CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is set to announce a proposal to amend the Constitution to raise the voting age from 18 to 25.

Ramaswamy caught up with Fox News Digital on his tour bus as he traveled through the Hawkeye State amid the growing GOP presidential primary.

The former CEO told Fox News Digital that he plans to announce a constitutional amendment to raise the voting age from 18 to 25, unless a person serves the nation in the military or as a first responder or can pass the civics test immigrants take when becoming citizens.

Ramaswamy plans to announce the Constitutional amendment proposal during a Thursday evening rally with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.

‘We’re going to be talking about this to a large audience of actually young people in Iowa,’ Ramaswamy said. ‘Gov. Kim Reynolds is going to be there tomorrow. There was going to be the perfect place to roll this out tomorrow night to lay out one of the most, I think, bluntly, ambitious proposals we’ve rolled out in this campaign.

‘Which is to say that we want to restore civic duty in the mindset of the next generation of Americans. And how we want to do it is to say that, if you want to vote as an 18-year-old, between the ages of 18 and 25, you need to either do your civic duty through service to the country — that’s six months of service in either military service or as a first responder, police, fire or otherwise — or else you have to pass the same civics test an immigrant has to pass in order to become a naturalized citizen who can vote in this country.’

‘At age 25, that falls away,’ he added.

Ramaswamy said he believes the amendment will drum up civic engagement in America and lead to a more informed population of voters.

The GOP candidate also said his proposed amendment would ‘supercede’ the 26th Amendment that sets the national voting age to 18.

Ramaswamy noted that the 26th Amendment was passed in 1971 and that one ‘of the arguments for that was that if you’re going to have a draft, military draft, that brings 18-year-olds in, then they ought to have the right to vote.’

‘Which, actually said, that this is a relatively familiar notion to us, tying the voting age back then to the age that you could be drafted in the military says that there’s a deep and this is a long-standing tradition in our country, tying civic duties to the privileges of citizenship,’ he said.

Ramaswamy told Fox News Digital that the proposal is ‘fundamentally different’ to Jim Crow laws and that there is ‘no room for funny business like you had in the Jim Crow era.’

‘We literally require people to pass that test to vote today,’ he said. ‘If you’re an immigrant, I’d say the same thing applies if you’re an 18-year-old who graduates from high school who wants to vote.’

‘But you don’t have to do it that way,’ he continued. ‘You could also do it by doing a minimal amount of service to the country.’

Ramaswamy said he hopes the amendment will help younger Americans get out and vote more by ‘making voting something that’s a true privilege by attaching real civic duty to it.’

‘I think we will make it more desirable to vote by actually adding more meaning to the act of voting rather than just emotion that people go through or accustomed to going through. And I think that will actually be positive for our civic culture. And I also think that this can be unifying,’ he explained. ‘Whether you’re the kid of a billionaire in the Upper East Side of Manhattan or whether you’re the daughter of a single mother in the inner city, it doesn’t matter. You have the same requirements to be part of the special group of people at a young age who get to participate in deciding who governs the country. And I think that restores a sense of civic equality and a sense of civic duty that we have long missed in our country.’

Ramaswamy called his amendment proposal not a Republican or Democrat idea but ‘an American idea for restoring civic duty and civic pride in the next generation of Americans.’

Last week, Ramaswamy said he’s already poured eight figures of his own money into his 2024 campaign and emphasized that there’s ‘no limit’ to what he’ll continue to invest into his White House run.

Ramaswamy, a health care and tech sector entrepreneur, best-selling author, conservative commentator and crusader in the culture wars who declared his candidacy for president in February, is worth roughly $600 million, according to Forbes. And Ramaswamy hasn’t disputed past estimates that he has a net worth of half a billion dollars.

‘There’s really no limit to what we’ll put into this campaign,’ Ramaswamy said in a Fox News Digital exclusive national interview following a campaign event at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

The 37-year-old first-time candidate noted that ‘we’ve already made an eight-figure investment in this campaign. Combine that with nearly 30,000 unique donors in just the first 10 weeks. … There’s going to have to be a grassroots movement that lifts this up, but given the family sacrifice that we’re already making, there’s no limit to the financial sacrifice that we’ll make as well.’

Pointing to the $500 million that multibillionaire business and media mogul Mike Bloomberg spent in just four months in his unsuccessful campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, Ramaswamy said, ‘I do think that Michael Bloomberg proved it — you can’t buy elections in this country, which I think is a good thing. The people of this country are too smart for that.’

