pgnewser

Blurb:

The special election for former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) seat is all but guaranteed to head to a runoff election, with nearly 20 candidates vying to win the race.

Seventeen active competitors will fight for the chance to represent Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, which is expected to remain in Republican hands, being a safe red seat. The winner will finish out Greene’s term until the November midterm elections.

Greene resigned from her seat after a major public fallout with President Donald Trump over rising healthcare costs and her support for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Georgia special elections do not hold primaries, meaning that every candidate will be on the ballot on Tuesday. The race will head into a runoff if none of the 17 candidates receive 50% of the votes.

Blurb:

President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth flatly denied that U.S. forces targeted civilians after a missile strike destroyed a girls’ school in Minab, Iran. Trump said the information he reviewed suggested Iran may have caused the explosion itself, while Hegseth repeated that U.S. forces don’t deliberately attack civilians and confirmed the Pentagon is reviewing the incident.

That didn’t stop Western media outlets from rushing to repeat Tehran’s accusations.

This may be a shock to you, but Iranian state media quickly blamed the United States and Israel for the February 28 explosion at Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school, which killed 168 people, injuring dozens more.

The claim rapidly spread through Western coverage, even though it came from the same government currently fighting the United States.

Blurb:

When Vice President J.D. Vance addressed the Munich Security Conference in February 2025, he delivered a blunt critique: Europe had retreated from fundamental values like free speech, pursued decades of progressive policies that eroded strength, and left the continent too weak to robustly defend the West. European leaders dismissed his criticism as “absurd” and “not acceptable.”

Yet the war against Iran has underscored Vance’s point.

The European Union has long-standing grievances against Tehran: decades of terrorism on European soil. Tehran has also taken numerous European visitors as hostages over the years, using them as leverage to extract concessions such as prisoner swaps, debt repayments, and asset releases. A striking example is the case of British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was detained in 2016 and was only freed in 2022 after the UK government repaid a long-standing debt of nearly £400 million.

Facing this persistent threat, Europe had a clear opportunity to unite with allies against a common foe. Instead, major nations delivered lackluster, divided responses — slow, sidelined, or obstructive.

Blurb:

The censorship crisis in Europe has recently reignited global concern over protecting free expression. Europe has consistently made headlines for overreaching restrictions — from Vice President JD Vance highlighting the continent’s crisis of censorship to, more recently, Elon Musk’s high-profile challenge against the European Union in defense of online free speech. But the growing attacks on free speech across the Atlantic aren’t the only offenses to watch. Censorship in Brazil has been escalating since 2019, and the violations against free expression are just as alarming.

In Europe, we’ve seen: a sitting parliamentarian prosecuted for sharing a Bible verse on X, a comedian arrested for social media posts criticizing gender ideology, and citizens criminalized for merely praying silently in their own minds, among many other severe free speech violations. Brazil is producing its own wave of censorship abuses, much like these.

Blurb:

As everyone knew he would, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has appealed Marion County Judge Christina R. Klineman’s “absurd” ruling that the state’s 2022 abortion law violates the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“We disagree with the court’s decision and have already appealed,” an offices spokesman said. “As we have with every challenge against our pro-life law, we’ll continue fighting to protect the lives of the unborn.”

Indiana Right to Life President and CEO Mike Fichter said, “We are encouraged by Attorney General Todd Rokita’s immediate move to appeal this injunction.” He called the 17-page decision “a perversion of the law’s intent.”

Blurb:

New York City’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani, criticized an anti-Muslim protest outside Gracie Mansion but did not mention the suspects or their alleged ISIS links in his first statement about the attack.

An anti-Islam protest led by Jake Lang, who has described himself as a “January 6 political prisoner,” drew counter-protesters outside Gracie Mansion. During the demonstration, authorities said at least one device was ignited. Two suspects, identified by authorities as Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, were arrested on the scene in connection with the incident. Police revealed the device was an improvised explosive device consisting of a sports drink bottle filled with volatile explosive material known as TATP, placed inside a glass jar and surrounded by nuts and bolts.

The New York Post reported that law enforcement sources said Balat used the Arabic phrase “Allahu Akbar” after his police interview. During a brief appearance before reporters, he flashed the single-finger gesture associated with ISIS.

Blurb:

“I’m saying they’re from different parts of Pennsylvania, they’re in different age groups, they’re not known to each other. They did not live together. They do not have family or school ties.”

