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Top California Dem running for office tied to Chinese school accused of US diploma scandal
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California State Treasurer Fiona Ma, who is running for lieutenant governor, is facing blowback for promising jobs and internships to students at a China-based boarding school accused of committing diploma fraud in conjunction with a California school district, after the school’s founder poured tens-of-thousands of dollars into her campaigns.
Pegasus California School, based in Qingdao, China, was the subject of a probe completed in February by California education officials in Riverside County, following concerns that the Val Verde Unified School District was illegally issuing diplomas to Pegasus’ China-based students. It also identified other potential concerns related to Pegasus and California education officials working for the district and the California Department of Education, indicating there was evidence of them engaging in potential fraud, misappropriation of funds and other illegal fiscal practices. The audit concluded that investigators found «a pattern of favors, official acts, promises, and payments» leading to the California Department of Education’s ultimate approval of a pilot program that allowed wealthy Chinese students to obtain a U.S. high school diploma overseas.
Meanwhile, a post on the school’s website shows Ma visiting in 2023, telling students, parents and teachers there that she would be able to help the enrollees at the school get jobs and internships back in the U.S. The same post on the school’s website heralded Ma’s visit as evidence of «the California government’s recognition and attention to Pegasus,» which became a sister-school to California’s Val Verde Unified School District in 2016 and started its pilot program issuing California diplomas a year later.
«Fiona chose Pegasus as the only school to visit in China, which shows the California government’s recognition and attention to Pegasus,» Pegasus bragged in the now-archived post from its website.
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It then included an excerpt from Ma: «I am honored to come to Qingdao Pegasus California School today to see many students perform and communicate with them. If they want to intern in California, they can come to me, I will provide some internship and employment opportunities.»
California Treasurer Fiona Ma smiles during an interview in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2018. Ma was elected California State Treasurer with more votes than any other candidate for Treasurer in the state’s history and was inaugurated on January 7, 2019. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)
Steven Ma, who is unrelated to Fiona Ma but is Pegasus’ founder, directly contributed over $13,200 to her campaigns for State Treasurer and Lt. Gov., according to California campaign finance records dating back to 2021.
The Pegasus founder’s college-admissions consulting firm, ThinkTank Learning Inc. also contributed $23,800 to Ma’s campaigns since 2010, according to state campaign finance records.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Ma multiple times for comment on her visit to the China-based school, and to the Val Verde school district itself to inquire whether it was aware of Ma’s visit, but did not receive a response.
Business Insider released a scathing report in 2021 calling out the Pegasus California School for its improper relationship with the Val Verde Unified School District, which Business Insider argues spurred the recently completed audit into Pegasus by California education officials. The China-based school, according to Business Insider, was charging up to $34,000 a year for students to enroll and, despite drawing on Val Verde resources, it functioned as a private boarding school. The school’s own website describes itself as an «independent» international school that uses a «fee payment and registration» framework for students after gaining admission, similar to how private schools in the U.S. operate, according to a Fox News Digital review.
A Riverside County school district is accused of improperly issuing diplomas to nonresident Chinese students through a partnership with a foreign sister school, according to a lengthy audit that found potential fraud and unlawful financial practices. (Fox News Digital)
A February 2018 Memorandum of Understanding between the China-based boarding school and Val Verde, reviewed by Fox News Digital, indicated that in return for receiving diplomas and teachers from the United States, ten students from the Val Verde school district would be afforded the opportunity to travel to China and attend Pegasus for 10 days at the cost of $300 a student. It also laid out an exchange program for students at Pegasus to visit schools’ in California. While the audit does not appear to identify any clear direct repayment from Pegasus to Val Verde itself, it does highlight travel, consulting opportunities, scholarships and other perks, like «great publicity,» that benefited officials and the district more than its own students.
Meanwhile, Pegasus was allegedly telling its students and parents that it could guarantee them admission to one of the top 100 universities in the U.S., and if that didn’t happen, they would get a complete tuition reimbursement. A 2019 Memorandum of Understanding, included in the California audit, showed the University of California – Riverside even made a commitment that students who met certain academic thresholds would «receive a UCR scholarship.»
Students walk past Sather Gate on the University of California Berkeley campus in Berkeley, Calif. The university’s Board of Regents postponed a vote on allowing immigrant students without legal status to apply for university jobs until 2025 on Jan. 25, 2024. (Ben Margot/AP)
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Following the completion of the audit from Riverside County officials in February, announced publicly in March by Riverside County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Edwin Gomez, the California Department of Education issued a cease-and-desist demanding Pegasus terminate official statements on its website claiming it was founded in 2016 with the department’s «blessing and support.»
