This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A Dominican national has pleaded guilty to U.S. charges of human smuggling that resulted in the death of a 3-year-old boy in Puerto Rico.

According to a statement from the Department of Justice, Alcibades De Paz, pleaded guilty to one count of bringing certain aliens into the U.S., and faces a possible term of life in prison if found guilty.

De Paz admitted he was a captain of a vessel illegally transporting individuals, which included the 3-year-old boy, from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico. While evading authorities with his co–conspirators, De Paz accelerated his vessel towards Puerto Rico, but capsized at the shoreline, which resulted in the death of the child.

The Extraterritorial Criminal Travel Strike Force program, which focuses on human smuggling networks that present national security concerns, headed the investigation alongside the DOJ's Criminal Division and the Department of Homeland Security.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri, head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division said the tragic events show the callousness of human smugglers.

"While smuggling migrants by boat to the United States, Alcibades De Paz attempted to evade law enforcement and sped toward the beach – a decision that resulted in the death of a 3-year-old child after the vessel capsized. This tragedy demonstrates human smugglers' callous disregard for human life. The Criminal Division is committed to combating human smugglers who prey upon vulnerable migrants," Argentieri said.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A doctor in Wyoming is pursuing a First Amendment lawsuit against Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon after the state's chief executive forced him off a health panel because of his private views about transgender body mutilations on children.

Ironically, state lawmakers adopted and the Republican governor himself signed into law the proposal, known as Chloe's Law, that was in dispute.

That law restricts physicians' abilities to perform gender reassignment surgeries on minors.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Answering ordinary questions such as "Who are you" or "What's your name" may seem trivial and mundane, but millions of people have little or no idea they're actually voicing the divine name of God when they utter the answers.

The fascinating subject was probed recently on the popular Bible TV show "Shabbat Night Live," as host Scott Laird interviewed Joe Kovacs, author of the new bestseller, "Reaching God Speed: Unlocking the Secret Broadcast Revealing the Mystery of Everything."  (See video of the show below.)

The pair investigated people's ultimate identity, and how every human being has a divine proclamation.

"Who are you? We all want to know who we are, our identity," explained Kovacs.

"And if somebody asks you, 'What's your name?' or 'Who are you?,' You would say 'I am Scott.' I would say, 'I am Joe.' It's a very simple thing, and everybody in the audience can insert their own name there. But the point is, that when you say your own identity, you are saying God's name first.

"Because you are saying, 'I am … whatever your name is.' You're saying God's name first because God has used that phrase, 'I AM' to identify Himself.

"'I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say … I AM has sent me to you. … This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation (Exodus 3:14-15 CSB).

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Citing the numbers of "knife crimes," authorities in one Western nation are vowing to crack down on the dangerous implements of destruction, much like political campaigns for years have blamed guns for crimes people commit with them.

It is Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, who has written at Gatestone Institute on the new scheming in Germany,

"There were 13,844 'knife crime' incidents in Germany in 2023, which the authorities are blaming on the existence of knives and not the perpetrators, who are reportedly mostly young Muslim men," he explained.

The dispute came to a climax when a Syrian Muslim refugee slashed the throats of several victims at the Festival of Diversity.

The immediate response was a government plan to ban more knives.

The column explained, "The ISIS terrorist was one of over a million migrants who had invaded Germany while claiming to be 'refugees.' The migrant was also one of the many scheduled to be deported, but was not. All that the Muslim terrorist had to do to evade deportation was leave government housing when the authorities came looking for him. And then when the military-age Arab Muslim migrant came back, the deportation order had expired and he couldn't be deported. Undeported Muslim refugees have been one of the largest sources of terrorism, crime and violence in Europe."

Three died and eight were wounded in the "Festival" attack, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised a response.

The column noted people in Germany now can carry knifes up to 4.7 inches long, and the proposal actually will limit blades to 2.4 inches.

"No one appears to have considered the possibility that Muslim terrorists on the way to killing as many infidels as possible might violate the law and carry a concealed knife of 4 inches or longer. Such thoughts are unthinkable," he noted.

Further, proposed are "knife-free" zones in certain locations.

