This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
'Performance' will be moved indoors with attendance limited to adults
A federal appeals court has decided to let the city of Naples, Florida, protect children from obscene images from a drag show that had been scheduled to be in public view, within sight of their park playground.
That's according to Liberty Counsel, which has been fighting on behalf of children who in past years had been protected from the offensive and inappropriate imagery by the city's requirement that the show be indoors.
It was the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that granted an appeal by Naples to allow it again to impose the requirement that the show be behind closed doors.
The decision suspends a lower court's ruling that blocked the city's requirement that the show be indoors.
The Naples Pride organization had claimed a First Amendment right to put on its display in Cambier Park, just 100 feet form a children's playground.
The lower court agreed with the activists, but the appeals court, 2-1, said such limits did not "disturb" the First Amendment rights of the organization.
Since the restrictions did not target the expressive views of Naples Pride, but rather safety concerns for residents and visitors, the appeals court determined the lower court "abused its discretion" and removed the injunction, the report said.
The court also noted the same restrictions had been in place for 2023 and 2024 "without substantial injury to the First Amendment rights."
According to the ruling, "In a limited public forum, the city's 'restrictions on speech must not discriminate against speech on the basis of viewpoint and must be reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum.' Here … the two permit conditions were not added based on Naples Pride's viewpoint. And they were reasonable in light of the special event."
Just weeks ago the city council voted to move "the traditionally lewd and indecent drag show indoors away from Cambier Park that is frequented by parents and their children," Liberty Counsel reported.
It was John Steele, a judge, who appeared to believe "the Naples Pride characterization that its drag show is 'family friendly.'"
However, evidence presented to the court contained photographic documentation from the 2022 outdoor show held just 100 feet from the children's playground.
"These images depict male performers in obscene drag performing lewd poses and simulating sexual acts that are unsuitable for minors. The drag performers also invited children to place money in their waist bands like strippers in a bar as the men shook their over-stuffed brazier tops and 'twerked' their fish net covered hind ends mimicking sexual activities no child should ever see," Liberty Counsel said.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently warned that China poses an "imminent" threat to Taiwan and urged Asian allies to boost their defenses. The People's Liberation Army is "rehearsing for the real deal," said Hegseth at a security conference in Singapore.
For perspective on the dire prospects of war, WorldNetDaily interviewed national security expert and retired Army Lt. Col. Darin Gaub, who observed that experts have been talking about the "imminent" threat from China for many years. "I'm not discounting the possibility [of China invading Taiwan], but I'm also going to be realistic and say the Chinese military is not ready for that scale of conflict."
Rather, said the former UH-60 Black Hawk pilot who spent time working strategic intelligence in the Pacific theater, the Chinese military's "primary role is to police its own people, not necessarily invade foreign nations."
While there is no formal treaty obligating the U.S. to defend Taiwan, there is enough legal basis through the Taiwan Relations Act for the U.S. to assist the small East Asian country against military threats from China. Thus, Gaub agreed, the U.S. would very likely support Taiwan's efforts to deter the Chinese regime from the use of force to gain control of the archipelago.
And though some experts fear an escalation to World War III should America engage militarily, Gaub said, "We're already in World War III." The U.S., he explained, is long past concerns over an "imminent threat" from China, as America and most of the free world are already at war, minus any overtly hostile military action on the part of the Chinese Communist Party.
"The greater threat to the world than China invading Taiwan is the CCP ideology that's been infiltrating our American institutions and international institutions for decades," he argued. As stated in his book "Veritas Vincit: A Soldier's Perspective on Truth, Faith, Family, and Freedom," scheduled for release on June 15, "China continues to take over agencies and organizations within the United Nations to use them as a tool in their pursuit of global domination."
In fact, Gaub told WND, "American universities, the United Nations and the World Health Organization are just a few examples of the different points of sustainability for Chinese infiltration" – which is to say, China has already thoroughly penetrated these key institutions and is influencing America and the world from these various battle fronts.
Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party's infiltration of each of these entities has a real effect on local communities in America, asserted Gaub. "The threat from China is not a Chinese aircraft carrier rolling across the ocean to invade Taiwan; it's the infestation of national and worldwide institutions that's driving politicians and leaders of our communities to make bad decisions, whether they know it or not," he said.
"It's happening in local communities everywhere people live, because it's all about control for the Chinese regime – and that's the preeminent threat."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Judge's activism 'subjects the Executive Branch to judicial micromanagement'
The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to allow it to move forward with plans to slash employees, cut programs and eliminate responsibilities at the U.S. Department of Education.
The administration has argued for an end to the department and for returning responsibilities to state education agencies as well as local schools and districts.
It argues that the federal bureaucracy is just a burden on education and should be moved out of the way.
A judge in a district court, the entry level for the federal court system, insisted that the government efficiency agenda be halted and hundreds and hundreds of workers be put back on payrolls.
"Each day this preliminary injunction remains in effect subjects the Executive Branch to judicial micromanagement of its day-to-day operations," explained Solicitor General D. John Sauer.
When Trump announced plans to eliminate what he considered an unneeded and wasteful federal bureaucracy, several Democrat-led states, school districts and teachers' unions sued.
While the administration has explained it will need congressional action to completely close the agency down, it argues it is working lawfully to reduce staff and transfer functions.
A report at the Washington Examiner said the administration now is asking the high court for permission to go ahead with layoffs.
"In this case, the district court is attempting to prevent the department from restructuring its workforce, despite lacking jurisdiction several times over. Intervention is again warranted," Sauer told the court.
It was a judge in Massachusetts who said, when Trump sought to reduce the workforce there by some 1,400 jobs, that he would take over that decision-making from the executive branch.
"Sauer argued to the high court that restoring the jobs of the nearly 1,400 people the Trump administration laid off would inflict 'irreparable harm' on the administration, 'insofar as it requires the government to pay salaries it cannot possibly recoup,'" the report said. "He also disputed the claim by the Democratic states suing to block the executive order that the layoffs include people necessary for the department to function as congressionally mandated."
"That injunction effectively appoints the district court to a Cabinet role and bars the Executive Branch from terminating anyone, even though respondents conceded that some other RIFs would plainly be proper," Sauer explained.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A lawyer for the late Jeffrey Epstein, who already had served time for sex offense convictions and was awaiting the prosecution of more when he died, apparently by suicide, in a New York jail, has confirmed that the notorious pedophile had nothing on President Donald Trump.
That issue was raised during a war of words between Tesla billionaire Elon Musk and Trump.
The two had worked together for months on the Department of Government Efficiency, trying to eliminate criminal conduct, fraud, waste and corruption from federal spending, eventually totaling about $170 billion in cuts.
But the two found themselves as odds when the Trump agenda was assembled into a bill in Congress. Musk wanted much more spending cuts than what the plan provided, while Trump was working with a fractious Congress where even his own party had divisions.
As part of the name-calling and back-and-forth bashing between the two, Musk dropped "the really big bomb," claiming Trump was in the "Epstein files."
Lawyer David Schoen went to social media to deny it.
He wrote, "I was hired to lead Jeffrey Epstein's defense as his criminal lawyer 9 days before he died. He sought my advice for months before that. I can say authoritatively, unequivocally, and definitively that he had no information to hurt President Trump. I specifically asked him!"
Musk had claimed otherwise, although he provided no evidence for his comment:
The Trump administration is in the process of going through the evidence involving Epstein now, and has announced its intention to make much of the documentation about the case public.
While the affirmation is from just one "authoritative" source, the Western Journal speculated that had there been evidence incriminating Trump, Democrats would have had it in the headlines years ago.
Daily Wire Host Matt Walsh said, "It is totally inconceivable that there would be something incriminating about Trump in the Epstein files and yet the Democrats kept that information to themselves for all these years."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A panel of judges at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has heard arguments from the state of Washington, where officials want to force a church organization to hire and employ workers who refuse to follow its faith standards.
The case involves Union Gospel Mission of Yakima, which sued the state for a "Washington Law Against Discrimination" that it explains violates its constitutionally protected religious rights.
The state's intent is to prevent ministries from hiring only people who share their faith, for nonministerial positions.
