Fort Hood Shooter’s Execution to be Livestreamed

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Fort Hood Shooter’s Execution to be Livestreamed

(Headline USA) The firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed, the Pentagon said Thursday, a stunning revelation about plans for the first military execution in more than 65 years after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had described it as being “public.”

The Army announced this week that the execution would take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3 after Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009.

Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice on Wednesday, said, “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.” Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed and that more details would follow.

The revelation from Hegseth about the public nature of the execution — let alone one as violent as a firing squad — has raised further questions about how the death penalty is carried out in the U.S., especially after the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee.

Experts offer mixed reactions on the plan

Hasan could choose to resist execution and file a habeas petition — a legal request to review the legality of a detention — in civilian court, which could significantly delay the execution, experts said.

“It frankly might outlast the current administration, and who knows if the next one will have the same penchant for executions,” said Eugene R. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School specializing in military law.

Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert and law professor at Fordham University, said livestreaming an execution could make the process “much more transparent” and inform the public about all that capital punishment entails. Those are benefits that she said would be useful at a time when Pike’s botched execution has raised fresh questions about the manner by which criminal defendants are put to death for their crimes.

“I think it could possibly be a good idea because it would be transparent and the public would be fully aware that it’s happening,” she said.

Elisabeth Semel, co-director of the Death Penalty Clinic at UC Berkeley Law, said Hegseth’s announcement raises a host of legal and public policy questions, including concerns for the dignity of the defendant, who will be eligible to view the execution and what the Trump administration has in mind in opting for an unusual spectacle.

Though there has been long-running discussion about the idea of televising an execution, “I don’t recall a situation in which it was instigated by the government. I think that also raises serious questions about what is the motivation of the government,” she said.

It’s not clear if Hasan will try to appeal

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who held the rank of major, walked into a medical building on Nov. 5, 2009, where soldiers were waiting in long lines to receive immunizations and medical clearance for deployment. He shouted “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun. He also shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.

Hasan said it was an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims. A military judge barred him from presenting that as a defense during his 2013 trial. Hasan was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the back by law enforcement, and he now uses a wheelchair.

Hasan could seek a lengthy delay of his execution, though given his behavior at trial, he may not want to.

After firing his lawyers and representing himself, Hasan began his portion of the trial by telling jurors he was the gunman. He said little else over the next three weeks, which convinced his court-appointed standby lawyers that Hasan’s only goal was to get a death sentence.

The military called nearly 90 witnesses, but Hasan rested his case without calling a single person to testify in his defense and made no closing argument. Yet he leaked documents during the trial to journalists that revealed him telling military mental health workers that he could “ still be a martyr ” if executed.

Attorney John Galligan, a former military judge who had represented Hasan in several civil matters following his criminal trial, spoke with Hasan on Wednesday but is barred from offering much detail about that conversation. He is not representing Hasan in his criminal case but said he’s worried about his physical health under the plan laid out by officials, and that Hasan has not yet had access to legal counsel.

Galligan said that according to Hasan, the commandant of the facility brought a chaplain but no attorney from either the Trial Defense Service or from his civilian defense when he was notified that Trump had signed off on his execution. Galligan called that a breach of Army regulations.

A spokeswoman for the Army said Thursday that multiple attempts were made to contact Trial Defense Service attorneys, saying they made every reasonable effort and adhered to policy.

“The civilian counsel was not reasonably available to be physically present for the notification on the 5th,” the spokeswoman said, adding that counsel was located in Virginia but did not provide a name.

The spokeswoman also said Hasan has not been kept from contacting and communicating with his counsel.

Hegseth said the military hasn’t executed a service member by firing squad since World War II. The last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging.

Amnesty International said in its report on executions in 2025 that it knew of at least 17 public executions — 11 in Iran and 6 in Afghanistan.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Vance Suggests US Would Accept Iran Reducing Uranium Enrichment

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Vance Suggests US Would Accept Iran Reducing Uranium Enrichment

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) Vice President JD Vance suggested in an interview with Reuters that the Trump administration could accept a deal with Iran that would see the country reduce its nuclear enrichment levels, not end its enrichment program altogether, something Tehran was offering to do before the war.

“If you don’t want a nuclear weapon, then why do you need 60% enriched fuel? And if you want to show commitment to not ​building a nuclear weapon, don’t build highly enriched fuel. That’s a very basic threshold issue,” Vance said.

