South Dakota lawmakers are taking a break in the legislative session until they return later in March to consider any bills Republican Gov. Kristi Noem vetoed.

Republican legislative leaders were focused on cutting taxes when the session began in January. They now can declare victory on that topic.

The record was more mixed on other topics, ranging from restricting gender-affirming care for transgender people to limiting foreign ownership of farmland.

Here is a rundown on how the session’s top issuesfared:

Biggest Tax Break in State History

As legislators opened the session with a $423 million surplus, lawmakers were intent on passing a sales tax cut — and they accomplished that goal earlier this month. The Legislature approved a general sales tax cut from 4.5% to 4.2% that is set to end after four years. The change is expected to reduce taxes by $104 million per year.

The legislation included removal of a mechanism known as the ‘Partridge Amendment,’ which gradually reduced the state’s sales tax as more money was collected from internet sales.

Rather than the general sales tax reduction, Noem had campaigned for reelection on a promise to repeal sales taxes on groceries. Since legislators took a different approach, it wasn’t clear whether she would sign the legislation.

‘I still believe that the best budget option for our state’s future is the one that I presented in December, including the elimination of the sales tax on groceries,’ Noem said Friday in a statement. ‘And in the coming weeks, I will have to decide whether the budget that has been presented to me is worthy of my signature.’

Stoking Fears Against China

Many lawmakers voiced fears about foreign businesses in the state but struggled to agree on strategies for restricting them.

While Noem favored creating a chapter of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to judge whether a foreign entity was eligible to purchase 160 acres or more of land, some lawmakers preferred streamlined procedures to simply count foreign ownership.

‘China’s kind of coming in the front door. Nobody’s putting any restrictions on anything and when you really start paying attention and looking at what’s happening, you get even more concerned,’ said Republican Sen. Erin Tobin, whose bill for an oversight committee was defeated.

Lawmakers and the cattle industry opposed Noem’s proposal, pointing out flaws in the mechanics and cautioning against pitting business opportunities against national security.

The legislature approved a bill to require agricultural businesses to document whether their land is owned by a foreign entity for government records, as well as a bill that will cut ties between the government and overseas businesses.

Culture War Issues

Noem signed into law a bill that prohibits gender-affirming care for transgender people younger than 18.

The new law bans the prescription of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and gender-affirming surgery for minors. By approving the legislation, lawmakers pushed back against opponents who argued that such treatment can help young people psychologically and reduce the risk of suicide among minors.

The new measure would see medical licenses removed from health care providers who provide banned treatment to transgender youth, despite criticism from the state’s leading health organizations. It’s unclear whether this will result in a lawsuit, as has been the case with similar laws across the country.

This is the latest move opposed by transgender advocates that Noem has signed. Last year, the governor imposed a ban on transgender girls and college-age women playing in state school leagues.

‘Every year, South Dakota lawmakers zero in on transgender youth,’ said Samantha Chapman with the ACLU of South Dakota. ‘And every year the transgender community is hurt while meaningful problems go unaddressed.’

Separately, some Republican lawmakers backed restrictions on drag shows on state university campuses and other publicly funded spaces and sought to stop children from attending such events. That effort ultimately failed.

A bill to ban library books ‘harmful to minors’ also lost in an initial hearing.

Tribal Sovereignty

In South Dakota, native youth are put into foster care at three times the rate of white youth, and some lawmakers proposed a bill aimed at placing Native American children with other relatives when they are removed from their families.

The move came as the U.S. Supreme Court considers challenges to the federal Indian Child Welfare Act, which gives preference to Native American families in foster care and adoption proceedings for Native American children.

‘What can the tribes do better and what can the states do better?’ Democratic Rep. Peri Pourier said when presenting a statewide Indian Child Welfare Act bill. ‘What it really boils down to is a relationship built on trust.’

Other states have added similar protections to state law, but such efforts failed in South Dakota, and proposals again didn’t pass this session. Supporters expressed disappointment that Noem and Democratic legislators couldn’t work together on such a bill.

Property Rights vs. Pipelines

Ranchers called for restrictions on the use of eminent domain to install carbon capture pipelines, but lawmakers opted not to approve limitations out of concern it could hurt the state’s ethanol industry and break business agreements.

The lack of action means carbon sequestration companies like Summit Carbon Solutions and Navigator CO2 can continue using eminent domain to build pipelines across the state as part of a larger regional network.

Those opposed to the limits expressed concern that restrictions could lead to legal action against the state and argued the pipelines would help South Dakota’s long-term agricultural industry.

