Israel assassinated four senior Hamas members and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organization’s spokesman in a series of airstrikes launched early Tuesday. It was Israel’s first major military foray into Gaza since a ceasefire was enacted two months ago and signals that both the United States and its closest Middle East ally will no longer wait for Hamas to agree to an extension of that deal.

Hamas confirmed that four of its leaders were killed when Israel conducted “extensive strikes” across the Gaza Strip following consultations with the Trump administration. They include: Issam al-Da’alis, head of Hamas’s administrative committee; Ahmad al-Khatta, the director general of its justice ministry; Mahmoud Abu Watfa, director general of the interior ministry; and Bahjat Abu Sultan, who runs Hamas’s domestic security agency.

Naji Abu Saif, a spokesman for the PIJ terror group that works alongside Hamas, was also killed with his wife and other family members when Israel struck his Gaza home. Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry claimed that more than 400 people had been killed during Israel’s strike, though these figures are notoriously unreliable. They were nonetheless cited by the likes of the Associated Press, which referenced “Gaza’s Health Ministry” but did not disclose Hamas’s control over it.

A White House National Security Council spokesman confirmed the United States was aware of Israel’s operations and blamed Hamas for stalling weeks of negotiations aimed at extending the ceasefire and securing the release of 54 hostages, both living and dead, who still remain in captivity.

“Hamas could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war,” the spokesman, Brian Hughes, said in a statement shared with the Washington Free Beacon.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Monday evening that “all hell will break loose” if Hamas continues to stall peace talks.

“As President Trump has made clear, Hamas, the Houthis, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay,” Leavitt said. “All hell will break loose.”

Israel’s military operation was meant to achieve “the war goals as determined by the political echelon, including the release of all our hostages—living and dead,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early Tuesday. Last week, Hamas rejected a U.S.-backed plan to extend the ceasefire’s first phase beyond Ramadan and Passover, drawing a sharp rebuke from both the White House and Israel. Military operations are likely to continue so long as Hamas delays the release of the remaining hostages.

Hamas “is making a very bad bet that time is on its side,” Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Friday. “It is not. Hamas is well aware of the deadline, and should know that we will respond accordingly if that deadline passes.”

Prior to that statement, the terror group claimed that it was willing to release the last living American hostage, Edan Alexander, as well as the bodies of four other dual citizens the terror group murdered in captivity.

Netanyahu subsequently accused the terror group of “manipulation and psychological warfare,” saying that it was making empty promises while rejecting a firm ceasefire.

Israel has already formulated a plan, first reported in the Free Beacon, to resume war in the Gaza Strip and fully “eradicate Hamas.” It signaled the start of that plan earlier this month, when it halted any entry of goods into the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas’s rejection of Witkoff’s phase one ceasefire extension. With Tuesday’s strikes in Gaza, it appears that portions of this plan are already being carried out.

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Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) is struggling to contain intraparty backlash over his decision to vote with Republicans to avert a government shutdown, as Democrats intensify calls for his resignation.

Schumer and his aides have recently reached out to Indivisible, an anti-Trump progressive organization, and other Democratic groups, individuals familiar with the conversations told Politico. Schumer’s team urged Indivisible’s New York leaders not to sign a statewide letter demanding his resignation, but they did so anyway on Monday. One source told Politico that Schumer’s talks with the organization were “tense and unproductive.” Schumer on Monday confirmed the meetings.

The Politico report comes less than a day after Schumer stopped all promotional events this week for an upcoming book, with a spokeswoman citing “security concerns.” Democratic activists had planned to protest his multi-city book tour over his vote to advance the Republican-proposed government funding bill.

Another progressive group, MoveOn, has also relayed “our members’ concerns about the lack of strategy and message around the Republican funding bill vote” to Schumer’s office, spokeswoman Britt Jacovich told Politico.

A petition to withhold donations to Senate Democrats until they oust Schumer as minority leader, meanwhile, has amassed around 25,000 signatures. The Democratic operative behind the petition, Charlotte Clymer, said that Schumer “doesn’t want to face the music over his caving to Trump and Elon Musk.”