But Ramaswamy said that his wealth ‘is going to be something that allows us to compete. I don’t have years of political lists and campaign bases to draw from or existing donors — big donors who are viewing me as their sort of guy. That’s the part that we’re skipping by actually having independent, self-created wealth, and frankly, that actually gives me some latitude many of those professional politicians don’t have because those donors — especially mega-donors — have expectations. I don’t dance to anybody else’s tune but to voters who we actually serve.’

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is no longer a national surrogate for President Biden’s re-election campaign amid his criticism of the administration’s handling of the migrant crisis along the southern border.

The news that Adams had been dropped from Biden’s National Advisory Board, which was first reported by Politico, comes after Adams initially joined the campaign’s efforts in March.

‘Adams is among several lawmakers who were initially named to the president’s National Advisory Board in March but no longer appear on a roster of 50 prominent Democrats released by the campaign Wednesday,’ the outlet reported.

The board – which comprises 50 Democrats at varying levels of government to support Biden and Vice President Harris’ re-election chances in 2024 – was announced Wednesday and includes several prominent Democrat politicians, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

Adams’ noticeable absence from the board comes after several rounds of criticism against the Biden administration for its handling of the migrant crisis at the southern border.

‘It is not about the asylum-seekers and migrants, all of us came from somewhere to pursue the American Dream,’ Adams said last week. ‘It is the irresponsibility of the Republican Party in Washington for refusing to do real immigration reform, and it’s the irresponsibility of the White House for not addressing this problem.’

Adams has also been tasked over the last year with dealing with large influxes of migrants sent to the Big Apple by bus from Republican-led states like Florida and Texas who have become overwhelmed.

Adams has previously claimed that New York City ‘is being destroyed by the migrant crisis’ and said the Biden administration ‘failed’ the city on immigration.

Adams said in April that the ‘national government has turned its back on New York City,’ adding that ‘every service in this city is going to be impacted by the asylum seeker crisis.’

Upon being named to the advisory board, Adams told the New York Post that he would not be deterred from speaking out against Biden’s border policies and the migrant crisis.

‘I think to the contrary,’ Adams, the mayor of the nation’s most populous city, insisted at the time. ‘Those who cover me and know me, know that I’m going to speak on behalf of the people of this city, no matter what panel I’m on.’

‘And you know, being a president comes with a menu of items. It doesn’t mean there’s not going to be an item on that menu that I dislike. I dislike what we’re doing around the asylum seekers,’ he added.

Other members of Biden’s national advisory board include: California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Delaware Gov. John Carney, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Marlyand Gov. Wes Moore, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, and more than a dozen Democratic House members.

In a memo from the New York City Office of Management, reported by the New York Post, the city will spend an estimated $4.2 billion on costs related to migrants and asylum seekers that would be spent through June 30, 2023, and the end of fiscal year 2024.

According to the internal city memo, Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan would reimburse the city for up to $1 billion in migrant aid, which only covers 29% of expected shelter costs.

New York City officials have applied for a FEMA grant worth $654 million, with a decision expected May 31.

The Justice Department has reached a settlement with a New Jersey county over language barriers for Spanish-speaking voters, emphasizing a growing challenge for certain minority communities nationwide.

The agreement with Union County comes after federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit alleging it failed to make registration and voting notices, forms, instructions and ballots available in Spanish, violating sections of the federal Voting Rights Act.

‘We know firsthand how language barriers hurt our community,’ said Hector Sanchez Barba, chief executive of Mi Familia Vota, a national group seeking to boost Latino political influence. ‘Eliminating language barriers is not only legally sound but also the right thing to do to strengthen our democracy.’

The county, which has nearly 28,000 Spanish-speaking citizens of voting age, will be required to print all election materials in English and Spanish, and ensure that someone is available to assist Spanish-speaking voters in person. It also will have to assist voters with disabilities, who have long been overlooked in the fight for access to the polls.

The consent decree, announced Tuesday, will need approval from a federal judge.

New Jersey is one of several places across the U.S. where language barriers hamper access to the ballot for minority communities, according to voter advocacy groups. Some Asian American and Asian immigrant communities are particularly affected, said Susana Lorenzo-Giguere, the associate director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund’s Democracy Program.

