DOGE says it cut 239 contracts in two days — including ‘food justice’ grant for trans farmers
Over a two-day period, 239 “wasteful” contracts with a “ceiling value” of $1.7 billion have been terminated, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said Thursday, including a grant intended to teach transgender and queer urban farmers about “food justice.”
The elimination of the contracts represents a savings of $400 million, according to a DOGE tweet posted on X.
Among them included an $8.5 million consulting contract for “fiscal stewardship to improve management and program operations in order to drive innovation and improve efficiency and effectiveness of business services; rethink, realign and reskill the workforce; and enhance program delivery through a number of transformational initiatives.”
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On Tuesday, DOGE announced the National Institutes of Health canceled multiple federal grants related to trans and sexual identity. Those include $699,000 for studying “cannabis use” among “sexual minority gender diverse individuals” and $620,000 for “an LGB+ inclusive teen pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys,” DOGE said.
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Another included $225,000 in federal funds for the University of Colorado to study the “effects of hormones on headaches in transmasculine adolescents.”
On Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins noted that a $379,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant in the San Francisco Bay Area to educate queer, trans and BIPOC urban farmers and consumers about food justice and values-aligned markets had been canceled.
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“By stopping this wasteful spending here at USDA, we are ending identity politics, and we are refocusing our agency on its core mission of supporting American farming, ranching and forestry,” she said in a video message.
Several states seek end to property taxes: Shouldn’t have to ‘rent from the government’
As Tax Day nears, fiscally conservative leaders in several states are pushing to abolish property taxes, with one Pennsylvania lawmaker arguing that homeowners shouldn’t have to “pay rent” to the government.
That lawmaker, state Rep. Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon, spoke to Fox News Digital on Thursday ahead of his latest effort to end the collection of such taxes in the Keystone State.
Diamond will put forward a resolution — titled HB 900 — which Fox News Digital learned exclusively will be filed imminently. The document is a draft constitutional amendment he hopes will go to the voters on Election Day, and not a typical piece of legislation requiring gubernatorial approval.
Pennsylvania Republicans previously utilized the constitutional amendment process to accelerate the rollback of COVID-19 lockdowns imposed by then-Gov. Tom Wolf and then-health secretary Rachel Levine — by placing the amendment directly before voters on Election Day.
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“Property taxes are an issue that is not exactly partisan, because in some areas, it’s more of a big deal than in others,” Diamond said, citing varying relationships between taxes and school district funding.
Lebanon, he said, is kind of “middle-of-the-road,” but that just to the east in Allentown and Mount Pocono, property taxes are a “big deal.”
“For me, the ‘big deal’ is that I want people to own their homes and not have to rent from the government, all across Pennsylvania,” he said.
In a recent post on his Substack, Diamond quipped that every time the topic comes up, “folks get all twisted into knots over how we’re going to pay for the things those taxes currently pay for — frankly, they’re missing the point.”
“Boiled down to its very essence, fulfilling the promise of personal liberty is impossible if you can’t actually own a piece of real property,” he said.
Diamond noted to Fox News Digital how late Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Michael Musmanno called the ability to be “master of [one’s] fate” the “greatest joy that can be experienced by mortal man…. None shines with greater luster and imparts more innate satisfaction and soulful contentment to the wearer than the golden, diamond-studded right to be let alone.”
“Everything else in comparison is dross and sawdust,” Musmanno said in 1966, a quote which Diamond repeated to emphasize his point.
State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Gettysburg lawmaker who has also long championed an end to property taxes, called them “rent to the government for the land you own.”
“It’s easy to see why this antiquated tax is so despised in all corners of the commonwealth. More than 10,000 homes are seized annually in Pennsylvania and auctioned off for failure to pay the tax,” he warned in a statement.
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Mastriano floated taxing Western Union-type remittances to foreign countries as well as endowments to already-wealthy colleges in Pennsylvania to fill the gap.
On the other end of I-95, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posed a similar question in his State of the State last week:
“Is the property yours or are you just renting from the government?”
“You buy a home, pay off a mortgage — and yet you still have to write a check to the government every year just to live on your own property?” DeSantis said, noting Florida home values have surged and escalating assessments created a “gusher of revenue” for municipalities.
“Taxpayers need relief,” he said, adding that pending legislation seeking “protections” for homeowners will have his support.
According to the Floridian Press, state Sen. Jonathan Martin of Fort Myers is one lawmaker heeding that call.
Martin’s new legislation calls for a property tax elimination framework to be subject to a study. The process would include examining the impacts on public services, changes in appeals to businesses to move to Florida and other requirements.
On the second day of the legislative session last week, state Rep. Ryan Chamberlin announced “the beginning of the end of property taxes in the Free State of Florida.”
