A group of Christian doctors has helped more than 130 Ukrainian soldiers with severe facial injuries since 2023. The Vision for Ukraine medical mission is carried out by the Christian Medical Association of Ukraine (CMA Ukraine) in collaboration with American partners. The mission unites Ukrainian and American oculoplastic surgeons to help bring hope to injured soldiers. The mission’s doctors perform complex reconstructive interventions, which can involve everything from restoring facial bones to individual eye prosthetics. “For us, as an association of Christian doctors, this is also a matter of dignity … [not only returning] functions, but also a face, self-image, [and a] future,” Rudolf Myhovych, head of the CMA Ukraine, told me. “Vision for Ukraine is a mission of cooperation, medical brotherhood, and deep respect for those who defend Ukraine.”  The total cost of all surgeries and implants has already exceeded $750,000. Financing has been provided by international support of Leap Global Missions, Ed’s Friends, AROMS, Razom for Ukraine, and MedCAD. For many patients, these implants and reconstructive surgeries are a chance for a new life.  Serhiy’s Story A Ukrainian veteran named Serhiy returned to defend his country in 2022. That year, he lost an eye and sustained major damage to his skull when shrapnel hit his face. Serhiy got a standard eye prosthesis and returned to duty a few months later. In 2023, Serhiy was wounded for the second time by an exploding mine. Part of his foot had to be amputated. “It didn’t look great, of course,” he told me. “But at the time, that wasn’t the priority.” At the Kyiv Regional Clinical Hospital, CMA Ukraine doctors performed a complex operation on Serhiy’s face. This involved removing the old prosthetic structures, rebuilding bones, and preparing the basis for an individual prosthesis.  All of CMA Ukraine’s patients undergo CT scans in Ukraine. The scans are then sent to MedCAD in Dallas, which produces patient-specific implants. Based on the scans, a 3D model of the skull is created, and engineers work alongside surgeons to design custom titanium plates that are tailored to each individual patient. The implants are made of titanium, which is an expensive material. One implant costs $9,000 to $12,000, and this is without taking into account the work of the operating team and the hospital. However, patients of the Vision for Ukraine mission receive implants and operations free of charge. When the implants were installed, Dr. Jorge Corona, an oculoplastic surgeon from Dallas and a member of the mission, said, “They fit like a glove.” After seeing Serhiy, Nancy Hairston, CEO of MedCAD told me,“He looks great. You can see that he feels confident again, and he talked about his plans for the future. This is new life, new senses, and new hopes. [It’s] very moving” Arthur’s Story Arthur is a soldier and father of two. He received a bullet wound on the front line that completely changed his life. The bullet passed through his face and permanently blinded him. As part of the Vision for Ukraine mission, his facial bone structure has already been restored, and several stages of reconstruction have been carried out, installing individual titanium implants. Arthur (Illya Larionov) He also received eye prosthetics. While these could not restore his vision, they helped restore a sense of wholeness.  “My previous life is over,” Arthur told me. “Now a new one begins.” Artem’s Story Artem was injured multiple times defending his county. He received his fourth and most serious injury in 2022. The blast trauma damaged his face, vision, and hearing. He also lost most of his teeth. Recovery was a long process involving numerous surgeries.  “I wouldn’t call [them] surgeries,” he told me. “They were putting me back together piece by piece.”  Artem (Illya Larionov) During the Vision for Ukraine mission, Artem was fitted with custom 3D implants that restored his facial bone structure and functionality. Despite the difficulties associated with his ongoing rehabilitation, Artem says he remains motivated knowing that his two young sons waiting for him at home. His journey—full of pain, patience, and faith that life after injury is possible—is being made for his kids.  Previously, ophthalmology in Ukraine was a more limited specialty and did not include complex reconstructive surgeries on the eyelids and mucous membranes. “The war, paradoxically enough, gave impetus to the development of certain areas of medicine in Ukraine,” Stuart Seiff, an oculoplastic surgeon and member of CMA Ukraine, told me. “Thanks to the cooperation of Ukrainian and American specialists, this area is now actively developing. And now we already have specialists who are able to perform operations of such complexity without our intervention.”  Care for Each Patient The Kyiv Regional Clinical Hospital in Ukraine performs more than 100 operations every month. About 60% of patients are military personnel with mine and bullet wounds to the face.  “The injuries are different: sometimes the bone is damaged, sometimes the muscles, sometimes the participation of an ophthalmologist is required, sometimes a neurosurgeon,” Oleksandr Vasyliev, head of the maxillofacial surgery department of the Kyiv Regional Clinical Hospital, told me. “There are no universal solutions here. We do everything possible to ensure that the treatment is as effective as possible and that [each patient] can return to a full life.”  