Hochul used her state-of-the-state address Tuesday to highlight the proposals, many of which would require legislative approval. That includes a proposal to slash taxes by up to 5% across five of the state’s nine tax brackets, which she said would provide relief to more than 8.3 million taxpayers for joint filers who earn up to $323,200. She said the plan would cut taxes for the middle class by more than $1 billion over the next two years.

Hochul, who is up for reelection next year, also touted previously announced plans to make free school meals universal for students, regardless of their income, and a $3 billion tax rebate plan to counter inflation and prevent private equity firms from buying single-family homes.

“Let me say this — a state of the state address can be full of flowery rhetoric and still fail to address the needs of the people,” Hochul said in remarks at the Hart Theater in Albany. “I believe it needs to be much more than just lofty words. It should be a concrete blueprint that will deliver actual results that the people will feel. Our state has to be livable and the people here have to be able to afford to live in it.”

Hochul also highlighted a new proposal to expand New York’s child tax credit in the speech. She said the plan would give 1.6 million New York families an annual tax credit of up to $1,000 per child up to age three and $500 for kids aged 4 through 16.

The first-term Democrat also revived her quest to build more than 100,000 new homes and expand protections for homeowners and first-time homebuyers. She plans to ask lawmakers to approve $100 million for the effort.

“Housing is the number one driver of our affordability crisis, and the only way to decrease housing costs is to increase supply,” Hochul said. “We need to build and build and build some more.”

Hochul also pledged to beef up NYPD patrols along the New York City subway system, which has been roiled by a series of vicious attacks, including a woman burned to death while sleeping on a train in Coney Island and a man who was randomly pushed onto the subway tracks.

She also proposed a raft of new mental health policies, including a controversial proposal to allow the involuntary commitment of the mentally ill. New York City Mayor Eric Adams is pushing for a similar law.

“Our laws must be stronger, and that’s why I’m willing to stand up and say we need to expand involuntary commitment into a hospital,” Hochul said. “That includes someone who does not have the mental capacity to care for themselves, such as refusing help for the basics — clothing, food, shelter, medical care.”

Details of Hochul’s plans are expected to be revealed as part of her preliminary budget plan, which is set to be released next week. The state’s fiscal year begins April 1.

The affordability proposals come as Hochul gears up for a 2026 reelection bid with low favorability ratings among voters, which has spurred potential challenges from high-profile New York politicians, including Reps. Mike Lawler, a Republican, and Ritchie Torres, a Democrat.

“This is an exciting opportunity for us to research, in real time, how a battery electric vehicle performs on patrol,” said Col. James F. Grady II, director of the Michigan State Police.

This is just one part of the state’s wider move towards green energy, with many of the initiatives being a part of its Michigan Healthy Climate Plan.

One goal is to build out the state’s electric vehicle infrastructure to support “2 million EVs on Michigan roads by 2030.”

Aaron Viles, senior director of campaigns for the Electrification Coalition, told The Center Square there is “definitely more to do in order to meet the goal of 2 million EVs.” This includes more state investments into “EV policies that support ever-cleaner transportation fueling options” like electric school buses.

Currently, the first electric parole vehicle will be assigned to the State Security Operations Section to be used by state properties security officers as they parole state-owned and leased facilities in the Lansing area.

It’s unclear if this will eventually lead to a wider adoption of electric vehicles by the Michigan State Police, with Grady acknowledging some of the limitations that electric patrol vehicles might have.

“Our state properties security officers patrol a substantially smaller number of miles per day than our troopers and motor carrier officers, within city limits and at lower speeds,” he said. “Coupled with the availability of charging infrastructure in downtown Lansing, making this the ideal environment to test the capabilities of a police-package battery electric vehicle.”

The vehicle’s performance will be studied as a part of the state police’s Precision Driving Unit, which provides data for police nationwide.

“We began testing battery electric vehicles in 2022, but up until now hybrids were the only alternative fuel vehicle in our fleet,” said Lt. Nicholas Darlington, commander of the unit. “Adding this battery electric vehicle to our patrol fleet will allow us to study the vehicle’s performance long-term to determine if there is a potential for cost savings and broader applicability within our fleet.”

