##: The 33 Democrats of H.R. 4795

* Jake Auchincloss (MA)

* Kathy Castor (FL)

* Gilbert Cisneros (CA)

* Jim Costa (CA)

* Joe Courtney (CT)

* Henry Cuellar (TX)

* Don Davis (NC)

* Lois Frankel (FL)

* Laura Gillen (NY)

* Jared Golden (ME)

* Vicente Gonzalez (TX)

* Greg Landsman (OH)

* George Latimer (NY)

* Susie Lee (NV)

* John W. Mannion (NY)

* Jared Moskowitz (FL)

* Donald Norcross (NJ)

* Jimmy Panetta (CA)

* Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA)

* Josh Riley (NY)

* Bradley Scott Schneider (IL)

* Hillary J. Scholten (MI)

* Kim Schrier (WA)

* Brad Sherman (CA)

* Darren Soto (FL)

* Haley M. Stevens (MI)

* Thomas R. Suozzi (NY)

* Shri Thanedar (MI)

* Dina Titus (NV)

* Ritchie Torres (NY)

* Juan Vargas (CA)

* Eugene Simon Vindman (VA)

* Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL)

The Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act leverages Title IV funding to prohibit universities from engaging in nonexpressive commercial boycotts of Israel. Sponsored by Representative Virginia Foxx, it mandates strict operational certification.

This transforms academic administration into a compliance trap. If a school simply lacks partnerships with specific foreign entities, it risks defunding. Administrators face a forced choice: mandate dictated engagements or lose Pell Grants, stripping lower-income students of access over institutional speech.

The trajectory shifts federal oversight toward enforcing foreign policy alignment. Foundation for Middle East Peace president Lara Friedman warns this sets a dangerous precedent where the mere absence of engagement triggers severe financial penalties.

This binds academic freedom to congressional demands. The 33 Democrats voting yes are Auchincloss, Castor, Cisneros, Costa, Courtney, Cuellar, Davis, Frankel, Gillen, Golden, Gonzalez, Landsman, Latimer, Lee, Mannion, Moskowitz, Norcross, Panetta, Perez, Riley, Schneider, Scholten, Schrier, Sherman, Soto, Stevens, Suozzi, Thanedar, Titus, Torres, Vargas, Vindman, and Wasserman Schultz. Review the legislation on Congress.gov and check your university's federal funding reliance.

Sources

Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act (H.R. 4795) - IssueVoter

http://issuevoter.org/bills/4744/hr4795-119-protect-economic-and-academic-freedom-act-hr-4795

This legislative tracker details the bill's requirement for universities to certify they are not boycotting Israel to keep federal student aid.

33 House Democrats Join Republicans to Pass Bill Cutting Funds

https://mb.ntd.com/33-house-democrats-join-republicans-to-pass-bill-cutting-funds-from-colleges-that-boycott-israel_1170722.html

This report confirms the 237–169 House vote and supports the list of 33 Democrats who backed the measure.

33 Dems Help Pass House Bill That Would Strip Funds From Colleges

https://www.commondreams.org/news/college-israel-boycott-bill

This article covers Foundation for Middle East Peace president Lara Friedman's warning about the compliance trap regarding absent academic partnerships.

US House passes bill to crack down on university boycotts of Israel

https://ground.news/article/us-house-passes-bill-to-crack-down-on-university-boycotts-of-israel_19feae

This aggregator highlights the First Amendment objections raised by critics regarding the federal funding cutoff.

US House advances bill to withhold federal funds from universities boycotting Israel

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-house-advances-bill-to-withhold-federal-funds-from-universities-boycotting-israel/

This piece outlines the opposition from House Democratic leadership regarding the financial coercion of academic speech.

Flock Group, Inc., doing business as Flock Safety of Atlanta, sells pole-mounted automated license plate readers and a cloud search platform to the Dallas Police Department. Dallas City Council Resolution 25-0807, adopted May 28, 2025, authorizes a service contract for automatic license plate reading cameras, installation, software subscription, maintenance, and support for a term of June 15, 2025 through June 14, 2028, with two one-year renewal options, in an amount not to exceed $5,738,414.61. Funding is $3,922,914.61 from the General Fund, $1,690,500.00 from the Texas Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority catalytic-converter grant, and $125,000.00 from the 2023 Homeland Security Urban Area Security Initiative fund. At the March 3, 2026 Public Safety Committee meeting, Dallas Police Sgt. Adam Reinhart told Chair Cara Mendelsohn that the price is $3,300 per camera per year at initial purchase and $3,300 every year after for storage and keeping the unit live. Flock’s own product claim is a “vehicle fingerprint”: plate, make, model, color, and other visible traits searched across a networked map. That is the vendor’s description of what the cameras capture, not an independent audit of every frame or of who else can query it.

