This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The number of Americans who blame Kamala Harris for hiding Joe Biden's now-obvious mental decline from the American public for months, even years, is a stunning, way-beyond-supermajority, figure.

Ninety-two percent.

The New York Post reports that's the result of a poll of nearly 1,200 registered voters by YouGov/Times of London.

"The July 22 to 23 survey was in the field after President Biden renounced his re-election campaign but before he offered a halting delivery of what was effectively a farewell speech Wednesday night from the Oval Office," the report said.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

There's an entirely new hazard to being outdoors, following a windstorm that swept over one part of Montana.

Streams that might be electrified.

It's a danger, authorities warn, because of power lines that were blown down – and ended up in streams.

A report from Cowboy State Daily said winds reached 109 mph in the storm on Wednesday.

It was so strong it broke trees and "knocked potentially live power lines into the waterways."

Roads were clogged with debris.

The report said, "Emergency personnel are warning people to stay away from streams and other waterways, which may be electrified from downed power lines. They're also warning people to 'look up' to make sure breaking and dangling trees don't fall on them."

"Avoid waterways because there may be power lines in the water, and power and water don't mix very well," explained Nick Holloway, the coordinator for disaster and emergency services in Missoula County.

The storm damage was localized, according to Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Confiscating Americans' firearms, by force, is one of the ideologies that Kamala Harris has supported.

"We have to have a buyback program, and I support a mandatory buyback program," she has affirmed.

It's just one of the wilder components of what she wants for America, others to include a ban on fracking, changing guidelines to suppress the availability of red meat to consumers, a ban on offshore explorations, to legalize illegal aliens, to abolish ICE, and let convicted murderers and terrorists have the vote.

Her positions are available in video in a new ad launched by Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick, whose posting notes that his opponent, Sen. Bob Casey, is endorsing the "policies of presumptive Democratic president nominee Kamala Harris."

Casey is on the video stating, "Kamala Harris is inspiring and very capable, the more people get to know her they're going to be particularly impressed by her ability."

The ad, which has been seen millions of times already, although it's not yet days old, then includes video of Harris and her wilder ideas.

A report at Fox News explains that conservatives are praising the "blistering" video.

The report noted journalist Mairead Elordi said on social media, "Wow."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A new report at the Gateway Pundit charges that the security for President Donald Trump's rally in Pennsylvania last weekend, in which a sniper tried to kill him, was a "setup," since most of the security officers there were replacements and not even Secret Service members.

The report noted Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has written to Alejandro Mayorkas, Joe Biden's homeland security secretary, demanding answers about the situation.

Hawley confirmed whistleblowers had notified him "that a majority of the security officials working the rally last weekend were not even Secret Service personnel but were with the Homeland Security Investigations team…"

Other reports revealed that the Secret Service was shorthanded that weekend because of commitments to provide security to Joe Biden and Jill Biden, who were at separate events.

The senator explained to Mayorkas, "I write to raise concerns brought to me by whistleblowers about your department's stunning failure to protect former President Trump on July 13, 2024. As Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), you are ultimately responsible for your agency and its components, including the U.S. Secret Service."

He said, "Whistleblowers who have direct knowledge of the event have approached my office. According to the allegations, the July 13 rally was considered to be a 'loose' security event. For example, detection canines were not used to monitor entry and detect threats in the usual manner. Individuals without proper designations were able to gain access to backstage areas. Department personnel did not appropriately police the security buffer around the podium and were also not stationed at regular intervals around the event's security perimeter."

He further charged insiders confirmed the agents there were not Secret Service but from Home Security.

"This is especially concerning given that HIS agents were unfamiliar with standard protocols typically used at these types of events…"

Hawley wants to know how did DHS determine its staffing for the rally, what percentage of the agents were Secret Service, or not, were those agents properly trained and were there gaps in the security perimeter.

The gunman took a ladder, gun and ammunition, climbed atop a building only about 100 yards away from the podium with a line of sight to Trump, and fired, hitting Trump's ear but missing his head by a fraction of an inch.

The letter also was sent to Secret Service chief Kimberly Cheatle, who has refused multiple calls for her to resign because of the security failures that day.

The Gateway Pundit commented, "It was a setup!"

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The American Center for Law and Justice has taken on a wide range of religious and civil rights fights over the last year and one of those recent disputes was a decision by a senior housing center to ban Bible studies from common areas that otherwise are used for games, knitting clubs, book clubs and the like.

