California cannot ban the importation and sale of crocodile and alligator products, a federal judge has ruled, in a victory for the state of Louisiana, which challenged the ban along with businesses in multiple states.

Federal law controls trade in those products and preempts California from barring trade in them, Chief U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller in Sacramento, California, wrote in a ruling dated Tuesday.

Mueller had already blocked enforcement of the law while lawsuits challenging it played out in her court. Plaintiffs included businesses based in California, Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Montana and Wyoming.

The California ban had covered products made from alligators and two species of crocodile — Nile and Saltwater. All can be sold legally under international treaty and U.S. federal law.

Mueller rejected arguments that California was only seeking to regulate activity within the state. ‘California is not regulating crocodile takings with its borders,’ she wrote. ‘Nothing in the record suggests crocodiles reside in California, migrate into California or have been introduced into California.’

According to the court record, the Nile crocodile is listed as threatened and some species of saltwater crocodile are threatened or endangered.

The American alligator is no longer threatened or endangered — there are now an estimated 2.9 million in Louisiana in the wild or on farms — but it’s treated as threatened because alligator products can be difficult to tell apart from products made from endangered crocodiles.

Louisiana argued in filing the suit that the economy surrounding alligators has played a key role in bringing back the American alligator population and is an important factor in protecting wetlands and other species besides alligators that depend on the wetlands.

Louisiana said that because most of the state’s coastal habitat is privately owned, the state does not have direct control over how it is managed. But the alligator industry provides economic incentives for landowners to take steps to protect marshlands that serve as habitat for the alligators.

Conservationists noted those similarities in arguing to keep the California ban, saying that products from threatened and non-threatened species are so nearly identical that traffickers can easily disguise illegal products.

But Mueller, nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2010, said federal law and regulations spelling out how and when skins and other products from the animals can be imported, exported and sold cannot be preempted by California.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said Mueller’s ruling helps preserve the state’s successful alligator conservation efforts.

State officials have long held that careful wildlife management, together with alligator farming, have led to a recovery of the state’s alligator population from fewer than 100,000 five decades ago. The state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries estimates the value of alligators harvested in the wild or farm-raised at $245 million annually.

‘The alligator trade has directly led to the resurgence and conservation of the American alligator as well the protection and maintenance of their natural wetland habitat,’ Landry said in a news release Wednesday. ‘California’s ban would have completely disrupted the entire supply chain – not only decimating the industry and our wetland protection programs, but also removing over $100 million from Louisiana’s annual economy.’

An attorney for California did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Republican Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin let loose on Teamsters president Sean O’Brien during a heated Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on Wednesday as the two clashed over O’Brien’s salary compared to that of his union members.

The minutes long confrontation began with Mullin, who owns and operates a plumbing business, declaring he was ‘not against unions,’ but also pointing to the intimidation he said he and his employees received from unions when they started being awarded jobs that typically went to union workers.

‘They would show up at my house. They’d be leaning up against my trucks. I’m not afraid of a physical confrontation, in fact sometimes I look forward to it. That’s not my problem. But when you’re doing that to my employees?’ Mullin said. 

‘For what? Because we were paying higher wages? Because we had better benefits, and [weren’t] requiring them to pay your guys’ absorbent salaries?’ he added, before asking O’Brien what he made as a salary.

O’Brien began to answer, but Mullin continued, saying he made $193,000 a year in 2019 while stating the average driver makes $35,000 a year. ‘And what do you bring to the table?’ he then asked O’Brien.

‘That’s inaccurate. State facts. That’s inaccurate,’ O’Brien responded as the two began to talk over each other.

Mullin repeated his statistic on salaries and said, ‘If you don’t know your facts, then maybe you shouldn’t be in your position.’ He then restated his earlier question to O’Brien, asking what he brought to the table for his large salary.

‘What job have you created – one job – other than sucking the paycheck out of somebody else?’ he asked.

‘You’re out of line man,’ O’Brien responded as committee Chair Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., attempted to stop the back and forth and provide space for O’Brien to respond to Mullin.

The two ignored Sanders and continued talking over each other, appearing to grow increasingly frustrated, before Mullin said, ‘Sir, you need to shut your mouth because you don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You’re going to tell me to shut my mouth?’ O’Brien responded, before mocking Mullin’s opening statement in which he said he wasn’t ‘afraid’ of a physical altercation.

Sanders eventually quieted the two and made Mullin provide O’Brien time to speak.

O’Brien, however, continued digging at Mullin, saying, ‘As far as my salary goes – my salary, if you follow me around – I actually looked at this building. I bet you I work more hours than you do. Twice as many hours.’

‘That’s impossible,’ Mullin responded, to which O’Brien said, ‘That’s true.’

‘Sir, you don’t even know what hard work is,’ Mullin said. 

