This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Conservative states are dominating a list of the best locations for families, a new study profiled by the Washington Stand confirms.
It is the 2025 Family Structure Index that ranks all 50 states based on three variables: "the percentage of married adults between the ages of 25 to 54, the average number of lifetime births per woman, and the percentage of children aged 15 to 17 who are living with their married parents," the report explained.
Brad Wilcox, professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and a fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, said the results follow closely conservative political beliefs.
The top 10 states are: Utah, Idaho, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Kansas, North Dakota, Iowa, Texas, and Minnesota.
Minnesota is the only outlier in the list of states that regularly are among the most conservative in the nation.
The report said Utah has the highest rating on two of the three factors, the marriage rate and the percentage of intact families.
The report noted that no state actually met the birthrate replacement level of 2.1, but South Dakota was the closest at 2.01.
At the other end of the scale were the states: Illinois, Oregon, Louisiana, California, Vermont, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, New Mexico, and Rhode Island, all regular actors in the race to be the most liberal state.
The report explained Vermont has the lowest fertility rate of 1.35, and New Mexico has the lowest percentage of married adults, at 49.5%.
There actually are 17 states where the majority of teens are raised in broken or single-parent homes, and Louisiana leads that as only 35.9% of teens there live with his or her own parents.
Aaron Baer, chief of the Center for Christian Virtue, which sponsors the study by the Institute for Family Studies, told the Washington Stand, "At the root of what is hurting our communities is broken families."
The center's own report found that there are "devastating realities about the challenges our children face."
Revealed was that areas with "fewer intact families experienced more violence," the report said.
Localities where two out of three children are raised outside of wedlock have 12 times the level of violent crime as areas where large numbers of teens live with their parents, the report said. And, the report noted, graduation rates follow the shares of married parents.
The Institute for Family Studies study's data prove that "family structure is a key driver of economic well-being, and our state is failing to provide the conditions for strong, stable marriages and families," Michael Geer, president of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, told The Washington Stand.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Terrorists destroyed three buses in Israel on Thursday, but there apparently were no casualties because the bomb timers were set to go off when no one was aboard.
A report from the Daily Mail said footage showed smoke rising into the sky while the vehicles burned.
Israeli officials labeled the episode a "suspected terror attack" that happened about 9 p.m. local time.
They said bombs also were found on other buses, and they were searching for suspects.
A defense official explained the timers on the bombs that exploded were set for 9 p.m., instead of 9 a.m., when "hundreds" of people could have been aboard.
A spokesman said: "These are identical explosive devices with a timer. Three have detonated, and two additional ones have been located and are currently being neutralized."
The report said a branch of Hamas reportedly has 'hinted" at responsibility.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately called for a security meeting to review the attack.
Images from the scene showed smoke into the sky, and only the skeleton of the buses remaining.
Local media was confirming that Israeli Transport Minister Miri Regev stopped all buses, trains, and light rail trains in order to check for possible explosive devices.
And Defense Minister Israel Katz revealed the IDF has been instructed the increase its counterterrorism work.
"We will hunt down the terrorists to the bitter end and destroy the terror infrastructure in the camps used as frontline posts of the Iranian evil axis," one official warned.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald's Trump's pick to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has re-installed science into the federal agency.
In new guidance that was released this week – his first in his new assignment after confirmation by the U.S. Senate – Kennedy made clear that human life begins at conception and that there are only two biological sexes – male and female.
Those statement simply were censored under the administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Mat Staver, chief of Liberty Counsel which often has fought in court on behalf of life and common sense on those disputes, said, "Reality and sound science have long confirmed that life begins at conception and that biological human sex is immutable. This commonsense guidance allows a return to sound governance based on fact, not fiction. Radical gender ideology must be completely rooted out from government to fully protect the health, safety, and fairness of women and children."
Two of Biden's biggest goals were to install abortion in all portions of society around the globe and promote the LGBT lifestyle choices, especially the unscientific transgender agenda, everywhere he could.
In one of the first actions RFK Jr. took, he implemented in part Trump's efforts to eliminate "false" gender ideology throughout the government's executive branch.
"The guidance informs all federal agencies, the government's external partners, and the public that the 'immutable' nature of human sex is genetically determined at conception. By recognizing binary sex as 'objective biology,' the government can then help protect the health and safety of women and children, the HHS stated," according to the report.
Kennedy explained that he, as part of the Trump administration, and others are working to bring back "common sense and restoring biological truth to the federal government."
He charged, "The prior administration's policy of trying to engineer gender ideology into every aspect of public life is over."
The HHS guidance followed Trump's executive order titled, "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government."
That tells the HHS to provide the public "clear guidance" on sex-based definitions stipulating that "sex" is strictly a "biological classification as either male or female" and "not a synonym" for the concept of gender identity.
