This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
"Prince" Andrew of England, King Charles' brother, no longer is "Prince."
He's just Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.
That official announcement from the "Royals" in England is the latest fallout over Andrew's links to Jeffrey Epstein, the New York billionaire and convicted sex offender who died in a city jail awaiting more charges.
It is Virginia Guiffre, who died weeks ago, who had confirmed several times that she was trafficked as a teenager to Andrew by Epstein.
Andrew earlier gave up his various "honors" but that apparently was not enough.
In a "Royal Communications" the crown released a "statement."
"His Majesty has today initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew.
"Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. His lease on Royal Lodge has, to date, provided him with legal protection to continue in residence. Formal notice has nowt been served to surrender the lease and he will move to alternative private accommodation. These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him.
"Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse."
The 76-year-old king released the changes for his brother, 65.
A report from the Daily Mail revealed, "Andrew is said to have not objected."
But the report noted his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, will keep their titles.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The top legal officers from 24 states are urging the Supreme Court to fix the nation's birthright citizenship problem.
The 14th Amendment, created after the Civil War, was intended to protect the newly freed slaves and their children, but was not intended to give U.S. citizenship to every baby of every illegal alien or foreign visitor to America, President Trump has argued.
He's now being joined by attorneys general from 24 states.
The arguments were filed by attorneys general Jonathan Skrmetti, R-Tenn., and Brenna Bird, R-Iowa, and in a brief asked the Supreme Court to support Trump's argument that American citizenship isn't actually automatic for any newborn born of illegal alien parents or visitors to America.
Trump make that clarification by executive order when he took office in January, "discarding ridiculous left-wing arguments about 'birthright citizenship' — which have allowed illegals to stay in the United States with anchor babies for decades."
But leftist officials in Washington, Illinois, Oregon and Arizona sued.
A report at the Federalist noted, "If the Supreme Court ends up taking the case and rules in line with the true understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Citizenship Clause, the Trump administration could start turning the corner on removing the true number of illegals in the country."
"The idea that citizenship is guaranteed to everyone born in the United States doesn't square with the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment or the way many government officials and legal analysts understood the law when it was adopted after the Civil War," Skrmetti said. "If you look at the law at the time, citizenship attached to kids whose parents were lawfully in the country. Each child born in this country is precious no matter their parents' immigration status, but not every child is entitled to American citizenship. This case could allow the Supreme Court to resolve a constitutional question with far-reaching implications for the States and our nation."
Leftists at entry level courts in the federal judiciary have sided, so far, with the citizenship-for-all agenda. They issued nationwide injunctions, a move that already has been rebuked by the Supreme Court.
But those justices have yet to rule on the merits of the "birthright" dispute.
The Federalist said, "The brief shows the history surrounding the ratification of the 14th Amendment and its Citizenship Clause from the 1860s through the early 1900s, laying out the proper understanding of the clause before it was twisted by opportunistic leftists who wanted to destroy the country by importing culturally unrecognizable people who refuse to assimilate."
The report said, "'Birthright citizenship' incentivizes illegal immigration, which inherently takes a toll on states both through sapping government resources meant for Americans and degrading culture and community."
The state attorneys charged, "Recent years have seen an influx of illegal aliens — over 9 million — overwhelming our nation's infrastructure and its capacity to assimilate. Conferring United States citizenship requires a more meaningful connection than mere presence by happenstance or illegality. That connection, originalist evidence repeatedly instructs, was parental domicile."
Opponents of Trump's executive order claim a federal court case from 1898 supports their argument, but it likely doesn't.
In that case a baby was born in American of two Chinese nationals, and was declared a citizen, because the parents were in the United States legally, not illegally.
Key is that the amendment applies citizenship to those who are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
In fact, Congress in 1866 excluded from citizenship children of "persons temporarily resident" so that those who did not "owe a complete, permanent allegiance" to the U.S. would not benefit.
The report explained, "In 19th century lectures on naturalization and citizenship, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Freeman Miller explained that 'if a stranger or traveller [sic] passing through, or temporarily residing in this country, who has not himself been naturalized, and who claims to owe no allegiance to our Government, has a child born here which goes out of the country with its father, such child is not a citizen of the United States, because it was not subject to its jurisdiction.'"
States joining included: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A town in South Carolina is changing its ordinances and has agreed to pay damages for its scheme to censor a Christian resident's statement of faith.
It is First Liberty Institute that battled in court on behalf of Ernest Giardino, and reached the settlement.
While the town of Chapin will pay "nominal damages" for its actions, it also will be held to account for lawyers' fees.