“I think if they want to show a commitment to not building a nuclear weapon, they would do something meaningful on ​their enrichment capacity,” the US vice president added.

Before the war, Iran said it was willing to reduce enrichment levels, and media reports said it was willing to bring them back down to 3.67%, the levels agreed upon under the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA. Iran was also reportedly willing to pause its enrichment program for a number of years and had said publicly it would dilute its stockpile of uranium enriched at 60%, but the US was demanding a permanent end to its enrichment program.

The two sides were still engaged in negotiations when the US and Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran on February 28. The opening attacks included the bombing of an elementary school, which killed at least 120 children, and the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed alongside several members of his family, including his 14-month-old granddaughter.

An unnamed Iranian official told Reuters that there have been no recent negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear program, and that Washington must meet Tehran’s other conditions before they start. Iranian officials have maintained that the US must end its blockade of Iranian ports, lift some sanctions on Iran, and release frozen Iranian funds before the Strait of Hormuz is fully opened, conditions the US previously agreed to under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in June.

The Iranian official said that key to any nuclear deal will be the US recognizing Iran’s right to enrich uranium, something he said Iran will not show “flexibility on in any way.” But the official said details of enrichment can be discussed later, suggesting Tehran is still willing to negotiate a deal that would reduce its enrichment levels.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com. 

Report: Trump Might Bomb Iran Before Midterms

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Report: Trump Might Bomb Iran Before Midterms

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) The White House has asked the Pentagon to develop plans for attacks on Iran that could be carried out before midterm elections are held on November 3, according to a report from The Atlantic.

Unnamed Trump administration officials told the outlet that the planning underscores how much Trump wants to reduce gas prices and show some progress in the conflict, but any US attacks would lead to Iranian retaliation and would further exacerbate the global energy crisis.

Despite the obvious risk of repercussions, a Republican source told The Atlantic that the potential strikes would “make the president look like he got a win and that gas prices would start going down.” The report said the administration is still debating the scope of potential strikes and whether they will be carried out before the midterms.

NBC News also reported that the administration was considering strikes on Iran ahead of the midterms and that the military drew up potential attack plans following a meeting between Trump’s national security officials at Camp David, Maryland, last week. They also discussed the Saudi war in Yemen, which the US is supporting by providing intelligence and refueling Saudi warplanes.

Axios carried a similar report that said the Pentagon had instructed US Central Command several days ago to conclude preparations for resuming “major combat operations” in Iran, and that the strikes could start before the US midterms and possibly before Israel’s elections, which are scheduled for October 27.

Unlike Trump and the Republicans, Netanyahu and his allies would likely benefit politically from a renewed full-scale war with Iran. The Axios report said that if major combat operations resume, they will likely involve both the US and Israel striking Iran, and the attacks are expected to include massive bombing of Iranian energy, infrastructure, and nuclear targets.

Trump has made clear that he has been considering a massive escalation of the Iran war after the midterms, recently saying that the US will win the war “right after the election.” He has also continued to threaten the complete destruction of Iran, saying at the UN General Assembly last month that he was considering whether to “annihilate the Islamic Republic” and “drive them into hell.”

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com. 

Nicolas Maduro Hit With New US Indictment for Torturing Americans

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Nicolas Maduro Hit With New US Indictment for Torturing Americans

(Headline USA) U.S. prosecutors unveiled sweeping new criminal charges against former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Thursday, accusing him and his wife of heading a state-sponsored system of repression responsible for the beating, asphyxiation and electric shock treatment of scores of victims, including several Americans.

The torture charges add to pressure on the ousted authoritarian leader and his wife, Cilia Flores, who were seized from their Caracas home by the U.S. military in January to face drug trafficking charges in New York.

The updated indictment “alleges conduct that is truly unthinkable,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said outside the Manhattan courthouse where the case is being handled. “This is the epitome of corruption.”

Maduro, the indictment claims, signed off on torture methods, sought and received updates on specific victims’ treatment, watched a video of a forced confession and personally threatened the killing of one prisoner’s child “as a form of psychological torture.” Flores, a former attorney general, helped develop the repressive system and ordered the torture of some specific people, the indictment contends.

A message seeking comment was sent to Maduro’s lawyer. Flores’ attorney said he hadn’t yet had time to review the new allegations.

