Jeff Webb, the man who built modern cheerleading into a multibillion-dollar industry and later channeled his entrepreneurial energy into conservative media, died unexpectedly on Thursday. He was 76.
Varsity Spirit confirmed Webb's death in a statement on Instagram, honoring the founder who transformed a niche sideline activity into a globally recognized athletic discipline spanning more than four decades.
Webb created Varsity Spirit in 1974 and grew it from the ground up into a franchise that shaped how generations of Americans experienced competitive cheerleading. His fingerprints are on virtually every element of the modern sport, from organized competitions to the international governing structures that now seek Olympic inclusion.
Webb's career arc tells a distinctly American story: identify something with unrealized potential, pour everything into it, and build an institution that outlasts you. That's what he did with Varsity Spirit, and it's what he was doing in conservative media when his life ended.
Webb previously owned Human Events and The Post Millennial, two outlets with deep roots in the conservative movement. He sold both last fall to Just The Network, the parent company of Just the News. Even after the sale, Webb wasn't coasting. John Solomon, founder and CEO of Just the News, said Thursday night that Webb was working with the company to help build a new events business and a new weekly television show.
Solomon captured the man in a single phrase:
"Jeff was a brilliant businessman and entrepreneur and a joyful warrior who made everyone around him better."
That word, "joyful," matters. The conservative movement has no shortage of fighters. It has fewer builders, and fewer still who manage to be both without burning out or becoming bitter. Webb, by all accounts, stayed constructive to the end.
The scale of what Webb built in cheerleading is easy to underestimate if you weren't paying attention. A Varsity Spirit spokesperson laid it out plainly:
"Jeff played a pivotal role in shaping cheerleading as it exists today and in building a community that has impacted generations of athletes, coaches, and teams."
His work extended well beyond American gyms and football stadiums. Webb's involvement with the International Cheer Union helped the organization achieve full recognition by the International Olympic Committee in 2021. That's not a symbolic gesture. Full IOC recognition opens the door to Olympic competition, a milestone that would have been laughable when Webb started Varsity Spirit in the mid-1970s.
Varsity's Instagram tribute noted that Webb "built a community that will continue to inspire generations to come." Given the infrastructure he left behind, that's not corporate sentiment. It's a statement of fact.
Webb's pivot into media ownership reflected a pattern increasingly common among successful conservative entrepreneurs: the recognition that cultural and informational infrastructure matters as much as any single policy fight. Owning Human Events and The Post Millennial wasn't a vanity play. It was an investment in the ecosystem that sustains conservative ideas.
Solomon pointed to Webb's deeper motivations:
"He had a passion for ensuring America's next generations could carry on the torch of liberty, whether through the creation of the Varsity franchise or through his friendship with Charlie Kirk. He will be sorely missed."
That thread connecting Varsity Spirit to conservative media to mentoring the next generation isn't random. Webb understood something fundamental: institutions shape culture, culture shapes politics, and someone has to do the unglamorous work of building those institutions from scratch.
No cause of death has been disclosed. What's been disclosed is a legacy that spans competitive athletics, conservative media, and international sports governance. Not many people leave footprints in one of those arenas, let alone all three.
Jeff Webb built things that lasted. The movement could use more like him.
Andrew Rice, a deputy commonwealth's attorney in Virginia Beach, crushed Democrat Cheryl Smith in the special election for Virginia House of Delegates District 98, capturing 62.46 percent of the vote to Smith's 37.5 percent with more than 11,000 votes counted as of 1 a.m. Eastern.
The margin wasn't close. It was a blowout.
The seat became vacant after Republican Barry Knight died last month, triggering a special election to cover the last two years of his term. When that seat was last contested in 2025, Knight won with 56.6 percent, and Smith took 43.2 percent. Rice didn't just hold the seat. He widened the gap by nearly six points against the same Democratic opponent.
Rice addressed supporters after the race was called:
"I'm so thankful for their support and I can't wait to get to work for them in Richmond."
Democrats have spent months constructing a narrative around special elections. After picking up 13 seats in the Virginia House during the November 2025 elections, the story practically wrote itself: voters were recoiling from Republicans, the political winds had shifted, and the party was riding an unstoppable wave into the 2026 midterms.
District 98 just punched a hole in that storyline, Newsweek reported.
Voter turnout in the district hit only 18 percent, with more than 11,700 ballots cast. Low-turnout special elections are often where enthusiasm shows itself most clearly. The voters who bothered to show up chose the Republican by a commanding margin, in a race where Democrats had every reason to believe the environment favored them.
Virginia wasn't the only bright spot. In Pennsylvania, Republican Catherine Wallen is projected to beat Democrat Todd Crawley in a special election for the state's 193rd House District, according to Decision Desk HQ. That seat has been represented by a Republican since 1972, so the hold itself isn't surprising. But in a cycle where Democrats have been claiming the political landscape is shifting beneath Republican feet, holding ground matters.
Republican State Leadership Committee President Edith Jorge-Tuñón framed the results in no uncertain terms:
"Last night's results shatter Democrats' so-called 'special election momentum.' In states like Pennsylvania and Virginia, voters rejected the claim that Democrats have a better handle on the issues that matter most and pushed back on the failed policies they continue to champion. These wins prove Republicans can break through and compete in tough environments, and the RSLC is building momentum to win nationwide in 2026."
