The U.S. Treasury Department accused Raymundo Ramos, president of the Committee for Human Rights of Nuevo Laredo, of “posing as a ‘human rights’ activist” for more than a decade in order to fabricate false accusations against the Army and protect members of the powerful Cartel of the Northeast (CDN).

“On the CDN payroll, Ramos engages in these activities with the goal of boosting the public opinion of CDN and discrediting Mexican authorities’ law enforcement initiatives against the cartel,” the Treasury Department said in a statement.

Washington’s move blocks any assets Ramos might have in the United States and bars Americans from working with him.

Ramos did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment about the accusations. Based in Nuevo Laredo, an ultra-violent city in the state of Tamaulipas, bordering the United States, Ramos has long been one of the most high-profile human rights activists operating in the area.

In 2023, Ramos raised the alarm over alleged extrajudicial killings committed by the Armed Forces. A year earlier, he accused members of the Navy of forcibly disappearing civilians.

In both instances, Mexican authorities detained military officials and carried out investigations. It’s unclear whether the investigations resulted in formal charges or convictions.

The Mexican attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the accusations against Ramos or whether it is independently investigating him.

In 2020, the Mexican government targeted Ramos’ phone with the Pegasus spyware program, according to Mexico’s Digital Rights Defense Network and the Toronto-based digital watchdog Citizen Lab. He was among hundreds of Mexican activists and journalists spied on by the government using the spyware, the groups said.

(Reporting by Lizbeth Díaz; Editing by Raúl Cortés, Emily Green and Sonali Paul)

The security footage, obtained by NBC affiliate KFOR, captures Principal Kirk Moore of Pauls Valley High School confronting the suspect roughly one week before the video was made public.

The video appears to show someone else opening the door, allowing the former student into the building. The suspect then walks into the lobby, briefly hiding behind a vending machine before stepping into view. Just as he approached an office door, the door opened, and Moore barreled toward him.

WATCH:

***JUST IN: VIDEO SHOWS MOMENTS HERO PRINCIPAL TACKLES GUNMAN***

We have obtained security video from last week’s shooting at Pauls Valley High School, showing the moments principal Kirk Moore jumped on top of a gunman as he attempted to shoot multiple students. @kfor pic.twitter.com/MXZzsAeJJL

— Spencer Humphrey (@SHumphreyTV) April 14, 2026

Moore ducked his head and shoulders as he ran, hitting the suspect in the chest with his full weight and tackling him onto a nearby bench, pinning him there. Moore was shot in the leg at some point during the scuffle.

Another man, identified later as Moore’s assistant principal, ran out of the same office seconds later. Assessing the situation, he quickly knocked the handgun away from the suspect, then picked it up and secured it inside the office.

The two men restrain the suspect — identified as former student Victor Lee Hawkins, 20, until law enforcement arrives and takes him into custody.

Moore released a lengthy statement after the shooting, thanking local law enforcement and first responders for their support and the community for their prayers and well-wishes.

“Pauls Valley schools are safe communities unaccustomed to the type of threat we witnessed on Tuesday. Nevertheless, like so many educators around the country, we prepare for these events through training and careful assessments of threats,” Moore said. “I am grateful that my instincts and training, as well as God’s hand, were available to come to me on Tuesday.”

Vice President JD Vance still moved forward with his planned appearance and delivered remarks to students at the event, which proceeded as scheduled with TPUSA leader Andrew Kolvet taking Kirk’s place. Vance addressed Erika Kirk’s absence at the start, saying he had been concerned the event might be canceled. He said he spoke with the Secret Service and ultimately told Kirk to “do what she needs to do for herself and her family.”

NEWS: Erika Kirk had to skip tonight’s TPUSA event due to threats, @AndrewKolvet says. He’s interviewing Vice President Vance in her place. pic.twitter.com/IxJgycjexU

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) April 14, 2026

It’s not clear why Kirk stepped back following threats made in her direction, while Vance — who operates under some of the most extensive security protection in the world — was still able to take the stage. Erika Kirk posted on X during the event, saying that “after all our family has been through, I take my security team’s recommendations extremely seriously.”

I was so looking forward to tonight’s event at the @universityofga with our Vice President @JDVance, but after all our family has been through, I take my security team’s recommendations extremely seriously. Thank you to our amazing Georgia chapter for your support. God bless you… https://t.co/f2rBre9ArJ

— Erika Kirk (@MrsErikaKirk) April 14, 2026

The suspect charged in the assassination of Erika Kirk’s late husband, TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk’s, remains in custody and faces multiple charges, including aggravated murder, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. Charlie Kirk was assassinated in 2025 while speaking at a campus event. Since then, Erika Kirk has taken on a more public role leading the organization and continuing its work nationwide.

Newsy remarks from VP Vance:

– People attacking Erika Kirk instead of those harming the US are part of the problem, not the solution.
– He called Kash Patel about the attacks on @Savsays on the way down here and Patel promised to investigate the left wing groups involved
– He… pic.twitter.com/ef8Q6WRsqw

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) April 14, 2026

Her decision to step back comes as she has also been at the center of a growing controversy involving commentator Candace Owens, who recently announced an “investigative series” targeting Kirk titled “Bride of Charlie.”

The series has sparked backlash across the conservative movement. Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro blasted Owens in a recent video, calling Owens an “evil, twisted human being” and accusing her of profiting off Charlie Kirk’s assassination by promoting conspiracy theories and targeting his widow. Shapiro urged Erika Kirk to “sue the living hell” out of Owens over the project.

Vance delivered an emotional defense of Erika Kirk, describing the grief she’s endured since her husband’s assassination and blasting critics who have questioned her.

Vance reflected on the raw, unpredictable nature of grief — saying Kirk has been navigating overwhelming emotions while also trying to preserve Charlie Kirk’s legacy and care for her children, who may grow up without lasting memories of their father.

He said the attacks against her have been “one of the most disgraceful things” he’s seen in public life, before sharing a deeply personal moment he witnessed alongside his wife after Charlie Kirk’s death.

.@VP: “The people telling you that Erika wasn’t grieving her husband are full of shit.” pic.twitter.com/7qpQUZi80y

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) April 14, 2026

“I was there with her, I was holding her hand, my wife was hugging her while we loaded Charlie’s body onto Air Force Two and said the Lord’s Prayer,” Vance said. “The people telling you that Erika wasn’t grieving her husband are full of sh*t.”

Owens has used her platform in recent months to push a range of claims about the killing of Charlie Kirk, including allegations implicating various figures and institutions — claims that have drawn widespread criticism.

The University of Georgia event was part of a broader campus tour by Turning Point USA aimed at engaging college students nationwide.

Moore was instead sentenced Tuesday to 18 months of probation by Judge Cedric Simpson in Washtenaw County Court, as The New York Post reported. The former head coach appeared in court arm-in-arm with his wife, with whom he shares three children.

Prosecutors said Moore threatened to kill himself in front of Shiver, with whom he had been having a relationship. The 40-year-old had faced charges including felony home invasion, stalking, and breaking and entering. Shiver was Moore’s executive assistant during their two-year affair.

Details of the charges were first revealed during Moore’s arraignment in December, as The Daily Wire previously reported.

According to prosecutors, Moore forced his way into Shiver’s apartment in mid-December, grabbed several butter knives and a pair of scissors, and threatened to take his own life after repeatedly calling and texting her. 

“I am going to kill myself. I am going to make you watch. My blood is on your hands. You’ve ruined my life,” Moore said, according to prosecutors.

First Assistant Prosecutor Kati Rezmierski said Shiver, 32, was terrorized by a “series of very intimidating and terrifying statements and behaviors” inside the apartment.

Prosecutors said Shiver and Moore had been in an intimate relationship for years before she broke it off, which they argued led to Moore’s erratic behavior. 

Judge Simpson noted the seriousness of Moore’s crimes during sentencing. 

“You had no right to do what you did,” the judge stated, per the Post. “I know that [Shiver] was placed in fear. It was a traumatic experience that day for you. It was certainly a traumatic experience for her.”

“You had no right to spread your pain to her,” Simpson added. “I don’t know where your wife, Kelli, finds her strength… you, sir, took her for granted.”

Moore’s lawyer said he has taken steps to address his behavior since the incident.

“Sherrone has engaged in counseling, gained insight into his life … recentered himself around his family and taken responsibility, expressing genuine remorse,” attorney Ellen Michaels said.

The judge ordered Moore to have no contact with Shiver. His probation is set to be reviewed in October.

While addressing a crowd, Biden spotted a black man in the audience and called out, “Barack, what are you doing? Come here, come here, come here, come here.” He then added, “Come here!” 

“I feel like he should be standing to the right and I should be standing to the left. Doesn’t he look like Barack? Anyway.” The man was not Barack Obama.

🚨 JOE BIDEN spots a black guy: “Come here, COME HERE! […] Doesn’t he look like Barack?!”

“Barack, what are you doing?”

Are you serious right now 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/4BAXwHbhP9

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 14, 2026

The moment, delivered with Biden’s characteristic wandering, off-the-cuff style, quickly drew attention online, not necessarily because it was shocking for Biden, but because it echoed the kind of comment that, in a different political context, would likely spark immediate backlash from the Left.

To be clear, there’s no indication Biden intended anything malicious. The remark came off more as a familiar blend of Biden’s age and verbal wandering than anything resembling actual animus. 

That tension is part of what makes Biden’s long history of gaffes so politically unique. For decades, he has been prone to unscripted remarks that veer into awkward or eyebrow-raising territory, often blurring the line between folksy charm and unintentional controversy.

Some of those moments have been more memorable than others. During the 2020 campaign, Biden told radio host Charlamagne Tha God, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” a line that drew widespread criticism at the time. Years earlier, he described Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean,” a comment that lingered in political discourse long after it was said.

FLASHBACK: Biden said “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black”

pic.twitter.com/bmW05LCpUI

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 22, 2024

Even outside of political campaigns, Biden’s tendency toward verbal stumbles has been a defining feature of his public persona. From mixing up names and places to wandering anecdotes that lose their thread mid-sentence, his speaking style has often been as unpredictable as it is incomprehensible.

Still, the “Barack” moment underscores a broader dynamic in American politics: the uneven way certain comments are received depending on who says them. What might be dismissed as a harmless slip for one figure could be treated as a major controversy for another.

For Biden, it’s just the latest addition to a decades-long reel of offhand remarks — the kind that, for better or worse, have become inseparable from his political identity.

Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, 36, an 18th Street Gang member who was wanted for questioning related to a murder in El Salvador, is charged with assault on a federal officer with a deadly weapon after he allegedly tried to ram Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers with his car, court documents unsealed Tuesday allege. He was arrested Monday after his release from the hospital.

The ICE officers pulled over Mendoza Hernandez in Patterson, California, last week. The Salvadoran national refused to get out of his vehicle despite the officers’ repeated requests to detain him, according to court documents.

That led one of the agents to break a window on his car to force him out, the court documents show.

Mendoza Hernandez then allegedly drove forward, hitting an agent with his car. He then reversed the car, colliding with a law enforcement vehicle parked behind him.

He then accelerated forward toward two of the federal agents, court documents allege. One of the agents jumped out of the way as Mendoza Hernandez allegedly drove over the median and into opposing traffic before stopping on the side of the road.

Agents responded by shooting Mendoza Hernandez, who was hit several times and transported to a hospital for treatment.

At some point, Mendoza Hernandez’s car collided with another vehicle, hit a guardrail, and eventually came to a stop roughly 500 feet from where agents pulled him over, according to court documents.

“Following their training, our officers fired defensive shots to protect themselves, their fellow agents, and the public,” Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said at the time.

ICE has faced an unprecedented level of violent attacks and threats since kicking off President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Trump’s first year in office was marked by a 3,300% increase in vehicular attacks against ICE, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The Trump administration has attempted to take a more targeted approach at making immigration-related arrests following two fatal shootings of anti-ICE activists in Minneapolis. The shootings, which were carried out by federal immigration agents, sparked weeks of protests.

In the wake of the two previous shootings, Trump replaced Kristi Noem with Markwayne Mullin as the new DHS secretary. He also demoted former Border Patrol sector chief Gregory Bovino, who was known for his aggressive roving patrols and has since retired.

Russini announced her resignation on Tuesday in a letter posted to X.

“I have decided to step aside now — before my current contract expires on June 30,” she wrote. “I do so not because I accept the narrative that has been constructed around this episode, but because I refuse to lend it further oxygen or to let it define me or my career.”

The veteran reporter defended her record, citing more than 15 years in sports journalism at NBC, ESPN, and The Athletic.

“I have built a body of work I am proud of. I have broken stories, earned the trust of sources across the league and been guided by the highest standards of professional conduct. That record speaks for itself,” she wrote.

Russini said The Athletic, which is owned by The New York Times, initially stood by her account of events that took place in March at a boutique hotel in Sedona, Arizona. However, she said subsequent media coverage fueled speculation she described as “unmoored from the facts.”

“This media frenzy is hurtling forward without regard for the review process The Athletic is trying to complete,” she added. “It continues to escalate, fueled by repeated leaks, and I have no interest in submitting to a public inquiry that has already caused far more damage than I am willing to accept.”

In a memo shared with The Athletic staff, Executive Editor Steven Ginsberg confirmed Russini’s resignation and said the outlet took the situation seriously from the start.

“When this situation was brought to our attention last week, there were clear concerns, but we received a detailed explanation and it was our instinct to support and defend a colleague while we continued to review the matter,” Ginsberg wrote. “As additional information emerged, new questions were raised that became part of our investigation.”

Page Six reported that Russini and Vrabel were spotted together at the Ambiente hotel on March 28. According to the outlet, they had breakfast, spent time by the pool, side-by-side in a hot tub, and were later photographed on a private rooftop area. The photos showed them holding hands and standing face-to-face, with the outlet also reporting they briefly danced together.

Russini and Vrabel are both married. Russini has been married to Shake Shack executive Kevin Goldschmidt since 2020; the couple shares two sons. Vrabel has been married to his wife, Jen, since 1999, after the two met at Ohio State. They have two sons as well.

In separate statements to Page Six, Russini and Vrabel both downplayed their interactions.

Russini said the photos “don’t represent the group of six people who were hanging out during the day.”

Vrabel described the situation as an “innocent interaction” and called the images “laughable.”

Russini joined The Athletic in 2023 after a successful tenure at ESPN, where she covered the Tennessee Titans during Vrabel’s tenure as head coach.

Vrabel is coming off a Super Bowl appearance in his first season as head coach of the Patriots.

When I see President Trump and Pope Leo going at it, I think to myself, if we’re going to talk about presidents who are legitimately attacking Catholics, we should really be talking about Barack Obama, who went after the Little Sisters of the Poor and decided that he was going to mainstream every sin he could find.

We should talk about Joe Biden, who apparently was using the DOJ to go after pro-lifers, which is insane.

According to Daily Wire reporting, President Biden’s administration relied on information gathered from radical pro-abortion groups to track, prosecute, and snoop on peaceful pro-life protesters who were later arrested by the FBI.

A DOJ report titled “The Biden Administration’s Weaponization of the FACE Act” examined more than 700,000 records.

The FACE Act is a bill that was designed to prevent people from obstructing entry to abortion clinics. The FACE Act also said that you weren’t allowed to invade churches during services. That came up in the context of Don Lemon and his friends invading and disturbing a church service in order to protest ICE.

The dossiers that the DOJ examined contained information about pro-life activists who had not yet been charged with any federal crimes, but were deemed threats by abortion groups because of their activism.

We’ve seen this kind of pattern emerge in all of the reporting from the Biden administration, over and over and over. They were using left-wing cutout groups to do their dirty work, whether it was the Biden administration State Department contracting out to other services to promote boycotts of right-wing news outlets, or whether it was the Biden administration outsourcing its investigative pursuits to anti-life, pro-choice organizations to target pro-lifers.

The Biden administration liked to do such things.

According to the Daily Wire reporting, the weaponization can be traced to former Attorney General Merrick Garland’s resurrection of the National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers the month after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

That task force was operating out of the department’s civil rights division under the direction of Sanjay Patel, who was reportedly fired on Monday. Patel was on texting terms with the National Abortion Federation security team and was regularly communicating with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Feminist Majority Foundation, according to the DOJ. Members of the Biden DOJ were coordinating openly with various abortion groups and leaders in the abortion movement.

This was all part of these non-governmental organizations working hand-in-glove with the federal government under Joe Biden. Daily Wire reporting looked into the sentences that were sought by the Biden DOJ against pro-life activists, and what they found is that the Biden DOJ asked for a longer, average sentence for pro-life defendants compared to pro-abortion defendants. Actual sentences shook out to an average of 14 months for pro-life defendants, versus three months for pro-choice defendants.

This is astonishing. It demonstrates the full-scale animus that the Biden administration had for the pro-life movement.

This is nothing new. If you go back to the Clinton administration, the attempt to target political adversaries using the DOJ is perfectly obvious.

I’ve said over and over that the Left likes to say that Donald Trump broke all the rules, that he’s the one who killed the American political system.

The reality is that the American political system was already dead, and Trump stumbled upon it. Barack Obama used the IRS to go after pro-life groups, conservative groups, and Tea Party groups. Joe Biden’s DOJ targeted pro-lifers.

There’s nothing new here. Democrats have been doing this for a very, very long time.

Imagine the scandal if, for example, the Trump administration were coordinating with pro-life groups to go after abortion advocates. Can you imagine the scandal? Can you imagine the front page coverage?

One of the questions here is how people who were involved in this were allowed to stay at the DOJ for so long. Sanjay Patel was still working for the DOJ all the way until Monday, which is crazy and demonstrates the truth of President Trump’s statement that there is, in fact, a deep state.

There are lifelong appointees of various administrations who are still working inside the current administration — working against the president’s priorities. That’s very real. It just goes to show you that the attempt to cleanse the administration of holdovers is an ongoing pursuit.

The Democratic Party is perfectly willing to use the auspices of government to go after religious people. They’ve been doing it over and over and over again. It’s one of the reasons I said to my family that we ought to leave California. My great fear is that states like California will effectively quasi-criminalize religious practice by essentially saying that any 501C3 that receives tax-exempt status from the state government must buy into the left-wing social agenda.

If the Democrats were able to take over the Supreme Court, they would get away with that. They would be able to use anti-discrimination law as a guise for cracking down on First Amendment religiously protected activity. That is the direction that Democrats would love to move. And if left to their own devices, they absolutely would be able to do it.

If the Democrats had won in 2024, Kamala Harris would have attempted to stack the Supreme Court and state governments everywhere would be pursuing anti-religious activity just like this.

The Biden administration was, in my opinion, the worst administration in modern American history, worse even than Obama — because Obama didn’t say the quiet part out loud.

Biden said the quiet part out loud.

The attacker, who authorities have not identified, was confronted by police just outside of the Walmart as she was holding a knife to the young child, who was sitting in a shopping cart, Omaha Police Deputy Chief Scott Gray said. The woman refused verbal commands from the officers and then slashed the 3-year-old boy across the face before at least one officer opened fire and killed her.

The toddler was taken to the hospital after suffering “a rather large laceration across the left side of the face,” according to the deputy police chief. Authorities believe the young boy will survive. No one else was injured in the kidnapping attempt or the shooting.

“The officers gave the suspect commands,” Gray said. “There is video that shows the suspect swiping the knife at the child, cutting him across the face.”

Police said the child’s “caretaker” was shopping at Walmart with the toddler seated in a shopping cart when she was confronted by the suspect, who was armed with a large knife, which investigators believe she stole from the store, ABC’s Omaha affiliate KETV reported. The perpetrator then allegedly snatched the child from the caretaker, “essentially kidnapping the child,” and ordered the caretaker to walk in front of the shopping cart as they exited the store. The woman held a knife up to the child as they walked.