The couple pleaded not guilty in the U.S. drug case first brought years ago against them and numerous alleged co-conspirators for allegedly conspiring to flood the U.S. with cocaine. Their attorneys have asked for the case to be dismissed on the grounds that they have immunity as the leader and first lady of a foreign country.

Maduro, who served as Venezuela’s president from 2013 until his capture in January, has been under investigation for years by the International Criminal Court over allegations of crimes against humanity, tied to his crackdown on opponents. He has always denied any wrongdoing.

Flores’ lawyers unsuccessfully asked a judge Thursday to release her on house arrest due to medical concerns.

The revised indictment covers allegations of torture stretching back to Maduro’s ascent to power in 2013, when he took over as president from his mentor Hugo Chávez, who died of cancer that year.

At the time, Maduro, a former bus driver lacking his predecessor’s military pedigree, was struggling to make inroads with the armed forces — historically the arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela — as the oil-dependent economy began spiraling out of control and government opponents took to the streets.

Fearing a barracks revolt, Maduro authorized Venezuela’s feared DGCIM military intelligence agency to use torture against military insiders and opponents he saw as threatening his grip on power, prosecutors allege.

While the indictment doesn’t name the alleged victims, the descriptions of the deaths and imprisonment match those of several high-profile Maduro opponents. They include Leopoldo López, who spent more than three years in prison for leading anti-government protests, and former Chávez Defense Minister Raúl Baduel, who died in custody in 2021. Also described is the shocking death of Fernando Albán, an opposition politician who died in a fall from the 10th floor of an intelligence agency building that a U.S. court later determined was a “murder for hire.”

Three American victims of torture were also described in the indictment.

One, who matches the description of Osman Khan, was detained entering Venezuela in early 2022 and subjected to electric shocks and forced to eat his own vomit during eight months of imprisonment, the indictment says. Another was beaten badly enough to necessitate a long hospital stay and had a gun stuck in his mouth. A third was handcuffed, hooded and beaten for two days every half an hour, suffering a permanent eye injury, the indictment said.

Khan was released in October 2022 along with former U.S. Marine corporal Matthew Heath and six American oil executives in exchange for two nephews of Flores jailed in the U.S. on narcotics convictions. He and Heath later sued in U.S. courts under a federal anti-terrorism law and in May, won a $300 million default judgment against Maduro and other top Venezuelan officials for overseeing a pattern of torture.

“It’s incredible to see a dictator in court,” Heath said Thursday upon learning of the new charges. “The Maduro prosecution will do more to prevent the kidnapping of Americans by rogue regimes than a hundred press releases from the United Nations.”

Venezuela’s government has so far been silent about the new accusations against Maduro, reflecting the challenges facing acting President Delcy Rodríguez as she strives to appease the security forces without alienating President Donald Trump, whose support she can’t lose.

Rodríguez, as Maduro’s vice president, for years oversaw key elements of Venezuela’s security apparatus, including the domestic spy agency, responsible for arbitrary detentions and other human rights abuses.

The revised indictment appears to rely partly on the testimony of one of Maduro’s co-defendants, Gen. Hugo Carvajal. Known throughout Venezuela by his nickname El Pollo, the Chicken, Carvajal served as Chávez’s spymaster and head of the DGCIM for more than a decade.

Carvajal pleaded guilty last year to the drug trafficking charges in New York after being extradited from Spain. Since then, he has been meeting with prosecutors building the case against Maduro. In an open letter to Trump last year, Carvajal, who broke with Maduro years ago, said he wanted “to atone by telling the full truth so that the United States can protect itself from the dangers I witnessed for so many years.”

The new charges were unveiled as Maduro’s wife, Flores, was in court Thursday for a previously scheduled hearing over her request to be released so she can undergo medical treatment. Flores’ lawyers said the 69-year-old former first lady has lost 25 pounds (11 kilograms) while imprisoned at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, might have suffered a minor heart attack in July and has been told that she might need heart surgery.

They also said she suffered permanent scarring when she was “thrown against a wall or dresser” during her capture.

Prosecutors opposed the bail request, saying that Flores was an “extreme” flight risk and has been taken for treatment at a local hospital when needed.

U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied Flores’ request, siding with prosecutors who said she is an “extreme” flight risk. He noted, among other things, that she’s unwilling to undergo catheterization in jail in order to determine the cause of her heart problems and the appropriate steps for treatment.

He also pushed back at the notion that her high blood pressure was life threatening, noting she’s already on medication for that.