There is a familiar pattern in how media and political operatives treat special elections. When Democrats win them, the results are treated as referendums on the national mood, bellwethers of what's to come, proof that the public has rendered its verdict. When Republicans win them, the caveats arrive immediately: low turnout, local dynamics, district composition, the usual disclaimers.
Republicans themselves have rightly noted that these races have never been predictive of general elections. That's fair. But what's also fair is applying the same standard in both directions. If Democratic special election wins were evidence of a national backlash during President Donald Trump's second term, then Republican wins in the same cycle deserve the same interpretive weight.
You don't get to cherry-pick which results count.
The next major test comes in California, where the seat left vacant by Republican Representative Doug LaMalfa, who died in January at age 65, will be filled through an election set by California Governor Gavin Newsom. A primary is scheduled for June 2, with the general election on August 4. California's 1st Congressional District presents a different kind of battleground, but the results in Virginia and Pennsylvania give Republicans evidence that their voters are engaged and willing to show up even in off-cycle contests.
The November 2026 midterms remain the prize. Democrats will continue to spin their preferred narrative, and the media will continue to amplify it. But narratives don't survive contact with actual vote totals.
In District 98, the voters spoke clearly. Andrew Rice won by nearly 25 points. No amount of "momentum" talk changes that math.
Judge Brian Murphy blocked Trump administration vaccine policies on Monday, issuing a sweeping preliminary injunction from the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts just hours after a federal appeals court slapped down his previous attempt to halt deportation operations. Two rulings. One judge. Same pattern.
The vaccine case, brought by medical organizations against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., resulted in Murphy finding that Kennedy likely broke the law by overhauling the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine policies. Murphy granted preliminary relief by staying a January 2026 immunization schedule that reduced the number of vaccine requirements for children and invalidated a newly appointed vaccine advisory committee and the committee's decisions while the lawsuit proceeds.
Earlier that same Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit paused Murphy's decision blocking the Department of Homeland Security's third-country deportation policy, a decision that had prevented DHS from deporting what court papers said could be thousands of illegal immigrants.
So the scoreboard reads: reversed in the morning, back at it by the afternoon.
This is not the first time Murphy has found himself on the wrong end of a higher court's patience, according to Fox News. He first gained headlines when the Supreme Court stayed his injunction over the third-country deportation policy in a 6-3 order last June. That alone would be a notable rebuke for any federal trial judge.
What happened next was extraordinary. A week later, the Supreme Court issued a rare 7-2 order admonishing Murphy for flouting its decision. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley observed at the time that Murphy had given "a stiff arm" to the Supreme Court. Turley did not mince words about the systemic implications:
"Regardless of your views on the merits, this system cannot function with such rogue operators at the trial level."
A string of high-profile decisions by Murphy have been later reversed on appeal. The 1st Circuit's Monday intervention was simply the latest in a sequence that now looks less like judicial disagreement and more like judicial defiance.
In his vaccine ruling, Murphy quoted Carl Sagan, calling science "the best we have." It's a fine sentiment. It is also, in context, remarkably selective.
University of Minnesota law school professor Ilan Wurman questioned what he viewed as the judge's double standard:
"When I litigated COVID cases against the government, the courts regularly said they had to defer to the public health experts."
Then came the sharper edge:
"I assume there's a good reason for the double standard here? Or are there some health experts federal judges in Massachusetts like more than others?"
The point lands because it does not need to be exaggerated. During the COVID era, courts across the country treated government health pronouncements as functionally unreviewable. Challenges to mandates, lockdowns, and school closures were waved away with near-religious deference to "the experts." Now, a single district judge in Massachusetts has decided he knows better than the sitting HHS Secretary about vaccine scheduling for children.
Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., drew the connection even more bluntly:
"Progressive district court judges claim RFK's vaccine policies aren't based on science yet had no problem with Biden's radical gender policies. Seems like they're the ones not following the science."
The inconsistency is the argument. When the executive branch was run by Democrats, judicial deference to agency expertise was treated as a constitutional obligation. Now it's optional. The principle didn't change. The president did.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche responded on X with a directness that has become characteristic of this administration's approach to judicial overreach:
"How many times can Judge Murphy get reversed in one year?"
Blanche noted the timing with evident incredulity: the same day the 1st Circuit stayed Murphy for "repeatedly refusing to follow the law," the judge turned around and issued another sweeping injunction. Blanche made the administration's posture clear:
"The same day he is stayed for repeatedly refusing to follow the law, he issues another activist decision. We will keep appealing these lawless decisions, and we will keep winning."
He added one final question: "How much embarrassment can this Judge take?"
It is a fair question. The Supreme Court has rebuked Murphy in orders supported by supermajorities of justices, including some appointed by Democratic presidents. The 1st Circuit has now intervened as well. The appeals will continue, and the administration's record on reversals suggests confidence is warranted.
The deeper problem here extends well beyond one judge in Massachusetts. Murphy's deportation ruling alone could have blocked the removal of thousands of illegal immigrants. His vaccine injunction reaches into every pediatrician's office in the country. A single unelected jurist, confirmed a year before these rulings, is barely attempting to set national policy from a district court bench.