An attorney representing one of the two men charged with an attempted ISIS-inspired attack in New York City over the weekend has claimed that his client did not know the other defendant charged in the case.

Speaking with reporters, the attorney representing Emir Balat, Mehei Essmiei, said, “I’m saying they’re from different parts of Pennsylvania, they’re in different age groups, they’re not known to each other. They did not live together. They do not have family or school ties.”

“There is no reason to believe they knew each other prior to this incident, and I don’t know how well they knew each other at the time of this incident,” he added.

Blurb:

While Gavin Newsom believes one of the last of his fights in the State of California should be to put an end to misinformation regarding the Golden State, someone should really inform him that the truth hurts. Just because it is not hard to make his leadership look like a failure, that does not make those claims invalid. He, however, believes otherwise, which is why he has decided to spend nearly $20 million to fight the truth.

According to the California Post:

As California faces a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to spend millions in taxpayer money on an ad campaign to try to rebrand the state as a “great place to live, work, invest and visit.”

Blurb:

The Pentagon rarely labels an American technology company a “supply chain risk.” The designation is typically reserved for firms tied to foreign adversaries or companies that could expose sensitive government systems to compromise.

But in late February, the Trump administration applied that label to one of the most prominent artificial intelligence developers in the United States.

On Monday, Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI system, turned up the heat on the fight by filing a federal lawsuit against the Pentagon and several government agencies after the administration ordered agencies to stop using its technology across the federal system.

“Anthropic sued the Defense Department and other federal agencies on Monday over the Trump administration’s move to designate it a supply chain risk and eliminate its use across the government,” the report explains. “The company said the effort was ‘unprecedented and unlawful.’”

Blurb:

Just days after two Islamic terrorists allegedly threw a homemade IED into a group of anti-Islamic protesters, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is continuing to show us what “globalize the intifada” actually means. Mamdani, and his terrorist attack-loving wife just hosted Mahmoud Khalil for dinner.

“A year ago, Mahmoud was walking home through our city after sharing an iftar with his wife Noor when he was detained by federal agents, flown to Louisiana, and then held in an ICE facility for months. In that time, he was forced to miss the birth of his first child. All of this for exercising his First Amendment rights in protesting the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” Mamdani wrote. And yet, even in the face of that cruelty, there has also been beauty. New Yorkers raising their voices in solidarity. A city refusing to look away. Mahmoud won his freedom, and a father was finally reunited with his child. Last night, as we marked the one year anniversary of his detention, Rama and I were honored to welcome Mahmoud, Noor, and their son Deen to Gracie Mansion to break our fast together.Mahmoud is a New Yorker, and he belongs in New York City.”

Blurb:

Federal prosecutors say one of the suspects charged in the attempted bombing at a protest near New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s residence allegedly told investigators he wanted to carry out an attack “bigger than the Boston Marathon bombing.”

The claim appears in a criminal complaint filed Monday against Emir Balat and his co-defendant Ibrahim Kayumi.

The two suspected terrorists are accused of attempting to detonate explosive devices during a protest and counter-protest near Gracie Mansion.

Blurb:

Two dimensional materials have drawn intense interest because their electronic and magnetic properties could power future technologies. Scientists have traditionally treated these two behaviors as separate. Engineers at Illinois Grainger Engineering have now shown that they are connected by the same underlying mathematics.

In a study published in Physical Review X, researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign demonstrated how specially designed two dimensional magnetic systems can follow the same equations that describe mobile electrons in graphene. This mathematical connection could influence the design of radiofrequency devices and also provide researchers with a powerful new way to analyze and engineer these materials.

“It’s not at all obvious that there is an analogy between 2D electronics and 2D magnetic behaviors, and we’re still amazed at how well this analogy works,” said Bobby Kaman, the study’s lead author. “2D electronics are very well studied thanks to the discovery of graphene, and now we’ve shown that a not-so-well-studied class of materials obeys the same fundamental physics.”

Blurb:

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has weighed in on an attempted terror bombing outside his home on Saturday but is downplaying the role of the suspected perpetrators and blaming anti-Islam protestors.

Two individuals shouting “Allahu Akbar” allegedly tossed two improvised explosive devices into a small crowd of protestors led by January 6 defendant Jake Lang, which was protesting what it called the” Islamic Takeover of New York City.”