The guidance states that sex is "a person's immutable biological classification as either male or female."
A female, the science confirms, "is a person of the sex characterized by a reproductive system with the biological function of producing eggs (ova)," while a male is "is a person of the sex characterized by a reproductive system with the biological function of producing sperm."
Biden's administration wildly tried to install the transgender ideology throughout the nation by claiming it could redefine the word "sex" as it was used in nondiscrimination laws from 50 years ago to include "gender" ideologies. The Biden argument was that lawmakers in the 1960s and 1070s when many nondiscrimination laws were written actually meant "gender" when they wrote "sex."
"Restoring biological truth to the Federal government is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself," the HHS stated.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Joe Biden, while in the White House, attacked America's energy in multiple ways: Canceling pipelines, limiting exports, banning exploration and drilling.
The result wasn't hard to predict. Gasoline prices for consumers exploded to as high as $6 and $7 a gallon at times, contributing to the massive inflation Americans suffered under his Democratic regime.
President Donald Trump wants to change that.
And one of his plans is to work to cut taxes on domestic oil products, lowering their costs.
The Daily Mail reports there's still instability in the world market for energy, so Trump plans to work with Republicans in Congress to lower taxes for individuals and companies.
"The national average price for a regular gas in the U.S. Thursday morning sat at $3.165 per gallon, according to AAA. This is up from $3.160 last week and $3.125 a month prior. The most expensive state for gas in the country, California, has an average price of $4.849 per gallon," the report said.
But those prices ranged in the low to mid $2 range when Trump last was in the White House.
Trump has promised to work on the "largest tax cuts" in U.S. history, and some details already have been released, including that he wants to eliminate taxes on tips, Social Security and overtime.
He also said, for business, he wants to allow 100% expensing for new factory construction, and a reduction in prices for the production of domestic iol and gas.
He has not yet offered details on cuts to reduce the cost of domestic oil and gas, but he also said he wants to refill the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which Biden drained to try to lower fuel prices as the election approached.
"The world runs on low-cost energy, and energy-producing nations like us have nothing to apologize for," Trump said. "We have more energy than any other nation in the world, and we're going to use it."
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It seemed to take only seconds. And it probably was no more than minutes. But when the Senate on Thursday approved Kash Patel, President Donald Trump's nominee to head the FBI, one recurring message appeared on social media:
"Deep State is COOKED!"
Or another way, "Deep State's days are over."
Democrats long have expressed vigorous opposition to Patel's nomination to the point it bordered on what appeared to be fear.
After all, Patel already is on record criticizing the bureau. And he was a key investigator that uncovered the false claims of the Democrats' "Russiagate" scandal that involved the FBI during Trump's first term.
Ranking Member Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., claimed Patel's confirmation would be "inviting a political disaster," and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., issued a kind of threat, telling his GOP colleagues, "Mark my words, this Patel guy will come back to haunt you."
Durbin had claimed he had been told that Patel already was directing a "purge of career civil servants" at the FBI.
Patel's spokeswoman pointed out that was sourced by the media with "anonymous" informers and "second-hand gossip."
Durbin also had argued, unsuccessfully, that Patel didn't' have "the temperament" for the position.
But Patel also declined to explicitly promise he would not investigate possible criminal activity among former officials who have been critical of Trump.
This after Democrats spent much of Trump's first term, and the four years he was out of office, creating a long list of lawfare cases against Trump, which now have fallen by the wayside.
Some of them obviously were pushed by politics, such as the armed FBI raid on Trump's home in a dispute over presidential records over which his team already was negotiating. Coincidentally, Joe Biden also was found to have government records in his possession, but prosecutors gave him a pass.
Patel did confirm he's dedicated to restoring the public's trust in an agency that harbored anti-Trump activists who claimed they had an insurance policy to prevent Trump from becoming president in 2017.
Patel, a lawyer, worked briefly served in the Justice Department during the Obama administration, then worked in the U.S. House. He was senior counsel to former Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., in the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 and 2018.
He is credited with work debunking the FBI's Russia investigation and writing a memo that explained missteps at the bureau.
He later held positions in Trump's first administration.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The presidency of Donald Trump is developing into a constitutional crisis, as claimed by Democrats all across Washington. But it's because judges are inserting themselves into the power the Constitution gives to the executive branch, not because of anything being undertaken by Trump.
And one of the most egregious, "Frankensteinian," campaigns is being undertaken by those judges who are demanding that the government continue funding the body mutilations on children of the transgender ideology.
