The U.S. Department of Education under Secretary Linda McMahon has formally restored Grand Canyon University’s nonprofit status, a reversal of a years-long dispute that had kept recognition of the Phoenix-based university’s tax-exempt classification in limbo.
The Department of Education’s (USDOE) action means it will now consider Grand Canyon University (GCU) a nonprofit institution for federal purposes, aligning its treatment under federal student-aid rules with the university’s longstanding recognition as a nonprofit by the Internal Revenue Service.
“We are appreciative that officials within the current Department of Education adhered to the recent Ninth Circuit decision in our favor and conducted an objective and thorough review of GCU’s operations in determining GCU’s nonprofit status under the correct legal standard,” GCU President Brian Mueller said in a statement. “We look forward to working with the Department in a cooperative manner moving forward and being part of the conversation to address the many challenges facing higher education.”
The move follows a May decision by the USDOE to reverse a $37 million fine against GCU, imposed under the Biden administration with prejudice. The fine was the largest ever levied by the agency against a university.
In November 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Department of Education had unlawfully denied GCU nonprofit status and remanded the matter to the department for reconsideration under the correct legal standard. In 2018, the IRS reaffirmed GCU’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status after a multi-year audit, concluding that the university met all requirements of a nonprofit educational institution.
The restoration of nonprofit recognition comes as several Arizona members of Congress and other lawmakers have publicly advocated for the university’s status.
U.S. Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ02) took to X on Monday to highlight the Education Department’s decision, calling the reinstatement of nonprofit status a significant development for the institution.
On March 5th, I joined @RepAndyBiggsAZ in a bipartisan delegation letter urging @usedgov to recognize @gcu as a nonprofit institution of higher education.
U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ05) also posted on X following the department’s announcement, noting the change in federal recognition and urging continuation of support for aligned legislative efforts.
In previous years, Arizona Republican lawmakers, including Reps. Gosar and Biggs had criticized the Department of Education’s handling of the university’s nonprofit status and its regulatory actions. They characterized earlier denials and fines as misplaced or excessive and called for greater alignment between federal treatment and GCU’s IRS-recognized status, per the Arizona Sun Times.
Gosar told the outlet at the time, “GCU is being targeted for its religious views and for being the largest Christian university in the country. The Department of Education should recognize GCU’s lawful nonprofit status and stop the harassment.”
With the Education Department’s updated decision, the agency will now consider GCU’s application as a nonprofit institution in future federal evaluations, including eligibility for Title IV federal student financial aid programs.
“This decision removes the cloud of confusion over our nonprofit status and allows us to put our complete focus and resources on our mission to provide affordable, Christian higher education to students from all socioeconomic backgrounds,” Mueller added. “We are excited to move forward with clarity and purpose.”
According to the university, nonprofit recognition is also expected to expand access to private scholarships restricted to nonprofit institutions, increase eligibility for nonprofit-specific grants and partnerships, restore eligibility for future government relief programs, reduce legal expenses associated with defending its status, and solidify GCU’s standing as a voting member of NCAA athletics.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), has achieved unprecedented border security milestones, with illegal border crossings reaching the lowest levels ever recorded at the start of a fiscal year.
Preliminary data for October and November 2025 show a continued historic decline in apprehensions and encounters, reflecting the effectiveness of President Trump’s policies and leadership.
Since President Trump took office on January 20, 2025, total enforcement encounters along the southwest border through the end of November stand at 117,105—37% below the monthly average of 185,625 recorded during the Biden administration.
U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions have averaged under 10,000 per month, described by DHS as “a level of deterrence unmatched in modern border history”.
Daily apprehensions along the southwest border now average just 245—fewer than 11 per hour—and a stunning 95% reduction from the Biden-era daily average of 5,110 (February 2021-December 2024). For comparison, December 2023 saw 336 illegal crossers apprehended every hour during the height of the prior administration’s border crisis—more than today’s entire daily total.