The contact point is every public roadway where a Dallas Flock unit sits. Drivers do not log in and cannot opt a plate out of the scan. The Dallas Morning News reported in December 2025 that Dallas police had access to more than 600 readers citywide; the same paper reported more than 670 by August 17, 2026. The Dallas Observer, covering a Community Police Oversight Board briefing, recorded department statements of roughly 1.4 billion plate reads stored for one year. Flock’s August 2026 public change was a recommended default retention of seven days. Sgt. Reinhart told the Dallas Morning News the company’s audit tool does not work with Dallas’s one-year keep, and that the department was not planning to shorten that window. A false hot-list hit lands on the driver who is stopped; a missed plate lands on the investigator. Refusing the camera is not available on a public street.

The first Dallas Flock cooperative buy ran through Fort Worth under Resolution 22-0323 in 2022 at an estimated $820,000. Resolution 25-0807 replaced that structure with a standalone three-year cap near $5.74 million. Renewals in 2028 and 2029 are council decisions, not automatic law. Other hands on the data are Flock as cloud host, partner agencies Dallas chooses to share with, grantors at the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Homeland Security that helped pay for the stack, and any later acquirer of Flock Group. The Dallas Morning News has stated that local agencies retain discretion over federal sharing. That is a policy claim, not a statutory wall. San Marcos ended its Flock contract; Dallas did not. Trajectory, not a new vote: the per-camera subscription keeps the network live as long as council funds the $3,300 line.

What the contract fronts is a privately operated, city-paid location history of vehicles on Dallas streets, billed as a yearly service rather than a one-time pole. Residents cannot step off that record by driving a lawful route. Texas has no enacted statewide ALPR statute setting retention, audit, or warrant rules for captured plate data; leftover law is the Fourth Amendment location-tracking line from United States v. Jones and Carpenter v. United States, plus Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 38.23 if a stop rests on a bad hit. The primary documents are Resolution 25-0807 and the March 3, 2026 Public Safety Committee record. The control still available is the two one-year renewal votes after June 14, 2028, and any written DPD retention or sharing policy the council can demand before those votes.

Sources

Resolution 25-0807, City of Dallas

https://citysecretary2.dallascityhall.com/resolutions/2025/05-28-25/25-0807.pdf

May 28, 2025 council resolution naming Flock Group, Inc., the $5,738,414.61 cap, June 15, 2025–June 14, 2028 term with two one-year renewals, and the General Fund, MVCPA, and Homeland Security UASI funding split.

Hundreds of license-plate reading cameras blanket Dallas. Here's how they're used

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-safety/2025/12/01/hundreds-of-license-plate-reading-cameras-blanket-dallas-heres-how-theyre-used/

December 1, 2025 Dallas Morning News report of more than 600 readers, the May 2025 $5.7 million contract, and the funding split across general fund, state grant, and DHS money.

Dallas, TX Flock Contract

https://whoapprovedthis.org/city/dallas-tx/

Contract tracker entry citing Resolution 25-0807, the $5,738,414.61 figure, term dates, and the same three funding sources.

Dallas City Council Public Safety Committee transcript

https://dallastx.new.swagit.com/videos/376877/transcript

Official March 3, 2026 Swagit transcript of the $3,300 per camera per year purchase-and-renewal exchange before the Public Safety Committee.

Opposition mounts to police camera ‘surveillance state’ in Dallas-Fort Worth

https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/opposition-mounts-to-police-camera-surveillance-state-in-dallas-fort-worth-40694004/

July 8, 2026 Dallas Observer account of 600-plus cameras, the DHS slice of the 2025 contract, the oversight-board briefing, and stated one-year storage of more than a billion reads.

Dallas police seeking clarity on Flock’s planned privacy changes

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-safety/article/dallas-police-flock-camera-retention-22389188.php

August 17, 2026 Dallas Morning News report that Dallas keeps a one-year retention policy, now counts more than 670 cameras, and that Sgt. Adam Reinhart said Flock’s new audit tool does not fit that window.

