“Sen. John Fetterman [D-PA] is continuing to advocate for the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program. ‘Waste that s—,’ the lawmaker declared to the Washington Free Beacon. ‘You’re never going to be able to negotiate with that kind of regime that has been destabilizing the region for decades already, and now we have an incredible window, I believe, to do that, to strike and destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. Years ago, I completely understood why Trump withdrew from the Obama deal. Today, I can’t understand why Trump would negotiate with this diseased regime. The negotiations should be comprised of 30,000-pound bombs and the IDF.’ The IDF is the Israel Defense Forces.” (04/24/25)
“A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s guidance forbidding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in K-12 public schools. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the National Education Association and the American Civil Liberties Union, which accused the Republican administration of violating teachers’ due process and First Amendment rights. In February, the U.S. Education Department told schools and colleges they needed to end any practice that differentiates people based on their race or they would risk losing their federal funding. Earlier this month, the department ordered states to gather signatures from local school systems certifying compliance with civil rights laws, including the rejection of what the federal government calls ‘illegal DEI practices’. The directive does not carry the force of law but threatens to use civil rights enforcement to rid schools of DEI practices.” (04/24/25)
“Thousands of Americans campaigning for the Novavax COVID-19 booster got some good news this week: the FDA signaled it might still win approval after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr cast doubt on its efficacy. The Novavax vaccine is the only COVID-19 booster in the United States that does not use messenger RNA technology — which some states have begun to ban — and the only option for many people who cannot or will not take an mRNA vaccine. … Novavax has been available since 2022 through a pandemic-era Emergency Use Authorization. A decision on full approval – which rival mRNA shots from Moderna and Pfizer and its partner BioNTech already have – was due from the Food and Drug Administration by April 1, but had been delayed by the FDA without explanation.” (04/24/25)
“XX-XY Athletics founder Jennifer Sey slammed Nike over its alleged funding of a study on puberty blockers for children and how it would affect their athletic and training performance. … The first notion [?] that Nike was allegedly funding was in a New York Times article published over the weekend about the plight of Blaire Fleming – the San Jose State Spartans transgender female volleyball player who played a controversial role in the 2024-25 NCAA women’s volleyball season. OutKick pointed out that the piece mentions Joanna Harper, a trans woman who studies transgender athletes, is ‘currently helping to lead an ambitious study of trans adolescents that measures their results on a 10-step fitness test before they start hormone therapy and then, after they have begun to medically transition, every six months for five years.'” (04/24/25)
“A federal judge in California on Thursday barred the Trump administration from denying or conditioning the use of federal funds to ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions. U.S. Judge William Orrick said a preliminary injunction was appropriate because the executive orders were unconstitutional just as they were in 2017 when President Donald Trump announced a similar order. Orrick issued the injunction sought by San Francisco and more than a dozen other municipalities that sued over a pair of executive orders the Republican president issued targeting local municipalities that limit cooperation with federal immigration efforts. Orrick, based in San Francisco, wrote that defendants are restrained and enjoined ‘from directly or indirectly taking any action to withhold, freeze, or condition federal funds’ and the administration must provide written notice of his order to all federal departments and agencies by Monday.” (04/24/25)
“A federal judge has ruled the U.S. government must pay North Dakota nearly $28 million in damages stemming from the Dakota Access oil pipeline protests in 2016 and 2017. U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Traynor issued his ruling Wednesday, siding with North Dakota’s claims of negligence, gross negligence, civil trespass and public nuisance against the United States in connection with the protests. … The state’s claims focused on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers use of a Special Use Permit to allow the protesters to demonstrate on Corps land. In his ruling on Wednesday, the President Donald Trump appointee said the Corps had not officially granted the SUP despite saying one had been issued, and this so-called de factor permit prevented law enforcement from taking action against the protesters.” (04/24/25)
“A 19-year-old man has been charged with arson for allegedly sparking the massive wildfire in the New Jersey Pine Barrens that has torched 15,000 acres, prosecutors said. Joseph Kling, of Ocean Township, allegedly started a bonfire in the vast Forked River Mountains Wilderness Area with wooden pallets that exploded out of control when he did not properly put it out, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office. Kling was taken into custody at Ocean Township police headquarters and taken to the Ocean County Jail, where he is awaiting his detention hearing. A column of smoke was first spotted from the Cedar Bridge Fire Tower in Barnegat Township around 9:45 a.m. Tuesday, officials said. The fire quickly spread out of control, forcing the evacuation of 5,000 residents of Ocean and Lacey townships.” (04/24/25)
“The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have agreed to pause fighting as they work towards a broader peace deal, according to their joint statement. The truce, declared late on Wednesday after a round of negotiations in Qatar’s capital Doha, has raised hopes that the latest wave of violence, spurred by M23’s bloody January assault and capture of the DRC’s two largest cities, may begin to subside. … The decades-long conflict has roots in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, with M23 made up primarily of ethnic Tutsi fighters. Many were former rebels integrated into the DRC army who later defected, citing discrimination and broken peace deals.” (04/24/25)
“Female bonobos find strength in numbers, teaming up to fend off males in the wild, a new study finds. Along with chimpanzees, bonobos are among humans’ closest relatives. Scientists have long wondered why bonobos live in generally female-dominated societies since the males are physically bigger and stronger. Three decades of observations in Congo — the only place the endangered bonobos are found in the wild — lend support to the idea of a sisterhood where female bonobos band together to assert their power. These girl groups chased male bonobos out of trees, securing food for themselves, and females that grouped more ranked higher in their community’s social ladder, researchers found. ‘It’s very clear that you don’t want to overstep as a male bonobo,’ said study author Martin Surbeck from Harvard University. Findings were published Thursday in the journal Communications Biology.” (04/24/25)
“China’s latest human spaceflight mission headed for orbit on Thursday morning (April 24). A Long March 2F rocket topped with the Shenzhou 20 crew spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on April 24 at 5:17 a.m. EDT (0917 GMT; 5:17 p.m. Beijing time). Shenzhou 20 carried commander Chen Dong, on his third trip to space, and rookie astronauts Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie, both of whom were selected for China’s third intake of astronauts in 2020. The Shenzhou 20 spacecraft is scheduled to rendezvous and dock at the Tiangong space station around 6.5 hours after launch.” (04/24/25)
