Latest news with #federalfunding
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Transgender athlete says adults going to her track competitions to heckle her ‘shows how you are as a person'
If high school track standout A.B. Hernandez competes at the state championship, California's federal funding may be in doubt. President Donald Trump has promised to cut the funds if the transgender teen is allowed to compete.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump threatens Washington funding in executive order targeting sanctuary states
May 30—President Donald Trump sent a message to Washington state officials Friday when he signed an executive order designating nearly the entire state as part of what he called "sanctuary jurisdictions," for which he earlier had threatened to cut off federal funding. The list of "sanctuary jurisdictions" appears to name every Washington county except Adams. The list included Spokane County and also listed the cities of Seattle, Olympia, Tacoma, Everett and Yakima, but it did not name Spokane. The "Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens" executive order required the formation of a list of states and cities that Trump wrote were obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws. "Sanctuary jurisdictions including cities, counties, and states that are deliberately and shamefully obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws endangering American communities," the order reads. "Sanctuary cities protect dangerous criminal aliens from facing consequences and put law enforcement in peril." However, the order does not take the next step and say that Trump intends to withhold federal funding from those places, like he tried earlier this year with San Francisco, Santa Clara County, and 14 other cities and counties it deems "sanctuary jurisdictions." "This is an eye-roller, a head-scratcher, but it doesn't come to me as a surprise at all," said Rep. Timm Ormsby, D-Spokane, who is chair of the state House Appropriations Committee. Trump's "whole interest is to have jurisdictions bend the knee to whatever fleeting rant he happens to be in." Spokane County Commissioner Al French said he believes Spokane County made the list solely because of state law and insisted it is not a sanctuary county. He said the commission will meet with legal experts Monday to consider how to proceed while being mindful of the executive order. "It's concerning, because the executive order could jeopardize our funding from the feds," French said. "And not by anything we did, but by association." Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown said only that city officials continue to follow all applicable laws but did not directly address the executive order. Rep. Joe Schmick, R-Colfax, pointed to the situation in Adams County, which Washington Attorney General Nick Brown sued earlier this year and accused officials there of cooperating with immigration enforcement in violation of the Keep Washington Working Act, which lawmakers passed in 2019. That law protects the rights of immigrant communities from unnecessary contact with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As a result of the law, local police departments and sheriff's offices aren't supposed to share information with ICE or U.S. Border Patrol agents upon request, Aaron Korthuis, a staff attorney at Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, told The Spokesman-Review in March. Korthuis said the law also prohibits local officials from transferring individuals in custody to federal authorities or detaining individuals based solely on their immigration status, or to ask about a person's immigration status. Based on that law, Brown filed suit in Spokane County Superior Court in March alleging that Adams County Sheriff Dale Wagner held persons in custody based on their immigration status, gave federal agents confidential information and helped those agents question detainees in violation of the 2019 law. Following the filing of the lawsuit, Wagner said in a statement at the time that it was a "disappointing attempt to hinder our ability to uphold public safety." Schmick, of Colfax, and State Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, both sided with Wagner, when contacted Friday about the executive order. "I believe that we need to follow the federal law ... especially when people are in jail and ICE is looking for them," Schmick said. "They should be turned over to ICE so they can be deported. We do not want criminals on our streets." Asked if he feared that Trump may try to withhold federal funding to Washington, Schmick said local officials "better change the rules. I thought when they passed (Keep Washington Working) way back when, that we were setting ourselves up for problems. "Now we are the problem." Schoesler noted that states changed speed limits and drinking ages in the past based on threats from federal officials to withhold transportation funds. "If you look at the people being protected by sanctuary cities, they are some pretty bad people. I live in Adams County. They are not grabbing people from the fields and factories," Schoesler said. "We are talking about people who committed crimes. "Sheriff Wagner wants to follow the federal law. If you are a criminal and not here legally, he wants to cooperate. At this point, we'd do better if Nick Brown tried working with these people instead of having a lawsuit every week." Mike Faulk, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said Trump's executive order "is merely a list, and one that appears to be riddled with errors and false claims," he wrote. "Our bottom line, based on the facts, is that Keep Washington Working does not interfere with federal immigration law." Ormsby, the lawmaker from Spokane, called the executive order just the latest in a litany of proclamations and assertions coming from Trump. "It changes regularly, daily and hourly," Ormsby said. "My reaction is I'm very pleased that we have an attorney general in Washington state who is actively participating in lawsuits to stop some of this silliness that is coming out. "This is just the latest in a long list of gobsmacking things that have come out of this administration," he continued. "While it's difficult to take it super seriously, because it's in the early stages and will have to go through a legal review, I don't think it's an immediate issue for us." Spokesman-Review reporters Nick Gibson and Emry Dinman contributed to this report.