After walking out of the store, the two women had a verbal “back and forth” before police arrived on the scene at around 9:20 a.m. local time, Gray said. Authorities do not believe that the attacker and the caretaker knew each other, adding that it remains unclear why the perpetrator targeted the woman and the young boy. It is also not known whether the caretaker was the child’s mother or someone else.

The Trump Department of Justice on Tuesday released an 800-page exposé on how the Biden administration weaponized the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act to target pro-life Americans. Originally designed to protect access to abortion clinics and crisis pregnancy centers, the Biden administration used the law largely to target peaceful pro-life protesters.

One of the most striking findings in Tuesday’s report is that a senior Biden DOJ official, identified as a key prosecutor on FACE Act cases, agreed to serve as a reference for the National Abortion Federation in a private grant application. According to the DOJ press release, investigators “found no record of ethics approval for the attorney to take an interest in the financial outcome of a party having business before the Biden DOJ.”

Emails show direct communication between DOJ attorney Sanjay Patel and National Abortion Federation officials regarding the request. In a December 2020 email, Patel told National Abortion Federation senior security director Tara Gannon to “Feel free to use me as a reference,” even as internal DOJ discussions acknowledged potential ethical concerns.

At one point, a supervisor suggested Patel consult with an ethics officer before proceeding. However, the report states that DOJ records contain no evidence that such approval was ever sought or granted. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Wire.

On Monday, Patel, among at least three other prosecutors, was fired for “weaponizing the FACE act,” according to CBS News.

The issue resurfaced in 2023, when the National Abortion Federation again approached Biden officials for help with a funding proposal. This time, the group requested a written “impact statement” on Justice Department letterhead to support its application, explicitly asking the official to describe their working relationship and the value of National Abortion Federation security operations.

While the DOJ attorney acknowledged he would need permission before complying, internal records show no indication the request was formally approved or denied.

Beyond the grant issue, the report paints a broader picture of what it describes as a “two-way” relationship between the Biden Justice Department and pro-abortion organizations.

According to investigators, communication between Biden officials and outside groups was frequent and often initiated by the department. Advocacy organizations provided tips, intelligence, and referrals related to potential FACE Act violations, sometimes at DOJ’s request, while prosecutors, in turn, shared information and maintained ongoing coordination.

“The Biden DOJ remained in continual contact with pro-abortion groups regarding the FACE Act,” the report states. “Information flowed two ways.”

That relationship effectively extended to operational support as well. When abortion groups raised concerns or sought assistance, Biden officials reportedly helped connect them with federal law enforcement resources, including the FBI. In some cases, the Task Force Director personally facilitated introductions and follow-ups. The level of coordination raises serious questions about impartiality, particularly given the DOJ’s aggressive use of the FACE Act during the same period, often targeting pro-life activists.

The communications revealed in Tuesday’s report also appear to conflict with testimony from a senior National Abortion Federation official.

During a congressional exchange with Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), National Abortion Federation chief legal and strategy officer Talcott Camp was asked whether she had communicated with the Biden Justice Department regarding FACE Act enforcement.

“I have not,” Camp initially said, before qualifying that she “may have had contact” but did not believe it involved enforcement discussions.

However, emails suggest NAF had a far more extensive relationship, including coordination on cases and ongoing communication with Biden DOJ personnel tied directly to FACE Act enforcement efforts.

The report further alleges that while pro-abortion groups enjoyed regular access and responsiveness from Biden officials, pro-life organizations were not afforded the same level of engagement. Investigators found that DOJ prosecutors shared certain information with abortion advocacy groups that was not similarly disclosed to pro-life entities, raising concerns about unequal treatment under the law.

Additionally, the department’s commitment to pursuing FACE Act cases was, according to the report, at times aligned with the priorities and interests of those same outside groups.

“The Biden DOJ committed to pursuing FACE Act cases to support these groups’ interests,” the report states.

The National Abortion Federation has yet to respond to the findings in the report and did not respond to a request for comment.

* * *

America’s higher education system is in the midst of a historic reckoning. The compact that existed for generations between our republic, the American people, and our institutions of higher learning has irrevocably broken down. Universities once dedicated to the pursuit of truth and academic excellence have become centers of radical political indoctrination—all while being generously subsidized by hardworking American taxpayers.

Americans of both parties, college-educated and non-college-educated, have lost faith in our universities at a staggering pace. A September 2025 Gallup poll revealed an astonishing trend; only about one-third (35 percent) of Americans today think that a college education is “very important.” That’s a rapid drop from 2019, when 53 percent of Americans agreed with that proposition. In 2010, it was 75 percent.

This hasn’t happened in a vacuum. Colleges and universities across the country have actively undermined their standing in the public imagination. They have chosen to embolden the most radical members of their faculty and staff. They have forced the divisive and discriminatory “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) regime as gospel. They have proactively silenced and canceled students and teachers who disagree with the groupthink progressive political agenda.

Just look at the data. Democrat faculty outnumber Republicans by at least eight-to-one at any major university. And political bias isn’t the only troubling issue. More than one-third (34 percent) of college students now say “using violence to stop campus speech” is acceptable. This is an absolutely stunning statistic and even more disturbing after the nation saw the horrific footage of Charlie Kirk’s assassination on a university campus during one of his iconic college tours where the main purpose of the event was to engage in respectful discourse and peaceful debate. Many on the Left, including some Democrat elected officials, viciously celebrated the loss of this young man’s life, saying it was somehow justified and deserved. This is a deeply disturbing and dangerous turning point for our national fabric and political culture.

Cover credit: Threshold Editions

Activism has come at the cost of education. Students are not learning the skills in the classroom that once defined a college graduate. Not only are they showing up academically unprepared, but they are leaving uneducated, unemployable, radicalized, and deeply out of touch with American values. Approximately one-third of college students require remedial classes before they begin earning credits. But once they start taking classes, grade inflation is worse than ever. They know less, but get better grades, than previous generations. More than 60 percent of college students admit to cheating.

Meanwhile, college tuition has increased at a preposterous rate as the value of a degree has declined. The average college student leaves school saddled with $40,000 of debt. A mere 30 percent of 2025 college graduates found entry-level jobs in their chosen field, while nearly half felt unprepared even to apply for entry-level jobs.

The American people are smart. We know that something has gone catastrophically wrong, and we are tired of being asked to foot the exorbitant bill on autopilot for a broken system that morphs students into anti-American zealots.

This didn’t happen overnight. The tremors leading up to this earthquake have offered warning signs for decades. An education system that was the envy of the world is now facing questions of its importance, quality, and meaning. A course correction is long overdue—so overdue, in fact, that the questions are no longer about minor improvements and reform; they have become existential. Questions such as: Are American colleges educating or indoctrinating? Can higher education even be reformed, or do we need to completely rebuild it from scratch? What is being taught in the classrooms, and why? When colleges and universities lose their way, how do we hold them accountable? How much foreign money is funding American higher education? Is a traditional college education even remotely worth the absurdly out-of-reach tuition price tag? Are these “elite” colleges and universities even worth saving? Americans are right to ask these hard questions. And the toughest questions are being posed to the most “elite” schools.

The most prestigious colleges and universities in America make up what is known colloquially as the Ivy League. The Ivy League, nestled in the Northeast and scattered across New England, is made up of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Brown, and Cornell. While each university has its own distinct character with unique qualities, these institutions taken as a group have historically been considered the bellwether and compass of American higher education. They set the standards and norms that other universities aspire to achieve, not just in the United States, but around the world.

Historically, Ivy League colleges were known for their institutional prestige, academic excellence, esteemed faculty, rigorous and extremely selective admissions processes, groundbreaking research, and extraordinarily successful alumni networks. Attending an Ivy League school was supposed to guarantee professional success for graduates. They were the crown jewels of the entire higher education system worldwide. For generations, admission to an Ivy League school meant winning a golden ticket to the American dream.

Today, that once-pristine reputation has been sullied. Most Americans understand the Ivy League schools as something different. Instead of bastions of knowledge and vibrant intellectual life, they are considered hotbeds of radical ideology, groundless elitism, intellectual laziness, and anti-American hatred. The reputation of these schools has declined dramatically. It has been poisoned.

This process of institutional decay, almost entirely self-inflicted, culminated in a once-in-a-generation congressional hearing on antisemitism with university presidents in December 2023. This was the moment Americans decided that enough was enough. Our universities were failing us and our next generation of leaders.

At that hearing, a single line of questioning revealed the depths of the moral and academic rot in higher education. The presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were asked to testify before Congress on the wave of antisemitism on their campuses after Hamas’s terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, 2023. One question went viral and quickly became the most viewed congressional testimony in United States history. It was truly the hearing heard around the world. 

I know because I asked the question. 

“Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university’s code of conduct on bullying or harassment?” This was not a political question. It was a moral one. I thought it would be the easiest, most straightforward question of the hearing. I assumed their answers would be a resounding yes. But to my shock, the presidents of MIT, UPenn, and Harvard, arguably the most prestigious universities in the world, answered one after another deadpan and nearly verbatim: “It depends on the context.” And the world heard.

Haiyun Jiang/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Their morally bankrupt answers astonished everyone who heard them, including me. These university presidents were supposed to be some of the most learned, intelligent people in America, if not the entire world. They were the people responsible for teaching the next generation of leaders in every field imaginable. They were the leaders of the most prestigious universities in the world. My immediate reaction was apparent to everyone watching. I couldn’t hide my shock. I questioned them further, asking them to elaborate on what they meant—giving them an opportunity to correct the record and state the obvious. And still, they refused to give a clear statement. They refused to state clearly that calling for the genocide of Jews violated their universities’ codes of conduct.

I knew immediately that this was a significant hearing. I didn’t realize in the moment, however, that it would become a historic earthquake that instantly reshaped the debate on higher education overnight. The hearing changed the trajectory of higher education. In the weeks and months that followed, campuses exploded into riotous antisemitic encampments. Subpoenas poured into campuses as Congress opened multiple investigations. Scandal-plagued university presidents and compromised trustees resigned. Campus chaos shaped a presidential election.

Today, as a result of this hearing, elite campuses are in the midst of a generational upheaval. Governance structures are in question. Faculty and curricula are under scrutiny. Billions of dollars in foreign funding have been exposed. The long-standing relationship between the federal government and universities is being revised. Matriculation trends are shifting. Nothing is the same.

Nor should it be. Our hearing reset the course of American higher education. It was a reset that I firmly believe was long overdue.

This book tells the inside story of what is happening on America’s campuses and why. It goes in depth, with an insider’s view, into the deep moral and intellectual rot in higher education. What began as a question about antisemitism triggered a watershed moment.

In the long term, the hearing lit the match for not only accountability, but a far-reaching educational reform movement that has only just begun. This very dark chapter for American colleges and universities can and must lead to light at the end of the tunnel. Our institutions of higher learning have fundamentally lost their way. They strayed far from their founding missions and grew nearly unrecognizable. But that does not mean that the American people have to settle for this rotted and poisoned status quo.

We can and must fix our higher education system and return our colleges and universities to their founding mission. It is within the American people’s power to correct when these schools fundamentally lose their way. And it is our responsibility to ensure that we are educating and not indoctrinating our next generation of leaders. Our colleges and universities should promote academic excellence, intellectual inquiry, and our nation’s highest ideals, not left-wing indoctrination, heinous antisemitism, and anti-Americanism. That’s why it is important to look at what went wrong in this particular moment in history in painstaking detail. By seeing where and why our most elite schools failed, we can chart a better course for the future.

* * *

This excerpt is taken from ​​”Poisoned Ivies: The Inside Account of the Academic and Moral Rot at America’s Elite Universities,” by Elise Stefanik. Copyright © 2026 by Elise Stefanik. Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Reprinted by permission.

The memo from the State Department directs diplomats to encourage their host countries to pursue policies that keep children safe from the dangers of online pornography and sexual abuse while not compromising fundamental freedoms. 

“The Trump Administration strongly prioritizes the protection of children online, advancing policies that combat exploitation while safeguarding privacy, free expression, and innovation,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told The Daily Wire. “As countries explore frameworks to protect children online, we stand ready to engage and encourage approaches that are effective, balanced, and do not impose unintended consequences on fundamental freedoms or technological progress.”

The memo from the State Department says that it supports age verification technology if implemented within a scope that protects privacy, freedom of speech and digital innovation. In general the State Department said it favored an open internet, especially when it comes to political speech, with the exception to pornography and adult commercial activities such as gambling, tobacco, or alcohol. 

“The United States seeks to engage global partners to ensure that, if they implement or consider age assurance measures, they do so in close coordination with the U.S. government, tech companies, and civil society, including parents, to inform their approach,” the memo said. 

The memo added that its priority was prioritizing parental involvement. 

“The United States favors regulatory approaches that empower parents to prescribe access limitations for devices used by their child, rather than mandating one-size-fits-all access limitations imposed by the government.  The United States also favors digital-literacy campaigns that educate parents about how to manage relevant device settings,” the memo read.  

One form of age-verification the State Department said it favored was zero knowledge proof (ZKP) age verification systems. This approach is to be verified while precise personal details are kept private at the same time. 

“The United States encourages ZKP standards that are interoperable across platforms and regulatory regimes and encourages a diverse ecosystem of ZKP credentialing that includes relatively anonymous, low-friction options,” the memo added. 

It said it does not favor approaches that mandate the production of a driver’s license or a passport.

President Donald Trump has pushed for protections online for kids and signed “The Take It Down Act” in 2025, a law championed by First Lady Melania Trump requiring the removal of content featuring nonconsensual intimate imagery, including AI-generated deepfakes. 

Polling shows that the vast majority of Americans support a federal law requiring age verification for app downloads or access to pornographic content online. A poll conducted by Cygnal in February found that 83% of likely voters support an age verification law for mobile app downloads, and 81% of likely voters support age verification for pornographic sites.

Conservatives should oppose lawfare and seek major changes to bring back justice to our judicial system — but we should not confuse it with the very tool that helps citizens fight back. In a report I recently published, I explain how third-party litigation finance (TPLF) is one of the few remaining mechanisms that allows ordinary citizens to take powerful woke corporations, institutions, and government bureaucrats to court on a level playing field. The prevalence of lawfare is exactly what makes this tool indispensable.

Over the past decade, the Left has turned the legal system into a political weapon. Their activists flood courts with suits designed to punish conservative speech, religious liberty, and parental rights. Meanwhile, conservative causes — whether challenging DEI mandates, ESG policies, or Big Tech censorship — often falter because plaintiffs can’t afford the long, expensive battle that follows. Rights on paper mean little without the resources to enforce them.

Conservative nonprofits fight valiantly, but they can’t do everything. Litigation finance can help fill that gap. It provides non-recourse capital from investors who have conducted rigorous due diligence and concluded that a claim has real merit. The plaintiff — a conservative activist, a small business owner, or an everyday American whose rights have been trampled — risks nothing beyond the claim itself. The funder assumes the financial risk in exchange for a negotiated share of any recovery. This structure is revolutionary for meritorious cases that would otherwise die on the vine because the plaintiff cannot outlast deep-pocketed opponents who treat litigation as a war of attrition. Like contingency fees, litigation finance doesn’t manufacture lawsuits; it makes viable ones possible that would otherwise never see the light of day.

For conservatives, this is critical. It can fund lawsuits against woke corporations enforcing DEI mandates, challenges to Big Tech viewpoint discrimination, election-integrity litigation, and defenses or counterclaims against the Left’s lawfare machine. Market discipline keeps this system honest. Serious funders back strong cases and avoid frivolous ones because repeated losses would be financial suicide.

Lawfare is about weaponizing process to punish opponents regardless of merit. Litigation finance, by contrast, depends on the system working fairly. One abuses the law; the other enforces it.

At the very moment conservatives should be embracing this equalizer, some in Washington are trying to strangle it. The Litigation Funding Transparency Act of 2026 and the Protecting TPLF From Abuse Act would force parties to broadly disclose their funding arrangements — a move that would hand corporate defendants a strategic advantage before the first motion is filed. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), meanwhile, is pushing a punitive tax proposal designed to make litigation finance economically unviable. Even state legislatures in Tennessee and Missouri, among others, have introduced similar proposals to sharply restrict litigation finance.

These measures would not deter lawfare. They would bolster the very corporations pushing progressive social agendas by choking off the capital that allows conservatives to challenge them. Instead of empowering Americans to fight back, these bills would ensure that only the wealthy and well-connected can afford to litigate.

Conservatives should, of course, guard against genuine national security risks. No one wants foreign adversaries such as China or Russia using our courts to advance their interests. But that risk is narrow and manageable. A straightforward prohibition on funding from foreign adversaries, with strict enforcement, would block bad actors without undermining the entire system. The answer to potential foreign infiltration of litigation finance isn’t to cripple American access to justice; it’s to keep the market clean, so American plaintiffs can continue holding powerful corporations and institutions accountable.

If these punitive measures advance in their current forms, conservative lawmakers will have helped dismantle one of the few tools that can actually help their voters. The small business owner fighting discriminatory corporate practices, the church defending its religious liberty, and the parent challenging school censorship will all be left effectively defenseless unless they are independently wealthy or have the backing of a strong conservative legal organization. And woke corporations enjoy even more insulation from accountability.

Conservative lawmakers and leaders should be leading the charge in the opposite direction. Litigation finance is a pro-family, pro-small business, pro-rule-of-law innovation that restores fairness to the courtroom. They should defend it against overbroad disclosure mandates and punitive taxes, while enacting a narrow foreign adversary ban to keep the system clean.

***

Gene Hamilton is the President and Co-Founder of America First Legal and former Deputy White House Counsel to President Donald Trump.

***

Sabrina Carpenter is canceled. It’s surprising it took so long. The pop star famous for her bubbly, retro sounds is no stranger to controversy. She’s come under fire in the past for her performances simulating sex acts on stage, and her music videos routinely feature male murder fantasies. But now, Carpenter has finally stepped on a progressive cultural land mine. During her headline Coachella performance, the singer committed a grave act of “xenophobia” when responding to a disruptive fan, and her carnivorous fan base has finally found an excuse to take out its queen bee.

Coachella 2026 was poised to be the highlight of Sabrina Carpenter’s meteoric rise to pop stardom. Her headline show, dubbed by fans “Sabrinawood” for its nods to Old Hollywood, was a star-studded affair with over-the-top stage production and cameos from iconic actors such as Sam Elliott. As initial videos of the performance trickled onto social media, the internet crowned her the reigning princess of Coachella.

Then the unthinkable happened. An interaction with a loud fan summoned the internet’s cancel culture vultures with accusations of racism and xenophobia.

X user Poppy posted a clip of the incident, which has now been removed, showing a performance interrupted by what Sabrina Carpenter called a “yodel.” After being informed by the audience member that it was a cultural custom, Sabrina grimaced and responded, “That’s your culture?” Poppy’s caption expressed disappointment: “sabrina saying that she doesn’t like a cultural arabic cheer… this is so insensitive and islamophobic.”

The post garnered 30.9 million views and a response from Carpenter, who quickly apologized after being informed of the disruptor’s cultural background, “my apologies I didn’t see this person with my eyes.”

The fan was not from Appalachia or the Swiss Alps, as Sabrina likely assumed, and the noise was not a yodel, but a zaghrouta, a celebratory ululation used throughout North Africa and the Middle East. In the eyes of Sabrina Carpenter’s progressive fanbase, the offender was not a safe person to criticize.

“I’m in a complete shock,” one of the viral posts said, “I used to be a huge sabrina carpenter fan and now she’s mocking my culture and calling me ‘weird’, this is so racist and inappropriate and it made me feel uncomfortable. this white blonde racist woman should be cancelled.”

