Former President Barack Obama is pushing Democrats to build their midterm and 2028 strategy around artificial intelligence regulation, a move conservatives warn is less about safety and more about expanding government control over the fastest-growing sector in the economy.
At a private fundraiser in New York City with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Obama urged the Democratic leader to make AI oversight the party's signature issue. Obama's office provided a partial transcript of his remarks to the New York Times, and the message was blunt: get ahead of AI or risk letting it become dangerous.
Obama told Jeffries directly that if Democrats win the House majority, AI should be their first order of business. "Once you are speaker, I would strongly urge that the Democrats put together a framework for a very public conversation," Obama said, as Breitbart News reported. He added: "This is something that is moving very fast in private hands, and if we don't get on top of it, I think can be dangerous."
Jeffries wasted no time echoing the former president. "President Obama is correct that decisive action must be taken on artificial intelligence," Jeffries said in a statement. "Republicans have abdicated their responsibility to govern on behalf of the American people. We will not repeat their error."
The remarks were not a one-off. Obama has been working behind the scenes for months to shape the White House's approach to AI policy, a fact that both Obama's office and the White House confirmed to the Washington Examiner. That quiet involvement now appears to be going public, and going political.
The fundraiser with Jeffries was the latest in a series of moves. In March 2025, Obama gave a speech at Hamilton College in which he argued that "big disruptions" to the world like AI "require us to reorganize our societies." In May, he visited Toronto to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has employed American Democratic staffers as top advisers.
Obama also urged prospective 2028 presidential candidates to develop a "very clear plan" for AI and make it one of their "central agendas," Fox News reported. That framing, AI as a defining campaign issue, tracks with what the party's political infrastructure is already doing on the ground.
The House Majority PAC, a Jeffries-aligned political group spending tens of millions of dollars to help Democrats take the House in November, released a memo this month encouraging candidates to strike a "conspiratorial nerve" with voters on AI. The memo pushed Democrats to spread what the group itself described as conspiratorial theories about AI in order to defeat Republicans.
Meanwhile, Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, widely seen as a possible 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, made his own pitch at a rally this weekend. Ossoff called for a president who would "rush inspectors into frontier labs, fortify the nation against bioterrorism, demand legislation from Congress, and lead the world toward an AI treaty." Questions have already emerged about Ossoff's approach to campaign rallies and whether his rhetoric is designed to inform voters or alarm them.
Left-leaning social media influencers praised Ossoff's remarks. The pattern is clear enough: Obama sets the framework, the party apparatus distributes the messaging, and ambitious Democrats audition for 2028 by repeating it.
Not everyone is buying what Obama and the Democrats are selling. Senior figures in the Trump administration have warned explicitly that the push for AI regulation is a vehicle for something much larger than consumer protection.
David Sacks, Trump's former AI czar, laid out the case in Breitbart News contributor Wynton Hall's book Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI. Sacks argued that Republicans should understand that "hyperbolic and unproven claims" about potential AI job losses are "not an accident" but rather "part of an influence operation."
"The goal" is "to further 'Global AI Governance,' a massive power grab by the bureaucratic state and globalist institutions."
Sacks said the organizers behind global AI governance are "billionaires with a long history of funding left-wing causes and Trump hatred." He warned that while "it's fine to be concerned about a technology as transformational as AI," repeating their claims uncritically means "you may be falling for an AstroTurfed campaign by the 'AI Existential Risk Industrial Complex.'"
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who oversees much of the AI front for the current White House, framed the issue as a national security imperative at a recent Breitbart News event. "There is no day after tomorrow if China wins at this," Bessent said. "If they were to pull away from us on AI, then nothing else would matter."
Emil Michael, a top Pentagon official overseeing AI implementation for the U.S. military, went further. He described the philosophical vision behind much of the AI safety movement as dystopian.
"It's a sort of dystopian, 'Brave New World' view of the world, where machines that are using 1s and 0s are going to have no bias and are going to decide the perfectly rational and best thing for everyone on Earth. It's a strange philosophical concept, and I don't think it's a place any normal person wants to live in."
Michael added that while AI companies have "distanced themselves" from the Effective Altruism movement that animated much of their early culture, "the detritus of that philosophy still lives inside these companies in my view."
The corporate side of the debate is just as revealing. Dario Amodei, CEO of the AI company Anthropic, published a blog post titled "We Must Pace the Frontier" calling for a slowdown in AI development. "We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models," Amodei wrote. "Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain."
But Amodei's own post acknowledged the strategic risk. He said he agreed with Bessent "that a Chinese lead in AI would pose grave danger for the United States and the world." He warned that Chinese projects tied to the CCP "will run the alignment risks that U.S. companies are carefully preventing, and even if they avoid those risks, they will be in a position to militarily dominate democracies (for example with AI-driven drones)."
The contradiction sits in plain view. Amodei wants American companies to slow down while conceding that China will not. That tension is exactly what Trump administration officials have been flagging, and what they believe Democrats are either ignoring or exploiting for political advantage. The question of how figures like Obama accumulate influence and wealth after leaving office only sharpens the skepticism about whose interests these frameworks actually serve.
Wynton Hall's Code Red, published months ago, anticipated much of what is now unfolding. Hall wrote that "Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama are eager to leverage both real and imagined AI job losses to press for Universal Basic Income (UBI) or a four- or three-day workweek."
Hall called those proposals "fanciful" but "dangerous nonetheless, because elites will seize even greater control over our lives because of the liberties we gave up in exchange." He argued that "very powerful and highly organized leftists have built a massive echo chamber designed to amplify and stoke public fears about AI job losses, regardless of whether they are minimal or maximal."
The end goal, Hall wrote, is that "billionaire tech elites hope the public will cede greater decision-making and regulatory authority to them and groups such as the United Nations, WEF, and others to ensure 'AI safety' and mitigate existential risks." The United Nations and the World Economic Forum, institutions with no democratic accountability to American voters, are the intended beneficiaries of that handoff.
A Fox News poll found that 70% of registered voters opposed construction of AI data centers in their communities, a data point that suggests real public anxiety about AI's footprint. Democrats clearly see an opening in that anxiety. The question is whether their proposed solution, more regulation, more international frameworks, more bureaucratic oversight, would protect American workers or simply transfer power to the very institutions that have spent years trying to constrain American sovereignty.
