A day before 29-year-old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal opened fire on two National Guardsmen patrolling near the White House, the NGO that reportedly settled the shooter in the United States condemned President Donald Trump for ordering further vetting of refugees. On November 25, World Relief, one of nine voluntary organizations contracted by the State Department to facilitate housing and employment assistance for refugees, issued a press release in response to an internal memo from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) requiring additional scrutiny of all refugees who entered the country during the Biden administration. In the statement, World Relief president and CEO Myal Greene called the additional vetting a “moral and ethical betrayal of due process,” and VP Matt Soerens said that it would “retraumatiz[e]” refugees brought to the United States. The following day, according to witnesses, Lakanwal fired on the guards while shouting, “Allahu akbar.” Twenty-year-old Specialist Sarah Beckstrom died from her wounds, and 24-year-old Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe is still in serious condition. Greene insisted in World Relief’s statement that the Afghans had been sufficiently vetted. “Refugees admitted under the U.S. refugee resettlement program have undergone some of the most rigorous vetting of any immigrant lawfully admitted into the United States, yet this sweeping re-interview initiative is nothing less than a calculated effort to strip lawful status from thoroughly-vetted, law-abiding people,” he said. But according to a 2022 Department of Homeland Security inspector general report released under Biden appointee Alejandro Mayorkas, the chaos of the Afghanistan withdrawal left significant gaps in information, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) often lacked significant data for the entries, such as “name, date of birth, identification number, and travel document data.” In one sample of 88,977 evacuee records, 417 lacked first names, 242 lacked last names, 11,110 had January 1 birthdates, and 7,800 had missing or invalid travel documents. “We also determined CBP admitted or paroled evacuees who were not fully vetted into the United States,” DHS investigators concluded. A 2024 DHS report involving three Department of Homeland Security divisions — CBP, USCIS, and ICE — similarly found that CBP did not always have critical data to properly screen, vet, or inspect the evacuees and that DHS’s “fragmented” process resulted in chaotic conditions that led to lost information and background checks that were deferred until after departure from Afghanistan. During his April 2025 confirmation hearing, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent said that after reviewing data from the National Counterterrorism Center, he found that more than 1,400 Afghans with suspected links to ISIS had been admitted into the country. The New York Times reported on November 27 that World Relief was involved with resettling Lakanwal in Washington State, but since then, the organization has declined to elaborate, telling NPR they “cannot confirm whether or not [they] have served any specific client without permission from [their] federal government partners who administered the process for bringing Afghans to the United States beginning in 2021.” What is known is that the State Department designated Whatcom County, Washington, which includes Bellingham, where Lakanwal resided, as a resettlement site for Afghan evacuees under Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome (OAW). World Relief’s local office there was tasked with aiding refugees’ initial integration. While the NGO, founded in 1944 by the National Association of Evangelicals, once relied almost entirely on private contributions, today the bulk of its funding comes from the federal government. In 2021, it received $56 million in federal grants and contracts and only $13 million in private contributions. Through its work with the Soros-funded Evangelical Immigration Table, World Relief is heavily involved in lobbying churches and evangelical organizations to back bills that would grant legal status to illegal immigrants. In 2018, they launched the “I Was a Stranger” challenge, a “40-day Scripture-reading guide composed of short Bible passages that relate in one way or another to the theme of immigration.” This curriculum, which many critics argue cherry-picks and manipulates Scripture for progressive policy aims, was sent to churches across the country, and Soerens’ work promoting it was published and promoted in influential evangelical publications like Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition. The Daily Wire reached out to World Relief, and they responded with a statement from Soerens saying, “Based on news reports, the alleged perpetrator in the attack in Washington, D.C., did not enter the United States as a refugee and thus would not have been subject to the re-interview process to which our press release was responding.” However, Trump’s order for further vetting of Afghan nationals admitted under the Biden administration also applies to those who entered the U.S. via humanitarian parole under OAW. It targets all Afghan arrivals from January 20, 2021, to February 20, 2025—including the ~76,000 OAW evacuees processed post-2021 U.S. withdrawal. Soerens said World Relief stands by their statement of condemnation, and they have not changed their position opposing additional vetting of refugees.

