Salem News Channel

Trump administration reorganizing State Department, Rubio says

The Trump administration is reorganizing the U.S. Department of State to eliminate certain offices that it considers redundant. See more on Salem News Channel.

Investors relieved Musk will refocus on Tesla, but worry about brand damage

Is AI Replacing Truck Drivers?

Mike and Mark discuss the rise of artificial intelligence throughout all industries. Is it possible that AI will replace jobs like truck drivers and taxi drivers sooner rather than later?

Democrats Are Attacking Tesla Because They're Being Told To

Is Elon Musk stepping back from DOGE?

Noah Rothman talks Harvard with Hugh

Join Hugh LIVE: Weekdays, 3-6PM ET. Visit Hugh's website: https://hughhewitt.com Follow Hugh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hughhewitt The Hugh Hewitt Show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hughhewittshow/ Subscribe to The Hugh Hewitt Show's podcast here: Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/HHShowApple Google Podcasts: http://bit.ly/HHShowGoogle Spotify: http://bit.ly/HHShowSpotify Check out the Hughniverse for a commercial-free archive of The Hugh Hewitt Radio Show and The Aftershow with Duane "Generalissimo" Patterson anytime you want: https://www.hughniverse.com

Can Steve Hilton pull off the upset and win the governor’s race in California?

Why is the Trump Administration using the Biden Administration playbook against Meta?

Reset the relationship between tax payers and higher education

How Kilmar Abrego Garcia Violated YOUR Due Process

Democrats want MS-13 Suspect Returned

Democrats are advocating for the return of MS-13 suspect.

Wife Of Former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez Convicted In Bribery Scheme

The wife of former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez has been convicted of charges that she teamed up with the New Jersey Democrat to accept bribes of cash, gold bars and a luxury car. A New York jury returned its verdict Monday in the trial of Nadine Menendez. Prosecutors say she was a key figure in a bribery scheme in which the powerful senator sold his clout to three New Jersey men looking for help with their business dealings or legal troubles. Nadine Menendez says she is innocent. Last year a different jury convicted Bob Menendez of many of the same charges. He is supposed to begin serving an 11-year prison term in June.

PA Governor Reopens Fire-Damaged Residence To Public As Cleanup Goes On

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro reopened the governor's official residence to the public Tuesday for an Easter egg hunt barely a week after an alleged arsonist's fire tore through one of its wings and said he will begin sleeping there again soon. “I'm not going to live in fear,” Shapiro told reporters after the annual Easter egg hunt held for children on the west lawn of the residence along the Susquehanna River in the state capital of Harrisburg. Large waste disposal bins sat on the east side of the residence while workers cleared out the fire-damaged rooms, including tearing out floors, walls and ceilings. Plywood covered broken windows on the three-story brick Georgian-style residence built in the 1960s that has been home to eight governors and their families. Shapiro said the smell of smoke is gone from the living quarters and he hoped to see the fire-damaged rooms restored by mid-summer, but declined to describe what sort of security improvements have been made or will be made. The fire broke out in the middle of the night as Shapiro, his wife, their children, extended family members and dogs slept upstairs, just hours after having celebrated the Jewish holiday of Passover with members of Harrisburg's Jewish community. Shapiro, 51, is the first-term governor of the nation’s fifth-most populous state, a presidential battleground that has helped make him a rising star in the Democratic Party and viewed as a potential White House contender in 2028. Cody Balmer, 38, is accused of scaling the nearly 7-foot iron security gate, crossing the grounds and smashing windows with a hammer, igniting two glass bottles filled with gasoline and crawling inside before slipping off into the night minutes later. The rooms he allegedly lit ablaze were where Shapiro’s family had held the Passover Seder just hours earlier. The fire caused millions of dollars of damage, according to fire officials, but no injuries. State troopers roused Shapiro and his family and evacuated them to escape the fire. Balmer has been jailed since turning himself in, on charges that include attempted homicide, arson, assault and burglary. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for May 28 to determine whether the case will go to trial. Balmer has not entered a plea. Balmer's mother and brother say he suffers from mental illness, something that Balmer denied in court. Authorities say Balmer expressed hatred for Shapiro and say they are investigating whether religious or political bias could explain why. Police affidavits say Balmer was asked what he might have done had he encountered Shapiro while in the residence — and that he said he would have hit the governor with a sledgehammer. State police said Friday they hired a former state police commissioner, Jeffrey Miller, to conduct a security review.

Harvard Sues Trump Administration To Stop The Freeze Of More Than $2 Billion In Grants

Harvard University has filed suit to halt a federal freeze on more than $2.2 billion in grants after recently announcing it would defy the Trump administration’s demands to limit activism on campus. The Trump administration had called in an April 11 letter to Harvard for broad government and leadership reforms at the university and admissions policy changes. Harvard President Alan Garber soon after said the university would not bend to the demands, and the U.S. government swiftly froze billions of dollars in federal funding. A White House spokesman said Monday after the suit was filed in federal court that Harvard has failed to meet basic conditions for receiving taxpayer funds.

