Taking aim at Illinois, Trump says he'll prioritize stopping invasive carp
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — President Donald Trump on Friday signed a memo telling his administration to prioritize efforts to keep invasive carp out of the Great Lakes and calling on Illinois to keep working on a key part of that effort.
The Republican president's memo directs the administration to 'achieve maximum speed and efficiency' in stopping the fish.
'This includes supporting the Brandon Road Interbasin Project, through deadline-oriented investments of taxpayer dollars, to ensure the State of Illinois does not stand in the way of its construction,' the memo reads.
Illinois presses pause on 'critical' invasive carp project, cites federal funding concerns
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's office says she raised the issue of the Brandon Road project in Illinois with the president when she met him in the Oval Office weeks ago. She praised Trump's memo, stressing the importance of the project.
'After years of advocacy alongside our partners in Illinois and together with a wide range of stakeholders at the local, state, and federal levels, we now have renewed assurances from the Administration to move forward expeditiously on the Brandon Road Interbasin Project,' Whitmer, a Democrat, said in a Friday statement. 'I am grateful to the President for his commitment.
In the works for more than a decade, the goal of the Brandon Road project is to implement renovations to an existing lock and dam to keep invasive carp from moving from the Chicago Area Waterway System into the Great Lakes. The hungry invasive fish are capable of doing significant damage to local ecosystems because they eat up the food source of native species. That would harm fishing and tourism industries.
'That's why I went to Washington, DC to advocate for this project face-to-face with the President at the White House. I am grateful that, in the midst of a lot of change at the federal level, he is confirming that our federal partners are as committed as ever to getting this done,' Whitmer stated. 'Michigan continues to win because we show up, talk to anyone, and work together to get things done.'
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is leading the Brandon Road project and most of it is expected to be funded by the feds, with some $274 million already allocated. Michigan has promised $64 million and Illinois $50 million.
First construction contract awarded on long-awaited $1.1 billion invasive carp project
But earlier this year, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, hit pause on his state's part of the project. The Detroit News reported he cited concerns about federal funding, saying the Trump administration had frozen about $117 million in grants to his state's department of natural resources.
Trump's memo called on Illinois to get back on board.
'The Federal Government is prepared to do its part, but the States where preventative measures can be taken must cooperate,' the memo reads in part. 'The State of Illinois, where the Brandon Road Interbasin Project is located, must cease further delay in cooperating with this effort, for the sake of its own citizens and economy and for the sake of all of the Great Lakes States.'
The memo went on to say Illinois should start buying up the land needed for the project by July 1 and quickly grant any permits the Army Corps needs.
'Federal agency heads shall similarly streamline any permitting and environmental reviews and issue any requisite Federal permits or approvals as quickly as possible,' the memo says.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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San Francisco Chronicle
16 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Southern Baptists target porn, sports betting, same-sex marriage and 'willful childlessness'
Southern Baptists meeting this week in Dallas will be asked to approve resolutions calling for a legal ban on pornography and a reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court's approval of same-sex marriage. The proposed resolutions call for laws on gender, marriage and family based on what they say is the biblically stated order of divine creation. They also call for legislators to curtail sports betting and to support policies that promote childbearing. The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, is also expected to debate controversies within its own house during its annual meeting Tuesday and Wednesday — such as a proposed ban on churches with women pastors. There are also calls to defund the organization's public policy arm, whose anti-abortion stance hasn't extended to supporting criminal charges for women having abortions. In a denomination where support for President Donald Trump is strong, there is little on the advance agenda referencing specific actions by Trump since taking office in January in areas such as tariffs, immigration or the pending budget bill containing cuts in taxes, food aid and Medicaid. Remnants of the epic showdown in Dallas 40 years ago Southern Baptists will be meeting on the 40th anniversary of another Dallas annual meeting. An epic showdown took place when a record-shattering 45,000 church representatives clashed in what became a decisive blow in the takeover of the convention — and its seminaries and other agencies — by a more conservative faction that was also aligned with the growing Christian conservative movement in presidential politics. The 1985 showdown was 'the hinge convention in terms of the old and the new in the SBC,' said Albert Mohler, who became a key agent in the denomination's