Tens of thousands rallied in Washington, D.C. at the 53rd annual March for Life on Friday. This year’s theme: Life is a Gift. While some suggest that unborn life is a cause for parents and grandparents, thousands of young Americans joined the March for Life in a public display that defied the caricature of the pro-life movement. Some shared their stories with The Daily Signal. How Do Pro-Lifers Really Feel About the Trump Administration? @EliseMcCue It's been one year since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. We asked attendees of the annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., how they would grade the Trump administration’s… pic.twitter.com/ZGO7kI8RXu— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) January 23, 2026 James, 22 and a student at the University of Central Florida, traveled from Orlando, Florida to join the March for Life. “I was actually adopted, so the pro-life movement is very important to me,” James told The Daily Signal.   “It shows that there’s other options besides abortion for unwanted babies, and I am proof that you don’t have to abort your children,” James shared.   Clara, age 19, told The Daily Signal, “it was so cool to see everyone from around the country come and join and be a part of this movement.”  “There’s so many people around us just supporting that movement, making it stronger, and knowing that you can potentially save a life,” Clara continued.   “We march for one thing and one thing only, and that is obviously life,” said Clara proudly.   Shanyce Thomas, age 25, traveled from Baltimore for her first March for Life. “I’m marching because I am a victim of the abortion pill,” Thomas told The Daily Signal. On Thursday she joined Live Action on Capitol Hill for the “Abortion Pill Exposed” press conference to share her story with members of Congress.  “The abortion pill nearly cost me my life. I was in medically induced coma for a month.” -ShanyceWe hosted a groundbreaking press conference this morning in DC:?? Exposing the dangers of the abortion pill.?? Releasing a new undercover investigationAnd demanding the FDA… pic.twitter.com/5hUtCNnoe7— Live Action (@LiveAction) January 22, 2026 Thomas suffered life-threatening injuries after being pressured by her boyfriend to take the abortion pill.   “Doctors had no choice but to perform a partial hysterectomy. In one moment, my ability to carry children in my future was taken from me, not by choice but by necessity to save my life,” Thomas shared at the press conference.   The march is “something bigger” Thomas continued. “I see what it can do, and I see how people are trying to stop [abortion] just by all of us being here and marching in front of The Supreme Court,” she said, describing what the march meant to her.  The sheer size of the March for Life is staggering Nearly 100,000 Christian patriots marching in Washington DC pic.twitter.com/a2BS69lwxE— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) January 23, 2026 Jennie Bradley Lichter, the new president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, shared her vision of the event with The Daily Signal in October.    “Our goal,” Lichter shared, “is to invite everyone to the irrepressible joy of the March for Life; to be swept up into a movement that transcends politics and celebrates the joy, beauty, and goodness of life itself.”    The march is a faith filled event for many. Javier, 22, traveled from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with the John Jay Fellowship to join the march. He told us he is pro-life because he is Catholic.   Javier shared that being pro-life “means affirming life, affirming the gift of life, and rejecting the culture of death.” “We’re here building for the Kingdom,” Javier said. Madeline, 23, attended her eighth March for Life on Friday. She started coming to the march when she was just 14 years old. “I want to make sure that people don’t forget that the young people care about this issue too,” Madeline told The Daily Signal. “I will not let this issue be lied about, that it’s old people that want to just control women’s control women’s bodies, and that the young in our society really do yearn for truth,” she continued.   Katie, also 23, is another long-time marcher. “This is my sixth March,” she told The Daily Signal. “My first march was in 2020, when I was a senior in high school, it was actually the march that Donald Trump came to and spoke at for the first time,” Katie said.   Before 2020, Katie says she was a “a hopeless pro-lifer.” But that year she said she was inspired to see thousands of pro-lifers standing out in the cold. “I was very inspired by their selflessness and their courage, and that inspired me to want to come back every year,” Katie said. “And here I am,” she added.   The post Yearning for Truth: Why Young Americans March for Life appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Secretary of Education Linda McMahon expects half of U.S. states to opt in to education freedom initiatives. “I think we’ll get at least to 25 and hopefully more,” she told The Daily Signal in an exclusive interview. McMahon said she is going to make a big announcement designating Jan. 25–31 as National School Choice Week. ?"There were dead people who were applying for loans and receiving them." ?"We have identified and saved about a billion dollars for FAFSA loans that would've been fraudulent."@DailySignal interviewed @EDSecMcMahon on the one year anniversary of Trump 47?(00:00)… pic.twitter.com/woklAtA6Yc— Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell (@TheElizMitchell) January 21, 2026 President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” created a new federal income tax credit of up to $1,700 per year for donations to scholarship-granting organizations. Students in states that opt in can access the funds for private school scholarships. So far, 15 states have opted in, and McMahon expects that number to increase to at least 25. McMahon said she will be traveling and talking about school choice all week. “It’s really a special week because the president absolutely believes in school choice,” she said. “He’s the first president to get a national school choice bill.” McMahon praised Iowa governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, who spent two terms fighting for school choice in her state. The Education Secretary touted that the Department of Education increased the Charter Schools Program funding by $60 million this year, raising the program’s total budget to $500 million. “That’s a record,” she said. “We’re very happy about that.” The Treasury Department needs to begin rule making on the school choice tax credits established in the Big Beautiful Bill before next January. McMahon expects that process to be successful. “I think we’re going to be very successful in getting through this process,” she said. “I think Treasury is totally on board with it. That’s where it appropriately resides.” The post EXCLUSIVE: At Least Half the States Will Adopt School Choice, McMahon Predicts appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Did you know that in most of America, police can take your property, even if you did nothing wrong? They don’t have to charge you with a crime. They don’t have to take you to court. They can just say they suspect you of a crime. Then they can grab your money, your car, and sometimes, even your house! It’s legal because of something called “civil asset forfeiture.” My new video shows how police abuse such laws to take things from innocent people. Restaurant owner Mandrel Stuart was stopped by police in Virginia when driving. Stuart thought, at worst, he’d get a ticket. But in his car was $18,000, which he planned to use to buy equipment for his restaurant. When the cops saw that, they said they didn’t believe it was for his restaurant, and they confiscated it. “They said that I was a drug dealer,” he complains. “They had no proof!” In most states, they don’t need proof. The money alone gives police “probable cause” that a crime was committed. Still, the police let him go. But they kept his money. Anthonia Nwaorie, a Texas nurse, worked years to save $40,000 so she could start a medical clinic in Nigeria. At the airport, however, Border Patrol asked her about the money. No matter what she said, they didn’t believe her. “They poured everything, my clothes, my personal things, on the floor … I didn’t know they were going to take the money!” They did, although they never charged her with a crime. Fortunately, she turned out to be one of the rare victims who got the money back. Libertarian law firm the Institute for Justice helped her sue the Border Patrol. Her attorney, Dan Alban, says, “If we were drawing up a diagram of a criminal organization, you would call civil asset forfeiture money laundering!” Today, even the technique’s original proponents have second thoughts. “We were proud of it. We were taking Colombian narcotics money,” says Brad Cates, who helped write civil forfeiture laws as director of the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture office. Now, he says that his laws caused new problems but didn’t reduce drug sales. “We took billions and billions of dollars out of the system, but it didn’t stop [drug trafficking], did it? … We created a monster.” A slush fund for police agencies. Musician Eh Wah was stopped because he had a broken brake light. In his car was $53,000 his band had raised for charity. Oklahoma cops told him they’d let him go. But they would keep the cash. The Institute for Justice took his case, too. Alban notes that the cops let Wah keep everything that was in the form of checks. “Even though the $53,000 in cash they had seized was ‘drug proceeds,’ the money on the checks apparently wasn’t. The reason … was because they couldn’t cash the checks.” Only after The Washington Post reported on Wah’s loss, and how police took money meant for an orphanage, did the cops drop the case and return the money. The good news: Maine, Nebraska, North Carolina, and New Mexico have now banned civil asset forfeiture. Before government gets to grab your property, you must be found guilty of a crime. About two dozen other states have changed their laws, so less money seized will stay with the cops. That’s a good thing. As Alban points out, “We have to eliminate the profit incentive.” I think another reason these abusive practices continued for so long is because lawyers use stupid lawyer language, calling the money grab “civil asset forfeiture” instead of something like “police theft!” If they called it that, America might have gotten rid of it years ago. 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 post Civil Asset Forfeiture: How the Police Can Steal From You appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Is your faith downstream from the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacy? That’s what former CNN anchor Don Lemon and podcast host Jennifer Welch said of Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Agitators who claim that one of the church’s pastors also works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement stormed the church last week, separating the pastor from his congregation, chanting, “Who shut this down? We shut this down!” and terrifying children. Lemon filmed the church invasion and got in the pastor’s face mid-service, asking him why he wasn’t engaging in dialogue with the people who derailed his church service. The leftist commentator claimed he was only reporting on the church invasion as a journalist, but Cities Church’s lawyers said, “There is no ‘press pass’ to invade a sanctuary or to conspire to interrupt religious services.” Lemon later betrayed an animus against Cities Church and the evangelical Christianity the church preaches. This is not peaceful protest. This is an invasion of a sacred space. Anti-ICE agitators disrupted Cities Church in the middle of service. Warning: the agitators on the Left are serious. The man who posted this video bragged about doing this—comparing it to Jesus flipping over… pic.twitter.com/BeeIdubpwM— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) January 19, 2026 White Supremacy? On Monday, he filmed a video with Welch, co-host of the “I’ve Had It” podcast. During the video, Welch said of Cities Church, “that sect of evangelical Christianity has its rooting in the KKK because the KKK was a religious movement for white nationalists.” Lemon did not disagree, and he went on to accuse Cities Church of racism. He accused ICE of “detaining people on the streets because of accents and the color of their skin,” and he went on to suggest Cities Church is rooted in “white supremacy.” “There is a certain degree of racism there and there’s a certain degree of entitlement,” he said. “I think people who are, you know, in religious groups like that—it’s not the type of Christianity that I practice, but I think that they’re entitled and that that entitlement comes from a supremacy, a white supremacy, and they think that this country was built for them, that it is a Christian country, when actually we left England because we wanted religious freedom.” “It’s religious freedom, but only if you’re a Christian and only if you’re a white male, pretty much,” he added. Riddle me this. Don Lemon says he was just an observer, covering the invasion of Cities Church on Sunday. But here he is, one day later, saying that Cities Church preaches "the exact opposite of what Christianity is supposed to be about."?Jennifer Welch the evangelical… pic.twitter.com/eknuYng7pj— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) January 21, 2026 Not a Whiff of White Supremacy Cities Church isn’t exactly secretive about its key beliefs. Its website delves into the gospel, the word of God, the Trinity, the human condition, marriage and sexuality, and more. It speaks in terms of humanity, not white or black. It focuses on God, not racial divisions. In normal English, the term “white supremacy” is a deadly serious claim. It refers to a system of racial hierarchy, where “white” people are considered superior to those of other skin colors. It traces back to America’s history of race-based slavery and the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan, our country’s most notorious hate group. Yet Cities Church doesn’t present any such racial hierarchy, and it has no connection to the Klan. The Weaponization of ‘White Supremacy’ Absurd as it is to compare conservative Christians preaching the gospel to the Ku Klux Klan, Jennifer Welch wasn’t the first to do it, and Don Lemon wasn’t the first to nod along. The Southern Poverty Law Center has been putting mainstream conservative Christian groups—such as the law firm Alliance Defending Freedom and the think tank Family Research Council—on a “hate map” with Klan chapters for over a decade. The SPLC claims these groups are part of the “infrastructure upholding white supremacy” because they support traditional Christian doctrine in opposition to the SPLC’s radical LGBTQ+ agenda. How can they justify this? The SPLC also champions critical race theory—the notion that America is systemically racist and therefore a hidden “white supremacy” lies underneath our daily interactions in society. This belief justifies radical changes to society in order to root out a “racism” that often merely involves laws and policies that treat people according to the condition of their character, rather than the color of their skin. Some have condemned “colorblindness” itself as inherently racist. Yet activists describe themselves as “anti-racist,” suggesting that any opposition to their radical agenda is ipso facto racist. Critical race theory also drives the demonization of ICE and leads some on the Left to effectively nullify federal immigration law. Activists claim that any deportation of illegal aliens is racist, even though the federal government is deporting the person for violating the law, not because of his or her skin color. Don Lemon and Jennifer Welch haven’t discovered some secret cabal of Klan members inside Cities Church—they’re merely playing the same old tired race card. Why Is This Relevant? If there’s nothing to Lemon’s claim, why is it worth highlighting? Don Lemon’s extreme condemnation of Cities Church may speak to his motive in joining the anti-ICE agitators who invaded the church service. Lemon claims he was merely a journalistic observer, not a member of the crowd. Yet, if one of his first acts after “covering” the church is to spread baseless accusations of “white supremacy” and to claim that the church’s complaints about the invasion of its sacred space was merely “entitlement,” that suggests more than a desire to report the news. If Don Lemon entered that church with the intention of confronting “white supremacy” and hounding the pastor, and he contributed to a climate of fear that prevented American citizens from exercising their First Amendment right to worship God, shouldn’t he face charges alongside the ringleaders of the church invasion? The post Evangelical Church Complains About Anti-ICE Invasion Due to ‘Entitlement’ From ‘White Supremacy,’ Don Lemon Says appeared first on The Daily Signal.

After his first interview of a survivor of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, playwright Phelim McAleer says he knew he had to write a play telling the true story of that day. Following performances in New York City, the play “OCTOBER 7” will be performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 28. “I just realized this is like a movie, a bad movie, and I knew after the first interview, we had an amazing story,” McAleer, a journalist, playwright, and filmmaker, told The Daily Signal. McAleer and his wife, Ann McElhinney, reside in Los Angeles but are originally from Ireland. They happened to be in Europe when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking another 251 people hostage to Gaza. Playwrights and journalists Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney (Unreported Story Society) The couple observed how Europeans immediately talked “about the tragedy of the electricity being turned off in Gaza,” and watched as anti-Israel protests formed in the U.S. less than 24 hours after the attack. They quickly prepared to travel to Israel. As journalists, McAleer says he and his wife were concerned that the true story of Oct. 7 was “going to be missed” and would not “be reported properly.” “They talk about journalism being the first rough draft of history, and you know, we were just concerned that no one was going to write that draft. It was more about the journalism than anything else,” he said. They arrived in Israel only a handful of days after the attack and began conversations with survivors of the NOVA music festival, family members of deceased victims, and heroes who jumped into action to save others. One interviewee is Itamar Alus, an off-duty police officer who left his house with his pistol and nine bullets on the morning of Oct. 7 and managed to save the lives of an off-duty IDF soldier and a rabbi. He then rescued a family hiding on a roof and also killed two terrorists that day. Israeli Command Sergeant Major Itamar Alus (Herzl Yosef) Alus survived the Oct. 7 terrorist attack but tragically passed away of “medical causes” at the beginning of January. The Kennedy Center performance is dedicated to Alus, and is a dramatized staged reading featuring 14 actors and drawing directly from survivor interviews. McAleer says finding the stories was easy, but the biggest challenges were telling the story of Oct. 7 in a way that “didn’t edit out the truth,” and including as many details as possible in roughly 90 minutes. “That’s a lot of editing and a lot of crafting of a story,” McAleer said. The central mission of the performance, according to the playwright, is to “show people that the war was visited upon these people, that they didn’t start the war, that there would have been no war in Gaza without October 7.” The play’s tour has included three universities: Princeton University; the University of California, Los Angeles; and Bowdoin College in Maine. The performance at UCLA on Oct. 7, 2024, was “one of the saddest experiences,” according to the playwright, as “protests on the campus” opposed the performance and security measures included “hundreds of police officers” and “bomb-sniffing dogs in the theater.” “And it was just, it was very sad to see that people telling the truth about their experience, Jewish voices needed that much protection at UCLA.” McAleer says his hope is that the play will next be performed in Ireland, and ultimately that it will “live forever.” The post ‘War Was Visited Upon These People’: Play About Oct. 7 Comes to DC appeared first on The Daily Signal.