When planning their wedding, most brides have elements they want included. Whether that’s the perfect dress, flowers, or music, they want their fairytale to come true. When Lizzie Dean’s father passed away unexpectedly, it broke her heart. Three years later, as she prepared to marry the man of her dreams, she wanted her dad to play a special part. Although he wasn’t there in body, she knew he’d be with her in spirit. But there was one more special touch that caught the attention of millions. Lizzie didn’t want anyone to walk her down the aisle except for her dad, so she made him part of the ceremony. @lizzieallyn love you Dad weddingaisle walkdowntheaisle weddingaislesong weddingvoicemails ♬ original sound – Lizzie Allyn Lizzie Dean Used Her Dad’s Voicemail As Music As Lizzie walked toward her husband-to-be, music from Interstellar played, along with a voicemail her dad left for her. “Hi, Lizzie, Dad here. I love and miss you, darling,” he said. “I hope you and Matt have a fantastic day, and I love you very much! That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. I am so blessed. I love you so much.” Lizzie posted a video of her entrance on TikTok, and the moment brought tears to the eyes of total strangers. “The fact that interstellar was about the dad trying to communicate with his daughter!!!” Someone wrote. Others didn’t shy away from how much the video made them cry. “I need a significant amount of time to recover from this,” someone wrote. This person couldn’t even watch it. “Respectfully I am NOT going to watch this because the INSTANT I heard his voice I started sobbing!! I don’t think I can handle it!!” They wrote. Hear Lizzie’s dad on the voicemail got the dads crying, too. “As a father of two girls. I’m not crying, you’re crying,” a dad shared. This story is beautiful, and we love how Lizzie honored her father. He’d be so proud. This story’s  featured image can be found here.

a welcome change

'We are taking this step out of care for you, our team members, and the surrounding community'

A 66-year-old man who had been missing in the rugged backcountry of New Zealand for over two weeks has now been found, even though rescue officials called off the search three days ago. Graham Garnett was discovered alive yesterday sheltering in a hut in the Kahurangi National Park by a crew of contractors who were […] The post Missing 66-Year-old Hiker is Found–Even After 2-Week Search was Called Off in New Zealand appeared first on Good News Network.

A church in Washington, D.C. has gained the attention not only of hundreds of young Christians, but also the mainstream media.   King’s Church has a size of about 600 congregants and is located in the basement of a bar one mile from the White House. With its growth taking off during the COVID-19 pandemic, that appeared unique enough to have earned the church a lengthy exposé in Vanity Fair labeling it a “MAGA” hot spot.   Writing for the magazine, Tara Palmeri painted King’s Church as a “recruitment machine” and asserts that the congregation is a “long-term investment” for the Republican Party.   “What makes King’s so startling—even unnerving—for the secular left is how effortlessly it fills a void progressives never cracked: blending identity, community, and political machinery,” Palmeri writes.   Palmeri describes the church’s nondenominational contemporary worship service as “half revival, half silent disco.”   However, Pastors Wesley Welch, 34, and Ben Palka, 35, say they have never worked in politics. Palka says they would “have no idea how to engineer a ‘recruitment machine,’” adding, “we’re going to be honest about the issues, but we’re not going to wave a particular political banner.”    “What we’re doing is pretty typical church outreach,” Palka said.  “If a church is in a neighborhood, they’ll reach out to their neighborhood, they’ll canvass the neighborhood, they’ll invite people to participate in church and to explore Christianity, and that’s all we’re doing.”   Welch and Palka founded the church in 2018 with a mission to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to Washington, D.C.  More specifically, Palka says King’s Church aims to “take a robust biblical … worldview and apply it to people’s lives in a way that the jobs, the lives that they’re living are Christ focused and Christ centered.”   Pastors of King’s Church Wesley Welch and Ben Palka. (Virginia Allen/The Daily Signal) The church’s growth did not begin until 2020, when Palka says he watched amid the COVID-19 pandemic as “young people that previously didn’t take their faith very seriously started taking it very seriously.”  What Palka said surprised him most about the Vanity Fair piece was “how out of touch, the mainstream media is with just Christianity 101.”   “They looked into a pretty normal, young Evangelical church and the only way that they could understand it was through the framework of politics in power, because … that must be how they view the world,” Palka said.  The congregation of King’s Church meeting in the basement of Penn Social bar in Washington, D.C. (King’s Church) Congregants of the church say they chose to join the community because of the positive experience they had after walking through the church, or bar, doors.   “I think it’s evident that God is moving in King’s Church,” Avery Lance, 27, says.   “By all reports and metrics, young people aren’t going to church,” Lance said, adding, “people in a city like D.C. are not going to church, but King’s Church kind of stands in defiance of all of that.”   