Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an administrative stay that temporarily restores nationwide mail-order access to the abortion pill Mifepristone, which pauses an appeals court order that…

The U.S. Supreme Court today issued a temporary order allowing continued mail distribution of the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol while litigation proceeds. The order is set to expire within…

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For the second time since February, the ripple effects of the Iran war have spread to Laos, where fuel shortages have forced the cancellation or curtailment of searches by U.S recovery teams for the remains of troops missing-in-action from the so-called “secret war” in the Southeast Asia nation.In a release last week, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said, “Due to significant impacts resulting from fuel shortages in Laos, DPAA was forced to cancel four recovery teams that were planned for April 27 through June 10.”The cancellation followed actions taken by DPAA earlier this year on operations in Laos, when “four recovery teams had to curtail operations by 10 days for the Feb. 28-April 6 mission due to insufficient fuel supplies,” DPAA said in the release.In addition, DPAA plans for other recovery operations last year, both in Laos and Vietnam, were canceled for lack of funding after Congress failed to appropriate the money because of the partial government shutdown over operations of the Department of Homeland Security and the funding of health insurance subsidies.“Due to the lapse of appropriations, DPAA has been forced to cancel its Joint Field Activities (JFA) in Vietnam and Laos that were planned for late October through early December,” DPAA said in a release last November.In one of his quarterly updates in January to families and veterans groups, DPAA Director Kelly McKeague, a retired Air Force major general, warned that DPAA this year was being asked to do more with less as a result of budget cuts.For Fiscal Year 2026, which began last Oct. 1, “you will recall that DPAA’s appropriation will be $171.3 million, which is an 11% reduction as a result of [Department of Defense] budget adjustments,” McKeague said.When asked at the same meeting what the impact of the budget cuts would be on operations in Laos and Vietnam, Navy Capt. Meghan Bodnar, the DPAA deputy director, said, “The Vietnam War continues to be our number one operational priority, so the budget cuts will be spread proportionally across all missions and will reduce more Vietnam War field missions from being deployed.”“We entered FY 2026 with the intent to field 66 field missions, compared to 105 deployed in FY2025, due to the reduced budget,” Bodnar added, noting that DPAA had already decided to reduce operations in Laos even before the fuel crisis began.Some of the investigative work would continue in Laos, Bodnar said, but the main operations of the “RTs,” or Recovery Teams, “must be deferred” to the next fiscal year.All of the nations of Southeast Asia have been hit hard by the blockades of the Straits of Hormuz, resulting in a cutoff of 20% of the world’s oil supply, but Laos is a particular case.Laos has no oil of its own and depends on supply from Thailand, which has its own fuel crisis. The U.S. has yet to offer any help in easing that crisis, Thailand’s Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow told the Washington Post in an April 27 interview.“I think they’re aware that there are consequences from the war,” Sihasak said in the interview, referring to the Trump administration, “but they haven’t come out to talk to us about how they can help.”The legacy of U.S. involvement in Laos, in what was called the “secret war,” stemmed from the massive bombing campaigns and paramilitary operations carried out by the CIA from 1964-1973, operations that violated Laos’ neutrality while missions were hidden from the public and Congress.According to DPAA, about 288 U.S. troops are still unaccounted for in Laos and more than 1,500 in Vietnam.

For nearly 40 years, New York State’s Science and Technology Entry Program or STEP has offered middle and high school students extra preparation for college and careers in science, technology and health fields. About 11,000 students participate statewide each year. But STEP’s admissions rules did something shocking: They imposed stricter income eligibility standards on white and Asian-American students than on other applicants, effectively using race to determine who qualified for help. The result is perverse. An African-American student from an upper-middle-class family could qualify automatically, whereas a less-privileged white or Asian-American student would have to clear additional hurdles. Last year, a federal lawsuit prompted an important shift. After Asian American families challenged the policy as discriminatory, New York officials issued guidance encouraging STEP schools to stop using race-based eligibility rules. Although these rules remain on the books, and not all schools have complied, the move signaled growing recognition that the program’s racial criteria are legally problematic. Unfortunately, STEP is hardly unique. Across the country, education officials have adopted policies that sort students by race in the name of diversity or equity — even when doing so means treating children differently because of their skin color. A sister program in New York, the Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program, still violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection by enforcing racial preferences. The courts have made it clear that such policies are unconstitutional. In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard that race-based college admissions violate the Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection. Subjecting students to different standards because of their race conflicts with the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. To be sure, while recent court precedents have reinforced the argument that race-based eligibility schemes are unconstitutional, many education bureaucrats have sought to work around court rulings by using alternative selection criteria as a proxy for racial classifications. For example, in Boston, a new federal lawsuit challenges the city’s admissions plan for its elite exam schools. The plan replaces merit-based admissions with a tier system based on neighborhood income levels — a structure critics say was designed to achieve a predetermined racial balance. New York’s STEP program raises a similar concern. The lawsuit was brought by Yiatin Chu, an Asian-American mother in Queens, whose middle-school daughter has a strong interest in STEM learning. Chu believed STEP could provide valuable academic opportunities. Instead, she discovered that her daughter faced extra admission requirements simply because of her race. Chu filed her federal lawsuit in January 2024, represented by our organization and the Equal Protection Project. She and her co-plaintiffs argue that STEP’s eligibility rules violate the Constitution by discriminating on the basis of race. Chu simply wants her daughter and other students like her to be judged as individuals, based on their talents, effort and achievements. Her case represents more than a dispute over one program. It is part of a broader effort to ensure that education policy treats students fairly and respects the Constitution’s promise of equal protection. Education leaders should stop trying to engineer outcomes based on racial categories and instead focus on what truly helps students succeed: opportunity, hard work and academic excellence. The legal challenge to STEP is an important step toward restoring those principles.   This op-ed was originally published in The Hill on April 18, 2026. The post <em>The Hill</em>: New York’s race-based STEM programs face constitutional challenges appeared first on Pacific Legal Foundation.