Outside the courthouse, over a dozen demonstrators chanted slogans and held signs supporting her request.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

Oil Surge, Tech Selloff Rattle Wall Street

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Oil Surge, Tech Selloff Rattle Wall Street

(Headline USA) Some sharp reversals kept financial markets unsteady on Thursday, as oil prices rose and U.S. stock indexes finished mixed.

The S&P 500 fell 0.5% for a second straight loss after setting its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 51 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 1.3% as technology stocks took particularly hard hits.

Stocks felt pressure from a 4.1% rise in the price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, to $104.28. It’s been pinballing between $96 and nearly $110 over the last month on uncertainty about when the war with Iran will allow the global energy industry to return to normal.

Brent got to nearly $106 in the morning before President Donald Trump sent its price veering after saying “productive discussions” are happening with Iran and that the U.S. military would not attack it before the upcoming U.S. elections in November. That briefly sent Brent toward $103 before it eventually turned back upward.

Even sharper swings shook the bond market, where yields have been jumping worldwide to their highest levels in years or even decades, which threaten to slow the economy.

The 10-year Treasury yield initially rose with oil prices, going from 5.28% late Wednesday to 5.35% early Thursday morning. But it then fell all the way back to 5.23%.

It dropped after the U.S. government said that it sold $22 billion in 30-year Treasury bonds at an auction with a high yield of less than 5.62%. That helped bring the 30-year Treasury yield down to 5.60% from 5.73% in the morning, which is a notable move for the bond market.

A day earlier, an auction of 10-year Treasurys also helped bring down yields. Strong demand there showed investors are still willing to buy U.S. government debt, even though their prices have fallen sharply this year because of worries about high inflation, big government debt loads and other factors.

“Higher U.S. Treasury yields are starting to create their own demand, buyers are showing up for the right price,” said Tony Miano, global investment strategy analyst at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

On Wall Street, the ease in Treasury yields helped the majority of U.S. stocks rise, including two out of every three in the S&P 500 index.

PepsiCo climbed 3.7% after the snack and drink company reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, thanks in part to strength outside of North America.

But drops for several influential technology stocks overshadowed such gains.

Nvidia, the chip company that’s ridden the tidal wave of demand created by artificial-intelligence technology, fell 2.9%. Because it’s the largest stock by value on Wall Street, it was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500 even though other stocks had larger losses.

That included drops for other AI-related stocks, including Broadcom’s 4.3% fall and Micron Technology’s 4.8% slide.

The losses came even though a bellwether for the chip industry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., reported growth for September that suggested its revenue for the latest quarter was strong enough to top analysts’ expectations. TSMC’s stock that trades in the United States fell 3%.

AI stocks are under heavy pressure to report big growth to justify how high their stock prices have soared in recent years because of the AI frenzy.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 36.41 points to 7,765.36. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 51.77 to 51,231.64, and the Nasdaq composite slid 345.35 to 27,193.34.

In South Korea’s stock market, Samsung Electronics dropped 2.4% to help drag the Kospi index down 2.6%. The tech giant said its operating profit for the latest quarter likely soared to 107.4 trillion Korean won (roughly $80 billion) from 12.17 trillion won a year earlier, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy investors.

In other stock markets abroad, indexes fell across much of the rest of Asia and Europe.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

Microsoft Barred From H-1B Green Card Program

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Microsoft Barred From H-1B Green Card Program

(Headline USA) President Donald Trump’s administration is suspending tech giant Microsoft from a program to apply for green cards for workers who come to the U.S. to live and work using an H-1B visa as it accuses the company of fraud.

“If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants,” said Vice President JD Vance in a White House news conference announcing the decision.

The H-1B program has long been a target of Trump supporters who say that the program undercuts American workers and is rife with abuse.

H-1B visas are meant for high-skilled jobs that are difficult to find American workers to fill. Technology companies are the biggest users, with nearly three-quarters of approvals going to workers from India.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Vance announcement came one day after Trump’s Republican administration launched another broadside against international students and their ability to work in the U.S.

The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday proposed a $70,000 fee for international students seeking to work in the United States. The proposed rule would require schools to pay the fee for every student who participates in the Optional Practice Training program, known as OPT, which allows students to work in jobs related to their major during or after their time in school.

