Stories Speak Volumes: Mar 10-Mar 13
A Round-Up of National and International News
Compiled by
There are so many stories making up the mosaic of national/international news that we can’t cover them all every week. The biggest stories now seem to be: Israel and Iran, the Trump presidency (lawfare and judges), immigration (migrants and illegals), wars, weaponization of government (the deep state) against Trump and conservatives, our nation’s debt, massive inflation, climate change controversy and related expenses of government, industry attempting to address these issues, the Chinese threat, national security, abortion, taxpayer cuts, Ukraine peace, and hatred and violence against Christians. Here are just a few:
Elon Musk Offers to Cover Pay for TSA Agents As Shutdown Drags On
March 21: Breitbart by Lowell Cauffiel
Elon Musk is offering to cover the salaries of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel during the ongoing partial government shutdown — which a maverick Democrat senator is saying “should never” have “come to this point.”
“This is incredibly generous,” Sen, John Fetterman (D-PA) responded on X. “TSA agents across the country are relying on food pantries and community donations to get by. I remain the lone Dem to vote with my Republican colleagues to fully fund DHS and get people paid.” The Pennsylvania senator added, “It should never come to this point.” With his opposition to the shutdown, Fetterman continues to forge a reputation as his party’s maverick, also breaking with Democrat party lines on immigration, Israel and the Iran war.
Musk makes his offer as the partial government shutdown passes one month, with lawmakers unable to reach a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the TSA. As a result, TSA agents working without pay, resulting in staffing shortages and long airport lines nationwide. The standoff is also raising concerns about the ability to prevent attacks.
Republican lawmakers have pushed to fund DHS, while Democrats have sought standalone funding for agencies like TSA that would exclude immigration operations. Under federal rules TSA officers are considered essential employees and are required to report to work even during a shutdown, though pay can be delayed.
Republicans Put Leftists on the Record with Senate Vote on Biological Men in Women’s Sports
March 21: Red State by Becca Lower
Senate Democrats blocked a move by Senate Republicans to modify a Trump-backed voter ID bill with a provision that would halt men in women’s sports. The amendment to the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act from Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., was one of several tweaks to the legislation requested by President Donald Trump.
Tuberville’s amendment could have codified Trump’s earlier executive order from last year to ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports — a culture war flashpoint between Republicans and Democrats that, unless turned into law, will likely be reversed should a Democratic administration take over in 2028.
**The 41 senators who voted “No” on the cloture motion** (failing to advance the Tuberville-Blackburn amendment #4421 to the SAVE America Act, which would have withheld federal funds from schools allowing biological males/transgender women to compete in women’s/girls’ sports) were all the present Democrats plus the two Independents who caucus with them.
This was a strict party-line vote: **49 Republicans voted Yes**; the amendment needed 60 votes to invoke cloture but fell short at **49-41** (with 10 senators not voting).
Robot Goes Berserk in California Restaurant Until Restrained by Staff
March 22: Breitbart by Lucas Nolan
Staff members at a restaurant in Cupertino, California, were forced to physically restrain a humanoid robot after it began wildly flailing its arms and smashing dishware during a performance.
TechCrunch reports that a humanoid robot performing at a hot pot restaurant in Cupertino, California, created a chaotic scene when it began moving erratically, breaking plates and scattering chopsticks across the dining area. The incident required at least three employees to physically restrain the machine as it continued to swing its arms unpredictably.
The situation raised immediate safety concerns given the nature of hot pot dining, which involves serving extremely hot soup in bowls at the table used to cook raw meat. Beyond the inconvenience of broken dishware, the potential for the robot to knock over containers of boiling broth posed a serious burn risk to nearby customers. Additionally, the robot’s uncontrolled movements created the possibility of blunt-force injuries to diners and staff.
It remains unclear whether the staff knew how to operate a kill switch for the robot, if one existed. The employees’ apparent difficulty in shutting down the machine suggests a possible gap in training or emergency procedures for handling such situations.
In response to the incident, the restaurant provided a statement to NBC News addressing the event but disputed characterizations of the robot as malfunctioning. “In this case, the robot was brought closer to a dining table at a guest’s request, which is not its typical operating setting,” the restaurant chain stated. “The limited space affected its movement during the performance.”
Trump Says No Deal Should Be Made on DHS Funding Until SAVE Act Passed
March 22: Breitbart by Elizabeth Weibel
President Donald Trump said that while Democrat lawmakers want to make a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), he feels there should be no deal made “until they approve” the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.