This is the structural vulnerability that critics across the political spectrum have identified, but that only seems to generate outrage when it cuts in one direction. When a Trump-appointed judge in Texas issued nationwide injunctions during the Biden years, the legal left treated it as a constitutional crisis. When a Biden-appointed judge in Massachusetts does the same thing, repeatedly, even after the Supreme Court tells him to stop, the reaction from those same voices is silence or celebration.
The hierarchy of the federal judiciary exists for a reason. District courts are bound by circuit courts. Circuit courts are bound by the Supreme Court. When a trial judge treats that structure as a suggestion, the entire system strains. It does not matter whether you agree with Kennedy's vaccine policies or the administration's deportation framework. What matters is whether one district judge gets to override the executive branch, ignore the Supreme Court, and functionally govern by injunction.
Murphy's answer, delivered twice on Monday, appears to be yes.
The Supreme Court has already answered differently. The question is whether anyone will make it stick.
President Donald Trump revealed Monday that Rep. Neal Dunn (R-FL) had been diagnosed with terminal heart disease, a diagnosis so severe that, in Trump's words, the Florida congressman would have been dead by June without intervention.
Trump shared the story at a convening of the Trump-Kennedy Center Board at the White House, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) seated directly to his right. Johnson confirmed the gravity of the situation, acknowledging that the diagnosis had never been made public.
"I think it was a terminal diagnosis."
That was Johnson's unvarnished assessment. When Trump pressed him on the details, Johnson conceded with a half-laugh: "OK, that wasn't public, but yeah, OK." Then, more soberly: "It was grim, that's what I was going to say."
Trump said Johnson first brought Dunn's condition to his attention, according to the Washington Examiner. What happened next moved fast. After calling two White House doctors, they went to see Dunn and had him on the operating table in what Trump described as "two hours."
Johnson filled in the sequence from there:
"Within a number of hours, they took him to Walter Reed emergency surgery."
Trump described the procedure as extensive. "It was a long operation; they gave him more stents and more everything that you could have," he said, adding with characteristic directness, "I think he's got everything that you could have."
Then the call came from the doctors: "Sir, I think he'll be fine."
Trump's reaction: "You've got to be kidding."
What struck both Trump and Johnson wasn't just the medical outcome. It was what Dunn did afterward.
Dunn announced earlier this year that he plans to retire at the end of his term. But he didn't walk away from the job when the diagnosis hit. Trump noted that most people in that position would tell the Speaker they were done immediately. Dunn didn't.
"Most of them are going to say, 'Mike, I'm retiring immediately.' That's the end. He didn't do that. It really is really impressive."
Trump was candid about his dual concerns when he first learned of Dunn's condition. "No. 1, it was bad because I liked him," he said. "No. 2, it was bad because I needed his vote." The honesty landed the way Trump's honesty usually does: bluntly, without apology, and with the kind of self-awareness that his critics never credit him for.
Johnson expanded on the story, describing the moment Dunn walked back into a conference meeting after surgery. The reaction from colleagues captured the scale of what had happened:
"The man has a new lease on life. He acts like he's 30 years younger, and he walked into the conference meeting, and we thought we'd seen a ghost, and I spoke with him over the weekend, and he's encouraged and thankful, and he thanks the president for his leadership and intervention."
That last detail matters. Dunn credits the president. Not vaguely. Not as a formality. As the man who picked up the phone, called his doctors, and put the machinery of Walter Reed into motion before a terminal diagnosis became a death sentence.
Trump also offered a broader window into how he uses the medical talent surrounding the presidency. "White House doctors are incredible, and they've helped me with other people," he said, before adding: "They're helping me with people right now, people that are very sick. They're miracle workers."
It's a side of the presidency that rarely makes headlines. The commander in chief has access to some of the best physicians in the country, and Trump, by his own account, deploys them not just for himself but for people around him who need urgent help. There's no bureaucratic committee. No six-month wait for a referral. A president who sees a problem and acts on it.
Neal Dunn was facing a terminal prognosis. Now he's walking into meetings looking, by Johnson's account, like a man three decades younger. The doctors did the surgery. But someone had to make the call.
Trump made the call.
Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie, has been missing for almost six weeks after she was last seen at her Arizona home on January 31. She was reported missing the following day. Authorities believe she was kidnapped, and drops of her blood were found on the front porch of her house.
The FBI last month released surveillance images of a masked man on Nancy Guthrie's porch on the night she disappeared. Authorities have not publicly identified the person, whom they called a suspect, but described him as a male about 5-foot-9 or 5-foot-10 with an average build carrying a 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack. Alleged ransom notes were sent to multiple news outlets. The family is offering a $1-million reward for information leading to her recovery, with a separate reward of more than $200,000 for information about her whereabouts or that could lead to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved.
Nancy Guthrie also needs vital daily medication, adding an urgent medical dimension to an already desperate situation.
This week, retired FBI agent Maureen O'Connell offered a striking analysis of the blood evidence found at the scene, telling NewsNation's Brian Entin that the pattern of the droplets suggests Guthrie did not leave on her own.
"What I do believe is she was carried out. I don't believe she walked out. I believe she was carried out by two people and I say that because of the blood droplets, the fact that there's no void, the fact that there's no footprints, it's almost like two guys carried her and her head tilted in some way shape or form and it just came out right there."
That analysis, if accurate, reshapes the picture considerably. It implies planning, coordination, and at least two perpetrators. It also suggests violence occurred inside the home before Guthrie was removed from it.