Members of CMA Ukraine (Illya Larionov) We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The richest man in Mississippi, Tom Duff, and his brother James Duff, have been under a Justice Department investigation for potentially defrauding a federal pandemic-era relief program of $6.7 million since 2024, court records show. A lawsuit filed against the brothers by Relator LLC claims the two “looted the government” by filing “falsified loan documents to the Small Business Administration in order to obtain taxpayer-funded payments through the Paycheck Protection Program.” The case will move to Mississippi after a federal judge in March granted the Duffs’ motion to transfer the case. According to the documents, the brothers applied for the loans using their tire company, the Southern Tire Mart, which is valued at upward of $3.5 billion. Congress created the program in March of 2020 to keep businesses afloat as the global economy slowed to a halt at the outset of the pandemic.  As seen in court filings, the attorneys for the Duff brothers refuted the claims, arguing the lawsuit relies on “inflammatory rhetoric” instead of factual evidence. The brothers’ legal team noted that the California attorneys acting against them have filed similar lawsuits against other individuals, some of which have been dismissed by federal judges. They also claim the lawsuit is the product of trial lawyers looking to score judicial wins from the grey area surrounding pandemic-era government programs.   Matthew D. Miller, one of the brother’s attorneys, told Mississippi Today that he expected his clients to be “fully vindicated by the judicial process.” “The PPP loans were lawfully obtained, fully disclosed and reviewed by banks, the SBA and federal attorneys,” Miller wrote in a statement to the outlet. “This case is exactly the kind of parasitic, web-scraped lawsuit that courts have repeatedly rejected from this plaintiff. The allegations were also independently reviewed by the Department of Justice which, after this review, declined to intervene in this lawsuit.” The judicial proceedings could complicate the outlook of Tom Duff, who is rumored to be running for governor in 2027. “If he decides to run for governor, he’s absolutely among the top runners, if not the top runner,” said Austin Barbour, a state and national GOP strategist and lobbyist. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson told the outlet that Tom Duff is “someone who could really excite all of Mississippi” as a candidate for governor. In recent months, the brothers have created the Duff PAC, which will be used to support candidates in the state’s gubernatorial race.

Many speeches will be delivered this year about the Declaration of Independence as we celebrate its 250th birthday.   However, I think the greatest was just delivered by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on April 15 at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas, Austin.   The force of Thomas’ words does not just result from his deep understanding of what the United States is about, and how the Declaration of Independence defines it.   The force flows from Thomas’ personal reality. He has lived what the declaration is about. His words are not just the product of thought and study, but of Thomas’ entire life experience.   Thomas grew up poor in America’s Jim Crow South.  But he says, “Despite the multiplicity of laws and customs that wreaked a bigotry, it was universally believed among those blacks with whom I lived and who had very little or no formal education, that in God’s eyes and under our Constitution, we were equal.”  “When you lived in a segregated world with palpable discrimination and the governments nearest to you enforced laws and customs that promoted unequal treatment, it was obvious that your rights or your dignity did not come from those governments, but rather from God,” he continued.  An ominous beginning for a future Supreme Court justice.  Thomas’ life, career, and education were trial by fire.   By the time he became chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the country had already been captured by progressivism, particularly on matters of race.   His principled adherence to the eternal God-given truths of the declaration, and refusal to fold to the progressive agenda—which he calls the “then-prevailing orthodoxy on race”—was a lonely battle, which left him under constant attack.   It was then he realized that carrying out the agenda was more than knowing the principles, but having the courage to fight, and even, if necessary, die for them.  Thomas notes that the principles stated in the opening of the declaration—“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights”—could have gotten nowhere without the last paragraph of the declaration.   There the signers conclude “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”  “What changed the world,” per Thomas, “was not the words, but the commitment and spirit of the people willing to labor, sacrifice, and even give their lives” for what Lincoln called at Gettysburg “the last full measure of devotion.”  