Election Rules

While South Dakota said the state’s electoral system is safe and accurate, lawmakers still approved changes to election laws.

‘South Dakota has an excellent election system but we can always be better,’ said Republican Rep. Tony Venhuizen.

The new measures include slight changes in recounts and runoffs through language and proceedings, such as a law that enables candidates outside the primary election to run. Candidates tied for second place would be required to participate in the runoff election alongside the first-place candidates if the margin is less than 35%.

Backers of a proposal to enshrine abortion rights in the Ohio Constitution can begin collecting the more than 413,000 voter signatures required to put the issue before voters this fall, after the petition cleared another hurdle Monday.

The constitutional amendment moves to the signature-gathering phase after the Ohio Ballot Board confirmed the petition language contains only one proposed amendment.

Abortion remains legal in the state up to 20 weeks’ gestation, under a judge’s order issued in a lawsuit challenging a ban once cardiac activity can be detected, or around six weeks into pregnancy. The Republican attorney general has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to overturn the stay.

The fall ballot proposal would assure access to abortion until what is called viability, when the fetus could survive outside the womb. It also would protect caregivers from being punished for performing the procedure or aiding the process.

Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights and Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom are aiming to get that proposed constitutional amendment on ballots this November.

Under state law, the groups must collect 413,446 valid voter signatures — 10% of the votes in the last governor’s race — statewide, across at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties. Their deadline is July 5 to make the Nov. 7 ballot.

They say they are aiming to gather at least 700,000 signatures to ensure they meet the requirement.

Anti-abortion groups are vowing to fight the proposal and are already urging Ohio residents to vote against it if it makes it to the ballot.

The U.S. government may have made duplicate payments for projects at labs in Wuhan, China, through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), according to records reviewed by CBS News. 

‘What I’ve found so far is evidence that points to double billing, potential theft of government funds. It is concerning, especially since it involves dangerous pathogens and risky research,’ said Diane Cutler, a former federal investigator with over two decades of experience combating white-collar crime and healthcare fraud. 

Cutler found evidence of possible double payments as she investigated U.S. government grants that supported high risk research in China leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic. She was hired by Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, who took her records to USAID, which launched a new probe.

Cutler said she viewed over 50,000 documents, and that the U.S. government may have made duplicate payments for possible medical supplies, equipment, travel, and salaries. 
 

‘I think there’s 1.1 million reasons that American taxpayers should care,’ Marshall said. ‘You’ll have a plane crashes. We want to find out why the plane crashes. We go to any lengths to do that. And the hope is we don’t have another plane crash for the same reason.’ 

FAUCI CLAIMS US GAVE $600,000 TO WUHAN LAB RESEARCH; DOCUMENTS SHOW IT WAS MORE

While intelligence agencies have not been able to reach a consensus on the origin of the pandemic, the FBI and Energy Department have found an accidental lab leak is plausible. The Wuhan Institute of Virology conducted viral research in the city where the SARS-CoV-2 virus first emerged. 

During a recent congressional hearing regarding the origins of COVID-19, the House voted unanimously on a bill ordering the declassification of intelligence about the origins. Robert Redfield, the former director of the CDC, testified that money from the NIH, the State Department, USAID and the Defense Department provided funding for high-risk virus research in Wuhan. 

Chinese social media app TikTok should ‘absolutely’ be banned in the U.S. as the platform’s potential to spread China’s propaganda and steal Americans’ data remains a national security concern, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said Sunday.

Warner, a Senate Intelligence Committee chair, appeared on ABC’s ‘This Week’ and said that the U.S. ‘should be concerned’ about its relationship with China because the two countries are in ‘enormous competition’ with each other.

‘National security is not simply about guns and ships and tanks anymore,’ Warner said. ‘It’s about technology competition.’

The Virginia senator said that 100 million Americans use TikTok for an average of 90 minutes per day, adding that their data is ‘residing in China no matter what TikTok says.’

‘TikTok can be used as a propaganda mechanism for the Community Party of China,’ Warner said. ‘That, I believe, is a national security concern.’

While Warner said he believed the app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, should ‘absolutely’ be banned in the U.S., the platform should not be singled out as more foreign technology will emerge in the future.

‘What we need, though, is a rules-based approach that doesn’t simply single out a single application because it was Huawei, the Chinese telecom company earlier, TikTok today, there will be other technology applications.’

Meanwhile, TikTok is continuing its campaign to convince Western countries that it is not funneling users’ data to the Chinese government.