Meanwhile, April Stonehouse, a forensics professor at Arizona State University and a former DNA analyst for government crime laboratories, told Entin she was "hopeful" investigators would find usable DNA samples from the scene. She noted that blood, semen, and saliva are the most useful substances for DNA analysis and described the presence of biological evidence as "a good thing" for the investigation.
Stonehouse acknowledged the limitations, noting that "you are at the mercy of what the suspect left behind," but said investigators would be looking for items that they think the suspect handled or used.
"I would be hopeful that they found at least a few items of evidence. It's just a matter of locating it and finding it."
She also referenced the use of DNA analysis in the Golden State killer case, a reminder that even cold trails can eventually yield identifications when the forensic work is thorough.
On February 27, the Pima County Sheriff's Department issued a statement signaling a shift in how it is allocating resources to the case, according to Newsweek:
"This remains an active investigation and will continue until Nancy Guthrie is located or all leads have been exhausted. The Pima County Sheriff's Department is refocusing resources to detectives specifically assigned to this case. As leads are developed and resolved, resource allocation may fluctuate. PCSD will maintain a patrol presence in the Guthrie neighborhood."
Read that carefully. "Refocusing resources to detectives specifically assigned" is bureaucratic language for tightening the circle. It can mean the department is moving from a wide canvas to a more targeted pursuit, which could indicate they have leads worth concentrating on. It could also mean exactly what critics might fear: the visible, large-scale response is being scaled back.
Either way, six weeks into a kidnapping case with blood evidence, surveillance footage of a suspect, and no recovery, the pressure on law enforcement is enormous. The public has a right to expect urgency that matches the severity of the crime.
Last week, Savannah Guthrie posted on Instagram with a message that was equal parts gratitude and plea:
"We feel the love and prayers from our neighbors, from the Tucson community and from around the country.…Please don't stop praying and hoping with us. bring her home."
There is nothing political about a daughter asking the country to help find her mother. There is nothing partisan about the expectation that law enforcement will devote every available resource to bringing a kidnapped woman home alive. But the case raises questions that conservatives have been asking for years about public safety, the adequacy of local law enforcement resources, and whether communities across America can count on swift and sustained investigative attention when violent crime strikes.
It seems as though despite the time that has passed, someone knows something about what happened to Nancy Guthrie. The question is, will investigators discover it before it's too late?
Tennessee Republicans are advancing a bill that would make it a state-level crime for illegal immigrants to remain in the state more than 90 days after receiving a final federal deportation order. The measure, sponsored by Tennessee House Majority Leader William Lamberth, would classify the offense as a Class A misdemeanor and would also apply to those who intentionally enter the state after being ordered removed.
The bill includes a trigger mechanism: it would activate only if federal law changes or the Supreme Court overturns its 2012 ruling in Arizona v. United States, which limited state authority over immigration enforcement. In other words, Tennessee is loading the legal chamber now and waiting for the Court to hand it the green light.
Lamberth made no apologies for the approach during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.
"When someone has exhausted all their options and they've been told to leave the country, it is illegal for them to stay, both under federal law, and if this bill passes, it would be a misdemeanor for them to enter in, or remain in, the state of Tennessee."
When pressed about constitutionality under the Arizona precedent, he didn't flinch: "I like our track record with the U.S. Supreme Court."
He has reason for that confidence. Tennessee has already watched the Court uphold conservative state policies, including its ban on gender-affirming care for minors and a post-Roe abortion trigger law. The trigger mechanism in this immigration bill follows the same playbook. Lamberth described it as a design that "respects constitutional boundaries while ensuring we are prepared if states' authority is restored."
The immigration advocacy complex responded on cue. Spring Miller, senior legal director at the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, told Newsweek that the bill would produce "a chilling impact" and characterized it as unconstitutional overreach, as Newsweek reports.
"Established law dating back well over a century prohibits states creating their own immigration laws, but Tennessee legislators are attempting to create a state-level immigration regime with this bill that would lead to chaos and disorder throughout the country."
Miller also argued the bill would be nearly impossible to enforce, claiming there is no centralized database tracking everyone who has received a final order of removal and that some people with such orders could be adjusting their status through legal pathways.
State Representative Gloria Johnson offered a more colorful objection, calling it a "Stephen Miller bill" and warning the committee that "everything that I've read, everyone that I've talked to, said that this is currently unconstitutional."
Notice the framing. Opponents aren't arguing that people with final deportation orders should be allowed to stay. They're arguing that Tennessee isn't allowed to do anything about it. The distinction matters.
The constitutionality objection rests entirely on Arizona v. United States, a 2012 ruling that struck down parts of Arizona's immigration enforcement law on preemption grounds. It's a real precedent. Nobody disputes that.
But the legal landscape has shifted considerably since 2012. The current Supreme Court has shown a willingness to revisit settled assumptions about federal supremacy when states present compelling interests. Tennessee's trigger mechanism is a direct acknowledgment of that reality. The bill doesn't pretend Arizona doesn't exist. It positions the state to act the moment the legal door opens.
Miller argued that taxpayer resources would be diverted from healthcare and education to "imprison people for simply being or passing through the state and having been issued a piece of paper that they may or may not have been aware of."