Obama's track record on multilateral frameworks is not reassuring. He pushed the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, both of which failed. His predecessor Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, which Trump replaced with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement during his first term. The pattern is consistent: Democratic presidents reach for sprawling international agreements, and American workers end up holding the short end. The broader shifts inside the Democratic Party have done nothing to break that pattern.
Ossoff's call for an "AI treaty" and Obama's push for a "framework" that would reorganize societies fit neatly into that tradition. So does the broader record of the Democratic establishment when it comes to accountability and follow-through.
AI is real, its disruptions are real, and serious people should debate how to handle both. But when a former president who failed at two major trade deals resurfaces to demand global governance over the most consequential technology of the century, and when the party's own political arm tells candidates to play on conspiracy fears to win elections, the agenda deserves more scrutiny than applause.
President Trump shut down a defense attorney's public plea to pardon Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother charged with murdering her three children, making clear the case falls outside his federal authority, but the attorney's real target may not have been the White House at all.
Trump addressed the request on Sunday, days after Clancy's lawyer Kevin Reddington went on national television to ask the president to intervene. Trump acknowledged the tragedy but drew a firm constitutional line: the president can pardon federal crimes, not state charges. Clancy faces three counts of first-degree murder in Massachusetts, and no amount of presidential sympathy changes that jurisdictional fact.
Fox News Digital reported Trump's remarks, in which he called the case "very sad" and made clear he would not act.
"There's no winner there. There's no win no matter what you do. Three children are dead."
Trump also praised Reddington's legal abilities, saying he had heard from others that Reddington is "a very good attorney," and added, "I hope they can work it out. That's something they have to work out... There is no win there."
Reddington knew before he ever went on camera that Trump lacked the legal power to pardon his client. He said so himself. The appeal was not really directed at the Oval Office, it was aimed at Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz, the Republican prosecutor who must now decide whether to retry Clancy after a jury deadlocked earlier this month.
Reddington appeared on Good Morning America and CBS Boston to make his case publicly. As National Review detailed, the defense attorney's strategy was to leverage Trump's political influence to pressure Cruz, who has held the DA's seat since 2001, into declining a retrial.
"The goal is pretty simple. It's to seek help from Trump. I mean, if President Trump feels that this is a case that warrants that type of intervention from, you know, the executive branch, even though legally it's not a federal case, he certainly has an awful lot of clout."
That is a candid admission from a defense lawyer: the pardon request was a pressure campaign dressed up as a legal petition. Reddington wanted headlines, and he got them. Whether those headlines move Cruz is another question entirely.
Trump had previously weighed in on the case after Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial when the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict. In those earlier remarks, Trump did not hold back about what Clancy did.
"I assume there's going to be another trial. It's a terrible situation. Look, she did a horrible, horrible thing. Can't be worse. But you'll find out what the price to pay is. There'll be a price. It's going to be [a] mental institution or jail or something."
The mistrial came after a full week of deliberations. The jury of nine women and three men split 11 to 1, with the overwhelming majority reportedly favoring acquittal on grounds that Clancy was not criminally responsible due to mental illness. One holdout juror prevented a unanimous verdict, and Sullivan had no choice but to declare a mistrial.
The defense argued throughout the trial that Clancy, a 36-year-old former nurse, suffered from postpartum psychosis when she killed her three children, Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months old, at their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in January 2023. After the killings, Clancy attempted to take her own life and was left paralyzed.
One juror's conduct drew scrutiny after the trial. A juror admitted she changed her vote and may still believe Clancy is guilty, raising questions about the dynamics inside the deliberation room.
Reddington has also pointed to Clancy's psychiatric care before the killings, telling ABC News that she had sought treatment from a psychiatrist he described as inexperienced. The defense contends that a doctor prescribed medications for postpartum depression in the months leading up to what they characterize as a psychotic break. The psychiatrist's name and the specific medications have not been publicly identified in reporting on the case.
Retired Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Jack Lu told Fox News Digital that a plea deal would be a "good idea" and in the public's "interest." But Lu predicted that prosecutors will not take that path. Instead, he expects the Plymouth County DA's office to seek a first-degree murder conviction again at retrial.
That prediction carries weight. Cruz has held his position for more than two decades and built a record as a law-and-order prosecutor. Walking away from a triple-murder case, regardless of the jury split, would be an extraordinary concession. The 11-to-1 vote gives the defense strong talking points, but it does not erase the fact that three children are dead and the person who killed them is alive.
The Washington Examiner reported that Trump's response specifically noted the constitutional boundary: the president's pardon power extends only to federal offenses. Clancy's charges are entirely under Massachusetts jurisdiction, and no presidential action, pardon, commutation, or otherwise, can reach them.
Trump has used his clemency powers actively in other contexts. He has weighed issuing 250 pardons to mark America's 250th anniversary, and he recently commuted the sentence of a Philadelphia union boss, citing the man's wife's terminal illness. But those cases involved federal convictions, the one category where presidential authority applies.
The Clancy case has drawn intense public attention and unusual courtroom incidents. A woman was accused of filming jurors during the trial and later pleaded not guilty before fleeing reporters outside the courthouse, a sign of how emotionally charged the proceedings became.
Reddington's media strategy reflects a defense team that understands the case will be tried in public opinion as much as in court. By dragging the president's name into the conversation, he ensured that every news cycle about the Clancy retrial now includes the phrase "pardon", even though a pardon was never legally possible. It is a savvy move, and it is also a distraction from the central question: whether a Massachusetts jury, presented with the same evidence a second time, will reach a different result.
The New York Post reported Reddington's direct appeal to Trump: "Mr. President, I would hope that you would consider this young lady, the type of person she is and what she's been through, and consider a pardon." That language frames Clancy as a sympathetic figure deserving mercy, a framing the families of three dead children might see very differently.
Trump handled the question correctly. He expressed sympathy, acknowledged the horror, and declined to overstep his authority. The case belongs to Massachusetts, and Massachusetts will have to resolve it, either through a retrial, a plea deal, or a prosecutorial decision not to proceed. Federal intervention was never on the table, no matter how loudly a defense attorney asked for it.