That's according to Tyler O'Neil, the senior editor at the Daily Signal, who said in a commentary, "Activists use the gaslighting term 'gender-affirming care' to hide the ugly truth. In the name of medicine, doctors are altering the chemistry of boys and girls to prevent them from undergoing the natural process of puberty. They're using the very same drugs that prisons use to chemically castrate sexual offenders and they're calling it 'care.'"
He followed with an explanation of the drugs used, "Gonadatropin-releasing hormone agonists," which former Food and Drug Administration commissioner on policy and drug safety adviser David Gortler explained are used to help treat certain cancers that depend on estrogen or testosterone.
"Removing estrogen and testosterone from cancer patients to prolong their lives makes sense. But giving these drugs to physiologically and genetically healthy kids is a completely different story," the commentary noted.
He said what's stunning that Democrat attorneys' general sued to keep using the drugs that harm children, and "judges ordered the administration to keep funding these Frankensteinian 'treatments.'"
Gortler cited an FDA database that showed 2,510 children 14 and younger have documented while taking those drugs, "hallucinations, bone disorders, cardiac arrest, abdominal pain, a clot in the heart, seizures, blindness, and more."
"Horrifyingly, the database included 30 records noting the death of a minor between zero and 14 where a 'puberty blocker' was the primary suspect drug," O'Neil reported.
Gortler has charged that the Joe Biden White House was "selectively turning a blind eye" to the dangers, even though the drugs are "objectively unsafe."
O'Neil's publication already documented that a top FDA official admitted the drugs are associated with a higher risk of suicidal thoughts.
A step beyond the chemicals, he noted, is "the most controversial and grotesque aspect of gender-affirming care, the Frankensteinian rejection of biological sex via the surgical removal of sex organs and the attempt to replace them with facsimiles of the organs of the opposite sex."
He noted even advocates admit there's no definitive research proving such mutilations "have positive outcomes." And a vast majority, 72%, of Americans want to outlaw the activities.
The current situation is that Trump issued an executive order declaring his administration will operate on the basis that biological sex overrides vague "gender identity" ideologies.
"This means the U.S. government will no longer endorse the ideology that says it's good to mutilate a child's body to make it appear like the opposite sex."
It's worse, however, because Democrats now are trying to force taxpayers to fund "these transgender atrocities with Americans' tax dollars."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
President Donald Trump's inspection of all of American government to root out wasteful spending, fraud and even criminal behavior has resulted in confirmation from the Department of Energy that its officials have eliminated $124 million in "wasteful" spending.
That was what was being spent on "ridiculously expensive" subscriptions and more.
A report from Fox News explained that department spokesman Ben Dietderich told the network in an interview that the total of $124 million included, "millions of dollars of DEI contracts to ridiculously expensive multi-million-dollar Politico news subscriptions" and other nonessential line items.
He pointed out, "We are just getting started."
Some identified expenditures already have been obligated, so there will be an "immediate" savings of about $65 million.
But there will be "more to come in the coming months and years," he said.
"President Trump and Secretary [Chris] Wright are fully committed to making government more accountable, efficient, and restoring proper stewardship of the American taxpayer's dollars."
He said the cuts so far come from "needless expenditures."
He charged that the corrections are coming after Joe Biden's failed leadership.
"The previous administration was not a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars: In just four years, the Biden administration expanded the Department of Energy's federal workforce by more than 20% – adding more than 3,000 federal employee positions," he said. "In the last year alone, the Biden administration increased the size of the Energy Department federal workforce with 1,000 new employees. Delivering on President Trump's mandate supported by more than 77 million Americans, the Energy Department began last week dismissing a portion of recently hired federal employees classified in the federal government as 'probationary employees.'"
Wright also said, according to the report, that the Biden administration's Green New Deal is in the process of being "killed off" as Trump's plan is to lower energy and oil costs for Americans.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The acting U.S. Attorney in Washington already had confirmed plans to review threatening words by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to members of the Supreme Court.
Schumer had said, if they did not vote the way he wanted on an abortion case, "You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price! You won't know what hit you!"
A report from the Gateway Pundit reveals that the prosecutor, Ed Martin, now is adding Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., to the investigation because he advocated for bringing "real weapons" to be used against Elon Musk, who heads President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency.
The report explained Martin's "Operation Whirlwind" is a "sweeping investigation into Democrats who have made inflammatory statements that could be construed as threats against public officials."
Martin has made his plan clear: "Our initial review of the evidence presented to us indicates that certain individuals and/or groups have committed acts that appear to violate the law in targeting DOGE employees. We are in contact with the FBI and other law enforcement partners to proceed rapidly. We also have our prosecutors preparing."
The report noted the "reckless statements" by both Schumer and Garcia now are under review.
Garcia's comments came in an interview on CNN when he said that Musk is "harming the American public in an enormous way."
