This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Stacie Laughton, a man who was elected to the New Hampshire legislature as a woman multiple times and resigned multiple times, now is facing a potentially lengthy prison sentence after pleading guilty to the sexual exploitation of children.
Laughton, 41, a Democrat, had been arrested and charged in 2023 in a case where authorities alleged his "former intimate partner," a daycare worker named Lindsay Groves, "admitted" taking sexually explicit photographs of children at the center where she worked and sending them to Laughton.
The report said the sentence for Laughton could be up to 30 years.
The Gateway Pundit said Laughton was charged with sexual exploitation of children, aiding and abetting.
The Department of Justice announced, "According to the charging documents, a preliminary forensic review of Groves' cellphone allegedly revealed over 10,000 text messages between Laughton and Groves that included discussion about, and transfer of, explicit photographs that Groves had taken of children while employed at Creative Minds daycare – including at least four sexually explicit images of children who appear to be approximately three to five years old, as well as explicit descriptions of sex with each other and others, including children."
Groves also is facing various charges.
The DOJ's charges continued, "The charge of sexual exploitation of children provides for a sentence of at least 15 years and up to 30 years in prison, at least five years and up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case."
Laughton's guilty plea came during a court appearance in Boston.
Social media responses included:
"Shocking."
"Sick."
"Ick."
"I was reliably told this doesn't happen."
And, 'Psychos."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Subpoenas are being prepared – and sent out – in the Department of Justice's case to hold Barack Obama's CIA chief, John Brennan, accountable.
He reportedly was one of the instigators of many of the lawfare cases against President Donald Trump.
Reports now confirm that the DOJ is preparing a set of grand jury subpoenas as part of an investigation, being run out of Florida, into Brennan, "and the probes by the CIA and FBI into Russian interference in the 2016 election."
Those claims included that Trump's campaign was coordinating with Russia, a claim that has proven to have been made up.
Jason Reding Quinones, the U.S. attorney in South Florida, is developing the evidence, along with senior staff at the DOJ in Washington.
The investigation was confirmed by the White House weeks ago after reports surfaced that Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered the probe based on a criminal referral from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
A lawyer advising the DOJ has confirmed that the grand jury will consider "whether top Obama and Biden officials engaged in a massive conspiracy to violate Donald Trump's civil rights through the Russia investigations and the probes by special counsel Jack Smith," MSNBC reported.
Smith brought two lawfare cases against Trump, both of which have since died.
Brennan, now working for MSNBC, claims he's innocent.
He has separately been accused by the House Judiciary Committee of lying to Congress, an allegation he also disputes.
WND previously reported that the Steele dossier, that collection of wildly false claims about President Donald Trump that was funded by supporters for twice-failed Democrat presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and used by Democrats to undermine Trump's presidency, was coming back with a bite.
It was the CIA, through an officer, that drafted an annex containing a summary of the dossier, which actually came from a hired former British agent. And it was Brennan, then CIA chief, who decided to include information from the dossier in an "Intelligence Community Assessment." And it was Brennan who overruled senior CIA officers who opposed the inclusion of that material.
The claim is that Brennan "made numerous willfully and intentionally false statements of material fact" about the dossier when testifying under oath to the House Judiciary Committee.
In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the chairman of the committee, said, "We write to refer significant evidence that former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John Brennan knowingly made false statements during his transcribed interview before the Committee on the Judiciary on May 11, 2023. While testifying, Brennan made numerous willfully and intentionally false statements of material fact contradicted by the record established by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) and the CIA.
"Under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, a witness commits a crime if he 'knowingly and willfully . . . makes any materially false . . . statement or representation' with respect to 'any investigation or review, conducted pursuant to the authority of any committee . . . of the Congress[.]' Congress cannot perform its oversight function if witnesses who appear before its committees do not provide truthful testimony. Making false statements before Congress is a crime that undermines the integrity of the Committee's constitutional duty to conduct oversight," the letter said.
Brennan's accused of "denying that the CIA relied on the discredited Steele dossier in drafting the post-2016 election Intelligence Community Assessment; and … testifying when he told the Committee that the CIA opposed including the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA)."
This scenario was detailed on Jordan's letter:
On January 6, 2017, the CIA, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and National Security Agency published a declassified version of an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) titled Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections. The ICA stated, among other things, that Russia 'developed a clear preference' for President Trump and 'aspired to help' him win the election. This conclusion—now known to be false—was based in part on the Steele dossier, which 'was referenced in the ICA main body text, and further detailed in a two-page ICA annex.' The Steele dossier was a series of reports containing baseless accusations concerning President Trump's ties to Russia compiled and delivered to the FBI in 2016 by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. Subsequent investigations confirmed that the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid Steele via the law firm Perkins Coie and opposition research firm Fusion GPS to provide derogatory information about Trump's purported ties to Russia, which resulted in the discredited dossier. In July 2025, the Trump Administration declassified numerous documents showing that the ICA's main findings were false and that the Obama Administration knowingly fabricated the findings for the purpose of undermining the Trump Administration.