A final order of removal is not "a piece of paper." It is the conclusion of a legal process in which an immigration judge has determined that an individual has no legal right to remain in the United States. Describing it as something someone "may or may not have been aware of" is the kind of rhetorical sleight of hand that reduces the rule of law to an inconvenience.
Tennessee is not acting in isolation. It joins a growing bloc of states that have decided the federal government's failure to enforce immigration law does not require them to sit idle.
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center called this a "dangerous trend" in a 2024 policy assessment. Dangerous to whom? Not to the citizens of these states, who have watched for years as the federal government treated enforcement as optional. The trend is dangerous only to the legal fiction that states must remain passive while federal authorities decline to act on their own deportation orders.
The opposition to this bill, and to the broader state-level enforcement movement, ultimately rests on a single premise: that only the federal government may enforce immigration law, and if the federal government chooses not to, then nobody does.
That's not a legal principle. It's a policy preference dressed up as constitutional law.
For decades, the left has relied on federal inaction as a de facto amnesty mechanism. The federal government issues a deportation order. The individual ignores it. No one enforces it. Time passes. Advocates then argue the person has "built a life" and enforcement would be cruel. The cycle repeats. States like Tennessee are trying to break that cycle by removing one of its key ingredients: the guarantee that nothing happens when you ignore a judge's order.
Johnson accused the legislature of advancing this bill "at taxpayer expense," as if the cost of enforcing the law is an argument against having laws. By that logic, every criminal statute is a waste of money.
The bill's trigger mechanism makes it legally disciplined. It doesn't dare the courts to strike it down tomorrow. It plants a flag and waits. If the Supreme Court revisits Arizona v. United States, or if Congress acts to expand state enforcement authority, Tennessee's law snaps into effect without another vote.
Lamberth is betting that the legal window will open. Given the Court's trajectory and the growing political consensus around enforcement, it's not a bad bet.
Opponents will file lawsuits. Advocacy groups will issue press releases about "chilling impacts." Cable news panels will debate whether states can do what the federal government won't.
Meanwhile, people with final deportation orders will still be in Tennessee. The only question is whether that will remain consequence-free.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has reportedly backed out of a scheduled interview with CBS News, and the reason tells you everything you need to know about how the new Democratic mayor handles scrutiny.
According to Vanity Fair, Mamdani had been in discussions to sit down with Robert Costa on "CBS Sunday Morning." Those discussions collapsed after CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss reacted on social media to pointed remarks from Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist, activist, and new CBS News contributor. Weiss's offense? She posted a fire emoji.
That single emoji, sources told Vanity Fair, was the "nail in the coffin" for the interview.
Fox News reported that on Feb. 28, during CBS News' breaking news coverage of the conflict, Alinejad slammed Mamdani's condemnation of Operation Epic Fury against the Iranian regime. She urged the mayor to shift his "hatred" away from President Donald Trump and toward the people who actually threatened her life. Her remarks were direct and personal:
"Mr. Mamdani, you are more than welcome to come to one of my safe houses."
Then she turned the mayor's own rhetoric against him:
"Where were you when they sent killers here in New York City? You were crying for your aunt because she has stopped using the subway for simply — in an illusionist statement you made saying she didn't feel safe, for wearing a hijab. Really? I stopped using subways because of the would-be assassins being sent to beautiful New York City by the Islamic Republic."
That's not a political pundit manufacturing outrage. That's a woman who lives under the constant threat of assassination by a theocratic regime, responding to a politician who chose to condemn American military action against that same regime. And when Weiss signaled approval of those remarks, Mamdani's team decided the interview was off, as Fox News reports.
Vanity Fair reported that Mamdani had already been "averse" to appearing on the Weiss-run network. The fire emoji simply gave his team the excuse they were looking for.
This is a familiar playbook from a certain strain of progressive politician. They demand media access when the cameras are friendly. They run the moment an interviewer might ask a question that requires more than talking points. Mamdani isn't avoiding CBS because he fears unfair treatment. He's avoiding it because he fears fair treatment.
A former CBS producer offered Vanity Fair this assessment:
"Bari and her people have a clear ax to grind with him."
The same producer then made a broader admission:
"It's not just Zohran. It's really hard now to get people to come on CBS."
Read that again. Since Weiss took over as editor-in-chief and signaled that CBS would pursue something closer to actual journalism, the people who benefited most from the old arrangement don't want to show up anymore. That's not an indictment of CBS. It's an indictment of the politicians who can only function inside a media ecosystem designed to protect them.
The deeper problem isn't a scheduling dispute with a Sunday morning show. It's where Mamdani's sympathies land when American forces are directed at a regime that exports terrorism and assassination plots to American soil.
Alinejad lives in safe houses. She stopped riding the New York City subway not because of generalized urban anxiety, but because the Islamic Republic sent operatives to kill her. When Mamdani condemned Operation Epic Fury, he placed himself opposite a woman whose life is in danger from the very government he chose to defend from American criticism.
That contrast is devastating, which is precisely why Mamdani doesn't want to sit across from anyone at CBS who might draw it out on camera.
There is something deeply unserious about a mayor of the largest city in America pulling out of a major network interview because the network's top editor posted a fire emoji. Not a hit piece. Not an editorial demanding his resignation. A single Unicode character.
If that's the threshold for retreat, New York is in for a very long administration. Governing a city of eight million people requires facing critics who do more than post emojis. It requires answering for your positions when the audience isn't pre-sorted to applaud.
