Washington Free Beacon

As President Donald Trump unleashed a suite of executive orders targeting DEI, the University of Michigan School of Nursing began quietly revamping its website.

A “diversity” tab with links to DEI resources was removed from the homepage. Pages with “DEI” in the title were renamed and purged of the offending adjective, according to web archives reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, while the main page for the school’s diversity office—which stated, “We are not excellent if we do not reflect diversity, equity and inclusion in all aspects of our community”—was taken down entirely.

 

In its place was a new page for “Community Culture,” which declares that “culture is at the heart of everything we do.” None of the revised pages use the terms “diversity” or “DEI.”

The changes seemed to indicate that Michigan was finally downsizing a bureaucracy that employs more than 200 officials and has cost the university nearly $250 million since 2016.

But Mark Perry, a retired professor of economics at the university’s Flint campus, decided to take a closer look.

It turns out the new pages link to the same DEI materials as the old ones, including a “DEI 2.0” strategic plan that is in effect through 2028. And lo and behold, the office of “Community Culture” employs all the same staff as the former diversity office.

The title of just one official, Patricia Coleman-Burns, has changed from “DEI Strategic Planning Co-Lead” to “Strategic Planning Co-Lead.” The new office’s description also uses many of the same buzzwords associated with DEI, albeit not the acronym itself.

“When we talk about Community Culture,” it says, “we’re highlighting our commitment to addressing health disparities and making sure that equity and inclusion are integrated into every aspect of our work.”

Trump has promised to investigate universities as part of his sweeping crackdown on DEI. The tweaks to Michigan’s website illustrate how schools may attempt to disguise their diversity initiatives without getting rid of them, keeping the programs and personnel but dressing them up in new language.

“These changes might serve as a blueprint for other schools to follow with similar deceptive changes,” Perry told the Free Beacon. “Schools at Michigan like Nursing are now attempting to maintain the ‘DEI status quo’ while hiding their DEI programming and services from the regents, media, taxpayers, federal and state government, and the public.”

On February 8, Perry wrote to Michigan’s Board of Regents about his concerns. By February 11, the nursing school had removed many of the rebranded pages—as well as the list of staff members in the Community Culture office—from the public domain, though it appears they still exist on the university’s intranet.

Michigan did not respond to a request for comment.

Institutions have been attempting to rebrand their DEI offices since 2023, when red states began targeting diversity programs at public universities. The University of Tennessee renamed its DEI unit the “Division of Access and Engagement,” for example, while at the University of Colorado, the “Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” became the “Office of Collaboration.”

The Trump administration appears to have anticipated such switcheroos. After Trump signed an executive order banning DEI in the federal government, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) created a tip line to report efforts to “disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language,” adding that “failure to report this information … may result in adverse consequences.”

“These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination,” an email to government employees read. “If you are aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5, 2024 to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies, please report all facts and circumstances to DEIAtruth@opm.gov within 10 days.”

The result has been a game of cat and mouse between DEI officials and their newly empowered opponents. To get around Trump’s executive order, which also applies to government-funded entities, PBS planned to reassign two DEI executives to another department at the network, according to a report in the Free Press, but scrapped the plans on Monday after the Free Press asked for comment.

“The employee population at PBS loves DEI,” a high-ranking source at the network told the Free Press. “They were trying to play chicken and move things around and try different things to circumvent the executive order.”

At Michigan, DEI was under scrutiny even before Trump’s reelection. In October 2024, the New York Times had published a 9,200 word exposé on the university’s diversity programs, which included trainings on “antiracist pedagogy,” handouts on “white supremacy culture,” required courses on “ethnic injustice,” and land acknowledgments in the English department.

The report implied that those programs were, at best, a waste of money, and at worst an engine of censorship. It also noted that the school of nursing had gone on a DEI hiring blitz, bringing on a chief diversity officer, Rushika Patel, whose title has since been changed to “Assistant Dean for Strategic Education,” according to the school’s online directory.

