The Texas judge overseeing Karmelo Anthony’s murder trial defended his decision to bar cameras from his Collin County courtroom, saying his job was to ensure a fair trial—not to make people happy. In an interview with local outlet WFAA, Judge John Roach, known for his no-nonsense and straightforward approach, said he spent months preparing for the high-profile trial that captivated attention across the country. “I know I made people mad, but I’m not here to make them happy either,” he told WFAA. He defended one of his most controversial decisions of the trial: banning cameras from the courtroom.  “Yes, it was an easy decision. I’ll tell you why, my primary goal in every case is to make sure the defendant and the prosecution get a fair trial. Period,” Roach said. “I had to do a balance between the media’s right to know and to be able to report what’s going on, because I think that’s extraordinarily important. I think it’s important that the general public had access to the courtroom, and to see what was going on.” Roach also shot down claims he had a personal relationship with the Metcalf family.  “I wouldn’t know Mr. Metcalf prior to this trial if he walked up to me and said ‘hello,” he said. On Tuesday, a Texas jury convicted the 19-year-old of first-degree murder and sentenced him to 35 years behind bars for fatally stabbing Austin Metcalf at a track event in April 2025 in Frisco, Texas.  Judge Roach said the jury got it right.  “Yes, they did because they were picked based upon the law, they listened to the facts, it happened in this courtroom, and they got a verdict,” he said.  Karmelo’s murder conviction ended a legal saga but provided fresh ammunition for the Anthony family to blame their son’s conviction on racism and hurl accusations at the jury.   In an interview with CBS Texas, Anthony’s mother, Kayla Hayes, rejected the panel’s conclusion that her son intended to kill Metcalf. “My son is no murderer. My son didn’t intend to hurt anyone,” Hayes said. “My son was defending himself, and that’s what hurts so bad.” Jeff Metcalf, the father of Austin Metcalf, blasted Karmelo Anthony’s parents as “cowards,” accusing them of making the high-profile murder case about race. “Drew Anthony. Kayla. You’re cowards. You wouldn’t even show up for your son’s sentencing or victim’s statement impacts. You abandoned your kid. You left him there. I guess he’s no more use to you because you can’t get any more GoFundMe money or [GiveSendGo] money. You are grifters. You should be ashamed of yourself,” Metcald said. “You raised that child, and I swear to God, CPS should come check on those other three that you still have,” he added. The Daily Wire previously reported that Anthony’s family raised more than $635,000 through a crowdfunding campaign during the murder trial. One day after a jury sentenced him to prison, Anthony filed a notice of appeal. The filing begins the formal process of challenging both his conviction and sentence, which can take years to progress through the courts and does not guarantee a new trial. Anthony was transferred to a state prison near Navasota, Texas. His intake photo shows his head shaved as he begins his 35-year sentence. “He seems like a nice young man who committed a crime, and he understands today more than any day before the consequences of committing a crime like he did,” Judge Roach said of the convicted killer.