Three children are dead. The system that exists to answer for that is the one in Plymouth County, not the one in Washington. And no amount of cable-news strategy changes who has to make the call.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama used her podcast to explain why she deliberately denied her daughters things while they grew up in the White House, a parenting philosophy that stands in sharp contrast to the sheltered, privileged bubble most Americans associate with life inside the executive mansion.
On the September 9 episode of her IMO podcast, co-hosted with her brother Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama fielded a fan question about handling job rejections and turned it into a broader lesson about resilience. She said her daughters, Malia and Sasha, have reminded her how often she refused their requests when they were young, and that she did it on purpose.
The reason, she said, was straightforward: children of a sitting president live in a world where almost nobody tells them no, and she wanted to make sure that world didn't warp them.
Michelle Obama told listeners that failure works like physical exercise, painful in the moment, essential for long-term strength.
"Life is like a big muscle. You've got to build it up. Every failure is like a push-up or a rep. The more reps you do, the stronger you get at life. You don't get the strength without the reps."
She then connected that philosophy directly to how she raised Malia and Sasha inside the most famous house in America.
"The girls tell me, 'Mom, you used to tell us no.' They'd be like, 'Why?' Because you need to know what no feels like."
Michelle Obama drew a line between her own childhood and the one her daughters experienced. She and Craig Robinson grew up hearing "no" constantly, no, they couldn't afford something; no, they couldn't have it. That friction, she argued, built something their daughters' environment could not replicate on its own.
"Especially for kids like ours... there's no natural 'nos,'" she said on the podcast. The implication was clear: when the entire apparatus of the federal government is organized around your family's comfort and security, ordinary childhood disappointments vanish unless parents deliberately reintroduce them.
Robinson, a former college basketball coach, echoed the point. He encouraged parents to let their children experience failure while they are young, arguing it helps them in the long run and prevents a first major setback in their twenties from feeling like a catastrophe.
Michelle Obama added that everyone needs to learn their own process for getting through failure, something she believes people figure out as they get older.
The podcast comments arrive more than a year after Malia Obama made a quiet but telling decision: she dropped "Obama" from her professional name. The eldest Obama daughter, now a filmmaker, premiered her short film The Heart at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival under the credit "Malia Ann."
Michelle Obama addressed the move during a June 2025 appearance on Kate and Oliver Hudson's Sibling Revelry podcast, saying her daughters are deeply aware of how people perceive children of powerful parents.
"It is very important for my kids to feel like they've earned what they are getting in the world, and they don't want people to assume that they don't work hard, that they're just naturally, just handed things."
She said both Malia and Sasha, 25 and 23 at the time of that podcast, are "very sensitive to that" and "want to be their own people." She also acknowledged the limits of a name change when your face is one of the most recognized in the country.
"We were like, they're still going to know it's you, Malia. But we respected the fact that she's trying to make her way."
Former President Barack Obama told a similar story months earlier, during an October 2024 appearance on The Pivot Podcast. He recalled Malia's reasoning for the change with a mix of amusement and respect.
"I was all like, 'You do know they'll know who you are.' And she's all like, 'You know what? I want them to watch it that first time and not in any way have that association.' So I think our daughters go out of their way to not try to leverage that."
Michelle Obama also described a period of distance during Malia and Sasha's adolescence, the kind of parent-child tension most families recognize but few discuss publicly when the family in question occupied the White House.
"Our daughters are 25 and 23. They are young adult women, but they definitely went through a period in their teen years where it was the push away... [where] you're trying to distinguish yourself," she said on the Sibling Revelry podcast in June 2025.
That teenage push for independence, she suggested, eventually matured into the professional independence Malia demonstrated by shedding the family name for her film career. The thread connecting the two was the same: a desire to be judged on merit, not lineage.
Whether a name change accomplishes that is debatable. Both parents acknowledged the obvious, everyone already knows who Malia Ann is. But the gesture itself tells you something about how the Obama daughters view the family brand: as something to earn distance from, not coast on.
Credit where it's due on the parenting instinct. Telling your kids "no" when the whole world is telling them "yes" takes discipline. Whether the Obamas applied that same discipline to the policies they imposed on everyone else's kids is a different question, but inside their own house, at least, they understood that comfort without friction produces nothing worth having.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and dozens of House Democrats demanded a federal investigation into hanging deaths of Black Americans they called "widespread modern-day lynchings", but law enforcement and medical examiners ruled nearly every cited case a suicide.
Ocasio-Cortez posted on X on Friday that she was "proud to have signed onto" a letter led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts calling on Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel to launch a "thorough, transparent, and comprehensive federal investigation into every hanging death of a Black individual across the United States." Approximately 50 Democrats co-signed the letter, which accused federal agencies of having "failed for decades to adequately investigate such deaths."
The problem: the specific cases that prompted the letter have, one after another, been investigated by local authorities and ruled suicides, not homicides, and not lynchings. Only one of the high-profile hanging deaths cited in 2025 and 2026 remains under homicide investigation, and the suspect in that case is the victim's former partner, not a racial vigilante. X's crowdsourced Community Notes feature flagged Ocasio-Cortez's post with links to the law-enforcement and medical-examiner findings that contradicted her framing.
In Cobb County, Georgia, a 21-year-old Atlanta man was found hanging from a tree in a park. Officials ruled out foul play and classified the death as a suicide. In Mississippi, Delta State University student Demartravion Reed died by hanging; officials determined the manner of death was suicide. In Albany, New York, 58-year-old Earl Smith was found hanging. The Albany Police Department ruled his death a suicide and said investigators found "no evidence" of criminal activity.
Albany police acknowledged the public anxiety the cases had generated. In a statement, the department said it was "aware of concerns posted on social media suggesting that criminal activity was involved with this incident, which has understandably caused public concern." But the department stood by its finding.
In Brookfield, Wisconsin, a 39-year-old man was also found hanging. The Brookfield police chief said a preliminary investigation pointed to suicide.