The change was one of the many made by Michigan in the wake of the New York Times report, which underscored how vulnerable the school could be when Trump returned to the White House. Michigan said in December that it would no longer require diversity statements in faculty hiring, becoming one of the first public universities to end the practice. Other changes, such as diverting some of the school’s DEI budget to financial aid programs, have also been batted around by the board of regents, prompting pushback from DEI officials facing an unprecedented threat to their sinecures.

While Trump has not directly outlawed DEI at colleges and universities, he has pledged to target schools that discriminate “under the guise of … ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion.’”

Several programs at the nursing school could run afoul of the administration’s directives. The school’s DEI strategic plan, which is still available on Michigan’s website, calls for expanding a “health equity” program designed for “disadvantaged and underrepresented minority (URM)” students, and notes that the success of the plan will be measured by “headcount and demographic diversity.” It also lists “increasing the demographic diversity of graduate and doctoral students” as an explicit goal of the nursing school, which conducts a biennial “DEI campus climate survey.”

In a section on “inclusive teaching,” the plan says that “DEI, social justice, and health equity” will be woven throughout the curriculum.

“[W]e are aware that we are up against many forms of oppression,” the plan reads. “Given this context, and during this next DEI 2.0 period, the [School of Nursing] remains committed to mobilizing the incredible strength and potential of our School.”

The post Exclusive: At the University of Michigan, DEI Now Hides in Office of ‘Community Culture’ appeared first on .

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is formally ending a review that it initiated during the Biden administration to assess the potential health risks posed by gas-powered stovetops.

In a statement to the Washington Free Beacon, Consumer Product Safety Commission acting chairman Peter Feldman said he considers the matter “concluded” and emphasized that the federal government should not interfere with consumer choice. Feldman’s comments effectively put an end to a years-long process that critics feared would lead to a broad ban on gas stoves.

“In electing President Trump, the American people spoke loudly that the United States has no business telling American families how to cook their meals,” Feldman told the Free Beacon.

“I became Acting Chairman of the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission in January 2025, shortly after President Trump’s inauguration,” he continued. “So long as I have a say in the matter, the CPSC is out of the gas-stoves-banning business. The agency has no plans to advance such a rule.”

Feldman’s decision to end the review on gas stoves represents a significant defeat for climate activists and Democrats, who have pushed for policies prohibiting new gas-powered appliances and promoting electric alternatives. In 2023, for example, New York passed a ban on gas appliances in new constructions that will begin taking effect next year.

It also signals the latest federal action in Trump’s sweeping energy agenda. As part of that agenda, Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office to safeguard the “American people’s freedom to choose from a variety of goods and appliances” and directed his administration to reverse Biden-era regulations on energy efficiency and climate, which targeted home appliances.

The little-known Consumer Product Safety Commission first weighed in on gas stoves in January 2023 after Biden-appointed Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. remarked that “any option is on the table” regarding a potential ban, that gas stoves are a “hidden hazard,” and that unsafe products can be banned. He added that the idea that cooking must be done on gas stoves was a “carefully manicured myth.”

Trumka’s comments sparked an intense outcry among consumer choice activists, the natural gas industry, Republicans, and some Democrats.

While then-commission chairman Alexander Hoehn-Saric responded by saying the agency wasn’t looking to ban gas stoves, he issued a request for information notice “seeking public input on chronic hazards associated with gas stoves.” The public comment period ended in May 2023, but the agency’s review of the matter remained ongoing as of last month.

“One of my first actions as ranking member of the Commerce Committee was to expose how left-wing radical activists were behind the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s push to ban gas stoves that Americans use every day,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, told the Free Beacon in a statement.

“I am glad President Trump’s administration is putting a stop to this massive government overreach and that the Biden era rule will not advance,” he added.

Cruz in February 2023 authored the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act, which was inspired by Trumka’s comments and would block the Consumer Product Safety Commission from banning gas stoves.

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The New York Democrat vying to fill Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R.) seat successfully pushed the Library of Congress to remove a damning interview calling his would-be constituents lazy alcoholics who couldn’t replace his migrant farmhands.

