Daily Caller
New York Dem Tells Adams It’s Time To Turn ‘Tough Talk’ On Immigration Into Action

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Jason Hopkins
New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared that he is willing to work with the Trump administration to help crack down on illegal migrant crime, but a fellow Democrat is pushing him to prove he means what he’s saying.
Adams said Tuesday that he is prepared to sit down with soon-to-be border czar Tom Homan to discuss the incoming administration’s plans to deport criminal illegal migrants out of the Big Apple, and he dared his opponents to “cancel me” if they aren’t happy with it. However, NYC Council Member Robert Holden, a Democrat and co-chairman of the moderate Common-Sense Caucus, responded by pushing the mayor to “show his commitment” by rolling back a number of sanctuary policies that are holding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents back.
“Tough talk is good, but actions speak louder,” Holden said in a Wednesday statement. “The Mayor had the chance to amend or repeal sanctuary city laws through his Charter Revision Commission but chose not to.”
“Now, it’s time to right these wrongs,” Holden continued. “To truly show commitment to public safety, Mayor Adams should reopen the ICE office at Rikers Island and give the NYPD, DOC [Department of Corrections], and DOP [Department of Probation] the ability to communicate with ICE and honor detainers for criminal migrants.”
NYC’s status as a sanctuary city has long been a contentious issue with local leaders, especially in recent months as a spate of high-profile crimes allegedly committed by illegal migrants have become national headlines.
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014 signed into law a bill that largely prohibits the New York Police Department from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, and he enacted legislation in 2018 that doubled down on the policy. A major facet of de Blasio’s sanctuary city rollout was the eviction of ICE agents from Rikers Island, a major prison facility located in The Bronx.
Barring ICE agents from prison facilities makes their job incredibly more difficult and dangerous because they are forced to make apprehensions of criminal migrants out in the public, federal immigration authorities argue.
NYC has been hit particularly hard by the national immigration crisis. Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers have landed in the Big Apple since 2022 and officials have burned through billions of taxpayer dollars trying to manage the situation, according to city officials. The crisis has forced Adams to grow increasingly less sympathetic to the city’s sanctuary laws.
However, when Common Sense Caucus members introduced legislation earlier this year that would’ve rolled back sanctuary city legislation, it went nowhere in the NYC Council, which is dominated by liberal lawmakers. Members of the moderate caucus group said Adams could’ve done more to bring the issue to voters when he created the Charter Revision Commission, which had the authority to hand the decision to voters by placing it on the November ballot.
“The fact is that our city’s sanctuary city status has become deeply unpopular, even among Democrat voters, and was almost certain to be defeated by voters if a vote was allowed,” GOP Councilwoman Vickie Paladino said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation in July after the Commission opted not to include a referendum on the sanctuary city laws this year.
“But once again, the party which lectures us about ‘democracy’ is not actually interested in practicing it,” she continued.
In response to Homan’s declaration that he would not tolerate sanctuary city leaders getting in the way of his upcoming crackdown on illegal immigration, Holden wrote a letter to Adams, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other local leaders urging them to change course because “federal statute explicitly prohibits the harboring, shielding, or concealing of illegal aliens, particularly those engaged in criminal activities.”
Business
Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan Ramp Up Pressure On Google Parent Company To Deal With ‘Censorship’

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Andi Shae Napier
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan are turning their attention to Google over concerns that the tech giant is censoring users and infringing on Americans’ free speech rights.
Google’s parent company Alphabet, which also owns YouTube, appears to be the GOP’s next Big Tech target. Lawmakers seem to be turning their attention to Alphabet after Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta ended its controversial fact-checking program in favor of a Community Notes system similar to the one used by Elon Musk’s X.
Cruz recently informed reporters of his and fellow senators’ plans to protect free speech.
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“Stopping online censorship is a major priority for the Commerce Committee,” Cruz said, as reported by Politico. “And we are going to utilize every point of leverage we have to protect free speech online.”
Following his meeting with Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai last month, Cruz told the outlet, “Big Tech censorship was the single most important topic.”
Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent subpoenas to Alphabet and other tech giants such as Rumble, TikTok and Apple in February regarding “compliance with foreign censorship laws, regulations, judicial orders, or other government-initiated efforts” with the intent to discover how foreign governments, or the Biden administration, have limited Americans’ access to free speech.
“Throughout the previous Congress, the Committee expressed concern over YouTube’s censorship of conservatives and political speech,” Jordan wrote in a letter to Pichai in March. “To develop effective legislation, such as the possible enactment of new statutory limits on the executive branch’s ability to work with Big Tech to restrict the circulation of content and deplatform users, the Committee must first understand how and to what extent the executive branch coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech.”
Jordan subpoenaed tech CEOs in 2023 as well, including Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Tim Cook of Apple and Pichai, among others.
Despite the recent action against the tech giant, the battle stretches back to President Donald Trump’s first administration. Cruz began his investigation of Google in 2019 when he questioned Karan Bhatia, the company’s Vice President for Government Affairs & Public Policy at the time, in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Cruz brought forth a presentation suggesting tech companies, including Google, were straying from free speech and leaning towards censorship.
Even during Congress’ recess, pressure on Google continues to mount as a federal court ruled Thursday that Google’s ad-tech unit violates U.S. antitrust laws and creates an illegal monopoly. This marks the second antitrust ruling against the tech giant as a different court ruled in 2024 that Google abused its dominance of the online search market.
Daily Caller
Daily Caller EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s Broad Ban On Risky Gain-Of-Function Research Nears Completion