The speed with which Sabrina Carpenter’s fans were willing to condemn her is revelatory of the inner workings of “stan” culture, a pop-star-obsessed internet subculture. The name originates from Eminem’s 2000 song “Stan,” which chronicles a fan’s obsession that devolves from sending letters into a murder-suicide. For “stans” to adopt this identity as their own, even if done ironically, indicates a destructive underbelly.

As I pointed out in this post, the quick switch-up from fan to hater is often rooted in progressive politics. Over a decade ago, a Tumblr account called Your Fave is Problematic became famous for its lists of celebrity transgressions. Even Katy Perry, the current girlfriend of former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, was “called out” for transgressions such as “[demonstrating] unsafe binding techniques,” cultural appropriation, and “trivializing bisexuality” with her hit song “I Kissed a Girl.” As a pop culture-obsessed tween, I was introduced to progressive puritanism by blogs such as these.

Stan culture is inextricably linked with progressive politics. Once a star has misbehaved, the incident serves as cover for a variety of heinous comments and obsessive cyberbullying of both the star and her fans. Sabrina Carpenter will undoubtedly encounter this fate. Her fans now have a decision to make that feels consequential: call her out and distance yourself, or become problematic too.

This is an under-recognized entry point of the progressive radicalization pipeline: online stan culture. The participants are young and want to fit in, and participating in the cancelation mob is a moral duty in this environment.

While many have correctly pointed out that Sabrina Carpenter has cultivated this type of fanbase, it is nearly impossible to ascend to her level of stardom without engaging in progressive politicking. The danger is that progressives are more puritan than puritans themselves and offer no path to redemption. The stakes of offending them, which is laughably easy to do, are incredibly high.

For radical progressive pop fans, God is replaced by the pop star. In this role, it isn’t enough for Sabrina Carpenter to be exceptional; she must be perfect. If she is human, like the rest of us, then she doesn’t deserve the lights, the stage, the celebrity cameos, and most importantly, the money that comes with being at the top. In this light, Carpenter’s cancellation is completely predictable.

***

Maggie Anders is a video journalist and political commentator. Her work explores international political movements, history, pop culture, economics, the cost-of-living crisis, and Gen Z social issues. 

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon confirmed the Department of Justice and FBI investigations on Tuesday after the Ostroushko family clashed with Hernandez at the protest outside the Whipple Federal Building, a local ICE field office, and a detention facility. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office has reportedly arrested several people, three of them in connection with the alleged assault. 

The three individuals arrested include Chris Ostroushko, his daughter Paige, and Paige’s boyfriend, Lorenzo Garcia, 20, Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office told the Daily Caller.

Chris and Garcia were arrested for obstruction with force, while Paige was arrested for disorderly conduct. Chris’s wife, Deyanna, was also identified on video confronting Hernandez but was not among those charged.

Hernandez caught several of the attacks on video, where she could clearly be seen being harassed and shoved by the protesters. Paige, a sophomore at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, was shown blowing a whistle in Hernandez’s face before physically attacking Hernandez.

One video shows Chris pushing Hernandez to the ground.

I’m waking up with a headache and stiff neck this morning due to how violently anti-ICE activist, Chris Ostroushko, shoved me down yesterday.

A second angle shows that he had to be held back by 5 men as he continued to charge at me.

I didn’t speak a word to him all day yet he… pic.twitter.com/LjDx1GMLnF

— Savanah Hernandez (@Savsays) April 12, 2026

In another video, the Ostroushko family is seen discussing the attack beforehand, in which Chris can be heard telling his daughter to “Blow the whistle right in her f*cking ear.”

Chris Ostroushko was previously known to law enforcement, as Crime Watch Minneapolis reported that he was convicted of defrauding the state after he illegally received unemployment benefits of nearly $ 7,000 in the early 2000s.

In an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Monday, Hernandez said she believes the incident escalated because the protesters found out who she works for. “Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, this is now the third time that people have come up to me … figured out I work for TPUSA, and have made a point to confront me, to threaten me, to harass me, and now brutally assault me, to prove a point.”

“I’m scared to report, Laura,” Hernandez admitted. “This is my job. It’s what I’ve been doing for the last six years.”

“I can’t even interview people properly on the street because I get brutally assaulted and pushed to the ground by a 250-pound man for simply going and reporting on anti-ICE activities,” she added.

“For far too long, the violent left has been allowed to get away with repeated attacks on journalists,” Hernandez posted to X. “I’m looking forward to justice being served after what happened yesterday.”

Border czar Tom Homan echoed Hernandez on the show with Ingraham, “We cannot give up on this. We have to keep prosecuting these people … We cannot accept this as a norm in the United States of America.”

On April 9, Pope Leo XIV met with David Axelrod, the former senior advisor to President Obama. Then, on April 10, the Pope made a clearly pacifist, anti-war statement aimed at the Trump administration. To cap it all off, CBS aired a “60 Minutes” episode on Sunday, April 12, with three of the most liberal cardinals in the American Catholic Church who spoke in opposition to the Iran war and against the deportation of illegal aliens. Meanwhile, social media erupted with provocative arguments over who is to blame for America’s moral and spiritual collapse: Catholics or Protestants?

Without a doubt, there is a political operation underway to set up a confrontation between the Vatican and the United States. The goal is to divide conservative Catholic voters from the Evangelical bloc — an established and battle-tested political tactic, cynical and craven as it may be. This has the fingerprints of the DNC and NGO operatives all over it, and the liberal progressives within the Catholic Church are working in their service.

Non-Catholic Americans need to understand there is a serious intra-Catholic war going on between the liberal progressives within the Church and those who are trying to keep the Church faithful to its 2,000 years of Biblical teaching. This war has been hot since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Just like the Protestant progressives, the Catholic Church has a large segment of that generation that wants to do to Catholicism what the Protestant progressives have done elsewhere, not only on issues like abortion, sexuality, and women’s ordination, but in the liberalizing of the entire political and social order. Decades ago Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger fought hard against Communists and Socialists within the Church who were using Marxist ideology to form what is now called Liberation Theology — a politicization of the Gospel. Cardinal Ratzinger knew it posed a threat to the distinction between Church and State.

As a well-assimilated Iraqi Christian immigrant to America, who journeyed through different Protestant denominations until I converted to Catholicism ten years ago, I can say without a doubt that the only reason there is such a strong, faithful, intelligent, fruitful Catholic community in America is because of the kind of nation our Protestant brethren founded in 1776. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI praised the freedoms created by the American system — this shared, common freedom Founding Fathers built allows both Protestants/Evangelicals and Catholics to grow without the meddling hand of the government.

One can admire the traditions, customs, and observances of the Catholics in Europe, but they are a small community that hold no sway in the public squares of their countries. In spite of what seems to be a recent increase in Catholic converts in France, Catholicism as an institution, like its political counterpart in Europe has become a “polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline,” to use Secretary Marco Rubio’s words.

Some may boast about the Catholic evangelization of South America centuries ago, but Latin America today offers a different picture: societies in moral decline, an anemic Catholic Church losing people to the Pentecostal movement, and corrupt governments unable to provide even basic safety for their citizens.

American Catholicism has a “conservative” segment for two reasons: the faithful presence of our Evangelical and Protestant brethren, which encourages us to remain steadfast in Scriptural teaching, and the blessed miracle of American religious liberty.

European Catholics complain that American Catholics are more American than Catholic, they phrase it in this way because what they cannot tolerate to say is that American Catholics are overall more faithful Christians than European Catholics. And that faithfulness is the wonderful fruit of being in America.

The reason why America has not fully given itself over to the globalist progressive agenda is due primarily to the Evangelicals who have held the line, and their conservative Catholic counterpart who have partnered with them. These two groups have worked hard together in spite of theological differences. The next destructive ideology that needs defeating is the Islamist totalitarianism of the Islamists seeking world domination. Like Pope John Paul II who stood up against Communism, Pope Leo XIV should be working against that ideology, not chastising the only country in the world that has expansive religious freedoms.

Conservative Christians of all stripes need to see this political op for what it is and hold the line, for the good of us all, and for the good of all American citizens.

* * *

Luma Simms is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

The 58-year-old discussed the transition during a talk at the University of San Francisco over the weekend, acknowledging that the work “sounds a little weird.”

A death doula is a non-medical companion who provides emotional, practical, and sometimes spiritual support to people nearing the end of life. The role has gained wider attention in recent years, including through portrayals in the popular medical drama “The Pitt.”  

Kidman said her interest in becoming a death doula was shaped by her experience caring for her mother, who died in September 2024 at age 84. Her father died in 2014.

“As my mother was passing, she was lonely, and there was only so much the family could provide,” Kidman said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Between my sister and I, we have so many children and our careers and our work, and wanting to take care of her because my father wasn’t in the world anymore, and that’s when I went, ‘I wish there was these people in the world that were there to sit impartially and just provide solace and care.’”

“So that’s part of my expansion and one of the things I will be learning,” she added. 

Death doulas are apparently becoming a “thing” in Hollywood. “Hamnet” director Chloé Zhao revealed earlier this year that she has trained as one as well.

“The societal understanding of death and the space it gives to grief and how it’s embedded in the culture and the medicalization of death have shifted so much,” Zhao told The New York Times in January. “In the modern world, when death is no longer seen as a natural part of life — because now it’s about staying alive as long as we can — there’s almost shame around death.” 

“I have been terrified of death my whole life. I still am,” Zhao added. “Because I’ve been so afraid I haven’t been able to live fully … And because I’m so scared of it, I have no choice but to start to develop a healthier relationship with it, or the second half of life would be too hard.”

Why isn’t Planned Parenthood “shouting their abortions”? Perhaps because the numbers undercut their official narrative: Planned Parenthood terminated 434,450 pregnancies in 2024 — an average of 1,190 unborn babies killed every day — an all-time high for the organization, and up 8% from the previous year. Planned Parenthood also reported receiving a jaw-dropping $832 million in federal tax dollars via Medicaid reimbursements and grants in fiscal year 2024, all while general services (i.e., services other than abortion) have plummeted.

The report notes that roughly 40 clinics have closed nationwide in the past year. Yet those closures appear to represent a change in strategy for the organization, and a new opportunity to encourage desperate and frightened young women to terminate their pregnancies. Planned Parenthood states that, as “restrictions force patients to take on increased costs and barriers,” it is “determined to find new paths to get care to people who need it,” highlighting its Virtual Health Centers and Planned Parenthood Direct telehealth platform.

By pouring resources into telehealth, Planned Parenthood gains unfettered access to peddle the abortion drug without any physician oversight, screening, or in-person care for women. In 2024-2025, Planned Parenthood provided abortion pills through telemedicine in 24 states over 320,390 telehealth appointments, leaving little doubt that telehealth is the corporation’s next frontier and cash cow. The abortion drug is presently responsible for more than two-thirds of abortions in the U.S.

In other words, Planned Parenthood wants to be able to provide women with abortion access anywhere, anytime, with little more than a Zoom-style Q&A and a chat with Planned Parenthood’s AI chatbot, “Roo.”

Just as the abortion drug is Planned Parenthood’s newest frontier, so is the mail-order abortion crisis Concerned Women for America’s (CWA) highest priority. Mail-order abortion via telehealth appointments is the antithesis of “care”—with little to no physician oversight, no ultrasound, and no screening for ectopic pregnancy (which can be fatal combined with the abortion drug), mail-order abortion leaves women alone to self-manage painful abortions in their own bathrooms.

Planned Parenthood claims that the abortion drug is “safer than Tylenol.” That is a bald-faced lie. The Food and Drug Administration’s own black box label for the drug warns that it may send one in 25 women to the emergency room with hemorrhaging, sepsis, incomplete abortion, or other life-threatening complications. Beyond that, 50 tons of unborn babies’ remains and chemical residues from chemical abortions are flushed into American waterways every year. We are all forced to drink the unfiltered chemical residue from drug-induced abortions.

CWA has endorsed a number of proposals to end the mail-order abortion crisis inaugurated by Planned Parenthood. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) recently introduced a bill to command the abortion drug Mifepristone’s approved application to be withdrawn for the purposes of terminating a pregnancy from the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, a necessary step to confront the dangerous drug. In the House of Representatives, Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) introduced the Clean Water for All Life Act, which will require the abortion drug to be dispensed with a medical waste catch kit to ensure that this drug no longer pollutes water.

Ultimately, with U.S. fertility rates hitting a new low in 2025, women and families need to be supported when it comes to having children. Our communities and churches must wrap their arms around women facing unplanned pregnancies, and the government would be better suited to support life-affirming pregnancy resource centers and federally qualified health centers that outnumber Planned Parenthoods around 43 to one. Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee strongly supports Rep. Diana Harshbarger’s (R-TN) Pregnancy.Gov Act which, if passed, would do just that by establishing an easy-to-use online database for women in need of local prenatal or postnatal services, counseling, adoption resources, nutrition coaching, abuse relief and recovery, addiction services, mental health services, and an array of life-affirming care.

With abortions and federal funding at an all-time reported high in 2024-2025, it is clear that Planned Parenthood, brick-and-mortar or telehealth, doesn’t deserve a single penny from American taxpayers.

***

Penny Young Nance is CEO and President of Concerned Women for America (CWA), the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization, and author of 7 Rules for Success in Business and Life: A Woman’s Guide. https://concernedwomen.org/

***

Artemis II pilot Victor Glover went a long way — 252,756 miles, to be exact — to make an impression, and boy, did he ever make one. A devout Christian, Glover praised God from the heavens as he and his compatriots completed their lunar mission — and his faith resonated in shockwaves back on Earth.

While many are accustomed to watching celebrities or sports figures answer victory — and sometimes defeat — with prayer and a call to glorify God in all things, those words are more striking when they come from scientists because so often culture teaches us that science and faith must be at odds with each other.

But Glover says otherwise, loudly and boldly — and when he’s given a microphone, even hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth, he says it again.

The naval test pilot holds three master’s degrees in flight and engineering fields, and he explained in a 2023 interview that his faith feeds his academic and career pursuits.

“My career is fed by my faith. Anytime I do something that’s pretty risky, I pray. Before I fly, every time I fly. Definitely when you go sit on top of a rocket ship,” he said. “In the military, there’s a saying that there are no atheists in foxholes. There aren’t any on top of rockets, either.”

Throughout Artemis II’s mission, Glover took every opportunity to share his faith — particularly in the context of God’s creation, to which he’d just been given a front-row seat.

On Easter Sunday, he gave an impromptu speech from aboard the Orion capsule.

🚨 JUST IN: Artemis II pilot Victor Glover just gave this BEAUTIFUL Easter message

“So far from Earth, looking at the BEAUTY of creation.”

“When I read the Bible and I look at all of the amazing things that were done for us…this amazing place.” ❤️🙏🏻pic.twitter.com/cjZscnGz2A

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 4, 2026

“You know, when I read the Bible and I look at all of the amazing things that were done for us, who were created, it’s — you have this amazing place, this spaceship, you guys are talking to us because we’re in a spaceship really far from Earth,” Glover said, adding, “You’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe, in the cosmos. Maybe the distance we are from you makes you think what we’re doing is special, but we’re the same distance from you, and I’m trying to tell you, just trust me, you are special.”

“In all of this emptiness, this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe, you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together,” he said.

Just before they circled around the moon and lost contact with Mission Control, Glover once again took the microphone and brought the conversation back to his faith: “Christ said in response to what was the greatest command, that it was to love God with all that you are … He said the second … that is to love your neighbor as yourself.”

JUST IN: Astronaut Victor Glover shares the Gospel from Artemis II before losing communication.

“Christ said in response to what was the greatest command, that it was to love God with all that you are.”

“He said the second … that is to love your neighbor as yourself.”

The… pic.twitter.com/9xErKPxmQU

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 6, 2026

When the crew finally splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, marking the end of their lunar mission, Glover’s first public comments were once again rooted in his faith: “I wanted to thank God in public, and I want to thank God again, because even bigger than my challenge trying to describe what we went through, the gratitude of seeing what we saw, doing what we did, and being with who I was with — it’s too big to just be in one body.”

🚨 WOW! Artemis II pilot Victor Glover spreads the gospel after a safe return home from space

This dude is a MASTERCLASS!

“I wanted to thank God in public, and I want to thank God again, because even bigger than my challenge trying to describe what we went through, the… pic.twitter.com/VnCljIxdqX

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 11, 2026

When Glover was granted a hero’s welcome at home, his thoughts remained on shining the light outward. “Some of us have never met before. And you know whose fault that is? Ours. So let’s choose to do this. Let’s be this more. Let’s be neighbors,” he said. “I don’t know if you heard me say it, but God told us to love Him with all that we are and love our neighbors as ourselves.”

NEW: Astronaut Victor Glover shares the gospel to a crowd who welcomed him back home to Houston, Texas.

People were seen lining the streets to welcome Glover back home.

“Some of us have never met before. And you know whose fault that is? Ours. So let’s choose to do this. Let’s… pic.twitter.com/xMLozkJtLr

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 13, 2026

The response was overwhelming: People everywhere heard him, and they loved what they heard.

“Loves Jesus. Loves his wife. Loves his daughters. Literally new fav astronaut,” commentator and Daily Wire contributor Elisha Krauss posted.

“It’s really beautiful to see someone in the government, in the military, and most definitely in the public eye giving glory to God for a mighty achievement. Our society needs so much more of this,” another responded.

“Victor Glover is currently my favorite American,” journalist Olivia Rondeau added.

“No need to send poets to the Moon, we have NASA Astronaut Victor Glover,” someone else observed.

But Glover himself said it best: “We need Jesus — whether on Earth or circling the moon.”

Venezuelan national Jose Medina, 25, unlawfully crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in May 2023 during a period when the Biden administration was releasing thousands of illegal crossers each day under its catch-and-release policies. Before setting the illegal immigrant free, Border Patrol agents noted that Medina was “likely to abscond,” citing that he had “close family ties or roots in this country,” the documents show.

The agents also noted that Medina didn’t make any asylum claims, writing that he did not “fear harm or persecution” if returned to Venezuela.

“Democrats knew this man was dangerous and had no legitimate asylum claim. But they still released him,” House Judiciary Committee Republicans wrote in an X post.

Nearly three years later, Medina allegedly shot and killed Gorman, a freshman attending Loyola University, as she was walking with friends to see the Northern Lights.

Democrats knew this man was dangerous and had no legitimate asylum claim.

But they still released him. pic.twitter.com/LQxcBcXKhG

— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) April 14, 2026

Before the killing, Medina had been charged in a June 2023 shoplifting incident at a Chicago Macy’s, according to the Chicago Tribune. A warrant was issued for Medina’s arrest after he failed to appear for his hearing in that case.

In an earlier statement, Gorman’s family said Medina should never have been out on the streets.

“We are gravely disappointed by the policies and failures that allowed this individual to remain in a position to commit this crime,” they said. “When systems fail — whether through release decisions, lack of coordination, or unwillingness to act — the consequences are not abstract. They are real. And in our case, they are permanent.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged a detainer request with local authorities, though it is not expected to be honored under Illinois sanctuary policies.

“Sheridan Gorman had her whole life ahead of her before this cold-blooded killer decided to end her life. She was failed by open border policies and sanctuary politicians who RELEASED this illegal alien TWICE before he went on to commit this heinous murder,” Acting Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Lauren Bis said in an earlier statement.

“We are calling on Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago’s sanctuary politicians to commit to not releasing this criminal illegal alien from jail back into American neighborhoods,” Bis added.

Medina faces multiple charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder in the first degree, three counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, and one count of aggravated unlawful possession of a weapon.

National Rifle Association and Lox and Loaded will formally announce a new partnership this week — aimed at expanding firearms training, education, and community-based self-defense initiatives — according to a press release obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire.