Neither CBS News nor Mamdani's office responded to Fox News Digital's requests for comment. The silence is consistent. When the questions get uncomfortable, the mayor disappears.
The broader subplot here matters. For years, legacy network news operated as a de facto communications arm for progressive politicians.
Interviews were negotiated, questions were softened, and the final product rarely left a Democrat worse off than when they sat down. Bari Weiss's arrival at CBS disrupted that arrangement. Not because she turned CBS into a conservative outlet, but because she introduced the radical concept that journalists might challenge powerful people regardless of party.
The former CBS producer's complaint is revealing. The problem isn't that CBS is unfair. The problem is that CBS is no longer reliably favorable. Politicians who built their media strategies around sympathetic interviewers now face a network where an Iranian dissident can challenge a Democratic mayor on air, and the editor-in-chief won't pretend it didn't happen.
That's not an ax to grind. That's journalism recovering a pulse.
Mamdani can avoid CBS for as long as he wants. But the questions Alinejad raised aren't going away. Where was his outrage when the Islamic Republic targeted a woman on American soil? Why does his compassion extend to a regime that murders dissidents but not to the military operations aimed at stopping it?
He can dodge the interview. He can't dodge the record.
Charlotte Manley, the woman who served as Prince Andrew's private secretary and treasurer for years, has emerged as what royal watchers are calling a "key witness" in the investigation into the disgraced royal's conduct. Manley told The Times she would be willing to speak with police, offering a telling caveat in the process.
"I would rather talk to the police than the press, not that I would have much to tell them."
That last clause may prove to be the understatement of the year.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, stripped of his royal titles and now referred to by his legal name, was arrested on February 19 on suspicion of misconduct in public office in relation to his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The investigation, dubbed Operation Ironville, has since widened. Current and former staff are being questioned by police. And Manley, who held her position from 1996 through 2003 and frequently accompanied Andrew on trips abroad during his tenure as the U.K.'s special representative for trade and investment, sits at the center of it all.
British broadcaster and photographer Helena Chard told Fox News Digital this week that Manley is the "talk of the town" and that those connected to Andrew "are feeling increasing public expectation and pressure to come forward." Chard described Manley as a "dutiful British citizen" and predicted she would "offer a few gems which will lead to further investigation and more people coming forward."
One gem in particular has already attracted scrutiny: a £75 cheque Manley signed from Buckingham Palace funds to pay a masseuse. The Times reported the massage was arranged by Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000 and paid for from a Buckingham Palace account. The masseuse in question, Monique Giannelloni, a woman who ran a massage clinic in London, told The Daily Mail last year that she was "embarrassed" when Andrew appeared nude for the appointment.
"He did not do anything or suggest anything untoward, but I was very uncomfortable, and a bit shocked that he had acted like that."
Royal expert Ian Pelham Turner cautioned that the "innuendo of a masseur is a euphemism for a sexual act as similar to the Epstein stories, but in reality it could have been a normal massage by a trained professional for an injury." He noted Andrew goes horseback riding most mornings and might simply be prone to back pain. Fair enough. But a massage arranged by Ghislaine Maxwell, paid with palace money, and signed off by a secretary who now wants to cooperate with police does not exactly scream routine physiotherapy.
Royal expert Hilary Fordwich suggested Manley could share details about Andrew's off-camera behavior during trade envoy trips abroad, where she accompanied him frequently. Fordwich raised pointed questions about "who approved payments linked to travel, hospitality, or services arranged by Maxwell's network." She also suggested Manley "might attempt to reshape the narrative, shifting from Epstein introductions to patterns of palace-enabled impropriety."
Perhaps most significantly, Fordwich said Manley likely maintained detailed logs of Andrew's activities during her years of service, records that could help authorities corroborate other allegations and reveal "how access to Andrew was arranged and who facilitated such."
Fordwich added that Manley "might well feel compelled by a sense of duty" now that King Charles III has publicly stated the "law must take its course." That royal endorsement of full cooperation changes the calculus for anyone sitting on information. Loyalty to Andrew is one thing. Loyalty to a man your own king has declined to shield is quite another.
The investigation's blast radius now extends well beyond Andrew himself. Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams said Andrew's daughters, princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, are "increasingly to be moving into the line of fire as more details of their parents' links to Epstein emerge." Fitzwilliams noted that Eugenie has already stepped down as patron of Anti-Slavery International, a move that carries its own grim irony given the nature of the allegations surrounding her father's associates.
Fitzwilliams added that The Mail reported neither princess will join the royal party at Royal Ascot or appear at royal events "foreseeably," calling it what it likely is:
"This almost certainly marks the beginning of the end of their royal appearances. Questions are also being asked about how their jet-set lifestyle was funded in earlier years."
Royal commentator Meredith Constant went further, citing a source who said the palace is planning to distance itself from both daughters. Constant said she was told, "they wouldn't be surprised if titles for the girls and the use of royal housing were stripped." She also raised a question that has apparently circulated for some time.
"There have been people sounding the alarm for years that Andrew and Sarah might have gotten their daughters involved in some of the family business."
Constant framed the core issue plainly: "What it comes down to, as it does with every Royal, quite frankly, is financial transparency. Is everything above board? Where is the money coming from and why?"