Lance and his wife Danielle lead one of the 25 small groups for King’s Church, providing a time to study scripture, pray, share a meal and “bear each other’s burdens and encourage each other,” Danielle Lance explained. “It’s my favorite night of the week,” she said.   Avery and Danielle Lance, King’s Church congregants. (Virginia Allen/The Daily Signal) On a chilly Sunday morning in January, Welch preached from the book of Daniel in the Bible, using the story of Daniel living in captivity in Babylon as an exhortation to seek the Lord and represent Him regardless of the circumstance.   The church is roughly half Gen Z, 30% millennials, and 20% in the 45 plus age demographic, according to Palka.   “We didn’t set out to be a church for young people. It’s like the Lord’s just done a revival there,” Welch said, adding, “it has been amazing to see the younger generation come hungry for truth and hungry for the Lord, and receiving it.”   Washington, D.C. is young city with 34 being the median age, according to Census Reporter.   Husband and wife Sandra, 45, and Kristopher Klaich, 48, have been attending the church for over four years. As an “older” couple in the community, they quickly became mentors to many of the younger congregants, joking they are shocked so many young people want to spend time with them.    Kristopher and Sandra Klaich, King’s Church congregants. (Virginia Allen/The Daily Signal) One of those “young people” is Jack Renner who, now 32, has been attending the church since the first year it was founded and believes so many other young people have chosen to join the church because they are hungry for community.    “When you enter King’s Church you can feel the welcoming hospitality there, the love for God and love for our fellow humans,” Renner told The Daily Signal.    As King’s Church continues to minister to the people of D.C. who join them on a Sunday morning or during the week for a small group, Wesley says the vision for the church is not only to one day have their own building, but also to “create a long term ministry here in D.C.”  The post DC Church Captures Attention of Mainstream Media appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL — California State Assemblyman David Tangipa has told The Daily Signal that he intends to bring his lawsuit against the Golden State’s new congressional map to the Supreme Court ahead of the midterm elections. The plaintiffs are looking to bring the case to the Supreme Court so that it might overturn the U.S. District Court of Central California’s dismissal of the case, known as a ruling without prejudice, or not a final decision. The plaintiffs argue that California’s new Congressional map violates the 14th and 15th amendments of the U.S. Constitution by drawing congressional districts based on race. The lower court declined to review the case over the alleged constitutional violations of California’s new congressional map. The Golden State’s new map was enabled by California voters’ approval of Proposition 50, a ballot measure that handed control of redistricting from the state’s independent commission to state elected officials. Proposition 50 and the new map have been supported by major California Democrats, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber. “Newsom is trying to take a victory lap right now over the Prop 50 lawsuit that we filed against him,” Tangipa said. “It is not over yet. And we just got information that the federal court denied us a review of the case again, which means we are going to the Supreme Court.” Tangipa’s lawsuit is backed by the Department of Justice and the California Republican Party. “We fully expect us to be in front of the court sometime by next week. We all need some clarity on this. We need to make sure that we are working through every single channel,” the California legislator added. Tangipa also said that for the case to go to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs needed a verdict from the lower federal court in order for it to be challenged by the superior court. “We need this ruling from the district court to come down first before we get in front of the Supreme Court, and we got exactly that. It’s time we hold these people accountable.” District Court Ruling The lawsuit was previously filed with the U.S. District Court of Central California in November.  A three-judge panel ruled to dismiss the case 2-1, with Obama-appointed Judge Josephine Staton and Biden-appointed Judge Wesley Hsu declined to review the case further. Trump-appointed Judge Kenneth Lee dissented. During the case, Paul Mitchell, the man who drew the state’s new congressional map, refused to appear before the court to explain how he drew it by invoking legislative privilege. “We know race likely played a predominant role in drawing at least one district because the SMOKING GUN is in the hands of Paul Mitchell, the mapmaker who drew the congressional redistricting map adopted by the California state legislature,” Tangipa wrote in an X post Friday night. The most important piece from the Prop 50 lawsuit: “We know race likely played a predominant role in drawing atleast one district because the SMOKING GUN is in the hands of Paul Mitchell, the mapmaker who drew the congressional redistricting map adopted by the California state… https://t.co/v4IT2LUClf— David Tangipa (@DavidTangipa) January 17, 2026 Tangipa claimed that before this lawsuit was filed, Mitchell “publicly boasted to his political allies that he drew the map to ‘ensure that the Latino districts are bolstered in order to make them most effective, particularly