DeSantis ally appointed president of Florida’s only public HBCU
CNN
Marva Johnson, a telecommunications executive, will become the 13th president of Florida A&M University, despite opposition from thousands of students and alumni.
Marva Johnson, a telecommunications executive, will become the 13th president of Florida A&M University, despite opposition from thousands of students and alumni. The Florida Board of Governors voted Wednesday to confirm Johnson’s appointment by the FAMU board of trustees. FAMU is Florida’s only public historically Black college. Several students and alumni spoke out during the Board of Governors meeting, receiving applause from the audience after each speech. “To date, we do not feel heard,” Kimberly Godwin, a FAMU alumna and former president of ABC News, told the board. “Marva Johnson is not ready to lead the nation’s number one public HBCU. Ms. Johnson did not earn this. She does not have the best résumé. She did not have a good on-campus interview. She appeared unprepared and shortsighted and did not present well to our stakeholders.” “As students, as primary stakeholders in this university, we are very concerned about the future of our university,” said Devin Nobles Jr., a computer engineering student at FAMU. “If you guys confirm this candidate, it is to reaffirm to all of us — our students, our faculty, our staff, alumni, the 18,000 people who signed a petition online — that our voices do not matter.” Alumni groups, students and faculty members say they are largely concerned about Johnson’s work under Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, who banned funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs at Florida colleges and blocked advanced placement African American studies curriculum in Florida high schools.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?
The Army gynecologist described in a recent lawsuit as a “predator in uniform” is now being held in the Bell County Jail in Texas, “after apparently violating conditions of liberty imposed by his commander,” according to an Army spokesperson.
Brian Walshe on Thursday came face-to-face for the first time with the man who had been having an affair with his wife before her death, as he took the stand to testify in Walshe’s murder trial.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a congressional map that will boost President Donald Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress, blocking a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.