THE CENTER SQUARE—Democratic officials from 23 states and the District of Columbia announced Friday they’re suing to block President Donald Trump’s recent executive order regulating mail-in and absentee ballots. The suit was slated to be filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. A copy of the lawsuit wasn’t available as of press time. Trump doesn’t have the constitutional authority to control elections, California Attorney General Rob Bonta told reporters during a news conference Friday morning. Bonta, a Democrat who’s co-leading the coalition of plaintiffs, noted the authority rests with states and Congress, not the federal executive branch.  “The framers of our Constitution made sure that how we choose our leaders is not put in the hands of a single leader” such as Trump, Bonta said. Others co-leading the coalition of plaintiffs are Attorneys General Andrea Joy Campbell of Massachusetts, Aaron Ford of Nevada and Nick Brown of Washington state. The Center Square reached out Friday morning to the White House, which noted the Republican president’s order was designed to secure elections. “Only Democrat politicians and operatives would be upset about lawful efforts to secure American elections and ensure only eligible American citizens are casting ballots,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, answering The Center Square’s questions by email. “President Trump campaigned on securing our elections, and the American people sent him back to the White House to get the job done.” Trump’s executive order, which was issued on March 31, is titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” It cites the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the federal government’s obligation to ensure a republican form of government in every state under Article IV, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution. The order also refers to federal laws prohibiting non-citizens from registering to vote or voting in federal elections and the executive branch’s duty to enforce federal laws under Article II of the Constitution. The executive order directs the secretary of homeland security to compile lists of U.S. citizens who are 18 or older and send them to the chief election official of each state. The order says the list would be based on federal citizenship and naturalization records, Social Security records, SAVE data (used to verify citizenship) and other federal databases. The order says states must notify the U.S. Postal Service no fewer than 90 days before a federal election if they are using the postal service to deliver mail-in or absentee ballots. The order also says states must send a list of eligible voters to the postal service no fewer than 60 days before a federal election. Bonta noted the order threatens states with loss of federal funding for failure to comply. And he contended Trump’s executive order would disrupt the process in which every registered voter in California automatically gets a ballot in the mail. “Protecting elections is not partisan. Every eligible voter should be able to vote,” Bonta said. “That is foundational to our democracy.” Bonta said he doesn’t believe the executive order came soon enough to impact California’s June 2 primary, but said it could interfere with the Nov. 3 general election. He added Trump is concerned about Republicans losing congressional seats.  In addition to officials in California, Massachusetts, Washington state, Nevada and the District of Columbia, the lawsuit against Trump’s executive order is being filed by Democratic attorneys general from Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin. Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is also among the plaintiffs. Originally published by The Center Square. The post Dems Sue Over Trump’s Executive Order on Mail-in Ballots appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Fox News delivered a record-setting 1.5 billion YouTube video views in the first quarter of 2026, outpacing every rival in the news landscape by a staggering margin. According to data from Emplifi, Fox News beat its closest competitor, MS NOW, by half a million views. MS NOW tallied 974 million views for the first quarter. Fox News doubled CNN’s 707 million views. To put the dominance in perspective, Fox News surpassed the combined totals of ABC News (440 million), NBC News (364 million), and CBS News (194 million). The three legacy broadcast networks—despite their notable brand recognition—couldn’t keep pace. It marked the sixth consecutive quarter Fox News has topped all news brands on YouTube. Record-Setting Month Year-over-year, Fox News grew 21% on YouTube and surged 51% quarter-over-quarter. The March numbers are particularly telling. Fox News’ coverage of the ongoing war in Iran drove its highest-rated month ever on YouTube with 621 million views. In March, Fox News more than doubled CNN (265 million) and nearly quadrupled CBS News (73 million). Fox Business, meanwhile, posted 193 million video views in the first quarter, a 25% jump from the prior quarter. The network extended its streak as the No. 1 business channel on YouTube for the 52nd consecutive month. Dominance Across Platforms Fox News’ performance across social media platforms mirrors its success on YouTube. The network ranked first in social engagement on Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok in the first quarter, accumulating 426 million interactions. Facebook interactions were up 52% compared to 2025. TikTok interactions climbed 35%. The massive numbers are yet another indication that audiences trust Fox News to cover the news that matters most—regardless of where they’re watching or reading. They also tell a story you likely won’t hear from legacy media: Fox News is winning, and it’s not even close. The post Fox News Dominates YouTube With Record-Setting 1.5 Billion Views appeared first on The Daily Signal.

WASHINGTON, April 3 (Reuters)—President Donald Trump on Friday proposed to begin privatizing airport security operations handled by the Transportation Security Administration, in an effort to save money. The White House budget proposes cutting funding for the federal agency created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by $52 million and would require small airports to enroll in a program in which TSA pays for private screeners. TSA has about 50,000 federal employees who handle screening at nearly all U.S. airports. Budget documents released on Friday said airports currently using the privatization program have demonstrated savings compared to federal screening operations. In recent weeks, major U.S. airports suffered massive disruptions after TSA security officers went unpaid since mid-February after funding for the workers was halted in a budget dispute.  The standoff in Congress led to daily absences of 10% or more of TSA workers and brought chaos and long security lines to U.S. airports. The agency said on Monday the absence rate fell to 8.6% after the security officers were finally paid. Privatization could help remove TSA from congressional funding fights. Still, cuts to the airport security agency would come at a critical time for air travel with rising concerns about air safety after more than 500 TSA officers quit in recent weeks and amid a longstanding shortage of air traffic controllers. Trump’s budget included money to hire more controllers. Trump has been critical of the TSA. He fired its head, David Pekoske, on his first day in office and has never nominated a replacement. Last year, the White House said it wanted funding cut for the TSA by $247 million, saying the “TSA has consistently failed audits while implementing intrusive screening measures that violate Americans’ privacy and dignity”. That budget reduction represented about a 3%-4% cut to the TSA staffing levels—with half for staff at exit lanes and the remaining cut of 2% of transportation security officers spread across 435 airports. The Biden administration had increased the size of the TSA, which has nearly 60,000 employees, as air travel has increased in recent years. The TSA screened 904 million passengers in 2024, which was a record high and a 5% increase over 2023. (Reporting by David Shepardson and Chris Sanders in Washington; Editing by Michelle Nichols and Emelia Sithole-Matarise) The post Trump Proposes to Begin Privatizing TSA Screening Operations appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Christians describe the day an innocent man was violently executed as “Good.” Unless you know the whole story, it doesn’t make much sense. This is Holy Week on the Christian calendar. It began with Palm Sunday, which commemorates the Triumphal Entry. As Jesus rode a young donkey into Jerusalem, the people shouted, “Hosanna!” and “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” The symbolism may not be obvious now, but it was then. Hundreds of years before, Zechariah had prophesied that Israel’s king would come “riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” This was just one of the many prophecies about the Messiah that Jesus fulfilled. He was born to a virgin in Bethlehem, yet was called out of Egypt. He was from the line of David. He healed the blind, deaf, and lame. The people had every reason to believe that the Messiah had arrived to deliver them. And they knew just what they needed deliverance from—the Roman Empire. King Herod believed this new king threatened his power and tried to kill Jesus after his birth. John 6 says the people wanted to make Jesus king by force. Even the Apostle Peter attempted to fight the guards who arrested Jesus. They were waiting for a Messiah to usher in a new earthly kingdom. But Israel’s greatest problem wasn’t Roman rule, but sin. The same is true for us today because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” as Romans 3:23 says. Sin separates us from God and the “wages of sin is death” as Romans 6:23 states. That means even the best person can’t earn his or her way into a right relationship with God. Uh oh. God, however, had a plan that was foreshadowed in the Passover meal. Right before God rescued Israel from Egypt, he commanded each Israelite household to slaughter a lamb without defect. Each family then put blood from the lamb on the doorframe of their house. The Lord would see the blood and pass over that home while punishing the Egyptians. When John the Baptist called Jesus “the Lamb of God,” he was referencing this. Jesus, who was fully God and fully man, lived a perfect life. He was crucified on Good Friday taking the penalty—death—that you and I deserve for our sins. Good Friday was agony for Jesus. It wasn’t just physical pain. He was forsaken by God the Father. He bore the punishment that you and I deserve. But he didn’t stay dead. Easter is a celebration of God raising Jesus from the dead. This confirmed what Jesus said in John 11, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” What good news and the offer still stands. Eternal life is a free gift to anyone who acknowledges that Jesus is Lord and believes “God raised him from the dead,” as Romans 10:9 says. And that’s the full story of Good Friday. Happy Easter. 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 What Is ‘Good’ About Good Friday appeared first on The Daily Signal.