Further, evidence now confirms "Brennan falsely testified to the Committee. During a transcribed interview on May 11, 2023, Brennan stated that 'the CIA was not involved at all with the [Steele] dossier.'"
Brennan's claims, the letter charged, "cannot be reconciled with the facts."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Two prominent Republican U.S. senators have come out in favor of killing the filibuster rule that requires 60 votes to "end debate" on a bill – like the one Democrats have rejected to reopen the federal government.
President Trump has strongly urged the chambers Republicans to make the rule change, but Majority Leader John Thune says the GOP doesn't have the votes required to do so.
Both Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., spoke out Wednesday in favor of ending the filibuster.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Democrat Abigail Spanberger has won the race for governor in Virginia, easily defeating Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.
With just 35% of the total counted, Fox News projected Spanberger as the victor, collecting 55.3% of the vote, compared to 44.5% for Earle-Sears.
"Thank you for your work, thank you to the tireless volunteers who believed in me," Spanberger told supporters in the wake of her victory. "We won this race because of you."
Leftist influencer Harry Sisson reacted to the red state flipping to blue by saying: "This is a HUGE victory for Virginia and the entire country. Trump and MAGA lose again."
Conservative journalist Nick Sortor noted: "This is NOT a shocking result, as the Republicans had a weak candidate, and federal employees terminated by DOGE – many of which live in VA – are upset. Keep fighting!"
The Republican Earle-Sears previously said in 2022 that she "could not support" Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 presidential election, which Trump eventually won.
"We have a clear mission, and it is time to move on," she told Neil Cavuto of Fox Business.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A New Mexico woman's testimony about how she's been getting food-stamp benefits from American taxpayers has gone online.
A commentary as Twitchy explained, "Democrats are doing what they ALWAYS do, they are bringing out the sob stories about how Republicans will push grandma over a cliff or some other happy horse manure. This time, though, instead of healthcare, it's food stamps."
Social media commenters said, "Has she tried working?" and "THIRTY YEARS?" before one pointed out, "When I heard that she's been milking the taxpayers for THIRTY YEARS my heart went into my throat."
The commentary explained media interests are pushing "sob stories" as Democrats continue to prevent the federal government from opening up, so that programs like SNAP, to provide supplemental nutrition to the needy, is funded again.
Democrats have demanded Congress raid taxpayers' pockets to the tune of $1.5 trillion for public broadcasting propaganda efforts, health care for illegal aliens, and more, before they'll agree to a GOP plan that would have kept the government funding at the same levels for a couple of weeks.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
In a bold and unprecedented move, Florida has become the first state in the nation to take formal action against the use of foreign worker visas in its public university system. Gov. Ron DeSantis's new proclamation to "pull the plug"on H-1B visas in state institutions, sets a national example, one that could reshape how other states protect their own graduates and taxpayers.
"This is about putting Florida workers and American citizens first," DeSantis declared. "We can do it with our residents of Florida and with Americans."
It's a landmark moment, a state finally standing up to the federal government's decades-long neglect of American labor. However, the H-1B visa is just one part of a much larger system that feeds cheap foreign labor into American jobs.
The alphabet soup of visa programs
The H-1B visa is the most widely known program, allowing companies to hire foreign workers for "specialty occupations" like technology, engineering and business. Legally, employers are supposed to use it only when they cannot find qualified U.S. workers, but in practice, the system has been massively abused to cut labor costs, replacing Americans with cheaper foreign labor.
But the H-1B is just the visible tip of a much deeper structure of foreign visa pipelines. Another is the F-1 student visa, which allows foreign nationals to study in the United States. After graduation, those students can remain in America and work through programs called Optional Practical Training (OPT) and STEM-OPT (for science, technology, engineering and math fields).
OPT is billed as "hands-on training," but in reality it functions as a government-approved work program that lets international students hold real jobs for up to one year after graduation – or three years under the STEM-OPT extension. Employers don't have to pay Social Security or Medicare taxes for these workers, which means they are much cheaper to hire than Americans. In other words, the classroom has become the cheapest recruiting channel in America.
Universities feed the supply, employers feed the demand
The F-1 student visa and its work-authorization offshoots, OPT and STEM-OPT, have become universities' primary gateway into this system. Once marketed as "cultural exchange," these programs now function as revenue engines that allow schools fill classrooms with full-pay international students while giving corporations access to a never-ending pool of low-cost labor.