That protest drew a larger crowd of more than 100 counter-protestors calling themselves “Run the Nazis out of New York City, Stand Against Hate.”

Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, were quickly taken into police custody after an explosive device with bolts and nuts taped to the outside of it was lit by one of the men and thrown into the crowd of protestors.

The device failed to detonate and no injuries were reported.

Blurb:

In new book, gender studies professor says it’s time to abolish these labels

“Sexual identity” labels should be abolished because they “harm trans people” in their dating and sex lives, a UC Riverside professor argues in a new book.

Brandon Robinson, a professor of sociology, gender, and sexuality studies, wrote the book “Trans Pleasure: On Gender Liberation and Sexual Freedom” based on interviews with men who identify as women (“trans women and trans femmes — trans people who identify with a feminine gender expression”) and their Reddit conversations about dating and sex.

The book documents these individuals’ experiences in “the bedroom,” “restaurants,” “dating apps,” and other typical dating spaces, and the discrimination that they often face, according to Robinson.

“… dominant understandings of sexual identities—which center desires around gender and genitals—harm trans people. They also limit how everyone can love and feel pleasure,” according to the book description.

Blurb:

The federal complaint against Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, was released on Monday afternoon, detailing charges against the two Pennsylvania men who are suspected of attempting to commit an ISIS-inspired bombing on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on Saturday.

Count one alleges that the two “knowingly attempted to provide ‘material support or resources’… including personnel, to wit, themselves, and services to a foreign terrorist organization, to wit, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (‘ISIS‘).” ISIS is a designated foreign terrorist organization. Count two details charges for use of a weapon of mass destruction, saying that the two “knowingly used, threatened, and attempted to use, a weapon of mass destruction—namely, a destructive device… against persons and property withing the United States…”

Counts three, four, and five all stem from the first two and reference transportation of explosive materials, interstate transportation and receipt of explosives, and the unlawful possession of destructive devices.

Blurb:

G7 nations said on Monday they were prepared to implement “necessary measures” in response to surging global oil prices but stopped short of committing to release emergency reserves, despite crude prices briefly surpassing $119 a barrel as the U.S.-Israel war on Iran continues.

“We are not there yet,” French Finance Minister Roland Lescure told reporters in Brussels, after hosting a teleconference meeting of G7 finance ministers.

A final statement following the meeting said the ministers “will continue to closely monitor the situation and developments in the energy markets and will meet as needed to exchange information and to coordinate within the G7 and with international partners.”

“We stand ready to take necessary measures, including to support global supply of energy such as stockpile release,” it added.

Oil prices hit their highest levels since mid‑2022 on Monday, propelled by fears of prolonged shipping disruption and reduced output from some major producers wary of the conflict escalating. However, the market reversed late in the day, with benchmarks falling below $90 a barrel, after President Donald Trump told CBS News that the war was “pretty much” complete.

Blurb:

Federal appeals court orders end to SAVE plan used by millions of student loan borrowers  CNBC
from news.google.com

A federal appeals court has ordered the end of the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan, the Biden-administration-era repayment program that brought lower monthly bills to millions of student loan borrowers.

In a judgment issued late on Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed a lower court’s dismissal of a Republican-led legal challenge against SAVE.

The panel of Eighth Circuit judges overturned a February decision by Judge John Ross of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Blurb:

It is one thing to ensure no human is illegal, but it is a whole other level when the left has decided foreign nationals can now enforce the law, while still being a citizen of another country. And this is exactly what the State of Washington has decided to impose on American citizens.

A state bill allowing some foreign nationals to serve as officers in the State of Washington is headed to the Governor’s desk, where he is expected to sign and approve it into law.

Blurb:

Kristen Welker’s softball Sunday interview on NBC with the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi reminded everyone again of an anti-American double standard. The liberals inside newsrooms put enormous pressure on interviewers to question Trump fiercely, while representatives of mass-murdering Islamist regimes get open-ended softballs.

Blurb:

One person has been killed in an Iranian attack in Bahrain, as regional countries including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates intercept drones and missiles from Iran.

A 29-year-old woman was killed and eight people injured when a residential building in Bahrain’s capital Manama was hit, the country’s Ministry of Interior said on Tuesday.