It is a consent order, adopted by a federal court, that now enjoins Chapin and its officials from enforcing an ordinance that kept Giardino from holding religious signs on public ways in the town without a permit.
The two sides "agreed on the contents of the order" after town officials moved to change their ordinance.
"Mr. Giardino just wants to share his Christian faith with others," said Nate Kellum, lawyer for First Liberty Institute. "We commend the town for revising the ordinance language so Mr. Giardino can live out his faith in the public sphere."
The legal team explained, "A Chapin police officer prevented Ernest Giardino from holding a religious sign on a public way at the intersection of Old Lexington Road and Chapin Road on June 20, 2024, reading 'Trust Christ He paid the price' on one side and 'He Saved Others—Jesus—He'll Save You' on the other. The officer informed him that he needed Chapin's permission to share his message with a sign."
He soon was told that city requirements demanded a two-week notice for him to proclaim his beliefs, and then limited him to 30 minutes, including that he would need to change sidewalk corners every 15 minutes.
When the dispute arose, First Liberty Institute filed a case in federal court.
At the time, Kellum said, "No one should be forced to ask the government's permission to express their faith in a public space. The First Amendment is his permit. Like any citizen in any city in America, Mr. Giardino is free to peacefully share his religious beliefs on a public sidewalk."
The case challenged the constitutionality of the town's agenda. It's because the town rule regulating "demonstrations" is written vaguely enough to allow officials to claim that a man holding a sign is, in fact, a demonstration.
It accused the town of violating the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution as well as the state's Religious Freedom Act.
The case filing charged, "Through signs, Giardino can convey his message without causing anyone to stop or speak with him. Individuals in vehicles can read the statements on his sign as they drive by him. Giardino typically holds a sign in a public space for over one hour and in the late afternoon during rush hour and/or after schools have let students out, to maximize the number of people who can view the messaging on his sign. He does not use amplification or project his message orally to share his religious beliefs. He remains silent when he holds a sign, only speaking with individuals who approach him for conversation."
The filing reveals Giardino tried to obtain relief from the town without legal action, but was told by one official the town believes its local requirement "supersedes the Constitution because it's a local ordinance."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Zohran Mamdani, making headlines as he leads candidates to be New York City's next mayor, daily is embroiled in controversy.
For issues such as his communist ideologies. He claims they're "democratic socialist," but he insists on supporting the "seizure of the means of production," the abolition of private property and centralization of the means of communication and transport in "the hands of the state."
And his own mother's description of him as "not an American at all."
And taking money from foreign supporters, which is illegal, and has now generated two criminal referrals against him.
A report at the Independent Sentinel said the Coolidge Reagan Foundation, a campaign finance watchdog, filed the referrals claiming Mamdani got illegal cash from foreigners.
The report said the campaign claimed those issues were resolved.
But still there remain questions about some $13,000 he got from 170 donors "from outside the U.S.," the report said.
"These are not isolated incidents or clerical errors," charged Dan Backer, of the foundation.
He told Fox News Digital, "This was a sustained pattern of foreign money flowing into a New York City mayoral race which is a clear violation of both federal law and New York City campaign finance rules. Mamdani's campaign was on notice for months that it was accepting illegal foreign contributions, and yet it did nothing meaningful to stop it."
Mamdani's campaign claimed 31 donors have "proven" their citizenship while the other 139 have had donations refunded.
The accusations charge that the campaign may have violated the Federal Election Campaign Act, under which foreigners are not allowed to support with their cash U.S. election candidates.
Backer said, "The law is crystal clear that foreign nationals may not participate in American elections, and that includes making contributions. Yet Mamdani's campaign repeatedly accepted donations from individuals abroad."
A Fox News report said the donations totaling about $13,000 from outsiders had been confirmed through a review of finance reports just days ago.
CRF sent the criminal referrals to Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg this week.
The referral seeks an investigation into possible violations of federal law.
When the campaign insisted it was returning illegal donations, the foundation charged that "returning questionable donations doesn't cure the violation."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A woman in Columbine Valley, Colorado, just south of Denver, has beaten a citation delivered by a traffic-camera-citing cop with her own indisputable evidence. And she got a congratulations from the police chief for her detective work, but still hasn't gotten an apology for the wrongful accusation.
The charge against Chrisanna Elser came from Officer Jamie Milliman, of the Columbine Valley Police Department.
He was so overconfident that his tracking of Elser's vehicle on traffic cameras proved his case he refused to show her the video evidence.
