Pennsylvania will direct up to $400 million in federal money over the next five years to reimburse organizations that train new infrastructure workers on the job, under an executive order signed Monday by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro.

A portion of the $19 billion that the state will receive from two federal programs for infrastructure projects will, under the governor’s order, fund the new training program.

Organizations doing infrastructure work — such as repairing roads and bridges, replacing lead pipes and expanding high speed internet — could receive up to $40,000 for each new worker they train. A maximum of $400,000 could be reimbursed through the program, which will be managed by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

The grants are meant to reimburse the cost of workers’ salaries and other training costs. Additionally, the money can be used to help employees with housing, child and dependent care, tools, uniforms, educational testing and transportation. The Shapiro administration aims to create 10,000 new jobs.

Shapiro said that reopening a collapsed section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia in less than two weeks showed ‘what’s possible when our highly skilled workers get to work and when we have their backs.’

‘We need the workforce to be able to do it,’ the governor said at a press conference in Pittsburgh. ‘So one of the biggest hurdles we face is having enough workers trained and ready for these kinds of projects at a time when we now have more money than ever before for this type of investment.’

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A group of left-wing senators led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., are demanding that the Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecute the fossil fuel industry over its alleged climate disinformation campaign.

In a letter Monday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Senate coalition — joined also by Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. — argued fossil fuel companies have conducted a ‘longstanding and carefully coordinated campaign’ to mislead Americans about the risks posed by global warming and ‘discredit climate science’ in pursuit of profits. If the DOJ were to pursue such a case again the fossil fuel industry, it would mark the first time the federal government got involved in climate nuisance litigation.

‘The actions of ExxonMobil, Shell, and potentially other fossil fuel companies represent a clear violation of federal racketeering laws, truth in advertising laws, consumer protection laws, and potentially other laws, and the Department must act swiftly to hold them accountable for their unlawful actions,’ the four senators wrote to Garland on Monday. 

‘The fossil fuel industry has had scientific evidence about the dangers of climate change and the role that burning fossil fuels play in increasing global temperatures for more than 50 years,’ the lawmakers continued. ‘Despite these companies’ knowledge about climate change and the role their industry was playing in driving carbon emissions, they chose to participate in a decades-long, carefully coordinated campaign of misinformation to obfuscate climate science and convince the public that fossil fuels are not the primary driver of climate change.’

According to the lawmakers, fossil fuel companies funded a multimillion-dollar ‘illegal misinformation’ plan through the American Petroleum Institute (API), the industry’s main national trade association, decades ago. 

They likened the campaign to the plan coordinated by the tobacco industry. A federal judge ruled in 2006 that the tobacco industry was guilty of a decades-long campaign of lying about the dangers of smoking.

‘Thanks to the illegal lies of the fossil fuel industry, climate change is wreaking catastrophic damage upon the United States. Floods, droughts, extreme weather disturbances, and wildfires are causing unprecedented damage,’ Sanders and the other senators wrote. 

‘These costs, and the costs of repairing our environment and transitioning away from fossil fuels, must not fall on American taxpayers. Instead, they must be borne by the parties responsible for driving climate change and lying about the negative impacts of their products,’ they added. ‘The polluters must pay.’

In addition, the letter argued the alleged disinformation campaign has allowed the industry to enjoy trillions of dollars in profits over the last three decades. It stated those profits have been made ‘off the backs of people all around the world, especially frontline communities.’

And the senators pointed to recent ‘record breaking heat levels’ as evidence of the urgent need for a DOJ prosecution of the fossil fuel industry. Over the last several weeks, large swaths of the U.S. have been blanketed by extreme heat, and 46 million Americans across the South remain under heat alerts.

However, in a statement, API pushed back against the letter Monday, saying it was committed to advocating for policies reducing emissions.

‘The record of the past two decades demonstrates that the industry is achieving its goal of providing affordable, reliable American energy to U.S. consumers while substantially reducing emissions and our environmental footprint,’ a spokesperson for API told Fox News Digital. ‘Any suggestion to the contrary is false.’