A series of wildfires began raging through Los Angeles last week and have resulted in more than 10,000 structures and homes having been damaged or burnt down. More than 35,000 residents remain without power as of Monday, per CBS News.

Musk apologized to the customers who were longingly anticipating their vehicles’ arrivals, but said replacement trucks will be delivered by the end of the week. Cybertrucks can provide backup power to a home for up to three days, according to Tesla’s website.

“Apologies to those expecting Cybertruck deliveries in California over the next few days,” Musk said in a post on X. “We need to use those trucks as mobile base stations to provide power to Starlink Internet terminals in areas of LA without connectivity. A new truck will be delivered end of week.”

Musk said the vehicles will be positioned with Starlinks and free WiFi in the greater Los Angeles and Malibu areas. […]

— Read More: justthenews.com

Meta Ends DEI Programs in Latest Policy Reversal

Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta on Friday announced the end of its corporate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, marking a dramatic reversal as such programs come under intense scrutiny from the public.

“The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” wrote Vice President of Human Resources Janelle Gale in a memo obtained by Axios.

Gale highlighted a recently Supreme Court ruling barring affirmative action in college admissions and suggested it was indicative of how courts would handle DEI programs in the future. She further noted the politicized nature of such initiatives .

“We believe there are other ways to build an industry-leading workforce and leverage teams made up of world-class people from all types of backgrounds,” she wrote.

The move comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg terminated Facebook’s partnerships with fact-checking organizations and announced plans to replace them with a user-driven system similar to X’s community notes. Zuckerberg met with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago after his election win and Meta has donated to his inauguration fund. […]

— Read More: justthenews.com

Bolsonaro’s passport was revoked in 2022 following his electoral loss, after he allegedly encouraged a group of his supporters to storm Brazil’s presidential palace, Congress, and Supreme Court, according to The Hill.

The former president, who has been referred to as the “Trump of the Tropics,” said that he was honored to be invited to the upcoming U.S. inauguration and was working on getting his passport so he can attend.

“Very honored to receive from the President of the USA, [Donald Trump], an invitation to his inauguration and that of his Vice President [JD Vance], on January 20th,” Bolsonaro wrote in a post on the social platform X. “My lawyer, Dr. Paulo Bueno, has already forwarded a request to … [Supreme Court Justice] Alexandre de Moraes for me to get my passport back so that I can attend this honorable and important historical event.”

The invitation comes despite Bolsonaro, who has denied any wrongdoing in the alleged coup attempt, being banned from seeking reelection in 2026. […]

— Read More: justthenews.com

This is the highest total in Texas history – shattering last year’s record by nearly $1 billion.

What the industry paid in one year, $27.3 billion, is more than what 34 states received in total tax revenues.

It translates to $74.8 million paid every day for a range of public services, including toward Texas’ public schools, universities, roads, first responders and other essential services.

“Remarkably, 2024 was yet another record-breaking year as the Texas oil and natural gas industry does its part to help reach Governor Abbott’s goal for our state’s economy to surpass France as the 7th largest economy in the world,” TXOGA president Todd Staples said. “From tax revenues and production to pipelines, storage, processing, refining, and exports, Texas’ oil and natural gas industry has achieved record-breaking performance across every sector.”

Staples said the industry has been so successful because “Texas leaders embrace policies that recognize oil and natural gas as an asset, not a liability. They view businesses as a partner, not an adversary. For its part, the industry has persevered through hostile federal policies of the outgoing Administration, global unrest and market volatility – including negative prices for natural gas – to shatter its own records, all while protecting and improving the environment.”

The industry primarily funds three major state funds: the Economic Stabilization Fund (Rainy Day Fund), Permanent School Fund and Permanent University Fund.

Since the Texas legislature created the Rainy Day Fund in 1987, it’s received more than $33.9 billion from Texas oil and natural gas production taxes.

The industry is a major funder of Texas public education. In fiscal 2024, 99% of Texas oil and natural gas royalties were deposited into the Permanent School Fund and the Permanent University Fund, $1.5 billion and $1.9 billion, respectively.