O’Brien went on to claim ‘most’ tractor trailer drivers make over $100,000 a year before the two continued sparring over each other’s salaries and taking personal digs at each other.

After the hearing, Mullin continued to slam O’Brien in a statement to Fox News Digital, also ripping Sanders for not addressing what he called O’Brien’s ‘lack of decorum’ at the hearing.

‘The behavior we saw today was typical of how union bosses, many of whom have never created a single job, use intimidation tactics to pressure employees into joining unions which some workers may deem to be against their interests,’ Mullin said. ‘I find it unacceptable that Chairman Bernie Sanders did nothing to address the lack of decorum from the witness panel.’

‘As a business owner, I’ve seen firsthand how unions have tried to intimidate employees who receive better pay and benefits than unionized workers. Union bosses conveniently ignore the fact that defending the rights of all workers means defending those who do not want to join a union. If union bosses, like those we saw today, reject common sense measures like private ballots and right-to-work, I have a major problem with that,’ he said.

‘This should be simple: American workers and their families should have the freedom to decide what to do with their hard-earned income. As the Senator from Oklahoma, a booming right-to-work state, I will always support workers’ free ability to choose for themselves whether or not to join a union,’ he added.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Teamsters for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Watch the full video of the altercation here.

The House on Wednesday rejected a resolution from Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., requiring the U.S. to remove the roughly 900 service members stationed in Syria that some say are beating back terrorists that could threaten the U.S. homeland if left unchecked, but others warn have become mired in Syria’s civil war.

The resolution failed in a 103-321 vote that split both parties. Republicans opposed it in a 47-171 vote, and Democrats rejected it 56-150.

Similar to debates in past years, critics of the decision to place a small force in Syria say that force is there without any authorization from Congress. Officially, they are justified under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was used to authorize action against those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, but Gaetz and others said Congress needs a more current authority to send troops abroad than one that was passed more than 20 years ago.

They also argued more plainly that the U.S. needs to stop acting as a global police force, and that it should remove itself from a civil war in Syria regardless of warnings that Syria could play a determining role in the strength of ISIS and other terrorist groups.

‘I do not believe that what stands between a caliphate and not a caliphate are the 900 Americans who have been sent to this hellscape with no definition of victory, with no clear objective and purely existing as a vestige to the regime change failed foreign policies of multiple former presidents,’ Gaetz said.

Others argued that most Americans don’t see a military presence in Syria as a priority.

‘No one in my district ever demands, ‘Marjorie, we must go to war in Syria,’’ said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

Most other lawmakers on both sides opposed the resolution and say that while they agree Congress should update the AUMF so it can better apply to the situation in Syria, it would be a mistake to quickly require U.S. troops to leave.

‘None of us want our soldiers overseas and in harm’s way any longer than is absolutely necessary,’ said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas. ‘If we withdraw our troops from Syria now, we could see a resurgence of ISIS or another legal successor in short time.’

‘This measure forces a premature end to our mission at a critical time for our efforts,’ said Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on McCaul’s committee.

These opponents argued that the 2001 AUMF does provide a valid legal justification for the presence of troops in Syria, and that both President Trump and President Obama used that authority to put troops into operation there.

Gaetz introduced his resolution last month, shortly after U.S. Central Command confirmed that four U.S. service members were injured in Syria during a joint operation with Syrian Democratic Forces to kill ISIS leader Hamza al-Homsi.

That admission prompted Gaetz to argue that only Congress has the power to declare war and that Congress has never authorized the use of U.S. troops in Syria.

The Senate voted 81-14 on Wednesday to block the Washington, D.C. city council’s dramatic overhaul of its criminal code that Republicans and many Democrats complained would ease criminal penalties in a city that is already suffering from rising crime rates.

In the final vote, only 14 Democrats voted against the resolution aimed at reversing the D.C. law, which was originally the product of the House’s new Republican majority. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. and most other Democrats voted to kill the D.C. crime law.

Once the resolution is signed by the president, as is expected, it will mark the first time Congress has acted to roll back DC’s own self-imposed regulations in more than 30 years, a power Congress has under the Constitution.

Republicans said Democrats, including President Biden, were forced to accept the resolution because the reality of soaring crime in the nation’s capital can’t be ignored.

‘We’re the greatest superpower nation history. This is our capital city. But local politicians have let the streets become a danger and an embarrassment,’ Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said before the vote on Wednesday.

The vote followed a few weeks of frustration for Biden’s allies, as the White House sent conflicting messages on the resolution.

Last month, after Biden indicated he opposed the resolution that would gut the D.C. law, just 31 House Democrats joined the Republican majority to pass it. Reports suggested that many Democrats who voted against it felt like Biden left them high and dry when he reversed course and said he would not veto it if it came to his desk.

