The Fairfax County Police Department in northern Virginia is investigating a swatting call at the residence of Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett Wednesday night. “Yesterday evening at approximately 9:02 p.m., officers responded to a swatting call at the residence of U.S. Supreme Court Justice in Fairfax County,” the department’s public information officer told the Daily Signal in a Thursday phone call. “The call was received through the department’s non-emergency line,” the officer explained. “Officers immediately coordinated with Supreme Court police personnel assigned to the residence and quickly determined that the report was fictitious. No additional police resources were utilized.” “Swatting” refers to the practice of calling police with a false report concerning a threat or violence, aiming to convince law enforcement to send a SWAT team to the targeted location. Since SWAT teams often enter houses with little notice and can cause confusion, these calls may result in unnecessary police violence. When asked if the police department is investigating the call, the officer said, “That’s definitely part of it, every one of those calls is investigated.” In some circumstances, police will bring charges against those who make such calls, the officer explained. Some calls may not originate in the police department’s jurisdiction, however, complicating efforts to hold the swatter accountable. Threats to the Supreme Court The swatting call comes about a month after a gunman rushed past security at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, reportedly seeking to kill President Donald Trump. Trump administration officials have faced multiple serious threats recently. After the Supreme Court reversed the abortion precedent Roe v. Wade (1973) in 2022, pro-choice agitators protested outside justices’ homes, and one of them attempted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. As the conservative-leaning originalist movement has dominated the Supreme Court’s majority and jurisprudence, critics on the Left have sought to delegitimize the court, with then-President Joe Biden even launching a commission to consider “reform.” Former Vice President Kamala Harris recently suggested packing the court, should Democrats retake the White House and the Senate. President Trump appointed both Kavanaugh and Barrett to the bench, and pro-choice activists campaigned against their confirmations.

China’s economic relationship with Niger is becoming deeper and more complicated. As of May 2026, Beijing expanded zero-tariff treatment to imports from 53 African countries with diplomatic ties to China, excluding only Eswatini, which recognizes Taiwan. For Niger, a junta-led landlocked state that needs both outside financing and export revenue, that offer comes at a consequential moment. This tariff policy is not a simple trade gesture. This broader trade policy from Beijing is not just focused on profit maximization. Its goals include opening market access to critical resources like oil, financing that resources pipeline and refinement infrastructure, and embedding China’s state-owned firms in this key industry. Beijing’s financing of Niger’s oil sector is acutely important for policymakers to understand. The World Bank estimates that oil-related revenues account for 3.9% of Niger’s GDP—equal to about a quarter of total government revenue and a third of tax revenue. That makes oil central not only to Niger’s growth story but also to its fiscal position. Most of this oil has only been accessible because China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) invested more than $5 billion in Niger as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. This included oil fields and refinery developments as well as a nearly 2,000-kilometer export pipeline connecting Niger’s Agadem oilfield and Benin’s coastline. For landlocked Niger, this pipeline is a direct route to international markets through Benin’s Port of Seme-Kpodji. This pipeline has already exported more than $2 billion in Meleck low sulfur oil to global markets from the expanded Agadem oilfield. However, infrastructure does not eliminate politics. Benin restricted Niger’s pipeline in 2023 following Niger’s coup, and anti-junta rebels attacked the pipeline. That disruption shocked Niger’s finances and showed just how central the Chinese-built corridor had become to Niger’s economy. However, China successfully mediated the dispute and restored normal pipeline operation highlighting Beijing’s role as not only a contractor but also a stakeholder with serious leverage. But this relationship isn’t without its own dynamics. In March 2025, Niger expelled three Chinese oil executives employed by CNPC amid disputes over pay gaps between expatriate and local workers. Subsequently, China’s demand for Niger’s Meleck oil weakened amid the fraying ties with the junta and rising freight costs, leaving Niger with largely European market bidders. The junta’s approach reflects a broader push for resource nationalism across parts of the Sahel, where military governments seek to reclaim leverage from foreign investors while still depending on their capital and expertise. However, this loss of funds from Chinese purchases has led to fiscal tension. In March of 2026, the World Bank approved a $250 million grant to strengthen Niger’s financial sector and expand credit