TikTok recently hired the corporate and political consulting firm, SKDK, which worked for President Biden’s campaign in 2020, according to reports.

Fox News’ Timothy H.J. Nerozzi  and Greg Wehner contributed to this report.

Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy denied rumors he was planning a run for the White House in 2024. 

When asked if he has considered running for president, Murphy told CBS ‘Face the Nation’ host Margaret Brennan, ‘I have 1,000%, behind President Biden.’ 

‘And I haven’t really looked beyond that he certainly is going to run. He deserves to run. He’s earned that right. I think he’s had a great run here. And I’m gonna be 1,000% behind him.’

Brennan pointed to a profile piece published Saturday in the New York Times titled, ‘A Trip to Ukraine. A Jab at Ron DeSantis. What Is Phil Murphy Up To?’

‘It’s a very good question,’ Murphy said Sunday. ‘I’m incredibly honored to serve as the governor of New Jersey, we inherited a state that was basically a train wreck, and we got elected to fix it and got reelected to continue to fix it. That is job number one, period full stop. I’m a former U.S. ambassador, which in my case was the Federal Republic of Germany. And therefore the international stuff is – continues to be important to us. New Jersey is one of the most international American states. So direct investment relations abroad matter a lot. I’m honored to chair the National Governors Association, as well as the Democratic Governors Association. So we have a few balls in the air, but New Jersey is job number one.’ 

On Saturday, Murphy, along with former Vice President Mike Pence, was slated to speak at the annual Gridiron Club dinner, which the Times categorized as ‘a famously irreverent white-tie-and-tails roast that draws Washington’s top journalists and political insiders.’ 

Brennan also asked the Garden State’s governor why Biden has not formally announced his candidacy for 2024. 

‘I’m not sure I’ve got any insight information on that,’ Murphy said. ‘I don’t think historically that he’s necessarily out of line when other incumbents have announced reelection. I know, we’re all sort of expecting it’s next week, next month, whatever it might be. My guess is it’s sooner than later. But that’s something that the president himself will decide.’

On other issues, Murphy said he was ‘concerned, but not panicked’ about Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

‘Depositors and workers in the companies whose deposits are in that bank need to be job number one,’ Murphy said. ‘We’ve got a big innovation economy in New Jersey, so we’ve spent the weekend trying to make sure we’re out ahead of this. We don’t have a whole lot of exposure to SVB, per se, but we do have a lot of tech companies. So our Economic Development Authority is preparing a package largely focused on liquidity to be there in case we need to be there. So concerned is you have to be when you have a bank of this size go down. But I don’t think there’s any need to panic. And I’m certain that the authorities at the federal level are working feverishly to come up with some sort of a solution sooner than later.’

The governor was also grilled on his decision to expand AP African American Studies in a perceived dig at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis despite the course’s potentially ‘flawed academics.’

‘Do we believe in teaching our whole history? The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, nothing but the truth? The answer affirmatively is yes. So in this case, AP African American Studies, New Jersey has one high school teaching it this year, we’re expanding it to 26 next year,’ Murphy said, accusing DeSantis ‘just trying to divide us.’ 

‘The fact of the matter is, it must be taught. And you do have latitude in terms of constructing that curriculum at the district level. And that’s what we’re going to do in New Jersey.’

The three announced Republican 2024 presidential candidates weighed in over the weekend on the shocking collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Former President Donald Trump’s campaign blamed the Biden administration’s ‘anti-America policies’ as former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy sounded off against a possible taxpayer bailout.

SVB, which had been the 16th-largest bank in the U.S., based in Santa Clara, California, collapsed last week and is now under the control of federal regulators.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) only insures deposits up to $250,000, and some investors are saying a government bailout is necessary to protect depositors. Deposits that are insured by FDIC are supposed to be available by Monday morning, sparking fears that a run of withdrawals will create a domino effect.

Some liberals blamed Trump for signing a bipartisan bill in 2018 that rolled back elements of Dodd-Frank, prompting his campaign to fire back. (Dodd–Frank is a 2010 federal law that reformed financial regulation in the wake of the Great Recession.)

‘Out-of-control Democrats and the Biden administration have pathetically continued to try to blame President Trump for their failures with desperate lies, such as the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) spy balloons, the train derailment in East Palestine and now the collapse of SVB,’ Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital.

‘This is nothing more than a sad attempt to gaslight the public to evade responsibility,’ he said. ‘The fact is that Biden has presided over a catastrophic economy that has devastated everyday Americans and has caused misery across the country due to his anti-America policies.’

Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said a corporate bailout should be off the table.

‘Taxpayers should absolutely not bail out Silicon Valley Bank,’ she tweeted. ‘Private investors can purchase the bank and its assets. It is not the responsibility of the American taxpayer to step in. The era of big government and corporate bailouts must end.’

Ramaswamy, who founded Roivant Sciences and Strive Asset Management, argued that SVB should be allowed to ‘fully fail’ and the FDIC should increase its guarantee level to prevent a bank run on Monday.

‘If you want to prevent a run on other banks, increase the FDIC guarantee,’ he tweeted. ‘But SVB screwed up by utterly failing to take interest rate risk into account, in two ways – both in terms of client concentration risk amongst startups and investing in interest rate-sensitive securities. So did the many startups who blithely did business with them. It’s not the U.S. taxpayer’s job to now coddle them.’

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that the federal government will not bail out SVB but will help to try to meet the ‘needs’ of depositors who stand to lose millions after the bank collapsed last week.

‘We’re not going to do that again,’ Yellen said, referring to bailouts. ‘But we are concerned about depositors, and we’re focused on trying to meet their needs.’

‘I’ve been working all weekend with our banking regulators to design appropriate policies to address this situation,’ she said. ‘I can’t really provide further details at this time, but I really want to emphasize that the American banking system is really safe and well capitalized. It’s resilient.’

SVB did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

The city of Denver is demanding the Church of Cannabis remove a statue that its co-founder says represents religious freedom and is used by its weed-smoking congregants for meditation.

‘I hope the city of Denver recognizes our right to exist and our right to have this religious effigy, this representation of the freedom of religion that all Americans should have,’ International Church of Cannabis co-founder Steve Berke told Fox News. ‘Yet the city of Denver is really encapsulating the perfect example of big government passing unnecessary laws that don’t protect anyone and infringing on our First Amendment rights.’

The effigy at the center of the feud between the city and the smokers is called Public Defender, an eleven-foot pink android sculpture that sits in front of the church. The city has said the church must remove the sculpture because it is an encroachment on the public right of way and that neighbors sent in complaints, but the church says the artwork is central to its religion.

A city inspector reviewed the sculpture in September the day after its installation and didn’t immediately raise any issues, according to Berke. Months later, in February, the city demanded the church must apply for a permit within 10 days to keep the statue in place. 

CHURCH OF CANNABIS CO-FOUNDER SAYS LOCAL GOVERNMENT IS TARGETING CONGREGATION. WATCH:

‘Ten days is not enough time to receive a land use survey and engineers study all the things that we need to apply for a permit,’ Berke said. ‘So the city basically gave us a deadline that was impossible to meet.’

The city later said a permit wouldn’t be approved even if the Church of Cannabis applied because ‘the sculpture as installed does not meet minimum placement, height, and vehicle sight line criteria of the Encroachment Rules & Regulations,’ according to an email the city sent to Berke. 

The church’s neighbors have also complained that the statue blocks visibility at the corner, a Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure official told Fox News.

‘The sculpture was a gift from the artist because he wanted us to have something that defended our right to religious liberty, which we thought was amazing because we’ve been under attack for pretty much most of the time we’ve existed,’ Berke said.

Berke maintains the church’s fight to keep the statue is a fight for religious freedom.

Church of Cannabis’ congregants regularly gather around the sculpture for a 42-second meditation reflecting on how to achieve a better version of self, an important ritual for the church, Berke told Fox News. The church, whose members are called elevationists and whose only religious tenet is the golden rule, is rated as one of the top attractions in Denver, according to Tripadvisor.

Berke said the marijuana church stimulates the local economy and brings thousands of tourists to the area as well as surrounding shops and restaurants.

‘We’ve renovated a 125-year-old church that was an eyesore and made it gorgeous and a number one attraction as a tourist attraction in Denver,’ he said.

Colorado, where the governor and both U.S. senators are Democrats, was one of the first states to legalize recreational marijuana. Magic mushrooms were decriminalized in Denver in 2019 and across the Centennial State in 2022.

‘So you’d think liberal city, liberal government, they’d welcome this cool new religion that is welcoming and bringing local people to the neighborhood and stimulating the economy,’ Berke told Fox News. ‘You’d think they’d love us, but they don’t.’

‘We’re showing people that if you fight for your First Amendment rights, you are defending your American liberty,’ he continued. ‘And that’s a really important thing, even in left-leaning cities and states.’

To watch the full interview with Berke, click here. 