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Emily Kopp
President Donald Trump could sign a sweeping executive order banning gain-of-function research — research that makes viruses more dangerous in the lab — as soon as May 6, according to a source who has worked with the National Security Council on the issue.
The executive order will take a broad strokes approach, banning research amplifying the infectivity or pathogenicity of any virulent and replicable pathogen, according to the source, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the anticipated executive action. But significant unresolved issues remain, according to the source, including whether violators will be subject to criminal penalties as bioweaponeers.
The executive order is being steered by Gerald Parker, head of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, which has been incorporated into the NSC. Parker did not respond to requests for comment.
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In the process of drafting the executive order, Parker has frozen out the federal agencies that have for years championed gain-of-function research and staved off regulation — chiefly Anthony Fauci’s former institute, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.
The latest policy guidance on gain-of-function research, unveiled under the Biden administration in 2024, was previously expected to go into effect May 6. According to a March 25 letter cosigned by the American Society for Microbiology, the Association for Biosafety and Biosecurity International, and Council on Governmental Relations, organizations that conduct pathogen research have not received direction from the NIH on that guidance — suggesting the executive order would supersede the May 6 deadline.
The 2024 guidance altered the scope of experiments subject to more rigorous review, but charged researchers, universities and funding agencies like NIH with its implementation, which critics say disincentivizes reporting. Many scientists say that researchers and NIH should not be the primary entities conducting cost–benefit analyses of pandemic virus studies.
Parker previously served as the head of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), a group of outside experts that advises NIH on biosecurity matters, and in that role recommended that Congress stand up a new government agency to advise on gain-of-function research. Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield has also endorsed moving gain-of-function research decision making out of the NIH to an independent commission.
“Given the well documented lapses in the NIH review process, policymakers should … remove final approval of any gain-of function research grants from NIH,” Redfield said in a February op-ed.
It remains to be seen whether the executive order will articulate carveouts for gain-of-function research without risks of harm such as research on non-replicative pseudoviruses, which can be used to study viral evolution without generating pandemic viruses.
It also remains to be seen whether the executive order will define “gain-of-function research” tightly enough to stand up to legal scrutiny should a violator be charged with a crime.
Risky research on coronaviruses funded by the NIH at the Wuhan Institute of Virology through the U.S. nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance typifies the loopholes in NIH’s existing regulatory framework, some biosecurity experts say.
Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act in 2023 indicated that EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak submitted a proposal to the Pentagon in 2018 called “DEFUSE” describing gain-of-function experiments on viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2 but downplayed to his intended funder the fact that many of the tests would occur in Wuhan, China.
Daszak and EcoHealth were both debarred from federal funding in January 2025 but have faced no criminal charges.
“I don’t know that criminal penalties are necessary. But we do need more sticks in biosafety as well as carrots,” said a biosecurity expert who requested anonymity to avoid retribution from his employer for weighing in on the expected policy. “For instance, biosafety should be a part of tenure review and whether you get funding for future work.”
Some experts say that it is likely that the COVID-19 crisis was a lab-generated pandemic, and that without major policy changes it might not be the last one.
“Gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens caused the COVID-19 pandemic, killing 20 million and costing $25 trillion,” said Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University microbiologist and longtime critic of high-risk virology, to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “If not stopped, gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens likely will cause future lab-generated pandemics.”
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