‘Despite a long history in the U.S., Asian Americans still face bias that views them as perpetual foreigners who aren’t ‘real Americans’ and don’t deserve to be a part of the fabric of our democracy,’ she said.

Under the federal Voting Rights Act, communities must provide language assistance for voting if more than 5% of the voting-age citizens — or over 10,000 — have limited English proficiency.

It can be harder for Asian-speaking communities to be covered under federal law because there are so many languages to consider, said Bob Sakaniwa, director of policy and advocacy of Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote. Bangladeshi, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong and Vietnamese are just some, he said.

For example, Asian communities make up a significant portion of Mercer, Hudson and Somerset counties in New Jersey, but the populations don’t meet the federal threshold for providing assistance. Arabic-speaking communities also are not reflected in New Jersey’s voting rights legislation, which state advocacy groups are still fighting to change.

Union County did not immediately respond when asked how it intended to implement the consent decree.

The New Jersey agreement underscores the importance of the federal Voting Rights Act, despite the landmark law being undermined by Supreme Court decisions and voting restrictions in Republican-led states. Henal Patel, law and policy director at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, said it’s important for local officials to comply with the act and for the federal government to enforce it.

‘This is necessary for voters in these areas so that they can cast their ballots with a full understanding of what they’re voting for,’ Patel said.

Rare momentum in the Texas Capitol for a tougher gun law flickered out Wednesday after Republicans stalled a bill that would raise the purchase age for AR-style rifles, virtually assuring the GOP-controlled Legislature will in no major way restrict gun access after more mass shootings.

The legislation — always a longshot at best — now has little chance of coming back after unexpectedly coming within reach of a full vote in the state House with the help of two Republicans, which sent Texas’ powerful gun lobby scrambling into action.

The unusual forward progress in Texas of a proposed gun restriction jolted the Capitol on Monday, two days after a gunman near Dallas opened fire at an outdoor shopping mall with an AR-style rifle, killing eight people.

But late Tuesday night, House Republicans let a deadline lapse that stops the bill from going any further.

‘Uvalde families didn’t fail. Texas politicians did,’ tweeted Kimberly Mata Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was among the 19 children and two teachers killed by a gunman at Robb Elementary School nearly a year ago in Uvalde, Texas.

The deadline to move the bill toward a full House vote came and went as protesters chanted outside the chamber, including Brett Cross, who had been raising his 10-year-old nephew Uziyah Garcia in Uvalde before the fourth-grader was killed in the shooting. Video on social media showed four Texas Department of Public Safety troopers escorting Cross out of the Capitol during the protest.

Cross said troopers removed him from the Capitol for being too loud. DPS officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the incident Wednesday. State Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat, said he was concerned by the removal and planned to seek more information.

The failure of the bill was not unexpected: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has long rejected calls for tighter gun laws after mass shootings in Texas. He did so again this week after another shooting Saturday in Allen, Texas.

Two Republicans had unexpectedly helped advance the legislation that would raise the purchase age of semiautomatic weapons from 18 to 21. For gun control advocates in Texas, it was nothing short of a milestone.

But that was followed by gun rights groups — which are rarely forced to play defense in the Texas Capitol — mobilizing pushback in an effort to swiftly stamp out even a glimpse of momentum for gun control supporters.

Texas Gun Rights, one of the most outspoken groups, was joined by Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot three people during a Wisconsin protest in 2020 and was later acquitted of murder.

‘This is a perfect example of a knee jerk ‘just do something’ mentality,’ said Chris McNutt, president of Texas Gun Rights.

It underlined how almost any attempt to tighten gun laws in Texas is off the table in the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature, which in recent years has made gun access easier following other mass shootings and shows no appetite for reversing course. That includes Abbott, who after the shooting in Allen, called mental health the root of the problem.

One of the Republicans who voted to advance the bill was state Rep. Sam Harless, who represents a solidly GOP-leaning suburb near Houston. He said he received no pushback form his House colleagues over his decision.

‘I just voted my heart and my constituents are likely not the gun groups,’ Harless said.

Another Republican, state Rep. Justin Holland, also joined Democrats on the House Select Committee on Community Safety in voting 8-5 to advance the measure that would raise the purchase age of certain semiautomatic weapons from 18 to 21.

In a statement defending his vote, Holland said, ‘I do not believe in gun control.’ He noted that he previously voted in support of Texas removing training and background checks to carry a handgun. He also said he had earned three consecutive ‘A’ ratings from the National Rifle Association — but acknowledged he now has ‘no idea’ if they will rate him so highly going forward.

