Tag: maryland

Maryland State University Student Government Excludes Jewish Students From Vote On Boycotting Israel

On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, the University of Maryland (UMD) Student Government Association (SGA) passed a boycott, sanctions, and divestment resolution against the state of Israel, 29-0 with one abstention. 

Because Jews fast, pray, and abstain from work on Yom Kippur, Jewish students, who comprise 20 percent of UMD’s student body, were not able to participate in the voting process. The bill was initially scheduled for a few days prior on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Only two SGA members supported a motion that would have pushed the vote after the Jewish holidays. 

One SGA member claimed, in a statement to UMD’s student newspaper, The Diamondback, “The priority for us was to make sure that there was [sic] accommodations, and I believe SGA did provide them,” referring to proxy voting measures. 

This does not take into consideration the fact that observant Jews do not work or use electronics on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. 

“The timing denied our community the opportunity to engage in a fair and meaningful discussion,” said Meirav Solomon, a junior at UMD on the pre-law track. “This decision adds to the growing sense that Jewish students are not safe or heard on campus. SGA is meant to represent the entire student body, and that means ensuring that every community has a voice in decisions that impact them.”

The Trump administration has opened Title VI investigations into various universities, including Harvard and Columbia, for campus antisemitism. Given how Jewish students are being treated on UMD’s campus, there may very well be a case against the university, so long as leadership allows open hatred to continue unfettered.    

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Educational Crisis: Baltimore High School Fails To Produce A Single Proficient Math Student In Four Straight Years

President Trump’s executive order earlier this year to dismantle the Department of Education comes as the president highlighted a disturbing and inconvenient truth about Baltimore City’s Democratic Party-run “failure factory” school system: 40% of public high schools have zero students proficient in math. This damning statistic follows eight years of Fox45 investigative reporter Chris Papst’s coverage of the crime-ridden city’s education crisis. Keep in mind, the metro area is mainly controlled by leftists at City Hall, with virtually no diversity when it comes to Republicans holding positions of power.

A new report by Papst released this past week may catch the White House’s attention, highlighting yet another inconvenient truth about the stunning failure of Baltimore City Public Schools in terms of academic outcomes, proving that simply throwing more taxpayer funds at the problem is not a viable solution.

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School district defends threatening girls if they object to males in their restroom, risking probe

AMaryland county known nationally for Navy football games is playing a much riskier game with the federal government, flaunting its school district’s threat to punish female students who protest males in their restrooms despite the Trump administration’s steps to yank federal funding from several districts across the Potomac with the same policies.

Libs of TikTok made viral what Anne Arundel County Public Schools says has been on the books for six years and on “signage” for a year: Students are allowed to use restrooms corresponding with their gender identity.

But it’s not clear whether the warnings appear in the boys’ restrooms, which if not would single out students for differential treatment based on sex and facially violate Title IX.

“In the girls bathroom at Old Mills HS [high school],” the Libs of TikTok tipster wrote. “I’m told there is not one in the boys bathroom. AACPS refuses to protect our girls.”

The sign is specific to Old Mills, and both its words and design – with three rainbow spectra – make clear students who disagree can be subject to discipline for purported bigotry.

Titled “AACPS Bathroom Use Policy,” the sign says in all caps “students have the right to use the bathroom that matches their expressed gender identity,” without limitation. 

“It is against AACPS policy for an AACPS student to engage in discrimination or harassment based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression,” the sign reads. Its motto: “Productive Respectful Inclusive Determined Engaged,” with the first letter of each word highlighted to spell the acronym PRIDE.

Threatening to punish students for protesting the opposite sex in their restroom is a ticket to a federal investigation, with the Department of Education concluding Tuesday that Virginia’s Loudoun County Public Schools violated Title IX by punishing boys who objected to a girl who identifies as a boy in their locker room and was recording them as they entered.

America’s richest county practiced a “sex-based double standard” by failing to “meaningfully investigate complaints of sexual harassment” by the boys “concerning the presence” of the girl in their locker room, while “thoroughly” investigating her complaint against them.

The department gave LCPS, about an hour from D.C., 10 days to rescind the boys’ suspensions, review its findings to verify the discipline is “warranted” and not disproportionate relative to “students who engaged in similar conduct and who had comparable disciplinary histories,” and formally apologize for its improper investigations of complaints.

LCPS must also train all high school and county staff “who receive or respond to reports of sexual harassment under Title IX,” the department said. It’s one of the five northern Virginia counties to refuse to change its gender identity policies following Trump administration demands and be placed on “reimbursement status” by the feds as a result.

The district did not respond to queries on how it plans to respond.