He added, "What the American public wants is for us to bring actual weapons against Elon Musk to this bar fight. This an actual fight for democracy, for the future of this country."
That prompted Martin to write that he would like Garcia to explain what "sounds to some like a threat to Mr. Musk – an appointed representative of President Donald Trump who you call a 'd—' – and government staff who work for him. Their concerns have led to this inquiry."
Martin explained to Garica that "threats against public officials" are taken "very seriously."
"I look forward to your cooperation with my letter of inquiry after request. Thank you in advance for your assistance. Please respond by February 24, 2025. Should you have further questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to call my office or schedule a time to meet in person."
Schumer's comments came during a pro-abortion rally at the Supreme Court.
He named Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh and said, "You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price! You won't know what hit you!"
At the time, Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked Schumer for his "dangerous" and "irresponsible" comments.
The report said now Martin's team is even looking into whether Schumer's rhetoric contributed to the attempt assassination of Kavanaugh when a left-wing activist was caught outside the justice's home, armed with weapons.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A new executive order from President Donald Trump, among the latest in his long list of dozens of actions he's taken to protect America from illegal aliens and the transgender ideology and to cut government waste and fraud, puts a bull's-eye on the taxpayer money being used to "incentivize or support" illegal immigration.
The idea is to make certain "taxpayer resources are used to protect the interests of American citizens, not illegal aliens," said the order, which also cited statistics from the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
That group said American taxpayers are being forced to pay at least $182 billion a year to cover the expenses of 20 million illegal aliens and their children, including more than $66 billion in federal expenses and $115 billion paid by states and local governments.
Further, the Center for Immigration Studies reported 1 million illegal aliens could cost American taxpayers $3 billion a year through welfare programs to which they are not supposed to have access under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.
But illegal aliens who are granted parole become "qualified aliens," allowing access to various benefits.
Further, the Congressional Budget Office reported federal and state taxpayers handed over more than $16.2 billion to give Medicaid-funded emergency services to illegal aliens.
A report from the Washington Examiner said the order directs all federal agencies and departments to identify benefits funded by taxpayers that illegal immigrants get and "take corrective action."
Eligibility verification also will be stepped up to block benefits being distributed to those in the nation illegally.
The U.S. House Homeland Security Committee reported earlier that illegal aliens have drained some $450 billion from public funds over the past four or five years, and FEMA has delivered more than $1 billion to illegals over the say time period.
"My administration will uphold the rule of law, defend against the waste of hard-earned taxpayer resources, and protect benefits for American citizens in need, including individuals with disabilities and veterans," Trump said.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
An organization of Catholic bishops that for years has taken American taxpayer money and provided services and benefits to "refugees" now has filed a lawsuit against President Trump for cutting off that money spigot.
It is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that sued over Trump's agenda to cut spending, eliminate waste and fraud, and even target any criminal activities in spending plans for the federal government.
The lawsuit in Washington names the State Department, the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Trump's spending reductions are part of his agenda, on which he campaigned and for which voters voted, to protect the United States first rather than funding efforts "that facilitate unchecked migration," according to the Gateway Pundit.
The bishops claim the freeze on funding, which deprives the organization of huge amounts of tax money, violates congressional appropriations and the Refugee Act of 1980.
The organization claims it for 80 years as helped "refugees" entering the United States to locate housing, learn English and find employment, and that its work is "an expression of charity taken in fulfillment of Christ's commandment to serve those in need, regardless of their race, creed, or color."
It charges that Congress has, in fact, "recognized" the need for refugee help and that is "essential to this country's interests."
The case talks about those qualified to apply for refugee status and how they are "screened,"
But then it insists that its work providing "domestic assistance" is a huge part of the overall U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, with Congress making it the "policy of the United States" to use taxpayer money for "resettlement."
The report said, "The USCCB's lawsuit hinges on the claim that the suspension of federal funds for refugee resettlement leaves thousands of refugees in limbo. But what these bishops fail to acknowledge is the utter disaster that Joe Biden's reckless immigration policies have created."
Under Biden's open borders practices, millions of illegal aliens entered the U.S. to become part of the population that often depends on public assistance for housing, food, and more.
The report said, "Under his administration, the southern border became a lawless free-for-all, allowing millions of unvetted illegal immigrants to flood into American communities, overwhelming law enforcement, hospitals, and schools. Trump's decision to pause this funding is a necessary step to clean up Biden's mess and reassess where taxpayer dollars are actually going. Instead of prioritizing illegal migrants, Trump's administration is focused on helping struggling American families, veterans, and homeless citizens—a fact that the liberal media and activist organizations conveniently ignore."
Trump has, in fact, ordered a halt to the entry of refugees and suspended taxpayer funding, until "a determination was made that resuming the program aligned with U.S. interests."