Politics
Stanford University cancels $1.7M Russian contract after Fox News inquiry
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Stanford College is terminating what seems to be the final remaining energetic Russian contract amongst faculties in america after Fox Information reached out for particulars and touch upon the association.
Stanford entered right into a $1.65 million settlement with an unidentified Russian entity in December 2020, a search of the Faculty International Present and Contract Report database reveals. The three-year settlement comprises sparse particulars, although it notes the funding didn’t come from the Kremlin.
The contract is for “on-line entry to business-related skilled improvement programs” and is in “full compliance” with U.S. sanctions, Dee Mostofi, Stanford’s assistant vp for exterior communications, informed Fox Information on Thursday.
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On Friday, nonetheless, Mostofi emailed Fox Information saying Stanford now “is within the technique of ending the contract.”
Mostofi didn’t tackle different questions on the contract, together with who in Russia was concerned and whether or not the college plans to take up Russian contracts sooner or later.
Then-Training Secretary Betsy DeVos “discovered that there was nearly $7 billion given to universities that weren’t being reported by the college to the federal authorities as required by regulation,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, the highest Republican on the Home Training and Labor Committee, informed Fox Information.
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“Most individuals give cash for a cause,” the North Carolina Republican mentioned. “It is usually accepted that they’re on the lookout for methods to affect what is occurring within the faculties and universities.”
The Division of Training in 2020 found $6.5 billion in beforehand unreported international cash to universities from adversarial international locations, together with China and Russia.
The College of Illinois Urbana-Champaign additionally reviews an energetic Russian contract within the international cash database. The data present the settlement started in October 2014 and runs by way of June 2022.
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Nonetheless, a College of Illinois spokesperson informed Fox Information it was a fee-for-service settlement to “present DNA sequencing companies” to the Russia-based Evrogen Lab that concluded final month.
“The final samples analyzed underneath that settlement had been obtained and analyzed in February,” the spokesperson mentioned. “We’re not accepting any new samples for evaluation underneath this contract.”
Different universities have additionally lower pupil, analysis and monetary ties from Russia, distancing them from the authoritarian superpower.
The Massachusetts Institute of Know-how severed a analysis partnership with the Kremlin, and the College of Colorado is liquidating investments in Russian corporations, Forbes reported. The Arizona Board of Regents informed the establishments it oversees – Arizona State College, the College of Arizona and Northern Arizona College – to unload their Russian property, NBC Information reported.
Different faculties, like Middlebury Faculty, are suspending research overseas packages in Russia.
Like many universities, Stanford additionally runs a program that sends college students to Russia.
This system, known as the Stanford U.S.-Russia Discussion board, describes itself because the “world’s solely impartial analysis group that deliver college students and younger professionals from america and Russia collectively to foster understanding between the cultures, share the data, and acquire expertise in doing collaborative analysis.”
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This system has garnered reward from Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s international minister and the general public messenger for its Ukraine invasion.
“The Stanford discussion board has confirmed itself to be a optimistic mechanism for strengthening belief and understanding between younger individuals of our two international locations,” Lavrov is quoted on the discussion board’s web site. “I’m eagerly anticipating your solutions to additional develop U.S.-Russia cooperation.”
Stanford, likewise, has a Ukrainian-centered management program for its college students.
Stanford college students have not too long ago known as on college management to sentence Russia’s actions to no avail, The Stanford Every day reported Tuesday.
“I’ve change into very used to receiving messages signaling Stanford’s assist for causes that the management considers to be essential,” one pupil informed the paper. “That’s the reason it’s arduous to interpret silence as something however a sign that they don’t take into account the present invasion to be a difficulty of considerable ethical significance.”
Scholar advocates have “repeatedly reached out” to the administration for a public assertion on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, The Standford Every day reported.
A college spokesperson informed the student-run paper that they sometimes do not make campus-wide statements relating to worldwide issues.
Politics
Appeals court rules Texas has right to build razor wire border wall to deter illegal immigration: 'Huge win'
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that Texas has the right to build a razor wire border wall to deter illegal immigration into the Lone Star State.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the ruling on X, saying President Biden was “wrong to cut our razor wire.”
“We continue adding more razor wire border barrier,” the Republican leader wrote.
Wednesday’s 2-1 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals clears the way for Texas to pursue a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of trespassing without having to remove the fencing.
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It also reversed a federal judge’s November 2023 refusal to grant a preliminary injunction to Texas as the state resisted federal efforts to remove fencing along the Rio Grande in the vicinity of Eagle Pass, Texas.
Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee during the president-elect’s first term, wrote for Wednesday’s majority that Texas was trying only to safeguard its own property, not “regulate” U.S. Border Patrol, and was likely to succeed in its trespass claims.
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Duncan said the federal government waived its sovereign immunity and rejected its concerns that a ruling by Texas would impede the enforcement of immigration law and undermine the government’s relationship with Mexico.
He said the public interest “supports clear protections for property rights from government intrusion and control” and ensuring that federal immigration law enforcement does not “unnecessarily intrude into the rights of countless property owners.”
Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton called the ruling a “huge win for Texas.”
“The Biden Administration has been enjoined from damaging, destroying, or otherwise interfering with Texas’s border fencing,” Paxton wrote in a post on X. “We sued immediately when the federal government was observed destroying fences to let illegal aliens enter, and we’ve fought every step of the way for Texas sovereignty and security.”
The White House has been locked in legal battles with Texas and other states that have tried to deter illegal immigration.
In May, the full 5th Circuit heard arguments in a separate case between Texas and the White House over whether the state can keep a 1,000-foot floating barrier on the Rio Grande.
