A bill being introduced in the California state legislature would allow some Mexican students who live near the U.S.-Mexico border to pay in-state tuition for local community colleges in San Diego.

San Diego Assemblymember David Alvarez introduced the legislation that would allow low-income students who live within 45 miles of the state’s border with Mexico to be exempt from the nonresident tuition fee if they have ‘demonstrated a financial need for the exemption.’

It would place a limit of 10% of students per San Diego and Imperial Counties Community Colleges Association (SDICCCA) college to be exempt from the nonresident tuition fee each academic year.

‘We live in a dynamic border region where we need to educate more students to fill the jobs required for growth’ Alvarez said in a statement. ‘This bill will allow low-income residents who live close to the border to attend local community colleges.’

CBS8 reported that international students pay an average over $8,000 per semester for community college tuition, compared to about half of that for in-state students. 

Alvarez’s office, in a release, said that San Diego needs to double the number of people with post-secondary education by 2030 to meet the demand of the local economy.

The bill has the support of Southwestern College.

‘Southwestern College is the cornerstone for affordable and accessible higher education opportunities in the South County’ said Superintendent and President Dr. Mark Sanchez said. ‘Expanding affordable access to low-income, binational students will make a significant contribution to our region’s binational workforce and economy.’

CBS reported that the legislation now needs to go through the state’s education committee before being voted on in the chamber itself.

Legislation went into effect in California at the beginning of this year that removed the provision in California law that an individual must be a citizen or permanent resident of the United States in order to become a police officer so long as they are legally authorized to work.
 

The Montana legislature is considering a proposal that would interpret the state’s constitutional right to privacy to mean that it does not protect the right to an abortion, a move that would echo others in several states to severely restrict or ban abortion.

Sen. Keith Regier, the proposal’s sponsor, argued during a committee hearing Tuesday that the phrase ‘individual privacy’ in the state Constitution should also refer to unborn babies that are individuals who have rights that should not be infringed upon.

State efforts to regulate abortion became more urgent after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June — in the Dobbs v. Jackson case — to leave abortion rights up to the states. The ruling overturned the 1973 decision in the Roe v. Wade case that found the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provided a privacy right that protected the right to an abortion.

The Iowa Supreme Court in June cleared the way for lawmakers to limit or ban abortion in that state, reversing a decision issued by the court just four years earlier that guaranteed the right to abortion under the Iowa Constitution. Other states, meanwhile, including Minnesota and Maine, are taking steps to protect abortion access.

Earlier this month, the Idaho Supreme Court upheld a ban on abortions on the same day that justices in South Carolina blocked a law that would ban abortions after cardiac activity in the fetus can be detected.

Montana’s Constitution states: ‘The right to individual privacy is essential to the well-being of a free society and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest.’

‘Privacy was never intended as a cloak for abortion,’ said Bob Leach, a Republican activist who supports the bill that would effectively nullify a 1999 Montana Supreme Court ruling that protects a woman’s right to a pre-viability abortion.

But abortion rights advocates argued that the states protect privacy and, therefore, abortion.

Martha Fuller, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana, testified Tuesday that Montana’s constitutional right to privacy is one of the strongest in the nation. She was among several opponents who said the courts, not the Legislature, should determine what is or isn’t in the Constitution.

Supporters of Regier’s bill argue the Montana Supreme Court was wrong in its 1999 Armstrong ruling and Regier’s proposed law, which would likely face a legal challenge if it passed, would give the Montana Supreme Court a chance to reconsider its previous ruling.

Republican lawmakers also noted under Montana law, people can be charged with homicide for causing the death of a fetus. However, the law includes exceptions for abortions.

The Senate Judiciary Committee did not vote on Regier’s bill on Tuesday.

Under current Montana law, abortions are legal up to 24 weeks of gestation. The 2021 Legislature passed a law to reduce the time of gestation to 20 weeks, but a judge has blocked it from being enforced while the legal challenge is pending.

As part of the state’s defense of the 2021 abortion laws, Attorney General Austin Knudsen asked the state Supreme Court to overturn its 1999 Armstrong ruling.

The ruling states that the constitutional right to privacy leads to a right to personal autonomy that includes the right to make medical judgments affecting bodily integrity and a woman’s right to obtain a pre-viability abortion.

Knudsen said the framers of Montana’s 1972 Constitution did not include the right to an elective abortion in the document and he argues the issue should be left to the Legislature.