Each foreign student represents tens of thousands in tuition dollars for universities as well as a tax-free employee for participating companies. Under OPT, neither side pays payroll taxes, saving employers roughly 8% per hire while sidelining American graduates who must compete against subsidized foreign labor on their own soil.
According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' FY 2024 H-1B Characteristics Report, more than half of all new H-1B approvals were changes of status for people already inside the United States and 71% of those came directly from F-1 or F-2 student visas.
In plain terms, most so-called "new" H-1B workers aren't being imported from abroad at all; they're former international students who never left. The result is a closed-loop system in which universities import students, employers convert them to workers and the federal government keeps the pipeline open – all while Americans are told there's a "shortage" of talent.
Florida's universities show exactly how these visa pipelines operate in real life.
The University of Florida case study: When 'education' becomes cheap labor
The University of Florida is a case study of how this system operates. In 2024, UF ranked #40 in the nation for international student enrollment with 7,353 F-1 visa holders, according to federal data.
The same year, UF ranked #37 among the Top 200 Employers for OPT and STEM-OPT students, hiring 640 foreign students on OPT and STEM OPT extensions and ranked #43 among the top 100 campuses with F-1 foreign students employed on OPT with 1,675 students working in U.S. jobs through the program.
By comparison, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services records show UF filed just 252 petitions for H-1B visas that year. That means most of the university's foreign labor did not come from overseas hiring. Instead, most of the university's foreign labor came from international students already in Florida, who moved seamlessly from classroom to workplace under the F-1 and OPT programs, bypassing American job-seekers entirely.
A new model for protecting American workers
Florida's action follows on the heels of a major federal reform by President Donald J. Trump, who is once again taking on America's broken visa system. On Sept. 19, Trump signed a Presidential Proclamation on the Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers, which imposes new limits on foreign-worker entry under H-1B and other categories.
The proclamation, effective Sept. 21, raised the cost of H-1B petitions by introducing a $100,000 application fee, restricting entry for low-wage positions and granting the federal government greater authority to deny visas that do not serve the national interest. The move aligns with Trump's continuing "America First" labor policy, aimed at reducing corporate reliance on foreign labor and prioritizing American workers.
The state of Florida is the first-in-the-nation to strike against this cycle. By targeting H-1B visas in public universities, Florida has exposed how deeply the foreign-labor system has infiltrated the education sector.
But this is only step one. The F-1 student and OPT work programs are the universities' contribution to the same problem and they've quietly become the largest foreign-labor pipeline in the country. Ending abuse in these programs as well would mean millions of dollars in savings for taxpayers, new opportunities for American graduates and a shift away from the government-sanctioned system of undercutting U.S. labor.
Together, President Trump's federal crackdown and Florida's state-level enforcement create a new model of American labor protection, one that holds universities, employers and the federal government itself accountable for using visa programs in ways that undermine American workers.
Why reform can't stop with H-1B or OPT
For decades, universities and corporations have profited from a revolving door of student and worker visas, turning America's immigration system into an endless conveyor belt of cheap foreign labor. Now, for the first time in years, with federal and state governments finally aligned, that door is beginning to close.
The U.S. visa system has evolved into a sprawling web of programs that reach far beyond H-1B and OPT. Visas such as L-1 (intra-company transfers), H-4 EAD (spousal work permits), J-1 (trainee exchanges) and even investor visas have been quietly repurposed to serve the same purpose, giving employers a steady flow of lower-cost foreign labor at the direct expense of American workers.
If reform stops at H-1B, the system will simply shift to another category. If it stops at OPT, universities will invent new loopholes to keep the profits flowing. The problem is not a single visa program; it is the pipeline itself and the perverse incentives that reward institutions for bypassing U.S. citizens in favor of cheaper foreign alternatives.
America's future wellbeing depends on ending this revolving door of imported labor, student conversion and corporate offshoring once and for all. Every loophole, from F-1 to H-1B to L-1, erodes the promise of equal opportunity for the men and women who built this nation. Florida has proven that real leadership does not wait for permission and President Trump has shown that courage in Washington can still rewrite the rules for the working class.
But this fight cannot end with one state or one proclamation. It must extend to every program, every visa category, every offshore pipeline and every institution that profits from putting foreign workers and foreign interests ahead of Americans. Only when the entire system is dismantled, rebuilt and held accountable will the United States return to what it was always meant to be, a nation that rewards its own citizens first, values honest work and defends the American Dream without compromise.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Democrats in the U.S. Senate who repeatedly have demanded the continuation of the Schumer Shutdown, the suspension of the federal budget and its spending programs, on Friday got a short reprieve from a federal judge.
The Democrats in the Senate have refused to allow a short-term continuing resolution promoted by the Republicans that effectively would keep funding at the same levels for the next few weeks.
They have demanded that Congress raid Americans' bank accounts for $1.5 trillion to use for propaganda, for health coverage for illegal aliens, and such.