The attack came after Bahrain’s Ministry of Health reported on Monday that two people, including several children, were wounded in an Iranian drone attack on the island of Sitra, south of Manama. Bahrain said late on Monday that its air defences had intercepted and destroyed 102 missiles and 173 drones launched as “Iranian aggression” on the kingdom.

In a statement, the General Command of the Bahrain Defence Force described the attack as a “sinful Iranian aggression”.

Blurb:

Yamaha, the Japanese company that manufactures both musical instruments and audio equipment as well as motorcycles and marine equipment, is leaving Gavin Newsom’s California after being headquartered in the state for 50 years. This is yet another major business to pull up stakes and flee the Golden State, where taxes are insane, crime is out of control, and the Democrats in Sacramento hate business.

Yamaha is moving to Georgia.

Here’s more:

After nearly 50 years in Orange County, Yamaha Motor Corp. USA is packing up its headquarters — trading Cypress, California for Kennesaw, Georgia in a sweeping corporate shift that will impact about 250 workers.

The motorcycle and motorsports giant says the move is part of major “structural reforms” meant to boost profits as costs climb — including pressure from tariffs imposed during the administration of President Donald Trump and shifting market conditions.

The relocation won’t happen overnight. Yamaha plans to start the exit in late 2026, with the transition stretching into 2028.

Company spokesman Bob Starr said consolidating operations in Georgia simply makes business sense.

“In terms of efficiency, to have us all together in Georgia — all the functions of the business — it makes a lot of sense,” Starr said.

The departure marks another corporate blow for Cypress.

Blurb:

President Donald Trump’s administration has launched a federal fraud investigation into New York’s Medicaid program, citing unusually high spending levels in the state.

The probe is being led by Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Oz announced the probe, revealing that the numbers behind New York’s Medicaid spending raise serious questions.

“Heart surgeons are trained to look at the numbers,” Oz said in a video posted on X.

“When something doesn’t add up, you don’t ignore it; you investigate.

“Right now, the numbers coming out of New York’s Medicaid program don’t add up.”

Blurb:

During Monday’s CNN This Morning, panelist Susan Page of USA Today suggested President Trump missed an opportunity to negotiate with Iran after President Masoud Pezeshkian made a video statement on Saturday as a pledge to Gulf countries that they would stop attacks against them.

Spoiler alert: the attacks against gulf countries had not stopped since Pezeshkian has little to no power over the IRGC, something CNN contributor Brett McGurk pointed out earlier in the panel segment.

McGurk, while he reminded the viewers that Pezeshkian was an “accidental president,” pointed out the IRGC’s rejection of the president:

So, Pezeshkian is known as being, you know, somewhat of a moderate guy. That word is overused, but he’s not really kind of totally aligned with the real hardliners. He came out with a statement on Saturday morning apologizing to gulf states, saying, we’re going to stop these attacks, offering an off ramp, even. And President Trump then put out a statement saying that, you – they’re basically surrendering when it comes to the Middle East states but we’re going to continue the attacks. In any case, as soon as Pezeshkian spoke, within an hour or so, the hardline in Iran, the revolutionary guards said that is not our policy. And attacks against the gulf continued.

Blurb:

(LifeSiteNews) — Mobs of feminists across Mexico attempted to attack and vandalize several prominent Catholic churches during marches to commemorate International Women’s Day on Sunday.

A video posted across social media shows masked leftists torching the doors of an unidentified church in Querétaro. Other videos in Guadalajara and Puebla, Mexico, show dozens of Catholics forming human chains or standing in front of churches to protect them from vandalism while being screamed at and, in some cases, being hit with eggs and other objects.

Blurb:

According to CNN’s Data Analyst Harry Enten, you should not be surprised that people who have served in the military largely approve of the U.S. strikes on Iran when compared to voters overall.

He cites a Fox News Poll:

Among Republicans, more than 8 in 10 approve of the current U.S. use of force, while only 6 in 10 say the president’s actions on Iran are making the U.S. safer.

Nearly 8 in 10 Democrats disapprove of the U.S. strikes and think things are less safe because of Trump’s performance, while 6 in 10 or more independents think the same on both counts.

Among voters who have served in the military, 59% approve of the U.S. strikes on Iran (39% disapprove). Compared to voters overall, who say the U.S. is less safe by a wide margin, veterans are more closely divided on the question of whether Trump’s actions have made the country safer (37%) or less safe (44%).