Then a complaint arose about another senior housing center doing what essentially was the same thing.

Then a senior housing facility banned religious decorations, even while allowing other decorations.

Then another banned any advertising in a common area for any religious event, even though other events were advertised.

Then yet another senior housing center banned religious literature – even though it allowed individuals to share various other pamphlets, flyers and information.

The legal team now has confirmed that 10 times in just the last year it has responded to violations by senior housing centers of the Fair Housing Act, which bans discrimination based on religion. Those attacks have been across eight different states.

Now it is asking the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to issue guidance that would end the campaign.

A report from the prominent legal team explained, "We've successfully defended numerous Christians in senior living centers but are concerned that more is at issue, so we just sent demand letters to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Justice. These letters tackle the widespread religious discrimination by senior living complexes since the beginning of 2023."

It continued, "We're requesting that the DOJ and HUD issue written legal guidance to senior living centers (much like the Department of Education issues to schools) regarding their legal obligation to uphold religious liberty. We specifically request that they address the bans on Bible studies and that they implement proper enforcement mechanisms to ensure that the law is followed."

It noted the apparent coordination of the attacks on religious faith in housing centers.

"The reasons given for the religious discrimination in the situations we addressed were eerily similar. Most complexes discriminated on the basis of religion in order to be supposedly 'neutral' or 'inclusive.' (Yes, they oxymoronically claim that banning Bible studies would promote being 'inclusive.') However, absolutely nothing in the FHA allows complexes to discriminate or prevent religious activity in the name of neutrality."

The team said it is demanding that the federal agencies "take action to protect religious liberty and stop senior centers from banning Bible studies. Such rampant unconstitutional targeting of Christian seniors must end now."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

JERUSALEM – There is only one story dominating the news at the moment, and the reactions to the "other" shot heard around the world are continuing.

As America grapples with the post-assassination attempt reality – what it means for the upcoming election, as well as the general tenor of what passes for political discourse – WND takes a look at some of the reactions.

North, Central, and South American leaders' reactions:

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

As America nears the 2024 presidential election, grave danger looms – and soon – warns a retired U.S. Navy commander and Republican candidate for Congress.

Jay Furman, running to represent Texas’ 28th Congressional District, a border district, served 28 years in the military before retiring to south Texas. He spoke to WND exclusively about the Biden administration’s unprecedented open-border policies, which he witnessed personally along the Texas-Mexico border. He characterizes the danger posed by unknown and too-often malevolent actors allowed to enter the country illegally as “an absolute country-killer.”

Having attended college in the Lone Star State decades ago, and now living in southern Texas, Furman told WND, "The border I left is not the border we have now."

Drug trafficking was once the most concerning problem associated with the U.S.-Mexico border, he explained.

“The symbiotic relationship with Mexico and its seasonal workers that would go back home to be with their families awhile, then come back to work [in the U.S.] was considered an amicable endeavor for all,” Furman said. “But here we are, years later, and the border is one of the worst borders I’ve ever seen.”

“The drug trade across the border is now completely out of control with no restraint in sight, and child sex trafficking has exploded to a level that’s unimaginable,” he pointed out. At the same time, record levels of people are crossing the Texas-Mexico border. In 2021, there were 1,115,906 illegal migrants who came across, while in 2022, there were 1,399,790.

Since 2021, there have been over seven million southwest land border encounters, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

What’s more, thousands of suspected terrorists and other nefarious actors are hiding in almost every urban area of the country.

Regarding that, Furman said, "Our country is being forced to see the consequences of weaponized mass migration – and it's reckless." For the retired Navy commander, "Weaponized mass migration is the most dangerous thing to modern civilizations, and most Americans don't understand that."

"It's an absolute country-killer, and the size of the human time bomb we've ingested, that we're all sitting on top of right now throughout the entire country, is gargantuan, and there's nothing to be done with it [from the Biden administration]," Furman pointed out. "These people aren't assimilating, and no one really knows where any of them are."

Furman is greatly concerned "things could go kinetic" before November, and some of the people who slipped across the southern border will engage various targets around the United States. "Or it could definitely happen after the election, depending on who wins," he added.