The collaboration comes amid a dramatic uptick in antisemitism in the United States, particularly in the wake of ongoing tensions involving Iran and a broader spike in anti-Jewish incidents following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Leaders behind the initiative say the partnership is rooted in a belief that Jewish Americans must take a more active role in their own security.

“In a time when our communities face rising threats and antisemitism, responsible firearm ownership is no longer optional — it’s essential for self-defense and peace of mind,” said Gayle Pearlstein, co-founder of Lox and Loaded in a phone interview with The Daily Wire. “Partnering with the NRA allows us to bring world-class training resources to our members and chapters nationwide.”

Lox and Loaded, founded after the October 7 attacks and the subsequent rise in antisemitic incidents, has rapidly expanded to more than 48 chapters nationwide and over 1,000 members. The organization combines firearms training with community-building, operating under the slogan “Shoot and Schmooze,” while emphasizing safety, preparedness, and cultural connection.

Pearlstein noted that access to NRA-backed training and infrastructure could significantly expand the group’s reach. “Being partnered with the NRA … it’ll make Lox and Loaded’s mission more honorable and attractive to ranges and private gun clubs,” she said, adding that greater access to facilities could help lower costs and improve availability for members across the country.

Membership in Lox and Loaded costs $118 annually, with additional fees for range access and instruction. Pearlstein expressed hope that the NRA’s involvement could help streamline those barriers and lead to more affordable options. “It’d be great if the NRA could get more ranges available … make it easier for our members to find a chapter near them,” she said, adding that many ranges were initially wary of the group.

From the NRA’s perspective, the partnership represents an extension of its longstanding mission to promote firearms safety and training across all communities. “The NRA has always stood for the fundamental right of all law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms,” said Doug Hamlin, CEO and Executive Vice President of the organization. “We are proud to partner with Lox and Loaded to support their important work in the Jewish community.”

NRA officials who spoke with The Daily Wire emphasized that the effort is about access. “We’re making the NRA’s resources available to them,” said Ed Friedman, editor-in-chief of the NRA. 

Friedman pointed to a noticeable cultural shift following recent global and domestic events. “This is becoming a focus of the Jewish community. At my synagogue … there was a lot of openness to carrying during services, but after October 7th it became more organized,” he said, describing a transition from informal conversations to structured planning around security.

Justin Davis, the NRA’s Director of Public Affairs, echoed that sentiment, calling the partnership a natural alignment of missions. “Success here is for every law-abiding citizen to be trained in the safe and effective use of firearms … the sky’s the limit with Lox and Loaded and the NRA,” he said. Davis added that the NRA sees itself as playing a supporting role. “We’re working together on this … we’re here as a resource to help in their mission. We’re here to make this mission go smoother,” he said.

Pearlstein also suggested the partnership could help reshape perceptions of gun ownership in communities that have traditionally been skeptical. “Having the NRA partner with Lox and Loaded shows they are aligned with our mission … it’s opening the door very gently to those more liberal people that would typically be very anti-gun,” she said. “They’re doing it in a very smart, savvy, and gentle way.”

At its core, both organizations say the goal is straightforward: preparedness and protection. “Making the community safer — that’s the goal,” Friedman said.

Pearlstein put it even more bluntly. “We’re very lucky and blessed to be partnered with the NRA,” she said. “They’re helping us save lives.”

But according to a new study from researchers at Stanford and Yale, those promises might be more science fiction than science fact.

RAG is broken and nobody's talking about it.

Stanford researchers exposed the fatal flaw killing every "AI that reads your docs" product in existence.

It’s called "Semantic Collapse," and it happens the second your knowledge base hits critical mass. If you've noticed your AI… pic.twitter.com/sz4zbtnxpC

— How To AI (@HowToAI_) April 13, 2026

Standard AI, like the basic version of ChatGPT, is “closed-book” — it tries to answer questions from memory. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) was supposed to be the “open-book” version. It’s designed to look at a specific pile of legal documents first and then summarize them so it doesn’t make things up.

The problem? The “book” has become too big.

Researchers found that when an AI’s library hits a certain size (around 10,000 documents), a glitch called “Semantic Collapse” happens. Imagine a library where the librarian is so overwhelmed that they can no longer tell the difference between a serious history book and a comic book because they both have “Washington” in the title. Mathematically, the AI starts seeing every document as “relevant,” leading it to give answers that sound professional but are totally wrong.

The study tested top-tier legal AI tools used by real lawyers, including Lexis+ AI and Westlaw. Even though these tools are marketed as “hallucination-free,” the researchers found they messed up 17% to 33% of the time.

Some of the AI’s failures included:

• Reversing Reality: Citing a case but claiming the judge said “Yes” when they actually said “No.”
• Inventing Laws: Writing out entire paragraphs of legal rules that don’t actually exist.
• Breaking the Chain of Command: Claiming a small local court “overruled” the U.S. Supreme Court — which is basically impossible in the U.S. legal system.

The researchers say law is a “final boss” for AI because it’s not just about matching keywords. It’s about “vibes” and hierarchy.

For example, if you ask about a “car crash,” the AI might find a document about “cars” in a tax law book. A human knows that’s the wrong kind of law, but the AI just sees the word “car” and thinks it’s helping. The AI also suffers from “sycophancy” — a fancy word for being a “yes-man.” If a user asks a question with a wrong assumption, the AI often just agrees with them instead of correcting them.

You might not be a lawyer, but this affects how we trust technology. Right now, lawyers are required by ethical rules to double-check everything an AI tells them. If they don’t, they could face huge fines or lose their licenses.

The study warns that we shouldn’t believe the “AI washing” — when companies claim their tech is perfect just to sell more subscriptions. The researchers conclude that while AI is a great tool for a “first draft,” it is nowhere near ready to be the final word in a courtroom.

For now, the “hallucination-free” AI lawyer is a myth. If you’re heading to court, you’d better hope your lawyer is still doing their own reading.

A fifth accuser came forward with the second allegation of sexual assault at a press conference in Beverly Hills on Tuesday morning.

“He raped me, and he choked me. And while he was choking me, I lost consciousness,” model Lonna Drewes told reporters. “And I thought I died. I did not consent to any sexual activity.”

“My delay in taking action against Eric was driven by fear, not doubt. Fear of his political power, his background as an attorney, and his family law enforcement ties,” Drewes she added, saying she will now be filing a police report against the lawmaker.

In addition, a Sept. 2022 video surfaced on Monday that showed Swalwell cavorting on a yacht in the French Riviera, which also had a large group of young women partying on board, according to Page Six.

Young women at a yacht party Swalwell attended in 2022. (Nik Richie/Instagram)

“The people on the boat were told to keep it hush-hush about Swalwell being on the trip,” a source told the outlet regarding the trip, where Swalwell was shown in the video sporting a robe. “They were told everything stays on the boat.”

“Leave future California Governor [Swalwell] alone. He is a good guy (sarcasm) — SEPT 2022,” Nik Richie, who posted the video, captioned the recent Instagram post.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) on a yacht in 2022 while wearing a robe. (Nik Richie/Instagram)

The congressman, who suspended his campaign for California governor, is under investigation for an alleged sexual assault in New York City by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, as FBI Director Kash Patel also wants to learn more about the various allegations.

“[Swalwell] has maintained that none of the allegations against him are true, and now that he’s resigned, we would welcome him to sit down with the FBI and share any information he has,” Patel posted to X on Tuesday.

The claims range from assault to sending inappropriate images over Snapchat.

“We also encourage and welcome any person with relevant information to any of these matters to speak with us. Door is open to all,” Patel added, also sharing the number for the bureau’s tip line.

In an interview with CBS News, two of the women accusing Swalwell explained their decision to come forward after social media rumors exploded last week — even before any specifics had been revealed.

“I didn’t tell anybody for years out of fear,” Annika Albrecht, who said that Swalwell offered to “mentor” her, then added her on Snapchat, saying that he later invited her to a hotel.

“It was very clear what the connotation was,” she said, saying she believes she was “all alone” in her experience with him.

Ally Sammarco also told CBS News that she Snapchatted with the congressman multiple times, and she said that had included him sending an unsolicited photo of his genitals.

“I think we just prevented another 30 to 40 years of him potentially harming people if he were to stay in Congress. In that sense, I think we have served justice for his future victims who won’t exist anymore,” she said.

Swalwell said in a statement on Monday evening that he is “deeply sorry to my family, staff, and constituents for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past.”

“I will fight the serious, false allegation made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make,” he added.

Swalwell officially resigned from Congress on Tuesday afternoon. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) said on Tuesday that if he does not resign by the afternoon, she would move forward with the expulsion effort against him.

“If Congressman Swalwell has not resigned with the Clerk of the House by 2 PM today, I will continue my resolution regarding his expulsion. His statement about his ‘plan to resign his seat’ is not binding and is wormy. The same goes for Tony,” Luna wrote of embattled Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), who is embroiled in a scandal of his own.

When it comes to his desire to fight the allegations, Attorney Marc Randazza, who specializes in the First Amendment, told The Daily Wire in a statement that the lawmaker would have a tough time suing.

“Public figures like Eric Swalwell only win defamation cases if they can prove a false statement of fact made with ‘actual malice’. That doesn’t mean ‘maliciously,’ it means knowingly lying or showing a reckless disregard for the truth. That’s a hard case even for a respected public figure and Swalwell didn’t have much respect going into this,” Randazza said.

Roblox introduced new age-based accounts for children under 9 and for children between 9 and 15, which the company says will limit the games children can access and how they can chat with others online. The new accounts will also give parents more oversight over their children’s gaming and chat activities, according to Roblox. The new age-based accounts are set to officially launch in June.

“When they roll out in early June, these accounts will more closely align content access, communication settings, and parental controls with a user’s age. We’re also establishing an ongoing selection process for games available to users under 16,” Roblox said. “This update will bring age-checks, account-level defaults, content ratings, ongoing moderation, and expanded parental controls together into a unified framework for younger users.”

The move comes after Roblox has faced intense scrutiny over its child safety measures and has been accused of standing by as child sex predators took advantage of the game’s realistic interactive settings and chat functions to prey on children. The platform, which boasts over 80 million daily users worldwide, allows gamers to develop their own games or play games developed by other users. Roblox is especially popular among children, with the company claiming that around half of all American kids under 16 are active on the platform.

The platform’s interactive concept has exposed children to sexually explicit content, exploitation, and grooming by predatory adults, according to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sued Roblox in November. The lawsuit alleges that Roblox has deceived parents about the safety of the game when, “In reality, Roblox is a sprawling and unregulated digital playground that is overrun by predators and saturated with sexual content.”

When the changes announced by Roblox go into effect, it will mark the first time the platform has set up specific account barriers to separate children under 16 from adult users. Parents will also be given expanded oversight of their children’s accounts, including the ability to monitor and manage chats and block specific games they don’t want their children playing.

Alleigh Marré, the executive director of the American Parents Coalition — which raises awareness about activists agendas and corporate interests influencing children — told The Daily Wire that Roblox’s move isn’t enough to address the issues on its platform. Marré argued that the age-gated accounts are just another “toolset,” not an actual fix.

“Tools without accountability don’t solve systemic problems,” Marré said. “Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s not going to help parents, but it’s just another dashboard. So, without Roblox taking some responsibility and putting some controls on the back end with teeth, it really doesn’t do anything except foist responsibility from a platform they’ve created onto parents.”

For its new age-gated system, Roblox will rely on an artificial intelligence tool that estimates the user’s age based on a photo the user uploads to the platform. Parents can also manually verify their child’s age when they sign up for a Roblox account.

Under the new guidelines, kids between the ages of 5 and 8 would only be allowed to use a “Roblox Kids” account, which would only give them access to games with “a Minimal or Mild content maturity label,” Roblox said. Under the game’s rating system, “Minimal” includes games that could “contain occasional mild violence, light unrealistic blood, and/or occasional mild fear.” “Mild” games could “contain repeated mild violence, heavy unrealistic blood, mild crude humor, and/or repeated mild fear.”

Kids under 9 would also have all online chat communications disabled by default. Parents, however, can turn on chat functions for a “Roblox Kids” account, which limits communications to “in-game chat with other users under 13-years-old” and users who are designated by parents as “trusted friends.”

Once a user turns 9-year-old, he is automatically moved up to a “Roblox Select” account, which will gives users between 9 and 15 access to a larger library of games, including games that fall under the “Moderate” maturity level. Roblox defines “Moderate” games as those which could “contain moderate violence, light realistic blood, moderate crude humor, unplayable gambling content, and/or moderate fear.”

Marré told The Daily Wire that the age-gated accounts still pose risks to children.

“When a child turns 9, they go from the entry-level Roblox to the 9- to 15-year-old bracket, which is a very wide maturity swath. You’re talking about a fourth grader with a sophomore in high school. That’s a very big difference,” Marré said. “And that’s if everybody is playing by the rules. That doesn’t stop a bad guy from creating a profile posing as a 14-year-old and reaching out to kids because now these bad guys are funneled into the ‘safe space’ for kids too.”

Users 16 and older won’t see any changes to their accounts, Roblox said.

“Together, these updates are part of our ongoing work to build age-appropriate experiences for all users, apply safety-by-default protections for younger users, and give parents more visibility and control over how their children use Roblox,” the company added.

Rose, an Australian actress, is best known for roles in “Orange Is the New Black” and “John Wick: Chapter 2.” She made the allegations against Perry on Sunday with a series of Threads posts.

It all started with a response to Perry reacting to Justin Bieber’s Coachella performance. Rose wrote, “Katy Perry sexual assaulted me at spice market nightclub in Melbourne. Who gives a sh** what she thinks.”

The actress went on to say she was in her “early 20s” when the incident allegedly occurred and noted it “has taken almost 2 decades to say this publicly.”

“Though I am so grateful to have made it long enough to find my voice, it just shows how much of an impact trauma and sexual assault takes,” she wrote in a Threads post, as People reported.

A rep for Perry denied the claims in a statement shared on Monday, the outlet noted. “The allegations being circulated on social media by Ruby Rose about Katy Perry are not only categorically false, they are dangerous, reckless lies,” it said. “Ms. Rose has a well-documented history of making serious public allegations on social media against various individuals, claims that have repeatedly been denied by those named.”

Rose detailed the incident, claiming Perry, “saw me ‘resting’ on my best friends lap to avoid her and bent down, pulled her underwear to the side and rubbed her disgusting vagina on my face until my eyes snapped open and I projectile vomitted on her.”

The actress also gave an excuse for not reporting the alleged assault. “… as a woman, for a myriad of reasons, opening up about W on W [women-on-women] violence and sexual abuse, seems to be 100 times harder than speaking about the male predators, at least for me.”

When a Threads user asked if she was planning to press charges, Rose said she’s “not interested.” 

“[Perry] is more than welcome to sue me (she won’t, because it happened, I have photos and it was literally in public and witnessed by multiple people),” Rose wrote. “Plus there is so much more that happened in the years leading up to her silly song she won’t want me discussing. The psychological manipulation was strong with that one.”

The actress seemingly changed her mind on Tuesday when she claimed to have filed police reports. 

“This means I am no longer able to comment, repost, or talk publicly about any of those cases, or the individuals involved,” she wrote. “It’s going to look like I am ignoring everything from supportive messages, to other people’s experiences, but I’m not. This is a standard request from the police and in many ways, quite the relief. I can start the healing process now. And temporary [sic] move forward. I love you all so much.”

Perry was previously accused of sexual assault in 2019 when actor Josh Kloss who starred in her “Teenage Dream” music video claimed she verbally bullied him during filming and exposed his genitals to others during a party afterwards, as the Los Angeles Times noted. Shortly after, Georgian Russian television host Tina Kandelaki claimed Perry touched her inappropriately and tried to kiss her without consent at an industry event.

Rose parted ways with Warner Bros. in 2020 after starring as Batwoman Kate Kane. At the time the split was rumored to be mutual, but the following year Rose wrote on social media, “I did not quit. They ruined Kate Kane and they destroyed Batwoman not me. I followed orders, and if I wanted to stay I was going to have to sign my rights away.”

Warner Bros. responded by saying in reality Rose was fired, saying she was engaging in “revisionist history.”

“Despite the revisionist history that Ruby Rose is now sharing online aimed at the producers, the cast and crew, the network, and the Studio, the truth is that Warner Bros. Television had decided not to exercise its option to engage Ruby for season two of BATWOMAN based on multiple complaints about workplace behavior that were extensively reviewed and handled privately out of respect for all concerned,” a statement from the network said. 

Lonna Drewes, a model who also owned a fashion software company in Beverly Hills, explained at a Tuesday press conference with her attorneys that she had contact with Swalwell in 2018 on three separate occasions. 

“I knew he was married at the time and that his wife was pregnant. He was my friend,” Drewes said. “On the third occasion, I believe he drugged my drink.” 

During their third meeting, Drewes said she only had one glass of wine. She went with Swalwell to his hotel room for “paperwork” he claimed to need — and by the time they arrived at his hotel room, she had become incapacitated and unable to move her body.

“He raped me, and he choked me. And while he was choking me, I lost consciousness,” Drewes said at the press conference. “And I thought I died. I did not consent to any sexual activity.” 

Drewes said she did not immediately seek a rape kit but documented the alleged assault in her handwritten calendar and later discussed it during therapy sessions at a sexual assault center in Connecticut.

“My delay in taking action against Eric was driven by fear, not doubt. Fear of his political power, his background as an attorney, and his family law enforcement ties,” Drewes said, adding that she will soon be making a formal report to law enforcement.

Swalwell’s attorney, Sara Azari, said the former congressman “categorically and unequivocally denies” all allegations of sexual misconduct.

“These accusations are false, fabricated, and deeply offensive – a calculated and transparent political hit job designed to destroy the reputation of a man who has spent twenty years in public service,” Azaria said in a statement. 

“We are confident the truth will prevail, and we will pursue every available legal remedy against those responsible for orchestrating this reprehensible campaign of lies,” she added.

#EricSwalwell pic.twitter.com/5MlEKU0rfo

— Sara Azari (@azarilaw) April 14, 2026

Lisa Bloom, the attorney for Lonna Drewes, says that three other women have reached out to her since she announced a press conference yesterday.

“Justice now are the criminal investigations,” Bloom said. “Losing one’s job is not a sufficient consequence for these types of allegations.”

Bloom called Swalwell’s response to the sexual assault allegations a “slap in the face to the victims.”

This is a breaking news story. Stay with The Daily Wire as more details unfold.

For years, U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell — California Democrat, impeachment manager, aspiring governor, and self-appointed guardian of women’s dignity — lectured America about sexual misconduct. He demanded Brett Kavanaugh open his doors to every accuser. On social media he posted “Support survivors. Believe survivors. We are with you” in 2018. He championed the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files “for sexual assault victims.” He sat across from Senator Adam Schiff not long ago and declared, with his characteristic smugness, “We are better than this.”

It turns out he is not.

On April 10, the San Francisco Chronicle published a damning exclusive: a former staffer, hired at age 21 in his Castro Valley district office, alleged that Swalwell sexually assaulted her on two separate occasions while she was too intoxicated to consent, leaving her battered, bruised, and bleeding. Hours later, CNN published a follow-up with three additional women. Two allege Swalwell sent them unsolicited explicit messages and photographs. A fourth says she woke up in his New York City hotel room after a night of unwanted kissing and touching, with no memory of how she got there.

The dominoes fell fast. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office opened a criminal investigation into the 2024 NYC hotel allegation. More than 50 former staffers signed an open letter calling the accusations “serious, credible, and [demanding] accountability” — urging him to resign from Congress and exit the gubernatorial race. He suspended his campaign the following day. His statement managed, somehow, to apologize for things he simultaneously insisted he never did.