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Baltimore Schools Collapse Into “Failure Factory” Under Democratic Mismanagement

President Donald Trump said during a Cabinet meeting earlier on Tuesday, “I think one of the most important things we’re doing at this table is bringing education back to the states, where parents and local school boards run it.”

This leads us to President Trump’s executive order earlier this year to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. At the time, the president pointed to an uncomfortable truth for Democrats running Baltimore City Schools and City Hall: 40% of public high schools have zero students proficient in math. That damning statistic came from Fox 45 investigative reporter Chris Papst’s coverage of Baltimore’s education crisis. 

For nearly eight years, ZeroHedge has followed Papst’s investigative work through the trenches of school to school across crime-ridden Baltimore City. Papst has conducted all the investigative work through Project Baltimore, in collaboration with Fox45 News. He has spent years reporting on optically displeasing headlines that merely expose how progressive elites in City Hall and in the local school system seemingly rob generations of children of a future for short-term gain to line their pockets and funnel taxpayer funds into the Democratic Party machine, which is nothing more than corrupt unions. 

Many of Papst’s reports have gone viral, including the 2023 report cited by President Trump, which revealed that 40% of Baltimore City high schools had zero students proficient in math. 

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First Human Case Of Flesh-Eating Screwworm Detected In Sanctuary State Of Maryland 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported the first human case of travel-associated New World screwworm in Maryland after a “patient” returned from El Salvador, according to Reuters, citing HHS spokesman Andrew G. Nixon. Details about the patient’s immigration status were not released, though it’s worth noting that Maryland is a far-left Democratic Party stronghold and a sanctuary state.

Screwworms have been moving north from Central America through Mexico since 2023, with a new case identified in July about 400 miles south of the U.S. border in Veracruz. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) response was to shut down cross-border activity of cattle ports of entry into the U.S. to mitigate the biosecurity threat.  

More details from the Reuters report:

  • HHS reported the first human case of travel-associated New World screwworm in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the parasite on August 4 in a patient returning from El Salvador.
  • Industry sources earlier told Reuters the patient had traveled from Guatemala, and Beef Alliance emails circulated this version to livestock stakeholders. HHS did not clarify the discrepancy.
  • HHS says the risk to U.S. public health is very low. No U.S. animal cases have been reported this year.

For humans, screwworm infestations are survivable with treatment, but this is the first U.S. case that has sent alarm bells across public health officials and the cattle industry. Left untreated, these parasites can kill hosts, such as cattle, wildlife, and pets. 

Here is USDA’s response so far:

  • Sterile fly facility: USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins recently announced plans for a new sterile fly facility in Texas (Moore Air Force Base), modeled on past eradication campaigns. The facility will take 2–3 years to build.
  • Mexico is also building a $51 million sterile fly plant in the south. Currently, only one plant exists (Panama City), producing 100 million sterile flies weekly – but 500 million are needed to push infestations back to the Darien Gap.

USDA estimates that a Texas screwworm outbreak could devastate the cattle industry, inflicting $1.8 billion in losses from livestock deaths, labor, and treatment costs. The biothreat comes at a time when the nation’s cattle herd is the smallest in 70 years, beef prices are at record highs, and feedlot margins remain extremely tight.

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Alleged MS-13 gangbanger Kilmar Abrego Garcia home in Maryland after release from jail — but faces quick deportation to Uganda

Alleged MS-13 gangbanger and accused human smuggler Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from a Tennessee jail Friday and returned to his family in Maryland — but could be deported to Uganda by the end of the weekend, with ICE demanding he check in Monday. 

Abrego Garcia, 30, had been held at Putnam County Jail in Cookeville since June, after the Trump administration arranged his return from El Salvador to face human smuggling charges. 

The illegal migrant is en route to the Old Line State with a private security escort — returning for the first time since he was mistakenly booted from the country in March — but has just 48 hours to reach his brother’s house, where he will remain under strict home detention conditions, US Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ruled. 

“While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe,” his attorney Simon Sandoval-Mohensberg said, according to NBC News. 

“ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threatens to tear his family apart. A measure of justice has been done, but the government must stop pursuing actions that would once again separate his family.”

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Report: Adam Schiff Got Below-Market Mortgage Rate on Potomac Home After 16 Years of Fraudulently Claiming It as Primary Residence

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), longtime nemesis of President Donald Trump, is enjoying a rock bottom 3 percent mortgage rate on both his Maryland and California homes since refinancing in 2020, newly released documents examined by the New York Post reveal.

That, according to the Post report, is below the average 30-year mortgage interest rate in 2020 of 3.10% for primary residences in the U.S., with secondary residences usually subject to rates up to 0.5% higher.

The rates in question are newsworthy because of a Department of Justice (DOJ) criminal investigation underway into the senator’s home financing. As Breitbart News has reported, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) accuses the junior senator of potential mortgage fraud for claiming two homes as primary residences for more than a decade to achieve lower mortgage rates and reduced taxes.