The scale of the institutional damage is becoming difficult to contain. Turner described the situation as the "biggest mess of the twenty-first century for the Royal family," noting that both King Charles and Prince William were heckled by protesters at the Commonwealth service in London on Monday. The crowd voiced not just anger over the Andrew affair but broader calls for the end of the monarchy itself.
Turner called the police questioning of current and former royal staff "an unprecedented move that has ever happened before," adding that it "just goes to show how seriously this investigation is being treated by the authorities."
And there lies the uncomfortable truth for anyone still invested in the institution. For decades, the British establishment operated on the assumption that proximity to the crown carried a kind of ambient immunity. Scandals could be managed. Embarrassments could be absorbed. Awkward friendships could be explained away with enough time and enough silence.
That assumption died on February 19.
Now the cheques are being traced, the logs are being requested, and the secretary who signed the paperwork says she's ready to talk. Some people close to Andrew worry, as Constant put it, that he "will evade accountability like he has his entire life." Operation Ironville appears to be testing that theory.
Charlotte Manley spent seven years managing Andrew's schedule, his finances, and his travel. She knows where the money went. She knows who arranged the meetings. And she knows what happened behind closed doors at Buckingham Palace when the cameras were off, and the masseuse arrived.
The police, it seems, would very much like to hear about it.
The FBI distributed a memo to local law enforcement agencies across California warning of an unverified Iranian plot to launch drone attacks against the state from a vessel off the U.S. coast. The memo, issued approximately a week ago, described intelligence suggesting Iran "allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" against unspecified California targets in the event the United States conducted strikes against Iran.
President Trump confirmed the government was investigating the alleged plot. On Thursday, FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs Ben Williamson posted the full text of the memo on X, putting the details squarely into public view.
The key passage from the memo reads plainly enough:
"We recently acquired unverified information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from an unidentified vessel of the coast of the United States homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event the U.S. conducted strikes against Iran. We have no additional information on the timing, method, target or perpetrators of this alleged attack."
Unverified or not, the FBI took it seriously enough to push it to cops in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland. That alone tells you something.
According to KCRA3, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) told reporters Wednesday he was aware of the claim but insisted there was no "imminent threat." He later echoed that assessment on social media.
What Newsom did share was that the state had activated its coordination apparatus. He referenced the State Operations Center, which he said was established after the war began, and described ongoing collaboration with the Office of Emergency Services and local agencies.
"Drone issues have always been top of mind and we have assembled some work groups, specifically around those concerns. But that's all I will share at the moment."
Work groups. For a potential drone attack launched from a boat off the American coastline.
When KCRA 3 Political Director Ashley Zavala asked Newsom whether he had spoken to President Trump about the threat, Newsom said he had not. That's a revealing detail. A governor whose state is named in an FBI threat memo about a foreign adversary's aspirations to strike American soil hasn't picked up the phone to coordinate with the commander-in-chief. Whatever political tensions exist between Sacramento and Washington, the security of 39 million Californians should override them.
While Newsom assembled work groups, police departments across the state moved to operational footing. Oakland police acknowledged they'd spoken with federal partners about a "heightened risk due to the conflict in the Middle East" and said they were evaluating whether to increase police presence. San Francisco police said they were "closely monitoring events in the Middle East and around the world."
The Los Angeles Mayor's Office offered the most direct assessment:
"As always, the Mayor's Office and LAPD are coordinating closely with state and federal partners to keep Angelenos safe. At this time, there is no specific or credible threat to Los Angeles."
The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services stuck to boilerplate, assuring residents that federal, state, and local coordination "happens every day to keep people safe." Meanwhile, Sen. Alex Padilla requested information from the Trump administration on federal efforts to counter potential threats.
The intelligence is unverified. The FBI said so explicitly. There is no confirmed timing, no confirmed method, no confirmed target, no confirmed perpetrators. That matters, and no one should panic based on an aspirational threat assessment with this many unknowns.
But what also matters is the nature of the aspiration itself. Iran, according to this intelligence, has been contemplating a retaliatory drone strike on American soil. Not against a military installation overseas. Not against a diplomatic outpost. Against civilian targets inside a U.S. state. From a boat parked off the coast.
This is the threat environment that years of inconsistent deterrence create. When adversaries begin gaming out attacks on the homeland, even aspirationally, it reflects a calculus about what they believe they can get away with. The Trump administration's investigation of the plot is the correct response: take it seriously, run it down, and make clear that the consequences of attempting such an attack would be catastrophic for the regime that ordered it.
Deterrence doesn't work through work groups. It works when adversaries believe, down to their bones, that the cost of striking America exceeds anything they could gain.
There's a deeper issue here that extends beyond one memo. California has spent years positioning itself as a kind of autonomous political entity, a state that sues the federal government more often than it cooperates with it. That posture becomes a liability when the threat isn't a policy disagreement but a foreign adversary allegedly plotting to launch drones at your population centers.
Newsom established the State Operations Center. He coordinated with emergency services. He briefed local agencies. All fine. But he didn't call the president. The federal government controls the military assets, the intelligence apparatus, and the coastal defense capabilities that would actually stop a drone attack launched from an offshore vessel. Work groups don't intercept UAVs.
