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The White House has rolled out a memo, named A Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education to nine of the nation’s most prestigious institutions, including MIT, Dartmouth, and the University of Pennsylvania among others. The document dictates how universities should admit students, hire faculty, and shape campus life, linking compliance to federal rewards. At the heart of it lies a measure that could redefine the future of US higher education: a proposal to cap international undergraduate enrolment at 15 per cent. The nine-page directive goes further, restricting the number of students from any single country to no more than...

The president argues that the federal bureaucracy is useless. Shutdowns tend to reinforce that view.For any party shut out of power in Washington, there are only bad options and worse. Try to project sobriety and your base calls you weak; lodge a bunch of protests and you mostly look small. Everything you do registers between feckless and futile.So I can understand how Democratic leaders came to see a government shutdown as their last, best recourse. It’s half performance for their own furious voters, half primal scream at the unfairness of the universe.It’s also a shortsighted gambit that will do more...

Red wood ants (Formica rufa) pheromone transmission. (Photo by Yuriy Bartenev on Shutterstock) In A Nutshell * Red wood ants carry Fructilactobacillus sanfranciscensis, the sourdough bacterium that can seed milk and trigger yogurt-like fermentation. * In lab conditions, four live ants added to warm milk led to curdling by morning at about pH 5 (store yogurt is ~4.2), with mild tang and grassy notes. * Ants contribute formic acid (about 1–2.5 g/L measured in the yogurt), lowering pH; ant-borne bacteria then make lactic and acetic acids and enzymes that cut milk proteins. * Only live ants yielded stable, desirable communities;...

The actress joined Spike Lee, Billie Eilish, Pedro Pascal and others in reviving the Committee for the First Amendment, a group that her father, Henry Fonda, was a member of in the 1940s.Jane Fonda and hundreds of members of the entertainment industry have revived the Committee for the First Amendment, a free-expression group that was originally formed by Hollywood stars including her father, Henry Fonda, during the McCarthy era.The original group was formed in 1947 to oppose the work of the House Un-American Activities Committee, whose investigations into the film industry led to the blacklist of actors, writers and directors...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said on Friday that it will take up its latest gun rights case and consider striking down a strict regulation on where people can carry firearms in Hawaii. President Donald Trump’s Republican administration had urged the justices to take the case, arguing the law violates the court’s landmark 2022 ruling that found the Second Amendment generally gives people the right to carry firearms. The court will consider Hawaii’s law that bans guns on private property, including businesses like stores and hotels, unless the owner has specifically allowed them verbally or with a sign. “Because...

Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost twice the size of our own Milky Way galaxy. M101 was also one of the original spiral nebulae observed by Lord Rosse's large 19th century telescope, the Leviathan of Parsontown. Assembled from 51 exposures recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope in the 20th and 21st centuries, with additional data from ground based telescopes, this mosaic of M101 is touted as the largest, most detailed spiral galaxy view...

U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach unveiled designs for a possible $1 coin featuring Donald Trump to mark America’s 250th anniversary. U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach shared designs for a potential $1 coin featuring President Donald Trump, timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.One side of the coin shows a side profile of Trump. The reverse depicts him raising a fist in front of an American flag, with the words “fight, fight, fight” encircling the image.Beach said additional details would be released “soon,” once the federal government shutdown ends.Steve Guest/X President Trump coin Congress previously...

Oct 3 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Joe Biden exceeded his authority by withdrawing large areas along U.S. coastlines from future offshore oil and gas development, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled on Thursday.U.S. District Judge James Cain in Lake Charles, Louisiana, sided with Republican states and oil and gas industry groups that sued to block Biden's move to protect all federal waters off the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of the northern Bering Sea in Alaska.Biden, on one of his final days in office, used his authority under the 70-year-old Outer Continental Shelf...

Not all heroes wear capes. Some of them don't even wear shirts. [Warning: Language] https://twitter.com/i/status/1973031953273385088 That's the takeaway from a Macon, Georgia, McDonald's this week, when a group of fearless citizens stepped up to capture a dangerous beast that had wandered onto the premises. Local news reports: A 12-foot alligator found lounging near a McDonald's drive-thru in Macon this weekend was eventually captured and relocated — but not before a group of residents took matters into their own hands. The alligator was first spotted Friday outside the McDonald's on Rocky Creek Road, according to the Bibb County Sheriff's Office. We've...

Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike, and no U.S. forces were harmed in the operation. The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics - headed to America to poison our people. Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route. These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!

