Red states could benefit as Trump’s transportation secretary prioritizes funds based on birth and marriage rates
CNN
A plan to target federal funds for communities with birth and marriage rates above the national average could end up disproportionately benefiting pro-Trump areas, according to a CNN analysis of Census and health data.
In a Fox News segment last year on America’s declining birth rate, former congressman Sean Duffy joked about how he would “lose count” of his nine kids, and urged viewers to follow his lead in having more children. “If you look at what’s good for country and society, it’s to reproduce, to have kids,” Duffy declared. “That shows that you’re healthy, you’re strong, and you’re patriotic.” Now, in his new position in President Donald Trump’s cabinet, Duffy is writing that philosophy into an unlikely area of federal policy: transportation funding. The day after he was sworn in as Secretary of Transportation, Duffy issued a four-page memo to align the department’s grants with what he described as “sound economic principles.” One of his new directives: the department should give a “preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average” in programs and funding. That move could end up disproportionately benefiting pro-Trump areas, according to a CNN analysis of Census and health data and other research charting the wide variations in birth and marriage rates around the US. Duffy’s order – which was foreshadowed by his public warnings that a falling birth rate is a “crisis” for the country – echoes rhetoric pushed by conservative activists and Trump allies like Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance, who have long raised the alarm about the declining numbers of births and marriages.
The au pair who was having an extra-marital affair with Brendan Banfield when he allegedly killed his wife and another man in February 2023 is set to resume her pivotal testimony in Banfield’s double-murder trial Wednesday morning.
President Donald Trump unveiled in rapid succession last week a series of proposals aimed at reducing Americans’ cost of living, focused on housing and credit card debt.
Illinois and Minnesota sued the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown. But they may have a tough road ahead of them in court, one legal analyst says.
Whether it’s conservatives who have traditionally opposed birth control for religious reasons or left-leaning women who are questioning medical orthodoxies, skepticism over hormonal birth control is becoming a shared talking point among some women, especially in online forums focused on health and wellness.
Former election clerk Tina Peters’ prison sentence has long been a rallying cry for President Donald Trump and other 2020 election deniers. Now, her lawyers are heading back to court to appeal her conviction as Colorado’s Democratic governor has signaled a new openness to letting her out of prison early.
The Trump administration’s sweeping legal effort to obtain Americans’ sensitive data from states’ voter rolls is now almost entirely reliant upon a Jim Crow-era civil rights law passed to protect Black voters from disenfranchisement – a notable shift in how the administration is pressing its demands.
Venezuelan officials, including acting President Delcy Rodriguez, returned to X late Tuesday in an apparent reversal of Nicolas Maduro’s 2024 decision to block the site in the country.
The woman killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week served on the board of her son’s school, which linked to documents encouraging parents to monitor ICE and directing them to training.
During a marathon Supreme Court session Tuesday over whether states may ban transgender women from participating in women and girls’ sports, some justices were already focused on what may lie around the corner
President Donald Trump appeared to flip someone off as he toured a Michigan Ford plant in an incident caught on video Tuesday, and the White House defended the action as an “appropriate” response to someone screaming at the commander-in-chief.
White House officials are heaping blame on DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro over her office’s criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell, faulting her for blindsiding them with an inquiry that has forced the administration into a dayslong damage control campaign, four people familiar with the matter told CNN.
The interim Venezuelan government has freed at least four Americans who were imprisoned in Venezuela, a source familiar with the matter told CNN on Tuesday.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is now providing free internet access via its Starlink satellite service to users in Iran as the country’s regime continues its bloody crackdown on anti-government protests, according to a tech expert in touch with Iranian Starlink users.