However, a group of Constitutional Convention delegates filed a brief in the case saying their intention was to leave it to the judiciary to determine what was included in Montana’s constitutional right to privacy. The state Supreme Court declined Knudsen’s request to take up the Armstrong ruling before the lower court held a hearing and ruled in the legal challenge to the 2021 abortion laws.

At a March for Life rally at the state Capitol last Friday, Knudsen again argued the Armstrong ruling should be overturned.

Gov. Greg Gianforte also spoke, saying efforts to restrict access to abortion also need to include ways to help families to care for children.

Gianforte noted his legislative proposals this year include increasing postpartum Medicaid coverage to a year, up from two months; the creation of a $1,200 annual tax credit for the parents of children under the age of 6 and who earn less than $50,000 a year; and a $5,000 tax credit for families that adopt children.

Florida Rep. Byron Donalds said Wednesday that his embattled Republican colleague, Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., should be allowed to sit on House committees while a potential ethics investigation into Santos’ conduct plays out. 

Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju about the Santos controversy, Donalds pointed out that Santos is far from the only politician to have lied about his past before getting elected to Congress.

‘In this country, you’re still innocent until proven guilty. There have been members who’ve – issues have come up in the past – they were allowed to be on their committees, be sat on committees. And then the legal process takes hold and we make adjustments,’ Donalds said. ‘That’s probably what’s going to happen today.’

Asked if he would join other lawmakers in calling for Santos to resign, Donalds said he wouldn’t.

‘No, I’ve been clear, I think that’s something between him and his voters,’ he said. ‘It’s unfortunate what has occurred, but, I mean, look, Richard Blumenthal was still a senator who lied about his service. He’s still a senator today.’

The Florida lawmaker was referring to decade-old allegations of stolen valor related to Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s false claim that he fought in the Vietnam War.

Blumenthal, a Democrat who was elected to the Senate in 2010, regularly referenced his supposed Vietnam service in the 2000s when he was Connecticut attorney general.

‘I served during the Vietnam era,’ Blumenthal reportedly said at a Vietnam War memorial in 2008. ‘I remember the taunts, the insults, sometimes even the physical abuse.’

Blumenthal reportedly obtained at least five military deferments between 1965 and 1970. He eventually served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve but did not deploy to Vietnam.

In 2010, Blumenthal admitted that he had ‘misspoken about my service, and I regret that, and I take full responsibility.’

Santos, a son of Brazilian immigrants who was elected to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District in November, faces his own controversies for numerous lies told on the campaign trail. A New York Times report revealed large portions of his backstory could not be substantiated, and he later admitted to fabricating degrees from Baruch College and New York University, as well as falsely claiming that he had worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.

He was also revealed to have lied about his Jewish heritage, is accused of running a fake charity for animals, and he is wanted by Brazilian authorities on charges relating to allegations of a stolen checkbook, according to the New York Times.

Republicans and Democrats in Congress have called on Santos to resign. Nassau County Republicans have also called on the disgraced congressman to step down, saying that his campaign for Congress was based on ‘deceit, lies and fabrication.’

The House Ethics Committee is widely expected to open a probe into Santos’ conduct, and he is also facing local, state and federal investigations into how he funded his House campaign.

Santos has refused all calls to resign.

Fox News’ Samuel Chamberlain contributed to this report.

The majority of Americans believe President Joe Biden inappropriately handled classified documents, according to a new poll that revealed the public is closely watching the investigation as many unanswered questions remain.

Classified documents were initially found at Biden’s private office at the Penn Biden Center in November, but the discovery was not disclosed to the public until January. After it was revealed the classified materials were recovered, Obama-era documents also turned up in the garage of Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home. 

A new Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday revealed that 60% of Americans believe Biden handled classified materials inappropriately, with only 22% saying he did the right thing in his handling of the materials.

According to the poll, 71% of Americans think the discovery of documents is either very serious or somewhat serious.

The White House has not explained why the discovery was not made public sooner after news former President Donald Trump may be in possession of classified materials was blasted almost immediately.

‘Roughly two-thirds of Americans are aware of and troubled by the misplaced classified documents found in President Biden’s home and private office. But is it a criminal case? No,’ Tim Malloy, Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst, said alongside the polling data.

As Biden weighs a 2024 re-election bid, the president saw a 4-point decrease in his approval when compared to a December Quinnipiac poll, with 53% now disapproving of the job he is doing as president.

According to the survey, 67% of individuals said they are following news about the discovery of these documents very closely.

