Fulbright board resigns over alleged Trump administration interference
The entire 12-person board tasked with overseeing the State Department's Fulbright Program resigned Wednesday, claiming political interference from the Trump administration.
In a statement posted on the board's Substack, the congressionally mandated Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board said its members voted 'overwhelmingly' to resign from the board 'rather than endorse unprecedented actions that we believe are impermissible under the law, compromise U.S. national interests and integrity, and undermine the mission and mandates Congress established for the Fulbright program nearly 80 years ago.'
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CBS News
32 minutes ago
- CBS News
Suisun City votes to move forward with California Forever annexation project research
SUISUN CITY -- The Suisun City city council voted 3-1 on Tuesday night to enter into a reimbursement agreement with California Forever, which means the city's plan to consider annexing up to 22,000 acres of land owned by the development group now takes a big step forward in what is projected to be a years-long process. California Forever, a billionaire-backed initiative that drew national attention for its plans to build a new city in Solano County, withdrew its "East Solano Plan" from the November ballot in July 2024. The group was asking Solano County voters to support their proposed city adjacent to Travis Air Force Base of around 400,000 people. Instead, the group went back to the drawing board amid public pushback to put together a full environmental impact report on the proposed city's impact, planning to put a measure back before voters in 2026. Suisun City, as has the city of Rio Vista, engaged in talks with California Forever beginning in early 2025 to consider annexing some of the group's land into each city. Tuesday's vote by the Suisun City city council now means California Forever will front the cost of all of research needed for the annexation proposal, including environmental impact reports and paying consultants chosen by the city. California Forever will pay the city an initial $400,000. If the proposed annexation is eventually adopted by the city council and then approved by the county's LAFCO authority, California Forever will pay Suisun City $10 million. Currently, the city is facing a projected more than $1 million budget deficit for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. City manager Bret Prebula spoke in support of the annexation project vote, calling it the city's path forward that now allows them to engage in talks with California Forever that could secure a 'prosperous' future for the city. "What it does is open the door for Suisun City to shape the conversation and ensure we are not left behind," said Prebula at Tuesday's meeting. More than one hundred community members signed up to give public comment Tuesday night, which meant conversation on this topic went on for more than four hours. There was standing room only as Solano County residents both for and against the vote packed the chambers. Several people in support of the annexation project said it stands to provide decades of work for skilled laborers in the county. "What's the problem? I don't get it. It should be an easy 'yes' vote to take the time and do the research. As far as I'm concerned, the project should go forward as well," said Alicia Mijares, representing local sheet metal workers and their union. Those in opposition made it clear they do not trust California Forever and they do not want the city's future tied to their initiative. "When it was happening last summer to go on the ballot, nobody wanted it. They took it off the ballot. Now with this, we don't even have that right anymore. For it to have our vote, our count. It's disgraceful," resident Jan Bartz told CBS News Sacramento before the meeting. Several called what they heard in Tuesday night's public hearing and presentation 'empty promises.' "You may think you are being transparent, but many people I speak to in Suisun City do not agree. Brief public comments are no substitute for genuinely transparent and publicly participatory processes," said one community member from the podium in public comment opposing the vote. Councilmember Princess Washington was the sole "no" vote on the reimbursement agreement with California Forever. Washington expressed hesitancy in her comments by saying that she doesn't feel five people, the council, should 'dictate the fate of the entire county.' She added that proposals of this nature should be up to voters. Mayor Alma Hernandez and the other members of the council commented that this is step one in a long process that will provide the city answers, not result in an outright decision, on annexation. CBS13 asked California Forever for a response to Tuesday night's meeting. "We look forward to working with Suisun City and Rio Vista to bring new industries, amazing neighborhoods, and new sources of tax revenue to the region," a spokesperson responded in a statement. Suisun City is also considering a recent offer by California Forever's CEO Jan Sramek to purchase $1.5 million in downtown city property to help the city offset its budget shortfall. The item is expected to return to the council for a vote in late fall 2025.