The issue brought up a question from U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel Bress, who wondered, "What is a church supposed to do? If somebody applies and says, 'I just strongly disagree with the church's religious beliefs,' would we say they have, nonetheless, a state law right, to be able to be considered irrespective of that?"
He explained, "That would seem to be a major intrusion on the church."
There's an injunction against the state enforcing its discriminatory demands against the church at this point, and church lawyers urged the appeals court to leave that in place.
The organization runs a homeless shelter, recovery program, and thrift store, and provides meal services to those in need, according to a report from Courthouse News.
It believes it should be allowed the freedom to hire those who follow its faith values, "such as abstaining from 'sexual immorality, including adultery, non-married cohabitation, and homosexual conduct,'" the report said.
An ADF lawyer, for the church, said, "The First Amendment does not allow the government to force a religious organization to hire someone who rejects its faith."
He added, "That's why the protection here is incredibly important, and the recognition that church autonomy can still protect a hiring decision that is what pretty much all religious organizations do, which is to ask those who work for them to share and live out their beliefs."
The state has claimed it will not enforce its law against the church, but the judges were skeptical of the value of that promise.
The state, through Deputy Solicitor Cynthia Alexander, blasted the church: "They want to be able to discriminate in hiring for any position, whether ministerial or nonministerial," she said.
She claimed, "For all practical purposes, it would immunize religious organizations from having to comply with any state or federal law that contains a small business exception, or really any categorical exception, including those like the one at issue here that applies it identically to religious and secular organizations."
The state previously had an exemption from its discrimination laws for religious nonprofits, but targeted them by removing it.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., has confirmed that members soon will begin work on President Donald Trump's agenda to defund leftist propaganda that has been paid for by taxpayers.
At issue is the leftist agenda that runs the reporting from organizations like National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
Johnson said he would put a rescission bill that would withhold money from the organizations on the floor next week.
"Now that this wasteful spending by the federal government has been identified by DOGE, quantified by the administration, and sent to Congress, House Republicans will fulfill our mandate and continue codifying into law a more efficient federal government," Johnson said. "This is exactly what the American people deserve."
A report at the Daily Mail cited White House concerns about tax-funded programming that was described as "radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news.'"
Objectionable topics included "a 2015 report on the annual 'furry' festival in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a 2017 report on a book about cannibalism, and a 2024 Valentine's Day report on 'queer animals.'" Also programming supporting "reparations, reporting on a transgender teenage boy, and that Sesame Street had partnered with CNN and held a town hall amid the "Black Lives Matter" protests in June 2020 to address racism."
NPR and PBS have a liberal bias and have "zero tolerance for non-leftist viewpoints," the White House said.
Trump's demand has been to strip $1.1 billion in federal funding, and Johnson confirmed the rescission plan will involve $9.4 billion involving NPR, PBS, the State Department, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
While reports contended that only about 1% of NPR's budget comes from the federal government, Real Clear Wire has reported that most of $535 million budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is spent on "community service grants" to local stations, and by law they must use 23% of their grants to acquire or produce programming that is to be distributed nationally and is designed for a national audience.
"That means local stations are required to give those federal funds to NPR to license its content or risk losing funding," the report said.
NPR brought in nearly $100 million from those fees in 2024, of which most came from CPB.
Further, the report revealed, "PBS CEO Paula Kerger earns $1,055,135 in salary and $113,526 in 'other compensation,' per tax returns. Three other PBS employees make more than $500,000, and another ten make more than $300,000. Former NPR CEO John Lansing made $590,252 in 2023, and anchor Steve Inskeep made $532,188. At least four other NPR hosts earned more than $450,000."
Trump has issued an executive order regarding the cut in funding, but NPR and three leftist outlets in Colorado sued.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
'This is a staggering revelation for nearly all of us'
A declassified report from federal investigators shows they concluded Nellie Ohr, who with her husband Bruce Ohr was integral to the fake "Russia collusion" conspiracy theory created by Democrats to attack then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race, lied to Congress but never was prosecuted.