The sole case that has not been ruled a suicide is that of Tasia Fortune, a Black woman found hanging outside an abandoned house in Jackson, Mississippi. Her death remains under homicide investigation. Terence Bernard Anderson, the father of one of Fortune's children, was questioned by authorities and later arrested, not on a murder charge, but on unrelated weapons charges. Breitbart reported that the Fortune case was the only one of the high-profile deaths confirmed as a homicide, a fact that undercuts the "widespread lynching" framing entirely.
On X, Ocasio-Cortez wrote:
"This year, there have already been 10 reported hangings of Black people in the U.S. I'm proud to have signed onto Rep. Pressley's letter to address these widespread modern-day lynchings and put a stop to this racial terror."
X's Community Notes, the platform's crowdsourced correction feature, responded by directing readers to the law-enforcement and medical-examiner findings in several of the cases. The notes stated that most high-profile hanging deaths identified in 2025 and 2026 had been ruled suicides and that one remained under homicide investigation.
Former Senate staffer Matt Whitlock challenged the lawmakers' language directly:
"Every death is a tragedy, but what do you think 'widespread' means if only one of these was actually a homicide. Not sure you've landed the point about 'racial terror' with this."
Ocasio-Cortez, who has surged in 2028 Democratic nomination odds, did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Neither did the DOJ or the FBI.
The letter, spearheaded by Pressley, leaned heavily on historical racial violence. It cited the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, the 2022 federal law named after the Black teenager kidnapped and murdered by white men in Mississippi in 1955 after being falsely accused of flirting with a white woman. The letter argued that Congress enacted the law "to ensure the DOJ and FBI are empowered to fully investigate suspicious deaths and hold individuals accountable."
Pressley's own language went further. "Black folks are being found hanged in America," she wrote. "We cannot stand by while strange fruit hangs from trees across the country." The phrase "strange fruit" is a reference to the Billie Holiday song about lynching victims, a deliberate rhetorical choice that frames the deaths as racial murders before investigators have reached that conclusion.
When Fox News Digital reached Pressley's spokesperson, Ricardo Sanchez, for comment, he directed the outlet back to the letter itself rather than addressing the gap between the lawmakers' framing and the official findings.
Former Energy Department official Matt Van Swol posted a blunter critique on X:
"In the last 'lynching' of a Black woman, the media conveniently left out the prime suspect in the case was her Black boyfriend. Zero White people are lynching Black people in America today."
Van Swol's characterization is consistent with the known facts in the Fortune case: the only person arrested in connection with the investigation is Anderson, the father of one of Fortune's children, and he was taken into custody on unrelated weapons charges, not on a lynching charge, and not as part of any racial conspiracy.
The pattern here is not subtle. Roughly 50 House Democrats signed a letter demanding a sweeping federal investigation into what they characterized as "widespread modern-day lynchings." They invoked the name of Emmett Till. They used the language of racial terror. And they did all of this while the actual case files, compiled by local police departments, medical examiners, and investigators, showed suicide ruling after suicide ruling.
That does not mean these deaths are not tragedies. Every one of them is. But tragedy and racial terror are not the same thing, and lawmakers who blur that line do real damage. They stoke fear where the evidence calls for grief. They weaponize pain for political leverage. And they erode public trust in the very institutions they claim to be defending.
The congressional letter also reflects a broader trend among progressive Democrats who increasingly set the party's tone, one that prioritizes ideological narrative over verified fact. When confronted with Community Notes, fact-checks, and official findings, neither Ocasio-Cortez nor Pressley's office offered a substantive response. Sanchez pointed reporters back to the letter. Ocasio-Cortez said nothing.
That silence is its own answer. If the facts supported the "lynching" framing, the lawmakers would be citing them. Instead, they cited a 2022 law, a 1955 murder, and the emotional weight of the word itself.
Meanwhile, House Democrats continue to struggle with internal discipline, and episodes like this one illustrate why. When a party's most prominent voices make claims that crumble under the first layer of scrutiny, the credibility cost is not limited to one post on X. It spreads.
Fox News Digital reached out to the DOJ and the FBI for comment on the letter's demands. No responses were noted. Whether federal authorities will act on the request remains an open question, but the local investigators who actually examined these cases have already spoken.
Ocasio-Cortez, whose personal life has drawn tabloid attention alongside her political ambitions, has built a brand on moral urgency. But moral urgency without factual grounding is just noise, and in this case, it is noise that cheapens the real history of racial violence in America by attaching it to deaths that investigators say were not racial violence at all.
If Democrats want the public to take claims of racial terror seriously, they might start by taking the evidence seriously first.
The U.S. Supreme Court has now twice declined to intervene in Missouri's redistricting fight, ending Republican efforts to use a 2025 congressional map ahead of November's midterm elections, a decision that preserves a Democratic-held seat in Kansas City.
The court's Thursday rejection came without public dissents, shutting down an emergency appeal by the anti-gerrymandering group People Not Politicians, which had asked the justices to overturn a lower court order mandating use of the Republican-drawn map. The ruling caps a chaotic week in which Missouri's congressional boundaries changed three times and the state's secretary of state was hauled before the Missouri Supreme Court on contempt charges.
The outcome leaves Missouri locked into its 2022 congressional districts for the 2026 midterms, a map that gives Republicans a likely 6-2 advantage over Democrats instead of the 7-1 edge the newer map was designed to deliver. The lost seat is the Kansas City district held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, which the 2025 redistricting plan had carved up to favor a Republican challenger.
The legal whiplash began Tuesday, when the Supreme Court let stand a Missouri Supreme Court decision ordering Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to use the older 2022 map. Moments later, a federal judge in Missouri temporarily blocked that very map, effectively reinstating the 2025 GOP version. By Tuesday night, a lower court had issued its own order mandating use of the Republican-drawn districts.
On Wednesday, People Not Politicians raced back to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to overturn the Tuesday night order. By Thursday, the court said no, for the second time in days.
The Associated Press reported that Thursday's decision "appears to be the end of the push to use the 2025 redistricting map." Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Onder disagreed.
"This isn't over."
Onder's two-word response signals that the redistricting fight may continue in other legal venues even as the midterm clock runs out.
Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins became a central figure in the dispute after the Missouri Supreme Court ordered him to administer elections under the 2022 map. Hoskins refused. The state high court summoned him to explain why he should not be held in contempt, a remarkable breakdown in the chain of legal authority between a statewide elected official and the state's highest court.
The confrontation grew out of a citizen-led referendum effort. More than 300,000 Missouri voters signed a petition challenging the 2025 redistricting plan, triggering a legal requirement that the new districts could not take effect unless voters approved them at the ballot box. Hoskins refused to place the referendum on the ballot, setting off the cascade of lawsuits that eventually reached the Supreme Court twice in a single week.
The Missouri Supreme Court's earlier ruling blocking the GOP map had already signaled that the state judiciary viewed the referendum signatures as a constitutional barrier to the new districts.
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway had filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court days earlier, trying to revive the 2025 map before a Tuesday deadline for ballot changes. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency appeals from the region, asked opponents to respond by Monday and had the option to decide alone or refer the matter to the full court.
Hanaway did not mince words in her filing, as Fox News reported:
"We have just appealed yesterday's catastrophic ruling to the Supreme Court of the United States. We look forward to the Court's prompt review of this critical matter, as our ability to hold timely and lawful congressional elections hangs in the balance."
Her office's appeal went further, arguing that no court in American history had ever granted such an extraordinary remedy and that the state court's order "inflicts unprecedented chaos on Missouri."
The Supreme Court was unmoved. Its unanimous, unsigned order halting the federal district court's restoration of the 2025 map carried no public dissents, a signal that not even the court's most conservative members saw grounds to intervene on an emergency basis.
The decision came during a term in which the justices have faced a packed docket of politically consequential cases touching executive power, immigration, and elections.
Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians Missouri, framed the outcome in simple terms:
"The law is the law, the Missouri Constitution is clear as was the Missouri Supreme Court."
Von Glahn's group had gathered the 300,000-plus signatures that forced the legal standoff. From their perspective, the Missouri Constitution gave citizens a right to challenge mid-decade redistricting through referendum, and the courts upheld that right.
But the episode exposed a serious institutional problem. A sitting secretary of state openly defied the state's highest court. A federal judge issued an order that contradicted the state supreme court's ruling within minutes of the U.S. Supreme Court declining to disturb it. And Missouri's congressional map changed three times in five days, weeks before voters were supposed to cast ballots.
The Washington Examiner noted that the Supreme Court's emergency ruling forced Missouri to revert to the 2022 map, reducing the Republican congressional advantage from a projected 7-1 split to 6-2. For Republicans who had counted on the newer map to flip the Kansas City seat, the loss is concrete and immediate.
Courts across the country have been grappling with similar high-stakes disputes over election rules and voter eligibility. A recent Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling on voter eligibility records drew comparable controversy over the judiciary's role in shaping election outcomes.
With the 2022 map now locked in for November, Missouri's eight congressional races will play out under district lines that give Democrats a realistic shot at holding two seats instead of one. The Kansas City district that Republicans targeted remains intact.
The broader question is whether Missouri's redistricting saga sets a precedent for other states where legislatures attempt mid-decade map changes. The 300,000-signature referendum petition proved to be the legal lever that stopped the 2025 map, a tool available in Missouri's constitution but not in every state's.
Rep. Onder's insistence that "this isn't over" suggests Republicans may pursue legislative or legal avenues after the midterms. But for the 2026 cycle, the fight is settled.
The Supreme Court's willingness to stay out of the fray, twice, unanimously, with no dissents, is itself a statement. The justices have shown in other recent terms that they will step into politically charged disputes, including on gun laws and executive authority. On Missouri's maps, they chose silence.
When 300,000 citizens sign a petition and the state's own constitution backs their right to a vote, the system is supposed to work. That it took two trips to the Supreme Court and a contempt summons to get there says more about the officials who resisted than the courts that finally held the line.
The White House removed a Tetris-style game called "Build The Wall" from its website days after The Tetris Company publicly accused it of copyright infringement, the latest in a pattern of intellectual-property dust-ups with the administration's social media operation.
The game, one of five arcade-style titles hosted on the White House website, let users stack falling blocks to build a border wall. It disappeared without explanation after The Tetris Company posted on X on September 4, declaring that it was "not involved in the creation" of the game and that it takes "copyright infringement very seriously." The White House has not responded to BBC requests for comment or offered any official reason for pulling the game.
Four other games remain on the site, including "Flappy Bill", a clone of the viral 2013 mobile hit Flappy Bird, set against Washington's National Mall monuments, and "Rio Run," a border-themed game in which players patrol a river, catching illegal immigrants and tallying a "Deported" counter on screen.
The Tetris Company did not simply flag the legal issue. It drew a moral line. Its September 4 post included a pointed statement about the company's identity:
"At Tetris we believe in the power of connection and building people together, not dividing them."
The company added a message aimed at its fanbase:
"To our fans everywhere: we love you, we see you, and we're grateful to have you in our community."
The firm has a track record of enforcing its intellectual property. In 2012, it settled a copyright infringement lawsuit against the makers of an iPhone game called Mino for an undisclosed fee. That history suggests the company's objection to "Build The Wall" carried real legal weight, even if no formal lawsuit was filed in this case.
Whether The Tetris Company sent a formal cease-and-desist letter or a DMCA takedown notice, the standard legal tool for forcing removal of infringing content online, before or after its public post remains unclear. The White House's silence leaves open the question of whether the game was pulled voluntarily, under legal pressure, or on some other basis entirely.
The "Build The Wall" episode is not the first time the administration's digital team has drawn complaints from intellectual-property holders. In October 2025, the official White House X account posted an AI-created image of President Trump wearing a suit from the Halo video game franchise. That post drew criticism from Steve Downes, the voice actor behind Halo's iconic character Master Chief.
Downes posted a now-deleted tweet calling for "the producers of this disgusting and juvenile war porn" to remove his voice from a related video. That video, posted by the White House X account on March 6, mixed footage of U.S. military strikes in Iran with clips from films and television, including a Halo audio clip of Master Chief saying "finishing this fight."