Biden initially said he was ‘surprised’ to hear of the discovery, before telling Fox News’ Peter Doocy a few days later that he knew they were in his garage. ‘So the documents were in a locked garage?’ Doocy asked.

‘Yes, as well as my Corvette,’ Biden responded.

Fox News Digital recently hit the streets of Washington, D.C., to ask citizens what their thoughts were on the loose handling of classified materials after both Trump and Biden were found to have kept documents after leaving office. 

‘I think the public library does a better job of keeping track of their books,’ one man said, agreeing with the majority of individuals who expressed that the government should do more to protect these documents.

The poll also revealed that a majority of individuals, 68%, disapprove of how Biden is handling the crisis at the southern border, while 61% also disapprove of his handling of the economy after inflation hit a 40-year-high of 9.1% in June.

About 47% disapprove of Biden’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, along with the 54% who disapprove of how he is handling foreign policy.

The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted from Jan. 11-15 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

Fox News’ Jon Michael Raasch contributed to this report.

U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday that the fight against climate change will only succeed if people around the world take on a wartime footing and accelerate action to curb carbon emissions.

When asked if the world will meet the shared goal of limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5 Celsius by 2032, he said that target won’t be met given the current amount of effort being made.

‘We can’t hit 1.5,’ he said. ‘We’re not on track to do it now, and it’s not clear, absolutely clear that we will get on track.’,

‘We have to right now be deploying the largest solar field in the world, every day, for the next years in order hit the 1.5,’ he added. ‘We have to be deploying renewables six times faster than we are today.’

‘We can do this, but there is not yet the kind of commitment, broadly, that is necessary to make it happen,’ Kerry said.

He said much more ‘collective will’ is needed ‘as if we were at war and ready to turn factories into solar panel producers. I think some of that is what we need.’

Kerry told the World Economic Forum on Tuesday that another key to fighting climate change is ‘money, money, money, money, money, money, money.’ On Wednesday, he said governments need to find a way to encourage investment in green technology companies even when they are ‘slightly riskier.’

But Kerry said government can only do so much, and that it’s time to lean on private companies to fund the green revolution. He said even the Inflation Reduction Act, which promised hundreds of billions to fight climate change, isn’t enough.

‘All of us need to be doing even more,’ he said. ‘Frankly, we wanted to do more than what we’ve already done in the Inflation [Reduction] Act, which is extraordinary. President Biden started at $1 trillion plus.’

‘No government is going to solve this problem,’ he added. ‘Let’s understand that. No government has enough money to plug those trillions and do what we have to do. So like it or not, we must find a way to create the incentives that bring the private sector to the table.’

He said another key is getting governments to speed up decisions to allow for the installation of green infrastructure.

‘We don’t have time to do business as usual,’ he said. ‘You cannot take 10 years with endless litigation to decide whether or not you’re going to deploy a wind farm in a place where it obviously makes sense and where other people are deploying.’

Former President Donald Trump only kept folders marked ‘classified’ as a ‘cool keepsake’ from his time as president, he claimed Wednesday.

Trump made the claim on his Truth Social account, arguing that he ‘did nothing wrong,’ while accusing President Biden of wrongdoing for his own stashes of misplaced classified documents. Trump and Biden are both facing investigations into their mishandling of classified material, Trump for bringing it to Mar-a-Lago and Biden for keeping it in the garage of his Wilmington, Delaware home.

‘Remember, these were just ordinary, inexpensive folders with various words printed on them, but they were a ‘cool’ keepsake. Perhaps the Gestapo took some of these empty folders when they Raided Mar-a-Lago, & counted them as a document, which they are not,’ Trump wrote. 

‘It’s also possible that the Trump Hating Marxist Thugs in charge will ‘plant’ documents while they’re in possession of the material. As President, and based on the Presidential Records Act & Socks Case, I did NOTHING WRONG. JOE DID!’ he added.

Republicans and Democrats have sought to differentiate between accusations against Biden and Trump. Trump’s allies argue the Justice Department and the National Archives were far more lenient on Biden than they were on Trump, while Biden’s allies argue the lenience is due to White House lawyers fully cooperating with authorities and returning the documents when found.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents last week, tapping former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur. 

So far, Biden’s lawyers have discovered three batches of misplaced classified documents. They found the first in November, hidden away inside a closet at Washington office spaces belonging to the Penn Biden Center think tank. They discovered the second two batches inside the garage of Biden’s home in Wilmington.