George Washington University law professor emerita W. Burlette Carter declared on Thursday that Karmelo Anthony was entitled to a new trial. Anthony, 19, was convicted of murder in the stabbing death of Austin Metcalf, 17, and sentenced to serve 35 years in prison. Carter argued that because “minorities are not interchangeable,” Anthony was not provided with “a jury of his peers” at trial — and she said that alone was grounds for him to receive a new trial. Carter, a black woman who describes herself on X as a “descendant of slaves,” prefaced her statement by admitting that she had not yet read a full transcript of the trial — but then immediately argued that she didn’t need to because it was already clear to her that Anthony had not been granted a fair trial. “I have not yet read the full trial transcript. But so far, I do know this. Karmelo Anthony was entitled to a jury of his peers. He did not get that,” she claimed. “On that ground alone, he is entitled to a new trial. Minorities are not interchangeable. The prosecutor’s reported proffered reasons for striking all black jurors  — that they were teachers — appears to be pretext.” But by law, a jury does not have to reflect the race of the defendant — rather, it must be made up of a reasonable cross section of the community, and both attorneys and judges are to do their best to ensure that the jury is made up of individuals who will decide the case based on the facts presented rather than preexisting biases. The jury in Anthony’s case was made up of multiple ethnic minorities — in spite of claims made by Anthony’s father and others that the jury was “all white” — including Asian, Indian, and Hispanic. The prosecution did challenge several potential jurors who were black because they were educators and the murder had happened on school grounds. The judge accepted those challenges as valid. “Anthony needs a new lawyer on appeal and in a new trial,” Carter continued, arguing that Anthony’s court-appointed attorney had not done a good job. She left out the fact that, after raising some $600,000 via GiveSendGo, Anthony’s family had gone with a court-appointed lawyer after claiming that he was unable to afford a private attorney. “His trial lawyer allowed in opinion evidence that should have been struck. He also seemed unable to appreciate and counter the impact of racial overtones in that case. Those overtones are clear even on Twitter commentary as folks seek to paint Metcalf as having no culpability in what happened and Karmelo as a complete monster,” she insisted. “The facts on how the matter escalated are more complicated than that. He and they had no such authority. They are also apparent in the statements that seek to deputize Metcalf and other kids with authority to remove Anthony. They had none and initiated the conflict. That does not mean they should have been killed but it means they have explaining to do. The lawyer for Anthony apparently did not require that explaining. It is fair to ask how the Anthonys ended up selecting that lawyer.” Her final jab was aimed at the trial judge, and she claimed that he should “be disqualified” because he gave an interview that could have “negatively affected the appeal rights of the defendant.”

The Chicago Bears have taken another step toward a multi-billion-dollar stadium project in Hammond, Indiana, and people are pissed off. I’m a Carolina Panthers fan, I don’t particularly care where the Bears play from a geographic standpoint. It certainly would be lame for the “Chicago” Bears, one of the more storied franchises in the NFL, to play somewhere other than Chicago, but I’m not emotionally invested in it. What I am emotionally invested in is preventing the pussification of American sport, which is why the Bears move is troubling to me. It’s troubling because they’re apparently going to build an indoor stadium wherever their new home is, be it in Indiana, Illinois, or elsewhere. To put it bluntly, domed football stadiums are an affront to God. Football is the ultimate expression of American masculinity. It’s a battle of physical strength and endurance, toughness, and gladiator spirit. It is not for the faint of heart, and it is not meant to be played in prime conditions. In fact, one of the appeals of the game is that it can be played rain or shine, sun or snow, sweltering heat or frigid freeze. Replacing Soldier Field with a dome is a pinch of salt in the wound. It’s one of the iconic venues of football. Again, I don’t care about the Bears either way, but even I get a little tingle up the spine when I tune into a primetime matchup at Soldier Field in December, maybe a dusting of snow covering the grass, that orange “C” in the middle of the arena. It’s up there with the Heinz, Lambeaus, and Arrowheads in terms of aura. Domes are the antithesis of football, and dare I say America. They are fake in their presentation, communist in their value, and European in their softness. If I have to explain that to you, you just don’t get it. The NBA has been destroyed by flopping losers. Soccer is never going to happen. Baseball is my favorite sport, but it is at the mercy of the elements. We can’t lose what makes football different, or America won’t have a true man’s game it can call its own any longer.