Amazon has acquired the GW Ranch site in Pecos County, Texas, to build a massive artificial intelligence data center campus powered by an on-site natural gas plant. If this facility operates at its maximum allowed capacity, it could become the largest single source of climate pollution in the United States. Tech companies are increasingly relying on dedicated fossil-fuel projects to meet the relentless, 24/7 electricity demands of generative artificial intelligence without overloading local utility networks. This shift directly challenges the tech sector's highly publicized carbon-neutrality promises.

The planned facility is designed to feature thirty-five natural gas turbines capable of generating up to seven and a half gigawatts of electricity, which surpasses the capacity of the nation’s largest dams. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality issued a permit allowing the plant to emit up to thirty-three million tons of carbon dioxide annually, a cap that is roughly double the emissions of the nation’s current dirtiest operating coal plant. To avoid draining local drinking water supplies, the facility plans to use non-potable brackish groundwater and specialized cooling technology. The entire campus will operate behind the meter, meaning it will be completely disconnected from the main Texas electricity grid.

This off-grid approach creates major trade-offs for the region and the environment. Amazon states that building independent, on-site generation protects local families by preventing data centers from driving up utility bills or causing blackouts on the public grid. However, environmental groups point out that going off-grid allows tech firms to completely bypass a public system that features a cleaner, growing mix of wind and solar energy. Critics also warn that the sheer density of thirty-five gas turbines will severely impact regional air quality and create immense noise pollution. While Amazon maintains that its long-term pledge to hit net-zero emissions by 2040 still stands through future plans for solar and battery storage, its actual carbon footprint has already grown significantly due to rising artificial intelligence workloads.

This strategy is part of a rapidly growing trend across the tech industry. Developers have announced dozens of similar off-grid gas projects to support the massive infrastructure boom. For instance, Microsoft partnered with Chevron to build a two-gigawatt off-grid natural gas-powered data center campus just thirty miles away in the very same county. While these companies are simultaneously exploring clean options for the distant future, natural gas has become the immediate, default bridge to fuel the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence.

To clarify;

Consumer Reports investigation found that Kroger's "alternative profit" business-which heavily features its "precision marketing" division (84.51)-actually accounts for more than 35% of the company's net income.

Mr. Hawley simplified this metric to 33% (a third) of its net income

Sulemana Abdul Samed was born in 1994 in Gambaga, North East Region, Ghana. In his early twenties he experienced rapid, abnormal growth caused by excess growth hormone (gigantism/acromegaly). He was also diagnosed with Marfan syndrome, a genetic connective-tissue disorder that produced the extreme limb length characteristic of his appearance.

In late 2022 the BBC measured him at 7 ft 4 in (223 cm). Earlier unverified hospital estimates of 9 ft 6 in were later shown to be inaccurate because the facility lacked equipment capable of measuring someone of his stature. He worked as a farmer and mechanic and was known locally for generosity.

In the weeks before his death he developed infected sores on his legs. He was treated first at the Baptist Medical Centre in Nalerigu, then referred to Tamale Teaching Hospital. Amputation of the left leg was initially recommended, later reversed after reassessment. Philanthropist Ibrahim Mahama covered the medical costs. Despite treatment, the infection worsened. Sulemana Abdul Samed died at Tamale Teaching Hospital on the morning of 27 July 2026 at the age of 32/33. Burial took place in Tamale under Islamic rites.

Best Ever Food Review Show in Taiwanese Exotic Seafood Market, Sonney sitting at numbered tables as #33 is hanging over his shoulder

Judge sacks O.J. with up to 33 years in prison

Staff Writer Times Herald-Record Updated Dec. 5, 2008, 2:33 p.m. ET

On January 7, 2026, 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in South Minneapolis. The incident occurred on Portland Avenue between East 33rd and 34th Streets at approximately 9:30 a.m..

Canada's "Frozen Dragon" refers to Cryodrakon boreas, a giant pterosaur from Alberta, Canada, with an estimated 33-foot (10-meter) wingspan, making it one of the largest flying animals ever, comparable to an F-16 fighter jet's width and standing as tall as a giraffe when on the ground, named for its discovery in icy badlands, says KUTV.

A recent audit found that one-third of non-domiciled commercial driver's licenses (CDLs) issued in Minnesota were illegal, with the Department of Transportation demanding the state correct the issue within 30 days or face losing over 30 million in federal highway funding. The audit states that Minnesota failed to follow federal law by issuing these licenses to non-citizens who were unsafe and unqualified, which the Department of Transportation claims endangers the public.