Incomplete Grade? Columbia Loses Ranking over Dubious Data

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U.S. News & World Report has unranked Columbia University from its 2022 edition of Best Colleges, saying in a statement that the Ivy League institution failed to substantiate certain 2021 data it previously submitted, including student-faculty ratios and class size. The decision to rescind the school’s No. 2 rating among national universities in the 2022 edition came about a week after Columbia announced it would not be submitting data for the 2023 edition of Best Colleges after one of its mathematics professors recently raised questions about the accuracy of past submissions.  The 2022 edition was first published in September 2021.more

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Former Trump White House Counsel Meets With January 6 Panel

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Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone met for a private interview with the January 6 committee for about eight hours Friday regarding his role in trying to prevent then-President Donald Trump from challenging the 2020 presidential election and joining the violent mob that laid siege to the Capitol. Cipollone, once a staunch presidential confidant who had defended Trump during his first impeachment trial, had been reluctant to appear formally for an on-record interview. Like other former White House officials, it is possible he claimed his counsel to the Republican president as privileged information he was unwilling to share with themore

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Native American News Roundup, July 3 – 9, 2022

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Here is a summary of Native American-related news around the U.S. this week: Cherokee veteran receives highest military honor President Joe Biden awarded Cherokee Nation citizen Dwight Birdwell America’s highest military decoration during a White House ceremony Tuesday. Birdwell, 74, was awarded the Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism during the Tet Offensive, a series of shock and awe attacks by North Vietnamese forces in January 1968. “I’m grateful for all you have given our country and that at long last your story is being honored as it should have been always,” Biden told Birdwell (see video below), noting thatmore

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Biden Seeks to Balance Interests, Ideology in Mideast Trip

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In his visit to the Middle East next week, President Joe Biden is set to push for Israel’s deeper integration in the region and urge Gulf countries to pump more oil to alleviate pressure on the global energy market. Observers will watch how Biden balances these U.S. interests with American values of human rights, in light of the killings of journalists Jamal Khashoggi and Shereen Abu Akleh. VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has the story. …

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Liz Cheney: If Warranted, Justice Department Should Not Hesitate to Prosecute Trump Over US Capitol Riot

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One of the key lawmakers investigating the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol last year says that if the Justice Department concludes that former President Donald Trump fomented the mayhem to block Congress from certifying his 2020 reelection loss — it should not hesitate to prosecute him. Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the vice chairperson on the panel investigating the insurrection and a vocal anti-Trump Republican, acknowledged to ABC News that the prosecution of a former U.S. president would be unprecedented and “difficult” for an already politically divided country. But the Wyoming Republican said that not prosecuting Trump, if it weremore

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High Court Marshal Seeks Enforcement of Anti-Picketing Laws

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The marshal of the U.S. Supreme Court has asked Maryland and Virginia officials to enforce laws she says prohibit picketing outside the homes of the justices who live in the two states. “For weeks on end, large groups of protesters chanting slogans, using bullhorns, and banging drums have picketed Justices’ homes,” Marshal Gail Curley wrote in the Friday letters to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and two local elected officials. Curley wrote that Virginia and Maryland laws and a Montgomery County, Maryland, ordinance prohibit picketing at justices’ homes, and she asked the officials to direct police tomore

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US Capitol Riot Panel Hints at Criminal Referrals for Witness Tampering 

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Lawmakers investigating the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol last year are signaling they could send referrals to the Justice Department for prosecution of illegal tampering with witnesses who have testified to the panel. Representative Liz Cheney, vice chairperson of the House of Representatives investigative panel, displayed Tuesday two messages from notes sent to hearing witnesses saying that former President Donald Trump was keeping a close eye on the hearings and was counting on continued loyalty. The senders of the notes weren’t identified. The panel is probing how the insurrection unfolded and Trump’s role in trying to upend hismore

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Native Americans Bristle at Suggestions They Offer Abortions on Tribal Land

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Shortly after the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion to end women’s constitutional right to abortion, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt appeared on Fox News suggesting Native American tribes in his state, looking to get around Oklahoma’s tough new abortion ban, might “set up abortion on demand” on any of the 39 Indian reservations in that state. “You know, the tribes in Oklahoma are super liberal,” Stitt said, “They go to Washington, D.C. They talk to President (Joe) Biden at the White House. They kind of adopt those strategies.” The U.S. government recognizes tribes as sovereign nations, and as such,more

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US Visa Called Too Expensive for Afghan Students

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For Breshna Salaam, the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan last year meant a return to the same extreme poverty she and her mother had experienced under the Taliban’s first time in control of the country.   In 1996, the Taliban fired Salaam’s mother from a public service job, denying the widow and her daughter their only source of income. In August 2021, with her mother retired, the Taliban fired Salaam from a job at the Ministry of Agriculture.   Deprived of work and education in her own country, she applied for graduate programs abroad and was offered a scholarshipmore

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Jackson to be Sworn in as Breyer Retires From Supreme Court

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Nearly three months after she won confirmation to the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson is officially becoming a justice. Jackson, 51, will be sworn as the court’s 116th justice Thursday, just as the man she is replacing, Justice Stephen Breyer, retires. The judicial pas de deux is set to take place at noon, the moment Breyer said in a letter to President Joe Biden on Wednesday that his retirement will take effect after nearly 28 years on the nation’s highest court. The court is expected to issue its final opinions earlier Thursday in a momentous and rancorous term that includedmore

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January 6 Panel Subpoenas Former White House Counsel

