Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk marked her fifth wedding anniversary Friday with a touching tribute to her late husband, Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated during a speaking event in September. In a social media post, the widow reflected on their relationship and how she hopes to share their legacy with their daughter and son. “Even though our kids won’t see our love ‘grow old together’ from an earthly stand point; they’ll see it from a Heavenly one,” she posted on X. “Happy Anniversary to the love of my life.” Even though our kids won’t see our love “grow old together” from an earthly stand point; they’ll see it from a Heavenly one. And I’ll tell them of our love story any moment I can. Happy Anniversary to the love of my life. pic.twitter.com/PAXTyxm7ly — Erika Kirk (@MrsErikaKirk) May 8, 2026 An emotional video accompanying the post features a montage of the couple in romantic settings and family photos, set to voiceovers from Charlie, Erika, and their daughter, Gigi, who was born in 2022. The video begins with Erika saying, “I want to show you some pictures of mommy and daddy, and I want to tell you a story.” A child’s voice later says, “I love you so much, daddy. I miss you, Dada.” The montage ends with Charlie and Erika expressing their love for one another. After Charlie was fatally shot on September 10, 2025, Erika, as her husband wished, took over Turning Point USA. She has since urged Americans to live according to the values her husband promoted, including a focus on faith. Tyler Robinson, 23, has been charged in connection with the killing. During a memorial service in September, Erika publicly forgave him. “That young man, that young man,” she said. “On the cross, our savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ That man, that young man, I forgive him. I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and is what Charlie would do.” Since taking over Turning Point USA, Erika has become a more visible public figure, continuing to promote her husband’s political and religious values on the world stage despite aggressive smear campaigns from online commentators.  

NEW YORK, May 8 (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Friday appealed a court ruling that found a 10% global tariff imposed in February was not justified under a 1970s trade law. The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled on Thursday in a 2-1 decision that Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act was not meant to address trade deficits that occur when the U.S. imports more goods than it exports. The court, however, only blocked the tariffs for three importers that sued – two small businesses and the state of Washington. While the ruling applies to a set of levies due to expire in about two months, it marks another setback for Trump’s global tariff ambitions and comes a week before he is due to discuss trade tensions with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. It also sets the stage for another protracted legal battle over billions of dollars’ worth of tariff refunds, three months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck ​down Trump’s sweeping global tariffs imposed under a national emergencies law. Trump blamed the trade court decision on “two radical left judges” when speaking to reporters on Thursday. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Friday the Trump administration expects to prevail in the appeal, although he also expressed confidence in earlier tariffs that were ultimately invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled in February that Trump had no authority to impose the earlier tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, leading Trump to impose replacement tariffs of 10% on all imports using Section 122 of the Trade Act. The new tariffs were a temporary replacement, and they were due to expire on July 24 unless extended by Congress. The Trump administration still plans to impose broader tariffs on major trading partners by invoking ⁠a third law that has withstood numerous legal challenges, Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which covers unfair trade practices. It has three Section 301 tariff investigations underway due for completion in July. (Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Editing by Rod Nickel and Sanjeev Miglani)

A Utah judge ruled Friday that cameras, microphones, and still photographers will be allowed inside the courtroom for the murder trial of Tyler Robinson, the man accused of assassinating Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. Fourth District Court Judge Tony Graf denied a request from the defense to ban all forms of electronic media coverage, instead requiring reporters to file requests at least two weeks prior to each scheduled proceeding. Robinson, 23, has been charged with the September 10, 2025, killing and could face the death penalty if convicted. The defense argued that allowing cameras would jeopardize Robinson’s “fair trial rights,” telling the judge that restrictions were necessary “to ensure Mr. Robinson’s rights to due process, to a fair and impartial jury, to counsel, to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.” At a hearing last month, the defense argued that media coverage in pre-trial hearings had already tainted the jury pool, pointing to several examples of pundits branding Robinson as a “monster” and fixating on items pulled from court filings, such as alleged post-shooting texts to his transgender-identifying roommate, rather than the substance of the proceedings. The prosecution dismissed this argument, arguing that transparency strengthens public trust. “Mischief lurks in the dark or in secret,” Deputy Utah County Attorney Chad Grunander said. “Conspiracy theories abound, and the antidote is the actual, real proceedings… Let’s shine a light on these proceedings, a bright light, so the public can have confidence in what happens in this courtroom.” Utah courts have generally permitted cameras by default for a decade, and no criminal case in the state has been fully closed to cameras, according to the Salt Lake City Tribune. Graf said the court has implemented several measures to address the defense’s concerns, including requiring cameras to remain at the back of the courtroom to avoid capturing sensitive materials or conversations. He also pushed back the preliminary hearing for July 6 through July 10, rejecting the defense’s request for a six-month delay to sort through the “voluminous” discovery materials.

