How do we measure the effectiveness of public policy? As the kids say, there will be signs. For measuring immigration policies, birth data serves as a lagging indicator. Newly released Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data indicate that the number of babies born in the United States in 2025 declined 1% from a year earlier. Some in the anti-natalist camp might tout that number as a positive indication of an upwardly mobile, (mostly white), urban class prioritizing career and climate concerns for such a change. But a closer look at the demographic data reveals something different at play. Though all demographics are declining in raw birth numbers, non-Hispanic whites are declining by the smallest amount, meaning their overall percentage of births is increasing. In February, non-Hispanic whites accounted for 50.7% of all births in the United States, and could well be a majority this year, the first time in three years. With the exception of Indian and Cuban immigrants, all other large populations have seen their birth rates decline by double digits compared to last February. Births from Chinese immigrants are -17.5%, Colombians are -10.5%, Ecuadorans are -22%, El Salvadorians are -15%, Guatemalans are -16%, Haitians are -16%, Hondurans are -15%, and Mexicans are -13%. The data is computed from the CDC Wonder website’s live birth natality data. Trump’s mass deportation efforts, which include practices such as self-deportation, may be having a large effect. There still is not much to be done when an illegal alien is in the U.S. and already pregnant; she’ll only need to wait through the term of her pregnancy and have the baby here to grant the child citizenship, as recent Supreme Court arguments look poised to reinforce. If she’s not pregnant, then there’s less of an incentive to stay. In fact, the Trump administration has been reshaping the immigration courts to reflect his policies. The outcome of pressuring judges to conform to stricter parameters for granting asylum is a dramatic decrease in asylum grant rates — just 7% in February. This is down from totals above 50% under the Biden and Obama administrations. In conjunction with immigration cases being decided faster, this adds up to fewer potential babies being born to illegal immigrants. With the immigration crackdown, the U.S. fertility rate has dipped to 1.57 children per woman, which is still larger than most countries in Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America. There are more factors than just immigration to explain the dip. Aside from American Indians and Native Hawaiians, all other races and ethnicities saw their raw numbers decline from February 2025 to February 2026. This is especially true of black Americans whose numbers are falling by nearly double digits year-to-year. Whites accounted for a majority of births in 34 states and a plurality in nine states. Latinos were a plurality of births in four states and a majority in one. The District of Columbia was plurality non-Hispanic black, and Hawaii was the only state where multiracial births were the plurality. The decline in black fertility has been so large that many states with historically large black populations have more Latino births in February than black, including Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Other states like Arkansas and Maryland could very well see Latino births outpacing blacks by the end of the year or the beginning of next year. The birthrate numbers don’t lie. They unequivocally demonstrate the effectiveness of the Trump administration’s policies — policies that are bringing the country back from the brink of an uncontrolled influx of illegal immigrants and the persistent socioeconomic, political, and cultural problems that go with it. Future administrations should continue these policies for lasting change and signal to the rest of the world that America is no longer an open-border free-for-all. Illegal immigration isn’t inevitable; it’s a policy choice. We should continue to make the right one. *** Ryan James Girdusky is an author, podcaster, political consultant, and writer whose work has been featured in multiple publications including the Washington Examiner, The American Conservative Magazine, The Week, Human Events, and The Daily Caller. He is the host of “It’s A Numbers Game with Ryan Girdusky” podcast and writes at the Nationalist Populist Substack. Follow him on X: @RyanGirdusky

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration is investigating the “troubling” deaths and disappearances of scientists and researchers who each reportedly had access to classified information at some point in their careers. “In light of the recent and legitimate questions about these troubling cases, and President Trump’s commitment to the truth, the White House is actively working with all relevant agencies and the FBI to holistically review all of the cases together and identify any potential commonalities that may exist,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Friday afternoon. Her remarks came after Fox News’ Peter Doocey pressed both Leavitt and President Donald Trump about the matter, given that at least 11 scientists have died or disappeared under strange circumstances. All of these individuals have been tied to military, nuclear, or aerospace research, according to Fox News. “No stone will be unturned in this effort, and the White House will provide updates when we have them,” Leavitt emphasized on Friday. A spokesman for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration told The Daily Wire on Friday that it is “aware of reports related to