Vance also called out universities that he suggested were abusing a program to allow international students to come to the U.S. These temporary visas, called J-1 visas, allow international visitors to temporarily come to the U.S. for work and study exchange programs. Vance singled out nine universities that he said merited further investigation for J-1 visa fraud, saying they used the program in greater proportions than their counterparts.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

FDA Says Its Safety Review of Abortion Pill will Continue into Next Year

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FDA Says Its Safety Review of Abortion Pill will Continue into Next Year

(Headline USA) The Food and Drug Administration says its ongoing safety review of the nation’s main abortion pill will continue into next year, a timeline that was quickly condemned by abortion opponents hoping to see the drug’s use curtailed.

The FDA gave a court-ordered update on its progress in a legal filing late Wednesday, providing the first substantive information about the controversial reevaluation ordered by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Mifepristone was first approved by the FDA in 2000. The agency has repeatedly reaffirmed the pill’s safety and effectiveness over the years, in addition to easing a number of restrictions on the drug, including dropping a requirement that it be dispensed in person.

But since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, anti-abortion groups and their allies in Congress have pushed the administration to revisit the pill, in the hopes of restricting its use.

The FDA said in its filing that it expects to complete a safety study of the pill by mid-December this year. A report on the findings is expected “no later than March 2027,” after which the agency will decide whether to impose new restrictions or other changes on the drug’s use.

Gavin Oxley of Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion group, criticized the move as a lack of “true leadership” by Trump administration officials.

“The administration continues to find itself on the wrong side of women’s health, clearly uninterested in mitigating the ongoing harms caused by the abortion pill,” Oxley said.

The two-drug regimen of mifepristone, combined with a second drug misoprostol, is the most common form of abortion in the U.S.

The FDA was directed to provide the latest update by a federal judge in a case brought by the state of Louisiana alleging that mail-delivery of mifepristone undermines the state’s abortion ban. It’s one of several state lawsuits related to mifepristone winding their way through the courts.

Last month a three-judge panel for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals questioned the merits of Louisiana’s case, including whether the state had the legal standing to challenge FDA’s oversight of mifepristone.

Any ruling from the 5th Circuit on the Louisiana case would not immediately change the landscape because the Supreme Court has blocked changes to the drug until it sees the case again.

The FDA said Wednesday it is using a “statistical data mining method” to discover “unknown safety concerns,” that may exist with the drug. The data comes from an electronic database that collects reports of medical injuries and drug side effects from major health networks and insurers.

In addition to the safety study, the agency said it is considering a number of petitions proposing changes to how mifepristone is prescribed and distributed.

Abortion opponents have focused most of their efforts on a 2021 decision allowing doctors to prescribe the drug online and send it through the mail during COVID-19. 

That decision, made permanent under President Joe Biden in 2023, had the effect of undermining a number of state abortion bans, since women can receive the drug through the mail.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

School Choice Programs Grow in Popularity Across U.S.

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School Choice Programs Grow in Popularity Across U.S.

(Esther Wickham, The Center Square) School choice programs are expanding across the country, giving families more options for educating their children, which prompts a debate over whether student outcomes will improve and how much the programs will cost taxpayers.

Currently 30 states have opted into the Trump administration’s Education Freedom Tax Credit program, while 20 states and Washington, D.C., have not.

The program supports K-12 education expenses, including qualified elementary and secondary education expenses such as tuition and tutoring. The program will take effect Jan. 1, 2027.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury clarified various rules and regulations for the tax credit, including that the $1,700 cap on donations is per individual, and married couples filing jointly may donate up to $3,400.

Taxpayers can contribute to any qualified Scholarship Granting Organization, regardless of where they live. The government has stated that the program does not take money directly from state public-school budgets. Instead, taxpayers receive a federal tax credit for donating to an SGO.

Treasury officials and the Internal Revenue Service estimate the program could support nearly 700 SGOs and generate $26 billion in annual contributions from more than 11 million taxpayers by 2030.

Darla Romfo, president and CEO of Children’s Scholarship Fund, an SGO participating in the tax credit program, said taxpayers who donate through the program can direct their support toward scholarships for students.

Romfo said states that do not participate could see tax credit donations benefit students from other states.

“All this money was raised from taxpayers in your state, and it got spent on kids all over the rest of the country and not on your kids, because you didn’t opt in,” Romfo told The Center Square. “And it wouldn’t have cost you anything to opt in, wouldn’t have taken $1 away from a public school. It would just simply help the kids in your state. And that was money that left your state and could have helped your kids.”

“Shame on them, because it costs them nothing,” Romfo said of states that have declined to participate.