Today, the Supreme Court of Virginia handed down one of the most consequential rulings in the Commonwealth’s modern history. In Scott v. McDougle, a 4-3 majority struck down the Democrats’ brazen attempt to gerrymander Virginia’s congressional map from a fair 6-5 split into an outrageous 10-1 partisan stranglehold. The ruling is a triumph for the rule of law, for the Virginia Constitution, and for the nearly 1.5 million Virginians who voted against this scheme despite being massively outspent. Let’s be clear about what happened here. In 2020, Virginia voters approved a bipartisan redistricting amendment to the state Constitution by a two-to-one margin. That amendment created the Virginia Redistricting Commission — a 16-member bipartisan body — and provided that if the commission deadlocked, the Supreme Court of Virginia would draw the maps. That is exactly what happened in 2021. The commission couldn’t agree, and the Court unanimously drew maps that independent analysts, including the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, graded as an “A” — among the fairest in the entire country. Democrats didn’t like fair maps. Fair maps meant competitive elections, and competitive elections meant they might lose seats. So rather than compete on ideas, they hatched a plan to gut the very constitutional amendment that Virginians had overwhelmingly endorsed just a few years earlier. Their scheme was as cynical as it was procedurally reckless. During a disputed Special Session, they rammed through a proposed constitutional amendment on a party-line vote — one that would temporarily suspend the bipartisan redistricting commission and let the General Assembly redraw congressional districts to their liking. They did this on October 31, 2025 — after more than 1.3 million Virginians had already cast their ballots in the ongoing general election for the House of Delegates (the same election in which Abigail Spanberger was elected governor). That timing is the crux of the Court’s ruling. Article XII, Section 1 of the Virginia Constitution requires that a proposed amendment be passed in two separate legislative sessions with an intervening election of the House of Delegates between them. The purpose is straightforward: give voters the chance to weigh in on delegates who will cast the second vote on the amendment. But when the General Assembly passed the proposal for the first time on October 31, forty percent of the electorate had already voted. Those 1.3 million Virginians never had the constitutionally guaranteed opportunity to consider the proposed amendment when choosing their delegates. As Justice Kelsey wrote for the majority, the Commonwealth’s position would have required early voters to have “anticipated a legislative vote on a constitutional amendment four days before the last day of voting.” The Court rejected the Commonwealth’s tortured argument that “election” means only Election Day — a single 24-hour period, rather than the entire 45 days of voting that Virginia allows (also thanks to the Democrats). Drawing on centuries of legal scholarship, dictionary definitions from Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster forward, and consistent and similar federal appellate rulings, the majority held that a “general election” encompasses the combined actions of voters casting ballots and officials receiving them, from the first day of early voting through Election Day. The General Assembly’s first vote on the amendment came in the middle of that process, not before it. Democrats then put their gerrymandered map to a referendum vote, accompanied by a ballot question asking voters whether they wanted to “restore fairness” — a masterclass in misleading framing. After outspending opponents by more than three to one, they eked out a bare majority: 1,604,276 yes votes to 1,499,393 no votes, a margin of just 3.38 percent. The Court correctly held that this narrow margin — secured through a constitutionally defective process — could not launder the underlying violation. So where does this leave Virginia? The Court’s 2021 nonpartisan maps — the ones that earned an “A” from independent analysts — remain in full effect for the 2026 congressional elections. Virginia will continue to have a 6-5 congressional delegation split, with districts drawn fairly and without a partisan thumb on the scale. Republicans will compete on those maps, as they should, and defend their seats on the merits. And what about the Democrats’ next move? Theoretically, they could try again in Virginia. The constitutional amendment process requires passage in two sessions with an intervening House of Delegates election, so the earliest a new attempt could reach voters would be 2028. But consider their predicament. They threw everything they had at this effort — and it barely worked even before the Court tossed it out. They won the referendum by just over three points, with more than three million voters participating, while spending more than three dollars for every one dollar spent by the opposition. That is not the profile of a popular mandate. That is the profile of a scheme that required a massive resource advantage just to limp across the finish line. Moreover, so much of the Democrats’ political fuel in recent years has been anti-Trump energy. By 2028, Donald Trump will be in the final stretch of his presidency, constitutionally barred from running again. The single greatest motivator of Democratic turnout in Virginia will be exiting the political stage. Does anyone believe that a Virginia electorate — one that endorsed bipartisan redistricting by a two-to-one margin in 2020 — will embrace an openly partisan power grab without the boogeyman of Trump to drive them to the polls? Today’s ruling is a reminder that constitutions matter, that process matters, and that no political party — no matter how large its legislative majority or campaign war chest — is above the law. Virginia Democrats tried to rig the game. The Supreme Court of Virginia stopped them. The fair maps stand, and the people of Virginia are better for it. *** Ken Cuccinelli is the former Virginia attorney general and former acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

An Egyptian national was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to an antisemitic firebombing attack that killed an elderly woman in Boulder, Colorado. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an illegal immigrant from Egypt who overstayed his visa, confessed to killing one person and injuring at least a dozen others. Dressed in white and orange, Soliman, while railing against Zionism, apologized in court and called his own crimes a violation of “the teachings of Islam,” according to Reuters.  In June 2025, Soliman used a makeshift flamethrower and firebombs to attack a demonstration by “Run for Their Lives Denver,” a group that holds marches calling for the release of hostages kidnapped by the terror group Hamas. Authorities said Soliman spent a year planning the attack. He disguised himself as a gardener to get close to the group before throwing Molotov cocktails at the marchers and shouting “Free Palestine.”  He later told investigators he “wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead.”  The attack killed 82-year-old Karen Diamond and injured more than a dozen others, including a Holocaust survivor. A dog died from severe burns. District Attorney Michael Dougherty said the attack sowed “terror, fear and death.” During sentencing, victims delivered emotional impact statements.  “When I’m alone and close my eyes, I can vividly see Karen’s body in flames,” Orrie Gartner, who was at the march, said in court. Judge Nancy Salomone sentenced Soliman to the maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole, adding on 2,128 years for 101 total charges, including attempted murder, assault, and criminal use of explosives and ​incendiary devices. “You chose to victimize these people because they were members of the Jewish community,” Judge Salomone said. Soliman entered the United States in August 2022 on a tourist visa that expired in February 2023, according to the Department of Homeland Security. He applied for asylum in September 2022 and later received temporary work authorization in March 2023, though it later expired, according to DHS. He had been living in Colorado Springs with his wife and five children, who were later taken into custody by federal immigration agents, The Daily Wire previously reported. Soliman still faces separate federal hate crimes charges that could carry a life sentence or capital punishment.  “I ask the prosecution from ​the federal case to impose the death penalty,” he said through an Arabic interpreter.