Thomas asks, “Do any of us have what it took for our young soldiers to storm Normandy Beach, to fight at Guadalcanal, to later fight at Chosin Reservoir?”  He discusses the emergence of progressivism, which challenged the core principles of the Declaration. As Thomas notes, its pedigree is not American but was born in 19th century Germany of Otto von Bismark.  It’s a worldview that rejects the notion that God-given truths govern our lives, but rather politics and government so-called experts.   It’s deeply ironic and unfortunate that the civil rights movement—a movement about human freedom, a movement about moving black people out from the distortions of political control, and to our regime of freedom defined by our declaration’s principles—itself saw progressivism as the answer to problems of race.  We are in a great struggle today for the future of our country.   The movement toward progressivism has delivered to us a new time with massive government, deficits, debts, and bankrupt entitlement programs. The assault of progressivism on the God-given principles of the declaration of Independence has also taken a great toll on our culture, with the traditional family and our birth of children in dangerous decline.   To restore the vitality of our nation, we for sure today need a “new birth of freedom.”  A good start for all is to listen to Thomas’ message.  COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. 

The newest political romance novel to hit the shelves is written by none other than Fox News host and No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Dana Perino. “Purple State,” released this week by HarperCollins, follows three young single Democratic women in their 20s living in New York City. Dot, the politically charged member of the friend group, is on her way to being a successful agent at her PR firm. Mary is on track to make junior partner at a big law firm. Harper is an aspiring author. The trio face the dreaded questions every young woman finds herself asking: Who am I? Who do I want to be? What do I want to do? When the opportunity presents itself to move to a small Midwest town to work for a Democrat-aligned political action committee, the three characters move from the Big Apple to Cedar Falls, Wisconsin, where a surprising love story unfolds. "Choosing to be loved is not a career limiting decision "@DanaPerino offers a sneak peek about what her new novel "Purple State" is all about! Pick up your copy today! pic.twitter.com/wYTLopQIOE— The Five (@TheFive) April 21, 2026 Perino has said she took inspiration for the book from women she knows, as well as from her own real-life love story with her husband, Peter McMahon. From the front cover to the back-cover book description, you would think “Purple State” is written for young women who could personally relate to Dot, Mary, and Harper. But I found a different message: Do single women have to move to a farm town in the middle of nowhere just to find a “real man”? The Love Story Most politically minded people — or even just those who have strong values and political beliefs — could never imagine dating someone on the other side of the aisle. I know I sure can’t. Yet Dot, who broke things off with her boyfriend in New York because he voted Republican, forgets all about red-versus-blue upon meeting an unwavering Republican farm boy from Wisconsin — Danny Dawson. Would you ever date someone who voted differently than you? @DanaPerino shares her new novel, Purple State, with @MarthaMacCallum and dives into the "dating divide" and why we shouldn't wear our politics so heavily. pic.twitter.com/mZOTN2KDCJ— FOX News Radio (@foxnewsradio) April 22, 2026 Before Perino introduces Danny, Dot thinks she might be interested in the Democrat guy working the campaign with her — the perfect liberal love story. But when she sees him scream “like a girl” as he runs away from a bee, she immediately gets “the ick.” Danny, who drives a pickup truck and is brave enough to run head-on into a crime scene for her safety, sweeps her off her feet. She quickly becomes blind to the way he votes. With a surprise ending that might make you shed a tear, all three Democrat girls end up falling in love with Republican farm boys while on their campaign stint in Wisconsin. It’s a truth you hear a lot on social media: Women, no matter their political beliefs, want to be with “real men.” And those men usually end up being Republican. Her Easter Eggs Perino did sprinkle Easter eggs from her own life throughout the book. If you have read any of her three memoirs, you can pick up on those. For example, when the girls board the plane heading off on their big adventure, they talk about the possibility of meeting the love of their life. In real life, Perino met McMahon while seated next to him on a flight. Another nod to her relationship with her husband was the girls’ decision to move to a new place for love, possibly giving up a career. Early in her own relationship, Perino moved to Europe to be with McMahon, putting love before her career. While “Purple State” is Perino’s debut in fiction, the author provides an entertaining, light romance novel that posits a deep thought for a politically divided America: True love, perhaps, is something that crosses party lines. @BillMelugin_ tells @DanaPerino about the surprising across the aisle friendships that exist behind the scenes on Capitol Hill. pic.twitter.com/JQ5JyNiGXA— FOX News Radio (@foxnewsradio) April 21, 2026