The federal program differs from traditional public education spending because the money is distributed through SGOs rather than state education departments. Parents apply for the scholarship, and if their kid gets awarded, the parent decides how the funds will be spent.

Romfo said that could include school tuition or tutoring, among other things.

“I think making parents aware and empowering them to make decisions about their children’s education, that’s where the real empowerment is,” Romfo told The Center Square. “At the end of the day, you have to change a whole way of thinking, a culture, and then if they are picking the things that work for their kid, that individual child’s results will get better. And, you know, when you’re trying to do it at a scale like this and you have thousands of parents all over the country picking the best educational option for their children, I think you will see things move.”

Romfo also acknowledged that the SGOs will have to work a little more to connect with the local taxpayer that gets to be a philanthropist through this federal program.

“I think for most people, it’ll still move them that they get to be a philanthropist and that they get to help kids at a school,” Romfo told The Center Square.

Realizing that you can help your local community through these donations could be a way to encourage participation, she added.

Ryan Cantrell, chief state strategy officer at the American Federation for Children, told The Center Square that school choice programs put education dollars in the hands of parents and make them the decision-makers.

“Our goal should be for them to get the best education possible so that they can get the best and be good taxpayers, be good stewards of that, and ultimately give back to our economy,” Cantrell told The Center Square. “So that is exactly what we see through these school choice programs at the state level and the federal program is just going to supercharge that possibility for a lot of families.”

Aside from the federal tax credit, many states have implemented statewide vouchers and scholarship programs like Education Savings Accounts or traditional vouchers from state education budgets.

As public education continues to cost taxpayers upward of a trillion dollars, student learning and test scores decline. Supporters of school choice believe that these programs will place more power in the parents to utilize funds that are directly catered to their children’s educational needs with the goal of increasing student achievement.

The average cost of a school choice scholarship is roughly $6,000 per student, compared with about $18,000 in average public-school spending, according to EdChoice. 

“This is not a partisan issue. It is a real opportunity to further empower parents in finding the best education for their children. Who doesn’t believe that parents should have that chance?” Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne told The Center Square.

Critics argue the federal tax credit program takes taxpayer money from public schools that don’t have enough resources.

“This tax credit voucher scheme will rob our country’s public schools of the resources they need to educate the next generation. This program is designed to enrich private schools, which can still turn away students with disabilities, children who are LGBTQIA+, and those in low-income families, while leaving millions of public school children worse off than they are today,” Beatriz Beckford, national director for Youth and Family Justice at MomsRising, an organization of over a million mothers and families, said in a statement.

“Every governor who recognizes the need for universal public education, and its importance to having a well-prepared workforce and a strong economy, should refuse to allow her or his state to participate,” Beckford added.

National Education Association President Princess Moss also criticized the program, arguing that federal tax benefits for private education should instead be directed toward public schools.

“At a time when educators, students, and families are calling for more resources to strengthen neighborhood public schools, this administration is advancing a plan to divert taxpayer dollars to subsidize private education for a select few,” Moss said.

The Center Square contacted the NEA and other organizations that have opposed school choice, including the American Civil Liberties Union and NAACP, but did not receive responses.

Big Tech Group Pressures Trump Administration to Drop Conservative Patent Rule

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Big Tech Group Pressures Trump Administration to Drop Conservative Patent Rule

(Tom Joyce, The Center Square) A group representing big tech companies, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft, wants the Trump administration to scrap a proposed rule that would limit repeated patent challenges.

The High Tech Inventors Alliance asked the administration to withdraw the proposal and met with the federal officials reviewing it.

The rule’s supporters say it would help small inventors who can’t afford to keep defending their patents against big companies. The alliance says it would make it harder to challenge patents the government shouldn’t have approved in the first place.

James Edwards, executive director of Conservatives for Property Rights, is a supporter of the rule.

“Reliable patents are the lifeblood of the American economy and the foundation of countless American businesses. When patents can be relitigated repeatedly at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, investors lose confidence and small businesses suffer,” Edwards said in an exclusive statement provided to The Center Square. “The USPTO’s proposed rule is a vital step in protecting small inventors from costly, duplicative challenges aimed at holding them in a courtroom instead of causing dynamic competition in the market. Big Tech companies and their affiliated lobbying organizations have spent countless hours and vast resources trying to kill the rule and preserve their favorite tool for stealing intellectual property and weakening the American patent.”