Blake Gendebien, who’s running for New York’s 21st Congressional District, said during a 2013 interview that local upstate residents “show up late” and “drink too much,” while his Hispanic employees work 12-hour days. But that interview, conducted by the Library of Congress for a special project documenting the culture of contemporary American workers, was recently taken offline at Gendebien’s request, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

“In this case, the subject of the interview requested that it be taken down from our site,” a Library of Congress representative told the Free Beacon on Tuesday morning. “We are typically generous in honoring these requests since they are personal narratives, however we keep the descriptive information online and make the collection accessible onsite in our reading room. That is what we’ve done in this case.”

The precise date of the interview’s removal is unknown, but internet archives indicate that the audio was accessible on the Library of Congress’s website until at least Feb. 2. The Free Beacon noticed it was missing Monday after the New York Post reported Gendebien’s remarks Sunday.

Gendebien’s attempt to scrub the interview hints at an effort to mitigate potential damage to his campaign, given that most Americans approve of President Donald Trump’s efforts to remove illegal immigrants from the country. Since taking office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has intensified its efforts to deport dangerous aliens, with 11,000 total arrests reported as of Monday. This includes targeted operations in New York.

Stefanik plans to vacate her seat if she’s confirmed as President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. In 2024, she won her district with 62 percent of the vote, making Gendebien’s campaign a longshot.

In the interview, meant to document his life as a dairy farm owner, Gendebien argued local residents in upstate New York could not replace his migrant workers for a variety of reasons.

“It’s hard to find one local person that doesn’t have domestic abuse problems, alcohol problems, wage garnishments,” Gendebien said. “So you have all these plans and these [local workers] leave for court all the time because they are in custody battles and child-support battles. It’s just awful.”

“They show up late. They drink too much. There is just no labor force out there,” he added.

By contrast, Gendebien said his Hispanic farmhands work about 12 hours a day, “six and a half days a week,” calling it “their choice.”

“Three Hispanic employees. They would need to be replaced by probably six local people,” Gendebien said.

The congressional hopeful even admitted that he once paid $10,000 to bail out a farm worker that ICE had detained. He claimed that agents “profile” people based on “skin color.”

While the Library of Congress allows the removal of content containing “personally identifiable information” from its online platform upon request, items may still be accessed onsite in Washington, D.C. On Wednesday morning, the Free Beacon confirmed Gendebien’s interview was indeed still available onsite. A library employee also told the Free Beacon that the interview would be reinstated online “certainly by next week,” suggesting that Gendebien regretted his initial decision to have it removed.

Gendebien did not respond to a request for comment.

Jessica Schwalb contributed to this report.

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Locals near Vistra Energy’s Moss Landing Power Plant noticed anomalies in the days leading up to last month’s lithium ion battery fire at the facility, including dead sea lions with skin lesions, sounds of explosions, chemical smells, and symptoms like burning eyes and throats. Those issues could mean there were problems at Moss Landing even before the blaze broke out, consumer advocate and environmental activist Erin Brockovich said during a Tuesday virtual town hall.

The event demonstrated how, even as Newsom looks to ditch fossil fuels, he is making enemies in the environmentalist movement. Local residents near the lithium battery storage facility have faced some of the same health issues after the Jan. 16 fire at Moss Landing, which sent up thick black smoke and a sharp chemical smell throughout Monterey County. Those symptoms are consistent with exposure to hydrogen fluoride, a compound that can be lethal at high levels, the Washington Free Beacon has reported. Soil samples have also found that the flame spewed out heavy metals, with at least one test site accumulating dangerous concentrations.

Lithium batteries are needed to store energy from renewable sources, making them essential to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s goal of fully transitioning California’s power grid away from fossil fuels by 2045. Regulators predict the state will need 52 gigawatts of battery storage to meet that target—nearly four times the 13.3 it has today.

Environmental activists have largely embraced battery-dependent green technologies like electric cars. In this case, however, the famed environmentalist Brockovich is squaring up against the Newsom administration, arguing that the Moss Landing battery facility caused the health of local residents to suffer.

A legal team from the law firm Singleton Schreiber, which includes Brockovich, filed a lawsuit last week on behalf of four residents against Vistra and other defendants, including the lithium-ion battery-maker LG Energy Solution, and California’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric. The firm hosted the virtual town hall in hopes of recruiting more plaintiffs.