In October 2025, nationwide Border Patrol encounters and apprehensions totaled 30,573, distinctively down from 142,742 in October 2024, 309,605 in October 2023, and 278,317 in October 2022.
Preliminary data for November 2025 show 30,367 encounters, slightly lower than October’s record low. Combined, October and November recorded just 60,940 encounters—the lowest two-month start to any fiscal year on record and 28% below the previous low of 84,293 set in FY2012.
“Once again, we have a record low number of encounters at the border and the 7th straight month of zero releases. Month after month, we are delivering results that were once thought impossible: the most secure border in history and unmatched enforcement successes,” said Secretary Kristi Noem. “Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and the dedication of DHS law enforcement, America’s borders are safer than ever before.”
Every individual apprehended is processed for removal in accordance with the law, reversing Biden-era policies that pulled agents from the field to facilitate mass releases, leaving hundreds of miles of border unpatrolled for extended periods.
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
What a difference a year makes. As President Trump highlighted in his speech in Pennsylvania Tuesday, by any number of metrics, the economy is barreling full steam ahead. The sign he stood in front of said it all: “lower prices, bigger paychecks.” And the data backs him up. As he said Tuesday: “Pennsylvania is winning again.” Those words are no hollow rallying cry, they reflect real results.
Just weeks ago, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) revised its estimates for second-quarter 2025 economic growth, and the results were dramatic. Real gross domestic product surged at an annualized 3.8 percent rate, far stronger than the 3.0 percent estimate given just months earlier. It’s a stunning rebound after the last six months of the Biden era, when growth came in at 3.3 percent for the third quarter of 2024 and a truly anemic 1.9 percent for the fourth quarter.
That isn’t just chump change – that kind of growth doesn’t happen when consumers and businesses are on edge. It happens when Americans are confident, when households are spending, and when businesses are investing. As the BEA itself noted, this uptick came largely from rising consumer spending and a drop in imports (imports are subtracted from GDP).
What’s more, the “real final sales to private domestic purchasers” (which strips out the wild swings from trader and inventories and zeroes in on actual domestic demand) – one of the metrics economists use to compare one quarter to another – rose 2.9 percent in Q2. That’s a full percentage point stronger than previously believed.
This is no small rebound. After a rough start in 2025, with a slight contraction in Q1, the second quarter delivered a burst of energy, and proved that policies set in motion by the Trump administration are working.
You don’t have to stare at macroeconomic spreadsheets to sense the shift. Many Americans are now spending dollars, investing in their kids’ futures, stocking up the pantry, and buying gifts.
The 2025 Black Friday weekend delivered record-breaking numbers. According to Adobe Analytics, which tracks e-commerce, “U.S. consumers spent a record $11.8 billion online … marking a 9.1% jump from last year,” reported the Associated Press. And it wasn’t just Black Friday that set a record – consumers spent $6.4 billion online on Thanksgiving Day itself, another record.
That’s not just digital “click traffic;” that’s real money moving – money that represents families who feel secure enough to spend, businesses stockpiling inventory, and entrepreneurs launching new ventures. That kind of consumer vitality ripples outward.
As President Trump put it Tuesday in Pennsylvania: “We are bringing back real value to the American people.” That resonates – because people across income levels just proved with their wallets that they believe in this comeback.
Beyond holiday shopping and GDP headlines lies another signal of confidence and strength: retirement. Per the latest data from Fidelity Investments, the number of Americans with at least $1 million in their 401(k) accounts just hit a new record. About 654,000 Americans are now 401(k) millionaires – up sharply from 595,000 at the end of June, and up from 544,000 a year ago, representing a 20% surge from the Biden years.
This isn’t just financial fluff for the wealthy – this is a genuine barometer of middle-class Americans putting faith in the markets, stocks, and long-term saving. It means that working people who stashed cash through decades of effort are now seeing those savings efforts rewarded.
