An explosive report has surfaced, revealing an alleged $230 million fraud within the K-12 education system. This revelation comes amidst a tumultuous backdrop of stringent measures enforced under former President Trump’s administration, which sought to tighten oversight in education spending.

Meanwhile, a recent analysis of Ivy League institutions has shed light on the political leanings of their governing bodies. Remarkably, only 10% of trustees are identified as Republican, and, in a striking discovery, Yale University has no Republican trustees at all.

In another education-related controversy, a California high school has become entangled in a legal battle with the state. The school’s resistance to Governor Gavin Newsom’s mandate to change their ‘Indians’ mascot highlights a broader cultural and political debate over the portrayal of indigenous peoples in school imagery.

: Teachers who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination now cash in with taxpayer-funded settlements

Florida board votes to ban illegal immigrants from public college admissions

As Graham Platner’s Senate campaign in Maine crumbles, Democrats find themselves exchanging emotional support and strategic advice amid the fallout.

Many are likening Platner’s scandal-induced exit to the dramatic 2024 presidential race, where Joe Biden bowed out in early July, handing the nomination to his Vice President, Kamala Harris.

This parallel underscores a growing sense of despair among Democrats regarding their prospects of capturing the Maine seat, currently held by Republican Susan Collins, which is pivotal for reclaiming Senate control.

Some of the despondency arises from Harris’s insistence that her overwhelming defeat to Donald Trump was mainly due to her receiving the nomination just 107 days before the election.

In her book, framed around this very issue, Harris suggests this timing was to blame for her downfall. However, she avoids acknowledging that her candidacy failed to resonate, lacking a clear, compelling alternative to the previous administration’s unpopular policies.

Asked what she would do differently in a slobbering appearance on “The View,” she hesitated before giving the vapid response, “not a thing comes to mind.”

Well, then. Platner’s replacement will have even less time than Harris did, with party honchos in Maine saying they will pick a new candidate at a convention late this month.

Time is clearly important, but there’s another similarity to the Harris campaign that is also highly relevant to events in Maine.

Notably, Platner is in major ways a carbon copy of Harris’ disastrous choice for a running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.

Tampon Tim’s personality, appearance and background reflect some of the same features that led many Maine Dems to fall in love with Platner.

Both men are beefy and gruff, military veterans and blue collar by nature, making them distinct from the angry soy boys and arch feminists who are the dominant faces of a party moving further and further left.

At the same time, Walz and Platner managed to talk the talk of the progressive activists. They looked like the Dems’ idea of a Republican, but bought into the mantra of virtually unlimited immigration, higher taxes, anti-police rhetoric and the cultish fever on transgender and racial issues.

After Trump’s 2024 victory, Walz, speaking on a podcast, conceded that he was selected by Harris simply to appeal to blue-collar, white male voters, who Democrats have been losing for decades.

“I was on the ticket, quite honestly, because I could code talk to white guys watching football, fixing their truck, doing that, then I could put them at ease,” he said.

Although his biography and boisterous manner convinced Dems he was the Everyman they needed, the targeted demographic weren’t impressed. The ticket won just 43 percent of the male vote nationwide, while Trump and JD Vance pulled in 55 percent.

In Platner’s case, Maine Dems’ hunger for a progressive “real man” was so overpowering that his backers were willing to overlook his huge Nazi tattoo, as if that’s common among real men.

GQ Magazine, in a glowing profile that aimed to explain the appeal of his campaign, declared him “the virile, earthy working man many male politicians wish they were.”

Sufficient Maine voters bought into the hype by looking past Platner’s vile social media posts and the complaints of his excessive drinking and sexual misconduct, some of which he conceded.

Neither did it matter to Sen. Bernie Sanders, who endorsed him. Or to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who called him “my kinda man” despite his reportedly saying that victims of rape should “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f–ked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to?”

Victim complex

Nor was it a problem for his supporters when he reportedly wrote “I dig it” next to an online video showing Hamas terrorists murdering Israeli soldiers.

None of that was enough to stop or even slow down a train that was bound for glory. Only when Politico reported credible allegations last week that he had committed sexual assault with a former girlfriend, who went public, did the dam break, with Sanders and Warren abandoning ship.

Two days later, Platner faced the music and quit the race.

Even then, he hesitated and threatened to stay on the ballot and fight it out with the party before withdrawing as the deadline approached.

“We went toe-to-toe with one of the most entrenched political systems in the history of the world, and we won,” Platner said in announcing his withdrawal in a social media video. “And now they are not going to let us have it, not if it’s me.”