“I knew right away something was wrong because so many of you were reporting to my community health book,” Brockovich told Monterey County residents on the Zoom call. “Anytime I wake up and I see 50 new emails from the same town, I generally have an idea what’s going on.”

Brockovich, known for her work in clinching a $333 million 1996 settlement with Pacific Gas & Electric for water contamination, has advised people across the country on environmental disasters, from East Palestine, Ohio, to Flint, Mich.

Tuesday’s Zoom meeting lasted over two and a half hours, and more than 200 people called in asking Brockovich and attorney Knut Johnson for advice on how to test their water, how to get doctors to help them, and how to assess the safety of food from the surrounding farms in the Salinas Valley—known as “America’s Salad Bowl” because it produces 70 percent of the state’s lettuce.

Others, like local resident Gayle Eisner, detailed strange experiences in the days before the Moss Landing fire.

“We live right next door to the harbor, right next to the beach, and I noticed a lot of sea lions washing up on shore,” Eisner said. “They were dead, they had these little red rings around them … kind of similar to a ringworm kind of thing—a skin lesion. I could tell they were not from sharks.”

A few days after the fire, “there were three more sea lions and an otter that were dead,” she added. “So I kind of started thinking there’s a little trend going on here.”

Brockovich said it’s “always concerning when you see animals sick or covered in lesions or tumors or washing up dead when that isn’t something that would be common to the area. That’s generally not common, period.”

Another local, Janie Smythe, said she heard an explosion several days before the fire—and faced health issues.

“A bunch of us were having symptoms the three days prior,” Smythe said. “We don’t know exactly what was going on, but our eyes were burning and our throats were burning, and it wasn’t like allergies. It was weird.”

A woman from Prunedale—some 17 miles from the factory—said her neighborhood group also complained about hearing explosions.

“My gut’s telling me that … that’s part of it,” she said during the Zoom meeting. “There’s issues been going on there that we have not been privy to.”

These accounts, which have not yet been reported, could help paint a picture of the battery fire origins, Brockovich said.

“That’s helpful information. It really is,” Brockovich said. “You’re there. What you know, what you’re seeing, what you’re experiencing, others have too, but that can help … tell the story as to why.”

Vistra Energy did not respond to a request for comment.

Singleton Schreiber’s lawsuit is seeking individually tailored compensation for toxic chemical exposure, property damage, and economic losses on behalf of four plaintiffs who live near Moss Landing. It accuses the corporations of negligence and alleges that the plant’s design—a “contained and roofed building that housed an outdated and dangerous lithium-ion battery storage system”—is similar to storage sites worldwide that have suffered large thermal runaways, fires, and exposures that have killed and injured people. The complaint notes that the Jan. 16 fire is Vistra’s third at the Moss Landing plant since 2021 and claims that this time, the fire suppression system failed to work.

One local, Myrt Hawkins, said during the town hall that the disaster wouldn’t have happened “if our elected officials and our regulatory agencies had done their damn job.”

“I would strongly encourage you, whoever had the authority to give those permits be brought to task,” she said.

The lawsuit also details health issues the plaintiffs have faced since the fire, including nasal and eye irritation, breathing difficulties, headaches, nosebleeds, sore throats, lung congestion, burning lungs, dizziness, unexplained blood discharge, sores, skin irritation, and more. These symptoms match those recounted by hundreds of locals through a Facebook group, “Moss Landing Power Plant/Vistra Fire Symptoms,” which has amassed some 3,500 members. Many are still reporting sickness nearly four weeks after the blaze.

Following the town hall, a resident of Carmel—a town about 22 miles south of the plant—posted in the Facebook group that she was “curious” about the anecdotes from before the fire.

“I smelled a chemical fire and tasted metal in my mouth a day or two prior,” she wrote. “I was confused when I found nothing near me, and then especially weirded out when I heard of the battery fire starting so soon after this experience.”

When the Moss Landing fire broke out, Monterey County issued an evacuation order, though it was lifted by the next evening. Some residents immediately fled—including a Ukrainian woman who remembers the Chernobyl disaster. Others outside the evacuation zone also left, some even taking their large animals including horses. Those who didn’t move their livestock worry the smoke and fallout could hurt them moving forward, locals said during the virtual town hall.