Texas lawmakers have introduced two bills to the state Senate that would allow Texans to vote on whether to keep or eliminate Daylight Saving Time.

Texas Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Republican, filed both Senate Bill 2329 and Senate Joint Resolution 86 on March 10.

The bill reads that, if approved, ‘this state shall observe daylight saving time year-round. This subsection applies to both the portion of this state using Central Standard Time as the official standard time and the portion of this state using mountain standard time as the official standard time.’

If the act is approved by the state Senate, the decision to abolish Daylight Saving Time would be put into the hands of Texas voters on Nov. 7, 2023.

Companion bills authored by state Rep. Mike Schofield were also introduced.

Neither Schofield nor Bettencourt could be reached for comment on Sunday.

FOX 26 in Houston reported that Bettencourt spoke on the importance and timeliness of the bill.

‘When you think of hot-button public policy issues, what usually comes to mind are things such as property tax relief and school finance and pension reform. However, the issue of Daylight Saving Time has roused passions on both sides of the debate for over 100 years,’ Bettencourt said. ‘Texans like me want to be on one time, and the federal government doesn’t give us the option to vote to remain on standard time. SJR 86 gives Texans the opportunity to vote on the issue and settle the debate once and for all in the Lone Star State.’

In March 2022, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which was introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. The act would have ended the practice of springing the clocks forward in the spring and falling back an hour in the fall.

Although the bill passed the Senate, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., never put the legislation up for a vote.

Earlier this month, Rubio reintroduced the Sunshine Protection Act.

‘This ritual of changing time twice a year is stupid,’ he said in a press release. ‘Locking the clock has overwhelming bipartisan and popular support. This Congress, I hope that we can finally get this done.’

Former Vice President Mike Pence said Saturday that history will hold former President Donald Trump ‘accountable’ for his handling of the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

‘President Trump was wrong,’ Pence said at the annual white-tie Gridiron Dinner in Washington. ‘I had no right to overturn the election.’

Pence said the former president’s ‘reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.’

Pence’s remarks Saturday marked his most forceful condemnation of his former boss yet, further fueling speculation he is readying a 2024 presidential run.

After his reelection defeat to President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump told supporters that Pence had the constitutional authority to overturn Biden’s victory as he presided over the ceremonial Electoral College vote. Pence said he did not have that authority, and he certified the election following the Jan. 6 riot.

While the former president has blasted his former running-mate as lacking courage, Pence has largely refrained from taking direct shots at Trump, but that changed Saturday night.

‘I read that some of those classified documents they found at Mar-a-Lago were actually stuck in the president’s Bible,’ Pence joked. ‘Which proves he had absolutely no idea they were there.’

Pence joked that Trump used to make him sing the lyrics, ‘Did you ever know that you’re my hero,’ during their weekly lunches to boost his ego.

The Trump campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for a reaction to Pence’s comments.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Sunday that President Biden’s nearly $7 trillion budget proposal took his ‘breath away’ and belongs in the ‘shredder’ rather than saddling the American taxpayer.

‘The president’s budget took my breath away,’ Kennedy told ‘Fox News Sunday.’

‘His numbers are extraordinary,’ he said. ‘We’re going to run out of digits here. It’s a $6.9 trillion budget, $4.7 trillion in new taxes that will affect everyone over 10 years, $18 trillion in new debt, a cut to defense.’

Biden unveiled his proposed budget for fiscal year 2024 on Thursday, and some projections say it would result in almost $5 trillion in tax hikes on corporations and wealthy Americans and lead to increased costs for everyone. 

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget warns the budget would result in the country’s debt rising from 98% of GDP at the end of 2023 to 106% by 2027 and then 110% by 2033.

According to their analysis, despite some attempts at deficit reduction, nominal debt would nearly double, growing from $24.6 trillion to $43.6 trillion over the next decade.

‘The only way I know how to improve the president’s budget is with a shredder,’ Kennedy said Sunday.

‘The president says that his budget will solve our financial problems in Medicare and Social Security,’ he said. ‘That’s not true. Anything seems possible when you don’t know what you’re talking about. The Wall Street Journal just reported that the president’s budget will add $11 trillion in a financial shortfall to Social Security and Medicare.’

‘If you want to talk savings, well, stop sending checks to dead people,’ he said. ‘We spend about a billion to 2 billion every year to send money to dead people, the checks are being cashed. It’s obviously fraud. The president’s plan to have the American people pay for student debt costs $400 billion over 10 years, we already had a plan to repay student debt, it’s called a job.’

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind and Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.