The future of the immigration issue could now rest on one man’s shoulders—Sen. Markwayne Mullin. After President Donald Trump picked the Oklahoma Republican to replace Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, senators are speculating on whether the move will create momentum for reopening the department. For over 24 days, Senate Democrats have almost unanimously refused to advance Republican-backed measures to fund the Department of Homeland Security. They have demanded restraints on immigration law enforcement, such as restrictions on the use of face masks and administrative warrants, as well as requirements for body cameras. This holdout has resulted in a complete lapse in appropriations for an agency that deals with the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, cybersecurity, and several other responsibilities beyond immigration. BREAKING: Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s (R-OK) first reaction to being tapped as DHS Secretary by President Trump. pic.twitter.com/QEZIzRE0pb— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) March 5, 2026 Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has argued Democrats ought to reconsider their refusal to fund the agency now that Trump has selected new leadership. “This, to me, is a huge development, I would think, in the funding conversation, and hopefully they’ll get more earnest about coming to the table and trying to get a deal,” said Thune after news broke. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told reporters Monday that Mullin’s “strong guarantee of Republican backing” will likely make the confirmation process easy, but added that Mullin will “be grilled very thoroughly” by Democrats “about what reforms he will support” for the agency. Asked by The Daily Signal if conversations with Mullin amid the confirmation process could create progress in reopening the department, Blumenthal replied, “Anything’s possible. Sen. Mullin knows how this place works and how the give-and-take is essential to getting things done. Nobody gets everything they want, and some compromise is necessary.” He continued, “Those kinds of reforms that are standard operating procedure for your police force in your town, I think Secretary Mullin would be open to them.” The process will place Mullin in an unusual position, as he navigates the dynamics of bipartisan negotiations in the Senate, as well as negotiations between the executive branch and Congress. Mullin served in the House for a decade and has been a senator since 2023. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, chaired by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, will consider his confirmation. Mullin, who tends to align himself closely with party leadership’s positions, has spoken harshly of Paul in the past.  “We’re shooting for a week from Wednesday,” Paul told reporters on Monday when asked when the confirmation hearing would be. “I’m going to reserve judgment now and we’ll probably find out a lot more,” Paul told a reporter who asked for his thoughts on Mullin’s nomination. Sen. Paul says he’s aiming to hold Sen. Mullin’s DHS confirmation hearing a week from Wednesday pic.twitter.com/SXAHyGfRge— Grace Kazarian (@grace_kazarian) March 9, 2026 Paul might be tough on Mullin during the confirmation process.  After the death of Alex Pretti in a shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Paul called on DHS to “pledge to reform,” subjecting top immigration officials to tough questioning by his committee. Paul, a fiscal hawk, has also been critical of the Trump administration’s budget requests for border wall construction and law enforcement. Mullin’s chances of confirmation look promising, especially since Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., perhaps the harshest Republican critic of Noem, has called Mullin “a great guy and a great choice to lead DHS.” Noem will leave her position on March 31. A spokesperson for Mullin did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The post Will Markwayne Mullin End the DHS Shutdown? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

REUTERS—Shots were fired at the U.S. Consulate in Toronto early on Tuesday, but no one was injured, police said, in what Canada’s public safety minister described as an unacceptable incident. Toronto police said on X that they responded to reports of shots at 5:29 a.m. EDT and found evidence of a discharged firearm. In another post, police said they had no information on a potential suspect. “The shooting … is absolutely unacceptable. Canada will never tolerate intimidation and violence of any kind, including towards our American friends in Canada,” Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said in a post on X. In a statement, the State Department said it was aware of the incident and was closely monitoring the situation in coordination with local law enforcement. Separately, on Sunday, an improvised device exploded in Norway at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, and police were still searching for a suspect, with a possible link to the Iran war among the lines of inquiry. In New York City, two men have been charged with terrorism after