"Even if things don't go kinetic, potentially millions of people are just sitting here, and they need to be recognized as a threat," Furman said. "They don't need guns or uniforms, but what they need is an inflection point."

"Imagine the Black Lives Matter summer of 2020 multiplied by 100,000 and note that something could kick off before or after the election," Furman warned. In August 2001, he recalled, "Everyone was listening to the chatter, knowing something was going to come. Everyone was talking about it. Intelligence agencies were screaming about." And then a few weeks later, on September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 were killed and 6,000 others wounded in a series of terror attacks against the United States.

Considering the number of terrorists and other bad actors who have crossed America's southern border, Furman said: "Do we want to be standing in the rubble, or do we want to talk about solutions?" For Furman, "9/11 is a pinprick compared to what could come."

"We need to gather a bilateral consensus and do the best we can to stop this," he said. Dubbing the undocumented border crossings as "Biden's illegals" Furman said, "[the U.S. has to] make the attempt to deport as many of them as we can, messaging that if we catch you and you're illegal, you're going to be escorted out."

Apart from the physical dangers illegal immigrants, terrorists, and others pose to the country, Furman also noted an economic impact on the country as well as a moral shift. Regarding immigration, he said, the influx of people is "a tremendous burden on the system," explaining "We just can't afford to host this many people inside the country who aren't contributing to society." He warned, "We're walking into a scenario that is going to significantly depress everyone's standard of living."

And morally, he said, "There's an assault [by the LGBTQ+ community] on our culture, our schools, and our children." This, too, is part of a scheme by the left to destroy America, he argued.

"Each may seem like something that stuns us with a bloody nose, but each of these things is actually country killers," Furman asserted. "The American people have to get even more serious about these issues because we're under attack."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

JERUSALEM – Israel's security services arrested three citizens Tuesday, suspected of committing security offenses – which Iran's intelligence apparatus is thought to have directed.

The three were arrested separately over the last two weeks, and the investigation revealed that following interrogation, one suspect – 21-year-old Elimelech Stern, a member of the Vishnitz Hasidic community in Ramat Beit Shemesh, approximately 20 miles or so west-south-west of Jerusalem – received his instructions over Telegram.

He was in contact with a profile under the name of "Anna Elena," where he was directed to hang posters, hide money in various locations in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, deliver packages including some containing decapitated stuffed animals and dolls, as well as threatening messages to be delivered along with a knife, and placed at certain Israeli civilians' doorsteps.

He was also tasked with setting fire to a forest and more. It was also revealed Stern refused to either commit murder or arson.

Stern recruited two other Israelis – who have yet to be publicly identified – for his "missions," for which they received payment from "Anna Elena" in cryptocurrency – and sometimes for the sum of just a few hundred shekels.

His Iranian handlers told him via Telegram that "Anna" was living in London and she "was looking for brave people to carry out missions in Israel for pay ranging from 100 to 100,000 dollars."

Another message read, "I will test you with a simple mission of $100. If you do well and send me a video and photo of that work, and I can trust you, I will give you more missions with more reward."

During one exchange between the Iranian operatives and Stern, they wrote: "We need a brave man. Are you brave for a lot of money? I currently have 2 missions. One of them has a bonus of $7,000, and one of them has $350."

Stern expressed interest in the higher-paying mission, replying: "Tell me about the $7,000 one."

The Iranian operative responded, "Alright. First, you need to purchase two 20-liter containers at a gas station." It seems this may have been intended to be used to set the forest fire.

On Tuesday, Jerusalem's District Attorney's Office filed an indictment against Stern, charging him with contacting a foreign agent. Following their interrogation, the security services released his two accomplices, and they now await the prosecutor's decision about whether or not to indict them.

"Approaching Israeli citizens through social networks, under the false representation of the identity of the person making the request, is a well-known method of operation of the Iranian intelligence agencies," the Shin Bet and Israel Police said in the statement. They added since Oct. 7 there has been a significant uptick in Iranian intelligence agencies using Telegram as well as other social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and X.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

GOP presidential hopeful Donald J. Trump, just as the Republican National Convention was getting under way on Monday, announced U.S. Sen. JD Vance as his 2024 running mate.

Vance of Ohio has been a vocal ally of Trump, and at 39, would be one of the youngest vice presidents ever.

Vance long had been considered a top option for Trump, and the choice was announced only days after Trump escaped an assassin's bullet during a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally.