«California Business and Professions Code Section 17533.6 makes it unlawful for a non-governmental entity to use a state government name in a manner that could reasonably be interpreted or construed as implying connection, approval or endorsement by the state government,» stated the March cease-and-desist. «The above statement on your website could reasonably be interpreted or construed to imply that the California Department of Education is connected to, approves or endorses Pegasus California School. You are on notice that the California Department of Education is not connected to, does not approve and does not endorse Pegasus California School.»
high school, education, california, dept of education, controversies education
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Fragile relationship with House GOP has Senate Republicans warning ‘something needs to change’
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Senate Republicans are taking stock of their relationship with the House GOP as they gear up for another key test of their unity across chambers.
Dysfunction, miscommunications and wasted time have dotted the last few months of Republicans’ control of Congress, particularly during the longest government shutdown on record.
Republicans in the upper chamber aren’t singling out others in the House who should bear responsibility, but they do agree that something needs to change as they plow forward to fund immigration operations for the next few years.
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Senate Republicans have grown frustrated with their counterparts in the House over the sluggish pace of legislation. Some argue it’s a communication breakdown among leadership, others put the blame on just how different the two chambers are. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images; Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
«I think we all need to get in a room and figure out what’s our plan,» Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., told Fox News Digital. «And how are we going to get things done for the American people? That has to be the goal, and right now something needs to change.»
Republicans are readying to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol for the next three and a half years through budget reconciliation, which will require near-perfect unanimity in both chambers to work, given that Democrats are getting cut out of the process.
But divisions between the chambers were laid bare during the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown, when House Republicans, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., refused to consider the Senate’s compromise plan to reopen the agency.
That decision prolonged the shutdown for nearly a month, and spurred the necessity to turn to reconciliation. It also fostered frustration between the Senate and House at a time when leadership and President Donald Trump are calling for unity.
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Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., attends a Senate hearing in the U.S. Capitol. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Both Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., have thin majorities to work with — Johnson more so than Thune. That reality isn’t something that’s lost on Senate Republicans, particularly on legislation that Democrats won’t support, and is so far preventing the knives from coming out in the upper chamber.
«I mean, I think we understand the challenges that Mike has over there. He’s not king. He’s the speaker of the House,» Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News Digital. »And their margin of error is less than ours, proportionately. So I can’t imagine. I think he’s doing the very best he can.»
Some Republicans argue that it’s more of a communication issue between the chambers than unfettered dysfunction in the House.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, told Fox News Digital he didn’t buy the «whole House’s dysfunction» argument, and instead said it was incumbent on senators to make more of an effort.
«I think we have to take a little bit of ownership ourselves here in the Senate, and that’s certainly not [just] the leadership, but all of us,» Moreno said. «Because when we’re working on bills, we should have total, complete synchronicity with the House.»
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Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., speaks to reporters after voting at the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2026. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
House Republicans, for example, contended that they were blindsided by the Senate deal to reopen the bulk of DHS earlier this year that carved out funding for ICE and Border Patrol.
«We’ve got to be able to make sure we’re communicating better and working through the issues,» Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital. «The House isn’t our enemy. We gotta be able to resolve all the issues on a piece of legislation. We have differences of opinion. OK, let’s work them out.»
The issue of communication is one that, since Republicans took control of both chambers last year, was largely handled by DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the former GOP senator who acted as a de facto liaison between both chambers for major legislative pushes.
When asked if Republicans needed a Mullin 2.0, Lankford said that the main points of communication fell on Thune and Johnson.
And Thune has not been quick to criticize Johnson or House Republicans publicly and noted that the nature of both chambers and how they operate would lead to issues along the way.
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«We obviously have a 60-vote threshold,» Thune said. »We need Democrats. You know, he doesn’t need Democrats, but he needs every Republican, and that’s a real challenge on a good day. And, you know, sometimes there aren’t a lot of good days around here.»
Conversely, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., argued that despite the issues, if Democrats were in control of the chambers, Americans would have been hit with the largest tax hike in decades had Republicans not mustered a unified front to pass Trump’s «big, beautiful bill.»
