
Kansas Republican Senate President Announces 2026 Gubernatorial Bid
Masterson, a small-business owner, has been a state senator representing a district in eastern Kansas since 2009. He became Senate president in 2021. He previously served in the Kansas House of Representatives from 2005 to 2008.
Other Republicans in the 2026 governor's race include Secretary of State Scott Schwab, who built his public profile pushing back against unfounded election conspiracy theories, and former Gov. Jeff Colyer. Colyer was elevated to the office for about a year in 2018 after former Gov. Sam Brownback resigned. He failed to get past the primary in that year's gubernatorial election, then entered the 2022 governor's race but dropped out early after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
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Al Arabiya
34 minutes ago
- Al Arabiya
Judge issues temporary injunction against Trump administration cancellation of humanities grants
A district court judge in New York issued a preliminary injunction Friday night stopping the mass cancellation of National Endowment for the Humanities grants to members of the Authors Guild on the grounds that their First Amendment rights were violated. Judge Colleen McMahon of the US District Court in the Southern District of New York stayed the mass cancellations of grants previously awarded to guild members and ordered that any funds associated with the grants not be reobligated until a trial on the merits of the case is held. In reaching her decision, the judge said the defendants terminated the grants based on the recipients' perceived viewpoint in an effort to drive such views out of the marketplace of ideas. This is most evident by the citation in the Termination Notices to executive orders purporting to combat Radical Indoctrination and Radical… DEI Programs and to further Biological Truth. One of the grants was to a professor writing a book on the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s and 1980s. On a spreadsheet entitled 'Copy of NEH Active Grants,' the government flagged the work as being connected to diversity equality and inclusion efforts, McMahon wrote. The judge said several other history projects on the spreadsheet were also canceled in part because of their connection to DEI-related subjects. 'Far be it from this Court to deny the right of the Administration to focus NEH priorities on American history and exceptionalism as the year of our semiquincentennial approaches,' McMahon said. 'Such refocusing is ordinarily a matter of agency discretion. But agency discretion does not include discretion to violate the First Amendment. Nor does not give the Government the right to edit history.' McMahon said some of the grantees lost grants simply because they had received them during the Biden administration. The Guild filed a class action lawsuit in May against the NEH and the Department of Government Efficiency for terminating grants that had already been appropriated by Congress. The humanities group's lawsuit said DOGE brought the core work of the humanities councils to a screeching halt this spring when it terminated its grant program. The filing is the most recent lawsuit filed by humanities groups and historical research and library associations to try to stop funding cuts and the dissolution of federal agencies and organizations. McMahon noted her injunction is narrowly tailored to maintain the status quo until we can decide whether Plaintiffs are entitled to ultimate relief. 'It does nothing more.' The judge denied a temporary injunction request from the American Council of Learned Societies as well as several of their claims in the lawsuit. Their case included the American Historical Association and the Modern Language Association.

Al Arabiya
an hour ago
- Al Arabiya
White House seeks fines from other universities after Columbia deal
The White House is seeking fines from several universities it says failed to stop antisemitism on campus, including Harvard University, in exchange for restoring federal funding, a Trump administration official said on Friday. The administration is in talks with several universities, including Cornell, Duke, Northwestern and Brown, the source said, confirming a report in The Wall Street Journal. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration is close to striking deals with Northwestern and Brown and potentially Cornell. A deal with Harvard, the country's oldest and richest university, is a key target for the White House, the official added. A spokesperson for Cornell declined to comment. Other universities did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump and his team have undertaken a broad campaign to leverage federal funding to force change at US universities, which the Republican president says are gripped by antisemitic and 'radical left' ideologies. Trump has targeted several universities since returning to office in January over the pro-Palestinian student protest movement that roiled college campuses last year. Columbia University said on Wednesday it will pay more than $200 million to the US government in a settlement with the administration to resolve federal probes and have most of its suspended federal funding restored. The Trump administration has welcomed the Columbia deal, with officials believing the university set the standard on how to reach an agreement, the official said. Harvard has taken a different approach, suing the federal government in a bid to get suspended federal grants restored.


Arab News
6 hours ago
- Arab News
Democrats and advocates criticize Trump's executive order on homelessness
SAN FRANCISCO, California: Leading Democrats and advocates for homeless people are criticizing an executive order President Donald Trump signed this week aimed at removing people from the streets, possibly by committing them for mental health or drug treatment without their consent. Trump directed some of his Cabinet heads to prioritize funding to cities that crack down on open drug use and street camping, with the goal of making people feel safer. It's not compassionate to do nothing, the order states. 'Shifting these individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment is the most proven way to restore public order,' the order reads. Homelessness has become a bigger problem in recent years as the cost of housing increased, especially in states such as California where there aren't enough homes to meet demand. At the same time, drug addiction and overdoses have soared with the availability of cheap and potent fentanyl. The president's order might be aimed at liberal cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, which Trump views as too lax about conditions on their streets. But many of the concepts have already been proposed or tested in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic mayors have worked for years to get people off the streets and into treatment. Last year, the US Supreme Court made it easier for cities to clear encampments even if the people living in them have nowhere else to go. Still, advocates say Trump's new order is vague, punitive and won't effectively end homelessness. Newsom has directed cities to clean up homeless encampments and he's funneled more money into programs to treat addiction and mental health disorders. His office said Friday that Trump's order relies on harmful stereotypes and focuses more on 'creating distracting headlines and settling old scores.' 'But, his imitation (even poorly executed) is the highest form of flattery,' spokesperson Tara Gallegos said in a statement, referring to the president calling for strategies already in use in California. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has also emphasized the importance of clean and orderly streets in banning homeless people from living in RVs and urging people to accept the city's offers of shelter. In Silicon Valley, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan recently pushed a policy change that makes a person eligible for jail if they reject three offers of shelter. Trump's executive order tasks Attorney General Pam Bondi and the secretaries for health, housing and transportation to prioritize grants to states and local governments that enforce bans on open drug use and street camping. Devon Kurtz, the public safety policy director at the Cicero Institute, a conservative policy group that has advocated for several of the provisions of the executive order, said the organization is 'delighted' by the order. He acknowledged that California has already been moving to ban encampments since the Supreme Court's decision. But he said Trump's order adds teeth to that shift, Kurtz said. 'It's a clear message to these communities that were still sort of uncomfortable because it was such a big change in policy,' Kurtz said. But Steve Berg, chief policy officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, called parts of the order vague. He said the US abandoned forced institutionalization decades ago because it was too expensive and raised moral and legal concerns. 'What is problematic about this executive order is not so much that law enforcement is involved — it's what it calls on law enforcement to do, which is to forcibly lock people up,' Berg said. 'That's not the right approach to dealing with homelessness.' The mayor of California's most populous city, Los Angeles, is at odds with the Newsom and Trump administrations on homelessness. Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, opposes punishing sweeps and says the city has reduced street homelessness by working with homeless people to get them into shelter or housing. 'Moving people from one street to the next or from the street to jail and back again will not solve this problem,' she said in a statement.