in the Central Valley.” Balance of Power If the Supreme Court refuses to strike down the new map, Democrats are expected to add five new congressional seats after this year’s midterm elections. The new Democratic-held congressional seats could change the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives. Impeachments? Republicans are expecting House Democrats to impeach President Donald Trump if Democrats gain control of the House in the midterms. “If we lose the House majority, the radical Left, as you’ve already heard, is going to impeach President Trump,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in December. “They’re going to create absolute chaos; we cannot let that happen, and I know you won’t, I know you won’t.” Other Trump administration officials, such as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, could also face impeachment proceedings if Democrats were to control the House. On Jan. 14, Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., filed three articles of impeachment against Noem for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” “Secretary Noem, you have violated your oath of office, and there will be consequences,” Kelly said in a press conference. After the naval strikes on narcotrafficking boats in the southern Caribbean Ocean in December, Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., filed articles of impeachment against Hegseth.“We cannot allow his reprehensible conduct to continue, which is why I have filed these articles to impeach him,” Thanedar wrote in a news release. The post EXCLUSIVE: CA Lawmaker Intends to Bring Lawsuit Against Prop 50 Map to Supreme Court appeared first on The Daily Signal.

There is nowhere to hide at the base of the Washington Monument. And so, on the early-early morning of New Year’s Eve, a gregarious but bleary-eyed video producer from Florida named Kyle Barrett shifted side to side, bracing against a bitter wind while waiting on edits from senior administration officials. In less than 24 hours the obelisk would be bathed in moving light. This was the only dress rehearsal for what organizers called the “Illumination of America,” a titanic spectacle of living images projected directly onto the monument above and the kickoff for the 250th anniversary of the United States. This made Barrett, at least in that moment, the man most responsible for the story Trump’s America tells about herself. “In the middle of the night, 3:30 a.m. on the 30th, was when we finally, for the first time, saw any of our content up on the monument,” he told RealClearPolitics of the rush job that he had accepted only three weeks prior. It is the crowning achievement of his career. Five years earlier, he was making television commercials for Ashley Furniture. Congress had only just passed a special authorization into law allowing the monument lightshow on Dec. 2. Barrett and his team got the call five days later, leaving them just under three weeks to develop a visual script and execute it. Christmas was postponed for their families. Long nights and work on the weekends, guaranteed. Up until that moment in the cold, no one had seen a preview of their work. The digital files were so massive that they couldn’t even fit on a single server. The show could only be previewed directly onto the 555-foot marble canvas in the middle of D.C. A grid that had been projected onto the monument for digital mapping earlier in the week was immediately spotted and had sent the Internet aflutter. To avoid ruining the reveal, the first preview of the show had to be done in the middle of the night at the last possible moment. They threw the switch. Light and sound exploded. The monument transformed into the open ocean, and Christopher Columbus discovers the New World. Next, hooves pound the marble pavement, and Paul Revere cries out that the British are coming. Then George Washington crosses the Delaware, and afterward, the Declaration of Independence is written in real time by a glowing quill on the towering obelisk. The subsequent American story plays out in four acts and runs less than 20 minutes from Discovery and Independence to Westward Expansion and from the Industrial Revolution to the Space Age. The White House wanted the monument lit up like “the world’s tallest birthday candle.” It has to be seen to be understood. In the early morning, Barrett and his team rushed to take notes from assembled leaders of Freedom 250, the organization responsible for pulling off the national semi-quincentennial. The sky needed to be two shades bluer. The water wasn’t crystal clear. The giant faces of the Founding Fathers chiseled into the monument seemed too faint. “We rushed back to the office at about 4:30 a.m. and didn’t sleep again until after we uploaded the final piece of content into the servers on the 31st,” Barrett said. The final version was locked in with one hour to spare. While the technical aspects needed to be nailed down, the story was never in doubt. It was a patriotic celebration of America, not critical introspection. “Some bipartisan entities want to apologize for American exceptionalism. We’re just not going to do that,” explained a source close to Freedom 250. “We took everything that is the best of the best of our nation, whether it was Columbus discovering the Americas, Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas, or the Apollo missions and the moon landing. We are unapologetic about it.” The Saturn V rocket was projected onto the Washington Monument six years ago to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. But