employees of our labs, plants, and sites and is looking into the matter.” Trump himself said that he had just left a meeting on the topic as he departed the White House on Thursday for Las Vegas. “I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half,” Trump said. “Pretty serious stuff … hopefully a coincidence, or whatever you want to call it.” President Donald Trump speaks to the Press before departs at the White House to Las Vegas, Nevada on April 16, 2026, in Washington DC. (Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images) Amy Eskridge, for example, was an Alabama researcher who died on June 11, 2022 at the age of 34 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She co-founded the Institute for Exotic Science and worked on “antigravity” research. In a 2020 interview with YouTuber Jeremy Rys, she described receiving “harassment, threats,” and sabotage of her research. Notably, she suggested at one point that scientists who had breakthroughs in their work would “disappear” or stop working. “If you stick your neck out in public, at least someone notices if your head gets chopped off,” Eskridge said in the interview. “If you stick your neck out in private, they will bury you. They will burn down your house while you’re sleeping in your bed and it won’t even make the news.” Other strange cases include NASA scientist Monica Jacinto Reza, who vanished on a hike in June 2025, astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, who was shot on his front porch in February, Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Nuno Loureiro, who was shot and killed in his home in December 2025, and Air Force Maj. Gen. William McCasland, who vanished from his Albuquerque, New Mexico home in March. NASA researcher Michael Hicks passed away in July 2023, while NASA engineer Frank Maiwald died in July 2024. Two Los Alamos employees went missing and have not been found: Melissa Casias, who went missing in June 2025, and Anthony Chavez, who went missing just before Casias in May 2025. Pharmaceutical scientist Jason Thomas went missing in December 2025 and was recently discovered at the bottom of a Massachusetts pond, and Kansas City National Security Campus government contractor Steven Garcia disappeared in Albuquerque in 2025, allegedly with only a handgun. Officials have not established that there is a connection between the deaths, but the public has grown increasingly disturbed by the frequency of the incidents. Four of the mysterious cases involve New Mexico, for example, where the Los Alamos National Laboratory is located.

A soap company that boasts of its organic products has gone all in on pushing transgenderism. Dr. Bronner’s, the company that makes “Magic Soap,” believes that men and women can magically switch their genders, and it has an entire team made up of “trans and nonbinary employees” who are dedicated to making “funding decisions for Dr. Bronner’s trans rights funding portfolio.” In late March, the soap company honored “Trans Day of Visibility” and condemned the Trump administration and conservative states that have imposed policies and passed laws to protect children and women from harmful trans-affirming practices. While the majority of Americans have no idea when “Trans Day of Visibility” is or why it’s even on some calendars, Dr. Bronner’s dedicated nearly 800 words on its website to celebrating the obscure LGBT holiday. The company also directed readers to eight LGBT advocacy organizations, including organizations that push for gender procedures on children. “Trans lives in America and beyond are more vulnerable than ever due to rightwing governments’ attacks on human rights, efforts to erase trans and nonbinary people from civic participation, and the increasing obstacles to accessing healthcare, public services, and public spaces,” the company stated. “Dr. Bronner’s is proud to support trans-led organizations that are dedicated to trans liberation, both locally and nationally.” Among those organizations supported by Dr. Bronner’s was the Trans Youth Emergency Project, which exists to help parents find access to life-altering gender procedures for their gender-confused children. Another group highlighted by the soap company was TransFamily Support Services, which says that it guides gender-confused children and their families to navigate the health care and insurance systems in their quest for gender surgeries. “Since the change in administration in January 2025, trans rights have decreased dramatically, particularly in the realm of access to public spaces and healthcare. Last year America broke its own record for the sixth consecutive year in number of anti-trans legislation on the federal and state level,” Dr. Bronner’s “Trans Rights Funding Team” wrote. The company also condemned the Trump administration for working to prevent trans-identifying men from competing against women, including at the Olympics. Americans are growing increasingly skeptical of companies diving into LGBT talking points, and the vast majority of Americans oppose gender procedures on children. But Dr. Bronner’s decided to make its support of “Trans Visibility” a huge deal and bash conservatives in the process. At Jeremy’s Razors, we’re dedicated to making quality products, including some great hand soap and bar soap, without any radical leftism attached to our business. Don’t want to give your money to companies that support gender procedures on children, or to companies that are overtly hostile to conservative values? Jeremy’s Razors has you covered. Jeremy’s Razors pays to bring you stories exposing woke ideology because other brands won’t.