“We ended up evacuating our animals out on Friday [Jan. 17], and a lot of my friends who came and helped, we all started experiencing symptoms, and we still have symptoms,” said a woman who lives outside the evacuation zone but smelled the smoke. “I evacuated all the horses, the sheep, goats, all the things. I don’t know exactly how they were impacted.”

The Environmental Protection Agency reported zero air quality threats before handing its monitoring operations over to a private consulting firm retained by Vistra. Monterey County’s own air quality agency meanwhile said the only air downgrades were from people using wood-fired stoves.

But preliminary soil tests around Moss Landing show that smoke from the fire deposited significant levels of heavy metals in the surrounding soils, with one site showing dangerous concentrations of cobalt, the Free Beacon has reported. Olukayode Jegede, an agricultural toxicologist from University of California, Davis, said that suggests there would have been “very high” concentrations of those contaminants in the air when the fires were burning. High cobalt exposure can cause impaired lungs, asthma, interstitial lung disease, breathing difficulties, and wheezing.

A coalition of residents, who have branded their efforts as a movement called “Never Again Moss Landing,” tested surrounding areas up to 46 miles from the fire for heavy metal deposits. Using wipe tests, they found the highest concentrations of cobalt, manganese, lithium, and nickel were three to six miles from the battery fire site. They are awaiting scientific analysis of what these levels could mean.

Moreover, nearly a month since the fire, local officials haven’t issued health warnings specific to this disaster beyond recommending the immunocompromised or chronically ill to stay indoors or wear masks. This response has frustrated locals, who say it’s stymied their quest to get medical help for their ongoing symptoms.

“Our doctors are clueless,” one woman said on Tuesday’s Zoom call, saying that most point to the EPA’s declaration that the air was safe, as do Poison Control and the CDC. “It shut down a lot of help we could have received.”

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The Federal Communications Commission is investigating Comcast and its subsidiary NBCUniversal over whether its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs violate federal anti-discrimination laws.

In a letter to Comcast CEO Brian Roberts on Tuesday, FCC chairman Brendan Carr said there is “substantial evidence” that the media conglomerate is promoting DEI initiatives, a potential violation of FCC regulations and civil rights laws. Carr pointed to Comcast’s promotion of DEI as a “core value of our business” and said that NBCUniversal, which operates NBC News, MSNBC, and CNBC, has executives “specifically dedicated” to promoting DEI on its television programs.

“But promoting invidious forms of discrimination cannot be squared with any reasonable interpretation of federal law,” Carr warned. “It can only deprive Americans of their rights to fair and equal treatment under the law.”

Carr said he expects the investigation “will aid the Commission’s broader efforts to root out invidious forms of DEI discrimination across all of the sectors the FCC regulates.” The FCC chairman opened an investigation last week into whether NPR and PBS violated federal regulations that bar taxpayer-funded outlets from running commercials for corporate sponsors.

The Comcast probe comes as the media giant plans to spin off MSNBC and CNBC into a separate, publicly traded company. President Donald Trump has been a vocal critic of Comcast and NBC, vowing in 2023 that he would investigate the conglomerate over its “one-side[d] and vicious coverage.” Trump blasted MSNBC last month after the Washington Free Beacon reported that Kamala Harris’s campaign paid $500,000 to Al Sharpton’s nonprofit, the National Action Network, shortly before the activist interviewed Harris on his MSNBC show.

Sharpton, a longtime Trump critic, could become a focus of Carr’s DEI probe.

The controversial activist, known for his history of anti-Semitic rhetoric, has used his MSNBC show to promote a boycott he is leading at the National Action Network against corporations that have scrapped their DEI programs. Sharpton announced on his MSNBC show, PoliticsNation, that he would select two corporations for the boycott, which he billed as a “shake-up” of corporate America.

Indeed, Sharpton arguably owes his MSNBC gig to Comcast’s DEI initiatives.

Comcast hired Sharpton to host his MSNBC show in August 2011, six months after he agreed to publicly support Comcast’s acquisition of a majority stake in NBCUniversal—a lobbying campaign in which Sharpton submitted a letter to the FCC supporting the deal.