Reuters
2 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Harvard's US-funded defense projects totaled $180 million in recent years, study shows
WASHINGTON, May 30 (Reuters) - When the Trump administration cut federal funding to Harvard University, it abruptly ended an estimated $180 million that the federal government had poured into U.S. military projects at Harvard in recent years, according to an analysis from a defense software company. The Trump administration announced in April that it was moving to freeze $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard University. President Donald Trump said he was trying to force change at Harvard - and other top-level universities across the U.S. - because in his view they have been captured by leftist "woke" thought and become bastions of antisemitism. Some of the grants paid for military-specific medical research, studies on countering weapons of mass destruction and research on lasers, among numerous other topics, Reuters found. The abrupt halt stopped years-long projects and upended programs spread across several universities, not just Harvard. In 2025 alone, an estimated 103 grants totaling about $14 million will grind to a halt, according to an analysis by Govini, a defense software company. For example, U.S. officials ended Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Professor Katia Bertoldi's $6 million Pentagon-funded project developing shape-changing structures with military applications two weeks ago, despite being at a critical juncture in its research cycle. "We've been in year three, so we set up all the tools, and now we're really gaining momentum, and now it stops," Bertoldi said. Funded through the Department of Defense's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, she was developing technology based on origami that would lead to reconfigurable antennas, and deployable shelters like field hospitals. Since 2020 the Pentagon, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and every branch of the U.S. military have given Harvard 418 grants valued at $180 million, according to the analysis by Govini. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth "directed the termination of several programs, contracts and grants that were not aligned with the Department's priorities to cut wasteful spending, implement the President's orders, and reallocate savings to mission-critical priorities," a Pentagon spokesperson told Reuters. The bulk of those grants went to military medical research, basic scientific research and applied scientific research, Govini found, with the Army providing the most funding. The administration has frozen approximately $3 billion in federal grants to Harvard, with Trump complaining on Truth Social that Harvard has hired "Democrats, Radical Left idiots and 'bird brains'" as professors. On Monday, Trump said he is considering redirecting billions of dollars of previously awarded scientific and engineering research grants from Harvard to trade schools. Harvard has sued to restore the funding, calling the cuts an unconstitutional attack on its free-speech rights. The research cancellations affect extensive collaborative networks. Bertoldi's project included researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Georgia Tech. Scientists warn these cuts may have strategic implications as China has heavily invested in research. Bertoldi said, "In China, as far as I know, colleagues that moved back to China, there's a lot of support for this type of research."
The Independent
2 days ago
- General
- The Independent
California track-and-field final enters spotlight for rule change after trans athlete's success
California 's high school track-and-field state championships starting Friday are set to be the testing ground for a new participation and medaling policy for competitions that include transgender athletes. The California Interscholastic Federation will let an additional student compete and potentially offer an extra medal in three events in which a trans athlete is competing. The athlete, high school junior AB Hernandez, is the second seed in the triple jump and will also participate in the long jump and high jump. It may be the first effort by a high school sports governing body to expand participation when trans athletes are participating, and it reflects efforts to find a middle ground in the debate over trans girls' participation in youth sports. 'The CIF values all of our student-athletes and we will continue to uphold our mission of providing students with the opportunity to belong, connect, and compete while complying with California law,' the group said in a statement after announcing its rule change. State law allows trans students to compete on sex-segregated sports teams consistent with their gender identity. President Donald Trump threatened this week to pull federal funding from California unless it bars trans female athletes from competing on girls teams. The U.S. Department of Justice also said it would investigate the state federation and the district that includes Hernandez's high school to determine whether they violated federal sex discrimination law by allowing trans girls to compete in girls sports. What the new participation and medaling policy will look like The meet, which is taking place at a high school near Fresno, will open up the girls triple jump, long jump and high jump to one additional athlete each who would have qualified had Hernandez not participated. Hernandez will compete in the preliminaries Friday for a chance to advance to the finals Saturday. Under the pilot policy, if a transgender athlete medals, their ranking would not displace a 'biological female' student from medaling, the federation said. The federation said the rule would open the field to more 'biological female' athletes. One expert said the change may itself be discriminatory because it creates an extra spot for 'biological female' athletes but not for other trans athletes. The federation did not specify how they define 'biological female' or how they would verify whether a competitor meets that definition. Medical experts say gender is a spectrum, not a binary structure consisting of only males and females. The two-day meet is expected to draw attention from a coalition of protesting parents and students. Critics have objected Hernandez's participation and heckled her in qualifying events earlier this month. Leaders from the conservative California Family Council joined Republican state lawmakers Thursday for a press conference blasting the policy change and saying Hernandez shouldn't be allowed to compete. 'If they have to create special exceptions and backdoor rule changes to placate frustrated athletes, that's not equality, that's a confession," Sophia Lorey, the council's outreach director, said in a statement. 'Girls' sports should be for girls, full stop.' CIF Executive Director Ron Nocetti urged participants and bystanders to behave respectfully toward all student-athletes in a message shared in the championship program. Nationwide debate over trans athletes' participation A recent AP-NORC poll found that about 7 in 10 U.S. adults think transgender female athletes should not be allowed to participate in girls and women's sports at the high school, college or professional level. That view was shared by about 9 in 10 Republicans and roughly half of Democrats. Trump won Fresno County, where the meet will be held, in 2024. Hernandez told the publication Capital & Main earlier this month that she couldn't worry about critics. 'I'm still a child, you're an adult, and for you to act like a child shows how you are as a person,' she said. She noted that she has lost some of her events, saying that disproved arguments that she can't be beat. Hernandez is expected to perform well, particularly in the triple jump, in which she has a personal best of over 41 feet (12.5 meters). That is more than 3 feet (1 meter) short of a national record set in 2019. She's the fifth seed in the long jump but ranked much lower in the high jump. California's state championship stands out from that of other states because of the number of competitors athletes are up against to qualify. More than 57,000 high schoolers participated in outdoor track and field in California during the 2023-2024 school year, according to a survey by the National Federation of State High School Associations. California had the second-largest number of high school outdoor track-and-field athletes, only behind Texas. Of the 12 high school athletes who have set national records in the girls triple jump between 1984 and 2019, eight have been from California, according to the national sports governing body. Davis Whitfield, the national federation's chief operating officer, called a state championship 'the pinnacle' for high school student-athletes. 'It's certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience in some cases to participate in a state championship event," he said. ___
CNN
2 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Hear from the athlete at center of Trump threat on trans sports
If high school track standout A.B. Hernandez competes at the state championship, California's federal funding may be in doubt. President Donald Trump has promised to cut the funds if the transgender teen is allowed to compete.
