Southwest
Texas border gun shop owner says more women purchasing guns since Biden-Harris 'opened up' the border
![Texas border gun shop owner says more women purchasing guns since Biden-Harris 'opened up' the border Texas border gun shop owner says more women purchasing guns since Biden-Harris 'opened up' the border](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Humphreys-Gun-Shop.png)
A Texas gun shop owner says he’s seen a marked increase in gun purchases as the border crisis has impacted the community of Del Rio, Texas.
Gary Humphreys, the owner of Humphreys’ Gun Shop, located in Del Rio since 1973, spoke with Fox News Digital about how border issues have affected his business.
“Since this border opened up, we’re getting new people that never owned guns coming in and buying them,” he said.
Humphreys discussed the clientele that he has seen increase since the border policies implemented by the Biden-Harris administration.
TEXAS RESIDENTS AFFECTED BY BORDER SECURITY UNDER BIDEN-HARRIS ADMIN EXPRESS FEAR OF FUTURE ATTACK
Gary Humphreys, the owner of Humphreys’ Gun Shop, said that more women are purchasing handguns at his store for self-protection. (Fox News)
“Getting a lot of women that never owned a gun before coming in and buying them,” he said, adding that women are mostly coming into his shop to purchase handguns for self-protection.
Humphreys said, “it’s pretty scary out there” and had an incident when someone broke his front door.
He emphasized that, “people that don’t live on the border don’t realize what is really happening.”
Humphreys added that this crisis has been going on for three years since President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, now running for president herself, took office.
Residents who live along the border overwhelmingly expressed support for former President Trump over Harris to return to the White House to secure the southern border.
“100% Trump,” Humpherys said enthusiastically, adding that if Trump is elected, he will reinstate the border policies of his administration.
FOX NEWS POLL: NEW MATCHUP, SAME RESULT — TRUMP BEATS HARRIS BY ONE POINT
According to a Fox News survey last month, concern about the border increased most notably since February among those under age 30 (+20 points), Black voters (+19), Democrats (+14), Hispanic voters (+12) and women (+12).
More blame the Biden administration’s lack of enforcement at the border (71% a great deal or some) than former President Trump and the Senate GOP for failed immigration legislation (57%).
The survey also asks about policy ideas related to immigration and border security and finds 63% favor deporting illegal immigrants back to their home countries. That’s down from 67% in 2023, but nowhere near the 52% low favoring it in 2015, the first time it was asked.
Trump also has a 19-point lead over Harris on who is trusted most to tackle border security.
At the Democratic National Convention, Harris said she would sign the bipartisan Senate border bill that Trump did not support but which many conservatives have derided as ineffective. The bill would require hundreds of millions of unspent funds to be used on the border wall. However, according to Harris’ advisers, the bill does not provide additional funding for the border wall.
Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report
Elizabeth Heckman and Nikolas Lanum reported from Texas.
Read the full article from Here
![](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/np-logo.png)
Los Angeles, Ca
Suspected child sex predator arrested in Riverside County
![Suspected child sex predator arrested in Riverside County Suspected child sex predator arrested in Riverside County](https://ktla.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/09/anaheim-police-dept.-3.png?w=900)
A man was arrested after allegedly trying to pick up a 14-year-old girl for sex in Southern California.
The suspect was identified as Laith Fathi Sikta, 44, from Sacramento, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
Authorities completed a month-long undercover operation focusing on suspects soliciting sex from minors online.
During the investigation, Sikta had been communicating with someone he believed to be a 14-year-old girl who, in reality, was an undercover officer.
Plans were made to meet up with the suspect. On Aug. 30, Sikta drove from Sacramento to Murrieta believing he would pick up the young girl in the middle of the night.
When Sikta arrived, he was immediately taken into custody by deputies. Cannabis was also located in his vehicle, authorities said.
Sikta was arrested on multiple charges including contacting a minor with the intent to have sex, sending harmful matter through electronic means to a minor, and offering to furnish cannabis to a minor.
The incident remains under investigation.
Anybody with information on the case is encouraged to call Deputy Au or Lead Investigator Roberge at the Southwest Sheriff Station at 951-696–3000.
Southwest
One state’s budget dispels big lie about school choice
![One state’s budget dispels big lie about school choice One state’s budget dispels big lie about school choice](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/iStock-468080339.jpg)
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
For years, opponents of school choice have been predicting that Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts policy would “bankrupt” the state. Instead, as the state’s education budget surplus demonstrates, school choice has reduced costs.
This won’t surprise Arizonans who have become accustomed to the empty scaremongering from Chicken Littles claiming that school choice would make the sky fall. But then again, they aren’t the target audience for this pernicious propaganda. Conservative lawmakers in other states are.
Over the past three years, Republican lawmakers in a dozen states have made all or nearly all K–12 students eligible for school choice. More red states, most notably Texas, appear ready to join them. To halt this progress, opponents of school choice have settled on a message intended to give conservatives pause: that school choice supposedly is a budget buster.
SCHOOL CHOICE BEING CELEBRATED IN FLORIDA AS TEACHERS UNIONS OPPOSE POLICY
“The universal school voucher program is unsustainable,” Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, claimed last summer, arguing that the program needed to be curtailed lest it “bankrupt our state.” Her proposed budget would have rolled back ESA eligibility, kicking out nearly 50,000 students.
The battle over school choice is taking a dramatic turn because Arizona shows it’s more affordable than scaremongers claimed. (iStock)
School choice opponents in other states have echoed Hobbs’s scaremongering. Texas Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, chair of the Texas House Democrats, claimed this year that Arizona’s ESA supposedly created a “nearly $1B[illion] problem of skyrocketing costs.”