To win Sharpton’s support, Comcast signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Action Network and two other civil rights groups to bolster its “diversity” initiatives by airing content from four television channels owned by black people.

The agreement is published in the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” section of Comcast’s corporate website.

The New York Times at the time questioned whether Sharpton’s hiring created a conflict of interest for Comcast, and the Daily Beast asked whether Sharpton was an “affirmative-action beneficiary” of the Comcast-NBC merger.

Comcast also donated $140,000 to the National Action Network, which has in some years paid Sharpton a salary of more than $1 million. He reportedly makes north of $750,000 as an MSNBC host.

In 2015, black media mogul Byron Allen sued Comcast and Sharpton, accusing them of entering “sham diversity agreements.” Allen alleged that Sharpton “has a business model and track record of obtaining payments from corporate entities in exchange for his support.”

Comcast did not respond to questions about whether Sharpton will be allowed to continue promoting the National Action Network boycott at MSNBC. A company spokeswoman said Comcast will cooperate with the FCC investigation. “For decades, our company has been built on a foundation of integrity and respect for all of our employees and customers,” said spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury.

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Talk about a career climax.

Jeffrey Toobin, one of the world’s most prominent masturbators, is coming to the New York Times as a contributing opinion columnist. It’s another stroke of luck for the so-called legal analyst, who has managed to fully revive his career after being caught pleasuring himself during a Zoom meeting in October 2020.

The road to redemption has been hard and slightly curved for Toobin, who lost his job at the New Yorker after the infamous Zoom call, which featured employees of the esteemed magazine and WNYC radio taking part in an election simulation. “I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera. I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers,” Toobin told Vice News at the time. “I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video.”

CNN, where Toobin served as the network’s premier legal analyst and abortion expert, did not fire the disgraced masturbator but granted his request for “some time off while he deals with a personal issue.” Eight months later, Toobin made his triumphant return to CNN and attempted to defend himself during a cringe-inducing interview with Alisyn Camerota, who tried (unsuccessfully) to get Toobin to explain “what the hell” he was thinking. “I’m a flawed human being who makes mistakes,” said Toobin, who denounced his firing from the New Yorker as “excessive,” and claimed he was “trying to be a better person” by going to therapy and volunteering at food banks.

Toobin hung around at CNN for another year before announcing his departure in August 2022. That same year, he resumed publishing op-eds in the Times as a contributing opinion writer. In May 2023, he published a book about Timothy McVeigh and “the rise of right-wing extremism.” In early 2024, Toobin started popping up again on CNN as a “guest” analyst, and he continues to make regular appearances on the network as if nothing happened.

Before getting caught red-handed on a Zoom call, Toobin was best known for having an extramarital affair with his co-worker’s daughter, Casey Greenfield. After getting her pregnant, Toobin insisted he wasn’t the father, refused to take a paternity test, and offered money to pay for an abortion. When Greenfield refused, Toobin told her “she was going to regret it” and “shouldn’t expect any help from him,” according to the New York Daily News.

Toobin’s new gig at the Times was first reported by Dylan Byers, the former CNN reporter best known for exposing the Washington Free Beacon‘s financial ties to Donald Trump and for his previous role as unofficial public relations adviser to ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos. Byers described Toobin as a “famed legal analyst,” but did not elaborate. He originally reported that Toobin was joining the Times staff, which wasn’t true.

The Times opinion section already boasts a stable of insightful commentators, including Jamelle Bouie and Lydia Polgreen, both of whom assessed that Joe Biden’s disastrous (and career-ending) debate against Donald Trump in June 2024 was a tie.

Further reading: The Jeffrey Toobin Dick Slip Scandal, Explained in New Yorker Cartoons and CNN Chyrons

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President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he directed his national security team to “start negotiations immediately” to end the war in Ukraine following a call with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

“I have asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and Ambassador and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, to lead the negotiations which, I feel strongly, will be successful,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Millions of people have died in a War that would not have happened if I were President, but it did happen, so it must end. No more lives should be lost!”

The Kremlin on Tuesday released American teacher Marc Fogel, who had been serving a 14-year sentence for possessing medical marijuana. Fogel’s release “serves as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine,” Waltz said.