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Opinion - Leland Vittert's War Notes: Fighting With Trump
NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight's 9 pm ET show. Subscribe to War Notes here. Weather watch: Thunderstorms could cancel or postpone President Trump's military parade on Saturday. Who can argue with this: Florida's Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey on how his county is handling rioters: 'If you throw a brick, a firebomb, or point a gun at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where to collect your remains at. Because we will kill you, graveyard dead. We're not gonna play.' I don't get it: Members of Congress have big staffs – they could easily come up with some really good lines of questioning for Cabinet secretaries they don't like. Yet they choose to lecture and name-call. Case in point: Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth during a House Armed Services Committee hearing earlier today: 'I'm not going to waste my time anymore. You're not worthy of my attention or my questions. You're an embarrassment to this country. You're unfit to lead …you should just get the hell out,' Carbajal said. It's a both sides thing – Republicans would lecture Biden's Cabinet picks. I don't get it. It's pretty clear that California Gov. Gavin Newsom wants a fight with President Trump – he has one. Newsom is willing to have riots in his state to force the square-off. Now, his new attack line is that Trump is losing it – just like former President Joe Biden declined. From Axios: 'Newsom's jabs at Trump's age are part of a barrage of criticisms he's tossed at Trump in the past week. He's called Trump a threat to democracy who is putting the U.S. on a road to authoritarianism.' Points for style: The age and Biden comparisons will get under Trump's skin. Click here to look at Gov. Newsom's official website – more about Trump than anything else. I have just one question for Newsom Central Casting – who has ever won a fight against Donald Trump? Elon Musk – the richest man on Earth – just came crawling back apologizing. Crowded path: Two more Democratic governors also want to carry the Trump-resistance flag. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Trump would have to come through him to arrest illegal aliens. Earlier today, he ended up getting bashed in front of Congress by Rep. Brandon Gill, R-N.M. – no, seriously, watch it Gill: Do you think men should be allowed in women's restrooms? Pritzker: I'm not sure why this has come to this issue. Gill: You tweeted: 'As a protest against President Trump, everyone should use the other gender's bathroom today.' Have you ever used the women's restroom? Pritzker: Not that I can recall. Gill: So you just wanted everybody else to do it, but you didn't? Pritzker: … Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz compared ICE to the Gestapo. Today, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., asked Walz about his comments, and it didn't go well for Walz. Watch the full interaction here. 'Why Gavin Newsom Will Never Be President,' headlines our friend Batya Ungar-Sargon in The Free Press. Newsom and Democrats clearly have (some) deeply-held beliefs – namely, opposing Trump even on relatively popular issues. Only Trump: For Trump, 'flexibility' gets him out of everything. During the campaign, he promised to deport everyone – but just said farm workers could stay. is logic as explained in a Truth Social post is something only he could come up with: 'Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace. In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!' Trump writes. In other words: If the Department of Homeland Security deports illegal immigrants who are working on farms, then other illegal immigrants (criminals let in under Joe Biden) will take their jobs. Ok – as I said, only Trump would argue this. But his base will buy it, and the Republican Party will get behind it. More: From the 'Fighting with Trump' files – who thought tackling a United States senator was a good idea? Well, it actually appears that Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., got exactly what he wanted. Fellow Democrats now have a cause celebrity – one of their own who 'confronted' the Trump administration. Padilla crashed a press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in his home state of California. 'I'm Sen. Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,' video catches the senator saying as he pushes towards the secretary and then the Secret Service pushes him out of the room. Click here to watch Padilla being shoved to the ground. To be fair: Law enforcement right now – especially Secretary Noem's Secret Service detail – feels embattled. For what it's worth: Noem later met with Padilla and said her Secret Service detail had no idea who he was and viewed him as a potential attacker as he pushed forward. Question: Who thinks walking up to a podium surrounded by Secret Service is a good idea? Here is the video of the confrontation. It's hard to fault the Secret Service. It's hard to argue with Noem, who called Padilla's stunt 'political theater.' Even CNN seems to agree. Watch tonight: Rep. Ami Bera, D-Calif., joins us on the program to discuss the incident. I have followed events in the Middle East long enough to know that nobody really knows what will happen. The closest you will get to knowing what will happen in the Middle East is Barak Ravid of Axios – read his dispatch here. Bill O'Reilly told Chris Cuomo last night that this weekend is the weekend Israel will decide if they hit Iran, dependent on whether the U.S. makes a deal with Iran: 'There is no plan B – the mullahs are going to have to stop now. Whether they will or not, if I had to bet tonight, I would say there will be a deal because once the military thing is in motion, that's the end of Tehran. … So if the mullahs want to go and commit suicide, then they won't make the deal. I'm betting they don't want to commit, they always take it up to the brink, but this time with Israel ready to go right now … if this doesn't work this weekend, then all hell is going to break loose,' O'Reilly warned. Look back: In 2012, I canceled vacation after vacation to stay in Israel as a Middle East correspondent because that's when Israel would attack Iran. Good tactics: It's in Trump's best interest for Iran and the world to think the Israelis might strike. Go deeper: Listen to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and journalist Bari Weiss warn about the Iran-friendly wing of MAGA. Thought bubble: It's perplexing to me why Trump doesn't return to the maximum pressure campaign, bankrupt Iran and force regime change from within. He could do it without the Israelis or the U.S. dropping a single bomb. Why give the ayatollah a way out or to survive? Tune into 'On Balance with Leland Vittert' weeknights at 9/8 CT on NewsNation. Find your channel here. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of NewsNation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump administration pulls US out of agreement to help restore salmon in the Columbia River