it was only visible on one of the four faces. For America 250, they would use all four. “Trying to decide when and how to use the monument to tell a particular story,” Barrett explains, “that was challenge number one.” And the images would not be static. They would be a mix of moving animations. A single image would be projected onto each of the four faces at one moment—for instance, when the astronaut boot of Neil Armstrong touched down on the moon. During other points in the show, a moving canvas would wrap around the entire obelisk as when Sacagawea led Lewis and Clark into the West. All of it was narrated and accompanied by a completely original score. Organizers positioned 40 different laser projectors around the monument, putting 10 on each side for redundancy. Three of the projectors had to be rushed in last minute from Belgium. They were Barco UDX-4K40s, capable of producing 37,000 lumens, enough light to turn night into day and make certain the Washington Monument was visible everywhere within a 25-square-mile radius. The second challenge: finding and sourcing historical paintings. They scoured archives, poured through history textbooks, and reviewed the famous paintings that adorn the national capitol. For the transition from the Wright Brothers to the Space Age, Barrett bounced ideas off his wife, Merlin, a fifth-grade science teacher. It had to be perfect. The display was the kickoff for an entire year of celebration. “President Trump has spared no effort in ensuring that America gets the spectacular 250th birthday it deserves—and the New Year illumination of our Washington Monument is just the beginning,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “Between the Patriot Games, Great American State Fair, UFC 250 Fight, and other exciting events, 2026 will feature a renewal of patriotism and national pride under this president’s leadership.” Barrett and his team raced back to the Washington Monument to feed a copy of the 19-minute show, about two terabytes of data, into four servers. They had kept an eye on social media, particularly Reddit, all day to see if images of their dress rehearsal that morning had leaked. They had not. Back on the National Mall, they confronted another final, frustrating challenge—high winds had shifted the projectors six inches off target. “I was terrified when the project started,” Barrett admits. The show attracted an estimated audience of 299 million on television and brought in 7.4 billion online impressions. Beginning on New Year’s Eve, it reran for five days straight. According to a source with direct knowledge, when returning President Trump to the White House on the final night, Marine One circled the monument twice for a better view. “I was filming sofa chairs and futons five years ago. That’s all I did was shoot broadcast spots for Ashley Furniture,” Barrett said. “The pivot from shooting furniture to counting myself as being seen by 400 million people, or whatever the most recent numbers are, is mind boggling.” But Barrett admits he had an audience of one in mind on opening night. His wife, Merlin, had helped him brainstorm ideas. She hadn’t seen the final draft and didn’t know her suggestions, particularly the transition from the rocket to information age, had made the final cut. Before the crescendo, he told her, “I want you to know that all of this is for you.” “The insane no-sleep-in-two-and-a-half-weeks unimaginable timeline was worth it to be able to say that to her in that moment,” he recalled. “And then she got to watch the fireworks.” This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.  The post The Man Who Lit the Washington Monument Like a Candle appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Muslim immigrants don’t shy away from letting Americans know what their intentions are with our country — and BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales has the video evidence to prove it.In a man-on-the-street-style clip Gonzales shares from the account Muckracker on X, a young man stops to talk to a group of Muslims in Ohio who happen to be Somali.“America will become a Muslim state,” one man yells.“Our goal is to make America Islam,” he yells again.“That’s not a conspiracy theory. … No, they’re actually saying it very loudly and proudly,” Gonzales says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”“They’re, like, right there, right in front of your face, saying all of the quiet parts out loud. But there are a lot more seemingly benign ways that they are infiltrating America to just sort of create this society that’s perfect for them, like, something you wouldn’t expect: our food,” she continues.And host of the "Hearts of Oak" podcast and former campaign manager for the U.K. Independence Party Peter McIlvenna has been sounding the alarm about this seemingly innocent Trojan horse.“The Halal food market is a huge thing, I think it’s something like $2.2 trillion globally and going to hit $4.5 trillion within about eight years, 2033, growing at nearly 10% a year. And here in Texas, the big hot spots for halal food are Houston and Dallas, growing around 22% a year,” McIlvenna tells Gonzales.“And it kind of goes unnoticed, and I call it economic jihad, because it is using the levers of power to [insert] Islam in all areas of society,” he says. “And Islam is very smart as an ideology.”Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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DAMN, SON! Eric Swalwell Threatens ICE Agents and Mike Davis Tells Him to Come GET SOME