By the end of fiscal 2024, the value of the funds totaled $57.3 billion and $31.7 billion, respectively.

“The Texas Permanent School Fund is larger than Harvard’s endowment and is the largest education endowment in the nation,” Staples notes. “The oil and natural gas industry is the only significant contributor of fresh investment capital to these critical Texas education funds.”

In addition to these funds, in fiscal 2024, Texas school districts directly received $2.92 billion in property taxes from mineral properties producing oil and natural gas, pipelines, and gas utilities. Counties directly received $1.03 billion in industry property taxes.

According to TXOGA data of ISDs, the districts that received the most oil and natural gas industry property taxes are in west Texas in the Permian Basin. In these and many districts, the industry represents the majority of the tax base.

Pecos-Barstow-Toyah ISD received the most of $304.4 million, with industry taxes representing 83% of the tax base.

Midland ISD received the next greatest amount of $217.5 million, representing 50.7% of the tax base. Wink-Loving ISD received $184 million, representing 92.4% of the tax base. Rankin ISA received $130 million, representing 92.4% of the tax base.

According to TXOGA data of counties, the top counties receiving the most oil and natural gas property taxes are in West Texas in the Permian Basin.

Reeves County received the most of $110.1 million with industry taxes representing 85% of the tax base. Martin County received the next greatest amount of $54.9 million, with industry taxes representing 94.5% of the tax base; Loving County received 53.6% million, with industry taxes representing 94.7% of the tax base.

In counties where the industry paid significantly less property taxes, it still represented a majority share of the county’s tax base. In Andrews County. for example, the industry paid $23.2 million in property taxes but represented 80.5% of the tax base; it paid $13.2 million in Crockett County representing 83% of the county’s tax base.

The Texas oil and natural gas industry has paid more than $257.6 billion in state and local taxes and state royalties since TXOGA began compiling the data in 2007. The total excludes hundreds of billions of dollars in payroll for some of the highest paying jobs in the state. It also excludes taxes paid on office buildings and personal property, as well as other service jobs that depend on the industry and taxes paid by other sectors benefitting from the industry, TXOGA notes.

This is the ninth U.S. telecoms company that has been hacked in the operation known as Salt Typhoon, according to The Associated Press. Dozens of other nations have also been affected by it.

Deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger said that the Biden administration has released information to companies on how to identify hacking tricks from China.

This campaign by China, which denies any involvement in the operation, “has alarmed national security officials, exposed cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the private sector and laid bare China’s hacking sophistication,” according to the AP.

While FBI officials said there have only been a limited number of individuals whose communications have been accessed, senior government officials and prominent political figures are among them. […]

— Read More: justthenews.com

The three-credit course has been offered since at least 2019, according to CU Boulder’s class search. The course description states that the class “analyzes the political economy of the Disney phenomenon through a feminist lens.”

The course also says it “cultivates skills of media literacy, exploring how mass media acts to enforce and maintain conventional gendered understandings of power, privilege and difference.”

“Disney’s Women and Girls” is offered through CU Boulder’s Women and Gender Studies department and is taught by lecturer Shannon Leone.

Leone did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Leone has a BA in political science from Miami University and a PhD in English Literature from CU Boulder, where she specialized in “Gothic maternal imagery and identity in literary modernism,” according to her school bio. Leone’s teaching and research interests, according to the bio, include “feminism, intersectionality, pedagogy, modernity and postmodernity, and representations in popular culture.”

Leone said in a November interview concerning Disney princesses that she believes “recent female protagonists” are “more empowered and express desires outside of romance,” versus their royal predecessors who celebrate traditional femininity. Leone notes that modern Disney princesses do not wish for the love of a man. For instance, the movie Frozen is focused on sisterly love between princesses Anna and Elsa and not the love between a man and woman, while the movie Moana has no romantic plotline at all.

Leone also notes that portrayal of female characters overall have changed in modern Disney movies, with an example being that the princess Elsa “was supposed to be a villain” in Frozen. Leone believes that having “traces” of an antagonist in a female character such as Elsa “produces more of a multifaceted human being,” which she thinks “young viewers responded to.”