The administration has also had run-ins beyond the gaming world. The Pokémon Company International criticized the White House after it included a small image of the character Pikachu in a "Make America Great Again" meme posted online in March. No direct quotes from The Pokémon Company's response were reported, but the objection added to a growing list of brand owners pushing back against the administration's freewheeling use of pop-culture imagery.
Connecticut Democratic state senator Matt Lesser used the arcade section to take a shot at the administration's priorities. Lesser tweeted:
"Heating oil is near an all-time high but hey you can play Border Tsar Tom Homan in a video game."
The criticism is predictable from a Democratic state legislator, and Lesser offered no sourced figure to back his heating-oil claim. But the broader point, that a White House website hosting browser games invites easy mockery, is one the administration's own team should have anticipated.
The remaining games on the site, including "Rio Run" with its "Deported" counter, will likely continue to draw attention from critics. Whether the White House communications team views the arcade section as effective outreach or a liability is anyone's guess, the administration has said nothing publicly about the games' purpose or who authorized them.
The identity of the person or team that created "Build The Wall" and the other titles has not been disclosed. No official has claimed credit, and no internal process for approving the games has been described.
There is nothing wrong with a president's team using creative digital content to advance a policy message. Border security is a serious issue, and communicating it in accessible formats is fair game. But borrowing the look, mechanics, and brand identity of a globally recognized game without permission is a different matter. Copyright law protects creators regardless of who is doing the copying, and the federal government is not exempt from that principle.
The Tetris Company's 2012 settlement over the Mino clone shows the firm does not make idle threats. The White House apparently recognized the risk and acted, quietly, without comment, and without acknowledging any fault.
That silence is the least satisfying part. An administration that prides itself on confronting critics head-on chose to say nothing when a game company called it out for copying its product. A brief statement, "we pulled the game out of respect for intellectual property", would have closed the story in a news cycle. Instead, the silence lets critics fill the vacuum.
The broader pattern of using copyrighted characters, audio, and game designs without clearance suggests a digital operation that moves fast and worries about permissions later, or not at all. The Halo clips, the Pikachu meme, and now the Tetris-style game all point to a team that treats pop culture as a free resource. It isn't.
Conservatives who believe in property rights, intellectual property included, should expect the White House to respect them. If the message is worth making, it is worth making with original work.
A 69-year-old Long Island man was allegedly stabbed to death by his 33-year-old son inside his own apartment early Monday morning, and managed to crawl to a phone and call 911 before he collapsed.
Edward Brown was found dead at his Mastic, Long Island, home after Sage Arias-Brown allegedly broke in around 12:30 a.m. and stabbed him multiple times in the abdomen and chest, the New York Post reported. Police arrested Arias-Brown blocks from the apartment shortly after the killing.
Suffolk County prosecutors say a witness heard Arias-Brown force his way into the apartment and heard Brown screaming for help. The witness then saw Arias-Brown leave the building. Brown, despite his wounds, dragged himself to a phone and dialed 911 to report the attack, then collapsed before help arrived. He was declared dead at the scene.
Arias-Brown was arraigned Tuesday on a charge of second-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty, was remanded without bail, and is due back in court Friday.
His defense attorney, Katherine Fernandez, told the court that Arias-Brown has a history of mental illness. Fernandez also disclosed that her client has an open robbery case, a detail prosecutors did not dispute.
Assistant District Attorney Melissa Grier laid out the timeline for the court at Tuesday's arraignment:
"A witness heard [Arias-Brown] gain entry into the apartment and heard [Brown] screaming for help, the witness then saw him exit the building."
After the stabbing, Brown somehow found the strength to reach a phone and call 911. He reported the attack himself. Then he collapsed. By the time officers arrived, there was nothing they could do.
The sequence is stark. A 69-year-old man, alone in his apartment after midnight, is attacked by his own adult son. He is stabbed repeatedly. And his last conscious act is to call for help that arrives too late.
The case carries echoes of other recent cases in which parents were allegedly killed by their own children, a pattern that raises hard questions about what systems failed before the violence began.
Fernandez's disclosure that Arias-Brown was already facing a robbery charge, and had a documented history of mental illness, puts an uncomfortable spotlight on the gap between what authorities knew and what they did about it.
Prosecutors have not publicly detailed the nature of the open robbery case or when it was filed. They have not said whether Arias-Brown was under any conditions of release at the time of the alleged killing. Those are questions the court proceedings ahead may answer.
But the basic outline is damning enough on its own. A man with a pending violent felony charge and known mental health issues allegedly broke into his elderly father's home in the middle of the night and stabbed him to death. Edward Brown is gone. The system that was supposed to track his son's open case did not prevent it.
Violent crimes committed by suspects already entangled in the justice system have become a grim recurring theme in New York. Elsewhere in the country, courts have handed down severe sentences for acts of extreme violence, but those sentences come after the damage is done.
At his Tuesday arraignment, Arias-Brown arrived in a worn track suit and fidgeted throughout the proceedings. He entered a plea of not guilty to the second-degree murder charge. The judge remanded him without bail.
Suffolk County prosecutors offered no public statement on motive. What exactly unfolded inside the Mastic apartment before the stabbing remains unclear. Investigators have not said whether any confrontation preceded the attack or what method Arias-Brown allegedly used to break in.
The identity of the unnamed witness, the person who heard Brown's screams and saw Arias-Brown leave, has not been disclosed. Nor has the specific police agency that made the arrest been named publicly, though the case falls within Suffolk County's jurisdiction.
Stabbing deaths involving family members have drawn national attention in recent months. In one Pennsylvania case, a college athlete was allegedly stabbed to death by a boyfriend, with the suspect's own mother later charged in a cover-up.
Several critical facts remain missing from the public record. No cause of death from a medical examiner has been released. The exact nature of Arias-Brown's mental health history has not been detailed beyond Fernandez's general statement. The specifics of the open robbery case, when it was filed, what the allegations were, and whether Arias-Brown was free on bail or his own recognizance, are unknown.
Those gaps matter. If Arias-Brown was out on bail or released under supervision while facing a violent felony, the question becomes whether the system had the tools to keep Edward Brown safe and chose not to use them, or whether it lacked the tools entirely.