The FBI memo went out, the local departments responded, and the federal government is investigating. The system, at the federal level, appears to be functioning. The question is whether California's leadership is prepared to work within that system when it counts, or whether the instinct to maintain political distance from Washington will persist even when the threat crosses from domestic policy into national security.
Iran's aspirations remain unverified. But the memo is real, the FBI distributed it for a reason, and the investigation is underway. California's residents deserve leaders who treat that with the seriousness it demands, not with work groups and social media reassurances.
Supreme Court Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Brett Kavanaugh squared off over the court's emergency docket during a rare, candid discussion at an annual lecture honoring the late Judge Thomas Flannery of the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C., on Monday night. The exchange, which played out in a courtroom with several federal judges looking on, including Judge James Boasberg, laid bare a fundamental disagreement about how the court handles the flood of emergency cases that have defined this legal era.
Jackson, a Biden appointee and one of three liberal justices, signaled that the court's willingness to side with President Donald Trump on the emergency docket was a "problem." Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, pushed back directly, noting the court's approach to emergency requests was not unique to this administration and that the justices handled the Biden administration the same way.
The split tells you everything about where each justice stands, and why the emergency docket has become the left's newest institutional grievance.
Jackson framed the issue as one of process, according to Fox News. She argued the Trump administration is forcing the court's hand by implementing policy and demanding immediate effect before legal challenges can be resolved.
"The administration is making new policy ... and then insisting the new policy take effect immediately, before the challenge is decided."
She went further, calling the uptick in emergency docket activity "a real unfortunate problem" and declaring it is "not serving the court or this country well."
Then came the rhetorical flourish that revealed the real frustration. Jackson invoked "Calvinball," the game from the comic strip where rules change on the fly:
"This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins."
This is a striking claim from a sitting justice. It essentially accuses her own colleagues of rigging outcomes. But the charge collapses under the weight of the court's actual record.
The Trump administration has brought about 30 emergency applications to the Supreme Court and secured victories about 80% of the time, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. That's a strong record, but it's not the rubber stamp Jackson implies. The court has ruled against the administration on notable occasions.
Consider what the court has actually done through the emergency docket:
That last item is important. A court that "always" sides with the administration doesn't block the National Guard deployment. A court playing Calvinball doesn't impose additional notice requirements on deportation proceedings. The wins are real, but so are the losses. The 80% figure means roughly one in five emergency applications went against the president.
What Jackson is really objecting to is that the court isn't blocking the administration more often. She wants the emergency docket to serve as an additional veto point against executive action. When it doesn't, she calls it broken.
Kavanaugh's response was measured but substantive. He noted that presidents "push the envelope" more with executive orders because Congress is passing less legislation. That observation deserves more attention than it received.
The emergency docket didn't become prominent because the Supreme Court changed. It became prominent because the other branches did. Congress has spent years punting on major policy questions, from immigration to federal spending to military readiness. Presidents of both parties have filled the vacuum with executive action. Opponents of those actions have raced to friendly courts for injunctions. And the Supreme Court has been forced to sort out the mess on an accelerated timeline.
"Some are lawful, some are not."
That was Kavanaugh's assessment of executive orders generally. It's not a defense of every Trump action. It's an acknowledgment of legal reality. The court evaluates each case. Sometimes the president wins. Sometimes he doesn't.
Kavanaugh also offered a human note, saying of the emergency workload that "none of us enjoy this." That rings true. Emergency applications demand rapid review without the full briefing and oral argument that characterize the court's normal process. No justice, conservative or liberal, prefers that to the regular order.
The left has branded the emergency docket the "shadow docket" for a reason. The term itself is designed to delegitimize. It implies secrecy, when in reality the court's emergency orders are public. It implies deviation from norms, when emergency applications have existed for as long as the court has.
What has changed is volume. The Trump administration has faced hundreds of lawsuits. Many of those lawsuits produce sweeping lower-court injunctions that freeze federal policy nationwide. When the government appeals those injunctions on an emergency basis, the Supreme Court has to decide: does the policy stay frozen, or does the elected executive get to govern while litigation proceeds?
Emergency decisions have often broken 6-3 in favor of the president. Jackson, as one of three liberal justices, has been perhaps the most vocal dissenter. In August, she lambasted the Supreme Court majority for "lawmaking" from the bench in a dissent to an emergency decision that temporarily allowed the National Institutes of Health's cancellation of about $738 million in grant money.
Her dissents are consistent. They are also consistently on the losing side. And that is what drives the "Calvinball" complaint. When you lose most of the time on a court with a 6-3 conservative majority, the temptation is to blame the process rather than reckon with the fact that your legal position simply doesn't command a majority.
Kavanaugh identified the real culprit: a Congress that won't legislate. If Congress passed a clear immigration law, presidents wouldn't need to push the envelope with executive orders. If Congress funded or defunded agencies with specificity, courts wouldn't have to sort out the boundaries of executive discretion on emergency timelines. If Congress did its job, the emergency docket would shrink on its own.
But blaming Congress doesn't generate the same headlines as accusing your colleagues of rigging the game. Jackson chose the headline.
The exchange Monday night was illuminating, not because it revealed some crisis at the court, but because it showed exactly where each side wants the pressure applied. Jackson wants the court to be a bigger obstacle to executive action. Kavanaugh wants the other branches to stop dumping their failures at the court's doorstep.
Only one of those positions asks the system to work the way it was designed.