The rising number of 401(k) millionaires couldn’t have come at a better time. With traditional pensions disappearing, millions of Americans are forced to rely on defined-contribution retirement plans. The climb in 401(k) balances signals that people are adapting and succeeding.
Put together – the 3.8 percent GDP growth, the Thanksgiving/Black Friday spending splurge, the record-high 401(k) millionaires – and one conclusion becomes clear: the Trump economy is booming.
When families feel confident enough to save, invest, and spend, that’s when you know the recovery has legs. President Trump and his administration have laid the groundwork – lower regulation, pro-growth policies, and a renewed sense of optimism.
Tuesday in Pennsylvania, President Trump didn’t just talk about jobs and tariffs, he talked about restoring American dignity and opportunity. “We’re bringing back real value,” he said. And with the data now piling up, “real value” isn’t just a slogan. It’s a restoration of America’s economic foundation.
At this moment, for Americans across the board, the comeback isn’t merely a promise. It’s happening. And you can feel it, see it, and invest in it.
During the latest marathon cabinet meeting on Dec. 2, Energy Secretary Chris Wright made news when he told President Donald Trump that “The biggest determinant of the price of energy is politicians, political leaders, and polices — that’s what drives energy prices.”
He’s right about that, and it is why the back-and-forth struggle over federal energy and climate policy plays such a key role in America’s economy and society. Just 10 months into this second Trump presidency, the administration’s policies are already having a profound impact, both at home and abroad.
While the rapid expansion of AI datacenters over the past year is currently being blamed by many for driving up electric costs, power bills were skyrocketing long before that big tech boom began, driven in large part by the policies of the Obama and Biden administration designed to regulate and subsidize an energy transition into reality. As I’ve pointed out here in the past, driving up the costs of all forms of energy to encourage conservation is a central objective of the climate alarm-driven transition, and that part of the green agenda has been highly effective.
President Trump, Wright, and other key appointees like Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin have moved aggressively throughout 2025 to repeal much of that onerous regulatory agenda. The GOP congressional majorities succeeded in phasing out Biden’s costly green energy subsidies as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed into law on July 4. As the federal regulatory structure eases and subsidy costs diminish, it is reasonable to expect a gradual easing of electricity and other energy prices.
This year’s fading out of public fear over climate change and its attendant fright narrative spells bad news for the climate alarm movement. The resulting cracks in the green facade have manifested rapidly in recent weeks.
Climate-focused conflict groups that rely on public fears to drive donations have fallen on hard times. According to a report in the New York Times, the Sierra Club has lost 60 percent of the membership it reported in 2019 and the group’s management team has fallen into infighting over elements of the group’s agenda. Greenpeace is struggling just to stay afloat after losing a huge court judgment for defaming pipeline company Energy Transfer during its efforts to stop the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
350.org, an advocacy group founded by Bill McKibben, shut down its U.S. operations in November amid funding woes that had forced planned 25 percent budget cuts for 2025 and 2026. Employees at EDF voted to form their own union after the group went through several rounds of budget cuts and layoffs in recent months.
The fading of climate fears in turn caused the ESG management and investing fad to also fall out of favor, leading to a flood of companies backtracking on green investments and climate commitments. The Net Zero Banking Alliance disbanded after most of America’s big banks – Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and others – chose to drop out of its membership.
The EV industry is also struggling. As the Trump White House moves to repeal Biden-era auto mileage requirements, Ford Motor Company is preparing to shut down production of its vaunted F-150 Lightning electric pickup, and Stellantis cancelled plans to roll out a full-size EV truck of its own. Overall EV sales in the U.S. collapsed in October and November following the repeal of the $7,500 per car IRA subsidy effective Sept 30.
The administration’s policy actions have already ended any new leasing for costly and unneeded offshore wind projects in federal waters and have forced the suspension or abandonment of several projects that were already moving ahead. Capital has continued to flow into the solar industry, but even that industry’s ability to expand seems likely to fade once the federal subsidies are fully repealed at the end of 2027.