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Chamberlin, R-Silver Springs, released a statement highlighting legislation to enact a $100,000 tax exemption on residential properties.
Some lawmakers were not on board, as state Sen. Lori Berman, D-Boca Raton, told WPTV that the revenue would have to be replaced — and likely with other “very regressive” taxation.
Meanwhile, in New Jersey — the state with the highest property taxes — Republicans have long pushed for relief and now have a key Democratic ally backing their efforts.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who is running for governor this fall, wrote an op-ed for NorthJersey.com that promised lower costs for residents.
“For the naysayers, I’m going to detail exactly how my tax-cut plan for Jersey generates at least $7.9 billion in savings for Jersey to pay for $5.9 billion in tax cuts,” Gottheimer wrote.
Gottheimer’s plan would include a rental tax credit, a 15% property tax cut and a bonus for seniors choosing to retire to the Garden State.
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Across I-80 in Indiana, Republican Gov. Mike Braun also laid out plans to cap property tax bills and slash the levies.
“Bidenflation caused property tax bills in Indiana to go crazy, and too many Hoosier seniors are struggling with staying in their homes because of these bills,” Braun told Fox News Digital.
Braun added that if an insufficient such bill were to come to his desk, he would veto it and call a special session until his standards are met.
Hawaii, Alabama and Nevada have the lowest effective property taxes, while New Jersey, Illinois and Connecticut rank among the highest.
During his term, Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has promoted expanding the Pennsylvania Property Tax and Rent Rebate program, which aids homeowners over age 65.
VP Vance vows Trump admin will ‘use everything’ it can to surge criminal deportations
Vice President JD Vance said he expects deportation numbers to rise as the Trump administration shifts from gaining operational control of the southern border to ramping up efforts to remove illegal migrants from the country.
The White House is working to fulfill President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to conduct mass deportations of immigrants who entered the country illegally during the past four years of the Biden administration.
“We’ve cut illegal border crossings by well over 95%, and frankly, I think those numbers are going to continue to come down,” Vance told “The Ingraham Angle” Thursday in an interview from the White House.
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“You have immigration detention facilities that were underfunded,” he said. “You have ICE, which does most of the actual deportations, that was radically underfunded, really sort of in some ways destroyed by the Biden administration. We’re building that capacity up.”
Trump signed a number of executive orders relating to immigration when he took office in late January, including declaring an “invasion” at the southern border and deploying U.S. troops.
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Reuters reported last month that the administration deported 37,660 people during Trump’s first month in office, which is below the monthly average of removals in the last full year of Biden’s administration.
Vance told Fox News host Laura Ingraham it will take time for deportations to increase, but the administration is making progress and working to ramp up the numbers.
He praised Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem for her public information campaign calling on illegal migrants to self-deport and “border czar” Tom Homan for repurposing the CBP One app to meet Trump’s immigration goals.
“Do you remember that? It actually facilitated illegal entry under the Biden administration,” Vance said.
“We’re repurposing it to facilitate self-deportation. So what we’re going to encourage a lot of people to do is we don’t have to come and knock on your door and send you home. We’re going to do that, of course. But before that happens, why don’t you get on a plane and go home yourself? So it’s an all-of-the-above approach. We’re going to use everything that we can.”
The White House is struggling to increase the number of deportations due to limited U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention space.
DHS officials told NBC News they are working with the Marshals Service, Department of Defense and Federal Bureau of Prisons to increase bed space while they ask for more resources from Congress.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told “The Will Cain Show” in late January that some criminal migrants would be moved to Guantánamo Bay, a U.S. Naval base in Cuba, in the interim as the process to repatriate them to their homelands plays out.
Two U.S. defense officials told Fox News that 40 migrants who were held at Guantánamo Bay, commonly known as Gitmo, were sent back to the United States and are now being held in Louisiana.
It’s unclear why they were sent back and whether the United States will continue to hold migrants at that location.
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There are currently no migrants being held at Gitmo, and no flights scheduled to arrive with more migrants.
Passengers forced to evacuate after American Airlines plane erupts in flames at airport
An American Airlines flight caught fire at Denver International Airport on Thursday.
American flight 1006 departed Colorado Springs and was bound for Dallas Fort Worth International Airport when the plane was diverted to Denver, an airline spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
The aircraft was taxiing to the gate after landing and “experienced an engine-related issue.” The blaze started around 6 p.m. local time.
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“The 172 customers and six crew members deplaned and are being relocated to the terminal,” the airline said. “We thank our crew members, DEN team and first responders for their quick and decisive action with the safety of everyone on board and on the ground as the priority.”
An airport spokesperson told Fox News Digital that a plane caught fire at Gate C38 and that the smoke was visible to the passengers, who were evacuated.