Linda McMahon Threatens to Pull San Jose State University’s Funding Over Title IX Violations
March 22: Gateway Pundit by Seth Segal
According to Campus Reform, “The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights recently threatened to rescind funding from San Jose State University after becoming locked in a stalemate with the school over its Title IX violations.” These violations were in regard to noncompliance regarding “transgender” athletes, otherwise known as Men in Women’s sports.
According to The Office For Civil Rights, “OCR concluded that SJSU’s policies allowing males to compete in women’s sports and access female-only facilities deny women equal educational opportunities and benefits,” the letter stated. According to this department, San Jose State University caused Female athletes “significant harm.” In addition, the release stated the University policies have created “unfairness in competition, compromising safety, and denying women equal opportunities in athletics, including scholarships and playing time.”
The American public is overwhelmingly against Men in Female sports, but apparently, some schools continue to defy the public will and the Executive Orders of the Trump Administration.
The official from The Office for Civil Rights also stated in the press release that “This is unacceptable. We will not relent until SJSU is held to account for these abuses and commits to upholding Title IX to protect future athletes from the same indignities.”
Trump Rejects John Thune’s Proposal to Fund DHS Without ICE
March 23: Breitbart by Nick Gilbertson
President Donald Trump reportedly rejected Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s (R-SD) proposal to cut a deal with Democrats to fund the Department of Homeland Security without funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The president wants Republicans to stay in D.C. and keep fighting with Democrats over DHS funding and the SAVE America Act, the GOP’s voter ID and proof-of-citizenship bill. Not only that, Trump warned that he’d publicly slam Senate Republicans if they left town for the upcoming recess. Trump also said he’d invite all the GOP senators and their families for Easter dinner at the White House.
Trump took to Truth Social Sunday night to emphasize he is against cutting a deal with Democrats. He called for bundling the SAVE America Act with DHS funding. Thune’s proposal comes as Transportation Security Administration (TSA) wait times at airports have spiked sharply amid the DHS shutdown.
United States Digital Service Stops Over $1B In Student Loan Fraud
March 23: Red State by Bob Hoge
Fraudsters used AI-generated identities and stolen personal information to create applications that appeared legitimate. These were fake students enrolling to access real money. Under the Biden Administration, less than 1% of applicants were required to verify their identity, so scammers took advantage and stole taxpayer dollars.
Colleges and universities across the country reported being under siege by highly sophisticated fraud rings. They called on the Trump Administration for help. A nationwide identity verification effort launched and quickly exposed the scale of the problem. Nearly 150,000 suspicious identities were discovered in just the first week. Applications are now being flagged and stopped in real time, protecting taxpayer dollars and driving even more savings in the near future. This year, crackdowns continue, going further, moving faster, and closing the gaps that allowed this to happen.
Senate Confirms Mullin to Be DHS Chief
March 23: Politico by Eric Bazail-Eimil
The Senate voted Monday to confirm Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma to be the next Homeland Security secretary, thrusting the first-term Republican into the leadership of a department in crisis.
The 54-45 vote mostly fell along party lines. All Republicans except for Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voted to confirm their colleague. Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico voted to confirm Mullin. Paul’s vote against Mullin was expected, as was Fetterman’s vote for him.
Alleged Iranian Spies Are Already in the US — And Infiltrating Silicon Valley
March 23: California Post by Isabel Vincent
Alleged Iranian spies with ties to regime bigwigs have been charged with infiltrating Silicon Valley. Last month, a federal grand jury indicted three Iranian software engineers for allegedly stealing trade secrets from tech companies, including Google.
Two of the suspects are sisters, Samaneh Ghandali, 41, and Sorvoor Ghandali, 32. They were charged alongside Mohammadjavad Khosravi, 40, who is Samaneh’s husband, with allegedly using their employment at unidentified technology companies to “obtain access to confidential and sensitive information,” according to the Department of Justice.
Tom Cotton’s Bill Requires Universities to Disclose Visa Holders to DHS Database
March 24: Breitbart By Olivia Rondeau
A bill that would require colleges and universities to report all student, faculty, and staff visa holders to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) has been introduced by Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton (R-AR) to “ensure foreign nationals aren’t stealing valuable research.”
The Educational Visa Transparency Act, unveiled Tuesday, would mandate that publicly funded institutions of higher education submit a “complete and accurate list of all students, faculty members, and administrators enrolled at or employed by such institution who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents” to SEVIS within 60 days of passage. Cotton’s proposed legislation comes just months after three Chinese nationals affiliated with a University of Michigan laboratory were criminally charged for allegedly conspiring to smuggle biological materials into the United States.