Georgia, one of the most closely watched election battlegrounds in the nation, could face a significant technology overhaul resulting in slower ballot counting or delayed results in the upcoming midterm elections. After July 1, Georgia election officials can no longer use QR codes to tabulate ballots after a 2024 law goes into effect, sparking concern among election officials. “The sky is not falling yet, but it is definitely cloudy,” Joseph Kirk, the Bartow County elections director and the president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, told the Daily Signal. For past years, and for the upcoming May primary and June runoff elections, Georgia’s voting machines have used QR codes to tally votes. QR is short for quick response. After the July 1 deadline, the technology would be phased out for tabulation purposes. Kirk said the July 1 deadline and November election present a very tight timeline to make sweeping changes to the ballot-counting process necessary to comply with the law. However, some Georgia officials close to the matter suggest it’s far from a crisis and point out that the language of the law does not ban the use of QR codes altogether, only their use for final tabulation. The 2024 Georgia statute says, “The official tabulation count of any ballot scanner shall be based upon the text portion or the machine mark, provided that such mark clearly denotes the elector’s selection and does not use a QR code, bar code, or similar coding, of such ballots and not any machine coding that may be printed on such ballots.” That delineation is not clear enough for election chiefs, Kirk said. “I suppose some might argue we could use the codes for an initial tally on election night as long as it’s not for the official tabulation. But then it could depend on the definition of tabulation. People at my level cannot make those decisions and need legal guidance,” Kirk said. Critics of using QR codes asserted that voters can’t read the codes to verify that their ballots accurately reflect their choices. However, others contend that technology, properly deployed, can’t be tampered with in the same way that human counting could. The election clerks group pressed the state legislature to approve an extension to the July 1 deadline or approve new funding for counties to make the change. However, lawmakers adjourned earlier this month without taking any action on the QR codes. Kirk said that leaves three potential paths forward. First, Gov. Brian Kemp could call a special legislative session to address the problem. Another option could be that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger takes executive action as the state’s top election official. A third option is a lawsuit prompting a judge to impose a solution on the state. Neither Raffensperger’s office nor Kemp’s office has been specific about the next step. “As always, Secretary Raffensperger remains committed to following the law and following the Constitution in conducting free, fair, and fast elections for all Georgia voters,” Mike Hassinger, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, told The Daily Signal. Gov. Brian Kemp’s spokesman, Carter Chapman, referred the Daily Signal to a previous statement issued after the end of the legislative session. “The governor’s office will begin a thorough bill and budget review process on Monday and will analyze all the bills that passed the General Assembly, as well as the consequences of those that did not pass,” Chapman said. It’s a false choice between QR codes and slow hand counting of ballots, said Janice Johnston, vice chairwoman of the Georgia State Election Board. She said Georgia has used hand-marked paper ballots in the past that could be scanned in a timely manner and could still be audited without adding time to tabulation. She doubts the Georgia State Election Board will get involved. “Right now it’s a legislative matter. If the board tried to preemptively work out a solution, it would be outside its authority,” Johnston told The Daily Signal. “Once July 1 passes and nothing changes, the Elections Board might have to direct the counties to take an emergency procedure. But my prediction is that there will be a special session, and no matter what happens in the special session, it will end up in court, because the sides are so dug in. And courts hate to deal with election issues.” Last November, Charlene McGowan, the general counsel for the secretary of state’s office, wrote a letter to lawmakers saying optical character recognition technology could be a cost-effective way to implement the 2024 law. OCR, short for optical character recognition, converts images of text—such as scanned documents, PDFs, or photos—into machine-readable data. This differs from QR codes, which are structured, high-speed two-dimensional barcodes designed for instant digital lookup. OCR converts physical text into digital text, while QR codes are designed to store small amounts of data instantly.