The fire was extinguished and no one was harmed, the spokesperson said.
Passengers on board the flight appeared to be forced out onto the plane’s wing as they evacuated the aircraft and smoke billowed from the plane.
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It wasn’t clear what started the blaze.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
EPA chief blasts CNN for misunderstanding press release in brutal takedown
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lee Zeldin called out CNN for misunderstanding a press release his agency issued, claiming it had “typos” that were not actually errors.
The press release was part of the EPA’s “most consequential day of deregulation” on Wednesday. In a video announcement, Zeldin said the agency is taking 31 actions to “advance President Trump’s Day 1” executive orders to “Power the Great American Comeback.”
CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir joined CNN host Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” and claimed the EPA was moving so fast it was making mistakes.
“Today Lee Zeldin put out a video on X, they were putting out press releases with such a flurry, about 31 different actions and rollbacks, that some of them had typos or placeholders at the top. We have one of those there [on screen], ‘Trump EPA announces 000…’- you can see there,” Weir said. “It‘s sort of, ‘Shoot first, fill out the press release later.”
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The press release was titled “Trump EPA Announces OOOO b/c Reconsideration of Biden-Harris Rules Strangling American Energy Producers,” which Zeldin said was not a mistake but federal regulation code.
“Another media ‘fact check’ face plant where the fact-checker doesn’t have the slightest clue what he’s talking about,” Zeldin posted on Wednesday. “‘OOOO b/c’ is not a typo. 40 CFR Part 60 Subpart OOOO, or Quad O, is a federal reg under the Clean Air Act. Also, those aren’t zeroes, it’s the letter ‘O,’” he added.
The press release announced that the EPA is reevaluating regulations on the oil and gas industry from former President Joe Biden’s administration that Zeldin believes are halting development and manufacturing within the country.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, EPA spokeswoman Molly Vaseliou said, “CNN’s chief climate correspondent failed to check code of federal regulations when reporting on the largest day of deregulatory action in American history. If Fake News CNN can’t figure out what EPA does, what does this mean for the American public?”
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Weir called the deregulatory actions from Zeldin’s EPA a “war on science.”
“They‘re going after, of course, as you mentioned, vehicle emissions, tailpipe emissions, power plant pollution, mercury pollution that comes out of there, coal, wastewater, oil and gas, coal ash, reporting CO2, you know, industries just kind of keeping a tally on how much planet cookin’ and pollution they‘re putting in to the sea and sky … no need to do that anymore,” Weir said.
He said that while most of the actions are “symbolic,” and added, “It still has to go through the courts. It has to go through Congress. But it just is the latest in an all-out war on science, around public health, around the environment, and of course, around the climate crisis.”
Fox News Digital also reached out to CNN for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
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Tiger Woods and Vanessa Trump have reportedly been dating since last year
Tiger Woods, a supporter of President Donald Trump, is reportedly dating the president’s former daughter-in-law.
The Daily Mail reports Woods and Vanessa Trump “have been seeing each other since just before Thanksgiving.”
“She comes to his place on Jupiter Island. They’re not living together. She comes over and spends the night and leaves in the morning. Maybe a few nights a week,” a source told the outlet.
“They just love hanging out, having dinner and schmoozing together. They’re sticking close to home, have decided not to make it a thing and go out in public. Not just yet anyway.”
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Representatives for Woods did not immediately respond to a request to confirm the Daily Mail’s report.
Woods’ son, Charlie, and Vanessa’s daughter, Kai, are both competitive golfers. Kai has committed to play at the University of Miami, while Charlie has played alongside his father at tournaments. Charlie has also played at U.S. Open qualifiers, and both Charlie and Kai played at the same tournament last month.
Woods was photographed with Kai at the Genesis Invitational. Vanessa and Kai also took in a TGL match last month, which was created by Woods and Rory McIlroy.
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After his highly publicized divorce, Woods was linked to Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn in the 2010s. He was dating Erica Herman at the time he won the Masters in 2019, but they too had a very public breakup that included sexual harassment allegations and an NDA lawsuit filed by Herman.
Vanessa and Don Jr. divorced in 2018.
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Woods announced earlier this week he had undergone surgery for a ruptured Achilles sustained while training at home, putting his entire 2025 golf season in jeopardy. Woods has played in just 18 events since the start of the new decade, and his best finish in a major during that span is a tie for 38th at the 2020 Masters.
Man describes ‘unimaginable’ living conditions he endured during 20-year home captivity
New details have emerged in the shocking story of a 32-year-old Connecticut man allegedly held captive in a single room by his father and stepmother for 20 years.
Kimberly Sullivan, 56, was arrested Wednesday, nearly a month after Waterbury police and firefighters responded to a fire the man lit inside the home Feb. 17.