Several House Democrats have even privately called on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) to launch a primary challenge against Schumer. Some centrist Democrats are “so mad” at Schumer’s defection that they are “ready to write checks for AOC for Senate,” a Democratic lawmaker who spoke with Ocasio-Cortez told CNN.

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Unlawful law firms: Perkins Coie and Morrison & Foerster are two of the most prestigious law firms in the country. For years, they operated illegal diversity fellowships that excluded white applicants or explicitly favored minorities. Now, they’re staring down the barrel of a federal probe.

The Trump administration’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, our Aaron Sibarium reports, sent the two firms—and 18 others—letters on Monday “requesting information about their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies” and “arguing that many of the firms’ practices appear to violate civil rights laws.” The letters ask the firms to provide details on their diversity programs and explain how they managed to overhaul their demographic makeup without turning to discrimination. One firm that received the letter, Cooley LLP, boasted in a now-deleted portion of its website that it increased the diversity of its lawyers by 9 percentage points in just two years.

“Trump has promised to root out unlawful DEI policies in the private sector, in part by instructing agencies like EEOC to assemble lists of targets for investigation,” writes Sibarium. “The letters to the 20 firms, which are among the most prestigious in the legal world, could mark the beginning of a crackdown on institutions that have long seemed above, or indifferent to, the law.”

READ MORE: Trump Admin Launches Probe Into Big Law DEI Policies

Something to declare: Lebanese national Rasha Alawieh is an assistant professor of medicine at Brown University. She’s in the United States on an H-1B visa. Last month, she left the country to visit Lebanon. When she came back, she ran into some trouble.

Alawieh told Customs and Border Protection officials that she had attended the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral. She described Nasrallah as “the head of Hezbollah” and a “religious figure” who is “highly regarded in the Shia community.” When an agent asked her why she had photos of Hezbollah fighters on her phone, she said, “I have a lot of WhatsApp groups with families and friends who send them.” Don’t we all.

After the interview, CBP determined Alawieh was “inadmissible to the United States” and canceled her visa. Initially, the move prompted outrage: NBC News reported that Alawieh’s deportation was carried out “without any justification” and came “despite [her] having [a] valid visa.” Then the full story came to light, and attorneys representing Alawieh’s family withdrew from the case “as a result of further diligence.”

READ MORE: Deported Brown University Professor Attended Hezbollah Chief’s Funeral

Clean up on aisle Columbia: Mariano Torres and Lester Wilson are longtime janitors at Columbia University. They were working overnight shifts at Hamilton Hall when Hamas-supporting rioters stormed the building last April. Nearly one year later, they’ve got a story to tell, and it’s not flattering to the Ivy League institution.

In federal complaints filed to the EEOC, Torres and Wilson detailed signs of danger they witnessed at Hamilton Hall before students broke in. Dozens of demonstrators “ran riot” through Hamilton Hall, carpeting the floors with leaflets and scrawling “obscene graffiti, including swastikas, throughout the building.”

The janitors reported the incidents to Columbia, which did nothing, according to the complaints. When it came to the swastikas, public safety officials declined to follow up “because the graffiti was ‘free speech'” and “was written in chalk and could be erased.” The EEOC is now investigating.

READ MORE: Columbia Declined To Investigate Swastikas Scrawled Throughout Hamilton Hall Because They Were ‘Written in Chalk and Could Be Erased’: Complaint

Away from the Beacon:

• The ceasefire is over: Israel carried out “extensive” strikes against Hamas early Tuesday, with Benjamin Netanyahu saying the IDF is fighting “with the aim of achieving the war goals as determined by the political echelon, including the release of all our hostages—living and dead.” Hamas had rejected U.S.-brokered deals to extend the ceasefire.
• Some Democratic donors are refusing to give money to the party until Chuck Schumer is ousted Senate leader. “Given the lack of leadership and strategy, it’s becoming harder by the day to keep supporting the party,” one said. “Until I see real change, my wallet is closed.” Go off!
• The Center for American Progress is hosting a panel today on “how the Trump administration is harming working people and the path forward.” Its featured guest? J.B. Pritzker, the billionaire heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune.
• The Council on American-Islamic Relations may soon face a federal investigation after a watchdog group accused it of financial irregularities. CAIR reportedly funneled a more than $7 million grant to a Los Angeles chapter that is not registered to receive charitable donations. Oops.