My mother died on a Good Friday.Which, in a way, was amusing because she’d long been at odds with God since my father’s death, and she had little use for organized religion since age 5 after some nun whacked her for asking questions. That is, until her final few months. After befriending a retired Air Force chaplain at her swim class, her thoughts about, in her words, “that religious crap” had greatly mellowed.In fact, her last actions on this earth were to talk about a light she was seeing. When asked by my sister Julie if she should get a nurse, Mom said “nu-uh” as casually as if she were saying “no thanks” to a second martini. Make that a third martini. She then raised her arms upward and breathed her last.I was not there. I was in California when Mom passed. But I had gone home to see her a couple of weeks earlier. It was not easy seeing my mom, then 87, in a hospice facility. This was the lady I knew to be indestructible. The woman once had a heart attack and didn’t notice. Coworkers finally convinced her to get checked out, only for doctors at the local clinic to discover she’d had an attack three days before. “OK,” she told them. “I’ll drive myself to the hospital.” Uh, I don’t think so, Mrs. Perrotta. Doctors at Walter Reed Medical Center scheduled her for a bypass. She emerged out of surgery, and when I got to see her, she was a yellow color with tubes going every which way. A shaky hand reached for me, her baby, her loving youngest. Then that hand reached for a pen … and scrawled out “Grass?”  She wanted to know if I had cut the grass.Even in the hospice, Mom apparently asked attendants if she could use the weight room at the attached rehabilitation facility. “Uh, I don’t know, ma’am. Nobody here’s ever asked that.”So, yeah, seeing my Jersey-tough mother fading from stage four lung cancer, barely able to walk, was tough stuff. I needed to gird myself for my visits. And that meant music. To and fro from my sister Dodie’s to the facility, I found myself playing one particular song: the Kim Walker-Smith and Jesus Culture live version of “He Loves Us.” For some odd reason, that song and that song only. Christian artist John Mark McMillan had written the song right after the death of his best friend in a car accident. As uplifting as the song is, it comes from a place of grief. I hadn’t known that. The live Jesus Culture version is 8:53 long, almost exactly the time it took to make the drive. Punch play when pulling out, the song fading out when pulling into park. “He loves us. Oh, how he loves us.” I’d sing with Walker-Smith, swaying side-to-side to the ¾ time. The song carried me in and out of the facility, helping me to hang out with my mom without falling to pieces. So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,and my heart turns violently inside of my chest.I don’t have time to make plain these regrets when I think about the wayHe loves us, Oh, how he loves us! He loves us, Oh, how he loves us! He loves us, Oh, how he loves …Mom passed away less than two weeks later. I did not head right home. I decided to stay for Easter and fly out Thursday morning. On Wednesday night, I kept my commitment to play bass on the worship team at our small non-denominational church in the Valley.I arrived and spotted the set list. No way. On it, “He Loves Us.”  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I thought. “How in the world am I going to make it through playing this?” We get into the song, and sure enough, I am bawling, tears flowing so hard I had to worry about electrocuting myself. I look over at the worship leader, Paul, at the keyboards, and to my shock, Paul was excitedly shaking his head up and down at me, eyes wide and bright, with a huge, goofy grin. What in the world? I’m practically heaving my heart all over the platform and he’s as giddy as if we were playing “Twist and Shout” at the Rose Bowl with Paul McCartney. I managed to finish. Worship set over, I headed out to the front atrium to catch my breath, get hold of myself. Paul followed about 30 seconds later. Still with that goofy grin.“You don’t understand!” I blurted before he could say anything. “That’s the song I played back and forth when going to see my mom!” “I know,” he replied. “I put it on the set list, but then realized we had played it a lot lately. So, I scratched it out. Felt led to add it back. Three times I scratched it out. And three times the Lord said, “Put it back in!”He loves us. Oh, how he loves us. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post ‘He Loves Us’ … and How God Made Sure I Knew It appeared first on The Daily Signal.