CU Boulder’s Women and Gender Studies department teaches about “gender and sexuality in a range of cultural and historical contexts.”

The Women and Gender Studies department also hosts the Gender Justice League, which exists to help students put social justice into practice, according to its webpage, and has resources on abortion, pleasure and consent, and fetishization. The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research institution, as stated on its website.

The Center Square reached out to CU Boulder media relations, spokeswoman Stacy Wagner and media relations associate and data analyst Ally Dever. None responded but Wagner, who forwarded TCS’s request for comment to CU Boulder media relations.

State Department and Director of National Intelligence memos reviewed by Just the News provide unvarnished assessments of the brutality of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group – designated a foreign terrorist organization for more than a decade – and its alliances with other terror groups dating to the notorious Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as the al-Nusrah Front.

In fact, as recently as last year the State Department raised strong objections to HTS in the agency’s annual human rights report on Syria.

“Armed terrorist groups such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham committed a wide range of abuses, including killings, kidnappings, physical abuse, and recruitment or use of child soldiers,” the report noted.

It added that “conditions in detention centers run by non-state actors, including terrorist groups such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), violated international law.” […]

— Read More: justthenews.com

This move comes amid concerns that the incoming administration might pull federal funding from the now $135 billion project, and use California as a national example for redirecting federal funds from Democratic priorities.

Once complete, the project is supposed to carry passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in under three hours, with one-way tickets priced at $86. It’s unclear how competitive this will be with air travel; one-way flights booked more than two weeks in advance currently cost $59 on Southwest, which includes two checked bags.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), proposed by the incoming Trump administration, aims to reduce what it views as wasteful government spending, recently spotlighted the project, and Congressmen Kevin Kiley, R-California, announced his bill to eliminate federal funding for the endeavor. Amid the state’s financial foes, a pause or withdrawal of federal funding could leave the state with no choice but to put the project on hold.

During the spring, the California High Speed Rail Authority requested the use of state rainy day funding to plug the $8 billion to $10 billion funding shortfall for the system’s initial $30 billion to $33 billion, 171-mile segment connecting the cities of Bakersfield and Merced in the relatively sparsely populated Central Valley.

But with the state’s legislative analyst now finding the state has “no capacity” for new spending and projecting annual deficits will soon rise to $30 billion, enhanced state support for the project is unlikely, leaving federal funding as the only option to fill the gap.

The letter, signed by Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, and Reps. Pete Aguilar, Zoe Lofgren, and Jim Costa, requests an additional $536 million to join $134 million in state funds to complete a 30%, or preliminary, design of one tunnel in Southern California and one tunnel in Northern California. The letter also recounted the federal government’s existing $6.8 billion in support for the project, and $22 billion from California for the project thus far.

“By preparing for future final design and construction of complex tunnels in this corridor, the Project will advance both state and federal goals to improve safety, expand economic strength and global competitiveness, address equity issues, and implement sustainability practices to confront climate change,” wrote the federal legislators. “These investments will continue to support living wage jobs, provide small business opportunities, and equitably enhance the mobility of communities in need – including disadvantaged agricultural communities – all while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

In 2012, the state legislative analyst’s office found the bullet train would increase overall greenhouse gas emissions for the first 30 years of its operation, putting the project’s emissions impact — and state funding based on emissions reductions — into question.

Kiley, who is aiming to pass a bill in Congress ending federal support for the project, said even if a grant is approved, he hopes to keep that money away from California’s bullet train.

“A small group of CA Democrats is asking Biden to send even more money for High-Speed Rail … before Congress can pass my bill to deny further funding,” said Kiley on X. “If Biden complies, we will make sure that the grant is promptly revoked.”

Because U.S. Congress holds “power of the purse,” Kiley’s bill could allow the federal government to withhold any further funding from the project – even spending that is already approved.

However, it’s less clear whether the Trump administration could unilaterally halt funding. As a discretionary grant under the Department of Transportation, such a decision might fall within its authority, but political and legal challenges could arise.