WalletHub, a personal-finance website, measured the gaps between black people and white people across 22 key indicators of equality in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The data set includes median annual household income, standardized-test scores, and voter turnout.
Hawaii placed first for most racially integrated state, followed by Arizona, New Mexico, and Washington State. Other top ten states were Kentucky, Alaska, Delaware, Texas, Georgia, and Maryland.
“It’s encouraging to see that many of the states that were the most resistant to integration have made substantial progress toward racial equality in the past fifty years or so,” Wallethub analyst Cassandra Happe said in a news release. “In fact, four of the states that have made the most racial progress overall are actually now among the top 10 most integrated states, which shows that both people’s attitudes and government policies have changed dramatically.”
Arizona ranked highly in areas concerning equality in the labor force participation rate and health.
“It’s encouraging to see that many of the states that were the most resistant to integration have made substantial progress toward racial equality in the past fifty years or so,” Happe said. “In fact, four of the states that have made the most racial progress overall are actually now among the top 10 most integrated states, which shows that both people’s attitudes and government policies have changed dramatically.”
The Grand Canyon State’s total score from WalletHub was 73.86.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
America should deny demands from Mexico for billions of dollars in order to stop the flow of illegal immigration, according to U.S. Senate candidate Mark Lamb on Tuesday.
Lamb, a Republican and the current sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona, criticized Mexican President Lopez Obrador’s list of demands which the United States would need to meet in exchange for Mexico to help slow illegal immigration across the southern border.
“I consider the demands made by Mexico as DOA – dead on arrival,” Lamb said. “The last time I looked, the Mexican President doesn’t get to set U.S. domestic and foreign policy. I call upon the entire Arizona Congressional delegation to unite and publicly reject these conditions imposed by Mexico.”
Obrador demanded the U.S. give $20 billion to Latin American and Caribbean countries; grant work visas to 10 million Hispanics who have worked in the U.S. for at least 10 years; and end sanctions against Venezuela and halt the blockade of Cuba.
Mexico is responsible for slowing illegal immigration into America, according to Lamb.
“As our southern neighbor, the responsibility is on them to do everything they can to work with us – without preconditions – to stop the hundreds of thousands of illegals crossing our mutual border,” Lamb said. “We shouldn’t take kindly to having a gun put to our head just to have Mexico do what’s right.”
Lamb said the Mexican president’s demands are an example of President Joe Biden’s “lost control of the border.”
Border Patrol encountered 2.5 million migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2023, topping the previous year’s record, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
“It’s bad enough that Biden doesn’t have a plan to stop the hundreds of thousands of illegals crossing the border and the fentanyl that comes with them, now Biden is allowing our nation to be held hostage by the President of Mexico,” Lamb continued.
Lamb is running for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s seat. He has said that if elected, he will work to secure the border with Trump-era policies.
“We’ve got to shut the border down, secure the border and we’ve got to restore the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program,” Lamb told Fox News.
“We’re gonna have a mass deportation situation on our hands and so we’ve got to get back to securing the border – first and foremost – which would stop the fentanyl,” Lamb continued to Fox News. “It would weaken the cartels and allow border patrol to get back to doing their jobs because right now they are completely handcuffed.”
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
Female athletes will rally to “save women’s sports” from biological male athletes on Thursday.
Current and former NCAA female athletes, coaches, and parents will bring signs and chants outside the 2024 National Collegiate Athletic Association Convention in Phoenix, Arizona, to ask the organization to stop discriminating against female athletes by allowing males to compete in women and girls’ sports.
“Female athletes work our entire lives to compete in sports, only to have the NCAA destroy our even playing field. This devalues female athletes and women in general,” said former NCAA swimming champion and Independent Women’s Forum ambassador Riley Gaines. “Sex-based categories are important for competitive sports just like age classifications and weight categories. We are asking very little of the NCAA. Maintain the fairness necessary for competition and safety.”
The theme of this year’s rally, sponsored by Our Bodies, Our Sports, is “We Won’t Back Down,” reflecting the group’s determination to compel the NCAA to revoke its Transgender Student-Athlete Participation Policy.
The policy allows transgender student-athlete participation for each sport to be determined by the national governing body of that sport. As a result, males who identify as females can participate in women’s sports if they suppress their testosterone for at least one year and achieve levels set by the governing bodies of their particular sport.
Hormone injections do not eliminate the male athletic advantage over females, according to a review of the scientific literature by the Independent Women’s Law Center and the Independent Women’s Forum. Without any male athletic advantage, the participation of males in women’s sports takes away opportunities for women to compete, IWF and IWLC say.
Gaines will be joined by fellow swimmers Paula Scanlan and Kaylee Alons, and volleyball player Macy Petty, to continue to call on NCAA President Charlie Baker to meet with them to hear how they were hurt by men in women’s sports.