throwing a homemade bomb at anti-Islam protesters over the weekend. Originally published by Reuters The post Shots Fired at US Consulate in Toronto, Ottawa Says Incident Unacceptable appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Sen. Jim Banks joined “The Tony Kinnett Cast” on Tuesday night to discuss his legislation to save American lives by cracking down on illegal immigrants in the truck driving industry. “This is a national crisis,” Banks, R-Ind., told The Daily Signal’s Tony Kinnett. Banks’ legislation, known as “Dalilah’s Law,” would crack down on illegal immigrant truckers by limiting commercial driver’s licenses to citizens, lawful permanent residents, and certain visa holders, and would revoke all licenses currently issued to illegal aliens. English proficiency requirements would also be added. President Donald Trump has also indicated that Congress needs to take action to end the proliferation of commercial driver’s licenses, or CDLs for short. During his State of the Union address, Trump recognized Dalilah Coleman, a 7-year-old girl who was struck by an 18-wheeler when she was five, after an illegal immigrant truck driver failed to stop at a construction zone in California, and called on Congress to ban illegal immigrants from commercial trucking. “Many, if not most, illegal aliens do not speak English and cannot read even the most basic road signs as to direction, speed, danger, or location,” Trump said during his State of the Union address. Banks said that tragedies such as Coleman’s are “happening way too often.” “When you have Governor [Gavin] Newsom in California or blue states like California or New York, they hand out truck driving licenses or CDLs to illegals like candy, of course you’re going to see them behind the wheel of a semi and tragically killing people,” Banks continued. “She will never be the same, she’s recovered physically but she will never be the same,” Banks said of Coleman. “I spent some time with her last week in my office. So, we’ve named the bill after her, but you can name this bill literally hundreds of other people.” Since the Trump administration began, it has sought to crack down on states that issue commercial driving exams in English and CDLs to illegal immigrants. Banks also condemned his Democrat colleagues for opposing this “commonsense” policy. “The Democrats think it’s OK [to allow illegals to obtain CDLs],” he added. “It is long past time to do something about it.” “Democrats talk all the time about how illegals come into America and take the jobs Americans do not want to do, and that is just not the case when it comes to truck driving,” Banks added. “Those jobs are being taken away from Americans by illegals and foreigners, and that’s another reason we need to crack down on this.” Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., is leading the Dalilah’s Law effort in the House. The post ‘NATIONAL CRISIS’: Banks Says Illegal Truckers Repeatedly Put Public at Risk appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Recent advanced scientific evidence points to the existence of God. This is the provocative thesis of Michel-Yves Bollore and Olivier Bonnassies’s book, “God, The Science, The Evidence: The Dawn of a Revolution.” The book was originally published in French and was recently translated into English. Its authors claim there is little proof for the age-old assertion that knowledge of the cosmos encourages atheism. The more we discover about the universe, particularly its genesis, the more evidence we have pointing to the need for a Creator. Bollore and Bonnassies have written a comprehensive analysis (over 500 pages) of the newest scientific evidence along with the history of scientific research stretching back to the 16th century. They argue that the pendulum is swinging towards a belief in God because of science, not despite of it. The following does not serve as a book review of the work but seeks to shine a spotlight on their findings which can help embolden one’s faith and provide arguments against those who claim there is no proof for God’s existence. Much of the science that points to a creator relates to the expansion of the universe. The Big Bang Theory is perhaps the best-known example. It was created by a Catholic priest named Fr. Georges Lemaitre who held a PhD from MIT. In 1927 he published a paper arguing, in part, that there is a law of proportionality between how far a galaxy was from the earth and how fast it was moving away from the earth. This was later confirmed by the Hubble telescope in 1929. Universal expansion impacts a tremendous number of things in physics and astronomy. It means there must have been a starting point of expansion, a beginning. It also means that there will be a thermal death of the universe, which is also proven through other means in modern science. Bollore and Bonnassies explain it this way: “The Universe is like a fire crackling away in a fireplace. Subject to the laws of thermodynamics, both are designed to burn themselves out over time … eventually only a handful of embers are left smoldering, until they too begin to go out, one by one.” The rate of the dwindling of the fire can be measured through