for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. The next day, the IMF approved a $90 million immediate disbursement while warning of new balance-of-payments financing and budgetary financing gaps in 2026 due in part to insufficient oil revenues. Niger’s government may want more control, but its economic position limits its options. While The IMF projects growth of 6.7% in 2026, it warns of potential risks from security shocks, commodity volatility, and weaker external assistance. The World Bank’s new support for Niger’s banking system tells the same story. Niger may be growing, but its dependence on oil means that it is not resilient. Domestic institutions add another constraint. The Heritage Foundation’s 2026 Index of Economic Freedom gives Niger a score of 51, ranking it 140th in the world. A weak rule of law, an uncertain regulatory framework, and underperformance across key policy areas are critical aspects the Index considers in the country’s evaluation. The same Heritage metrics note public debt at 47% of GDP, roughly $9.5 billion. Since Niger’s GDP is $20 billion, these are not conditions easily maneuvered out of without major outside financing and rebuild export logistics on short notice. China’s new free trade agreement with Africa may put Niger’s oil back on the table for a hungry Chinese market in the wake of the current Iran war. But even if the commercial relationship softens, the infrastructure, financing, and political footprints remain. Once a country’s resource extraction is wired around a foreign partner’s capital and logistics, disentangling that partner becomes far more difficult than signing the original deal. The broader lesson is simple. Chinese state-owned corporations finance a project, develop the export route, mediate when regional disputes threaten its infrastructure, and remain positioned to benefit exactly when the host country needs revenue most. Though localities can and do exert their own will at times, China plays a long game with its Belt and Road Infrastructure. Western policymakers should not treat Chinese influence in Niger as a peripheral case. It is a resource-rich Sahel state where instability and economic necessity give Beijing room to become a demonstrable financier, infrastructure provider, and diplomatic broker.

The saga surrounding Joe Biden’s audio recordings continues, as lawyers for the former president on Tuesday filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the release of conversations that were part of an investigation into classified documents. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks to block the Department of Justice from providing to the House Judiciary Committee about 70 hours of audio files and transcripts with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer. During an episode of “The Tony Kinnett Cast” on Wednesday, host Tony Kinnett noted that the recordings allegedly portrayed Biden as “very, very out of it” with regard to his mental state. One memorable takeaway discussed on the podcast was how Biden could not recall when his son, Beau Biden, died. Special Counsel Robert Hur conducted an investigation but ultimately declined to charge the then-president despite the fact that “Hur’s report said that Biden violated the law,” Kinnett noted. Biden’s lawyers, as CNN reported, argue in the filing that, “Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home. And when the U.S. Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the Department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure.” Kinnett said he found it unusual to attempt to block the release of the materials to a congressional committee. “What’s bizarre to me here is that the lawsuit specifically states he’s trying to keep the audio files from being released to the House Judiciary Committee. So this isn’t as though the DOJ is going to publish a list of audio files,” Kinnett said. “The House Judiciary Committee wants these to ascertain whether or not Joe Biden, first of all, [with] his magical super-duper ultra list of a bajillion pardons at the end of his administration that were signed by autopen, if they actually covered the crimes that Joe Biden may have committed, and then Robert Hur elected not to try him.” Kinnett added that the recordings could play a significant role when it comes to other key Democrats. “There are others that are implicated in the classified documents scandal, as well as things that Joe Biden may have alluded to that didn’t make it to the memoir about Hillary Clinton, his time with Barack Obama, and things that they chose to do that would be under a significant amount of scrutiny legally moving forward,” he continued. The lawsuit comes after three separate requests were made under the Freedom of Information Act. The former president and his attorneys have argued that what Biden wants to remain sealed is exempt from FOIA. Congressional Republicans have been fighting to obtain recordings and transcripts of Biden’s interview with Hur. Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, was even held in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply, even though the DOJ declined to prosecute. In response to the new lawsuit, President Donald Trump on Truth Social called Biden “A Crooked Politician!!!” and posted a Fox News column urging the former administration to “let Americans hear the truth for themselves.” Watch the full “The Tony Kinnett Cast” here.