Lawmaker Cites TSA Report Confirming Cash Leaving Minneapolis Airport Approached $1 Billion By 2025
March 24: Western Journal by Michael Schwarz
At a legislative fraud committee hearing Monday morning, Republican state Rep. Kristin Robbins of Minnesota, a GOP gubernatorial hopeful, helped keep the troubling issue of Somali fraud in the news when she cited evidence that nearly a billion dollars in cash had left Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport in passengers’ luggage in recent years, including $350 million in 2025 alone.
In January, Department of Homeland Security officials told John Solomon of Just the News that the Transportation Security Administration “flagged nearly $700 million in cash detected in passengers’ luggage leaving the Minneapolis airport the last two years,” and that officials linked this “massive cash exodus” to “Somali immigrants and their money couriers.”
Jury Finds Meta and Google Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial
March 25: Breitbart by Lucas Nolan
A Los Angeles jury has found Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Google’s YouTube liable in a groundbreaking lawsuit concerning harm to children using their platforms, awarding $3 million in damages to a young woman who claims social media addiction during childhood worsened her mental health.
NBC News reports that in a precedent-setting verdict, jurors in the high profile social media addiction trial deliberated for more than 40 hours across nine days before determining that both Meta and YouTube were negligent in the design and operation of their platforms. The jury concluded that each company’s negligence was a substantial factor in causing harm to the plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman who testified that her childhood use of social media created an addiction to the technology and aggravated her mental health problems.
The multimillion-dollar award is expected to increase significantly, as jurors determined that the companies acted with malice or highly egregious conduct. This finding means the jury will soon hear additional evidence and return to deliberations to decide on punitive damages, which could substantially raise the total compensation.
Meta and Google-owned YouTube were the final two defendants remaining in the case after TikTok and Snap reached settlements before the trial commenced. The plaintiff, identified in court documents as KGM and referred to as Kaley by her legal team during proceedings, provided testimony alongside high-profile technology executives. Meta leaders Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri appeared as witnesses, while YouTube CEO Neal Mohan was not called to testify.
According to her testimony, Kaley started using YouTube when she was six years old and began using Instagram at age nine. She told jurors that she spent time on social media platforms all day long throughout her childhood. The legal team representing Kaley, headed by attorney Mark Lanier, was responsible for demonstrating that the negligence of the respective defendants was a substantial factor in causing harm to their client.
Venezuela Will Be Hemisphere’s Wealth Beacon
March 25: Red State by Ward Clark
Venezuela is also, by many estimations, the country with the largest oil reserves in the world. More than Saudi Arabia, more than Iran, more than Russia, more than the United States. That puts them in a very interesting position for increasing trade with the United States, and María Corina Machado is counting on just such a deal.
Venezuelan political leader María Corina Machado is pitching her country as a top U.S. oil partner and “beacon of hope and wealth creation for this hemisphere” after she said the Trump administration’s arrest of former dictator Nicolás Maduro has opened up a “new era” of free markets.
Addressing several thousand oil and energy executives at the CERAWeek conference in Houston, Machado, who until recently lived in the U.S. as a political exile, predicted that Venezuela will soon be a critical contributor to U.S. prosperity.
ICE Arrests Multiple Illegal Alien Pedophiles in One Day, DHS Says
March 25: Daily Caller by Ashley Brasfield
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the arrest of multiple illegal aliens convicted of child sex crimes in one day, according to a statement obtained by the Daily Caller.
Officials announced the arrest of five illegal immigrants who have been found guilty serious offenses, including sexual abuse of a child, gang assault and incest, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statement. The individuals were nationals of Mexico, Laos, China and Jamaica.
Department Of Education Takes ‘Historic Step’ Toward Shutting Down in Partnership with Treasury
March 25: Breitbart by Katherine Hamilton
The Department of Education (ED) took a “historic” step of winding down its operations by shifting student lending to the Department of the Treasury. The move is part of the ED’s efforts to adhere to President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for department’s dismantling. Officially ending the department would take an act of Congress, as it was Congress that created it 45 years ago under President Jimmy Carter, but the agency has been looking for ways to decentralize its power and slash its workforce while waiting on GOP lawmakers to deliver on Trump’s campaign promise.
ED announced on Thursday that it has entered into an interagency agreement (IAA) with Treasury for it to assume operational responsibility for collecting on defaulted federal student loan debt and to provide operation support to ED’s work in returning borrowers to repayment. ED said Treasury will eventually work to provide operation support over non-defaulted federal student loan debt and other support for Federal Student Aid’s (FSA) other functions.
“The Federal Student Assistance Partnership marks an intentional and historic step toward breaking up the Federal education bureaucracy and dramatically improving the administration of Federal student aid programs that millions of American students, families, and borrowers rely on to access higher education,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement.