Check out our full Tuesday lineup below.

The post Trump Takes Aim at Big Law, Brown University Loses a Hezbollah-Loving Professor, and Hamilton Hall Janitors Expose Columbia appeared first on .

Federal authorities found evidence Rasha Alawieh, an assistant professor of medicine at Brown University, attended Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral in Lebanon before deporting her on Friday.

Alawieh admitted to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents that she was present at the Beirut funeral, claiming she followed his teachings “from a religious perspective,” according to court documents the Justice Department filed Monday morning.

“CBP questioned Dr. Alawieh and determined that her true intentions in the United States could not be determined,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Sady wrote. “As such CBP canceled her visa and deemed Dr. Alawieh inadmissible to the United States.”

“Last month, Rasha Alawieh traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah—a brutal terrorist who led Hezbollah, responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over four decades. Alawieh openly admitted to this to CBP officers, as well as her support of Nasrallah,” the Department of Homeland Security added in a statement Monday afternoon. “A visa is a privilege not a right—glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied. This is commonsense security.”

The funeral Alawieh attended drew tens of thousands of mourners dressed in black. They filled the streets of Beirut chanting “Death to Israel, death to America” while pledging allegiance to Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist organization. Hezbollah initiated attacks on Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in support of its ally Hamas, which had carried out a brutal massacre of Israeli civilians the previous day. In retaliation for Hezbollah’s aggression, Israel invaded Lebanon and killed Nasrallah on Sept. 27, 2024.

Nasrallah’s funeral now:

“Death to America, Death to Israel,” pic.twitter.com/nrr2fnS1Hc

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) February 23, 2025

Alawieh also had “sympathetic photos and videos” of prominent Hezbollah figures in the deleted items folder of her cell phone, according to the court filings. Several major news outlets, including Axios and CNN, haven’t reported Alawieh’s attendance at Nasrallah’s funeral or mentioned the Hezbollah media on her phone.

Attorneys for Alawieh’s family withdrew Sunday, telling the court the decision was “a result of further diligence.”

Authorities detained Alawieh—an H-1B visa holder and 34-year-old Lebanese national—on Thursday at Logan International Airport in Boston after returning from her home country. During her interview with CBP officials, she acknowledged attending Nasrallah’s funeral the previous month, describing it as “a purely religious thing.” She emphasized Nasrallah’s significance, noting, “He’s a very big figure in our community. For me it’s not political.”

On Friday, Leo Sorokin, who has served as a judge for the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts since 2014 following his nomination by President Barack Obama, ordered Alawieh not be deported without advance notice to the court. By the time authorities received notice of Sorokin’s court order, however, Alawieh was already on a flight bound for Paris. She arrived in Lebanon on Sunday morning.

In response to Monday morning’s revelations, Sorokin postponed a hearing, granting the government an additional week to submit further information regarding the circumstances surrounding Alawieh’s deportation.

Alawieh began her assistant professorship at Brown’s division of nephrology in July 2024, with the Ivy League institution sponsoring her H-1B visa, according to a petition her cousin, Yara Chehab, filed on Friday. Alawieh first moved to the U.S. in 2018 when she was awarded a student visa to participate in a two-year nephrology fellowship at the Ohio State University. She then attended a similar program at the University of Washington before moving to an internal medicine program at Yale University, which she completed in June 2024.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman halted the immediate deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Hamas Columbia graduate student. The Trump administration revoked Khalil’s student visa and green card, but Furman’s intervention put a temporary stop to their efforts, ensuring Khalil remains in the United States as legal proceedings unfold. Furman is a prolific Democratic donor, having contributed over $20,000 to Democrats, including Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee. He also once threw out a terrorism lawsuit against the Palestine Liberation Organization.

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President Donald Trump’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commision (EEOC) sent letters to 20 white shoe law firms on Monday requesting information about their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, arguing that many of the firms’ practices appear to violate civil rights law.

The letters, signed by acting EEOC chair Andrea Lucas, ask the firms to provide detailed information about their diversity fellowship programs—some of which explicitly limit eligibility based on race—and to explain how the firms achieved rapid changes in their demographic makeup without recourse to race discrimination.

