SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) — “Your education. Your way. Be original. Be you.”

That’s how New College of Florida describes its approach to higher education in an admission brochure. The state school of fewer than 1,000 students nestled along Sarasota Bay has long been known for its progressive thought and creative course offerings that don’t use traditional grades.

The school, founded in 1960, is also a haven for marginalized students, especially from the LGBTQ community, said second-year student Sam Sharf in a recent interview on campus.

“There’s a lot of students out there that are not allowed to be themselves in their hometowns,” said Sharf, who is transgender and identifies as a woman. “When they get to come here, they get to thrive because they really get to be themselves.”

To Sharf and others, New College’s reputation as a haven for originality and individualized coursework is now threatened. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ recently appointed six new trustees who intend to turn the school into a classical liberal arts school modeled after conservative favorite Hillsdale College in Michigan.

One new trustee, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo, said in a column on his website that the governor wants the group to accomplish what he calls “institutional recapture,” which would move New College away from such things as diversity, equity and inclusion programs and teaching of critical race theory — the idea that racism is enmeshed in U.S. society.

“Ours is a project of recapture and reinvention,” Rufo wrote, listing several ways he believes left-wing ideas have permeated universities across the country. “Conservatives have the opportunity finally to demonstrate an effective countermeasure against the long march through institutions.”

Students such as Sharf and New College faculty have begun to push back, organizing meetings to plan strategy and issuing statements against the conservative takeover.

“We support (students’) fearless pursuit of knowledge, including research on race and gender,” the New College chapter of United Faculty of Florida wrote in a public statement last week. “We assert our unflagging commitment to free speech, academic integrity and the respectful exchange of different viewpoints.”

Sharf said many students worry New College will become “a quote-unquote ‘Hillsdale of the South.’ I’m not trying to be in an environment where I’m force-fed dogmatic, nationalistic, Christian education. I want to be in a place where you’re free to think and learn what you want.”

The governor’s appointment of the New College trustees, including a government professor at Hillsdale College, are only one part of DeSantis’ effort to shift Florida’s 28 state-funded institutions of higher learning in a more conservative direction. The moves come as DeSantis considers a potential 2024 presidential campaign in which education culture battles could play a prominent part, particularly in a Republican primary.

These efforts include a memo DeSantis sent to all Florida colleges and universities requiring them to list programs and staff involved in diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives. The governor signed legislation last April to change the accreditation method for Florida schools and heighten performance review of tenured professors.

During his second inaugural address earlier this month, DeSantis said his goal is to “ensure that our institutions of higher learning are focused on academic excellence and the pursuit of truth, not the imposition of trendy ideology.”

The presidents of all 28 Florida colleges and universities responded to DeSantis’ memo on DEI initiatives with a joint statement seeking to distance their institutions from critical race theory and similar concepts. They set a Feb. 1 goal to remove any objectionable programs.

That statement says, in part, that the schools will not fund programs with the primary idea that “systems of oppression should be the primary lens through which teaching and learning are analyzed and/or improved upon.”

The presidents added that critical race theory can be taught but only “as one of several theories and in an objective manner.”

Back in Sarasota, New College has previously fended off efforts to fold it into another state school, such as Florida State University or the University of South Florida, which has a nearby campus. It was once a private school but, since 2001, has been part of the public university system.

The new trustees, on an interim basis pending Florida Senate confirmation, will join the rest of the 13-member board at a meeting Jan. 31. Students and other opponents of conservative change expect to make their views known, Sharf said.

“The vast majority of people on campus don’t want this,” she said. “They would erase a lot of things on campus. I don’t want to be in a place that tries to erase my existence.”

The New York Times broke a lot of new ground in its stunning report on John Durham’s investigation into the Russia investigation, and the revelations cast the prosecutor and former Attorney General Bill Barr in a scandalous light.

But there was one detail from the Times’ reporting that stood out as both new and unexpected.

At that point, it would’ve made sense for the attorney general, in the interest of propriety, to assign the matter to another prosecutor. After all, Durham was tasked with investigating the Russia investigation, not evidence of Donald Trump’s alleged financial crimes in Europe.

But Barr ignored propriety and directed Durham to look into it.

