Author: Areesha Rahman

  • Virginia Tech’s ALARMING DEI Rollback

    By: Jasmine Weng, December 8, 2025 The Cardinal News reports that Virginia Tech has enacted substantial cuts to its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) infrastructure, reductions that now total more than $8 million, following the passage of Virginia’s new public-university budget requirements and the broader political movement to restrict DEI programs statewide. • Most notably,…

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  • Campus Initiative: Jester West Brings Back Free Period Products for Residents

    By: Pallavi Gorantla, December 8, 2025 Jester West Hall residents now have easy access to pads, tampons, and liners without having to worry about paying thanks to Jester West Hall’s official return of its free period product program. The hall council decided to reinvest in this service, which came back on October 27. This was…

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  • Supreme Court Allows Texas Voting Map to Stand

    By: Pallavi Gorantla , December 8, 2025 Newly approved congressional map faces ongoing scrutiny. What the Ruling Does The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed Texas to use its newly drawn congressional voting map for the 2026 election cycle. The ruling overturns a lower federal court’s decision to prohibit the map after it was determined that it…

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  • AI: A Cold War

    By: Isabella Diaz-Ayala, December 8, 2025 An all-too-familiar tech race resurfaces as a direct result of the boom in artificial intelligence. The U.S. and China compete to monopolize this burgeoning industry, with China aiming to lead computer vision and facial recognition by 2030. Following the release of ChatGPT in 2022, America dominated the leaderboard, prompting…

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  • Russia’s Pitch to Monetize Peace

    By: Isabella Diaz-Ayala, December 8, 2025 A recently leaked 28-point plan for Ukrainian peace reveals a controversial decree from President Trump, calling for Ukraine to surrender eastern territories, scale back its military efforts, and indefinitely abstain from NATO membership. In a quiet Floridian home, real estate mogul Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Russian…

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  • rewriting the hub program: who gets left behind?

    By: Cathy Gomez, December 6, 2025 The State of Texas has overhauled its 30-year-old Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) program: under emergency rules issued December 2, 2025, the program is being rebranded as Veteran Heroes United in Business program (VetHUB), and its eligibility criteria have been changed dramatically.      •    Under the new rules, only small…

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  • the cultural cost of arctic drilling

    By: Cathy Gomez, December 6, 2025 The Earthjustice reports that the U.S. Department of the Interior under the Trump administration is aggressively moving to open vast, pristine regions of Alaska’s Arctic lands, many never before industrialized, to oil and gas drilling.      •    Most notably, the administration has opened the entire 1.56-million-acre Coastal Plain of…

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  • Texas Braces for a Landmark Decision on Work Rights for DACA Recipients

    Texas’ Looming “State-Only DACA” Decision Texas is once again at the center of a major immigration debate as a long-awaited court ruling could create what some experts are calling a “Texas-only DACA.” The case challenges the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and specifically questions whether Texas must continue recognizing work permits issued to…

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  • Campus Quiet Hours… for the First Amendment?

    Texas’ New Campus Speech Law Faces Legal Challenge A new Texas law aimed at regulating campus conduct is drawing national attention and a lawsuit. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonpartisan civil-liberties organization, has filed suit against the state, arguing that the law effectively bans most forms of student expression after 10…

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  • A Fourth Abbott Term? What Texans Should Know Before Heading to the Polls

    Gov. Abbott officially announced that he is running for a fourth term as Governor of Texas in the 2026 election. If re-elected, he would become the longest-serving governor in Texas history, surpassing his predecessor’s 14 years. In his announcement, he framed the campaign around continuing conservative “common-sense” leadership, lowering property taxes, boosting education, and strengthening…

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