Recipients of the EEOC’s letters include Latham & Watkins, WilmerHale, Skadden Arps, and White & Case. Two of the firms, Perkins Coie and Morrison & Foerster, were sued over their minority-only fellowships in 2023. Other firms in the agency’s crosshairs include Goodwin Procter, Hogan Lovells, and Kirkland & Ellis.

“The EEOC is prepared to root out discrimination anywhere it may rear its head, including in our nation’s elite law firms,” Lucas said. “No one is above the law—and certainly not the private bar.”

Trump has promised to root out unlawful DEI policies in the private sector, in part by instructing agencies like EEOC to assemble lists of targets for investigation. The letters to the 20 firms, which are among the most prestigious in the legal world, could mark the beginning of a crackdown on institutions that have long seemed above, or indifferent to, the law.

“Many major law firms operate … diversity internship or diversity fellowship programs, or provide certain summer associates with additional funds characterized as a diversity ‘scholarship,’ ‘bonus,’ ‘stipend,’ or ‘award,'” the letters note. Until 2023, when the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action in college admissions, those programs were typically reserved for minority law students.

Many firms have also boasted of their success in reducing the number of non-white, non-LGBT attorneys on staff. In a now-deleted graphic on Cooley LLP’s website, for example, the firm indicated that it had increased the diversity of its lawyers—defined as “ethnic/racial diversity and LGBTQ+”—by 9 percentage points in just two years.

Such increases can translate into financial rewards: In 2021 and 2022, Microsoft, one of Cooley’s clients, paid the firm a 3 percent bonus for having met the tech giant’s diversity “goals.”

“Cooley directly (and likely significantly) financially benefited from the employment decisions the firm took that led to such a rapid increase in racial, ethnic, and LGBTQ+ representation in its lawyer ranks,” Lucas wrote in her letter to the firm. “I am concerned that Cooley’s ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ or other employment programs, policies, and practices may entail unlawful disparate treatment in terms, conditions, and privileges of employment, or unlawful limiting, segregating, and classifying based—in whole or in part—on race, sex, or other protected characteristics.”

Each law firm has until April 15 to respond to the EEOC’s queries. The agency is asking firms to provide detailed data on the demographics of their employees, as well as information about the GPA cutoffs used for diversity fellowships.

“At any point since 2019, did the firm use GPA cutoffs or ranges for considering attorney applicants,” the letters read. “If the firm used GPA cutoffs or ranges, did these GPA cutoffs or ranges for similarly situated applicants (e.g., applicants from the same law school) differ based on an applicant’s race, sex, or other protected characteristic?”

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March Madness is here. It’s that time of year again when millions of Americans fill out brackets for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, and the women’s teams also play. Former president Barack Obama used to promote his bracket every year on an ESPN special called “Barack-etology.” He’s not even president anymore, but he continues to publish his NCAA picks (along with his favorite music and books) as if anyone cares. Former president Joe Biden, 82, also filled out brackets for the men’s and women’s tournaments, presumably with the same autopen he used to “sign” thousands of pardons on his way out the door.

Unlike his predecessors, Donald Trump has more important things to do, such as winning the golf championship at his Palm Beach country club and deploying the U.S. military to pound the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists into submission after years of unchecked aggression on Biden’s watch. Trump, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest presidents since Abraham Lincoln, did not release any brackets during his first term, and he won’t be making any picks this year for the men’s tournament. However, the Washington Free Beacon can exclusively report that Trump has for some reason decided to fill out a bracket for this year’s NCAA women’s basketball tournament, which practically no one is going to watch now because Caitlin Clark isn’t playing and neither is Maddie Scherr, the supremely talented 5’10” guard from Texas Christian University who is out with a back injury.

We are delighted and honored to share with you now President Trump’s exclusive picks for the upcoming NCAA women’s basketball tournament. Enjoy!

The Left Side

The Right Side

The Final Four

The post EXCLUSIVE: Donald Trump Reveals Picks for NCAA Women’s Basketball Final Four appeared first on .

President Donald Trump on Monday warned Iran that the United States will hold it responsible for any further attacks by the Yemen-based Houthis, accusing the Islamic Republic of “dictating every move” by the terrorist group.

“Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The warning comes as the Trump administration ramps up military action against the Houthis for repeatedly attacking American and Israeli vessels in the Red Sea since the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October 2023. The United States over the weekend launched a series of airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, resulting in at least 53 casualties.

“Any further attack or retaliation by the ‘Houthis’ will be met with great force, and there is no guarantee that that force will stop there,” Trump warned in his post, noting that Iran is “dictating every move, giving them the weapons, supplying them with money and highly sophisticated Military equipment, and even, so-called, ‘Intelligence.'”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth​​ said on Sunday that the United States will continue striking the Houthis until the terrorist group stops attacking ships, Reuters reported. The Houthis’ terrorist attacks have disrupted global commerce, forcing ships to take longer, more expensive journeys around southern Africa.

The strikes are also part of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran over the country’s rapidly advancing nuclear program. In a letter earlier this month, Trump urged Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei to negotiate, threatening direct U.S. military action against Iran if Khamenei fails to comply.

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MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews said Monday that the Democratic Party faces record-low favorability “because nobody checks the facts anymore.”

“What do you make of these numbers for the Democrats?” Morning Joe cohost Mika Brzezinski asked Matthews, pointing to a March 16 CNN poll that found Democrats have a 29 percent favorability rating—a record low.

“Well, you could have seen them the night that Trump addressed the Congress. And you watch the Democratic Party, they seemed like they weren’t there. They were sort of vacant. They weren’t saying anything with their manner. They never questioned the facts,” Matthews said Monday. “You have to have a fact checker.”

“There needs to be a war room,” Matthews continued. “Remember in 1992? Remember how Bill Clinton won that election because he had a war room? He and George Stephanopoulos were down there in Little Rock, and they were checking every fact.”

“Nobody checks the facts anymore,” he added. “And the lies are getting through to the American people.”

Democrats, however, frequently interrupted Trump’s March 4 address, shouting “lies” or “you’re lying.” Many repeatedly raised signs that read “False” and “Musk Steals,” and Rep. Al Green (D., Texas) was ejected from the chamber for disrupting the speech and wagging his cane at the president.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) challenged several of Trump’s claims during her rebuttal to the president’s speech, particularly regarding the economy and the effect tariffs will have on consumer goods. “Do his plans actually help Americans get ahead?” she said. “Not even close.”

Numerous news outlets also published fact-checks of Trump’s speech.

The CNN survey is the latest to show weak polling for Democrats. A January Quinnipiac poll showed 31 percent of registered voters had a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, which has faced criticism for being too passive against Trump.

Some Democrats have shown signs of placating conservatives, or at least moving away from the left. Under pressure from House Republicans, Washington, D.C., mayor Muriel Bowser ordered the dismantling of Black Lives Matter Plaza, which began last week. California governor Gavin Newsom (D.) has hosted MAGA celebrities like Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon on his podcast, where the likely 2028 presidential hopeful recently said it’s “deeply unfair” for biological boys to compete in girls sports—a departure from his earlier positions.

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Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has postponed all promotional events this week for his upcoming book, Antisemitism in America: A Warning, as Democrats protest his decision to vote with Republicans to prevent a government shutdown.

Schumer’s book tour is delayed due to security concerns, a spokeswoman said. His first event, originally scheduled for Monday evening in Baltimore, was expected to draw protests from the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace, Jewish Insider reported.

The Senate minority leader also postponed an event set for Tuesday evening in New York City’s Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center, which would have had Rep. Ritchie Torres (D, N.Y.) as moderator, along with a Wednesday appearance at the Sixth & I synagogue in Washington, D.C..

The tour’s postponement comes just days after Schumer sparked intraparty backlash by unexpectedly flip-flopping to vote for advancing a Republican bill that keeps federal agencies running for the next six months. Following Schumer’s announcement, eight other Senate Democrats and independent Sen. Angus King (Maine) also voted to advance the bill. King and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) went on to vote with Republicans to pass the final bill.

Democratic activists have since demanded Schumer’s resignation, with the New York Times reporting that Democrats are holding protests outside his Brooklyn residence. Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), meanwhile, called Schumer’s decision “unacceptable,” while House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) called for the “next question” after a reporter asked if he wanted new leadership in the Senate.