«All of that would have been in the opposite if the Democrats had been in the majority and been able to do what they wanted to do to raise taxes,» Barrasso told Fox News Digital.
politics, mike johnson, congress, john thune, republicans, senate elections
Guatemala lanza el Fondo de Protección y Recuperación de Bosques (Fobosques) con un presupuesto de 40 millones de quetzales para financiar proyectos de reforestación y manejo forestal a partir de mayo de 2026.
El nuevo mecanismo, administrado por el Crédito Hipotecario Nacional junto al Ministerio de Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (MARN), busca acelerar el camino hacia la deforestación neta cero y permitiría una restauración activa de los ecosistemas nacionales, como informó la ministra Patricia Orantes desde los canales oficiales del ministerio.
La ministra Orantes explicó en un video institucional que, a diferencia de la situación en 1975, cuando dos terceras partes del territorio nacional estaban cubiertas por bosque, Guatemala conserva hoy únicamente la tercera parte de sus bosques originales.
Más de la mitad de esta superficie restante se localiza en áreas protegidas; el resto está en manos de comunidades locales. Orantes puntualizó: “Hace cincuenta años, Guatemala tenía dos terceras partes de su territorio cubierto de bosque. De aquel entonces para acá hemos perdido la mitad. Hoy solo tenemos un tercio y de ese tercio, poco más de la mitad está adentro de áreas protegidas”.
La convocatoria para acceder a fondos del programa Fobosques estará disponible del 11 al 29 de mayo de 2026, de acuerdo con el MARN. Las organizaciones, fundaciones y asociaciones con experiencia comprobada en gestión forestal podrán presentar propuestas de proyectos de protección, restauración y manejo, tanto en áreas protegidas como fuera de ellas.
Los proyectos seleccionados tendrán acceso a entre 2 y 8 millones de quetzales para ejecutarse en plazos de uno a tres años. El Viceministerio de Recursos Naturales y Cambio Climático regulará la distribución de fondos, exigiendo que las intervenciones cumplan con los criterios técnicos y eviten superposiciones con otros incentivos, conforme al ordenamiento territorial vigente.
Solo las propuestas centradas en el uso de especies nativas serán elegibles, en línea con la estrategia nacional de reconstrucción de la biodiversidad forestal. Orantes indicó: “El fondo solamente, exclusivamente apoyará el uso de especies nativas, que son la clave para volver a reconstruir nuestra biodiversidad boscosa”.
Guatemala se reconoce como el país americano con mayor densidad de coníferas, superando a México, Estados Unidos, Canadá y Brasil, puntualizó la titular del MARN. Esta diversidad se refleja en más de veinte tipos de bosques distribuidos en territorio guatemalteco: “Tenemos más de veinte tipos de bosque, el de hoja ancha, con los de Petén, Alta Verapaz e Izabal, los del bosque de manglar, los bosques nubosos, los del Quetzal, los bosques secos y espinosos, los bosques de pino. Y es que vean, somos el país de América con mayor densidad de coníferas o pinos, muy por arriba de México, Estados Unidos, Canadá y Brasil”.
Según el Decreto Número 3-2026 del Congreso de la República y el reglamento sancionado por Orantes el 27 de abril, los 40 millones de quetzales del fondo constituyen la partida anual inicial para garantizar la consolidación de resultados. El objetivo explícito es avanzar hacia la tasa de deforestación neta cero, una meta nacional consensuada entre el MARN y sus oficinas técnicas.
Las entidades adjudicatarias deberán demostrar experiencia en gestión forestal y ejecutar sus proyectos en áreas definidas como prioritarias por el viceministerio correspondiente, evitando duplicidades con otros incentivos vigentes.
El enfoque beneficiará principalmente a organizaciones sin fines de lucro con capacidad verificada para intervenir grandes extensiones de bosque natural y garantizar una gestión sostenida por varios años, conforme a los lineamientos del MARN.
La ministra Orantes resumió el sentido de la convocatoria con una frase en náhuatl: “Vamos a recuperar Coactemallan, tierra de bosques”. Guatemala —históricamente nombrada de ese modo, remarcó la funcionaria— aspira a posicionarse como un referente regional en reforestación y restauración ecológica, apoyando una política pública que prioriza la integridad de los ecosistemas nativos y el liderazgo comunitario en la gestión sostenible de los bosques.
Guatemala,Fobosques,reforestación,deforestación,medio ambiente,bosques,Patricia Orantes,MARN,quetzales,ecosistemas
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