The ideology parallels the arguments, and actions, that have been included in anti-gun campaigns, both in the U.S. and elsewhere in recent years.

And the move comes despite authorities admitting that "non-Germans" are "disproportionately represented" in knife crime statistics.

"Typical of this kind of violence was an altercation between two Arab Muslims, which ended with one of them stabbed in Magdeburg, migrants fighting with knives in a refugee center in Bavaria, and a litany of young foreign men confronting and stabbing each other all across Germany," the commentary said.

It's not even the only country pursuing such a political move, the report said.

"Creating 'knife-free' zones, limiting the length of knives that can be carried (except for newly purchased knives still in their plastic wrapping) and creating social media campaigns about the dangers of knives is the sort nonsense that the UK and other governments indulged in as a distraction from the reality of who is actually doing the stabbing (not to mention acid-throwing)," the report said.

He said the agenda is "much like the American liberal obsession with gun control."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The American Center for Law and Justice is stepping up its fight to protect kids in New York schools from pornography that leftist librarians are insisting on adding to their collections.

The organization has filed a petition in New York state court asking to overturn a decision from state education officials providing those books to children.

"As we explain in our petition, both federal and state laws emphasize the important role and compelling interest of public schools in protecting children from exposure to lewd and obscene content. Public schools and boards of education owe a duty of care to both parents and students to ensure that the curriculum and other materials provided to students are free of pornography and are age appropriate," the ACLJ reported.

"Parents should be able to trust that the books selected by their children's librarians do not contain pornography or sexually explicit material, excessive profanity, and other lewd or vulgar content."

This case is based on a dispute involving the Clyde-Savannah Central District school board, which first decided to take the sexually explicit books out, but then summarily restored them.

The ACLJ reported the school librarian and others had argued, "erroneously," that children are entitled to the sexually explicit content as a matter of law.

The legal team previously wrote to the district explaining the right thing to do would be to protect children from "these grossly inappropriate books – books containing extremely graphic accounts of sexual encounters between minors, as well as the rape of a minor child by an adult, and excessive profanity (one book contained more than 100 profanities)."

"In fact, the United States Supreme Court has made abundantly clear that schools have a compelling interest in protecting children from inappropriate and lewd content," the ACLJ reported. "Once more, the court has unanimously held that a school board maintains the right and the power to remove such content from its schools."

However, both state and local education officials took another course, claiming that schools have no duty to protect students, and the fight actually is over the "freedom" for students and teachers.

State officials claimed schools can put books in their library, "no matter how obscene or inappropriate they may be so that they can expose children to diverse views."

The issue has become such a problem that multiple states now are ending porn in library programs, and multiple groups have disaffiliated from the American Library Association for its promotion of offensive publications.

The report pointed out, "A 12-year-old can't just walk into a movie theater and watch an R-rated movie without parental permission, so why should it be controversial to apply the same standard in a school library?"

The report continued, "The First Amendment is crucially important in protecting free speech and the free exercise of religion, but it in no way protects a librarian's desire to expose children to sexually explicit content in school libraries, nor does it protect a student's right to access adult content. At no time has the U.S. Supreme Court held that the First Amendment protects the inclusion of this type of sexually explicit material in school libraries."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The names of those involved in a fight over church attendance aren't being released by the American Center for Law and Justice, apparently because the dispute was resolved through discussion and negotiation.

But it does mean that a man, an ACLJ client, how is able to resume attending church services on Sundays.

The legal team earlier had complained to his employer, a major pet food company, because he was being ordered to work on Sundays.

"Our client began working as a forklift operator at the manufacturing facility in 2018. Originally, he worked the night shift from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., making a religious accommodation to attend church unnecessary. Over time, however, the night shift took its toll on our client, and he opted for the day shift," the ACLJ said.

"The schedule implemented by his employer required all forklift operators, including our client, to work a Friday–Sunday shift every other week without exception. Accordingly, our client was being forced to miss church every other Sunday without reprieve. Upon learning of his rights under Title VII to request an accommodation, our client reached out to his supervisor to make such a request."

The company, however, initially responded with orders that he continue his assignment, and he could drain his personal time off for each Sunday that he wanted to attend.