“Shame on Charlie Baker for continuing to enforce this discriminatory policy,” said Jennifer C. Braceras, vice president for Legal Policy at Independent Women’s Form and founder of Independent Women’s Law Center. “The NCAA may not be bound by Title IX, but the schools that make up its membership are, and the NCAA has an obligation to help its member schools comply with equal opportunity mandates, not subvert them.”
The athletes, coaches, parents, and sponsor organizations will deliver a new demand letter and petition to the NCAA signed by thousands of female athletes from across the country after the rally.
This event is the fourth Our Bodies, Our Sports event. Previous events include the 2022 rally in Washington, D.C., to mark the 50th Anniversary of Title IX, the 2023 rally at the NCAA Convention in San Antonio, TX, and the 2023 rally at the USA Cycling National Championships in Knoxville, TN.
The Tennessee rally succeeded in pushing Union Cycliste Internationale to bar biological male athletes from competing in the women’s cycling division.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., urged Congress to “take our nation’s fiscal health seriously” in response to the growing national debt.
Schweikert’s Daily Debt Monitor shows the federal government’s gross national debt increasing by $839 billion already this fiscal year, which began in October.
So far this fiscal year (3 months in), the total national debt has increased by $839 billion. That's ~$8.65 billion per day, and just over $100,000 per second.
I implore my brothers and sisters in Congress to take our nation's fiscal health seriously. pic.twitter.com/7XACzQ0mjM
“That’s ~$8.65 billion per day, and just over $100,000 per second,” Schweikert tweeted.
“I implore my brothers and sisters in Congress to take our nation’s fiscal health seriously,” the congressman continued.
The national debt has increased by more than $360 million per hour, $6 million per minute, and $100,00 per second this fiscal year.
The total national debt as of Jan. 4 was more than $34 trillion, compared to around $31 trillion on Jan. 4, 2023. This includes both intragovernmental and publicly held debt. Between 2023 and 2024, there was an increase in debt of more than $7 billion per day and $300 million per hour.
The national debt hit the $34 trillion record this month. The Congressional Budget Office’s January 2020 projections didn’t expect gross federal debt to surpass $34 trillion until fiscal year 2029.
The Congressional Budget Office expects the debt to only get worse in coming years. An estimate shows America’s entitlement spending, mandatory spending, and net interest payments on the debt will exceed the government’s total revenue by the early 2030s.
In June, Republican lawmakers and the White House agreed to temporarily lift the nation’s debt limit, making an agreement that lasts until January 2025.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in its 30-year outlook last June that publicly held debt will be equal to a record 181% of American economic activity by 2053.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas “must be impeached immediately,” tweeted Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz.
Ciscomani said he met with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from Arizona to Texas, and they asked for policy changes to make it easier to minimize illegal crossings.
I met with BP from AZ to TX. Their top request is a policy change—consequences with the ability to detain & remove in order to deter. But he’s not interested in giving them tools to tackle the crisis. His actions only worsen the situation.
— Congressman Juan Ciscomani (@RepCiscomani) January 5, 2024
“Their top request is a policy change—consequences with the ability to detain & remove in order to deter,” Ciscomani said on Twitter. “But he’s[Mayorkas] not interested in giving them tools to tackle the crisis. His actions only worsen the situation.”
Ciscomani joined House Speaker Mike Johnson and more than 60 other House Republicans in a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, Texas. The group met with CBP, attended a briefing with Texas Department of Public Safety, and joined a roundtable with local ranchers, business owners, and other local stakeholders, according to a news release.
Mayorkas told Bret Baier on Fox News that the Biden administration wants more money to process more illegal immigrants.
“Bret, the funds are needed to provide the Department of Homeland Security with more Border Patrol agents,” Mayorkas said. “The funds are needed to provide the Department of Homeland Security with more technology. The funds are needed to provide our department with more detention space to provide the Department of Justice with more immigration judges, so justice can be administered more swiftly.”
Border Patrol encountered 2.5 million migrants occurring in the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2023, topping the previous year’s record, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
The final month of the fiscal year saw 269,735 Border Patrol encounters at the Southwest border. This represents an 86% increase from encounters in June 2023.
“I believe in the American Dream that I’m living. But this [border crisis] is not it,” Ciscomani said at a press conference at the border. “With this crisis that Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas created, nobody wins – except the cartels. They are the ones deciding who gets across and who doesn’t. They are the ones who are trafficking people and drugs. They are the ones terrorizing their own citizens, with no regard for human life.”
“The men and women we met with today, those fighting on the frontlines for our safety, are doing so with little to no support from this administration,” Ciscomani continued. “They are trying to enforce policies that are at best outdated or at worst, designed to fail.”
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