Contrition was not on his mind, as he defiantly insisted that “We’re not doing it because of the allegations; we’re doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power.”

See, he’s a victim. Maybe that’s why so many Dems liked him.

In the Trump era, victimhood is the engine of the Socialist-driven left.

In the past, those engaging in extramarital affairs often relied on hidden phones, erased messages, and well-thought-out excuses to cover their tracks.

However, a prominent technology specialist warns that artificial intelligence is swiftly rendering these methods obsolete by piecing together countless digital fragments into a comprehensive and incriminating picture.

Every piece of digital evidence—from location signals and toll receipts to license plate data, credit transactions, discarded messages, and surveillance footage—could potentially form a trail pointing back to clandestine liaisons.

Even old affairs, which may have concluded years ago, are not immune as AI develops the capacity to sift through decades-old data breaches in mere moments.

“If it exists in digital form, handle it as if it could be broadcast on a billboard,” tech specialist Kim Komando told the Daily Mail, highlighting the eventual risks digital data might pose.

Komando believes the public has entered an age where they should assume their digital secrets could eventually come to light, saying that ‘this is not a someday problem, it is a next-12-months problem,’ she said. 

‘The tools to scrape, match and expose someone’s private life already exist. What’s changing is the price and the skill it takes to run them, and both are dropping fast,’ she added.

‘Once a scammer can point AI at a pile of stolen data and have it stitch together an affair, a secret or a lie in minutes, blackmail stops being targeted and starts being automated. 

‘My advice to anyone reading this: assume the embarrassing thing you did online is findable, and act like it today, not the day the email lands.’

Komando pointed to the infamous 2015 Ashley Madison hack, when hackers leaked the personal details of roughly 37 million users of the website designed for those seeking extramarital affairs. 

But she said the threat today is far greater than it was a decade ago because AI can analyze enormous amounts of stolen data almost instantly.

‘Marriages ended. Careers ended,’ Komando said, referring to the Ashley Madison hack.

‘That was more than a decade ago, before AI could sort through stolen data at superhuman speed. 

‘Here’s the rule I tell everyone: if it exists in digital form, treat it like it could end up on a billboard. Because someday, somewhere, it might. 

Her warning comes as experts say the internet is entering a dangerous new era, with AI dramatically increasing both the speed and sophistication of cyberattacks. 

According to cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks, daily attacks among its clients increased fourfold between 2024 and 2025, while experts warn companies are now being hacked ‘every single day.’ 

While some people believe they can simply delete incriminating texts or photos, Komando said that is rarely enough.

When asked if someone could realistically conduct an affair today without leaving any digital evidence, she replied: ‘Only if you’re willing to live like it’s 1985.

‘No phone in your pocket, cash for everything, no toll roads, no modern car, no smart doorbell on either end.’

She explained that the average American is quietly tracked dozens of times each day by connected devices they rarely think about.

Phones constantly communicate with nearby cell towers, modern vehicles store location histories, smart doorbells record visitors and apps log movements in the background.

‘You’d need the discipline of a spy and the lifestyle of a hermit,’ Komando said. ‘Real people have neither.’

She believes AI has fundamentally changed how criminals process stolen information.

In the past, hackers who stole millions of records still had to sift through mountains of data manually.

Today, AI can automatically connect information pulled from multiple breaches.

‘It cross-references your email from one breach, your home address from another, your dating profile from a third, and builds a dossier on you automatically,’ Komando explained.

She pointed to industry figures showing how quickly the threat is growing, noting that cybersecurity company CrowdStrike reported AI-enabled cyberattacks jumped 89 percent in a single year, while AI-generated phishing emails have surged more than 1,200 percent since ChatGPT launched.

‘The grunt work that used to take a criminal weeks now takes software seconds,’ she said.

Experts also warn that hackers are now using AI to create malware that can adapt to evade detection, while stolen databases that once took criminals hours to sift through can now be analyzed in minutes. 

Komando warned that deleting evidence rarely makes it disappear forever.

‘When you hit delete, most companies don’t actually shred your data,’ she said.

‘They flag it, archive it, or keep it in backups for months or years.’

Metadata, records showing who contacted whom, when and from where, often survives even longer than the messages themselves.

That means future data breaches may expose not only what exists today, but digital records people believed had vanished years ago.

‘Your past isn’t protected by time,’ Komando said. ‘It’s waiting in storage.’

She likened old data breaches to sealed envelopes that AI is only now learning to open.

‘Data stolen in breaches from 2012, 2015, 2018 is still floating around out there,’ she said. ‘Back then, it was a useless pile of hay. Millions of random emails, texts and location logs that no criminal had the patience to dig through. AI changed the math.’

‘The affair you thought you got away with in 2014? The evidence didn’t disappear. Nobody has read it yet.’

Komando said people often underestimate just how many digital trails they leave behind every day.

Among them are location histories stored on smartphones, toll transponders, license plate readers, vehicle GPS logs, hotel loyalty programs, airline accounts, fitness trackers, smart home devices and payment apps.

Even family technology can become a source of evidence.

‘Shared photo albums, shared streaming profiles, Find My on the family plan,’ she said. ‘Your household is a surveillance network you installed yourself and pay a monthly fee for.’

Even if someone carefully deletes messages, Komando said, copies often remain elsewhere.

Photos can stay in ‘recently deleted’ folders for weeks, text messages are preserved in cloud backups and phone carriers maintain records showing which numbers communicated and when.

More importantly, deleting one copy does nothing to erase the version stored on someone else’s phone or computer.

‘You can only delete your half of a conversation,’ Komando said. She also argued that attempts to hide an affair may create suspicious patterns of their own.

‘A phone that mysteriously powers off every Thursday at 6pm is a pattern,’ she said. ‘A sudden switch to a secret messaging app is a pattern. Absence of data is data.’

According to Komando, AI excels at recognizing exactly those kinds of patterns.

Two phones appearing at the same location every week, recurring gas station purchases far from home, or repeated visits supposedly made to the gym without corresponding fitness activity may each appear meaningless on their own.

But AI can rapidly combine thousands of those seemingly unrelated clues.

‘Finding patterns humans miss in oceans of boring data is literally what the technology does best,’ she said.

The growing cyber threat means those clues may become available to criminals far more quickly than in the past. 

Moody’s Ratings found the average time it takes hackers to exploit a newly disclosed software vulnerability has plunged from more than 700 days in 2020 to just 44 days in 2025, faster than many organizations can patch the flaws. 

Asked whether anyone could still have an affair without leaving digital evidence in 2026, Komando’s answer was unequivocal.

‘I’d tell them no,’ she said. ‘Between phones, cars, cameras, cards and AI that can stitch it all together, there is no clean getaway anymore.’

‘The only truly affair-proof technology ever invented is not having one,’ she added. ‘Everything else leaves a receipt.’

Each morning before the stars faded, a dedicated builder rose from his slumber and departed his home with a mission: to gather his construction crew and craft yet another residence somewhere within the expansive stretch of Houston.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo would arrive home 14 hours later, reuniting with the beloved wife he met in his youth in Mexico and retreating to the humble house he proudly constructed for his family in Houston’s east side.

This tireless routine was Araujo’s life for decades, tirelessly building hundreds of homes over a span of 35 years. Ronaldo Salgado, his eldest son, shared that through his father’s hard work, they built a strong family foundation, paving the way for his three sons to pursue higher education.

Tragedy struck on a Tuesday when a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot the 52-year-old Salgado Araujo. The incident occurred as he was being chased by federal agents in unmarked vehicles while transporting his crew to their latest assignment. This event has sparked outrage among Houston’s leaders and has reignited heated debates over ICE’s practices and the broader implications of Trump’s immigration policies.

In response, four Democratic members of Congress who serve the Houston area made a poignant appearance at a vigil on Saturday. There, they vowed to advocate for an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the shooting, reflecting the community’s strong demand for answers and justice.

“We are never going to forget that his blood is on Donald Trump’s hands,” Rep. Christian Menefee said. “We are not at war. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was not a casualty. He was a human being who was murdered by our government.”

Salgado Araujo was not the target of ICE’s operation

Federal agents were looking for someone else when they tried to stop Salgado Araujo’s white van, Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia said, citing a briefing she received from ICE’s acting director. The Department of Homeland Security has said an ICE officer fired at the van in self-defense after Salgado Araujo, who officials described as an “illegal alien,” rammed an ICE vehicle. They have provided no evidence.

The three men that Salgado Araujo was driving said he was shot through a passenger window and that the ICE officer who fired was not in front of the van or even in danger, a lawyer who has spoken with them said Friday.

His family has also disputed the account from ICE. They said lawyers, who were helping him apply for a work permit, had explained how he should behave if immigration agents stopped him. Salgado Araujo was close to obtaining legal status when he was killed, they said.

“He knew what to do,” Ronaldo Salgado told reporters this week. “He knew not to sign anything. He knew that the first phone call he should make should be either to myself or to my mom. So that way we can get the process started of getting him out.”

He believes his father may have been scared that he was being followed by unmarked vehicles, worried someone was planning to steal his van or his tools.