Soon after, word leaked to the press that the Durham investigation had advanced to a stage in which it had opened a criminal investigation. As the Times noted, the media reports in response to the leak “were all framed around the erroneous assumption that the criminal investigation must mean Mr. Durham had found evidence of potential crimes by officials involved in the Russia inquiry.”

We now know better: Durham’s criminal investigation was into Trump himself, not those who examined Trump’s Russia scandal. All of this was kept secret from the public: Barr had no qualms about chatting publicly about his assorted partisan theories and the merits of White House talking points, but the criminal investigation into his boss was apparently a detail he didn’t think Americans needed to know.

Complicating matters is the fact that we still, as of this morning, don’t know what financial crimes the former president might have committed. We also have no reason to feel confident that Durham, caught up in Barr’s pro-Trump conspiracy theories and following the directives of the pro-Trump attorney general, closely examined the seriousness of the “potentially explosive” allegations raised by our allies in the Italian government.

Finally, it’s also apparently time to update the big board of criminal investigations into the former president. In addition to the Jan. 6 criminal investigation, the classified documents criminal investigation, the Georgia election interference criminal investigation, the criminal investigation into Trump’s alleged financial crimes in New York, the criminal investigation surrounding his special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), and the criminal investigation into Trump’s pre-election hush-money payments to a porn star, the Republican also faced a criminal investigation from Durham’s special counsel probe.

All of this, of course, excludes the many civil disputes that currently surround the former president, and the many people from Trump’s inner circle who’ve already been convicted of a variety of crimes.

Why people don’t chuckle every time the Republican touts his support for “law and order” is one of those things I’ll never fully understand.

WALKER, MI – A Chicago-based developer aims to break ground this summer on a 250-unit apartment complex off of Lake Michigan Drive in Walker.

In addition to apartments, the development will also later feature about 68 single-family lots and commercial space along Lake Michigan Drive.

The entire project being developed by Stoneleigh Companies is located on about 105 acres at 3485 Lake Michigan Drive NW that was formerly home to a bowling alley and the Lincoln Country Club.

The apartment complex, called the Savannah at Waterford Village, will feature 250 apartment units across 39, single-story buildings. Each of the units, which come in one-, two- and three-bedroom options, is attached to a two-car garage.

It will also feature a 5,255-square-foot clubhouse, sidewalks, streetlights and gathering spaces within open areas.

Related: Developer seeks to transform West Michigan golf course into large-scale housing, office complex

Earlier this month, final plans for the apartment complex portion of the project got the greenlight from the Walker Planning Commission. Once permits are in hand, Rick Cavenaugh, president of Stoneleigh, said he hopes to break ground in July.

The first apartment units could be open for occupancy as early as summer 2023, with all units estimated to be built and ready for residents by the following summer, Cavenaugh said.

Depending on the number of bedrooms and the location within the complex, monthly rent could range from about $1,600 to $2,500, he said.

As for the 68 lots for single-family homes, Stoneleigh will sell those lots to builders to construct the homes. Depending on the size of use, the commercial property area along Lake Michigan Drive could fit about three businesses or more, Cavenaugh said.

The project is a long time coming, Cavenaugh said. Stoneleigh approached Walker about the project around the start of the pandemic, which slowed down some of the approval process.

The development also drew some worries from nearby residents, who voiced concerns about traffic impact, stormwater flooding issues and proximity to their homes, according to Cavenaugh.

In response, Stoneleigh moved some of the apartment building locations further back from the property lines of nearby neighbors. The company also got approval for a new traffic signal on Lake Michigan Drive at Waterford Village Drive, which is the new public road that will lead into the complex.

That new traffic signal, he said, will help regulate the traffic flow in the area that he says some people otherwise speed through. Waterford Village Drive will also directly connect Lake Michigan Drive to a neighborhood north of the development off of Leonard Street.

As for the already-present flooding issues in the neighborhood west of the development, Cavenaugh said that’s not something his development can solve. However, he said, the new apartment complex will have its own storm system and won’t further add to the problem.

Cavenaugh said the property is in a great location, being about 4 miles away from downtown Grand Rapids and along Lake Michigan Drive nearby retailers and on the bus line.

Stoneleigh has other apartment complexes in Colorado, Ohio, Texas, Minnesota and Illinois. The Grand Rapids area, Cavenaugh said, shows a strong demand for apartment units.