Even a company determination that he could swap Sunday shifts with others did not resolve the conflict.

"Further, our client was also punished for his religious beliefs by being forced to drain his PTO or go without pay," the legal team said.

"Title VII requires employers to accommodate an employee's religious practice unless it would pose an 'undue hardship' on the employer. EEOC guidance also makes clear that 'employers may grant these accommodations for religious reasons but still refuse to grant them for secular reasons.'"

And, the report said, the Supreme Court has specified that an undue hardship happens "only where the request substantially interferes with the operations of the employer and/or results in excessive costs. Temporary costs, voluntary shift swapping, occasional shift swapping, or administrative costs do not rise to the level of undue hardship."

The result was that the company offered the worker a new position that does not require him to work on Sundays, the ACLJ said.

Further, the client "will receive a raise in pay and will not be forced to use PTO to cover his Sundays moving forward."

"This is a great victory for our client and a testament to the many brave employees who stand up and challenge the unlawful conduct of employers who discriminate against their religious beliefs," the organization said.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Kamala Harris, along with her "emotional support governor" VP candidate Tim Walz, sat down for an interview on CNN, and the results were as expected, according to an analysis by the Gateway Pundit."

It was her attempt, the article reported, "to hoodwink the American public."

Harris, who was installed as the Democrats nominee by fiat to replace an aging and failing Joe Biden, so far had refused to talk about her plans or policies, except for the one "price gouging" fight she proposed to address by using communist-style price controls.

"What unfolded was a masterclass in political double-speak, half-truths, and outright lies, all carefully curated to mislead voters," the analysis found.

She boasted her values hadn't changed, "And that's exactly the problem. Harris's values include support for mass amnesty for illegal immigrants, ending cash bail for criminals, decriminalizing illegal border crossings, banning fracking, and even abolishing private health insurance," the report said.

Here she is on flip-flopping her values:

On her opposition to help for children and families:

On her changing values:

One how good Bidenomics has been for the country, with its 20% plus inflation:

Longtime Democrat activist David Axelrod thought she didn't help herself much:

On the nation's economic "recovery" after the COVID-19 crisis:

And VP candidate Walza trying to explain:

Then, too, there's her demand to ban fracking:

Her perspective on inflation:

And how in her mind the Biden administration-created crisis on the southern border is all the fault of President Donald Trump:

Harris comments included, when confronted with her own statements demanding a ban of fracking:

"In 2020, I made very clear where I stand. We are in 2024, and I've not changed that position, nor will I going forward. I kept my word, and I will keep my word. … I believe it is very important that we take seriously what we must do to guard against what is a clear crisis in terms of the climate. And to do that, we can do what we have accomplished thus far, the Inflation Reduction Act, what we have done to invest by my calculation, over probably a trillion dollars over the next 10 years, investing in a clean energy economy. What we've already done, creating over 300,000 new clean energy jobs. That tells me, from my experience as Vice President, we can do it without banning fracking."

After the taped interview, Harris attended a rally, and wasn't quite up to delivering words to the audience:

"He even called for the termination of the United States supreme, the c—the supreme land of our nation! The United States Constitution!"

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The problems stemming from the rampant, unlimited invasion of illegal aliens across America's southern border, a result of the Biden-Harris administration decision to trash President Donald Trump's border security efforts, make up a long list.

There are the hundreds of billions of dollars taxpayers are spending to provide food, housing, schooling and such. There are jobs for Americans lost to newcomers. There is the possibility that they could skew an election, as there are locations that register them as they get driver's licenses and such.

Then there's the death toll from drugs that are smuggled, the sex trafficking that has developed, and violent criminals, even terrorists, who have infiltrated.

One such ramification has developed in Aurora, Colorado, where several apartment buildings essentially have been taken over by members of Venezuelan gangs.

Mayor Mike Coffman recently was interviewed, and confirmed the problem is a "federal problem."

It's because of criminals at come across the border, then are released into the U.S.

"We can't afford to surrender any part of the city," he said.

Colorado's governor, a far-left Democrat, Jared Polis, however, had another perspective on the crime facing Aurora apartment building residents who are being evacuated because of the threat: The problem is just someone's "imagination."