The shooting in the heavily Hispanic neighborhood is at least the eighth death during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign.

A kind, present husband and father

Salgado Araujo entered the U.S. more than 30 years ago, settling in Houston with his wife where they raised their three children.

Education was a constant focus in the house, said Ronaldo Salgado, who is now a teacher. One of his brothers is an engineer. The other is in college studying engineering.

Several childhood friends of Salgado recalled that his father was kind and soft-spoken, always inquiring about his wife’s day and how his sons’ friends were doing after a long day at work.

“We didn’t really see him until the end of the day when he came home to have dinner, but that just shows how much of a hard worker he was,” said neighbor Jessica Alanis Magdaleno. “Everything they have now is thanks to the dedication to that.”

Josué Flores, a friend of Ronaldo Salgado since their freshman year of high school, said he first saw Lorenzo Salgado Araujo at his son’s football game.

“I think it speaks volumes of the kind of person that he was,” Flores said, recalling how Salgado Araujo showed up for his son even after an arduous day of work.

Salgado Araujo’s wife, a relative said, is “inconsolable.”

Ronald Salgado, his oldest son, said at the Saturday vigil that he hoped he was making his father proud.

“I’ll keep fighting for him,” he said.

His brother Lorenzo Salgado Jr. said the shooting of his father was “a hard moment to be an American.”

“Even though my government, my federal government took away my father, we the people will bring justice,” he said. “We the people are America.”

After coming home in the evening, Salgado Araujo liked to listen to music on the porch and pet the family dog. His family has described him as a simple man of routine.

“He did not deserve to die,” Ronaldo Salgado said. “He dedicated his life in the United States to giving his family the American dream.”

___

The international manhunt for the individual suspected of murdering an American woman in Ireland has entered its fifth day. Despite the scrutiny, Irish authorities have not disclosed any suspect names or descriptions, a move that has sparked criticism from various quarters, including a former FBI agent and an Irish politician.

The victim, Jamey Carney, 43, originally from New York, relocated to Ireland in 2021. She was tragically discovered deceased from head injuries and suffocation in her Killarney home, situated in County Kerry, late Monday. This town, known for its scenic beauty, is a popular destination for American tourists, as reported by The Irish Times.

Interestingly, before Carney’s body was found on Tuesday, the man identified by police as a “person of interest” had already made his way from Killarney to Dublin Airport, about 200 miles away. He then boarded a flight bound for Turkey. This sequence of events implies that the authorities were aware of his identity but opted not to make it public.

Some Irish media outlets have suggested that the individual of interest might be an asylum seeker from Jordan. He reportedly arrived in Ireland in 2024 amid a surge of illegal immigrants entering the country.

“How is the public supposed to help with locating the alleged suspect when Irish authorities won’t even release his name?” former FBI Special Agent Nicole Parker wondered in an interview with News Media. “Time is of the essence. Every hour or day increases the chance the suspect disappears, destroys evidence or hurts others. Public help is critical. Withholding a photo, name or description for days while the suspect is on the run is counterproductive.”

Parker said that if the roles were reversed and a non-U.S. citizen had been murdered in the United States, authorities would typically release identifying information immediately.

“Law enforcement — local, state and federal, including the FBI and U.S. Marshals — would aggressively release identifying information to the public,” she said. “The public’s help is often what leads to locating fugitives.”

Irish broadcaster RTÉ reported police said they were not in a position to comment on the person’s age, name or nationality for legal reasons, though authorities did not specify any such legal basis.

A 2015 immigration law protecting the identities of asylum seekers may explain why Irish police have not identified the person of interest, Gript.ie reported. According to the outlet, the law generally prohibits publishing the identities of asylum seekers to protect them from those they claim to be fleeing.

News Media asked Irish police to identify the person of interest and explain the legal basis for withholding his identity, but they declined to provide any new information, saying only that there were “no additional updates at this time.”

Independent Dublin City Councilor Gavin Pepper, a critic of mass immigration into Ireland, slammed the decision not to publicly identify the person of interest. He said the failure to do so is a serious public safety concern.

“That man had a substantial head start,” Pepper told News Media. “At the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter what color your skin is. If you commit a heinous crime, your face should be all over every newspaper, every TV station. A manhunt is a manhunt.”

Irish police are treating Carney’s death as a murder.

Pepper said that had authorities publicly released the person’s identity sooner, law enforcement in the country where he landed could potentially have been waiting for him.

Not everyone agreed with emphasizing the man’s reported immigration status.