Schumer has long faced Republican scrutiny for downplaying anti-Semitism in the United States. The Democrat privately advised Columbia University leaders to “keep heads down” and ignore GOP criticism of the school’s handling of campus anti-Semitism, saying that the school’s “political problems are really only among Republicans,” according to a congressional report.

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Shalom, Columbia: The Ivy League institution is $30 million poorer after the Trump administration on Friday slashed additional grants to the university from the Department of Health and Human Services, Free Beacon editor in chief Eliana Johnson reports.

The cuts hit, among others, Jeanine D’Armiento, the chairwoman of the University Senate Executive Committee who has played a leading role in protecting students involved in the disruption of university life. D’Armiento urged former Columbia president Minouche Shafik to include them in crafting disciplinary rules, and at a university senate meeting held last year, she shut off the microphone of a colleague who said there were “groups who are supporting terrorists” on campus. Grants supporting her work account for roughly $2 million of the cuts.

“The administration is in the process of reviewing the totality of Columbia’s $5 billion in federal funding, and the fresh round of cuts comes on the heels of the administration’s decision to cancel $400 million in grants and contracts to the Ivy League school announced earlier this month,” writes Johnson.

READ MORE: EXCLUSIVE: Trump Administration Slashes Millions More in Grants to Columbia

Antiracism, meet STEM: Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is a cosmologist at the University of New Hampshire. She’s argued that Einstein’s theory of general relativity is undermined by “white empiricism” and suggested that string theory “failed to succeed” because the field has too many white men. The Biden administration appointed her to a physics advisory panel housed within the Energy Department in 2024. If President Trump doesn’t remove her, she’ll stay on until 2027.

Some scientists think Trump should. They say “that an institution tasked with directing federal research should not be advised by a woman who, in one 2020 paper, wrote that ‘Black feminist theory intersectionality should change physics,'” our Aaron Sibarium reports.

Trump likely agrees: He’s “vowed to eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs within the federal government,” writes Sibarium. “And while Prescod-Weinstein is not a DEI official, she has espoused some of the most extreme positions associated with DEI.” Her inclusion on the Energy Department panel, then, provides “a potential target for the Trump administration as it seeks to stamp out DEI within the federal government.”

READ MORE: ‘Disqualifying’: Member of Top DOE Physics Panel Said ‘White Empiricism’ Undermines Theory of Relativity, Accused Israel of Genocide

A DEI lifeline: Trump’s aforementioned crusade against equity has put the DEI industry on the ropes. But it has a friend in the state of Illinois, where a little-known law requires private companies to finance DEI nonprofits and promote DEI in their communities.

The more they do so, the higher the state scores them on a “commitment to diversity” factor where they can earn “100 possible points based on their answers to seven DEI questions,” the Free Beacon‘s Andrew Kerr writes. Those questions require companies to disclose how much they spend financing the DEI industry, what percentage of their staff are women and minorities, and whether they have any agreements with female- or minority-owned businesses.

“Since going into full effect last year, Pritzker’s DEI Factor has had a major impact on the way Illinois does business,” writes Kerr. “Some 44 percent of state contracts awarded in fiscal year 2024 went to the companies that scored the highest on DEI factor, as opposed to their technical competency or price, according to a report published late last year by the Illinois Chief Procurement Office.”

READ MORE: Illinois Restricts Government Contracts to DEI Supporters, Propping Up Divisive Industry

Away from the Beacon:

• It’s a bad time to be a terrorist. First, Trump smoked an ISIS leader in Iraq, saying his “miserable life was terminated.” Then he launched a “decisive and powerful Military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen,” who also received the following message from Trump: “YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE SEEN BEFORE.” Hoorah.
• Margaret Brennan asked Marco Rubio if there’s “any evidence” linking Columbia Hamasnik Mahmoud Khalil to terrorism. Rubio didn’t hold back: “I mean, you should watch the news. These guys take over entire buildings. They vandalize colleges. They shut down colleges. … We don’t need these people in our country, we never should have allowed them in in the first place.”
• Democrats have officially hit rock bottom: A new NBC News poll found that their popularity is at an all-time low, with just 27 percent of registered voters saying they have positive views of the Democratic Party.

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