In 2021, API published its Climate Action Framework, which stated the group shares the ‘goal of reduced emissions across the broader economy and, specifically, those from energy production, transportation and use by society.’

The effort to push federal litigation against the fossil fuel industry comes amid dozens of similar climate nuisance cases filed at the state and local level over the past few years. Such cases have been filed by Delaware, Minnesota, Rhode Island and New Jersey, and the cities of Washington, D.C., New York City, Baltimore, Honolulu and San Francisco, in addition to several other cities and counties nationwide.

And the effort comes after a Democratic-led House investigation into Big Oil disinformation collapsed after Republicans won back majority control last year.

The board overseeing West Virginia’s four-year colleges and universities voted Monday to revoke a small Baptist university’s ability to award degrees, in response to its staggering debts.

Alderson Broaddus University will be prohibited from awarding degrees starting Dec. 31, the state Higher Education Policy Commission announced during an emergency meeting to address the school’s financial struggles, including $775,000 in utility debts.

‘While it is no secret that we’ve had challenges with AB being forthcoming with information and working with us, I can’t stress enough how critical it is right now for the leadership at AB to put their students first,’ Commission Chancellor Sarah Armstrong Tucker said.

She said the board is aware that some student-athletes and international students will be arriving at the private school as soon as this week. Fall classes are set to start next month for the school, which is made up of less than 1,000 students.

‘Can you imagine being these students? Can you imagine being their parents or loved ones right now — not knowing if this institution can remain open for the duration of the semester?’ she said.

During the meeting, the university board’s chairperson, James Garvin, asked for a decision to be postponed two days, saying other school officials were out of town and unable to attend on short notice. Garvin said the recommendation to ask for a continuance came from the office of Republican Gov. Jim Justice. The commission denied his request.

Tucker said the board hired a consultant that is working with the university on teach-out plans to ensure students are able to finish their course of study. But, she said, ‘frankly very little has been done by AB on its own to provide teach-out plans for students or to communicate to the campus community the dire situation the institution is in.’ She said several private and public institutions in the state have agreed to transfer Alderson Broaddus University students if needed.

The city of Philippi had sent a notice last week specifying the amount of overdue utility debt at Alderson Broaddus.

Monday was the deadline for the university’s utilities to be shut off if a payment had not been made, according to the commission.

The school announced Thursday it would pay the city $67,000 on Monday and follow a structured plan for regular payments to resolve the remaining balance. A university statement said the agreement with the city highlights a commitment ‘to open communication and mutual understanding.’

During Monday’s meeting, Garvin confirmed that the money had been ‘tendered and delivered’ earlier that day.

Justice said in his weekly briefing earlier Monday that while no one wants the school to close, ‘this is not a brand new problem. There’s been a lot of mountains and barriers that have been created by whatever it may be, and the inevitable may be the inevitable.’

Earlier this month the commission gave the university temporary approval to continue awarding degrees through next June but said it would reconsider if Alderson Broaddus did not meet the state’s criteria for financial stability. As part of that meeting, the commission required the university to have plans in place by Oct. 1 for the ‘teach-out’ or transfer of current students as well as arranging for student transcripts and financial aid records to be secured with a third party. Alderson Broaddus also was required to provide monthly financial reports to the state.

The school, which was founded in 1932, has been struggling financially for several years. Alderson Broaddus was placed on probation in 2017 by its accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission. The probation was lifted in 2019 although the school remained on notice to continue addressing areas of concern.

The commission also was told earlier this month that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had previously agreed to restructure a $27 million loan to the university to allow for a more flexible cash flow. The school was offered assistance through a USDA program providing loans and grants to help expand economic opportunities and create jobs in rural areas.

In April, the university sought alumni contributions to raise immediate funds. That month, Andrea Bucklew, the school’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, was named interim president after the retirement of James Barry.

Another state school, private Ohio Valley University in Wood County, went bankrupt and abruptly closed in 2021.