He said testimony given to the committee convinced him that a law raising the purchase age might serve as a ‘significant roadblock’ to a young person acquiring certain semiautomatic weapons and causing harm.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday signed a law providing full disability benefits to Chicago police officers and firefighters struck by COVID-19 before vaccines were available, presiding over an emotional statehouse ceremony which marked the end of a financial struggle for responders including the brother of Comptroller Susana Mendoza.

The Act-of-Duty law, HB3162, ensures disability benefits of 75% of salary plus health insurance for anyone unable to work after contracting the coronavirus from March 9, 2020, when the flare-up intensified in Illinois, until June 30, 2021. The law grants them the presumption that they picked up the illness on the job.

Pritzker said after COVID-19’s arrival in early 2020, police, fire and medical personnel were both a line of defense and a lifeline.

‘Our first responders were key to our national response, transporting infected patients to hospitals, disbursing masks and testing kits or providing care to those in distress…,’ Pritzker said. ‘But even with social distancing, masks and mitigations in place, many of our first responders became infected with COVID-19.’

Mendoza’s brother, 58-year-old police Det. Joaquin Mendoza, was a veteran officer who worked the midnight shift. With no spouse or children, the comptroller said work was his only focus. In November 2020, when the city canceled days off, he worked 17 straight days, woke up one morning with a cough and two days later was rushed to the hospital with COVID-19.

He moved in with his sister and her family and since then, he’s had five strokes and lost both kidneys, requiring thrice-weekly dialysis. But the Policeman’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago denied his claim for full disability because there was no proof that he contracted the virus on the job. The board also denied Officer Diana Cordova-Nestad.

‘This has been the most hellacious experience…,’ Mendoza said. ‘I don’t want any police officers to feel that their only recourse is to recognize that they’re worth more dead than alive and decide to eat a bullet because they don’t want to deal with this. … I know it sounds dramatic, but it’s real.’

Mendoza said she know of about 20 others who will benefit from the law — after her brother and Cordova-Nestad were denied, no one else sought benefits.

‘It’s a small universe… so you’re not talking about opening up the floodgates,’ she said.

Joaquin Mendoza had planned to attend the bill signing but underwent surgery again on Tuesday and remains hospitalized.

‘He told me that maybe it had to happen… because he’s the only one with a sister who knows how to navigate this crazy system and can right the wrong for brothers and sisters on the force,’ the comptroller said.

House Republicans talk about border security all the time.

‘The border’s wide open,’ said Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., on Fox.

‘We expect massive waves of people to come,’ said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn.

‘There’s drug trafficking,’ said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Tex.

‘Unaccompanied children!’ thundered Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Tex., on Fox.

But doing something about the border proved elusive for the House Republican majority for months. Perhaps until now. Republicans aim to pass a bill this week.

This accomplishes two goals for the GOP. The bill coincides with the end of Title 42 and an expected surge at the border. But Republicans also campaigned on border security during the midterm elections.

‘I will promise you this if we get the majority, we will secure this border,’ promised House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., last September as the GOP rolled out its policy agenda.

But consensus evaded Republicans on the issue. They hoped to pass a border security package over the winter but plowed into trouble. The GOP lacked the votes with its narrow majority.

‘We’ve only been in power for just four months,’ protested House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., on Fox. ‘It’s not about a timeframe.’

But the ‘timeframe’ arrived this week as the pandemic-era Title 42 policy at the border expires. That’s why the GOP is angling for passage of the bill.

Like with the debt ceiling bill last month, McCarthy hoped to make the package a ‘take it or leave it’ proposition – not open to amendments or changes. But that goal found reality Tuesday night as the House Rules Committee prepped the border bill for debate.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., indicated early in the week he was a nay. On Twitter, Massie characterized the inclusion of E-Verify (a program to document the eligibility status of workers in the U.S.) in the GOP bill as ‘a huge mistake.’ He argued that the Biden administration could use E-Verify as ‘the ultimate on/off switch for EMPLOYMENT.’ 

Some members also opposed a plan to grant the Secretary of Homeland Security the power to designate cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

The House Rules Committee met until the early hours of Wednesday morning to establish the playing field to consider the bill. But Republicans knew they had to alter the bill to appease potential no votes.

