This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A key legal team that has fought many of the fights over personal and religious rights, and government overreach, in the U.S. and around the world in recent years is calling for the administration of President Donald Trump to impose sanctions or tariffs on three nations that now have promised to recognize "Palestine."
And that could bring up an interesting fight, as multiple members of the Democrat party now are insisting the Trump administration itself take the same political step.
It is the American Center for Law and Justice that confirms it has written to top officials in the Senate, House of Representatives and the executive branch "urging immediate action in response to France, the U.K., Ireland, and other countries' reckless and dangerous move to unilaterally recognize Palestinian statehood."
The statehood agenda long has been one of the goals of terrorists such as Hamas members who invaded Israel in 2023, slaughtering in vicious ways hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians.
"Our allies are choosing to reward terror with statehood," the ACLJ said in a report. "As a result, we are urging the Trump Administration to impose swift and decisive tariffs on these nations and economic sanctions to show that America will not support those who reward terror."
The ACLJ explained, "By recognizing Palestinian statehood while Hamas still holds hostages and continues to wage war against Israeli civilians, France, the U.K., Ireland, and other countries are abandoning their commitments to peace, diplomacy, and international law. Their declarations reward a terror regime backed by Iran and responsible for decades of suicide bombings, rocket attacks, and the brutal killing and kidnapping of innocent civilians – including Americans."
The ACLJ warned such actions by American allies are "a disgraceful capitulation to extremist demands," and does nothing to promote peace.
"It only emboldens those who reject it," the report said.
"Our letters explain that the Oslo Accords and key U.N. Security Council Resolutions make it clear: Statehood must be achieved through direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians," the ACLJ said.
International law provides that a state meet four requirements in order to be recognized: a permanent population, defined territory, effective government, and the capacity for foreign relations.
However, there is no unified Palestinian government, as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority run different regions, there is no defined territory, since those boundaries are in dispute, and the movement "lacks the capacity to independently manage foreign relations."
So, the ACLJ said, Congress and the president should work on suspending preferential trade agreements and impose tariffs, cut diplomatic interactions, and end joint military operations.
It was just as those letters were being dispatched that multiple reports confirmed a handful of Democrats in the U.S. House signed a letter to President Donald Trump telling him to "officially recognize a Palestinian state."
The Washington Post reported they insist that move is needed to provide for the "legitimate national rights" of Palestinians.
The letter, signed by 13 House Democrats so far, noted that the three American allies already have plunged into that political agenda.
Incidentally, Trump has expressed that he now has a conflict with reducing tariffs on Canada, since officials there broached the concept of recognizing a Palestinian state.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Letitia James, a high-profile Democrat who used her position as New York attorney general to build a wild case against President Donald Trump that accused him of fraud – a case now on appeal – since then has been caught up in her own case in which she's alleged to have committed mortgage fraud.
And Adam Schiff, a high-profile Democrat, claimed that he had seen "evidence" of the 2016 Trump campaign's "collusion" with Russia, even though multiple investigations failed to document that "evidence," and also has been caught up in mortgage fraud allegations.
While those cases remain under investigation, with the possibility of fines and jail times for a conviction, one Republican senator has had enough.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, believes public officials should be held to a high standard, and pay a bigger penalty when convicted.
He's introduced the "LETITIA Act," which would raise the mandatory minimum penalties for such officials, according to Fox News..
His enhanced penalties would be applied to public officials "who commit federal bank fraud, tax fraud, or loan or mortgage fraud."
His "Law Enforcement Tools to Interdict Troubling Investments in Abodes (LETITIA) Act" follows Depar\tment of Justice investigations into James for alleged mortgage fraud.
Federal Housing Finance Director Bill Pulte has alleged James could have engaged in mortgage fraud by lying, or making false statements, on property records, such as a loan application that said her property in Virginia "is her primary residence," as well her claim on government paperwork that her Brooklyn property has four units, when it actually has five.
"This legislation would empower President Trump to hold crooked politicians like New York's Letitia James accountable for defrauding their constituents, violating their oath of office, and breaking the law, and I'm proud to lead my Republican colleagues in introducing it," Cornyn said.
Also in the jurisdiction of Cornyn's plan would be Schiff, who was accused by Pulte of falsifying bank documents and property records by listing homes in Maryland and California as his primary residence out of an effort to allegedly get more favorable loans.
A spokesperson for Schiff, who repeatedly and viciously has lashed out at Trump, said the claims about mortgage lies are "false allegations."
Six other senators have joined Cornyn already in sponsoring the bill.