Harvard Sues the US Government

Harvard has sued the US government

Why Do The Democrats Love Kilmar Abrego Garcia?

Is Pete Hegseth In Trouble? Of Course Not!

Report Shows Advanced Cancers Have Returned To Prepandemic Levels

Delays in cancer screenings brought on by COVID-19 aren’t making a huge impact on cancer statistics. Experts who track the data say cancer death rates continue to decline. And a new report published Monday in the journal Cancer shows there weren’t huge shifts in late diagnoses. It’s the broadest-yet analysis of the pandemic’s effect on U.S. cancer data. The report’s lead author called the findings reassuring. Many Americans were forced to postpone cancer screenings for several months in 2020 as COVID-19 overwhelmed doctors and hospitals.

U.S. State Department Unveils Massive Overhaul Of Agency With Reduction Of Staff And Bureaus

Secretary of State Marco Rubio unveiled a massive overhaul of the State Department on Tuesday, with plans to reduce staff in the U.S. by 15% while closing and consolidating more than 100 bureaus worldwide as part of the Trump administration's “America First” mandate. The reorganization plan, announced by Rubio on social media and detailed in documents obtained by The Associated Press, is the latest effort by the White House to reimagine U.S. foreign policy and scale back the size of the federal government. “We cannot win the battle for the 21st century with bloated bureaucracy that stifles innovation and misallocates scarce resources,” Rubio said in a department-wide email obtained by AP. He said the reorganization aimed to “meet the immense challenges of the 21st Century and put America First.” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce echoed that sentiment, saying the “sweeping changes will empower our talented diplomats" but adding that it would not result in the immediate dismissal of personnel. “It’s not something where people are being fired today," Bruce told reporters Tuesday. "They’re not going to be walking out of the building. It’s not that kind of a dynamic. It is a roadmap. It’s plan.” It includes consolidating 734 bureaus and offices to 602 as well as transitioning 137 offices “to another location within the Department to increase efficiency,” according to a fact sheet obtained by AP. There will be a “reimagined” office focused on foreign and humanitarian affairs to coordinate the aid programs overseas still left at the State Department. The reorganization was driven in part by the need to find a new home for the remaining functions of the U.S. Agency for International Development, an agency that Trump administration officials and billionaire ally Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency have dismantled. The State Department reorganization plan appears to eliminate an office charged with surging expertise to war zones and other erupting crises and scale back work on human rights and justice. Although the plan will implement major changes in the department’s bureaucracy and personnel, it is far less drastic than an alleged reorganization plan that was circulated by some officials over the weekend. Numerous senior State Department officials, including Rubio himself, denied that the plan was real. Work that had been believed targeted in that alleged leaked document survived — at least as bureau names on a chart — in the plan that Rubio released Tuesday. That includes offices for Africa affairs, migration and refugee issues, and democracy efforts. Some of the bureaus that are indeed expected to be cut in the new plan include the Office of Global Women's Issues and the State Department’s diversity and inclusion efforts, which have been eliminated government-wide under Trump. The department also is expected to eliminate some offices previously under the undersecretary of state for civilian security, democracy and human rights, but the fact sheet says that much of that work will continue in other sections of the department. It is unclear if the reorganization would be implemented through an executive order or other means. The official plans came a week after the AP learned that the White House’s Office of Management and Budget proposed gutting the State Department’s budget by almost 50% and eliminating funding for the United Nations and NATO headquarters. The budget proposal was still in a highly preliminary phase and not expected to pass muster with Congress. The proposed changes at the State Department come as the Trump administration has been slashing jobs and funding across agencies, from the Education Department to Health and Human Services. On foreign policy, beyond the destruction of USAID, the administration also has moved to defund so-called other “soft power” institutions like media outlets delivering objective news, often to authoritarian countries, including the Voice of America, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Radio Free Asia and Radio/TV Marti, which broadcasts to Cuba.

Pope Francis' Funeral To Be Held Saturday

Pope Francis’ funeral has been set for Saturday at 10 a.m. in St. Peter’s Square, and a viewing of his body will begin on Wednesday in St. Peter’s Basilica, days after the popular pontiff died at age 88. He is currently lying in state in the Santa Marta Domus in a private viewing for Vatican residents and the papal household. Cardinals met at the Vatican on Tuesday to plan the conclave to elect his successor. History’s first Latin American pontiff charmed the world with his humble style and concern for the poor but alienated many conservatives with critiques of capitalism and climate change.