The House can’t bring an actual bill to the floor unless it irons out the ‘rule’ for debate on the issue.

‘I wouldn’t bet against McCarthy and our Whip team. It will be close,’ said one senior Republican with ties to the leadership. 

Fox is told the ending of Title 42 alone could persuade some reluctant GOPers to vote yes even if they have reservations about the bill. 

‘Every vote in the House is like the Perils of Pauline,’ said one source about the tight vote margins the GOP must navigate in the House. ‘But somehow she always seems to avoid  being run over by the train.’

That’s likely the scenario on most big votes in the House for this Congress.

Again, this will be about the math.

Democrats have struggled to get all of their Members to the floor on other major votes of late. But if all Democrats are present and voting (213), that means Republicans can only lose four on their side. Repeated Democratic absences on big votes has helped Republicans advance bills with narrow margins. Democrats could make the GOP sweat if they get everyone to the floor.

However, GOP horse-trading could yield the votes to pass the bill.

McCarthy said two weeks ago that the debt ceiling bill was ‘closed.’ Yet McCarthy opened the bill back up in the dead of night with changes in order to court a coalition of conservatives and midwestern Republicans who were ‘noes’ on the bill for different reasons. Some Republicans viewed that precedent as an opportunity to extract concessions from McCarthy. Not budging would cause problems with approving the measure.

A failure to pass a border security package would be a blow to the House GOP – especially since this was a primary part of the Republican agenda. 

Democrats won’t help on this bill – much like they didn’t assist House Republicans with their debt ceiling package in April.

‘Can you tell me what the final construct of the border bill really is?’ asked House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif. ‘In the dark of night, they made more changes. I haven’t seen every change they have made to this bill.’

Other Democrats argued the GOP bill would make things worse.

‘It just kind of shows the failure of Title 42,’ said Senate Majority Whip and Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill. ‘Their bill provides no new legal pathways for entry into this country, erases nearly all humanitarian protection for families seeking asylum and makes the situation at the border even worse.’

Republicans believe that the Biden Administration’s handling of the border is a winning issue for them. They’re happy to underscore problems with the expiration of Title 42.

‘It is going to be an invasion like we have never seen in the history of this country,’ said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. 

Barrasso then called Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ‘malicious’ and accused him of lying about the border. 

‘With the open border system we have, the drug cartels are taking advantage of it,’ said Tennessee Rep. Mark Green on Fox.

‘The cartels are doing the trafficking,’ said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., ‘They are making thousands of dollars on every child they bring into the country through this horrific and dangerous process.’

‘We are in a crisis,’ said Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Ind.

The onus is on House Republicans. They campaigned on border security. Their border security bill won’t make it through the Senate let alone hit President Biden’s desk. But this is the GOP’s issue. 

Passage of the bill would be a big win for the party.

Otherwise, they have a lot to talk about.

FIRST ON FOX: Ethics experts tell Fox News Digital that President Biden is flirting with crossing ethical lines in talking about the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigation into his son, Hunter Biden.

Fox News Digital reached out to several ethics experts to weigh in on the president proclaiming his son’s innocence as Hunter faces down potential DOJ charges.

Cully Stimson, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital that like ‘most fathers, President Biden is going to defend his son.’

‘However, as the President of the United States, Biden knows (or should know) that it is entirely inappropriate for him to weigh in on an ongoing federal investigation of a suspect because as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, and the person assigned the Pardon Power under the Constitution, he should not pre-judge any federal case until the case has come to its natural conclusion,’ Stimson said.

Mike Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT), told Fox News Digital there ‘is a reason that officials, including the President in past occasions, normally refuse to comment on ongoing investigations.’

‘Especially in the case of the President, whom DOJ officials are ultimately responsible to, any statement commenting on a case or investigation could likely sway those working on the case and could tend to manipulate the outcome,’ Chamberlain warned.

‘While this is clearly irresponsible, it may be worse,’ he continued. ‘Given that the DOJ is already under fire after reports that a whistleblower has alleged political interference in career officials’ recommendations to prosecute Hunter Biden, the President’s statement could be interpreted by some as akin to potential obstruction of justice.’

Former Obama administration ethics chief Walter Shaub told Fox News Digital that Biden’s weighing in on his son’s potential criminal charges ‘highlight’ the dangers of the president or his White House personnel talking to the DOJ or Internal Revenue Service (IRS) about Hunter’s case.