A Christian evangelist’s battle with a Mississippi city over street preaching took center stage at the Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices heard arguments that could have far-reaching consequences for Americans who want to defend their constitutional rights in federal court.  The case revolves around whether 33-year-old Gabriel Olivier can challenge an ordinance from Brandon, Mississippi, that restricted street preaching in a public park outside of a local amphitheater. Olivier, who was convicted in 2021 of street preaching outside of the designated area, is now attempting to overturn the ordinance on First Amendment grounds.  “This is a really important case, 
for Christians specifically, because I noticed that all around the country, there’s always an exercise of free speech [that] does not seem to be cracked down on the way that Christians’ free speech is nowadays,” Olivier told The Daily Wire in an interview.  The city of Brandon argues that Olivier cannot challenge the ordinance in federal court because he has previously been convicted of violating it. Olivier says that he doesn’t want to revisit the 2021 conviction, for which he paid a fine, but wants to protect his right to share his faith in the future.  During oral arguments on Wednesday, the justices seemed sympathetic to Olivier’s arguments that he should be able to seek relief in federal court despite his previous conviction. Nate Kellum, a lawyer with First Liberty Institute representing Olivier, told The Daily Wire that he was encouraged by the questions he heard from the justices.  Kellum said that all he wants is for Olivier to have his day in court to argue against the ordinance and make an appeal for his First Amendment rights.  “Everybody, regardless of their ideology and their belief, deserves their day in court,” Olivier said. “We’re just asking that people would continue to pray for us.” The Trump administration is supporting Olivier’s petition, as are a number of other conservative organizations.  The ordinance implemented by Brandon, a suburb east of Jackson, restricts protest activity in the park surrounding the city’s amphitheater to a designated area when events are being held.  “What the ordinance does is it puts him in a place where no one can hear him,” Kellum told The Daily Wire. “You can’t have a conversation. 
You can’t hand out literature. If he preaches, he cannot be heard, and if he held up a sign, no one could read it. And so that seemed to be the whole idea, is that the city wanted to pass a law that separated him from his would-be audience.” 50% off DailyWire+ annual memberships will not return for another year, so don’t miss this deal! Join now at DailyWire.com/cyberweek. The city and some legacy outlets have attempted to suggest that Olivier shouted rude or inappropriate things during his previous outings at the park.  “It’s patently false. And it seems to be an attempt to try to malign Gabe, malign his character,” Kellum said. “But if Gabe or really anyone else would say anything that would amount to fighting words or could be something that could lead to an altercation, there’s disorderly conduct ordinances.” Olivier first went to the park in 2019, where he had productive conversations about his faith with others. But when he returned in 2021, the city had passed an ordinance against such evangelism. His passion for street evangelism comes from his own conversion ten years ago when he encountered a street preacher.  “I see it very clearly as a command in scripture,” he said. “And so I choose to do that and exercise the rights that we have enjoyed here in America. And we would like for an opportunity to continue to fight for those rights to be upheld.” Todd Butler, the attorney representing Brandon, said in a statement to The Daily Wire: “The City of Brandon was excited to present its position to the Court. The case before the Supreme Court is not about the constitutionality of the ordinance or religious expression. It is about whether a person who has been found guilty in criminal court may undermine his conviction through a civil tort lawsuit. The importance of this case cannot be overstated as it will impact cities across the country.”

The vast majority of conservatives – other than those of us who are media monitors – skip Morning Joe every day. What’s surprising is how many times the starring couple, Joe Scarborough and his third wife Mika Brzezinski, have been skipping their own program this year. Meghan Blonder and Thaleigha Rampersad at the Washington Free Beacon did the ugly math. Between May 27 and November 15, Scarborough and Brzezinski appeared together on just 70 of 124 episodes. Scarborough missed 29 shows, while Brzezinski skipped 41! That’s one out of every three workdays. In July, she was out for two consecutive weeks, appearing on only about half of that month’s episodes. We know Mika wrote a book called Know Your Value, so did she negotiate in her contract she could skip one out of every three shows? Does that sound like the work schedule of the average American? Maybe she thinks if Rachel Maddow can grab $25 million a year for just working Monday nights, why should she have to drag herself to the microphone at 6 in the morning? This is funnier when you recall Joe and Mika primarily broadcast from a studio built at their home in Jupiter, Florida, a trendy location for the wealthy. There are an estimated 75 professional golfers in the area. Many cable-news stars appear from their Florida mansions. They joke the Fox News stars are just miles from Mar-a-Lago, so the Trump interviews can happen quickly. Neither half of this power couple was present for 16 shows, leaving the Morning Joe bench players—Jonathan Lemire, Willie Geist, and BBC correspondent Katty Kay—to fill in. The Free Beacon reporters cited the opening of the August 29 episode: "I’m Katty Kay, in for Joe, Mika, and Willie. Everybody’s off except me. I’m so sorry." She hosted a segment that day touting a Vox.com article titled “Are We In a Crisis of Rudeness?” The author referred to incidents like “students leaving class unannounced,” but Joe and Mika’s morning hooky never came up in the conversation. For a little spice in this punch bowl, we hear from a gossip on Substack using angry anonymous sources – never my favorite source. It’s apparently staffers claiming their overlords “barely show up, and the rest of us are doing triple the work.” These gripes also included: “Every day is a scramble. Who’s hosting? What’s the tone? Who’s running the ship? No one knows.”  Who is griping? No one knows.  The absenteeism came to an abrupt end when MSNBC lowered its flag and they became the dreadfully named “MS NOW.” Blonder and Rampersad noted the couple's ongoing perfect attendance streak—three whole weeks—is their longest since Memorial Day. In fact, their record before November 12 was a whopping seven days in July, marking one of the only two full weeks they both worked during that period. Nobody who routinely skips this show thinks that America needs more mugfuls of Morning Joe and Mika – like we need things like Scarborough’s risible rant last year that the decrepit version of Biden was the “Best Biden Ever.” That wouldn’t have fit the letters MS NOW. It was more like MS 1996. 