"You have not been honest with me, so I'm not going to extend you any courtesy of showing you a video when I don't need to," he snarked at her.
She then spent days collecting evidence, mailed it to the chief, Bret Cottrell, who responded via email: "After reviewing the evidence you have provided (nicely done btw), we have voided the summons we issued."
The officer had claimed to Elser that a conviction was a "lock" because he doesn't "make stuff up."
According to the Colorado Sun, the officer's wrongful allegations were based on Flock cameras, which record traffic, and Ring doorbell cameras.
Milliman had accused Elser of stealing a $25 package from a doorstep in nearby Bow Mar.
"You know we have cameras in that town. You can't get a breath of fresh air in or out of that place without us knowing," Milliman boasted.
According to the Colorado Sun, the officer's wrongful allegations were based on Flock cameras, which record traffic, and Ring doorbell cameras.
Milliman had accused Elser of stealing a $25 package from a doorstep in nearby Bow Mar.
"You know we have cameras in that town. You can't get a breath of fresh air in or out of that place without us knowing," Milliman boasted.
Elser, fighting the obstinacy of the officer, assembled snapshots from her Google timeline, a phone tool that tracks her stops, statements from people she met that day, and more. She collected surveillance images from the locations she stopped. And dashboard video from her car.
Flock is one of the big spy camera operations in the country, providing its "evidence" to multiple police agencies. However, civil liberties advocates argue its operations threaten privacy and can be abused.
She eventually obtained access to the victim's doorbell camera, which showed the thief running away, not getting into her vehicle.
She said problems, after her exoneration, still are alarming. "We had to basically exonerate ourselves," she charged. "It's fortunate that we have our own footage to fight back something like this.
"It's a little upsetting that everyone knows that the answer to be, you are innocent until proven guilty. It seemed to be the other way around that it was guilty until you prove yourself innocent," she warned.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Hundreds of "noncitizens" who allegedly registered to vote, or even voted, in Ohio elections have been referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced he has found more than 1,000 noncitizens who "appear to have registered to vote unlawfully in Ohio," and all of them, 1,084 individuals, have been sent to the DOJ to face prosecution.
"Ohio has earned its reputation as the Gold Standard, and our Election Integrity Unit continues to prove why," he told Fox News Digital. "We work tirelessly to ensure that every eligible voter's voice is heard, and anyone who tries to cheat the system will face serious consequences."
He noted 167 of the individuals appear to have actually cast a ballot in a federal election, and there were 135 others referred for "other unlawful voting activity." Some of those allegedly voted in two locations in Ohio, or in two states, in the same election. Several appear to have voted "after the date of their death."
The work is part of LaRose's plan to clean up Ohio's voter rolls, launched before the 2024 vote.
Part of that work included his lawsuit against Joe Biden because of his administration's refusal to provide data that could have back then helped identify those in various schemes.
The report explained his office also took more than 155,000 names on voter registration rolls because they were abandoned or inactive.
The report explained the names came up when investigators cross-checked lists provided by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Department of Homeland Security's Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, the Social Security records and more.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
When the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, accused President Donald Trump of felonies in a so-called hush money case, the judge, Juan Merchan, censored Trump's statements about the case. He allowed prosecutors to leave a vague "secondary" crime claim in place without any specifics. He delivered pro-prosecution jury instructions which seemed to allow a verdict without unanimity.
And all the while, Merchan's daughter was making money advising Democrats on issues that could include her father's courtroom rulings.
Now the president is appealing, with his lawyers explaining the Supreme Court's immunity ruling means prosecutors should not have been allowed to say some of the things they claimed about Trump.
The Washington Examiner reports Trump's legal team confirmed the Supreme Court's decision on immunity "means prosecutors should have been barred from using evidence connected to Trump's 'official' acts as president in the case against him."
"Trump also urged a federal appeals court to transfer the New York state criminal case to federal court. It's similar to the president's move over the summer, when his lawyers urged a federal appeals panel to move the hush money case. Such a change could open up the pathway for the Supreme Court to hear the case, which could be friendlier territory for the president, as the court has ruled largely in his favor on presidential immunity," the report explained.
It was in 2024 that a jury in leftist-majority Manhattan said he was guilty of falsifying records dealing with a payment to onetime porn star Stormy Daniels, 34 counts total.
The errors made in the trial court, however, mean the conviction should be scrapped, the report said.
Merchan, a donor to a Democrat cause, in fact, barred some of Trump's defense evidence, including statements that appeared to exonerate him from Daniels herself, censored Trump's speech, delivered pro-prosecution instructions, and more.