Shaub said he hopes Biden and his administration keep their distance from Hunter’s investigation but believes it’s likely okay for a presidential father to exercise caution while proclaiming his son’s innocence as to not appear as attempting to influence the decision.

‘I think these remarks highlight exactly why neither President Biden or anyone from the White House should talk to anyone at the IRS or Justice Department about the investigation of his son,’ Shaub said. ‘I hope they continue to maintain a strict firewall.’

‘As long as he stays away from doing that, it’s probably ok for a father to say he believes his son is innocent,’ he continued. ‘But he should exercise caution to avoid appearing to try to influence a potential jury pool or undermine the credibility of the investigation, which may mean refraining from going further than answering an interviewer’s questions, for instance, by raising the topic in a speech.’

The Justice Department is reportedly nearing a decision to charge Hunter Biden on federal tax-and-gun-related charges. 

The first son has been under federal investigation since 2018 for two misdemeanor tax filing charges, a felony tax evasion charge, and a false statement charge over a gun purchase. 

President Biden was asked how the potential looming charges would impact his presidency in an interview last Friday with MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle. 

‘First of all, my son’s done nothing wrong. I trust him. I have faith in him and, it impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him,’ Biden explained.

California’s reparations task force is calling on the state legislature to mandate ‘anti-bias training’ and an assessment based on that training as graduate requirements for medical school across the Golden State.

The task force, which was created by state legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020, formally approved over the weekend its final recommendations to the California Legislature, which will then decide whether to implement the measures and send them to the governor’s desk to be signed into law.

Much of the public’s attention has been focused on the price tag of the proposed reparations: up to $1.2 million for qualifying Black Californians as initial ‘down payments’ while they wait for the purported full amount of money loss due to slavery and subsequent racism to be calculated.

Economists predicted in a preliminary estimate in March that California’s reparations plan could cost the cash-strapped state more than $800 billion. The task force said at the time that the total didn’t include compensation for property deemed to be taken unjustly or for the devaluation of Black-owned businesses.

However, several aspects of the committee’s recommendations have received little attention, including its proposals regarding health care.

One of the more striking health-related proposals is to mandate anti-bias training in order for medical professionals in California who study at state-funded programs to graduate.

‘To address discrimination against African Americans in health care, the task force recommends the legislature add the completion of an evidence-based anti-bias training and an assessment based on such training to the graduation requirements of all medical schools and any other medical care provider programs in California receiving state funding and not already covered, including mental health professional programs (psychologists, Ph.D, or Psy.D), masters-level programs in psychology or therapy (for counselors, clinicians, and therapists), and programs for clinical social workers,’ the committee states in its proposal.

The reparations plan also calls for similar training and testing to be ‘graduation requirements of all dental schools in California receiving state funding’ and ‘requirements for licensure by the Dental Board of California for licensed dentists and registered dental assistants.’

Meanwhile, the task force is pushing another controversial measure that could face backlash in the legislature: a universal, single-payer health care system as a way to achieve health ‘equity’ for Black residents.

‘The task force recommends closing the health coverage gaps through the adoption of a comprehensive universal single-payer health care coverage and health care cost control system for the benefit of all African Americans in Californian, with a special consideration for those who are descendants of persons enslaved in the United States,’ the panel’s final draft report states.

It’s unclear whether the task force is recommending the legislature create a government-run health care system that would extend coverage only to California’s Black residents or to everyone in the state. The task force didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.

Either way, California lawmakers have previously tried and failed to implement a universal health program. The state currently operates Medi-Cal, its own Medicaid program meant to provide health coverage to people with low incomes and limited ability to pay for their own health care. According to the task force, the state should put more money into the program to ‘achieve parity’ with private health insurers.

‘For the many African Americans in Californian who remain on Medi-Cal, the task force also recommends increases to the Medi-Cal reimbursement rates to achieve parity with the reimbursement rates of private insurance,’ the report says.

Such measures, according to the task force, are among those required for the state of California to make amends for slavery and broader anti-Black racism and discrimination. 

‘Due to discrimination, disempowerment, and neglect of African American patients by health care institutions, African American communities have suffered major gaps in health care delivery,’ the task force writes. ‘The impact can be seen across in virtually every aspect of physical and mental health outcomes.’

California never allowed slavery in its history, but critics argue the state still worked to uphold the institution and discriminated in other ways against Black Americans.