Fox reported Aurora City Council member Danielle Jurinsky responded to Polis after he said, in a statement from his office, "The governor has already let the mayor know that the state is ready to support the local police department with assistance from state troopers and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation if needed."

But, the statement said, "According to police intelligence this purported invasion is largely a feature of Danielle Jurinsky's imagination."

Jurinski responded with, "I am so disappointed."

Local reporting explains the gang members are part of Tren de Aragua, a notorious Venezuelan gang.

Jurinsky, in fact, has helped evacuate residents from apartment buildings where armed gangs have taken over, the report said.

"My question back to the governor is, is this also a figment of the Romeros' imagination? And the other resident that I helped to get out of there, and the other residents that I am going to continue to get out of there?" Jurinsky said.

The report cited reports that more than 40,000 migrants have arrived in the Denver area since December 2022. Denver is a so-called "sanctuary" city; Aurora is not. But they share a boundary.

"The situation is real but it also needs to be put into context so that the reputation of an entire city of over 400,000 residents is not adversely impacted by what has occurred in several isolated apartment buildings owned by the same out-of-state slum lord," Coffman told Fox News Digital.

Jurinsky added, "There are people behind this that are solely, playing politics. That is so sad to me because they're real human beings, just like the Romeros suffering on the other side of those doors, living behind four deadbolt locks and a door brace and living in fear every day in these complexes."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Texas just days ago confirmed that it has removed more than a million ineligible voters from its voter registration rolls.

And an election integrity watchdog now is pushing other states to address problems with their records as well.

The Washington Stand reports that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott confirmed "noncitizens, deceased voter and people who moved to another state" have been deleted.

That means they no longer can vote in Texas, short of a move back.

But with the November election not even three months away, J. Christian Adams of the Public Interest Legal Foundation wants other states to make at least the same effort.

Or else they could end up in court.

"[W]hat if these one million ineligible voters were not removed from the voter rolls in Texas?" he commented during an interview on Washington Watch. "I will tell you that that would be called Michigan. … [W]e've been in litigation against Michigan because Secretary [of State] Jocelyn Benson won't remove at least 2[7],000 dead voters from the voter rolls. … We're now in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals against her. … [That] 27,000 [number] was only looking at people over the age of 70. So if you died at the age of 40 or 50 or 55 or 60, even in Michigan, we wouldn't have necessarily made that part of our lawsuit. So it's clearly more than 27,000."

Adams explained Texas is among the leaders in "making sure that the elections are clean."

"For example, they have a law there that if you just go out and register voters, you have to get training, you have to get deputized, and you can't engage in bad conduct. And of course, the Left challenged this law in court, and it was upheld," he said.

Nor, he said during the interview, are there grounds for leftist talking points that pursuing election integrity is "voter suppression."

"I always like to point out that 'suppression' is a fake word — it's not in any federal law. It's a made-up word by the Left … to attempt to blend the legal with the illegal. So if you have voter ID [laws], it's 'voter suppression.' If you clean voter rolls, it's 'voter suppression.' And it sounds very nefarious, [but] it doesn't exist in the law. What does exist is intimidation, coercion, and threats. There's no such thing as voter suppression."

He continued, "[S]tates that are cleaning their voter rolls are following federal law. States have an obligation to follow federal law and have a reasonable maintenance program that removes the dead and people who moved away. And kudos to [states like] Texas, Florida, [and] Ohio that have good laws in place and good practices to make our elections secure."

The report explained Adams highlighted Nevada as a problem that remains.

"It breaks my heart to see how bad things have gotten in Nevada, because you have automatic mail voting … where everybody on the voter rolls, even if they don't ask, gets a ballot mailed to them at their last known address, and those ballots are going out by the hundreds of thousands without request. And what we have found is that Nevada has lots of commercial addresses where those ballots are going improperly — strip clubs, casinos, bars, vacant lots, liquor stores. A Sonic drive-in in Las Vegas had a purported registered voter. We visited these places. … And what we did is we sued Clark County and also Washoe County, which is Reno. But Clark thankfully took steps to fix this problem."