Ugly — but the revelation that this congressman is a grotesque weirdo isn’t the main takeaway. Most of us already knew that. The intrigue is in the mob response from the Left. The liberal media knew all along and turned a blind eye for years. Now the whole cabal is scrambling to pretend they were always on the case while simultaneously throwing Swalwell directly under the bus.

Reporter Steven Tavares admitted what was, apparently, an open secret: that Swalwell’s behavior “was known by all levels of our local government and the Alameda County Democratic Party” as far back as 2013 when he first arrived in Washington, D.C. That’s 13 years. It adds up to over a decade of endorsements, fundraisers, national television bookings, and impeachment hearings — while a press corps that lectures the country about speaking truth to power looked the other way.

This isn’t investigative journalism; it’s a deliberate demolition timed for effect.

Ask the obvious question: if Swalwell’s behavior was an open secret in Democratic circles, why did the party of supposed feminists and #MeToo metrosexuals allow him to ascend from local pol to gubernatorial frontrunner? The answer is that Californians know he’s not just a perv, but an idiot — and he would’ve burned California faster than Gavin Newsom did last January. Swalwell would’ve been an abysmal candidate against Steve Hilton. Now that it’s politically convenient to rid themselves of this smarmy beta, they’ve unleashed the dogs on him.

The press, which had been sitting on this story for years, suddenly found its courage. Brian Stelter and company would very much like credit for a moment of journalistic reckoning. They don’t deserve it. They failed for over a decade. The timing of this story is political, not principled.

The lesson isn’t that a sanctimonious hypocrite has been exposed, though one has. The lesson is about who holds the controls. The liberal media does not report on Democratic misconduct. It ratifies decisions the party has already made. When Swalwell was useful, the rumors stayed rumors. When he became inconvenient, the Chronicle got its scoop.

On the bright side, though, the citizens of California can still elect the Democrat who assaulted her ex-husband by pouring scalding mashed potatoes on his head.

He served roughly three years in prison after pleading guilty to a conspiracy to provide material support to Iranian terror proxy Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and for additional counts in a separate case involving a reported $1.4 million food stamp scam. He once bragged about assaulting a child he believed was “cooperating with the Jews” and laughed off a deadly bombing in Israel while helping raise funds for terror groups in the Middle East, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

But Fariz appears to have undergone a reinvention. Now he’s best known as a pillar of Florida’s Muslim community.

Fariz landed in Florida after his release from a federal prison in 2010, according to the Tampa Bay Times. While serving as the director of the Islamic Community of Tampa — also known as the Al-Qassam Mosque — Fariz has organized pro-Palestinian protests and become a prominent community member. The local police chief, Kenneth Albano, even called him “a force for reason within the Muslim community,” the Tampa Bay Times reported in 2024.

At the time, he was also characterized by his former attorney as the “worker bee” of another man convicted of supporting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the same case, Sami Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor, the local news outlet reported. The Tampa mosque run by Fariz was registered in Al-Arian’s name in 1992, according to state records.

Al-Arian has since been deported to Turkey. But thanks to Fariz, he still appears to have a footprint in Florida.

A new report from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) says that figures like Fariz are just a small part of a seemingly benign “network of nonprofit, religious, and advocacy organizations operating in and connected to Florida that show repeated documented overlap with individuals convicted of terrorism-related offenses, designated under U.S. sanctions authorities, or publicly associated with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and broader Iran-aligned influence ecosystems.”

The report says that the Iran-aligned influence network is gaining a foothold in Florida, and the claims have caught the attention of Florida lawmakers. Florida Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins told The Daily Wire he’s “100% serious” about addressing the allegations made in NCRI’s report.

Collins shared his concern that the “deceptive and slow insidious method” of radical groups that entails “embedding in communities and changing people’s mindsets.”

“We better understand that we have to get ahead of this now so this doesn’t become a problem,” said Collins, a candidate for Florida governor.

Florida’s current governor, Ron DeSantis, has already taken action on the issue. Just last week, DeSantis signed a law that would allow state authorities to designate groups as terrorist organizations and even expel students attending local universities who support them.

Florida has also zeroed in on the influence of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the state. In December, DeSantis signed an order designating CAIR as a foreign terrorist organization. CAIR has denied any connection to terrorism and has filed a lawsuit regarding the order.

The designation was based on the group’s alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which Florida also designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

“CAIR was founded by persons connected to the Muslim Brotherhood and was created, in the words of persons affiliated with CAIR, as ‘an official U.S. cover representing the Islamic community’ to conceal ties to Islamic extremist groups,” the state’s order on the designation read.

Last month, the designation was blocked by a federal judge after CAIR’s lawsuit.

CAIR’s Florida chapter has promoted both Al-Arian and Fariz, casting them as victims of political prosecution. Both have been close allies of CAIR in the state.

Fariz solicited donations for CAIR’s galas in 2018 and 2019, highlighting its “great work.”

“Please donate generously for the great work that CAIR is doing and continue to do. Our goal through this post is $10k,” Fariz wrote in one of the posts.

CAIR’s Florida branch listed Fariz’s Islamic Community of Tampa as “a leading sponsor” of its 2021 gala. The Islamic Community of Tampa was also listed as a co-sponsor of a community fundraiser advertised for March 2022. Fariz was listed as a contact for CAIR Florida’s “Week of Action” in October 2023.

The organization’s Tampa chapter organized a showing of Al-Arian’s documentary in 2007. CAIR Florida said the film focused on “post-Sept. 11 hysteria and the persecution of a Muslim, as well as the emotionally grinding devastation the prosecution brought to the Al-Arian family.”

CAIR Florida featured Al-Arian in a 2020 webinar on the experiences of “political prisoners.”

That same year, the group promoted Fariz’s story during a webinar on “persecution in the United States.” He was also nominated for a CAIR Florida “Protect Award” at the time.

A CAIR Florida 2021 fundraising video featured Fariz hailing the organization for having “provided … relief” during his case.

He also spoke at CAIR Florida’s 2021 gala, where he characterized his terrorism case as “baseless.”

The Islamic Community of Tampa mosque received a $9,000 grant in 2021 from another organization tied to the pair of figures, the Coalition for Civil Freedoms, according to a financial disclosure statement.

While behind bars, Al-Arian “spent much of his time in prison drafting a vision for an organization that would support political prisoners and their families,” which eventually became the Coalition for Civil Freedoms, according to the organization’s website.

The organization pays stipends to Muslim prisoners accused of terrorism and provides the “most vulnerable prisoners $100 each month,” according to its donation page.

Fariz is now listed as the chairman of the board, development director, and treasurer for the Coalition for Civil Freedoms. The group also has a branch registered in Florida under Fariz’s name, according to state records.

In the Coalition for Civil Freedoms’ latest annual report, CAIR’s Florida chapter is listed as a member organization. Fariz also appears to have close connections with the group.

Al-Arian currently serves as the director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at Istanbul Zaim University in Turkey, according to his bio on the school’s website.

CIGA has previously hosted terror-tied individuals.

In 2024, the center hosted Hamas official Osama Hamdan, who is sanctioned by the United States government. He was billed as a speaker on “Palestinian resistance.” During his remarks, Hamdan advocated for “a new map” of the Middle East that excludes Israel.

In February 2025, CIGA hosted Majed Al-Zeer for a seminar on his book months after he was sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

That May, Al-Arian moderated an event for CIGA featuring Al-Zeer to discuss another one of his books on keeping “the Palestinian cause alive.”

Neither Al-Arian nor Fariz responded to requests for comment. CAIR also didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is in active negotiations with several of the world’s largest advertising firms to resolve an investigation into whether the companies illegally coordinated boycotts against social media platforms, most notably Elon Musk’s X.

New data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reveals a staggering truth: eight decades after the Nazi regime attempted to extinguish the Jewish flame, the global Jewish population has climbed to 15.8 million. While this remains just shy of the 16.6 million recorded in 1939, the trajectory represents a defiant rebound from the 11.5 million left in the wake of the Shoah.

This recovery is nothing short of miraculous when viewed through the lens of a history defined by systematic attempts at annihilation. The Jewish story did not begin with the gas chambers; it has been a millennia-long gauntlet of survival. From the dawn of history, the Jewish people faced the Egyptian Oppression and the military campaigns of Merneptah, who boasted of laying Israel to waste. The iron fist of Mesopotamia followed, with the Assyrian Conquest of 722 BCE and the Babylonian Siege of 586 BCE, which saw the First Temple reduced to ash.

Even when the Jews fought back, as they did against the Hellenizing forces of Antiochus IV during the Maccabean Revolt, the reprieve was often brief. The Roman era brought a new level of carnage: the First Jewish-Roman War and the Kitos War left hundreds of thousands dead, culminating in the Bar Kokhba Revolt, where half a million Jews perished under Hadrian’s legions.

The Middle Ages and the Early Modern period offered no sanctuary. The Rhineland Massacres of the First Crusade, the horrific Strasbourg Massacre during the Black Death, the state-sanctioned fires of the Spanish Inquisition, and the blood-soaked Khmelnytsky Uprising all served to suppress Jewish numbers through sheer brutality. By the 19th and early 20th centuries, the “pogrom” became a staple of Eastern European life, from the 1881–1884 riots to the Kishinev Pogrom to the post-WWI slaughter in Ukraine.

Then came the Holocaust—an industrialized nightmare where Babi Yar, Operation Reinhard, and Auschwitz-Birkenau became synonyms for the abyss. Yet, as we look at the 111,000 survivors still living in Israel today, we see the living embodiment of “Never Again.”

Despite the constant threat from the Arab world, which has been at war with the Jewish state since its inception, today, 45% of the world’s Jews—7.2 million—call Israel home, a radical shift from the 3% who lived there in 1939. While threats persist, evidenced by the horrific October 7 massacre, the data tell a story of an indestructible people. Despite a history of massacres designed to erase them, the Jewish community has clawed its way back from the brink, nearing a return to its pre-war strength and a vibrant, growing, and eternal presence.

***

In the golden age of early 2000s sitcoms, “Malcolm in the Middle” stood out like a middle finger in polite society. It was because of its messy, working-class, irreverent humor that it did so well with audiences.

Hal and Lois, the show’s chaotic married couple, were not enlightened parents dispensing wisdom to their well-behaved children. They were exhausted, flawed people barely clinging on in a house of four feral boys: Malcolm, Reese, Dewey, and Francis.

The show didn’t take itself too seriously. It mocked political correctness, it questioned both politeness and authority. It showed that actions do, in fact, have consequences. And, importantly, it bucked the idea that anyone — child, adult, or otherwise — deserved kid-glove treatment.

Everyone and everything was fair game. In “Malcolm in the Middle,” there were no sacred cows.

And yet, watching Hulu’s 2026 “Malcolm in the Middle” reboot, you’d never know this was once the case. Unfortunately, like other failed Disney shows that have come before, the new “Malcolm in the Middle” is a Trojan horse for contemporary progressive ideology.

In the first episode of the four-episode revival, it managed to shoehorn in both gay and transgender characters. The most notable being Malcolm’s youngest sister, Kelly, a sullen teenager who happens to be “non-binary” and uses “they/them” pronouns.

Kelly’s inclusion was inspired by the show’s creator and his wife’s own family, where they proudly claim to have “three queer kids,” believing this is a feature of a normal American family. They couldn’t be more wrong, of course.

But, the tragedy of this development is twofold. First, Kelly is not a character. She is evidently a vehicle used by the writers to virtue signal and lecture audiences. But, more importantly, in the original series, Lois continually fantasized about having a daughter after having (eventually) five sons.

Turning the long-awaited daughter into a pronoun lesson truly flattens her existence into propaganda. And there is something truly grotesque about taking a main character’s greatest wish and turning it into a malformed 2026 talking point.

One whole episode in the OG show is dedicated to Lois imagining her life with girls instead of her unruly boys. In the end, she realizes she loves her sons, and girls would just be a different flavor of chaos. But, her desire persists.

And it is this dynamic that makes Lois’s final pregnancy in the 2006 finale of the show so exciting. It is her last chance to have a girl. And as viewers, we are left to ponder how this pregnancy turned out — if Lois was gifted yet another little boy or if she was finally given her dream of a little girl.

Well, we get that answer in the reboot. And it comes in the form of teenage Kelly, who inevitably delivers a sombre speech during the reboot’s final episode, where she describes feeling “wrong” since she was a child. In a bizarre turn of events, the response from her family is more or less one of acceptance. This simply isn’t “Malcolm in the Middle.”

The non-binary sibling isn’t comic relief or a catalyst for family dysfunction like it would have been in the original show. This character is simply a vehicle for representation, complete with Hal awkwardly practicing pronouns and the family acknowledging the revelation with solemn nods.

Lois, the same woman who once quite literally wrestled her sons into submission, apparently accepts “they/them” pronouns, rather than dragging her child back to reality? Where’s the screaming? The grounding? The classic Lois line that cuts through the bull?

The original “Malcolm in the Middle” thrived on mockery. It took shots at everything: the education system, corporate drones, life in middle America, even its own characters’ flaws. People retroactively view the show as progressive because it wasn’t “homophobic,” but it never treated sexuality or identity as sacred ground either.

It constantly poked fun at both ends of the spectrum, mocking pretension wherever it appeared, like Malcolm’s intellectual superiority and posturing, while simultaneously poking fun at dysfunction, such as Hal’s midlife crises or Lois’s ego.

It would have absolutely taken great delight in poking fun at an absurd social contagion such as “non-binary” identity.

“Malcolm in the Middle” wasn’t really a show for learning a tidy lesson because real life in that household was too chaotic and messy for after-school preaching.

And all of this is one of the biggest reasons why Disney’s reboot factory leaves so much to be desired. Frankensteining a franchise is a tenet of modern media. But in reanimating the corpses of beloved 2000s intellectual property always results in the same disappointing, lifeless snoozefest, complete with 2026 moralizing.

These corpses could never compete with the originals because they fundamentally lack the ability to laugh at themselves that marked so much of early 2000s entertainment. Today, instead of telling realistic stories, shows must tick boxes when it comes to diversity, sexuality, and representation.

***

Sydney Watson (@SydneyLWatson) is a YouTuber and political commentator.

During a July 2024 House Judiciary Committee hearing, the Bay Area congressman questioned Ben Shapiro about his views on relationships and sexual behavior, citing a 2018 interview between Shapiro and Slate Magazine.

“You did say you think homosexual activity is a sin,” Swalwell said.

“Yes, I am a religious Jew,” Shapiro said. “You found me out.”

Swalwell continued reading off a large printout of a quote from Shapiro, who said, “But the view of all religious people I know has always been that sexual behavior is something that is up to you. I may have a desire to sleep with many women, but I do not.”

“I agree with me,” Shapiro interjected, to which Swalwell responded, “I’m sure it’s very hard to restrain yourself.”

On Tuesday, Shapiro resurfaced the viral clip.

“Well, this certainly hits different,” he said on X. 

“I’m sure it’s very hard to restrain yourself.” — Eric Swalwell

Well, this certainly hits different pic.twitter.com/x0RGfo2MQc

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) April 13, 2026

On Capitol Hill, Swalwell also accused federal immigration officers of “terrorizing women.”

“Real men don’t terrorize women,” he said in an interview with Fox News.

Swalwell on Wednesday announced he was resigning from Congress amid multiple allegations ranging from inappropriate behavior to sexually charged messages to at least one claim of rape.

Another Swalwell accuser is set to hold a press conference with her attorneys this morning in Beverly Hills.

Over the weekend, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg launched an investigation into allegations that Swalwell sexually assaulted a former staffer in a New York City hotel room.

Swalwell dropped out of the California governor’s race on Sunday night after Democrats nationwide pulled their endorsements. The Bay Area congressman also faced growing calls to resign his seat in Congress or be expelled from the chamber.

“I am deeply sorry to my family, staff, and constituents for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past,” Swalwell said in a post announcing his resignation. “I will fight the serious, false allegation made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make.”

pic.twitter.com/JbKgSORgu4

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) April 13, 2026

The Trump Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group reviewed over 700,000 internal records, The Daily Wire has learned, which they distilled into an 800-page report. The document, which details the Biden administration’s weaponization of federal law to target peaceful pro-life activists, also outlines how the Trump administration plans to correct the previous administration’s wrongs.

“This Department will not tolerate a two-tiered system of justice,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement on Tuesday morning. “No Department should conduct selective prosecution based on beliefs. The weaponization that happened under the Biden administration will not happen again, as we restore integrity to our prosecutorial system.”

At the center of the Biden administration’s efforts is the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a law meant to protect access to pro-abortion and pro-life facilities alike. The Biden administration infamously used the FACE Act to prosecute and imprison peaceful pro-life protesters. And Tuesday’s report found that “Biden DOJ senior leadership” and members of the Reproductive Health Care Providers Task Force “provided extensive support to abortion clinics” and “ignored and downplayed vandalism and attacks against pregnancy resource centers or houses of worship.”

The DOJ report describes how the Biden-era “Reproductive Health Care Providers Task Force” was in constant contact with pro-abortion groups and the clinics they represented while disregarding pro-life groups. As The Daily Wire’s Leif Le Mahieu reported, one Justice Department official often texted an abortion activist and worked to track the travel plans of Christian pro-life activists who had not been charged with any crimes. The emails also show how pro-abortion groups provided dossiers to the Biden DOJ with pictures and information — which was later used by the FBI to make arrests.

Meanwhile, the Task Force attorneys didn’t communicate with any pro-life pregnancy centers until September 2022 — months after the massive spike in violence against pregnancy centers related to the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe v. Wade would soon be overturned. Vandals would firebomb, attack, vandalize, or spray-paint the buildings with messages like “If abortions aren’t safe, then neither are you.”

When the Biden Justice Department did address the attacks on pregnancy centers, they merely identified possible contacts “via a quick Google search and directed Task Force leadership to schedule meetings.”

“The Task Force then had several meetings with the pro-life groups identified through that initial outreach and periodically sent them press releases,” the report states. “However, internally, CRT attorneys questioned whether to provide pregnancy resource centers with the same resources as abortion clinics, questioning whether these facilities fall under the FACE Act’s scope.”

Biden DOJ prosecutors were also engaging in inappropriate conduct, the report found. The prosecutors “knowingly withheld evidence that defense counsel requested to prepare an affirmative defense” and lied about not having that information available.

For example, in United States v. Gallagher, the defense counsel asked for historical data on FACE Act prosecutions, but the DOJ Task Force Director declined that data, saying he didn’t keep those records and that the DOJ wouldn’t provide them.

“Notably,” the report says, “he had this information readily available and decided not to share it with the defendants, despite sharing substantially identical information with NAF.”

Video of the FBI’s arrest of Paul Vaughn of Centerville, Tennessee. DOJ charged him with “conspiracy against rights secured by the FACE Act, and committing FACE Act violations” for blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic. Paul tells me the footage was taken by his wife. pic.twitter.com/KSDvLRSrlF

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) October 7, 2022

The Biden prosecutors also tried to screen jurors based on their religious beliefs, according to the report: in United States v. Zastrow in the Eastern District of Michigan, assistant United States attorneys allegedly tried to screen jurors based on whether they were conservative or religious “while not inquiring about liberal counterviews.”

“They referred to Christian pro-life views as ‘culty’ and lambasted the defendants’ beliefs in the courtroom,” the report said.

Notably, those assistant United States attorneys complained that they “ended up with a very Catholic magistrate on duty this week and he was very particular about the bond conditions and not infringing on [defendants’] First Amendment rights.”

The report specifically points to the case of Mark Houck, a Catholic father of a large family whose son was attacked by an abortion clinic worker. The Biden DOJ tried to use the FACE Act to prosecute Houck, but lost the case.

In Houck’s case, “prosecutors considered and declined a request for the defendant to self-surrender.” Apparently determined to make an example of Houck, the DOJ sent “16 FBI agents” to arrest him in front of his crying children.