Another American citizen was released Wednesday from a prison in Belarus, a close ally of Russia, according to State Department officials.

Trump on the campaign trail pledged to end the war swiftly, criticizing then-president Joe Biden for failing to negotiate a resolution to a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Trump’s call with Putin, the first-known conversation between the presidents since Trump’s return to the White House, comes just ahead of the war’s third anniversary.

Trump said he will call Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday “to inform him of the conversation.” The president added that his discussion with Putin covered “the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects.” Zelensky met the same day with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

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The Pentagon’s Biden-era climate initiatives may soon be on the chopping block as President Donald Trump moves to cut wasteful military spending while ramping up the overall defense budget.

“There is waste, redundancies, and headcounts at headquarters that need to be addressed. There’s just no doubt,” Trump’s newly confirmed defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, told Axios on Tuesday, pointing to climate-related spending that the Biden administration classified as a national security priority.

The Defense Department is in the business of “deterring and winning wars,” not “solving the global thermostat,” Hegseth said. He added that Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, will begin reviewing the Pentagon’s spending “very soon.”

The move is part of Trump’s broader effort to rein in government waste, with the Pentagon as a primary target. Trump, who wants to increase defense spending, believes that Musk’s team can salvage “billions of dollars” from former president Joe Biden’s climate initiatives and redirect the funds toward military readiness, according to Axios.

The Pentagon’s budget—more than $890 billion—accounts for around half of all federal discretionary spending in the latest fiscal year. The Defense Department, however, has failed its annual audit for seven consecutive years, most recently in December, Axios reported.

“Let’s check the military,” Trump said on Sunday. “We’re going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse, and the people elected me on that.”

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Arizona Republican businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson is running for governor in 2026, she announced in a statement shared with the Washington Free Beacon.

The formal announcement comes roughly two months after President Donald Trump endorsed her candidacy during a speech in Arizona. “Are you running for governor? I think so, Karrin,” Trump said. “‘Cause if you do, you’re gonna have my support, ok?” Robson touted the endorsement in her statement, pledging to “fight every day alongside President Trump for stronger borders, a stronger economy, and a stronger Arizona.”

“Like President Trump, I know how to create jobs,” Robson said. “And like President Trump, I will not rest until our border is secure and Arizona families are safe.”

Robson first ran for governor in a crowded 2022 primary that included former news anchor Kari Lake and former GOP congressman Matt Salmon. Robson started the race as a relative unknown but closed the gap on Lake in the final weeks, ultimately losing by less than 5 points.

This time around, Robson will face a primary fight against congressman Andy Biggs, who launched his own gubernatorial campaign in late January. Should Robson win that race, she will likely square off against Arizona’s Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs—though some Democrats in the state have flirted with a primary challenge, citing Hobbs’s political weakness. Hobbs beat Lake by less than a point in 2022, and Trump went on to win Arizona by 6 points in November.

The race against Hobbs will likely center on illegal immigration and border security. While nearly 60 percent of voters approve of Trump’s mass deportation plans, Hobbs has opposed them, saying she won’t “use state resources to go into communities and round up people that aren’t causing harm.”

“We are working with local communities … to make sure that folks have their resources they need,” she said in response to Trump’s deportation efforts last month. “We’re making sure that Arizonans aren’t getting caught up in racial profiling, in situations where citizens are being caught up in deportation.”

Robson criticized Hobbs in her launch statement, saying the Democrat has “made it harder to live, work, and raise a family safely in this state.”

“Katie Hobbs and Joe Biden’s insane agenda has made life more expensive and dangerous,” she said, calling Hobbs an “open-borders career politician.”

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Federal law requires American universities to disclose their foreign donors to the Department of Education. Under Donald Trump’s first administration, that meant disclosing donors’ names. But the Biden administration broke that precedent, releasing just the names of the countries where each donation originated.

The change is significant because, as our Alana Goodman reports, there’s often a difference between the donor’s country of origin and the place from which the money flows. Take the University of Pennsylvania as a proof point.