Kentucky Lt. Governor Jacqueline Coleman recently warned voters considering a school choice ballot proposition, Amendment 2, that ESAs supposedly blew a “massive hole” in Arizona’s state budget. School choice advocates have heard legislators in several states express skittishness about the potential fiscal effects of expanding school choice.
Fortunately, Arizona’s Republican-controlled legislature knows better. The typical ESA student receives about $7,500 annually from Arizona taxpayers, compared to the more than $12,000 per pupil that Arizonans give public schools through their state and local taxes alone.
Even looking only at state dollars, the ESA program typically costs taxpayers hundreds — if not thousands — of dollars less per child than the public school system. As students shift from public schools to ESAs, the state saves money.
In the first two years since ESAs went universal under then-Gov. Doug Ducey, Arizona enjoyed a massive overall state budget surplus one year, and a net savings in its state education funding formula (which includes ESAs) compared to what it budgeted the second. After lengthy budget negotiations this year, the ESA program’s universal eligibility emerged unscathed.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION
ProPublica and the Grand Canyon Institute claimed that the ESAs were the main culprit for the $1.4 billion deficit Arizona faced this past year. However, not only has this deficit been eliminated, but the latest education budget figures tell a very different story.
According to Arizona’s nonpartisan Joint Legislative Budget Committee, the ESA program cost $92 million more than had been forecasted this past year. However, the surge in enrollment to more than 72,000 ESA students coincided with a reduction in public school enrollment that has reduced costs by $93 million below forecasts.
By the end of the 2023-24 school year, 62 percent of new ESA students had switched from a public school in the prior year. When factoring in shifts in student enrollment among the public district, public charter and ESA sectors, the JLBC estimated last month a net savings of more than $350,000 relative to the enacted budget for fiscal year 2024.
Fortunately, Arizona’s Republican-controlled legislature knows better. The typical ESA student receives about $7,500 annually from Arizona taxpayers, compared to the more than $12,000 per pupil that Arizonans give public schools through their state and local taxes alone.
Moreover, these are conservative estimates. As the Goldwater Institute observed, the JLBC analysis reviewed only the basic state aid formula, and “did not address millions in additional ESA savings from all other sources” of state, local and federal funding.
On August 26, the Arizona Department of Education released its revised budget figures for the fiscal year, showing a surplus of $4.3 million.
The sky isn’t falling. Any budget woes Arizona faced this year were despite — not because of — the state’s school choice policy. Lawmakers considering school choice policies in other states would do well to ignore the Chicken Littles.
Corey DeAngelis is a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children and a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is the author of “The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our Schools“
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY COREY DEANGELIS
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY JASON BEDRICK
Read the full article from Here
Los Angeles, Ca
Santa Monica Pier to celebrate 115th anniversary
![Santa Monica Pier to celebrate 115th anniversary Santa Monica Pier to celebrate 115th anniversary](https://ktla.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/02/GettyImages-1233641408.jpg?w=900)
A beloved symbol of the Los Angeles area is marking a major milestone this week.
On Friday, the Santa Monica Pier will celebrate 115 years as one of Southern California’s most recognizable landmarks with live entertainment and family activities planned throughout the day.
The Santa Monica Pier officially opened to the public on Sept. 9, 1909, and “quickly evolved into a popular fishing and boating destination,” according to Santa Monica Travel & Tourism.
Seven years later, the pier began the first steps of its evolution into the tourism and entertainment beacon it is today.
Charles Looff, an amusement park developer known for his work at Coney Island in New York, oversaw the addition of a second pier which featured a billiards and bowling hall, a ballroom, and the iconic carousel that remains to this day. The 44 hand-carved horses currently reside in the Looff Hippodrome, named for the innovative craftsman who brought the vision to life.
Decades later, more amusement park rides began to open on the Santa Monica Pier, and in 1940, its famous neon welcome sign was constructed.
But it wasn’t always blue skies and sunny days for the pier, as it faced possible closures throughout the years that followed.
Eventually, the Santa Monica Pier and the Looff Hippodrome building were designated U.S. National Historic Landmarks thanks to a campaign to “Save the Pier.”
In 1996, Pacific Park opened, welcoming locals and tourists with thrill rides and midway games, and the world famous Pacific Wheel. The Ferris wheel later became the first solar-powered theme park ride of its kind.
The Santa Monica Pier has seen many changes over the years, with businesses coming and going and renovations to the structure itself and surrounding area, but it has withstood the test of time and remains synonymous with L.A. and Southern California beach culture.
This week, Angelenos and Santa Monica visitors are encouraged to celebrate the pier’s enduring history with a jam-packed schedule of events, including live musical performances, “birthday” treats and a free outdoor screening of “Barbie,” among other family- and community-focused events.
For more information on the Santa Monica Pier anniversary celebration, click here.
-
Politics1 week ago
Why won't Pennsylvania voters have results on Election Night?
-
Politics1 week ago
Trump sets intense pace with campaign events as questions swirl about Harris' policy positions
-
World1 week ago
Portugal coast hit by 5.3 magnitude earthquake
-
News1 week ago
Former national security adviser McMaster says he won’t work for Trump again
-
World1 week ago
Who is Telegram CEO Pavel Durov? What to know about his arrest in France
-
Politics1 week ago
VP Harris' tiebreaker votes in Senate were key to inflation-boosting Biden policies: expert
-
World1 week ago
Photos: 300,000 in emergency shelters after Bangladesh floods
-
Science1 week ago
How much more water and power does AI computing demand? Tech firms don't want you to know