Ruth Coppinger, a member of the Irish parliament with the Trotskyist political party People Before Profit, criticized media reports identifying the man as an asylum seeker, accusing some outlets of “stoking the flames of racism,” according to Gript.ie. She argued in the Irish parliament that “the common denominator in violence against women is a man, not a nationality.”

Several news outlets — including the New York Post, The Irish Mirror, the Irish Independent and the Irish Examiner — identified the 28-year-old person of interest by name. Irish police and the Department of Justice declined to confirm his identity to News Media.

Carney’s body was discovered by her 13-year-old daughter in an upstairs bedroom of their home just before 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, The Irish Times reported.

Irish police issued alerts to airports, ports, train stations and bus stations within just over an hour of Carney’s body being discovered, the Irish Independent reported. However, the person of interest had already left Ireland.

The search is becoming increasingly difficult as the hours and days pass.

Irish police are now working with Interpol, Europol and Turkish authorities to try to locate the man after he flew to Istanbul. Detectives fear he may already have left Turkey with local assistance and traveled onward to Syria or his native Jordan, according to reports.

An Irish police source also told News Media locating the man will be difficult because he had already fled the country. Investigators believe he first arrived in the United Kingdom before traveling to Ireland, according to reports.

The killing comes as Ireland grapples with a rise in violence against women. Gript.ie reported that eight women have died in violent circumstances in the country this year, matching the total for all of 2025. According to the outlet’s analysis, only one of the identified or sought suspects in those cases was an Irish national.

Ireland does not record the ethnicity of those who commit crimes.

Carney was originally from Westchester County, just north of New York City. She moved to Ireland in 2021, according to the Irish Independent.

Her social media profiles described her as a “New Yorker in Ireland” and featured photos and videos of her with her daughter and a man she identified as her partner. In one recent post, she referred to them as a “mixed couple.”

Carney’s social media accounts also showed she supported the Free Palestine movement. Her Facebook bio described her as a “New Yorker in Ireland,” included the phrase “Free Palestine” and said “Fk Ice,” an apparent reference to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Several posts also showed the couple attending pro-Palestinian rallies together.

Posts on the social media accounts of the man named in media reports referred to Carney as “my love” and “my heart.”

His accounts also contain posts from the United Kingdom and Turkey in recent years.

Carney’s LinkedIn profile indicated she worked for a healthcare outsourcing company in Ireland after previously working as an insurance agent and real estate salesperson in the New York metropolitan area.

Carney’s sister, Devon Bennett, described her as “an insanely caring human being” who “dedicated so much of herself, her energy and her time to fighting for the rights of others,” according to the Irish Independent. Bennett said Carney was especially proud of her “brilliant daughter, Michaela.”

“We grew up in New York, but she spent much of her best years with Michaela in Bergen County, New Jersey,” Bennett told the outlet.

“Their true home, where they both felt they truly belonged, was the beautiful town of Killarney.”

Authorities in Lake Tahoe are on the lookout for a clumsy burglar who made the unfortunate mistake of leaving his wallet behind while committing a crime. This unusual event unfolded when he brazenly entered a residence, enjoyed a meal from the homeowner’s kitchen, and decided to leave wearing the owner’s hat and shirt.

According to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, the homeowner returned to his Lake Tahoe abode on June 5, after a three-week vacation, only to find signs of unauthorized entry. Among the startling discoveries was a wallet and a Visa debit card, both linked to a man named Clarence Zillman. The burglary left the homeowner with items misplaced and his birth certificate mysteriously absent.

Sheriff’s deputies have described the situation as one of “unlawful occupation,” signaling the intruder’s extended stay and bold actions.

Further evidence against the suspected squatter emerged when surveillance footage captured him confidently exiting a Safeway store. In a bizarre twist, the man was caught on camera flagrantly flaunting the stolen outfit he had acquired from the home he had invaded.

The peculiar video depicts the suspect leaving a Safeway located at the Round Hill Shopping Center in Zephyr Cove, situated on Lake Tahoe’s scenic south shore. He was unmistakably dressed in the victim’s clothing, an unfortunate fashion statement that only added to the burglary’s unusual narrative, as noted by the authorities.

Police tracked him to Safeway because a receipt for the purchase of two packs of Camel cigarettes was found at the scene. Investigators believe the receipt is linked to the man in the surveillance video.

The homeowner’s shirt was recovered at the scene, but his hat remains missing.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office in Nevada is asking for the public’s help in identifying the man, who is a person of interest in the case.

The investigation remains ongoing as of July 9.

The DCSO urges anyone with information to contact Investigator JT Davis at the Stateline Office at 775-586-7253.