While receiving medical care after the fire, the 32-year-old said he had been held captive in the home since he was 11 years old.
“I wanted my freedom,” he told first responders.
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The Waterbury Police Department Major Crimes Unit and Waterbury State’s Attorney’s Office launched an extensive investigation that found the man endured prolonged abuse, starvation, severe neglect and inhumane treatment, according to a statement from the department.
Subsequent arrest warrants revealed the man was locked inside a room nearly 24 hours each day without heat or air conditioning, The Associated Press reported.
He was also provided two sandwiches and two bottles of water on a daily basis, which he rationed for soapless baths, according to the report.
When he was found, the man weighed just 69 pounds, standing at 5-foot-9, the AP reported. Having no access to a bathroom, he funneled his waste through straws that led to a window.
Police noted the man was starving while still attending school, often stealing food and eating out of the garbage, according to the report. When he ate, his teeth would break due to lack of dental care.
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Sullivan was arrested and is charged with assault in the first degree, kidnapping in the second degree, unlawful restraint in the first degree, cruelty to persons and reckless endangerment in the first degree.
Her bond was set at $300,000, and she was later released by the Connecticut Department of Corrections.
Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo called the suffering the man endured “heartbreaking and unimaginable,” noting the man has since been diagnosed with PTSD and depression.
While authorities are investigating how the man fell through the cracks as a child, Spagnolo told the AP police only had two interactions with the family, both in 2005.
One call was a welfare check prompted by reports from classmates. Another was after the family filed a harassment complaint against school officials for reporting them to state child welfare officials, according to the report.
Officers noted there was no cause for concern, Spagnolo told the AP.
The Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) said it is continuing to look for records of agency involvement, according to the report. However, unsubstantiated reports of neglect or abuse are erased five years after the conclusion of the investigation.
“We are shocked and saddened for the victim and at the unspeakable conditions he endured,” the department said in a statement to the AP. “The now adult victim has shown incredible strength and resilience during this time of healing and our hearts go out to him.”
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Tom Pannone, former principal of the defunct Barnard Elementary School in Waterbury, told NBC Connecticut administrators reported the alleged abuse to police and “not a damn thing was done.”
The Waterbury Police Department, Waterbury Public Schools and Connecticut DCF did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment Thursday.
College star breaks down in tears over failed expectations despite huge pay
The name, image, and likeness (NIL) system in college athletics has been welcomed by student-athletes who have been able to cash in on brand partnerships, some of whom are making millions fresh out of high school.
Kansas State’s Coleman Hawkins, though, is showing a different side of that system when athletes don’t meet expectations despite those millions.
The Wildcats fell to the Baylor Bears, 70-56, in the Big 12 tournament, and the loss ended the team’s 2024-25 campaign.
Kansas State head coach Jerome Tang said in his postgame comments that the team was unlikely to accept a bid to a consolation tournament — the NIT or the new College Basketball Crown tournament in Las Vegas.
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Hawkins, a transfer from the Illinois Fighting Illini, was supposed to lead the Wildcats to the NCAA tournament, something he handled well last season with an Elite Eight appearance. He also declared for the NBA Draft but returned to college and reportedly got paid $2 million to transfer to Kansas State.
But the 23-year-old Hawkins didn’t have the same season he had with Illinois last year, averaging 10.7 points, 6.9 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game, while shooting 40.1% from the field and 30.3% from three-point territory. Hawkins averaged 12.1 points, 6.1 rebounds and 2.7 assists, while shooting 45.1% from the field last season.
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With Kansas State not meeting expectations this season, Hawkins showed a brutal side of being a top-paid player.
“These guys haven’t experienced some of the things I’ve experienced,” Hawkins said through tears, referencing the backlash he’s gotten from fans this season. “I really wanted to come in and impact the program. I’m sorry for crying, but, s—, this s— hurts.
“I feel like I let a lot of people down. I feel like I did a poor job of letting people talk about me. It affected my play. It was happening all year. I wish I could just go back and block out everything, not for myself, but for the team, so we could have a more successful year. This is a learned lesson for me, and I wish the best for the future of this program.”
Hawkins finished his fifth year of college, meaning his playing days at this level are done. He will now look ahead to potential professional opportunities, which could be declaring for the NBA Draft yet again.
But Hawkins’ emotions and, more importantly, the vitriol and backlash he received, is the reality of this pay-to-play system that the NCAA and every college sport are still trying to navigate.
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Much like professionals who sign big-money contracts, expectations go through the roof when the dollar amount is made public. Fans expect the players to play up to their contract, and when that doesn’t happen, the backlash can be brutal.
Hawkins noted that going through that since the beginning of the season and blocking it out wasn’t easy.