"One of the mistakes some legal critics believe was committed during the trial involved allegations that the New York district attorney's office, led by Alvin Bragg, never committed itself to what the second crime was. Rather, his office theorized that the crime could have been a New York tax violation, a federal campaign finance violation, or a New York election law violation," the report explained.
The law violation brought by Bragg is a two-part crime, meaning it depends on violation of another statute, and the prosecution never clarified that. That means some members of the jury may have assumed one law, or another, leaving their verdict not unanimous.
"The court permitted the jury to convict if some jurors believed only that President Trump had conspired to violate FECA, while others believed only that he had conspired to help others commit tax fraud, and still others believed only that he had conspired to help others make false statements to a bank," appeals court filings said. "Due process and Section 17-152 do not permit a conviction based on such a haphazard 'combination of jury findings.'"
At sentencing, Merchan spent seven minutes complaining that he was limited in his sentencing, then gave Trump an unconditional discharge, allowing for no fines, jail or probation while continuing the felony convictions.
Merchan, whose daughter is a consultant who was making money off of her father's multiple rulings against Trump, claimed "extraordinary" legal protections handed to the president of the United States required him to hand down a minor sentence that Trump would allegedly not have received without being reelected.
"While one can argue that the trial itself was in many respects somewhat ordinary, the same cannot be said about the circumstances surrounding this sentencing and that is because of the office [Trump] once occupied, and which you will soon occupy again," Merchan told the president-elect. "To be sure, it is the legal protections afforded to the office of the president of the United States that are extraordinary, not the occupant of the office. The legal protections, especially within the context of a criminal prosecution, afforded to the office of the president have been laid out by our founders, the Constitution and most recently interpreted by the United States Supreme Court in the matter of Trump versus the United States, which was decided on July 1, 2024.
"As with every other defendant in your position, it is my obligation to consider any and all aggravating and mitigating factors to inform my decision … The considerable, indeed, extraordinary legal protections afforded by the office of the chief executive, is a factor that overrides all others," the judge continued.
Merchan, in extraordinary fashion, allowed a wide range of inflammatory testimony to come into his courtroom against Trump. The substance of the complaint was that Bragg claimed a $130,000 non-disclosure agreement with former porn actress Stormy Daniels, paid through Trump's then-lawyer as legal fees, were not legal fees. Bragg claimed that calling legal fees legal fees was "falsifying business records."
A long list of legal experts charged that the case never should have been created by Bragg. Merchan, in fact, inexplicably told the jurors their verdict didn't have to be unanimous.
The payment was for Daniels' silence about an alleged affair, which Trump has confirmed never happened. Trump said the payments were part of a standard legal retainer and denied knowing of any unlawful scheme.
The "offenses" actually were misdemeanors until Bragg theorized they were part of the furtherance of another, unidentified, crime, and that made them felonies. Experts called Bragg's machinations "legally creative."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The state of Texas is suing the makers of Tylenol for withholding information the drug maker had about the product's possible links to autism, links that long had been known by the company.
President Donald Trump earlier advised pregnant women not to take Tylenol because of the possible side effect – autism for the new child.
And Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been working on the problem.
Now a report from USA today confirmed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the legal action against Kenvue, which makes the over-the-counter painkiller.
The claim is that the company failed to warn consumers about the risks involved when a pregnant woman takes the drug.
Paxton, in a statement, suggested the makers were "deceptively marketing Tylenol to pregnant mothers despite knowing that early exposure to acetaminophen, Tylenol's only active ingredient, leads to a significantly increased risk of autism and other disorders."
He charged, "These corporations lied for decades, knowingly endangering millions to line their pockets. Additionally, seeing that the day of reckoning was coming, Johnson & Johnson attempted to escape responsibility by illegally offloading their liability onto a different company. By holding Big Pharma accountable for poisoning our people, we will help Make America Healthy Again"
According to a report at Courthousenews, the lawsuit comes just a month after the Trump administration linked autism to mothers taking Tylenol, which uses acetaminophen as its active ingredient.
The Paxton complaint was filed in Panola County district court.
"The state claims scientific evidence shows use of Tylenol during pregnancy and in early childhood can cause conditions like autism and ADHD and that Kenvue and Johnson & Johnson knowingly covered up the risks," the report said.
The Supreme Court is likely to limit the scope of a landmark civil rights law that has long boosted Democratic representation in the House of Representatives, with Republicans set to gain potentially 12 seats or more, the Hill reported.