Colorado is another state where leftists have set up a system for mail voting, where ballots are dispatched en masse.

He said sending ballots to all, including those "not alive anymore" can push the voting outcome.

"You had a U.S. Senate race with Adam Laxalt [that] was decided by only 7,000 votes. In that same race, we knew that 95,000 ballots went unaccounted for. We don't know what happened to them. Garbage cans, dumpsters, whatever. And so it's just the wrong way to be picking leaders by automatically mailing ballots to every single person on the list," he said.

He pointed out that his organization has 19 active lawsuits over election integrity.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides vast protections, literal immunity, for web platforms for content users post to the software programs

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides vast protections, literal immunity, for web platforms for content users post to the software programs.

But a ruling from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals now has said that when those platforms PROMOTE users' speech, it becomes their own. And their responsibility could be vast.

The decision came in the case of Tawainna Anderson, as administrator for the estate of N.A., a deceased minor, against TikTok and its parent, Bytedance.

The court explained the dispute: "TikTok, Inc., via its algorithm, recommended and promoted videos posted by third parties to ten-year-old Nylah Anderson on her uniquely curated 'For You Page.' One video depicted the 'Blackout Challenge,' which encourages viewers to record themselves engaging in acts of self-asphyxiation. After watching the video, Nylah attempted the conduct depicted in the challenge and unintentionally hanged herself."

Her mother, Tawainna Anderson, sued and the district court dismissed her based on Section 230's protections for web corporations over what their users post.

The situation would have been different had the girl searched for and found with offending video on her own. But in this case, the company's algorithms found the video, identified it, and then promoted it to her, the ruling pointed out.

That makes it the company's speech, the ruling found.

"TikTok's recommendations via its FYP algorithm – is TikTok's expressive activity," the ruling said, so the Section 230 protection "does not bar Anderon's claims."

"We reach this conclusion specifically because TikTok's promotion of a Blackout Challenge video on Nylah's FYP was not contingent upon any specific user input. Had Nylah viewed a Blackout Challenge video through TikTok's search function, rather than through her FYP, then TikTok may be viewed more like a repository of third-party content than an affirmative promoter of such content. Given the type of algorithm alleged here, we need not address whether § 230 immunizes any information that may be communicated by the results of a user's search of a platform's content," the ruling said.

The case was returned to the district court for determinations on that claim, as well as "any claims not premised upon TikTok's algorithm."

A concurrence in the majority opinion turned blunt: "TikTok reads § 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, to permit casual indifference to the death of a ten-year-old girl. It is a position that has become popular among a host of purveyors of pornography, self-mutilation, and exploitation, one that smuggles constitutional conceptions of a 'free trade in ideas' into a digital 'cauldron of illicit loves' that leap and boils with no oversight, no accountability, no remedy. And a view that has found support in a surprising number of judicial opinions dating from the early days of dial-up to the modern era of algorithms, advertising, and apps. But it is not found in the words Congress wrote in § 230, in the context Congress acted, in the history of common carriage regulations, or the centuries of tradition informing the limited immunity from liability enjoyed by publishers and distributors of 'content.' As best understood, the ordinary meaning of § 230 provides TikTok immunity from suit for hosting videos created and uploaded by third parties. But it does not shield more, and Anderson's estate may seek relief for TikTok's knowing distribution and targeted recommendation of videos it knew could be harmful."

Those comments were from Circuit Judge Paul Matey.

The majority opinion said, "TikTok makes choices about the content recommended and promoted to specific users, and by doing so, is engaged in its first-party speech."

A report at Just the News noted, "In a footnote likely prompting meetings between engineers and in-house counsel across Silicon Valley and other tech-heavy metros, the three-judge panel emphasized that TikTok's recommendation to Nylah was 'not contingent upon any specific user input.'"

The report noted American Economic Liberties Project Research Director Matt Stoller opined that "It'll take a bit of time, but the business model of big tech is over."

President Obama nominee Judge Patty Shwartz wrote for the panel. Just the news explained she cited the Supreme Court, which ruled "algorithms that reflect 'editorial judgments' about compiling third-party content are First Amendment-protected 'expressive product[s].'"