Federal records⁠ show the opposition alliance’s David Jones met with officials from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on Aug. 12.

OIRA reviews federal rules within the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Lenovo representatives met with officials about the rule on Aug. 6. Honda representatives met on Aug. 11, and the Computer and Communications Industry Association met with officials on Aug. 17.

The patent office announced the proposal⁠ in October 2025. OIRA received the rule for final review on July 22, 2026, and still lists it as pending.

The proposal would change when the Patent Trial and Appeal Board accepts challenges to existing patents.

Congress created the review process in the America Invents Act of 2011. It lets challengers ask the board to cancel patent claims. Congress meant to provide them a faster, cheaper option than federal court.

The patent office says repeated challenges can defeat the purpose. Inventors sometimes have to defend the same patent in several cases, increasing their legal bills. Investors may also hesitate to invest in an invention as those challenges continue.

“Even extremely strong patents become unreliable when subject to serial or parallel validity challenges,” the agency wrote in its proposal.

Typically, the rule would stop the board from starting another review after a court or the patent office had upheld the patent claims. The board would also reject a review if another proceeding would likely decide the issue first.

Challengers would have to give up certain arguments against the same patent in other proceedings if the board accepted their case. Those arguments revolve around whether an invention was new or too obvious to qualify for a patent.

The proposal includes exceptions. Notably, the board could allow another review if someone filed an earlier challenge in bad faith to block future challenges.

Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council President Karen Kerrigan and other pro-market leaders urged Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to help pass the rule in a Sept. 4 letter⁠.

They said “multiple PTAB challenges perpetuate uncertainty, deny patent owners quiet title, and impose extra costs” that leave inventors with less money to develop their products.

The High Tech Inventors Alliance joined a Feb. 10 letter⁠ asking senior administration officials to drop the proposal.

Those groups said the rule would create “arbitrary and insurmountable restrictions” on patent reviews. They said it would help owners of invalid patents bring claims against American companies. Additionally, they said it would make it harder for generic drug companies to challenge pharmaceutical patents.

The rule’s supporters have also met with officials.

The Alliance of U.S. Startups and Inventors for Jobs held a Sept. 11 meeting with participants from Netlist, Sonos, and NuCurrent. Also, the Council for Innovation Promotion met with officials on Sept. 15.

 

Berkeley Event Mocking Charlie Kirk Killing Draws Scrutiny from State Department

Jose Nino
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Berkeley Event Mocking Charlie Kirk Killing Draws Scrutiny from State Department

(José Niño, Headline USA) A UC Berkeley event marking the anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s death has attracted the attention of the State Department after online accounts claimed that some attendees held student visas. A College Fix report described the event and the subsequent federal response, though no public record has confirmed that the people identified online were foreign students or that any visa was revoked.

On September 10, members of Turning Point USA at Berkeley first held a remembrance for Kirk, the organization’s founder. The Daily Californian reported that the group displayed a large portrait of Kirk and signs emphasizing “freedom and American patriotism.”

John Paul Leon, the chapter president, addressed those gathered at the memorial. “You don’t have to agree with everything he said, but when you support the literal political violence and action against this man, that is an act of moral depravity.”

Later that evening, a separate group assembled for an event called the Kirkversary. The Daily Californian wrote that “A few hours later, at 6 p.m., a bustling crowd of students gathered” and that the event “brought students together to sing, cheer and boo at Kirk’s memory.” Participants reportedly wore Kirk themed costumes and used the chant “jerk for Kirk.”

Photos from the gathering later circulated online. The X account Department of Deportations posted an image of several attendees and wrote, “Meet this group of Berkeley students who are here on student visas and will soon be heading back!” The post also claimed, “The guy in the center is Nicholas Vail.”

The account’s claim about visa status has not been independently verified. The New York Times reported that it “is unclear if any of the people who participated in the event, including those who opposed Mr. Kirk’s politics, were foreign students on visas.”

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told the College Fix, “people in the United States on visas are guests in this country, and we will not tolerate people here on visas who break our laws, support terrorism, or unlawfully incite violence, which ultimately led to the horrific assassination of an American.”

He added, “That is not only common sense, it’s an essential component of our national security. If that wasn’t the policy under the previous administration, it should’ve been, and it is now under the Trump administration.”

The College Fix said UC Berkeley declined to comment on whether administrators knew about the gathering, whether it disrupted campus life, how free speech rules applied, or whether any discipline was under review.

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