They were under intense pressure right now because food stamp benefits were scheduled to expire Friday night.
There is a $5 billion reserve account but Trump administration officials explained they were not allowed to access that during a shutdown.
A judge ordered them to do it anyway.
A Fox report said, "The rulings mark a blow for the administration and, for the time being, the loss of another pressure point on Democrats in the Senate to reopen the government."
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said, "We're looking at all the options."
It was Jack McConnell, a judge in Rhode Island, who took over the administration's decision-making process in light of the fact Democrats have refused to fund government programs.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was to run out of money Friday night, and even with $5 billion, won't last through the month of November.
Reports said about 42 million people get taxpayer funded help with their groceries all the time.
The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by Democrat states.
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.
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.
A new survey from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression reveals the massive damage inflicted by hate campaigns that are launched against academics across America when they say something of which "the mob" disapproves.
FIRE surveyed more than 600 academics listed in its Scholars under Fire database who were sanctioned or targeted from 2020 to 2024, and 209 responded.
"Nearly all (94%) who participated in the survey described the impact of their experience as negative. Roughly two-thirds (65%) experienced emotional distress, and significant chunks reported facing harrowing social setbacks, such as being shunned at work (40%) or losing professional relationships (47%) and friendships (33%)," the organization reported. "For some, the consequences were severe. About a quarter of the scholars who completed the survey reported that they sought psychological counseling (27%), and 1 in 5 lost their jobs entirely (20%)."
Nathan Honeycutt, the organization's manager of polling and analytics, said, "Cancellation campaigns are often wrapped in the language of preventing 'emotional harm.' But our survey shows that it's the mobs themselves that inflict lasting mental anguish on academics, many of whom still suffer the consequences long after the controversy subsided."
The report found the attacks to be one-sided, citing large numbers of professors, one in three, who say they have "toned down" their statements for fear of causing controversy: "These concerns are especially pronounced among politically moderate and conservative faculty members, who report self-censoring more frequently than they liberal and progressive colleagues.
"They also express greater worry about damaging their reputations or losing their jobs. In the 2024 faculty survey, for instance, more than half of conservative respondents reported at least occasionally hiding their political beliefs from peers in order to protect their careers. It remains unclear whether this climate of fear is primarily driven by the threat of cancellation itself or by the broader unwillingness of faculty to defend foundational principles of free expression," the report said.
The database from which FIRE drew contact includes a list of those who faced calls for sanction for their speech from 2000 to now.
"This database includes almost 1,700 documented sanction attempts, including a record number this year, with 300 of these attempts resulting in faculty terminations. Most of these incidents have occurred over the past decade."
One professor wrote, "Due to the extreme amount of hate mail and voicemails I received, I had a campus police officer posted outside my class for a period of time and an escort to my vehicle. My husband was constantly worried about my safety, we rarely went places in public, and my mother was harassed online by complete strangers."
Another found an email message: "You are unintelligent. You are poorly educated. You are nauseatingly fat and hideous. Your life has no value. Kill yourself."
They reported their families frequently were caught in the fallout, and there was a chilling effect.
""Overall, scholars were split on whether they'd speak similarly again. Along ideological lines, liberals were more likely to report their speech being chilled (i.e., that they were less likely to say similar things in the future), while conservatives were more likely to indicate they were not detracted (i.e., that they were as much, if not more likely, to say similar things in the future)," the survey found.
Further, "Public silence sends a message about what views are acceptable and safe to express, effectively narrowing the range of ideas deemed reasonable to discuss on campus. This may result in topic avoidance in teaching and research, especially on contested or policy-relevant issues."
Of the respondents, 65% reported emotional distress, 53% lost sleep, 47% lost professional relationships, 40% were shunned at work, 29% had family members with collateral damage, 27% sought counseling, and 20% lost jobs.
One of the problems that was revealed, FIRE said, was that "Nearly all institutions of higher learning promise academic freedom and free speech rights to their scholars. But many of the targeted scholars reported that they received no support from precisely the institutions and individuals who were supposed to have their backs in moments of crisis and controversy. Only 21% reported that they received at least a moderate amount of public support of their faculty union, for example, and a paltry 11% reported that they received public support from administrators."
FIRE said its report "also found a noticeable partisan gap in the level of public support reported by scholars. Larger proportions of conservative than liberal faculty reported that they received support from the general public (55% vs. 37%). But far fewer than their liberal peers reported that they received public support from their faculty union (7% vs. 29%) or their university colleagues (19% vs. 40%)."
"Support for academic freedom should never depend on the views being expressed, but our survey shows that's exactly what's happening," said FIRE research advisor Sean Stevens. "If faculty unions and institutions of higher learning won't stand by scholars in their moments of crisis, they can't claim to stand for free speech and inquiry."