Read more:

More apartments, fewer offices part of new plan for The Leonard in downtown Muskegon

Memorial Day 2022 events in Michigan to honor the fallen

Grand Rapids will now allow fireworks every Juneteenth

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued draft guidance to change its policies on donating blood, moving away from time-based deferrals for men who have sex with men and instead proposing “individual risk-based questions” to reduce the potential spread of HIV through transfusions.

Under current FDA guidelines for donating blood, men who have sex with men are permitted to donate blood after a three-month deferral period in which they abstain from sexual encounters with men. This change was made in 2020 after the previous guidance had mandated a 12-month deferral period.

The new question-based approach would instead ask potential donors about new or multiple sex partners they have had in the past three months. Those who have had a new sexual partner or more than one in that time frame would be deferred if they reported having anal sex.

“Maintaining a safe and adequate supply of blood and blood products in the U.S. is paramount for the FDA, and this proposal for an individual risk assessment, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, will enable us to continue using the best science to do so,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said in a statement.

Individuals taking oral medications to prevent HIV will be subjected to a three-month deferral period starting from their last dose, while those receiving injectable PrEP would be subject to a two-month deferral period.

Those who have not had any new sexual partners or more than one in the past three months would be eligible to donate as long as they meet all other criteria.

The deferral policy would stay in place for those who have exchanged sex for money or drugs as well as those who have a history of injecting nonprescription drugs.

The FDA’s draft guidance would put the U.S. in line with other Western countries such as the United Kingdom and Canada.

Amid a Plague of Shootings, Bystanders Become Heroes

Civilians, armed or not, have put their bodies on the line to stop gunmen. But in a nation trained to “Run, Hide, Fight,” many say it should never have come to that.

 By Julie Bosman, Mitch Smith, Eliza Fawcett and Serge F. Kovaleski

NPR and The New York Times have asked a Delaware judge to consider unsealing hundreds of documents in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox News.

hide caption

toggle caption

Timothy A. Clary /AFP via Getty Images

NPR and The New York Times have asked a Delaware judge to consider unsealing hundreds of documents in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox News.

Timothy A. Clary /AFP via Getty Images

Lawyers for NPR News and The New York Times have jointly filed a legal brief asking a judge to unseal hundreds of pages of documents from a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by an elections technology company against Fox News.

“This lawsuit is unquestionably a consequential defamation case that tests the scope of the First Amendment,” the challenge brought by the news organizations reads. “It has been the subject of widespread public interest and media coverage and undeniably involves a matter of profound public interest: namely, how a broadcast network fact-checked and presented to the public the allegations that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen and that plaintiff was to blame.”

Dominion Voting Systems has sued Fox and its parent company over claims made by Fox hosts and guests after the November 2020 presidential elections that the company had helped fraudulently throw the election to Joe Biden. Those claims were debunked — often in real time, and sometimes by Fox’s own journalists. Dominion alleges that much potential business has been disrupted and that its staffers have faced death threats.

Fox argues it was vigorously reporting newsworthy allegations from inherently newsworthy people – then President Donald Trump and his campaign’s attorneys and surrogates. Fox and its lawyers contend the case is an affront to First Amendment principles and that the lawsuit is intended to chill free speech. NPR has asked both sides for comment and will update this story as they reply.

The legal teams for Dominion and Fox filed rival motions before Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis earlier this month: in Dominion’s case to find that Fox had defamed the company ahead of the April trial, in Fox’s to dismiss all or much of the claims.

Documents draw upon expansive searches of electronic messages and testimony from scores of witnesses

Those motions contained hundreds of pages of documents cataloguing the findings from the so-called “discovery” process. They will draw upon hours of testimony from scores of witnesses, including media magnate Rupert Murdoch as well as expansive searches of texts, emails, internal work messages and other communications and records from figures on both sides.

Previous revelations have offered narrow windows on the operations inside Fox after the election: a producer beseeching colleagues to keep host Jeanine Pirro from spouting groundless conspiracy theories on the air; primetime star Sean Hannity’s claim under oath he did not believe the claims of fraud “for one second” despite amplifying such allegations on the air; Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott’s pleas “not to give the crazies an inch.” The motions sought by the two news organizations would yield far more information.