New York's criminal justice reforms over the past several years have repeatedly drawn scrutiny for limiting judges' ability to hold defendants pretrial, particularly in cases involving mental illness. Whether those policies played any role here is not yet established. But every time a suspect with an open violent case allegedly commits another act of violence, the question gets louder.
Cases involving criminal charges stemming from violent or disturbing conduct continue to test whether the justice system can identify dangerous individuals before they escalate.
Arias-Brown is scheduled to return to court Friday. That hearing may begin to answer some of the open questions, about the robbery case, about his mental health treatment, and about the circumstances that put him at his father's door at 12:30 in the morning.
For now, the facts speak plainly. A 69-year-old man was stabbed in his own home by his own son. He bled out after calling 911 himself. His alleged killer had a violent criminal history and documented mental illness. And he was free to walk to his father's apartment in the dead of night.
Edward Brown did everything right in his final moments. He fought to reach the phone. He called for help. The system that was supposed to keep people like his son in check had already failed him long before the phone rang.
A Hong Kong diner reported finding a pink, hairless suspected newborn rat in takeout sauce, prompting an investigation and restaurant cleanup after inspectors found unsatisfactory conditions.
The New York Post reported that the unidentified customer ordered a satay beef meal from Wa Jer Restaurant in Kwai Chung, Hong Kong, on a Monday. The suspected animal appeared inside the sauce.
The customer complained to Hong Kong’s Food and Environmental Hygiene Department. The department seized the meal for testing and inspected the restaurant. Wa Jer closed the next day for cleaning and disinfection.
One contaminated meal can expose a much larger accountability problem. Consumers facing food scares, including a recent parasitic outbreak, depend on health agencies to investigate quickly and disclose what they find.
The restaurant operator said he was shocked and declined to say whether he believed the incident was a prank. He claimed the business had operated for just over a year without previous vermin problems in its food.
The operator also acknowledged that rodents sometimes appear in that part of Hong Kong. He claimed Wa Jer undergoes a deep cleaning every month, but inspectors still described the restaurant’s hygiene conditions as unsatisfactory.
As the New York Post reported, a Food and Environmental Hygiene Department spokesperson described the scope of the inquiry:
“Regarding the suspected discovery of a baby rat in takeaway food, the department is conducting an investigation covering various aspects including food preparation, packaging, storage, and delivery,”
That inquiry matters because the animal could have entered the meal at several points. The department warned against drawing conclusions from online video or the suspected animal alone.
Consumers deserve the same direct scrutiny over ordinary ingredients, which is why changes involving artificial dyes in cereal draw close attention. People should know what businesses put into the food they buy.
Several basic questions remain unanswered. Authorities had not disclosed test results, explained how the animal reached the sauce, or announced any fine, charge, or prosecution.
The animal’s identity also remains uncertain. The restaurant episode was described as involving a suspected newborn rat, while a related Shanghai Daily post called it a pink newborn mouse and said it was wriggling.
The exact purchase date was not supplied. The account identified only Monday as the order date and Tuesday as the day Wa Jer closed for cleaning.
Accountability across the food-service business extends beyond contamination. Cases involving restaurant alcohol service raise the same central demand: businesses and regulators must answer for preventable failures.
Hong Kong authorities have the seized food, the customer’s complaint, and their own inspection findings. Their job now is to finish the testing, establish what happened, and make the result clear.
Customers should not have to guess whether a takeout meal is safe. Clean kitchens and honest answers are the minimum.
An Amazon Prime Air cargo jet overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, plowed into multiple vehicles, and caught fire, killing at least five people and injuring five others in one of the deadliest U.S. airport incidents in years.
The Boeing 767-300, operating as 21 Air Flight 7598, had departed from Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, before touching down in Miami at approximately 2:00 p.m. local time. Instead of stopping on the diagonal runway, the freighter kept going, sliding past the airport operations boundary, slamming into vehicles, and erupting in flames that sent heavy black smoke billowing over one of the nation's busiest airports, Fox News Digital reported.
County emergency-dispatch records show the first call came in at roughly 1:55 p.m., five minutes before the crash time logged by officials. Within minutes, more than 60 Miami-Dade Fire Rescue units and approximately 200 personnel flooded the scene. The Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office confirmed at least 10 total victims: five dead, five injured.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue posted on X that crews found the aircraft engulfed in flames on arrival:
"Units arrived to find an airplane that had caught on fire as a result of this crash, with heavy flames and smoke showing. Firefighters are working on extinguishing the fire and assessing patients."
Fire officials told Fox News Digital that the blaze started in the engine compartment. HazMat teams shut down the engine while airport firefighting crews doused the wreckage with specialized foam. Even after the flames were knocked down, the danger was far from over.
Miami-Dade Fire Chief Raied Jadallah warned that fuel was still pouring from the aircraft:
"We do still have an active fuel leak that's occurring off of the aircraft that is being mitigated."
Three of the five injured victims were rushed to a trauma center in critical condition. Two more were transported to a local hospital; their conditions were not disclosed. The pilots and co-pilots were trapped inside the cockpit, and search-and-rescue teams worked to reach them. At least one person on the ground was pinned beneath a struck vehicle and required specialized technical rescue to free, Breitbart reported.
Authorities have not said publicly whether the five dead were vehicle occupants, crew members, or some combination. The names of the cockpit crew have not been released. The New York Post reported that the two pilots were among the injured and were taken to a nearby hospital, though that detail has not been confirmed by a second source.
Boeing confirmed that the 767-300 involved in the crash was first delivered as a passenger plane in 1994 and later converted to a cargo freighter. The company did not say when the conversion took place or who performed it.
Boeing issued a statement extending condolences and confirming its cooperation with investigators:
"Boeing extends our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives in the accident in Miami. Our hearts go out to those injured and affected by this tragedy. Boeing is supporting the investigation led by the U.S National Transportation Safety Board."