Truly, public policy matters where energy is concerned. It drives corporate strategies, capital investments, resource development and movement, and ultimately influences the cost of energy in all its forms and products. The speed at which Trump and his key appointees have driven this principle home since Jan. 20 has been truly stunning.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
The murder and attempted murder of West Virginia National Guard Soldiers Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24, by Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, in November is being investigated as a possible act of international terrorism. The attack on the soldiers seems to align with warnings the Biden administration was given in 2021 by then-prosecutor with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, Congressman Abe Hamadeh.
The latest reports from Washington, D.C., indicate that Beckstrom and Wolfe were shot in what law enforcement officials are calling a “targeted” attack near the Farragut West Metro station near the White House. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro told a press conference that both Guard members had been sworn in to assist with the ongoing crime suppression efforts in the nation’s Capitol for less than 24 hours, according to Fox News. She described a “brazen and targeted attack,” and said the Guard members were “ambushed.”
“A lone gunman opened fire without provocation, ambush style,” Pirro told reporters. “Armed with a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver, one Guardsman is struck, goes down, and then the shooter leans over and strikes the Guardsmen again. Another Guardsman is struck several times.” Nearby Guard members rushed the assailant; one opened fire, and they quickly subdued the attacker.
Pirro told reporters, “This is what happens in this country when people are allowed in, who are not properly vetted.”
U.S. ATTORNEY JEANINE PIRRO: "This is what happens in this country when people are allowed in, who are not properly vetted."
"This was not just an attack, it was a direct challenge to law and order in our nation's capital." pic.twitter.com/zOWXsQ0DmB
President Donald Trump informed the nation last Thursday evening that U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom of Summersville, one of the West Virginia National Guard members ambushed in Washington, D.C., had passed away from her injuries, in post to X.
.@POTUS announces that U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom of Summersville, West Virginia, one of the National Guardsmen savagely attacked yesterday in Washington, D.C., has just passed away.
According to Reuters, the suspect first entered the U.S. in September 2021, as part of the Biden administration’s Afghan resettlement program: Operation Allies Welcome, the very program Hamadeh wrote about in a 2021 op-ed for the Arizona Republic. The suspect had worked with the CIA in Afghanistan as far back as at least 2011 and was granted asylum in April of this year. “In terms of vetting, nothing came up,” an unnamed senior U.S. official told Fox News. “He was clean on all checks.”
Hamadeh’s op-ed offered a troubling, almost prescient warning to the Biden administration after the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. He cautioned that a string of incidents that year created “concern whether the Biden administration is doing enough to vet refugees arriving on American soil.” He noted, “We need to do more rigorous checks.”
The reports that Lakanwal passed “all checks” would seem to support Hamadeh and Pirro’s conclusion.
“By not properly vetting refugees, we do a disservice to the Afghans who served with us. No vetting is foolproof, and bad actors may still go undetected. However, a proper vetting process can greatly reduce the risk,” Hamadeh wrote. He added, “The State Department has identified Phoenix as a top destination for refugees. Arizonans are generous, and a vast majority of Arizonans agree that the United States should accept Afghan refugees who assisted us in the U.S.-led NATO mission.”
Hamadeh went on to describe newly implemented security vetting that included: “biometrics, biographical and social media data collection,” stating, “This process is rigorous and can take weeks and months to complete, and is similar to the process that Afghan refugees should be undergoing right now.”
He warned that the Biden administration instead insisted upon releasing the Afghan refugees “to their permanent states after only four weeks on U.S. military installations.” He commented, “Americans should be skeptical that tens of thousands of refugees here on humanitarian parole status could be thoroughly vetted in that short amount of time.”
Hamadeh concluded: “Arizona leaders should also demand answers from the federal government and require that the vetting process is shared between federal and state officials in order to ensure the safety of Arizonans.”
As of this report, West Virginia National Guard Member Wolfe remains hospitalized in serious condition. The suspect was also hospitalized due to his injuries and remains there under heavy guard.
