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West Virginia's Ban on Food Dyes Isn't Doomsday for Snacks

West Virginia's Ban on Food Dyes Isn't Doomsday for Snacks

Bloomberg27-03-2025

When West Virginia banned some food dyes, industry groups said the move would raise costs and restrict shoppers' choices. Deena Shanker, who writes the Extra Salt column for Businessweek, is here today to say adaption is possible. Plus: Small businesses prepare for Trump's tariffs, and Israel hopes Europe will be a big weapons buyer.
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Trump admin cracks down on antisemitism as DOJ official exposes 'violent rhetoric' of radical protesters
Trump admin cracks down on antisemitism as DOJ official exposes 'violent rhetoric' of radical protesters

Yahoo

time32 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Trump admin cracks down on antisemitism as DOJ official exposes 'violent rhetoric' of radical protesters

The Trump administration has taken a more aggressive approach than its predecessor toward addressing the nationwide surge in antisemitic incidents, launching investigations, punishing elite universities, and intensifying its immigration enforcement practices. President Donald Trump, through his Department of Justice (Doj) and other agencies, is using law-and-order tactics that his deputies say are necessary, but that critics say could constitute overreach. Harmeet Dhillon, the DOJ's assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, told Fox News Digital she has not seen any "close cases" when it comes to weighing antisemitic behavior against First Amendment rights of those who oppose Israel or Judaism. Biden Education Dept Put Priority On Pronouns, Left Backlog Of Nearly 200 Antisemitism Complaints: Official "Criticizing the government of Israel is not what I'm typically seeing here," Dhillon said. "I'm seeing an intifada revolution. I'm seeing blocking Jewish students from crossing campuses and destroying property on campus, which is a crime. … Quiet, polite conversation and disagreement with Israeli policy is not really what's happening here. It's literally people saying Israel shouldn't exist — and bringing the revolution to the United States." Dhillon added that "that type of violent rhetoric has led to violent acts in our country." Read On The Fox News App After Hamas's deadly terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the FBI's hate crime statistics showed a sharp spike in anti-Jewish incidents in the U.S. The data runs through December 2023. Anti-Defamation League (ADL) data from 2024 and high-profile incidents this year suggest the trend is continuing. An Egyptian national in the U.S. illegally in Boulder, Colorado, is facing state and federal charges for allegedly injuring 15 people, including elderly victims and a dog last weekend with Molotov cocktails during a peaceful pro-Israel demonstration in support of hostages being held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, stated to authorities "he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead," according to an FBI affidavit. During the attack he allegedly yelled "free Palestine," the agent said. In May, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, who worked at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., were gunned down outside the Capitol Jewish Museum in D.C. Suspect Elias Rodriguez of Illinois shouted "free Palestine" as he was detained, and Interim U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said her office is investigating the case as a hate crime and act of terrorism. Suspect Charged With Murdering Israeli Embassy Staff Could Face Death Penalty In another incident, a man allegedly set fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's residence on the first night of Passover. Emergency call logs released by local authorities revealed that the suspect, Cody Balmer, invoked Palestine after the arson and blamed Shapiro, who is Jewish, for "having my friends killed." Tarek Bazrouk, who identified himself as a "Jew hater" and said Jewish people were "worthless," allegedly carried out a series of assaults on Jewish New Yorkers in 2024 and 2025, according to an indictment brought against him in May. Bazrouk wore a green headband that mimicked Hamas garb and a keffiyeh during the attacks, and he celebrated Hamas and Hizballah on his social media, according to federal authorities. Trump warned in an executive order at the start of his presidency that foreign nationals participating in "pro-jihadist protests" would be deported, and he specifically highlighted college campuses as