The appeals court is also reviewing a judge’s order blocking a Texas law that would allow state officials to arrest, prosecute and order the removal of people in the country illegally.
Politics
Rep. Katie Porter obtains temporary restraining order against ex-boyfriend on harassment allegations
U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) secured a temporary restraining order Tuesday against a former boyfriend, saying in dozens of pages of court filings that he had bombarded her, as well as her family and colleagues, with hundreds of messages that she described as “persistent abuse and harassment.”
Porter, 50, alleged in a filing with Orange County Superior Court that her ex-boyfriend Julian Willis, 55, was contacting her and her family with such frequency that she had a “significant fear” for her “personal safety and emotional well-being.”
Judge Stephen T. Hicklin signed a restraining order Tuesday barring Willis from communicating with Porter and her children until a mid-December court hearing. He also barred Willis from communicating about Porter with her current and former colleagues.
In the court filing, Porter said that Willis had been hospitalized twice since late 2022 on involuntary psychiatric holds and had a history of abusing prescription painkillers and other drugs.
She said in a statement to The Times that Willis’ mental health and struggles with addiction seemed to have gotten worse since she asked him in August to move out of her Irvine home. She said she sought the court order after his threats to her family and colleagues “escalated in both their frequency and intensity.”
“I sincerely hope he gets the help he needs,” Porter said.
Willis declined to comment. He will have an opportunity to file a legal response to the temporary restraining order and challenge Porter’s allegations.
Porter is leaving the House of Representatives in January after losing in California’s U.S. Senate primary in March. She has been discussed as a front-runner in the 2026 governor’s race in California after Gov. Gavin Newsom is termed out, but has not said whether she will launch a campaign.
The 53-page court filing, first reported by Politico, included 22 pages of emails, text messages and other communications among Porter, family members and colleagues who had received messages from Willis, as well as messages that Willis sent to Porter’s attorney and to her political mentor Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
The filing also included messages between herself and Willis’ siblings as they discussed trying to help him during his psychiatric holds and while he was staying in a sober-living facility.
Porter said that since she ordered Willis to move out, he had sent her more than 1,000 text messages and emails, including texting her 82 times in one 24-hour period in September, and 55 times on Nov. 12 before she blocked his number.
Porter said in the filing that her ex-boyfriend had “already contacted at least three reporters to disseminate false and damaging information” about her and her children, which she said “poses a serious risk to [her] career and personal reputation.”
The filing includes an email that Porter said Willis sent to her attorney late Monday, in which Willis said he had visited Porter’s son at college in Iowa and told him that he would “bring the hammer down on Katie and smash her and her life into a million pieces.”
Another screenshot shows Willis telling Porter’s attorney that he would file a complaint about Porter, who has children ages 12 and 16, with child protective services.
One of Porter’s congressional staff members received a text message from Willis saying he would “punish the f—” out of him if he did not agree to “cooperate” with a New York Times reporter and Willis’ attorneys, according to a screenshot included in the court document.
Willis previously made the news in 2021, when he was arrested after a fight that broke out at a Porter town hall at a park in Irvine.
Times staff writer Christopher Goffard contributed to this report.
Politics
Homan taking death threats against him ‘more seriously’ after Trump officials targeted with violent threats
Incoming Trump border czar Tom Homan reacted to news of death threats against Trump nominees on Wednesday and said he now takes the death threats he has previously received seriously.
“I have not taken this serious up to this point,” Homan told Fox News anchor Gillian Turner on “The Story” on Wednesday, referring to previous death threats made against him and his family.
“Now that I know what’s happened in the last 24 hours. I will take it a little more serious. But look, I’ve been dealing with this. When I was the ICE director in the first administration, I had numerous death threats. I had a security detail with me all the time. Even after I retired, death threats continued and even after I retired as the ICE Director. I had U.S. Marshals protection for a long time to protect me and my family.”
Homan explained that what “doesn’t help” the situation is the “negative press” around Trump.
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“I’m not in the cabinet, but, you know, I’ve read numerous hit pieces. I mean, you know, I’m a racist and, you know, I’m the father of family separation, all this other stuff. So the hate media doesn’t help at all because there are some nuts out there. They’ll take advantage. So that doesn’t help.”
Homan’s comments come shortly after Fox News Digital first reported that nearly a dozen of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees and other appointees tapped for the incoming administration were targeted Tuesday night with “violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” prompting a “swift” law enforcement response.
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The “attacks ranged from bomb threats to ‘swatting,’” according to Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman and incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“Last night and this morning, several of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and administration appointees were targeted in violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” she told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. “In response, law enforcement acted quickly to ensure the safety of those who were targeted. President Trump and the entire Transition team are grateful for their swift action.”
Sources told Fox News Digital that John Ratcliffe, the nominee to be CIA director, Pete Hegseth, the nominee for secretary of defense, and Rep. Elise Stefanik, the nominee for UN ambassador, were among those targeted. Brooke Rollins, who Trump has tapped to be secretary of agriculture, and Lee Zeldin, Trump’s nominee to be EPA administrator, separately revealed they were also targeted.
Threats were also made against Trump’s Labor Secretary nominee, GOP Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and former Trump attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz’s family.
Homan told Fox News that he is “not going to be intimidated by these people” and “I’m not going to let them silence me.”
“What I’ve learned today I’ll start taking a little more serious.”
Homan added that he believes “we need to have a strong response once we find out is behind all this.”
“It’s illegal to threaten someone’s life. And we need to follow through with that.”
The threats on Tuesday night came mere months after Trump survived two assassination attempts.
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report
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