In the joint filing, NPR and The New York Times note they do not know the contents of the materials and therefore do not know whether there are instances in which public disclosure could do either side harm. They therefore ask Judge Davis “to ensure the parties meet their high burden to justify sealing information which goes to the heart of very public and significant events.”

The documents will help the public determine “whether Defendants published false statements with actual malice and whether the lawsuit was filed to chill free speech,” reads the filing by attorney Joseph C. Barsalona II, for the Times and NPR. “Accordingly, the interest in access to the Challenged Documents is vital.”

Disclosure: This story was written by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Senior Business Editor Uri Berliner. Karl Baker contributed to this article. Under NPR’s protocol for reporting on matters involving the network, no corporate official or senior news executive read this story before it was posted.

NEW YORK (AP) — For decades, work on a massive rail project has been grinding 15 stories below the shuffling footsteps of millions of New Yorkers and beneath the East Hudson River and Manhattan skyscrapers.

After years of delays and massive cost overruns, the enormously expensive railway project shuttled its first passengers Wednesday from Long Island to a new annex in New York City’s iconic Grand Central Terminal.

The new transit center, built inside a massive man-made cavern and served by rail tunnels carved through bedrock, is being heralded as an important addition to the nation’s busiest railway network.

“We got the job done,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said, the ninth governor to oversee the project that had its genesis six decades ago. “There were so many roadblocks and challenges and detours along the way.”

The new 700,000-square-foot (65,032-square-meter) terminal, dubbed Grand Central Madison, was conceived and constructed at a time when New York City’s transportation system was bursting with passengers. It opens in a different era, with ridership still significantly down from where it was before the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new era of remote work.

The new terminal, adorned with colorful mosaics and replete with storefronts and restaurants — most still empty — is the country’s largest new railway station in nearly seven decades and the most significant expansion over the last century of the Long Island Rail Road, the busiest commuter railroad in North America. The two-level concourse supports four platforms and eight tracks.

Much of the construction of the terminal has been complete for months, though some finishing touches won’t be complete for another few weeks, officials acknowledged.

The station was to have opened by the end of 2022 but was delayed slightly by issues with heating, ventilation and air conditioning. For Long Island commuters headed for Manhattan, the terminal’s key benefit is the ability to take a train directly to the East Side, where previously the only option was to go to Pennsylvania Station on the West Side, then travel back by subway or bus.

“I’ve been waiting for 30 years,” said John Cannon, a Long Island man who was on the inaugural 21-minute ride from Jamaica, Queens, to Manhattan. “I don’t have to take the subways anymore.”

Passenger Alexander Rodriguez, a 15-year-old Queens resident, described the inaugural ride as “nice and smooth.”

“And it was fun,” he said. “It was the first train. It’s a once in a lifetime thing.”

Many of the subterranean tunnels that carry rail passengers below the Hudson River are more than a century old, some of which are in need of deeper maintenance. The new tunnels built for the project will also allow Amtrak to temporarily divert its trains to the new tunnels so it can begin refurbishing aging eastside tunnels and tracks.

For decades, the project kept chugging along, even amid concerns about ballooning costs. Construction began in the 1960s, but was abandoned for a time because of a series of economic crises.

Spending on the massive construction project has grown to more than $11 billion — more than triple the initial estimate of $3.5 billion two decades ago. The project bore through 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) of bedrock; per mile, it would be one of the world’s most expensive rail projects ever completed.

“It’s a useful project. But for $11 billion, it would be better not to have built it,” said Alon Levy, a transportation fellow at New York University’s Marron Institute, who has been compiling railway cost data from around the world.

The money, he argues, could have been used for other transportation projects, including improving capacity for existing railway lines.

Officials have acknowledged that engineering costs and the high price of New York City labor contributed to spiraling expenses.

“This is not a small project. This is one of the greatest engineering feats. And it’s a tribute to the MTA that they were able to overcome what I would say was some delays of bureaucracy, delays of engineering,” said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University.

Despite the setbacks, Tom Wright, the president of the Regional Plan Association, hailed Wednesday’s opening as a “driver of economic growth and prosperity,” even as the region “still faces urgent transportation, housing and resiliency challenges.”

“Because this region has an interconnected network of transit, when you make an improvement, the beneficiaries are actually systemwide,” said Wright, whose nonprofit develops and advocates for ways to improve the regional economy, environment and quality of life.