The reparations committee argues health disparities between White and Black Americans is connected to the latter suffering from ‘constant stress from chronic exposure to social and economic disadvantage, which leads to accelerated decline in physical health,’ adding unequal health outcomes ”cannot be explained away by factors like age, income, or education level’ — through implicit biases and racism, the health care system treats Black Californians differently.’

To address what the task force describes as systemic racism, the panel recommends the legislature authorize and provide ongoing funding to a ‘California Health Equity and Racial Justice Fund’ within the California Health Department’s Office of Health Equity, which already exists.

Under the task force’s plan, the Office of Health Equity would administer an annual $115 million
grant program ‘to address health disparities, focusing on social determinants of health.’

The reparations committee’s final recommendations include dozens of additional measures concerning mental and physical health. One such proposal calls for the Office of Health Equity to conduct an annual review of California health care laws and policies and to include how to ‘design and implement consequences for health care providers who do not address and reduce identified treatment disparities.’

The report notes this recommendation builds on a California Senate resolution from 2021 that stated, ‘The legislature declares racism to be a public health crisis and will actively participate in the dismantling of racism.’

A California state bill introduced in 2020 would have declared racism a public health crisis and established the state’s first Racial Equity Commission. The bill did not pass, but Newsom went on to create a Racial Equity Commission in September 2022 by executive order.

Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., has been hit with federal charges in the Eastern District of New York (EDNY), sources tell Fox News.

Santos, who is the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation, is expected to appear at EDNY Central Islip on Wednesday afternoon for his first appearance. 

The charges, first reported by CNN, come after the scandal-plagued congressman last month announced his candidacy for reelection.

Fox News has reached out to Santos’ office and the DOJ for comment.

The freshman congressman flipped New York’s 3rd Congressional District for Republicans last year, partly by selling an inspirational personal backstory to voters that he later admitted was largely fictitious.

FIRST ON FOX: Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is blaming President Biden for the ongoing migrant crisis at the southern border as border officials prepare for the ending of the Title 42 public health order this week — with Haley promoting her plan to secure the border if she were to become president.

‘Never forget that Joe Biden created this crisis. He urged migrants to ‘surge’ the border,’ she said, referring to remarks Biden made as a presidential primary candidate.

Haley then noted Biden’s reversal of Trump-era policies such as the Remain-in-Mexico policy and border wall construction — which Republicans have argued were working to bring down apprehensions.

‘He caved to the radical wing of his party and reversed polices that were working. Now, Biden has turned every state in America into a border state,’ she said. ‘The first step to securing the border is to vote Joe Biden out. My plan calls for implementing a national E-Verify program, defunding sanctuary cities, stopping handouts to illegal immigrants, and firing Biden’s new IRS agents and hiring 25,000 new Border Patrol and ICE agents.’

Haley became the first announced 2024 candidate to visit the border last month, where she made a number of stops in Texas. She also used that trip to roll out her plan for the border, which includes the mandate for E-Verify. Haley had previously backed the program when she signed legislation as governor of South Carolina to require all businesses to use the immigration status verification tool.

‘We did a mandatory E-Verify program that said none of our businesses could hire anyone that was in this country illegally,’ she said on ‘One Nation with Brian Kilmeade.’ ‘That is what got them out of South Carolina because there were no jobs for them to come to, that’s what will get them out of this country, we’ve got to make sure none of our businesses hire anyone that is here in the country illegally, and we’ve got to start taking this seriously. Every state is a border state.’

Her plan would also restore the ‘Remain-in-Mexico’ policy — which kept migrants in Mexico while their immigration hearings proceeded, instead of releasing them into the U.S. Republicans have credited that policy with reducing the pull factors which drew migrants north. 

Additionally, she has said she would cut funding to states that have been used to give money to illegal immigrants — such as the billions used by New York to cut checks to illegal immigrant workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic.

Haley’s remarks come as Title 42 — which has allowed for the rapid expulsion of migrants at the southern border due to the COVID-19 pandemic — is set to expire on Thursday along with the COVID-19 national emergency.

Migrants are already flooding to the border, and numbers are expected only to surge in the coming days when the order ends as migrants believe they are more likely to be released into the U.S.

The Biden administration has been warning people not to make the journey, and has taken a number of actions, including cooperation with Mexico on deportations and an increase of penalties for illegal entry — but so far it does not seem to be dissuading migrants.