ED noted that its student loan portfolio stands at nearly $1.7 trillion with fewer than 40 percent of borrowers in repayment and almost 25 percent of borrowers in default. The department said student loan debt is “roughly twice the size of all American university endowments combined and is larger than either our nation’s cumulative credit card debt or cumulative auto debt,” and that the department was “never intended to operate what would be the fifth-largest commercial bank in the United States, distributing over $100 billion each year in Federal student loans and grants.”
“As the Federal student aid portfolio soars to nearly $1.7 trillion and with nearly a quarter of student loan borrowers in default, Americans know that the Department of Education has failed to effectively manage and deliver these critical programs. By leveraging Treasury’s world-renowned expertise in finance and economic policy, we are confident that American students, borrowers, and taxpayers will finally have functioning programs after decades of mismanagement,” McMahon added.
“Two of the People I Appointed, They Sicken Me!…” Trump Launches a Blistering Attack on Supreme Court
March 26: Gateway Pundit by Cullen Linebarger
An angry President Trump appears to have regrets about at least two of the people he appointed to the Supreme Court during his first term, as he launched a surprising attack during what was supposed to be a motivational dinner for the GOP.
The US Supreme Court on February 20 struck down President Trump’s tariffs in a 6-3 decision. The Court stated that Trump lacked the authority to impose the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and Justice Neil Gorsuch sided with the three leftist justices. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.
Though he didn’t mention them by name, Trump was almost certainly referring to Justices Barrett and Gorsuch, whom he appointed to the Court in 2017 and 2020, respectively.
International Olympic Committee Adopts New Policy on Transgender Identity and Women’s Sports
March 26: Daily Signal by Tyler O’Neil
The International Olympic Committee announced Thursday that it would restrict women’s sports to biological females, as determined by a genetic test. The policy will go into effect for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games onwards.
The IOC adopted as the standard a test for the gene associated with the sex-determining region Y protein, also known as SRY. The SRY gene is responsible for the initiation of male sex determination.
Transgender activists have insisted that men who identify as women should be allowed to compete in women’s sports. Critics have long argued, however, that women’s sports must be kept separate to allow women to compete on a level playing field, and that men enjoy biological advantages that undermine fairness in women’s sports.
A 2019 study in The Journal of Medical Ethics found that the IOC’s previous rules allowing men to compete in women’s sports created an “intolerable unfairness.” Differences between male and female development begin in the womb and continue throughout life. As Duke Law School professor Doriane Lambelet Coleman testified, if the pro-transgender Equality Act allowed biological men to compete in women’s sports, “the very best women in the world would lose to literally thousands of boys and men, including thousands who would be considered second-tier.”
House GOP Fights Back: New 60-Day Clean Bill Funds ICE And CBP
March 27: Red State by Ward Clark
The House of Representatives has responded to the Senate’s compromise funding proposal with a “No, thank you.” The Republican Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson (LA-04), has responded, saying that the House will instead vote on a 60-day clean funding vote that will fund all of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP).
The Speaker said: “We’re going to get all our members together and decide next steps this morning, but I’ll tell you that it’s infuriating that Democrats are willing to inflict pain on the American people, simply so they can defund the agency responsible for removing criminal illegal aliens.”
The Speaker, according to Axios, met with House Freedom Caucus members and agreed to put forth a 60-day Continuing Resolution (CR) that fully funds DHS. President Trump has reportedly voiced his support for the CR.
The Senate plan on the table funded DHS but excluded funding for ICE and CBP. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) indicated that ICE and CBP would be funded later through reconciliation, which can pass by a simple majority vote. (And note, they’re presently funded through September 2029, compliments of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed last summer.) The Senate argued this for five weeks, and it looks a lot now like we’re back at square one.
Axios reported: The House Freedom Caucus declared Friday morning that they will not support DHS funding unless they attach legislation to implement voter ID, and funding for border patrol and child sex trafficking investigations, a division within ICE.
- “It’s not going to affect the airports if we don’t do this today,” Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris (R-Md.) told reporters.
- Harris argued the Senate could quickly pass a revised House bill when it returns next week for a pro-forma session.
Mike Hernandez is co-founder of the Citizens Journal–Ventura County’s online news service and writes for CitizensJournal.net and MountainTopMedia.com. He is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor, writer of “Prayer Over News Daily” and edits the weekly “Stories Speak Volumes” and other columns. Mr. Hernandez mentors citizen journalists with trainings held every other month (on Saturdays at Shasta Bible College and online) and can be contacted at MikeHernandezMedia.com.