According to DOJ sources, a grand jury in Maryland is currently evaluating a criminal indictment against the former 12-term congressman.

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Maryland’s energy price explosion

In July, my electric bill crossed a number I never thought I’d see: over $500. Yes, it was a brutally hot month, but we’ve had very hot summers before in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. We’ve run the air conditioning nonstop before and never reached even $400.

What’s going on?

A few things. Let’s start with this week’s announcement by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore of a $2 million “Residential and Commercial Energy Storage Program.” The idea is to offer rebates to homeowners and businesses that install battery systems, which can store energy and reduce strain on the grid. Moore says, “When we invest in clean energy, we help expand supply.”

That all sounds nice. But here’s the problem: Every “investment” like this costs money, our money, and it hasn’t lowered a single bill so far. In fact, it’s done the opposite. Almost laughable is another planned “solution” to the energy crisis: Maryland utility customers will receive a rebate on their bills next month, estimated at about $40 per household, depending on electricity usage. A second rebate is planned for January. 

On June 1, utility rates across Maryland jumped. Baltimore Gas & Electric, Pepco, Delmarva Power — pick your provider, the story’s the same. We were told it’s because of supply problems and the need for infrastructure upgrades. The reality? The state continues to remove reliable, always-on energy sources and replace them with more expensive alternatives that can’t carry the load on their own. We’re importing more energy from other states at higher rates and paying for that gap via higher bills.

The jump we saw in our bills this summer isn’t a one-time bump. Maryland is part of a regional power grid called PJM. Recently, the price PJM charges to ensure there’s enough power cleared at the maximum allowed rate. Translation: In 2026, we’ll see another increase, 1.5% to 5% higher on top of what we’re already paying now. And that’s just the short term. With the growing demand from massive data centers sucking up power, Reuters reports bills in our region could climb 30% to 60% by 2030.

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Power-Bill Crisis Spreads From Maryland To New Jersey, May Doom Democrats As ‘Green’ Implodes

A power bill crisis is gripping parts of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic and is set to worsen, threatening to financially crush households as long-range forecasts point to a brutally cold winter. What began in Baltimore, Maryland – as first covered in our reporting one year ago– has now spread to New Jersey, where residents are furious over skyrocketing electricity costs. 

The common denominator in both states? A disastrous green energy agenda, pushed by radical leftist lawmakers, is dismantling reliable and cheap fossil fuel power generation in favor of unstable solar and wind. This has unleashed a power bill armageddon on working-class and middle-class households, as well as mom-and-pop businesses, all while baseload power demand surges in the era of AI data centers.

Fox News is beginning to latch onto the power bill crisis theme, starting with coverage of New Jersey residents who are absolutely furious over exploding power bills. This new development could severely damage the state’s Democratic leaders in the upcoming elections.

This all started when New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities approved a 17 to 20% rate hike for power bills in June. Many residents were shocked when they opened their bills at the end of last month. 

“$200 more, I know my electrical bill,” one Jersey woman told Fox News reporter CB Cotton, adding, “I was shocked. So to say the least, I’m very disappointed. This is killing us, and every time you turn around it’s something more. You only get little pleasures in life that you enjoy, and my air conditioner is one of them.”

Perhaps Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s decision to shutter the state’s nuclear and coal plants, without a one-to-one replacement for lost capacity on the grid, was a catastrophic error that is only now coming home to roost. He also prioritized offshore wind farms and other green energy projects, which have left the grid more fragile than ever.

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Judge Permanently Blocks Trump’s Actions Aimed at Eliminating DEI at Universities

A Maryland-based federal judge on Thursday permanently blocked two of President Trump’s memos aimed at eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at universities.

Earlier this year, the Department of Education issued an ultimatum to all federally funded educational institutions: eliminate DEI programs within 14 days, or face the complete withdrawal of federal funding.

The directive, outlined in a letter from the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), was in response to “pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences” that have turned America’s schools into indoctrination camps.

The letter explicitly warns schools, universities, and state education agencies that their reliance on DEI initiatives—which serve as racial discrimination—violates federal civil rights law.

Under the order, educational institutions receiving federal aid must immediately:

  • Dismantle DEI offices and programming that promote race-based policies.
  • End race-based hiring and admissions practices that disadvantage certain groups.
  • Cease funding or collaborating with third-party organizations that push DEI initiatives.
  • Halt racially segregated graduations, scholarships, and other programs under the guise of inclusion.

Failure to comply, the Department warns, will result in swift consequences—including the potential revocation of federal funding.

US District Judge Stephanie Gallagher said the Department of Education violated the law.

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