Photos from the morning the FBI arrested Mark Houck in front of his children. pic.twitter.com/NbLq5bnDQa

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) October 4, 2022

“When faced with public backlash about the aggressive arrest, the Task Force Director attempted to blame the FBI, rather than address the Biden DOJ’s lack of initial guidance to law enforcement,” the report states. “The jury ultimately found Houck not guilty, and DOJ settled a civil claim to compensate for the Biden DOJ’s misconduct.”

Trump’s Justice Department argues that the Biden DOJ pursued more severe charges, as well as “significantly harsher sentences,” for the peaceful pro-life defendants than the violent pro-abortion defendants, requesting an average sentence of 26.8 months for pro-life defendants compared to the 12.3 months for pro-abortion ones.

“The Biden DOJ pursued significantly higher sentences (near the top range of sentencing guidelines) for pro-life defendants, while pursuing more lenient sentences against the handful of pro-abortion defendants that it charged,” the report reads. “Pro-life defendants were ultimately sentenced to an average of 14 months, while pro-abortion defendants were sentenced to an average of 3 months.”

Meanwhile, as the National Abortion Federation cozied up to the Biden Justice Department, that same department “sought to provide funding to pro-abortion groups,” according to the report.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, who was director of the Reproductive Health Care Provider Task Force, served as a reference for the National Abortion Federation’s application for a “large, private grant.”

“We found no record of ethics approval for a DOJ attorney to take an interest in the financial outcome of a party having business before the Biden DOJ,” the report says. “Indeed, it is doubtful that the Biden DOJ could validly give any such ethical clearance for this conflict of interest.”

The Trump administration says it is determined to rectify the actions of the Biden Justice Department. Tuesday’s report highlights Trump’s “full and unconditional pardons” of the many pro-life Christians who were targeted in these Biden-era prosecutions.

The Trump Justice Department also dismissed, with prejudice, three Biden-era civil lawsuits against “non-violent pro-life demonstrators and issued a directive that, moving forward, DOJ prosecutors may only bring FACE Act civil actions and prosecutions in extraordinary circumstances or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors.”

***

NASA’s Artemis II crew inspired all of humanity from the dark side of the moon. But on the one-year anniversary of the Blue Origin x Jeff Bezos all-female celebrity mission to, well, the sky, we’re brushing off trivialities like aerospace and the universe to honor the stunning achievement of Oprah’s best friend, Gayle King, and her elitist costars. I mean, space tourists.

“I don’t like that people are calling it a ‘ride,’” one time faux-stronaut Gayle King confessed, after spending eight minutes total riding in a rocket traveling 62 miles high. “Have y’all been to space?” Touché, Gayle. 

I recently ate at a restaurant that served “chicken and dumplings” in quotes because the meatless “chicken” was actually made of mushrooms. Here, I give you “space travel” and dumplings, starring a bunch of “important” celebrity “astronauts.” If you thought the original moon landing was fake, the capsule door opening after this Blue Origin landing was the fakest. Jeff Bezos even pretended to use a crank to pry it open after someone had already peeked out from the inside.

“These women are storytellers,” Sánchez shared before the launch. “They’re gonna come back and be able to share that story.” After Venmo-ing something between zero and $28 million for a seat, they’d probably tell any story you want. But this time, they would make herstory, causing Oprah to try to shed a tear at takeoff. Gayle was spot on when she explained that it wasn’t “just any space mission” like those other NASA trips.  

 

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For the record, I’m not dunking on the extraordinary scientists rocketing Blue Origin into the future. Instead, I hope to memorialize the dedicated crew featured on the company’s 31st spaceflight: “CBS Mornings” anchor Gayle King, Justin Trudeau’s girlfriend and singer Katy Perry, and Mrs. Lauren Sánchez Bezos. Rounding out the space-adjacent Spice Girls, former NASA rocket scientist turned “citizen astronaut” Aisha Bowe, self-proclaimed “civil rights astronaut” Amanda Nguyễn, and filmmaking “space socialite” Kerianne Flynn served as forgettable lesser-celebrities hogging Gayle’s oxygen. 

Over the past 11 years, Blue Origin has completed almost 40 flights, launching almost 100 people to zero gravity via the phallic, suborbital New Shepard rocket. But this crew was the most famous to date. But you guys, it was legit. They spent two whole days training for this mission, probably! 

Just like Artemis II, there was plenty of hype surrounding the Blue Origin crew, pre-launch, mostly drummed up by the celebs themselves and likely a few PR teams phoning it in. All new, very serious space suits were designed by Lauren Sánchez and the creative team behind fashion house Oscar de la Renta. Forget the baggy, oversized fits of other (male, ugh!) missions; these empowered women were determined to be snatched from any angle.

“I think the suits are elegant,” Sánchez said of the intentional “Star Trek”-on-top, Elvis-on-the-bottom, body con, flatteringly ombré look, which is really how it was described. “They also bring a little spice to space.”

Elsewhere, while NASA typically spends about nine months nailing down a precise food supply for its missions, Gayle spent the four days leading up to her launch packing the essentials. 

“I’ve been given this very special pouch. They call this your ‘space pouch,’” she shared, unironically. She also reminded us that packing for space was harder than packing for, say, a weekend in the Hamptons. She brought her grandson’s favorite doll, a jangly necklace, a charm bracelet, a cross meant for nervous flyers, a family photo, and an iPod loaded with CeCe Winans, JAY-Z, Sia, and Katy Perry. “Somebody asked me, ‘Can you wear necklaces in space?’” Gayle said. “I sure hope so!” 

The Blue Origin crew arrived at the launchpad, hanging out the windows of a Rivian as if it were a gilded Roman chariot. Then, they buckled up for the ride of their lives. “Yeah, baby, ‘Go for launch’ — my favorite words,” someone 100% professional said.

Once the celebrity crew entered their four minutes of weightlessness, the ladies squealed like little girls at a sleepover. They also made sure to pose for the camera to cheer, “taking up space,” like a bunch of Medusas with hair extensions instead of snakes.

 

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A post shared by Blue Origin (@blueorigin)

“The best part was when we got back in our seats, after zero G’s, Katy sang ‘What a Wonderful World,” Gayle recalled, still blushing with self-importance. “Isn’t that nice?” Not pictured: Louis Armstrong rolling over in his grave. And Neil Armstrong.  

Artemis II’s crew shared pics of the moon, but Blue Origin NS-31 shared pics of the real stars: themselves. Gayle kissed the ground once she landed, just minutes after she left. And before turning her space capsule party favor into a purse, Amanda Nguyễn posted an arms-in-the-air shot captioned “this is what justice looks like” when a snap of “this is what Earth looks like” from space would have been great. 

Katy Perry dramatically exited the capsule, holding a tiny daisy for her daughter (Daisy) and dropping to the ground in gratitude. “This experience is second to being a mom,” she said, while her soon-to-be-ex-husband Orlando Bloom looked on. 

On an Instagram account she designed specifically for this, Kerianne Flynn, or @spacekerianne, shared that she would be honored at the U.N., accompanied by an image of her wearing the Blue Origin spacesuit. “I have almost no words,” Flynn said after the flight, her voice shaking, her filler fighting her expressions. “It was the most incredible experience of my life.”

It’s all so deeply inspiring, it almost makes you forget what it felt like to listen to the Artemis II crew name a spot on the moon after Commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll, before hugging and returning to their mission. 

The puffed up B.O. crew caught flak once they returned to Earth. Wendy’s targeted Katy Perry, asking, “Can we send her back?” And non-invitee supermodel Emily Ratajkowski posted, “Think about how many resources went into putting these women into space. For what? I’m disgusted. Literally, I’m disgusted.”

Gayle responded by somehow linking her brief space career to GPS and satellite research, as well as claiming she was an inspiration to even men who were now considering space travel as a thing. She had been to the Kármán Line that separates us Earthlings from Martians, and she was changed.

A year after their extraordinary journey (may it rest in peace after this momentous occasion), it seems the celebrity crew has left interplanetary life behind in favor of other stuff, like throwing the worst first pitch at a Mets game, seemingly getting a ton of work done, and eating trail mix at Coachella. At least, according to Instagram. 

“I’m so glad to be back on Earth,” Gayle said, having little proof she was previously living in reality. “I feel so proud that I did it.” Describing a view that most of us can only dream of, she added, “You see the planet, and the dark sky, and the neon blue line, and you feel, wow, we came from there. Wow.” Wow, indeed.

***

Last year 40% of Americans didn’t read a single book. Print book sales are rising, but not necessarily in any return to tradition; a printed book is a useful prop that can be held up to the camera for TikTok. Responding to ever greater challenges, the publishing industry is nevertheless a lot more ideologically homogenous than it used to be, and it doesn’t much care about you or me.

But who’s black-pilling? We still love books, and we’re not giving up. Every day, new authors and publishers are turning out books for varying kinds of right-of-center audiences. It’s hard to stand out in an ocean of content, though, given that conservative outlets notorious for grousing about the culture never review right-wing authors’ contributions to it — until now.

So, here are three thrillers by authors who don’t hate us.

“American Paladin” by Larry Correia

Larry Correia is underreviewed and complains about it, which sounds like egotism until you remember the man has sold so many books that he has literally purchased a mountain. Correia is best known for his flagship series “Monster Hunter: International,” wherein private contractors fight monsters and make money off of government bounties. Like many War on Terror-era thrillers, its hero is well-funded and aided by powerful individuals and organizations. Women fantasize about well-off romantic interests desperately attracted to them; men fantasize about well-paid, cool jobs that buy them guns.

“American Paladin” goes the opposite way. Mike Spears is poor, inexpert, and unlucky. For years, he’s been desperately trying to hunt the supernatural, but it isn’t biting. When he was a teenager, he and his loved ones unknowingly wandered across the veil between worlds. Only Mike survived to make it home. Now the monsters and unholy cultists that are the subject of his desired revenge stubbornly refuse to show up. As consolation, he’s turned vigilante to hunt human predators instead.

When a podcaster’s unwelcome attention threatens to draw attention to his work, Mike finds the podcaster in the crosshairs of the other side he’s hunted all these years. Now the two of them are running and gunning for their lives against the enemy Mike has sought all his life.

Correia is always dependable at delivering action, but the real pleasure here is the setting. “American Paladin” offers a refreshing world of elusive cryptids, mysterious lands, and conspiracy-minded schizos trying to make sense of it all. Its magic and monsters feel genuinely eerie, and its hero stands out by being capable but entirely uncredentialed. Mike Spears has no cool resume; he never finished high school, never went to war, and at one point in the book encounters a gun he is unable to identify immediately. Fans of cryptid lore should get a kick out of this working hero in America’s lonely places. Mike Spears belongs on the weird adventure shelf beside F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack.

“American Apocalypse: The Second American Civil War” by Kurt Schlichter

There are an awful lot of right-wing books about American civil wars and their aftermaths. Most of them are heavy on red meat and bluster, Kurt Schlichter’s own Kelly Turnbull series included. So it’s an unexpected and interesting choice to see Schlichter consciously imitate Studs Terkel and fictional treatments such as Max Brooks’s “World War Z” to recount an American Civil War from a mostly ant’s-eye view, in the form of first-person reminiscences from a variety of participants.

Some of these are more effective than others. Like most right-of-center authors, Schlichter isn’t any more convincing writing leftists than lefty writers are at writing conservatives. A widowed mother trying to survive, a cold-blooded hitman who wanted the war to keep going because he loved doing targeted killings, and unreconstructed leftists in exile all speak with the same voice. Worse, they’re all covering a similar general arc. While Schlichter divides his book into three sections covering different periods of the war, in practice each individual tells their whole story of the war from beginning to end. It gets a little redundant.

Unlike a lot of right-wing civil war fiction, though, “American Apocalypse” is realistic enough to draw a portrait of a brutish war that’s far from the easy victory you frequently see braggadocious right-wingers assume on social media. Spoiler: Team Right wins, but it’s extremely ugly and the result winds up being American Francoism, which also makes the book notable as a yardstick of sentiment of the right-of-center type that doesn’t want American Francoism and wouldn’t advocate for it but might be willing to live under it if they didn’t have to shoulder any moral responsibility for it.

A lot of right-wing authors cover similar subject matter, but none with Kurt Schlichter’s out-of-the-box approach. It doesn’t succeed as well as it might have, but it’s encouraging to see the effort.

“Lost Causes” by Richard Nichols

“Lost Causes” opens simply enough: When a British operator desperately breaks cover to get a warning out, only to be cut down by gunfire mid-call, the bureaucrats put the kibosh on any attempt at a rescue or retrieval. So the operator’s commanding officer turns to MI11, aka the Mill, a secret branch of British intelligence whose job is specifically killing people and breaking their stuff. The catch: MI11 is about to be disbanded, so its operative, code-named John Buchan (in a hat-tip to the author of “The Thirty-Nine Steps”), has only a few days before his support evaporates entirely.

You can figure out mostly how it goes from there because “Lost Causes” is an old-school kind of thriller. And I’m not complaining about that: Nichols, more power to him for it, is clearly writing the kind of thriller he loves to read with elements that publishers aren’t as interested in buying. That’s what indie books are for. Some action scenes are quite good, notably one where the captured hero has to fight his way through a bunch of armed men in a moving car.

Unfortunately, a lot also plays much less well. Interweaved flashbacks are too long and too dull, and the present-day digressions are worse. “Lost Causes” is awash in musings about the importance of rough men, the decadence of modern life, and the selfishness of baby boomers. A little red meat is nice, but Nichols serves it up in such quantities that the lions in the Circus Maximus would say “all right, already.” The lengthy monologue about the perfidiousness of baby boomers is delivered by the bad guy — as justification for his villainy because he’s a baby boomer! Even a reader completely in agreement with the author’s sentiments will find himself hoping Nichols will just get on with it. At its best, “Lost Causes” is just okay. It’s worth a read for aspiring novelists; seeing Nichols’s successes and missteps will help give them a better sense of what works and what doesn’t.

***

David Hines has a background in forensic science and international human rights, has written for the Federalist and the American Conservative, and loves books. Possibly even yours.

If the biased activity at these elite schools remains unchecked, legal advocates and policymakers will be fighting the same civil rights battles with the next generation of college students.

Today’s battles are certainly yielding good fruit. Lawsuits exposing segregation in schools under DEI’s banner have prompted state and federal lawmakers to reinforce civil rights laws. These laws have helped snuff out mandated “affinity groups” (where participants are separated by race, ethnicity, and/or sex), illegal hiring quotas, and doctrinaire DEI statements required by so-called diversity staff in K-12 schools and universities.

Curiously, the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), a K-12 private school association, is not moved by the lawsuits and new legislation — nor by DEI’s racial preferences. Later this month, on April 29, NAIS will even hold a “meetup” for DEI staff working at the association’s institutions.

NAIS is a membership organization for private schools. The group holds conferences and posts job openings for its member institutions on its website and otherwise provides resources on what NAIS deems as best practices.

Some of the “practices,” though, are little more than exercises in segregation. Member schools tout race-based affinity groups on their websites, and NAIS advertises diversity staff positions at its member schools via its job bank.

Institutions infused with DEI crowd out competing opinions and create radical echo chambers of a biased orthodoxy. Small wonder that NAIS had to issue an apology in 2024 when speakers at one of the association’s DEI events “characterized Israel’s war in Gaza as a genocide and the establishment of the state of Israel as a racist project.”

The American Jewish Committee and Prizmah, an organization for Jewish day schools, were among the groups that wrote to NAIS, saying, “The pervasiveness of this rhetoric and the absence of any alternate perspectives created an atmosphere that was hostile for many Jewish students and faculty members in attendance.”

In 2025, NAIS canceled its “People of Color Conference,” but resources on its website suggest DEI remains a priority. NAIS simply renamed the conference, now calling it the “Gather: A Convening for Renewal and Growth, Belonging, and Impact.” This title sounds benign, but NAIS specifically describes the event as a reinvention of its People of Color meeting. The conference will feature more “affinity group work,” as well as sessions on “inclusion and belonging,” a new title for “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

NAIS remains out of step with civil rights laws. The U.S. Department of Education has been ferreting out racial discrimination in K-12 schools across the country. In February, the agency announced it is investigating Portland public schools because the district operates a racially segregated academic program.

The federal agency has opened similar cases over the last year. In 2025, the Education Department canceled some $600 million in grants to schools for teacher training because the grant applications contained racial preferences, some in the form of DEI initiatives.

State lawmakers in Arkansas, Ohio, and Kentucky adopted prohibitions on DEI in 2025, following earlier legislative activity in Florida, Idaho, and Texas. Today, there are nearly two dozen states with such legislation.

NAIS member schools are preparing the next generation of college students, likely students at elite universities. Faculty and staff at schools like Harvard and Columbia have been among the worst violators of civil rights, allowing antisemitism to persist. DEI offices on these campuses and others have done nothing to stop such activity. Just last month, the Education Department opened yet another investigation into Harvard for racial discrimination.

Independent schools are private institutions, but that does not exempt them from all civil rights laws nor does it excuse antisemitism. Racial discrimination should be exposed to withering scrutiny in public schools, universities, and yes, even private schools.

* * *

Jonathan Butcher is Acting Director of the Center for Education at The Heritage Foundation.

The emails show a top Justice Department official referring to an abortion activist as an “MVP” for flagging pro-life protests to prosecute and seeking to track the travel plans of Christian pro-life activists not yet charged with crimes. The emails also reveal pro-abortion organizations providing dossiers to the Biden DOJ with personal information and pictures of pro-life activists who were later arrested by the FBI.

These dossiers contained the information of pro-life activists who were not yet charged with any federal crimes, but were deemed threats by the abortion groups because of their activism. Many of these individuals would later be prosecuted by the Biden administration.

Dossier from National Abortion Federation.

Under Biden, dozens of pro-life protesters were prosecuted for peaceful protests that included praying, singing, and sitting in front of doors of abortion facilities. Several were sentenced to years in prison with others awaiting sentencing before President Donald Trump pardoned the pro-life activists his first week in office.

The emails released Tuesday were included in an extensive report documenting how the Biden administration weaponized the Freedom of Access To Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act against pro-life activists. The law was originally passed to protect both crisis pregnancy centers and abortion facilities, but has been disproportionately used against pro-life protesters.

The weaponization can be traced to Biden resurrecting the National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers shortly after he was elected, according to the Justice Department. The task force operated largely out of the department’s Civil Rights Division under the direction of Sanjay Patel, who was reportedly fired on Monday.

“The Task Force Director was in regular, ongoing contact with pro-abortion non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the clinics they represented, but disregarded pro-life groups,” the Justice Department wrote Tuesday. “Pro-abortion groups capitalized on their relationship with the Task Force to gain internal information and push targets for FACE Act enforcement.”

Patel was on “texting terms” with the National Abortion Federation Security Team and “regularly communicated” with Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Feminist Majority Foundation, the Justice Department said.

In one exchange from November 17, 2021, Patel connected an FBI agent with Michelle Davidson, the security director for the National Abortion Federation.

Patel told the unidentified FBI agent that Davidson was “a wonderful contact for me as it relates to FACE Act investigations. She has been an MVP bringing incidents to my attention, often in real-time, which usually result in investigation/prosecution.”

The email was labeled as highly important and began with Patel greeting both, “How the heck are you?”

The bombshell revelations also include details of how abortion groups provided dossiers to government officials with information on pro-life activists later arrested by the FBI.

The report said that Patel monitored “pro-life activists for years before charging them. This monitoring included three of the pardoned defendants.”