It would "increase federal statutory maximum sentences and fines for public officials who abuse their offices and violate the public trust to commit bank fraud, loan or mortgage fraud, or tax fraud," the report said.
Those minimums would include one year for bank fraud, one year for loan or mortgage fraud, and six months for tax fraud.
Repeated offenses would make those minimums five years for bank or loan fraud and two years for tax fraud, the report said.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Tells Colbert on soon-to-be-gone talk show 'I don't wanna go back'
Kamala Harris, who delivered to Democrats in 2024 a catastrophic loss to President Donald Trump in the presidential race, and since has declared she won't run for governor of California in the next election, is uncertain about staging another run for the Oval Office, even though she nominally "leads" the political party now.
What might come to mind is the fact that she lost all seven swing states and succumbed to Trump's campaign by landslide numbers in the Electoral College and the popular vote.
Her dissembling came in an interview with Stephen Colbert, whose late-night talk show has been canceled and who is due to be off-air in a few months.
She said, "The system's broken … so I don't wanna go back into the system."
Commentator Nick Sortor explained, "Kamala Harris admits President Trump BROKE her, which is why she doesn't want to run for Governor of California "The system's broken … so I don't wanna go back into the system."
A report at RedState explained, "'Broken' is, of course, code for 'rigged,' which is rich coming from someone who stole the Democrat nomination in 2024 through a soft coup of a well-meaning elderly man with oatmeal for brains."
It continued, "Harris recently announced that she would not run for governor of California, prompting some pundits to speculate that she would instead focus her efforts on another bid for the White House. "
Colbert asked, and she said she doesn't want a return.
Curiously, Harris was anointed by the elites in the Democrat Party to be the 2024 nominee. She had been a candidate in 2020 but never won a single delegate. In 2024 when Biden's acute deterioration surfaced during a presidential debate, the elites of the party simply named her the candidate, so she never won a primary either.
Harris claimed "our systems" are not as strong "as they need to be."
RedState pointed out, "If the system is 'broken,' then it is her party that took a sledgehammer to it. The Democrat primaries were so rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton in 2016 that it even prompted Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to call it out as 'rigged against me.'"
Social media commented on the "losers" on the show:
Further, Harris claimed she still will be in the "fight," but was left stumbling when asked to name the leader of the Democrat party now.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The bad news for taxpayers is that the federal government is paying some 154,000 people to not do any work in their offices.
The good news is that those workers soon will be off the federal payroll entirely.
It's all part of President Donald Trump's plan to cut federal spending, including by reducing the number of government staff members drawing salaries and benefits.
It is the Hill that has reported on the costs, and benefits.
It cited details in the Washington Post that confirmed the government reportedly is cutting payroll checks even now to more than 154,000 workers.
But they don't report to work.
"Thousands have been receiving pay since June and will continue to be compensated until the end of fiscal 2025," the report said.
McLaurine Pinover of the Office of Personnel Management confirmed more than 150,000 employees were offered "a dignified and generous departure" program, a program that also "delivered incredible relief to the American taxpayer. No previous administration has gotten even close to saving American taxpayers this amount of money in such a short amount of time."
The plan came about as part of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, which in fact started efforts that could culminate in hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars being saved.
Democrats, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, are demanding an investigation of DOGE, including the layoff program. Blumental claims the government has wasted billions of dollars cutting expenses.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
As President Trump's efforts to preserve the integrity of women's sports continues, the World Athletics Council announced Wednesday it would require a test for all athletes wishing to compete in female categories at the upcoming track and field World Championships.
As Fox News reported, the test will be for the SRY gene, "a reliable proxy for determining biological sex" with a cheek swab or blood test, the organization said in a release.
"The philosophy that we hold dear in World Athletics is the protection and the promotion of the integrity of women's sport. It is really important in a sport that is permanently trying to attract more women that they enter a sport believing there is no biological glass ceiling. The test to confirm biological sex is a very important step in ensuring this is the case," World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said.
"We are saying, at elite level, for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biologically female. It was always very clear to me and the World Athletics Council that gender cannot trump biology."
Fox reports that the specific gene "provides instructions for making a protein called the sex-determining region Y protein. This protein is involved in male-typical sex development, which usually follows a certain pattern based on an individual's chromosomes," according to Medline Plus.
World Athletics announced in March that it would institute a test and now is providing information about the specific requirements going forward.
The next World Championships open Sept. 13 in Tokyo, while Sept. 1 is "the closing date for entries and the date the regulations come into effect," the organization said.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A 3-year-old boy taken from his parents by Child Protective Services in Alabama has died after being left in a hot car for hours … by a contractor for CPS.