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The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection issued a subpoena Wednesday to former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who is said to have stridently warned against former President Donald Trump’s efforts to try to overturn his election loss. It’s the first public step the committee has taken since receiving the public testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, the onetime junior aide who accused Trump of knowing his supporters were armed on Jan. 6 and demanding that he be taken to the U.S. Capitol that day. Cipollone, who was Trump’s top White House lawyer, is said to have raised concerns about themore

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First Post-Roe Primaries Put Abortion at Center of Key Races

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The midterm primary season entered a new, more volatile phase on Tuesday as voters participate in the first elections since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision revoking a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion jolted the nation’s politics. In Colorado’s Republican U.S. Senate primary, voters are choosing between businessman Joe O’Dea and state Rep. Ron Hanks. O’Dea backs a ban on late-term abortions but is otherwise the rare Republican who supports most abortion rights. Hanks backs a ban on the procedure in all cases. Meanwhile, in the Republican race for governor in Illinois, Darren Bailey, a farmer and state senator endorsedmore

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Former White House Aide: Trump Angry, Volatile as 2020 Defeat Became Obvious

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Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday that then-President Donald Trump became increasingly angry and volatile about his 2020 reelection loss, testifying that he agreed with rioters at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 last year when they called for the hanging of then-Vice President Mike Pence for refusing to block the election outcome. Hutchinson said that as some of the thousands of Trump supporters at the Capitol chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” Trump told her boss, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, “Mike deserves it.” She quoted Meadows as saying that Trump “doesn’t think (the anti-Pencemore

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Former White House Aide to Testify About 2021 US Capitol Riot

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The congressional panel investigating the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol last year is set to hear testimony Tuesday from Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, who was privy to key White House conversations as Trump sought to upend his 2020 election loss. Watch the hearing live: Hutchinson’s testimony is shrouded in secrecy and was hastily scheduled Monday, with the House of Representatives panel declining to identify her publicly and saying only that a surprise hearing would be held “to present recently obtained evidence.” Multiple U.S. news outlets identified her asmore

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Native News Roundup, June 19-25

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Here is a summary of Native American-related news around the U.S. this week: Mohegan chief announced as new US treasurer For the first time in U.S. history, a Native American’s signature will appear on all U.S. currency: U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced the new U.S. treasurer: Marilynn “Lynn” Malerba, the lifetime chief of the Mohegan Tribe in Connecticut. As treasurer, Malerba will oversee the U.S. Mint, the Bureau of Printing and Engraving and the storage of about $270 billion worth of gold at Fort Knox. “With this announcement, we are making an even deeper commitment to Indian Country,”more

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US Senate Approves Bipartisan Gun Violence Bill

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The Senate easily approved a bipartisan gun violence bill Thursday that seemed unthinkable a month ago, setting up final approval of what will be Congress’ most far-reaching response in decades to the nation’s run of brutal mass shootings. After years of futile Democratic efforts to curb firearms, 15 Republicans joined with them as both sides decided inaction was untenable after last month’s rampages in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas. It took weeks of closed-door talks but senators emerged with a compromise embodying incremental but impactful movement to curb bloodshed that has come to regularly shock — yet no longermore

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Jan. 6 Investigators: Trump Pressured Department of Justice to Overturn 2020 Election

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In the fifth public hearing this month examining the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, congressional investigators detailed how former President Donald Trump pressured the nation’s highest law enforcement officials to declare the 2020 election results invalid. As VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, those fraudulent election claims were also pushed by Republican members of Congress who later sought pardons. Producer: Katherine Gypson …

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US to Cancel $6 Billion in Student Loans for 200,000 Defrauded Borrowers

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The United States will cancel $6 billion in student loans for 200,000 borrowers who claimed they were defrauded by their colleges, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden said. A settlement agreement between the borrowers and the U.S. Department of Education was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday and must be approved by a federal judge. Student debt cancellation has become a priority for many liberals and one that could shore up popularity with younger and more highly educated voters, who lean Democratic, before November’s midterm congressional elections. About 43 million Americansmore

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US Health Officials Ban Juul E-Cigarettes Tied to Teen Vaping Surge

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Federal health officials on Thursday ordered Juul to pull its electronic cigarettes from the U.S. market, the latest blow to the embattled company widely blamed for sparking a national surge in teen vaping.  The action is part of a sweeping effort by the Food and Drug Administration to bring scientific scrutiny to the multibillion-dollar vaping industry after years of regulatory delays.  The FDA said Juul must stop selling its vaping device and its tobacco- and menthol-flavored cartridges. Those already on the market must be removed. Consumers aren’t restricted from having or using Juul’s products, the agency said.  To stay onmore

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Witnesses Detail Trump Bid to Pressure Justice Department 

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The congressional panel investigating the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol heard testimony Thursday that former President Donald Trump pushed Justice Department officials to investigate voter fraud allegations even though he had been assured there were no widespread irregularities that would upend his reelection defeat. The panel focused its questions on the efforts of Jeffrey Clark, a former assistant attorney general specializing in environmental law, to be named attorney general in the last month of Trump’s presidency so he could pursue claims that Trump had been cheated out of a second four-year term. Such claims have been found to havemore

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New Witnesses to Detail How Trump Pushed Justice Department to Probe 2020 Election Fraud Claims

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The congressional panel investigating the causes of last year’s Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol is hearing testimony Thursday about how former President Donald Trump pushed Justice Department officials to investigate allegations of fraud in the 2020 election that he hoped would upend his loss to Democrat Joe Biden. House Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson said the panel would examine Trump’s “attempt to corrupt the country’s top law enforcement body,” much as state officials in Arizona and Georgia testified Tuesday that Trump unsuccessfully sought to get them to appoint bogus electors to help him stay in office for anothermore

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