One dossier provided to Patel from an abortion group in 2021 contained personally identifying information including addresses, photographs (including of spouses and young children), names of associates and affiliated ministries, information about their upcoming travel plans or planned protests, and even drivers’ license numbers of pro-life activists, according to the Justice Department.

One man who faced particular scrutiny from the Biden DOJ was Calvin Zastrow, an evangelical Christian from Michigan who travels the country with his family engaging in evangelism and pro-life activism. Emails showed that Zastrow and members of his family were flagged for the Justice Department and that Patel even enlisted the help of abortion activists to track the whereabouts and activities of Zastrow years before he was charged with any crimes.

An email from the National Abortion Federation to Patel on May 13, 2021 flagged “anti-choice social media” Facebook posts from Zastrow reflecting on how previous pro-life protests were “normal Christian behavior.”

A few months later, Patel reached out to the National Abortion Federation to inquire about his travel plans.

“Do you have any info on Zastrow and Co’s travel to Montana?” Patel asked Davidson of the National Abortion Federation on September 9, 2021. That came after Davidson emailed the DOJ telling officials she “bet” that Zastrow might attempt to lead a protest at an abortion facility in Montana.

Justice Department

Zastrow was not charged by the Biden Justice Department until October 2022 for a protest in Tennessee, and then again in February 2023 for a protest in Michigan.

His daughter, Eva Zastrow, was flagged in a 136-page dossier compiled by the Justice Department documenting attendees of a conference hosted by Operation Save America, a pro-life group.

“The entire Zastrow family is engaged in anti-choice activities and sometimes refer to themselves as the ‘Zastrow Holiness Revival Team.’ Several members of the Zastrow family, including Eva, have been arrested at reproductive health care facilities in the past,” the entry on the young woman read.

The dossier added that she was “closely associated” with Coleman Boyd, Dennis Green, Heather Idoni, James Zastrow, and Eva Edl, an 89-year-old communist death camp survivor. All of those individuals were later prosecuted by the Biden administration. It also included personal details like birthdate, email address, phone number, addresses, description of her physical appearance, and noted that she had traveled as a missionary.

National Abortion Federation/DOJ.

The entry detailed protests Zastrow joined at abortion facilities in Tennessee and Michigan, incidents for which she was later charged and faced prosecution at trials covered extensively by The Daily Wire.

Another dossier included in the exhibits for the report was compiled by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Global Safety and Security Intelligence and Investigations on Operation Save America. The dossier included the photos of multiple individuals later pardoned by Trump.

In contrast, the Trump Justice Department said the Task Force spent little time investigating the attacks on pregnancy centers and largely ignored pro-lifers concerned about the uptick in vandalism targeting pro-life establishments following the leak of the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

At the same time as they worked to prosecute pro-lifers with assistance from pro-abortion groups, Biden officials cozied up to abortion activists and agreed to help them obtain grants to continue their activism.

An email from October 31, 2023 showed Biden DOJ official Paige Fitzgerald describing the relationship between the federal government and the National Abortion Federation as stretching on for “decades.”

“We have worked with NAF for decades. NAF regularly refers potential FACE Act violations and other threats to RPCPs [Reproductive Healthcare Providers], helps us liaise with clinics and staff, lets us know about upcoming events that might result in security concerns so we can notify the FBI and USMS, etc,” Fitzgerald wrote in the email. “The information flow has always been a one-way street, and they have always been respectful, cooperative, and are frequently quite helpful.”

Fitzgerald was asking a federal ethics officer whether they would be allowed to provide a reference after the National Abortion Federation asked for a letter “on DOJ letterhead” to help them with a grant application.

“Is there anything that we can do to tell grant folks that they are totally legit and they have been valuable to our law enforcement efforts?” Fitzgerald wrote.

In a different email from December 2020, Patel said he could serve as a reference for the National Abortion Federation application for a grant with the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund.

Tuesday’s report contains other damning revelations, including that federal attorney Frances Lee Carlson complained about a magistrate judge being Catholic.

“Unfortunately, we ended up with a very Catholic magistrate on duty this week and he was very particular about the bond conditions and not infringing on their first amendment [sic] rights,” she wrote in an email to Patel while prosecuting a case in Michigan against multiple pro-life defendants later pardoned by Trump.

In response, Patel wrote, “Ugh…always a veritable circus with these cases.”

The Justice Department, citing reporting from The Daily Wire, also detailed how the Biden administration requested an average sentence of 26.8 months for pro-life defendants compared to 12.3 months for pro-abortion defendants.

The report is the latest effort by the Trump administration to rectify the Biden administration’s targeting of pro-life activists. The Justice Department settled last week with Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven who was prosecuted under the FACE Act by the Biden administration. His home was raided by armed FBI agents after an incident at an abortion facility.

The settlement, for over $1 million was announced by the group Forty Days For Life, which told The Daily Wire it sent the message that Americans could still exercise their First Amendment rights.

“We have to fight our government when they’re coming after us. We still have free speech and we still have the Constitution,” Forty Days For Life President Sean Carney told The Daily Wire. “So it was a huge vote of confidence for pro-life Americans.”

In the post, published January 6, Moreno-Gama argues that artificial intelligence (AI) poses an existential threat to humanity and criticizes the motivations of tech leaders, writing that for them “morality and safety become a hindrance to their goals.”

The post focuses heavily on Altman, repeating a series of unsubstantiated allegations, including claims that Altman “raped his own sister,” “assassinated an OpenAI whistleblower,” and lied “under oath to Congress.” Altman has denied the allegations involving his family, and his relatives have said his sister struggles with mental health issues. The whistleblower referenced, Suchir Balaji, was determined by the San Francisco Chief Medical Examiner to have died by suicide.

Moreno-Gama expresses frustration that Altman has “faced zero consequences and is likely to never face any.”

To address what he describes as the threat posed by AI, Moreno-Gama advocates halting the expansion of AI infrastructure. He calls for “stopping the construction of new data centers,” which he describes as “the brains of these models,” and scaling back existing facilities. He also suggests the United States should “strike deals with China” to slow the global development of AI. 

He writes that “as many people as possible need to be acting in as many strategic ways possible,” recommending that supporters spread information online and through traditional methods, as well as engage in campaigning and protests. He describes inaction as “akin to suicide.” 

Authorities said Moreno-Gama was found with a manifesto that included a list of AI executives and investors along with their addresses. He expressed hostility toward other prominent figures in the tech industry, including xAI Founder Elon Musk, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, though Altman was the primary focus of his writings. 

Additional posts published on Moreno-Gama’s Substack account provide further insight into his thinking in the weeks leading up to the alleged attack.  

In one article, he reflects on the meaning of life, writing, “Every generation of humans has for the most part done whatever is in its power to increase the standards of living for their children and therefore the next generation.” 

He also wrote that he grew up Protestant but later drifted between practicing faith and atheism, adding that he no longer identifies as an atheist. 

Elsewhere, he contrasts the idea of a “martyr,” someone willing to die for a cause, with a “warrior,” who he says may also be willing to kill for it. Moreno-Gama invokes Jesus Christ as the ultimate example of the martyr.

The final post before his alleged attack was a poem titled ‘What Will Their Children Say,” questioning how future generations might judge the present. “Did you think this could happen?” it asks. “Was there anything you could’ve done to stop it?”

Weeks later, Moreno-Gama allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Altman’s home and threatened to burn down OpenAI’s headquarters. Altman responded with a blog post and a photo of his family, saying he hoped it would deter future acts of violence. 

“There is a season for everything and God has a plan for us all. When Congress returns tomorrow, I will file my retirement from office. It has been my privilege to serve the great people of Texas,” Gonzales posted on X. 

There is a season for everything and God has a plan for us all. When Congress returns tomorrow, I will file my retirement from office. It has been my privilege to serve the great people of Texas.

— Rep. Tony Gonzales (@RepTonyGonzales) April 13, 2026

The news came about an hour after Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) announced he would step down over a sex scandal.

On March 5, Gonzales dropped his re-election bid in Texas’s 23rd Congressional District after being forced into a runoff by GOP challenger Brandon Herrera. He’s also faced calls from fellow Republicans to resign his seat. 

Those calls came after Gonzales admitted to an affair with former staffer Regina Santos-Aviles, a 35-year-old married mother who “doused herself in gasoline and was ignited into flames” in the backyard of her Uvalde, Texas home, according to the fire department.

The Daily Wire previously reported that Gonzales said his affair with Santos-Aviles ended in the summer of 2024, more than a year before Santos-Aviles killed herself. Text messages published in February by the San Antonio Express-News appear to show Gonzales making sexual requests to Santos-Aviles.

Brian Hooker has been in custody in Freeport since Wednesday, when authorities arrested him in relation to his missing wife, Lynette Hooker. Brian claimed that she fell overboard from their small dinghy on April 4 at sunset. Since extending Brian’s custody an additional 72 hours on Friday, Bahamian officials have a deadline of 7:20 p.m. local time to either release Brian or charge him in connection to his wife’s disappearance, according to his lawyer, Terel Butler.

From the beginning, Brian has denied any foul play and insisted that Lynette simply fell overboard due to rough seas near Elbow Cay. Elbow Cay is a five-mile long cay in the Abaco Islands in the Bahamas, known for its shallow, clear waters where tourists and locals alike drop anchor and spend a day on the water.

“He definitely denies causing her death, and he still asks about her and is hopeful that she will be recovered,” Butler said Friday.

Brian reportedly called fellow sailors, Marnee and Blaine Stevenson, a day before his arrest and explained what had happened as the couple headed back on the dinghy to their sailboat, Soulmate.

“She basically just bounced off the dinghy in the middle of a little blow, like 20-something knot winds that popped up,” Brian said.

Marnee and Blaine recorded the April 7 phone call with Brian and posted the video on their YouTube account. Marnee also shared text messages with CBS from a conversation with Lynette, during which the 55-year-old told Marnee she could not be out on the water with Brian.

“We were married 21 years. Our marriage lasted 6 weeks cruising,” Lynette wrote in the texts. “It was real bad. I can’t be out there with him.”

A flotation device has been recovered and since Lynette disappeared — and according to Lynette’s mother, Darlene Hamlett, her daughter’s Apple Watch was recovered — but Lynette still has not been located.

Brian’s lawyer said authorities are “close to a decision” on whether or not to charge Brian with a crime, per Fox News.

“Even if they decided to charge him, it’s highly unlikely that he would go to court today,” Butler said. “So we will know by 7:20 p.m. today what their decision will be … It is possible that when a person has completed their time, that when they walk out, they can be re-arrested and time starts again.”

Butler said her client is “drained” from the interrogations and that he is “just hoping to have closure to be released so that he can continue to search to find out what has happened to his wife.”

Lynette’s mom joined the “Drop Dead Serious” podcast, describing in detail how her daughter was repeatedly abused by Brian over their more than 20-year marriage.

“He has two sides to his personality, he can be very pleasurable, pleasant and he can be very vicious,” Hamlett said. “He threw her down on this bench … the boat has a little bench where you sit around the table in the galley. She landed on that, he was on top of her, he was choking her, and she felt something crack in her neck. She was so stiff-necked for a long time. I don’t know how or why, but she stayed on the boat that night … one of the conversations that they had while they were on the boat the next morning is he told her that he wished he had finished the job and thrown her overboard.”

Stories like the one Hamlett shared are why she, along with her granddaughter, Kylie Aylesworth, wanted a thorough investigation into Lynette’s disappearance.

Lynette has reportedly left Brian several times during their marriage and often documented the abuse with photos to help her not go back to him, according to Hamlett. Her daughter would often come stay with her in Florida when things with Brian were tumultuous, and every time Lynette returned to the Bahamas Hamlett said she believed it could be the last time she saw her daughter.

The 76-year-old said she doesn’t want to talk to Brian, but if she could talk to Lynette she would tell her daughter this: “I love you, and I wish you would have come home.”

The Daily Wire reached out to the United States Coast Guard, who is looking into the incident, and officials with the Coast Guard told us “we cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.”

In a 2,000-word article that was originally titled “Hasan Piker is not the Enemy,” New York Times opinion columnist Ezra Klein acknowledged some of Piker’s controversial comments, including his support for designated terrorist groups, but argued that “to focus only on those comments is to miss much else that Piker has said and believes.” Klein also suggested that Democrats would be unwise to brush Piker off and refuse to appear on his show because of his large social media following and his appeal among the younger and more radical segments of the Left.

The streamer has also gained national attention for expressing support for radical Islamic terrorists while calling Republicans “the biggest terrorists” in the world.

“I would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time,” Piker said during a recent appearance on the popular leftist podcast “Pod Save America.” At another point of the podcast, Piker said, “The biggest terrorists, the biggest domestic terrorist in this country, the biggest terrorist internationally is the Republican Party.”

According to Klein, statements like these shouldn’t scare Democrats away from Piker. The New York Times columnist also argued that just because Piker has voiced support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah doesn’t mean he’s a “Jew hater.”

“I have deep disagreements with Piker, but he isn’t a ‘Jew hater.’ He’s an anti-Zionist. And here, I think, the real stakes of this fight come into view,” Klein wrote before going into a long defense of Piker’s anti-Israel views.

“Israel, as it is behaving today, and as it is constructing itself for tomorrow, is incompatible with any normal understanding of liberal values,” Klein continued.

The New York Times columnist did not say if Piker’s cheering for designated terror groups is in line with liberal values. Instead, Klein touted Piker’s support for Jewish Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Jon Ossoff (D-GA).

On Monday, the Times changed the headline on Klein’s opinion article from “Hasan Piker is not the Enemy” to “This is Why There’s No Liberal Joe Rogan.”

Much of Klein’s defense of Piker focuses on how the Democratic Party pushed cancel culture to its own detriment. Klein points out that most Democrats either condemned or ignored podcaster Joe Rogan in the lead-up to and during the 2024 presidential election cycle, paving the way for Republicans to capitalize on Rogan’s massive audience with very little counter-messaging.

“In avoiding those spaces, Democrats avoided contact with the kinds of voters they otherwise claimed to represent,” Klein wrote. “This is the mistake Democrats often make when they talk about what they did wrong in 2024. They realize, now, that they should try to talk to the people who listen to these shows; they are less likely to realize that they should listen to the people who talk on these shows.”

Klein then argued that Piker represents another opportunity for Democrats to reach voters, and he questioned the reasoning of Democrats, such as Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, who have declined invitations to appear on Piker’s show.

“When you’re dealing with podcasters or streamers who talk, unstructured and unrehearsed, for hours each week, if not every day, there’s going to be so much said that it’s almost inevitable that a dossier of dumb statements can be compiled,” Klein wrote. “To write those people out of acceptable political discourse is to back yourself into a shrinking, sanitized corner of the public sphere.”

Democrats who are approaching Piker correctly in Klein’s view are Sen. Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who have all either appeared on Piker’s show or collaborated with Piker in some form. California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has also said he is open to appearing on Piker’s show.

Most recently, Piker campaigned with U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan as El-Sayed hopes to win a competitive Democratic primary.

“There’s a battle brewing,” Piker said at a campaign event with El-Sayed. “A battle brewing not only against the corrupt fascist forces of the Republican Party, but also against do-nothing Democrats.”

Swalwell faced mounting calls for his resignation and the possibility of expulsion. The House Ethics Committee launched a probe into his behavior on Monday afternoon.

“I am deeply sorry to my family, staff, and constituents for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past. I will fight the serious, false allegation made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make,” he said.

“I am aware of efforts to bring an immediate expulsion vote against me and other members. Expelling anyone in Congress without due process, within days of an allegation being made, is wrong. But it’s also wrong for my constituents to have me distracted from my duties,” Swalwell added.

“Therefore, I plan to resign my seat in Congress. I will work with my staff in the coming days to ensure they are able, in my absence, to serve the needs of the good people of the 14th congressional district.”

Swalwell dropped out of the California governor’s race on Sunday night, after losing nearly all of his endorsements.

“I am suspending my campaign for Governor. To my family, staff, friends, and supporters, I am deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past. I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made — but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s,” Swalwell wrote in a post from his campaign account at the time.

The allegations of misconduct initially started as social media rumors throughout last week, then hitting a breaking point when the San Francisco Chronicle and other outlets released stories of women who were alleged victims of Swalwell’s misconduct.

Prior to dropping out of the governor’s race, multiple polls indicated that he was the leading Democrat in the top-two primary race. Once the allegations surfaced,  Swalwell lost nearly all of his major endorsements, ranging from Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to major labor groups.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) initially defended the California lawmaker against the early social media rumors, but then retracted his endorsement and called for Swalwell’s expulsion on Monday.

“I support the ethics committee’s investigation and believe Eric Swalwell is no longer fit to be a Member of Congress. He should be expelled from Congress,” the senator said. “I want to be clear: I had no knowledge of the allegations of assault, harassment, and predatory behavior against Eric Swalwell.

“I trusted someone who I believed was a friend, but it is now clear that he is not the person I thought I knew. The women who have come forward have shown courage. They deserve to be believed, to be supported, and to see justice served,” he added.

There was an effort underway Monday to get him expelled from the chamber, which would have made him one of only six members of Congress ever to be removed if it passed with a 2/3 majority vote.

This is a developing story, refresh the page for updates.

I’m not speaking of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

I’m speaking of the American Exceptionalist Party and the bipartisan Grievance Party.

The former believes in American exceptionalism, that America is awesome, that we have historically been awesome, and that we will be awesome again if we do the hard things that we must do.

Conversely, the Grievance Party believes America is not awesome, never was awesome, and will only be awesome if we fundamentally rewrite the American bargain — and also retreat from the world for our great sins.

That battle between the American Exceptionalist and the Grievance Party — Left and Right — will define our future as Americans.

And right now, that battle is being fought over Iran.

The American Exceptionalist Party may argue over tax rates. We may argue over the prosecution of particular wars, whether it’s to do them or how to do them. But we generally agree that America has the best constitutional system, the strongest and best free-market economy, and the most powerful military in all of human history.

We know that America, in order to preserve the freest and most prosperous nation in world history, sometimes has to do the tough stuff — but doing the tough stuff is part of what makes America great.

Then there are the members of the Grievance Party. They’re on the Left, and they’re on the Right. They’re the people President Trump calls “low IQ,” and they’ve become largely indistinguishable from one another, from Hasan Piker on the Left to Tucker Carlson on the Right.

They seem to believe that America’s constitutional system is a mockery and a sham, that our free market economy is actually a rigged oligarchy created by nefarious and evil elites at the expense of the poor, that our military is a gigantic terrorist operation, and that the world would somehow be better off if America abandoned the international playing field.

The Grievance Party is gaining adherents because the world feels chaotic.

And when the world feels chaotic, there is comfort in grievance.

When you feel like nothing is in your control, it is easy and politically productive to blame mysterious forces beyond your control. That also happens to be a recipe for failure, both individually and nationally, which is what the propagandists for the Grievance Party members are openly rooting for. They root for the United States to fail in its battle to stop the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran —an apocalyptic death cult that cries “Death to America” — from obtaining nuclear weapons.

They want America to lose. They want America to give up power to China and to Russia. They openly say so.

But here’s the thing: America is not losing. And that is because American Exceptionalists know that in a chaotic world, the only answer is to stand up for American values and to do that without apology, with strength, and with courage.

President Trump is doing that right now in Iran.

If you listened to the low-IQ Grievance Party propagandists and their left-wing legacy media counterparts over the course of the last week, you might have thought that President Trump was caving in, that the ceasefire was Trump chickening out, that it was TACO time.

But it wasn’t.

Over the weekend, it turned out some of us were right, and some people were wrong, because he didn’t cave in.

And now, he is holding Iran’s feet to the fire, and they have really, really serious problems.

The United States still has a lot of cards left to play. We could embargo all of the oil that is coming out of Iran. We can blockade it. We could also just blow up Kharg Island and create a permanent problem for Iran. The Israelis could do a special operation and grab the nuclear materials right now.