The case centers on a map in Louisiana that was redrawn to create an additional district where black voters can elect their preferred candidate. White voters in the state say the new map illegally discriminates on the basis of race, an argument that the conservative majority appears to be receptive towards.
When the Supreme Court teed up a rare second round of arguments, it was widely seen as a signal that big changes were forthcoming.
The case centers on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states to devise majority-minority districts to protect the voting power of racial minorities.
During the second round of arguments this month, Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that race-based redistricting should eventually be phased out, echoing the court's reasoning for striking down affirmative action in college admissions.
“This Court’s cases in a variety of contexts have said that race-based remedies are permissible for a period of time, sometimes for a long period of time, decades in some cases,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. "But that they should not be indefinite and should have a end point.”
Similarly, Justice Neil Gorsuch sounded skeptical that states may “intentionally discriminate on the basis of race" to fulfill Voting Rights Act requirements.
The Supreme Court has limited the Voting Rights Act before, previously striking down a federal preclearance requirement limiting the freedom of states and localities to change voting practices.
Two of the court's conservatives, Justice Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts, seemed to breathe new life into the Voting Rights Act two years ago when they sided with the liberal wing in a controversy out of Alabama. But Roberts has also signaled that his decision-making in that case does not control how he will vote on the matter in Louisiana.
Long seen as the court's swing vote, Roberts has been a skeptic of racial formulas for years, writing in a 2006 case, “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race."
While the Voting Rights Act's advocates say it is critical to an inclusive democracy, critics of the law argue it has resulted in new forms of discrimination with no end in sight, leaving courts with a complicated legal mess to sort through. There is a sense that the justices would like to be rid of the "sordid business" once and for all.
Following this month's arguments, Louisiana's attorney general Liz Murrill (R) said the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on the Voting Rights Act is confusing even to the justices themselves.
The court, she said, has to “make some sense” of its own Section 2 precedents.
"And what we heard today is that that’s really hard — even for them,” she added.
To many, the question seems to be not whether the conservative majority will rein in race-based redistricting, but how far they will go.
A New York Times analysis predicts that Republicans across the South could gain over a dozen congressional seats if Section 2 is curtailed. Some liberal groups estimate as many as 19 new Republican districts.
“This case will test whether the arc of our universe still bends toward justice — or whether it has bent back upon itself,” Alanah Odoms, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, said in a statement.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Media corporations across America long have opposed, privately and publicly, President Donald Trump. Negative stories? Every day. Reports on his successes? A rarity.
But now a federal appeals court has cleared the path for a lawsuit brought by Trump over a last-minute polling before the 2024 election that exhibited a lot of suspicious factors, and it literally tried to give a huge boost to failed Democrat nominee Kamala Harris.
The polling was done by J. Ann Selzer for The Des Moines Register, and claimed Harris held a three-point edge over Trump in Iowa, 47% to 44%.
It was pushed to the headlines just two days before the election.
And it was a "stunning" reversal from shortly before, when Trump was confirmed to have a four-point lead.
According to a documentation from Americafirstreport.com, "Released just days before voters headed to the polls, the numbers lit up cable news and social media, painting a false picture of momentum for the Democratic ticket in a reliably red stronghold. In reality, Trump crushed Harris by more than 13 points, his widest margin in Iowa yet and the biggest Republican presidential win there since Ronald Reagan's era."
Trumps court filing in Polk County District Court charged that the defendants, Selzer, the Register and others, of "brazen election interference" through a "leaked and manipulated" poll intended to sway undecided voters.
"The complaint lays out a pattern of suspicious shifts: sample sizes skewed toward urban areas, questionable weighting that favored younger and minority respondents, and a sudden leak to friendly outlets that amplified the Harris lead without scrutiny," the report said.
Now the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has cleared the way for the defamation lawsuit to proceed in state court.
"This move strips away what Trump's lawyers called a shield of 'unlawful gamesmanship' by the defendants, forcing them to face accountability where the wrongs took place," the report said.
The report pointed out that the huge fail by Selzer, who strangely decided to abandon polling days after this was released, "smacks of something more coordinated, especially given the timing and the media echo chamber that treated it as gospel despite her spotted track record…"
The report noted, "Her polls have always tended to favor whoever she personally supports."
The defendants had tried to move the case from state to federal court, but Trump's lawyers argued that the federal venue move was a delay tactic as state law governed the claims.
The 8th Circuit agreed.
The report noted this case, ultimately, "could crack open doors to similar suits against pollsters nationwide reminding the press that free speech doesn't license fraud."