The CPS worker allegedly took the child for a visit with his father, then ran "personal errands" on the way back, eventually forgetting the boy was in the car.
A report at People.com said the death, a week ago, happened in Birmingham.
The boy was identified as Ke'Torrius Starkes Jr.
He was in the custody of the Department of Human Services at the time, and Courtney French, a lawyer for the family, told the publication, "The very system that is in place for his protection was the system that led to his death."
The report explained the child was found unresponsive in the vehicle outside a location on Pine Tree Drive.
State officials revealed he was "accidentally left inside … while in the care of a third-party contracted worker through the Department of Human Resources."
The report said he was in temporary custody of the state over claims of drug use in his home.
He apparently was abandoned in the vehicle about 12:30 p.m., and found about five hours later. He was pronounced dead at 6:03 p.m. Temperatures during the period reached 96 degrees, the report said.
According to the lawyer, the worker was employed to transport children, and took the child to a supervised visit with his father, but then decided to "run numerous personal errands with KJ still in the car seat in the back."
State officials declined to identify the child or describe the circumstances because of "confidentiality."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The barbaric conflict that started Oct. 7, 2023, marked by widespread casualties, terror, torture and hostage-taking, delivered a harsh lesson to the West: Appeasing the Iranian mullahs' regime inevitably leads to war.
Under the 2015 nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, in an effort to contain Tehran $150 billion in frozen Iranian assets were released to the Middle East's major sponsor of terrorism. The regime used these funds not for the welfare of its own people, but to expand its network of proxy militias across the region, enrich uranium to 60%, and move dangerously close to building a nuclear bomb.
Even targeted airstrikes on its nuclear facilities can no longer ensure that the world is safe from a weapon that would undoubtedly be used as an instrument of war and destruction.
The nuclear threat posed by Iran must be taken seriously. The Islamic Republic currently possesses over 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% and is just a few technical steps away from producing a nuclear weapon. In 2020, Iran operated only 512 centrifuges. By 2025, that number has soared to over 11,000 advanced centrifuges.
Simultaneously, the regime continues to test ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. This is no longer a theoretical danger – it is an imminent one.
Despite international scrutiny, the Iranian regime has never abandoned its pursuit of nuclear weapons. It has merely continued its efforts in secrecy, with increasing sophistication.
According to revelations from the theocratic regime's main opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI, Tehran's nuclear weapons program was never halted – it was simply concealed behind a new political façade. Since 2009, under direct orders from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, a secret initiative known as "Project Kavir" has been underway, managed by the SPND organization, a research and development agency within the Iranian Ministry of Defense tasked with developing new military technologies. It's aim: the development of long-range nuclear weapons with a reach of over 3,000 kilometers.
Concurrently, research on tritium and nuclear fusion is being pursued to amplify the destructive power of these weapons.
To support this program, Iran's Semnan province has been transformed into a military zone, where four secret military facilities have been constructed. Additionally, the regime is producing "Ghaem 100" solid-fuel and "Simorgh" liquid-fuel missiles – both with ranges exceeding 3,000 kilometers – under the guise of civilian space exploration.
Feeding the crocodile didn't tame it, but made it more dangerous
European policymakers had hoped economic engagement would lead to a more moderate Iranian regime. Instead, the opposite occurred: More money led to more centrifuges, more missiles and increased domestic repression. The regime failed to honor its commitments and exploited the diplomatic vacuum to accelerate its militarization.
Rooted in medieval ideology and incapable of meeting the demands of a young, modern and forward-looking population, the mullahs' regime depends on war and regional terrorism for survival. Nuclear weapons and long-range missiles are tools of survival – not deterrence – for this regime. Its survival is so deeply entwined with its nuclear program that expecting a voluntary halt to enrichment, or the abandonment of a project that has consumed over $2 trillion, is dangerously naïve.
In the face of this mounting threat, the only effective legal mechanism left is the JCPOA's "snapback" provision. This allows any of the remaining signatories – especially the European troika of Germany, France and the United Kingdom – to unilaterally restore all U.N. sanctions against the Iranian regime, without the need for a vote or consensus. Crucially, neither Russia nor China can block this process.
With support from its lobbyists in the West, Tehran promotes the narrative that sanctions harm the Iranian population and lead to shortages of food and medicine. Yet the 2017 uprising, which occurred after billions of dollars were released under the JCPOA, revealed the truth: Those funds were funneled into repression, armament and the export of terrorism – not into improving the lives of ordinary Iranians.