rightward shift as longtime president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Attendance this week will likely be a fraction of 1985's, but that meeting's influence will be evident. Any debates will be among solidly conservative members. Many of the proposed resolutions — on gambling, pornography, sex, gender and marriage — reflect long-standing positions of the convention, though they are especially pointed in their demands on the wider political world. They are proposed by the official Committee on Resolutions, whose recommendations typically get strong support. A proposed resolution says legislators have a duty to 'pass laws that reflect the truth of creation and natural law — about marriage, sex, human life, and family' and to oppose laws contradicting 'what God has made plain through nature and Scripture.' To some outside observers, such language is theocratic. 'When you talk about God's design for anything, there's not a lot of room for compromise,' said Nancy Ammerman, professor emerita of sociology of religion at Boston University. She was an eyewitness to the Dallas meeting and author of 'Baptist Battles,' a history of the 1980s controversy between theological conservatives and moderates. 'There's not a lot of room for people who don't have the same understanding of who God is and how God operates in the world," she said. Mohler said the resolutions reflect a divinely created order that predates the writing of the Scriptures and is affirmed by them. He said the Christian church has always asserted that the created order 'is binding on all persons, in all times, everywhere.' Separate resolutions decry pornography and sports betting as destructive, calling for the former to be banned and the latter curtailed. At least some of these political stances are in the realm of plausibility at a time when their conservative allies control all levers of power in Washington and many have embraced aspects of a Christian nationalist agenda. A Southern Baptist, Mike Johnson, is speaker of the House of Representatives and third in line to the presidency. At least one Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas, has called for revisiting the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. Other religious conservatives — including some in the Catholic postliberal movement, which has influenced Vice President JD Vance — have promoted the view that a robust government should legislate morality, such as banning pornography while easing church-state separation. And conservatives of various stripes have echoed one of the resolution's call for pro-natalist policies and its decrying of 'willful childlessness which contributes to a declining fertility rate.' Some call for eliminating Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Some preconvention talk has focused on defunding the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm, which has been accused of being ineffective. Ten former Southern Baptist presidents endorsed its continued funding, though one other called for the opposite. A staunchly conservative group, the Center for Baptist Leadership, has posted online articles critical of the commission, which is adamantly anti-abortion but has opposed state laws criminalizing women seeking abortions. The commission has appealed to Southern Baptists for support, citing its advocacy for religious liberty and against abortion and transgender identity. 'Without the ERLC, you will send the message to our nation's lawmakers and the public at large that the SBC has chosen to abandon the public square at a time when the Southern Baptist voice is most needed,' said a video statement from the commission president, Brent Leatherwood. A group of Southern Baptist ethnic groups and leaders signed a statement in April citing concern over Trump's immigration crackdown, saying it has hurt church attendance and raised fears. 'Law and order are necessary, but enforcement must be accompanied with compassion that doesn't demonize those fleeing oppression, violence, and persecution,' the statement said. The Center for Baptist Leadership, however, denounced the denominational Baptist Press for working to 'weaponize empathy' in its reporting on the statement and Leatherwood for supporting it. Texas pastor Dwight McKissic, a Black pastor who shares many of the Southern Baptist Convention's conservative stances, criticized what he sees as a backlash against the commission, 'the most racially progressive entity in the SBC.' 'The SBC is transitioning from an evangelical organization to a fundamentalist organization,' he posted on the social media site X. 'Fewer and fewer Black churches will make the transition with them." Amendment to ban churches with women pastors An amendment to ban churches with women pastors failed in 2024 after narrowly failing to gain a two-thirds supermajority for two consecutive years. It is expected to be reintroduced. The denomination's belief statement says the office of pastor is limited to men, but there remain disagreements over whether this applies only to the lead pastor or to assistants as well. In recent years, the convention began purging churches that either had women as lead pastors or asserted that they could serve that role. But when an SBC committee this year retained a South Carolina megachurch with a woman on its pastoral staff, some argued this proved the need for a constitutional amendment. (The church later quit the denomination of its own accord.) The meeting comes as the Southern Baptist Convention continues its long membership slide, down 2% in 2024 from the previous year in its 18th consecutive annual decline. The organization now reports a membership of 12.7 million members, still the largest among Protestant denominations, many of whom are shrinking faster. More promising are Southern Baptists' baptism numbers — a key spiritual vital sign. 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Fox News
16 minutes ago
- Fox News
ICE arrests 'worst of the worst' illegal aliens in Los Angeles as rioters torch city and more top headlines
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Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Neo-Nazi group ‘actively seeking to grow in US' with planned paramilitary training event
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Related: Energized neo-Nazis feel their moment has come as Trump changes everything Now, the Base has a presence in Ukraine, performing sabotage operations inside the country against the embattled government, and new and dangerous cells emerging across Europe, and it appears to be growing in the US, where the FBI under the Maga acolyte Kash Patel has signalled it isn't prioritizing investigations of far-right extremism. In its early history, part of what first piqued the interest of authorities was the Base's courting of military veterans who could help drill its foot soldiers in a series of training camps across the US. Eventually implicated in an assassination plot, mass shootings and other actions in Europe, the Base went so far as to have a fortified compound and cell in Michigan, led by a US army dropout. Online evidence from its various accounts, several of which live on Russian servers to avoid censorship on American sites, shows the Base has real plans for a national gathering this summer where members intend to train in paramilitary drills as in years past. 'The Base in [the] USA is preparing for an upcoming national training event,' reads one of its recent posts soliciting crypto donations. 'This one might be our most attended training event in [the] USA in a while. We could really use some financial support to help our members with travel expenses.' The post continued: 'When you donate money to the Base, you're investing in a White Defense Force that's aiming to protect white people from political persecution and physical destruction.' The Base then published a new photo of armed members claiming to be in the midwest, which follows a trend in 2025 of the group bragging about its unafraid American presence. As a sort of taunt to its enemies, on the day of Trump's inauguration the Base released a photo of four members somewhere in Appalachia, in what was the largest number of American members in one photo in over a year. Related: Alleged former members of neo-Nazi group claim its leader is Russian spy 'The upcoming national training event indicates that the group is seeking to grow and is willing to take the risk of advertising it publicly in advance,' said Joshua Fisher-Birch, an analyst of far-right terrorism who has been following the Base's movements for close to a decade. 'The Base appears to be actively seeking to grow in the US.' Fisher-Birch notes that even if the gathering involves 'fewer than 20 people', it is by no means 'low profile' and suggests the group sees momentum is on its side. 'An event entails planning, coordination, travel and face-to-face meetings between different regional groups, indicating that they operate in an environment where they view the potential amount of risk as acceptable,' he said. 'The group has previously stated multiple times that being a member or training with them is a risky endeavor; however, planning a meetup, which they will inevitably use for propaganda purposes, is a different approach than even a year ago, when the group advertised regional activities.' In response to queries about the Base's latest movements, the FBI told the Guardian that it only investigates people who have or are planning to commit a federal crime and pose 'a threat to national security'. 'Our focus is not on membership in particular groups but on criminal activity,' said a spokesperson for the FBI. 'Membership in groups is not illegal in and of itself and is protected by the first amendment.' But in Michigan and in Georgia, members of the Base were charged with their criminal associations to the group. The Trump administration's security posture on the far right is to downplay its significance. Yet experts unanimously agree: it is the top domestic terrorism threat facing the country. Instead, Patel, the FBI's director, has gone about removing agents from pursuing the far right, while one of Trump's first actions in his second term was to provide unconditional pardons, en masse, to all of the January 6 insurrectionists. Fisher-Birch also pointed out that the Base had taken itself more seriously and upped its activities in Ukraine to the tune of calling for the murder of government officials and acts of sabotage – with the clearly stated goal of forming a white ethnostate in the west of the country. Already, the Ukrainian cell has uploaded geolocated videos of some of these attacks, one showing the burning of a military vehicle and what looks like a government electrical box. In a video released on a Russian video-sharing site in mid-May, Rinaldo Nazzaro, the founder and leader of the Base, who is living in St Petersburg, released a video describing the importance of new training videos proving to potential recruits that his group is not just online, but in the real world. 'It's propaganda through actions, not just words,' he said. It isn't clear where the paramilitary training will take place, but Nazzaro is known to have purchased land in the Pacific north-west that he intended to use as a headquarters for the Base and its activities.