The danger zone is calling — again. It’s been announced that “Top Gun 3” is officially in the works. Paramount broke the good news at CinemaCon in Las Vegas this week, confirming that Tom Cruise will be back in a leading role. Jerry Bruckheimer is also on board as producer. Josh Greenstein, co-head of Paramount Pictures, said it’s “officially in development with a script underway.” Cruise did not appear live at the industry event, but footage aired in the convention hall showed the actor standing on tip of the water tower on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles. “The future looks pretty great from here,” Cruise can be heard saying in the clip. This comes as no surprise after the massive success of “Top Gun: Maverick” in 2022. Despite a gap of 36 years between the first “Top Gun” (1986) and the sequel, it became an absolute box office smash and the most lucrative film of actor Tom Cruise’s long and successful career. “Maverick” earned a whopping $1.49 billion at the global box office. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won Best Sound. It was also named the Best Film of 2022 by the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes. “Maverick” was rated 96% certified fresh from critics out of nearly 500 reviews and achieved a near-perfect 99% fresh audience score. It’s believed that one reason the “Top Gun” sequel performed so well is that it was free from radical progressive messaging and virtue signaling. The action film recalled a simpler time in Hollywood, when movies were made to inspire and entertain rather than to push an agenda. The Federalist called the “Top Gun” sequel “unabashedly patriotic” and “free of token left-wing social and political propaganda.” Reviewer Elle Reynolds wrote, “The only agenda being pushed is that America is the best country in the world and the men and women who risk their lives to defend her are heroes worthy of our respect.” Another surprising detail about the sequel is how it appealed to a range of audiences, both young and old.

We all know those people who just age better than others. Maybe it’s genetics. Perhaps they’ve had a nip here and a tuck there and a little filler over there. No matter how they do it, they seem to remain ageless. There are plenty of Hollywood stars who seem to have the magic anti-aging solution, but some outshine them all. When we say Ralphie Parker, we hope you think of the classic 1983 movie, A Christmas Story. All Ralph wanted for Christmas was an “Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!” But we know his Aunt Clara, who thought he was perpetually 4 years old and a girl, sent him some bunny pajamas instead. The actor who played Ralphie, Peter Billingsley, just turned 55, and we bet if he put on those pajamas today, you couldn’t tell a difference. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Raising Cane's (@raisingcanes) Peter Billingsley Looks Exactly the Same Today as He Did as a Kid No, we aren’t exaggerating even a little bit. Peter Billingsley turned 55 years old on April 16, 2026, and his face is identical. Redditors pointed out the unbelievable age progression, or lack thereof, leaving fans stunned. “He’s that person who looks exactly the same, just older. Happy birthday!” A fan pointed out. Another made a pretty funny jab at Peter Billingsley’s age. “He’s 55?! Oh fuuuuuudge!” They wrote. The movie is such great nostalgia for so many of us, even in April, it warms our hearts. “I just watched Christmas Story last week. It always makes me feel better when I am feeling down. What a gift that movie is! He still has the same smile all these years later. Happy Birthday!” This story’s featured image is by FOX Image Collection via Getty Images.