being "infested with radicalism." Unlike the Biden administration, the Trump administration has since gone to war with elite universities, some of which have been roiled by disruptive pro-Palestinian protests that involve occupying academic buildings and installing encampments. Leo Terrell Says Trump Admin Willing To Take Harvard Antisemitism Fight All The Way To Supreme Court Harvard and Columbia, in particular, are now engaged in litigation after Trump moved to freeze billions of dollars in federal funding for the universities and ban Harvard's foreign students. The embattled schools have been successful in winning temporary pauses to Trump's sanctions through the courts, but litigation is pending and legal experts have said they face an uphill battle. The Trump administration has zeroed in on non-citizen students and activists who it has accused of supporting Palestinian causes in ways it deems hostile to U.S. interests. Amid Trump's pursuit of visa and green card holders, Mahmoud Khalil's case has become a flashpoint. Khalil was arrested in March and detained after the administration accused him of violating immigration laws by engaging in anti-Israel activism. This week, Khalil said in court papers the administration's claims against him were "grotesque" and that his activism involved "protesting this Israeli government's indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent Palestinians." Civil rights groups have warned that the government's hardliner posture risks violating free speech and protest rights. A coalition of 60 groups issued a joint statement this week on antisemitic hate crimes in which it warned the Trump administration not to over-correct because it would "make us all less safe." "As we condemn these heinous [antisemitic] acts and those who perpetrate hate and violence, we also recommit to ensuring that these events — and the legitimate fear in the Jewish community — are not exploited to justify inhumane immigration policies or to target Arab Americans and those who peacefully and nonviolently exercise their First Amendment rights in support of Palestinian human rights," the groups said. Dhillon told Fox News Digital: "It's not my responsibility to balance free speech issues on campus. It's my responsibility to enforce the federal civil rights laws. And my opinion, there's really no conflict." When he took office, Trump vowed in a string of executive orders to direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to "aggressively prosecute terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews." Trump appointees at the DOJ then moved quickly to convene an antisemitism task force. Dhillon said there is also frequent communication between the White House, the DOJ, and Jewish leaders about addressing antisemitism. Jewish Students Welcome Trump Admin's Crackdown On Antisemitism, Hamas Sympathizers On Campuses "We have heard from the Jewish community, and I've probably met with — I think there's at least two dozen rabbis who have my number on speed dial now. I literally sent three emails to rabbis in the last hour," she said. She said her division has opened several investigations involving land use for religious purposes under a law known as the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), including five related to Judaism. The administration is also notifying Jewish communities of grants available for added security at synagogues, and she said campuses are a "significant focus" for her. After reports surfaced that Dhillon's shakeup in the Civil Rights Division led to a mass exodus of more than 100 attorneys leaving the division, she told the media she was unfazed by the departures and that her focus remains on launching the division's work toward combating antisemitism. Testing the limits of his subordinates and the courts, another top DOJ official, Emil Bove, launched an internal investigation into Columbia student protesters early this year. The probe caused concern among line attorneys, who felt it was flimsy and was also met with multiple reprimands from a magistrate judge, according to the New York Times. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement in May that the New York Times' story was false and fed to the newspaper "by a group of people who allowed antisemitism and support of Hamas terrorists to fester for years." Blanche confirmed the veracity of the investigation and said it involved, in part, a probe into a Hamas-linked image on Columbia University Apartheid Divest's social article source: Trump admin cracks down on antisemitism as DOJ official exposes 'violent rhetoric' of radical protesters