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President Biden has informed the Department of Defense that the U.S. Space Command Headquarters will remain in Colorado, rejecting a push by former President Donald Trump to move operations to Alabama. 

Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said Biden had consulted with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and senior military leaders before deciding that Colorado Springs, Colorado, will remain as the permanent location of the U.S. Space Command Headquarters. 

Having the U.S. Space Command’s headquarters remain in Colorado Springs, Ryder said, will ensure that the U.S. maintains ‘peak readiness in the space domain… during a critical period.’ 

‘It will also enable the command to most effectively plan, execute and integrate military spacepower into multi-domain global operations in order to deter aggression and defend national interests,’ he said. 

Senior U.S. officials told The Associated Press that the head of Space Command, Gen. James Dickinson convinced the president that moving his headquarters would jeopardize military readiness. Dickinson’s view, however, was in contrast to Air Force leadership, who studied the issue at length and determined that relocating to Huntsville, Alabama, was the right move.

The president, they said, believes that keeping the command in Colorado Springs would avoid a disruption in readiness that the move would cause, particularly as the U.S. races to compete with China in space. And they said Biden firmly believes that maintaining stability will help the military be better able to respond in space over the next decade. Those factors, they said, outweighed what the president believed would be any minor benefits of moving to Alabama.

Formally created in August 2019, the command was temporarily based in Colorado, and Air Force and Space Force leaders initially recommended it stay there. In the final days of his presidency, Trump decided it should be based in Huntsville.

Biden’s decision is sure to enrage Alabama lawmakers and fuel accusations that abortion politics played a role in the choice. The location debate has become entangled in the ongoing battle between Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville and the Defense Department over the move to provide travel for troops seeking reproductive health care. Tuberville opposed the policy is blocking hundreds of military promotions in protest.

Sen. Tuberville accused President Biden of having ‘inserted politics’ into the debate over whether to move Space Command to Alabama. 

‘The top three choices for Space Command headquarters were all in red states – Alabama, Nebraska, and Texas,’ Tuberville said in a statement. ‘Colorado didn’t even come close. This decision to bypass the three most qualified sites looks like blatant patronage politics, and it sets a dangerous precedent that military bases are now to be used as rewards for political supporters rather than for our security.’  

U.S. officials said the abortion issue had no effect at all on Biden’s decision. And they said the president fully expected there would be different views on the matter within the Defense Department.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

House Republicans on Monday launched an investigation into the Justice Department’s decision to sign off on Hunter Biden’s ‘sweetheart’ plea deal that was rejected by a federal judge last week.

Fox News Digital obtained the letter sent Monday by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland that asks for additional information on the DOJ’s approval of the deal.

Judge Maryellen Noreika of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware declined to accept the plea and pretrial diversion agreements with Hunter Biden during his first court appearance on Wednesday related to federal tax and gun charges he faces. She described the DOJ’s deal as ‘not standard’ and ‘different from what I normally see.’

‘Given recent unusual events relating to the Department’s plea and pretrial diversion agreements with Mr. Biden, we write to better understand the Department’s decision to sign off on such apparently atypical agreements,’ the committee chairmen wrote.

The letter noted the multiple provisions within the agreement that were of concern to Noreika, and said they raise ‘serious concerns about how the Department has handled this matter.’

It also noted the ‘troubling’ provision that would have prevented charges against Hunter Biden if he had violated the agreement, and accused the DOJ of potentially shielding him from congressional oversight by claiming investigations into the president’s son are still ongoing.

The chairmen requested the DOJ to provide information related to other pretrial diversions it offered in other cases over the last 10 years, as well as ‘a generalized description of the nature of the Department’s ongoing investigation(s) concerning Hunter Biden,’ and ‘an explanation of why the Department originally agreed to a plea agreement if other investigation(s) concerning Hunter Biden are ongoing.’

The deadline for the DOJ to respond to the letter’s demands is ‘no later than 5:00 p.m. on August 14, 2023.’

The DOJ did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.