In 2022 and 2023, the Ivy League institution reported to the federal government millions of dollars in contributions from donors in the Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands. Penn’s federal disclosures provide no further detail. The state of Pennsylvania, however, requires schools to report the names of foreign donors—and Penn’s state-level disclosures show that the contributions in question came not from the Caribbean but from Chinese companies with ties to the CCP.

Penn and other universities reported receiving “over $600 million from donors in Bermuda, $280 million from Guernsey, $25 million from the British Virgin Islands, $25 million from the Bahamas, $17.5 million from Cayman Islands, and $11 million from the island of Jersey” during the Biden administration, reports Goodman. The true source of those funds is largely unknown, as other states do not share Pennsylvania’s foreign donor disclosure requirements. Still, if Penn is any indication, a lot of the money likely traces back to China.

“The news comes as the Trump administration prepares to crack down on foreign influence on college campuses, following years of Biden administration policies that have shielded the names of foreign university donors from the public,” writes Goodman. “Tax haven countries represented some of the largest sources of funding during that time, raising questions about transparency and where the actual money is coming from.”

12 p.m. Saturday. That’s the deadline, first floated by Trump and later confirmed by Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu, for Hamas to release nine Israeli hostages or face “hell.”

Bibi followed in Trump’s footsteps and issued an ultimatum on Tuesday, hours after Hamas shuttered the next round of hostage releases. Trump responded to that development by reiterating that “all hell is going to break out” if Hamas does not reverse course. Bibi promised “intense combat until Hamas is decisively defeated” should the terror group fail to “return our hostages by Saturday noon.”

“In light of Hamas’ announcement of its decision to violate the agreement and not release our hostages, last night I ordered the IDF to gather forces inside and around the Gaza Strip,” he said. “This operation is being carried out at this time. It will be completed in the very near future.”

“The ongoing developments highlight the ceasefire’s fragility and reflect mounting frustration in Israel over Hamas’s treatment of the captives, including those who have already been released,” the Free Beacon‘s Adam Kredo reports.

“Seventeen Israeli hostages are still scheduled to be freed during the first phase of a three-tiered agreement, though the prospects of this occurring are dim. Israel said it will not move forward with negotiations over the deal’s second phase until all of its hostages come home.”

Democrats like Chris Murphy are upset with party leaders over their weak #Resistance to Trump 2.0. Some House members took matters into their own hands on Tuesday, holding a Capitol Hill rally to “Save the Civil Service.” It didn’t go well.

The Democrats, our Meghan Blonder writes, produced a series of cringeworthy moments. One freshman lawmaker, Oregon’s Maxine Dexter, appeared to make a sexual advance toward the Don, saying, “We have to fuck Trump.” Before delivering the line, she said, “I don’t swear in public very well.” You don’t say.

Another House Dem, Illinois’s Jan Schakowsky, said she was “going to say ‘fuck'” before clarifying, “I’m not going to say that.” Instead, she said, “We are going to beat and we’re going to pull [Trump] down.” At other points, union leaders led the crowd in a series of a cappella songs that attacked Elon Musk. One song, carried to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, included the lyrics, “We’ll fight against DOGE. We’ll fight against Elon Musk.”

“Last week, a CNN panel held back laughter after watching a montage of Democrats protesting against Trump and Musk,” Blonder writes. “One clip showed Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) holding hands and chanting, ‘We will win! We won’t rest!’ during a Feb. 5 rally in front of the Department of the Treasury building.”

“Liberal host Jimmy Kimmel also played the clip and said, ‘Oh, we are so f—ed.'” Indeed.

Watch the lowlight reel here. Viewer discretion is advised.

Away from the Beacon:

• Deb Haaland, the former interior secretary best known for blocking oil and gas leases under the guise of the pseudoscience that is “indigenous knowledge,” is running for governor of New Mexico.
• Goldman Sachs is abandoning its 2020 policy that forbid it from working on IPOs with companies that had “all white, all male boards,” citing “legal developments related to board diversity requirements.” Thanks, Ed Blum!
• DNC vice chair David Hogg, who got into Harvard with an SAT score that was 190 points lower than the scores of the bottom 25 percent of students admitted, is questioning whether the DOGE aide known as “Big Balls” “got there purely on merit.” Pot, meet kettle.

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