Continued court fights could put Harvard in unwinnable position vs Trump
Continued court fights could put Harvard in unwinnable position vs Trump

Yahoo

time32 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Continued court fights could put Harvard in unwinnable position vs Trump

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday granted Harvard University's emergency request to block, for now, the Trump administration's effort to ban international students from its campus, siding with Harvard in ruling that the university would likely suffer "immediate and irreparable harm" if enforced. The temporary restraining order from U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs blocks the administration from immediately stripping Harvard of its certification status under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, or SEVP — a program run by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that allows universities to sponsor international students for U.S. visas. Burroughs said in her order that Harvard has demonstrated evidence it "will suffer immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties," prompting her to temporarily block the SEVP revocation. Still, some see the order as a mere Band-Aid, forestalling a larger court fight between Harvard and the Trump administration — and one that Trump critics say could be unfairly weighted against the nation's oldest university. State Department Now Scrutinizing All Visa Holders Associated With Harvard "Ultimately, this is about Trump trying to impose his view of the world on everybody else," Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman said in a radio interview discussing the Trump administration's actions. Read On The Fox News App Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the administration has frozen more than $2 billion in grants and contracts awarded to the university. It is also targeting the university with investigations led by six separate federal agencies. Combined, these actions have created a wide degree of uncertainty at Harvard. The temporary restraining order handed down on Thursday night is also just that — temporary. Though the decision does block Trump from revoking Harvard's SEVP status, it's a near-term fix, designed to allow the merits of the case to be more fully heard. Meanwhile, the administration is almost certain to appeal the case to higher courts, which could be more inclined to side in favor of the administration. And that's just the procedural angle. Judges V Trump: Here Are The Key Court Battles Halting The White House Agenda Should Harvard lose its status for SEVP certification — a certification it has held for some 70 years — the thousands of international students currently enrolled at Harvard would have a very narrow window to either transfer to another U.S. university, or risk losing their student visas within 180 days, experts told Fox News. Some may opt not to take that chance, and transfer to a different school that's less likely to be targeted by the administration — even if it means sacrificing, for certainty, a certain level of prestige. Regardless of how the court rules, these actions create "a chilling effect" for international students at Harvard, Aram Gavoor, an associate dean at George Washington University Law School and a former Justice Department attorney, said in an interview. Students "who would otherwise be attending or applying to Harvard University [could be] less inclined to do so, or to make alternative plans for their education In the U.S.," Gavoor said. Even if the Trump administration loses on the merits of the case, "there's a point to be argued that it may have won as a function of policy," Gavoor said. Meanwhile, any financial fallout the school might see as a result is another matter entirely. Though the uncertainty yielded by Trump's fight against Harvard could prove damaging to the school's priority of maintaining a diverse international student body, or by offering financial aid to students via the federally operated Pell Grant, these actions alone would unlikely to prove financially devastating in the near-term, experts told Fox News. Harvard could simply opt to fill the slots once taken by international students with any number of eager, well-qualified U.S.-based applicants, David Feldman, a professor at William & Mary who focuses on economic issues and higher education, said in an interview. Harvard is one of just a handful of American universities that has a "need-blind" admissions policy for domestic and international students — that is, they do not take into consideration a student's financial need or the aid required in weighing a potential applicant. But because international students in the U.S. typically require more aid than domestic students, replacing their slots with domestic students, in the near-term, would likely have little noticeable impact on the revenue it receives for tuition, fees and housing, he said. "This is all about Harvard, choosing the best group of students possible," Feldman said in an interview. If the administration successfully revokes their SEVP certification, this would effectively just be "constraining them to choose the second-best group," he said. "Harvard could dump the entire 1,500-person entering class, just dump it completely, and look at the next 1,500 [applicants]," Feldman said. "And by all measurables that you and I would look at, it would look just as good." Unlike public schools, which are subject to the vagaries of state budgets, private universities like Harvard often have margins built into their budgets in the form of seed money that allows them to allocate more money towards things they've identified as goals for the year or years ahead. This allows them to operate with more stability as a result — and inoculates them to a larger degree from the administration's financial hits. "Uncertainty is bad for them," Feldman acknowledged. But at the end of the day, he said, "these institutions have the capacity to resist." "They would rather not — they would rather this whole thing go away," Feldman said. But the big takeaway, in his view, is that Harvard "is not defenseless."Original article source: Continued court fights could put Harvard in unwinnable position vs Trump

The Millers: Washington power couple straddles Trump-Musk feud
The Millers: Washington power couple straddles Trump-Musk feud