As fireworks light up the sky above the South Lawn and the roar of a sold-out UFC crowd echoes through the nation’s capital, America pauses to celebrate a milestone that few could have predicted: Donald J. Trump, the 45th and 47th President of the United States, turns 80 years old today — and he’s doing it from the Oval Office. Born on June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York, Trump shares his birthday with Flag Day, a coincidence he has long called a point of pride. “I am blessed to have shared my birthday with the Star-Spangled Banner,” he once said. Today, as the country marks its own 250th year of independence, the celebration feels fitting for a man whose supporters say has spent a lifetime putting America first. Trump’s road to this point in history has been anything but conventional. A real estate mogul turned reality television star turned political phenomenon, he stunned the world in 2016 by winning the presidency without a single day of prior government or military service. He left office in January 2021 — and then came back to do it again four years later. In doing so, he became the first president since Grover Cleveland to serve non-consecutive terms, reclaiming the White House in 2024 with a decisive electoral victory. As he blows out the candles on his 80th birthday, the record books are already being rewritten around him. From a conservative standpoint, Trump’s presidential resume is formidable. His first term unleashed one of the most prosperous economies in modern American history. Before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, his administration oversaw the creation of 7 million new jobs, drove unemployment to a 50-year low of 3.5%, and saw wage growth surge fastest for the very workers politicians have long promised to help — blue-collar Americans and those at the bottom of the income ladder. Middle-class family incomes rose nearly $6,000, and poverty rates for Black and Hispanic Americans fell to record lows. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — the largest tax overhaul in a generation — slashed the corporate rate from 35% to 21% and delivered meaningful relief to working families. Nearly 9,000 Opportunity Zones were created, channeling $75 billion in private investment into communities long overlooked by Washington. On the courts, Trump’s impact may outlast every other element of his legacy. He appointed three Supreme Court Justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — cementing a 6–3 conservative majority, and placed over 200 federal judges on the bench, reshaping the judiciary for a generation. His first term also saw the replacement of NAFTA with the stronger USMCA trade deal, the construction of over 400 miles of border wall, the brokering of the historic Abraham Accords in the Middle East, and the launch of Operation Warp Speed, which delivered COVID-19 vaccines in record time. His return to power in 2025 has been equally bold. In his first year back, Trump signed over 225 executive orders — a single-year record — delivering rapid-fire action on border security, energy production, and government reform. The results speak for themselves. Unauthorized border crossings have plummeted to near-zero. U.S. crude oil production hit a record 13.6 million barrels per day in 2025. The newly created Department of Government Efficiency has identified billions in potential savings, marking the most aggressive downsizing of the federal bureaucracy since the Reagan era. And the “One Big Beautiful Bill” delivered further tax and spending reforms through Congress. Today, as Trump watches UFC fighters battle on the White House lawn — in a celebration that doubles as America’s 250th birthday party — his supporters would argue the man himself mirrors the occasion: a little older, a little louder, and still, unmistakably, in the ring. Happy 80th, Mr. President.

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA — Bishop Michael Burbidge is aware that a good percentage of the 432,700 Catholics in his flock are politically important. “One of the first shocks I experienced when I became the Bishop of Arlington was being in this office and looking out and seeing the Capitol and the Washington Monument from my window,” Burbidge told The Daily Wire in a recent interview. “There are some heavy hitters here who are influencing our country’s politics.” For about two years, those heavy hitters included Vice President JD Vance, who, as a first-term senator from Ohio, settled his family in Northern Virginia. Vance’s Catholicism has been a central part of his identity since his 2019 baptism — back when he was still just “the author of ‘Hillbilly Elegy’” and a promising young man. Vance, who tells the story of his faith journey in a forthcoming book, “Communion,” may have broken the land speed record for transition from catechumen to prominent Catholic. By the time Donald Trump asked him to join the presidential ticket, he was one of the most well-known American Catholics, second only to the man he and Trump were running to succeed. Once in office, Vance became the locus for Catholic critiques of the Trump administration’s foreign policy and immigration crackdown — which earned the White House rebukes from Pope Francis and now Pope Leo XIV, whose elevation to the Throne of St. Peter moved Vance a few notches down the list of prominent American Catholics. Burbidge knows all of this. He’s met Vance, he says, but hasn’t