Today, the Islamic Republic is closer than ever to building a nuclear bomb. The snapback mechanism, enshrined in U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, is the last viable legal and practical tool to prevent a nuclear catastrophe. Silence or delay in triggering it will carry a heavy cost – for regional stability and for global peace. Europe must not hesitate to act.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
President Donald Trump confirmed on Friday that it's possible that federal rebates – cash returned to the American public – are possible.
And it's because of the probable revenue to America of some $200 billion by the end of the year from his new tariffs on other countries.
Trump has been using tariffs, high and low, as a method of bringing those nations to the bargaining table and reaching fair trade agreements for American businesses and consumers.
Some deals already have been made final, but many have not been concluded.
The tariff income is from those other nations, and likely will continue even after deals are reached, as Trump has promised not to allow other countries to take advantage as they have in the past.
Trump said, "We're thinking about that [a rebate], actually. We have so much money coming in we're thinking about a little rebate, but the big thing we want to do is pay down debt. We're thinking about a rebate. That's a very good question. You just made a lot of news."
Sen. Josh Hawley responded immediately.
His plan is to introduce legislation in the Senate to do exactly what Trump discussed.
Others said Trump's first plan, paying down the national debt, is the higher priority.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
In a huge blow to one state's attempt to impose its own transgender ideologies on its residents, specifically adoptive parents, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that single mother Jessica Bate's First Amendment rights likely were violated in Oregon's orchestrated attempt to force her to embrace its gender campaign.
"No one thinks, for example, that a state could exclude parents from adopting foster children based on those parents' political views, race, or religious affiliations," the 9th Circuit wrote in its ruling in Bates v. Pakseresht. "Adoption is not a constitutional law dead zone. And a state's general conception of the child's best interest does not create a force field against the valid operation of other constitutional rights."
Bates had applied to become certified to adopt children from foster care two years ago. But the state agency overseeing child welfare programs denied her application based only on the fact Bates would not agree to lie about a child's gender by using inaccurate pronouns, or to take children to "Pride" parades.
The court decisions leaves Bates free to begin the process of adopting siblings from foster care without violating her religious beliefs while the legal fight continues.
Bates was represented by the ADF in her 2023 lawsuit challenging an Oregon Department of Human Services rule that categorically excluded her from adopting any child—no matter their age or beliefs—"because she would not lie to children and tell them that girls can be boys and vice versa," the ADF reported.
The ruling said Bates likely will succeed in showing that Oregon is violating the First Amendment.
"Every child deserves a loving home, and children suffer when the government excludes people of faith from the adoption and foster system. Jessica is a caring mom of five who is now free to adopt after Oregon officials excluded her because of her common-sense belief that a girl cannot become a boy or vice versa," said ADF lawyer Jonathan Scruggs.
"Because caregivers like Jessica cannot promote Oregon's dangerous gender ideology to young kids and take them to events like pride parades, the state considers them to be unfit parents. That is false and incredibly dangerous, needlessly depriving kids of opportunities to find a loving home. The 9th Circuit was right to remind Oregon that the foster and adoption system is supposed to serve the best interests of children, not the state's ideological crusade."
Bates had confirmed to the state she would love and accept any child placed with her, but she still was rejected.
The ADF also noted that earlier this year, a coalition of foster and adoptive parents, religious liberty organizations, free speech advocates and those who promote families, 20 states and others argued in support of Bates in documents with the 9th Circuit.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
According to a buried House Intelligence Committee report just declassified by DNI Tulsi Gabbard, President Barack Obama and others reportedly had serious concerns about the health of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton – some of the information Russia had but did not reveal at the time.
Commentator Charlie Kirk points out on X that in the final days of the 2016 campaign Russia "had huge amounts of potential anti-Clinton dirt that it sat on." This included:
Notes Kirk: "If Russia was really all-in on supporting Trump and hurting Clinton, it would have leaked this information in October 2016 when her lead in the RCP average slipped to just +1.3. Instead, Russia didn't – completely debunking the core assumptions of the Russia hoax.
"Rather than admit they were wrong, Brennan's CIA buried the info and manufactured a completely alternative reality to undermine the legitimacy of President Trump."
The declassified report adds to documents made public Friday that suggest that the Obama team intentionally hid information proving Russia was not involved in swaying the 2016 election and instead posited the opposite in hopes of sabotaging the incoming Trump administration.
Wednesday Gabbard talked at the White House about the new revelations regarding Clinton: