In Kanawha County, West Virginia, Donald Ray Lantz, 63, and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 62, face serious charges after being charged with forcing their adopted African-American children to work in inhumane conditions and keeping them locked up in A barn.
Lantz and Whitefeather pleaded not guilty in Kanawha County court on Tuesday . The charges include trafficking of minors, use of minors in forced labor and child neglect with significant risk of causing serious injury or death.
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Nearly eleven months ago, in August 2023, the New York Times reported that U.S. officials had estimated that some 500,000 Russians and Ukrainians had been killed, wounded, or missing in the then 18-month Ukrainian War.
Both Russia and Ukraine underreport their losses. Hundreds of thousands of additional casualties have followed in the 28 months of fighting.
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The Pentagon doesn’t know whether $62 million in missing U.S. weapons aid to Ukraine has been lost or destroyed, according to a new report released on Wednesday.
The $62 million in weapons were designated for end-use monitoring (EEUM), but problems in reporting and tracking between U.S. and Ukrainian forces left an information gap as to what equipment may have been destroyed, lost or diverted through November 2023, according to a Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General report (OIG) report. The Pentagon has had consistent problems tracking U.S. aid to Ukraine since the country’s war with Russia began in 2022.
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Britnee Kellogg grew up listening to all the good stuff: Waylon, Willie, Dolly, and 90s country. But it was when she was just six years old that her life was profoundly impacted. She attended a Johnny Cash and June Carter-Cash concert. Smitten from the first note, the young girl knew she had found her chosen career.
“I knew that [singing] was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” she recalled.
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) moved Monday to shut down a lawsuit that exposed the Biden administration’s collusion with a transgender medical organization to develop the very standards it is now using to defend child sex changes at the Supreme Court.
After the Supreme Court agreed to take up the Biden administration’s challenge to Tennessee’s ban on child sex changes, the DOJ asked a lower court to put another case challenging a similar Alabama ban on hold pending the high court’s decision. While the DOJ requested a halt on the Alabama case to “avoid the prospect of re-litigation of the claims” after the Supreme Court issues its ruling, the defendants argued the government likely has another motive: shielding information about the administration’s involvement in developing the standards it heavily relies on from the Supreme Court.
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Yesterday, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy made headlines by declaring gun violence to be a “public health crisis,” a statement that achieves the impressive feat of being both ludicrous and banal at the same time. The declaration was accompanied by a 40-page report — and a televised, direct-to-camera address from Dr. Murthy himself — “recommending,” as the New York Times reported, “an array of preventive measures that he compared to past campaigns against smoking and traffic safety.”
Perhaps the only thing the surgeon general’s report and accompanying statements were right about is that “gun violence” is, in fact, a major problem in the United States today. After that, however, its relationship to reality quickly disappears. Per the Times, “Dr. Murthy’s 32-page advisory calls for an increase in funding for firearm violence prevention research; advises health workers to discuss firearm storage with patients during routine medical visits; and recommends safe storage laws, universal background checks, ‘red flag’ laws and an assault weapons ban, among other measures.” Notably absent from the list of “solutions” is any meaningful strategy at all to take the people who commit gun violence — i.e., violent criminals — off the streets. (Or even to increase police presence in the places where gun violence happens most frequently). Instead, it is law-abiding gun owners who are expected to foot the bill.
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Former President Donald Trump is gobbling up a large share of likely black voters heading into November, according to a new New York Times/Siena College poll released Wednesday.
Trump is pulling in support from 26 percent of likely black voters, according to the poll, which is a significant uptick from just 5 percent support of black registered voters leading up to the last presidential election, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll from June of 2020. Likely black voters are largely pessimistic about the state of the country under President Joe Biden, with 67 percent saying the country is headed in the wrong direction, and only 26 percent saying the country is on the right track.
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A nation hungry for solutions to its woes got a heavy dose Thursday night of prescriptions from a confident and concise Donald Trump in the first presidential debate of 2024 while the man who succeeded him in the White House alarmed his own Democrat ranks with a steady stream of mumbles, blank stares and major bumbles.
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Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has declared victory at the first presidential debate.
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President Joe Biden on Thursday called presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump a “convicted felon,” referencing his New York conviction.
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Oklahoma is now requiring that all schools include teachings centered around the Bible in curriculums for grades five through 12.
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Washington Examiner Forget all those stories about chaos during former President Donald Trump’s administration and, equally, those about President Joe Biden being a better chief executive than former President Ronald Reagan. Because just out is a new survey from Gallup giving Trump the edge on who is considered more presidential. In a poll that is overall…
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NBC Montana Sophia Ferst remembers her reaction to learning that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade: She needed to get sterilized. Within a week, she asked her provider about getting the procedure done. Ferst, 28, said she has always known she doesn’t want kids. She also worries about…
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The Associated Press Denmark will tax livestock farmers for the greenhouse gases emitted by their cows, sheep and pigs from 2030, the first country to do so as it targets a major source of methane emissions, one of the most potent gases contributing to global warming. The aim is to reduce…
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Axios The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued a rare series of sanctions against Boeing after the aerospace giant “blatantly” violated federal investigative regulations, the board announced Thursday. Why it matters: The investigative agency said it was coordinating with the Department of Justice’s fraud division, which is investigating whether Boeing breached its obligations under a 2021…
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Fox News An illegal immigrant from Turkey is accused of raping a 15-year-old New York girl in his car after threatening to beat her with a pipe, according to local reports. Sakir Akkan, 21, forced the girl into his green Toyota Prius on May 14 but was not captured until June 18,…
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The Supreme Court reinstated limits on Idaho’s near-total abortion ban on Thursday.
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The Supreme Court held Thursday held that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) use of in-house judges violates the right to a jury trial guaranteed in the Constitution when the agency is seeking civil penalties.
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The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked opioid maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement which would have provided immunity to the Sackler family from facing lawsuits over their role in the opioid crisis.
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Opponents of foreign funding of U.S. ballot measures expect momentum at both the federal level and in states.
In May, the House Administration Committee advanced a bill to amend federal election law to prevent foreign nationals from contributing to ballot initiatives by closing a loophole, since federal law and most state laws prohibit foreign contributions to candidates. The bill, with bipartisan support, is headed to the House floor for a vote.
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The GOP-led House Rules Committee has rejected an amendment by Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale to keep taxpayer-funded IVF treatments for Pentagon personnel out of the chamber’s propose defense spending bill.
The amendment by the Montana congressman was among 193 proposed for the bill.
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A Nevada political action committee (PAC) has submitted signatures in support of a Voter ID ballot initiative.
Repair The Vote PAC gave state and county election officials more than 179,000 signatures. The required number is 102,362, with an equal number of signatures coming from every congressional district.
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Just before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off in their second presidential debate, then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper met in the White House with a small group of advisers to President Obama to hatch a plan to put out a first-of-its-kind intelligence report warning the voting public that “the Russian government” was interfering in the election by allegedly breaching the Clinton campaign’s email system.
On Oct. 7, 2016 – just two days before the presidential debate between Trump and Clinton – Clapper issued the unprecedented intelligence advisory with Obama’s personal blessing. It seemed to lend credence to what the Clinton camp was telling the media — that Trump was working with Russian President Vladimir Putin through a secret back channel to steal the election. Sure enough, the Democratic nominee pounced on it to smear Trump at the debate.
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The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the nation’s preeminent pediatric medical organization, worked “very closely” with a transgender medical activist group to advocate for children to receive sex changes, according to emails obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Numerous Republican-led states have recently passed protective legislation banning minors from accessing experimental procedures, such as puberty blockers and genital surgery, as more and more evidence emerged challenging the justification for child sex changes. To combat these bans, the AAP quietly partnered with the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), a group that’s been widely criticized for pushing transgender ideology over sound medical science.
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The U.S. Surgeon General on Tuesday declared firearm violence a public health crisis in America.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy’s advisory is the first publication from the Office of the Surgeon General focused on the issue.
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The editor-in-chief and publisher of The Tennessee Star was ordered to appear in court last week and threatened with charges of contempt after his newspaper reported on an anonymously leaked collection of documents authored by Nashville mass shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale. Michael Patrick Leahy was joined by his attorneys in court on Monday for a “show-cause hearing,” where the journalist was asked by Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea Myles to demonstrate why his outlet’s reporting does not subject him to contempt proceedings and sanctions.
On March 27, 2023, Hale (born Audrey Elizabeth Hale) entered the Covenant School armed with three semiautomatic guns and murdered six people, including three 9-year-old children. Hale, who was eventually shot and killed by police in the school, was a transgender man and former student at Covenant who harbored extremist sentiments on race, gender, and politics. The massacre remains the deadliest mass shooting in Tennessee history.
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Breitbart President Joe Biden’s aides are reportedly furious CNN will not live fact-check former President Donald Trump during Thursday’s debate. The debate is “not the ideal arena for live fact-checking” Trump, CNN political director David Chalian told the New York Times on Monday. Chalian later told the Associated Press that debate hosts Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, extreme Trump…
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Fox News Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board offered scathing testimony during a hearing Tuesday marking the conclusion of their investigation into the catastrophic February 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy accused Norfolk Southern railroad of interfering in the federal probe on multiple occasions. She…
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Center for Immigration Studies The U.S. government is withholding the names of two illegal alien Jordanian nationals, one of whom illegally crossed the Southwest Border, who on May 3 tried to ram a box truck into the Quantico Marine Corps base, citing as grounds that their personal privacy outweighs “minimal” public…
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The Associated Press A judge on Tuesday struck down a Montana law that defined “sex” in state law as only male or female, finding that it was unconstitutional. District Court Judge Shane Vannatta in Missoula ruled the law, passed last year, violated the state constitution because the description of the legislation…
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Washington Examiner A new poll shows voters from swing states trust former President Donald Trump to protect America’s democracy more than President Joe Biden. The Washington Post/Schar School released a survey Wednesday that found 38% of voters across six swing states favored Trump to handle threats to democracy, compared to 29% who backed Biden. The poll was conducted…
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The Supreme Court inadvertently posted a copy of a ruling on its website Wednesday in the Biden administration’s challenge to Idaho’s abortion ban, a court spokesperson confirmed.
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The House subcommittee chairman investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot’s intelligence and security failures made an extraordinary intervention Wednesday at the Supreme Court, telling the justices he believes an earlier Democrat-led investigation into the tragedy was “factually and procedurally invalid” and therefore could not lawfully hold ex-Trump adviser Stephen Bannon in contempt.
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The Supreme Court issued a ruling Wednesday siding with the Biden administration in a landmark case that challenged the federal government’s ability to pressure social media companies to censor speech.
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The Biden administration has overseen an enormous increase of illegal migrant crossings along the U.S.-Canada border over the past four years.
There have so far been 12,859 illegal migrant crossings along the northern border in fiscal year 2024, with several months still left to go, according to the latest data provided by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Despite only eight months of data available, the number of illegal border crossings this fiscal year have already surpassed all other years of President Joe Biden’s tenure, and represent a marked increase from his first year in office.
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Illegal immigration is one of the most important problems for Americans, and a new “Illegal Alien Crime” map as well as a poll about language surrounding the issue highlights the significance of the border crisis in the minds of voters ahead of the 2024 election.
Polling from Gallup shows that U.S. adults have consistently ranked immigration as a top issue every month since at least November 2023. The polls come as the Biden administration has overseen record numbers of illegal immigrant encounters.
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Obama-appointed federal judges blocked parts of the Biden administration’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan on Monday in response to Republican states’ lawsuits.
Judge John A. Ross of Missouri and Judge Daniel Crabtree of Kansas blocked parts of the administration’s SAVE plan, which was an income-driven repayment program intended to lower monthly costs for borrowers. The court rulings prohibit the Department of Education from further lowering payments or eliminating more debt through the program, Politico reported.
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Former President Donald Trump appears poised to invest heavily in Virginia in the 2024 election as new polling data suggests the Old Dominion could be competitive for Republicans for the first time in 20 years.
The state has not backed a Republican for president since George W. Bush in 2004 and trended increasingly Democratic over the years until GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s upset win in 2021 reignited Republican hopes in the commonwealth. The GOP struggled, however, in the 2023 legislative elections, with many analysts pinning the blame on the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which forced Republicans to play defense on the issue of abortion during that cycle. The party lost control of the House of Delegates and failed to seize control of the state Senate in those elections.
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While sometimes it is unavoidable, lawyers do everything they can not to become witnesses in their own cases. Such a contingency may require new counsel, adding to client expense. It also leads to some real ethical minefields. While as a witness they are obliged to tell the truth, they are also bound as lawyers by their duties of confidentiality and zealous advocacy for their clients, creating conflicts between these competing obligations.
Journalists, too, used to have certain ethical restrictions, some formal and some that arose as part of the culture. One of those restrictions is similar to that facing lawyers: journalists are not supposed to “become the story.” Journalists should be neutral conduits through which the facts are presented.
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Independent candidate for president Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been officially approved to appear on the 2024 presidential ballot in Minnesota, officials with Secretary of State Steve Simon’s office have confirmed.
Field staff for Kennedy’s campaign in Minnesota submitted their ballot petition — which includes the requisite minimum of 2,500 signatures and a list of presidential elector nominees — to the secretary of state on Jun 7. The secretary of state then engaged in a standard review of the signatures and application materials.
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Despite years of warnings that China operates an illicit biological weapons program, the U.S. military remains unable to determine whether it sends American tax dollars to Beijing for research that could make pathogens more dangerous or deadly, the Pentagon’s chief watchdog declared in a stunning new warning to policymakers.
“The DoD did not track funding at the level of detail necessary to determine whether the DoD provided funding to Chinese research laboratories or other foreign countries for research related to enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential,” the Pentagon inspector general concluded in a report released this month.
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The United States Postal Service (USPS) gave law enforcement thousands of names, addresses and other details from the letters and packages of Americans without court approval, The Washington Post reported Monday.
The USPS said it generally only granted information requests from law enforcement agencies when it aided in tracking down a crime suspect; however, records obtained by the Post showed that 97 percent of the 60,000 requests from law enforcement were approved over an eight-year period. Between 2015 and 2023, over 312,000 letters and packages were recorded without receiving judicial approval.
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How do the Democrats complain? Let us count the ways.
In January 2017, seven House Democrats (Jim McGovern, Jamie Raskin, Pramila Jayapal, Raul Grijalva, Sheila Jackson Lee, Barbara Lee, and Maxine Waters) formally objected to the certification of state elections.
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The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the approval of what would have been the nation’s first publicly-funded religious school was unconstitutional, according to court records.
Oklahoma’s Virtual Charter School Board voted to approve an application for a virtual religious charter school in June 2023, prompting state Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond to file a lawsuit in October to block the funding, calling it “an irreparable violation of our individual religious liberty” and “an unthinkable waste of our tax dollars.” The Oklahoma Supreme Court ultimately sided with Drummond on Tuesday, finding that “under Oklahoma law, a charter school is a public school” and that “as such, a charter school must be nonsectarian,” per court filings.
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