An unusually long and large flight restriction has been placed on the Chicago area for several days, a move officials say was sparked by a "credible threat" of attacks on law enforcement. The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed a temporary flight restriction was put in place “at the request of the Department of Homeland Security." The restrictions include aircraft from the surface to 400 feet, citing "security reasons." The restricted zone extends in a 15-nautical-mile radius stretching from downtown Chicago to north of Evanston, west of Elmhurst and south of Dolton. "Pilots who do not adhere to the following [procedures] may...

The threat against our shared reality.A time existed when you could turn to a library, a newspaper, or a news network and be fairly confident the information you received was factual. Seeing used to be believing. Photos, videos, recordings, and other sources validated information. Those days are gone. Mis- and disinformation run rampant through digital spaces, creating branching narratives that emerge from algorithmic bubbles and infiltrate the real world. And now that the technology to generate spurious video and audio with AI is accessible and quickly improving, the difference between real and fake is becoming harder to discern. Fact and...

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth @SecWar Earlier this morning, on President Trump's orders, I directed a lethal, kinetic strike on a narco-trafficking vessel affiliated with Designated Terrorist Organizations in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility. Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike, and no U.S. forces were harmed in the operation. The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics - headed to America to poison our people. Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were...

Wikipedia founder Larry Sanger made waves this week when he discussed the crowdsourced website’s outright censorship of conservative voices via a blacklist of banned news outlets. For me, Sanger’s revelation came as no surprise: The news publication I founded and run, the Federalist, has been viciously censored by Wikipedia’s cabal of anonymous editors for more than a decade.We originally drew Wikipedia’s ire back in 2014 when we exposed left-wing darling Neil deGrasse Tyson as a serial fabulist and fabricator.At the time, the astrophysicist and professional bigmouth was going around the country giving talks about the ignorance and innumeracy of most...

A National Guard Captain told troops to “Defy Orders” — reckless advice that could destroy a career and even land soldiers in jail. Pete Hegseth fires back, warning that this kind of guidance ignores the Insurrection Act and the harsh reality of the UCMJ. In this video, we break down why following this advice could end careers, strip away GI Bill and VA benefits, or worse. Bad advice doesn’t just spark controversy — it sets up young service members for disaster.

Charlie Kirk’s murderer came from somewhere. We all do.Since the “In the beginning …” times, our species has wrestled with the fundamental logic – and perceived unfairness – of holding parents responsible for the sins of their children. Or the other way around. In the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, the prophet makes this explicit:The person who sins will die. A son will not suffer the punishment for the father’s guilt, nor will a father suffer the punishment for the son’s guilt; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon...

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday that its forces had carried out massive overnight strikes on Ukrainian military-industrial facilities and on gas and energy infrastructure. It said it had conducted the strikes using high-precision long-range weapons launched from the air, land and sea as well as drones. Ukraine's energy ministry spoke earlier on Friday about the attack and top private energy provider DTEK said it had suspended operations at several gas facilities in the Poltava region.

The bureau conducted "Operation Summer Heat" from June 24 through September 20, which featured teams from all 55 FBI field offices and other law enforcement partners. The initiative cracked down on violent crime in major U.S. cities. The FBI on Thursday announced that its efforts to crack down on violent crime nationwide had yielded more than 8,600 arrests over the span of three months, and the seizure of over 2,200 guns.The bureau conducted "Operation Summer Heat" from June 24 through September 20, which featured teams from all 55 FBI field offices and other law enforcement partners. The initiative cracked...

[snip] In fact, I saw someone who actually worked on the Sierra Space Dreamchaser comment about this. I wanted to interview him, but right now he's working for SpaceX, which means he can't do interviews. But he wrote, "I spent years tiling this ship, drilling composites and making every detail perfect. Management was a disaster and even tried to convince us they were on par with SpaceX. Now that I work on Starship, comments like that sound even more childish than before. RIP Chaser never to be." [/snip] NASA May Have Put the Nail in the Coffin for Sierra Space...

VATICAN CITY — The supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church issued a sharp criticism of the Almighty Creator of the universe this week, as Pope Leo XIV publicly condemned God for instituting the death penalty. When asked by the media to comment on critics of the death penalty, the pope singled out the Lord, offering a stinging critique of the Almighty for instituting capital punishment and questioning whether or not God was actually pro-life. "I question God's moral standing here," Pope Leo told reporters. "Someone who says, ‘I'm against abortion,' but says, ‘I'm in favor of the death penalty,'...