As Democrats continue sneering their way back to power, they sound less like a political party and more like an angry rage machine. They have a serious messaging, communications, and discipline problem. On the heels of a vile Memorial Day post blaming President Trump for the deaths of fallen soldiers—which they later deleted—the Democratic Party’s official X account then posted “shut up, you ugly f—” at Stephen Miller, one of President Donald Trump’s top advisers. shut up you ugly fuck— Democrats (@TheDemocrats) May 27, 2026 Democrats are trying and failing to imitate Trump’s assertiveness and confidence. They are using vulgarities without confidence, sneers without credibility, and aggression without any governing message. Voters clearly see the difference between authentic conviction and a bad imitation. What they are watching now is a party rage-posting because it no longer has a clear voice, a coherent direction, or even a persuasive message. The timing is revealing, given that Democrats were already on the defensive after a tone-deaf Memorial Day post that was so offensive even Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., publicly condemned it. As families laid loved ones to rest, Democrat leaders turned the occasion into political venom by blaming Trump for those deaths. Now, with the blast against Miller, the floodgates are open, as they have turned to obscenity. The committee’s communications strategy has become a death spiral for the party. It is incredibly distasteful to use our heroic dead for a political attack on Memorial Day. I’m a Democrat and I condemn this post by the DNC. https://t.co/2lqI4jGcnd— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) May 25, 2026 If Democrats want to win, they would champion serious border-enforcement policies instead of obsessing over Stephen Miller. Miller is not a potted plant at the White House. He is one of the clearest symbols of the Trump administration’s immigration and border security agenda. When Democrats turn him into the object of official party contempt, they are showing voters their contempt for enforcement itself—and that is a risky political bet. Most Americans support deporting undocumented immigrants, even if many oppose some of the tactics used to carry it out. Democrats are attacking Miller because they still cannot beat the argument he represents: protecting the American people. The irony is that Democrats spent years branding themselves as the adults in the room and guardians of norms and dignity. Now their official account sounds like an anonymous burner run by people who think profanity is the new persuasion. They want the cultural payoff of sounding tough, but they cannot claim the moral high ground while sinking into the same vulgarity they once denounced. The deeper problem Democrats continue to ignore is their belief that emotional toxicity can substitute for political strategy. Americans already believe politically motivated violence is rising, according to recent polling. Democrats think voters want venom, profanity, and proof that the party can “fight.” However, voters are looking for competence, border security, economic recovery, affordability, and confidence that both sides still understand American values. Instead, the Democratic Party is turning itself into a walking advertisement for political instability. Beyond the Stephen Miller incident, Democrats are exposing their deeper collapse in discipline, message, and emotional control. Angry coalitions do not build trust. They reward the loudest voices, drift toward the fringes, and push away the very voters needed to win. A party that cannot stop sneering long enough to persuade is a party already losing the country. Republicans should not get dragged into the rage spiral. They should continue to stay focused on border security, affordability, order, and competence. American politics is still won by persuading the middle, and Democrats are too busy performing for the online mob to notice.

HOUSTON, May 27 (Reuters) — Exxon Mobil shareholders on Wednesday approved the company’s plan to redomicile in Texas, marking a win for the top U.S. oil producer after two leading proxy advisory firms advised investors to strike down the proposal. The oil producer is incorporated in New Jersey, but the company has been headquartered in Texas since 1989. It said moving its legal home to the state was logical and made more sense for the business. Other companies, including SpaceX, Tesla and Coinbase, have recently shifted operations to the Lone Star State. A Texas law passed last year enhanced legal protections for businesses in several ways, including reducing the threat of shareholder litigation by allowing companies to set stock ownership thresholds for lawsuits. Proxy advisory firms Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services had recommended that Exxon investors oppose the redomiciling, saying the move could erode shareholder rights. When it announced in March its plan to switch the state of incorporation from New Jersey to Texas, Exxon said it did not plan to raise its ownership thresholds for shareholder lawsuits and argued that Texas officials have a better understanding of its business.  “The Board believes Texas legislators, judges, and juries who might make decisions that impact Exxon Mobil are generally more familiar with our business and operations,” the company said in its proxy filing. The Texas proposal passed with 71.3% of votes in support, according to preliminary results from the annual meeting.  Investors also rejected a shareholder proposal to add more automatic voting options to the company’s retail investor voting program, handing Exxon another win. The oil producer introduced a unique voting mechanism last year to allow retail investors to automatically cast their votes in lockstep with the board’s recommendations at annual meetings. The shareholder proposal requested the program be modified to add more options, including a way to automatically vote against Exxon management’s stances. It received 23.5% of votes in support.  (Reporting by Sheila Dang in Houston and Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Joyjeet Das, Nathan Crooks, Rod Nickel and Nia Williams)