‘The White House put out a formal statement opposing us,’ McConnell said of the White House reversal. ‘The vast majority of House Democrats voted against us, but then President Biden had an epiphany, he reversed himself. The public pressure was so great, the president now says he wants to sign the same Republican bill that he’d previously announced he opposed.’

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., told reporters after Biden’s about-face last week that he was ‘disappointed’ in the president’s decision.

‘First of all, I hope the Senate would not pass it, but I think it’s pretty clear they will. And to me, the Congress should not substitute its judgment for the elected representatives of the people in the District of Columbia. I wouldn’t want them to do that for Baltimore, I don’t want them to do that for any of our other local jurisdictions,’ Cardin said at the time.

The proposed DC law would have lowered the maximum penalties for crimes such as carjackings and robberies, while raising them for murders. Nearly all misdemeanor cases would also include the right to a jury trial.

The Senate forged ahead with the vote even after DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said he would scrap the new law and tried to withdraw it from congressional review earlier this week. Mayor Muriel Bowser opposed the bill and vetoed it – though the council overrode her veto.

House leadership from both parties is demanding answers about the ‘significant data breach’ of DC Health Link resulting in personal information like Social Security numbers of House members and their staff being sold on the ‘dark web.’ 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote to DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority Executive Director Mila Kofman Wednesday, seeking more information on the data breach of DC Health Link, a health insurance marketplace used by hundreds of congressional offices.

‘At this moment, the cause, size and scope of the data breach affecting DC Health Link could not be determined by the FBI,’ the letter states.

‘Thousands of House Members and employees from across the United States have enrolled in health insurance through DC Health Link for themselves and their families since 2014. The size and scope of impacted House customers could be extraordinary.’ 

The letter notes that the breach of data includes personal identifiable information (PII), like Social Security numbers. 

‘The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also informed us that they were able to purchase this PII, along with other enrollee information on the ‘dark web’ breached from your systems, including names of spouses, dependent children, their Social Security numbers, and home addresses,’ the letter states. 

‘This breach significantly increases the risk that Members, staff, and their families will experience identity theft, financial crimes, and physical threats — already an ongoing concern.’ 

The letter notes that, ‘fortunately, the individuals selling the information appear unaware of the high-level sensitivity of the confidential information in their possession, and its relation to the Members of Congress.

‘This will certainly change as media reports more widely publicize the breach.’ 

The House Chief Administrative Office emailed House staffers and members Wednesday informing them of the breach ‘exposing the Personal Identifiable Information (PII) of thousands of enrollees.’ 

In the email, the CAO gives information to members and staff about how to freeze their credit. 

‘We are deeply concerned about DC Health Link’s data breach and the impact on our members and staff. We will continue to communicate any updates we receive from law enforcement to impacted members and staff,’ a CAO spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

Senate staffers also received a similar memo from their ‘Senate Operations Center’ regarding a breach.

School choice legislation passed the Republican-held Arkansas State Legislature on Tuesday afternoon and will head to Gov. Sarah Sanders’ desk for her signature.

Senate Bill 294, also known as ‘Arkansas LEARNS’, passed 26-8, marking the latest win for school choice. Arkansas is the latest of the Republican-led states to follow in the footsteps of Arizona, which became the first state to pass universal education scholarship accounts to all 1.1 million of their K-12 students in 2022. 

‘A HISTORIC WIN for parents, teachers, and students that will set the education model for the nation, I’m ready to sign it into law tomorrow and end the failed status quo,’ Sanders tweeted. ‘Every kid will soon have access to a quality education and path to a good paying job and better life, right here in Arkansas.’

The Arkansas legislation will broaden school choice and includes a plan for the state to adopt universal choice by the 2025-2026 school year. The bill will gradually provide vouchers through ‘Education Freedom Accounts,’ which equal 90% of funding allocated per student to each public school district in the previous year. 

Some groups of students are eligible to receive the voucher for the 2023-2024 school year, including those who have disabilities; are homeless; have a parent who is active-duty in the military; attended an F-rated school in the previous school year; or are entering kindergarten for the first time.

‘This isn’t an us vs. them, red vs. blue, teachers vs. the legislature,’ Republican Sen. Breanne Davis said during the Senate session. ‘This is all of us working together and rooting for the success of our children.’ 

The bill also seeks to eliminate critical race theory from classrooms, will fund 120 new literacy coaches for students, and will increase the base salary for teachers from $36,000 to $50,000 — the fourth-highest for teachers in the U.S.

Arkansas LEARNS also bans instruction on topics about sexually explicit materials, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, gender identity and sexual orientation in classrooms before fifth grade. The legislation also requires students to complete 75 community service hours in order to receive their diploma.

The bill now heads to the governor’s desk to be signed into law. 

To hear more about school choice, click here.