messages about COVID-19.” Click here to read more.

 

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK- Oklahoma State University “violated state law” with its “significant issues in allocation and management” of $41 million of state funding, according to a report from the school’s Office of Internal Audit, FOX23 reported.

The findings were revealed one month after university president Kayse Shrum abruptly resigned from her position. She made $2.5 million in salary during her four years as president, according to payroll records obtained by OpenTheBooks.com, including $720,000 last year.

Key facts: Oklahoma State was supposed to use the $41 million on education and research in its agricultural, medical and engineering departments. The money should have been allocated to specific “cooperative agreements” that would allow the state to approve and oversee the spending, the audit stated. Click here to read more.

 

HOOD COUNTY, TX- A 5-year-old boy died after he was struck while attempting to board the school bus Monday morning, authorities in Texas said.

According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, the bus stopped to pick up students on Pecos River Drive in Granbury. As the bus began to pull away, the 5-year-old ran in front and was hit.

The boy was taken to a hospital where he later died from his injuries.

Granbury Independent School District Superintendent Dr. Courtney Morawski said in a release that the school was heartbroken by the loss.

“We all have the expectation that students will be safe on our buses and in our district,” Morawski said. “We are already working to fully understand the situation and will share more information after we have had the time to investigate the incident.” Click here to read more.

 

BAY CITY, Mich - Bay City Commissioner Andrea Burney-Obershaw doesn’t want local police deputized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement because she believes they need to focus instead on “white crime.”

“We have a lot of crime lately and we do need you officers instead of worried about immigration, we need you guys for our city because we have a lot of crime,” Burney-Obershaw said at Monday’s commission meeting. “So I wanted to look up to see who’s doing the crime, because we don’t need officers for the government we need you within the city,” she said.

Bay City Commissioner Andrea Burney-Obershaw doesn’t want local police deputized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement because she believes they need to focus instead on “white crime.”

“We have a lot of crime lately and we do need you officers instead of worried about immigration, we need you guys for our city because we have a lot of crime,” Burney-Obershaw said at Monday’s commission meeting. “So I wanted to look up to see who’s doing the crime, because we don’t need officers for the government we need you within the city,” she said.

“So I had to look up some crime statistics,” she added. “So on Feb. 22, um, these are all white crimes, there are no immigration crimes in the city in the past … month. On Feb. 22 we had a terroristic, a terrorist attack you could say, here in Bay City, Michigan, at the police station by a judge’s son.” Click here to read more.

 

WASHINGTON D.C. - The Biden administration buried a final draft of a study that undermined the reasoning behind its 2024 pause on approvals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects, a new report has found.

Four sources within President Donald Trump’s Department of Energy (DOE) told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the Biden administration’s DOE finalized the draft of a study in September 2023 that found global emissions would see a reduction if the U.S. increased its LNG exports. But that information contradicted what the Biden administration wanted to do to appease environmentalists who argued against LNG, so the administration buried the study.

“The Energy Department has learned that former Secretary [Jennifer] Granholm and the Biden White House intentionally buried a lot of data and released a skewed study to discredit the benefits of American LNG,” one source told the Caller. “They were prioritizing their own political ambitions over the interests of the American people, and the administration intentionally deceived the American public to advance an agenda that harmed American energy security, the environment and American lives.” Click here to read more.