U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, pointed out, "By lying to Congress, Nellie Ohr showed contempt for congressional oversight and the American people. What's more, the FBI and DOJ's failure to hold Ohr accountable for appearing to commit multiple felonies and its obstructive conduct against agents that sought additional information reveals the agencies' deeply disturbing political bias. Ohr never suffered consequences for advancing the phony Trump-Russia narrative and attempting to cover up her involvement in the hoax.
"Yet time and again, the American justice system has been weaponized against President Trump and his associates with reckless abandon."
But the weaponization was even worse, according to a new report in the Federalist that reveals the subsequent special counsel investigation by ex-FBI chief Robert Mueller, based on the false claims about Russia collusion, actually was a "cover-up."
The report explains that the FBI's electronic case management database, called Sentinal, lets agents "hide the existence" of relevant investigative reports from others.
"And during the Russia collusion hoax, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team used that functionality to keep potentially relevant documents hidden from other FBI agents investigating whether a Fusion GPS contractor lied to Congress," the report charged.
"The significance of these two facts cannot be overstated: Now in question is whether the federal government complies with the constitutional mandate in criminal cases to provide defendants all material exculpatory and impeachment evidence as well as its discovery obligations in civil litigation; whether Special Counsel Durham's office, the inspector general, and agents investigating the members of the Crossfire Hurricane team had access to all relevant information; whether the DOJ and FBI provided congressional oversight committees with requested (or subpoenaed) documents; and whether FOIA responses included all relevant documents to the press and public," it said.
The report described as "explosive" the confirmation in the now-available documentation that key investigative information about the conspiracy theory to promote the Russia collusion claims were deliberately concealed from even other federal investigators.
The Russia collusion conspiracy was launched by Democrats, including the campaign of failed Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who used "legal" fees to hire a lawyer who hired Fusian GPS who bought the salacious and false claims in the "Steele dossier" from a former British agent.
Jay Town, a former career prosecutor and the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama during Trump's first term, told The Federalist he didn't know about the existence of that classification.
"This is a staggering revelation for nearly all of us," he confirmed.
The report explained there's little information about why such a concealment mechanism exists or why it is used.
"That the FBI's case management system allows documents, including witness statements and other evidence, to be rendered invisible to other agents searching Sentinel for relevant documents is horrifying because the federal government is legally obligated in a variety of circumstances to produce such information — but it cannot produce something that it does not know exists," the report noted.
The report noted the government has a legal obligation in both criminal and civil cases to provide evidence to the other side.
"Without knowing when, why, or how often the FBI designates files as 'Prohibited Access' within Sentinel, or whether, and if so how, the Bureau ensures it provides 'Prohibited Access' Brady/Giglio evidence, it is impossible to access the scope of the issue. And that is a huge problem," the report said.
Even further, the report said, the problems go further: "One must also wonder if higher ups in FBI headquarters used the 'Prohibited Access' category for other highly politicized investigations, such as the probes into alleged corruption by the Clinton Foundation and the Biden family. If so, did the U.S. attorneys charged by Attorney General Bill Barr with overseeing those investigations — John Huber in Utah and Scott Brady in Pennsylvania, respectively — and the FBI agents working with them know Sentinel would not allow them to search for some relevant documents?"
Even congressional oversight committees likely "did not receive everything they asked for" because of the evidence-concealment procedures, the report said.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The Commerce Department released details on Friday confirming that inflation remains very low – at 2.1% for the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, a mark that is almost exactly at the goal of the federal government to keep it in the 2% range.
While various economists are claiming that inflation will reach 3.5% by year's end, the report on Friday confirmed the 2.1% rate from April 2024 to last month, lower than forecasts by those experts of 2.2%.
The report said Core PCE inflation, which is the Federal Reserve's favored measure of price changes as it excludes more volatile food and energy categories, was 2.5% in April, lower than projections of 2.6%.
A report from the Daily Caller News Foundation described the results as "an economic victory" for President Donald Trump.
The rate was "at a level not seen since March 2021," the report said.
The index measuring goods and services showed an increase of $47.8 billion, or 0.2%, with gains in housing and health care, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt explained the numbers show that the White House economic agenda "is working."