Yahoo

time32 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

The Millers: Washington power couple straddles Trump-Musk feud

They're the Washington couple at the center of power in the Trump administration. They're also straddling opposing sides of an explosive breakup between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk. CNN reported last week that Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief of staff, would be departing her senior role at the White House as a top spokesperson and adviser for Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. She was on her way to work for Musk as he went back to running his companies, helping the tech titan manage and arrange interviews unrelated to his time in government. But days later, amid the smoldering ruin of Musk and Trump's epic meltdown on Thursday over social media, that job suddenly took on a whole new layer. Among the attacks both men lobbed at each other was Musk endorsing the possibility of impeaching Trump and installing Vice President JD Vance in his place. Trump, in turn, raised the possibility of terminating federal contracts for Musk's companies. The episode has left the Millers on conflicting sides of the biggest breakup of Trump's second term, spawning gossip among White House aides and rounds of speculation about how the fallout could impact the political fortunes of one of the most powerful couples in Trump's Washington, where loyalty reigns. 'Everyone is talking about it,' a former Trump staffer told CNN. Katie Miller was in Texas last week for the series of interviews Musk held with space and technology journalists as SpaceX's Starship had its ninth test flight. It was there that Musk first delicately expressed he was 'disappointed' in the Republican's domestic policy bill in an interview with CBS News. Her X account is now a steady stream of laudatory posts about Musk and his companies, with a banner photo of a SpaceX rocket launching into space and a biography that says, 'wife of @stephenm.' Her only social media post on Friday was a reply with laughing emojis to an altered photo of her husband as a Home Depot employee attached to a post about immigration raids on the chain's stores. One former colleague told CNN that she will ultimately need to make a choice. 'She has a choice between Elon and Trump, but it can't be both,' the administration official said. Musk unfollowed Stephen Miller on X on Thursday, although both Millers continued following Musk on the platform into Friday. There are divided views on how the situation will impact Stephen Miller's ascendance. Among Trump's closest advisers, many believe he is surpassed in power only by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, fueling speculation among some over whether he could take over should Wiles decide to move on. 'This whole thing will definitely make that more complicated,' one senior White House official told CNN. 'Katie being paid by Elon is not good for Stephen.' Another senior White House official strongly pushed back on the idea that this episode with Musk would impact Miller in any way with the President. 'Next to Susie, Trump trusts and relies on Stephen the most,' the official said, adding that the President and top brass were understanding that his wife working for Musk had nothing to do with Stephen or the current state of events. Katie Miller declined to comment for this story. Deeply connected and influential in Republican circles and at the highest levels of government, Stephen Miller and Katie Miller (née Waldman) met during Trump's first term in 2018. He was a senior adviser and speechwriter at the White House; she was on the Department of Homeland Security's public affairs team and on her way to becoming then-Vice President Mike Pence's communications director. He developed a reputation as the architect of some of the administration's most hardline immigration policies, becoming an influential and trusted aide in the Trump orbit. She developed her own reputation as a staunch supporter of those policies, once reflecting on a trip to the US-Mexico border as the administration came under fire for its child separation policy. 'My family and colleagues told me that when I have kids I'll think about the separations differently. But I don't think so … DHS sent me to the border to see the separations for myself — to try to make me more compassionate — but it didn't work,' Miller told NBC News journalist Jacob Soboroff in an interview for his book, 'Separated.' The pair married at Trump's Washington, DC, hotel in February 2020. Trump attended the wedding. In the four years after Trump left office, both set their sights on a Trump return to the White House. Stephen Miller launched a conservative nonprofit group, America First Legal Foundation, that served in part as a prelude to the policy of Trump's second term. Katie Miller headed to the private sector, where she consulted a number of major companies, including Apple. They were also raising three young children. Stephen Miller returned to the White House in January with a vast mandate, deeply involved in many of the president's signature policy initiatives and further empowered from the first term. Katie Miller joined the administration as well, working on behalf of DOGE and Musk, who had become a new figure in the Trump orbit after being an active campaign surrogate and 2024 megadonor. Like Musk, Katie Miller was working at the White House as a 'Special Government Employee,' which limits the number of days one can work within the administration. As their professional lives intertwined, the couple also became personally close with Musk, socializing outside of work. In the heat of the Thursday afternoon social media showdown, Stephen Miller had been scheduled to appear on Larry Kudlow's show on Fox Business Network – an appearance that was canceled. 'We lost Mr. Miller to a meeting in the Oval Office. Perfectly understandable. When I was in government, it would happen all the time. We'd have to kill a TV show. You're at the president's beck and call,' Kudlow said during his eponymous broadcast. This is not the first time Trump has divided a marital relationship. During his first term, Trump lashed out at the husband of one of his top advisers, Kellyanne Conway. Her husband, George Conway, had been intensely critical of Trump on social media. 'He's a whack job. There's no question about it. But I really don't know him,' Trump said at the time of George Conway. 'I think he's doing a tremendous disservice to a wonderful wife.' In 2023, the couple announced they were filing for divorce. George Conway, a prolific user of Musk's X platform and ardent anti-Trump figure, posted dozens of times about the Trump-Musk spat. 'Does anyone have any updates on Katie Miller?' he asked Thursday evening.

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