Over the past week, the Long Island Rail Road carried about 1 million riders, or about two-thirds the number it transported for roughly the same week in 2019, according to statistics compiled by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

When full service begins to Grand Central Madison, the LIRR will add another 269 trains per weekday on top of the roughly 660 trains already in operation, officials said. About 160,000 passengers are expected to hop on and off platforms at the new terminal.

Coupled with expanded service to Penn Station, the link to Grand Central would allow rail stops to open along long-neglected parts of the city, including the Bronx, spur new housing developments and serve as an economic engine.

“It obviously makes the businesses in Midtown East a more attractive destination for commuters from Long Island,” said Kathryn Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City.

Prince Harry will be hoping that his new Netflix show based around the veterans’ sporting initiative, the Invictus Games, will prove a “success story,” as his involvement with the Olympic-style tournament could help turn around his public image, according to a new episode of Newsweek‘s The Royal Report podcast.

The prince has seen his popularity drop dramatically in the aftermath of the publication of Spare, his “raw” and “unflinching” memoir, in which he makes a number of bombshell allegations against members of the royal family.

In the U.S., Harry’s popularity dropped 45 points after his book came out and he took part in a number of explosive interviews to promote it. This had a knock-on effect on Meghan Markle‘s popularity, too, which fell 36 points, according to a Newsweek poll conducted by Redfield Wilton.

As the couple now face their lowest polling numbers to date, chief royal correspondent Jack Royston posed the question on The Royal Report, as to where the couple go from here, having now extensively told their royal stories in interviews, books and documentaries.

“The big question for Harry and Meghan in 2023 is, ‘What do you do next?’ Can they get enough interest in their charitable causes? The really inspiring work that they do, which is very laudable, and the public definitely love them doing it, but will it get the vast commercial success that these other royally focused projects have had?” Royston said.

One upcoming project that Harry is working on and which is expected to be released sometime in 2023 is a new Netflix docuseries titled Heart of Invictus.

The show is billed by Archewell Productions—Harry and Meghan’s company—as a “multi-episode production that will spotlight a group of extraordinary Invictus Games competitors from around the globe—members of the military community who have experienced life-changing injuries or illnesses—on their road to Invictus Games The Hague.”

The Invictus Games were founded by Harry in 2014 to provide a platform for injured or sick servicemen and women to showcase their mental and physical strengths. Documentary crews were seen shadowing both Harry and Meghan during their time in the Netherlands in 2022 as they attended the games.

“We do know that another Netflix show is coming soon, which is Prince Harry‘s Heart of Invictus show about the Invictus Games, which is probably his single biggest project,” Royston told podcast listeners.

“Many people will know what it is already, but it is an Olympic-style tournament for current and former military personnel who are in some way wounded or sick and has drawn some of the biggest political figures on the planet in the past from the Obamas to the Bidens. He will be hoping for a really good success story out of that show but also we will be looking to see if there are new projects announced over the course of the year.”

The games themselves mark Harry’s biggest charitable output since moving to the U.S. in 2020 after stepping down from his role within the British monarchy. He serves as the founder and patron of both the games and the Invictus Games Foundation.

“I’ve been speaking to PR experts about where they think Harry and Meghan now stand. One told me, for example, that Invictus might actually be Harry’s way out of the reputational slump he’s experienced in America,” Royston explained.

“It is obviously a very unique project. There are very few people on the planet who can say that they’ve done anything equivalent to what Harry’s doing there, and veterans are a community in America who quite rightly do need high-profile figures standing up for them, and anyone who does that is going to get a significant reputational boost out of doing so.

“With Harry, the whole thing makes total sense. It’s drawn from his own life experience, having been a soldier on the front line in Afghanistan himself,” Royston said. “So, that could be one way that Harry seeks to rebuild the brand. It may be he made the money out of the royally focused shows and that he can restore the brand with some more kind of worthy but perhaps less attention-grabbing content.”

The 2023 Invictus Games will take place in September 2023 in Düsseldorf, Germany. The games are set to take place in Canada in 2025 and will, for the first time, incorporate winter sports into its events schedule.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek’s royal reporter based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek’s The Royals Facebook page.

Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We’d love to hear from you.