The exact contents of the Biden documents remains unclear. The National Archives Records Administration (NARA) has stated it cannot share the information with Congress without approval from the DOJ.

Oklahoma’s current schedule of executing a death row inmate roughly every 30 days is placing too much of a burden on prison staff and should be slowed down, the state’s new attorney general wrote in a motion filed Wednesday with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who personally witnessed last week’s execution of Scott Eizember, asked the court to set the executions 60 days apart, rather than the current pace of 30 days apart.

‘One aspect that has become clear over time is that the current pace of executions is unsustainable in the long run, as it is unduly burdening the (Department of Corrections) and its personnel,’ Drummond wrote in the motion. ‘This is especially true given the extensive and intensive nature of the training DOC personnel undergo to prepare for each execution.’

Drummond said he made the request after meeting with DOC leaders and staff both before and after Eizember’s execution, which was the eighth the state has carried out since resuming lethal injections in October 2021.

The DOC said in a statement it appreciates Drummond’s request and his support for the agency.

‘The corrections professionals of this agency invest a significant amount of time in preparation to ensure these sentences are carried out with the utmost professionalism,’ the statement said. ‘As always, ODOC will abide by the schedule set by the Court of Criminal Appeals.’

Oklahoma currently has 20 executions scheduled roughly 30 days apart through 2024. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, Oklahoma has executed more inmates per capita than any other state in the nation, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

That pace continued until problems in 2014 and 2015 led to a de facto moratorium that lasted until 2021. Richard Glossip was just hours away from being executed in September 2015 when prison officials realized they received the wrong lethal drug. It was later learned the same wrong drug had been used to execute an inmate in January 2015.

The drug mix-ups followed a botched execution in April 2014 in which inmate Clayton Lockett struggled on a gurney before dying 43 minutes into his lethal injection — and after the state’s prisons chief ordered executioners to stop. It was later learned members of the execution team had improperly inserted an IV into a vein in Lockett’s groin.

As Louisiana continues to be plagued by insurance woes, with insurers leaving or going out of business in the hurricane-stricken state, some lawmakers say a special legislative session to address the crisis is imminent.

Discussions between Gov. John Bel Edwards, State Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon and legislative leadership about a possible special legislative session are ongoing, Eric Holl a spokesperson for the governor’s office told the Associated Press Tuesday.

State Senate President Page Cortez plans to meet with Edwards this week to finalize plans for a special session, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported. Cortez said that legislators are likely return to the Capitol next month. Louisiana’s regular legislative session begins April 10.

Donelon has pressed the governor to call a special session for months as insurance issues in Louisiana have spiraled.

Following a series of damaging hurricanes in 2020 and 2021 — Delta, Laura, Zeta and Ida — more than 610,000 residential property claims were filed in Louisiana, according to Louisiana Department of Insurance data. As a result, property insurers have paid out $18.4 billion in claims as of June 30,. About $11 billion of that total was paid to homeowners.

But as claims piled up, at least 11 insurance companies that wrote homeowners policies in the state have gone insolvent. Five of the firms left behind about 26,000 claims for the state’s bailout program to close out. In addition, at least a dozen other companies have withdrawn from the state, either by canceling existing policies or announcing they won’t renew them.

The situation has resulted in thousands of families paying higher premiums or moving forward without coverage.

Although Louisiana was spared from devastating storms last year, the state has seen hurricanes making landfall more frequently and leaving paths of destruction.

In addition, Hurricane Ian — although much of the damage was in Florida — is expected to have an effect on insurance outside of the Sunshine State. Many of the companies writing insurance policies in Louisiana are based in Florida, which has struggled to keep the insurance market healthy since 1992 when Hurricane Andrew flattened Homestead, wiped out some insurance carriers and left many remaining companies fearful to write or renew policies.

In December, Florida had a special session of its own legislature with the hopes of stabilizing the property insurance market.

In Louisiana, Donelon said he wants to fix the issue by bringing more companies to write policies in that state — a goal that he believes can be accomplished through resurrecting an incentive program. A similar plan was started after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.

Donelon is asking lawmakers to let him use $15 million in leftover premium tax revenue to get the incentive program started.

While lawmakers originally felt the issue could wait to be addressed during the state’s regular legislative session, Cortez said that in order to attract insurance companies to Louisiana they would have to get reinsurance, which is coverage bought to help ensure they can pay out claims. However, companies need to get reinsurance ahead of hurricane season, a process that occurs in late February or March.

Donelon has been invited to appear before the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget Friday to answer questions about the program and its immediate need.