Aviation safety investigators will face a long list of unanswered questions. No one has publicly addressed weather conditions, mechanical status, or any crew-related factors at the time of landing. Amazon described the event only as an "incident while attempting to land", a phrase that reveals nothing about what went wrong. The recent fatal air ambulance crash in New Mexico already raised pointed questions about aviation safety gaps; this disaster in Miami will sharpen them.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy moved quickly to shut down operations at Miami International, one of the country's largest hubs for both commercial and cargo traffic. He posted on X:
"We've issued a full ground stop at Miami International while first responders assess the scene after an Amazon cargo plane overran the runway. If you're traveling through the area, please expect significant delays and potential cancellations."
Newsmax reported that the airport confirmed all runways and taxiways were closed as of 3:00 p.m., with a ground stop in effect. One runway later reopened, but the airport was still experiencing significant disruptions. Passengers with Sunday flights were told to check directly with their airlines for updates.
The FAA confirmed the flight details, 21 Air Flight 7598, a Boeing 767-300, departing San Juan, and said it will investigate. The NTSB is leading the broader probe, per Boeing's statement. Whether the NTSB has formally deployed a Go-Team to the scene remains unclear from available statements.
Fatal crashes involving cargo aircraft on U.S. soil are rare but not unheard of. In recent years, a small plane crash near Bowie, Maryland, killed all three aboard, and a skydiving plane crash in France killed 11, prompting similar investigative probes. What sets the Miami crash apart is the toll on people who were simply on the ground near the airport, struck by a freighter that never stopped.
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel, identified in the Washington Examiner's coverage, released two statements. The first acknowledged the deaths:
"We're heartbroken to learn that five people lost their lives in today's incident at Miami International Airport. Our deepest sympathies go out to the families, loved ones, and all those affected by this devastating loss."
The second statement confirmed the aircraft was operated by 21 Air and called the situation "fast-moving":
"We can confirm that an Amazon Air plane operated by 21 Air experienced an incident while attempting to land at Miami International Airport today. This is a fast-moving situation and we're still gathering details. We're working closely with local authorities and officials to understand exactly what happened. Right now, our absolute priority is the safety, well-being, and care of everyone involved. We're doing everything we can to support those affected."
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the rescue team "was there within seconds of the crash" and posted on X that the county's focus was on supporting first responders. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue later transitioned to a supportive role, with units remaining on scene to assist partner agencies.
Not every crash ends with total loss. Just recently, all 11 people aboard a Kenmore Air floatplane survived after a crash and fire near Washington's San Juan Islands. The people on the ground near Miami's runway had no such luck. They were not passengers. They were not crew. They were simply in the wrong place when a 32-year-old freighter failed to stop.
Five families now need answers that neither Amazon nor 21 Air has provided. Until the NTSB finishes its work, the only honest word for what happened on that runway is the one no official has been willing to say plainly: failure.
Usha Vance says she’s open-minded about her husband JD Vance’s possible run for president in 2028, even as she juggles motherhood, public life, and a new push to encourage kids’ reading, a stance that has drawn attention from political watchers and supporters alike.
Wearing a floral shirt and teal pants, Usha Vance appeared in an Instagram video on August 26 promoting her ongoing Summer Reading Challenge, offering prizes like Waffle House waffles and Home Depot building kits to encourage children to keep reading. In the video, she also spotlighted stuffed German Shepherds “in honor of our buddy Atlas,” and reminded viewers, “There’s still plenty of time to submit your reading log!” The post came just weeks after Usha welcomed her fourth child, Alec Neel Vance, as she continues to balance a growing family with an increasingly public-facing role.
But it was Usha Vance’s comments in a separate Fox News interview that have fueled speculation about the future of the Vance family on the national stage. When asked about the possibility of Senator JD Vance running for president in 2028, Usha said, “My attitude is just have a kind of an open mind, an open heart, towards whatever might come next.” She added, “I know whatever it is that he feels is the right thing for him to do, we’re going to have a good time doing it. We will make the best of it in the best possible way.”
While some observers and political supporters have been eager to see JD Vance’s next move, Usha Vance made it clear that her husband’s immediate focus remains on the 2026 midterm elections. She told Fox News she has encouraged JD to “take a little bit of a social media break,” especially during Lent, which she said helped him gain perspective. The Vance family’s approach, she emphasized, is to take things one step at a time.
This measured, family-first stance stands in contrast to the breathless speculation that often surrounds rising political figures. As the New York Post reported, Usha Vance’s support for her husband’s ambitions comes with a clear focus on the present: “Whatever it is that he feels is the right thing for him to do, we’re going to have a good time doing it. We will make the best of it in the best possible way.” That support is grounded in a household where raising four young children and championing issues like child literacy remain at the forefront.
JD Vance’s political future has been a topic of growing interest, with many noting his close ties to the MAGA movement and his prominence in recent conservative debates. As covered in our earlier reporting, any path to a 2028 presidential bid would run straight through the movement’s energized base and would likely require the backing of President Trump, whose influence continues to shape the Republican Party’s direction.
That national spotlight has also extended to Usha Vance, whose podcast and public appearances have drawn high-profile guests, including President Trump himself, who recently read a children’s book on her show, offering unscripted commentary on past presidents. Readers interested in Usha’s media and advocacy work can find more in our coverage of her podcast and her growing influence beyond Ohio.
As the Vance family’s profile rises, they navigate the same public scrutiny and political crosswinds faced by others in the Trump-aligned orbit. Changes in the MAGA political apparatus, like recent staff moves at the White House and MAGA Inc., only increase the pressure and speculation around potential 2028 contenders, including Vance and other prominent conservatives such as Marco Rubio.
Amidst the swirl of rumor and ambition, Usha Vance’s message remains simple: the family will back JD Vance’s next step, whatever it may be, and keep their priorities in order. Her Instagram post promoting childhood reading, her candid remarks about social media breaks for her husband, and her open support for his public service ambitions paint a picture of a family grounded in common sense and purpose, not swept away by the political hype machine.
For those tracking the next chapter in conservative leadership, the Vance family’s willingness to take things as they come, and their refusal to get ahead of themselves, offers a refreshing shift from the usual Beltway posturing. As Yahoo’s reporting puts it, Usha Vance’s attitude is to “have a kind of an open mind, an open heart, towards whatever might come next.”
In a political era defined by ambition and short attention spans, the Vances’ patience and perspective are rare qualities, and ones the conservative base might just find worth following.