"Inflation has slowed noticeably since President Trump took office, and that means relief for the average American who has suffered under years of the Biden administration's cost-of-living crisis," EJ Antoni, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF. "Not only did the annual rate of increase in the core PCE price index for April hit its lowest level since March 2021, but annual inflation as measured by the headline PCE price index hasn't been lower since February 2021."
Under Joe Biden's regime in Washington, inflation exploded to as high as 9.1% for American consumers, and while Trump's work has slowed that increase, the prices that surged under Biden still remain at elevated levels.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reported, "51% of respondents to a Harvard University Center for American Political Studies/Harris poll released earlier this month said they believe the economy is 'strong' under the Trump administration."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The Supreme Court on Friday with a two-word statement, "is granted," approved suspension of a lower court ruling that barred President Donald Trump from moving forward on his plan to halt the temporary legal protections, offered by Joe Biden, to about a million aliens in the country.
The ruling lifted a lower court order that demanded those protections remain in place for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
It follows on a decision by the court earlier to let the Trump administration revoke temporary protections for about 350,000 Venezuelan migrants in a separate dispute.
The move allows the Trump administration to advance its efforts to fulfill his campaign promise of deporting millions of illegal aliens allowed into America by the open borders actions of the Biden regime.
The appeal to the high court came after a leftist judge in Boston took over decision-making authority from the executive branch.
The court's full statement: "The application for stay presented to JUSTICE JACKSON and by her referred to the Court is granted. The April 15, 2025 order entered by the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, case No. 1:25–cv–10495, is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought. Should certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgement of this court."
Kentanji Jackson, the justice who during her nominating hearing before the Senate was unable to define what is a "woman," complained, in a dissent joined by fellow leftist Sonia Sotomayor, that the decision would disrupt the lives of illegal aliens.
Jackson said the lower court judge, Indira Talwani, was correct that ending the protections would give people the choice of leaving the country or risk being detained and deported.
The dispute now heads to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.
Jackson cited the "real harm to real people" who came into the U.S. without permission under Biden's open borders. The impact on the nation and the expense to taxpayers of those millions of arrivals, many of whom immediately were dependent on public assistance programs, remains to be fully calculated.
The administration had argued that such orders, usurping the authority of the executive branch, irreparably harmed its obligation to carry out the president's policies.
Jackson accused her fellow justices of facilitating "needless human suffering."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A government worker with a top security clearance who complained to an FBI agent posing as a representative of a foreign government that he didn't "agree or align with the values" of the Trump administration has been arrested.
The suspect, Nathan Laatsch, 28, has worked with the Defense Intelligence Agency's Insider Threat Division since 2019.
He was accused of attempting to share classified information with an agent of a foreign government, according to an announcement from the Department of Justice.
The case was launched when the FBI got a tip in March that someone was willing to turn over classified information to a friendly foreign regime.
"An email to the FBI said that the person – later identified as Laatsch – didn't 'agree or align with the values' of the Trump administration, and would be willing to share classified information that he could access, including 'completed intelligence products, some unprocessed intelligence, and other assorted classified documentation,'" according to a report from Fox News.
The report said Laatsch began communicating with an FBI agent, whom he thought was a foreign government representative, and confirmed he was ready to turn over classified details.
He brought information out of his workspace multiple times after transcribing the secrets onto a notepad at his desk, the DOJ said.
The FBI coordinated with Laatsch for him to deposit classified information "for the foreign government to retrieve" from a location at a northern Virginia park, the DOJ said, and FBI agents watched him do that.
The FBI then retrieved a thumb drive that contained a message from Laatsch and "multiple typed documents with information portion-marked for Secret or Top Secret levels," the report said.
He offered that as "a decent sample size" of what he could do, the report said.
Laatsch later messaged the agent "appearing to say that he was seeking something in exchange" for the details, that he was interested in "citizenship for your country" as he didn't think his situation in America would "improve in the long term," the DOJ said.
He also was "not opposed to other compensation" but didn't really need "material compensation."
He then agreed to provide additional information and when he arrived at a meeting point, he was arrested.