Vance, over the weekend, blamed Democrats for the rhetoric, the atmosphere, and the political weaponization that Democrats have brought against Trump and resulted in the shooting.

"The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination," the senator explained on social media.

Leftist publications immediately pointed out that the choice means that "the Republican Party's 2024 ticket with (sic) have neither a woman nor a person of color on it."

Kamala Harris, vice president for Joe Biden, is a woman and a person of color, and has had a noticeably small impact on American policy and practice during her time as lady-in-waiting on Biden.

Trump's announcement noted, "After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of vice president of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the great state of Ohio. J.D. honorably served our country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, Summa Cum Laude, and is a Yale Law School Graduate, where he was editor of The Yale Law Journal, and president of the Yale Law Veterans Association.

"J.D.'s book, 'Hillbilly Elegy,' became a major best seller and movie, as it championed the hardworking men and women of our country. J.D. has had a very successful business career in technology and finance, and now, during the campaign, will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American workers and farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond…."

Conservatives and pro-life activists, who have been concerned about moves in the GOP to ease up on its agenda for a nationwide pro-life law, were enthused.

SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said, "J.D. Vance is an exceptional selection as President Trump's running mate. His courage in exposing the Democrats' agenda of abortion for any reason, even in the seventh, eighth, or ninth month, helped propel him to a decisive victory in the 2022 midterm elections.

"Vance's hardscrabble upbringing informs his compassionate approach to this issue. He saw firsthand how the deck can be stacked against women facing unexpected pregnancies if they do not have the support and resources they need, even though most would rather choose life. His ability to compellingly share these stories on a national stage will surely be an asset. During his time in the Senate, he has earned an A+ on our Scorecard. With approximately 750,000 babies in states like California and New York still lacking basic protections, we need champions whose boldness will not waver."

Vance grew up in Jackson, Kentucky, and Middletown, Ohio, and detailed his memories of a children impacted by poverty and abuse in his memoir, released in 2016.

His mother struggled with drug addiction and he spent years with his grandmother.

He joined the Marines after high school and served in Iraq.

His wife, Usha Vance, is a litigator for a law firm based in San Francisco and Washington. They met at Yale Law and married a year after they graduated, in 2013.

They have three young children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.

He was elected to the Senate in 2022, when he defeated ex-Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democrat, in the race for an open Senate seat.

He's been critical of Trump in the past, but adjusted his comments for his 2022 Senate run, crediting Trump for his accomplishments while in the White House.

Vance supports tariffs on trade and opposes U.S. military intervention in foreign wars, especially between Russia and Ukraine, and he's opposed potential cuts to Social Security.

His Senate accomplishments include bipartisan work on rail safety and failed banks.

He's also unabashedly conservative, with legislation proposed to ban what trangender-promoting activists call gender-affirming "care," actually the use of chemicals and body mutilating surgeries to try to change a boy into a girl, or vice versa, even though that, scientifically, is impossible.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

There's ample evidence that the U.S. Secret Service failed in multiple ways – to allow a sniper to unleash a barrage of shots at President Donald Trump on Saturday – one of which apparently nicked his ear, and an expert on that topic, former agent Dan Bongino, credits Trump himself with saving his own life.

"If he moves his head an inch to the left or right, guys, this is a really different show today. I mean, this is – it's bad enough we have to do this show about this topic. Can you imagine what would have happened if Donald Trump had not ducked?" he said.

"There's only one entity out there that saved Donald Trump's life yesterday and it pains me to tell you guys this, you know who that is? It's Donald Trump," Bongino explained.

Trump himself, moved quickly to social media on the issue, but his opinion differed slightly.

"It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening," Trump said on the Truth Social social media platform.

Franklin Graham, chief of the worldwide Christian ministry Samaritan's Purse, pointed to the statement.

"Former President Donald J. Trump released a very powerful statement on his Truth Social this morning. He is an amazing man, and he credits GOD ALONE for saving his life," Graham wrote.

He the quoted from Trump's statement:

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers yesterday, as it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening. We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness. Our love goes out to the other victims and their families. We pray for the recovery of those who were wounded, and hold in our hearts the memory of the citizen who was so horribly killed. In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win. I truly love our Country, and love you all, and look forward to speaking to our Great Nation this week from Wisconsin.