And, as the Iranian economy collapses, the regime is in very, very serious trouble.

This raises the only possibility Iran has left, and that is to convince members of the Grievance Party that if they complain loud enough, the president will stop.

The reality, always and forever, is that Americans don’t like wars until we win them. That’s it. Even the wars that we do like at the very beginning, if we start to lose them, Americans don’t like them anymore.

Americans like winning. And we don’t like losing. It is that simple.

Americans are willing to undergo this for a temporary period of time, as they have said over and over and over.

But members of the Grievance Party refuse to understand any of this, and spend all of their time trying to trot out the propaganda of our enemies.

There are many pragmatic questions we can ask about whether particular measures in an intervention are good or bad, productive or unproductive, or even counterproductive. But the main difference that we are seeing emerge in American politics right now — and this will decide the future of the country — is between the American Exceptionalists, who believe that America was good, is good and will be good again, and the people who believe that America was never good fundamentally, gave up the ghost decades ago, and that the only cure for the United States is, as Barack Obama once suggested, fundamental change.

This has been a battle long in coming. The fact that it has infused a little part of the Right, a splintered fragment of the Right, is not a great shock in a time of social media brainwashed algorithmic nonsense.

But it is the fight. It is the fight.

And President Trump has no intention of losing.

The shoehorning of modern leftist elements into a beloved series should come as no surprise, especially since it’s coming from a company like Disney, which now owns the show through its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, the studio behind the original.

“Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” debuted four back-to-back episodes on Friday, and due to the busy schedules of the cast, there won’t be any more. The latest episodes follow the titular star (played by Frankie Muniz) after he’s all grown up and has grown apart from his family. 

The original series, which ran from 2000 to 2006, focused on Malcolm, an exceptionally intelligent child who made his way through life with a dysfunctional family. The sitcom was a massive hit, winning seven Emmy Awards and attracting a cult following.

It ended with family matriarch Lois (Jane Kaczmarek) finding out she’s pregnant. “Breaking Bad” star Bryan Cranston played the dad, and reprises his role in “Life’s Still Unfair,” too. Their surprise child, Kelly, is a teenager in the new version and uses they/them pronouns. The actor playing the part, Vaughan Murrae, identifies as “non-binary” in real life, too. Stevie Kenarban, who was Malcolm’s best friend in the original series, is depicted as gay in the reboot.

Many fans are not happy about the changes. 

“So. Disney brings Back [‘Malcolm in the Middle’], which ended decades ago with a proper send off. They made Stevie gay, despite him crushing on Malcolm’s babysitter, pretending to be in critical condition to get another girl to like him, there’s stacking amounts of evidence proving he likes girls,” one popular reaction on X says. 

“And the child Hal and Lois had at the very end is, wait for it……..non binary. If you had even a shred of hope that you were going to ‘relive the glory days’ you were kidding yourself… Don’t waste your time, it’s modern Disney being modern Disney again, and again, and again!”

“What a disgusting, soul-crushing disappointment,” another viral reaction said. “It’s absolute trash. No laughs. No chaos. No nostalgia. Just four episodes of pointless, preachy slop that feels like it was written by a committee of blue-haired Disney interns who hate straight families and actual comedy.”

“Woke isn’t gone. It’s just suppressed for the moment,” another person agreed. “They will be back the moment they get the political support they need, and they will be angry, and they will be in full-on retribution mode.”

Show creator Linwood Boomer and his wife, executive producer Tracy Katsky, said they drew inspiration from their personal lives. 

“I gotta tell you, it’s a really important thing to us,” Katsky told Deadline during a recent interview just ahead of the reboot’s premiere. 

“Three out of four of our kids are queer, and without making it a thing and without making an issue, I think it’s really nice to have a character that, that’s just a facet of their personality as opposed to the entire story.”

Swalwell faced several accusations ranging from inappropriate behavior to sexually charged messages to at least one claim of rape. The Bay Area congressman denied those charges, calling the allegations, which surfaced late Friday afternoon, “absolutely false.” They were first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN. 

Over the weekend, Democrats nationwide yanked their endorsements and threatened to expel Swalwell from Congress. On Sunday night, Swalwell ended his gubernatorial campaign. 

“I am suspending my campaign for Governor,” Swalwell announced in an X post. “To my family, staff, friends, and supporters, I am deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past. I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made — but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s.” 

I am suspending my campaign for Governor.

To my family, staff, friends, and supporters, I am deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past.

I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made — but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s.

— Eric Swalwell (@ericswalwell) April 13, 2026

Swalwell’s exit from the race scrambles a crowded field of Democratic and Republican candidates hoping to advance to the November general election.  

Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at USC and UC Berkeley, said there is still no clear frontrunner. 

“The primary was already a mess; now it’s turned into a mosh pit,” Schnur said.

“Swalwell had appeared to be gathering some momentum over the last few weeks, but now it appears that they’re back to square one,” Schnur said. “Even before this controversy, there was no precedent in modern California politics or a gubernatorial primary that is this crowded or without a frontrunner so close to the primary.”

The Daily Wire previously reported on a California Democratic poll showing the two Republican candidates still leading the race for governor, with Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton each receiving 14% of likely voters.

Swalwell led the Democratic field with 12% support, followed closely by billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer at 11%. Former Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) trailed with 7%, while the remaining four Democratic candidates each registered 4% support or less. Other Democrats in the race include former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, former state Controller Betty Yee, state schools Supt. Tony Thurmond, and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Porter and Steyer “appear best positioned to benefit” from Swalwell’s exit, Schnur said, but he cautioned that Democratic candidates who focus solely on President Donald Trump are unlikely to break through.

“The overwhelming majority of California voters hear their sentiment about the president, but that’s really not much of a differentiator in a crowded field,” Schnur told The Daily Wire.

Internal polling from the Porter campaign and Steyer campaigns suggests the former congresswoman stands to gain a large share of Swalwell’s support.

On the Republican side, President Trump endorsed Hilton, but the California Republican Party failed to reach a consensus during its convention over the weekend.

Under California’s “jungle primary” system, all candidates appear on the same ballot, and the top two vote-getters advance to the general election in November regardless of party.

California’s primary election is set for June 2, 2026.

“Peace be with you.”

Not long after Pope Leo closed the holy Easter Octave on this important liturgical day by leading an evening peace vigil at the Vatican, President Donald Trump tore into the Holy Father on social media, calling him “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible on foreign policy.”

In many ways, the post was classic Trump: the most powerful man in the world was not just writing with the random capitalizations and uppercase blocked phrases, but offering a series of unhinged attacks interspersed with increasingly questionable accounts of his own record. (How many times do we have to hear that someone who won the 2024 election by 1.5 percentage points did so “IN A LANDSLIDE”?)

Even as a Catholic who hated this post on multiple levels, parts of it do remind me of what makes Trump genuinely appealing to so many, even now. He refuses to play pietistic games and directly criticizes those whom he feels deserve it. He does so with a performative self-assuredness that, even as it misleads, makes easy, sweeping analysis more complicated because it often brushes up against something true. (He was not wrong to speculate that Pope Leo is probably not pope today if someone else were president.) Despite hurting so many people with his words and actions, he is also at times genuinely funny and engaging, not least because he puts his humanity on full display. His supporters (and sometimes even his detractors) love this humanity, especially when contrasted with the inauthentic, poll-tested, AI-scrubbed, robot-like affect we get from most other politicians.

But Trump’s humanity needs redemption. Badly.

Saying so isn’t a politically motivated attack; it is simply asserting the truth of Christianity. Human beings are born with fallen natures, with primordial wounds which play out in our desire to accumulate, to dominate, and to prove ourselves worthy of love and affection at the expense of others. Trump’s wounds in this regard are not different in kind from those writ large on the hearts of humanity.

But his wounds are on full display in front of the whole world. Not just on social media, but on the skyscrapers and other massive buildings with his name on them, in his renaming institutions after himself, and in his ferociously putting other people down in an attempt to build himself up. These are obviously not the marks of a man who is at peace with himself.

And then there was the assassin’s bullet in Pennsylvania, which came less than an inch from ending his life. At a recent prayer breakfast, Trump said that this “changed something in me.” And in what appeared to be a moment of self-reflection on his own life, he told the crowd, “You can’t be happy without religion—without that belief.”

In speaking with those who know him and have discussed this topic with him, I’ve come to believe that we should take this shift in him seriously and not be cynical about it.

But we must also ask whether the person who said this believes it. Really, really believes it. In his bones. In the deepest part of who he is.

If Trump truly believes that faith in God is what brings one true happiness, would he be on social media launching unprecedented attacks on the pope? If the kid from Queens really knew that he is loved beyond measure—loved in this unimaginable way before he accomplished even one single thing in his life—would he still need to build himself up by tearing his perceived enemies new metaphorical holes?

We are now weeks away from celebrating the 250th anniversary of a founding document that declared we are created equal by God. Our equality and value come from one source and one source alone: the way God made us. Nothing about our position, age, size, level of dependence, IQ, net worth, families, health, successes, or failures—nothing—can add to or take away from the intrinsic dignity that makes all human beings equal. We are loved with the unconditional love of a heavenly father for a child. And in the president’s case, a son.

What would Trump’s life (including, but not at all limited to, his presidency) look like if he really believed that he was loved in this way? Unconditionally, warts and all? If he knew that if he sincerely asked for forgiveness, the Peace that Christ offers all of us (and in a special way at this time of year) could be his? Would he feel the need to portray himself as a Christ figure, King of Kings, and spiritual healer, as he did in a post on his social media site, Truth Social, over the weekend?

I feel comfortable saying that he wouldn’t spend time on social media attacking the pope and others like this. Reasonable people, including faithful Catholics, can and do disagree with the pope on prudential policy matters. But a man at peace doesn’t feel the need to humiliate someone else when offering a different point of view.

Perhaps the most important thing a Christian should do in this context is wish something for Donald Trump, the person, the child of God, quite apart from Donald Trump the politician and president.

Donald, you’ve been used by Christian leaders and others in the faith who wanted to advance their own agendas through you. I’m genuinely sorry that your primary exposure to the faith and to Christians over the last decade has been like this. I want to genuinely invite you to put aside the wisdom of the world, which has made you and so many others anxious and angry. I want to genuinely invite you to embrace the unimaginable good news of the Cross and Resurrection. It turns the wisdom of the world on its head: we lead authentically when we put others before ourselves; the proper way to respond to our enemies is with love; we receive in direct proportion to what we give away; and it is in dying to self that we find who we truly are.

The peace that comes from this divine wisdom is what you are missing, Donald. You know this on some level. It is the only thing that truly satisfies and makes one truly happy.

Mr. President, Peace be with you.

***

Charles Camosy is a professor of moral theology and bioethics at the Catholic University of America.

Trump slammed the American-born Pope in a Truth Social post, calling him “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”

“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump said. “Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.”

In a gaggle with reporters, the president piled on.

“I don’t think he’s doing a very good job. He likes crime I guess,” Trump said at Joint Base Andrews. “I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person.”

Reporter: Why did you attack Pope Leo?

Trump: I don’t think he’s doing a very good job. He likes crime I guess. We don’t like a pope who says it’s ok to have a nuclear weapon. We don’t want a pope that says crime is ok. I am not a fan of Pope Leo. pic.twitter.com/cj3oh1jSIL

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 13, 2026

Leo, on his way to Algeria to kick off an 11-day tour across Africa, pushed back.

“I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the Church is here to do,” Leo told reporters aboard the papal plane. “We are not politicians. We don’t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective he might understand it, but I do believe in the message of the Gospel, as a peacemaker.”

In response to a personal attack by President Donald Trump the night before, Pope Leo told journalists on the papal plane to Algeria:

“I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what… pic.twitter.com/zV6FuacGSM

— Courtney Mares (@catholicourtney) April 13, 2026

The statements made by President Trump on Truth Social regarding the Pope were entirely inappropriate and disrespectful. They don’t contribute at all to a constructive conversation. It is the Pope’s prerogative to articulate Catholic doctrine and the principles that govern the…

— Bishop Robert Barron (@BishopBarron) April 13, 2026

Tensions between the White House and the Vatican have increased in recent weeks. On April 7, Pope Leo rebuked Trump’s Easter-Sunday threat against the Islamic Republic of Iran as “truly unacceptable.”

Leo has also criticized some of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, calling the treatment of migrants in the United States “extremely disrespectful.”

Trump’s broadside against the Pope followed a Sunday-night “60 Minutes” episode featuring prominent American cardinals, including Cardinal Joseph Tobin, who blasted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as a “lawless organization.”

“When they have to hide their identities to terrify people, when they can actually violate other guarantees of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, well, I think somebody’s got to call that out,” Tobin said.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin criticizes the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.

“When they have to hide their identities to terrify people, when they can actually violate other guarantees of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, well, I think somebody’s got to call that… pic.twitter.com/vvLuOLej18

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) April 12, 2026

Conservative attorney Mike Davis, an ally of the Trump administration who grew up attending Catholic schools, called the Cardinal a “disgrace.”

“He’s taking the side of illegals who kidnap, rob, rape, and murder innocent Americans. And smearing the good men and women of federal immigration enforcement,” Davis said. “Trafficking illegals is a big moneymaker for the Catholic Church.”

This cardinal is a disgrace.

He’s taking the side of illegals who kidnap, rob, rape, and murder innocent Americans.

And smearing the good men and women of federal immigration enforcement.

Trafficking illegals is a big moneymaker for the Catholic Church. pic.twitter.com/KUg4FLrXmX

— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) April 13, 2026

Dasher Sharon Simmons, who wore a shirt that read “DoorDash Grandma,” walked up to the outside door of the Oval Office as cameras rolled and was greeted by the president.

“Nice to meet you. I have your DoorDash order for you, Mr. President,” Simmons said.

“Look at this. This doesn’t look staged, does it?” Trump quipped as reporters gathered to watch the food drop off and ask Trump questions during a quick press conference.

Simmons told Trump that she was surprised to receive a tax refund of over $11,000 this year thanks to the tax cuts passed in Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.” The bill, which was passed the Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by Trump last summer, allows Americans to deduct federal taxes on tips and overtime. Trump’s tax cuts gave many waiters, bartenders, and delivery drivers a massive boost in their 2025 refunds.

“You know, we call it the ‘Great, Big, Beautiful Bill’ — we should call it the ‘Great, Big, Beautiful Tax Cut Bill’ because it’s tremendous amounts of money,” Trump said. “And that’s on overtime, that’s also on social security, as you know.”

WATCH IN FULL: @POTUS receives a @DoorDash delivery to the Oval Office.

“I have your @DoorDash order for you, Mr. President!” pic.twitter.com/lwFHbHmYVk

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 13, 2026

Trump tipped the dasher $100 for the McDonald’s delivery. He also invited her into the Oval Office.

Photographer: Salwan Georges/Bloomberg via Getty Images

After dropping off the president’s McDonald’s order, Simmons told Fox News that Trump’s no tax on tips has helped her save up money after she and her husband were forced to spend much of their savings on her husband’s medical bills when he was diagnosed with stage-three cancer.

“As you know, going through treatments — even with insurance — you kind of break the bank,” Simmons said. “And we pretty much went through our savings, so when I found out about the no tax on tips, I was like this is incredible. You know, it’s not going to replace my life savings, but it’s going to help, certainly, with future doctor’s appointments and future things that we have going on. It means a lot.”

Simmons added that in 2025, half of her total earnings came through tips. Following the passage of the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” many seniors also qualified for an additional $6,000 in deductions on their 2025 tax returns. So far, the average tax refund for all Americans in the 2026 filing season has been over $3,600, up nearly 11% from last year’s refunds, according to IRS data.

The Trump administration is highlighting the president’s economic policies as the 2026 election season ramps up. Earlier this month, the White House celebrated a jobs report that showed a net gain of 178,000 jobs in March, more than tripling expectations.

On other economic fronts, however, Trump is taking a hit as the Iran war continues. The president faces criticism over rising gas and energy prices in the wake of his decision to launch “Operation Epic Fury.”

In addition, Reps. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), and Cory Mills (R-FL) are facing scrutiny over various controversies of their own.

“Congress should not tolerate representatives who abuse staff, betray public trust for personal gain, and generally violate their oath of office,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) posted to X on Monday morning. “Reps. Swalwell, Gonzales, Cherfilus-McCormick, and Mills should resign. If they refuse, they should be expelled. Americans deserve better and Congress must hold our members accountable.”

Swalwell and Gonzales seem to be facing the most calls for expulsion, however, with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) posting over the weekend that she’s exploring the possibility. Expulsion requires a two-thirds vote in the chamber in order to be successful, and only six individuals have been removed in history.

“I will be inquiring in the morning with the house parliamentarian to see if I can pair my motion to expel Eric Swalwell with Rep Tony Gonzalez. Both NEED to go,” the Florida Republican wrote on Sunday.

On Sunday night, she doubled down after Swalwell said that he was suspending his campaign to become California’s next governor, but stopped short of announcing his resignation from Congress.

“You broke House rules and are a predator. You have 24 hours to announce you are resigning. Both you and Tony are a disgrace,” Luna replied.

Multiple women have alleged sexual misconduct against Swalwell, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is now looking into the allegations, as one reported assault occurred in New York City, according to NBC New York.

As for the ethics probe, the committee said in a statement on Monday afternoon that they will be examining whether he “violated the Code of Official Conduct or any law, rule, regulation, or other applicable standard of conduct in the performance of his duties or the discharge of his responsibilities, with respect to allegations that he may have engaged in sexual misconduct, including towards an employee working under his supervision.”

There seems to be a degree of bipartisan traction for the removals of both Swalwell and Gonzales, who had an affair with a staffer who later committed suicide.

“And Congressman Gonzales. I would,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) told “Meet the Press” on Sunday when asked if she would vote to remove Swalwell.

“I’ve already said that I think that these things, these charges and allegations and the pattern of abuse and in Congressman Gonzales’ case he actually admitted to the affair with the- or to the, you know, harassment with his staffer. This is also important for staffers across the Capitol to see that their bosses don’t get to do this to them,” she added.

However, not everybody is convinced that expulsion is the best route, especially for Gonzales and Mills.

“Democrats are attempting to lump together Gonzales and Mills in their censure push because their own member, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, is almost certain to face expulsion in the coming weeks,” a GOP aide granted anonymity in order to speak freely told The Daily Wire in a statement. “They are content throwing Swalwell to the wolves if it means they can drag Republicans through the mud with him.”

Speaker Mike Johnson has previously cautioned against expulsion as an action taken against members, including when former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) was expelled in 2023 prior to his fraud conviction. Santos’ sentence was later commuted by President Donald Trump.

“Yeah, we couldn’t block it. It was a privileged resolution, which means it gets to come to the floor within two days of filing. And it was a regrettable day,” Johnson said at the time. “You know, prior to yesterday, only five people had ever been expelled from Congress. Three were Confederates, two were convicted of federal charges. And George Santos has not been convicted in a court. You know, our party believes in the rule of law and due process, and we’re deeply concerned about preserving those things. And, you know, maybe he will be convicted by a jury of his peers, but that hasn’t happened yet. And that’s why we had reservations about it.”

Mills is currently under a House Ethics Committee investigation for a range of allegations from “sexual misconduct and/or dating violence” to allegedly not following “campaign finance laws and regulations in connection with his 2022 and 2024 election campaigns.”

Meanwhile, Cherfilus-McCormick is facing criminal charges for allegedly stealing $5 million in FEMA funds for her congressional campaign, and she was recently found guilty on allegations made at the House Ethics Committee level, Axios reported last month.

The chamber currently holds a narrow 217-214 Republican majority, which will expand to 218-214 once Republican Clay Fuller (R-GA) is sworn in.