A California community is reeling after hearing the news that a local pastor was allegedly caught trying to meet a person he thought was a minor for sex.James David Stockton, 54, was arrested on Saturday by Signal Hill police after an online citizen group called "Caught Fished" said it had documented inappropriate messages with the pastor. 'He got into the nasty part that no pastor should be talking about.' Stockton is the pastor at South Bay Church of God in Torrance. He ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2024, and before that he was a leader of the NAACP in Marion County.The group provided some of the texts to KTTV-TV and said that Stockton knew the decoy was claiming to be 16 years old and in high school. "What time you get out of school today?" read one text allegedly from Stockton. "I promise to be gentle and make sure you are enjoying it," read another. The founder of the citizen group, named Antoine, said it got very explicit at that point. "He got into the nasty part that no pastor should be talking about," he told KTTV. Stockton was defeated in his campaign by Rep. Randy Fine (R), who currently holds the office.The church appears to have scrubbed a webpage indicating Stockton was their pastor, according to a KTTV-TV report. "We don't know anything, other than what we see on the video," a member of the church said to KTTV. "But it was a shock to us, as everybody else." RELATED: Texas man pretended to be a minor online in order to track down sex offender and left him dead in a ditch, police say The pastor was released on his own recognizance on Tuesday after pleading not guilty to a felony count of arranging to meet a minor for lewd purposes.Stockton is due back in court on Dec. 12.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

In an age when government grows with the regularity of the sunrise and the humility of a bonfire, Dan Mitchell’s “20 Theorems of Government” land not as abstractions but as reminders of truths America’s founders understood almost instinctively. The theorems, devised by the co-founder of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, capture the recurring failures of centralized authority and the virtues of free people operating in free markets.These theorems are not predictions. They are explanations of what government always does when left unchecked and how society always suffers when the state’s reach exceeds the citizen’s grasp.The problem is not the quality of the people in government. The problem is the nature of government itself.Mitchell’s First Theorem, which describes how Washington actually functions, could be carved above every federal agency door. Politics rewards the spending of other people’s money for other people’s benefit. The entire system is designed to avoid accountability and to maximize political reward. Once you accept that incentives drive outcomes, the rest of the theorems follow naturally.The Second and Third Theorems make this point bluntly. Any new program will grow, metastasize, and waste money. Centralization magnifies inefficiency because bureaucracies face no competition, no profit-and-loss constraint, and no personal consequences for failure. When the private sector gets something wrong, it pays for its mistake. When government gets something wrong, it demands a larger budget.Theorems Four through Seven widen the gap between political rhetoric and economic reality. Good policy can be good politics, but incentives push politicians toward superficial fixes and short-term gratification. Even strong ideas rot inside bureaucratic execution. And the larger the government becomes, the more incompetent and unresponsive it grows. Bureaucrats answer to political pressure, not consumer choice, and the results are inevitable: waste, rigidity, and indifference.The Eighth through 10th Theorems confront the moral dimension of government overreach. Politicians who obsess over inequality rarely seek to lift up the poor; they seek justification for more control. Crises — real or imaginary — become tools for expanding that control. And politics almost always overwhelms principle. This is not cynicism. It is observation backed by centuries of evidence.Theorems 11 through 15 dismantle common misconceptions. Big business is not the same thing as free enterprise. In many cases, it is free enterprise’s most persistent enemy. Corporations often work hand in hand with government to protect themselves from competition. Meanwhile, anyone who opposes entitlement reform is endorsing massive, broad-based tax hikes, because arithmetic leaves no other option. You cannot fund European-style welfare states without European-style taxation. And history shows voters resist paying for the bloated government they claim to want.RELATED: Free markets don’t need federal babysitters Afry Harvy via iStock/Getty ImagesThis leads naturally to the 16th and 17th Theorems. Economic progress becomes a race between private innovation and public consumption. When government grows faster than the private sector can produce, stagnation follows. Worse, when dependency becomes a norm, the cultural foundations of liberty erode. A nation that forgets how to rely on itself cannot long remain free.The final three theorems complete the picture. Climate policy becomes hypocrisy when elites demand sacrifice from others while refusing it themselves. Politicians operate under incentives that reward short-term benefit at long-term cost. And the fiscal results — from rising deficits to ever-multiplying promises — are exactly what those incentives predict.Taken together, Mitchell’s 20 Theorems point to a conclusion Milton Friedman drew decades ago: The problem is not the quality of the people in government; the problem is the nature of government itself. A government that grows without limit will, eventually and inevitably, burden the citizens it claims to serve.If Americans wish to preserve both prosperity and freedom, they will have to internalize these theorems as practical truths, not relics of libertarian theory. The path forward is not mysterious. Limit government. Unleash markets. These principles are old — and their urgency has never been greater.

In his book "One Hand Clapping," Nikolay Kukushkin explores explanations for how consciousness evolved, and ultimately, what makes us human.

Scientists invented a new experimental system to study how age-related changes in egg cells make them more prone to chromosomal errors.

A leaked transcript published in Germany exposes growing European alarm over President Donald Trump’s direct peace negotiations with Russia, sidelining Brussels and prompting military posturing from…