strict mathematical considerations. If the measurement of its dwindling can be demonstrated, then we can prove that the fire has not always existed. If the fire had always existed, then it would have burned out an infinitely long time ago. This metaphor is applicable to the thermal death of the universe. Since this can be measured it means that the universe has not always existed (otherwise it would have burned out by now). All the data from modern science leaves us with two possibilities: “a creator God or pure chance,” writes Bollore and Bonnassies. So, they spend much time explaining how the likelihood of it being true is so magnificently small, that there must be a God. Here are a few examples. In the nanoseconds following the Big Bang, there are certain constants in the universe which are established. These constants are measured and always the same. They provide the foundation for how the universe operates, expands, and is able to sustain existence. One specific example would be the mass density of the universe. This explains the absence of curvature in the universe. If this number varied infinitesimally, even at the 60th decimal place, the universe would not exist. The cosmologist Trinh Xuan said that the improbability of this number being randomly crafted (without order from a creator) can be compared with the improbability of an archer firing a bow and arrow and hitting a target that is 1 square centimeter in diameter, 15 billion light years away. “In other words,” he said, “the probability is zero.” Overall, scientists have been able to calculate that the odds of our universe existing from random chance is 10??. As a contrast, there are roughly 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand in the Sahara Desert. This book by Bollore and Bonnassies—along with many other recent works and discoveries—is dispelling the myth that increased scientific knowledge leads away from faith. In fact, it reveals that it is more plausible to believe in God than to believe that the universe came from a random act. It takes more blind faith to be an atheist than a believer—simply consult science to find out why. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Scientific Shift Toward God appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The CEO of the world’s largest oil company is warning of “catastrophic consequences” to oil markets as the conflict in Iran continues, rendering the Strait of Hormuz largely impassable. Since the United States and Israel launched the joint attack on Iran a week and a half ago, few ships have traversed the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping lane connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Tuesday they would not allow “export of a single liter of oil” through the passage. “There would be catastrophic consequences for the world’s oil markets, and the longer the disruption goes on … the more drastic the consequences for the global economy,” Aramco CEO Amin Nasser told reporters on an earnings call. “While we have faced disruptions in the past, this one by far is the biggest crisis the region’s oil and gas industry has faced,” the CEO warned. Infographic with a map of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for global oil shipments linking the Gulf and the Gulf of Oman (AFP via Getty Images) Oil prices topped $100 a barrel at the start of the week but fell below $90 a barrel on Tuesday, after President Donald Trump indicated the war might be reaching its end. “The war is very complete, pretty much,” Trump told CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang on Monday. Trump also warned Iran Monday that if they take any action “that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far.” The Trump administration has repeatedly said the U.S. is not entering a “forever war” and is not interested in “nation building” in Iran. It has said it will only continue the operation until U.S. objectives are met. The U.S. and Israel continued strikes on Iran Tuesday in what Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said would be the “most intense day of strikes inside Iran: the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes.” He added that “the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest number of missiles they’ve been capable of firing yet.” .@SecWar: "Today will be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran — the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes… On the other hand, the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest number of missiles." pic.twitter.com/ob9o8iKv1M— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 10, 2026 The U.S. is winning the fight against Iran with “brutal efficiency, total air dominance, and an unbreakable will to accomplish the president’s objectives,” according to Hegseth. The most consistent objective Trump and the White House have outlined is ensuring Iran is incapable of obtaining a nuclear weapon and no longer presents a critical threat to the U.S. or its partners in the region. Reuters contributed to this report. The post Aramco CEO Warns of ‘Catastrophic Consequences’ to Oil Markets Amid Conflict in Iran appeared first on The Daily Signal.