SEATTLE (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday pulled the U.S. out of an agreement with Washington, Oregon and four American Indian tribes to work together to restore salmon populations and boost tribal clean energy development in the Pacific Northwest, deriding the plan as 'radical environmentalism' that could have resulted in the breaching of four controversial dams on the Snake River. The deal, known as the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, was reached in late 2023 and heralded by the Biden administration, tribes and conservationists as historic. It allowed for a pause in decades of litigation over the harm the federal government's operation of dams in the Northwest has done to the fish. Under it, the federal government said it planned to spend more than $1 billion over a decade to help recover depleted salmon runs. The government also said that it would build enough new clean energy projects in the Pacific Northwest to replace the hydropower generated by the Lower Snake River dams — the Ice Harbor, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Lower Granite — should Congress ever agree to remove them. In a statement, the White House said former President Joe Biden's decision to sign the agreement "placed concerns about climate change above the Nation's interests in reliable energy sources.' Conservations groups, Democratic members of Congress and the Northwest tribes criticized Trump's action. 'Donald Trump doesn't know the first thing about the Northwest and our way of life — so of course, he is abruptly and unilaterally upending a historic agreement that finally put us on a path to salmon recovery, while preserving stable dam operations for growers and producers, public utilities, river users, ports and others throughout the Northwest," Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in a written statement. 'This decision is grievously wrong and couldn't be more shortsighted.' Basin was once world's greatest salmon-producing river system The Columbia River Basin, an area roughly the size of Texas, was once the world's greatest salmon-producing river system, with at least 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead. Today, four are extinct and seven are listed under the Endangered Species Act. Another iconic but endangered Northwest species, a population of killer whales, also depend on the salmon. The construction of the first dams on the main Columbia River, including the Grand Coulee and Bonneville dams in the 1930s, provided jobs during the Great Depression, as well as hydropower and navigation. The dams made the town of Lewiston, Idaho, the most inland seaport on the West Coast, and many farmers in the region rely on barges to ship their crops. But the dams are also main culprit behind the salmon's decline, and fisheries scientists have concluded that breaching the dams in eastern Washington on the Snake River, the largest tributary of the Columbia, would be the best hope for recovering them, providing the fish with access to hundreds of miles of pristine habitat and spawning grounds in Idaho. The tribes, which reserved the right to fish in their usual and accustomed grounds when they ceded vast amounts of land in their 19th century treaties with the U.S., warned as far back as the late 1930s that the salmon runs could disappear, with the fish no longer able to access spawning grounds upstream. 'This agreement was designed to foster collaborative and informed resource management and energy development in the Pacific Northwest, including significant tribal energy initiatives,' Yakama Tribal Council Chairman Gerald Lewis said in a written statement. 'The Administration's decision to terminate these commitments echoes the federal government's historic pattern of broken promises to tribes, and is contrary to President Trump's stated commitment to domestic energy development.' Republicans in region opposed agreement Northwestern Republicans in Congress had largely opposed the agreement, warning that it would hurt the region's economy, though in 2021 Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho proposed removing the earthen berms on either side of the four Lower Snake River dams to let the river flow freely, and to spend $33 billion to replace the benefits of the dams. 'Today's action by President Trump reverses the efforts by the Biden administration and extreme environmental activists to remove the dams, which would have threatened the reliability of our power grid, raised energy prices, and decimated our ability to export grain to foreign markets," Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Washington, said in a news release. Tribes, environmentalists vow to fight for salmon The tribes and the environmental law firm Earthjustice, which represents conservation, clean energy and fishing groups in litigation against the federal government, said they would continue working to rebuild salmon stocks. 'Unfortunately, this short-sighted decision to renege on this important agreement is just the latest in a series of anti-government and anti-science actions coming from the Trump administration,' Earthjustice Senior Attorney Amanda Goodin said. "This administration may be giving up on our salmon, but we will keep fighting to prevent extinction and realize win-win solutions for the region.'
