Category: State News

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Scores Victory Over College Board’s AP African American Studies Course

Susan Berry, PhD

The New York Times is lamenting the College Board’s revised curriculum for its course in Advanced Placement African American Studies (APAAS) – its abandonment of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the move to make Black Lives Matter (BLM) merely an optional topic of study – both changes that suggest Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s (R) firm rejection of the radical content of the prior version significantly contributed to the new direction.

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Investigation Launched Into 3-Alarm Blaze That Killed 100,000 Chickens at Hillandale Connecticut Egg Farm

Susan Berry, PhD

An investigation has been launched into a three-alarm fire Saturday that reportedly killed about 100,000 chickens at the Hillandale egg farm in Bozrah, Connecticut. At least 16 firehouses and more than 100 firefighters responded to the massive blaze, reported Fox61 News.

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Legalization of Esports Betting Proposed in Pennsylvania

Bradley Vasoli

A state lawmaker is urging colleagues to support a bill he is drafting to legalize esports betting in Pennsylvania. Representative Ed Neilson (D-Philadelphia) began circulating a memorandum last week making the case for legitimating video-game betting in the Keystone State, observing that the esports business took in $1.1 billion worldwide in 2022 and is predicted to soon realize a $1.8-billion global value.

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Meta to Reinstate Trump’s Facebook, Instagram Accounts

Just the News

Social media giant Meta announced Wednesday that it would reinstate former President Donald Trump’s accounts on both Facebook and Instagram. The former president was suspended from both platforms in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2022, Capitol Riot. Other social media platforms such as Twitter acted likewise, prompting Trump to create Truth Social, a digital platform similar to Twitter that practiced looser content moderation than its competitors.

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Penn Biden Center Inactive and Seemingly Leaderless for Nearly a Year

Bradley Vasoli

The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy & Global Engagement, the University of Pennsylvania think tank of which President Joe Biden was once the de facto leader, has had no publicized activity for nearly a year and its future is uncertain. Biden reportedly used the Washington, D.C.-based center as his main D.C. office for much of the time between the end of his vice presidency in 2017 and his presidential run in 2020. From 2017 to 2019, Biden received approximately $900,000 in salary for a Penn professorship that did not require him to teach regular classes.

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Pennsylvania Lawmakers Revive Bill to Rein in Regulatory Spending

The Center Square

Republicans lawmakers will again tackle regulatory reform and the separation of powers in the new legislative session. Previous efforts made some progress, but failed to become law. The latest attempt is proposed Senate Bill 188 that would require legislative approval of “economically significant regulations.”

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Pennsylvania Auditor Digs up $20,000 Pension Underpayment After Miscalculations

The Center Square

The latest batch of audits for municipal pension plans show a few localities received too much in state aid — and one error led to a $20,000 underpayment.

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Texas Representative Gooden Calls on Administration to Investigate Gifts to Penn from China

Bradley Vasoli

A Texas congressman is asking the U.S. Department of Education (DoE) to investigate funding that foreign entities have bestowed on the University of Pennsylvania.

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Penn Biden Center Appears to Have Published Little to No Original Scholarship

Bradley Vasoli

A review by The Pennsylvania Daily Star of output from the Penn Biden Center, the foreign-policy think tank established in 2017 to coincide with the start of Joe Biden’s professorship at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests the center has produced little to no original scholarly work. The Washington, D.C.-based center has drawn heavy media scrutiny after news came out earlier this month that nearly a dozen classified federal documents were housed there until last November. Biden reportedly used the location as his main D.C. office after his vice presidency ended and before he became president.

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