had a formal meeting with him since he became vice president. And Burbidge realizes the vice president has a particular challenge before him, not just as a Catholic leader, but one with a countryman in Rome. But the bishop — who encouraged Trump and Vance in January 2025 to “develop a national immigration policy that reflects the Catholic commitment to human dignity and the common good” — stressed that Vance has all the tools he needs to navigate choppy theological-political waters. “We have a mandate to be not only citizens, but to be faithful citizens,” Burbidge says. “You can’t separate what you know to be true and what you profess to believe into your life as a politician. And will you have to pay a price for that sometimes? Of course you will. Will you maybe be rejected by others? Of course you will. But there’s no other path.” “This is what’s so great about being Catholic,” the bishop adds. “There’s a consistency of the gospel of life and the truth.” “Now, does this become more challenging for a politician? I’m sure it does. But you can’t be one person here and another person here.” A Philadelphia native ordained in 1984, Burbidge began his episcopal journey as the auxiliary bishop of his hometown in 2002. Named bishop of Raleigh in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI, he held that post for a decade before Pope Francis named him the fourth bishop of Arlington. It’s a role to which Burbidge — a polished speaker unafraid to preach the “gospel of life” to all manner of politicians — seems uniquely suited. “It really doesn’t matter who’s in office,” Burbidge says when asked how he’s navigated the transition from President Joe Biden, a Catholic who flouted the Church’s teaching on abortion, to Trump and Vance, whose paeans to the faith have not kept them out of the fray. “It’s always going to be a challenge, because [the Catholic Church is] so beautiful, the way we teach the gospel of life. It confuses people that we can be on this side or that side, but the truth of the gospel, what we’re teaching doesn’t change because of who’s in office.” The bishop certainly practices what he’s preaching here. Burbidge issued his statement on immigration less than two weeks after Inauguration Day, reminding the Trump team of the Church’s stance before it had finished unpacking. Burbidge had plenty of practice dealing with politicians by this point. From 2022 to 2024, he chaired the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Pro-Life Activities Committee. In that role, he chastised Biden for “causing great scandal when he announces both his faith and his pro-abortion position publicly,” calling on the president to “repent.” Still, Burbidge goes out of his way to stress that his role is no different than that of other bishops. He does not tell his priests to preach to the powerful in the pews and thinks there “should be no effort at all” for priests to do that. For all that’s happening in the American church, Burbidge is most excited about the things that get bishops excited: seven ordinations this year and 12 in 2025; 39 active seminarians; mass attendance rebounding to pre-COVID numbers; 27 George Mason students brought into the church this Easter alone, the work of just one campus priest. “We have so many young adults who are fully engaged in the life of the church,” Burbidge says. “We are very, very blessed with vocations … and we have so many beautiful holy families, holy marriages, from which vocations so often come.” With a flourishing diocese and rising levels of religiosity among young Americans, Burbidge is optimistic about the future of the country and the church. And he sees even more reason for hope in Pope Leo, whom he praises for “the serenity and the simplicity and the joy” he has projected in his first year as pontiff. “I think it was a blessing, a gift, that he knows the United States,” Burbidge says. “He’s lived here, he’s from here. He speaks the language. He gets us, and I think he understands us, in our politics and our culture and things like that.” One might say it’s providential, the ascension of an American pope at the dawn of a very Catholic age in American politics. Abortion and immigration, the twin issues of our time, make it clear that Catholic social teaching does not cleave easily along party lines. And yet, the days of Catholics sidestepping politics seem to be over. The Republican nominee for president in 2028 will almost certainly be Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio, both Catholics. And at least two Democratic frontrunners — California Governor Gavin Newsom and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — are proximately Catholic as well. Our nation’s next presidential election may not just be a referendum on competing political systems, but competing conceptions of Catholicism. Regardless of whether that happens, American Catholics will certainly be glad to have one of their own leading the church in the coming years. But perhaps they’ll also look to a prelate just two years younger than Pope Leo, another son of a great American city whose ordination came almost two years to the day of the Holy Father’s. “As a bishop, I have to have full responsibility for every soul entrusted to me,” Burbidge says. “And therefore, I have to speak truth and love, and love involves speaking the truth.” “So, I think that if you’re a Catholic and you’re running for office, your bishop’s going to be talking to you.”